One of the more confusing factors of the game is, how to pay for boosts to Stats, and how that works. This is to clarify on a few issues a bit.
First is costs. One thing to remember is that there’s no such thing as non-Hyper stat dice that are either Hard (HD) or Wiggle (WD). So, this makes things relatively easy to calculate. Basically, start by calculating your Hyper Dice total.
Basic rule: Add Advantages, do not add Disadvantages! You can boost your stats, but you can’t get them cheapened. So if your take 2 levels of Booster and 1 level of Penetration for your “Hulk” character, you end up with a base cost of 7/14/28. (4 base, +3 in extras). 4WD would thus cost 28*4 = 112. Multiply your non-Hyper Stat by your Extras. If you had a base 5 Body, that’s 5*3=15. 112+15=127. If you had disadvantages, you could reduce the 7/14/28, but you could NOT reduce the 15.
Now, how to build onto a Stat.
First a reminder: A Stat has all 3 Qualities. Attacks, Defends and Useful. So any change modifies all 3. A Skill, and why they’re cheaper, only has 1 Quality.
Previously, I posted a character named Augur, a character who put an Added Capacity of “Range” and “Speed” on his Sense Stat, allowing him to project his senses, as well as to move them around in a very ‘Clairvoyant’ manner. It also included a “Variable Effect” on his Senses, that allow him to use any type of sense that exists, from Sonar to Ultra and Infra vision or XRay vision, to subsonic, microscopic, etc… Today we will shortly be posting Seraphim, a much more common “Booster” extra on his Body stat.
A lot of powers can be done in a different manner simply through using extras on Stats. For example, Telekinesis. Added Capacity of Range, and you don’t need all the attacks/defense/useless. Admittedly, then you have the difference that, you have to use your muscles to lift from at range (crouch down, get a grip, and lift) and so are limited to your own speed for your ‘telekinetic’ speed (Gotta walk/run with the distant weight). Could add a +2 Added Capacity (Speed) to avoid that, now you’re at +8 per die, which is nearly as much as a basic Telekinesis… Cheaper still, but you see it through your actions, where as a real Telekinetic is non-obvious.
There’s a whole range of options you could do (even Armored Defense! and not necessarily on Body or Coordination). Mental Offense (add Range and Speeding Bullet, limited to Shock Damage to Mind) or Mental Defense (Add Armored Defense with Hardened Armor to Mind, very situational, since no Cafeteria power uses this type of attack). The list is pretty extensive when it comes to the possibilities.