Making shadow clone power

[Duke Bushido]

On 10/15/2023 at 2:10 PM, unclevlad said:

Lemme start with saying, I agree with Hugh;  avoiding Summon or Duplication?  All the attempts to do so have been horrendously contrived

 

As a guy who has spent 43 years playing nothing but editions that have neither of these abilities, I can say that these are niether contrived nor as complicated as everyone wants to make them.  Bestfully, (thanks, Slick Rick!) they work extremely well and without adding multiple actions to one player over all others, and you never have to dabble into things like "how do I recombine?  How do I share damage?  Do I need a mind link?  What do I have to roll to make sure my summoned critters don't decide to eat me?" And whatever things have to be calculated and paid for and written out across a few lines of character sheet.  They also avoid the duplicate discount, the Multiform discount, and the summoned critter discount (things that are never called out when the "you get what you pay for; you must pay for what you get" discussion comes around, for some reason).

 

Complications arise when someone decides that things like "Indirect" should have shades of 'is this direct or not?' rather than offering guidelines on how to cost limited advantages or less-limiting limitations and then letting groups decide this for themselves what needs shading and what doesn't.

 

 

 

On 10/15/2023 at 2:10 PM, unclevlad said:

 

IMO, and none come close to doing what OP wants.

 

Up front:  I have enjoyed every conversation in which you have participated, and this one is absolutely not an exception to that.

 

(Okay: there have been a lot of prefaces to my comments in recent weeks, so let me reiterate the reason:  some weeks back, I attempted to crack an "in joke" with a board member whom I very much like and respect.  Unfortunately, my phrasing was too casual; too familiar, and it was taken very, very wrong.  I go to the trouble to type all of this on a dinky little phone screen with a touchpad (an interface designed by Satan himself) with an autocorrect that I am convinced has suffered traumatic brain injury specifically to ensure that this does not happen again.  Stated more clearly: if anyone, at any time, thinks that I am targetting or insulting or otherwise harassing them, be assured that I absolutely am not.  More likely I shortcutted the conversation (so very, _very_ tempting, given the limits of my interface with this board) and chose my ommissions poorly.  With that being said...)

 

I can speak only for myself, but the point, I don't think, was to make something here of which any specific person would approve or disapprove.  I have been under the impression that the goal here was to provide book-legal constructs that the OP could consider or draw inspiration from as he sought to build his character.  To that end, I haven't really looked for approval from anyone beyond "yes; that is a book-legal idea" or "no; that isnt book-legal, and here's why..."

 

I didn't show up to cause a ruckus, but to maybe help someone else get his own creative ideas going.  As he has already posted that he has opted to take some of the ideas to his GM, I am pretty happy with everyone's contributions, even those that would never see the light of day at my table for whatever reason.  If the goal was for us to agree, well, let's say that this board has a terrible track record on that. 

 

 

 

On 10/15/2023 at 2:10 PM, unclevlad said:

 

The bigger problem is it requires Fine Manipulation on the TK, which is an expensive adder. 

 

Agreed.  I confessed above that I had forgotten that, as I default TK to having that feature built in.

 

 

On 10/15/2023 at 2:10 PM, unclevlad said:

 

TK attacks are also the most expensive attacks (against standard defenses) in the game...7.5 points per DC.  This also means they're END-intensive. 

 

Correct. 

 

However, everything I know about 'TK does damage' comes from this board and what I vaguely recollect from the later editions.  For reasons stated above, I prefer TK (and half a dozen other things) _not_ have damage built-in.

 

For the same AP-to-dice conversion, one could put "Ranged" on their STR, granting them both access to fine manipulation (which I give away anyway), the ability to do STR damage, and to use any martial art that works with STR.

 

 

 

 

On 10/15/2023 at 2:10 PM, unclevlad said:

 the teleport is only to fixed locations...the location of the shadows.  Not cheap-cheap, but shouldn't be bad.  Note that the swap part says the shadows ALSO have a teleport power...but that's built into their cost, so generally not bad.

