Reversing Skill Rolls

[kirbwarrior]

A player of mine wants to make a character built around chaos. One power he came up with is everyone within an area of him has to rolls their skill level or higher to succeed. I could probably find a way to handwaive it with Affliction, but it sounds like it will also affect the character in question.

Is there a way for this to work? Or is it just too plainly good?

[Anaraxes]

Ridiculous Luck, Area Effect (16 yards, +200%), Affects Others (8 targets, +400%) comes in at 360 points. It's only usable once every ten minutes (nowhere near every combat round, unless you opt for wall-clock time and play slowly). Luck doesn't really have the right effects, but the price should get you into the ballpark.

It doesn't really matter if the character is affected by the power because the player knows how it works. Presumably, when the ability is on, he'll deliberately try difficult and stupid things to accumulate as much of a penalty as possible to improve his chances. On the bright side, this will be wacky and chaotic-seeming (at least the first couple of times, until the players all know what's going on). The occasional observant or intuitive NPC might figure it out once in a while. But there's no real Limitation there.

[Celjabba]

Seem massively overpowered for me, but ... could be interesting/fun.

No idea right now for the build/cost, I would need to be awake to think about it :)

But if you want to avoid ridiculous behavior, make circumstances based bonus/penalties work as bonus/penalties no matter the way you roll. ie reverse them under chaos influence.
Or else "I walk on my hands and shoot him in the head using my feet. skill 18-15, success on 3+" (and the nasty reverse "you try to walk in a straight line. DX at +10 for ultra-routine task. Failed by 10+, crit fail, you break a leg")

Expect lot of improvised weapons and default use :)

[Maz]

I don't think you can really build this. And I don't think you should, for the reasons the others mention.
A fundamental problem here is that he is not setting out to make a "chaos power" he is setting out for a mechanical effect.

Ask the player what exactly he imagine the power to do? If the point is that it "switch peoples skills, so they become good at what they are bad at an reverse". Then it can be build differently than changing the core mechanics of the system. (For instance giving a bonus to those with low base-skill and a penalty to those with high base-skill).

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Ridiculous Luck, Area Effect (16 yards, +200%), Affects Others (8 targets, +400%) comes in at 360 points. It's only usable once every ten minutes (nowhere near every combat round, unless you opt for wall-clock time and play slowly). Luck doesn't really have the right effects, but the price should get you into the ballpark.

Super Luck 11-14 (I've seen Kromm say 11 is enough, my math works out to 14) is enough to dictate all your rolls. With enhancements, it can affect any roll. Then I could just slap on "Always On" and "Can only use to reverse rolls". Considering how limited that is, I could see it (at least with Multiplicative Modifiers) being under 1000pts.

Originally Posted by Maz

If the point is that it "switch peoples skills, so they become good at what they are bad at an reverse". Then it can be build differently than changing the core mechanics of the system. (For instance giving a bonus to those with low base-skill and a penalty to those with high base-skill).

That seems close enough to what he'd want. Affecting TDMs does sound pretty absurd. If the base is 10, how much would it be to give everyone from +13 (skill 3) to -27 (skill 30)? I'm not quite certain where I'd start. I'm not even sure if 3 would be the minimum, a character with IQ7 has a Thaumotology default of 0.

[Latro]

How about 2 linked afflictions. One effects those with relative skill higher than attribute and lowers it to same level below. Other raises skills with relative skill lower than attribute. Price based on campaign skill cap or likely cap.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Maz

I don't think you can really build this. And I don't think you should, for the reasons the others mention.

I forgot to reply to this part. I do agree, especially on the more extreme levels (I didn't consider TDMs when he first brought it up, for instance).

Originally Posted by Latro

How about 2 linked afflictions. One effects those with relative skill higher than attribute and lowers it to same level below. Other raises skills with relative skill lower than attribute. Price based on campaign skill cap or likely cap.

Would it have to be linked? I think you could just put both on the same affliction, the individual parts already wouldn't affect the same person. Would Attribute Bonus/Penalty be the best way of doing it (with a sliding limitation on each level so it would bring it to the opposing number)? I didn't consider specifically the difference from attribute, that might make it more fun and let high value character still overall be better by letting attributes keep their value.

[AlexanderHowl]

A more plausible version would be a form of linked Area Effect Cosmic Blessing and Cursing through Visualization that gives a variable result based on the probability of success. For example, it would give someone with an effective skill of 4 or less a +10 bonus and someone with a effective skill of 14 or higher a -10 penalty. Basically, an average person with 10 or 11 would be immune while everyone else would suffer.