How useful is Probability Control?

[Neopopulas]

So i was looking into probability control, and it seemed okay at first but as i dug deeper - and my GM pointed out a few things - i started to wonder. I'm not sure if its just my failings to get the most out of it, or if its the power itself.

I really like the concept of probability control, the idea of someone who can never fail, or never fail badly, or is at least seems super lucky is something i really liked.

So, for example, say i have a probability control of 6 (at our PL of 6), sure, probability control is more of a fallback but it becomes an expensive one. Take Toughness for example, assuming i buy toughness at 6, max for the PL, i can never score under 12. However, that is never going to really save my life (in fact i would still fail by about 9 points. So sure, i can't DIE automatically, and it removes the bottom 6 worst rolls, but that doesn't really feel like its worth 24 points.

I could alt attacks from it as well, but even then you're still looking at only iffy-powerful effects. I'm just wondering if i'm missing something with the mechanics of this. The only area i can see where this is especially powerful is in skills, because a lot of skill checks are fairly low, and i would only have to have a 4 to meet a DC 10, but even so, it only stops the absolute worst rolls, which would be nice, but even blocking the bottom 6 on an attack roll isn't going to make it a hit, i'll still likely miss.

Assuming i'm attacking with an Attack of 6, against a defense of 16. If i roll a 3, it becomes a 6. But that's only a 12, so i still miss. So even if i DO roll 1-5, and it becomes a 6, it doesn't actually help me at all, because i would still miss MOST things, anything that has more than 11 defense i'm going to miss outright, and if i roll HIGHER than 6 (i'll miss some of that too) the power is moot anyway and i might as well not had it in the first place.

I feel like Probability Control should be powerful, and i'm just missing something, but it wouldn't be the first time i saw a power and thought it would be more powerful than it is.

[Inviktus]

It's been my impression that under PL10 it's not very useful, especially for a PC.

If you could toss out a PL12-15 villain who had it with the full force of the GM setting up all the power affected events it might be terrifying.

[poodle]

a subtle indirect blast is pretty cool though...

[Fisdenallus]

Probability control is one of those odd powers that starts off being Nearly worthless at low power levels, but it's power greatly increase as PL goes up. At PL 6 it's worthless, at 10 it's ok at 15 you start feeling unbeatable and it can become unbalanced in the hands of certain players. I find it to be a fun power and can be very enjoyable if you get some good powers set up with it.

[Okk]

Is this taking into account trade-offs for synergy? A probability control character will function better with high toughness and attack than defense and damage.

[poodle]

I think the whole 'making random accidents happen' is very cool. Largely because it is so hard to find the culprit and even if you do what do you convict him of? "He was standing nearby when I was hit by the falling airplane toilet. He did it I'm sure of it." The whole adjusting dice rolls almost seems more trouble than it's worth and I think you would be better off with second chance. Most GM's are unhappy with a player having the ammount of HP necessary to make probability control funky. Even so, it is a fun power especially in a low PL campaign IMVHO.
I also like the potential for silliness. "what! another airplane toilet with a swarm of killer bees in it falling on me....that;s the 3rd time this week!!!!

[Umbral Reaver]

For another means of 'random accidents', you could try:

Reaction Uncontrolled Move Object with the Luck descriptor.

Random stuff happens to fall on your enemies to upset their actions and so on. The GM decides how this happens, so you can't use it to do anything deliberately.

[Okk]

A curious question for everybody: If you were going to alter the specifics of the Probability Control effect, ideally while keeping it mechanically similar, what kind of adjustments would you make? Any ideas?

[Umbral Reaver]

You could houserule probability control to be relative to level. At power level 5, 5 ranks of probability control has the same effect as 10 ranks at PL 10, and so on.