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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: narphoenix on October 14, 2016, 07:58:42 PM
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Aka time for Sanctaphrax to cuss me out.
Has anyone seen/had a satisfactory temporary power granting power? If so, what does it look like?
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I've only ever used sponsored debt and thaumaturgy. (Separately, not combined)
It worked fine because there was plenty of justification. Ironically, the sponsored debt was adjudicated by Sanctaphrax.
I had an appropriate aspect set up in advance which I tagged and I spent a FP on an character aspect related to my demonic sponsor. I took a speed power for one scene.
He said he didn't really like to do that kind of thing but would 'let it go' this time. Maybe he's getting soft.... :)
But I guess that doesn't really a newer your question. I've done it on occasion with thaumaturgy. Once where the group did a ritual which gave us all pack instincts. It lasted for an entire story arch. (Which took place over several hours).
Modular abilities seems the way to go if you are going to do it often, though.
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A temporary power granting power seems more like a group concept than a single character concept.
To do so, have each character take modular abilities. Maybe at a discount of +1, since they are dependent on the last character. Or give them a discount because using the powers turns them visibly inhuman while they last (human form).
The last character has a power that allows him to grant powers. Alchemy, a sponsor, anything like that. The rest is fluff.
Instead of modular abilities, you could also just give them the "Bag of Tricks" power from the Wiki. That allows them to take potion effects rather than full powers.
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Probably won't surprise you to hear that I've never seen a Power-sharing Power that I'd let a player take.
If you want to write one, my recommendation is not to make it fully general. A Power's Refresh cost doesn't necessarily tell you how good the ability to share it is; Inhuman Recovery isn't necessarily better than 2 Refresh worth of Supernatural Senses, but the ability to share your Inhuman Recovery is much better than your ability to share your 2 Refresh worth of Supernatural Senses.
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You know what would be cool.
Take a version of modular abilities but limit it to a theme. A winter Fae might have different powers than a demon than a djinn.
You can grant other players refresh worth of powers based on your modular abilities. But with a catch. If the powers would throw them over their allotted refresh, they need to make a conviction or discipline roll against the amount of power they used. Stress is mental as it is affecting them on a spiritual/emotional/mental level. Consequences revolve around a desire to gain those powers again - or gain more.
It kind of pushes them over the threshold of Free Choice and represents an addiction to the Power.
You could push it a bit further and say they must take a temporary aspect for the scene following the scene they borrowed the power. Similar to narcotic saliva.
If it doesn't push you over your refresh threshold, I see no reason for there to be a side-effect. Instead, it's just borrowed power - or even an excuse to spend FP to buy temporary powers.
Just an idea...
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What about a Power Swapping instead of a Power Sharing ability? So in order to share a Power the target and caster have to trade each other for a power of equivalent refresh. Limiting the traded abilities to having some similarity (or just similar theme) could be a good way to limit the ability if it gets over-powered. I also like the idea of getting a temporary aspect to go along with the new ability.
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You know what would be cool.
Take a version of modular abilities but limit it to a theme. A winter Fae might have different powers than a demon than a djinn.
You can grant other players refresh worth of powers based on your modular abilities. But with a catch. If the powers would throw them over their allotted refresh, they need to make a conviction or discipline roll against the amount of power they used. Stress is mental as it is affecting them on a spiritual/emotional/mental level. Consequences revolve around a desire to gain those powers again - or gain more.
It kind of pushes them over the threshold of Free Choice and represents an addiction to the Power.
You could push it a bit further and say they must take a temporary aspect for the scene following the scene they borrowed the power. Similar to narcotic saliva.
If it doesn't push you over your refresh threshold, I see no reason for there to be a side-effect. Instead, it's just borrowed power - or even an excuse to spend FP to buy temporary powers.
Just an idea...
Something like that could work but there are serious challenge involved. Like I said before, the Refresh cost of an ability isn't always a reliable indication of its sharing value.
Also, defense skills very greatly and stress is pretty harmless until and unless it turns into consequences. So the damage-based limitation might be quite abusable.
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The thing is the refresh is already reserved. So, while any boosted PCs are more powerful, the Power-granting PC doesn't have that refresh to play with.
