How Would You Make an "Evil Scientist" Shrink Ray ?

[Kevinvt]

Building a Shrink Ray !!  This would be a device, not to be used to fight crime, but to shrink people down to the size of tiny ants, Bwahahahaha!!  Ahem.  Anyway, What i mean is, yes, you would be small, but not with human sized strength, but where lifting a can of soda would be impossible and you could barely use a sewing needle as a sword.  How would Hero simulate this?

[Grailknight]

Use Transform, there's no limit to what you can take away from the target with it.

[Duke Bushido]

I avoid T-from like---

 

well, I can't say "like the plague" anymore.  We're having a plague, and I live in a nation where it seems no one is actually trying to avoid or acknowledge it, so let's say that I avoid it like I avoid sticking my hand into boiling kettles....

 

Well, that has no real punch to it. 

 

Okay: I go to great lengths to not use T-form.   But when it can't be avoided-- when T-form really is the perfect power, it's for stuff like this. 

 

You could go the long way 'round-- Shrinking: only to reduce physical size and mass (thereby denying the little perks that come with Shrinking), Drain STR (with a really long recovery time)  Drain several other relevant characteristics, etc-- all tied together with a big "useable as attack; must be used simultaneously" wrapped around it--

 

but ultimately, that's just silly.  You'll end up with a hundred or more AP tied up into what is essentially a plot device.  T-form is dead-on perfect for this.

[Opal]

Tiny ants is getting into the realm of not really interacting with regular-size creatures anymore, so you might go with X-D move, and have a whole micro-setting for the shrunken characters to interact with.

[Christopher R Taylor]

You can use shrinking as an attack, force someone to shrink but it has no drawbacks, so its probably not ideal to use as a weapon.  You'd want to make them move slower, lift less, etc.

[dmjalund]

Drain Growth - Allow for negative levels?

[Kevinvt]

4 hours ago, Grailknight said:

Use Transform, there's no limit to what you can take away from the target with it.

Sigh....the Swiss Army Knife of Champions....but, it works.  Maybe playing Checkers would be easier. 

[Hugh Neilson]

What's the purpose?  "The Heroes will battle the Evil Scientist; some may be shrunken and others not at the end of the battle"?  I suspect not.

 

"The Heroes will be shrunk to the scale of insects, forced to interact with a world suddenly far too large to even notice them while contending with challenges like hungry beetles, mice and birds, as they desperately seek a means to return to their normal size and stop the Mad Doctor carrying out his Evil Plans on a far grander scale against the unsuspecting world."  Seems more likely

 

For the latter, it's a plot device.  Re-scaling the PCs to battle at -20 STR, with 12 mm of running, 0-1 defenses and attacks that do 1-3 STUN seems a lot less satisfying (and a lot more work) than leaving their stats unchanged, analogizing objects at this scale to objects at their own scale (that sewing needle is now a Greatsword, that Ant is now a Giant Ant) etc.

[Duke Bushido]

5 hours ago, Kevinvt said:

Sigh....the Swiss Army Knife of Champions...

 

One of the reasons I avoid it unless what I want is quite specifically to make a transformation to the nature of someone or something  (beyond "normal guy to damaged guy," of course).

 

It's more than just T-form, though:

 

Transformation Attack, Extra-Dimensional Movement, and Desolidification (though desolid not so much after 5e showed up) were (and kind of still are) "the Trifecta of Cobble:"

 

T-form:  Thing I don't want becomes something that either I do want or that exists at a horrible disadvantage to itself, and this was way cheaper than overwhelming it some other way.

 

EDM:  I send him to the dimension of the power or situation exists and I don't have to actually build it.

 

Desolidification: only versus damage or obstacles in my path.

 

 

 

It got really repetitive, and really tiring to see over and over, so I make it a point to avoid T-form unless it's perfect, and I don't think I have ever had a single use of EDM since it first appeared.   EDM has never been needed for us; in our games, EDM is a plot device or enabler:  "You pass through professor's gateway and are transported to Dimension Seven...."   If Someone wants to EDM to "the dimension where we are all enjoying a Barsoomian sunset," then I tend to require that they instead build "the movement ability that allows us to travel the distance from here to Barsoom hex by hex."  Unless being on Barsoom is a plot device, in which case no one has to build and buy it; the plot device handles it.

 

Desolid....   Man, I'm not even going to go into that: if you played 4e or participated in cons or webrings or boards for Champions back in that era, you have seen it already.

