Ideas, discussions

Strumdaddy is correct! My bad with the example. :D So in this case, Snapper, you would only be able to spend 3 points of energy max for the Charge Object ability.

Also, Kadeton is correct! This, it seems I actually just didn't understand correctly. I blame this on the example they used, since their +1 cost level would literally mean only a 1 increase of white stone from level 3 to 4, lol. I'll make changes to the example shortly!

Edit: When I'm home, I'll up the defense :)

My understanding of character building costs match up with what everyone is saying here.

I didn't realize you can only use stones up to your action level. I guess I'm glad I bought that INT modifier after all, now. That should make Fee pretty tough since she can use Telekinesis 5 PLUS her INT 5 as a bonus instead of Close Combat - she actually has more capability than she has power.

If it's possible to recton her character sheet, I'm going to look into changing her to use the special Intelligence-Energy rule. She'll be weaker in almost everything else once I trade off the stones, but if I can find enough stones to trade she could use up to 10 energy on a single telekinetic action, and regenerate 5 energy every round. That's pretty badass.

Full permission. Character sheets can be changed freely up until the conclusion of chapter 1, at which point I will review finalized character sheets before we jump into chapter 2.

One thing I hadn't quite twigged on was the difference between Difficulty and Resistance, especially in the DAR chart. In order to be able to do something, you need to match or exceed the Difficulty with your AN (including Ability bonus and Modifiers, as appropriate). Then in order to actually do that thing, you need to overcome the Resistance by spending stones - by default, the Resistance is the same as the Difficulty, but some entries on the DAR chart give specific Resistances.

So for Ariel's flight, she has an AN of 2, and can do Difficulty 2 flight stuff - checking the chart, this means she can fly at 31-150 mph. The Resistance for doing so is only 1, so she only needs to spend 1 red stone to fly at top speed. If she's carrying something, that adds extra Resistance as per the Weight row, so she could spend 2 additional red stones to carry a person (up to 250 lbs). Every panel after the first adds another red stone to the Resistance for carrying.

(Edit: the last bit above is wrong, since you can only allocate stones up to your AN. So Ariel can put a max of 2 in at her current Flight 2, meaning at best she can fly around and carry 1 stone's worth of weight, e.g. a dog. After one panel, she'll have to drop the dog or stop flying, because it would cost 3 red stones to continue doing both and she can't allocate that many.)

I think I'm getting the hang of the system! Resource allocation rather than randomisation is an interesting mechanic, very different to any other game I've played.

Edit: Oh, the other thing I stumbled across was Defense. The only way to allocate stones to Defense is to spend them on an action first, then transfer them to Defense (this is on pg. 79). This is where the practical difference between something like Flight 2 and Flight 5 comes in (other than in a race) - with Flight 2, you can only allocate 2 red stones, and you need one of those to overcome the Resistance, so you can only transfer 1 red stone from that action box to Defense. If you have Flight 5, you could fly at up to 200 mph while transferring 4 red stones to Defense.

You can allocate stones to up to 2 Action boxes per panel, so your maximum Defense is limited by the Actions (and their ANs) you have available. On the other hand, an action could be just about anything, so if you've got a genius character they can allocate a bunch of red stones to "Thinking your way out of danger" or something (up to their Intelligence bonus, taken as an action), and then transfer them all to Defense. :)

In light of a deeper understanding of how Difficulty and Resistance actually works, I think I'll redo some of Ariel's character sheet. Some of her stats are too high for the character (she can throw a motorcycle) and some of her Actions are too limiting (I'd like her to be able to carry another character while flying, at least for a panel or two, because that sounds fun).

(An interesting quirk - Flying adds extra Resistance "as per Lifting", but uses the Flight power rather than Strength, as far as I can tell. This seems to mean that Ariel could be unable to deadlift a person using her strength with her feet on the ground, but could pick them up and carry them around using Flight. That seems consistent with Comic-Book Logic, I guess?)

Edit: So currently I'm thinking of something like the following for Ariel.

