Player Characters who might need Automoton Powers

[oryanfactor]

There's an interesting thread just posted about wether or not Superheroic Characters may take Gestures or Incantations as a Limitation on Powers..check it out.....coincidently, I had a similar question regarding Automoton Powers.

 

The 5th Edr specifically bars Player Characters from taking the Automoton Powers from page 458. I can think of a number of "comic book" characters for whom these powers might be appropriate:

 

Plastic Man--Being made up essentialy of a rubber-like material throughout his body, Plastic Man might take Does Not Bleed or No Hit Locations. Hitting him in the foot is the same as hitting him in the head.

 

Robotman (Doom Patrol)--because his body is a metal shell, Takes no Stun, Does Not Bleed may work for this character. However, because he does have a human brain, hits to the head may affect him normally. Alternately, Robotman's body may simply be a Vehicle for the brain.

 

Also, these things may apply to other characters who's forms aren't normal, such as Swamp Thing, Wonder Man, the Golem, The Metal Men, et al.

 

Does anyone allow players to take Automoton Powers or how would they simulate a character with these rather unique forms?

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Player Characters who might need Automoton Powers

 

I can see allowing "Does Not Bleed" and maybe "No Hit Locations" for certain PCs. But then, then examples you list are superheroes, and since I don't use Bleeding or Hit Locations for superhero games anyway, what would be the point?

 

I'd be very leary of allowing "Takes No STUN." Especially in Champions, where it's often very hard to do BODY damage to characters if they have decent defenses. And from a player standpoint, I wouldn't want to play a character that the only way the GM can hurt me is to regularly chop off body parts.

[Silbeg]

Re: Player Characters who might need Automoton Powers

 

Plastic Man--Being made up essentialy of a rubber-like material throughout his body, Plastic Man might take Does Not Bleed or No Hit Locations. Hitting him in the foot is the same as hitting him in the head.

TUM (The Ultimate Metamorph) talks about this as an option.

 

In general, I would look very carefully at such a character, to make sure that it would make sense in the game.

 

However, that being said, in a Superhero game, we tend not to use hit locations (so that one isn't actually needed), though in my game we do use the bleeding rules.

 

Still, there would have to be a good reason to not take Does Not Bleed. Even though his body may be plastic, he may still "bleed" resin, or whatever.

[prestidigitator]

Re: Player Characters who might need Automoton Powers

 

I don't know about a character taking them straight, but having a power that can provide them on a very limited basis (such as a fantasy spell with significant Limitations) could work.

 

Where they aren't allowed for PCs, Powers can be used to provide similar mechanisms that might do for the character concept. For example, taking Damage Reduction with some partial coverage (an appropriate Activation Roll, probably) so that it only reduces damage to Hit Locations with a high Body/Stun multiplier, or limited Healing that can only stop Bleeding (does not actually restore Body).

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Player Characters who might need Automoton Powers

 

Where they aren't allowed for PCs' date=' Powers can be used to provide [i']similar[/i] mechanisms that might do for the character concept. For example, taking Damage Reduction with some partial coverage (an appropriate Activation Roll, probably) so that it only reduces damage to Hit Locations with a high Body/Stun multiplier, or limited Healing that can only stop Bleeding (does not actually restore Body).

Hmm...seems a tad over-designed to me. I think if I'd be more inclined to just invoke the "It's my game and I'll allow it if I want to!" clause and use the automoton powers as written. YMMV, of course.

[prestidigitator]

Re: Player Characters who might need Automoton Powers

 

Hmm...seems a tad over-designed to me. I think if I'd be more inclined to just invoke the "It's my game and I'll allow it if I want to!" clause and use the automoton powers as written. YMMV' date=' of course.[/quote']

Oh certainly. It's just an option for GMs or players when the GM (understandably) doesn't want to allow PCs to take actual Automaton Powers. Since such solutions are built on Powers and Modifiers normally used by PCs, you can also be somewhat assured that they will be reasonably point-balanced. And some parts of their behavior during play can probably be handwaved a bit once the power is designed (e.g. just saying that a sufficient level of the Damage Reduction build I mentioned above with a certain Activation Roll and other Modifiers works essentially like No Hit Locations, instead of going through all the arithmatic of mutiplying and dividing and whatever when someone hits you in the head).

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Player Characters who might need Automoton Powers

 

Oh certainly. It's just an option for GMs or players when the GM (understandably) doesn't want to allow PCs to take actual Automaton Powers. Since such solutions are built on Powers and Modifiers normally used by PCs' date=' you can also be somewhat assured that they will be reasonably point-balanced.[/quote']

Fair enough.

[prestidigitator]

Re: Player Characters who might need Automoton Powers

 

Sorry. I edited a bit. Terrible habbit.

