Two Arcane Backgrounds

[SeeleyOne]

Normally it is not possible to have more than one Arcane Background. For the most part, it would be confusing and/or annoying to track as it is. However, Super Powers from the Super Powers Companion is done differently from the other Arcane Backgrounds. It also has a different tab (it does not use the normal Powers tab).

I have always thought that it would be pretty cool to use the Super Powers Companion to endow a character with godlike powers, in addition to any other abilities that might have been developed.

So, is there a way to disable the "only one Arcane Background" checker when using the Super Hero Companion? Probably through a mechanic or possibly as a second version of the Arcane Background: Super Hero edge?

[CapedCrusader]

There are too many specific things attached to an Arcane Background in the background that can't be duplicated. So actually having two Arcane Backgrounds won't work. We looked at it, and realized it would take an large amount of work to allow more than one of these to exist at once, and it's very rare that a Setting allows it.

The way to handle this is to create Edges that add the additional Powers and Points that each different extra Arcane Background would add. Usually the only difference is what Powers you have access to and what the Trappings are.

[SeeleyOne]

In theory it could work if an edge, call it "Ascended", could somehow make the resSPPower to become live.

[CapedCrusader]

That's used for something else.

[senjak]

Ahh! That explains what I was going to ask today.

[SeeleyOne]

Yeah I looked deeper into it, there are a lot of things going on with an Arcane Background. Thinking about it more, there is not as much of a point for having more than one. What point there is can be done in a few creative ways.

For one thing, Super Powers Companion is a totally different scale than normal Powers. If you want to use them on the same character it is better to emulate SPC with some toned down versions as edges.

For another, yeah it can be useful to be both a Wizard and a Priest, but do you really want to track two Power Pools? I just use poker chips for them so I would rather not have two piles. But what to do? Make up an edge that allows the character to use the second type but with the same pool. So a Wizard Priest can cast spells using Spellcasting OR Faith as desired, all from the same pool. No real need for avseparate spell list, you can define it with trappings.