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Old 07-05-2016, 01:20 PM   #1
Varyon
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Default Modifying Alternate Abilities

I'm looking here for ideas on how to modify the way Alternate Abilities works for a variety of situations.

Let's start with (what I see as) the default. Here, AA's are Advantages that a character can take a Ready maneuver to switch amongst (unless you are switching both to and from an attack ability, in which case it's a free action). Price is full cost for the most expensive Advantage, 1/5th cost for all others. Limitations that affect one Advantage have no effect on the others. Now, let's see if there are some ways to modify this.

First, the number of simultaneous instances of your AA set that can be activated at a time. There's a RAW answer for this one over in PU8 - to have simultaneous access to n AA's, simply pay the cost for the most expensive n abilities. What if we wanted to take this a bit further? Would it be appropriate to instead have the character pay full cost for a set amount of character points worth of abilities, and 1/5th for the rest, then have however many points of AA's that add up to the first number active at once?

Second, that Ready maneuver. If we want to drop this to a free action, what additional price is appropriate? Similarly, if we want to extend it - make it a Ready to switch firing modes on a weapon, have it take several seconds of concentration to change from Flight to DR, etc - what sort of discount is appropriate? Similarly, what if you can switch more rapidly between some AA's than others?

Third, Limitations. If I want Takes Recharge to affect the whole AA set, but I don't want each ability within AA to actually require a recharge after use, what further discount should this be? Similarly, if I want an ability that gets "locked" into its unusable configuration if it's in it when an Accessibility or similar no longer applies, but have the other abilities in the set otherwise be freely available, how should I build that?


To look at all of these at once, consider the following character (something of a modified Samus Aran expy). She has a suit of power armor (built as an outright Advantage - it's difficult enough to remove/break that the Gadget Limitations don't apply) that has a built in arm cannon. The cannon has four settings - a default rapid-fire beam, a freeze ray, a flaming sword, and a rocket launcher. The rapid-fire beam can also charge up and fire, although this overwhelms the cannon and requires 5 seconds to recharge before it can be used again for anything else. In addition to this, some of the energy of the weapon can be rerouted to power a shield system, giving the character some further DR, but this shield is susceptible to feedback from Surge effects, which reduces the cannon's available power while it is shut down in this manner. Allocating energy to teh shield system - provided there's enough power - is a free action, switching between most firing modes is a Ready, and switching to and from rocket launcher mode takes 2 Ready manuevers. "Switching" between the rapid-fire beam and the charge beam is a free action - they're actually the same weapon mode, just slightly different settings.

Rapid-Fire Beam: Innate Attack 2d (Tight Beam Burning; Increased Range 50/100 +10%, Rapid Fire 15 +100%) [21]
Charge Beam: Innate Attack 4d (Burning; Increased Range 100/100 +15%, exp3 +150%, Takes Extra Time 2 -20%, Takes Recharge 5 seconds -10%) [47]
Freeze Ray: Innate Attack 3d (Burning; Side Effect Stunning +50%, Reduced Range 10/10 -15%) [21]
Fire Blade: Natural Weapon (Burning; Destructive Parry +40%, Reach 1 +20%, Hidden +20%, Increased Damage 2 +60%, Indestructible +40%, Light 2 -10%, Single -20%) [13]
Rocket Launcher: Innate Attack 4d (Crushing; Increased Range 100/1000 +30%, exp1 +50%, frag 4d +60%, Guided +50%, Limited Use 4/Slow Reload -15%) [55]
Shield: Damage Resistance 12 (Force Field +20%, Temporary Disadvantage, Shutdown, Electrical -20%) [60]

All of these together are worth [201]. Let's say our character pays full price for [61] of this, 1/5th for the remainder ([28] for [140]), for a total cost of [89]. Using the more freeform interpretation of multiple instances, the character could forgo all of her weapons to have a further DR 12, or could combine one of the weapons with some degree of DR - up to DR 8 for the Rapid-Fire Beam, DR 2 for the Charge Beam, and so forth. If hit with a Surging attack while enjoying some of the benefit of this shield, you risk a shutdown, "locking up" [5xDR]. We need a discount for each of the weapon modes needing extra time to switch between them (more of once for the rocket launcher, as it takes 2 Readies, but less of one for the two beam weapons, as they can switch as a free action), a discount for the charge beam knocking out all other uses while it's recharging, a price boost for the shield being a free action to switch on and off, and a discount for knocking out the shield knocking out the points invested in it. How should we handle this?