[radioKAOS]

Re: Player Characters who might need Automoton Powers

 

60 "Takes No Stun": +72 PD, Hardened (+1/4) (90 Active Points); Only to Protect vs. STUN (-1/2)

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Player Characters who might need Automoton Powers

 

I definitely wouldn't allow Takes No STUN for a non-automaton.

 

I'd probably allow Doesn't Bleed as-is, rather than making the character buy Regeneration with the limitation that it only functions to counter the Post-12 Bleeding Out damage. Then again, BODY damage is pretty rare IMG.

 

I've considered letting Cannot Be Stunned through, since it almost never happens anyway unless I'm really laying it on heavy (or there's a beaut of a StunX).

[ghost-angel]

Re: Player Characters who might need Automoton Powers

 

When we look at the comics and translate we're forgetting one important fact about the source material; The hero takes only as much Stun and Body as the Writer needs them to.

 

Most likely those powers we see in the source material are simply incredibly high Defenses and/or the SFX of DCV CSLs (you only Think you hit me), or Luck.

 

Any number of things that may not actually be the Automaton Powers we have in the system.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Player Characters who might need Automoton Powers

 

When we look at the comics and translate we're forgetting one important fact about the source material; The hero takes only as much Stun and Body as the Writer needs them to.

 

Most likely those powers we see in the source material are simply incredibly high Defenses and/or the SFX of DCV CSLs (you only Think you hit me), or Luck.

 

Any number of things that may not actually be the Automaton Powers we have in the system.

 

Including Block and Missile Deflection defined as 'sit there and take it'.

[Lucius]

Player Characters who might NOT need Automoton Powers

 

Crossposted from Things I Learned Playing a Robot

 

Just because you technically don't "eat" or "breathe" or "sleep" or even "get sick" does NOT mean that you need to take the full suite of Life Support Powers.

 

You don't eat, but you do need to input energy in some form, and even materiels (spare parts, perhaps.) Do you really need "Does not eat?"

 

Unless you were specifically designed for multiple environments, that does not mean you won't suffer deleterious effects if dropped into water, methane, a high pressure atmosphere, or vaccuum. Just because you don't "breathe" as such, doesn't mean you can't be deactivated or even destroyed if out of the environment you were designed for.

 

You don't "sleep" but you may need regular downtime for self-maintenance, internal computer diagnostics, and to correlate and properly assimilate the day's experiences into your memory banks.

 

Just because you're not organic, doesn't mean you can't catch a virus. Or a worm. Just because you can ignore some or most of the things that poison a Human, doesn't mean there aren't substances that will do you serious damage. Instead of taking a broad-based immunity, ask if you can be assumed to be vulnerable to different things - the way a fish doesn't need "life support" to breathe water, it just has a different "default" environment.

 

Just because you don't feel "pain" (trust me, you're not missing anything) doesn't mean you should have Takes No Stun. If you get hit by a lightning bolt, it's still a shocking experience. You can be "stunned" just as effectively as if you felt pain, and you can be rendered temporarily inoperable as readily as a Human can be rendered unconscious - and they are the same thing mechanically (pardon the expression.)

 

Parts wear out. Quantum effects and background radiation eventually degrade even shielded positronic brains. Even personality programs that are repeatedly uploaded to new bodies become corrupt over time. Check out your warranty. Odds are, you DON'T really have "Immunity to Aging."

 

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by keithcurtis

They are damned expensive characters to create.

 

Keith "Stupid 5th Ed. Life Support" Curtis

 

 

That depends on your assumptions. See above.

 

 

To expand upon the above: while I am by NO means totally opposed to the idea of player characters having Automaton Powers, I do think they should be considered carefully, and it should be kept in mind that just because a character may LOOK like he should have them, that does not mean the character NEEDS them. A character that does not "Bleed" may STILL lose BOD if severely injured for example - "The energy is cascading through his system! If we don't stop it now" - i.e. make an Electronics or Robotics roll in place of Paramedic to stop the damage spreading - "it will burn out ALL his circuits!"

 

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Things I learned riding a palindromedary

[keithcurtis]

Re: Player Characters who might need Automoton Powers

 

I regularly allow a class of characters to take automaton powers in Savage Earth. Here is the relevant page.

As for other characters who could benefit from them... Since you are not posting this in the Champions forum, how about the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman? Neither of them can be knocked out.

 

Keith "or Jack Pumpkinhead, or the Sawhorse, or..." Curtis

[Dust Raven]

Re: Player Characters who might NOT need Automoton Powers

 

Crossposted from Things I Learned Playing a Robot

 

 

Just because you technically don't "eat" or "breathe" or "sleep" or even "get sick" does NOT mean that you need to take the full suite of Life Support Powers.

