Question about Cosmic Powers, Gadgeteering, etc...

[Wade Lahoda]

So, you've got your Cosmic Power or Gadgeteering, or whatever...

How does it work with powers with multiple qualities? Like, if I use my Cosmic Power for Flight, I should be able to make it ADU, right, because Cosmic Power has all three?

But, since I've got all three qualities in Cosmic Power, and it costs the same to buy three qualities for one power as for three one quality powers, can I break it up? Can I take my 6d in Cosmic Power and put it into a 6d Harm, a 6d Armor, and a 6d Useful only for Movement power all at the same time?

This seems more relevant for gadgeteering - it seems most likely that folks would build gadgets that *only* attack, or *only* defend or whatever, which seems a very inefficient use of Gadgeteering dice compared to buying three separate powers (Attacking Gadgets, Defending Gadgets, and Useful Gadgets)...

--
“It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.”
-- Oscar Wilde

[sonicdr...@gmail.com]

Separate power qualities are basically separate powers under one umbrella. Yes, you should be able to do that unless your GM insists otherwise.

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[Matt]

As I understand it:

You could turn your cosmic power dice into just Attacks/defends etc, the merit is reduced WP cost

The number of dice in the power is limited by your cosmic power dice. But any given cosmic power dice can only do one thing at a time. 

So if I have 6d as you say I could assign all six to an attacks power, or divide them 3 and 3 into attack and defend Or 2/2/2 or 4/1/1 etc. the secret to cosmic power is gobs of WP.

The other advantage is you don't need HD or WD in the power itself, you pay the cost of the dice they're emulating when you use the power. So if you have 10d you can make a 5d attack you roll, a 2hd defense, and a 3hd utility or movement power w/ a huge WP cost. 

-Matt Conlon

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[Daniel Kane]

Not so!  6d in an ADU cosmic power is exactly the same as 6d in separate A, D, and U powers (except for power permissions).

The 6d can be used for an AD power and a U power, or 3d in an ADU and three dice left for random A, D, and U powers (probably with Spray +wd or +hd to make it reliable, balanced by Flaws or WP expenditure).

By my reading, anyway.

For example, one of the PCs in my off-and-on comedic Wild Talents game is Matrix, a gadgeteer.  He has 10d for gadgeteering with ADU, which generally involves jury-rigging his Toyota Matrix (with a patent-violating Stark power generator) into a gadget for the session.  Its "default" setup is flying DU and GI-Joe-esque zap guns for the Attacks.  Sometimes he just makes a Matrix-Mecha with a lot of Hyperbody.  "It's much less agile when it's a snake detector," as he once noted, being forced to actually *drive* a car with 10d in Useful (Detecting Snakes).

-- Daniel

[Matt]

6d in an ADU is very different than 6 in all 3. Example: lets make a TK user that can make a personal FField, TK Punch, and move stuff

TK 14/d

A, range

D, self, duration, interfering

U, range, Mass, High Capacity Mass

For a reliable Forcefield lets say we go with 2hd 56pts, and 6 more dice to throw around splitting them as needed- 144pts, a nice 200pts. 

Now same character with 3 separate pools for the same effects:

A, Range 2/d 6d 12pts

D, Self, Duration, Interfering 7/d 2hd 28pts

U, range, mass, hi cap mass 5/d 6d 30pts

Total 70 pts. I think this proof is counter to my argument... 

So we are in agreement that a 6d cosmic power won't ever be more than 6 dice of powers all at the same time?

Spray, booster levels and such are how you make 3 2d powers feel like 3 8d powers, right?

Maybe it has something to do with creating a whole bunch of endless 1 use buffs...

-Matt Conlon

[Marco Subias]

Daniel is right. The three qualities are paid for separately and have different dice. If you had 6d in A, D, and U, you could buy 6d in harm for your attack and 6d in D and U and have 6d in the D quality and 6d in the U quality. So, you could fly around with some protection from flying and blast people all at once.

