Quick Fix For Traditional Magic System

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Populations do not buy things with character points. Players buy things with character points when building PCs, and that's pretty much it for legitimate use.

Point ranges given for ordinary or extraordinary people are descriptive, not prescriptive. Populations have the traits what the setting says they do, not what you can buy for 50 points.

Not mutually exclusive.

Populations do indeed have the traits that the setting indicates they have... however if you're not keeping track for them at all while you are for the PCs? I've always used the rule "The GM is always right... when he's playing by himself". The GM can set up a game where every Magery 3 with IQ 14 is the societal norm and if you don't know at least a dozen spells you're viewed as a burden to society. If he doesn't recognize this by either counting the cost and adjusting how the game world works accordingly, whether that means giving the players all that in addition to their regular starting point totals or making the fact they do have to pay for all of that plus anything else they want a part of the "adventure"... don't think that works.

If you start handing out expensive Advantages to supposedly "average" PCs like they were Pez, that doesn't work. There are plenty of times when you can get away with assigning an NPC the traits the story calls for: no one is expected to stat up the entire population of a setting (unless perhaps something about the campaign makes said population incredibly small). Player's have a right to cry "foul" if you just so happen to regularly assign high point value features to characters that aren't supposed to be exceptional, however.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Otaku

A quick fix I was contemplating for those that want to largely preserve the traditional Magic system was requiring the Magery always be purchased as One College Only,.

Have you considered the way this interacts with IQ? Except fro Missile Spells or exceeding Magery 3 most of the time +1 Magery and +1 IQ have interchangeable effects except that +1 IQ gives +1 Per and Will.

So unless you have somebody who really wants to use a lot of Missile Spells well what you'll see is no one buying One College Magery above level 0 and making up the difference with higher IQs than the traditional 14/3. Perhaps 17/0 instead.

It would wind up being little more expensive nut not even that much if you let PCs sell down Per and Will at character creation. It would actually take a specific GM ruling to make this illegal.

So this variant wouldn't really have consequences that I thought desirable and you need to decide if it would do what you want it to.

[Nosforontu]

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

Again, slight derailment (someone willing to start a new thread or a mod chop this one off?) It's not about the rarity of powers of the player characters, but the rarity of the world. If ALL PCs have equal access to the same powers, then no one needs a Unusual Background - no matter the rarity of said powers in the world itself. If PCs don't have equal access...then that's when the Unusual Background comes into play.

True take something like the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Agents of Shield, within the confines of the world advantages such as various martial arts abilities (Trained by Master, Weapon Master, Heroic Archer, and Gunslinger) are common amongst the PCs, Named NPCs, as well as any power you can claim as orginating as having an Alien [Asgard+] source, or Science [Weird/Mad] as a power source. With magic being a likely expansion to the allowed power sources later on with the inclusion of Doctor Strange or possibly a retconned Scarlet Witch.

What is currently considered impossible though currently within the MCU are various psionic abilities such as Telepathy, ESP, and Astral Projection. Such powers are both largely considered to be impossible as is the power source by Shield.

In such a campaign world playing a character such as the presumed Clairvoiant. A being seemingly have access to the precognition/oracle advantage would require an usual background because no one who deals in super powers believes its a power that is possible and the agency detailed with confronting/dealing with people with powers have no idea of even trying to protect themselves from Precogs/Remote Viewing abilities that are Alien/Super Science based.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Otaku

Not mutually exclusive.

Populations do indeed have the traits that the setting indicates they have... however if you're not keeping track for them at all while you are for the PCs? I've always used the rule "The GM is always right... when he's playing by himself". The GM can set up a game where every Magery 3 with IQ 14 is the societal norm and if you don't know at least a dozen spells you're viewed as a burden to society. If he doesn't recognize this by either counting the cost and adjusting how the game world works accordingly, whether that means giving the players all that in addition to their regular starting point totals or making the fact they do have to pay for all of that plus anything else they want a part of the "adventure"... don't think that works.

If you start handing out expensive Advantages to supposedly "average" PCs like they were Pez, that doesn't work. There are plenty of times when you can get away with assigning an NPC the traits the story calls for: no one is expected to stat up the entire population of a setting (unless perhaps something about the campaign makes said population incredibly small). Player's have a right to cry "foul" if you just so happen to regularly assign high point value features to characters that aren't supposed to be exceptional, however.

Point totals for NPCs are very nearly worthless unless they interact with one of the few mechanics (like Ally/Dependent/Patron) that use them.

It's certainly true that if the PCs are supposed to be exceptional (usually though not always the case) there ought to be less-impressive NPCs around to validate that. But that is about what they can do, not how many points they're worth.

And having to buy lots of stuff to get up to 'normal'...is perfectly fine. If your baseline is Transhuman Space Eloi and you want PCs to be extraordinary Eloi, they're going to need a lot of points. Pyramid 3-62 suggests 225-575, and I'd stay clear from the low end of that because I'd expect the 'normal' Eloi to be both well-educated and augmented as befits people who can afford the best. A sizable chunk of points will go into bringing your character up to 'normal' for their society. So what?

It's a problem if the GM sets the wrong point level for building PCs. But that's the GM doing something dome, not a logical consequence of high-power or high-cost baselines.


All that said, I'm not coming up with many situations where it makes a lot of sense for a trait to require a UB but also be held by many 'ordinary' NPCs. Maybe if the PCs are supposed to be from the low side of a split society where the particularly valuable trait is what primarily differentiates the haves and have-nots.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

So unless you have somebody who really wants to use a lot of Missile Spells well what you'll see is no one buying One College Magery above level 0 and making up the difference with higher IQs than the traditional 14/3. Perhaps 17/0 instead.

Magery above zero is a prerequisite for quite a lot of spells.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Magery above zero is a prerequisite for quite a lot of spells.

It'd be rapidly diminishing return and irregular between Colleges.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

It'd be rapidly diminishing return and irregular between Colleges.

True, but between paying a lot and being shut out of most spells, well...there are points on both sides, even if the points are mostly how bad the alternative is.

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Have you considered the way this interacts with IQ? Except fro Missile Spells or exceeding Magery 3 most of the time +1 Magery and +1 IQ have interchangeable effects except that +1 IQ gives +1 Per and Will.

This is hugely important, and I am glad you brought it up. I could probably tweak things a bit more to come up with a way to make it work...

...but now its not a quick fix, is it?

[Gnome]

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

Again, slight derailment (someone willing to start a new thread or a mod chop this one off?) It's not about the rarity of powers of the player characters, but the rarity of the world. If ALL PCs have equal access to the same powers, then no one needs a Unusual Background - no matter the rarity of said powers in the world itself. If PCs don't have equal access...then that's when the Unusual Background comes into play.

I'm not disagreeing, but that's just not what Supers 29 says. It specifically uses the proportion of the population that has powers as measure for the level of UB required to have superpowers. It seems to leave open the possibility that every PC buys UB [50], for example.

[Gnome]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

It would wind up being little more expensive nut not even that much if you let PCs sell down Per and Will at character creation. It would actually take a specific GM ruling to make this illegal.

Every game I've ever played in has had a disadvantage limit, and no other specific ruling has ever been needed to prevent PCs from buying down Will and Per--IME, players will almost always take another disadvantage rather than lower an attribute or secondary characteristic.