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Old 12-21-2015, 05:00 AM   #1
T.K.
 
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Join Date: Nov 2013
Default TK Bullet: Rapid Fire in fantasy. Balanced?

Hello there.

Did try searching for TK Bullet, telekinesis, bullet and alike operators didn't bring any relevant thread, so...

My fantasy setting has all mixed sorts of magic, chi, powers, psi and sorts of abilities.

The player characters are around 280-290pts currently, which is the "starting to make a name for themselves" level, in my setting and the psion player in question currently has 200pts

I've heavily pruned, modified or restricted the systems around so that the overall balance between all them could be more or less concise, using niche protection to help me balance the characters and so far, I managed to not eclipse any character and kept every player engaged and happy with their abilities and relative power to the world and other players.

My concern though, is that the psionic player (the newest to get into play, and with considerably less points than the others players) considerably surpasses any damage potential that any of the other players can manage, in such a short amount of time, range and FP cost with but a single Technique:

TK Bullet: Rapid Fire.

The psion has NH 19 with Rapid Fire Tech (I already have a skill cap limit system in place and he managed the pre-reqs to be able to buy such skill level), thus allowing him to quite easily hit 5+ TK bullets at a target thats 4-5yds or even 7-10yds away, which in fantasy is considerably safe to be.

That means, he can quite consistently hit 4-5 projectiles per turn, doing 3D pi damage, spending 2 FP.

The egregious part to me, being the RCL 1 and RoF 7 stats of the technique. It seems to me, that it was balanced against high/ultra tech weapons, which would make total sense...but rather disruptive in a fantasy setting with bows, xbows and Innate Attacks without rapid fire or cyclic shenanigans...

I've thought of increasing the RCL to 2 or 3, but it doesn't seem to make much sense, due to the nature of the power.
I also don't want to lower the RoF, because I'd like to keep the scalability of the power with due skill level...my problem is not with the existance of the power as is, just that with considerably low points and in a much lower CPs range, he can achieve that level of destruction.

Do you believe breaking the RoF to be incremental along the level of skill with the Technique would be an elegant solution?
Did anyone have problems with this Technique before in their games?
Is it not such a problem as I'm seeing it?


Thanks for any insight!
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Old 12-21-2015, 05:14 AM   #2
Nereidalbel
 
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Ellicott City, MD
Default Re: TK Bullet: Rapid Fire in fantasy. Balanced?

Spending 2 FP per turn will drop him quickly. The balancing factor to Psi techniques is the part where you can't really abuse them, unless you either convinced the GM to allow you FP Regeneration or some form of Leech to refill your FP.

While your psi PC may be able to win the burst damage race, he's in a bad place if the target dodges, blocks, uses Missile Parry, or otherwise avoids being hit by a shotgun. The Standard Magic mage with Magery 6 in a DF setting could throw an 18d fireball to open a fight, and then spend a few turns chugging Paut. Long story short, sustained damage capability matters!
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Old 12-21-2015, 06:19 AM   #3
Aldric
 
Join Date: Nov 2015
Default Re: TK Bullet: Rapid Fire in fantasy. Balanced?

Not sure what the rest of the party has, not familiar with DF, but one well placed Reflect Missile would put all your problems to rest... and the character...
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Old 12-21-2015, 06:33 AM   #4
ericthered
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Default Re: TK Bullet: Rapid Fire in fantasy. Balanced?

Innate attacks are already 'unbalanced' in such a setting. I would argue such an attack is balanced vs. an area effect attack like exploding fireball or worse, an innate attack with area effect.
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