Cost of 2nd and higher levels of Affliction?

[Peter Knutsen]

Why should the second and later levels of Affliction cost as much as the first level?

The first level gives you the Advantage. Now you have it. That's highly valuable.

The second level just makes the Advantage slightly more powerful. That's not particularly valuable. Why should it cost as much as the first?

How about 2nd and later levels costing half as much as the first level?

I predict that players will be very reluctant to choose to buy more than one level of Affliction, when they have absolute freedom to choose without any amount of outside pressure whatsoever.

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

The second level just makes the Advantage slightly more powerful. That's not particularly valuable. Why should it cost as much as the first?

Depends on who you want to afflict and what their average HT (or resisting trait if you modify that with Based On X +20%) is. If you're dealing with average people with attributes of ~10, a -1 is huge. It reduces a 50% chance to resist to a 33% chance, or drops 2/3 of a crowd instead of 1/2 if you're using an Area Effect. In a Supers game where average attributes are much higher it won't be as useful, but you'll probably have more points to play with.

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

I predict that players will be very reluctant to choose to buy more than one level of Affliction, when they have absolute freedom to choose without any amount of outside pressure whatsoever.

I'd ask what you mean by that, but my educated guess is that the answer would be a tearful rant about evil GMs.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Gold & Appel Inc

I'd ask what you mean by that, but my educated guess is that the answer would be a tearful rant about evil GMs.

I have yet to encounter any valid argument for why the players cannot be set free within the neutral and objective constraints of the campaign setting and the character creation rules and a given character creation currency budget, once the GM has chosen a good rules set.

Also, it's not "evil GMs". It is "FNORDFN-ORDF GMs" - a word that Kromm has explicitly forbidden me from using on these forums, even though it describes perfectly the wrongness that I am objecting to.

edit: Sorry I got the fnording wrong! It's "FNORDFN-ORDFN GMs".

[CattyNebulart]

yes, afflcition is baddly overcosted for more than one level, that is why you use a small piericing attack as the carrier. there are some examples in the forums, but I am too lazy to look for them.

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

I have yet to encounter any valid argument for why the players cannot be set free within the neutral and objective constraints of the campaign setting and the character creation rules and a given character creation currency budget, once the GM has chosen a good rules set.

I'm failing to see how this is even relevant to the topic. Did your GM make you buy more than one level in an Affliction when you felt that one would do the job?

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by CattyNebulart

yes, afflcition is baddly overcosted for more than one level, that is why you use a small piericing attack as the carrier. there are some examples in the forums, but I am too lazy to look for them.

Does that work for all the various uses that Affliction can be put to? Including Maledictions and beneficial Afflictions?

[the_matrix_walker]

Make Affliction a flat rather than leveled advantage and add the following...

Special Enhancement: Resistance Penalty: Each level of this enhancement reduces the resistance roll of the defender by 1, +100%/level

That way it's 10 points across the board, beneficial or not, malediction or not.

You've already payed for the basic ability after all.

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by Gold & Appel Inc

Depends on who you want to afflict and what their average HT (or resisting trait if you modify that with Based On X +20%) is. If you're dealing with average people with attributes of ~10, a -1 is huge. It reduces a 50% chance to resist to a 33% chance, or drops 2/3 of a crowd instead of 1/2 if you're using an Area Effect. In a Supers game where average attributes are much higher it won't be as useful, but you'll probably have more points to play with.

In Supers, the issue comes up that DR aids in Resistance rolls versus Afflictions. So, Inframan, with his DR of 20 and HT of 12, has a 32 resistance roll versus an Affliction. Affliction 1 (Incapactating Condition: Unconsciousness) costs 30 points per level. Inframan would make his roll against a 32 . . . which means he'd only fail on a 17+. It would take 16 additional levels (costing an extra 480 points) just to get him . . . to still fail on a 17+
Sure, we could add some Armor Piercing. Capping Armor Divisor at 4/(10) would make the Affliction cost 50 points, and Inframan would have a resistance of 14.
Or, we could make it Malediction 3 (again, costing 50 points per level) which ignores DR and uses long-distance range penalties. But, Inframan is still rolling versus a 12. And, to get a resistance of +1, Al only has to spend 10 points, but to get an additional -1, our Maledictor has to spend 50 more points.

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

Does that work for all the various uses that Affliction can be put to? Including Maledictions and beneficial Afflictions?

As someone who uses Side Effect constantly, the answer is no. But, for Beneficial Afflictions, your team mate can forego a resistance roll, so that's an advantage.

Check the Side Efffect Enhancement in Characters. Too hurried to give you a page reference ATM.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by the_matrix_walker

Make Affliction a flat rather than leveled advantage and add the following...

Special Enhancement: Resistance Penalty: Each level of this enhancement reduces the resistance roll of the defender by 1, +100%/level

That way it's 10 points across the board, beneficial or not, malediction or not.

You've already payed for the basic ability after all.

But the basic ability's cost can be hugely Enhanced. That's why I object to added levels costing as much as the first one. Affliction is often given several hundreds percent worth of Enhancements.

I like having the cost of added levels be dependent on how Enhanced the Affliction is.

Imagine an Affliction Enhanced with something like +450% or even +700%. Then on top of that, you must pay only 10 CPs fpr each additional -1 penalty to the resistance roll? That could easily get abusive.

With RAW, it's 55 CPs for the first and subsequent levels, or 80 CPs for the first and subsequent levels.

And with my proposal, it would be 55 CPs or 80 CPs for the first level, and then 27.5 or 40 CPs for subsequent levels.

[Kromm]

To be honest, it bugs me some, too.* Were I doing it over again, I'd probably set up Affliction more like Leech or Terror and say that it's x points to be able to do it at all and then y points/level to do it more effectively, where x > y. Modifiers would apply to the final cost. It's hard to say what fair values of x and y would be in this model (Leech uses x = 25, y = 4, while Terror uses x = 30, y = 10), but I'd start at x = 10, y = 2 and see how balanced it was.
—
* The current scheme is the direct result of Affliction being changed from a damage type to its own ability at the last minute. David floated a lot of schemes during the first draft. Unfortunately, the one in print received the least playtesting time. I'd apologize, but really . . . these things happen even to the best writers working on the best games. Oh, well.