Duplication question

[specks]

I was glancing through the rules about duplication and it said ranged duplication was not allowed.

I was also watching Matrix: Reloaded and Smith made duplication's come through a door and through a fence.

Does this go against the rules of the game or is this the use of the indirect advantage, a special effect or something else?

[Grailknight]

Those extra Smiths were people and agents he had already Transformed. not Duplicates or Summons. You could use Duplication or Summon but the points would quickly become .... large. Transform is only limited by the time it takes to change them and the number of victims you can infect in the allotted time.

 

He was running around using a Major Transform to make others into loyal identical copies of himself and then just called them there from all over the city.Transform when used to make minions out of captives has major potential for abuse. Think Smith in the Matrix as your main example or the monster from The Thing(Modern version). You can have an army of loyal slaves(cuz you can change the targets disads for free however you like) with large point totals (cuz the rules for adding points to a transformed target are spelled out in the RAW).

[specks]

I guess one question I had out of this was why range is not permitted with the duplication advantage? Followers are an option of course but do you think

teleportation would suit the way of having them appear in different directions?

 

Another example I was thinking of is Billy Numerous from the Teen Titans even though he did not appear everywhere but his duplicates can create duplicates.

[Grailknight]

Range isn't permitted because it would be effectively giving Teleport for free especially if combined with Ranged Recombination. I've used Duplication as the SFX for Teleport(human chain stretching and then shortening) but you need to buy the Teleport on its own.

[IndianaJoe3]

2 hours ago, Grailknight said:

Range isn't permitted because it would be effectively giving Teleport for free especially if combined with Ranged Recombination. I've used Duplication as the SFX for Teleport(human chain stretching and then shortening) but you need to buy the Teleport on its own.

 

The Ranged Duplicate/Recombine trick would be 160 active points for a 400-point character. That's awfully inefficient. 

[unclevlad]

On the Matrix, then...they weren't duplicates, they were probably Summons.  The two can basically interchange;  the Summons is the more flexible if you want to do a re-work, but you need Amicable.

 

And let's face it, it was a movie, so who cared about points....

 

Another aspect for disallowing Ranged Dups is that the duplicates can't act until their phase;  from their perspective, being created burns their full phase.  If it's right by the duplicator, then opponents might be able to react before the duplicates act.  

 

And, sure, it looks expensive, but for this?  Buy Extra Phase, Concentration, Time Limit (1 hour)...gets ya down to 58, looks like.  (Drop the Concentration, it's 60.)  Duplication is always expensive.  The question's gonna be whether there's a real advantage to be gained by allowing Ranged duplication...and what the limits on it are.  That may well be another reason...where could the duplicate appear, and when?  Did you buy Teleport as Usable on Others?  Then you can't teleport your dup.  Even if you did, the dup doesn't exist until the power completes, so what is your Teleport target?  There's an order of legal actions issue there.

[unclevlad]

Oof.  Another reason.

 

If I can do that, then as long as I know where the destination is in some manner...I just sit off in my own little corner of wherever, a few miles away, and drop in opponent after opponent after opponent.  And there's not a bloody thing you can do about it short of killing the duplicates, or if you have teleport tracing.  Fat chance on the latter;  the former might turn your rep into MUSH.  (And I can counter, if I can afford the points for Resurrection regen.)

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

33 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

Oof.  Another reason.

 

If I can do that, then as long as I know where the destination is in some manner...I just sit off in my own little corner of wherever, a few miles away, and drop in opponent after opponent after opponent.  And there's not a bloody thing you can do about it short of killing the duplicates, or if you have teleport tracing.  Fat chance on the latter;  the former might turn your rep into MUSH.  (And I can counter, if I can afford the points for Resurrection regen.)

That has nothing to do with ranged Duplication.  All you need for that is non-ranged Duplication and Teleport that's either UOO or possessed by the duplicates.  ...And it doesn't even work, you run into the duplicate limit.  Your opponent just has to KO them all and keep them KO'd, then your Duplication is worthless.  You could patch that with the appropriate recombination modifiers, but those are explicitly allowed so I don't see what that has to do with ranged Duplication. 

 

But this is all moot, because you can do exactly as you describe with Summon and no other powers by just sitting back and summoning teleporters to attack your foe.  And yet there's no restriction on summons having Teleport.  Because at the end of the day, there's always a bullshit combination (Desolid overcome by SFX you know your foe lacks + an APW attack, for example) that needs a silver bullet to overcome and it's not worth trying to patch obviously exploitative holes that don't occur in actual play. 

[Foxiekins]

Duplication copies yourself...  Ranged Duplication is not allowed because you're never going to be at range from yourself...

[unclevlad]

5 hours ago, Foxiekins said:

Duplication copies yourself...  Ranged Duplication is not allowed because you're never going to be at range from yourself...

