Luther
Moderator
Karma: +5/-4
 Offline
Gender: 
Posts: 972
'Nothing personal.'
|
 |
« on: September 16, 2005, 12:57:00 PM » |
|
Warning - this is a strange combination of rules-lawyering and encouraging RP-ing - so if you are anti-rule read at your own risk. If you are basically letting me make your character with your guidance (Rainee) - don't bother - nothing here that you need to know.
OK - so many people are tinkering with chars already, and have discovered the easiest way to squeeze tons of points out of their char is with a power framework. Power frameworks look unfair at first, but in fact, on further analyses, maybe not so much. Why? Lots o' reasons - let me illustrate:
1) First and foremost, power frameworks represent the ability to diversify your character rather than specialize them. If you feel like being Capt. Min/Max - that is actually a minus. Why you say? OK - so let's say you wanna be flexible and therefore buy a 60 pt MP with 4 slots to represent different attack options - for arguments sake, lets say 12d6 Energy Blast (EB), an 8d6 Armor Piercing (AP) EB, an 8d6 Auto-fire (AF5) EB, and an 8d6 Explosive (X) EB. Great, now you have an char that has options against a heavily armored foe, a slow foe (the AF5 is great for that), and against a fast one, or a crowd. Now - rather than Capt. Flexible you play Capt. Min/Max. Rather than spending 84 pts on the above MP, you spend 85 pts on a 17d6 EB. I can tell you which one I would call out of balance - a 17d6 EB will flatten most starting PCs with one hit (that's 60 Stun, 17 Body, and 10" KB on average - OUCH). So - flexibility is good thing, and makes your char more interesting and fun to play - it can also fuck up game balance by stealing other people's shticks - which is why sometimes a big bang is better.
2) VPPs - VPPs at first look very attractive, but as some of my players from the last game could tell you, they have their issues. First of all - they are hideously expensive. In order to purchase something like a 12d6 EB in a VPP, at base you will spend 60 pts (to make the active point cap) + 1/2 that again for control cost - means 90 pts. To make things worse, that can't even be changed with limitations - so while I could make my normal 12d6 EB cheaper with a focus, or increased End or something - VPPs can't be reduced. Now - add to that, that unlike Multipowers, which can be changed as a 0-phase, VPPs take at base, I believe a full phase to shift (it might be a half - I would have to verify) - so everytime you want to shift you have to sit out a good part of your turn - which gets really aggravating. I had a VPP wielder in my last game that almost never went during combat. You *can* buy this off - but then you are looking at paying 150 pts for your 60 pt power - which is just silly at the power level you guys are at. In other words, VPPs are really cool, and can make for very nifty characters - but you are going to find that they are generally either too pricey or too slow to be useful in combat.
3) Elemental Controls - Actually, these are my favs for power frameworks, cause you barely notice them. Lets say you want a char that can blast people, fly and put up a shield. With a multipower, you would have to put enough pts in the reserve to operate all of these at once - so for 60 Active Points (AP), you would be talking about a 180pt reserve + 6/slot - for a total of 198 pts for all 3. For the elemental control, you pay 30pts for the reserve, plus 30pts for each of the 3 slots - for 120 pts. Much cheaper. So MPs are not very good if you want to use all your powers at once - ECs are much better.
4) Multi Attacks - As it turns out if you have purchased several attack powers and they are *NOT* in a power framework, you can do something called a "Multi-Power Attack." Basically, if you have a 12d6 Energy Blast, and a 5d6 Drain, and a 4d6 Flash, and even another 8d6 X EB - you can use all 4 on one person as a single 1/2 phase action - leaving them blind, drained, and shot twice. *BUT* none of those powers can be in the same framework (including an EC) for it to work. So - if you buy 3 attack powers outside of a multipower it is going to cost a shit-load more (if you use my 60 pt example, 180 pts vs. 78 pts) - but you can use all 3 on an enemy at once, rather than having to choose.
5) In addition to special powers (like Senses, Duplication, etc), I am unlikely to let many non-combat powers into Multipowers. ECs and VPPs I am ok with (depending on the VPPs), but putting things like Invis or Desolidification in a Multipower is abusive. In general, the kinds of things that should show up in a Multipower are: attack powers, movement powers, some defenses. Anything else will warrant debate - which is not to say I won't let you.
6) Remember above all else - concept, concept, concept. If you can't explain to me why a power framework makes sense, or why a given power should be part of it - then you can't have it.
So - all in all - frameworks are a cheap way to make a more flexible character and save some points - but they have their issues, so go into them with open eyes. In a lot of ways, being Cyclops and having one great big, nasty eye-beam makes a lot more sense then having a million different choices and options.
|
