Help with a power

[Hawksmoor]

I want to create a power that "freezes" time.

 

I have a SPEED drain that will slow and eventually "freeze" people and animate objects.

 

I want to know what powers would be acceptable to create an effect that can halt a speeding car, a falling glass, or spilt milk and allow the character to still deal with the object as it is frozen.

 

Change Environment (Freeze Time) seems to work for the milk trick, except that it is not supposed to grant any bonuses to any character from its use.

 

Minor Transform (Frozen in Time) seems to work except it only effects a single target.

 

Telekinesis works slightly except there are SFX issues plus the fact that other than a simple Grab it seems to fail plus again it is single target.

 

Which one of these or another power would you suggest for this power. If you are uncertain of what I am shooting for think of Piper's power from Charmed.

 

Hawksmoor

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Help with a power

 

I think a 'paralytic' entangle with 'takes no damage from attacks (+1/2)' would be the way to go. Maybe include charges with duration or a set effect that can disable it then. Not the most accurate method but probably the easiest to manage.

[Hawksmoor]

Re: Help with a power

 

I think a 'paralytic' entangle with 'takes no damage from attacks (+1/2)' would be the way to go. Maybe include charges with duration or a set effect that can disable it then. Not the most accurate method but probably the easiest to manage.

 

 

The only issue with Entangle and why I discarded it is that it "sheilds" the object or person entangled. To manipulate it like say pick up a falling glass before it shatters you have to "destroy the entangle" that would consume an action. I need a power that would let me do this without consuming an extra action on top of the manipulation of the "time frozen" object. I am not even certain if Personal Immunity would be a proper choice of powers for the SFX.

 

Hawksmoor

[drnuncheon]

Re: Help with a power

 

Minor Transform (Frozen in Time) seems to work except it only effects a single target.

 

Telekinesis works slightly except there are SFX issues plus the fact that other than a simple Grab it seems to fail plus again it is single target.

 

How about:

 

TK, area effect, whole targets only, only to freeze in place, based on ECV?

 

The last would be a custom version that forces you to break out using your EGO rather than your STR - at least, it would make marginally more sense for a strong-willed person to avoid the time stop than it would for Beefy Guy.

 

I think you need to define what you're looking for a little more clearly, though. What exactly can you or can't you do in the time-stopped state?

 

If you can't affect anything, then I'd say it was Teleport linked with Clairsentience with appropriate limitations.

 

If you can affect things, I'd be inclined to build it as a VPP, and then just make the powers based on the end effects. Freeze time and walk across the room? Teleport. Freeze time, walk up, and tie someone up? Entangle. Freeze time and go through the cards in his wallet? Clairsentience.

 

J

[Hawksmoor]

Re: Help with a power

 

How about:

 

TK, area effect, whole targets only, only to freeze in place, based on ECV?

 

The last would be a custom version that forces you to break out using your EGO rather than your STR - at least, it would make marginally more sense for a strong-willed person to avoid the time stop than it would for Beefy Guy.

 

I think you need to define what you're looking for a little more clearly, though. What exactly can you or can't you do in the time-stopped state?

 

If you can't affect anything, then I'd say it was Teleport linked with Clairsentience with appropriate limitations.

 

If you can affect things, I'd be inclined to build it as a VPP, and then just make the powers based on the end effects. Freeze time and walk across the room? Teleport. Freeze time, walk up, and tie someone up? Entangle. Freeze time and go through the cards in his wallet? Clairsentience.

 

J

 

 

Actually I think the best way to envison it is I want to Freeze everything in a 3" radius; the Squirrels, the cards falling the air and the people in it. BOECV TK? That would be worth the +1 advantage for certain. But can it effect things that inherently lack EGO?

 

I can definitely affect frozen things. For instance removing blasters or shifting people so they blast other targets.

