Sidume

Well, I had it saved to my hard drive in a folder that was subcategorized by either (a) other GM, or (b) by game where I was GM.
 
But a fragged hard drive means a rethinking of that a lot of rebuilding or cloud hunting is coming (sigh!).
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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My group was joking about being stealthy while trying to sneak into a villain lair. I joked about trying to eat Captain Crunch quietly. A player rolls dice and gets a 3, then says "I eat Capn Crunch quietly" out loud. 

Sounds like the SHAZAM! effect with power armor instead of a transformation by magical lightning.

eepjr24's first breakdown is a really good one...
 
It might be worth working out the idea of -10% of AP per Charge used... of course you never get more than 10 Charges, so perhaps a floor of 20% (-80%) for this. Each charge after the first loses a percentage of it's Active Points as you go, but you can theoretically have a large number of charges (if you buy a Power with 22 Charges you should still be able to use this idea).
 
I wonder if maybe this was made into it's own Limitation with a standardized Recovery rate (similar recovery to Chargers, let's say); so this could be used on any power... Cool idea.

Sorry, but I go the other way altogether.  This is NOT a limitation where one size fits all.  If this is being applied to a 50 point Blast, then it's far more serious than if it's being applied to a 120 point Entangle.  
 
I'm saying treat this as Charges, in terms of how many times it can be used with any purpose.  Some assumptions have to be made there.  Is this an instant power or a constant power?  Effectiveness rolloff might be no big deal for a Force Field that lasts 5 minutes per use because that's likely the full combat, but a big deal for an instant power like Blast.  Also, is this a "I only need to do this once" power, or something needed regularly?   100 Active is quite a bit...is this a bit overpowered for the campaign, where maybe the 3rd and 4th shots are more on par?  Well, then, the rolloff is at the 5th or 6th shot.  Same comment applies if the defense is uncommon, or the power has an ongoing effect like Entangle, so that it may not be needed more than a couple times.
 
Hm.  Another way to say this might just be Side Effect:  Power Fades with Use.  Automatic.  Side effect is 10 point Drain...well, that's a 3d6 Drain, and that's 30 points.  So that's a Major Side Effect.  Automatic raises that to a -1.  If you want a one size fits all, this seems pretty decent.  I'll certainly grant mine's more complex.
 
Oh, and a side note, interpreting this as a Side Effect (Drain) defines how fast the power 'recharges' back...takes 2 turns per use.  
 
 
 
 
 
 

I'd honestly just go with boostable charges; boost for the full-power blast, use just the one base charge for standard power.

I'm inclined to go a completely different route.  The 4th shot is at -30 Active...which strongly suggests it's largely a waste of time.  It's gonna bounce off defenses.  If these are standard charges, I'd say 
 
1 charge:  -2
2 charges:  -1 1/2 or -1 3/4, depending on average Active Points involved.  If it's, say, 50?  The 2nd shot's at 80%.   At 65+, the second shot's still fairly effective.
3 charges:  similar, leaning to -1 1/2.
4+:  -1 1/4, or even - 1 1/2 if the initial Active Points are low-ish.
 
It may also depend on the Power.  AVAD and Flash might remain decently effective even at -30 points.  So I'm looking at it as, how fast does the effectiveness fall off?  And once it's Basically Useless, it's like you're out of charges anyway.
 

So I did some math (surprise, surprise) and would use the following chart:
 
If power will be reduced for every charge until there are none: -3/4                                       (AP drop * charges = ~Original AP)
If power will be reduced by about 1/2 of the original AP then charges run out: -1/2           (AP drop * charges = ~Original AP*.5)
If power will be reduced by about 1/4 of the original AP then charges run out: -1/4           (AP drop * charges = ~Original AP*.75)
Less than 1/2: -0
 
Examples:
 
Example of the calculation I devised:
 
Line 1:  AP/((100+90+80+70+60+50+40+30+20+10)/# Of Charges)-1
Line 2:  AP/((100+90+80+70+60)/# Of Charges)-1
Line 3:  AP/((100+90+80+70+60+50+40+30)/# Of Charges)-1
 
That will probably take care of 90% of the cases and provide you a guide for any outliers. I would call the custom limitation something like "Tired Charges".
 
- E

Greetings all,
 
I'd like to pick you brains on pricing a disad.
 
I'm looking for some input on a power disadvantage.  I have in mind a power that loses effectiveness the more it is used.  Not Burnout as long as you have charges it still works,  but charges that are less effective as they are used.  Each use drops the effectiveness of the power by 10 active points.
 
The idea is simple.  I can use a custom power disad.  I'm trying to figure out how to price it properly.  Should it be costed similarly to Burnout, or should the disad be worth more?  After 5 uses the player would be out of charges, but charges 4 and 5 are not going to be nearly as effective.  And a blanket disad worth -X/Y is a whole lot easier than tiering each individual charge.
 
Any input is welcome. ?
 
  

I had a whole team of these.  Beware the menace of - the Herd!
 
The Herd was a group of ladies with mostly mediocre super powers, (though the did have one brick who was pretty tough).  The dressed up like cows that were auditioning for a Chik-Filet commercial.
 
Mad Cow - the tough one, classic brick/tank with damage reduction.  About as smart as a cow.  Rage Issues.
Cow Patty - threw exploding stinkbombs (exploding flashes to sights and smells, with a small NND blast)
Holy Cow - A martial artist who could attack while desolid.  You shoot/punch her and a hole forms, the attack goes through.  Then she hits you.
Cow Gummy - She came from Germany ? .  A fighter with some stretching and contortionist abilities.
 
There were one or two more, depending on the size of the group they were fighting,  The prided themselves on robbing Dairy Queens and being "non-lethal cereal killers" when they burned down a Kellogg's facility.  They would milk the puns for all they were worth.

I eat out too much, probably 20-25% of my meals.  Probably 3/4th of that is fast food, but that's including stuff like Subway, and fast casual stuff like Chipotle.  It tends to be high salt, but that doesn't mean constant burgers and fries.
 
The other 75-80% is home cooked, though not always eaten at home.  There's no such thing as "left-overs," there's only "plan-aheads."  I'm often doing meal prep for several hours on the weekend to have lunches and dinners ready to just stick in the microwave for most of the week.  I probably cook 70% of the time, and my roommate does the other 30%.
 
And I do it partially because of the pesky restrictions.  At 15 I discovered I had some food allergies that flared up and I had 5 shots of adrenaline in a 10 hour period to keep breathing.  Now I have to avoid anything with peanuts, tree nuts,  coconut, sesame seeds, and MSG.  I also need to avoid caraway, poppy seeds, melons, mangos and mustard, but those won't kill me, just make me wish I was dead.   I don't mind cooking.  I grew up with a mom who catered regularly and I can hold my own in a commercial kitchen.  
 
But I can be a pain in the butt when visiting a new restaurant though.