The Munchkin Build Contest

[Fireleaper]

Re: The Munchkin Build Contest

 

Originally Posted by DocSamson

5ER page 134, last sentence in the Succor section, "As long as he keeps succeeding with his attack rolls, the character can keep adding effect this way without worrying about the maximum effect rules for regular Aid."

 

ok that can make a character I had designed dangerous. The idea was this character found a way to access a well of cosmic energy. Normally he just allowed a trickle to come through but if he needed to and had the time he could open the well all the way:

 

14 Opening The Well: Elemental Control, 100-point powers, (50 Active Points); all slots Extra Time (1 Minute, Only to Activate, Character May Take No Other Actions, -1), Increased Endurance Cost (x3 END; -1), Gestures (-1/4), Incantations (-1/4)

18 1) Draw upon the Well: Succor 10d6 (standard effect: 30 points), Costs END Only To Activate (+1/4), STUN, END, SPD, REC simultaneously (+1) (112 Active Points); Extra Time (1 Minute, Only to Activate, Character May Take No Other Actions, -1), Self Only (-1/2), Increased Endurance Cost (x3 END; -1/2), Incantations (-1/4), Gestures (-1/4) 30

18 2) Infusion of the Well: Succor 10d6 (standard effect: 30 points), Costs END Only To Activate (+1/4), Physical Characteristics simultaneously (+1) (112 Active Points); Extra Time (1 Minute, Only to Activate, Character May Take No Other Actions, -1), Self Only (-1/2), Increased Endurance Cost (x3 END; -1/2), Incantations (-1/4), Gestures (-1/4) 30

18 3) Empowered by the Well: Succor 10d6 (standard effect: 30 points), Costs END Only To Activate (+1/4), four Cosmic Powers simultaneously (+1) (112 Active Points); Extra Time (1 Minute, Only to Activate, Character May Take No Other Actions, -1), Self Only (-1/2), Increased Endurance Cost (x3 END; -1/2), Incantations (-1/4), Gestures (-1/4) 30

 

Since I didn't read the fine print on succor i just figured that i could do it once or twice and that would be it (note once being the primary thought). without the maximum effect rule coming into play this becomes truly a broken character since eventually even grond would be unable to stun him.

[Valerious]

Re: The Munchkin Build Contest

 

I like to use the following build in a multipower, if I can get away with it:

 

Power Up: Aid [to multipower], 1 point, increased maximum (10 points), Increased Return ( 5 points/5 minutes)"

 

Completely useless in combat, but if you get a chance to prep before hand it'll jack your multipower up 2 DC's for the duration of the fight.

 

Why stop there?

 

I had a player once try a similar scheme. He upped the return rate to 1 hour(+1), added Variable Effect at the +1 level and chose his favorite 4 characteristics/powers, and bought up to the 60AP limit in increased maximum(20 extra max effect for 10 points).

 

End result was a character that could add 25 points to 4 characteristics/powers that wouldn't wear off for an hour. Every idle moment, he'd be boosting himself to make sure he was never without it. Basically, by spending 60AP(it was in a mp and had lims that made it cheaper still), he was essentially adding 100 total points pretty much all the time.

 

I'd bet it could be done even more efficiently than that, which is scary.

 

It was the first character that I couldn't find a direct rules violation in that I had to reject anyway. I praised him for his creativity, but had to say, no way.

[Kevin Schultz]

Re: The Munchkin Build Contest

 

Why stop there?

 

couple of reasons:

 

1. The multipower in question was only 16 points. Thus, you can't fit a big one into it.

 

2. Active cost of the power - anything that regularly kicks the DC of a power should be included in the campaign limits. In this case, the powers it was affecting was already 15-16 DC range, which was the limit.

 

That's why I was including the 4 MA DC's in my point calculation; the original multipower had only a 15-16 real cost (1d6 EB + 2 or 2 1/4 in advantages); add in 4 DC's to that, and you get the 15-16 (effective) DC's that I was discussing.