As far as "over-powered power combinations" goes, that's why you have a general theme or a pre-set amount of powers that can be shared. I suppose you could also have a limitation. I can grant toughness, but not immunity. I can upgrade your toughness from Inhuman to Superhuman but never to Mythic.
All this could be written into a power but it's probably better dealt with on a case-per-case situation with the GM where the Player and the GM discuss the limitations of the power.
'
I could see it being a boon with a Pure Mortal in the party.
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Are you limited to abilities you yourself have, or simply to reasonable upgrades within the theme?
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I don't think it matters. Depends on the character concept. A djinn could grant 'wishes' for powers it doesn't have, while another concept might revolve around 'sharing' powers.
Since it functions exactly like modular abilities, you'd probably adjudicate it in the same way.
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Thing is, passing around Recovery is a fair bit better than just having Recovery. It's the kind of power everyone wants some of the time.
Passing around Strength, though, doesn't seem very useful. Many/most characters don't have the Skills to make especially good use of it.
So calculating appropriate Refresh costs seems difficult.
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Thing is, passing around Recovery is a fair bit better than just having Recovery. It's the kind of power everyone wants some of the time.
Passing around Strength, though, doesn't seem very useful. Many/most characters don't have the Skills to make especially good use of it.
So calculating appropriate Refresh costs seems difficult.
Could you base on refresh and then scale it to the power? E.G. lending recovery just costs more than lending senses?
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Could you base on refresh and then scale it to the power? E.G. lending recovery just costs more than lending senses?
gahhh. If this were DnD Id scale it by spell duration and just make Instantaneous/Permanent effects cost more than truly temporary things.
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Or you could say recovery is only apicable to injuries inflicted while the power was on. It's the same issue you have when you stick recovery under human form. Or the same challenges one deals with with any character that has modular abilities.
Powers like wings and toughness and senses could all work.
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Or you could say recovery is only apicable to injuries inflicted while the power was on. It's the same issue you have when you stick recovery under human form. Or the same challenges one deals with with any character that has modular abilities.
Powers like wings and toughness and senses could all work.
That's probably the easiest way to keep it from becoming a party healing reset on all damage. I like it
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The other option is to default everything to one scene. This way, if you give recovery, it only works to allow you the supplemental healing and, possibly, the immediate, minor consequence healing after the scene is done.
I can't really think of any other power that has an effect over multiple scenes.
What you could do, is have the Player, in advance, invest 1 refresh from their pool for each extra scene they want the power to last. Then you can have the 'healing over time' effect and uses up refresh that can't be spent on multiple PCs.
In any case, I wonder how useful this is anyways.
For example, we have 3 Submerged PCs. One Pure Mortal, One Wizard and one Djinn.
Each PC has 1 refresh left.
The Djinn has
+3 Catch Iron or maybe some religious catach
-2 Toughness,
-2 Recovery
-2 Speed
-1 Shared abilities*
-5 Shared points
(total refresh 9/10)
(*-1 instead of -2 for modular abilities since you can't use it on yourself)
He's got 6 refresh worth of power that he can't use! Yes, the Wizard gets toughness and wings for one scene and the Pure Mortal gets Recovery.
But the Djinn could be so much more powerful if he kept those modular abilities to himself. Or even ditched modular abiliites and upgraded his toughness, took some stunts etc...
My point is this: would anyone actually take this power?
It would make for some cool RP if you attached an aspect of addiction to it. Maybe the Djinn is even compelled to pressure the others into taking the powers. That's the only angle I see for this. Mechanically, I don't see it as being overpowered.
Then again, I'm not seeing all the possibilities either. But having one tough PC (the one gaining all the powers) and one super weak one(the one granting powers) doesn't seem worth it. Or even that fun.
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You could always have the power granter able to use the powers he grants.
Or alternatively, make them manipulative shitheads.
Also, I LOVE Quantus's fix. It's a lot more elegant than mine.
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Also, I LOVE Quantus's fix. It's a lot more elegant than mine.
The duration thing or the Power swap for Equal refresh thing?
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The duration thing or the Power swap for Equal refresh thing?
