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I'm thinking of an how to create a villain power. The villain is actually 2 or 3 feet to the side of where he actually appears to be. Obviously, an area effect attack will neutralize it, which is good. I thought about +3 DCV but that feels lame. Any suggestions?

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I agree, DCV is the easiest. The one thing I'd suggest is making it limited or conditional in some way so players can use creative tactics to overcome it (maybe). Once you figure out "He's 5 3/4 Feet to the Left of where he looks" Your DCV Bonus should erode or vanish. Ooo! What about:

 

Forced Kentucky Windage:  +8 with DCV (40 Active Points); Side Effects (-2 DCV every time user is struck; -1/4)

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Here is a stupid question that is also insightful: "Whose left?". The concept of left and right are wholly subjective. Is it the viewer's left? The target's left? How does this work when the caster is moving around while being perceived? 

Examples of things that might come up:

Shifty is standing in a circular room with people looking down upon him like a surgery theater. He (the real person) is standing in the dead center of this circular room. His perceived shifted version is standing 3 feet to the left. Assuming the direction the man is facing is 12 o' clock and 90 degrees to his personal right is 3 o'clock, etc, where do all the spectators looking down upon him see him? 

Assume this same man now does an about face. While he was once facing 12 o' clock, he is now facing 6 o' clock. While his left used to face 9 o' clock, it is now facing 3 o' clock. What did the audience see happen? Did the shifted being simply do an about face 3 feet from the dead center without otherwise moving, or did that shifted character also somehow cross the intervening space to now be on the opposite side of the center of the room (opposite side meaning 6 feet from where he once was with the center of those two points being the exact center of the room)? If he is now on the opposite side, did the shifted being also appear to walk over there or did it just appear when the real person finished moving: akin to turning off a light while moving and turning it on again while stopped? Or did the character seem to 'float' in mid air while the original / real one turned? 

The real character is still standing in the center of the room. Directly in from of him (6 o' clock) is a door big enough for exactly one person. Without ever stepping to the side, the character walks straight and passes through the door. What happened to the shifted version? 

The person has cross the door way. This new area is a very thin hallway with walls that are several meters thick. There are people above him looking down and viewing him. Does he still have a shifted copy? Where is it in relation to the original / real one?

The real one returns to the room and head to the dead center of the former room. Now there is a table that is about 1 foot wide with a glass chest / case on top. Inside the case is a beautiful ruby. He opens the case and picks up the ruby. How did the shifted copy manage to do this? This is a similar question to figuring out where gun fire originates from / or even punches. 

so on and so forth. 

As to building the power: Assuming you just want the mechanical effect of being harder to hit / damage - then go with a bonus to DCV or a bonus to your defense (Defense, Damage negation, Damage Reduction, etc) 

 

Foreign Orchid. 

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Even though DCV may be the easiest, if this is a major part of his powers, I'd lean toward invisibility plus images. That way, characters have a better chance of figuring out what the powers are, and the play follows the reality(using DCV is not particularly suggestive of a power where the greater the success of the to hit roll, the LESS chance they should have of hitting, not better.)

 

That's just me. More costly, but more exactly shows the desired effect.

 

If it's a minor power in his list, I'd just go with the DCV.

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I disagree Darkness.  I think the actual mechanic used is irrelevant as to how likely players are to figure out what is happening.  How the GM describes the game effect are absolutely relevant.

 

I am for efficient character design - do not utilise powers unless those game effects are absolutely necessary and cannot be delivered by a simpler mechanism.  The more the GM has to adjudicate on the power and the more knowledge the player needs to have to parse the power build, the less efficient it is.

 

If the idea is to make the character more difficult to hit because his image is displaced from his physical location then that is effectively accomplished by added DCV.  If the idea is to make it impossible to hit unless you aim in the right place then you are looking at a different set of powers.

 

To add complexity to the character build because you want more complexity on the game play is (obviously in my most humble opinion) the wrong thing to do.  :-)

 

Doc

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I disagree Darkness.  I think the actual mechanic used is irrelevant as to how likely players are to figure out what is happening.  How the GM describes the game effect are absolutely relevant.