 

If the shadows are treated as the SFX of the ranged abilities and the SFX that make these powers Restrainable, they dont2 have to buy anything at all.  Granted, that means giving up the duplication / summon / Multiform discount, and the duplication / summon extra actions for one player, but unless these are something that everyone else at the table is also going to dabble with, I don't have a problem with that. 

 

 

 

Edited October 17, 2023 by Duke Bushido

[LoneWolf]

@unclevlad you may disagree with the rules, but the fact is that Stretching does not have to pay END more than one per turn.  

 

6E V1 P127 in the section on constant powers under durations also states, “Once a character has turned a Constant Power on, all he has to do is spend END each Phase to keep it activated.”  

 

Stretching is a Body-Affecting constant power not an attack power.  Does the character with 30M of running need to pay 4 times for his movement when he does a multiple Move By, Does the character that has Resistant Defense costing END have to pay every time he is hit?  The Stretching is not the attack power any more than the running is.  It is simply allowing the attack to be made.  

 

If you look at the top of the chart where you found the fact that linked to a constant power is worth ¼ less, you will see that there is a entry that states it is worth ¼ more if the greater power must be used at full power.  So, basically in this case they two modifiers to the limitation cancel each other leaving the value at -1/2 which is what I said in the last post.

 

I admit I was wrong about the STR, but even so that is probably not going to be that much.   Many martial artists only have 15 STR so that would only be an extra 3 END to make 4 attacks. 

 

These powers are a perfect example of what Unified Power should be used on.  The definition of Unified Power is that the individual components are actually aspect of a single power.  I cannot think of a better example of a Unified Power.  Besides if the images are drained there is no greater power so the lesser powers cannot work.   
 

[Doc Democracy]

Well.  There are other options.  I had the shadows as the physical manifestation of the additional SPD I suggested.  I would consider allowing the attack to be Blast with a +1/4 no range (meaning the attack could be delivered where either the main character or one of the shadows was in melee range.

 

That not only avoids indirect and stretching, it gives a bonus.  The drawback is that it does not allow all of the skills etc that Zed might have.  However, you could buy indirect or stretching on a much smaller amount of STR to do much of that stuff.

 

These are not complicated in mechanics just a bit of a mind stretch to apply SFX to those mechanics.

 

I would be considering this as a bit of a speedster character, acting more times in a round than most other characters but not the 3-4 times as often as characters with Duplication or Summons.

[LoneWolf]

Chakra is not a game term so I am not sure how that would affect anything.  That seems to be something that just be a special effect of how the power is bought without any real consequence.  

[unclevlad]

Yeah, that's backstory for WHY you build the way you build.  

 

Duplication is one of those powers where the details are left up completely to the writers.

--construct-style (not as tough, not as durable;  NOT biological, no notion of "life" involved) vs. biological-style (which may or may not mean that when one dies, the number of duplicates is *permanently* reduced)

--All Clones are Created Equal vs. the duplicator may be a bit weaker with dupes out, or reating lots of clones, they're generally weaker than making just a few

--integrated mind (all dupes have a link to the main), full hive mind (all dupes can share fully with each other), or disconnected minds?

 

Hero starts from LSH's Triplicate Girl/Duo Damsel....biological, when one dies, it's gone.  (Well, OK, as much as any comic superhero death is permanent.)  I believe it was All Clones are Created Equal and no linked minds.  In most modern supers novels I've read, more commonly it's construct-style...but even then, whether the individuals have any kind of individual initiative is up for grabs.

[Duke Bushido]

2 hours ago, unclevlad said:

 

Hero starts from LSH's Triplicate Girl/Duo Damsel....

 

 

A little help?  I got the "HERO" part, but which book is LS?

 

[Hugh Neilson]

3 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

 

A little help?  I got the "HERO" part, but which book is LS?

 

Legion of Super Heroes - it's a long-time DC comic super group.  They had a character who could split into three identical characters (Triplicate Girl) however when one of her duplicates was killed, she became Duo Damsel.

[Duke Bushido]

Ah; okay.

 

Thank you, Sir.