Is this an Advantage, or a Limitation... or neither?

[Richard Logue]

I'm building an attack where the sorceror can cast your soul to the Astral Plane, leaving your helpless body in the material world. (Its for an NPC.) I'm building it as Extra-Dimensional Movement, Usable As Attack.

 

The spell results in the victim's meatbody staying behind. Would that be an Advantage, or a Limitation, or neither?

 

Richard

[TheEmerged]

Re: Is this an Advantage, or a Limitation... or neither?

 

Depending on what can be done to the meatbody and how limited your astral form is, it may very well be a wash (neither).

 

If the astral form can take or form a new body should something happen to the old, this is a wash. If not, this is an *advantage*, since it makes killing the character easier...

 

As GM, if a player brought this to me I'd require either a fairly common way to defend against it -- or that it be built Transform BoECV.

[Blue Jogger]

Re: Is this an Advantage, or a Limitation... or neither?

 

Ok, it's depends.

 

1) If Extra-Dimensional Movement is the GM's "instant kill" type of spell. Then it's a limitation, since if other people are quick enough and manage to take care of the body, it's not an instant kill. It's not as useful as "I open a gateway to the lowest levels of the Abyss and you are lost forever." It's worth about -1/2, since once they're meatbodies, you can kill them pretty easily. And let to themselves, they will die of thirst within days. Realize this is a fairly cheap way to kill someone, so there must be a reason why it can't be used on the heroes.

 

2) If Extra-Dimensional Movement is not an "instant kill" type of spell. Then it's worth a +1, it's hard to resist and if successfully targeted, the target is rendered helpless and stays that way. That's fairly effective for only 50 active points. The equilvant Transform (transform person to meatbody) is 100 active points (unless Power Defense is common), so it's a +1.

[MikeyMitchell]

Re: Is this an Advantage, or a Limitation... or neither?

 

I'm building an attack where the sorceror can cast your soul to the Astral Plane, leaving your helpless body in the material world. (Its for an NPC.) I'm building it as Extra-Dimensional Movement, Usable As Attack.

 

The spell results in the victim's meatbody staying behind. Would that be an Advantage, or a Limitation, or neither?

 

Richard

 

Have you considered Desolidification instead? There used to be a Limitation on Desolidification of "Leaves Physical Body Behind" (although it seems to have disappeared from 5ER; can't locate it at the moment). It was, as I recall, like a -1 Limitation (although that might be too much for this application). Just a thought.

[MikeyMitchell]

Re: Is this an Advantage, or a Limitation... or neither?

 

Have you considered Desolidification instead? There used to be a Limitation on Desolidification of "Leaves Physical Body Behind" (although it seems to have disappeared from 5ER; can't locate it at the moment). It was' date=' as I recall, like a -1 Limitation (although that might be too much for this application). Just a thought.[/quote']

 

Aha! Found it. Page of 5ER defines an Astral Form using Duplication, not Desolidification. You can probably modify that to Usable As Attack.

[Bengal]

Re: Is this an Advantage, or a Limitation... or neither?

 

You can't use Duplication as UAA. Make it two linked transforms. One creates the astral spirit, the other one puts the meat in "suspended animation", so to speak.

[Richard Logue]

Re: Is this an Advantage, or a Limitation... or neither?

 

Have you considered Desolidification instead? There used to be a Limitation on Desolidification of "Leaves Physical Body Behind" (although it seems to have disappeared from 5ER; can't locate it at the moment). It was' date=' as I recall, like a -1 Limitation (although that might be too much for this application). Just a thought.[/quote']

 

 

I've defined the "astral plane" in my millieu as a completely seperate plane of existence with only a few coterminus points to the real world. Even though this is for a Champions genre campaign, the astral is not as most comic books might define it. In The Ultimate Mystic, it shows several ways to create astral forms, and most of them use duplication or Desolidification, but they don't quite work for what I'm wanting to do.

 

Using Blue Jogger's suggestion of making it a +1 Advantage, I've come up with this...

 

To Purgatory With You!: Extra-Dimensional Movement (Single Dimension, Any Location corresponding to current physical location), Usable As Attack (+1), Leaves Behind Insensate and Vulnerable Meatbody (+1) (66 Active Points); Limited Power: Victim Must Be Unconscious (-1)

 

Reasonable?

 

Richard

[ghost-angel]

Re: Is this an Advantage, or a Limitation... or neither?

 

You can't use Duplication as UAA. Make it two linked transforms. One creates the astral spirit' date=' the other one puts the meat in "suspended animation", so to speak.[/quote']

 

Why not?

 

I'm not disagreeing with you, mind. But I can't wrap my head around a reason the rules would disallow it.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Is this an Advantage, or a Limitation... or neither?

 

Even though the sfx are 'casting the spirit out to another plane', what is the actual effect? Assuming it is something like 'the body collapses to the ground, unmoving, alive but unresponsive', it doesn't sound like EDM at all. Of course how you build it will depend on many things, not the least of which is if purgatory is somewhere that players are likely to want to go. I'm assuming not, so...

 

I would not allow a build of this power with EDM: you send the whole target or none of it, IMO. Leaving behind the meat (unless the meat is indestructable) is a huge advantage. Similarly, what happens with the spirit, and can the banisher follow and beat up the spirit there, does the spirit get to wander about and come back freely? Taking an opponent out in one hit is a big STOP sign.

 

Depending on what the spirit does in purgatory (probably 'just sits there'), I'd be inclined to do it with Transform v Spirit (banish spirit), leaving the unmotovated body behind, or even with an Entangle (BOECV).

 

If the character then purports to be able to either possess or drive the vacated body, or is likely to be delivering coup de graces, I'd be giving the player one of those looks about now...

[Sean Waters]

Re: Is this an Advantage, or a Limitation... or neither?

 

Why not?

 

I'm not disagreeing with you, mind. But I can't wrap my head around a reason the rules would disallow it.

 

You can certainly do it with the rules, buy it is almost certainly against the meta-rules. Moreover, duplication wouldn't effect the original form at all, so whilst you may have sent SOMETHING to the astral plane, the original is unlikely to notice.

 

QUESTION: if you did buy duplication UAA and duplicated an opponent and killed the dupe, would you lose the power until you replace it with XP?

[Constantine]

Re: Is this an Advantage, or a Limitation... or neither?

 

To Purgatory With You!: Extra-Dimensional Movement (Single Dimension, Any Location corresponding to current physical location), Usable As Attack (+1), Leaves Behind Insensate and Vulnerable Meatbody (+1) (66 Active Points); Limited Power: Victim Must Be Unconscious (-1)

 

Reasonable?

 

Richard

 

I find this reasonable, because they are already unconscious/asleep or whatever. They are basically at your mercy anyway, but I'd probably make it extra time, so it can't be done in combat. I wouldn't even make it a +1 advantage for leaving behind a vulnerable meat body, I mean, you could've killed them...

 

or, better yet

 

To purgatory with you! Plot device, I could've killed him anyway, takes extra time (5 minutes), 0 points

[Sean Waters]

Re: Is this an Advantage, or a Limitation... or neither?

 

I'd be interested to know why you want the players sent to purgatory (or at least their souls sent there). If it is part of the plot, then I wouldn't be worrying too much about cost. I must admit I had not noted the 'victim must be unconscious' bit which does make it a far more reasonable power as Constantine commented.