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Arise My Metal Minions!


bigdamnhero

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I've had a couple thoughts about Summon as used to create robot followers. I understand the rules; I'm just curious to hear some ideas of how other people have handled or might handle these situations.

 

A PC gadgeteer builds a robot factory as part of his base. We'll keep it simple for illustration purposes:

Summon 300-point creatures, Slavishly Devoted (+1) (120 Active Points); Extra Time (1 Hour, -3), OAF Immobile (-2); Real Cost 20. (Note that's 20 points cost to the base => 4 Character Points.)

 

1) RAW state that a Slavishly Devoted Summoned Being can perform a number of tasks equal to the summoner's EGO before "leaving." (6e1 p290 or CC p87). How do you interpret that for a robot? Does the `Bot suddenly fall apart, or shut down? Does its Windows OS lock up and need an hour to reboot? Does it physically turn away and head back to the factory? Seems like a pretty major design flaw. Or do you just buy up multiples on the number of tasks until it's no longer an issue?

 

2) At 1 robot per hour, the PC can spend a week down in the machine shop and have 168 shiny robot sidekicks for his effort. Heck, for 1 additional Character Point (5 points to the base) you can throw x8 Number Of Beings on it and crank out 1344 robots a week! So what's to stop the character from literally building his own robot army? Yeah GM fiat, obviously, but I'm looking for specifics. You'd need enough storage space in the base to hold that many robots until they're needed. And the PCs would need to get their hands on enough raw materials. (Tho that's not a baseline requirement of Summons, so that's probably another Lim right there.) Do you limit how many robots the PC can control at one time? Or does Mechanon start to infiltrate their firmware at some point? What else?

 

I'm thinking generally, but if it helps the specific campaign context is: the PCs are 450-point supervillains trying to liberate Earth from the aliens who conquered the world and killed off all the heroes. (I'm running Savage Worlds' Necessary Evil setting in Champions.) So yeah, having a robot army is totally in character, and I'm not opposed to the concept. The players aren't trying to abuse the rules; we're just trying to decide on what's reasonable, both narratively and mechanically.

 

Your thoughts?

Edited by bigdamnhero
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You don't get to take OAF Immobile if the Power is the Base's Power not the Character's (unless the base is mobile and moves around but has to it's robot factory behind...). Personally I would probably make a player buy the Power themselves, not through the Base, and then allow OAF Immobile with the Immobile Focus being kept at the base.

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You don't get to take OAF Immobile if the Power is the Base's Power not the Character's

RAW would seem to say the opposite:

 

[6e2 p193] Equipment is usually bought with a Focus Limitation unless it’s intrinsically a part of the Base or Vehicle.... All Base equipment receives an extra -1 Limitation in addition to the normal value of the Focus Limitation (i.e., it’s an Immobile Focus).

 

 

Personally I would probably make a player buy the Power themselves, not through the Base, and then allow OAF Immobile with the Immobile Focus being kept at the base.

I can see that being a valid approach. But apart from making the power more expensive, it doesn't change the core issues. (20 Character Points is still pretty cheap to get your own robot army!)

 

I use the rule of thumb that Followers are permanent, but Summons are temporary. If the NPC, "going away" doesn't make sense, then it might make more sense as a Follower than a Summoned being.

That's...a pretty good guideline actually!

Edited by bigdamnhero
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Can Followers take some of the limitations for a Summon power write-up? In this example, the robots take time to build and only come from a specific factory, so those seem like some kind of limitation.

Hmm...never thought about putting Limitations on purchasing Followers. I don't see anything in the rules that says you can't. Of course Followers aren't typically recruited in combat time, so how much value is Extra Time really worth it in this scenario? Say I define my Follower as someone I've known since we were kids and that's why they're so loyal to me, does that mean I get to slap Extra Time, XX Years on it? The potentials for abuse are obvious if you open that door...but probably no worse than treating Summon as a way to create what are basically cheap Followers in the first place. ;)

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As to your second point: your math is wrong. You are only allowed to have as many creatures summoned as you pay for. With the power you built you get 1 robot active at a time. For 5 character points you could have two, 10 character points would enable you to have 4, etc. It would not matter how long you spent in your lab/factory and how many there were built, you only get to use as many of them at once as you pay for.

 

You also used extra time (1 hour), so it would take you 1 hour to summon or for the summoned creature to arrive

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As to your second point: your math is wrong.

x8 Number of Beings adds 15 Active Points, not Character Points. With these Limitations, that works out to 5 RP, which in a Base translates to 1 Character Point. Even if we took the base out of the equation, +5 Character Points still isn't a lot for (potentially) summoning a small army.

 

You are only allowed to have as many creatures summoned as you pay for. With the power you built you get 1 robot active at a time.

That's not the way the rules are written. Unless I'm missing a line somewhere, the number of beings you can Summon is per use of the Power just like most other Powers. So with Extra Time 1 Hour, one use of the spell takes an hour to cast, at the end of which 8 summoned beings appear. There's nothing I can find in RAW to stop you from then spending another hour to summon 8 more. (Presumably after a quick bathroom break and maybe a snack.) It's not normally much of an issue when you have to control your summoned beings with EGO contests, Mind Control or whatever - it's making them Amicable that changes the picture.

 

If you wanted to say they can't have more than "x" active at one time, that's fine, tho probably worth a Limitation similar to One Use At A Time for Adjustment Powers. In fact, that might be the easiest way to handle the matter.

Edited by bigdamnhero
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Related question: assuming Base equipment is not bought with Concentration or a similar Limitation, how much attention is required on the Character's part?

 

This example is built as the Base's standalone Power, rather than an Aid to the Character's power. Assuming the Base's computer has a "Control Assembly Line" program, does the PC even need to be present once it's up and running? Or can they just check in once a day to make sure everything's working properly? Certainly I've never assumed the Base's generator, HVAC and other systems require constant supervision as a baseline.

 

Adding Concentration defined as "Character needs to be present during operation" could be another useful way to keep this from approaching Munchkin Heat Death, assuming the player didn't also buy Life Support: I'll Sleep When I'm Dead.

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