How To: Timestop?

[Elysea]

Any suggestions on how to build the power to stop time in a hex?

Change Environment is a possibility, but most Change Environments aren't supposed to be *that* useful in combat.

Some sort of NND Entangle, that acts against Power Defense, and perhaps has invisible special effects?

Transform takes too long to wear off, so I'm not interested in going that route.

Drain Speed wouldn't stop falling objects or affect other inanimate objects well enough to reflect Timestop.

Anyone have any suggestions?

[specks]

Check the Until Superpowers Database Book for how to build Timestop or Issues 8 and 9 of Digital Hero or better yet do a search on the messageboards regarding timestop. This has been covered several times already :rolleyes:

[specks]

I meant no offense by this but merely pointing out that some questions have been asked repeatedly that there should be a way to find the answer without having being asked a googol number of times.

Sorry! :)

[Elysea]

Yeah, I had checked UNTIL, not much there. You're right though, I did a forum search and the topic's been covered. Me feel dum. :(

[SleepyDrug]

NND Entangle seems like a good route to go. It should also be sticky so anyone entering the hex gets stopped.

[Kristopher]

AoE SPEED Drain, w/ Personal Immunity?

;)

[Tech]

Originally posted by Elysea
Yeah, I had checked UNTIL, not much there. You're right though, I did a forum search and the topic's been covered. Me feel dum. :(

Don't feel dumb. The forums are here for a reason and if this has been asked before, it's because it's such a difficult power to create. As someone in the forums said, "decide what effect you want it to have in the game and then build it."

[Agent X]

I don't really like the "extradimensional" idea. I like a huge dispel with an area affect and continuous.

[MisterD]

GO by the effect you want.

Teleport to where you can normally go.
Effect = Stop time. Walk to where you want to go. Start time again.

+DCV
Effect = stop time, move out of the way, start time again.

Have a man and woman standing at the bus stop change clothing. or clean up a room (Transform with variable effects)
EFFECT = stop time. Swap clothing of the man or woman, SPend time cleaning the room.

Read all the books on a shelf. (Speed Reading with Auto fire)
Effect = Stop time and read the books.

Hope that helps.

[Yamo]

I just use the USPD "official" time stop: EDM to outside the timestream.

Yeah, it's kinda cheap, but if you want it in your campaign, there's no real way to balance something that powerful with "normal" Powers like Energy Blast and such, so you might as well just go with the simplest possible rules construct. No matter what the price, a Power like this is functionally almost pure plot device and exists entirely outside the normal cost/benefit structure. Thus, the exact number of points it costs is largly irrelevent. If time stoping is totally going to destroy your campaign at 40 points, it's almost certainly going to destroy that same campaign if it costs 100 or 1000 points, so you're better off just disallowing it altogether in that case.

That's how I see it, anyway. I use the simpliest possible version (EDM) or no version at all.

[AlHazred]

Major Transform, Area Effect One Hex. ;)

[NuSoardGraphite]

I agree with the NND Entangle (has to be transparent to attack, of course). Expensive, but it gets the Job done.

The "attack" that could disable the Entangle would be any attack with a Space/Time SFX.

I would also put the Entangle on Continuing charges, possibly 1 turn or 1 minute in duration. The charges should recover over a period of time, so use of the power would be extremely limited (also, it would still cost end, so it would gain that limitation as well, so it shouldn't prove to be uber-expensive).

Under normal circumstances, I would write up a massive Time-stop power as a huge Speed Suppress. (since thats cheapest!) but the Entangle works better for what it sounds like you want it to do (Stop everything in the area from moving)

If your GM is pretty lenient, you might be able to get away with a Speed Drain/Suppress and a Linked Change Environment that keeps gravity from working. The basis for this is in the TK STR that Change Environment can simulate. In Star Hero, 1 G of gravity is equivalent to a 5STR pull downward. Change Environment can be built to exert 5pts of TK STR to oppose the pull...in effect, generating a field of 0 G! Of course, thats up to GM interpretation and approval as always, but it should be pretty sound...
If you don't account for target mass however. If you want to be able to timestop a falling Mack Truck, that would be either Entangle or a significant level of AE TK STR.

[Badger]

still in the process of ordering but maybe some limit would be good for timestop. Example: Guldo the 4-eyed Ginyu force member could stop time. But the catch was he could hold time for only as long as he could hold breath and it required and bucketload of energy. After 2 or 3 times using it in battle he couldnt even use energy blasts on Gohan and Krillin. Not sure how to work these limitations in game terms (as I still obviously havent got the book yet) but these are possible ways to keep it from being a super cheesy cheap shot in a campaign.

[Jhamin]

Not to beat a dead horse but...

The problem with NND entangles is that there are way more effects than just movement you need to worry about.

There may still a way for some characters to break out, so you are presented with a time stop that affects different character differently. (Some can get out, some can't)
Don't forget you also need to buy lots of darkness to make sure nobody sees (or mind scans, or sonar detects, or X-ray visions) you moving around while they are entangled
You need some way of simulating that all continuous effects are suspended while the power is active.
Oh, and you have to stop them from invoking mental powers or command word type effects.
And you have to stop them from summoning or duplicating, because those people will arrive after the attack has gone off and be unaffected.
ANd so on..

Speed drains are a little more effective, but it will cost so many points to make sure that you can stop all those SPD 9 Flash clones that you either can't afford it or are a GM fiat character and don't need a real strong writup anyway.

Once again, this power either involves coming up with ways around about 20 different things that are going to crop up, or GM fiat. If you are going with GM fiat then while it may be less satifying, EDM is the cleanest way to go.
Yamo is correct in saying that this isn't going to work on a cost balanced system. Just forbid the power or go EDM and be done with it.

[Agent X]

It isn't really a power that deserves to be cheap considering the effect it can have.

[MisterVimes]

Here's the cop-out that I used the LAST time this came up.

<table border="0" cellpadding="0"><tr><td align="right"><b>Cost&#160;&#160;</b></td><td><b>Power</b></td><td align="right"><b>END</b></td></tr><tr><td align="right" valign="top">1219&#160;&#160;</td><td><b><i>Timestop: </i></b>Transform 25d6: Transforms all targets into targets frozen in time (Major), Personal Immunity (+1/4), Area Of Effect (One Hex; +1/2), Megascale (One Planet) (1" = 10000 km; +1 1/4), Can Be Scaled Down: 1" = 1km (+1/4) (1219 Active Points)&#160;</td><td valign="top" align="right">122</td></tr></table><b>Powers Cost:</b> 1219

[Agent X]

Originally posted by MisterVimes
Here's the cop-out that I used the LAST time this came up.

<table border="0" cellpadding="0"><tr><td align="right"><b>Cost&#160;&#160;</b></td><td><b>Power</b></td><td align="right"><b>END</b></td></tr><tr><td align="right" valign="top">1219&#160;&#160;</td><td><b><i>Timestop: </i></b>Transform 25d6: Transforms all targets into targets frozen in time (Major), Personal Immunity (+1/4), Area Of Effect (One Hex; +1/2), Megascale (One Planet) (1" = 10000 km; +1 1/4), Can Be Scaled Down: 1" = 1km (+1/4) (1219 Active Points)&#160;</td><td valign="top" align="right">122</td></tr></table><b>Powers Cost:</b> 1219 I'm not sure a 1219 point power can be called a cop-out. ;)

[MisterVimes]

Originally posted by Agent X
I'm not sure a 1219 point power can be called a cop-out. ;)

I didn't say iit was a CHEAP cop-out:D

[Alibear]

I'm sure the Steve Long write-up came to about 20,000 points, so at a little more than 1200 thats not too bad..