 

You don't eat, but you do need to input energy in some form, and even materiels (spare parts, perhaps.) Do you really need "Does not eat?"

 

Unless you were specifically designed for multiple environments, that does not mean you won't suffer deleterious effects if dropped into water, methane, a high pressure atmosphere, or vaccuum. Just because you don't "breathe" as such, doesn't mean you can't be deactivated or even destroyed if out of the environment you were designed for.

 

You don't "sleep" but you may need regular downtime for self-maintenance, internal computer diagnostics, and to correlate and properly assimilate the day's experiences into your memory banks.

 

Just because you're not organic, doesn't mean you can't catch a virus. Or a worm. Just because you can ignore some or most of the things that poison a Human, doesn't mean there aren't substances that will do you serious damage. Instead of taking a broad-based immunity, ask if you can be assumed to be vulnerable to different things - the way a fish doesn't need "life support" to breathe water, it just has a different "default" environment.

 

Just because you don't feel "pain" (trust me, you're not missing anything) doesn't mean you should have Takes No Stun. If you get hit by a lightning bolt, it's still a shocking experience. You can be "stunned" just as effectively as if you felt pain, and you can be rendered temporarily inoperable as readily as a Human can be rendered unconscious - and they are the same thing mechanically (pardon the expression.)

 

Parts wear out. Quantum effects and background radiation eventually degrade even shielded positronic brains. Even personality programs that are repeatedly uploaded to new bodies become corrupt over time. Check out your warranty. Odds are, you DON'T really have "Immunity to Aging."

 

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by keithcurtis

They are damned expensive characters to create.

 

Keith "Stupid 5th Ed. Life Support" Curtis

 

 

That depends on your assumptions. See above.

 

 

To expand upon the above: while I am by NO means totally opposed to the idea of player characters having Automaton Powers, I do think they should be considered carefully, and it should be kept in mind that just because a character may LOOK like he should have them, that does not mean the character NEEDS them. A character that does not "Bleed" may STILL lose BOD if severely injured for example - "The energy is cascading through his system! If we don't stop it now" - i.e. make an Electronics or Robotics roll in place of Paramedic to stop the damage spreading - "it will burn out ALL his circuits!"

 

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Things I learned riding a palindromedary

 

Excellent post and worthy of rep, just as soon as I can rep you again.

 

I will point out one thing though: this logic applies to all characters, normal and automaton alike. By that logic, if the above Powers would be appropriate for an Automaton to take, and a normal character has the exact same situation/SFX, it should be just as appropriate for him as well. There's nothing special about an Automaton, at least not in this regard. The Powers sould be available to all characters, period. Granted, Takes No STUN should have a double stop sign and a WITH GM PERMISSION ONLY in big bold all caps every other line... but available nonetheless.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Player Characters who might need Automoton Powers

 

I would consider these if the PC concept were right provided the player could satisfy me of two key issues:

 

(a) It won't unbalance the campaign. That means the character may not take STUN, but there must be some rational way(s) to stop the character.

 

( The character can be defeated without being destroyed. That means "takes no STUN Man" can't be easily defeated because he can be killed - and the character wiped from the game. Perhaps he has very slow Regen (replacing the robot body by rebuilding it like any focus).

 

While these need to be very carefully scrutinized, for the appropriate character concept, they may be both appropriate (though perhaps not essential) and balanceable (though perhaps not balanced in every game).

[David Johnston]

Re: Player Characters who might NOT need Automoton Powers

 

Excellent post and worthy of rep, just as soon as I can rep you again.

 

I will point out one thing though: this logic applies to all characters, normal and automaton alike. By that logic, if the above Powers would be appropriate for an Automaton to take, and a normal character has the exact same situation/SFX, it should be just as appropriate for him as well. There's nothing special about an Automaton, at least not in this regard.

 

Sure there is. Every normal character has a mind. No automaton has a mind. Characters who are conceptualised as "I know no pain" should probably get Stun Reduction, but they'd still take Stun because Stun is also fear and confusion. (Which is why certain characters take extra Stun from attacks just because they have trouble expecting them or have a phobia of them.)

[Dust Raven]

Re: Player Characters who might NOT need Automoton Powers

 

Sure there is. Every normal character has a mind. No automaton has a mind. Characters who are conceptualised as "I know no pain" should probably get Stun Reduction' date=' but they'd still take Stun because Stun is also fear and confusion. (Which is why certain characters take extra Stun from attacks just because they have trouble expecting them or have a phobia of them.)[/quote']

 

STUN as a game mechanic is only a representation of whether or not a character is or is not conscious and how difficult it is to make the character unconscious; pain, fear and confusion are just SFX used to dress up attacks that lower a character's STUN, but are not tied to the STUN Characteristic itself. It should be noted that all Automatons have a STUN Characteristic by default. Only if they take the Takes No STUN Power do they not. So except for the lack of a "mind" (really, the lack of a self will and EGO Characteristic, and subsequently not subect to any effects requiring this in a target, such as most Mental Powers), they are in all ways identical to normal characters.

