Pyramid #3/102: Epic

[dataweaver]

Well, yeah, it has a game effect; it potentially eats up all of your downtime. I'm arguing that that isn't necessarily a zero-point feature thing.

As I see it, benefitting from the Talent is part of what you spent points on the Talent for, which is why the corresponding (and intrinsic) part of the Power Mod is trivial, equivalent to a zero-point feature. The effects of the mod itself are entirely negative, adding nuisance without adding any benefit.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

Well, yeah, it has a game effect; it potentially eats up all of your downtime. I'm arguing that that isn't necessarily a zero-point feature thing.

As I see it, benefitting from the Talent is part of what you spent points on the Talent for, which is why the corresponding (and intrinsic) part of the Power Mod is trivial, equivalent to a zero-point feature. The effects of the mod itself are entirely negative, adding nuisance without adding any benefit.

I am actually leaning towards Dataweaver here.
Compared to Disciplines of Faith or the Chi power modifier this seems more severe if you have more than a few abilities.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Refplace

I am actually leaning towards Dataweaver here.
Compared to Disciplines of Faith or the Chi power modifier this seems more severe if you have more than a few abilities.

° The Chi power modifier normally requires a few hours each day of meditation and exercise. It names Monasticism and Mysticism. The former requires at least 75% of your time sequestered away from the world, and denies above-average Wealth or any Status not gained from Religious Rank. The latter requires you to spend most of your time meditating, chanting, and so on, and gives you a -2 reaction roll. Even if we go with just "a few hours a day" and call that 4 hours, that's 20-28 hours a week, which would cover 14 abilities, or 28 if you have teachers. I'm calling Trained less severe for most people.

° The Chi power modifier says that if you don't do this, your power fails you the first time you call upon it under stress. I think that's more severe than "gradually over the course of the following week," as Trained provides.

° The time to rebalance is 1d days for Chi, 1 week for Trained. That's a bit harsher for Trained.

° Until you've rebalanced, the Chi power modifier has you suffering from an irritating condition. Trained does not; you just don't have the power. I'm calling that less severe for Trained.

Basically, the primary effect of Chi is that you spend about three-quarters of your time meditating and exercising, and you have social inconveniences. That's -10%. Trained is +0%, and its primary effect is that you work maybe half time on studying and exercising, with no social inconveniences worth points. In both cases the maintenance time will mostly be handwaved, as it is in the source material: We don't see James Bond at the pistol range, or Kwai-chang Caine doing kung fu exercises, and we only rarely see Clark Savage Jr. doing his daily regimen of physical and mental exercises. But I think the inconvenience of Chi is enough greater to justify a percentage difference.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Even if we go with just "a few hours a day" and call that 4 hours, that's 20-28 hours a week, which would cover 14 abilities, or 28 if you have teachers. I'm calling Trained less severe for most people.

OK, you convinced me. A telling point is its per ability, not per point in abilities which is actually how I first read it.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

And like I said, “has the potential to eat up all of your free time” doesn't sound like a trivial limitation to me. Those maintenance hours add up.

It's the cybernetic implant problem all over again. One of the few sci-fi games I ran features cybernetics and man was I excited to use them. Not a single player took them. Why? Because spending all that time keeping them functioning wasn't worth it from a gamist perspective. It was simply better to just get a battlesuit or an exoskeleton to enhance physical capabilities.

This is why Disciplines of Faith (Chi Rituals) [-10] from Dungeon Fantasy (p. 21) would be superior in this case - you simply spend 1d hours a day keeping your abilities honed. I'd say it's worth -5 just for that aspect if you ignore the need for double cost of food and supplies. It keeps "I need to train or lose my abilities" without the issue of "I have 20 powers so I need a teacher to study under for 20 hours a week or spend 40 hours on my own. or loss my powers." What about the cost of the teacher? Is that included in the power modifier? What if you're Batman - how do you find a teacher better than you? That means you have to dump X hours every week from patrolling Gotham to stay swol. Looking at the modifier, it actually kind of reads like the Chi Rituals Disciplines of Faith to me:

Many heroes have abilities that come from good heredity, improved nutrition, intensive training, and/or superior education.

That sounds to me like a non-flashy version of Chi powers - like a step down from Wuxia.

Further, what Powers can it be applied to? There aren't many I can think of. Maybe Body Alteration if you avoid some of the flashier traits. This may have been better as a Power Talent and a Power Modifier.

I'm not saying it's a bad power modifier - and it's a SMALL section. So y'all should take that into account. It's hard to fit those sort of answers in when you have a word count limit.

Originally Posted by dataweaver

Meanwhile, the issue's main attraction: Crafting Imbuements. I bought the issue on the strength of this article alone; and I was not disappointed.

:-) Good.

