M&M 2nd ed. Weird bug with Dynamic Powers

[Woodclaw]

Hi people I recently stumbled upon a weird bug linked to the Dynamic Alternate Powers in 2e.

I built a character with a Force Field 8/Flight 5 Dynamic array. The Force Field had the Impervious Extra limited to 5 ranks, for a total final cost of 13pp, making it the main power. When I tryed to activate the power the program signaled me that I was using 16pp worth of powers, like if the Extra was applyed to all ranks.

I tried to remade the whole thing with the full extra ranks and it worked fine.

 

[Colen]

Dynamic powers don't appear to be applying partial ranks properly to themselves. I'm not sure if this is something that can be handled easily, but I'll put it on the list for a future fix.

One question - let's say you have Force Field 8 (Impervious 5), and you activate 5 ranks. Do you always get the 5 impervious ranks? Or could you choose to activate the "top 5" ranks (and get only 2 impervious) or the "bottom 5" ranks (and get all 5 ranks of impervious) to min/max your dynamic PP used?

 

[Nigel Fogg The Wayfarer]

Dynamic powers don't appear to be applying partial ranks properly to themselves. I'm not sure if this is something that can be handled easily, but I'll put it on the list for a future fix.

One question - let's say you have Force Field 8 (Impervious 5), and you activate 5 ranks. Do you always get the 5 impervious ranks? Or could you choose to activate the "top 5" ranks (and get only 2 impervious) or the "bottom 5" ranks (and get all 5 ranks of impervious) to min/max your dynamic PP used?

Colen,

I would expect your "bottom 5" scenario to be the 'by the book' interpretation since Impervious is an Extra and one cannot 'opt out' of using a Power Extra. The character can only choose to "not include" a Power Feat when activating a power.

I believe that's a primary reasons folks like "linked" or "stackable" powers & Arrays, so they can have a "baseline" power AND one or more "bells & whistles" variants of that power.

Nigel Fogg, aka The Wayfarer

 

[Woodclaw]

Dynamic powers don't appear to be applying partial ranks properly to themselves. I'm not sure if this is something that can be handled easily, but I'll put it on the list for a future fix.

Thanks.

One question - let's say you have Force Field 8 (Impervious 5), and you activate 5 ranks. Do you always get the 5 impervious ranks? Or could you choose to activate the "top 5" ranks (and get only 2 impervious) or the "bottom 5" ranks (and get all 5 ranks of impervious) to min/max your dynamic PP used?

I always worked under the assumption that the bottom 5 ranks are those involved, as Nigel noted only PF are optional when using a power any other modifier must be applied immediatly.

 

[Lamey]

I ran into a few bugs with dynamic powers when making an obvious abuse of the rules character...

I made a large array of dynamic powers - for the most part this worked fine. But the Enhanced Trait: Dodge and Enhanced Trait: Parry powers gave their full bonus if a single point was put into them (rather than scaling up properly).

Also Impervious Defense (as a power by itself) compared its maximum bonus against the current value of the target defense when checking for legality.

1. Toughness (dynamic power: max ranks 20)
2. Impervious Defense: Toughness (dynamic power: max ranks 20) (this is a power that just adds the impervious trait to preexisting toughness, it doesn't provide any toughness ranks itself)
Additional note: The array had more than enough points to max both of these out.

So it had a max value of 20 ranks of impervious toughness. Toughness itself also had a max value of 20 ranks. Regardless of how many points were assigned to the impervious toughness power the character got a red flag unless the toughness power was pushed up to 20 ranks.

 

[Duggan]

Note for Colen:
Based on the vocabulary used, Lamey's case involves 3E, not 2E.

 

[Lamey]

Note for Colen:
Based on the vocabulary used, Lamey's case involves 3E, not 2E.

Indeed, apologies for any confusion.