Alternative AA

[dataweaver]

Let's say that I wanted to set up an AA framework that lets you activate multiple AAs at once, provided that their cumulative point total doesn't exceed the base power. So if I have a 5-point Ability and a 10-point Ability, both AAs of a 25-point Ability, I could have either or both of the former two active in place of the latter; but if I also has a 15-point AA, I couldn't activate all three because 5 + 10 + 15 > 25.

What would be the right way to implement this: a zero-point feature, a Rules Exemption perk, or some sort of Unusual Background?

[talonthehand]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

Let's say that I wanted to set up an AA framework that lets you activate multiple AAs at once, provided that their cumulative point total doesn't exceed the base power. So if I have a 5-point Ability and a 10-point Ability, both AAs of a 25-point Ability, I could have either or both of the former two active in place of the latter; but if I also has a 15-point AA, I couldn't activate all three because 5 + 10 + 15 > 25.

What would be the right way to implement this: a zero-point feature, a Rules Exemption perk, or some sort of Unusual Background?

Would this just be putting the 20% link modifier on the two cheaper AA's?

[dataweaver]

Hmm… you may be on to something. Except that Linked lets you activate all of them with a single action, while I'm fine with each AA having to be activated separately.

[Kelly Pedersen]

I'd call this a 10% enhancement on all the smaller abilities. My logic is thus: I'd definitely allow two advantages with Link +10% to be used together as part of an AA - a flashbang/smoke grenade that used Linked Affliction and Obscure, for example. So, it follows that +10% is a reasonable price for "these abilities can both be used together in an AA". The +10% value is fair for multiple advantages that must be activated separately, too, since they're giving up the bonus of being activated with fewer actions.

[Varyon]

Personally, I'd be fine with setting things up as an AA "pool" - add up the points for all of the abilities in the set, pay full price for some fraction (worth at least as much as the most expensive ability) and 1/5th price for everything else, then you can have any number of abilities active at once, so long as their point total doesn't exceed what you paid full price for. Say someone has 5 abilities, A through E, which are worth 5, 10, 15, 20, and 30 points, respectively. That's a total of 70. If he pays [35] for the base, then a further [7] for the rest at 1/5th cost, then he can opt to have ABC (30), ABD (35), AE (35), BC (25), BD (30), or CD (35) as his current powerset. If you feel this freeform version of Alternate Abilities should cost more than the default option, take the full cost ([42] in my example) and boost it by, at most, 10% (boosting the above to [46.2], which gets rounded up to [47]).

[dataweaver]

Why the full cost and not either the base cost or the AA costs? Kelly made a pretty good argument for adding a 10% enhancement to each AA…

[mehrkat]

There is already a fairly standard rule for alternative abilities that I use it was on PK's website pre-editor stage.

Basically you pay full cost for the number of abilities you want to use at the same time and then 1/5th cost for every other power in the pool.

So if you have a pool with 6 powers with the most powerful ability costing 10 points. If you want to use 1 power at a time you would pay 10 points for the first ability then each other ability would cost 2 points. So a total of 20 points.
If you wanted to use 2 powers at the same time then it would cause 10 points for 2 of the abilities and then 4 x 2 for the remaining abilities or 28 points.

He pretty much used this rule in Divine Favor and Sorcery as a way for a person to "buy out" abilities. I've found this to be easy to use and balanced in my games.

[dataweaver]

But that assumes that each and every AA costs as much as one base Ability. I'm talking about a variant where the individual Abilities are cheap enough that the costs of various combinations of them (again, before the 1/5 price break) are less than or equal to the base Ability.

The principle that PK established is that you have to pay full cost for the total number of points that you can use at the same time, but that that full cost can be paid cumulatively by multiple Abilities; what I'm asking about is the ability to split those full-cost points among multiple AAs instead of being limited to just one of them: that is, don't limit the number of Abilities that can be used simultaneously to the number of Abilities that paid full price; limit it solely based on how many points were put into the pool.

[Refplace]

I always thought of it as a pool myself.
Say you have abilities costing 60, 60, 40, 20, 10
pay 60 and you can use anyone of them at a time.
Pay 120 and you can use any 2 of them at a time or the 60, 40 and 20 (For example) though you wont be able to activate them at the same time without another modifier such as Link, Reduced time or Reflexive.

[dataweaver]

Originally Posted by Refplace

I always thought of it as a pool myself.
Say you have abilities costing 60, 60, 40, 20, 10
pay 60 and you can use anyone of them at a time.
Pay 120 and you can use any 2 of them at a time or the 60, 40 and 20 (For example) though you wont be able to activate them at the same time without another modifier such as Link, Reduced time or Reflexive.

What if I only pay 60 and I want to use the 40 and 20 or the 40 and 10 or the 20 and 10? Each of those combinations cost 60 or less. Not possible under the current rules; but how much more would it cost to make it possible?