Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 07-25-2016, 06:45 AM   #1
CeeDub
 
Join Date: Jan 2015
Location: UK
Default Takes Recharge, but allows repeated consecutive uses?

Salutations!

Suppose you want to build an ability like Superman's heat vision as shown in Man of Steel: A burning Innate Attack (Gaze) with the Jet and All-Out modifiers. From what we can see, Kryptonians can use their heat vision for several seconds at a time, but afterwards cannot use it anymore for several minutes.

As far as I understand Takes Recharge, it would give you one single-second jet of heat vision, i.e. you could not use it to melt a steel door or slowly sweep a wide angle over several seconds.

Another option is Limited Use, but again, that would give you a maximum of 10 seconds per day, but with pauses between the uses as short as the player likes.

I also thought of Costs Fatigue, but yet again, that allows for many short bursts with short pauses between them.

Then I thought of taking Limited Use and Rapid Fire, which is incompatible with Jet per RAW, but could be abused to represent a maximum number of "shots" per Use that have to be fired one at a time in consecutive turns instead of a single attack. If the series of attacks is interrupted or the player chooses to end it early by taking another maneuver, the Use is gone. However, balancing Rapid Fire against Limited Use results in a net Enhancement.

Preparation Required might work, except that the RAW state that the time needs to be spent taking Concentrate maneuvers.

How would you do it?
CeeDub is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-25-2016, 06:52 AM   #2
McAllister
 
McAllister's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Default Re: Takes Recharge, but allows repeated consecutive uses?

Let's try basing it on Limited Use. There's a Slow Reload option there, so take 10 uses per day, say that they reload slowly, and add "Passive Reload."

Problem:

10 uses/day is -10%. Slow Reload reduces that to -5%. If you add Passive Reload and assume it reduces the value of the limitation by 5% like Slow Reload does, this limitation is essentially worthless. But maybe that's what GURPS thinks it should be: if you can get enough uses out of the power to get through an encounter and it comes back up before the next one, maybe it's not meaningfully limited at all.
McAllister is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-25-2016, 06:57 AM   #3
McAllister
 
McAllister's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Default Re: Takes Recharge, but allows repeated consecutive uses?

Maximum Duration from Powers technically doesn't apply, since it's for "switchable, beneficial abilities that you could normally leave 'on' indefinitely," but since an IA you can use every turn is similarly available, it might be a nice fit. That says that getting it for up to 30 seconds at a time, and then losing it for five minutes, is a -75% limitation.

So, since the two methods we're using to put this limitation together give us DRAMATICALLY DIFFERENT ESTIMATES FOR ITS VALUE... I'm really not sure how to proceed.

For my money, it's close to -5% than -75%. Giving it a limitation any steeper than -10% makes me look at Limited Uses and think it's unfair. But maybe the real problem is that Limited Uses is stingy as hell, and it would be fairer to double its value across the board. PK can attest that you can double the value of Costs FP and nothing breaks, so there's that.
McAllister is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-25-2016, 07:05 AM   #4
CeeDub
 
Join Date: Jan 2015
Location: UK
Default Re: Takes Recharge, but allows repeated consecutive uses?

Oh, perhaps I should clarify: I'm thinking of no more than four uses per day, possibly as few as two, but the combined duration of those uses should be at least 10 seconds.
CeeDub is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-25-2016, 07:42 AM   #5
khorboth
 
khorboth's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Denver, CO
Default Re: Takes Recharge, but allows repeated consecutive uses?

I have done something similar, and it's one of the few times I've been really disappointed in GURPS point costs.

Create a decent-sized energy reserve with special recharge only. Use regeneration (energy only) to set the regeneration rate. Add costs fatigue (energy only) to the power in question. With a couple of tweaks, you should be able to come up with the balance of recharge/use that you want.

And so, at a COST of about 100 points, you can limit that power as you desire.

In the game I was running, comparative point values weren't a problem, so I did it. If you're trying to build it under a point limit, it gets more difficult.
khorboth is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-25-2016, 07:45 AM   #6
Zoomfarg
 
Join Date: May 2012
Default Re: Takes Recharge, but allows repeated consecutive uses?

I don't have Powers in front of me right now, but I've got an idea. Perhaps people will think this is abuse...

You could borrow the scaling option from Costs FP, in which the FP cost of using an ability scales with the number of dice or levels used.

