Power that extracts the skills/abilities from reading objects

[Jujitsuguy]

Gang:

I have a player that has a very neat character concept, where they have the ability to "read"--I'm assuming Clairsentience here--an object or part of a person(bones/hair/etc.), that belonged to someone and they can temporarily have a set of skills/talents/powers that the individual possessed.

 

These objects would be from historical--non-living--individuals, and of course, using AP caps that would allow a key ability of that former persona to be accessible by the player.

 

An example:

The player finds the sword guard of the famous Miyamoto Musashi, does a read, and for a period of time--whether a charge or by END--has his sword fighting skills, including the weapon familiarity, just as the original Miyamoto Musashi had:  CSLs, deadly blows, two sword fighting, etc.

 

Now, how to accurately build this.  I was going to allow a VPP for just this purpose, whereas one ability would be the necessary "read" via clairsentience of said object, then another one that allows the set of the skills/talents/powers that the player can emulate.

Any ideas of how to do so?

Would the clairsentience have to have sight and/or hearing, or would Mental play into this?  (Keep in mind this is not to "see" or "hear" events of the person, but to "read" their abilities to use.

I know I would put the VPPs that the condition, of course, to emulate read skills only, as an example.

Thanks in advance...

 

Chuck D. aka "Jujitsuguy"

[DasBroot]

In my opinion characters like this are best represented by a VPP - Multiform Only with some sort of time limit.

 

They also have great potential to slow the game down dramatically or obsolete team specialists - it  depends on if they get to keep the sword after they find it and thus can multiform into the master swordsman at will or whether each 'read' is meant to be a dramatic and fairly unique thing (grab the sword while defending the museum, beat all the bad guys, give the sword back to the caretakers vs 'This might come in handy later)

 

The GM should be doing most of the work for this power and have multiforms ready to VPP into so the player doesn't need to either be told ahead to design a form to use in the session or try and build a whole new character in the midst of one just because he disarmed the bad guy and grabbed his Magic Sword. 

 

That's a lot of trust between player and GM - but it's trust that could be rewarded by saving points by making the VPP not only multiform only with some sort of timed limit but also applying the full No Conscious Control (-2) so the GM decides entirely when an object is 'readable' and what happens when it is.

 

Complicated but rewarding (but complicated).

[Jujitsuguy]

DasBroot:

Thanks for the idea on the Multiform...yes, obvious and wasn't sure how to originally represent it.

Now, my bigger question is the ability to "read" an object to extract the energies of the former owner to build the multiform from...how would I build that properly...or do I make it a condition of the multiform?

As indicated, I would think Clairsentience to use to "read" an object, but unsure if there was a more effective way to represent that piece.
 

Thanks...

 

Chuck D. aka "Jujitsuguy"

[DasBroot]

Clairsentience for object reading is established in the book but you have to ask yourself what the point behind the reading is?

 

If it's to get information about a situation that otherwise couldn't be gained *as well as* power the multiforms then it's Clairsentience.  Could they read a carpet to find out the time of death of someone who was found dead on it vs touch the carpet and gain the knowledge needed to operate an industrial carpet loom?

 

If it's just to use the multiform I'd probably go with it's just a Limited or Conditional power "Must have appropriate object" on the pool or power.  It could be  disposable focus as well but focus implies something that sticks around or that can be acquired with various difficulties - I like conditionals better for temporary effects.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Cassandra]

Cramming for skills but you shorten the time it takes from 6 Hours to 1 Phase.  I used this with my build or Rogue a while back.

[Sidume]

There is another way to do it, but it kind of breaks the rules.

 

Set a cap for the number of points you can emulate from someone.  Buy this as a Emulation Pool.  

 

As a GM, waive the restrictions on what can go into the pool.

 

Limit the time as X continuing charges, only changeable in certain circumstances, requires OAF to change pool slots, etc.

 

Cool concept btw.

[dsatow]

This isn't one of my ideas, but a friend's.  Its an interesting way around it.  What he does is use multiform with something like 1024 forms or more.  He doesn't define the forms but he uses the forms as different versions of himself with different skills.  Completely legal way to get a variable set of skills.

[whitekeys]

Great power idea! I haven't been looking at the books recently, because I haven't been gaming, so I can't suggest any complicated power builds at the moment.

 

However, it's always important to restate the rule about special effects. It seems to me that the "reading" should just be a special effect of the power. It doesn't really matter for game mechanics how they get them, but the character has the powers. If you agree, then you're left with a character that only has access to powers at certain times, as per the special effect, which actually seems majorly under powered, rather than being over powered, with the ability to absorb powers in this way.

 

Here are my ideas:

 

1. Multiform definitely comes to mind. But as I said above, the powers are all predefined and constructed by the character, and "reading" is a special effect.

 

2. You could put a Charge on every power, with Recoverable only under certain circumstances. The number of Charges in a clip would indicate how long those powers stick around for after the "Read" and the "under certain circumstances" recovery would be the read itself.

 

3. You could put a Required Roll on every power and make it a PER Roll (that's the read) with obvious penalties if there's nothing in front of the character to "read". So it would be impossible to make the PER Roll to activate the Power if there's nothing to perceive. Or maybe you could think of it like anything could be read, but some things are harder than others... it could be time sensitive, or how close an item was to a person (or whatever they were trying to absorb). The sword seems like an easy read to make, given the close connection between the sword and the swordsman. But something like... the ruined remains of a house, attempting to read the shattered pieces of wood for any trace of the previous inhabitants from hundreds of years ago, could be really hard to read. The GM would control the PER penalties to activate powers.

 

4.  This probably changes your player's idea drastically, but it would be possible for the GM to make this event part of the campaign setting, where the players don't necessarily control when they're suddenly given powers by powerful artifacts. It could happen frequently, though. Then this would be a Usable On Others advantage, of the item, rather than a power of one of the PCs. It might be nice for the GM to have control over what powers are given when.

 

5. Define something as Floating. This is a lot easier to manage when it's something simple like a skill (pay 3 points for a Floating skill, and fill in the blanks every time you do a read) but would be much harder to understand when it comes to complicated Powers. It would be especially effective if done in the manner described in the entry for Complication: Dependent NPC saying something about "a different girlfriend every week". If your campaign was episodic, the character could come into contact with an artifact for reading at the beginning, and then have those powers for the rest of the episode, changing them at the start of the next. It would take away the messiness of time limits.

 

I think the thrust of what I'm suggesting with all this, is that, in my opinion, it would be easier if all the different things the character wanted to do were on the sheet, and the flavour of doing a reading defined what powers the character was going to use at that moment. A la Multiform, you're supposed to have a sheet for each of your forms, but this power, as described so far, basically has an unlimited number of forms with the potential for absorbing any and all powers skills and knowledge. It seems unwieldy in that regard.