So how do Crystals work, anyway?
(For full enjoyment, you might wanna equip yourself with a copy of Savage World Deluxe.)
Each Crystal has a theme, a central concept that determines its powers and trappings.
Example: Muna’s crystal, Good Fellow, is all about getting into the mind of others.
All Crystal have three powers: Basic, which is relatively easy to use, sometimes even automatic; Advanced, which allows for more spectacular results but is harder to use; and Master, which is the epitome of the Crystal’s theme, but unless you’re really skilled, you probably won’t be able to activate it, or fully control it.
Example: Good Fellow allows Muna to use the powers Sense Emotions (a new power we created), Mind Reading and Puppet (both on p. 115). Sense Emotions allows her to get a general sense of feelings around her, and as a bonus, Crystals register as persons so you can sense their presence! It’s a pretty useful power for an Agent. Mind Reading is, well, you know. And Puppet allows Muna to take complete control of the person’s body!
Every Agent has a Crystal skill that they roll when they want to act (We’ve explained the basic of the character sheet here). When you want to activate your Crystal, you roll your Crystal skill and, as always, try to get a 4… but you have some inherent negative modifiers. The stronger the power, the harder it is to use: The Basic power is at -0, the Advanced power is at -2, and the Master power at -3, not including further modifier that each power might have.
(That further modifier is simply the normal Power Point cost of the power. We’re using the No Power Points setting rule (p. 95) because we want the players to feel as if using your Crystal is always an option – you don’t need to “have enough power points” in order to activate a power. We’ve added the Advanced and Master difficulty modifiers in order to make them feel harder, used only on special occasions, not as your basic go-to power.)
Example: Mind Reading is an Advanced power, so it’s rolled at -2.
However, it has a further modifier of -3, that Nadav forgot about! Whaaaaaaaaat! We’ll talk about making mistakes like these, in this week’s post on Thursday.
Here’s the thing: If you roll and get a natural 1 result on your Crystal skill die, you become Shaken, which might be a problem in the middle of an action scene. If you got snake eyes, that is a natural 1 result on both your skill die and Wild Die, your Crystal gets out of sync, which is just as dangerous as it sounds. So you should always keep at least one Benny around; more on Bennies, on next week’s page!
The one last important aspect of a Crystal is its Hindrance. Each Crystal comes with some sort of an emotional Hindrance (p. 28) – You don’t have to play it, but you should (you get Bennies!), and as a result, your character’s outlook changes a little when they change Crystals, which is awesome.
Can you switch Crystals in the field? You sure can, even during combat if you really need it, but the checks are hard, and not having a heart for even one round might not be the best idea.
For full details on what Muna read in the priest’s mind (well, possible details), check out our subreddit.
Related RPG article: Making Rules Mistakes
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