I agree with Cat's basic premise: Combos can be powerful, but you only get so many abilities, so setting them up costs you versatility very easily. For instance, if you take two Red Inherent or Reaction abilities, on your turn you either use that one Red ability over and over again, or fall back on Yellow ones.
I still disagree with their love of Flexible Stance, though. Sure, with Inspiring Totem and Endurance Fightning, you can use it to get 2 Min attacks, a Mid attack, and 3 Min hinders. That's a whole lot of Min dice, though. When you're in Red, you can be using Yellow or Red abilities, such as Blinding Strike, Supersonic Streak, Heedless Blast, Live Dangerously, Field of Energy, Danger!, Towering Form, or Unload, or at least one of the many abilities that hits more than 2 targets with your Min die.
As for Twists, it's hard to say. Some GM's are more harsh than others about how they use them. If you go strictly off the suggestions in the book, they're pretty bad and should generally be avoided. Unless you're a Wild Card with at least one Collection, of course. And that Inspiring Totem+Endurance Fighting combo would cost two Twists if used in Yellow.
Since the Flexible Stance rolls are all seperate wouldn't you be able to apply Persistent boosts to each distinct roll, potentially tripling the effectiveness of the bonus?
At what point do the Boosts become more valuable than the die size/position? How do you factor that into builds?
MindWanderer actually correct me on that recently; It's apparently a somewhat common error.
Bonuses and penalties alike only apply to the 'effect' that they are applied to, and you can't apply them to multiple rolls within the same action. You could apply your persistent bonus to one of the basic actions, but not to both using the Min die. I think you could apply it to the Hinder from Endurance Fighting, since that's the same 'effect', but don't quote me on that.
Additional thoughts on twists to answer LBS’s question…
Different players play different ways. I’ll often go for a minor if it comes up for a roll, but I usually won’t dip into Yellow when the condition is still Green (and if it’s dire, it probably isn’t Green ;-). But other folks love to roll with the twists and come up with all kinds of things. The minors aren’t generally too bad, in my experience and when I’m running a game, and can be well worth it if the end result is positive enough.
It would be a good conversation to have with your GM.
Where is this in the rules (they tend to hide these things)? Under boosts it says that boosts can only be applied once per roll, not once per action and are applied to the effect die. If the Boost is persistent why wouldn’t it apply to every discrete roll as stated in the rules?
Page 22 says that mods only affect one effect die, and it was further clarified on the Letters Page to "each mod affects one specific effect".
In the case of flexible stance+endurance fighting, it would be that each instance of the min die is being used for a different effect (even if it's the same ability using it).
They aren’t separate rolls. You make one roll and both effects get the Min die result.
Yes, a persistent bonus applies to each discrete roll, but no ability lets you make more than one standard roll during your turn (exceptions being things like Wild Card that use dice for other purposes).
I really, really wish that it was stated this way in the rulebook. I argued for it in playtesting and in review repeatedly. As written, you’re absolutely correct–a mod would affect one die and everything that one die applied to. But Christopher issued the ruling Cat quoted on the podcast.
That said, he does make mistakes sometimes–he made a substantial one in the last Live game and had to retract it–and he hasn’t restated this ruling since. So it could conceivably change. I don’t think it will, as it would be OP that way and would interact weirdly with Twists, but it would be RAW.
I thought someone had asked for a clarification on the podcast, but now I can’t find it so I’m probably wrong. :-\
Any idea if someone submitted a letter asking about it? I mean, I’m better MindWanderer that you have, but if more folks do they might answer it? (Or maybe they’re going to wait until the rules are available publicly…)
Yeah, I submitted that letter! What I said above is based on their answer to it. But this was a long time ago, certainly over a year, and since then I nagged them repeatedly to make that the rule that was actually reflected in the rulebook, but they didn’t. So maybe the official rule changed. Someone could certainly ask again. (Note: I’m over 6 months behind on listening to the podcast now.)
So continuing this madness...if an attack attacks multiple targets, is it the case that the rules say my +2 persistent bonus applies to the damage of everyone I hit, but the Christopher correction says it affects only one of them?
Or is this different than 2 distinct effects cueing off the same die?
