Magic in the LS Campaign

Victor_Von said:

Um... "not much of a limitation"? I hope that was ironic understatement.

"Not quite omnipotent" is a bad baseline when we're talking about PL 8 or PL 10 characters.

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"Not much of a limitation" == "Not very limiting at all / not worthy of the Limited flaw"

Maybe you've had some bad experiences, but I don't think that's a danger here.

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I have had a GM some time in the past for which my example is a near-perfect analogy (except that the Extra Effort thing didn't happen, but something similar but uniquely identifying did happen, I changed it (and changed the exact powers in the example) because he probably reads these boards and may read this thread, and I don't like obviously calling people out).

First, the problem of trust. I think you're creating a false choice-- either Complete Trust or Totalitarianism. I think that players have to trust the GMs they play with to a certain degree as well-- trust them not to deny a player's wishes without good reason.

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I have played with a GM who denied one of the poor PCs (not me) the option to do something fun and cool when it was only between the PCs for roleplaying purposes. He turned out to be technically correct about the power after careful analysis and a lot of dialogue to figure that out, but there's wasn't really any good reason to deny the player his wishes in that scenario--it's not like it would make part of the adventure too easy, since it was just RP between the PCs.

Also, while I agree with your general idea, there's an addendum that really needs to be added for M&M and other games where imagination is highly important in decision-making (you reference Feng Shui, which is also a good example of this)--in these systems, if the player wants to do something cool (assuming it doesn't make the encounter lame or anticlimactic, of course--those are times when you sadly must say No), the GM's response should probably be "Awesome! Let me help you get this to happen" rather than "Wait a minute--I'm sure I can find a rules technicality that prevents this".

Hand of Vecna said:

No, I admit he cannot do seven (in any way). Those he can still do -- even if only "partially" (like Deflect or Insubstantial) -- I still count as him being able to do.

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Don't worry--I didn't count them either when I went up there and compiled that count. But they should be counted--being able to do a very limited subset of every effect (less than 50%) is still very limited compared to being able to do everything with all the effects. I mean it's just obvious. It's like Emotion Control--Emotion Control is variable between each of the emotions, and if you can only do one of the Emotions, then that's limited. It's completely ridiculous to claim that comparing "Can only do Wind Wall" to "Can do any Deflect", that the Wind Wall isn't Limited. It's not at all in line with how M&M's built-in Limited flaws are balanced.

Rystil Arden said:

I think you're making his buff spells out to be stronger than I would, personally. I tend to put in flaws on Boosts such that they can't last once taken out of the array that spawned them (too potentially abusive otherwise, frankly). In my build, if he has a buff up (other than the defensive buffs that he always has up that are outside the Variable Array, of course), he's going to have to leave that buff in the Variable array to keep it up, and that's going to cut down quickly on what else he can do. I doubt he will have more than maybe one buff running at once--I certainly would not like to see him with the Christmas tree of buffs you're suggesting up there. It could get kind of silly.

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Y'know, this point may actually be the biggest part of our disagreement on the whole issue. If you could stat up all those spells, show us exactly what Martin would be doing with his Variable Power, and some sample combinations of effects he'd do, this may actually go a lot easier & smoother for all sides involved.

Rystil Arden said:

Don't worry--I didn't count them either when I went up there and compiled that count. But they should be counted--being able to do a very limited subset of every effect (less than 50%) is still very limited compared to being able to do everything with all the effects. I mean it's just obvious. It's like Emotion Control--Emotion Control is variable between each of the emotions, and if you can only do one of the Emotions, then that's limited. It's completely ridiculous to claim that comparing "Can only do Wind Wall" to "Can do any Deflect", that the Wind Wall isn't Limited. It's not at all in line with how M&M's built-in Limited flaws are balanced.

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You've sorta got it backwards, though. At it's base effect, Emotion Control does all emotions, and it's a limit to do one. At it's most base effect, Deflect can only do slow projectiles -- just like Wind Wall -- and it's an extra to do fast ones, or energy blasts, or to redirect things.

double post, can someone delete, please?

Can do! For the moment, however, what you can do is glance at his current sheet, totally ignoring the way the arrays are set up and paying more attention to the spells there as examples. He's going to have Mage Armour, Shield, and Stoneskin up permanently, but everything else will be emulated with the Variable Array. Keep in mind three things that are important:

#1--I'm going to force him to keep all of his active buffs in the Variable Array or they disappear for good

#2--I made the current Martin by looking through the PHB and picking a few spells I thought I was most likely to use with him. Thus, the spells listed there are the ones he is most likely to use most of the time. There's probably not something hidden elsewhere that's better that he's always going to be using.