 

I am for efficient character design - do not utilise powers unless those game effects are absolutely necessary and cannot be delivered by a simpler mechanism.  The more the GM has to adjudicate on the power and the more knowledge the player needs to have to parse the power build, the less efficient it is.

 

If the idea is to make the character more difficult to hit because his image is displaced from his physical location then that is effectively accomplished by added DCV.  If the idea is to make it impossible to hit unless you aim in the right place then you are looking at a different set of powers.

 

To add complexity to the character build because you want more complexity on the game play is (obviously in my most humble opinion) the wrong thing to do.  :-)

 

Doc

I agree with you on one level, which is the basis for my saying that, if this the character's minor power, I would go with DCV.

 

From another angle, I think, when we discuss build efficiency, I tend to view that efficiency as measured in different ways. Which I think you allude to a bit. There's cost efficiency. There's efficiency of game play. There' efficiency of effect. Probably others I'm not thinking of.

 

If we defer to cost efficiency, we my lose the character we were actually wanting to make for the sake of worrying about other purchases.

If we defer to game play efficiency, the same may occur.

If we defer to efficiency of effect, we may achieve the character we wanted to make, but miss other options that the system gives us room to create.

 

For the build I was suggesting, an example:

 

Let's say we're trying to make a minor villain with these powers to fight the Verdant Bolt, a brooding, crossbow and high tech bolt firing marksman with some sort of distinctive facial hair, perhaps mutton chops and a soul patch.

 

Now, the whole idea of the power is to use accuracy against the marksman. If we use DCV, yes, the villain (Parallax?) is harder to hit, but who is the person most able to hit him? Yes, the person who should, by definition, be the most likely to hit exactly six feet off the mark, if the actual villain is always six feet from the image.

 

If we use image and invisibility, suddenly the villain actually works. This is a severely limited villain, as they are always near their image, and so must close along with the image to attack the Verdant Bolt, and this villain has spent a good number of points on the power, so their offense may not be equal to the courageous  crowsbowman of Kit City. Plus, once his power becomes clear, Verdant Bolt's partner, The Ebony Cockatoo, will likely fry him with a sonic cone.

 

Not all situations would call for this, and, as a minor power, DCV is probably better, but for specific purposes, I really think there is room for a different build. Description is one thing, but game effect does play a role in some cases. If I were wanting to use the accuracy of a guy who never misses against him, I would not go with DCV, since that puts him in the one class of character likely to still hit.

 

Granted, MOST applications would not get any advantage from such a build, but I think there are cases where it is justified.

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This thread is bringing out some brilliant responses!

 

Here is a stupid question that is also insightful: "Whose left?". The concept of left and right are wholly subjective. Is it the viewer's left? The target's left? How does this work when the caster is moving around while being perceived? 

 

Examples of things that might come up:

 

Shifty is standing in a circular room with people looking down upon him like a surgery theater. He (the real person) is standing in the dead center of this circular room. His perceived shifted version is standing 3 feet to the left. Assuming the direction the man is facing is 12 o' clock and 90 degrees to his personal right is 3 o'clock, etc, where do all the spectators looking down upon him see him? 

 

Assume this same man now does an about face. While he was once facing 12 o' clock, he is now facing 6 o' clock. While his left used to face 9 o' clock, it is now facing 3 o' clock. What did the audience see happen? Did the shifted being simply do an about face 3 feet from the dead center without otherwise moving, or did that shifted character also somehow cross the intervening space to now be on the opposite side of the center of the room (opposite side meaning 6 feet from where he once was with the center of those two points being the exact center of the room)? If he is now on the opposite side, did the shifted being also appear to walk over there or did it just appear when the real person finished moving: akin to turning off a light while moving and turning it on again while stopped? Or did the character seem to 'float' in mid air while the original / real one turned? 

 

The real character is still standing in the center of the room. Directly in from of him (6 o' clock) is a door big enough for exactly one person. Without ever stepping to the side, the character walks straight and passes through the door. What happened to the shifted version? 

 

The person has cross the door way. This new area is a very thin hallway with walls that are several meters thick. There are people above him looking down and viewing him. Does he still have a shifted copy? Where is it in relation to the original / real one?