You could adapt the scaling idea so that recharge time is based on the number of consecutive turns on which you used the power, applying one level per turn.

You might even add another Takes Recharge level: 3 seconds -5%.

So 1 turn would have a recharge time of 3 seconds, 2 turns 5 seconds, 3 turns 15 seconds, etc.

I'm not sure exactly what form the adaption should take. Maybe halve the value of the disadvantage for every consecutive turn that the power can be used without reaching the next level of Takes Recharge?

Personally, I find Limited Use irksome, and I much prefer Takes Recharge.

Last edited by Zoomfarg; 07-25-2016 at 07:53 AM.
Zoomfarg is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-25-2016, 08:16 AM   #7
Anaraxes
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Default Re: Takes Recharge, but allows repeated consecutive uses?

Quote:
Originally Posted by CeeDub View Post
but yet again, that allows for many short bursts with short pauses between them.
So, this result sounds like something you don't want.

Quote:
Then I thought of taking Limited Use and Rapid Fire, which is incompatible with Jet per RAW, but could be abused to represent a maximum number of "shots" per Use that have to be fired one at a time in consecutive turns instead of a single attack. If the series of attacks is interrupted or the player chooses to end it early by taking another maneuver, the Use is gone.
But it sounds like you're happy with this effect, other than the cost and need to bend the Rapid Fire rules.

So, which are you looking for? Is it undesirable for the ability to be used for several seconds at a time -- that is, a (very) short pause between uses? Or is okay to use the heat vision for several seconds in a row?

I'm guessing you want an effect that allows freely repeated uses, with a recharge delay imposed only after you stop those uses? In fluff terms, it's one continuous use of the ability. What's the maximum length of time you can keep the ability on for one use?

Is it important to limit the total duration of use per unit of wall clock time, and if so, over what interval? (A day? Week? Hour? Minute?)

Quote:
Originally Posted by McAllister
but since an IA you can use every turn is similarly available
Not exactly. Using an IA every turn requiring taking an Attack Maneuver every turn, with the associated opportunity costs for not doing something else, limits on your defenses, etc. An always-on ability is just that -- "on" as a "free action", whether you're thinking about it or not, aware of the threats, and so on. Compare with something like, say, DR. It's just there whenever you need it. Putting a maximum duration on such an ability does drastically limit its utility. It's not just a question of consumable resources.
Anaraxes is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-25-2016, 10:08 AM   #8
CeeDub
 
Join Date: Jan 2015
Location: UK
Default Re: Takes Recharge, but allows repeated consecutive uses?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anaraxes View Post
I'm guessing you want an effect that allows freely repeated uses, with a recharge delay imposed only after you stop those uses? In fluff terms, it's one continuous use of the ability.
Yes, that is correct. What I'm trying to model is an Innate Attack that can be fired continuously over several seconds. In fluff terms, it's one long stream of heat vision, in game mechanical terms it's an uninterrupted series of All-Out Attack maneuvers. As soon as this series ends, that ability becomes unavailable for at least several minutes, possibly an hour. I haven't yet decided on a specific duration for either, without a mechanic for the effect.

Although, come to think of it, I rather like the "scale" of Costs Fatigue 1. It allows bursts of several seconds for a character with FP around 10-15 while at the same time encouraging conservative use. The recharge scale fits nicely as well, with (burst length) x 10 minutes. I'd be just fine with (burst length) x 1 minutes, too. There's just no way to enforce a pause of this length between uses. The player can easily fire a two second burst, take a Move action, and then fire another two second burst. This is what I'm trying to avoid.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anaraxes View Post
Is it important to limit the total duration of use per unit of wall clock time, and if so, over what interval? (A day? Week? Hour? Minute?)
No, not at all. I'd be absolutely fine with no limit on the duration of use - I think the All-Out limitation caps that all by itself. What's important to me are at least a few minutes between uses, however long the actual uses may be. Rest time scaling with the length of use would just be the icing on the cake.
CeeDub is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-25-2016, 01:32 PM   #9
Anthony
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
Default Re: Takes Recharge, but allows repeated consecutive uses?

It's probably a custom (and very small) limitation along the lines of "max use 10s per 2m".
__________________
My GURPS site and Blog.
Anthony is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
innate attack, limited use, takes recharge

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 03:42 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.