Copycat?

[Dustland]

Ok, I'm having trouble wrapping my head around how Copycat works based on two lines of text in the rules that seem to indicate two different things.

Here's the two ways I'm reading it:
1) Everytime you copy a power, you lose 2x the power's level from your Copycat power.
Ex) Character has Copycat 8. He could copy one Level 4 power,or four Level 1 powers, or two Level 2 powers, etc...
2) Everytime you copy a power, you lose 2 levels from your Copycat power, regardless of the level of the power.
Ex) Character with Copycat 8 can copy four powers, regardless of their individual levels, as long as none of them are over level 4.

Please help! This results in two wildly different power levels.

[BASHMAN]

I think it still works. If you have level 8, you could copycat a level 4, 3, 2, and 1 power. You could also copycat four level 1 powers.

I think the problem in the example is the level 2 powers. You could copy three level 2 powers, technically- but you could also copy two.

[Dustland]

Ok, I'm a bit dense.

So it costs 2 Copycat levels per power absorbed, regardless of the level of the power?

But each time you copy a power, it reduces the maximum level of the next power you can copy, correct?

[Nestor]

So the Copycat power becomes sort of a pool of points, with a two-for-one conversion factor. Each power copied uses up twice its points in Copycat Pool points.

Seems pretty straightforward to me.

[Protheuz]

Each power copied uses up twice its points in Copycat Pool points

From Bashman, and re-reading the power it is wrong:

Level of copycat shows the highest level of power achievable (twice the level of power).
Every use takes two from the level of copycat.

So with copycat 10 you can copy:
1 level 5, 1 level 4, 1 level 3, 1 level 2 and 1 level 1 power if taken by that order...

If he takes first the level one, he looses access to level 5 powers, and it could go Lvl1, Lvl4...

This means that the power is powerful, exponencialy so at high levels. If taken by the right order:
Copycat 10 gives you access to five powers, that can amount to 15pts. (5,4,3,2,1)
Copycat 8, four powers that can amount to 10pts (4,3,2,1)
Copycat 6, three powers that can amount to 6pts (3,2,1)
Copycat 4, two powers - 3 points (2,1)
Copycat 2 , one power - 1 point (1)

[Dustland]

Having read and reread the description (too many times), I was totally wrong on how it works, Boost and Protheuz are correct.

I guess I assumed it was a simple, two for one power buy because that is the straight forward way to handle it.

But nope, it does appear that no matter what level the power you purchase, it only costs 2 pts (+1 pt per enhancement) and is limited by your current Copycat level/2.

Too complicated for my tastes for a BASH power, but it doesn't look too out of balance.

Thanks to everyone for their patience with me!

[BASHMAN]

If you want to do it as a pool of points, that's fine, too. The reason I abandoned that model was the power wouldn't be able to model certain comic characters who could steel more than one big power.