Best Way to Steal Skills & Memories

[Gauntlet]

Would anyone be able to state what would be the best way for something to be able to steal the skills and memories of something they killed? I had thought of using VPP but you cannot put skills in a VPP.

[Alcamtar]

You can if the GM allows it. See the Skills power for buying a skill as a power.

 

Normally to acquire skills, you ought to pay character points for them, unless they're temporary. If they're temporary, you might look at the Cramming skill (it was a talent in 4e) for inspiration. Maybe you could combine cramming with Enhanced Senses (Detect), using the detect to recall a skill of a defeated foe, and cramming to exercise it.

 

Eidetic Memory won't give you skills, but you could reskin it so that it allows recall only of the memories of someone you killed, not things you experience yourself.

 

Edited June 25, 2023 by Alcamtar

[LoneWolf]

Under 5th edition rules you could use a transfer to achieve this.   It would require the GM’s permission but mechanically it works.  

 

Under 6th edition it would probably need to be done with a drain and a linked transformation to give you the skills.   
 

[Gauntlet]

Anyone know of a way that you could use Multiform. I am making basically a monster who would kill and eat their victims and in doing so gain all of their memories and skills for a period of time. Then when it kills and eats someone else it loses all the previous skills/memories and gains the ones from its new victim. I wouldn't work if you had to purchase a new multiform each time but would it be okay to have the multiform change for each use based on what was consumed?

[LoneWolf]

Use a VPP that is limited to multiforms.   A 50-point VPP with no skill roll costs 100 points.  That would allow you to have up to 250 point multiform.  That assumes the transformation happens out of combat.  Depending on how the power works you can probably put a few limitations to reduce the control cost.  If you can only change into things you killed, that should be worth at least a -1 limitation.  That reduces the cost of the 50-point VPP to 75 points.  

 

It is expensive, but not as bad as it seems.  Multiform is relatively inexpensive and that is the only thing you really need in the VPP.  

 

Skills cannot be put into a VPP, but multiform can be. 
 

Edited June 26, 2023 by LoneWolf

[Gauntlet]

Interesting, didn't think you could put Multiform in a VPP.

[LoneWolf]

Multiform is listed as a standard power so can be put in a framework.   

[Hugh Neilson]

Under 6e, it seems reasonable to limit the Multiform and Control cost "only to gain memories and skills of most recently consumed creature".  Add a time limit if you wish.  Assuming total limitations of -1.5, for example. you would have a 20 point pool (which can hold 1 50 AP multiform for a 250 point character, with 1 1/2 limitations reducing the real cost to 20) and a 50 point/2.5 = 20 real point control cost.

[Alcamtar]

10 hours ago, LoneWolf said:

Use a VPP that is limited to multiforms.   A 50-point VPP with no skill roll costs 100 points.  That would allow you to have up to 250 point multiform.  That assumes the transformation happens out of combat.  Depending on how the power works you can probably put a few limitations to reduce the control cost.  If you can only change into things you killed, that should be worth at least a -1 limitation.  That reduces the cost of the 50-point VPP to 75 points.  

 

It is expensive, but not as bad as it seems.  Multiform is relatively inexpensive and that is the only thing you really need in the VPP.  

 

Skills cannot be put into a VPP, but multiform can be. 
 

This is clever. I was thinking about Multiform but couldn't come up with a clear way to do it. There used to be (in some past edition) a variable effect advantage, so you could have an redefinable multiform, but that advantage hasn't existed in recent editions.

 

But I'm not sure Multiform really solves the issue. It lets you define a new form with added memories, but you can't use those memories in your standard form which I take to be the point.

 

Transform (self) could do it, to alter your base form. For a PC I'd require spending XP for additional abilities, but for a monster it is just a deus ex machina and it gets more powerful with each victim it kills. Honestly for a monster I might not even bother to define the ability in terms of a power: it's just a story element that the monster asborbs abilities of victims and becomes more powerful.  Update the character sheet, done.

Edited June 26, 2023 by Alcamtar

[LoneWolf]

Multiform would work because you simply include your own abilities in the multiform.   In 6th edition they removed the requirement that the base form has to be the most expensive.   You build a multiform that has everything your character has but has enough spare points to include the abilities you gain from the creature you killed. 

 

Your true form would be the character without any abilities from the target and the VPP.  The VPP would be used to create a new multiform when you killed someone.   The multiform would include all your skills and abilities you want to use and then you would just add whatever other abilities you stole from the target.   Give the multiform a KS of the character you killed on and extremely high roll to simulate stealing the memories.  I would suggest it should be a minimum of a 15 or less but might even be higher.  Some things may be missing because people forget things and you can’t steal what someone does not have.  You still have all your own memories and skills because you paid for them in the multiform.  

 

Your true form is more for bookkeeping purpose.  When the character is in use you will almost always be in the multiform.  Multiform allows you to switch between forms without having to revert to the “true” form so you can switch from one target to another without having to assume your true form.  Your true form will probably be less powerful than the campaign normal as you will need to reserve some points for the skills you steal.  
 

[Doc Democracy]

I think I like the multiform but only because it include memories.  If it was just skills, I think I would set aside a pool of points and add the variable advantage to the pool which allowed it to be used to build skillsets, limited to the last person killed and eaten (I am presuming that it is the eating that is important, rather than the killing and I am wondering how much after the person had died would the monster be able to gain memories and skills?).  If the multiform wasn't working for you , you could combine this group of skill points with some Retrocognition (clairsentience in the book I think) where the focus will be the presence of the person in the digestive tract.  The skills will be inherently available and the monster would search the memories of the dead person to see what they had done, who they had spoken to, what they had said.

 

Doc

 

 

[Duke Bushido]

Best way to steal skills and memories.  Be immortal.  Win sword fights.  Decapitate opponent.

 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

I understood that you could not put any power framework in any other power framework as a basic rule (for obvious reasons, they all are cost breaks).  Changing Multiform to a Standard Power doesn't change that rule, unless something else happened.

[Ninja-Bear]

On 6/25/2023 at 3:08 AM, Gauntlet said:

Would anyone be able to state what would be the best way for something to be able to steal the skills and memories of something they killed? I had thought of using VPP but you cannot put skills in a VPP.

Years ago I saw something like this question and really, unless your hidebound about the rules (which I can be to my own annoyance) the VPP for skills is really the easiest way to go.  

[Hugh Neilson]

13 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

I understood that you could not put any power framework in any other power framework as a basic rule (for obvious reasons, they all are cost breaks).  Changing Multiform to a Standard Power doesn't change that rule, unless something else happened.

Multiform is not a framework.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah, you're right, I was thinking of multipower.  That's what happens when I move half a house in the heat of summer and then try to think.

[Ninja-Bear]

10 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Yeah, you're right, I was thinking of multipower.  That's what happens when I move half a house in the heat of summer and then try to think.

Good Lord!

[Christopher R Taylor]

Well more like a quarter and I had help but it felt like half