Adjustable

[adunaphel]

Hi,

As I was working on a Captain America conversion, I thought of a way to represent is shield throw and HTH fighting capability.

As he is going to use one or the other, but not the two at the same time, I thought that the Adjustable pro was doing that very well. It's what the system offer which look the most like the "multipower" used in others.

But, it made me wonder on how it really works.

In fact, can the dices go below 3D or not ?

For exemple, let say a hero as :

- Strike (item, adjustable) 8 D (which cost 6 HD)
- Blast (item, ricochet, adjustable) 3D (which cost 2 HD)

Can he goes : Strike 11D - Blast 0D or is he limited to Strike 6D - Blast 3D or Strike 3D - Blast 6D ?

In the first option, it is less expensive to buy multiple powers with adjustable than to buy 1 power at a high level !

[LakeSide Len]

Wow. Hadn't even thought of that. Adjustable is really intended to be a "power regulation" kind of thing, like for heroes who have powered armor, allowing them to draw power from one system to add it to another. Note that you have to spend an action to adjust ranks when using this pro.

That said, as to whether you can go below 3d, my thought is this. If the trait can be completely "shut off" to boost another trait, then yes, it can go below 3d. But since 3d is the minimum trait rank, dropping below 3d basically turns that trait off, and gains you 1d you can put into another trait. Thus, if you have Blast 3d (Adjustable), you could lower it to 2d, effectively switching it off, to add 1d to another trait. Thus, if you have Strike (Adjustable) and Blast 3d (Adjustable), you could adjust to get Strike up to 9d or Blast up to 9d.

But again, I am not sure this is really Adjustable.

______________________________

If I were creating a character who used an impervious shield offensively and defensively, I might do something like this:

Armor ?d (Active; Inhibited: can't be used when using shield to attack; Impenetrable; Item: shield)
Blast ?d (Item: shield, Ricochet) - bought at the same rank as my Might +1d just for consistency
Strike 3d (Item: shield) - effectively giving me Might +1d rank Strike

[adunaphel]

Thx for the quick response.

You're explanation is very clear and makes sense (at less than 3D it goes off).

For the use of Adjustable for the shield, I think it makes sense and the action is not such a big deal. He takes a -2 penalty for multiple actions (2) in a page as he changes the use of the shield. It seems fair to me (in exchange for the HD gain).

I like your Inhibited con for the Armor part of the shield (will certainly use it).

However, the blast and strike options seem not fitting for me, as I think Cap has only a Might of 4D which is not enough to reflect is offensive mastery.

[LakeSide Len]

Thanks!

If the suggestions I provided for the Blast and Strike traits give ranks that feel too low for whatever characters you have in mind, then you could always try this:

Armor ?d (Active; Inhibited: can't be used when using shield to attack; Impenetrable; Item: shield)
Blast ?d (Item: shield, Ricochet; Underpowered)
Strike ?d (Item: shield; Underpowered; Variant: see below)
Strike Variant ?d-1 (Underpowered)

The Underpowered option means the trait's rank reflects more extreme skill than pure power, so the attack has a lesser effect when resisted with a passive defense. That will save you 4 hero dice (2 for each trait). Or you can drop that option and just assign whatever rank you deem appropriate. Adding the Variant pro lets you spend 2 hero dice to create an extra Strike trait, this one reflexting his unarmed skill. And since the variant lacks the Item option, it's rank has to be 1d lower (the rank of a variant trait varies depending on is pros and cons ... in effect, a variant trait must cost the same as the original trait, without taking the Variant pro into account).

[adunaphel]

Hi,

Thx for your new suggestions. They are very interesting.

The underpowered con is effectively a good way to represent MA prowess. And my Adjustable use is good for the shield but not that much for bare hands fight.

I thought of an other way to do it. As strike for a caracter who has an over 2D Might is like buying 2 times the same thing (up to the Might level and if you don't want some special effect with it, like penetrable). Could I use that kind of trick :

Might 8 D (limited : only 4D for Lifting purpose) ?

And which minimal difference between the 2 levels would be enough to get the limited bonus ? (in the exemple it's half level, but could it be at last 2D less for exemple)

[Nestor]

This is one thing that I've been struggling to work out with the system, representing martial artists in combat.

PnP presents Might as the default hand-to-hand offensive trait, with Athletics as the default for ranged offense. Characters whose combat prowess comes from training as opposed to raw strength don't have a corresponding trait to use, other than maybe Strike (as demonstrated by the Martial Artist archetype in Chapter 7).

[LakeSide Len]

Strike. It's all Strike. Strike gives you your melee attack, and can be used as melee defense. Claws, martial arts, energy punch, crushing cyber-arm, flaming-fist of fu, tickle powers of the underworld, whatever .... it's Strike. Give it the Item option, and you now have any kind of melee weapon you want.

[Nestor]

And if the character has both martial arts and a signature melee weapon? (The example that comes to mind is Marvel's Mockingbird, with her staff.) Would that be two separate Strike traits, one with an Item con?

See, that's what I'm trying to grok. A character with Might as his offensive trait can pick up a melee weapon and have it add to his dice pool. That option is not available to the character using Strike defined as martial arts. This is especially an issue when the weapon in question has usable pros, like Penetrating or Reach.

[LakeSide Len]

Now I gotcha. I think there are 2 ways to handle that.

The first way would be to just allow you to use the Strike trait in place of Might when armed with a mundane weapon. Honestly, I would be fine with this because you still have the 4d cap applied to your traits when using a mundane weapon. At best, you are giving the character 2 extra dice when armed with a mundane weapon (when it comes to supers, mundane weapons are kind of ... well, mundane).

The second way would be to use the Variant pro. Here's a simple example:

Strike (blunt) 10d (Item: battle staff; Variant: see below)
Strike Variant (blunt) 9d

--Strike (blunt) 10d (Item: battle staff) costs you 7 hero dice.
--You then spend 2 more hero dice for the Varient pro, giving you a 7 hero die variant of the Strike power (remember you don't take the cost of the Variant pro into account when creating a variant power).
--In this case, you end up with Strike 9d.

Flavor-wise, this kind of makes sense: you do a bit more damage when armed with some kind of weapon. This was one of the scenarios expressly considered when we came up with the Variant pro. It works the same way for a mage character who does more damage when he channels his magic blast through his wand.

I hope this helps.
Len

PS: In the example above, you could also swap the Fighting con for the Item con. The Fighting con means that the Strike power applies only when you are armed with mundane melee weapons (of whatever kind). The weapons themselves have no real game effect, but you have to be armed with them to use the Strike power. In effect, this works just like the Item con, but instead of representing one unique melee weapon, they represent your crazy skill with all melee weapons. This might be another way to get where you're trying to go.

[Nestor]

Okay, yeah, that works, especially the Variant option.

Thanks!

[LakeSide Len]

Awesome.