 

The real one returns to the room and head to the dead center of the former room. Now there is a table that is about 1 foot wide with a glass chest / case on top. Inside the case is a beautiful ruby. He opens the case and picks up the ruby. How did the shifted copy manage to do this? This is a similar question to figuring out where gun fire originates from / or even punches. 

 

so on and so forth. 

 

As to building the power: Assuming you just want the mechanical effect of being harder to hit / damage - then go with a bonus to DCV or a bonus to your defense (Defense, Damage negation, Damage Reduction, etc) 

 

Foreign Orchid.

Rose really helped me see into the implications of the power described.

 

 

I agree with you on one level, which is the basis for my saying that, if this the character's minor power, I would go with DCV.

 

From another angle, I think, when we discuss build efficiency, I tend to view that efficiency as measured in different ways. Which I think you allude to a bit. There's cost efficiency. There's efficiency of game play. There' efficiency of effect. Probably others I'm not thinking of.

 

If we defer to cost efficiency, we my lose the character we were actually wanting to make for the sake of worrying about other purchases.

If we defer to game play efficiency, the same may occur.

If we defer to efficiency of effect, we may achieve the character we wanted to make, but miss other options that the system gives us room to create.

 

For the build I was suggesting, an example:

 

Let's say we're trying to make a minor villain with these powers to fight the Verdant Bolt, a brooding, crossbow and high tech bolt firing marksman with some sort of distinctive facial hair, perhaps mutton chops and a soul patch.

 

Now, the whole idea of the power is to use accuracy against the marksman. If we use DCV, yes, the villain (Parallax?) is harder to hit, but who is the person most able to hit him? Yes, the person who should, by definition, be the most likely to hit exactly six feet off the mark, if the actual villain is always six feet from the image.

 

If we use image and invisibility, suddenly the villain actually works. This is a severely limited villain, as they are always near their image, and so must close along with the image to attack the Verdant Bolt, and this villain has spent a good number of points on the power, so their offense may not be equal to the courageous  crowsbowman of Kit City. Plus, once his power becomes clear, Verdant Bolt's partner, The Ebony Cockatoo, will likely fry him with a sonic cone.

 

Not all situations would call for this, and, as a minor power, DCV is probably better, but for specific purposes, I really think there is room for a different build. Description is one thing, but game effect does play a role in some cases. If I were wanting to use the accuracy of a guy who never misses against him, I would not go with DCV, since that puts him in the one class of character likely to still hit.

 

Granted, MOST applications would not get any advantage from such a build, but I think there are cases where it is justified.

The Darkness has a really valuable insight - that the power as described means a MORE accurate character is LESS likely to hit this character, precisely because they are more likely to hit what they are aiming at - and what they are aiming at is not actually the character.

 

To really simulate a displacer beast, you need Images or perhaps Images and Invisibility. Its opponents are probably at first going to think they're dealing with Desolidification, although they should figure out quickly it's not that once in melee (seeing the image strike where no one is, but feeling the blow that seemed to land over there in empty air, should be a clue.)

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Where'd it go? I seem to have displaced my palindromedary

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The beauty of such an ability needs to be examined closely to be fully appreciated.

 

It arguably requires the capability of full Invisibility. However, attacking while invisible would alert opponents immediately and make it quite obvious that an AOE attack is needed.  By presenting a 'shifted' target instead, an opponent still sees an obvious target and depending on the construction of the 'shift power' a miss can dispel the fake image or imply that the character is using Desolidification (as pointed out by others).

 

Loki's appearances in the original Thor and Avengers movies illustrate a mastery of using such an ability. He could not only manifest a shifted image but do so in numbers.  The multiple images used by Loki in his fight with Thor on the bridge was attempt to confuse Thor but backfired like invisibility by making it obvious that subterfuge was at play.  Thor just used AOE Lightning to guarantee a hit.  Loki later escapes from the 'Hulk-Cage' by simply pretending to have escaped via invisibility which prompts Thor to open the door.  Loki uses this opportunity to escape while presenting Thor an imaged based 'obvious' target again ("will you never stop falling for that?").  Loki's skill and restraint in using this power of illusion (all possible to be created via Images in HERO) is such that it seems like he also has the power of teleportation.

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