Challenges
Being a mutant (-3)
Looking non-human (-2)
Total cost: -5

Abilities
Intelligence 3 (1)
Strength 1 (1/3)
Agility 6 (4)
Speed 2 (2/3)
Durability 3 (3)
Total cost: 9

Actions
Flight 5 (1)
- Maximum speed is never more than 5
- When carrying someone, maximum speed is 2
- Can’t be improved by experience lines
Teleportation 3 (3)
Close Combat 1 (1/3)
Social Skills 2 (2/3)
Total cost: 5

Modifiers
Reflexive Dodge +3 (4)
+3 stones to defense
Total cost: 4

That leaves 7 stones unspent. I could push some of that stuff higher, or give her other actions or modifiers, but I can't think of stuff that feels right for the character. Pixie had her "pixie dust" attack that caused hallucinations, I'm just not sure I want to go that direction. Is it feasible to just leave the stones unspent, and develop a "secondary mutation" or previously undiscovered power at a later stage?

Yeah. In the corebook it suggests that people can just save their generation stones for later. I'd say it'd be worth saving for when you earn the rest of your stones. :)

What an absurdly helpful explanation, as well! This corebook is probably the 2nd most confusing one I've read through, with the other one being the Star Wars FFG...

Yeah, it's pretty wacky. They obviously envisioned it so that most players would just take one of the pre-generated Marvel Heroes. The ability to design and build your own characters feels a bit tacked-on as a result.

Cool, I'll update Ariel's character sheet with the new stats. I've got a few ideas for future directions that would still fit with her theme, replacing pixie dust and the whole soul-dagger thing (since we're not doing sorcery). I'll keep the extra stones free for now. :)

I totally forgot about the stones you get for taking on challenges! I have the challenges, but didn't spend them!

I have to say I don't think I really understand combat. Does Prescience give you a really good advantage in combat? Or is it kind of so-so?

Also, how does attribute bonus work? Is it like free energy when you use an Action? Or does it just increase your Action Number?

Aha! Well, you can always save them up for when everyone gets more. 8D

My understanding is that an attribute bonus allows you to put in more energy stones than your AN. For instance, Jean Grey has 7 Telepathy with the Intelligence Bonus, and an Intelligence score of 5. She only has 9 energy stones, and so she could add up to 2 extra stones from her own reserve for a 9 stone effort Telepathy. The extra stones come from her own energy reserve.

The game has two types of pools. A "general pool" where free stones for modifiers are used (I assume if we were in an actual table top setting, there would just be a pile of red stones in the middle of the table for anyone to take. Then there's an "energy reserve" pool that is determined by your durability and/or things that are directly affecting the amount of energy stones you have. Ability bonuses come from the energy reserve pool.

For Prescience, it depends on how you use it. Since Spencer is basically a bit of a more conspiracy theorist Scott Summers, it might be a good complimenting ability. If he knows danger is on the way, and he can tell everyone, then you can never be in a situation where you are ambushed. In combat, it basically allows you to cheat--If the enemy has all of his stones readied into defense, then you could adjust and have all of your stones placed into attack since you know that you won't be taking a hit. Basically, you could do the most damage possible while taking the least damage possible.

It would be insanely useful for a solo character. As part of group, perhaps some diminishing returns, where more fun abilities could be picked in its stead.

We'll probably get to combat shortly, at which point it will probably be a full on tutorial for all of us. I've been trying to prepare myself for it so that I can give appropriate notes and track everything alright. Fingers crossed?

Prescience is pretty interesting - it's powerful, but not because it makes you stronger, just perfectly efficient.

For instance, a normal character might allocate six stones to Close Combat. Since they don't want to get beaten up, they might then transfer three of those to Defence. When the enemy stones are revealed, hey - it turns out they were going pretty defensive, with only one stone in their attack and four in their defence.

At that point, the normal character's attack fails. The prescient character in the same situation just moves one of their stones from Defence back to Close Combat - their attack succeeds, and they still defend themselves. Prescience is basically "Wait and see what everyone else does, then choose what you want to do accordingly."