Look at the Cosmic Power example in WT EE. There is an example of someone choosing to use just the U quality and using all of his dice. There is not reference to having to forgo the A or D dice there. There is nothing in the Extra description that suggests that VE works any differently than other miracles for which different qualities operate separately without affecting one another.

Hotjets   

  

[Wade Lahoda]

Well, yes, obviously, if you buy different dice for the different qualities, you'll end up with different points numbers.

But TK 14/d

A, Range

D, Self, Duration, Interfering

U, Range, Mass, High Capacity Mass

at 6d = 84 points.

just like 6d Telekenetic Attack (2/die, A, Range), 6d Telekinetic Defense (7/die, Self, Duration, Interfering) and 6d Telekinetic Push (5/die, Range, Mass, High Capacity Mass) add up to 84 points in total.

I'll point out that if you had 6d + 2hd in the combined TK power, because the defense is with Duration, you can activate it with your 2hd + 6d, and then in subsequent rounds still use those 2hd+6d - you don't have to set any dice aside as "in use" or whatever.

Presuming you buy the same dice pool for each power, buying them seperate or buying them as one power is really just a matter of how they are written on the character sheet - they're pretty much identical, aren't they? Indeed, isn't writing them all together as one power just a shorthand for "I'm buying the same number of dice in each of these"?

[Matt]

Not at all. Because capacities are divided each round. 

Using the TK example if I wanted to use the A and U qualities in the same round I would need to decide whether I wanted to move something nearby and attack something far away or vice versa or sit the ranges evenly. 

If I didn't have the hi capacity extra on the U effect that would be a 3rd capacity I would need to assign dice for. Having 3 separate powers allows all capacities to remain separate. 

So if I want to use the A and U together but the two powers are separate both have their own separate capacity "pools."

So with 6d in 2 powers I have a 6d range for attack and a 6d pool for range and mass. If the two powers are combined I have a 6d pool for both ranges and mass. 1power 6d to divide, 2powers 12d, only 6 of which I need to divide.

Unless I've added a step where none should be. 

It seems that, in general, separate powers are better than multi powers, but multipowers may be preferable depending on permissions (like 1 power) and 1d in a multipower improves all the effects at once which may effect training times (assuming 1 power takes less time to improve than 2 or 3, supported by the improvement during play rules).

-Matt Conlon

[Odd Man Out]

Capacities are divided for qualities, you've linked things that are not connected. A 6d power that has two qualities has each capacity working at max. The split is when you have the same quality with multiple capacities, like being able to remotely move a lot of weight, via range and mass.

[Matt]

"I'll point out that if you had 6d + 2hd in the combined TK power, because the defense is with Duration, you can activate it with your 2hd + 6d, and then in subsequent rounds still use those 2hd+6d - you don't have to set any dice aside as "in use" or whatever."

Ok, this seems reasonable, then I think Cosmic Power. "Every time I use it I make a cheap, endless, 1 use Invulnerability to X" Fire and forget. Or same permanent, if/then when attacking, one use Vicious type power. If the dice don't have to be "assigned" to continue performing their effect it breaks down fast.

I realize with nullify powers and rules exceptions, etc. it can be tailored to taste but that sort of thing makes it feel like I'm running another game for one person, where grudge monsters are fine and rules work differently. I'm not saying you're wrong, rather I don't like if/how you're right maybe?

-Matt Conlon

[Odd Man Out]

Take a 6d useful quality power that lets you turn iron into steel at a distance. You would need Mass and Range, dividing the 6d among them so that it had the range of a 3d power and the mass of a 3d power. Or 4d and 2d or any combination that yielded a total of 6d devoted to the capacities.

[Matt]

Ok, so I did add a step. I'll have to reread the rules. Don't know why I felt the line was per power rathe than per quality...

