Limited Time: FP vs Maximum Duration

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Just to confuse things more, I'd always interpreted Maximum Duration as such:

I have Flight, Maximum Duration 30 seconds.

I activate my Flight. For the next 30 seconds, I may fly or not fly. After 30 seconds passes, my Flight is in cooldown imposed by Maximum Duration.

If I fly for two seconds, then land, walk around for 10 seconds, I have used 12 out of 30 seconds of duration, and have 18 seconds left on the clock.

I find the interpretation that your Flight duration all evaporates when you touch the ground more peculiar than the interpretation where it goes on hold until you take off again, but I don't really think either of those is right.


EDIT: This is also how I believe Costs FP to work - if I have costs FP 1/minute, and I spend 1 FP, I may fly or not fly for one minute, however I so choose within the other limitations on my advantage. If I spend one FP to fly for two seconds, land for ten seconds, I do not then have to spend a second FP to take off again because I am still within my 1 minute duration.

1/second FP costs still hose you.

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

Honestly, I like this interpretation better than the one I suggested above. It's definitely more consistent with how other timed effects work, for sure.

As an alternative, I could also see a variation on Maximum Duration, that allowed you to use it for some fraction of the time, and then, when you stopped using it, you had to wait out a proportional fraction of the "downtime". So if you had Maximum Duration (1 minute), used the advantage for 30 seconds (half the normal time), then stopped, you'd have to wait two and a half minutes before using it again.

To be honest, when I said "end it early", I wasn't thinking in terms of landing and then taking off a few seconds later. I was thinking more along the lines of spell use where if you want to end an effect before its duration would normally run out, you can. The land and takeoff part never entered my mind. I know, failure of imagination on my part.

I like Bruno's interpretation too, but I'm not certain it is correct. The write-up could be clearer about its intention. Initially, I thought Bruno's interpretation was probably correct, but I've been burned often enough in my interpretations to go back and reread the section on Maximum Duration, Powers p.111, and then the section on Turning Abilities Off and On, Powers pp.153-154. I think putting the Maximum Duration Limitation on the Advantage converts it from being a Switchable Advantage to a Transient Advantage. I'm not certain of this, but it seems that Maximum Duration does comply with all three conditions required for transience. Transient seems to be an all-or-nothing proposition, so if Flight with Maximum Duration is Transient, then it would seem that you can't turn it off to land and then takeoff again as part of the same Maximum Duration. If it is Transient, then you probably can't end it early, either.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

I don't think it works that way either but I had to check the write-up in Powers to be sure, still I think it's possible to interpret it that way without too much effort. For what it's worth, my interpretation of the write-up is that if you end the effect early, you can't use it for the next five minutes but you get a fresh Maximum Duration when you make your next use of it.

That was my impression, too. I don't think it's explicitly stated, but it makes sense.

Do you have a citation for Recover Energy not applying to advantages? All the write-up on B248 says is that it can't restore FP to others.

checks book
Huh, coulda sworn it only applied to FP spent on spells. Objection retracted.

I'm still not convinced that those points are enough to put a cost of 1 FP (per use or per minute) on the same level as a nuisance effect. The idea that a limitation—let alone such a "basic" limitation—should be priced on the assumption that the character has a few other, specific advantages and skills just seems fundamentally wrong.

[Bruno]

I favor a more complex pricing scheme for Costs FP based on the category of advantage you're applying it to, rough as:

Paying "Per Use", where this is as much defined by which kind of Costs FP you took as it does the advantage:

• Transient abilities you could use multiple times per second (Innate Attack) - most expensive
• Transient abilities you can only use once per second (including things from the first category that you've chosen to pay once for an entire seconds access)
• Transient or switchable abilities you're only likely to use/need for shorter durations (due to other limitations on the advantage or innate characteristics of the advantage). EG DR often falls into this category if you want to spend FP for 1 minute or 10 minutes ("One Fight").
• Switchable abilities you're likely to use/need for longer durations (1hr+) - travel powers and environment survival powers are archetypical examples.
• Always On abilities which are now NOT always on get a kicker for being demoted to Switchable.