 

 

 

 

[Greywind]

Only works against "evil scientists" should be a decent limitation, though.

[Ninja-Bear]

6 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

You can use shrinking as an attack, force someone to shrink but it has no drawbacks, so its probably not ideal to use as a weapon.  You'd want to make them move slower, lift less, etc.

You just link Supress: STR and Run-Standard Effect to Shrinking. It’s not that hard.

[Ninja-Bear]

Btw the problem with Transform is you can 2 different characters and the one with a higher Body may not get shrunk while the other one does. XDM actually avoids that issue.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah, although extradimensional movement has the odd effect of having to exactly duplicate the real world so that you can still interact with bigger stuff and people.  Otherwise the mad scientist just made the people disappear, rather than shrink them and keep them in a terrarium or something.

[Grailknight]

3 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Btw the problem with Transform is you can 2 different characters and the one with a higher Body may not get shrunk while the other one does. XDM actually avoids that issue.

 

If you use Damage over Time and Partial Transform this becomes a feature instead of a bug.

[Ninja-Bear]

26 minutes ago, Grailknight said:

 

If you use Damage over Time and Partial Transform this becomes a feature instead of a bug.

If that’s how you see it working that’s fine. 

[Lord Liaden]

6 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Transformation Attack, Extra-Dimensional Movement, and Desolidification (though desolid not so much after 5e showed up) were (and kind of still are) "the Trifecta of Cobble:"

 

I'd make it a quadrifecta along with Change Environment.

[Duke Bushido]

40 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

I'd make it a quadrifecta along with Change Environment.

 

 

Apparently my rep stick has runner dry, but I will be back.

 

 

 

[unclevlad]

7 hours ago, Grailknight said:

 

If you use Damage over Time and Partial Transform this becomes a feature instead of a bug.

 

I tend to loathe damage over time...at least as it tends to be presented here.  1 pip attacks where the defense only applies once, so you buy a ton of increments at a high speed, with delayed return.  Perhaps the big offender is more the aspect that defenses only apply once;  the other is, of course, when the base power costs next to nothing, the size of the advantage becomes largely irrelevant.  

[Grailknight]

2 hours ago, unclevlad said:

 

I tend to loathe damage over time...at least as it tends to be presented here.  1 pip attacks where the defense only applies once, so you buy a ton of increments at a high speed, with delayed return.  Perhaps the big offender is more the aspect that defenses only apply once;  the other is, of course, when the base power costs next to nothing, the size of the advantage becomes largely irrelevant.  

 

I agree with you. It is IMO the most abusable modifier in HERO. But if used correctly, it does a excellent job with things like poisons or curses and also let's you write up many things that would be ludicrously expensive or pure plot device without it. 

 

The small increments are half the problem, the other is that it adds too many steps to the Time Chart so that effects that take place outside of typical combat times get too inexpensive. A one minute combat in HERO is an epic battle but outside combat it's barely time enough to compose your thoughts, much less figure a way to stop a deadly poison or a spell of demonic possession. GM vigilance and GM restraint are at a premium here. You can usually tell at a glance(Any power with +2 or more in Modifiers should be closely examined) but if the increments get into the 20 minute or more range on the ticks it can even become a Limitation.

[Opal]

On 3/20/2021 at 7:05 AM, Christopher R Taylor said:

Yeah, although extradimensional movement has the odd effect of having to exactly duplicate the real world so that you can still interact with bigger stuff and people.  

It was exactly because I felt the OP's description of the effect functionally precluded interactions with the full-size world that I thought of XD-Move (which, yes, is nothing more than a plot device with a point cost).

 

If there were still potential interaction some sort of adjustment power might make more sense, reducing movement and damage potential, perhaps, while as a side effect, making them harder to hit or even find.  But, I think the lower limit to that might be closer to action-figure sized, like the classics Dr. Cyclops and Land of the Giants.

Edited March 21, 2021 by Opal
OK, maybe mouse-size

[Christopher R Taylor]

Shrinking bought as an attack with side effects (always go off) of reduces movement speed and increases range mods would probably work as a GM power.  I'd never allow someone to apply penalties to someone as a side effect on a power for a PC but the rules are different for simulating something as a GM.

 

Or just handwave it and say "you are shorter now: you move a 1/10th speed and range modifiers are in centimeters, not meters."