Duplication Squared

[Robyn]

Can your Duplicates also take the power Duplication?

 

And can their duplicates also . . . eh, you get the idea.

[Vanguard00]

Re: Duplication Squared

 

Yep. 5ER page 152, about 3/4 down the first column.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Duplication Squared

 

It comes highly unrecomended though, as it really only gives the GM headaches.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Duplication Squared

 

This falls under the "Just because you can doesn't mean you should" rule of thumb.

[McCoy]

Re: Duplication Squared

 

Lot more cost effective to just buy more duplicates in the original power.

[Vanguard00]

Re: Duplication Squared

 

I agree. Not only does the Duplicate have to buy an essentially worthless Duplication power to mimic that of the 'base' character, but they'd have to buy Duplication again, thus making them inferior copies of the original anyway.

 

And if their Duplicates wanted to buy Duplication, that means they'd essentially have to buy the power three times. Three. 3. Each.

 

So yeah, it's possible, but not practical.

[Silbeg]

Re: Duplication Squared

 

In the rules FAQ, there is a possible way to deal with this:

 

Q: Do all Duplicates come from the original character, or can some come from the Duplicates themselves?

 

A: Per 5ER 152, they come from the original character. With the GM’s permission, you could define “they come from the Duplicates†as the special effect of Rapid Duplication (see above), but given the potential usefulness/benefits of that, he might want to charge you an additional +1/4 Advantage.

 

Since this is an extension of the basic Duplication, it is still the base character duplicating, but the duplicates are appearing at the location of a duplicate. This is still limited to the max number of duplicates that the original Duplication power is bought at.

 

Makes good sense to me... I have actually used this with an NPC to good effect.

[Zeropoint]

Re: Duplication Squared

 

Yeah, I tried to do the "infinite duplicates" thing once, but even if you pay for a "more powerful" duplicate, it doesn't work; the duplication gets more expensive with each generation of duplicates.

 

This is probably a good thing.

[Robyn]

Re: Duplication Squared

 

Lot more cost effective to just buy more duplicates in the original power.

 

I was wondering about that. I gave it a shot last night and the math just gave me a headache even trying.

[Tornado]

Re: Duplication Squared

 

Wouldn't you just duplicate a character with the exact same abilities (and therefore point cost) as you including duplication? Or am I missing something here?

[Zeropoint]

Re: Duplication Squared

 

Because the duplicate has to pay for your Duplication power and doesn't get to use it. If he wants to have duplicates, he has to pay for Duplication again.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Duplication Squared

 

Because the duplicate has to pay for your Duplication power and doesn't get to use it. If he wants to have duplicates' date=' he has to pay for Duplication [i']again.[/i]

 

I don't follow you. I thought you pay for a Duplicate worth what the base character is, minus the cost paid for the Duplication. If you pay for a Duplicate exactly equal to the character, including the Duplication, the Duplicate has it and can use it. Doing otherwise is like making the Duplicate pay for having the base character's EB but not getting to use it.

[Robyn]

Re: Duplication Squared

 

I don't follow you. I thought you pay for a Duplicate worth what the base character is' date=' minus the cost paid for the Duplication. If you pay for a Duplicate exactly equal to the character, including the Duplication, the Duplicate has it and can use it. Doing otherwise is like making the Duplicate pay for having the base character's EB but not getting to use it.[/quote']

 

Mind that I'm just going from the 4th Edition book here, 5th might have cleared this up a bit, but the power description doesn't actually state that your Duplicate is paying for your Duplication power; that would be an inference at best. What the power actually says is that:

 

The maximum total points the second and succeeding forms can each have is equal to the total points in the base form, minus the Duplication cost.

 

To me, this means that you can't have a Duplicate which is more powerful than the original form; this interpretation is echoed down in "Duplication Cost", which reads "No form can have more total points than the total points of the base character minus the costs for Duplication." Unlike with Multiform, there is no option for paying additional points to bypass this restriction.

 

If you have a 300-point character, and pay 50 other points for a single other Duplicate, that Duplicate will have (300 - 50 = 250) points; and your main character will have, other than Duplication, only 250 points worth of powers, skills, etcetera. But the Duplicate doesn't automatically receive Duplication, and if you wanted to give them that power, you would have to spend part of their 250 points on it. You can't pay for a Duplicate "exactly equal to the character, including Duplication", because the moment you pay for a new form off the first branch (still costing 2/5 with a minimum of 20, I believe, since only your main form has already taken Duplication before, the 2nd form hasn't yet), your main form is "300 points with 50 on Duplication" and your secondary form is "20+ on Duplication with 230 or less on other powers". Doing otherwise is like paying for the power once and letting other characters use it for free (good with an Independent Focus, not so good here).

 

So, basically, what you said, with a few twists

[Dust Raven]

Re: Duplication Squared

 

Yeah. In both 4th edition there was a hard cap of how many points the Duplicate could have. In 5th, it can easily be more (so you end up with the 150 point guy who spends 100 points on a 250 point Duplicate, costing 100 because it's automatically considered to be 100% different, leaving 50 points to spend on the base character). Technically, the character could have spent 30 points on a 150 Duplicate. This leave him 120 point for himself, and gives him a Duplicate that has also spend 120 points on general stuff plus the 30 for Duplication. This produces an infinate line of Duplicates, assiming he character and his duplicates all have the time to keep duplicating.

 

Alternately the character could have spent 29 points and have two 120 point duplicates, and have a point left over to spend as he pleases on himself.

 

Certainly the first option is more powerful, but not one point more powerful. I'd never allow it, but technically there's nothing wrong with the build to the best of my knowledge.

[Robyn]

Re: Duplication Squared

 

Technically' date=' the character could have spent 30 points on a 150 Duplicate. This leave him 120 point for himself, and gives him a Duplicate that has also spend 120 points on general stuff plus the 30 for Duplication. This produces an infinate line of Duplicates, assiming he character and his duplicates all have the time to keep duplicating.[/quote']

 

Ow . . . (no, seriously - I can feel one of my heads coming on).

 

Break the Game: VPP (AP infinite), Activation Roll (death on failure - SFX "the GM catches you cheating, and confiscates your character sheet") -44/4, RP 0

[Vanguard00]

Re: Duplication Squared

 

5ER has this to say (pg 152):

 

"Duplicates do not have the power Duplication themselves, nor any ability to create other Duplicates, unless they pay for it separately. However, unless the GM permits otherwise, for ease of use all Duplicates must "pay for" the cost of the base character's Duplication ability. Otherwise, the Duplicates would end up with more points to spend on other abilities than the base character himself has."

 

It later references building a Duplicate for less points than the original, infering that you can simply build it for the cost of the base original minus the cost of the original's Duplicate power.

 

In other words, the cost of the original's Duplication power has to be reflected in the Duplicate's point total somehow.