Brainstorming a Power: The Benefits of Experience

[Deadmanwalking]

Oh I thought you guys changed it to a 3/6/9 model

Not quite yet. Still considering options.

[Gozer]

I think another thing to consider here is the 'Must'... the story side of the power.
Throw a requirement in there for a directly related High Concept, and most of the issues go away, from my perspective. In my game, no way Merlin gets this power... maybe the lowest version (but frankly, he's got better things to do with those points). Narratively, there's no justification for it. He just hasn't been around long enough for anythign else. Most of the entities that have been around long enough for the highest levels are Plot Drivers, and NPC's to boot. I just don't see it as an issue there at all.
This really needs to be one of those powers that a character's story is built around... and I, for one, am a big fan.
What about 2, 5, 9?
That seems like a decent cost spread.

[Deadmanwalking]

Nah, the third level's actually debatably a worse investment than the second, from an optimization perspective, making it cost more is silly. I have considered -2/-5/-8, though.

And flavor restrictions don't remove mechanical issues. I agree the Merlin shouldn't have it...and indeed, by the age descriptions above, he almost certainly does not. But...if it's broken mechanically all someone needs is a concept that does work with it and they've got a broken character.

Still thinking. Been sick.

[Havok4]

I actually spent a while trying the homebrew a power to serve a similar purpose. One of my more promising ideas was to basically crib from guide my hand and let a fate point allow for a skill substitution for a single action, endurance as the substituting skill as I could not think of a better skill to represent great age. This model would probably cost the same as guide my hand around -1.

A different idea I had was to do something similar but with a higher refresh cost around -2 or so where you gain access to the skill substitution for the scene but at a penalty such as endurance-2. I never was able to solidify something good out of this however.

[Deadmanwalking]

Yeah...it's tricky. I considered something that let you use Scholarship (because old characters know their history) at -1 (so at Great if you have superb Scholarship) to completely replace other skills at -1 Refresh per skill...but that never quite worked out and was redundant with other things.

The pricing on the current version is a bit tricky...but I'm quite pleased with the basics of what it does and it's level of appropriateness.

[Lavecki121]

So where did this end up?

[Deadmanwalking]

With me being busy. 

More specifically, I haven't had time to think about all the details enough to come up with anything new...but if anyone else thinks of anything, feel free to bring it up.

[Deadmanwalking]

I think I'm gonna officially go with the 1/4 of your skill points beyond 40 thing. Revised versions of the power with that written in posted...sometime this weekend.

[Deadmanwalking]

So, first post finally revised, sorry about the delay on that. I'm also potentially playing a character with this in a really high-powered game (found here), and it doesn't look notably broken, so I'm pretty pleased with it thus far.

[Sanctaphrax]

Cool. Let us know how it goes.

So, how does the current version work with Milestones? I assume it eats one skill point in 4 past 40, but how do you to determine which points get eaten?

[Deadmanwalking]

Cool. Let us know how it goes.

So, how does the current version work with Milestones? I assume it eats one skill point in 4 past 40, but how do you to determine which points get eaten?

The current wording has it as the last of the four, and I'm comfy with that. Or the last of the the two if you have Supernatural, or the last three of four if you have Mythic.

[Gatts]

I'm sorry to resurrect a dead thread, but I've been reading Fate Core and wonder how well such a power would translate. Do people think that this power could work in Fate, with the traditional skill list? How much effort would it be to convert it?