Power advice help


Homebrew and House Rules

Sovereign Court

Pathfinder Maps, Rulebook, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I came up with an idea for a power for a charisma based rogue. (Roles are Guildmaster and Con Artist.)

I came up with a power to represent the ole bait and switch tactic.

Right now I'm looking at having it as a base power, but one you have to spend a power feat to activate. (Brackets represent check box)

[] You may banish ([] Bury) a boon to automatically acquire a boon of the same type.

Is this too powerful for a base power? What if it was moved into a role power?


That looks interesting!

In order to answer whether its balanced or not, I'd guess you have to look at the deck composition in order to see how reliably you have cards available in order to swap them. In general, I would not allow the bury part, because that makes it strictly better than a lot of powers that need 2 feats just to unlock a +4 on some checks.

However, automatically acquiring any boon for a neglectable price seems a bit boring, doesn't it?
I'm not quite sure about the concept of bait-and-switch since I'm not a native speaker (even after reading the wikipedia entry I'm unsure), but if this is about haggling with people in order to trade something bad for something better, why don't we borrow from the MM trader mechanic instead?

[] You may banish a boon to automatically succeed at your check to acquire a boon of the same type whose AD number is at most the AD number of the banished card ([]+1).

Now role powers can easily extend this by increasing the allowed AD difference. This should be balanced since it emulates the MM traders - if your version is overpowered, it would only be because you can trade really weak cards for really good ones, or because you have no real cost attached (the bury).

I think it would feel much more satisfying to find an AD0 item and slowly trade it up during a scenario until you arrive at an AD4 item.

Sovereign Court

Pathfinder Maps, Rulebook, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

bait and switch is the tactic of offering 1 item and after the person is hooked, swapping it for a different item of lesser value.

In effect: the starting point is trading your cheap, but functional, sword for that nice, and shiny, magic sword.

The bury effect would instead be something akin to the scene at the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark where he swaps a bag of sand for the gold idol.
Or in the case of the first example, I have this nice sword, I'll trade for yours. (At the last second you switch out a tin sword)


I see, thanks for the clarification.
Actually, I even thought about that scene at the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark when reading this, but to me that is what the banishment would imply, since he needs to leave it behind.

What do you think about my proposition?

I guess you'd rather arrive at a way to bury to acquire, but I can't find any characters that have a similiar power. The only thing I can find is roles where you get
- +2(+4) to acquire specific cards (seltyiel for weapons/ spells)
- use a specific skills to acquire (knowledge for zarlova / diplomacy for raz)
- various powers for acquisation manipulation, like redrawing from the box (radillo, raz)
- automatic acquisation of cards with a rare trait (mental, radillo)

This brings me to the conclusion that automatic acquisation without cost in general is much too powerful, and that is exactly what you get with burying - you'd only bury if its an upgrade, and then there is absolute no opportunity cost in using the power.

Even in the banishment case, its far too easy to just sacrifice some really bad low AD cards you can pick up easily in order to turn them into hard to acquire cards of the current AD.

Nevertheless, I think its a very cool idea, and I'd like to see the character here once it's done. If you don't mind the potential powercreep, you might as well leave the power as it is in your homegame.

Sovereign Court

Pathfinder Maps, Rulebook, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I do have it require you to spend 2 power feats to get the bury, but the power is what I was worried about.

What if it was a role power you don't get until beginning of deck 4 at earliest. Does it seem less powerful then?


Tim Statler wrote:

...

[] You may banish ([] Bury) a boon to automatically acquire a boon of the same type.

ALERT: The way it is written, this is totally game breaking. You could use it an infinite time on your first turn to move all the cards in the box in your bury deck. then decide to forfeit the scenario, and you could select before restarting the scenario in your bury cards the best set ever. Do that on scenario 1 of each Adventure and the game is dead forever.

I don't like the idea altogether, but it's your game so if you want to go with it it needs IMHO to be VERY DEEPLY limited on the number of usage per scenario.

