[mastercraft][setting conversion] Aeon Trinity

[Mister Andersen]

I've been considering how to bring powers in from 1st level for a while now, and then the idea hit me:

(Significant) powers as prizes.

[Morgenstern]

An interesting approach.

*waits*

[Mister Andersen]

Briefly, I was thinking that Proxy would be an ideal masterclass, then realised probably not given that wile yes each Order has its elite, there's no mechanism to achieve the sort of power levels -- including the signature ability to strip the powers of someone who's gone through their order's tank -- possessed by the Proxies.

It trickles down from there. The various alternate modes featured in the splat books are presented in-universe as potentially esoteric, restricted or unique creations of subsets of each Order that can only be learned after picking up the main stream power of that grade. All of that just screams Prize to me.

Taking that further, you could even potentially pitch getting dunked in a Prometheus Tank as a Prize of you wanted to.

A prize the Proxy can take away.

[glimmerrat]

Now, see I like the idea of being dunked as a Prize - that's perfect for characters who end up getting psi powers later in their career.

However, I think that the Proxies (filthy doyen-loving freaks) should only ever be *by definition* singularly unique beings. Fine, do an Alpha Level Psion master class or some such, but the Proxies should be one-offs. No other Psion can (or ever will) even approach thier level of control or raw power.

[Mister Andersen]

I believe I just said that

Integrating the power and prize systems also has the result of loosening the grip of career level on the character's growth. The GM is free to grant a player the next feat in, say, Telepathy B/M/S at a point that suits the plot instead of having to wait until they hit the right level to pick up the feat normally; whether they gain it instory as the result of their noetic potential blossoming or the result of an Attuned bioapp doesn't really matter.

The no. prizes = Renown+1 stipulation is a natural brake on things. Hmmm, I think if I go this way then I'm going to go back to the specialties and replace Noetic Expert with Fast Tracked (Noetics) so people are faced with the choice between personal power and backing; yeah, a Legionaire PK can flash fry some mundies, but those mundies have lot of friends...

[Krensky]

As a aside, I always felt the Prize system implicitly allowed granting extra feats and such without explicitly granting a trinket. See Mandy in my Runelords game here. Also some other stuff I've pulled together for you folks that haven't quite shown yet.

[pawsplay]

I haven't done much with it yet, but I actually came up with, in my mind, some bones for a Mastercraft superhero game. Powers like claws or an energy blast would be handled with new feat categories, while I would make a new class or two for "control" powers, similarly to how Mage is structured. The last layer would be a new Prize category, which I had the notion for while playing City of Heroes one night. In the City of Heroes, you don't really get loot or gear, but you don't get "temporary powers" and Enhancements (which bolster your abilities).

So instead of a magic item, one Prize might be a trait that increases the damage of an attack, or boosts your super-strength to truck-throwing levels. In addition to straight up damage modifiers, save boosts, and ability modifiers, I envisioned something similar to the "Class Enhancement" or bonus feat ability of some items that would bolster feats like Heavy Lifting Basics or granting the next level of traits of your Miracle Weapon class.