Re: [ORE] Power Creation Help!

When developing a power, consider how the player thinks it should work and decide which aspect of the power is the power's effect and which is a special effect.

This power -- which is pretty cool, by the way -- is a good example. Is the animation of the objects a separate step in the process from the charming of the objects? Or, is the player really thinking it's all one thing? In other words, is this a two stage process (animation then charm) with the possibility that either will fail? Or does the player expect to make one roll, and it either works or doesn't work?

What happens if the objects aren't charmed? Do they still run around doing whatever they want, or do they just whisper/snarl "Go away!" and turn back into inanimate objects? That's important to know. In the former, you need two separate powers that are linked together, and in the latter it's all just one power, with the appearance that it takes two steps being nothing more than a "special effect".

Assuming two steps, I'd do this:

Animate Objects (2)

Qualities: U.

Capacity: Range.

Extras/Flaws: Duration: +2, Uncontrollable -2.

Notes: This works exactly like Minions, but the minion is completely uncontrollable -- hence the flaw -- by default.

Convince Objects (2)

Qualities: U.

Capacity: Range.

Extras/Flaws: Permanent +4, Attached to Animate Objects -2, Attached (to Persuade skill) -2.

Notes: This is based on Mind Control. Because it's permanent, the power is "started" at some point in the character's career and is always on. It also works automatically when the attached skill -- in this case, Persuade -- is used but only if the Animate Objects skill was done, too.

So, the character is built with X dice in Animate Objects. They also must put dice in Convince Objects and Persuade. They can go cheap and just buy 2d in Convince Objects, as it is on permanently, but if the character's power is ever shut off, they may find that it takes them a while for the objects to start paying attention to them. That has some rather funny comic potential.

To use the power, the character has to roll Animate Objects first. If that succeeds, the object(s) is animated. They must then roll Persuade. If that fails, the objects run around uncontrolled. If it succeeds, Convince Objects kicks in and the object is controlled, to the point where it will even enter into combat for the character.

Assuming that the convincing part is simply a special effect (the animation of the objects and the convincing all happen as a single roll), I'd build it as follows:

That's just one way that I'd handle it. There are other ways. A variation of control could make sense, or you could just build a custom power with ADU.