Transform into living spacecraft

[DoctorItron]

One of the PCs in my campaign gained his superpowers when he accidentally merged with the DNA of a biological spacecraft. His powers already include flight, life support, and a force field that protects carried objects. Now that the group is approaching 200 XP and spending more time traveling around, the player thinks it's time to actually be able to change shape into a spacecraft so he can ferry the entire hero team around. I'm looking for the easiest way to do it.

 

My current thought is extra limbs to carry passengers, adding the area effect or usable by others advantage to his life support, and shape shift. Maybe growth, but I could just do that as SFX to keep the character's STR, DCV, etc. constant for quicker gameplay.

 

Right now, I prefer extra limbs to flight usable by others, since it's the original character who controls the flight, and u.b.o. gets rather expensive for what will often be a plot device to get the team to adventures.

 

The only other way I thought to do this would be a multiform into a vehicle and an AI. That seems far too complex.

 

Anyone have anything that works better?

[OddHat]

Re: Transform into living spacecraft

 

Shapeshift plus useable by multiple others at the same time for most of his powers should do it, plus clairsentience and images (sight, hearing) so that he can look inside himself, show things on a view screen, light himself, communicate with those "inside" him, etc.

 

Mechanically just going with multiform is probably much cheaper and requires less hand waving.

[DoctorItron]

Re: Transform into living spacecraft

 

My idea for Extra Limbs circumvents the need for viewscreens, internal sensors, and the like.

 

The fact that passengers are inside the ship is merely a special effect, not a power. By the rules, the passengers are outside the PC. They PC and the characters can see and communicate with one another without needing any special powers.

 

Multiform would require a *lot* more work. The characters would have to multiform into a vehicle and an AI; 2 more characters sheets. Am I missing something simpler?

[PoorWandering 1]

Re: Transform into living spacecraft

 

Hmmm i wonder what happens if you get hit by a supress multiform with the party inside. Or someone forgets to remove their luggage before you transform back. I see long talks with the GM on this.

[PoorWandering 1]

Re: Transform into living spacecraft

 

My idea for Extra Limbs circumvents the need for viewscreens, internal sensors, and the like.

 

The fact that passengers are inside the ship is merely a special effect, not a power. By the rules, the passengers are outside the PC. They PC and the characters can see and communicate with one another without needing any special powers.

 

Multiform would require a *lot* more work. The characters would have to multiform into a vehicle and an AI; 2 more characters sheets. Am I missing something simpler?

 

But then the "ship" defences and LS will not protect the "crew".

Maybe a mix of force wall and LS, flight, FTL, and enhanced senses all useable by others would work? The ship would form around you.

Or maybe a summon with mods preventing the 'non ship' body from taking action or leaving the ship. After all what we have here is some one who can, effectively, pull a spaceship out of his back pocket. If he does however he can't leave the ship.

 

Hmmmm this is a tough one.

[Sociotard]

Re: Transform into living spacecraft

 

This, for me, would be a handwave. I would say "Shape-shift and growth, with growth linked to shape shift. The growth functions as normal, except he will not gain STR (this is not a limitation). Instead of allowing his STR to increase, his own life support and defenses will be automatically usable-by-others. None of the other ships systems, including sensors, weapons arrays, and flight controls will be usable by ot hers. It'll be like traveling in the belly of a whale (well, a whale with cable TV maybe.). If the character wishes, he can apply a +1/2 advantage (based on persistant) to different abilities to allow characters to use them while he sleeps, gets knocked out, etc.

[DoctorItron]

Re: Transform into living spacecraft

 

But then the "ship" defences and LS will not protect the "crew".

Maybe a mix of force wall and LS, flight, FTL, and enhanced senses all useable by others would work? The ship would form around you.

Or maybe a summon with mods preventing the 'non ship' body from taking action or leaving the ship. After all what we have here is some one who can, effectively, pull a spaceship out of his back pocket. If he does however he can't leave the ship.

 

Hmmmm this is a tough one.

 

Summon hadn't occurred to me. I think it would still require a separate character sheet for the ship, so it's not much different than the multiform route.

 

The character's Force Field already has the "protects carried objects" adder, and I would make the Life Support either usable by others or area effect. Extra Limbs lets him carry the passengers, so there's no need to spend lots of points to make the Flight and FTL usable by others.

[Eodin]

Re: Transform into living spacecraft

 

If all you want is to envelope the other heroes and carrry them along, use a force wall with no range [He's the forcewall] with enough size to close completely. Unless his LS is bought to area effect or usable by others, the passengers will need their own life support powers or gear. As long as they're inside the Forcewall (ship), they're carried along with him.

Keep in mind that all you're getting that way is carrying them around - no sensors, communications, lasers, computers, etc. - just letting them ride in the belly of the wahle, as they put it earlier.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Transform into living spacecraft

 

Hmmm i wonder what happens if you get hit by a supress multiform with the party inside. Or someone forgets to remove their luggage before you transform back. I see long talks with the GM on this.

 

That's what Metamucil is for.

[Narthon]

Re: Transform into living spacecraft

 

I'm sorry, but I'd just use a multiform. Much easier, and I don't know any hero players who don't like to write new characters.

 

Heck, if he really doesn't want to, I'll write it for him.

[DoctorItron]

Re: Transform into living spacecraft

 

How is multiform "easier"? Multiform doesn't directly solve the main issue of getting a character to carry other characters internally. Yeah, I could do multiform, and then within that multiform buy a vehicle, and buy an AI that has the same mental attributes as the character's main form. That turns 1 character sheet into 3 - overkill for something that's rarely going to be used in combat.

 

Hmmm ... maybe shrinking usable on others so the ship character can swallow his teammates and puke them up

[ghost-angel]

Re: Transform into living spacecraft

 

I would use Multiform ... but not the Vehicle/AI option.

