Are Powers Overpriced?

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

At TL5+ Significant Gear only becomes 'too' expensive if you are using it to purchase large ticket items (spaceships, warships, etc).

At any TL Sig Gear is too expensive* if you're not using AtE's Sig Gear rules. This is why I switched to AtE's Sig Gear rule.


* Either big ticket items or loads of little ticket items. Granted even AtE's Sig Gear get's expensive if you go the "loads of gear route".

[Anthony]

The problem with sig gear is that it doesn't interact with your wealth level. Make it interact with wealth level and it's never going to be a problem and is likely too cheap.

[dataweaver]

The reason I pointed to the Signature Great cost as guidance for how much an ability that echoes common technology should cost is because that's how much someone would have to pay for the gear (if he wants it with the sort of plot protection that an ability would have); if the ability costs significantly more than that, you haven't fixed the problem. So while I like the “1/5 cost if it duplicates technology” thing intellectually, I don't think it resolves the problem quite as beauty l neatly as just using the Significant Gear cost if it's cheaper.

Also, the drawback to using the AtE version of Signature Gear is that it doesn't replace the monetary cost the way the standard version does: it would only work is you also charged cash for the comparable ability.

[dataweaver]

Making Signature Gear interact with Wealth would probably destroy its utility: it's useful precisely because it doesn't interact with Wealth, and thus even someone who's otherwise Dead Broke can use it — and conversely, even someone who's Filthy Rich doesn't get more in the way of Signature Gear than anyone else.

The only interaction with Wealth I'd permit would be to allow someone who's lost his Signature Gear to expedite its recovery by spending cash to replace it — at a discount of some sort, either right away or in the form of a subsequent reimbursement.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

Making Signature Gear interact with Wealth would probably destroy its utility:

50% of base starting wealth for 1 point is useful no matter your wealth level.

Originally Posted by dataweaver

it's useful precisely because it doesn't interact with Wealth, and thus even someone who's otherwise Dead Broke can use it

Taking Dead Broke plus Signature Gear is hideously abusive. It shouldn't work, at least without something like a -50% limitation on your wealth level.

[dataweaver]

Maybe it's just a house rule that I've had in place for so long that I'm confusing it with the actual rules; but in my games, the flip side of Signature Gear's plot protection is that you can't trade it in for money — at least, not for long. First off, taking something as Signature Gear is an indication that the player has no intention of selling it; so at the very least, doing so should involve some serious roleplaying to explain exactly what is so important for the character to part with his Signature Gear. And if he was forced to sell it under duress, that's equivalent to losing it, even if he was compensated with a fair cash value equivalent; meaning that the loss is temporary — and so is the compensation.

With that in play, the fact that 1 point of Signature Gear is worth 50% of the campaign's starting wealth is largely irrelevant; and letting someone who's Dead Broke have a bit of gear that he refuses to part with despite the desperate financial straits he's in not only isn't going to break anything; it's a potential story hook.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

Maybe it's just a house rule that I've had in place for so long that I'm confusing it with the actual rules; but in my games, the flip side of Signature Gear's plot protection is that you can't trade it in for money

It doesn't matter. Getting [-23] points for 'normal starting gear (which has plot protection), but no income' is a pure point crock in a lot of games.

[dataweaver]

Two points:

1. In my games, each Signature Gear advantage on your sheet gets you one piece of gear, worth up to ½ starting wealth per point. Note that the gear doesn't even have to be useful; a locket that's the only possession you have left from your long-lost father, or a fedora that somehow always comes back to you, is every bit as much Signature Gear as the Magnum Pistol that you always seem to have at your side.

2. More importantly, Dead Broke means that you're homeless and jobless, not knowing where you'll sleep tonight or where your next meal is coming from. And by taking the Dead Broke disadvantage, the player is tacitly agreeing to this being a recurring problem his character will have to deal with in the course of the game. If he's not willing to put up with that hassle, or the GM isn't willing to incorporate these issues into the game, then the GM should either reduce the value of Dead Broke or forbid it entirely. Having one or two pieces of Signature Hear isn't going to change that.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

Making Signature Gear interact with Wealth would probably destroy its utility: it's useful precisely because it doesn't interact with Wealth, and thus even someone who's otherwise Dead Broke can use it — and conversely, even someone who's Filthy Rich doesn't get more in the way of Signature Gear than anyone else.

The only interaction with Wealth I'd permit would be to allow someone who's lost his Signature Gear to expedite its recovery by spending cash to replace it — at a discount of some sort, either right away or in the form of a subsequent reimbursement.

There's the Signature Assets enhancement for Wealth that allows covering part or all of your starting gear (bought with starting cash that is provided by Wealth) with signature protection. That being said . . .

Originally Posted by Anthony

50% of base starting wealth for 1 point is useful no matter your wealth level.

Taking Dead Broke plus Signature Gear is hideously abusive. It shouldn't work, at least without something like a -50% limitation on your wealth level.

Starting cash isn't the main purpose of Wealth:

Originally Posted by Kromm

[ . . . ]
These considerations are meant to have social implications in the game world: A TL8 person who chooses to be Poor [-15] starts with $4,000 and not $20,000, and has $3,200 and not $16,000 in assets, which are kept up with a cost of living consistent with that for Status -2 (p. B517), meaning "a room in a flophouse or shelter . . . or a patch of sidewalk" (p. B266). In short, he's a homeless itinerant or a drifter, and here's the important part: By getting 15 points for Poor, he's accepting and locking in his legal status as "homeless itinerant." It isn't just money that's affected, but others' perceptions of him. If a cop catches him flashing gift goods from rich party members, sees him entering a residence provided by said allies, etc., the cop will intervene. Such incidents should provide approximately -15 points of inconvenience.

There's also the bit about how much gear you start with, but that's actually a secondary effect of Wealth. The primary effects concern your credit rating, social network, relationship with bankers and taxmen, and so on, and the follow-on effects on your social freedoms and mobility. Wealth represents these things first of all. If the GM has no intention of enforcing the ramifications, then low Wealth isn't a valid disadvantage, any more than low Appearance would be valid in a campaign where all the PCs teleoperate giant battlemechs via FTL radio and never appear in the flesh.

[dataweaver]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

There's the Signature Assets enhancement for Wealth that allows covering part or all of your starting gear (bought with starting cash that is provided by Wealth) with signature protection.

Never heard of it. Where can I find it?