Private Eye

[ClemDoc]

great game, but can anyone help with a couple of issues.

1 - character creation. Do the points in the power level section add to the defined limits? In other words do you make a "normal" as per the defined limits rules and then use the power level points (eg 80 for power level 1) to improve them? Or if you use power levels do you use the points to create character from scratch - for a base of 0 in everything?

2 - Elemental manipulation powers. Do the difficulties at the beginning of this section apply to rolls against the power, or the managing skill? What does each power allow you to do at different levels? EG for Matter manipulation, damage is variabe - but how do you work it out? What volume of matter can you affect? Are the difficulties for the management skill or the power itself? - what is the difference.

Don't get me wrong - I like looseness in the system - it fits the genre better, but some guidance would help - especially as this is one of the most accessible and easiest games in the genre

[Jerry D. Grayson]

1 - character creation. Do the points in the power level section add to the defined limits? In other words do you make a "normal" as per the defined limits rules and then use the power level points (e.g. 80 for power level 1) to improve them? Or if you use power levels do you use the points to create character from scratch - for a base of 0 in everything?

If you make a Power Level 3 character (the default starting level) you get a TOTAL of 120 points to build your character. The limits are there only to help define what a normal human can have. Super humans have no such limit and can have characters with attributes well above the norm.



2 - Elemental manipulation powers. Do the difficulties at the beginning of this section apply to rolls against the power, or the managing skill? What does each power allow you to do at different levels? EG for Matter manipulation, damage is variable - but how do you work it out? What volume of matter can you affect? Are the difficulties for the management skill or the power itself? - What is the difference?

Unlike the DC Universe game a particular rank of a power doesn’t give you a specific ability, only more effectiveness with the power.
The difficulties chart at the beginning of the section are there to help players and Game Masters determine any esoteric modifiers that may come up during play. For instance; if a character with Matter Manipulation rank 4 wants to make a knock out gas out of elements in the air that affects a crowd of 30 people. The character would have a difficulty of 17 (10 for changing matter that is similar and +7 for the size of the crowd he wants to affect) The game master can add additional modifiers based on range and other elements that may be in play.

The Skill may be used in situations where the character must have knowledge of some element or how to combine certain elements in order to create the desired effect.

[Unregistered]

thanks - that is helpful.

just to clarify - the difficulty modifiers are for the roll against the power dice - not the skill dice right? that seems implied by your answer, and makes a lot of sense to me - so the more dice you have in the power the more likley you are to succeed in a check - and potentially the bigger the effect you can go for. the skill, on the other hand is used for matters of finnesse - so you would have to make a successful roll on both power and skill in some situations.