Power sharing power

[Taran]

The other option is to default everything to one scene.  This way, if you give recovery, it only works to allow you the supplemental healing and, possibly, the immediate, minor consequence healing after the scene is done.

I can't really think of any other power that has an effect over multiple scenes.

What you could do, is have the Player, in advance, invest 1 refresh from their pool for each extra scene they want the power to last.  Then you can have the 'healing over time' effect and uses up refresh that can't be spent on multiple PCs.

In any case, I wonder how useful this is anyways.

For example, we have 3 Submerged PCs.  One Pure Mortal, One Wizard and one Djinn.

Each PC has 1 refresh left. 
The Djinn has
+3 Catch Iron or maybe some religious catach
 -2 Toughness,
 -2 Recovery
 -2 Speed
 -1 Shared abilities*
      -5 Shared points
(total refresh 9/10)
(*-1 instead of -2 for modular abilities since you can't use it on yourself)

He's got 6 refresh worth of power that he can't use!  Yes, the Wizard gets toughness and wings for one scene and the Pure Mortal gets Recovery.

But the Djinn could be so much more powerful if he kept those modular abilities to himself.  Or even ditched modular abiliites and upgraded his toughness, took some stunts etc...

My point is this:  would anyone actually take this power?

It would make for some cool RP if you attached an aspect of addiction to it.  Maybe the Djinn is even compelled to pressure the others into taking the powers.  That's the only angle I see for this.  Mechanically, I don't see it as being overpowered.

Then again, I'm not seeing all the possibilities either.  But having one tough PC (the one gaining all the powers) and one super weak one(the one granting powers) doesn't seem worth it.  Or even that fun.

[narphoenix]

You could always have the power granter able to use the powers he grants.

Or alternatively, make them manipulative shitheads.

Also, I LOVE Quantus's fix. It's a lot more elegant than mine.

[Quantus]

Also, I LOVE Quantus's fix. It's a lot more elegant than mine.

The duration thing or the Power swap for Equal refresh thing?

[narphoenix]

The duration thing or the Power swap for Equal refresh thing?

The "recovery only applies to the consequences taken while you have it"

[Quantus]

The "recovery only applies to the consequences taken while you have it"

Oh, ya I think that one is very slick and sidesteps a bunch of the possible abuses, but alas I cannot claim the credit, it was Taran's

[Sanctaphrax]

That helps for Recovery, but the share-friendliness of Powers still varies pretty significantly. The ability to give other people Ghost Speaker, Toughness, and Marked By Power seems way better than the ability to give them Strength, Claws, and Domination.

[Quantus]

That helps for Recovery, but the share-friendliness of Powers still varies pretty significantly. The ability to give other people Ghost Speaker, Toughness, and Marked By Power seems way better than the ability to give them Strength, Claws, and Domination.

That's fair.  I think for that Id lean toward the Power-swap restriction still.  That way there would only ever be one "copy" of a given power floating around the party at any given time.  It allows for a certain amount of character customization, and you can stack all your abilities into a single party Champion, if that's your goal, but it doesnt ever give the party as a whole any capabilities that it didnt already have in the mix.  Would that work?

[g33k]

That's fair.  I think for that Id lean toward the Power-swap restriction still.  That way there would only ever be one "copy" of a given power floating around the party at any given time.  It allows for a certain amount of character customization, and you can stack all your abilities into a single party Champion, if that's your goal, but it doesnt ever give the party as a whole any capabilities that it didnt already have in the mix.  Would that work?

Note that if you stack a bunch of "passive / always-on" powers (such as Toughness) onto someone, it's MUCH more munckinous than ones limited by "one action per round" (though you can still stack multiple powers onto that single action ... but, then you're done.)  Toughness/etc makes you tough/etc against every attack...

[g33k]

Also, a "power-sharing" power gives natural rise to the idea of a "power-stealing" power...
:-P

[Quantus]

Note that if you stack a bunch of "passive / always-on" powers (such as Toughness) onto someone, it's MUCH more munckinous than ones limited by "one action per round" (though you can still stack multiple powers onto that single action ... but, then you're done.)  Toughness/etc makes you tough/etc against every attack...

True, but then all your other characters would get proportionately more squishy.  And it definitely becomes much more powerful is everybody in the party has the ability to swap powers, but Im guessing there will only be the one.  So unless that one guy has tones of toughness, and the target has tons of abilities he doesnt need or want for that scene, it wont get out of hand. 

Also, a "power-sharing" power gives natural rise to the idea of a "power-stealing" power...
:-P

That sounds a whole lot more like Black Magic to me, in the same way that giving an ally a shapeshifting ability is fine but forcing a Shapechange on another person is Against the Laws.

[Taran]

That helps for Recovery, but the share-friendliness of Powers still varies pretty significantly. The ability to give other people Ghost Speaker, Toughness, and Marked By Power seems way better than the ability to give them Strength, Claws, and Domination.

Domination is a universally useless power.  Which is your point.  But still.

Anyways, I maintain that all these issues can be side-stepped by having a good conversation with the GM and deciding in advance what powers are on the table to share.

Sharing powers you own would balance things but it limits character concepts - like a djinni, who should be able to grant 'wishes' or powers that it might not necessarily have itself.

[Quantus]

Sharing powers you own would balance things but it limits character concepts - like a djinni, who should be able to grant 'wishes' or powers that it might not necessarily have itself.

Maaaybe.  In that case I think the imbalance has less to do with the sharing of powers, though, and more to do with a PC being able to frickin' Grant Wishes.  If you wished for a Power, I'd take that as more of a Sponsored Ability thing and expect it to be permanent.  But Id also expect it to be limited to something along the lines of 3 per customer fundamentally, regardless of the feelings of the individual Genie. 

[Sanctaphrax]

Domination is a universally useless power.  Which is your point.  But still.

I wouldn't go that far. If you don't have scruples and don't compare it to Ritual or Thaumaturgy, it doesn't look so bad.

And its lameness was part of the point, but not the whole point. The other part was that having two people with Domination is little better than having one person with Domination. Some Powers get redundant when multiple PCs have them.

Anyways, I maintain that all these issues can be side-stepped by having a good conversation with the GM and deciding in advance what powers are on the table to share.

That was my* approach when I* was working on a broader version of Modular Abilities. The idea was that each variant would effectively be its own Power, and that players and GMs would discuss form lists as if discussing a new Power.

I'm not thrilled with how that approach worked out, to be honest. Some of the lists I saw here were just totally unbalanced. And I got the impression people didn't really want the trouble of balancing lists for their games.

*May not have just been me. Can't remember if or how I should be sharing credit.