Super Strength Alternative?

[naloth]

Originally Posted by Infornific

ST doesn't really work one the same scale as Afflictions or mind control. Yes, you can mind control the crew of a tank (or a Death Star) but the same thing applies to Influence skills. I'd also note that you can but Immunity to Psionics for a mere 30 points. You could also just as easily argue that a mind controller isn't that powerful because anyone could just sneak up and bash him.

ST is paid for with the same points as Mind Control, so uses the same accounting system. As for "value", you can weigh the benefits of what you get a number of ways, but really there's not question that going from 50->51 isn't worth the same as going from 10->11. Over ST40ish you're paying 100 points for +1d damage (base, it might be worth as much as 1d+2!) compared to IA's cost of 4-10 per die. You're not getting much lift capacity and it's unlikely that you'll be able to change your encumbrance level.

I personally don't care for KYOS because to make it work properly you need to rework damage and damage resistance to reflect that you can meaningfully have negative ST among other problems. You'll wind up with something like the damage system from the Fudge rpg which isn't wrong but is pretty far afield.

Negative ST has *never* come up in 5 years, and never has any reason to. Yes, it's you could possibly allow and use such a value, but why even concern yourself with it? It's like a mythical 1000 point disadvantage - sure it's legal, but you probably wouldn't ever assess it.

As for reworking damage and DR, I've found you only need to do so on equipment. Advantages balance fairly well as is.

You do need to keep in mind that everything is logarithmic and adjust stacking and cover accordingly, but I can generally explain that to even new players with a crib sheet of 5 examples that I keep handy.