Far Beyond Humanity Career Week
Day 4 – Kinetic
#FBHCareers
So this is probably the only career that I haven’t previewed before now. The Kinetic career has a lot riding on it; it needed to encompass so many sci fi tropes while remaining please-don’t-sue-me levels of plausibly deniable.
That said, implementing such a powerful career was rather interesting. Do I restrict, adding extra text and rules in order to ‘balance’? Or do I trust that, as a narrative game, the players will embrace the narrative over game-breaking?
As you may have guessed from the previous previews, I ended up erring towards the latter. Quite liberating. There’s still a certain amount of thought put into the wording of each skill, but at the same time I opted to scale back on ifs, ands and buts.
The divide between Telekinesis and Launch was a tricky one. I decided to divide things between “fine control” and “brute force”. While Launch can technically throw cars around, Telekinesis has a wider range of subtle applications (Kinetic Scoundrel pickpocket). Also I love the idea of describing a Telekinesis-powered Launch Assault.
Flight almost tore me in two. I kept wanting to go back and add more words. But are they worthy words? Or do they detract from the stark simplicity of the Skill? I considered that this Skill might be seen as super strong, but I realize that there will be- no: there has to be all kinds of alien characters who will be able to naturally fly, glide and/or hover.
Side note: I’m quite proud of my Kinetic career icon, took me a while to come up with something symmetrical that I liked.
Tomorrow: The Psychic
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ptwcshleqo24edv/Career%20-%20Kinetic.pdf?dl=0
Hm, interesting! It seems odd to me that TK and Launch both use Physique… I guess because the stereotypical Jedi still needs to be able to launch assault with a starsword. It just caught me off guard that they’re powered by that and not, say, Mettle or Expertise.
So, Animate says only you can command them but I think it should have a note that you don’t use Influence to command your telekinetically animated scrap piles/brooms and buckets/whatever.
I like these. I like how if someone wants to be a Jedi they won’t get “all” the powers.
The icon was definitely my favorite. I really like it.
Animate seems to be an oddity that doesn’t click with the rest of the skills. I see the need, but it stands out to me.
Shield seems a little under powered to me. I don’t have alternative ideas, though.
As for flight, does it work in space?
So, responses (thank you guys for the feedback, btw!)
Alfred Rudzki : I find myself hesitant to have stat-swapping built in to a skill. There are a couple of reasons for this, but the big one is that I’m toying with having stat replacement as an Origin skill (like stat bonuses were an Origin skill in vanilla UW). While it may require a bit of narrative handwaving (your stamina/health allows you to lift more, your force of will imposes on the animated objects), I’m trying my best to not have stat-swaps. I’m sure I missed one or two, though, which I’ll try to catch in the second pass.
Jacob Ross Yep, would-be Jedi start with a few powers and will slowly build their repertoire over the course of the story, working towards being a Master.
Aaron Griffin Animate was kinda orphaned for a bit. I wanted something that had a “day-to-day utility”, and one that played well with the “booster” style archetypes (Personality, Military, Industrial, Chosen, etc). It was a bit of a gap in the otherwise very physical (naturally) career, so yeah it does have a bit of black-sheep quality.
Shield had the ability to be really strong (basically being an extra layer of Brace For Impact). I removed that and added a flat “Shielded” upgrade because it led to too much rolling when damage was incoming (Ok, Face Adversity to avoid. Then Shield to protect. Then Brace for Impact to absorb). That said, I’ll keep looking at it, and I’ll see how it plays out in playtesting.
Flight does indeed work in space. And is arguably more effective, since the Kinetic impulses don’t have to fight gravity.