 

Hawksmoor

[zornwil]

Re: Help with a power

 

Actually I think the best way to envison it is I want to Freeze everything in a 3" radius; the Squirrels, the cards falling the air and the people in it. BOECV TK? That would be worth the +1 advantage for certain. But can it effect things that inherently lack EGO?

 

I can definitely affect frozen things. For instance removing blasters or shifting people so they blast other targets.

 

Hawksmoor

Hmmm, well, yes, if the TK is using EGO to break out of, but I don't think that's right, I think the only way an object breaks out of a time freeze is by unusual circumstance - which implies Transform and the importance of that vague mysterious Power Defense. I think Transform AoE wiould do best if you do not want objects to unfreeze from time based on STR or EGO, though it's expensive. But this power should be expensive.

 

Some lateral thinking - aside from buying up your SPD, you could also be in 2 or 4 or 8 places at once with Duplication. Just idle thought, one time manipulator I had did that.

 

Hawksmoor, not to get too too techie, and you can just do rubber science of course, but how would one defeat the time freeze, if at all, in your vision? I think that plays in a lot.

[Dr. Anomaly]

Re: Help with a power

 

When Steve did a Time Stop power in Digital Hero #08, it came out costing 7,517,759 points.

[Hawksmoor]

Re: Help with a power

 

Hmmm, well, yes, if the TK is using EGO to break out of, but I don't think that's right, I think the only way an object breaks out of a time freeze is by unusual circumstance - which implies Transform and the importance of that vague mysterious Power Defense. I think Transform AoE wiould do best if you do not want objects to unfreeze from time based on STR or EGO, though it's expensive. But this power should be expensive.

 

Some lateral thinking - aside from buying up your SPD, you could also be in 2 or 4 or 8 places at once with Duplication. Just idle thought, one time manipulator I had did that.

 

Hawksmoor, not to get too too techie, and you can just do rubber science of course, but how would one defeat the time freeze, if at all, in your vision? I think that plays in a lot.

 

How to defeat the time freeze. Actually I like the EGO basis for the break out. Although I am using Psuedo-Quantum Theory (Comic Book Science) as the rationale for the power, I do think that really strong willed characters should be able to break out more easily.

 

It is also important to be able to "drop" the power on command. Transform doesn't just fade does it? I mean there could be conditions EGO breakout and "I will time to resume!" Now would that be a major or minor transform. Stopping time seems like a powerful ability...but is it in this context?

 

I have a SPEED Drain to reduce the SPEED of the PEOPLE to 0.

I have a Mental Paralysis Entangle for the People.

I need a way to stop objects in their tracks. I think two options so far that are the most likely are Change Environment (Time Stop) and TK BOECV Only to grab AE RAdius (3" only) Affects Porous.

 

I think I can put those powers in the MP and even at low levels get enough of the effect I want at the beginning with room for growth.

 

Hawksmoor

[Mentor]

Re: Help with a power

 

When Steve did a Time Stop power in Digital Hero #08' date=' it came out costing 7,517,759 points. [/quote']

Holy point deficit, Dr. Anonmaly.

 

Do you remember what the basics of the power construction were?

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Help with a power

 

When Steve did a Time Stop power in Digital Hero #08' date=' it came out costing 7,517,759 points. [/quote']

 

Yeah, but that covered a pretty wide area!

 

So far, no one's suggested the EDM cop-out, so I'll throw it down here.

[Magmarock]

Re: Help with a power

 

LOL! I love questions like this! I built a power that does this, for my PC Chronamancer. She is a half-human, half Time Lord physiology, so full manipulation of Time, for her, is out of the question. She can do the following, though:

 

Time Stop

(56 AP) Extra Dimensional Movement

[20 pts to Time Stop +5 to return to any spot in real time; +20 to return to exact time she left]

-1/4) 1/2 END

-1/2) Restrainable -1/2) Must have a clear path

+0) Cannot affect world

 

Obviously, the Lims Chronamancer had need not apply to your PC. Chronamancer can't affect anything while in the Time Stop. Up to a minute's worth of actions pass for her each time she uses this power (which is utilized mostly for scouting out an area or taking recoveries). The one minute limit is an arbitrary ruling agreed on by the GM and me, to ease game play. We don't want to leave the other Players out of the game for half the night. It takes Chronamancer a 1/2 phase to Stop Time and another 1/2 phase to start it again, effectively making the Time Stop a Full Phase Action (for a 0 point Lim).

