Are there 10 possibilities for Binary Man?

[Kirby]

Hello everyone,

I was looking through Champions Universe and read over Binary Man (p.118-20) whom I had skimmed over before. I noticed his Duplication purchases him another 350 point Duplicate. Binary Man is built on 350 points, including the 70 for Duplication. So, what to do with this (oversight)?

Would you (1) reduce his point cost to reflect his second form to *not* have Duplication and maybe give him some skills, or would you (10) say that his second form could produce a third, which could produce a fourth, and so on? It has a HUGE potential for MUNCKINISM, but I wonder how some of y'all might handle this, now that it's been brought up (at least, I don't know of it being mentioned before).

(The second method does have some great NPC potential.)

[Kirby]

Well, that's just dumb.

At the basics, if he's 280 points + 70 for duplication, then the duplicate should have been 56 points, leaving BM another 14 for his character.

And if you wanted to keep them closer to equal, make the Duplicate 291, but spend 59 points so that with the next 4 XP they can be equal. Or something like that.

So, would you rework those 14 points elsewhere? Maybe in a base and vehicle.

[ghost-angel]

One of the reasons Duplication state that a 350pt Character spends points for a 350pt Character-Cost of Duplication is just to simplify things a bit.

Otherwise you would either have a table in the book that gives the break points for "even" duplication for the common point bases, or do it yourself.. and you end up with odd things like 2 cahracters with 292 points each, and one of them spend 58pts on Duplication.

If you want to do the math for Duplication and such - go for it, or you could just go with the simplified ruling in the book.

The idea of duplication is kinda tricky from a Bookkeeping POV, it's a solution that gets the job done.

[ghost-angel]

Personally I'd rather have two 292 point characters then two 280 point ones. :)

Well.. yeah. Me too. Which is why I do the math to find the breakpoints. :)

[Vorsch]

But can we mention its close cousin multiform, 292 pt characters spawning 350+ characters.

why bother to change?

[Hawksmoor]

The same reason wolfpack tactics work against Mechanon. More bodies, more options to attack. Multiform does not have this inherent advantage.

OTOH, I usually allow Players to control their sidekicks and followers so I do think the power is inherently overpriced for my game. I'd charge only for the points of the follower -MINUS- the cost of duplication. But that is just me.

Hawksmoor

[Kirby]

There haven't been any abuse problems in any campaigns I've been in. Then again, other than NPCs, we've never had Duplication characters. Anyway, I don't think two lesser powered (292) would be abusive. If I were in a game where I was forced to pay 70 points for a "350" clone that was really 280, I only think I'd find that acceptable if he would gain experience at the same rate the primary character did, until the primary his 420 (350+70). Still, I find it cheesey. YMMV.

[Hawksmoor]

Don't get me wrong, duplication is no more abusive than say Invisibility or Damage Reduction. It is just that screen time, as depicted by Speed and Duplication, is the most important asset in a game. Duplication allows double (or more) chances to do something. That is a hefty advantage. Thus Steve and the other HERO pantheon decided that Duplication alone among all other 'Summon-like' constructs would cost according to a wonky construct with the duplicate essentially paying part of its own cost.

My feeling is though since I allow Players to control their ancillary characters (I have enough to deal with thank you very much!) The cost of duplication is too high in my game.

Hawksmoor

[BigJackBrass]

All seems to suggest that what I saw written on a T-shirt is true:

"There are 10 kinds of people in this world. Those who understand binary, and those who don't."

[Kirby]

Forgot to add: One additional duplicate is fine but I've found that when players have 3 or more characters that it really tends to slow down the game. Other players are waiting 10+ minutes for one player to move all his characters, roll all his hits, add all his damages, etc. It tends to make the other players frustrated. That's just my observation though. I'm sure it works fine for some other players.

One way around this might be to adjust the attack chart so that the duplicate player isn't using all of his characters at one time. It might be better to let other characters go in-between his duplicates so that other players don't feel left out of the play. I don't think there would be anything worse than waiting for your dex to come up only to find out the 4 duplicated took out the foe before you had a chance to go.
I understand that. My personal choice for playing duplicates is to have a lot of lower-powered ones that are all the same, or to have a few that are all different. With the plethora of the same, each can be a 'side-kick' to the other PCs. When I do a few that are all different, I like them to have different DEXes and SPD. As of 5E, I like to make 250pt Duplicates using character types from BBB. I just hate the 'advantages' of making varied characters; it gets limiting real fast when there's an active point cap that you need to obey. :(

[Kirby]

All seems to suggest that what I saw written on a T-shirt is true:

"There are 10 kinds of people in this world. Those who understand binary, and those who don't."
Where do you think I got the idea for the thread title? :) Someone on the boards used to have that as their sig line and they quoted who said it. I think Dave Berry/Barry, but I'm not sure.

[Ura-Maru]

The real question about Binary Man is why he spent 24 points to buy a power worth about 4 . . .

[Zed-F]

Personally I prefer to go the cannon-fodder-duplicate route and use summon instead. That way the duplicates can be more easily handwaved if the situation calls for it and we don't have to spend an hour rolling dice. Plus I can have a lot more duplicates, which is always cooler. :)

[Hermit]

I've used the extra points for a mind link in the past

[ghost-angel]

Duplication and Multiform and any other power are no more abusive than you let them be in your game. There is not "Inherent" Abusiveness to any power...

Take one of my characters .. A shapeshifter with x4 Forms (one is currently unused); a Wolf, a GhostWolf, an Unknidness of Ravens and the base form.
Now the first two were easy, one is 375 pts, the other 450 pts, the Base form is just over 460pts at this point... the Ravens .. that form is something like 387 points... and uses Duplication x32 Duplicates.

I have a Duplication inside a Multiform which on the outset can look pretty damn abusive. It works in game because as we RolePlay the character really really hates becoming 33 minds - it's confusing as hell.

As for how to handle that many things ... if it comes down to it I "lump" them into groups .. usually 3-5 at a time and I'm still rolling a bunch of times on my turn. Even if I know exactly what I'm doing I slow things down. So there's another built in incentive to not really want to use that shape a lot .. I'm not a screen hog.

Of course ... it is damn cool when I take that shape.

Just thought I'd chime in on the "Abusive" side of things - powers are only abusive if you let them be abused.