The "recovery only applies to the consequences taken while you have it"
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The "recovery only applies to the consequences taken while you have it"
Oh, ya I think that one is very slick and sidesteps a bunch of the possible abuses, but alas I cannot claim the credit, it was Taran's :)
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That helps for Recovery, but the share-friendliness of Powers still varies pretty significantly. The ability to give other people Ghost Speaker, Toughness, and Marked By Power seems way better than the ability to give them Strength, Claws, and Domination.
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That helps for Recovery, but the share-friendliness of Powers still varies pretty significantly. The ability to give other people Ghost Speaker, Toughness, and Marked By Power seems way better than the ability to give them Strength, Claws, and Domination.
That's fair. I think for that Id lean toward the Power-swap restriction still. That way there would only ever be one "copy" of a given power floating around the party at any given time. It allows for a certain amount of character customization, and you can stack all your abilities into a single party Champion, if that's your goal, but it doesnt ever give the party as a whole any capabilities that it didnt already have in the mix. Would that work?
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That's fair. I think for that Id lean toward the Power-swap restriction still. That way there would only ever be one "copy" of a given power floating around the party at any given time. It allows for a certain amount of character customization, and you can stack all your abilities into a single party Champion, if that's your goal, but it doesnt ever give the party as a whole any capabilities that it didnt already have in the mix. Would that work?
Note that if you stack a bunch of "passive / always-on" powers (such as Toughness) onto someone, it's MUCH more munckinous than ones limited by "one action per round" (though you can still stack multiple powers onto that single action ... but, then you're done.) Toughness/etc makes you tough/etc against every attack...
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Also, a "power-sharing" power gives natural rise to the idea of a "power-stealing" power...
:-P
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Note that if you stack a bunch of "passive / always-on" powers (such as Toughness) onto someone, it's MUCH more munckinous than ones limited by "one action per round" (though you can still stack multiple powers onto that single action ... but, then you're done.) Toughness/etc makes you tough/etc against every attack...
True, but then all your other characters would get proportionately more squishy. And it definitely becomes much more powerful is everybody in the party has the ability to swap powers, but Im guessing there will only be the one. So unless that one guy has tones of toughness, and the target has tons of abilities he doesnt need or want for that scene, it wont get out of hand.
Also, a "power-sharing" power gives natural rise to the idea of a "power-stealing" power...
:-P
That sounds a whole lot more like Black Magic to me, in the same way that giving an ally a shapeshifting ability is fine but forcing a Shapechange on another person is Against the Laws.
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That helps for Recovery, but the share-friendliness of Powers still varies pretty significantly. The ability to give other people Ghost Speaker, Toughness, and Marked By Power seems way better than the ability to give them Strength, Claws, and Domination.
Domination is a universally useless power. Which is your point. But still.
Anyways, I maintain that all these issues can be side-stepped by having a good conversation with the GM and deciding in advance what powers are on the table to share.
Sharing powers you own would balance things but it limits character concepts - like a djinni, who should be able to grant 'wishes' or powers that it might not necessarily have itself.
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Sharing powers you own would balance things but it limits character concepts - like a djinni, who should be able to grant 'wishes' or powers that it might not necessarily have itself.
Maaaybe. In that case I think the imbalance has less to do with the sharing of powers, though, and more to do with a PC being able to frickin' Grant Wishes. If you wished for a Power, I'd take that as more of a Sponsored Ability thing and expect it to be permanent. But Id also expect it to be limited to something along the lines of 3 per customer fundamentally, regardless of the feelings of the individual Genie.
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Domination is a universally useless power. Which is your point. But still.
I wouldn't go that far. If you don't have scruples and don't compare it to Ritual or Thaumaturgy, it doesn't look so bad.
And its lameness was part of the point, but not the whole point. The other part was that having two people with Domination is little better than having one person with Domination. Some Powers get redundant when multiple PCs have them.
Anyways, I maintain that all these issues can be side-stepped by having a good conversation with the GM and deciding in advance what powers are on the table to share.
That was my* approach when I* was working on a broader version of Modular Abilities. The idea was that each variant would effectively be its own Power, and that players and GMs would discuss form lists as if discussing a new Power.
I'm not thrilled with how that approach worked out, to be honest. Some of the lists I saw here were just totally unbalanced. And I got the impression people didn't really want the trouble of balancing lists for their games.
*May not have just been me. Can't remember if or how I should be sharing credit.