 

 

If you want to Freeze time, Extra Dimensional Movement is the best way to do it. You can't really Drain (or attack, Supress, etc) Time because you'd have to be able to target it first, which is nigh impossible. Change Environment will work too, but I found that Dimensional Travel is more accurate: You merely go to this same world, where everything is the same, only Time is stopped.

 

Sometimes the simplest solution is the most elegant. Beware, though, for this power can be abused so easily. That's why I had so many Lims on it.

 

Mags

[Magmarock]

Re: Help with a power

 

Oh, yeah, and this'll really freak yer bean:

 

While in the Time Stop, Chronamancer met up with a full-fledged Time Lord, who proceeded to do a Time Stop within her Time Stop!

 

 

Augh!

 

Mags

[zornwil]

Re: Help with a power

 

How to defeat the time freeze. Actually I like the EGO basis for the break out. Although I am using Psuedo-Quantum Theory (Comic Book Science) as the rationale for the power, I do think that really strong willed characters should be able to break out more easily.

 

It is also important to be able to "drop" the power on command. Transform doesn't just fade does it? I mean there could be conditions EGO breakout and "I will time to resume!" Now would that be a major or minor transform. Stopping time seems like a powerful ability...but is it in this context?

 

I have a SPEED Drain to reduce the SPEED of the PEOPLE to 0.

I have a Mental Paralysis Entangle for the People.

I need a way to stop objects in their tracks. I think two options so far that are the most likely are Change Environment (Time Stop) and TK BOECV Only to grab AE RAdius (3" only) Affects Porous.

 

I think I can put those powers in the MP and even at low levels get enough of the effect I want at the beginning with room for growth.

 

Hawksmoor

 

One train of thought some speculate quantum theory supports is mind over matter as it's all a matter of perception - so makes sense to me in a rubbery but good way.

 

But to do as TK or Entangle BOECV wherein the target struggles via EGO out of it does mean it is mental and not physical. Yiou could fudge and Multipower it away with GM's permission (2 identical powers, one only on willful things, one only on objects). But that is the road to hell...

 

Seriously, that's legit. Or the GM could hand-wave a bit more and simply rule that if someone grabs an object you are freezing they can unfreeze it by struggling and rolling an EGO roll, even if their STR, in their mind, is what they are using. And let you freely grab the objects, but I dunno about that.

 

I still like Transform, and build the method of defeating it as EGO-(power/5), same idea as above or your release of it or any other temporal distortion (this 3rd being rare and the GM's way to appreciate some flexibility). It will allow you to do fairly well what you want in your description. But that's just my bias. I readily grant the other method suggested and that I've attempted to refine via an additional MP slot for each type of time freeze victim.

[Magmarock]

Re: Help with a power

 

Yeah, but the big question here is "how big of an area do you want to freeze time in?"

 

Is it just the room you are in? The whole block? The city? The whole planet? If you freeze time in one area, then that area becomes out of synce with the rest of the universe. Time is universal and it shouldn't be sliced up like a salami. When the "Charmed" witch freezes time, it is stopped everywhere, not just in the room. So if you are only targeting a few people, then you aren't really freezing time, you are only freezing the people.

 

At least, that's the way I see it. But really, once you decide on the scope of the power, it'll be easier to assist you on this power build.

 

Mags

[Snarf]

Re: Help with a power

 

I use transform for time stopping. It's simpler than a lot of other ways and heals slowly.

