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Alistaire

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I don't know if this has been covered before (I couldn't find it on a quick search), but how about this: Quantum Imprint, with one level of duration Strength (APG) making it permanent. Easy way to get powers? Is this legal? Should it be allowed? I'm just asking for thoughts and opinions here so I can judge it's use in my game.

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It is widely regarded that the strengths and weakness system is broken and especially with regards to permanent duration. Almost no ST would let you get away with it. So in that case you might consider that whole section a "loophole."

On the other hand you can get permanent powers as an Aberration with Taint 8 (or optionally with a Flaw) if they somehow cosumerrily disadvantage you somehow. The APG states that if making a power permanent would be wholly beneficial that it be considered as an Extra. As always, it's up to the ST and YMMV...

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This, like virtually every other example of the Permanent Duration Strength, is a good example of why the Strengths/Weaknesses system for Aberrant was very poorly thought out.

However, here are a couple of things to keep in mind:

  • Quantum Imprint requires an extra for you to use copied Traits at their full strength, so you're only getting a portion of the copied Traits otherwise (unless you're copying Traits of novas weaker than yourself). Also, in the case of powers, you are limited to the Base Attribute of the power when rolling to attack or use the power, and you must pay 1 quantum point more to activate that power than you would normally.
  • Quantum Imprint normally only works against a single target at a time (though the APG provides an extra that will allow you to use it against multiple targets simultaneously). Meaning that, if you were allowed to purchase this Strengthened Q-Imprint, your powers would only be 'permanent' until you needed/wanted to copy the powers of someone else.
None of this makes this power 'not broken', but it does put it a bit more in perspective, I think.

I don't know if this has been covered before (I couldn't find it on a quick search), but how about this: Quantum Imprint, with one level of duration Strength (APG) making it permanent. Easy way to get powers? Is this legal? Should it be allowed? I'm just asking for thoughts and opinions here so I can judge it's use in my game.

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Thanks guys. I knew I could count on you for a better analysis of this than I could do alone. Combined intelligence and all that. ::wink

It is widely regarded that the strengths and weakness system is broken and especially with regards to permanent duration. Almost no ST would let you get away with it. So in that case you might consider that whole section a "loophole."

Really? Thus far I've found the S&W to be really useful in making powers make more sense in-game and not just generic (I'd love to tell you about how well one NPC of mine worked out with his "darkness" theme this way!). Perhaps the players in my Ab game just aren't munchkiny enough to have tried to take advantage of any flaws in the system yet. I know one player who definitely would, but he works too much these days to game. He's brought entire games to a halt doing that, but I've found it useful when making new RPGs because it's like rigorous playtesting. Or even published rpgs too; like be careful who you let play a Fiend in Demon: The Fallen, for instance. But I digress.

So it looks like there'll be no Sylar-like characters in my game for a while.

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I don't know if this has been covered before (I couldn't find it on a quick search), but how about this: Quantum Imprint, with one level of duration Strength (APG) making it permanent. Easy way to get powers? Is this legal? Should it be allowed? I'm just asking for thoughts and opinions here so I can judge it's use in my game.
That whole section works a lot better for the ST building NPCs than it does for PCs trying to min-max.

Q-Imprint isn't even the worst example since it only lets you zap one person at a time.

Domination+Perm (only men/women) is seriously broken since Dominate can be used against more than one person at a time.

Node Spark + Perm is horribly broken since it can also be used more than once (and btw that's how I'd build Sylar, his weakness is he needs a recently dead super's brain to work off and they set his theme).

But even things like Force Field weren't well thought out. FF's big disad is it can't be up all the time (so you can take a surprise hit without it up) and it costs a fair amount of juice (so in combat it can only realistically be up for seconds).

Comparing FF+Perm to FF+RQC and the later is well balanced but the former is not.

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