I'm trying to design the cool powers that the robot characters in my setting can use. Essentially they are buddhist (sans the name or the in depth methodology) robots.

The general concept for their abilities - Dharmatech - is that they become more pwoerful the more enlightened the character becomes. Enlightenment is the fuel for their powers. All the character concepts have a little variation on how they do their stuff (the non-robot characters use Chi instead), so it needs to be something not convoluted.

I'm not sure how to work this without being over powered. I was thinking of something along the lines of: robot uses power and gains enlightenment. It needs to be something where they can accrue this benefit that can enhance their power. So if a robot has a defence screen, the more enlightened he is, the more resistant it becomes. That's more or less how their powers work.

There's a good primer on some of the ideas Buddhist groups have towards magic and the supernatural here, including a list of powers you can wrap a few abilities around.

Interesting idea.
Don't know if this helps but, pool of power points based off an Enlightenment score? Power rating of powers that get modifier from an enlightenment score? Or would enlightenment be something similar to level, with level increasing the number of power points and also the limit to how many can be applied to a use of a power? (that last is basically the 3.5 psion).

The idea is that the robot's tech (his kewl powerz) become more potent the more 'enlightened' he becomes. This will likely also require a downside.

The principle for characters is: they all have kewl powerz and all are fuelled in some way by Chi. Each character type has a variation on this (a bit like the way characters in fighting video games are all variations on a theme). Thus, these characters shouldn't stray too much from that otherwise it just puts people off. It's not intended to be complicated.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;654690The idea is that the robot's tech (his kewl powerz) become more potent the more 'enlightened' he becomes. This will likely also require a downside.

The principle for characters is: they all have kewl powerz and all are fuelled in some way by Chi. Each character type has a variation on this (a bit like the way characters in fighting video games are all variations on a theme). Thus, these characters shouldn't stray too much from that otherwise it just puts people off. It's not intended to be complicated.

What other mechanics do you have that enlightenment could be hooked into?

You could perhaps do something with "ability slots" in their minds; into these slots you could fit base abilities (stat / skill points) or enlightenment abilities. Let them swap these out relatively freely (Probably only a time penalty to switch), let them store as many instances of each ability as they acquire, but they're obviously limited by how many they have. General abilities could improve with programming, Enlightenment abilities could improve with meditation and study.

Example. Ladybot has 5 ability slots in it's positronic brain. Ladybot has access to the following abilities, and how many slots of each:

Accounting 5
Enlightenment : Shield 3
Enlightenment : Six-inch Punch 1
Dodge 2
Wisdom 1
Charisma 1

Ladybot's general loadout for a day at work will be: Accounting 3, Wisdom 1, Charisma 1. Should Ladybot be going to the pub at lunchtime, it would be useful to put in an extra Charisma slot (And probably lose one of the Accounting slots), but it doesn't have enough; Ladybot's player makes a note to buy some after this session. It could take 5 slots of Accounting, but generally doesn't need a full load of that.

On the way to the pub, however, Ladybot and team are attacked by a rabid grognard! Quite obviously, a fight ensues. In the first round, Ladybot takes a few seconds to meditate, swapping out current abilities for Enlightenment : Shield 2, Dodge 2 and Enlightenment : Six-inch Punch 1.

That's great, but you have to realise there are (hopefully) a lot of character types and I think this level of detail will just be a headache.

Essentially Enlightenment is just what robots call Chi, but it needs a little twist. That's why I mentioned buffing existing abilities.