[Ndreare]

Re: Player Characters who might need Automoton Powers

 

I have made a couple shapeshifters with the "No Hot Location" power. The thing is I see the ruling of some powers only for some characters as an example of a genre convention making it into the game. I would not allow a player to select takes not stun as it would create a huge chalenge for me as a GM come combat time to balance his batle so he can be defeated without being killed. I instead think they should be considered "Special" powers and given a "Stop" sign.

[Lucius]

Re: Player Characters who might need Automoton Powers

 

I suppose, if one were to pick one power out of the game and say "Absolutely NOT" it may as well be Takes No Stun.

BUT - I really don't see the other "Automaton powers" as being unbalancing in the same way. Does Not Bleed in particular is one that was actually allowed in one or two of the first edition games (Danger International I think) under the name "Control Bleeding." Given that things like bleeding and hit locations can be toggled on or off by campaign assumptions, it's like the powers "Does not Bleed" and "No Hit Locations" can be the default state of characters anyway.

 

Oh, and regarding Takes No Stun - unless the character has the more expensive version (which also, ironically, makes them easier to kill) then part of that power is that when the character takes Body damage, then just like a focus, the character loses 10 pts of STR, 1 pt of SPD, a sense, or a power (although Steve Long has ruled that the Takes No Stun power itself cannot be lost this way. Still it means that a zombie or animated skeleton can, conceivably at least, lose Life Support. What happens to a skeleton that suddenly needs to breathe and eat, but lacks the organs for doing so?) This means that such characters may be a challenge, but you definitely CAN stop them, and without destroying them. Unless they buy Takes No Stun at the highest level, in which case, they're just asking to get killed.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Have you seen the palindromedary's hit location chart?

 

 

 

 

Lucius Alexander

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Player Characters who might need Automoton Powers

 

Robotman of the Doom Patrol was often betaen badly enough to lose parts of his robot body, or have them damaged (45 point "takes no stun"). One could argue that he was "killed" on occasion, when all that was really left was his human brain pan, and a new body had to be built for him (Healing with Regen, a time delay, and some other limitations).

 

The Metal Men had similar experiences.

 

To Lucius' point, I suppose they could simply have a Phys Lim that, once their STUN is at a low enough level, they can only take recoveries with assistance, but Takes no Stun, with a recovery from death ability in some fashion, wouild seem just as accurate a simulation of the ability, and considerably more intuitive. Of course, like any power, the GM should watch for abilities that are going to cause problems in his game, and I would definitely consider Takes no Stun to be a "stop sign" power. The other issue comes to pricing, in that the automaton powers have not been playtested extensively as PC powers, but the book costs seem as reasonable a place to start as any.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Player Characters who might need Automoton Powers

 

It is incorrect to state Automaton's do not have a mind. They simply have a starting EGO Stat of 0. Which merely implies that Automaton's have no self will be default - that impliess nothing about the presence or lack of a mind. In fact they have an INT stat which strongly implies they DO have a mind.

 

They also, as Dust Raven pointed out, do have STUN and can be Stunned by default.

 

It would certainly be possibly to build a self willed entity in a Golem body by buying up the EGO Stat making them similar to any other character.

[keithcurtis]

Re: Player Characters who might need Automoton Powers

 

According to the game paradigm, Int does not imply a mind, merely the ability to act on and process information. Computers have an Int. That's why AI's have an Ego. Also, you cnanot buy up the EGO of a Golem, since they have no Ego, not a score of 0.

 

Keith "Just saying" Curtis

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Player Characters who might need Automoton Powers

 

I would generally expect a PC with automaton powers to be self-willed. He would have the same 10 Ego starting stat as anyone else, and mental powers would affect him.

 

BTW, for those who have a problem with a PC with automoton powers, would you also disallow an automaton power such as a Summon or follower for a PC? Robotman could just as easily be built by making the character a brain in a box, and the robot body a summoned automoton with all those automoton powers, or a follower. Robotman can buy a base with Healing for his robot "follower". It could also be a vehicle.

[Ndreare]

Re: Player Characters who might need Automoton Powers

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Have you seen the palindromedary's hit location chart?

 

 

Lucius Alexander

I have but I always was bugged by hit locations for groups.

 

3-5: Hit the head librarian

6-7: Hit a secretary librarian

8-12: Hit a standard scholar

13-14: Hit an new initiate

15-18: Hit a visitor to the library

 

 

So I make called shots whenever possible for the head librarian.