Create (Food)?

[PK]

Originally Posted by SCAR

Divine Favor has the 'Feed the Masses' Learned Prayer, which is Create Food/Drink, priced at [20] Points per Level, with a few modifiers, and the Feature: Restriction against using this for convenience or personal gain replaces the need for a creation pool.

This is correct, though I'd strongly encourage anyone using this to first read the description of the ability -- it's very harsh about what "convenience or personal gain" means. You can't even use it to replace buying rations in town.

The reason for the Creation Pool is to offset the problem that most Create spells cause: the potential for infinite wealth. No matter how many FP you have to pay for the privilege, any permanent creation effect can lead to the problem of: "Okay, I make $10 worth of gold. Now I rest for a while. Repeat. I spend a month doing this and I'm a millionaire." Charging character points for value is what makes that (nearly) impossible to abuse.

So really, as long as you have an alternative way to avoid that problem -- or if you don't see it as a problem to begin with -- you can dispense with the Creation Pool. Divine Favor's "Feed the Masses" ability avoids it with a fierce restriction on how it can be used. Similarly, I've had a player buy Multimillionaire 1 and explain that her PC's "job" is using Create Minerals to bolster their wealth every once in a while. (In other words, we embraced the wealth building as part of her character concept.)

[David Johnston2]

Although I have been toying with an approach where you can "heal back" creation points over time (very slowly) as a compromise.

[Culture20]

Originally Posted by PK

The reason for the Creation Pool is to offset the problem that most Create spells cause: the potential for infinite wealth. No matter how many FP you have to pay for the privilege, any permanent creation effect can lead to the problem of: "Okay, I make $10 worth of gold. Now I rest for a while. Repeat. I spend a month doing this and I'm a millionaire." Charging character points for value is what makes that (nearly) impossible to abuse.

Which is only really a problem if the stuff created is valuable or is created in amounts that can be bulk-sold. "Create a few sandwiches" or even "create a feast" aren't things that would seriously unbalance an economy if it takes more fatigue or prep time than actually preparing the food, or the fatigue it costs to dig post holes for the same amount of money.

If the wealth is really an issue, you could have Signature Gear: one million Meals Ready to Eat, and Payload( +50% Cosmic (extradimensional), -X% Only MREs). Then you "summon" the MREs

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Culture20

Which is only really a problem if the stuff created is valuable or is created in amounts that can be bulk-sold. "Create a few sandwiches" or even "create a feast" aren't things that would seriously unbalance an economy if it takes more fatigue or prep time than actually preparing the food, or the fatigue it costs to dig post holes for the same amount of money.

If the wealth is really an issue, you could have Signature Gear: one million Meals Ready to Eat, and Payload( +50% Cosmic (extradimensional), -X% Only MREs). Then you "summon" the MREs

Actually, if you want to go that way, there is a rule for Signature Gear (Consumable) in GURPS Supers. You don't need to buy some vast quantity then; you just buy as much as you expect to need on an adventure, and at the start of each session it regenerates. It was designed for things like the Lone Ranger's silver bullets. . . .

I might make you take Cosmic to have it regenerate miraculously just when you need it, though. But still cheaper.

Bill Stoddard

[Flyndaran]

As much as I love clear internally consistent not-easily-open-to-abuse rules, this all seems like solving a problem that shouldn't exist in most games anyway.

Rule 0 may be that the GM is always right. But I think rule -1 should be, "Don't be a dick and ruin the fun."

Genres in which such powers exist almost always come with all sorts of other conventions that can't easily be put into rules.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Kenneth Latrans

Except that Alternate Form replaces your current racial template rather than adding to it, so it would change whatever the image was into a human with the Feature in question.

Not necessarily. It is legal to have Affliction: Alternate Form add the template and not replace it (and true for Alternate Form itself). I don't know what book it is in, but I've also seen it all over the boards (and I'm not sure how else you would make such an ability).