My understanding is you have an action which attacks all targets with a min die you apply your bonus to each target hit. However, if you additionally had Endurance Fighting that bonus on your min die would not apply to the hinder on each of targets attacked.
It is different. The Attack against multiple targets is one single effect, being one Attack that just happens to hit multiple targets at the same time.
When I got the book, and started reading through the Abilities in the various Sources and Archetypes, I was more and more convinced that balance took a back seat to aesthetics and trying to enable specific small-a character archetypes.... it seems like two characters built using the same build option can be quite far apart in efficacy, and some concepts can be fully realized as starting characters while others really can't -- and it's a difference that doesn't seem to come to power level.
Looking at the sample characters, they seem to have more Powers, Qualities, and/or Abilities than what I'm coming up with, so either I'm screwing something up in the process or there are builds that come up far more effective than the ones I'm working with.
The Abilities also seem to vary quite a bit in their actual effectiveness -- some Sources or Archetypes are loaded with defensive options, others have a single defensive option that's also strictly limited. Some have multiple Green options, some have none. Etc.
It would be interesting to see the steps you're going through to see what might be going on. For example, here are the steps I documented for a character I created. (I keep this log for all my characters so I can look at how I might adjust things with a rebuild, understand any mistakes I made, etc.) Note: Not posting looking for feedback, just to provide an example of how you could share what you're doing. :-)
Background: Criminal (d8, d8, d8)
<ul>
<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Criminal Underworld Info – d8</span></span></span></span></span></li>
<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Physical Quality of Stealth – d10</span></span></span></span></span></li>
<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Expertise Principle of Stealth</span></span></span></span></span></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Power Source: Supernatural (d10, d10, d6)</span></span></span></span></span>
<ul>
<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Mobility Power of Teleportation (renamed Portal Generation) – d8</span></span></span></span></span></li>
<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Awareness – d8</span></span></span></span></span></li>
<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Self-Control Power of Part Detachment (renamed Reaching Through) – d8</span></span></span></span></span></li>
<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Power not on list: Agility – d10</span></span></span></span></span></li>
<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Yellows</span></span></span></span></span>
<ul>
<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Mass Modification (renamed Dynamic Repositioning) using Teleportation (Portal Generation)</span></span></span></span></span></li>
<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Reach Through Veil (renamed Dodging Portal)</span></span></span></span></span></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Archetype: Transporter (d10, d10)</span></span></span></span></span>
<ul>
<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Mobility: Swap Teleport’s d8 with a d10</span></span></span></span></span></li>
<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Mobility Power of Speed – d6</span></span></span></span></span></li>
<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Psychic Power of Remote Viewing (renamed Peak Behind the Curtain) – d10</span></span></span></span></span></li>
<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Physical Quality of Finesse – d8 (from Teleportation)</span></span></span></span></span></li>
<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Greens</span></span></span></span></span>
<ul>
<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Displacement Assault (renamed Portal Drop) using Teleportation (Portal Generation)</span></span></span></span></span></li>
<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Mobile Dodge (renamed Reactive Hop)</span></span></span></span></span></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Yellow: Mobile Assist (renamed Thinking with Portals) using Teleportation (Portal Generation)</span></span></span></span></span></li>
<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Expertise Principle of Speed </span></span></span></span></span></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Personality: Impulsive</span></span></span></span></span>
<ul>
<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Quality: Reactive – d8 </span></span></span></span></span></li>
<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Upgrade: Teleportation – d12</span></span></span></span></span></li>
<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Status dice are d6, d6, d8</span></span></span></span></span></li>
<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Out Ability: The hero who goes directly after you may take 1 damage to reroll their dice pool</span></span></span></span></span></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Reds: </span></span></span></span></span>
<ul>
<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Push Your Limits (renamed Driven to Protect)</span></span></span></span></span></li>
<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Heroic Interruption (renamed Intercepting Portal)</span></span></span></span></span></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Retcon</span></span></span></span></span>
<ul>
<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Red: Give Time (renamed Tactical Redeploy) using Teleportation (Portal Generation)</span></span></span></span></span></li>
</ul>
</li>