 

Minor Transform (Frozen in Time) seems to work except it only effects a single target.

I added area of effect: radius to solve that problem.

[Col. Orange]

Re: Help with a power

 

Uh, couldn't you just buy extra Speed?

SFX: I'm not going any faster, everyone else is just going slower.

 

Maybe some linked 8pt CSLs to represent hitting/avoiding "relatively" slow moving targets?

[Hawksmoor]

Re: Help with a power

 

 

Is it just the room you are in? The whole block? The city? The whole planet? If you freeze time in one area, then that area becomes out of synce with the rest of the universe. Time is universal and it shouldn't be sliced up like a salami. When the "Charmed" witch freezes time, it is stopped everywhere, not just in the room. So if you are only targeting a few people, then you aren't really freezing time, you are only freezing the people.

Mags

 

Actually it has been shown she only freezes time in a limited area. For instance only in the room she is in. Plus it by SFX does not effect Witches or White Lighters, plus very powerful mystical entities are immune to varying degrees.

 

I don't think EDM is the goal here since I "need" to be able to effect the world I am in while it is frozen. Remember I need to catch the split milk or remove the DNPC from the path of the bullet. (Darned new application I need Missle Deflection UOO) maybe VPP is the best way to go. Darned VPPs are so expensive.

 

Hawksmoor

[Hawksmoor]

Re: Help with a power

 

Uh, couldn't you just buy extra Speed?

SFX: I'm not going any faster, everyone else is just going slower.

 

Maybe some linked 8pt CSLs to represent hitting/avoiding "relatively" slow moving targets?

 

Not really in either the SFX or intention. I am not faster I don't move faster, they are frozen. And the they is meant to be objects in the environment, falling cards, spilling milk or a shattering glass wall. Even a 12 Speed is not going to make a falling card stop falling. The TK BOECV AE Affects Porous Only to Grab, no movement or damage allowed would stop all of these.

 

Hawksmoor

[The Maxx]

Re: Help with a power

 

I know you didn't use the Entangle idea, and it's true that on it's own it doesn't do the job, however, if you combine it with certain other powers you might just get soemthing that works.

 

For physical obects I'd be inclined to use an AE entangle mostly to stop all of the inanimates and nothing else seems to do that all that well. Of course you then ask how do I manipulate anything or move through it. The simplest way I could think of would be a Desolification on yourself as well as being able to use the desolification to attack, thus affect, shift and move the objects in question. Without having to break the Entangle to do so.

 

For next part, for one's sentient victims, so as to keep them from using their raw strength or something like that to break out. I'd suggest a sizable AE Mental Illusion, with the single effect time doesn't pass, which would cover all the respective senses and require the victim to mentally break out over time, have this linked to the Entangle.

 

Obviouly far from cheap, and for something that powerful, I'd not be inclined personally give it a cheap cost.

 

However this is just my take on the idea.

 

The only final aspect to this is whether time passes outside of the effect or not. If not then I'd have to include the extra-dimensional movement on all subjects affected, but that's just me.

 

Hope this helps

[Hawksmoor]

Re: Help with a power

 

I know you didn't use the Entangle idea, and it's true that on it's own it doesn't do the job, however, if you combine it with certain other powers you might just get soemthing that works.

 

For physical obects I'd be inclined to use an AE entangle mostly to stop all of the inanimates and nothing else seems to do that all that well. Of course you then ask how do I manipulate anything or move through it. The simplest way I could think of would be a Desolification on yourself as well as being able to use the desolification to attack, thus affect, shift and move the objects in question. Without having to break the Entangle to do so.

 

For next part, for one's sentient victims, so as to keep them from using their raw strength or something like that to break out. I'd suggest a sizable AE Mental Illusion, with the single effect time doesn't pass, which would cover all the respective senses and require the victim to mentally break out over time, have this linked to the Entangle.

 

Obviouly far from cheap, and for something that powerful, I'd not be inclined personally give it a cheap cost.