Last edited by Varyon; 07-05-2016 at 01:31 PM.
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Old 07-05-2016, 02:27 PM   #2
Varyon
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Default Re: Modifying Alternate Abilities

One thing I'm considering is to tack the various Enhancements (Reduced Time) and Limitations (Takes Recharge), with signs reversed (Enhancements become Limitations), to the discount the character gets. For our Samus expy, she's getting a discount of [-112] out of [201] (for paying only [89]), or about 56%. The Shield has a base cost of [60], so she's getting a discount of [-34] for it (56% of [60], round away from 0). Getting down to a free action is Reduced Time 1 -20%, so you only get a discount of [-28] there. The various energy weapons have Takes Extra Time 1 +10%, while the rocket launcher has Takes Extra Time 2 +20%. The energy weapons get a discount of [-57], so that gets boosted to [-62], and the rocket launcher sees a discount of [-30], so it gets boosted to [-36]. To cover the special interaction between the two beam weapons (no Ready to switch), consider all the possible switches within its "set" (1 second Readies - rapid fire, charge, ice, and fire blade). There are 6 (rapid fire <-> charge, rapid fire <-> ice, rapid fire <-> fire blade, charge <-> ice, charge <-> fire blade, ice <-> fire blade), and one of these doesn't have Takes Extra Time, so reduce the discount by 1/6 - instead of getting [-5] further, you only get [-4]. Optionally, instead of doing it by number of abilities, do it by how much each is worth - of those 6, rapid fire <-> charge is two advantages worth a sum of [68], rapid fire <-> ice is [42], rapid fire <-> fire blade is [34], charge <-> ice is [68], charge <-> fire blade is [60], and ice <-> fire blade is [34], for a total of [306]. The [-5] discount doesn't apply to [68] of this, which is around 22%; reducing the discount by that results in a discount of around [-3].

For "shutting down this AA locks it in place" (for the charge beam's recharge and the shield getting hit by Surge), I'm thinking of doing the same as above, but only applying the extra effect to the discount of that one Advantage. In our case, charge beam gets a discount of [-26], so we apply Takes Recharge, 5 seconds +10% to this for [-28]. Shield gets a discount of [-33], so we apply Temporary Disadvantage, Shutdown, Electrical +20% to this, for [-39]. If you have some situation where shutting it down locks it up but you can still switch to some AA's (say, if the rocket launcher still worked during the recharge time), apply what I did for the charge beam above - figure out what percentage of the time the discount actually applies, and multiply by that (83% above), or even break it down by points (78% above). Note, of course, that while this is in play you can only switch between these AA's - you could't cheat by firing a charged shot, cycling to rocket launcher, then cycling to fire blade and having it instantly available.

All told, Shield being a free action costs [6]; the Takes Extra Time on our energy weapons is worth [-3] or [-4], depending on how we calculate it; the Takes Recharge from the charge beam is worth [-2]; and the shutdown on the Shield is worth [-6]. That means a further [-5] or [-6] on the build.

Optionally, retain fractions until the end instead of rounding like I did; this will change the price a bit.
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Old 07-06-2016, 07:55 AM   #3
SCAR
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Yorkshire, UK
Default Re: Modifying Alternate Abilities

Quote:
Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
I'm looking here for ideas on how to modify the way Alternate Abilities works for a variety of situations.

..

First, the number of simultaneous instances of your AA set that can be activated at a time. There's a RAW answer for this one over in PU8 - to have simultaneous access to n AA's, simply pay the cost for the most expensive n abilities. What if we wanted to take this a bit further? Would it be appropriate to instead have the character pay full cost for a set amount of character points worth of abilities, and 1/5th for the rest, then have however many points of AA's that add up to the first number active at once?
I muted something like this some time ago (before the official multiple AA's rule was published) - I was riff'ing off Divine Favor, with inspiration of (Cosmic) Modular Abilities.

Basically, the Multiple AA Rule - but I suggested you effectively bought 'Slots' which didn't have to be the top N abilities, you could buy say the Top 2 at full price, but a third slot at say the 7th or 8th highest price - allowed the use of any 2 abilities, and a 3rd limited by the lower priced third slot. - I figure this would be priced exactly as current multiple AA rules would suggest.

I also considered the equivalent of the Cosmic Modular - Pay for a Pool of Points at Full Price*, and the AA Abilities at 1/5 cost - and you could use any number of AAs at the same time, as long as the total full cost was no more than the Pool of Points.

*I didn't figure an Enhancement cost for the pool, to allow for the extra flexibility over the N fixed slots - there might be some figures on my original posts.

