Whipping myself into shape

[Kdansky]

Yeah, crappy pun, sorry for that. If you're a player in my group, you're not allowed to read on.

 

 

 

 

I am currently designing a character with this power: He can restructure his own body, but not like shapeshift (cosmetic), but rather permanently, like crafting a blade onto his arm and killing people with it. My take: VPP of some sort. I'm troubled with this problem: Assume you create a Ranged Attack with this ("My arm is now a gun"), technically, you will shoot bullets made out of your own body (ow), except if you get your hands onto a magazine to use. I have no clue how to model that. The effect I'm searching for: If you "throw away" your axe-arm, you lose some portion of the AP of the VPP until you can pick it up again, similar to gadgeteers who lose a gun. Neat builds?

[jtelson]

Re: Whipping myself into shape

 

First pass; Add side effects (Drain VPP) or Lockout to builds in the pool that work that way?

[Kdansky]

Re: Whipping myself into shape

 

Works, but it's rather crude, I think. Also, Draining Frameworks is usually involving more math than I'd like during play.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Whipping myself into shape

 

Get yourself a VPP and add a limitation to the control cost: takes Body damage as a side effect of using powers that require the removal of mass.

 

Probably about -1/4 at best, maybe even -0 on the control cost, worth a bit more on the individual slot powers, but I have not costed it out.

 

Basically you can make your hand into a gun but if you shoot off a magazine of bullets you are removing mass from your body and so taking Body damage. If you make an axe and use it hand to hand, you are fine, but chuck it away (or get disarmed) and it is going to hurt - that is a bit of you lying over there...

 

You can heal the Body damage normally or even take a VPP slot allowing you to regenerate by absorbing apropriate mass from soemthing else (if I allowed this I'd require extra time or somesuch so that you couldn't recover the Body damage until after combat).

[Wayside]

Re: Whipping myself into shape

 

I'd avoid the whole issue of firing bullets made of my own body and make the power for whatever projectile weapon use recoverable charges defined as any object of opportunity. The side of a car, scrap metal, concrete. (Assuming this character can absorb the material and change it into what he wants, I assumed he can since he would be changing his body into bullets)

 

And depending on how fast and easily you want him to do it, you could even just make it a special effect, not an actual charges mechanic. So you could take OAF (Objects of opportunity; scrap metal/metallic objects), or even have the power not limited at all if he can use pretty much anything for his ammunition. (Ie the character pauses in the street, puts his hand to the concrete, and opens fire, absorbing up peices of concrete and firing them out his other arm.)

 

So, when he changes his body so that he can form a weapon, how would he end up losing the weapon? Does he form these weapons in his hand, not actually form his hand into these weapons?

 

If he changes his hand into the weapon the point is pretty well moot as he can't lose it, but if he is actually creating OAF in this manner then you could define the VPP as being unable to change the points allocated to that power until he gets the focus back. You could also just do what sean suggested and take the side effect limitation. But define an ammount of Active points that are lost from the power if you lose the item.

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: Whipping myself into shape

 

I've always required limitations on powers in VPPs to have an impact on the whole VPP. I'm not sure how to say this clearly other than with an example or two:

 

Veepeep has a 60-point pool, into which he puts the following power:

12d6 EB, 16 Charges - this uses up the entire 60 points of the pool.

He then fires four shots, he now has 12 shots left.

Then he changes the pool to a different power.

If you let him have any 60-active power he wants, the Charges Limitation was not a limitation at all - you'd be essentially giving him 0 END cost for free, which would have made his EB a 90-point power, which doesn't fit into his pool.

Therefore, since he's used 1/4 of the allotted charges, when he changes the pool, he only has 45 Points available - I'd allow the power to still be 60 Active Points, but it can be no more than 45 Real Points. So he could have a 6d6 Entangle, with 8 Charges (I know that's only 40 Real points, so he still has 5 more points to use if he wants).

If he then uses 4 charges of the Entangle, he's used up half of his 40-real-point power, and if he then changes powers again, he'll only have 20 (half of the 40) + 5 (that he didn't use) = 25 Real Points to work with.

And of course, by default, Veepeep's charges renew the next day.

 

Another example: Veepeep takes this power in his pool:

12d6 EB, OAF - 60 Active, 30 Real

Then the OAF gets taken away. So he changes his power. If he can still have the full 60 Active/60 Real points, then the OAF hasn't really limited him.

He is down to only 30 Real until he gets the focus back or builds a new one. And as with the charges, it can be assumed by default that he can replace his lost focus back at HQ - between adventures/off-screen - if necessary.

 

Whatever you do, you shouldn't let characters take a Limiter Power in a VPP and then freely switch to a new power as soon as the limitation starts to be a problem, otherwise it was never really a limitation to begin with. And you all remember the rule, right? Say it with me: ALTILIWNP.

[Tonio]

Re: Whipping myself into shape

 

That's especially true when dealing with "Cosmic" VPPs (those that don't require time nor a skill roll to change). In a regular VPP, a Charges limitation is actually limiting, since you might be caught w/o any charges, and would need to take time to change your powers, and might even fail at that.

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: Whipping myself into shape

 

I'd say it's still true when you need to take time to change powers, only to a slightly lesser extent. If I have a Fire EB with 16 charges, use them all up, can I then change to a Lightning EB with 16 charges? It's essentially getting 0 END for free in exchange for "wasting" one phase after each 16 shots.

[Lord Fyre]

Re: Whipping myself into shape

 

Get yourself a VPP and add a limitation to the control cost: takes Body damage as a side effect of using powers that require the removal of mass.

 

Probably about -1/4 at best, maybe even -0 on the control cost, worth a bit more on the individual slot powers, but I have not costed it out.

 

Basically you can make your hand into a gun but if you shoot off a magazine of bullets you are removing mass from your body and so taking Body damage. If you make an axe and use it hand to hand, you are fine, but chuck it away (or get disarmed) and it is going to hurt - that is a bit of you lying over there...

 

You can heal the Body damage normally or even take a VPP slot allowing you to regenerate by absorbing apropriate mass from soemthing else (if I allowed this I'd require extra time or somesuch so that you couldn't recover the Body damage until after combat).

 

You would want a reasonable exchange rate for the bullets though. 1 Body per shot may be a bit much.

[Lord Fyre]

Re: Whipping myself into shape

 

And, never whip yourself.

 

Find a partner(s) of your preferred gender and have her/him do it for you . . .