 

3. For me, I didn't actually include this power, for the reason above; even adding in 1d6 would have kicked the (effective) DC's above the campaign limits. Note that some GM's include Martial arts maneuvers as well as DC's - in the above case, the GM (Kirby) included only the DC's.

 

It was the first character that I couldn't find a direct rules violation in that I had to reject anyway. I praised him for his creativity, but had to say, no way.

 

I'm guessing the "rule" would be the breaking of the campaign limits for the amount of DC's in a power. That's the issue with boosts; if you apply them to maxed powers to begin with, they overcome the campaign caps, and are thus illegal in the game.

 

You can get around this if you design your character with sub-optimal powers, and only THEN increase their DC's with a boost, which takes the powers up to the cap. (This is also a way to put characteristic bonuses into an EC.)

 

I actually did this on a character, whose EC was Energy Manipulation: it had Flight, a FF, Detect Energy, Healing, and a 3d6+1 Succor (std. effect) (SPD, REC, CON, BODY +1); the GM OK'd it, because even with the additional 10 points in all of those attributes, they still didn't go over the cap for the campaign. Also note that the power was 40 active, and it affected 10 points on 4 powers; so really in terms of cost effectiveness the main "bonus" I got out of it was that I could put characteristics into an EC.

[Doc Samson]

Re: The Munchkin Build Contest

 

This discussion on Succor has made me revisit an recurring build dilemma we have had over the years. Many times we have tried to duplicate healing factors as a defense (such as with Wolverine homages) but nothing really seemed to capture it well.

 

4d6 STUN Succor (Standard Effect Rule to 12 STUN/ Phase), 0 END (+1/2), Continuous (+1), Persistent or Uncontrolled (+1/2), Only Restores to Starting Values (-1/2), Self Only (-1/2)

 

Add in some extra CON so you don't get stunned all the time and this should replace a decent amount of PD/ ED based defense. I would probably put it into an Elelmental Control with Regeneration to finish it off. Please let me know what you think.

[Lucius]

Re: The Munchkin Build Contest

 

There actually is precedent for this, as one character is built this way.

 

Said character being the Dragon, granted, which is basically the sentient collective evil of humanity.

 

So the answer is, Multiforming into an AI turns you into a cosmic force. ;-)

 

Seeing as you're the Metaphysician, I'll take your word for it.

 

Now: What does that MEAN?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Taking the palindromedary to a metaveterinarian

[Metaphysician]

Re: The Munchkin Build Contest

 

Seeing as you're the Metaphysician, I'll take your word for it.

 

Now: What does that MEAN?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Taking the palindromedary to a metaveterinarian

 

It means you can only be targetted with mental ( and arguably spiritual ) attacks; physical is meaningless to you. It means you are present everywhere there is _____, ______ being whatever your now the cosmic incarnation of ( evil, in the case of the Dragon ). It means you can't do a damn thing, unless you build powers. . . but those powers *don't* have to be Transdimensional or Affects Physical World, because you aren't really phased or in another dimension. ;-)

[Lucius]

Re: The Munchkin Build Contest

 

It means you can only be targetted with mental ( and arguably spiritual ) attacks; physical is meaningless to you. It means you are present everywhere there is _____' date=' ______ being whatever your now the cosmic incarnation of ( evil, in the case of the Dragon ). It means you can't do a damn thing, unless you build powers. . . but those powers *don't* have to be Transdimensional or Affects Physical World, because you aren't really phased or in another dimension. ;-)[/quote']

 

Actually, I think I already solved the "Where is it?" riddle. As I said in the other thread, since Multiform (and Transform) don't ordinarily MOVE you anywhere, anyone who Multiforms (or Transforms) into an unfocused AI is still WHERE they were before. (I know I'm annoyed when people try to make characters disappear or go away without justification. I don't want to be one of those people.)

 

However, I'd also come to the same conclusion you seem to have; that this is a character with no Physical aspect, just as an automaton has no Mental aspect. (I wonder what would constitute a character with no Spiritual aspect?)

 

I'm just grappling with the implications of that.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary thinks I should open fewer cans of worms, and more cans of alphabet soup.