Originally Posted by dataweaver

That said, there's room for expansion: while I get that it's about creating permanent items, it shouldn't take much to let you “jury rig”. And then there's the Frankenstein option, where you treat medical skills as craft skills.

I have a whole other "life crafting" article in the Vault. Since this one has done so well I'm probably going to pull that out of the Vault and get it pretty and send it in.


Dungeon Fantasy Goes to War (by Matt Riggsby): Matt presents excellent material as always. Bonus points for calling out Elric. Treating ally groups as elements is a stroke of genius IMHO, you could easily add a modifier so they can only be used when appropriate or even 1/5 the cost. "Yeah, I have an army ready to go, but we need to find the Eye of Al'co'rasta first. Then we can take on the Lich King." Seeing some giants for DF is also pretty awesome. Overall, both col and useful.

The Harvest - Invasion Earth (by David L. Pulver): ...X-Com? Is that you? I particularly like the Communion and it's basically a marriage of convenience between people who actively hate and depend on one another. That's got a lot of dramatic potential. I really like the superscience/variant TL spaceships in the back. that's something we've needed more examples of for a while now. Be very useful for Mars Attacks to. Overall, very cool - but unlikely to see use from me.

Götterdämmerung (by William H. Stoddard): I don't use Infinite Worlds much, but I do like the Ideal power modifier and Trained has potential. A lot of rehash here from previous works (which isn't an issue, having it all collected in one place can be useful and I've done the same in the past). The idea of giving racial abilities a power modifier via Invented is intriguing. You could easily do this with wet- or hardware beings.

Many Lives, One Adventure (by J. Edward Tremlett): This was instantly and immediately useful to me since my new campaign starting up has a concept called a "phoenix soul" that effectively reincarnates like this. This was well-written, thought-provoking, and full of little niggly bits (as most of J's work is).

The Sense of Ahhh (by Steven Marsh): As I said upthread, this article was beautiful. Steven always has this way of taking a complicated concept or invisible pillar of gaming and simplifying or shining a light on it. This is no exception. I've read this about three times now and I'm still finding useful bits. One particular one I want to call out:

Those who have been touched by the Psychic Singularity will only dream of themselves in the third person for the rest of their lives.

24 words. Just 24 words and Steven suggested an entire campaign filled with mysteries begging to be solved. When I grow up I want to write like that.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Refplace

OK, you convinced me. A telling point is its per ability, not per point in abilities which is actually how I first read it.

The devil's always in the details with these things; I've found my intuition falsified more than once by working out the math, or having someone else do it. I hadn't actually done it till you and dataweaver raised the question, so thanks!

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

Further, what Powers can it be applied to? There aren't many I can think of. Maybe Body Alteration if you avoid some of the flashier traits. This may have been better as a Power Talent and a Power Modifier.

I've come up with five powers and 24 abilities. I'll try to fit in designing a sample Trained character sometime in the next few days.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I've come up with five powers and 24 abilities. I'll try to fit in designing a sample Trained character sometime in the next few days.

Sounds like a plan.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

Treating ally groups as elements is a stroke of genius IMHO

The key here is that this is something you can do in DF but not generally in GURPS. Mass Combat is excellent at defining what kind of people various troop types are, but there's an issue doing this sort of thing when you get to troop quality. There's no pan-GURPS rating of "average," "good," and so on. But by being unabashedly PC-centric, DF sets a pretty good point level for heroes, and Peter's outstanding and thoughtful work in DF15 further creates models for different levels of capabilities. Low-point henchmen make sense as standard troops, higher-point ones as better troops. Huzzah, DF!

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

Steven always has this way of taking a complicated concept or invisible pillar of gaming and simplifying or shining a light on it.

He does, doesn't he? That's why he gets those mad game magazine editor dollas.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

The key here is that this is something you can do in DF but not generally in GURPS. Mass Combat is excellent at defining what kind of people various troop types are, but there's an issue doing this sort of thing when you get to troop quality. There's no pan-GURPS rating of "average," "good," and so on.

You know what though... there should be. HMMMMMMmmmm.

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

But by being unabashedly PC-centric, DF sets a pretty good point level for heroes, and Peter's outstanding and thoughtful work in DF15 further creates models for different levels of capabilities. Low-point henchmen make sense as standard troops, higher-point ones as better troops. Huzzah, DF!

Huzzah, indeed! DF saves the day. All the days. ALL OF THEM.

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

He does, doesn't he? That's why he gets those mad game magazine editor dollas.

He really does. I'm not pandering or being sarcastic. I hope my level of skill one day reaches the point where I can synthesize an advanced or arcane topic into one that is simple to understand, but still complex. Douglas Cole does this very well too. It's a skill worthy of emulation in either case.