Multiple powers outside of a framework drawing on one set of charges?

[Tywyll]

Say you had a character with a handful of powers, some instant, some persistent, some constant. You want the character to only be able to use the powers X amount of times per day, but these powers are all separate constructs and not part of a framework. You could divide the charges between the powers as you see fit, and some charges are instant and others might be continuing and last 5 minutes.

 

How would you handle this?

[Doc Democracy]

My first question as a GM would be, if these powers are unconnected, how are they drawing on a central pool of charges??

 

Doc

[Tywyll]

28 minutes ago, Doc Democracy said:

My first question as a GM would be, if these powers are unconnected, how are they drawing on a central pool of charges??

 

Doc

They are only unconnected in the power framework sense...ie they are each bought separately. Thematically they are connected of course. Maybe they are all powers that shouldn't be in a framework, or have wildly different AP, or the character should be able to use several at once, or the GM has banned multipowers. The reason is irrelevant, but the need remains.

 

And I am asking as the GM trying to build a concept, not as a player.

[Grailknight]

I'd have no problem with it. We do the same with END Reserve all the time and this concept is not truly different. As for the cost, I'd probably price it normally also.

[Tywyll]

36 minutes ago, Grailknight said:

I'd have no problem with it. We do the same with END Reserve all the time and this concept is not truly different. As for the cost, I'd probably price it normally also.

So you wouldn't give a discount even though the total charge use is less than the actual limitation reflects?

[Duke Bushido]

I'd give it the charges limitation as per number of charges, etc, just like normal.  At a - 0, I could just run it off END and no one would bat an eye.  If it's truly limited, then the cost should reflect that in some way. 

[Tywyll]

I feel like have X powers that are limited by Y charges total should be worth more of a discount than simply saying each power can also be used Y times. It is objectively worse. Figuring out how much worse is why I'm asking for input. Right now I'm thinking an additional -1/2, but I'm not sure if that's enough.

 

To put it another way, why should 4 powers each with 6 charges cost the same as 4 powers that can only be used a total of 6 times a day?

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

I'd say to buy the same number of Charges on each power, then sum the total number of charges to create the charge-pool. 

[ScottishFox]

1 hour ago, Tywyll said:

I feel like have X powers that are limited by Y charges total should be worth more of a discount than simply saying each power can also be used Y times. It is objectively worse. Figuring out how much worse is why I'm asking for input. Right now I'm thinking an additional -1/2, but I'm not sure if that's enough.

 

To put it another way, why should 4 powers each with 6 charges cost the same as 4 powers that can only be used a total of 6 times a day?

 

You might be able to work out something like this:

Take the pool of charges and then divide it equally among the powers.

For the sake of simplicity we'll use easy numbers.

16 charges / 4 powers = 4 charges per power = -1 Limitation.

Then reduce the limitation by two steps (in this case -(-1/2)) because the pool of charges can be shared and that makes them far more flexible than a hard 4 charges per power.

 

Total disadvantage: -1/2 for 16 charges over 4 powers.

[Duke Bushido]

1 hour ago, Gnome BODY (important!) said:

I'd say to buy the same number of Charges on each power, then sum the total number of charges to create the charge-pool. 

 

 

I don't have a proper keyboard (still at work) but I like what I _believe_ to be the idea behind this!

 

 

[Tywyll]

2 hours ago, Gnome BODY (important!) said:

I'd say to buy the same number of Charges on each power, then sum the total number of charges to create the charge-pool. 

 

I don't really follow.

 

Say I have 4 seperate powers. 2 Attacks, a Resistant Defense of some kind, and flight. I want to only be able to use them 6 times a day, no matter what combination.

 

If I'm reading you right up above, are you saying I would treat this as though I had 24 charges, even though using 6 charges one one burns out the others? So this construct which is weaker than just buying each of them with 6 charges I would pay more for?

[Tywyll]

1 hour ago, ScottishFox said:

 

You might be able to work out something like this:

Take the pool of charges and then divide it equally among the powers.

For the sake of simplicity we'll use easy numbers.

