Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

[shinryu]

So, I like no Power Points a lot for some genres and there are settings that it's clearly the better way to handle Powers in. However, this came up in another thread and I thought I'd bat it to the general audience: there are circumstances where a character should clearly be able to activate a power(s) previous to an encounter (say, they're laying an ambush and want to dial up Quickness/Warrior's Gift/Invisibility/etc.). This leads to annoying situations using the RAW ala:

Mage: i activate invisibility
Mage: crap i fail i am Shaken but no one cares as it is not combat
Mage: i activate invisibility

...repeat until mage critically fails and explodes (actually not likely even for a D6 Spellcasting until after four tries), or succeeds. Either way, much extra rolling and boredom ensues. This is of course worse with multiple Powers since they need to get all the activations to work in a row or else start all over since failure dispels the powers.

Is there a more elegant way to handle this? Is it generally worth letting them just have the powers for free to speed things up? Maybe one Spellcasting roll at the worst penalty, succeed or backlash? A Dramatic Task to get your stuff in line before the ambush? Anybody else deal with this?

[catalac]

well i'd do the rolls anyway because it doesn't take that much time.
if pressed for time (which almost never happens at the beginning of an encounter) i'd just say "you succeed" and move it along.
there shouldn't really need to be a need to have dramatic tasks unless the enemy is 6 seconds away and you need to activate the power "right now".

but then again if thats the case then you wouldn't have time for the boring way anyway.

i wouldn't penalize your players for being smart enough to plan a trap in advance.

[shinryu]

[catalac]

well somebody using the power all day long would likely become more fatigued more quickly. so say when he's doing that you can cut the time in half for how long it takes to become tired, hot, or something else.
after all somebody working all day is more likely to be exhausted then somebody who wisely takes breaks.

plus if your game has creatures who seek out people that have magic power to eat. this guy would attract them like bugs. do it. it'll be funny.

something that serves me well is. don't screw with what they can do. screw with what you can do to them.
when they are strong make yourself stronger. when they are weak make your self weaker.
don't spend all your time trying to mess with what they can notice because when you want to change your mind again their gonna throw a fit.

i once did a lot of change of the rules for my players and experimented with their weapons and rules that made them more awesome and when i figured out i didn't want them to be able to do that when i tried to tone it down a little it took some major diplomacy to get them to consent.

[ogbendog]

You can also draw a sword and gun and walk around with them all day.

in town, you could get arrested.

but even in the wilderness, you can't walk around with your sword out for 12 hours. It's unrealistic. your arm might get tired.

If the trapping are obvious (maybe they talk twice as fast), that would be noticible. and the tired ting

[shinryu]

[ogbendog]

If you allow your robot to carry a sword or gun ready, or a bow with arrow nocked and it's ok, then it's OK for a spell as well.

Make sure they pay for the ability in their race

how long is two long? How long can you hold a sword in your hand ready to swing?

basically, make it same for a spell, or a weapon.

[Drue]

off the cuff, I would look at applying the concentration penalties to trait rolls when not acting under the action deck -- divided attention sort of thing

[catalac]

hmm the guy before me brought up concentration. thats a good point.
try this out some abilities are based on your smarts so lets try this. the person can keep the spell up for his smarts die in minutes or twice his smarts die if he got a raise or quadruple for two raises and so on.

this still makes it so they can keep the power on for a really long period of time game wise but so its not unrealistic from a real life (or more like book life) point of view.

[Drue]

I don't know that calling for a casting roll every 8, 12, 20, whatever number of minutes is terribly FFF.

I was thinking more along the lines of when you're tracking time by seconds (action deck) then the concentration penalty for maintained spells applies to casting rolls, but when you're tracking times by minutes or hours, then apply it to all trait rolls. The idea being dividing your attention between keeping your spells stable and doing research, trying to persuade, hitting the streets, etc., makes doing those things more difficult.

If you're not committed to a mechanical solution, I would say stick to the "say yes or roll the dice" idea. If your Mage wants to walk around with buff spells up all day, so what? There's an old line something like "no information can propagate faster than the speed of light except for gossip and bad news". An always powered up Mage might attract unwanted attention or prompt changes to tactics -- more guys, sniping from cover, etc.

[ogbendog]

I would treat it the same as a guy walking around witha sword/gun/bow out.

It would be illegal and/or have social consequences

[jpk]

If you're using the No Power Points Setting Rule as written in Savage Worlds Deluxe, just use the rules.

Early in the day, the wizard rolls his spellcasting check. Note that it's at -1.

If he succeeds, he has armor running and is now maintaining a power. If he happens to get a raise, it's at +4.

If he rolls a 1 on the casting die (ignoring the Wild Die altogether), he takes 2d6 damage and could be in for a world of hurt. There's no need to wait on a critical failure at all.

If someone wants to have two powers going, don't forget to add in their maintenance modifiers when they're doing the "I hope I don't shoot myself with my magic" dance, and that a simple failure will turn off all their running spells at put them back at square one.

It's not a gimme.

[shinryu]

[ValhallaGH]

Two approaches. One is generous and the other punitive. Which is appropriate is a matter of style, both of the campaign and the group / GM.

Among the generous approaches is to ease the check some. Including the penalty mitigation of power preparation.

Among the punitive approaches are strict adherence to the rules, and giving magic the No Mercy edge.
_________________
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"Not against a Servitor."
"... We're all gonna die."

[ogbendog]

You know, I never actualy read the No Power Points rule before. I instincivly shied away from it, as we had a similar situation in GURPs. Each day the PCs would wake up and cast a bunch of spells they could maintain for free.

then rest to recover energy.

so every game day, we'd pause while the casters rolled a lot of dice.

worse in SW, as each failure sets them back to the starts.

Suppose you are playing a "magically enhanced fighter", and want to have Smite (on your staff), Deflection and armor up. say you have d8 casting (you are a novice, and it makes the math easier).

use the +2 for prep,

Smite - you need a 4. odds of failure 3/16 = about 20%
Deflection - you need a 4. as above
Armor - now you are at -3, so the +2 from prep raises your TN to 5. Odds of failure about 36%.

I'd say on average, you'd have to restart you sequence at least once per day. Sure, you can't cast spells, you'd be at -3, but you hav at least -2 to be hit, +2 armor, and +2 damage.

[Crimson_red]

I haven't read up on powers lately so my answer may not be relevant, but you could make it a question of (in game) time.

If you want to do away with the rolling entirely, a power could be cast without a roll if performed in an extended ritual or preparation taking perhaps 5 minutes (or more) for every power point it would have cost. If they want it with a raise, you could allow a raise for every 20 minutes added to the cast time, or something similar.

Alternatively. if you still want them to make a roll, add some weight to the repercussions. If they are not in a dangerous or tense situation, and they receive a shaken or worse result, they cannot attempt to cast the power again until they have rested (say 5 minutes per power point it could have cost) or until they do find themselves in a tense situation, and they are bolstered by necessity or adrenaline .

The idea is the PCs are making a trade-off of time, where time is tight, they have to weigh the cost to benefit.

The second option is to encourage only a single roll per power, and making it costly to make another.