How To Severely Infuriate Both Mechanon And Your GM

[Brandi]

I definitely would let it work. Once. It's a good idea! But Mechanon will learn from it...

 

... and I can just see Utility, after hearing about it on the superhero grapevine: "Hey, this guy's smart! I'm gonna have a lot of fun planning out how to hand his ass to him..."

[Bazza]

Originally posted by Adventus

Wolverine did do brain surgery on Sabertooth once.

 

In my campaign, Dr. Destroyer found one of Mechanon's bases. He figured out how it worked and how to reprogram him as his loyal subjects.

That sound's like what Dr Doom did to Ultron in Secret Wars, were you inspired from that comic?

[Guest Champsguy]

It's a great idea. I hear a few people pointing out why Mechanon would be too smart, etc, etc. I think they might just be a little worried that a player would try this. Mechanon is smart, but I wouldn't think he's too imaginitive.

 

This sounds like a way the Avengers would have destroyed Ultron (not that Ultron had a self-destruct or anything). I'd let this work, once. However, I might be tempted to say that this technique has been used before. After all, people other than the PCs have fought Mechanon. That would explain why he has an Invisible Mind Link (he already learned from that mistake).

 

Note, however, that I don't think I'd ever let any form of communication be totally invisible. I don't care if he bought Mind Link as Invisible, if it's radio signals, it can be detected by HRRH (though perhaps at big minuses).

[assault]

Originally posted by Champsguy

After all, people other than the PCs have fought Mechanon.

 

Well, in my campaign, this might not be true. My universe essentially consists of the characters in back of the 1st/2nd Edition book, plus a few characters I particularly like from elsewhere.

 

There aren't many NPC superheroes: Crusader, Starburst, Shrinker(!), and possibly the Zen Team* from Allies. A few villains might pitch in against Mechanon too.

 

I'm still wavering over what to do about agencies - I'd like to eliminate them, but they are such a "classic Champions feature" that they probably should exist in my deliberately mostly-retro world.

 

Alan

 

*In Corporations, ZenCorp is a competitor of Bio-Investigations.

[Lupus]

Originally posted by Champsguy

However, I might be tempted to say that this technique has been used before.

Exactly. Before I use any new technology, or tactic, or anything like that, I ask: 'if it's so damn simple, why hasn't anyone done it before?' If I can't come up with a convincing answer, I assume that either it has been done before, or it's impossible.

[DocMan]

Originally posted by Lupus

Exactly. Before I use any new technology, or tactic, or anything like that, I ask: 'if it's so damn simple, why hasn't anyone done it before?' If I can't come up with a convincing answer, I assume that either it has been done before, or it's impossible.

 

Um. It hasn't been done before because no one EVERY tries the simple plans. They are discounted as being "too obvious" and brushed off as having been done before or being impossible.

 

This is ESPECIALLY true in a game where emphais is put on how smart the villians are and how hard the heros have to work to solve their puzzles. In this kind of environment, you can create an adventure where all the answers are the obvious simple answers and it will vex the players to no end!

 

As far as Mental link, with IPE goes, how hard is it for a character to buy Detect Invisible, Only works with Mental Awareness and HRRH? As long as you've got points to spend, any defense can be overcome.

 

Doc

[Kevin Scrivner]

Why not steal a page from one of DC's old miniseries and have the team mystic do a Major Transform: Metal into Strawberry Jell-O?

[Balok]

It's true that sometimes people don't try simple plans, and sometimes those simple plans would work.

 

But most of the time, simple plans don't work because they're easily anticipated.

 

Suppose YOU had multiple bodies, and it was your habit to destroy one rather than have it fall into the hands of your enemies? Now consider what precautions YOU might take that would prevent your enemies from exploiting that weakness?

 

Usually, plans that exploit weaknesses work because they exploit weaknesses the opponent either doesn't know about, or doesn't consider significant. A way of destroying my body would be damn significant to me, and I would take a variety of precautions to make sure that the mechanism served me and only me.

 

That doesn't mean that a clever player couldn't still exploit it. It does mean that anything the GM considers obvious is likely to be obvious to a smart character -- especially one who is, technically, smarter than the GM!

 

One of the things that really irks me is bad writing, and one of the worst kinds of bad writing is the kind where characters have to behave stupidly because otherwise the story would end in ten minutes. Characters I run behave stupidly only if that's their nature. Mechanon is no one's dummy, and it wouldn't be right, in my view, to run him as though he was.

[DocMan]

You're entitled to your opinion, but I think you're missing something about the Mechanon mindset.

 

You said

Suppose YOU had multiple bodies, and it was your habit to destroy one rather than have it fall into the hands of your enemies?

 

Now look at what that implies. As long as Mechanon's intelligence continues, the bodies are expendable.

 

How much effort are you going to put into protecting an expendable resource. Especially one that is easily replacable. Most especially when you've got more important things to do, like ridding the planet of this nasty biological infection it's suffering from.

 

I don't think that Mechanon would bother with such complex safeguards to his demolition charges until someone else triggers one and interferes with the achievement of one of his objectives. Once that happens, Mechanon will re-design the system, and then seek to eliminate the bozo who found the weakness in the first place.

 

If Mechanon could really think of EVERY possible attack in advance, he would have won a long time ago. No matter how smart he is, there's always something he missed. Sometimes it will be something simple. Not often, but sometimes.

 

Doc

[Black Rose]

Why do I have this sudden urge to...

 

A. Start a Champions campaign

B. Feature Mechanon as a main baddie (possibly at significantly lower strength, so the PCs can be the cause of his power escalation:D)

C. Give Mechanon a personality (if not motives) closer to HAL9000 than the writeup. "Thank you, Nifty!Justice!Persons, for the opportunity to field test my upgrades. I see that, while my primary attack needs improvement, the secondary organic restrainers work as predicted, and my defencive systems need no more than a minor recalibration to account for extreme temperature changes within a short time period. I look forward to our next encounter."

[J4y]

I don't think that Mechanon would bother with such complex safeguards to his demolition charges until someone else triggers one and interferes with the achievement of one of his objectives.

 

Uh, having a secure connection is anything but complex. Even if you fail to consider that off the shelf standard encryption today which is stone age tech for Mechanon would make that scheme laughable, the fact is that without that sort of protection, if Mechanon was broadcasting a destruct signal, he wouldn't use the exact same destruct code for each of his bodies... think about it for a second, it's an accident waiting to happen on any spare or partly built bodies.

 

That plan is litereally impossible, it's right up there with using skirt guns on Mechanon to make him rust to death. In order for it to work it would require a super powered hacking, super powered luck or some similar super attack to succeed.