Also Chocolate-Covered Clam Chowder Day.
Did not go to the office, did do some work, failed to eat correctly.
Watched (internet): Some professional Minecrafters built a lake. It looked like a lot of fun, and makes me want to Minecraft a bit, but I do not have enough brain cells.
Watched (anime): Kill La Kill 1-2: I watched the first couple of episodes long ago, maybe even back when it was still a thing, so when Crunchyroll reminded me I still had plenty of episodes left to watch, I decided to start over at the beginning. Yeah, okay, it’s about as ridiculous as Gurren Lagann, but more naked. (The one male character who might be continuing also takes off his shirt and does romance-cover poses, at least.)
Read (manga): The Apothecary Diaries vol 8 (Natsu Hyuuga, Nekokurage, Itsuki Nanao, Touco Shino): Finally the Lakan thing is resolved. He still sucks, though.
Written (game design): 370:
Let’s try this again. Capabilities for a powerset:
– Affects the environment – sounds like it should be mandatory, but
something like Telepathy that only affects people, or Healing Factor
that only affects the character wouldn’t need to pay for this.
– Affects the environment in many different ways – it’s up to the table
to judge this, but we should have examples. Maybe counts double if the
powerset can do almost anything.
– Usable as an attack – anything that affects the environment can do
damage, but that doesn’t mean it can be useful with a half-phase
action.
– Many different attack modes – you get the picture.
– Movement – dice give speed, techniques give things like not falling.
– Normal defenses – everything that would be PD or ED in Hero, plus
whatever the powerset should counter (cold vs heat, etc).
– Unusual defenses – Power Defense, Mental Defense, Life Support, etc.
– Senses – individual senses are bought as techniques, and have a
prerequisite number of dice in the powerset.
– Affect self – for shapeshifting, regeneration, etc. Again, might count
double if it’s versatile.
I don’t know that all of these should cost the same, but that’s a place
to start. We have to handle the Cosmic Variable Power Pool I mean D&D
Wizard, but it should be extremely expensive to have a powerset that
does everything and even more expensive to do everything in a variety of
ways.
When I said individual senses have to be bought as techniques, I was
wrong. If you buy Senses for your powerset, you can half-assedly detect
whatever your powerset involves by spending some time. Techniques will
get you the upgrades like (in Hero terms), Sense, Targeting,
Discriminatory, or 360. Having more than one die of Senses is still a
prerequisite for some techniques, but it seems like it should get you
more than that. Maybe range or general Perception bonuses?
By that logic, being able to attack shouldn’t be a part of the powers.
If you can affect the environment, or some’s psyche or whatever, you
have the ability to inflict conditions on your enemies, but if you want
to bust out the attacks as half-phase actions at full OCV in the middle
of a combat, then you need techniques. This is even more consistent with
multipowers, where the plain 12d6 EB is as much of a slot as the 8d6 AP
EB, etc. However, attacking is a much more significant action than
sensing something, so maybe it needs to cost more? That could be handled
by making the techniques more expensive, though.
(We’ve come back around to my early thought of buying hexes of generic
movement, and then buying movement modes separately. Apparently I will
never not be on my bullshit.)
How about Defenses? If you can affect the environment, presumably you
can put together some kind of defensive measures as appropriate to your
powerset, but maybe not while leaping around in combat. Also, not all
powersets are going to provide generic Def, although hopefully that’s
less of an issue when it’s not just grinding at people’s Stun through
their PD/ED. Maybe Defenses are techniques instead of a powerset
capability as well.