Cyberpathy vs. People's Foci

[Balabanto]

This is a complex issue, and with new editions come old problems.

 

Cyberpathy is one of those problems. The game does not adequately find a way of representing how Cyberpathy functions. Steve Peterson and George MacDonald never conceived of a power that could be used to control machines.

 

For intelligent machines with an Ego Score, the Machine Class of Minds works fine.

 

But how do you take over someone's powered armor suit, or technological device? The problem is, according to the current rules, this is how it works:

 

You use mind control on a machine class of minds.

 

1) Machine has no "Mind." It is automatically taken over. Some GM's rule this way.

 

2) Machine has no "Mind." Your PC fails. Some GM's rule this way.

 

Neither of these is really an acceptable alternative. I've brainstormed having the PC's INT be involved. This is a common trope in 4th edition, basing the Mind Control on INT, BUT...

 

What if the armored character didn't build his own stuff? Whose Int do you use? If a character is Foosh Gordon, and his devices are built by Doctor Zonkov, then does he use his INT, or Doctor Zonkov's INT? We all know that Champions is based on what you pay for. Foosh didn't pay for Dr. Zonkov's INT, so he can't use it to resist with.

 

Mental Defense vs. Machine Class of Minds: Yes. Characters should be able to build a device into their armor that prevents people from taking control of it. But, without a system that makes cyberpathy function, this works about as well as chewing grapes with a straw.

 

There is a correlatory solution, which is granularizing Mental Defense according to the class of minds it uses, but this makes Mental Defense much cheaper.

 

Why?

 

Some people build cyberkinesis with TK. So in theory, the Mental Defense should work against this, but again, it doesn't.

 

I've debated adding a Tech stat to the game, which would decouple Mental INT from technical INT, and this would solve the issue completely. Ego would become "Mind," and Int would become "Tech," and point values would have to switch around. I am not fond of this idea, because it punishes characters with gadgets too much.

 

What I currently do:

 

Calculate the Active Point Value of the Device that the Cyberpath is trying to take over.

 

The Cyberpath then uses his "Mind Control vs. Machine Class of Minds" to attack that value. If he beats it, he gets to do what he wants.

 

This means that taking over a single system or shutting it down is relatively easy. Shutting down the whole suit at once is relatively difficult.

 

Here then, are my questions.

 

How do you get cyberpathy and cyberkinesis to work within the rules of Champions WITHOUT breaking the game and turning armored characters and high-tech wunderkinds into swiss cheese? And by this, I mean the swiss cheese of mechanical nightmares where the system doesn't adequately represent the power.

 

How do you create a single unified system for dealing with this without breaking the game?

[lemming]

Re: Cyberpathy vs. People's Foci

 

I had a multipower with one of my characters that could do what you describe.

Mind Control or TK depending on what the GM thought would work better for that particular class. Defenses were either Power Defense, Mental Defense, or actual Defense depending on the target. We just didn't over think it. This was 3rd edition stuff.

[Balabanto]

Re: Cyberpathy vs. People's Foci

 

Yeah. We tend to divide AP by 5, and use that as the base value, but the problem remains. The system does not deal with this in a logical or reasonable way.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Cyberpathy vs. People's Foci

 

The Engineer in Villainy Amok has the power to override battlesuits. The CU uses Mind Control.

 

As a suggestion, given the absence of EGO in a battlesuit, you could

1) use the wearers EGO - this works nicely if some of the systems are cued by "mental commands from the wearer" type thing actually.

 

2) Give the machine an EGO = ActivePoints/5

 

3) Treat the Mind Control Dice similar to Dispel - you have to achieve an effect >= the Active Points of the system you want to control. This would make it hard to control all of a battlesuit, but you could use it to take over subsystems.

 

The systems "Power Defense" may be a more appropriate defense here, and I would consider it a +0 Advantage on the Machine Control power personally. Just to keep it simple. Or, if it's a Campaign Standard you're developing, allow Mental Defense "Only Vs Machine Control -1" for machine subsystems.

[Balabanto]

Re: Cyberpathy vs. People's Foci

 

Currently, I'm thinking of Granularizing Mental Defense as well as Flash Defense. (See my rant on the 6th edition boards about secondary senses and flash) The problem is working on ways to do it without breaking anything.

[Clonus]

Re: Cyberpathy vs. People's Foci

 

This is a complex issue, and with new editions come old problems.

 

Cyberpathy is one of those problems. The game does not adequately find a way of representing how Cyberpathy functions. Steve Peterson and George MacDonald never conceived of a power that could be used to control machines.

 

For intelligent machines with an Ego Score, the Machine Class of Minds works fine.

 

But how do you take over someone's powered armor suit, or technological device?