16 charges / 4 powers = 4 charges per power = -1 Limitation.

Then reduce the limitation by two steps (in this case -(-1/2)) because the pool of charges can be shared and that makes them far more flexible than a hard 4 charges per power.

 

Total disadvantage: -1/2 for 16 charges over 4 powers.

 

That's something, though I think reducing it two steps over states the value of flexibility (look at the enormous discount you get on Mutlipowers and we don't pay for that flexibility). Maybe +1/4. 

 

Though honestly I think linked charges should be an additional discount rather than a benefit. Buying charges for each power would give more uses than doing it this way. 

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

2 minutes ago, Tywyll said:

I don't really follow.

 

Say I have 4 seperate powers. 2 Attacks, a Resistant Defense of some kind, and flight. I want to only be able to use them 6 times a day, no matter what combination.

 

If I'm reading you right up above, are you saying I would treat this as though I had 24 charges, even though using 6 charges one one burns out the others? So this construct which is weaker than just buying each of them with 6 charges I would pay more for?

No, I'm saying that if you buy 4 powers with 6 charges, you have 4*6=24 charges.  You can use one power 24 times, each power 6 times, or anywhere inbetween.  Thinking more I'd probably tell you to also throw on Unified Power at -0 to pay for the flexibility. 

If this proved to be really effective I'd ask for a recosting.  If this proved to be abused (say, a dozen tiny powers that added shared charges cheaply but weren't used) I'd force a switch over to an END Reserve. 

[Tywyll]

1 hour ago, Gnome BODY (important!) said:

No, I'm saying that if you buy 4 powers with 6 charges, you have 4*6=24 charges.  You can use one power 24 times, each power 6 times, or anywhere inbetween.  Thinking more I'd probably tell you to also throw on Unified Power at -0 to pay for the flexibility. 

If this proved to be really effective I'd ask for a recosting.  If this proved to be abused (say, a dozen tiny powers that added shared charges cheaply but weren't used) I'd force a switch over to an END Reserve. 

How does it work when some of the charges are continuing? See, that's the niggle. What if some of them have different values of continuing?

 

The way I'm seeing this is more like 4-6 powers, with a total pool of charges of 6 spread amongst them, though some of them are instant powers and some are continuing. 

 

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

7 minutes ago, Tywyll said:

How does it work when some of the charges are continuing? See, that's the niggle. What if some of them have different values of continuing?

 

The way I'm seeing this is more like 4-6 powers, with a total pool of charges of 6 spread amongst them, though some of them are instant powers and some are continuing.

Equate X Continuing Charges to Y normal Charges.  If 4 Continuing Charges is the same - as 8 Charges, then a Continuing Charge is "worth" two charges. 

If you have different values of Continuing, do this multiple times.  Fractions are likely to get involved, meaning you'll need to inflate numbers or suffer rounding losses. 

 

Alternatively, buy an END Reserve.  You are seriously in the territory where it's easier to say "This END Reserve is 'charges'.  Every # END is a 'charge'.  These powers cost #, #, #, and # 'charges' each.". 

[Grailknight]

4 hours ago, Tywyll said:

So you wouldn't give a discount even though the total charge use is less than the actual limitation reflects?

 

I'd probably give it  minus one step on the charges table. at most two. You are paying more than more by buying each power individually but that's purely a Chargen decision. You could increase the Reserve of the Multipower and fit all the powers into it just as easily. I wouldn't let you combine the Continuing Charges with the regular one. That's getting more than the cost/benefit of regular Charges and should cost more.

[Duke Bushido]

4 hours ago, Tywyll said:

I feel like have X powers that are limited by Y charges total should be worth more of a discount than simply saying each power can also be used Y times. It is objectively worse. Figuring out how much worse is why I'm asking for input. Right now I'm thinking an additional -1/2, but I'm not sure if that's enough.

 

To put it another way, why should 4 powers each with 6 charges cost the same as 4 powers that can only be used a total of 6 times a day?

 

 

Well if this is your actual construction, then it's a matter of sliding down the ratio until you find the value of a single power with a two-thirds charge.   There's your value.

