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Old 10-14-2022, 11:56 AM   #12
malloyd
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Default Re: [MH] Using Alternative Abilities for Powers

Quote:
Originally Posted by Refplace View Post
Depends on the GM.
Definitely that. At my table, it's likely to be NO. Including for some "official" versions.

The original point of Alternative Abilities (as Alternative Attacks p.B61) was to give you a price break for having two abilities that did basically the same thing - not that didn't work together (that's most things, you only get to do one thing at a time most of the time, it's an incidental effect, not the source of the cost break), not that had the same source or countermeasures (that's what power modifiers do, and it's not a big price break either) but geniunely did basically the same thing, making the second one not worth much because it didn't add any new abilities. This is the form carried on in other versions of the rule as "Duplicate Advantages", and getting a big price break for those is quite reasonable. Having two ways to do the same thing is genuinely much less than twice as useful as having one.

The later builds to allow gigantic price breaks for lots of quite dissimilar abilities have always struck me as both violating the original intent of the rule, and as seriously unfair to players who did buy their powers at normal costs.

Take a look at the point difference between your AA build and somebody who took all those powers at full cost, and tell me how he outclasses you. After all somebody with dozens (or hundreds!) of extra points in your area of expertise ought to be able to crush you in a fair contest, right? Can he do that? No? That's a hint your price break isn't fair to him. They're sometimes marginally acceptable, because they are competing more or less directly with the rules for spell systems which are [also] unfair relative to normal powers pricing in much the same way, and that's arguably the case here too, but you'd need to convince me.
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