I have a half-finished article about this.

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

... reread the section on Maximum Duration, Powers p.111, and then the section on Turning Abilities Off and On, Powers pp.153-154. I think putting the Maximum Duration Limitation on the Advantage converts it from being a Switchable Advantage to a Transient Advantage. I'm not certain of this, but it seems that Maximum Duration does comply with all three conditions required for transience. Transient seems to be an all-or-nothing proposition, so if Flight with Maximum Duration is Transient, then it would seem that you can't turn it off to land and then takeoff again as part of the same Maximum Duration. If it is Transient, then you probably can't end it early, either.

I think your reading is literally correct, but I wonder if it was an error to omit Maximum Duration from the list of similar items that make something Switchable.

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

... For what it's worth, my interpretation of the write-up is that if you end the effect early, you can't use it for the next five minutes but you get a fresh Maximum Duration when you make your next use of it.

I agree. It is "Maximum" Duration, not "Fixed".

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by GreatWyrmGold

<snip>

I'm still not convinced that those points are enough to put a cost of 1 FP (per use or per minute) on the same level as a nuisance effect. The idea that a limitation—let alone such a "basic" limitation—should be priced on the assumption that the character has a few other, specific advantages and skills just seems fundamentally wrong.

Let's compare Costs Fatigue with Limited Uses as Limitations.

Limited Uses (5-10 uses/day) is -10%, and according to Limited Uses, B112, more than 10 uses/day isn't worth anything because it's not a significant limitation.

Costs Fatigue (2 FP) is -10% and, if you normally have 10 FP, you can get 5 uses out of it before you run out of FP. That's the same as you get for Limited Uses (5/day), so it's a fair valuation of the Limitation. Costs Fatigue (1 FP) is obviously less of a limitation than costs 2 FP, because it lets you get twice the usage from your FP that Costs Fatigue (2 FP) does. -5% is half the value of the -10% for costs 2 FP, so that seems fair.

But Limited Uses still gives 10 Uses/day a -10%, shouldn't the 10 uses we get from costs 1 FP be raised to -10%, too? If they were absolutely the same in effectiveness, yes. But they don't have the same effectiveness. If you have Limited Uses (10 uses/day), that's it. You have 10 uses, period. After your tenth use of the day, there's nothing you can do with that power until tomorrow. If, on the other hand, you have Costs Fatigue (1 FP), you can take a 10 minute coffee break and have another use available. You don't even have to wait until you're at 0 FP to take that coffee break. So, the -5% Limitation seems fair enough given that you potentially have more than 10 Uses per day, which would normally be worth nothing. The fact that it costs 1 FP gets you the -5%.

It seems like a fair valuation.

[Anthony]

Costing fatigue has three major disadvantages:

1. That fatigue you spent could have been used for something else. That's worth about -3% per point of fatigue cost, as that's the value of temporary disadvantage (-X fatigue).
2. If there's abilities you would need to use for more than a minute at a time (mostly non-combat abilities), the cost above gets multiplied. In general you aren't going to have more than about 10% uptime, which is something like -30-40% (left my Powers at home).
3. If you get into a surprise combat, combat abilities will presumably be inactive, and will remain inactive until you can spend a Ready action to activate them. Point value unclear, though -40% would let you buy Reflexive for a net +0% modifier (it's probably not actually worth -40%, though).

I would probably start by changing the action required to turn an advantage on and off from Ready to Free. Yes, that's theoretically around a 20% enhancement, but in reality there's no reason to ever turn off advantages unless they have costs for being used.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Originally Posted by Bruno

I favor a more complex pricing scheme for Costs FP based on the category of advantage you're applying it to, rough as [snip]

I have a half-finished article about this.

I hope I get a chance to see it when it's finished.

[Culture20]

Recover Energy isn't the only way to get FP back. Regeneration can be applied to fatigue at either -0% or +100%. Depending on how many abilities are reduced in cost by "costs fatigue", 100 character points to restore 1 fatigue per second might be worth it (and only come in to play when the character uses DR, Flight, Enhanced Move, Innate attack, etc all in the same second, and hhen only if more than one costs fatigue).