Occult Powers Difficult to Stat in Hero

[tarragon]

Re: Occult Powers Difficult to Stat in Hero

 

Well, because a powerful magcal ritual is best represented by a Power, for one thing. I don't know of any Perquisites that even resemble a Power, let alone this one. All the trappings of the ritual can be represented with Powers, Advantages, Adders, and Limitations, whereas with a Perk I would have to do it all from scratch. Also, using Transform, I can properly represent the abilities conferred upon the target.

 

Also, the Ad/ Disad value is even Stevens. The Tranform Advantage is 10 Character Points, and the DF Disad is also 10 points. So no gain or loss.

 

I'm with Ganesh here (and myself from earlier). The effect of this is to allow a person to know about their past lives. That seems like a handful of appropriate Knowledge skills, some profesional skills if they had a useful profession in the past, and a perk that allows access to the deep dark campaign shattering knowledge. The ritual is what justifies that the person can buy those powers.

 

Now, not everyone can cast that ritual so you want to limit it, it also has some in game utility so you want to make it cost. You can, not have to, but can do this by making it a perk. Not everyone can be pope, not everyone can get into the FBI's criminal database, not everyone can cast this spell. If your worried about a perk not having the trappings of a ritual, make it have the trappings. That exists already, Ability to Marry is a perk that allows you to perform the proper binding ritual.

 

When it comes down to it my basic objection is this: You are permanently altering another character giving them valuable skills and knowledge. This should cost that character points.

[prestidigitator]

Re: Occult Powers Difficult to Stat in Hero

 

When it comes down to it my basic objection is this: You are permanently altering another character giving them valuable skills and knowledge. This should cost that character points.

They will. While a Transform can grant a character additional Powers temporarily, if they want to keep it they must spend the Character Points for the new Power. This ritual will just be a convenient in-game way for characters to bypass normal setting conventions for obtaining new Powers, Skills, etc. It can be hand-waved a little bit, grant temporary Powers while the target earns the Experience to buy the new ability, and serve as a story hook, but I wouldn't say it should be a freebie for other PCs to gain free abilities. [EDIT: ...unless such, "free," abilities are normally a part of the campaign, like spells, cybernetics, and equipment can be in heroic games, but again this is just a means for a character to obtain an ability that is, "paid for," according to the usual genre/setting conventions.]

[Guest Black Lotus]

Re: Occult Powers Difficult to Stat in Hero

 

When it comes down to it my basic objection is this: You are permanently altering another character giving them valuable skills and knowledge. This should cost that character points.

 

It does, in theory. It costs 10 Character Points. The DF Disasd GIVES the character 10 Character Points. Net Gain: 0 Character Points. They're not "free". Even if they were free, Transform is quite capable of granting characters abilities they do not have on a semi-permanent basis; this is allowed according to the official 5ER rules.

 

When converting Kult, I have to stay true to Kult. In Kult, the player gets these magical tatoos for free when the Conjurer casts the spell on him -- and that's how it's going to be in the Hero conversion, too. I'm sorry if you're uncomfortable with players getting "free" abilities, but it makes perfect sense within the setting. Objection noted, though.

[prestidigitator]

Re: Occult Powers Difficult to Stat in Hero

 

It does, in theory. It costs 10 Character Points. The DF Disasd GIVES the character 10 Character Points. Net Gain: 0 Character Points. They're not "free". Even if they were free, Transform is quite capable of granting characters abilities they do not have on a semi-permanent basis; this is allowed according to the official 5ER rules.

 

When converting Kult, I have to stay true to Kult. In Kult, the player gets these magical tatoos for free when the Conjurer casts the spell on him -- and that's how it's going to be in the Hero conversion, too. I'm sorry if you're uncomfortable with players getting "free" abilities, but it makes perfect sense within the setting. Objection noted, though.

Ah! There you go. Exactly balancing out all the points from new abilities with new Disadvantages seems fair to me. I believe Transform even states that you have to make up the difference in Character Points if you want to keep the added abilities.

[tarragon]

Re: Occult Powers Difficult to Stat in Hero

 

Hey cool. I feel strongly that a character recieving a permanent power should pay for it and you covered all my objections. It doesn't matter how you stat out the power that gives powers.

 

I'm curious how did you eventually decided to build the knowledge that's given?

[Guest Black Lotus]

Re: Occult Powers Difficult to Stat in Hero

 

Hey cool. I feel strongly that a character recieving a permanent power should pay for it and you covered all my objections. It doesn't matter how you stat out the power that gives powers.

 

I'm curious how did you eventually decided to build the knowledge that's given?

 

As a Knowledge Skill. I haven't decided what to call it yet, but that's what it'll be. The tattoos act as the tools of the skill, the "crystal ball", so to speak; if some or all of the tattoos are removed, the skill roll decreases or disappears.

[tarragon]

Re: Occult Powers Difficult to Stat in Hero

 

If so you probably want Sorry to keep dragging this back from the dead, but...

 

he gains some extremely important knowledge as pertains to the game setting.

 

Is this something that can be seperated from the self knowledge? I mean once some guy has had this spell cast on him can he explain this particularly important point to other people? It might be tough to convince someone but can it be done? Does that (un-tattooed) crazy guy living under the 5th street bridge really know the secret to the universe like he says he does?

 

If so consider making this aspect a perk on it's own that is also added with this ritual.

[Guest Black Lotus]

Re: Occult Powers Difficult to Stat in Hero

 

If so you probably want Sorry to keep dragging this back from the dead, but...

 

 

 

Is this something that can be seperated from the self knowledge? I mean once some guy has had this spell cast on him can he explain this particularly important point to other people? It might be tough to convince someone but can it be done? Does that (un-tattooed) crazy guy living under the 5th street bridge really know the secret to the universe like he says he does?

 

If so consider making this aspect a perk on it's own that is also added with this ritual.

 

Visualize it this way: human life as we currently know it is an "Illusion," comparable to the Matrix in the movie of the same name. Unlike the Matrix, the Creator God, or Demiurge, imposed the "Illusion" upon all human beings to limit them. Before the Illusion descended, humans were all divine beings with full knowledge of all universes.

 

This spell allows a target to study all the memories of all of his past lives -- INCLUDING the time before the "Illusion" came into being. In other words, he will remember details of what it was like to be a divine being, way back before humans were cursed with the "Illusion".

[prestidigitator]

Re: Occult Powers Difficult to Stat in Hero

 

The thing is' date=' this Power -- belonging to the Conjurer -- permanently grants another character a different Power of his own. I'll have to think long and hard about how to represent this in the rules. You see, when the Subject can remember all the way back to before humans lost their divinity (in the cosmology of the game), he gains some extremely important knowledge as pertains to the game setting.[/quote']

I realized you could probably do this with a Detect (10-point level, with possibly several, "additional categories," of things that it can detect and a bunch of Adders such as Range, Discriminatory, possibly Transdimensional, etc.). That will get more expensive than a simple KS and have slightly different mechanics (Per roll), but it's another possibility.