Opend20: Powers

Powers

In OpenD20, Powers are constructed using a verb/noun system.

The verbs are:	The nouns are:
change	air	image
create	artefact	ka (soul energy)
control	body	mind
destroy	earth	mana
sense	fire	water
summon		void/ether
____________________	____________________	____________________

Additional variables: Duration, Range.

Note that the Elements are alchemical elements, so 'air' includes all forms of gasses, etc.

At this point, it has not been decided whether or not OpenD20 will incorporate dynamic sorcery from such games as Mage or Ars Magica. Although dynamic sorcery embodies Elegant Simplicity, such a rules system is very trying for inexperienced GMs, and might tremendously overpower 'magical/mystical' characters unless very well implemented.

At any rate, the most important thing (however the powers system finally works out) is that the rules describe the effect of the power, not the power itself. This generally well-applauded approach has been extremely successful in games such as Ars Magica, Exalted and Hero.

The current design (still in its infancy) works thus: a power is designed as a verb/noun combination. For example, if you want your character Thyman to shoot a laser beam, you would choose 'create' and 'fire', with quite a few ranks in range and no ranks in duration (for a pulse beam; a steady laser beam would require ranks in duration).

The more ranks, the more potent the power is. And just like all the skills, every 5 ranks in one area gives a +1 synergy bonus to the associated 'attribute'. For example, Thyman might have a number of different 'energy beam' powers, in which case he will have a number of powers like 'create fire', 'sense fire', 'control fire', etc. Ultimately, this gives him a very high synergy from all the 'fire' bonuses. The same is also true for the 'modifiers', like 'range' and 'duration' - if Thyman purchases a number of long-range powers, there will be a synergy bonus to his 'range' score which will mean exponentially better range as he increases in level.

The highest score a character can have is equal to (four plus character level), just like a skill. However, it would be possible to have much higher scores overall because of synergy - this means specialising your character.