{"id":1293,"date":"2012-10-03T04:00:08","date_gmt":"2012-10-03T11:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/?p=1293"},"modified":"2012-10-02T07:52:21","modified_gmt":"2012-10-02T14:52:21","slug":"wild-talents-building-powerhound-in-grim-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/2012\/10\/wild-talents-building-powerhound-in-grim-war\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Wild Talents’: Building Powerhound in ‘Grim War’"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the Wild Talents<\/em> setting Grim War<\/em><\/a> by Greg Stolze and Ken Hite, superpowered mutants rub shoulders and trade energy blasts with spirit-summoning sorcerers. One of the mutants is Audrey \u201cPowerhound\u201d O\u2019Niel, a licensed public protector with the power to absorb dangerous energy (kinetic or otherwise) and repurpose it to energy blasts or superhuman strength.<\/p>\n

In Grim War<\/em> the characters\u2019 stats, skills and powers are listed and described but not their Wild Talents<\/em> character point costs. Instead each is given a \u201cCircle\u201d rating for easy comparisons. Powerhound is Circle 2, which is equivalent to 200 to 299 character points.<\/p>\n

Jeff K on the Cult of ORE<\/a> mailing list was curious about the costs of Powerhound\u2019s abilities and how to structure them in the very flexible Wild Talents<\/em> rules. Powerhound is Greg\u2019s character, but I\u2019ll take a stab at reverse-engineering her abilities and their costs.<\/p>\n

Stats and Skills<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Powerhound\u2019s stat and skill costs are straightforward. Her stats are all human adult average (2 in each), which costs 60 points. And she has a bunch of low-key \u201ccop basic training\u201d skills that add up to 36 points. That’s 96 points for stats and skills.<\/p>\n

Miracles<\/h2>\n

Powerhound gets more interesting in her superpowers \u2014 her miracles. Her key power is Energy Absorption, and she has a bunch of spinoff powers that are fueled by it.<\/p>\n

Energy Absorption 8hd<\/strong><\/h3>\n

This power supplies Heavy Armor, more or less. Every level of Energy Absorption acts like a layer of Heavy Armor for one impact, gunshot or bolt of fire. However, for each round it defends her, the HAR drops by one and she gains an Energy Token. If she voids herself of tokens, her Absorption gives her better Armor again.<\/p>\n

EXAMPLE: Audrey has no tokens and is walking by a grocery store just as it gets robbed. Cursing the luck (she doesn\u2019t have her costume either) she jumps in front of the getaway car. It hasn\u2019t had time to get up a lot of speed, so it\u2019s only 5K, plus 2S to every location. Right now she\u2019s at HAR 8, and she takes no damage. However, she takes an Energy Token and her HAR drops to 7.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The next round, the robber jumps out of the car, frothing at the mouth and calling her terrible, foul names. He also shoots her with a shotgun and rolls two hits, each at width 2. Since she has HAR 7, none of them do any damage. The pellets touch her skin, lose their force, and tinkle to the ground. She now has two tokens and her HAR is 6.<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s like Audrey has a battery that can hold eight charges. Each time she gets hit, a charge gets filled, and her ability to hold energy decreases. The more energy she\u2019s holding, the less it takes to overwhelm her.<\/p>\n

Or, think of it simply as \u201cTokens + HAR = 8\u201d and any time one goes up, the other goes down. Wondering how she gets rid of tokens? Read on.<\/p>\n

Breaking It Down<\/strong><\/p>\n

This power is Heavy Armor with some side effects, so we start with Heavy Armor out of the Wild Talents<\/em> rulebook.<\/p>\n

Heavy Armor (6)
\n<\/strong>Power Qualities: Defends
\nDefends Quality: 6 points per die
\n\u2014Defends: +2
\n\u2014Extras on Defends:\u00a0 Endless, +3; Interference, +3.
\n\u2014Flaws on Defends: Armored Defense, \u20132.
\n\u2014Power Capacities on Defends: Self.<\/p>\n

Heavy Armor straight out of Wild Talents<\/em> costs 6 points per die, or 12 points per hard die, which would mean 96 points for Powerhound\u2019s 8 hard dice.<\/p>\n

But Powerhound\u2019s version works a little differently. Every time it works, it goes down by one level \u2014 one hard die \u2014 and she gains an \u201cEnergy Token.\u201d Energy Tokens are a new thing made up just for Powerhound. She can spend them to fuel her other powers, which we\u2019ll get to in a minute. When she spends an Energy Token, her Heavy Armor goes back up.<\/p>\n

Wild Talents<\/em> is flexible. Its rules for building powers can be as simple or as complex as you want. We could, say, set up \u201cGenerate Energy Tokens\u201d as a new Useful quality with a lot of bells and whistles. But really, all it does is limit her Heavy Armor. So we\u2019ll call it a new, custom Flaw on Heavy Armor\u2019s Defends quality.<\/p>\n

Energy Absorption goes down by one die every time it works; but Powerhound can regain those dice by using other powers. You know what this reminds me of? The \u201cDepleted\u201d Flaw in the Wild Talents<\/em> rulebook.<\/p>\n

The \u201cDepleted\u201d Flaw says you can use a power once for every die that the power has, then you have to spend a round recharging or reloading it, and you have a number of charges or reloads also equal to the dice pool. So with eight dice or eight hard dice you have eight charges of eight uses each. When you run out of charges or reloads, you must jump through some hoops to get them back \u2014 return to base for more ammo, charge up for an hour or two at a wall socket, bask in the rays of Earth\u2019s yellow sun overnight, whatever. As written, Depleted is a \u20131 Flaw, which means it reduces the power quality\u2019s cost by 1 per die (or 2 per hard die, or 4 per wiggle die).<\/p>\n