 

Remember, a character doesn't HAVE to be human shaped. It can be any shape you want it to be - you don't buy a ShapeShift for a cat you just say it's Cat Shaped.

 

So - with Multiform you simply make all the characteristics that the "ship" should have, call it a ship and voila - you've got a spaceship. no need to mess with Vehicle rules and AI rules and the extra character sheets that entails.

 

A vehicle is really a character without some stuff and an AI is a character without some stuff and if you combine the two what you really have is a character of sorts. So - forget all that and make it a character.

 

So - that's my suggestion...

[Narthon]

Re: Transform into living spacecraft

 

I don't see why you need two seperate character sheets for the vehicle and the AI. Just give the vehicle the extra stats and skills you want it to have that are not usually covered by a vehicle. When you build a normal character, do you make an extra character sheet for the stats and skills? No.

You don't need to do that for this one either.

[DoctorItron]

Re: Transform into living spacecraft

 

I don't want to handwave and arbitrarily say that a character can carry internal cargo because he's shaped like a ship. Being shaped like a cat, human, or other item doesn't automatically give you any special abilities, so those shapes are okay via shapeshift. If someone wanted to play "Refrigerator Man", able to carry things inside of himself and control their temperature, I'd want him to buy powers, too.

 

A vehicle with extra stats for INT, EGO, PRE, STUN, etc. might be problematic. Hero Designer won't let me do it on a vehicle template. I wonder if it's rules-legal; time for a posting to Steve.

 

No one expressed outrage at the Extra Limbs idea, nor have they said it's a good idea. The character and vehicle in questions share almost all the same powers. It's so simple to add 1 or 2 powers to the character instead of making an entirely new character with almost identical abilities. Other "turn into vehicle" characters, where the character and vehicle have completely different powers, probably couldn't be done with Extra Limbs, but it seems like a real easy shortcut in my case.

 

I'll let everyone know Steve's replies re. Extra Limbs and adding mental attributes to a vehicle.

[DoctorItron]

Re: Transform into living spacecraft

 

Steve Long has spoken:

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?p=429197#post429197

 

His personal opinion is multiform into a vehicle, but use PD/ED instead of DEF, and buy all the other characteristics (i.e. CON, STUN, INT, EGO, etc.) for the vehicle. He, just like everyone else here, was totally silent on the Extra Limbs.

 

Hero Designer doesn't seem to directly support CON, INT, EGO, etc. for a vehicle template - they are not in the characteristics list on the Powers tab. I'm not so anal about this character build to create a custom template. I guess I could use the standard character template since I don't need DEF, and I could just use a custom power or growth for Size.

 

Looks like I'm going to stick with the Extra Limbs, because it really is the easiest and cheapest way to modify the character. Thanks for nothing, guys (just kidding) Seriously, I appreciate the comments - they'll come in handy if I ever need to do something similar where the main form doesn't have the same powers as the vehicle form.

[Narthon]

Re: Transform into living spacecraft

 

I don't see how extra limbs makes sence at all, other than it is cheap. What are the limbs?. Short range Tk and shapeshift would make more sence. Of course, Multiform makes the most sence...

[DoctorItron]

Re: Transform into living spacecraft

 

Extra Limbs let you carry items and passengers. The fact that passengers are inside the character is just a special effect. When an attack gets past the character's defense (a force field that protects carried items), the special effect is that a shot pierces the hull, and whatever is carried inside the ship might get damaged.

 

TK isn't a legit way to do this because, if I remember the rules correctly, the physics of TK don't let you automatically drag something along as you fly at high speed.

 

AoE STR, instead of Extra Limbs, would be yet another way to simulate the cargo and passenger space.

 

Maybe an Entangle would work?. The ship would slowly form, being built a hex at a time, as the character creates barriers with Entangle.

[Narthon]

Re: Transform into living spacecraft

 

I don't think the entangle option would work, as when the ship moved, it would leave the entangled people and barriers behind. Maybe Clinging, useable by others, only to attach to base character.

[DoctorItron]

Re: Transform into living spacecraft

 

The entangle would be attached to the character and move when he did.

[Narthon]

Re: Transform into living spacecraft

 

Ok then, a physical transform, transforms targets body to targets body that is caried by the ship?

[ghost-angel]

Re: Transform into living spacecraft

 

while I can't actually tell you Steve's thinking I have a feeling it's along these lines:

 

Vehicles are simply Specialized Character Sheets.

 

A character has no inherent qualities about it other than starting stats. It assumes no shape, no texture, no capacity, nothing.

 

If you define a Character Sheet as : Large Bubble That Holds Stuff. then it will carry items based on the Size you purchase it at (base size stat is 2m tall, occupies a Hex) Increase size and it can carry more (whatever fits inside the Hexes it encompasses.

 

It's a mistake to think that a Character Sheet implies "human." It defaults to that base idea simply because that's what we use them for.

 

Multiform: Spaceship does not imply you must use a "Vehicle Template" for the thing, you can use a "Standard Character Template" defined as "Spaceship" and taylor accordingly, increased size etc... If the Character and Spaceship are the same thing...

 

Vehicle Templates assume that it's a tool, not a character, Character Templates assume it's a character not a tool.

 

While you're Extra Limbs idea is by no means wrong (there is no wrong way to do something in Hero), it certainly has issues inherent with it.

 

Once you add on all the Usable By Others xY (where Y is the number of people carried) on every power the "spaceship" covers over peopple like defenses (Armor, etc), Life Support and then the Extra Limbs, and the STR required to carry all the people it might start to cost out to the same thing.

 

But I haven't done the math, so I couldn't say for sure.