Are Powers Overpriced?

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

What happens if we introduce a TL divisor for abilities that can be replicated by the technology of the setting? We could have the TL divisor being equal to (TL-4, minimum 1), meaning that a TL8 character would divide the cost of DR, Enhanced Move (Air), Flight, Innate Attacks, etc by 4.

That has come up before. My rule of thumb is 1/5 for gear reasonably available in the setting, if not just an accessory perk. For things like DR or weapons by the base at 1/5 and the excess at normal price. Or use the rules in GURPS Supers

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by johndallman

I don't think so. I'm playing in two campaigns that use Magic-as-Powers, and running a campaign where there are three casters who use hermetic magic (the basic spell system with decanic modifiers), a psionic and a powers-based character.
....
Psionic Powers put more effort into achieving a particular style and flavour than it did into being point-efficient, which means that it's a bit underpowered in some ways, as compared to hermetic magic, but picking the right powers lets it do things that the hermetic magicians have trouble with.

My first real gurps game was an IW-style game on 250 points. I played a telepath using psionic powers. We had a few mages using the standard system. If our foes had not made extensive use of mind control, I would have been perpetually over shone.

Now, there were no alternative abilities used here, and you did caveat psionic powers. but we shouldn't have to resort to expert level play to make powers work well.

Originally Posted by ArchonShiva

I feel Sorcery was balanced by the absolute requirement of the Costs FP limitation, which for a low, low rebate turns everything it touches into one-fifth the useability. Of course, without that, it’s pretty terribly underpriced.

I never let players design AA wholecloth, so I can keep things balanced, but if you do, what it comes down to is that game balance is fiction anyway.

Sorcery drives me nuts, because the costs FP breaks its usefulness, and I already had a system that filled a similar niche that did the whole thing cheaper. I find sorcery to be horendously expensive and quite limited.

Originally Posted by Refplace

That has come up before. My rule of thumb is 1/5 for gear reasonably available in the setting, if not just an accessory perk. For things like DR or weapons by the base at 1/5 and the excess at normal price. Or use the rules in GURPS Supers

For high-tech gear, I often treat powers that match technology as perks, legal enforcement powers, and so forth.

I'd still struggle charging [5] points to go from 50 DR to 51 DR in a TL 10 setting.

Now I often don't charge points for powers, but instead make strict "packages" that define what sets people have access to. Sometimes I'll tack on a [10] or [20] point surcharge for them, just so they aren't free, but the package will be worth a lot more than that. Its just not that advantageous to be a ST 15 tiger person in a game where you see two bouts of combat in 10 sessions, when the focus of the game is detective work, and when ST 20 super soldiers are common.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Sorcery drives me nuts, because the costs FP breaks its usefulness....

Eh? Is 1 FP really that big of a cost?

(Reason I'm Asking: I've actually been wondering about ways to tinker with the FP cost to drive down the price and more-or-less simulate something like the Basic magic system.)

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by SilvercatMoonpaw

I've actually been wondering about ways to tinker with the FP cost to drive down the price

There are a number of past forum threads about changing the value of Costs FP, usually to increase it. PK's house rules are as good a place to start as any. My own philosophical preference is to scale the value, as the first point or two of Costs FP have much more effect than later ones, with diminishing negative returns.

I think that the biggest difficulty in getting really close to the standard magic system is that there's pretty much no way to get down to 1 point/spell. The -80% floor is one reason, but even then, the math doesn't work that way. I can recall beating down the price of spells with Fantasy HERO to a few points, but that's much harder with GURPS. (That might even be the correct result!) Hence the popularity of MA and AA in magic systems where mages are supposed to wield a wide and flexible array of different spells.

Multiplicative Modifiers will get you closer. That scheme usually makes the expensive powers cheaper (going back in part to the previously-mentioned asymmetry between large +Enhancement values with fewer, smaller -Limitation values).

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by SilvercatMoonpaw

Eh? Is 1 FP really that big of a cost?

Yes. It makes the difference between "use when convenient" and "only use when it's worth 10 minutes".

[smurf]

The devil is in the detail as they say.

With the PK advantage and the ability to 'fly' and AA TK etc means you can only do one of these abilities. You can ramp it up with Compartmentalised Mind (with 'x' ability reduction). However, PK's range is only 10 yards, very useful but not that far. You can expand it at a cost. The concentration manoeuvre can also be reduced at a cost. Hence, all these abilities mount up and begin to cost a lot, especially when you replicate the enhancements. Therefore you are going to reach for the AA.

The downside to AA is that it makes all your abilities into one power (although with many entries). So you have a myriad of abilities all with AA but one of them is TK. And there is that anti Psi dude who is a TK blocker, maybe with Neutralise, they have a big bubble and an extended duration... oops you failed a roll and all your abilities have been zeroed for the next 'x' hours.

As for Regrowth, I thought it would be best to reduced to 20pts for any background that can repair or grow limbs. A sort of 'literate' ability in a pre printing press world costs 10pts but being illiterate in a word with the printed press it is a -10pt disadvantage. I'm not sure if one of big cheeses in the GURPS world ruled this Regrowth to be 20pts in his games.

[Anthony]

GURPS has always priced advantages and powers based on a combination of perceived rarity and perceived utility -- i.e. there's an unusual background cost already built in to the cost of powers. This means powers that were built as assumed rare but are actually common in setting are usually overpriced.

Separately, utility is based on a combination of how often it's useful, and how useful it actually is. When you're including abilities in a framework that means you only have the power when you need it, the frequency of usefulness should really be separated from the value it gives when it is useful (this is particularly problematic for modular abilities).

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by smurf

As for Regrowth, I thought it would be best to reduced to 20pts for any background that can repair or grow limbs. A sort of 'literate' ability in a pre printing press world costs 10pts but being illiterate in a word with the printed press it is a -10pt disadvantage. I'm not sure if one of big cheeses in the GURPS world ruled this Regrowth to be 20pts in his games.

I dropped Regrowth to 10 points* and cut Regeneration in half for my last Dungeon Fantasy campaign.

It didn't break nothin.




* And gave it to the Troll race. But I also allowed Martial Artists and Lizard Folk to buy it. And others, once they were fey twisted/mutated enough.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Yes. It makes the difference between "use when convenient" and "only use when it's worth 10 minutes".

That does depend how big your FP/energy pool is. If it's big enough that you're unlikely to run out before getting a night's rest even with frivolous use, 1FP cost powers will get used frivolously. My experience is that 'costs FP' is mostly effective as a restriction on the use of continuous powers, because paying 1FP/minute is a fairly high cost outside of combat time.

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by Anthony

A considerable number of powers are overpriced, and alternate abilities are a bit of a hack, as an 80% discount for abilities that are useful in entirely different circumstances isn't really justified.

Can you give some examples?

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

But there ought to be something that can counter the Enhancements. RAW is pretty free with throwing around +100%, +150%, +300% values, but there's little way to pull the cost of those abilities back down. (That's a factor that sometimes pushes people to use Multiplicative Modifiers instead.)

Which is why MM was invented, given that it was too late to change the costs of abilities or modifiers.