#3--When I made him, I was strapped badly for points on some of the spells due to the nature of the arrays (I don't care what other people have said about the nested arrays, they definitely did severely limit the powers he could choose vis-a-vis one big array, though I can totally see why you guys would ban them and understand your decision), so the ones that look like I was running out of points and are missing something obvious from the D&D version will be a bit more robust in the Variable version. Otherwise, they will be similarly themed.

You've sorta got it backwards, though. At it's base effect, Emotion Control does all emotions, and it's a limit to do one. At it's most base effect, Deflect can only do slow projectiles -- just like Wind Wall -- and it's an extra to do fast ones, or energy blasts, or to redirect things.

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It doesn't really matter. You could easily rewrite Emotion Control to only allow one emotion and get them all with an extra. And of course, Deflect doesn't just give slow proj, you actually get to choose your favourite of slow or fast or energy or mental. But of course, let's look at that Limited form of Emotion Control--that lets you choose your favourite of the emotions. Now imagine we had a Variable Power that could give you any of those limited Emotion Controls each round. We're back to the base Emotion Control now, aren't we? Do that with each of the Deflects (and heck, add in the ability to pick more than one deflect if you want or any of the other extras) and you actually have something quite powerful and versatile (fighting a Psionic villain? Put up a mental deflect that hits him. Fighting an energy thrower? Pick that one!). If you limit it to wind wall, that's obviously more limited than the Variable Deflect, and it is actually even more limited than some guy who picks up Deflect off the street because that guy gets a choose of any of the four types (or more than one if he pays for it).

Rystil Arden said:

Also, while I agree with your general idea, there's an addendum that really needs to be added for M&M and other games where imagination is highly important in decision-making (you reference Feng Shui, which is also a good example of this)--in these systems, if the player wants to do something cool (assuming it doesn't make the encounter lame or anticlimactic, of course--those are times when you sadly must say No), the GM's response should probably be "Awesome! Let me help you get this to happen" rather than "Wait a minute--I'm sure I can find a rules technicality that prevents this".

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Yeah, I definitely agree with this. It's always a balancing act, and shouldn't make things too easy on the players, but creativity should be rewarded.

Rystil Arden said:

I have played with a GM who denied one of the poor PCs (not me) the option to do something fun and cool when it was only between the PCs for role-playing purposes. He turned out to be technically correct about the power after careful analysis and a lot of dialogue to figure that out, but there's wasn't really any good reason to deny the player his wishes in that scenario--it's not like it would make part of the adventure too easy, since it was just RP between the PCs.

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This is probably me; I will explain why I did it. (For those interested read the first few posts of Daylight Robbery.)

The player in question was using an ability I knew would be very useful in the upcoming scenario. I was concerned he had misinterpreted just how powerful the ability was. Yes it was cool, and yes it was only for inter player RP purposes at the time but I did not want to set a precedent; I wanted to warn the player that enemies and NPCs would be extremely likely to see through his disguise. (I think it would have been far more unfair to say nothing when it was just intra character RP; letting the player continue unaware of his mistake and then stiff him with no warning when he tried to use the ability on an NPC when it did matter.)

I consider the most important GM quality is consistency (particularly in PbP). If I plan an action as a player then I want to have a good idea how the GM will interpret that action. It doesn't really matter to me if the GM is strictly by the book, will say yes to almost anything, or will say no to everything, what matters is I know which it is and can plan accordingly.

rgordona said:

This is probably me; I will explain why I did it. (For those interested read the first few posts of Daylight Robbery.)

The player in question was using an ability I knew would be very useful in the upcoming scenario. I was concerned he had misinterpreted just how powerful the ability was. Yes it was cool, and yes it was only for inter player RP purposes at the time but I did not want to set a precedent; I wanted to warn the player that enemies and NPCs would be extremely likely to see through his disguise. (I think it would have been far more unfair to say nothing when it was just intra character RP; letting the player continue unaware of his mistake and then stiff him with no warning when he tried to use the ability on an NPC when it did matter.)

I consider the most important GM quality is consistency (particularly in PbP). If I plan an action as a player then I want to have a good idea how the GM will interpret that action. It doesn't really matter to me if the GM is strictly by the book, will say yes to almost anything, or will say no to everything, what matters is I know which it is and can plan accordingly.

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That's a very good point. The time for a player to find out that he sucks at disguises is not when he's trying to fool the Cosmic Overlord into believing he's his concubine. And precedent does count as well-- it's not even necessarily something that a player is trying to abuse when it's "harmless fun," but later a particular application can become a life-saver.

I guess if a player realy wants to be able to do something that seems reasonable to him, one fix is simply to ask during character creation "Will this let me do this?" I know it's one extra step, but communication pays off in the end. Of course, what seems Completely Obvious to one person is often Completely Muddled to another so this is hardly a perfect solution. Still, it catches a lot of problems in advance and hopefully avoids frustration and hard feelings.