[Metaphysician]

Re: The Munchkin Build Contest

 

My guess is, certain types of undead may qualify as no spiritual component. Basically, they don't have souls or free will, they just have an automaton like behavior setup.

[Valerious]

Re: The Munchkin Build Contest

 

couple of reasons:

...

Hey, sorry if my response came off as saying you could have built it better, as that wasn't the intention. I'm sure it worked well for the character, and sounds like it could have been a reasonable power that I might approve as a GM. Given the topic, I was suggesting ways to make it more munchkiny.

[Robyn]

Re: The Munchkin Build Contest

 

My guess is' date=' certain types of undead may qualify as no spiritual component.[/quote']

 

If they have no spiritual component, what sort of Transform could you use to give them one?

 

Would a Physical Transform be sufficient to give the AI a body, or would Spiritual/Mental be needed to link it to an available physical shell?

[Warpcore Breach]

Re: The Munchkin Build Contest

 

I once built a Martial Artist whose cloak was so billowing and wispy that he had Darkness in a 1 hex area and Cosmic Awareness which was his advanced Blind Fighting techniques. Never played him, though. I liked the concept but the idea was just too cheesy.

[Lucius]

Re: The Munchkin Build Contest

 

If they have no spiritual component, what sort of Transform could you use to give them one?

 

Would a Physical Transform be sufficient to give the AI a body, or would Spiritual/Mental be needed to link it to an available physical shell?

 

It could not be targetted by a Physical Transform. I would say probably only a Spiritual Transform could give it a physical body.

 

Because a Mental Transform can't have a physical effect like granting a physical form, but without such a form to begin with, a Physical Transform has nothing to target.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary wants to try building Transfer Wealth.....

[Kevin Schultz]

Re: The Munchkin Build Contest

 

Hey' date=' sorry if my response came off as saying you could have built it better, as that wasn't the intention. I'm sure it worked well for the character, and sounds like it could have been a reasonable power that I might approve as a GM. Given the topic, I was suggesting ways to make it more munchkiny. [/quote']

 

No prob - for me, "munchkin" implies a power that may technically legal within the rules, but obviously breaks the spirit of either the game or of any sort of internal character consistency. Boosts such as the one you describe end up violating my understanding of DC and AP campaign limits, and thus just counts as a techically illegal build; it's just the rules they break are the more general "campaign rules", as opposed to the more literal "book" rules.

 

It's kind of like going into a 50 AP game, and having a power that's 80 AP - yeah, it's more powerful, but that's just because the creator broke the rule of how many points they're supposed to dump into a power. The true spirit of munchkinism, in contrast, gains an unbalancing level of power without violating any specific rule.

 

Also note that I come at Champions from a City of Heroes pespective; over there they're all about the boosts and front-loaded damage and overlapping offense and defense; thus, any boosing capability is calculated in for a given powerset. So, claiming "my power only does 10 points of damage and only hits 75% the time, it's not that great" is a non-sequitor, when another powers you use in every combat jacks the damage up to 20 points/shot and increases the to-hit to 95%, and are effectively available at all times. (Build up+Aim, before they put in Enhancement Diversification.)

[薔薇語]

Re: The Munchkin Build Contest

 

One that I have always liked is:

 

 

1'' of Teleport

w/ Possition shift.'

and Useable as an attack (force fields, Teleport power as D.)

 

It may not seem like much but use it to slap an enemy and teleport them where they are but laying on there face prone to your allies' attacks.

 

or

 

1pip killing RKA

Constant

Area of Affect One Hex

-----Mobile

Three times penitrating

and a continueing charge lasting a minute

 

This is a Fire Ball that is able to chase after somone and prevents his allies from touching him as well.

 

If you want you can also make this A LOT more deadlier by buying one Point of FF with hardened three times then place MegaScale 1 Kilometer on the killing attack and level a Good portion of Down town(not to mention all the citizens in it. )

 

La Rose

[Robyn]

Re: The Munchkin Build Contest

 

Because a Mental Transform can't have a physical effect like granting a physical form' date=' but without such a form to begin with, a Physical Transform has nothing to target.[/quote']

 

That's what I was thinking of, but with the additional confusion of treating Spiritual as its own category of Transform, not a binding element of Mental and Physical (though, explaining it that way would clear up a lot of the previous questions about how to treat it). I mean, if it has its own areas just like Mental and Physical, Spiritual is to Mental as Mental is to Physical and as Physical is to Mental, they're all categories and if one of them can be special than each of them can be special (binding the others together) under some circumstances.

