Freezing the Time

[Johannes]

A Player of mine asked for the Power to freeze the time so he could act.

 

I thought about buying 1 point of SPD with maximum Invisible Power Effects.

 

Is this enough to reflect what the power should be? I am doubting it a little, because he could attack, and the defenders wouldnt be able to block it.

[specks]

Re: Freezing the Time

 

First of all, welcome to the boards.

 

Second, I'm not sure what you're asking. Are you asking if his PC can stop time. Move to someone and gut him like a fish (that would be horribly abusive) or does he just want to move around and take away a villians item or pick up stuff in and around the area.

 

If it's the second, you might try Extra-Dimensional Movement where you move to a dimension where everything his frozen buy you can't automatically take away item's in his hand but you could pick up stuff around the area.

 

You could also do an Entangle (Area Effect) representing time stop area where no one can move.

 

You may want to check out the USPD and USPD2 (when it comes out) because they have a section on time powers.

 

Just my $.02

[Ockham's Spoon]

Re: Freezing the Time

 

One of the Fantasy Hero supplements had a Time Stop spell that worked well; it allowed the mage to freeze his opponent so he could leave or do whatever, but not actually inflict damage on his foe (because any attack entering the area of frozen time would also freeze before it hit) so it wasn't abusive. It was built like this:

 

Extra Dimensional Movement, through time, 12 seconds into the future, 400 kg, Usable On Others, Usable at Range, One Hex AE, Continuous, Uncontrolled, ½ END, (and then a bunch of limitations), Active cost 127 pts.

 

Hope that helps.

 

_________________________________________________________

"Rich people scare me. They can already evade taxes." - Grim Reaper

[Steve Long]

Re: Freezing the Time

 

The quick-and-easy way is to use Extra-Dimensional Movement, as some people have suggested.

 

If you want the more "realistic" or "thorough" way, check out my HEROglyphs column in Digital Hero #8, where I laboriously build a "Time Stop" power from the ground up. It can be yours for the low, low price of about 7.5 million Character Points.

[Johannes]

Re: Freezing the Time

 

Ah, Yes, hello everyone, greetings to all - i am new to the board

 

The EDM is a good idea - ill go with that one. Thanks.

I ll make it EDM, any corresponding location. And no solid object can be moved - since F =m*a = 2mx/t² lim t->0 => F-> infinite.

Close to the character this does not count because of his time bubble.

 

Good thing, thanks.

 

EDIT: Or i'll tke that 7.5 million Character Points Version - its our powerlevel anyway

[The Souljourner]

Re: Freezing the Time

 

Extra Dimensional Movement is never the answer.

 

I played a character who could control time. I used Teleport as part of this, to represent him stopping time and then just walking over to where he wanted to end up, and restarting time.

 

I also gave him SPD as a power and took the disadvantage "Costs END" to represent slowing time down for everyone but himself.

 

I think you should just tell the player that you can't really do a Time Stop type ability where no one else can act but you.... it's just too abusive. However, you can easily model other uses of time control, like the ones I gave here, and still have a good time with it.

 

-Nate

[OddHat]

Re: Freezing the Time

 

I recently used a very large AOE Supress SPD with Personal Immunity for this, liked to Invisibility. If everything in the area is at SPD 0, time has effectively stopped for everything but you. However, this is a game breaker of a power to hand to a PC.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: Freezing the Time

 

Yes, a time-stop is very expensive but doable.

 

If he only wants his character to stop time in a limited area, then an AE SPD Suppress is the way to go. slap 1 or 2 levels of Megascale, and it can affect an entire city.

 

Make sure its Continuous, that way time will slow, then come to a complete stop eventually.

 

You might also want to link a SPD AID or Succor to it, so the character speeds up at the same time everyone else slows down (make sure the character has Personal Immunity to the Time Stop power of course). Its possible to get a SPD 7 or 8 character when everyone else is SPD 2 or less. The effects are quite impressive.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Freezing the Time

 

I would use a Cumulative Suppress with Gradual Effect, but that's me. That would allow for a slower acting effect and possibly make for some cool in game scenarios.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Freezing the Time

 

I'm with Souljourner: a straightforward teleport (with position shift and no relative velocity): must cross intervening space seems perfect, possibly coupled with 3 levels with combat overall to simulate always being able to do surprise manoeuvres/get out the way of attacks.

 

If you want to be able to actually do stuff while you are in your zero time bubble, you really need to define what it is you want to do: gut someone like a fish sounds like am invisible killing attack to me. Perhaps a VPP (all powers must have invisible effects as an advantage or anyway) to simulate what you can do when you are zero timed.As always, start be deciding where you want to be THEN plan how to get there

 

The problem comes if you want to be able to maintain the thing for a long time AND be able to do lots of stuff when it is running: then you'll need that 7.5 million...

