A few seconds ahead - How strong is it?

[Magicpockets]

Hi all,
need your opinion on the power "A few seconds ahead" from OW, pg. 99. To those who don't know what it does:

Character can use her Lore skill to get a reasonably accurate
picture of events 1-2 seconds ahead of now
(limited to what she will personally experience
in those moments). She may roll her Lore skill
to defend against physical or social attacks or
maneuvers.

Specifically, our group is playing at 45 Skillpoints, 13 Refresh (we started at Chest Deep), and the DM has voiced some concerns regarding the balance of this power. The character in question is a Summer Knight and has these powers:
A Few Seconds Ahead [-1]
Cassandra's Tears [-0]
Item of Power [-2] (a sword)
Marked by Power [-1]
Seelie Magic [-4]
Inhuman Strength [-2]
Supernatural Recovery [-4]
The Catch [+3] is Cold Iron

Does "A few seconds ahead" severely unbalance this character? I realize it's probably one of the better [-1] powers out there, but IMO it's not stronger than the likes of Refinement on a wizard or Cloak of Shadows on a stealth character. I took this power partly for flavor reasons (the character is prescient) and partly for its utility, since the combination of social skills, physical combat and magic is taking a heavy toll on the skill points, and if it were not for the flavor of the Fairie Knights in the novels, I would get rid of the physical combat part and focus on magic and social stuff. The DM is concerned about having a skill defend vs two types of attacks.

What do these boards think?

[Sanctaphrax]

I'm with your GM. It's definitely too good.

[Haru]

I think it is too powerful in addition to other powers. For a minor power, where it is the only power the character has, I'd say it is fine, but it can make especially wizards all kinds of fucked up powerful.

There should be a drawback, since it should be really distracting to look into the future constantly. How would you concentrate on what you are doing in the presence? Or it needs a situational restriction like stunts have.

[Bedurndurn]

You shouldn't be getting two top-of-the-pyramid defenses for 1 point of refresh. If you want to move Dodge from Athletics to Lore for a stunt, sure. If you want to move Rapport's Social Defense trapping to another skill for a stunt, fine. You just can't get both for 1 point.

Also I don't really like the flavor-text for the social defense part. I have no idea how knowing what someone's going to say to you a second in advance is really supposed to be helping you here. The "impact" of people's social skills happens when you perceive them, so I'm not sure how getting a head start on perceiving them conveys any advantage. "Two seconds from now, that man with a gun is going to yell at me and it's going to be super scary! Fortunately, I was able to see it before it happened, so I actually peed myself before he opened his mouth! Go me!".

 

[vonpenguin]

I agree with questioning why it would help with social defense, it might give you that extra second to think of a good come back but I don't think it would help someone that wasn't already good at bantering. And really I don't think seeing something would help with dodging it that much either (it would help but not to the point where your actual skill at dodging wouldn't matter). It would improve your ability to react but react too soon and they'd just adjust their aim to where you moved to. I'd change it to a flat +2 to physical or a +1 to both depending on the GMs preference. Possibly with the restriction that you need a higher lore than the relevant stat to get the bonus at all.

[vultur]

Yeah, it should probably be "defend against physical with Lore". I know powers are supposed to be able to be slightly better than stunts, but for a caster-type, being able to use one of the 3 casting-skills for physical defense IS an especially good stunt.

[vultur]

I think it is too powerful in addition to other powers. For a minor power, where it is the only power the character has, I'd say it is fine, but it can make especially wizards all kinds of fucked up powerful.

Yeah, for a Minor Talent who's giving up the mortal +2 refresh for just this power, it's OK.

I might say, if I were GMing, that the cost would increase to -2 (i.e. an additional refresh would need to be spent) if you later added in more powers ... or at least casting ones.

[toturi]

I have a character in my campaign with it. I am allowing it, even though the character is a spellcaster with Discipline and Lore as apex skills.

