[WT] First time GMing - look over some Powers with me?

[Wade]

It is my first time actually GMing Wild Talents, and I'm gearing up
to run a Grim War campaign. Awesome. But I remain somewhat unsure
about the power building mechanics - I've revised things a couple of
times, as I keep rereading sections in the Essential Edition and
finding stuff I've missed before. My player's points totals have
fluctuated some as a result, so I was hoping helpful souls could take
a look at what we've been doing and point out any errors now, as
opposed to me realizing them later while we're in play.

First up - a Regeneration power. She wants it to also cure Disease
and Toxins(an additional Useful Quality), wants to be unable to shut
it off even if she wants to (Always On Flaw), and wants to have it be
a bit slower than the minimum 2hd Heal 2 every round - we're bumping
that back to Heal 2 every other round. This is how we built it:

Regeneration (U U) - 2hd
Useful(Heals Width in Shock and Killing): Engulf +2, Permenant +4,
Self-Only -2, Always On -1, Slow -2
Useful(Cures Disease and Toxins): Permanent +4, Self-Only -2,
Always On -1, Slow -2
Cost per Die: 4/8/16 Total Cost: 16 Points

Look good there? Pretty basic, I think. Is taking Slow on a Permenant
Power like that kosher? Always On sound like a Flaw in this sense
(she's trying to keep her Mutant powers a secret, if that helps)?
Lastly - does anyone know whether, by default, Regeneration should
allow healing of lost limbs and the like?

Now, she didn't want to just be dead when her wounds were all filled
up, and I didn't want to add an all-out Ressurection power onto
Regeneration. Our solution? Buy some extra wound boxes, that are
only usable to prevent death - basically, she's down once all her
regular wound boxes are filled up, and seemingly dead, but as long as
she hasn't endured too much trauma(ie: run out of these overflow
boxes), she can still regenerate it. So she can come back from being
double-tapped in the back of the head, but not from being chucked
through a tree shredder. Here's how we purchased 2 of these overflow
boxes on every area:

Extra Hard to Kill (U) - 2hd
Useful(Extra Wound Boxes): Engulf +2, Permenant +4, Self-Only -2,
Only to Prevent Death -2
Cost Per Die: 3/6/12 Total Cost: 12 Points

Here I think Always On obviously isn't a real flaw, so didn't put that
in here. Does the "Only to Prevent Death" Flaw make sense at -2, or
should it be more?

Last but not least, she wanted a "Cold Burst" or "Heat Absorption"
Power - basically, drawing heat from the area surrounding her into
her, doing damage to her enemies as well as potentially being useful
for lowering the temperature of things and other such creative uses.
This one is the one I'm having the most trouble with. Take a look:

Heat Absorption(A U) - 3hd
Attacks(Sucks out body heat): Radius +2, Engulf +2, Non-Physical
(defense is 'not thermally conductive', because they're dressed for
the cold, or whatever) +2, Self-Immune +1, Touch Only -2, Limited
Damage(Shock) -1, Exhausted -3
Useful(Drops temperature drastically): Radius +2, Touch Only -2,
Exhausted -3
Cost Per Die: 4/8/12 Total Cost: 24 Points

Seems pretty potent, and would be more so yet if she ends up buying
another hd in it. Stuff I'm concerned about - Self-Immune seem
reasonable for a radius power centered on you? Does combining Touch
Only and Radius make sense for how to do a Power that is essentially a
Burst centered on you? Does the special defense for Non-Physical seem
fine?

Since she's pretty tight on points, I mentioned she could probably
get near the same effect for her Heat Absorption power with 2hd and
extra levels in the Attacks Quality. If I did my math right, with the
Attacks Quality increased by one level, it'd cost 5/10/20 per die, but
she could do three damage with only two hard dice(for a total cost of
only 20), but this would leave her more vulnerable to anything that
knocks dice off her set, right?

Heh, and I haven't even finished figuring out sorcery yet. ;)

[Hotjets]

Regenerating slow means that if you're still taking damage in battle
or due to a fire or other ongoing danger, you may take damage faster
than you heal. Your Flaw makes it more likely that you'll die. This is
a legitimate disadvantage.

Always on seems OK. I don't know Grim War, but what if you want a
piercing, or a bionic implant? If your body tries to fix itself so
that is what it was like before, there could be complications. It
certainly doesn't seem like some huge rules abuse. And if you want to
be able to hide the Mutant Thing, Always On could be a bad thing.

Disease and Toxins are two different things. I'd consider them
separate Usefuls. That's just me though. I have no idea how anyone
else would do this.

-2 for only to prevent death seems pretty good, if deadly force is at
least a somewhat common in your game. There are very few -3 Flaws, so
it seems like it would need to be extreme circumstances.

Your heat draining looks pretty good. Self-Immune costs the same as
Controlled Effect, and is, if anything, a bit less useful. I tend to
dislike the tremendous degree to which many use HD for offensive
powers, but that is a matter of personal taste.

Hotjets

[Stellar]

For Regen:
Instead of Slow (-2), your player could instead take Limited Width
(-1). This causes the power to function at width 1 regardless of
rolled (or hard diced) results, which seems to be exactly what she's
going for: 1 point of healing, every round. Now granted, it is less
of a points saving, so she might not like that as much. Either path
gives an average of 1 shock and 1 killing healed, to each location,
every round. Alternatively, if she wants something more like rapid
natural healing rather than true regeneration, you could go with the
Exhausted (-3) flaw, and say that it heals 2 shock 2 killing every
*hour*. You could even slap Limited Width onto THAT for some truly
restricted healing. And I don't think Slow or Exhausted on a
Permanent power is unkosher, at least, not for the way you built it.
In some cases I'd raise an eyebrow, but you've used it to represent an
always active, but very slow, mutant healing factor. I did the same
thing on a character that I just started playing, actually.

Also, unless Grim War has rules that I'm not aware of (as my GM has
forbidden me from looking at it), Self Only is a three-point flaw.
TOUCH Only is the two-pointer. So get some more points back for the
spending.

For the second quality of her Regeneration, so long as the toxins were
specifically biological-based toxins, I'd probably just let her have
it. Hotjets is on the other side of the fence, so it really is your
call. If she wants a truly broad-spectrum sort of regeneration, have
her take the Variable (+4) extra. Also, Always On is Always On; if
she can't turn it off, she can't (even if you'd never really want to
turn something like Regen off!). And again, Self Only is a three-
pointer.

For Extra Hard to Kill:
Hotjets covered my points, the only thing I want to add is that Always
On would still apply, IF she wanted not choice in whether or not the
power activated. Its a bitch to kill her, even if she wants to die.

For Heat Absorption:
Actually, I'm not certain what you're trying to do with this one. It
is a Touch-based power, but affects multiple targets? Does she have
to touch each target, or does touching the first start a cascade? Or
does it only work against one target, but then the entire area around
her is cooled off? Give me a description of what the power does, and
I'll toss stats your way for it (if they need improved upon).

[Daniel Kane]

I can certainly think of situations where having wounds seal up, bullets drop out, etc. would blow one's cover.  Also, as noted above, it introduces complications to any situation in which healing interferes with something useful (piercings, tattoos, getting a pacemaker installed, etc.).

~Daniel