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Freezing the Time

 

My gamer GF from way back in the day (high school) wanted to play a character that could pull this trick as her mutant power. I was able to come up with a build that did most of what she wanted ("Like the movie 'The Girl, the Gold Watch and Everything' " she asked) that just barely fit, in an EC, into a 400 point character. The rest of the players, some of whom would also be GM's looked at the write up, agreed it was a brilliant bit of point mongery and simluated the effect well, and then promptly vetoed the character as too powerful, game breaking and a one trick pony.

 

Oh well.

 

IIRC, I did much as suggested above... massive AOE speed suppress with a suite of linked powers.

 

one bit that I thought was quite clever, and works if you are taking the teleport + VPP/powers approach (or could even be linked to the EDM version with GM approval) was to use Missile Reflection, any target, physical attacks only to do the whole "stop time, redirect the bullet towards a new target, then restart time" trick.

 

Edit: and yeah, they were right... I even told her so when she presented me with the idea, but my stubborn side kicked in and went "Dood... you claim to be able to build anything in HERO... get to it ya punk. Step up and prove you can pull it off." So I did. I wasn't really expecting the character to ever get greenlighted.

[The Souljourner]

Re: Freezing the Time

 

I still say it's a lot easier to speed yourself up than it is to slow everyone else down.

 

Most characters have speeds around 3-5 in my experience. If you give yourself 12 speed... it's exactly as if those guys are standing still as you run around and do stuff while they're sitting there.

 

Assume your character starts with 4 SPD.

 

+8 SPD, Costs Endurance (-1/2) 53 Points

 

You pay 8 END, and you get to act during the next phase guaranteed. If you keep it up, you probably get several phases before anyone else acts. Of course, you'll have to talk to your GM about how he handles changing speed in the middle of the speed table.

 

Add that to the teleportation described above, and you have pretty much exactly what you want... if you just want to stop time to move, use the teleportation. If you want to actually do something besides moving during stopped time, use the SPD bonus.

 

Here's an interesting question... if you activate the +8 speed (paying 8 END), and then in the next phase you choose to stop paying for the power... do you still get to act that round? I would think yes, since otherwise the 8 end you spent the phase before wouldn't have actually done anything.

 

-Nate

[KA.]

Re: Freezing the Time

 

The Souljourner suggested pretty much exactly what I was going to say.

There is no reason to have to physically stop the world when you can just move so fast that you get to act when they don't.

Since you probably don't want this to be overwhelmingly powerful, the fact that someone could hold their action past Segment 12 and act on Segment 1 (If there DEX was higher than your character) could just allow for that rare chance of someone 'breaking free' or whatever.

Since comics and fiction are filled with characters who pull off miraculous stunts like this, it really isn't out of genre if the time stop isn't 100% foolproof.

 

Another cheap way to do it is to buy a fairly high SPD and a really high PRE.

There is some character (The Foreigner from Marvel ? ) who has a power where it seems like he freezes time and disappears, but actually he sort of 'stuns' people for a moment and then just leaves while they are unaware.

You could explain this as a sort of high level PRE Attack.

He causes them to lose a Phase, and by the time they recover he has already done what he was going to do.

 

KA.

[BNakagawa]

Re: Freezing the Time

 

it can't really be done without extreme hand-waving and suspension of system design concepts.

 

Speeding yourself up works up to a point. Once you perform an attack option, time moves onwards, and if you're dealing with something like, oh say, gravity, then oh well...

 

Slowing others down only affects entities...I don't know that it would stop fires from burning, stuff from falling, water from flowing, etc.

 

XDM movement is extreme cheese. Also, there was supposedly some sort of meta-rule about there being a defense for any given attack and the defense supposedly being cheaper than the attack...if there is such a defense, then the 'time stop' is prevented from working. If there is no such defense, then the power is 'broken'.

 

Which, almost by definition, any time-stop is, anyway.

 

There are people who will qualify it and limit it and try to justify it as not being abusive, but fundamentally, such power belongs in the hands of a GM where writeups are irrelevant.

 

Assuming it belongs anywhere...

 

$0.02

[ghost-angel]

Re: Freezing the Time

 

My wife's Temporal Manipulator can do pretty much anything but actually STOP time as we've ruled that Time always moves, even if very slowly, so the solution is to speed yourself up through it.

 

At full speed the character is SPD 11 DEX 68. Yes, it is a very high powered campaign.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Freezing the Time

 

Johnnes, buddy, what is it that this pesky player wants to be able to do with frozen time (and have you considered an ice entangle - only effects clocks?)

[Lucius]

Re: Freezing the Time

 

A Player of mine asked for the Power to freeze the time so he could act.

 

I thought about buying 1 point of SPD with maximum Invisible Power Effects.

 

Is this enough to reflect what the power should be? I am doubting it a little, because he could attack, and the defenders wouldnt be able to block it.

 

Johannes, friend, this has been hashed out over and over, literally for years. I remember threads that went on for miles on the topic.

