The INTENT of Boon Access was originally to give a character access to something they might not normally have AND to be able to potentially grab something outside of their current level limitations to Power Level. The reason the phrase of “if higher than your current PL get GM permission” thing was included was more to give the power to GMs to veto it for a player (at least as far as I remember when we [the moderators and Brian] were working on it). Part of the idea being you could potentially grab a Boon at PL 6 as a starting character.
Even more so, as originally you would have had to wait until you were level 6 to get PL6 based on the old old leveling system.
I feel like Boon Access wasn’t really meant for PL 1-2, and just barely even for PL 3 boons. PL 1 & 2 can easily be gotten with at most 3 attribute points after all.
I feel the reason that Boon access was strucrutred the way it was had more to do with coming up with a simple cost ratio, so the PL = feat point cost seemed simple.
Now that there isn’t the need to get higher PL boons as much b/c of the new leveling system, I really feel that Boon access wasn’t necessarily ever meant for giving people access to Power Level 9 boons, but it was something left there just b/c of the feat point cost to power level making it “simple”
What if instead, Boon Access worked like this:
Boon Access I-III
Cost: 2 Feat Point per tier
T1: up to PL 3 boons
T2: PL 4 to PL 5 boons
T3: PL 6 to PL 7 boons
Effect
When you choose this feat, choose one boon at a power level that you do not have the required attribute or attribute score to invoke. You can invoke the chosen boon despite lacking the necessary attribute or attribute score. For invocation rolls, treat your attribute score as the power level of the boon. If the boon has multiple attribute prerequisite options, you choose one attribute when you take this feat. Additionally, you count as having access to the chosen boon for the purpose of meeting feat prerequisites, and your attribute for meeting such prerequisites is equal to the power level of the boon. The Boon Access feat bypasses the normal attribute score restrictions based on character level, so a first level character could spend all 6 of their feat points to begin play with access to a power level 6 or 7 boon. You may acquire this feat multiple times. Each time, select a new boon.
Special
You may take this feat multiple times. Each time you do, choose a new boon to gain access to. Note that this feat can give access to high-powered boons with a potential for very dramatic impact on the story-line of a game. As such, using this feat to access a boon of power level 6 or higher should be approved by the GM before using it in a game. If you ever meet the attribute prerequisite for the chosen boon, you may choose at that time to lose this feat and regain the feat points spent. Re-allocate them as you choose.
This makes grabbing a lower PL of 3 for a boon (say teleport 3) a little more worthwhile, while still keeping PL 6 at a cost of 6, but giving a little more for some boons, especially given a lot of the breakdown of the tiers/power level of boons (3/5/7 or 2/4/6). So it breaks boon access up into those power hikes.
it stops at Tier 3, so that you can’t get PL 8 or 9 boons.
Potential Risk
The only boon that might be a concern is shapeshift at power level 7, as this allows you to gain the extraordinary attributes of the creature. However, technically shapeshift is linked with your alteration score, so you might could still argue that you can’t shapeshift into a creature with a higher attribute than your actual alteration score.
All of that will still be under the GM to approve or not anyways, as the special section indicates, so as long as GMs are aware of that risk with shapeshift, it should be fine.
Feedback
please leave your feedback and thoughts on this homebrew change to the Boon Access feat.