Wild Talents question

[Snake-Eyes]

I'm starting a Wild Talents game but I'm a little stuck on the powers creation. One of my players is basing her character off Ramona Flowers. She wants Ramona's little bag of holding but I'm unsure how that stats out. Anyone got any suggestions?

[clockworkjoe]

Useful - capacity is weight
Endless to make sure it stays on.

2 HD to guarantee it always works

Booster to increase weight carried.

[Snake-Eyes]

Okay cool. Also just to make sure I'm doing it right. I got a player that's going to wield a scythe but he wants to ignite with fire around it. So far it's hyperstat melee weapon with the burn extra on it. That correct or am I totally off base?

[SageNytell]

Hyperskill if it's a melee weapon, otherwise correct.

Also if your first player wants to already have stuff to pull out, you could do an attached power with Variable Effect, but that gets expensive fast.

[Flawless P]

I feel like this is the beginnings of an Official Wild Talents questions thread...

The system is intriguing but the learning curve is a little steep. At least it has been for me in the powers department.

I got some good advice on the forums already for powers so I guess i'm lucky to have some many people who have a degree of system mastery.

In that vein here is an advanced question that will take a bit....

I am in the process of helping one of my players build a wrath of god type character. He has Angelic Wings for flight, the ability to heal wounds(he wants the engulf extra to heal all body parts simultaneously) and the trickiest of them a holy weapon... a focus that deals shock damage to people who are guilty of petty crimes and killing damage to those who have killed someone in cold blood and is not truly repentant. Basically its a Flaming Sword that kills and burns those guilty of serious crimes, and then it's a Mace that does Shock Damage to others... (preferably with a way to prevent its damage from being completely trivial against armored opponents.)

So here are my questions:
1. Is there a way to add new wound boxes to a character? Like giving each wing 5 wound boxes that are independent of the others?

and

2. What extra's and flaws would be required to make a weapon that is so specific?

I hope this isn't too much of an imposition... also sorry Snake-Eyes for borrowing the thread.

[MrTact]

1. Is there a way to add new wound boxes to a character? Like giving each wing 5 wound boxes that are independent of the others?

Yes. The name of that power is Custom Hit Locations, and it's on p. 143 of the big book. (Not sure about the Essential Edition.) You might also want to consider the Extra Tough miracle, which will give you some extra wound boxes to spread around.

2. What extra's and flaws would be required to make a weapon that is so specific?

Here's the way to think about doing it: make it as effective as it needs to be for its most effective state, and then Flaw it down for the conditions where it's not as useful (in the universal sense of useful, not Useful, if you see what I mean).

The fact that sometimes it's a sword and sometimes a mace is an almost irrelevant detail as far as the mechanics are concerned. Those are just special effects.

Here's what I would do:

Holy Weapon 6d (A U, 5 per die, 30 points)
Attacks Extras and Flaws: Burn +2, If/Then -1 (Burn and Killing damage apply only to unrepentant murderers)
Useful Extras and Flaws: None.

You roll 6d to attack with this weapon; it does Width in Shock & Killing, plus a burn effect, against murderers. Against other opponents, it does Width in Shock.

The Useful quality is that by its very nature it detects a target's moral state, which (IMHO) is worth requiring you to spend points on. Your GM might disagree. I threw it in as an extra quality, and I would just have it work automatically if you hit. If you're into powergaming, you could buy it cheaper as a separate 2hd miracle (8 points vs. 12 -- better still make it Attached and Automatic, for a net 4 points), or even as a 1-point dud power, depending on the campaign.

Of course, the whole thing probably ought to be bought as a Focus, which will reduce the cost per die further. Don't forget that you can't reduce the cost of any single quality below 1/die, though.

Finally, you could also consider defining the Attack quality as Brawling Hyperskill. That would let you add your Body + Brawling to the dice roll... but that wouldn't allow you to use the Burn extra (unless you bought the Burn extra on your intrinsic Body + Brawling as well).

I hope that helps, and I didn't just confuse you further! 

[Flawless P]

I think I've got about the gist of it, but  how do you calculate the cost on that power.

Attacks is 1 per die Useful is 1 per die burn is +2 per die and if/then is -1

That seems like 3 points per die unless I am missing a rule I don't know about.

[SageNytell]

Unless you start as a hyperskill (which is by definition VERY narrow) or a hyperstat (which is by definition VERY broad), any power or miracle costs 2 points per die, per power quality.

Attacks, then, would cost 2 points per die on it's own, adding in 2 points for Burn brings you to 4, -1 for If/Then(MoralityCheck) gives you 3 points per die for the attacks quality. Useful, without any modifications, is simply 2 points.
That whole power would cost your player 5 points per die, 10 per hard die, and 20 points per wiggle die. If you were to toss the whole thing onto a Focus, you'd flaw down both qualities by 1 and it would indeed cost 3 points per die.

