[Powers] Stacking Power Talents

[scc]

OK is it reasonable/a good idea to in cases where it makes sense for the bonuses from Power Talents to stack? The reason I'm asking is that the idea for Racial Power sets that would be built off of the Biological Power Source in Powers for inclusion in a DF game and under those circumstances and can easily see them overlapping with the Martial Artist's Chi Mastery. Of course this likely means that the given powers suffers under the PM of both Power Sources

[whswhs]

I don't think you can do that. Each ability is an ability of one power, has that power's modifier, and benefits from the talent for that power. If you have, say, the ability to enhance your reflexes through the secretion of some hormone or neurotransmitter, at the cost of 1 FP/minute, that's an ability of one of your bio-enhancement powers, not of your chi powers.

[Phantasm]

How exactly are you defining the Power?

Of the source modifiers (Psionic, Chi, Biological, Elemental, etc.), only Elemental stacks with others, and then it's generally only stacking with Super (and occasionally Mutant or Psionic, depending on whether those are "subsets" of or just replacing Super in the campaign). For example, a Pyrokinesis Power could have both a Super (or Psionic) and an Elemental: Fire source, with a -20% power modifier. Several Powers can share a source and still be distinct (e.g. Telepathy, Psychokinesis, ESP, etc. all being Psionic).

The Power Talent is then defined for the Power. For example, the Telepathy and Psychokinesis Powers have distinct Power Talents (Telepathy Talent and Psychokinesis Talent, respectively). It's entirely possible to have a 10 points per level Psionic Talent - IIRC, Chinese Elemental Powers used a similar framework - where the Psionic Talent and the Telepathy Talent would stack, and the Psionic Talent and Psychokinesis Talent would stack, but Telepathy Talent and ESP Talent would not. A GM in that case is well within his rights to say, "Okay, they stack, but you cannot get more than a +4 or +6 from stacking Talents."

The latter point is key: the GM should set the limit and keep an eye on things to prevent abuse.

It's sometimes cheaper in the long run to get a 10-point Source Talent than three or four 5-point Power Talents that draw from the same power source. However, stacking source modifiers is explicitly a no-no in Powers, save Elemental with Super/Mutant/Psionic.

Clear as mud?

[Culture20]

Originally Posted by tbrock1031

stacking source modifiers is explicitly a no-no in Powers, save Elemental with Super/Mutant/Psionic.

I usually use Rule 0 to allow this in my supers campaigns. But the players get reminded that if their "mutant psionic fire projection" power is dampened with any one of anti-mutant tech (or anti-super), magical anti-psi field, or the Atlantic Ocean, they're out of luck.

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by Culture20

I usually use Rule 0 to allow this in my supers campaigns. But the players get reminded that if their "mutant psionic fire projection" power is dampened with any one of anti-mutant tech (or anti-super), magical anti-psi field, or the Atlantic Ocean, they're out of luck.

To be fair, stacking Elemental with a number of other power sources is quite appropriate in a lot of source material.

But the OP is considering stacking Biological and Chi, where Powers says "only Elemental stacks, and then only with Super" (I permit it to stack with Psionic as Powers says "Psionic may be a subset of Super", and with Mutant from Supers which says "Mutant is often a flavor of Super"). Elemental seems to be the exception to the no-stacking rule; the intent in Powers seems to be "no stacking Biological and Chi".

[PK]

No, an ability can only belong to one power. Period. So for each of your martial artist's abilities, it either belongs to his racial power or it belongs to Chi Mastery, never both.

If he wanted to have, let's say, Danger Sense that was both part of his Chi Mastery and part of his racial power, he'd have to buy it twice, with the second copy at 1/5 cost. This is covered explicitly in Multiple Copies of the Same Advantage (Powers, p. 12).

(The discussion about which sources can stack is a red herring. It doesn't matter if a power has one, two, or seven sources at once; the rule that matters here is that a given ability can only belong to a single power, and can thus only benefit from a single power Talent.)

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by PK

No, an ability can only belong to one power. Period. So for each of your martial artist's abilities, it either belongs to his racial power or it belongs to Chi Mastery, never both.

If he wanted to have, let's say, Danger Sense that was both part of his Chi Mastery and part of his racial power, he'd have to buy it twice, with the second copy at 1/5 cost. This is covered explicitly in Multiple Copies of the Same Advantage (Powers, p. 12).

What if said hypothetical character has a Danger Sense that works via blending his chi mastery with a particular part of his biology? Yes, a pretty clunky example but I didn't want to risk a second one to make it more confusing. Even now I'd probably better clarify: this hypothetical character would not have a Chi Mastery based Danger Sense and a Biological based one from his race as part of a character concept. If something screws up his chi or his biology (as opposed to both), this character effectively has no Danger Sense.

I'm not worried about stacking talents so much as some less contrived examples of characters I've conceived that would stack power modifiers because it matched their background. In "kitchen sink" supers settings, this seems pretty common (like the Marvel Universe), where you might get a mutant with the mutant power to manipulate mystical energies. No mystical energies meant nothing to manipulate, a power dampening field meant even if there were mystical energies, said mutant couldn't manipulate them.

If someone did have two Talents for two separate power sources, but then wanted some powers that were a blend of the power sources, I think I might want them to pay for Link on the Talents to get any bonus for the ability that is explicitly such a blend.

[PK]

Originally Posted by Otaku

What if said hypothetical character has a Danger Sense that works via blending his chi mastery with a particular part of his biology?

Decide which power it belongs to for game purposes.

If something screws up his chi or his biology (as opposed to both), this character effectively has no Danger Sense.

Then it sounds like he doesn't have two powers; he just has Chi Mastery, which happens to be both chi-based and biological-based. So his PM would be -20% . . . but it's still just one power.

[NineDaysDead]

Originally Posted by PK

(The discussion about which sources can stack is a red herring. It doesn't matter if a power has one, two, or seven sources at once; the rule that matters here is that a given ability can only belong to a single power, and can thus only benefit from a single power Talent.)

Even if a given ability can only belong to a single power, why does that mean it can only benefit from a single power Talent? You could have something like a broad talent for Psionics at 10 or 15 points per level and then a specialized talent for Telepathy at 5 points per level, both would stack when using Telepathy, but you wouldn't get the bonus from the Telepathy talent when using telekinisis.

[scc]

Originally Posted by PK

No, an ability can only belong to one power. Period. So for each of your martial artist's abilities, it either belongs to his racial power or it belongs to Chi Mastery, never both.

If he wanted to have, let's say, Danger Sense that was both part of his Chi Mastery and part of his racial power, he'd have to buy it twice, with the second copy at 1/5 cost. This is covered explicitly in Multiple Copies of the Same Advantage (Powers, p. 12).

(The discussion about which sources can stack is a red herring. It doesn't matter if a power has one, two, or seven sources at once; the rule that matters here is that a given ability can only belong to a single power, and can thus only benefit from a single power Talent.)

I sort of figured that if both PM's applied it would actually be a single composite power modifier, but I'm talking about a set of VERY narrow edge cases. Part of what inspired me to ask is the thought that some of the Chi Skills would logically ALSO get a bonus from something like Werewolf training, Body Control is the biggy, but Autohypnosis can easily apply.