Action to Modifier

[Dominus]

How does Action to Modifier work? And what does it actually do? Do actions that have this advantage still cost energy? Are they always on? I need clarification please.

[pgholland]

A modifier adds to an appropriate action or ability when stones are spent in it: e.g. Animal Senses adds to Intelligence, Hunting/Tracking or maybe even Black Ops. Targeting adds to Ranged Combat, Claws to Close Combat.

Essentially the advantage allows you to enhance your energy pool by giving you an amount of free stones to another appropriate action. But, remember, a modifier never works on its own (even the defensive ones, though they are allowed to modify a pool of 0)

[Puck]

So Mastery of Magic and Telepathy are examples of actions to modifiers?

[pgholland]

No. They just give you a free modifier in addition.

[Puck]

What is an example of action to modifier? Im actually curious now XD

[pgholland]

Its an advantage from the first book where you convert an action into a modifier- so acrobatics or force field

[Puck]

Ah! I see, thank you

[Dominus]

Ok thanks, that actually clears it up quite a bit.

[malice]

How does Action to Modifier work?

You pay +3 to cost level on an action and it ceases being an action and becomes a modifier, following all rules for modifiers rather than rules for actions.

Do actions that have this advantage still cost energy?

No. Nor do they cost you an action per panel. However, they can no longer be improved with lines.

Are they always on?

Generally yes, but you're getting toward the problem with using the Action-to-Modifier advantage for actual actions in the first place. Not only do Actions and Modifiers have different restrictions, they have major mechanical differences which aren't fixed by the tiny snippet in the book from where this advantage hails.

I don't use it because it doesn't make sense half the time and when it does it becomes problematic. I think it would've been better replaced with a "Free Stones" advantage, because most people like to forget that it's in the Equipment section, and therefore not even necessarily available for most of the things for which people want it. "Action-to-Modifier" actually makes sense when you're talking about equipment, and completely fails to make sense when you're talking about non-equipment actions.

It allows for some good flavor and lets you overcome some of the mechanical failures of MURPG, but introduces more problems than it fixes. All of this can be smoothed over with elegant house ruling, but RAW it's garbage.

[Ushima911]

I just recently made a character with mastery of an element with action to modifier.

I just made it so i can turn it on or off when I want.

[jayholden]

Apr 25, 2011 12:43:12 GMT -5 pgholland said:

Essentially the advantage allows you to enhance your energy pool by giving you an amount of free stones to another appropriate action. But, remember, a modifier never works on its own (even the defensive ones, though they are allowed to modify a pool of 0)

Source?

[andyman]

I think Cyclops would work well with an Action to Modifier. The Action being Force Blast changed into a Ranged Combat modifier.

[Silentking Alpha]

Because he would be exhausting himself pretty badly if he doesn't have it?

[Dullahan]

It would improve his CAD by a lot, that's for sure.

[malice]

Cyclops's CAD is famously easy to improve because it's so inexcusably horrible. He is to MURPG homebrew what the 3.5 Fighter is to D&D homebrew. Everyone has made at least 3 fixes for him, because the developers did such a mockingly bad job.