Snarf

I'm okay with a weak power being drained easily. I'd rather avoid the math required for a proportional drain.

-1/2 sounds good to me. As long as I'm messing with rules, I might give the option to make that -1/4 for the vulnerability to drains but not the added difficulty to aids, if the player had a concept that relied heavily on aiding for some reason.

I'm going to run a campaign where most powers will be placed in psionics related elemental controls, for example, telepathy, psychokinesis, body control, and so on. I was thinking that there should be some way for powers that are under the minimum cost requirment for the elemental control to be affected as if they were in the elemental control.

For example, if a player had a 30 point elemental control in telepathy with a 60 AP ego attack and mind control, but wanted to buy a tiny 5 AP mental defense, I would want that tiny mental defense to get drained if the elemental control was drained.

Should it just be a SFX? or maybe a -1/4 affected as telepathy limitation? or should it somehow be placed in the elemental control using house rules?

Or is the whole heavy use of elemental controls concept a bad idea?

Originally posted by Agent X

They are in the same Intelligence Roll category of 11 or less. I arbitrarily decided the 34% just above the mean had an intelligence of 10 and the 34% just below had an intelligence of 8. Practically speaking there isn't any real difference.

It works fine in game terms, my only complaint is the difference in statistical terms.

100 IQ - 20 IQ = Forrest Gump.

But this is just nitpicking. I certainly wouldn't make players roleplay 2 point IQ differences.

Average IQ: About 100.

Average HERO INT: 10.

But the average for normal people is now 8. 10 is supposed to be somewhat exceptional.

Here's the endurance reserve form of the charge up:

Big Gun: EB 12d6, (AP 60); OAF (-1), (RC 30).

plus Endurance Reserve (10 END), (AP 1); Side Effect (15 AP Dispel with standard effect, whenever power is used, -1/2), (RC 1)

plus Endurance Reserve (6 REC), (AP 6); (RC 6). Total Cost: 37.

Whenever the Endurance Reserve is activated, either charging or holding a charge, a slow acting dispel would be building up. Play with the numbers to make the side effect have some point savings.

Here's the Extra Time form:

Big Gun: EB 12d6, Delayed Effect (up to campaign limit[one charge per device I guess], +1/4), (AP 75); Charges (15, -0), OAF (-1), Extra Time (1 Turn, can make other attacks, -3/4), Side Effect (15 AP Dispel, occurs whenever the charge is held, -1/4), (RC 25).

A player would require GM permission for this power to allow other attacks to be made during charge-up. In my write-up, I halved the limitation as the price for allowing other attacks to be made, but there is no precedent for this, so you would probably want to do that differently.

It's normal for a conditional side effect to reduce the limitation value by 1/4, but I decided holding a charge as a condition for the side effect would not modify it, because it's pretty bad. This is another thing that would require GM permission.

Change the dispel to a slow buildup to explosion for more excitement.

Or, as Yamo mentioned, you could just use Limited Power if no existing limitations fit to your satisfaction.

I totally agree that the 5 point rule abusable and largely unecessary. If someone wants a bunch of spares, just define the item as an obvious inaccesible focus. If someone wants a lot of attacks, it's more balanced to force them to buy autofire.

None of this works for extra vehicles or vehicle equipment, but I still see some potential problems. It would be better to buy extras based on the cost of the power instead of this flat adder sort of effect. Maybe buying a duplicate could cost 1/5 the cost of the original vehicle or equipment, with a minimum cost of five points.

There are rules for attacking with two powers at the same time. It's called a Multiple Power Attack.

Normally, you have the choice to attack with two powers at the same time. Linking forces you to always use two powers at the same time.

That's a very useful power. You shouldn't try too hard to make it cheap.

I checked at a hex grid and it looks like a 2" radius would only require a 10" length. So, I think it would only cost 70 points for the 10/10.

...defining power constructs that specifically define how the disadvantage effects the character, it takes some of the ambiguity out of the disadvantage...

Dauntless, you should definitely check out the AP option for susceptibility on p.221. The more you describe, the more convinced I am that this is what you're looking for.

I wouldn't worry about it much. It's a pretty rare ability.

Totally agree, just have dozens of clips with one charge each.

Maybe you should also post this as a rules question.

I think the typical messy solution is to just use rapid fire or autofire, possibly with some bonus bought for it, and define the SFX as multiple weapons. I'm pretty sure that's not what you're looking for though.

This kind of attack was used constantly in the movie Equillibrium, where the Grammaton Clerics would fire two pistols in opposite directions.

Actually, the specific words and phrasing may vary. It will probably always be something that means the same thing as "any".

The exact same thing might be written differently. Like this:

Super Shooting Ability: Armor Piercing for guns of up to RKA 2d6 (Active Points 7); Charges (8, -1/2), (Real Cost 5).

Or like this:

Super Shooting Ability: Armor Piercing for up to RKA 2d6 (Active Points 7); Charges (8, -1/2), (Real Cost 5).

