Absorb for non attacks

[Christopher R Taylor]

Something occurred to me while in the shower: what if you could use Absorption to work on powers that are not attacks.  As in, Absorption used as an Attack vs, say movement on the target.  Every time they move, you get END.  It opens up a huge range of interesting options and curious builds in my mind.  Your strength only feeds my force field! 

[dmjalund]

that's called Transfer (Drain + Aid)

[Christopher R Taylor]

Not exactly.  Transfer reduces the power used.  When you drain something it gets weaker.  When you absorb it, you simply take energy from their actions. Absorb doesn't reduce the power of the attack (or cause their subsequent attacks to do less).

[dmjalund]

then Suppress + Aid, (the forcefield is weaker while you are transferring, like an attack (tends to) get reduced when you absorbcit.

otherwise it's just a conditional Aid

[Christopher R Taylor]

Except suppress also weakens the power.  Absorb doesn't reduce the power, it draws energy from use of the power.  Unless you specifically buy absorb as a defense it doesn't even reduce the effect of the power on you.

 

I mean the Absorb doesn't even need to be there, you can just define it as an Aid that only goes off when the target does x thing, but its an interesting mechanic and concept that occurred to me.  It lets you use a power in an interesting and unique way and I like that kind of thing.

[Duke Bushido]

If I am not mistaken, in the past it has been suggested that this can be done with a VPP and perhaps Aid to grow the VPP, with various limitations and advantages that, however you wish to flavor it, come out to be "only to duplicate / imitate another power someone else is using."

 

If you don't want to go that way, then perhaps create an END reserve (for pushing your existing power, if the idea is to use the 'stray energy' to increase it) and an Aid for that END reserve, with limitations on the Aid modeling how it is actually powered-- in the presence of Kinetic Powers, in the presence of Radiation Powers-- whatever.

 

Or some mixture of all of those things.

 

Hope something there helps.

 

 

[unclevlad]

I'll grant this is supers, but for plausibility, I still want some sort of vector connecting the 2 actions.  How does my movement create something that you can absorb, assuming I never make contact or even close to melee range?

 

Also, how do you scale this?  Absorption is based on BODY done, and nothing here is doing BODY.  So there would have to be some form of scale defined.  

 

For me, this just makes little or no sense even in supers logic, so I wouldn't allow it.  If I did, tho, the absorption would have to be defined as AoE, presumably Radius, and honestly, I'd lean to saying it costs END.  This is WILDLY different from normal Absorption.

 

 

[LoneWolf]

The easiest way to do it would be Aid with some limitations.  The value of the limitation would depend on what you are absorbing.  

[dmjalund]

4 minutes ago, LoneWolf said:

The easiest way to do it would be Aid with some limitations.  The value of the limitation would depend on what you are absorbing.  

hence my second line

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

The easiest way to do it would be Aid with some limitations.  The value of the limitation would depend on what you are absorbing.  

 

Yeah that's the cleanest concept, and it would be cheaper than using Absorb as well.  the main concern is, I agree, the mechanics of how you absorb body from non-damaging powers.  It just made me stop and go "hmm that's kind of neat", not anything I'd necessarily add as a house rule.

 

Quote

I'll grant this is supers, but for plausibility, I still want some sort of vector connecting the 2 actions.

 

Some kind of detached kinetic ability or a spell that taps into their motion to give you energy, a quantum gate between their use of a power and yours, absorbing the impact on the world, there's a lot of ways you can "make this work".  If someone can do things like absorb sound and turn it into light in the comics and everyone shrugs, I don't see a particularly significant challenge here.

[unclevlad]

It's me.  There's a limit to how unrealistic I'll go.  Personally, I'd buy none of your justifications.  But I also do NOT like turning the rules into silly putty, and, at least going through Absorption, you have to.  They're abusable enough;  I think it's a terrible idea to take an extremely broad ruleset and open doors like this;  it's like...no, there are no rules, do what you can get away with.  Not my cuppa.

 

Aid is kind of interesting.  D&D Epic Rules had a feat called Spell Stowaway.  Pick a spell;  when that spell is cast by anyone near you (with a pretty long range, actually), it is as if you were also the target of that spell.  But it required Spellcraft 24 ranks...which means 21st level.  And you had to know the spell;  it wasn't arbitrary.  It was also 1 spell, chosen when you took the feat.  

