01-29-2014, 02:17 AM | #1 |
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Join Date: Aug 2004
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Last Gasp and Psi
The Last Gasp (Pyramid #3/44: Alternate GURPS II p. 4-13) suggests 1 FP=10 AP for supernatural abilities. GURPS Psionic Powers gives costs of 1-2 FP for repeated attempts, extra effort, and techniques. 10-20 AP seems too high (especially 20 for techniques). I'm thinking that 4 AP for repeated attempts and 10 AP for techniques and extra effort is a better ratio. Anybody else solve this problem already, or have any good ideas?
Last edited by sir_pudding; 01-29-2014 at 02:41 AM. |
01-29-2014, 02:35 AM | #2 | |
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Eindhoven, the Netherlands
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Re: Last Gasp and Psi
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I'd recommend adjusting the FP cost rather than the AP cost, since they translate back and forth. If you feel repeated attempts are too costly, remove the fatigue cost. If you feel techniques are too costly, lower them to 1 fatigue. The point of Last Gasp isn't really the action points, it's that fatigue becomes very dear. Even if the player is outside of combat and thus not using action points, spending 3 fatigue on something will mean it'll be hours and hours before he has those back. That should be your prime concern.
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01-29-2014, 02:45 AM | #3 | ||
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Re: Last Gasp and Psi
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So maybe reduce the cost of repeated attempts to 0 FP (4 AP) and the cost of Techniques and Extra Effort to 1 FP (10 AP)? |
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01-29-2014, 02:59 AM | #4 | |
Join Date: Dec 2006
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Re: Last Gasp and Psi
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Thus, 15 becomes weird, because in situations where AP don't matter, would you spend 1 or 2 fatigue? Or are you going to allow them to use AP and then rest for a few seconds of "non-combat time." And if you're going to make "fatigue" that cheap, why are you using Last Gasp at all? Why not just return back to 1 fatigue per 15 minutes? If the answer to that last question is "Because I want sleep and battle to be utterly exhausting, but I don't like the idea of psi being utterly exhausting," then why not a psi-focused energy reserve that recovers 1 point every 15 minutes, and if they run out of that, they can spend out of fatigue. Use of psi still counts as an action, and thus costs 1 AP like any other action.
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01-29-2014, 03:08 AM | #5 | ||
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Re: Last Gasp and Psi
Isn't that 10 minutes?
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01-29-2014, 03:21 AM | #6 |
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Oregon
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Re: Last Gasp and Psi
I think one point to keep in mind is that The Last Gasp introduces far harsher recovery times on any FP expended; it's equivalent to adding a Hazard like Missed Sleep to all FP loss. With that in mind, I think it's absolutely appropriate to lower the FP costs for Extra Effort and similar actions, and increase the discount for the Costs FP limitation. In many cases Extra Effort might still be rounded up to 1 FP, but an AP cost of less than 10 would still make sense.
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01-29-2014, 03:26 AM | #7 |
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Eindhoven, the Netherlands
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Re: Last Gasp and Psi
You can grant free levels of energy reserve, and require players to purchase any additional that they want. RPM does something similar.
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01-29-2014, 03:56 AM | #8 |
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Re: Last Gasp and Psi
I think what I want is for psi to be exhausting but not prohibitively so.
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01-29-2014, 05:35 AM | #9 | |
Join Date: Dec 2006
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Re: Last Gasp and Psi
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It sounds to me like you want fractional fatigue, like a technique costs "half" a fatigue. But AP aren't your solution for that.
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01-29-2014, 05:41 AM | #10 | ||||
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Re: Last Gasp and Psi
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