Drain, Tricky or simple? Help Please

[hammersickle59]

Freakin A, my boss is finally gone, I can stop working and post! lol.

 

Ok, I have a PC who wants to specialize in the drain power. He wants to be able to drain "any characteristic or power". Switching on the fly but only draining one power at a time.

 

I started by going to page 111-112 in 5th Edition Revised. Thats the Variable Effect and Variable-Mulitiple Effects section for Adjustment powers. I cant do exactly that with just those two. Variable Effect keeps building up "now you can drain 2 things at the same time...now 3...now 4.." Not what we're looking for. At most it says "within a related group of special effects" Like draining all Fire based powers for example.

 

Ok, so now I move on to Variable Effect - Multiple Special Effects. At +2 it finally says it affects "all special effects" However, to buy +2, you are first required to get at least a +1/2 in Variable effect which we dont want or need cause we dont want to drain multiple things at the same time! I dont think it would be an abuse to ignore needing to get the other +1/2. Actually, in comparison, you can get "Cosmic +2" for VPP to being able to spend your points in anything.

 

Another weird thing was that when I was building this power using Hero Designer, it didnt have either of these options per se (unless I did it wrong). What I found was an advantage called "Variable Special Effects" Page 278 Revised, Which allows you to change the special effect of a power to anything; I'm not sure that would work with this Drain. We're not exactly changing the special effect of our power, we're changing the power itself so it can effect any other power instead of picking one.

 

Ok, Thanks for reading my long post.Thanks ahead of time for all the advice. This site has been an awesome source for newbs like me.

[archermoo]

Re: Drain, Tricky or simple? Help Please

 

Freakin A, my boss is finally gone, I can stop working and post! lol.

 

Ok, I have a PC who wants to specialize in the drain power. He wants to be able to drain "any characteristic or power". Switching on the fly but only draining one power at a time.

 

I started by going to page 111-112 in 5th Edition Revised. Thats the Variable Effect and Variable-Mulitiple Effects section for Adjustment powers. I cant do exactly that with just those two. Variable Effect keeps building up "now you can drain 2 things at the same time...now 3...now 4.." Not what we're looking for. At most it says "within a related group of special effects" Like draining all Fire based powers for example.

 

Ok, so now I move on to Variable Effect - Multiple Special Effects. At +2 it finally says it affects "all special effects" However, to buy +2, you are first required to get at least a +1/2 in Variable effect which we dont want or need cause we dont want to drain multiple things at the same time! I dont think it would be an abuse to ignore needing to get the other +1/2. Actually, in comparison, you can get "Cosmic +2" for VPP to being able to spend your points in anything.

 

Another weird thing was that when I was building this power using Hero Designer, it didnt have either of these options per se (unless I did it wrong). What I found was an advantage called "Variable Special Effects" Page 278 Revised, Which allows you to change the special effect of a power to anything; I'm not sure that would work with this Drain. We're not exactly changing the special effect of our power, we're changing the power itself so it can effect any other power instead of picking one.

 

Ok, Thanks for reading my long post.Thanks ahead of time for all the advice. This site has been an awesome source for newbs like me.

 

Well, without getting Variable Effect at at least the +1/4 level the Drain only affects a single set power. Why you have to buy it at the +1/2 level (any 2 powers from a single SFX) to get the Multiple SFX advantage I'm not quite sure.

 

As to Hero Designer, when I purchase Drain both Variable Effect and Variable Special Effects are listed as available Advantages. I'm not quite sure why you wouldn't be seeing them.

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: Drain, Tricky or simple? Help Please

 

I've always noticed that this was missing from the Adjustment Power rules. They have provisions for affecting multiple powers of a give SFX, but not single powers from multiple SFX. I use the following scale:

 

+1/4 - any one power of one SFX (standard, by the book)

+1/2 - any one power of either of two (presumably related or associated) SFX (ex: Light and Darkness), or a somewhat more broadly defined SFX (ex: anything related to Fire/Heat)

+1 - any one power of any one of four different SFX (ex: Earth, Air, Fire, Water), or a very broad SFX (ex: any one Characteristic.)

+2 - any one power of *any* one SFX.

 

Yes, the GM does need to keep an eye on this, but I'd say it's less abusable than the multiple-power advantages, because it's still only ever affecting one power at a time.