 

Now, more generally in D&D, counterspelling created the notion that there was a spell construct that was formed.  Such a construct was detectable, and could be interfered with.  I can buy extending that to powers...SOMETIMES.  I don't buy it for any Characteristic;  far as I'm concerned, these are, let's call it, Readied powers.  They're always there to be used;  using them has no external signature.  Note that if you've got, let's say, an MP with a bunch of physical augmentation package slots, when a slot is activated, you could allow there *in that moment* to be something to trigger on.  But not after.  Flip side...in principle something like a Blast would involve something sufficiently tangible that it could trigger an Aid.  I probably wouldn't allow this either, as it still feels too disconnected.  At least in most cases.  Say your Aid has Trigger:  when a  Blast or RKA is used nearby, your Aid kicks in.  It's Aid to OCV, only against the source that fired the trigger.  The attacker effectively gets painted *for you*.  THAT, I can buy, easily;  you're tracking back to the source.  Kind of a cool power, too, IMO.  (In a way this is roughly similar to how the Air Force took out the Iraqi missile sites.  The missiles were guided;  to do that, a tracking radar had to be active.  So the pilots just locked onto the radars.  Bye bye radar.  When the radar cuts out?  The missile self destructs.  2 for the price of 1.)

 

Absorb X to emit Y...not even an issue.  Common in the real world.  Kinetic energy can be turned into electricity...I've got a watch that does that.  Light can be turned into electricity...the photovoltaic effect.  Electricity can create light...LEDs.  All of these have direct application of effect A onto target B, which is converted into C.  I've got no problem with producing END;  I have a problem connecting A to B.

 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Welp.  Glad I am not playing in one of your games.  I couldn't offer you a PHD thesis on physics to justify the superpowers for my characters.

[JackValhalla]

If I'm GM: Any power that rolls dice and can calculate BODY would be okay. If there's a movement power that rolls dice, then sure thing. Might need to take the 'ranged' or 'area effect' advantage, possibly with a trigger. Most powers that roll dice would be attack powers (and man it rocked me the first time I realized that you can roll Absorption on a Flash or Entangle, or even Dispel), but there are those that don't, like Aid or Healing, Mind Scan, Telepathy, or Luck. Those would probably need 'ranged' or 'area effect'.

[dougmacd]

On 1/11/2022 at 6:39 PM, Christopher R Taylor said:

Something occurred to me while in the shower: what if you could use Absorption to work on powers that are not attacks.  As in, Absorption used as an Attack vs, say movement on the target.  Every time they move, you get END.  It opens up a huge range of interesting options and curious builds in my mind.  Your strength only feeds my force field! 

 

I like the idea conceptually, but I wouldn't model it mechanically with Absorption or Aid.

 

Buy an increase to the absorb-destination-power with a limitation "Only if an enemy within X meters used Y active points of absorb-source-power since my last phase".  Obviously this requires significant GM interpretation: bigger X's should reduce the limitation and bigger Y's should increase it.

 

Spitballed powers:

• Absorb Kinetic Energy - Regenerate 10 END/Phase (APG p114), Only if an enemy within 12m used a Full Move action since my last phase (-½)
• Counter-Exertion Field - 4rPD, Only if an enemy within 6m used at least 20 STR since my last phase (-½)

 

Doug

Keyword it for brevity: "Must absorb 20 STR within 6m*" ...with full description at the asterisk.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I agree, its more a fascinating concept but not really viable as a power (what would you absorb mechanically, since movement has no body damage?)

[SCUBA Hero]

Use the Active Points in the absorbed power - roll Normal Damage Body (1d6 per 5 Active Points)?

[Ockham's Spoon]

Tangentially related, I had an empath who fed off the emotions of others.  This was represented as extra REC, Triggers when strong emotions were present in others nearby.  By default in combat he got the first third of the extra REC since emotions run high in dangerous situations, as long as he wasn't fighting robots or zombies without emotion.  If he was able to step on people's Psychological Complications, he got the second third of the REC.  If he managed to trigger an Enraged or Berserk, he got the full REC.  He was not allowed to manipulate emotions to generate this energy, the emotions had to occur 'naturally' or it didn't count.  He was really good a trash talking and inspiring oratory though.  The most satisfying instances of the power triggering was not when people got angry, but when they acted out of compassion or love, because from a story-line standpoint saving the day with the power of love is beautiful, but cheesy if you don't have something behind it.

[Duke Bushido]

Quick question for Christopher:

 

Do you see this as diminishing the absorbed thing in any way?  For example, if you are absorbing momentum from Running, what effect, if any, does this have on the Running power?  If you are absorbing a force field, what effect does this have on the force field?

 

 

Thank you in advance.

 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Nah, it doesn't do anything to the power in question, it just gives the recipient power when someone else's uses a power.  Aid with a trigger and only usable with the trigger is probably the best way to handle this it just seemed like a neat idea.