 

The short answer is, if you want to stop time with EVERYTHING that implies being possible to you, "like in 'The Girl, the Gold Watch, and Everything,'" you're talking about a Godlike level of power. In fact, most Deities I know would envy that level of power over Time. Thus, not only is it likely to be a complicated build, it's apt to cost huge amounts of points. I don't know about into the millions, but probably more than any player character can afford, even in Galactic Champions.

 

 

For more limited effects that may approximate what you want, I don't think I can beat the suggestions already offered. I'd probably go for enhanced SPD, and a wide area SPD and DEX drain or suppress.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary never goes backwards, it only moves forwards in the other direction....

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: Freezing the Time

 

Extradimensional Movement can move you through time. So why can't it stop time?

 

EDM: To the dimension of stopped time. Transdimensional on Strength.

 

Forget about physics and why that wouldn't work according to F=ma or whatever. This isn't a physics textbook, despite appearances. It's a game of cinematic, comic book, heroic adventure.

[BNakagawa]

Re: Freezing the Time

 

Extradimensional Movement can move you through time. So why can't it stop time?

 

EDM: To the dimension of stopped time. Transdimensional on Strength.

 

For the same reason we don't allow EDM: to the dimension where my character is omnipotent, UAA area effect.

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: Freezing the Time

 

For the same reason we don't allow EDM: to the dimension where my character is omnipotent' date=' UAA area effect.[/quote']

 

Steve Long has (at least) semi-seriously (and, given that it's Steve, at least semi-officially, or as official as anything he writes is) suggested using EDM for a wish: "EDM to the dimension where what I wished for is true."

 

How is that much different?

 

and

 

How is the suggested build (EDM to dimension of stopped time) abusive? What exactly can it break? It's not the "I win the game!" power.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Freezing the Time

 

For the same reason we don't allow EDM: to the dimension where my character is omnipotent' date=' UAA area effect.[/quote']

We don't allow that because it's a game breaker - not mechanically illegal.

 

EDM: Stopped Time, would, at the least, require Transdimensional on any part of your character that is to affect the Moving Time Dimension.

 

It's very possible this is a massive game breaker, I would either disallow it or place a restriction of a Duration Limitation down to a few phases at the longest. And even if you're punching Mr Fantastic while he's Time Stopped - you still have to overcome his DEF.

 

It's an interesting schtick to say the least.

[specks]

Re: Freezing the Time

 

Steve Long has (at least) semi-seriously (and, given that it's Steve, at least semi-officially, or as official as anything he writes is) suggested using EDM for a wish: "EDM to the dimension where what I wished for is true."

 

How is that much different?

 

and

 

How is the suggested build (EDM to dimension of stopped time) abusive? What exactly can it break? It's not the "I win the game!" power.

 

Either you don't allow this power in your games or

 

You have a way of preventing this power from coming too abusive

 

I'd wish you'd clairify why it wouln't be abusive. Consider my example earlier where a villian could come next to the PC, "gut him like a fish", and leave without any chance of him from fighting back or put up a proper defense. I'd consider that pretty abusive right there. So unless you know of a way to overcome this power, I'd appreciate you giving us your expertise on this

[ghost-angel]

Re: Freezing the Time

 

Either you have a very high level campaign or

 

You don't allow this power in your games or

 

You have a way of preventing this power from coming too abusive

 

I'd wish you'd clairify why it wouln't be abusive. Consider my example earlier where a villian could come next to the PC, "gut him like a fish", and leave without him ever being there. I'd consider that pretty abusive right there. So unless you know of a way to overcome this power, I'd appreciate you giving us your expertise on this

See my post regarding still having to overcome DEF, and about limiting the Power severely.

[specks]

Re: Freezing the Time

 

Yea I know (good suggestions by the way) but I wanted to see other ways Chris would handle it since he said the power isn't that abusive.

 

Come to think of it, what ways are there to overcome a Time Stop power (especially if you use the extra dimensional travel power) or any other time stop like method.

[OddHat]

Re: Freezing the Time

 

A few years ago, my wife played a character in a solo game that had exactly that time stop by moving into another dimension build. It worke well, but she was the only player. Balance was not an issue; she was meant to be insanely powerful.

 

Johnny Tick-Tock, my time-stopping villain (AOE Suppress) is very powerful on only 450 points. If he were a killer, the PCs would all be dead by now.

 

Powers and builds don't just work in isolation, which is how we tend to discuss them. You need to consider how they'll work in your campaign, with your players. Right now, if my wife wanted to bring her time stopper back in my current campaign with three PCs, I'd probably build the character with a multipower or VPP of time-stop powers. She'd look something like Captain Chronos in CKC. The character would be much more expensive, and less intuitive, but she'd work better with a full group. In solo play, I'd have no problem letting her ue EDM again.

 

So, if you want a time stoper as part of a team, that's how I'd go. A Multipower with some teleports, stat boosts, missile deflection, EBs, and other time stop effects.

 

For solo play or a villain, go with the EDM or the Supress.