 

However this is just my take on the idea.

 

The only final aspect to this is whether time passes outside of the effect or not. If not then I'd have to include the extra-dimensional movement on all subjects affected, but that's just me.

 

Hope this helps

Thanks Max, I forgot to mention the option of the quick and dirty Mental Paralysis entangle that SFX has them frozen in time and subconsciously trying to break out.

 

As to the cheapness of the power since it is actually limited it doesn't have to cost a boat load of points. I am not trying to freeze a city or a world. Time outside of the area effected flows normally. For the cup of milk or the person effected time has stopped.

 

Mental Illusion is a great idea for the personal effect though. I link it to the Mental Paralysis entangle and whammo time stops and they stop moving. Great idea!!!

 

Hawksmoor

-Now if I can get the GM to buy into the idea that frozen things do not fall! Without buying TK.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Help with a power

 

Hi, I just wanted to comment on the supposed cost of this ability. If it is in fact supposed to be close in power to that of the 'charmed' character it could be argued that it should have a reasonable cost (but high active cost) since that character's ability is linked to her proximity to the other 'witches'. A similar thread talked about this type of limitation with regards to twins.

 

Anyway, way back when, before champions had rules for transform I wanted to play a 'Firestorm' clone in a long running game. This GM was big on winging balance, not so much on points. We ended up basing the power on a modified entangle/RKA that only affected non-living things (not too different than current rules in hindsight) and had fun with it without it becoming too powerful.

 

Seems like you are running into a similar situation. The ability to stop time just by its name and association with a certain D&D spell seems to impy a LOT of power there. It is basically the ultimate 'get out of jail free card' for what it affects so it should cost a lot of (active)points however it is constructed.

[Magmarock]

Re: Help with a power

 

 

I don't think EDM is the goal here since I "need" to be able to effect the world I am in while it is frozen. Remember I need to catch the split milk or remove the DNPC from the path of the bullet. (Darned new application I need Missle Deflection UOO) maybe VPP is the best way to go. Darned VPPs are so expensive.

 

Hawksmoor

 

Actually, the only reason Chronamancer couldn't effect the world was because the GM thought it could be abused and so we agreed for me to take the Limitation.

 

If a "Frozen instant in Time" is the designated dimension, then you could effect the world. This might be considered extremely powerful, though, by most GMs.

 

Besides, your method affects the targets, but what about environmental things? Like falling rain? Or attacks in the midst of happening, like flying bullets? Or that glass falling to the ground? These things won't be hampered or stopped by a SPD Drain, or a Transform. Just something to consider.

 

Mags

[pawsplay]

Re: Help with a power

 

I think what you need is EDM (to a frozen point of time), and then to apply Transdimensional to your STR.

[zornwil]

Re: Help with a power

 

I think what you need is EDM (to a frozen point of time)' date=' and then to apply Transdimensional to your STR.[/quote']

I think you have to do the EDM versus the item, as the item itself is affected. But you could UAO the power.

 

This is interesting, and sounds good, but the concern I'd have is:

a) how many other powers need to affect the item so frozen

well, not a concern, but you'd need to model the circumstances of how a person could EGO their way ouf of being EDMed, given Hawksmoor wants that

 

But this is very worthwhile to think about it. But I have to run...

[Farkling]

Re: Help with a power

 

Magamarock...

 

Multipower was mentioned....what's a couple more slots.

 

As a GM I'd rule that an AE Transform could time stop anything short of an actual attack power.

 

One more slot for ranged missile deflection (SFX: Halted in time) should cover it.

 

I also think that if mimicing a Charmed power (my girlfriend watched that show a lot), that Transform is good to go. Supernatural Defense is most commonly a Power Defense typoe of thing anyway....

 

of course...maybe just a large area Dispel versus movement with a secondary attack of either Ranged Missile Deflection or a Flight application would be the way to go. The dispel only has to account for gravity...right?