Impulse Buys as a Magic System

[dataweaver]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Not so. You can spend DP individually or in bulk lots – there's no requirement at all to use all your DP at once.

I wasn't assuming otherwise. My point had to do with the fact that you only recover one Destiny Point per session; so you can't use more than one per session without draining your pool of Destiny Points; and once it's drained, you're either operating at one DP per session or you're waiting multiple sessions to get them back — for an average that approaches one per session the longer the campaign lasts. Again, improving the recovery rate helps with that; but at 10 points per +1 recovery rate, and the recovery rate being capped by your Destiny, you're not going to be using more than a handful of DPs per session no matter what.

Originally Posted by Kromm

If you have enough DP, you could use this magic once per DP, as long as you were happy with modest effects. If you reread my suggestion, you'll see "The GM who desires more powerful heroes can extend Destiny past the 15-point level."

I noticed that. But as I mentioned above, my issue has less to do with how many DPs you start out with and more to do with how many you can sustain — and additional levels of Destiny do nothing for sustainability by themselves.

Originally Posted by Kromm

But I think you underestimate the impact of huge FP expenditures, too. That hero with 7 DP also has access to +175 FP all at once. Yes, it could take seven game sessions to recover from . . . but for some players, being able to cast one spell that big is worth the trouble.

I'm not saying that big IP expenditures aren't worthwhile; they certainly can be. But that's what I'd use reserved character points or sacrifices for: large miracles that aren't likely to happen more than a handful of times in a year of gameplay. Destiny Points are better used for smaller but more frequent miracles (“more frequent” being a relative term).

[wellspring]

Originally Posted by Kromm

I think it would be quite workable!

Originally Posted by Kromm

call this something cool like "Renewal," "Flux," or "Wellspring."

Did someone say Wellspring?

I've actually been working on something exactly like this, on and off, ever since Power Ups introduced Impulse Points in the first place.

My goal was to replicate the magic that makes up the bulk of LotR: subtle and hard to quantify, but still powerful. A little like what Larry Niven jokingly called the ultimate psychic power: Author Control.

The idea is that someone who uses the deep magic is sensitive to the strands of Fate and can perceive things far away, or in the past or future (Oracle). They can spend IP on immediate things like buying success, or even serendipitous plot changes to reflect the character's precog helping them prepare for eventualities the player didn't anticipate. Finally, they can spend IP to create short-term mini-Destinies for themselves or others, like Saruman's powers impeding Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli when they were chasing the Uruk-hai. They're points that are basically handed to the GM to spend to bring some event about. When the event happens (or doesn't, or the character withdraws the effect), the character's points can start regenerating.

It's still a work in progress. The main problem is that the powers are subtle and off camera, which means that for the player, the experience is spending points and then sitting around waiting.