Aberrant RPG - Multiple Powers and Stacking Soak

[Ptesan-Wi]

OK, campers, it's time for N!Prime to make a decision on this. The meat of the argument can be found in the Force Field thread. So here's it is; N!Prime, speak your mind!

EDIT: And please, folks: one vote per player, not per character. We're on the honor system on this....

[Harold 'Mythic' Anderson]

Small note:

Some of us have more than one login, giving us the ability to vote more than once. Hence, either there needs to be some kind of check on that or the results of this poll may be a little informal.

Not that I'm paranoid or anything.

[Ptesan-Wi]

Unfortunately, I'm not aware of a good way to check that with the polling software; it will have to be the honor system.

[Ptesan-Wi]

I was a bad little camper, and neglected to give "Other" options in the polls...and another forum member let me know why that was a problem. So if you have an opinion but it just doesn't fit the choices, please post it as a post.

[Ptesan-Wi]

Anyone happen to have any idea how many active players we have on N!Prime? There's 16 votes so far, and I suspect that that isn't far from what we have....

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

Don't know, but the trend is pretty clear.

[Bahamut810]

I initially voted for no stacking, but after a little bit of thought I want to change my vote.

If armor and armor (superheavy) are considered different, seperate powers, why treat them any differently then armor and invunerability?

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

Quote:

Originally posted by Bahamut810:
I initially voted for no stacking, but after a little bit of thought I want to change my vote.

If armor and armor (superheavy) are considered different, seperate powers, why treat them any differently then armor and invunerability?

The logic is sound, the problem is where it leads (i.e. FF, FF+Wall, 15 dots of Armor, 3 seperate Clone powers, etc).

That's why I voted against allowing multiple powers at all.

And since we like quoting from page 230 "A power with an Extra is considered a seperate, distinct power."

It's worth quoting the rest of that section. "A character may not buy one power and several Extras and then 'trade off' the Extras from turn to turn to get the most effective attack. An Extra, once purchased for a power, must always be used when that power is used."

Those last two sentences come after the first and are the context for it.

[Ptesan-Wi]

Those latter two sentances are all dealing with that single iteration of the power. They do not in any way translate into "you can have only one version of a power".

In any event, this isn't a thread for putting forth arguments; it's a thread for voting. The only thing that should be posted here is stuff pertinent to the mechanics of the vote itself (options not listed in the poll, etc).

[z-Carver]

Quote:

It's worth quoting the rest of that section. "A character may not buy one power and several Extras and then 'trade off' the Extras from turn to turn to get the most effective attack. An Extra, once purchased for a power, must always be used when that power is used."

Sorry Troll, to me that sounds like when you buy a power and add multiple powers to that one, separate power. Like claws with Agg and AP makes the claws a level three power. You can't decide to use Agg and AP one round, then drop the Agg and just use AP the next because you've realized that your opponant has Hardbody and you want to use the claws as level two instead. You'd need to have a separate claws attack that is just AP.

And reread that sentence again - "A power with an Extra is considered a seperate, distinct power." It is very clear that they are talking about a singular power with a singular extra. The next sentence is discussing a different thing entirely - a singular power with multiple extras.

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

Quote:

Thoughtwave: In any event, this isn't a thread for putting forth arguments; it's a thread for voting.

Fair enough.

[z-Carver]

Sorry - simultaneous posting. I am silenced.

[Ashnod]

I am one of those people who can see it both ways, hence I didn't actually vote in the poll.

1) I believe you can have multiple versions of the same power so long as they are different. Case in point, A forcefield with Wall and one with no extra. Or, Absorption: Kinetic and Absorption: Energy. Or, INV: Energy (broad) and INV: Physical (Broad)

2) I believe you are not limited to 5 total dots amongst those multiple powers. We're talking beings that shake continents at Q6 and better and worlds and universes at higher levels, and you're telling me they are limited to FIVE dots amongst powers that are similar? Where this might be thought of a game balance issue, I also feel it's horribly out of flavor for the setting and would never restrict my players that way.

As far as stacking soaks of multiple powers, I am of the FIRM belief that this is on a case by case basis and there is no "blanket" policy to police the entire game with.

EX 1) I am opposed to multiple stacks on soaks on powers that are "always on" or have no activation cost. Case in point, Armor and INV. While yes, normal armor and impervious armor would be two different and distinct powers, since they have no activation cost and never have maintenance, buying one power with the extra, and then buying another without the extra does nothing except provide the user with an inordinate amount of extra soak dice, half of which will cut down on any armor piercing attacks.

EX 2) INV: Punching and INV: Physical (broad). Punching IS Physical. It's double redundancy. It's abusive.

EX 3) Superheavy armor. This HAS an activation cost. This is a very good extra for the purposes of flavor and balance. As such, there's no real reason to allow armor AND superheavy armor on the character, as it isn't Superheavy unless you spend for it. Until you spend for it, you're effectively using 2 identical armors - same as the impervious armor and regular armor in Ex 1.

EX 4) Forcefield and Reflexive Forcefield. Not much difference here either. Except when it gets activated, they are functionally the same.

Ex 5) Wall Forcefield and Normal Forcefield OR Reflexive Field and Wall Field: As an ST, here I would allow it. Both of them are "off" until turned "on." Both have activation (whether it is fixed or variable) and maintenance costs, meaning they aren't going to be on forever and only one of them applies in the case of a sneak attack. During extended combats, keeping both of them up will require draining the Q-pool immensely. And one of them provides protection only from a single angle (Wall). In this case, given the limitations of quantum-pool in keeping up both fields and the fact that the Wall field nominally cannot give total protection from all angles (even if stretched around the nova), I would have no problem counting the Wall as a separate soak from the Normal one.

[Slattern]

Good argument Ashnod.

[Ptesan-Wi]

OK. Five days and twenty voters down the line, and it looks like we have a rock-solid consensus on the first question, with a fairly strong consensus on the second.

[Noir]

75% is more than fairly strong. Heck it only takes a 2/3 majority (66%) to get a bill passed. Heh.

EDIT:

I stand corrected. It takes a 2/3 majority to ammend the Constitution. It only takes 50%+1 to pass a regular bill.

~Noir