Attribute bonuses increase your AN, but any energy still has to come from your energy reserves. (E.g. Ariel has Close Combat 1 with Agility 6 - she can allocate up to seven stones to Close Combat, but they're all from her pool.)

Most other bonuses will note that they add stones from the "General Pool", not from your own reserve. (E.g. Ariel has Reflexive Dodge 3, so she always adds three free stones to her Defence every round.)

So if I had Leadership and Prescience, I could re-allocate stones from my Leadership Action to other people's pools after the enemy's plan is revealed? I think I just broke the game!

All I need is a way to collect more energy so I can keep it up in a sustainable manner! I thought of Drain Energy, or Energy Absorption. Drain Energy has a lousy connotation, but I could coordinate with Arthur's explosions maybe. I also thought about Power Boost, which would be more of a "Home run" move unless I used it to burn out an enemies power.

So, if Arthur throws a charged object at you, you could Bishop it and absorb it, give Arthur some stones and he could make something go big boom?

that's pretty broken. lol

Snerk. That would be pretty clever. I'm not entirely certain if game breaking, though, since you can only allocate 2 stones at a time per player.

Still. I'm fairly certain that Prescience somewhat only applies to yourself. The only way that could logically include leadership is if the enemy waited around politely for an entire minute while you gave your team a little leadership speech. I envision leadership as having a 'speech' element to it, to speak in D&D terms.

... Although...

I think I would allow it if you literally did it in the way a comic book does it, where it is the type of monologue that makes /everyone/ stare!

Snapper: That would be a pretty sweet synergy!

sadrielle: That's probably why it's a maximum of two stones!

The way I read the description, it seems like it's pretty quick. I also thought it would be easy for me to call out direction: "Arthur... go hard, I'll back you up!" Or, "Brace for impact!". Even just changing my two stones would probably help, knowing the enemies preparation for the round.

Does Energy Absorption/Reflection work on all types of energy? What if I didn't want the Reflection bit? Could I get it at a discount? And the Sound/Light Transduction option, does this eliminate the other option to absorb energy attacks? Does the energy go into my reserve for use with any Actions? Or can I only use it for the Reflection part (which I don't really want anyway.).

Keep in mind that Prescience seems to work almost like a reflex. The way the description reads I have to assume that it's something like a minute in advanced at most as far as what it might feel like to be in danger. But it's a vague thing and there's no pin-point to where the danger is from, and it is very specific to his personal chance of coming into harm. From an in character perspective I do not think he would know what the enemy is about to do, so much as he would intrinsically know what he needs to do to avoid getting hurt, himself.

To know what an enemy is about to do to a friend or colleague to the extent that he's able to tell that colleague what to do in the moment to avoid damage (read: rearrange their stones), that falls more into the realm of telepathy and future-telling, since he would have to know what the enemy is about to do.

Does this make sense?

For energy absorption / reflection, I wouldn't think of the reflection as a perk. I assume the abilities are grouped together because they are both pretty much the same with a different "skin" to speak. The base root of the ability is to absorb the energy from an attack and to either keep that energy or to dispel it, either as a shield or projectile, or use to empower himself. If you intend to only use this ability to keep the energy to empower one of your own abilities (this means you would not be able to flip the energy around to defense, aka a shield), then you make take a disadvantage of -2 Levels.

There are no corebook restrictions toward energy, so I would say as long as it's reasonable, it's doable. I.e., no absorbing sun uv rays like a little plant. The energy source has to be significant and directed at you. It can also be concussive (think T'Challa's suit and how it takes the energy from a punch and strengthens his own punch.)

Yes, that makes sense. I'm wondering if it's worth it. I'm also seeing now that you need to have an action quite high so you can deviate stones to Defense as well.

