Four color to Fantasy Question-"Ranks"?

[blackshirt5]

OK, I've got two questions about Four color to Fantasy for anybody who can answer them:

What does it mean by "ranks" when talked about in the books? Is that the number of points that you've spent on a power, or the increments you've bought in the power?

Also, is there a limit to how many points you can spend on one power? I'm a bit unclear on this one; can a 1st-level character dump all 8 points into 1 power?

 

[Morrus]

For definate answer, wait for Rangerwickett, as it's well over a year since I worked on it. However, if I remember correctly, it's very similar to skills - a rank is the number of increments purchased (as opposed to the cost in HrPs for ech increment), and there is a max per level (I think, like skills, it's level +3).

 

[blackshirt5]

Alright; that's how I thought it worked, at least; an NPC Magister in my campaign has Heightened Intelligence 4(for a +8 to Intelligence total); that'd be legal?

 

[RangerWickett]

Okay, we have a few different terms here that mix a bit.

Each level of Hero gives you 8 Hero Points (abbreviated HrP), which you use to buy superpowers. Each HrP you spend on a power is one rank. For, say, Heightened Intelligence, every 3 ranks (it used to be 2 ranks, now it's 3 ranks in the revision) gets you an effective +2 Intelligence). If you spent 6 HrP on Heightened Intelligence, you'd have a +4 Intelligence.

For any given superpower, you can have restrictions that refund part of the cost of the power. For instance, say your Heightened Intelligence had the restriction that it only works if you take a few moments to go into a meditative trance. This might reduce the cost by 2 HrP, so the total cost would only be 4 HrP instead of 6. You'd still have 6 ranks in the power, but the total cost would effectively be 4 HrP.

Finally, no character can spend more HrP in a single power than his total character level +3, much like skill points. So if you're just a 1st level Hero, you'd have 8 HrP, but could spend no more than 4 on any single power. What you could do would be to get Heightened Intelligence +4, normally costing 6 HrP, and get a 2 point restriction so that the total cost is only 4 HrP. You'd still have 6 ranks, but the cost would only be 4.

Now, if you were, say, a Wizard 4/Hero 1, your total character level would be 5, so you could spend up to 8 HrP on a single power. That would let you get up to a +6 Intelligence (normally costing 9 HrP) if you took a 1 point restriction.

Is that clear?

 

[blackshirt5]

Ah, so it's based on Total Character Levels? In the book, it says it's based on Total Hero Levels.

That's cool, so they can have up to 16 ranks in a power(they're all 13th level).

 

[RangerWickett]

Well, of course they need to have 16 HrP to spend, but yes, they could have up to 16 HrP spent on one power.

Could you give me the page number where it says Hero levels instead of character levels, please?

 

[blackshirt5]

I don't remember, exactly what page it was on, sorry; lemme double check it.