| From: | kyle kohler <kkohler@**.UCR.EDU> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Psi: Cost of Powers/Categories |
| Date: | Tue, 19 Jul 1994 19:58:56 -0700 |
Cost of a category: 5 points
Cost of a power: Force rating (can not start with higher
than 6)
My reasoning is a follows:
Say you have 40 points to spend (a Full Psi putting B in
Tech), You could get all six categories to use and then you would only
have 10 points left to spend on actual powers. Not a lot. In this case,
you trade off beginning power for the potential to be more versatile (and
you end up spending your Karma later on to get powers instead of categories).
Alternately, you could buy one or two categories (costing 5 or 10 points) and
would have 30-35 points to spend on powers (quite a lot).
Unfortunately, you would be only able to spend them on those two categories, thus
trading all the other types of powers for either more abilities or a few
abilities of a very high ranking.
Example: Jorge the Psionicist(TM) is being made by, me. I
decide to give him 40 points for powers. I say to myself, Kyle, let's try
to make a combat machine out of this baby. Let's see how much damage he
can do. So I spend 5 points for Telekinesis, 5 points for Telepathy, and 5
pointsfor PsychoMetabolics. That leaves me with 25 points to spend on
actual powers. First, I take Heal Self (Psychometabolic Power) with a
force of 3. If I need to heal myself, I'll just use my Psi Pool to boost my
dice. I then take Telekinetic Punch (TK Power) to crush my opponents with
force. I'll take it at a force of 5 just so I can crack through the armor
that all those cybered assholes always seem to wear, besides, how else am I
going to knock down walls for dramatic flair?. I'll also take Mind
Blast (Telepathy Power) to nail the bastards that I can't crack. I'll
also take it at a force of 5 just to be safe. That leaves me with, let's see,
12 points. Hmmm...what to get next. I'll take Invisibility of 3 to sneak up
on the bad guys (relying on my Psi Pool when I really need those successes).
Now I have 9 points. I need some armor so I'll take Armor (TK Power) of 3 to
have on myself whenver I go into battle (once again I will probably end
up using my Psi Pool to get a lot of successes). Only 6 points left.
How's about I take Danger Sense (PsychoMetabolic Power) of 3 to get
bonuses to my Dodge Pool when I get attacked. Now I've only got 3 points left. I'll
spend all of
them on Ignite (TK power) for lighting things (like ammo belts) and people
on fire. Assuming my character is human, E in Race, I put an A in Magic/Psi
and a B in Tech. Well, to hopefully stay alive, I'll put C in Attributes and
D in Skills. For my skills, I'll take Psionic Projection of 6, giving me a 6
Psi-Pool. I'll take Psionic Theory of 4 just so I have some idea of what
the hell is going on. Well, now I've only got 10 points left. I'll put 4 into Firearms,
for when I run out of power due to drain, put 3 in Bike for those times
when I need to get the hell out of there, and the last 3 will go into
Stealth. For my attributes, I'll put a 6 in Willpower (to resist the
Drain), a 4 in Body, a 4 in Intelligence,a 1 in Charisma, a 4 in
Quickness, and a 1 in Strength.
Here's what the "Combat Monster" looks like
B: 4 Skills: Psionic Projection: 6
Q: 4 Psionic Theory: 4
S: 1 FireArms: 4
C: 1 Bike: 3
I: 4 Stealth: 3
W: 6
E: 6 Powers: Heal Self: 3
R: 4 TK Punch: 5
P: 6 Mind Blast: 5
I: 1d6+4 Invisibility: 3
Armor: 3
Psi Pool: 6 Danger Sense: 3
400,000Y to buy toys Ignite: 3
Let's take a look at him in combat: His TK punch ain't gonna do
much against a well-armored foe. Against unarmored, they'll probably
get crushed if he uses it at 5 force and uses 5 of his Psi-Pool to
womp them. That's 10 dice against a TN of 4 (+/- modifiers). The target will
need 5's to resist damage (not too easy). So he toasts an unarmored
foe. Drain is gonna be a bitch since it's a Force 5 power and he only has 1
Psi-Pool left. Against an armored one, his TK is gonna get knocked down because
it'll have to bust through the armor to hurt the target. So he opts to
use Mind Blast instead. Once again, assuming he uses 10 dice, he rolls them
against a TN equal to the targets Willpower (could be high, could be low). I
mean, even a Street Samie has a Will of 5. And that same sammie will
probably have armor too so he won't be that hurt by the TK puch. Again,
Drain is gonna be a pain. What now? Well, he could try to ignite the Sammie but
by the time he probably does, the sammie would have turned him to street
pizza with some well placed shots. All this is assuming, of course, that the
Psionicist actually got to take an action, since the highest he can get on an
Initiative is a 10. Most sammies will at least have one action before
that. If the psioncist has his Armor or Danger Sense up to try and
survive, all his TN's will be higher because those are sustained
powers. Makes it even harder to win. If the Psionicist tried to
shoot his gun instead, he could probably do some damage (skill of
4 + combat pool), but he won't be using his "all-mighty" powers.
Granted, this is an extreme case, but I think I made my point.
The less points you spend on tech, the less
powers/categories you have. As you can see, Psionics will not be
"All-Powerful" devices for munchkins. Instead, they will most likely
have a high mortality rate due to low abilities and skills, as well as
being feared and hunted by the corps. Instead, Psionics will most likely
turn into more of a role-playing type of character. A character could
take all the categories and not take any powers, thus playing a "latent"
psionicist who will discover and develop his powers throughout the game.
And a psionicist who has only 5 points to spend in powers (E rating, or F
if we add another priority) will not have any powers at all, instead he
would just pick a category for later developement.
And while I'm on the subject of later developement, here's
some posible Karma costs for Psionic Categories and Powers later on:
Gaining a New Psionic Category: 20 Karma
This way, even if a Psionicist survives long
enough, let's say 4 runs, gaining 5 Karma from each, he will barely have
enough to get a new category, and will also be OOK (out of Karma). The
reason I mde this so high, is that when I Psionicist gains a new
category, he is basically expanding his knowledge of his powers to a
new level. He is telling himself that he can now do things that he
previously had no idea how to.
Gaining a New Psionic Power :
Desired Force (i.e. TK punch at 5 would cost 5
Karma)
Same as Magic (and I didn't hear anyone bitching about
that rule) =)
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% % % %
% Kyle Kohler % Love your enemies, % This space %
% % % %
% kkohler@**.ucr.edu % It'll confuse the % Unintentionally %
% % % %
% C.S. Major % hell out of them % left blank %
% % % %
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