Okay, more questions... I'm trying to manufacture a Mastery that's not there, I think?
I want to master electronic systems. I'm thinking hacking through 'transference', bypassing security systems, wiretapping phones, decrypting messages, fooling and/or tapping into security cameras, etc. I thought mastery because I'd like to be able to change into a signal and effectively teleport through something like a phone line or radio, etc. I constructed it with other powers, but it's not really... good?
Create Illusions/Shapeshift- (for fooling cameras or biometric scans)
Invisibility- (again, for cameras)
Technology/Phase Shift- Hacking, and modifying systems, opening electronic doors, etc.
Universal Translator
Photographic memory? Scanning pages quickly and remembering without error
Private Investigation (searching digital records)

It doesn't follow the pattern of most masteries, and is more of a delicate touch than the brute force of other Masteries there are, but I thought it might be interesting, and there's not really an effective combat element, either. Or could I use the framework Magic uses, but it would be limited to techno-mechanical stuff. Or, it seems like Masteries just add +1 for each power you add...

Would Ventriloquism include Mimicry? Or would noise be included in Create Illusions? Or would I have to create a Personalized action for it? Sorry, so many questions.

They're interesting questions at the very least. The type of questions where the only way to figure out the answer is grasp a better understanding of the system! So keep them coming.

In this case, I think you might be erring toward the side of overthinking. The more abilities you take, the more stones will be wasted, and the less high your AN for each ability can be. Meaning, these abilities might be for the most part useless if you can't pass the difficulty and resistance check. So it's probably advisable to take as few abilities as possible that can apply rather broadly in usage. As far as I'm concerned from a GM perspective, if there is an in game mechanic for it, then it's cool, even if that happens to mean making a new skin for an already existing ability.

Let's go with your idea to make up a new Mastery as an example.

We can call this a Mastery of Technology. I'm not certain if it's a very 'mutant' ability but since Spencer is a wild card, perhaps his mutant gene just makes it easier to do techno-magic or whatever the technical term for it happens to be in cyberpunk games. It will be up to you to determine the why of it. This will essentially be the Technology skill with a few options to manage cost levels to reasonable levels for the broad scope that you're going after.

Master of Technology
Cost Level = AN + Options Taken

*Cameras/ Surveillance - +1 cost level to temporarily disable cameras as long as concentration is maintained, or cause them to have malfunction (will need to pass resistance and difficulty check per difficulty of equipment) OR +2 to create and maintain a believable false footage for as long as concentration is maintained (includes being invisible to cameras).
*Hacking - +1 cost to access electronic doors, gated computer systems, etc. Additional +1 to not leave behind a tampering evidence trail upon successful completion (a sort of "elemental" immunity?).
* Detection devices - +1 Cost to intentionally trigger sensors. Amount of stones placed into the action determines the distance away from which the character may trigger the sensors.
*All masteries get a -1 cost level discount on Movement abilities.

As for invisibility, ventriloquism, private investigation, etc. as far as this mastery would go, it's sort of included under the wide umbrella of the options. Photographic memory is more of a general knowledge and intelligence check than it would be a technological check. Unless you want it for a very specific reason--such as suggesting that Spencer's been in his mum's office and has looked at a few pieces of paper on the fly--then I'd just avoid making it as an extra option for a +1 cost, because honestly, I'll probably give you an accurate enough gist. :)

Teleportation or Phase Shift can be re-skinned as passing through wires rather than dimensions. I won't be picky on that.


Please note that I was just using the above as an example of what you could do! I highly encourage you to personalize what you want your mastery to be if you're making up a new one, and I will give you the cost for each option you want to include.

I'd say that's overthinking the Mastery of Technology idea - essentially, that power is just the Technology action with a high AN, and perhaps the Works at increased range advantage if you want to simulate doing it telepathically. There's also the Biocomputing action in the Guide to the X-Men book, which should cover the universal translator, photographic memory, high-speed data searching stuff. Teleportation (themed as via wires) would be its own action.

I was thinking for sure I would need the create/manipulate element advantage to do things like wiretap a phone call, or watch on a camera feed, or make a cellphone call without a cellphone, or listen and broadcast radiowaves. Technology for sure would be part of it, I was thinking with the transference advantage?