Energy Absorption\u2019s Flaw, which I\u2019ll call \u201cGenerates Energy Tokens,\u201d is worse than Depleted in that the dice pool goes down each time it\u2019s used until it\u2019s recharged, and recharging may take more than a single round. To recharge it, Powerhound has to use other powers that require Energy Tokens. But it\u2019s better than Depleted in that there\u2019s no limit to the number of recharges. So let\u2019s call that a wash and stick with \u20131 for its value as a Flaw.<\/p>\n

And you know what? That means we\u2019re done with Energy Absorption. It’s just Heavy Armor plus that new “Generates Energy Tokens” Flaw.<\/p>\n

Energy Absorption (5)
\n<\/strong>Power Qualities: Defends
\nDefends Quality: 5 points
\n\u2014Defends: +2
\n\u2014Extras on Defends:\u00a0 Endless, +3; Interference, +3.
\n\u2014Flaws on Defends: Armored Defense, \u20132; Generates Energy Tokens, \u20131.
\n\u2014Power Capacities on Defends: Self.<\/p>\n

Powerhound\u2019s Energy Absorption at 8hd costs 80 points.<\/p>\n

Now let\u2019s look at those side powers that are fueled by Energy Tokens.<\/p>\n

Surge of Strength 4d<\/strong>: By Spending an Energy Token, Audrey can add four points to her Body score, for one roll. If she wants to do something hella strong again, she has to spend another token.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a hyperstat, which ordinarily costs 4 points per die. But she has to spend an Energy Token to do it. Let\u2019s call that an instance of the \u201cIf\/Then\u201d Flaw, which is Wild Talents\u2019<\/em> catch-all Flaw for \u201csomething has to happen or be in place for this power to work.\u201d Typically it\u2019s worth \u20131 point per die unless the \u201csomething\u201d is really, really rare. Powerhound gets Energy Tokens by getting hit by attacks, and since she\u2019s a licensed public protector in a world full of superpowered mutant criminals, that\u2019s not hard to do. So \u20131 it is.<\/p>\n

That means Surge of Strength costs Powerhound 3 points per die, or 12 points total. Done.<\/p>\n

Harm (Electricity) 6d:<\/strong> To use this power, she needs to spend an Energy Token. (See how this works?)\u00a0 This power is Touch Only, but it has the Electrocution extra.<\/p>\n

\u201cHarm\u201d is your basic attack power in Wild Talents.<\/em> All it has is one Power Quality (Attacks), and that quality has one Power Capacity (either mass or range). Extras and Flaws (like Electrocution and Touch Only) affect those things and the cost. Powerhound adds another Flaw, \u201cIf\/Then: Costs an Energy Token, \u20131.\u201d So let\u2019s break it down.<\/p>\n

Harm (Electricity) 6d
\n<\/strong>Power Qualities: Attacks
\nAttacks Quality: 1 per die (actually zero but the minimum is 1)
\n\u2014Attacks: +2
\n\u2014Extras on Attacks: Electrocution, +1
\n\u2014Flaws on Attacks: Touch Only, \u20132; If\/Then: Costs an Energy Token, \u20131
\n\u2014Power Capacities on Attacks: Touch<\/p>\n

Interestingly, as written this brings the cost down to zero points per die, which is not allowed in Wild Talents<\/em>. The minimum is 1. So we can actually add another +1 Extra \u2014 since it\u2019s electricity, I would add \u201cDaze,\u201d which will rattle the target for a few rounds. Wish I\u2019d caught that when we were editing the book!<\/p>\n

Total cost for Harm (Electricity) at 6d is 6 points.<\/p>\n

(By the way, in the Wild Talents<\/em> rulebook it\u2019s \u201cElectrocuting\u201d and in Grim War<\/em> it\u2019s \u201cElectrocution.\u201d We knew what he meant, right?)<\/p>\n

Harm (Heat) 7d:<\/strong> Turning captured energy into heat seems more efficient for her. Perhaps it\u2019s some kind of entropy thing. However it works, her scald ray (as she calls it) costs an Energy Token to each use, but it has the Burn extra.<\/p>\n

Same situation, slightly different Extras and Flaws.<\/p>\n

Harm (Heat) 7d
\n<\/strong>Power Qualities: Attacks
\nAttacks Quality: 3 per die
\n\u2014Attacks: +2
\n\u2014Extras on Attacks: Burn, +2
\n\u2014Flaws on Attacks: If\/Then: Costs an Energy Token, \u20131
\n\u2014Power Capacities on Attacks: Range<\/p>\n

Power Hound\u2019s Harm (Heat) at 7d costs 21 points.<\/p>\n

Harm (Laser) 6d: <\/strong>Yep. Lasers. Often she shoots\u00a0 \u2019em out of her eyes, too, though hands are just as good. The laser beam costs a token to use and has Spray 1 as an extra.<\/p>\n

You know where we\u2019re going with this.<\/p>\n

Harm (Lasers) 6d
\n<\/strong>Power Qualities: Attacks
\nAttacks Quality: 2 per die
\n\u2014Attacks: +2
\n\u2014Extras on Attacks: Spray, +1
\n\u2014Flaws on Attacks: If\/Then: Costs an Energy Token, \u20131
\n\u2014Power Capacities on Attacks: Range<\/p>\n

Powerhound\u2019s Harm (Lasers) at 6d costs 12 points.<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s sum it all up:<\/p>\n