[Sanctaphrax]

Yeah, it should probably be "defend against physical with Lore". I know powers are supposed to be able to be slightly better than stunts, but for a caster-type, being able to use one of the 3 casting-skills for physical defense IS an especially good stunt.

I think that if you want to swap out the physical defence trapping with a stunt (or a -1 Power), you should have to accept some kind of restriction. Otherwise almost everyone without a good Athletics skill would be well advised to take Use My Apex Skill To Not Get Hit.

[Wordmaker]

Very powerful ability for a PC to have. As it's in OW, I'd wager it wasn't designed with the intention that players would take it, which is why it's not balanced in terms of effects the way other stunts and powers are.

Assuming you apply similar rules to creating new powers that you apply to stunts, you shouldn't get that many additional trappings added to a single skill for only a -1 Refresh.

[toturi]

Assuming you apply similar rules to creating new powers that you apply to stunts, you shouldn't get that many additional trappings added to a single skill for only a -1 Refresh.

When I compare Stunts to Powers, I find that Powers are usually provide about twice the ability of equivalent Stunts. Yes, you should not be getting that much for a Stunt, but it is par for the course for a Power.

Consider: If I recall correctly, you can swap out 1 Stunt for another from one game to the next, but you are stuck with a Power. Also with such additional trappings to a single skill, you are in effect locking that particular skill to a high level on the pyramid and not having some other skill at that high level.

Power-ful characters are not likely to change much from one game to the next. Pure Mortals however have the ability to change rapidly. One game I switch my Apex skill to the base of the pyramid, the next I change an Aspect, game after next I change one Stunt to another. Before long, you can be looking at a whole new character.

[Wordmaker]

That is true, fair point. Still, it's a lot of power to put into a single skill that's already got a lot of potential power in the hands of a Wizard. It means that two-thirds of their skill-based defensive needs are taken care of by the one skill, in addition to the other benefits a spellcaster gains from a high Lore.

I think if a player were to ask me if they could take the power, I wouldn't be inclined to allow it in my own game.

Of course, it could be worse. It could add those trappings to Discipline! 

[wyvern]

A Few Seconds Ahead is fine... in the context of the character sheet it's on, where Lore isn't her apex skill, and there are a few higher skills she could sometimes use instead.  If you did try to make a character with, say, discipline & lore at +5... the power would just make your combats boring, because you'd always use the same defense.  Even if you charged two or three refresh for the power, I still wouldn't want to allow it; it doesn't lead to interesting play.

I'd be much more inclined to make a short-range precog power that, say, granted +1 when you spend a fate point to invoke your precognition as an aspect (in addition to the fate point's normal +2 or reroll).  Or maybe +2 but only for defensive uses.  Something like that would be much more interesting - it wouldn't just invalidate large numbers of other skills, and you'd still need, say, enough athletics to get out of the way of whatever attack you saw coming.

[Viatos]

Just make two stunts. A Few Seconds Ahead defends physical with Lore. Rhyme-and-Riddle Games defends social with Lore so long as you at least throw in a nonsense koan you made up. "Does a stone answer the sky?" would be fine.

-1 to -2 and now it's perfectly in line with everything. Yes, the default is too powerful because it's literally just double stunts for -1, but tying two defenses to one non-defense skill is not too powerful EVER. You just need to pay a little more for that competency.

Cloak of Shadows is the same but Cloak of Shadows deals all with one subsystem. It's incredibly strong for a stealth character, but it doesn't make stealth characters incredibly strong at everything.

[Sanctaphrax]

@Viatos: I wouldn't allow "defend physically with Lore" as a stunt. It's too good.

@toturi: It's not good to give people power now in exchange for less freedom to change their character later. Being overpowered now and underpowered later is worse than just being overpowered now...the balance issues don't cancel each other out.

And Powers generally shouldn't directly obsolete stunts. They should be more powerful, but not in a way that makes it stupid to take stunts.

PS: Is anyone here familiar with Precognition? It's on the power list.