Green lantern

[Kefrem]

how would one(roughly) duplicate greenlanterns powers/power ring?

[Chaosliege]

Depends.. Are you on a point restriction?

[Kefrem]

heh well id like to keep it reasonable...is it possible to get a starting character that can get the base look and feel...but whatever works

[nblade]

I'm thought about this off and on several times. There are three basic ways to do it.

 

1) use VPP only. While this has the most flexiblity it is a huge point hog.

2) use a MP. This is a bit more reasonable, but you get stuck a few minor things that GL should do.

3) use a MP for the common powers, ie Flight, EB, FF, etc and use a small VPP for the misc power usages. Personally this is the approach I think that works well, you get the normal everday things GL is doing at normal costs and then only have to pony up points for a small VPP that allows for other creative uses.

 

Well that's just my own non-sense for people to reject.

[Law Dog]

I concur with #3.

 

Just remember that every Green Lantern so far has been somewhat of a dullard when using the ring. Although the ring can at least in theory do anything (especially Kyle's ring), the wielder always seems to use it badly. Ice once used Guy's ring to cure Professor Ivo(at least I think it was him) from the curse that was turning him into a living immortal statue and when Kyle had all the central battery power and went by the moniker of Ion, he was bending time and space to his will and then used the power to reincarnate the Guardians. When you get down to it, it's one powerful tool.

[TechnoViking]

Originally posted by nblade

3) use a MP for the common powers, ie Flight, EB, FF, etc and use a small VPP for the misc power usages. Personally this is the approach I think that works well, you get the normal everday things GL is doing at normal costs and then only have to pony up points for a small VPP that allows for other creative uses.

 

This would work best. I think about 95% of the powers GL does in the comic are:

1. Telekinesis: Big Giant Hand, Various carridges to fly around other people.

2. Force Wall: Big green bubble, glowing green walls.

3. Energy Blast and/or RKA: Various weapons as need.

4. Entangle: Green cages, etc...

5. Flight

6. Force Field w/ linked life support.

 

and a small VPP for everything else. The GL in the Justice League cartoon is less creative, and I would not even give him a VPP (my one big disappointment with the cartoon).

 

One thing, has GL ever done telepathy or other psionic powers with his ring, and any incarnation?

 

Mike

[nblade]

Originally posted by Mike Basinger

and a small VPP for everything else. The GL in the Justice League cartoon is less creative, and I would not even give him a VPP (my one big disappointment with the cartoon).

 

One thing, has GL ever done telepathy or other psionic powers with his ring, and any incarnation?

 

Mike

 

Agreed, the JL Cartoon GL seem to not be very creative at all.

 

As to question, the closest I think I've seen is a form of FTL communication, but its not really telepathic.

 

To add a twist to this whole power issue, I remember an Issue, I think it was the Emerald Dawn Mini-Series, where it seemed as if the ring actually had what I would classify in hero terms a computer system.

 

This leads me to a question of my own. Would you classify the ring as focus, OHID, or SFX? While it seems to be a focus, Its almost seems to be SFX in many of the comic issue. (Guess it really depends on the story needs).

[Southern Cross]

Green Lantern

 

I'd treat the power ring as OHID,myself as the ring user can summon it by mental command.Incidentally the power ring has probably always had a computer system,as I remember Green Lanterns accessing the ring database well before those rotters Priest,Gerard Jones and Ron Marz got their twisted paws on the book.

[Chaosliege]

Re: Green Lantern

 

Originally posted by Southern Cross

I'd treat the power ring as OHID,myself as the ring user can summon it by mental command.Incidentally the power ring has probably always had a computer system,as I remember Green Lanterns accessing the ring database well before those rotters Priest,Gerard Jones and Ron Marz got their twisted paws on the book.

 

I agree with this. While it looks like a focus, it's not limiting enough to be one.

 

As for the power structure, I would use a MP and an EC. MP for the most common attack powers and EC or things like flight and FF.

[Southern Cross]

Green Lantern

 

Since the DC Heroes writeup gave all the power rings Omni-Power (which enables the character to mimic any Power in the game for an HP fee) I'd give the Hero System writeup a VPP of between 35-60 Active Points.

[dataweaver]

It takes some effort and research, but the abilities of Green Lantern's ring can be catalogued fairly well:

 

• energy constructs (both physical and intangible)
  
• personal force field and life support
  
• flight, FTL travel, and time travel
  
• Desolidification
  
• limited Mind tampering and body alteration
  
• The ability to control the ring from a distance
  
• The ability to duplicate the ring
  
• A built-in "computer" with Universal Translator
  
• A built-in "homing beacon" and "emergency beacon"
  
• The ability to communicate with other rings
  
• The existence of an entire world "within" the ring
  

 

Likewise with its restrictions:

 

• The ring requires focused willpower to function; therefore, anything that disrupts the wielder's concentration (such as a sufficiently successful Presence Attack) will disrupt the ring's abilities.
  
• The ring needs to be recharged on occasion; it can get the recharge from a dedicated power battery, but it can also get it from another ring or from a ring construct; all of the rings prior to the most recent one also had a twenty-four-hour time limit on their usage, possibly instead of the "END Battery" nature of the current version.
  
• Previous rings have had weaknesses built into them, most commonly to the color yellow or to wood. This restriction is apparently not essential to the operation of the ring, as has been claimed in the past.
  

 

(The above was derived from the Green Lanter Corps website, specifically http://www.glcorps.org/rings.html.)

 

Of the above, the hardest to put into game terms is the "energy construct" power - you can come close with Images and a variation of Force Wall and TK (where the Force Wall is capable of being moved and/or reshaped, and the TK represents the force which the Wall is able to exert), but there have been instances of the ring creating things like fire extinguishers or autodoc chambers - devices which do things beind hitting hard or pushing things around. And then there are the instances where the constructs have the shapes and mobility of living creatures, if not the minds; they're not really the same thing as Summoning, but there are similarities.

[Blackout]

When everything is said and done, the power ring is only limited in what it can do by the willpower and imagination of its wielder. The willpower is easy to replicate in Champs, just slap an EGO roll on it. Imagination isn't really quantifiable in game mechanics (though a case could be made for INT), and I think that's better left to the player.

 

A good deal of what the ring does could be chalked up to simple special effects. When Kyle creates some kinda bizarro manga-mecha thing that walks over and smacks down a bad guy, all that really is is a physical energy blast.

 

So, where does that leave you with this? For my money, I'd make it a VPP that requires an EGO roll, and have a smaller multipower for the effects that are used regularly (flight, force field, etc.).

[dataweaver]

If you're going to play up the "the only real limits are imagination and willpower", VPP is definitely the way to go - but forget the "Requires an EGO Roll" bit; VPP already requires a control skill to retool its capabilities, and that better reflects the role of creativity in the process. Willpower (and thus EGO) comes into play in terms of how large the pool is; just tell the player that the VPP can never have more points in it than, say, 5 times the character's EGO...

 

But in truth, the "boundless options" aspect of GL's ring is not different from the tendency of Batman or Iron Man to have just the right gadget for the job at hand - it's more a matter of a comic book convention than it is an actual superpower.