 

The palindromedary wants to try building Transfer Wealth.....

 

SFX of Theft, or perhaps Embezzling?

[mattingly]

Re: The Munchkin Build Contest

 

1'' of Teleport

w/ Possition shift.'

and Useable as an attack

Sounds like it would make a nice Damage Shield.

1pip killing RKA

Constant

Area of Affect One Hex

-----Mobile

Three times penitrating

and a continueing charge lasting a minute

Plus, you could always buy it as Sticky!

[Doc Samson]

Re: The Munchkin Build Contest

 

1pip killing RKA

Constant

Area of Affect One Hex

-----Mobile

Three times penitrating

and a continueing charge lasting a minute

 

This is a Fire Ball that is able to chase after somone and prevents his allies from touching him as well.

 

If you want you can also make this A LOT more deadlier by buying one Point of FF with hardened three times then place MegaScale 1 Kilometer on the killing attack and level a Good portion of Down town(not to mention all the citizens in it. )

 

La Rose

 

Ouch...another nice one!

 

Another noob question if I may...what does pip mean? I know it's a single point but where does the term come from?

[Lucius]

Re: The Munchkin Build Contest

 

That's what I was thinking of' date=' but with the additional confusion of treating Spiritual as its own category of Transform, not a binding element of Mental and Physical (though, explaining it that way [i']would[/i] clear up a lot of the previous questions about how to treat it). I mean, if it has its own areas just like Mental and Physical, Spiritual is to Mental as Mental is to Physical and as Physical is to Mental, they're all categories and if one of them can be special than each of them can be special (binding the others together) under some circumstances.

 

If I understand you...

 

(Big IF)

 

Um. No. I don't think I understand at all.

 

Want to run this by me again?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Looking again at the palindromedary and thinking of it as a Spiritual being....

[Metaphysician]

Re: The Munchkin Build Contest

 

If I understand you...

 

(Big IF)

 

Um. No. I don't think I understand at all.

 

Want to run this by me again?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Looking again at the palindromedary and thinking of it as a Spiritual being....

 

Well, it *sort of* makes sense to me, but I don't know why.

 

Still, mechanically, its supportable, if you don't think a Transform can target something that lacks that property. OTOH, since "nothing into stuff" is a valid Transform. . .

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

Re: The Munchkin Build Contest

 

Still' date=' mechanically, its supportable, if you don't think a Transform can target something that lacks that property. OTOH, since "nothing into stuff" is a valid Transform. . .[/quote']

Stuff? I love stuff!

[Lucius]

Re: The Munchkin Build Contest

 

Well, it *sort of* makes sense to me, but I don't know why.

 

Still, mechanically, its supportable, if you don't think a Transform can target something that lacks that property. OTOH, since "nothing into stuff" is a valid Transform. . .

 

When you put it that way, it makes me think maybe I should completely reverse my position...

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Fortunately, I ride a palindromedary.

[Robyn]

Re: The Munchkin Build Contest

 

Colors have been used in my post below to, hopefully, make reading easier in sentences that use closely related terms several times in a row. Nothing is implied about the "color" of various Transform sequences

 

Want to run this by me again?

 

Past threads have asked what a Spiritual Transform would do that Physical or Mental would not. One possibility offered was "State of Grace", for confessins to sins. That's just what comes to mind, I'm sure there were more. It is a category in itself though, not just a "meta-element" to unify the other two.

 

My guess is' date=' certain types of undead may qualify as no spiritual component. Basically, they don't have souls or free will, they just have an automaton like behavior setup.[/quote']

 

The potential I see here is for a vampire; assume a Buffy-verse build, where vampires have no souls. But they do have a mind. They are not golems, or skeletons; they think.

