Karma... that characteristic so beloved of heroes, and dreaded by players, especially when it comes to Power Stunts.

Based on my recollection, each time one tries to succeed at a new Stunt the following happens:

1. Judge decides if Stunt is allowed
2. First attempt = Red result
3. Second and third attempt = Yellow result
4. Fourth + attempt = Green result

Each attempt costs 100 karma, succeed or fail.

On the eleventh successful Stunt attempt, the trick is permanently learned. Thus a Power Stunt costs a minimum of 1100 karma, with no upper cap on the maximum amount one has to spend due to failures. Might be 1200, might be 3000... or more.

As a player, this uncertainty always bugged me.

The suggested alternate rule is to only pay when the goal is met, thus fixing the cost of learning a Power Stunt at 1100 karma total.

In line with the existing rules, that could be after each success pay the 100 karma, or for those who prefer a "learn more from failure than success" style, pay after each failure. Either way, after the eleventh occurrence of meeting the goal and only paying 1100 karma, the Stunt is mastered.

Thoughts?

I think you have to pay at the time of each attempt. At least that's how it would work in my game.

I don't charge Karma at all. I only prohibit Karma use on the feat roll from giving a check. Power Stunts are unnecessarily expensive, I think in the rules. Additionally, I make it two reds, 3 yellows, and 5 greens

I included it in FASERIPopedia but really the Power Stunts rule is another wargame-y holdover from the bad old days at TSR. Power stunts happen way quicker than that in old comic books. It's almost the exact opposite of the rule too, in that Spider-Man first made a web parachute way back in the early 1960s, and it worked perfectly as one would expect from a comic story, then it vanished from use. So it is almost as if stop gap and arbitrary "power stunts" are "allowed by the gamemaster" in comics on the condition they DON'T become permanent and are in some cases never mentioned again, or not for a long time.

Training montage after a big defeat would make more sense - like Spider-Man first making his rubber suit to fight Electro. But there was an inventive realism to Ditko Spider-Man so he's probably a bad example.

The high cost and repetitive requirements always read to me like, "we don't really want change."

I think a Power Stunt should always be doable if you spend the karma to raise the power stunt fest roll to the required color. The checks to do it automatically that I do without karma is so talhat you can do it on command without making a roll.

So in your example of Spider-Man, he would pull off the web parachute perfectly the first time. And he did it with Karma, but since he didn't keep practicing and keeping getting checks, he couldn't do it in later appearances at will and wanted to save karma so didn't.

Perfectly reasonable. In fact, looking at the semiotics of FASERIP, there is a case for saying power stunts are pointless as long as you are really cashed up with karma - ie, you get set a virtually impossible modified feat, but blitz it with karma - like his early 1960s web parachute - and since it is not something he is bothered with doing all the time ever again, that's it. Did he overspend on karma given the situation? Probably not; he was saving a heroic astronaut's life and there were a lot of unknowns.

Where it will suck is with a low powered character without much karma and therefore not much chance of shifting the needle. But on the other hand, maybe that is a correct built in balance? There's a reason there was a persistent Spider-Man comic book and not one for say Paladin or some other schlub.

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tystates
I think you have to pay at the time of each attempt. At least that's how it would work in my game.

I do believe that is the original rules.

My suggested modification is that you can attempt it whenever, but you only pay the karma on a success. Otherwise, I was not modifying the rules as I was going for the minimal change route. Thus one might have to try 14 or 20 times, but using my suggested modification means that the player will only pay 1100 karma per power stunt, not more (like was possible in the original rules).

Given that buying a new power is 3000+starting rank karma (iirc), power stunts are cheaper.

Maybe the total cost should be rounded to 1000, just for the easy math and the easy association that 3 power stunts are equal to a new power, thus giving a baseline for comparison?

I actually think is an example of the 'forking' from the original more Dave Arneson style Jeff Grubb original FASERIP from his college days and the Steve Winter "this needs to be enumerated and there has to be some sort of XP or goal' approach. Both good, both useful. Except when the two forked paths are woven together. There are quite a few examples in the rules as I found when I cloned them. Resources / Wealth is another one.

I think almost everyone homebrew Power stunts.
Whatever fits your needs to make the game challenging and not something that is overwhelming is fine.
Balance is all the key

I think the reason that power stunts cost so much is because the character is effectively developing a new power through use of an existing one. Getting a new power this way is cheaper than buying one new from scratch.

Power stunts as "minor" new powers with the same strong flavor as an existing power makes sense - a web parachute is still made of web after all. Where it stops making sense is where a power stunt really is a different power entirely. Would web "bullets" fire as if from a low rate of fire machine gun still be a permissible power stunt? They no longer act like typical spider-man webbing. I'd still allow it as a power stunt but I'd at least point out how it is changing the nature of the character. Binding, stickiness, things spiders do with their webs - even weird things like trapping air bubbles to create a webbing SCUBA effect - I think are traditional power stunts elaborating an existing power. I feel the limit should be where power stunts are turning powers into a Green Lantern ring, or the very early Human Torch silver age stories and similar where to say some of his "power stunts" were a stretch is putting it mildly.

But then you look at Magneto....his "Magnetism" powers were stretched into him controlling the entire electr0-magnetic spectrum, non-ferrous metals, and even light, x-rays, and gamma radiation.

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barna10
But then you look at Magneto....his "Magnetism" powers were stretched into him controlling the entire electr0-magnetic spectrum, non-ferrous metals, and even light, x-rays, and gamma radiation.

I sometimes think it goes too far. Magneto I think is a good example of that... another is Sebastian Shaw who went from absorbing kinetic energy and growing physically stronger to being able to absorb any kind of energy, such as when he fought depowered Hercules who attacked him with a magic sword that could cut through anything and he essentially ignored the attack and it was handwaved away as "It's all energy."

I don't know, it just feels like power stunts can definitely go too far... like if someone tried to power stunt Hulk's Alter Ego power to transform into Captain America because hey, that would be using the power different than intended. Or if Thor tried to use Weather Control communicate with animals.

I basically tend to keep the levels in my games 80’s centric when comics were in their prime. I recall how long it took Nightcrawler to teleport objects larger than himself, carry more than one person or do multiple quick combat ports. He worked hard at it and part of that reflection in my games is the spending of Karma.

Power stunts are quite powerful. No its not like developing an entirely new superpower but its still hella useful, so there show be a significant cost. And you can easily wrack up a couple of 100 Karma in even a low tier game.

Where I make my changes is Karma for advancement. Sure superheroes before the 90s levels up pretty darn slowly which I think the game is intended to reflect but I like to give my players a chance for a sense of forward accomplishment. So it costs significantly less to advance (but still not a speed run to godhood) and the spending of Karma on stunts doesnt feel like a life changing sacrifice of character progression.

As an optional rule pehaps a lowering of the cost shows a greater mastery as you succeed.

100 Karma for the red attemts
50 for the yellow
25 for the green

And if using the blue results perhaps double the cost for the next attempt or one success is lost (if you are using the revised universal table).