I would write something like "[] Before receiving your reward at the end of a scenario, you may banish ([] bury) a boon to draw a boon of the same type from the box.", ensuring it's only once per successful scenario.

If you want it much more powerful it could be:
"[] When you permanently close a location, you may banish ([] bury) a boon to draw a boon of the same type from the box."
At least it's limited. But even that should be tested, especially with a small party.

Sovereign Court

Pathfinder Maps, Rulebook, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

It should be:
[] When you encounter a boon, you may banish ([] Bury) a boon of the same type from your hand to acquire it.

Good catch.
<editted>


"Bait & Switch" is actually the offering of a item due it's low price ('the bait') as purpose of selling a item of a higher value ('the switch').

But that's just me being nitpicky.

But you could apply it to a power, if you were to reform in a sense of:

"[] When you encounter a boon, you may banish a boon of the same type from your hand to acquire it. ([] You may then banish the aquired boon to draw a Boon of the same type from the box with a Adventure Deck Number equal to or higher than the Banished card)."

I think this would suit Bait & Switch even better!


Tim Statler wrote:

I do have it require you to spend 2 power feats to get the bury, but the power is what I was worried about.

What if it was a role power you don't get until beginning of deck 4 at earliest. Does it seem less powerful then?

Getting it later surely helps, but as written, the power also gets more useful the bigger the difference of the AD of the card you banish compared to the card you get. It scales with things you encounter, which is not the usual progression you have for powers in this game.

You should also tell us about the handsize of the character. If its small and its hard to keep the proper card types in order to actually use the power reliably, then thats a redeeming factor as well.

Personally, I don't think that you should be able to banish a 'Cloak of Elvenkind' to get a 'Sihedron Ring' in AD6 of RotR, even less bury it.

But as I said before, I think its fine even at the beginning if you have a restriction on the difference in AP and remove the bury.

Alternatively, if you want to weaken it, you could also make it random, like Ranzak:
When you encounter a boon, you may roll 1d6. On a 1,2,3(,4), you may banish a card of the same type to automatically succeed at your check to acquire the card.

Independently, if you want to stick to the concept, you should also exclude allies, spells and blessings from the power, since those are not things you normally trade with someone in most contexts (at least the blessings stick out, you might make a decent point about spells or allies).

The following is imho a strong but balanced power that I'd gladly play on a character:

When you encounter a weapon, armor or item, you may banish a card of the same type, whose AD number (+1)[+2][+3] is at least the encountered cards AD number, to automatically succeed at its check to acquire.

(The [] are only available on a role.)
It will accomplish the same as your concept most of the time, but does not allow cheap exchanges like 'Mace' for 'Dancing Scimitar +2' later in the game, which would make it feel very cheap.

Sovereign Court

Pathfinder Maps, Rulebook, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

What I can see, is, that I need to get a better handle on the character this power is for, before I go on. thanks for the help.
Then I will be able to tailor it better.

Sovereign Court

Pathfinder Maps, Rulebook, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

A different question:

Which sounds and, by definition, works better?

1) For your check to recharge a spell, you gain the skills: Arcane: Cha+0 and Divine: Cha+0.

-or-

2)During the Recharge step while playing a spell, you gain the skills: Arcane: Cha+0 and Divine: Cha+0.

Obviously meant to represent UMD.

I thought there was a character with a similar power already but can't recall whom.


The first should be the right version.

There is a character with some sort of UMD, its merisiel from RotR in her thief role, but it only works with magic armors, items and weapons.


Yes IMHO UMD shouldn't apply on spells but only on items with magic traits (see RPG)... that would be too powerful (your rogue would end up being good at everything), making other characters in your party not interesting to play. The RotR version has been built to avoid that trap.

Sovereign Court

Pathfinder Maps, Rulebook, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

The way I have the guy built (See Hallifax thread) he can only ever have 1 spell in his deck, and only has a d6 Int and Wis for acquiring.

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