Quote: Bob Schroeck wrote:Possibly, but possibly not. I referred to 'thousands of points' because of the worry that you expressed in a previous post that Doug's
I'm not sure where you see the songs themselves costing thousands of points. IIRC, Doug would be best implemented in GURPS 4 via a cosmic power pool, and
each song would be a different allocation of the pool points.
adventures through the dimensions would leave him overpowered upon returning to the campaign world.
As for the use of a cosmic power pool, if Doug's powers were modeled using Modular Abilities (cosmic), then they would start off at 10 points per actual
point of ability before applying modifiers.
Doug's powers allow him to adopt mental (+0%), physical (+100%), and social advantages/skills (+50%).
Modular Abilities (cosmic) normally take one second to activate per ability gained whereas Doug's power activates all of the abilties at once. The Reduced
Time enhancement normally costs +20% per level, with each level halving the time required to activate the ability. Since Doug's power sets can range from a
single ability (requiring no extra time) to a huge array of minor abilities (which would require multiple levels of the enhancement), the GM may allow for a
generic +50% enhancement to indicate that each power set takes only 1 second to activate no matter how many powers it includes.
As for limitations, Doug's powers are Magic (-10%) and Detect Based (Hearing) (-20%). Each individual power set requires an appropriate power song (likely
modeled as: material component -10%), can only be used once per day (-??%), lasts only as long as the power song plays (-??%), and works only as long as other
songs don't interfere with the power song, which is an Accessibility limitation (-??%). Additionally, his power songs are drawn from a finite (but growing)
list (-??%) and there is evidence that there is a limitation to how many of these songs he can play before exhausting his power and needing to recharge (Costs
Fatigue: -5% per point).
Unless I've missed some major modifiers, it looks to me as if the power's limitations are unlikely to do more than counter the cost of its
enhancements. That means that the adjusted cost would be about 10 points per point of modular ability, which means that Doug would have to spend about 3000
points in order to gain 300 points to rearrange with his power songs. This is in addition to his high Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Health and the
points spent on Longevity, Combat Reflexes, Danger Sense, his chaos field, skills, martial arts techniques, etcetera. This clearly puts Doug well into the
realm of godlike power.
Alternately, Doug's powers could be modeled using the Alternate Form advantage. Buying the most expensive form costs 15 points (modified by enhancements
and limitations) plus 90% of the cost of the actual power 'package'. Each additional form costs a flat 15 points (modified by enhancements and
limitations). None of the enhancements for the previous power apply here, although most of the limitations do. Assuming that the limitations add up to at least
-80% (the largest possible discount), this means that Doug's most expensive power song costs 3 points plus 90% of the cost of the power 'package'
while each additional song costs 3 points.
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"Anyone can be a winner if their definition of victory is flexible enough." - The DM of the Rings XXXV