Advice on building a character from this concept

[Stray Cat]

I've come up with a character who has a follower that's giving me fits just thinking about it.

The character is pretty straight forward, but his follower is more tricky. He is an alien, and his follower is his space ship. It's completely sentient. But it's a space ship. Do I just buy it as a vehicle, slap an AI into it, purchase it as an intelligent vehicle, and go on? Sounds right to me. Although conceivably I could build it as a standard character with appropriate growth and other features, right?

The reason I bring up the latter is because the ship can change shape into a person. Perhaps a multiform, right? Or a shapeshift? Is there anything wrong with building a standard character that can carry others INSIDE him? (Flight, UBO?) Is this something that is going to take some major house rules to adopt the vehicular rules to characters?

Thanks ahead of time for your help guys!

Cat

<Columbo voice> Oh, and one more thing. How would a guy build a base (or vehicle) with an interior like the TARDIS from Doctor Who? </Columbo voice>

[Narthon]

I would build it as a follower with multiform. I think this works better than the vehicle setup. The people inside could be life supports useable by others. In fact, many of the powers could be bought useable by others to represent them being inside the ship, with special effects and lims to flesh it out.

[Chris Goodwin]

Build the person portion as a Follower who can Multiform into a Vehicle. Don't take a cost break on the Vehicle part.

[Space Cadet]

As far as your question about how you would build the TARDIS
goes, the only advice I can give you would be to look through
any back issues of the now-defunct Adventurers Club
magazine that you or any of your friends might happen to have
on hand. There's a writeup in one of them for a vehicle called
the "Continuum Craft" which was designed, IIRC, with extra
interior hexes (somewhere between 5-7 hexes, if I'm not
mistaken) which didn't extend beyond the vehicle's exterior
(sort of a weird cross between the Doctor's "police call box"
and Doc Brown's souped-up, time-traveling DeLorean).

Space Cadet :cool:

[Stray Cat]

thanks for your replies guys!

Cat

[Talon]

TUV also has a TARDIS (named differently) writeup.

[Nightshade]

I would actually build this as a vehicle with a multiform. I would use the AI rules and make it an intelligent vehicle, but it just makes more sense that this thing is a vehicle most of the time, but can become something else to make it more portable.

Although I do like the idea of buying a multiform with the vehicle rules and not taking th bonus.

Nightshade

[Stray Cat]

Cool! Thanks Geoff! I'll look at that tonight when I get home from work!

Quick question for the vehicular multiform. Would each form in the multiform be a vehicle template? Or would the second form be built on a character template? Or does it matter?

Cat

[Agent X]

Originally posted by Stray Cat
Cool! Thanks Geoff! I'll look at that tonight when I get home from work!

Quick question for the vehicular multiform. Would each form in the multiform be a vehicle template? Or would the second form be built on a character template? Or does it matter?

Cat Multiform allows characters built on the character template to build forms from the other template doesn't it? I see no reason you couldn't do that with the vehicle multiform. I disagree with an earlier poster who didn't think the base character should be the vehicle. I believe the main function of this vehicle is just that, a vehicle.

[prestidigitator]

Originally posted by Stray Cat
<Columbo voice> Oh, and one more thing. How would a guy build a base (or vehicle) with an interior like the TARDIS from Doctor Who? </Columbo voice>

You could build the vehicle with Extradimensional Movement, Usable on Others or something, to put the passengers into a pocket dimension. If you really wanted to then be literal-minded, you might have to buy Clairsentience, Extradimensional (and maybe some other powers) to still allow them to interact with the real universe. I would probably just use the Extradimensional Movement, and make the rest a Special Effect of the pocket dimension. After all, if the ship got destroyed, they might just be a little stranded without some personal Extradimensional Movement or a little ingenuity (can you say story idea?).


Originally posted by Stray Cat
The character is pretty straight forward, but his follower is more tricky. He is an alien, and his follower is his space ship. It's completely sentient. But it's a space ship. Do I just buy it as a vehicle, slap an AI into it, purchase it as an intelligent vehicle, and go on? Sounds right to me. Although conceivably I could build it as a standard character with appropriate growth and other features, right?

The reason I bring up the latter is because the ship can change shape into a person. Perhaps a multiform, right? Or a shapeshift? Is there anything wrong with building a standard character that can carry others INSIDE him? (Flight, UBO?) Is this something that is going to take some major house rules to adopt the vehicular rules to characters?

I would probably use either Multiform or Shapeshift, depending on whether the humanoid form is really a full character, or just a vehicle walking around with a different appearance for convenience. If you go with Multiform, I would subscribe to the old school of making the most powerful form the base character.

Now the independent question between whether to use Vehicle with AI or Follower with Usable on Others powers I would answer using the following question: who controls events? Do the PCs fly the thing normally, using their piloting and other skills, with the vessel's intelligence helping (use Vehicle), or do the PCs normally simply ride in the thing, and ask it to do things for them (use Follower)? Incidentally, I would not use UoO for all the Follower's powers. After all, a character with enough Growth could stick a party in his pack pocket, or carry them in the palm of his hand, without making his Flight/Running UoO. The defenses, on the other hand, would definitely be UoO.

[Stray Cat]

Well at worst, I think that GM intervention would probably allow such. And since I know the GM(s), I can't imagine a lot of grief over doing it that way. ;) Although, for rules clarification, I may need to ask Steve what he thinks. Dunno if it has ever come up before, so I may just do that!

Cat


Originally posted by Agent X
Multiform allows characters built on the character template to build forms from the other template doesn't it? I see no reason you couldn't do that with the vehicle multiform. I disagree with an earlier poster who didn't think the base character should be the vehicle. I believe the main function of this vehicle is just that, a vehicle.

[Stray Cat]

Interesting! I still haven't checked out TUV like Geoff suggested. But I intend to very soon. (Reaches for books.) That certainly sounds plausible, prestidigitator.

And to help with some of the questions coming up. The ship/android is equally comfortable either way. He (it?) is more often in the humanoid shape. While in ship form, the ship flies while the primary character (and presumably the team) is a passenger. But the PC can fly the ship too.

So, can I make this any more complicated? Thanks once more for the replies guys!

Cat

[Agent X]

Originally posted by Stray Cat
Well at worst, I think that GM intervention would probably allow such. And since I know the GM(s), I can't imagine a lot of grief over doing it that way. ;) Although, for rules clarification, I may need to ask Steve what he thinks. Dunno if it has ever come up before, so I may just do that!

Cat FWIW, I don't always listen to Steve. He's the guy who thinks I need to waste valuable time assigning limitations to transform just to get instant change without it being an independent power, even if it would be convenient to make it its own power... which I find silly.

[Agent X]

Originally posted by Stray Cat
Interesting! I still haven't checked out TUV like Geoff suggested. But I intend to very soon. (Reaches for books.) That certainly sounds plausible, prestidigitator.

And to help with some of the questions coming up. The ship/android is equally comfortable either way. He (it?) is more often in the humanoid shape. While in ship form, the ship flies while the primary character (and presumably the team) is a passenger. But the PC can fly the ship too.

So, can I make this any more complicated? Thanks once more for the replies guys!

Cat Whatever costs more points is the base form.

[McCoy]

Originally posted by Stray Cat
<Columbo voice> Oh, and one more thing. How would a guy build a base (or vehicle) with an interior like the TARDIS from Doctor Who? </Columbo voice>
Buy exterior SIZE as characteristic SIZE. Buy interior SIZE as a characteristic bought as a power with Invisible Power Effect.