 

What does that have to do with making a copy at range, using one of my movement powers?

 

There aren't that many duplicators out there, but it seems like a duplicator's done a flanking move...create, say, 2 duplicates at 120 degrees across a circle, putting the opponent in the middle...at least some of the time.  And it doesn't feel like it's that ridiculous for a comic.

 

Mmm...here's an argument.  You'd be giving the duplicates a free move action that's taking no time.  When they act, they don't have to move into the places you want them...they're already there.  At that point, it's something for nothing.  That argument make more sense to people?  Taking that a step further, the duplicates suddenly showing up at other points...without having to cross the intervening space.  That's giving the duplicator a very limited form of Teleport.

 

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

5 hours ago, unclevlad said:

 

What does that have to do with making a copy at range, using one of my movement powers?

 

There aren't that many duplicators out there, but it seems like a duplicator's done a flanking move...create, say, 2 duplicates at 120 degrees across a circle, putting the opponent in the middle...at least some of the time.  And it doesn't feel like it's that ridiculous for a comic.

 

Mmm...here's an argument.  You'd be giving the duplicates a free move action that's taking no time.  When they act, they don't have to move into the places you want them...they're already there.  At that point, it's something for nothing.  That argument make more sense to people?  Taking that a step further, the duplicates suddenly showing up at other points...without having to cross the intervening space.  That's giving the duplicator a very limited form of Teleport.

But it's not "for nothing".  You bought an Advantage on a very expensive power.  You're getting something for something.  And it's the cleanest way to build it. 

In fact, I think it'd be liable to be more expensive than a Trigger Teleport construct. 

[massey]

Duplication is all screwed up.  There aren't very many times you should use Duplication instead of just buying a Follower instead or using Summon.  It's expensive and has some real drawbacks to its use.  It's almost always better to use a different build.

 

Agent Smith probably just had a bunch of Followers (other Agent Smiths), or used Summon: Horde of Agent Smiths to fight Neo.  Trying to do it all with Duplication is a headache.

[Christougher]

1 hour ago, massey said:

Duplication is all screwed up.  There aren't very many times you should use Duplication instead of just buying a Follower instead or using Summon.  It's expensive and has some real drawbacks to its use.  It's almost always better to use a different build.

 

Agent Smith probably just had a bunch of Followers (other Agent Smiths), or used Summon: Horde of Agent Smiths to fight Neo.  Trying to do it all with Duplication is a headache.

 

The problem with that line of thinking is that Followers and Summons are their own beings, even if they are CloneSmiths.  The GM runs them, not you.  Duplication is the only way to have multiples of yourself that you run.

 

There is, however, nothing wrong with using "Summon Horde of Smiths" as the special effect of an attack, possibly with Indirect per your previous examples.  Duplication isn't always the answer. 

 

Chris.

[Grailknight]

I still think Transform into Loyal Minion with X power set  is the way to simulate what Smith was doing. It skates cleanly past limits on how many(as many as you had time to make) and control( change their Psych Lims to be fanatically loyal to you). Yes, it's abusive but we're not talking about builds that would be allowed in most games anyway. 

[massey]

1 hour ago, Christougher said:

 

The problem with that line of thinking is that Followers and Summons are their own beings, even if they are CloneSmiths.  The GM runs them, not you.  Duplication is the only way to have multiples of yourself that you run.

 

There is, however, nothing wrong with using "Summon Horde of Smiths" as the special effect of an attack, possibly with Indirect per your previous examples.  Duplication isn't always the answer. 

 

Chris.

 

In my experience, GMs generally allow the player to control Followers and Summons, especially if you buy the Summon as Amicable.  Of course we aren't seeing the "gaming table" perspective in the film.  The biggest problem I have with Duplication is losing character points if they die.  None of the other powers have that problem.

[massey]

35 minutes ago, Grailknight said:

I still think Transform into Loyal Minion with X power set  is the way to simulate what Smith was doing. It skates cleanly past limits on how many(as many as you had time to make) and control( change their Psych Lims to be fanatically loyal to you). Yes, it's abusive but we're not talking about builds that would be allowed in most games anyway. 

 

I think he had a couple of different powers going.

 

Transform into Smith Minion is for when you need to kill a character.  It is primarily an attack power.  Just because you turn a random old lady bystander into a Smith doesn't mean you had to use the Transform power.  That could just be the special effect of your Summon.

 

Summon Smith Minion (or Horde of Smith Minions) is for when you need a bunch of dudes to show up all convenient-like, and you forgot to actually Transform anybody ahead of time.  "Oh yeah, I totally did this an hour ago..."

 

Follower: Smith Minion is for when you always have guys standing around, and you don't want to worry about using an action to summon them or them using up their "loyal" actions.