-Matt Conlon

On Jun 13, 2013, at 7:43 AM, Odd Man Out <nal...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Capacities are divided for qualities, you've linked things that are not connected. A 6d power that has two qualities has each capacity working at max. The split is when you have the same quality with multiple capacities, like being able to remotely move a lot of weight, via range and mass.
>

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[Paul Burks]

It happens. I'm not sure how kosher the Permanent then Switch powers idea is. Once you reassign the dice the power doesn't exist anymore. Variable Effect is meant to be impressive but that's a bit much.

[Marco Subias]

But these two sets of three dice in two U powers are separate powers and do not work together. You'd have a 3d power that worked at range and had no Mass capacity and a 3d power with the Mass capacity that had no range. You could use one per round, but not both, unless you dropped a die and went for two (impossible) sets.

If you want range and mass on your iron to steel, you buy the Mass extra for +2 and offset it with Slow or some other flaw or flaws. Or, could could spend WP to balance it out - 2 points of WP per die, IIRC.  

Hotjets

On Thu, Jun 13, 2013 at 10:46 AM, Odd Man Out <nal...@gmail.com> wrote:

Take a 6d useful quality power that lets you turn iron into steel at a distance. You would need Mass and Range, dividing the 6d among them so that it had the range of a 3d power and the mass of a 3d power. Or 4d and 2d or any combination that yielded a total of 6d devoted to the capacities.

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[Odd Man Out]

That's why in the earlier comment I noted that the dice splitting to determine range, mass, or speed, was for a Quality that had more than one Capacity. If you only have Mass, speed, or range, then there's nothing to divide the dice among. If you have two or more capacities there is. This is the entire point of Extras like High Capacity.

[Daniel Kane]

Flaws aren't worth points if they don't actually penalize the power's use.  I'd never allow One Use on an emulated power (... unless the VE power had One Use for some crazy reason).  Exhausted, probably, but not One Use.  If the quality with variable effect had Permanent, I wouldn't even allow Exhausted or Depleted, since there's no penalty for emulating a new power.

Likewise, If/Then (only while attacking) on an attack buff wouldn't be worth any points, any more than Attacks (set people on fire) having If/Then (only while setting people on fire).  This sort of makes sense if you assume your ADU dice are all tied up with the buff, but we've established that everyone disagrees with that usage of multi-quality variable effect. :-)

-- Daniel

On Thu, Jun 13, 2013 at 10:45 AM, Matt <moe...@gmail.com> wrote:

"I'll point out that if you had 6d + 2hd in the combined TK power, because the defense is with Duration, you can activate it with your 2hd + 6d, and then in subsequent rounds still use those 2hd+6d - you don't have to set any dice aside as "in use" or whatever."

Ok, this seems reasonable, then I think Cosmic Power. "Every time I use it I make a cheap, endless, 1 use Invulnerability to X" Fire and forget. Or same permanent, if/then when attacking, one use Vicious type power. If the dice don't have to be "assigned" to continue performing their effect it breaks down fast.

I realize with nullify powers and rules exceptions, etc. it can be tailored to taste but that sort of thing makes it feel like I'm running another game for one person, where grudge monsters are fine and rules work differently. I'm not saying you're wrong, rather I don't like if/how you're right maybe?

-Matt Conlon

On Jun 12, 2013, at 8:40 PM, Wade Lahoda <wade....@gmail.com> wrote:

> I'll point out that if you had 6d + 2hd in the combined TK power, because the defense is with Duration, you can activate it with your 2hd + 6d, and then in subsequent rounds still use those 2hd+6d - you don't have to set any dice aside as "in use" or whatever.

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[Matt]

For the record, I don't disagree with my previous interpretation, it rewards garnering more than 10d in the power for more than eliminating multi action penalties. 

-Matt Conlon

[Paul Burks]

There are already substantial rewards to having more than 10d of any type in Variable Effect, namely the ability to keep more and stronger powers going simultaneously. For other powers the ability to deal with penalties, change the width and height, and such are also substantial.

[Marco Subias]

l see what you meant now.

Hotjets