How to Make My Idea For a Support-Based Super Power?

EonMon · 08-23-2022, 07:59 PM

Hello, all. Thank you for taking the time to check out my thread. I saw a post on another website about playing supers in GURPS. That's a genre I've never tackled before so I thought it would be interesting to create a super powered character as a mental exercise.

I've always loved playing supporting roles in RPGs so I thought about creating a character based on that idea. My character concept was a hero whose power enables them to "amp up" another super's power. "Amping" would essentially just increase the power and/or intensity of another character's super power. What that entails would undoubtedly depend on the character getting "amped" but I found myself struggling to create this concept in GURPS. I've read through the Basic Set and skimmed Powers in the past but nothing stood out in my memory that would fit the bill on what I wanted to do.

The only thing I could think to do was give this character Affliction (Advantage) with the advantage they give be some form of Modular Abilities with a sort of "can only be used on powers" limitation. This seemed like it would be tedious to implement though. It would seem to me like the best way to actually play this advantage would be to have everyone else at the table specifically note what their abilities look like after spending those modular points and keep that info at the ready in case this character grants them the boost. I guess that seems like it would play fine but it just seemed like a big hassle to have to recalculate this info every time either another player or the player of this character spent CP on upgrading their respective powers. In the end, though, all of this is conjecture since this character was only ever intended to be a thought experiment.

My question for you all is how would you stat out this premise in GURPS (specifically 4e, not it matters much as far as I know)? Is there some Advantage or Skill that I'm missing out on that would do what I'm intending to do? I think this is an interesting ability and would love to see how it could be done in the system.

I also have one other question while I have you. Is there an Advantage in GURPS that allows you to borrow or clone another character's Advantages/Powers? For instance, gaining the ability to shoot a fireball by cloning another superhero's pyrokinesis. It would be done on a willing participant if that matters. That's just my idea of how this character would branch their super power out out and increase in strength as they gain CP to spend, so I was curious if it could be easy to implement or not. Thanks again for taking the time to read my ramblings.

08-23-2022, 07:59 PM	#1
EonMon Join Date: Nov 2020 Location: USA (EST Time Zone)	How to Make My Idea For a Support-Based Super Power? Hello, all. Thank you for taking the time to check out my thread. I saw a post on another website about playing supers in GURPS. That's a genre I've never tackled before so I thought it would be interesting to create a super powered character as a mental exercise. I've always loved playing supporting roles in RPGs so I thought about creating a character based on that idea. My character concept was a hero whose power enables them to "amp up" another super's power. "Amping" would essentially just increase the power and/or intensity of another character's super power. What that entails would undoubtedly depend on the character getting "amped" but I found myself struggling to create this concept in GURPS. I've read through the Basic Set and skimmed Powers in the past but nothing stood out in my memory that would fit the bill on what I wanted to do. The only thing I could think to do was give this character Affliction (Advantage) with the advantage they give be some form of Modular Abilities with a sort of "can only be used on powers" limitation. This seemed like it would be tedious to implement though. It would seem to me like the best way to actually play this advantage would be to have everyone else at the table specifically note what their abilities look like after spending those modular points and keep that info at the ready in case this character grants them the boost. I guess that seems like it would play fine but it just seemed like a big hassle to have to recalculate this info every time either another player or the player of this character spent CP on upgrading their respective powers. In the end, though, all of this is conjecture since this character was only ever intended to be a thought experiment. My question for you all is how would you stat out this premise in GURPS (specifically 4e, not it matters much as far as I know)? Is there some Advantage or Skill that I'm missing out on that would do what I'm intending to do? I think this is an interesting ability and would love to see how it could be done in the system. I also have one other question while I have you. Is there an Advantage in GURPS that allows you to borrow or clone another character's Advantages/Powers? For instance, gaining the ability to shoot a fireball by cloning another superhero's pyrokinesis. It would be done on a willing participant if that matters. That's just my idea of how this character would branch their super power out out and increase in strength as they gain CP to spend, so I was curious if it could be easy to implement or not. Thanks again for taking the time to read my ramblings.