Hope that helps! I can toss up some crazier examples if you want to see how the math would work out. 

Edit: One of the things to remember is that the powers given in the book don't always have all the right math done, either - thus the errata they've had to release. Some of it wasn't even caught in the errata, either! Heavy Armor is an example off the top of my head, but I don't have the book right at hand.

[Flawless P]

So far so good i'm starting to get the hang of it.


For the healing power we are looking at

Healing Touch [Useful+1; Touch] 3hd (27 pts)
Engulf +2
Touch Only -2

You can heal physical damage as well as cure diseases and poison with a touch. You heal width in damage from every hit location of your target.

What do you think? I took the cafeteria power and added engulf... Do I need another instance of useful for both poison and disease?

Making powers is actually pretty fun now that I get it.(Now that I think I get it that is.)

[Flawless P]

Unless you start as a hyperskill (which is by definition VERY narrow) or a hyperstat (which is by definition VERY broad), any power or miracle costs 2 points per die, per power quality.

Attacks, then, would cost 2 points per die on it's own, adding in 2 points for Burn brings you to 4, -1 for If/Then(MoralityCheck) gives you 3 points per die for the attacks quality. Useful, without any modifications, is simply 2 points.
That whole power would cost your player 5 points per die, 10 per hard die, and 20 points per wiggle die. If you were to toss the whole thing onto a Focus, you'd flaw down both qualities by 1 and it would indeed cost 3 points per die.

Hope that helps! I can toss up some crazier examples if you want to see how the math would work out. 

Edit: One of the things to remember is that the powers given in the book don't always have all the right math done, either - thus the errata they've had to release. Some of it wasn't even caught in the errata, either! Heavy Armor is an example off the top of my head, but I don't have the book right at hand.

Thanks for all the help. I'm in full blown learning mode so i'd be happy to read more examples.

[MrTact]

So far so good i'm starting to get the hang of it.

For the healing power we are looking at

Healing Touch [Useful+1; Touch] 3hd (27 pts)
Engulf +2
Touch Only -2

I don't have my book handy, so I might be missing something, but that math looks off to me. The Useful quality is a base 2 pts/die, +1 for the additional level of Useful. (The additional Useful level here may not be necessary -- I think it just offsets any penalty dice you might take.) Engulf and Touch Only cancel out (although that Touch Only seems hinky to me; I expect it's from the Cafeteria, though, so let's just move on). That leaves you at 3 pts/die. 3 dice would be 9 points; doubling that for 3hd gives 18, not 27.

[SageNytell]

Any time you're using just hard dice and see an odd number, check your math - doublings can't be odd.
And yes, the cafeteria lists 'touch only' as a flaw on a touch only power. Yeah. I think they just wanted to make it cheap, plus this is the second edition - things might have worked differently in the original printing.

I'll throw up a couple of characters from the game I ran, and some stuff I've been working on while at work. Most of it's pretty standard but occasionally I've gotten a bit ambitious.

Just remember that extras don't have to do what they would 'seem' to do - examples thrown together in the book are spray being used with HyperResearch to read more than one book at a time, and burn can be used on a defensive power to do damage without an actual attack roll on a successful defense.  Actually, spray alone... I love the flexibility that it grants on powers without being an 'affects everything' power like Area and Radius.
I'll see if I can scare up the sheets tomorrow.

[Snake-Eyes]

More questions. Ramona's roller skates, melts snow/ice (it did in the movie at least) and gives her "super speed" then there is her power to find those doors. Unsure about stating out the door power, the skates i'm figuring hyperstat coordination and now sure from there.

[Flawless P]

Useful - capacity is weight
Endless to make sure it stays on.

2 HD to guarantee it always works

Booster to increase weight carried.

Also, Focus since it's an item and she to my knowledge can't just open a hole in the universe to store things in. Although that would be a nifty power.

[Flawless P]

More questions. Ramona's roller skates, melts snow/ice (it did in the movie at least) and gives her "super speed" then there is her power to find those doors. Unsure about stating out the door power, the skates i'm figuring hyperstat coordination and now sure from there.

Melting the Snow/Ice is a Useful Quality, as is super speed, as is teleportation.

I'm not quite good enough to help you make the whole power but I'd say Melting snow like Ramona does is a Dud power because she doesn't actually melt anything that would have an impact on the game.

Super Speed is a Useful ability with the Speed capacity(I think) give it defends if she can use it to dodge.

The teleportation power is tricky, it is Useful, it has a long range but it is limited to other doors along the hyperspace highway. She can take others with her, but it also takes her more than one round to find the door.

If the doors are a fact of the universe than giving her the ability to find and use them is a much cheaper alternative that would be two seperate Hyperskills.

So.... yeah thats what I've got to say about that....