Wild Talents: The Power of Willpower

Let me stop you on that whole Character Creation thing you’ve got going on… let’s do this correctly… You know what you want, you’ve calculated how to get your powers you want, optimized it a bit with the least offensive flaws, and the right number of dice…

Chances are, you’re doing it wrong. Let me help… most advancement is not done via Experience points, in my experience… but rather through Willpower points. Before you calculate how many dice you can get, you really need to make one essential change. Take the most expensive power you have, take the cost of a single die, and add 1. That needs to be your Base Willpower, making it easy to advance it. If it’s a 4/8/16, you’re probably safe… but if you’ve got an 18/36/72 power… you want a base Willpower of 19.

Why would I do that? Well, let’s look at the numbers. Getting that 19 Willpower will probably cost you between 30 and 40 xp, that’s 2 die less in your power. First encounter, you can recoup that easily by spending 18 willpower and 1 base willpower on 1d in your power. So, you’re really only 1 die less than you would otherwise be. Now you have a mega Willpower. Now, every time your character rests, you’ll always get +1 willpower. Now you can advance your superpower purely through the recollection of willpower points. Use your Experience to keep your Willpower at the appropriate number.

Admittedly, your Willpower can, and likely will, often be higher than your Base Willpower, so it’s not absolutely required. However, you’ll also find that you might be using Willpower more often than you thought, and a high Base means you get at least 1 Willpower per night’s rest.

This also means you -really- really really want to pick Loyalties and Passions that are very easy to stick to. Loyalty to your team, loyalty to a cause, etc… Passion about injustice, passion about protecting the weak… easy ways to keep bumping that willpower up. Point being, don’t expect Experience Points to be your power source… Willpower is your best friend!

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