These rules are pretty vague and open to interpretation. Don't look for a specific format, just try to figure out what it's intended to mean.

If you're teleported off in some inconvenient, unwanted direction whenever "why?" is uttered in your presence, you've got yourself one weird Susceptibility. You just figure out an equivalence of the effect as an attack with the damage values for Susceptability - probably leaning on the much more detailed section on Side Effects for help there.

I agree, this is definitely what you're looking for Dauntless. Except these rules assume an attack power, so if you want to do something merely inconvenient, like the "why?" teleport effect, I would make the effect 20 or 30 APs for every +5.

If the "why?" teleport dropped you off of buildings, in front of cars, or usually caused some physical harm the rules work fine as is. But if it just sent you away from the action or got you stuck in a cell or something, it should have way more APs.

-25 Teleported Somewhere Hazardous Whenever "Why?" Is Spoken: Susceptibility to the word "Why?" (uncommon, hazardous, 20" Teleportation)

-25 Teleported Somewhere Inconvenient Whenever "Why?" Is Spoken: Susceptibility to the word "Why?" (uncommon, inconvenient, 60" Teleportation)

Or the GM could just disallow any form of susceptibility that doesn't seem as harmful as the equivalent amount of damage.

This teleport thing should be about as bad as 4d6 normal damage (or 4d6 of stun damage that turns to body damage when you're knocked out, to be precise).

Edit to add: I did not use the Extra Time Lim, because the character charging the cannon would not be allowed to make an attack while it is charging.

Don't rule it out too quickly. Extra Time normally allows you to take other actions during the charge up. If it prevents you from taking other actions, then that's an additional -1/4.

Maybe you could have the weapon slowly dispel itself. You would somehow have to connect it to the charge up.

Or if you wanted it to be more exciting, you could have the side effect be a massive explosion that's powerful enough to destroy the gun.

Having to charge up something, but being able to use other stuff in the meantime, is Extra Time. I think being able to hold onto a prepared charge is the Delayed Effect advantage. Having a charge start to damage the weapon would be something new. Maybe it could be a Side Effect.

Super Shooting Ability: Armor Piercing for any gun of up to 2d6 (Active Points 7); Charges (8, -1/2), (Real Cost 5).

The first one is just a gun. The second is an enhancement that can be used on any gun you pick up.

If it is attached to a specific power, it is "clothed". If it is independant of a specific power it is "naked", and becomes a power. The difference is shown by how it's written.

I still think an example is the best way to demonstrate. Here is an ordinary, "clothed" form of Armor Piercing:

Rifle: Ranged Killing Attack 2d6, Armor Piercing (+1/4), (Active Points 37); Charges (8, -1/2), (Real Cost 25).

Here is armor piercing as a naked power advantage:

Super Shooting Ability: Armor Piercing for any gun of up to 2d6 (Active Points 7); Charges (8, -1/2), (Real Cost 5).

With this power, you can make any gun which does 2d6 or less damage into an armor piercing gun eight times.

All the power advantages in 5th edition are normal, "clothed" advantages, but you can turn them naked by using the procedures on page 157.

It would probably be better to stick range sense, eidetic memory, and other mental stuff into a computer that comes on the ship, but I guess there's nothing wrong with just making it a system. I don't think mental defense would work for the ship, since it doesn't have any INT or EGO. You could buy power defense insted.

If you want, you can take a focus limitaton for ship systems. For example, OIF Bulky for anything that can be destroyed before the entire ship is destroyed.

Second, I would take a look at the END Reserve. With a 9 SPD you are using 27 END per turn just to turn on the Force Field. That only leaves 23 END (3.5 shots from your Phaser) before it runs dry. If you only took 2 shots that Turn the END Reserve would be empty in less than 2 turns.

Geez, I just noticed that my ship designs have the same mistake. It would be a demon for the first 2 phases, then completely run out of gas. Time to triple everything X__X

Victor, if you need more examples, name any power advantage that intrests you and I'll show you how to make a naked power advantage out of it.

I've been having the same thoughts myself when doing a high-powered psionics game that fell in between the two types. The thing that decided it for me was that one player wanted to make a robot character, and of course that would be hideously expensive. So, I raised the point level beyond anything that could be considered heroic.

I don't know about the movie, but I thought the LXG comic book seemed heroic level or at most low-powered super. Other than Hyde, nobody was very tough at all. They each only had about one power. They spent most of their time sneaking around and fighting ordinary people. It was all pretty low key, at least in the first couple issues.

Or you just assign an appropriate price. You might want to make some items incredibly rare, or their point cost may not reflect their effectiveness for some reason.

I usually just assign prices, using the AP calculations as a very loose guideline.

After that initial listing, you can apply advantages and limitations to it as appropriate. In the original post of this thread, I talked about an unusual way to apply advantages to naked advantages.

If this charge issue is really bothersome, you could have charge costs max out at +1/4 or have 0 END cost a bit more. Then, there would be a noticable point difference between infinite and eventually running out. In most games there would be no point, but I guess it could come up often in some of these military simulations.