Winter Dragon Variable Power Pool adjustment example 6E1 140

[ronpyatt]

On page 140, in Volume 1, the following sentence confused me.

 

If the Medic uses an Aid to boost just Winter

Dragon’s Pool (to, say, 60 points, and his Control

Cost to 30 points), the number of Active Points

Winter Dragon can put in any one Power does

not increase — he can still have, at most, 40

Active Points in a Power built with the VPP.

Which appears to contradict this rule:

 

 

No power in a VPP can have an Active
Point cost greater than the Control Cost.

Since 40 is greater than 30, am I missing something obvious here?

[Steve Long]

No, you're not missing anything, you've just run afoul of a poorly-written example.

 

For the sake of clarity, I’m going to quote the entire example from 6E1 140, with new paragraph breaks for clarity:

 

Winter Dragon has a VPP:  Ice Powers with 40 points in the Pool. Thus, Winter Dragon could have one 40 Active Point Power, two 20 Active Point Powers, or four 10 Active Point Powers in his Pool; he could also have, for example, two 40 Active Point Powers, each with a -1 Limitation.

 

If the Medic uses an Aid to boost just Winter Dragon’s Pool (to, say, 60 points, and his Control Cost to 30 points), the number of Active Points Winter Dragon can put in any one Power does not increase — he can still have, at most, 40 Active Points in a Power built with the VPP. However, he can have up to 60 Real Points’ worth of such Powers at once, whereas before being Aided he could only have 40 Real Points’ worth of Powers at any one time.

 

If the Medic Aided both Winter Dragon’s Pool and the Blast he builds with the Pool simultaneously, then the Blast could have as many as 60 Active Points; all other Powers built with the Pool could still only have 40 Active Points.

 

So, here’s what we’re looking at:  VPP (Ice Powers), 40 Pool + 40 Control Cost. That means no slot in the VPP can have more than 40 Active Points (as dictated by the Control Cost), and Winter Dragon can’t have more than 40 Real Points total worth of slots in the VPP at any one time (as dictated by the Pool cost) (see 6E1 409).

 

The example discusses Aiding the Pool to 60 (thus increasing the total amount of Real Points’ worth of slots it can have at once) but leaving the Control Cost alone (so each slot’s still restricted to 40 Active Points maximum).

 

I think the problem here is that some of the writing is confusing, and that’s my fault — at a guess, when I changed this from the previous version of the example, I overlooked something (including that number 30). So here’s a better version, written for greater clarity, that I’ll put in the errata:

 

Winter Dragon has a VPP:  Ice Powers with 40 Pool, 40 Control Cost.

 

Based on the Control Cost Winter Dragon could have one 40 Active Point Power, two 20 Active Point Powers, or four 10 Active Point Powers in his Pool; he could also have, for example, two 40 Active Point Powers, each with a -1 Limitation.

 

Based on the Pool cost, the total Real Cost of all slots in Winter Dragon’s VPP cannot exceed 40 at a time. That could be a single power with a Real Cost of 40 points, one with Real Cost 30 and another with Real Cost 10, or any other combination of Real Point cost that equals 40 or less.

 

Suppose the Medic uses an Aid to boost Winter Dragon’s Pool (but not his Control Cost) to 60 points. The number of Active Points that Winter Dragon can put in any one Power doesn’t increase — he can still have, at most, 40 Active Points in a Power built with the VPP — because the Medic didn’t Aid the Control Cost. But Winter Dragon can now have up to 60 Real Points’ worth of powers in his VPP at once, whereas before being Aided he could only have 40 Real Points’ worth of Powers at any one time.

 

Suppose instead that the Medic Aided both Winter Dragon’s Pool and the Blast he builds with the Pool simultaneously. In that case the Blast could have as many as 60 Active Points, but all other Powers built with the Pool could still only have 40 Active Points.

 

Hopefully that covers your question. If not, or if I've confused you further, please post a follow-up.