Champions question: how do you handle side-effects that do..

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In Champions a power can have a side effect that happens when
the role to activate it fails. The role can be from an
activation role or an RSR. But what if you want the side effect
to be independent of whether you fail or not? For instance a
side effect from casting a magic spell that might happen if you
fail but might not and might happen if you succeed or might not.
Your machine gun might always work but sometimes it might hurt
you with the recoil. I think that if there's an activation roll
or RSR and you want a possible SFX regards of success just roll
the act. roll or RSR twice once for making it happen and once for
avoiding the SFX. But I don't know what to do for a power that
always works but sometimes has a SFX. Maybe buy the power with
the SFX then pay the the points saved by the SFX with the
limitation of the activation roll or RSR.

e.g. 4d6 RKA (60) with OAF [-1] and 30pts SFX (recoil, flash
(hearing), things like that) [-1/2] costs 24. Without the SFX
it would cost 30. If the roll to avoid the SFX is say 14-
for a -1/2 limitation you would pay 24 + (30 - 24)/(1+1/2) =
28 ponts.

 

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On 29 Nov 2004 23:31:57 -0800, nini_pad@yahoo.com (michael price)
wrote:

>In Champions a power can have a side effect that happens when
>the role to activate it fails. The role can be from an
>activation role or an RSR. But what if you want the side effect
>to be independent of whether you fail or not?

I get it as a miscellaneous disadvantage and arbitarily assign a
value.

 

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michael price wrote:
> In Champions a power can have a side effect that happens when the role
> to activate it fails. The role can be from an activation role or an
> RSR.

According to H5, it can also happen every time you use the power or
every time some event occurs. If it happens every time, double the value
of the limitation. If it happens after some predictable event, reduce
the limitation by 1/4.

For example, you could define the side effect to occur whenever the
character fails an 11- roll (independent of the activation roll). Thus,
it always happens after some unpredictable event, so you can use the
usual limitation value (-1/4 for a minor effect, -1/2 for a major
effect, -1 for an extreme event).

> e.g. 4d6 RKA (60) with OAF [-1] and 30pts SFX (recoil, flash
> (hearing), things like that) [-1/2] costs 24. Without the SFX
> it would cost 30. If the roll to avoid the SFX is say 14-
> for a -1/2 limitation you would pay 24 + (30 - 24)/(1+1/2) =
> 28 ponts.

In this case, it's pretty easy (14-) to avoid the side effect, so you
should reduce the limitation value by 1/4. That makes the side effects a
-1/4 limitation, for a real cost of 60 / (1 + 1 + 1/4) = 27 real points.
--
Bradd W. Szonye
http://www.szonye.com/bradd