 

But what if you wanted to give one a soul? (You would use a Gypsy curse, obviously. But how is that curse built?)

 

If you want to use a Mental or Physical Transform to build it, you run into the little problem that those separations exist for a reason, and you should no more be able to use Mental to affect Spiritual or Physical to affect Spiritual than you would use Mental to affect Physical - or vice versa.

 

If, on the other hand, you wanted to use Spiritual Transform, you would run into the problem that the vampire doesn't have a spiritual component.

 

This isn't, by itself, problematic, though. Let's use an example: you could have a ghost with spiritual and mental components. No body, though. So you use Physical Transform to create one. But all you've done is create an empty shell. Unless the ghost has a possession power, it's useless. You can create anything physical but you can't associate it with the ghost.

 

To get a ghost, you can destroy their body or just disassociate the Mind and Spirit from it (by making the body stop working). And, logically, this process would take place through Physical effects only.

 

This raises a whole host of fascinating questions. Do entities forever keep track of which components they were ever made of, even if changes cause them to temporarily not include that component? (Astral Projection, however it is built, seems an excellent case for testing that theory.) Is a Transform capable of altering which components they can be made of, or just which components they currently are made of?

 

My original point, though, to answer your question, was that if we can use Spiritual to add a soul to some undead with Physical and Mental components, we can use Physical to add a body to some undead with Mental and Spiritual components. Since the Spiritual Transforms have already been assigned some capabilities that cannot be achieved through Physical or Mental equivalents, and likewise Physical is appropriate for achieving what Mental cannot, and vice versa; it is a category of Transform just like any other, and we cannot assign it some special "meta-Transform" status on the basis of it not being either of the other two without those others, by the same logic, being useful in similar cases.

[Lucius]

Re: The Munchkin Build Contest

 

I think I'm getting it.

 

Among other things, you're saying that you can't use a Spiritual Transform to give a Physical Body to something that didn't have one.

 

And Metaphysician has already made the point that if Transform can do creation ex nihilo there is no reason a Transform can't target something that HAS no aspect of the same type as the Transform. That is, theoretically, one could use a Mental Transform on a Automaton, if the SFX justify it.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary warns "Maybe you can theoretically, but be careful! Give him half a chance and Lucius will actually try it!"

[Metaphysician]

Re: The Munchkin Build Contest

 

Eh, I've never been hugely fond of the Buffyverse metaphysics. In any game I ran, vampires do indeed have souls. Corrupted and twisted ones that are no longer human, but souls nonetheless.

 

More generally, my rule of thumb is "Is it a person, with free will and self-awareness?" If "yes," it has a soul of some type and form.

 

So, as far as undead go, all truly sentient undead have souls: vampires, liches, ghosts, and such. Stuff like zombies and skeletons don't; they are basically necromantic automata. Others might be not automata, but not sentient. Animalistic, IOW. This could also include some lesser incorporeal types ( an intangible form doesn't necessitate a soul, basically ).

[Kevin Schultz]

Re: The Munchkin Build Contest

 

Eh, I've never been hugely fond of the Buffyverse metaphysics. In any game I ran, vampires do indeed have souls. Corrupted and twisted ones that are no longer human, but souls nonetheless.

 

More generally, my rule of thumb is "Is it a person, with free will and self-awareness?" If "yes," it has a soul of some type and form.

 

So, as far as undead go, all truly sentient undead have souls: vampires, liches, ghosts, and such. Stuff like zombies and skeletons don't; they are basically necromantic automata. Others might be not automata, but not sentient. Animalistic, IOW. This could also include some lesser incorporeal types ( an intangible form doesn't necessitate a soul, basically ).

 

I came at the BuffyVerse from the WhiteWolf universe - I had assumed that BuffyVerse vampires lost their human souls upon death, and instead had their bodies animated by the supernatural disease/viral avatar known as vampirism. So, while they had a metaphysical element to them (ie, a vampiric avatar/soul), it wasn't a human one. The mind was merely the electrochemical impulses that the supernatural disease kept, along with the body.