 

however, if I might ask:

 

Is the multipower actually different powers, or is it one power with many aspects?  I only ask because of that is the case, it may be more appropriate to consider the (from your example) multipower to be _one_ power, then add the other two, meaning three powers with a total of 4 charges, or 1-1/3 of a charge each.  Again: slide down the ratio until you get an appropriate limitation for one power with one charge of 1.33 and you're done: apply that Limitation to all the powers sharing those charges.

 

 

[Greywind]

I'm sensing some type of Lockout.

[Duke Bushido]

1 hour ago, Greywind said:

I'm sensing some type of Lockout.

 

 

That's do-able, of course, but if the example given is accurate-- four charges shared between a potential six powers, it doesn't really seem necessary: they will get "locked out" in very short order.

 

[Tywyll]

8 hours ago, Gnome BODY (important!) said:

Equate X Continuing Charges to Y normal Charges.  If 4 Continuing Charges is the same - as 8 Charges, then a Continuing Charge is "worth" two charges. 

If you have different values of Continuing, do this multiple times.  Fractions are likely to get involved, meaning you'll need to inflate numbers or suffer rounding losses. 

 

Alternatively, buy an END Reserve.  You are seriously in the territory where it's easier to say "This END Reserve is 'charges'.  Every # END is a 'charge'.  These powers cost #, #, #, and # 'charges' each.". 

 

I find that suggestion funny. I mean, sure, it would work. But weren't you one of the people that complained when I mentioned I had build a magic system that required an END reserve?

[Tywyll]

8 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

 

Well if this is your actual construction, then it's a matter of sliding down the ratio until you find the value of a single power with a two-thirds charge.   There's your value.

 

however, if I might ask:

 

Is the multipower actually different powers, or is it one power with many aspects?  I only ask because of that is the case, it may be more appropriate to consider the (from your example) multipower to be _one_ power, then add the other two, meaning three powers with a total of 4 charges, or 1-1/3 of a charge each.  Again: slide down the ratio until you get an appropriate limitation for one power with one charge of 1.33 and you're done: apply that Limitation to all the powers sharing those charges.

 

 

 

Well, I don't want to do it as Multipower for various reasons, chief being the overhead of how Multipowers work (sharing the reserve, powers turning off when you switch slots, needing to have the same limitations, etc). So its not a MP at all.

 

Essentially, it's a minor magic system. The character can cast X spells a day and has a list of Y spells that function differently. He can do (for example) 6 spells a day, regardless of which of them he picks. He knows 4 spells but could buy more later that would also share the charge pool.  

 

While I could force him to buy an END reserve to represent it, last time I opted for that, I got dogpiled for 'taxing' a concept. That's not why I'm doing this differently however, I'm doing it differently because the magic is different for this character than for others and I want that to show that difference mechanically. Unlike a normal caster in my world who can recover their magic juice over time (from their REC into their END pool), this type of magic has a hard limit on it's uses per day. 

 

Now, having said all of that, I have now seen that a continuing charge doesn't shut off when you switch powers in the reserve, so that makes me slightly more ameniable to the idea of trying to force these abilities into a MP. However, I'm still left with other problems (namely shared limitations, AP limits, etc) so I'm not sure I want to go that route. 

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

18 minutes ago, Tywyll said:

I find that suggestion funny. I mean, sure, it would work. But weren't you one of the people that complained when I mentioned I had build a magic system that required an END reserve?

You're forgetting why we were complaining and calling it a concept tax.

[Tywyll]

1 hour ago, Gnome BODY (important!) said:

You're forgetting why we were complaining and calling it a concept tax.

 

Oh no, I remember. This sounds exactly the same to me though. In what way would it be different? I have a concept of a magic system that ought to work via charges, but now your suggestion is to pay more points to make it work, especially if the pool was really large and needed to fully recover every day. In what way is your suggestion NOT a concept tax?

[Tywyll]

Wow, @Gnome BODY (important!) a downvote? For what?

[Greywind]

Variable Power Pool with charges. Get the list of powers that can be used through it and slap the charges on the pool itself.