I think my ramblings may have contributed the collective nudge to getting the multiple AA ruling made - but I don't remember particularly getting any traction from the forum on the idea - and the official multiple AA ruling pretty much killed any further conversation (as I recollect).
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Old 07-06-2016, 12:59 PM   #4
mehrkat
 
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Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Austin Texas
Default Re: Modifying Alternate Abilities

I went the simple route. If I want to add limiters to how the alternative abilities work I create character disadvantages (though I typically only use these types of disadvantages as part of a template

I've used this mainly for costs fatigue to switch abilities and to add extra time. I set the worth of the disadvantage based on how many alternative abilities they have and what portion of the total character points are put into it. I would carefully consider any modifiers.

There is a standard ability to having multiple abilities at the same time (It was used as a standard aspect of both Divine Favor and Sorcery)
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Old 04-10-2017, 10:32 AM   #5
Varyon
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Default Re: Modifying Alternate Abilities

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hellboy View Post
In which game did Samus need a 5 sec recharge after firing a charged shot? Every game I played with her I seem to recall being able to fire normally right after.

Also I think if you charged up your shot and went into ball mod .to lay a mine it would lay 5 mines... just to add extra problems to design ;)
I called her a modified Samus Aran expy for a reason. Many of the abilities do not match up with the real Samus - I don't think she ever had a flaming sword (whip-sword-lightsaber-gun thing from Smash Bros notwithstanding), her ablative forcefield's power level has never depended on what arm cannon you have equipped, etc. Hell, Takes Extra Time isn't even appropriate - she controls her arm cannon setting through hand motions (the X-Ray Visor in Metroid Prime was genius), making it a free action that takes a second rather than using a Ready maneuver (I don't think there's a Limitation that matches this in GURPS, but Takes Extra Time at half cost might be appropriate).
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Old 04-10-2017, 04:26 PM   #6
Varyon
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Default Re: Modifying Alternate Abilities

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hellboy View Post
I have Prime Trilogy but never noticed the hand thing, probably didn't get the Xray specs or pay attention.
Yeah, it's easy to miss, but in the first game you can see the outline of Samus' hand inside the arm cannon (where from the way it moves it is apparently floating, being either suspended by liquid or contragravity tech of some sort) when using the X-Ray Visor (which you can't beat the game without, so chances are pretty good you got it at some point). The symbols for the four weapons are actually stylized representations of the way in which she positions her fingers - I had just thought they were some sort of Chozo symbols (which they might still be, honestly - I believe they also had five fingers) until I noticed her hand changing when I changed weapons while using the X-Ray Visor. Echoes didn't have anything like this, and I never played Corruption, so I can't comment there. No clue if Other M might have something like this, but from what I've read, that's not something I even want to ever play.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hellboy View Post
What about Extra Attack with the limitation of being used for changing guns?
Unless you are using a houserule that lets you use attacks in place of readies, you'd want Extra Ready for that. Rather than Limiting it to "Only to Negate the Takes Extra Time Limitation on My Abilities," you'd just... not have Takes Extra Time on those abilities.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hellboy View Post
Changing guns isn't something I normally did mid combat so I don't remember if there was I many interruption in rate of fire. I think I would change beam settings via the pause menu on Super Metroid which made it seem like a ready maneuver.
In the Prime series, you can change weapons without pausing (in fact, I think you can only change weapons in this manner) by using the C stick (on the Gamecube; I never played any of them on the Wii). It takes time to swap (somewhere around a second IIRC), during which you can still run around (Move), lock on to targets (Aim), and similar, and if the game had unarmed attacks you could probably do those. That's basically something like Takes Extra Time (Passive). (Passive) should be a modifier for things like Takes Extra Time, Preparation Required, etc, which means you have to wait for the ability to become ready, but don't need to actually take a Ready maneuver.

Changing weapons in the pause menu is, in the game world, an instantaneous effect. It's equivalent to rifling through your notes at the table to determine what weapon you want to change to, then declaring you change to it and immediately making an Attack with it. I actually prefer the flavor of how Prime handles things, however.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hellboy View Post
Do you think it would be possible to use rapid strike and then just roll ready and shoot both at -6?
I'd say with normal Takes Extra Time, doing the equivalent of Quick-Shooting Bows would probably be alright, although an extra +5% modifier to allow this wouldn't be out of line. For passive changes, however, it's unlikely there would be a way to speed things up - although if you wanted to go ahead and tack on that same +5%, it would probably be alright.
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