Re-Spending Power Points..., Do you allow this? Options

[deek]

I had a player ask about wanting to change where his power points are allocated. Does anyone currently allow this in their games and if so, how do you rule it?

I think that I want to allow this, on the rare occaisions that a player picks a power and then later ends up rarely using it. I don't want to make it so that power points are always being reallocated though. At least with spells, it is just karma being spent, but with power points, an adept is at a bit of a disadvantage because all they can do is initiate.

[Nocturne]

In almost every RPG I run, I have a "one adventure mulligan" rule. After the first adventure/run, if it turns out that your build doesn't quite satisfy your vision, you can make minor modifications -- so long as it still fits the original vision. Since the player is forced to work in an artificial rules framework, it's inevitable that things don't quite work out the way they wanted, and the last thing I want is a player that doesn't look forward to playing their character.

I generally wouldn't allow wholesale changes further down the road. In your case however, it might be interesting to create some sort of quest tailored to the adept's tradition to realign their power points. I'd probably assign some Karma cost, and it might entail taking on a geas or some other limitation that could eventually be bought off, but if it makes the game more interesting for everyone involved, why not?

Maybe there is a powerful spirit or dragon somewhere that can facilitate such a realignment. My advice, beyond any game mechanics, is to tie it into whatever stories and plots you are using with the characters.

[deek]

Yeah, I was kinda thinking along those line, creating a special quest and having a karma cost involved.

I do end up giving a "mulligen" rule to new characters. Basically, after chargen, I allow them to make whatever tweaks or changes to their sheet until they spend a point of karma. This usually happens after a few sessions and this player had the opportunity as well.

It appears that he was not aware of some attribute caps early on and not his increase attribute power seems to be not what he imagined...so he doesn't use it and he sees that it is pretty expensive to have a points in a "dead" power.

[Dashifen]

I tend to do a more liberal version of Nocturne's solution allowing a one-per character mulligan allowing the re-invention of a character's statistics, skills, etc. at any time but only once. For example, a character was built as a hacker mage in a campaign I ran for the past 8 months or so. But, the group now has a person who wants to be a dedicated hacker and the player of the hacker mage was somewhat coerced into doing the hacking from the get go. Thus, the hacker mage is going to be retooled as simply a mage with some basic computer/data search type skill (which is mostly what she used throughout the game) and the new character is going to focus on the intrusion and cybercombat type of stuff.

I've done this a lot, too. Let a character convert skills/attributes/spells/complex forms, etc all to karma and I often even allow the selling off of gear and 'ware to money and then convert that money to build points which can then be reapplied to skills/attributes in other ways.

Usually, though, the most common things are people who made characters with a broad range of low-level skills and they want to reduce the number of skills to become more effective in what their character's chosen "profession" is and not all players know what that's going to be from the get-go.

Usually, though, I only allow the removal of some skills for the enhancement of others or the reduction of one attribute for the increase in another. That way, you're not taking a face character with a lot of karma and suddenly re-inventing him as a fourth initiate mage.

It's worked for me and it generally keeps the players happy which helps make the gaming environment more conducive to fun, and that's the whole reason we're here.

Oh ... and make sure you're even with the concept, too. If you let one person retool their skills, make sure that option is available to everyone. Not everyone will take you up on it, but it they decline the offer, that's their choice.

[Kyoto Kid]

[sunnyside]

It hasn't come up with me. However I try to look over chars when they are submitted to spot potential issues and I at least let them know. This includes things where I feel like the numbers or environment won't work as well as they think.

It sounds like your player got attribute boost while also getting something else that boosted the attribute. Making it completly worthless. If I missed something like that I think I would let them respend those specific points, particularily if they'd never used the skill as you don't even really have to do any retconing.

[deek]