Greetings to all. I’m a long-time post reader, first-time poster. The issue on my mind is one I’ve wrestled with for some time now, without a satisfactory outcome – the issue of characters with duplicate foci and the amount of points that should be paid for such things. Try this on for size: A player has a character in the vein of Iron Man. He is a skilled Normal who wears a suit of powered armor. The suit is quite capable but non-precise. That is to say, it doesn’t lean heavily toward any one type or set of abilities. It’s pretty all-around as far as powers go: Strength, enhanced perception, flight, defenses, etc. It even has a built-in A.I.D. with its own effective skills and knowledge base. The whole package is pretty well-rounded. Okay, now let’s say the player wants to expand things a bit. He wants to own several suits of armor, each specializing in a different type of power set. One set might be used for space travel (massive, long-term life-support, megascale flight or FTL, megascale sensor package, etc.). Another might be used for espionage (invisible to radar, high-speed flight, stealth, aerobatic evasion, etc.). You get the idea. Therein lies the problem; if the player wants all of these suits to exist at the same time, so that all he has to do is go back to his lab and switch them out, should he be forced to pay separate points for each one or should he be allowed to pay the “Followers†Adder of 5 points to get double the number of base suits, which he can then modify (redistribute points) as he sees fit? The reason this one hasn’t been self-evident to me is because the base suit itself is so powerful. It might seem a little too much like a gimme if the player is simply allowed to pay a small amount of points for what is essentially an all-new set of powers. Now, I’ve consulted the books, and I’ve found a couple of precedents. On page 62 of Champions Universe, the character Shugoshin owns a twin pair of Seishinken (spirit swords). While he paid full points for the first sword, it’s obvious that he paid only 5 points for the second. On page 53 of Millennium City, the character Nightwind carries a pair of .50 Desert Eagles – 18 character points for the first one, 5 points for the second one. It seems to me that the rule only applies where a character is actually carrying both of the foci at the same time. This would not be the case with the powered armor hero, of course. In addition, it has only been shown to be extant where the foci are exactly identical. Again, this would not be the case. But, if the player is forced to pay full points for each set of armor, the Iron Man effect goes out the window. It would take years to have those kinds of points available for such a thing. The character is quite wealthy and has more than enough resources to have multiple suits at his beck and call and, by dint of his concept, should, but the legal rules quandary remains. What to do? What to do? Any help would be most appreciated. Thanks, everyone.