 

 

As I see it there are three ways to control a non-volitional machine.

 

 

1. By giving orders to it's non-volitional onboard computer. The correct approach is to use Telepathy (Machine) on it and tell it to do something. You will have to read its mind, find the correct passwords, then use them to tell it to do something.
   
2. By direct Mind-Machine-Interface. If this is supposed to be a device that is mentally controlled by the user, then the correct approach is to use Mind Control (Machine) on it and take that control away. The user gets to resist with his own Ego.
   
3. Lastly and most problematically in some ways, there are the machines that respond entirely to physical controls. There's a trigger, button, switch, or a lever. Pull the lever! Any electronics are entirely non-programmable. It can't be controlled by a "cyberpath" as such, but say, an electrical controller or a "technomage" might be able to affect it. This would be represented by the universal fallback for anything that can't be represented another way. Transform. If it's thought of as a power like GURPS's Ergokinesis, then you can just sub Mental Defense for Power Defense.
   

[jtelson]

Re: Cyberpathy vs. People's Foci

 

Hmmm,

 

Maybe Mind Control vs the operator with the sfx of controlling the suit to control an occupied suit, and TK to control an unoccupied suit?

 

How about a large versitile slavishly loyal Summon to represent controling unoccupied/uncontrolled machines?

[Balabanto]

Re: Cyberpathy vs. People's Foci

 

I think you misunderstand, JT. The problem isn't the powers of the cyberpath. The problem is the resistance test for said powers.

[jtelson]

Re: Cyberpathy vs. People's Foci

 

Sorry, I thought the question was 'How do you get cyberpathy and cyberkinesis to work within the rules of Champions WITHOUT breaking the game and turning armored characters and high-tech wunderkinds into swiss cheese? And by this, I mean the swiss cheese of mechanical nightmares where the system doesn't adequately represent the power.'

[Balabanto]

Re: Cyberpathy vs. People's Foci

 

It is, JT. But the thing is, everything else in the game "Attacks a defense."

 

This doesn't seem to adequately locate a space within the game for which defense it should be and how it should work. That's why it's kludgy. When I attack your body, you resist with PD. When I attack with energy, you resist with ED.

 

When I attack your cybernetic systems, I resist with...

 

So far, GA seems to have the right of it, which is a system I already use, but is kludgy.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Cyberpathy vs. People's Foci

 

The problem we really run into is that Cyberpathy is a Special Effect, not a Mechanic. Which means you could encounter two games doing it two completely different ways requiring two completely different mechanics.

 

Not to mention the dozens of ways you can model any given "machine" in the system.

 

You're right, every Attack has a Defense. But most Attacks Target a Character. Cyberpathy is, most of the time, Targeting other Powers.

 

And the only Powers that do that are Adjustment Powers. And even then you are still usually Targeting the 'Character' (Firestorm's Fire Ability instead of Firestorm's Firey Aura as an example). And there is no "Control" type Adjustment Power.

 

There's no easy universal way to give a Power itself Defenses.

 

You could always pull the Unified Defense from Ultimate Energy Projector, which would work decently enough.

 

Worst case scenario - make a Power and make a Defense specifically geared towards this. . .

[jtelson]

Re: Cyberpathy vs. People's Foci

 

Breaks down to two effects.

 

1: Gain access to the actions and abilities of another character: Which is Mind Control

2: Gain a temporary follower with abilities you don't normally possess (Animated suit of power armor): Which feels like Summon

 

The defense against being controlled by someone is Mental Defense/Ego, the limitation on a follower is points. Everything else is getting bogged down in the sfx; It seems like you may be self kludging.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Cyberpathy vs. People's Foci

 

The trick is...

 

 

why would EGO stop you from turning on someone's wrist-saw?

You're not telling them to turn it on, you're turning it on. . .

[jtelson]

Re: Cyberpathy vs. People's Foci

 

Well, the game does need an Activate power to be sure

 

I guess why wouldn't EGO stop you

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Cyberpathy vs. People's Foci

 

Limited Telekinesis might be a good alternative approach for this.

 

Although the description is not a classic 'TK' sfx the Hero Power Telekinesis built with appropriate adders and modifiers (like Fine Control, IPE, AOE 1 Hex Accurate, Limited Power - Only to "X" etc..) could cover most Cyberpathy "control" situations quite well and already suggests a type of defense: Hardened.

 

Why Hardened (defenses) you say?

 

Because as you probably already know, TK already has some inherent 'Indirect' qualities built in to start with. If an opponent's battlesuit has a Hardened Force Field then it can't be controlled using this form of Cyberpathy unless the TK was also built with additional levels of Indirect as well.

 

HM

[Clonus]

Re: Cyberpathy vs. People's Foci

 

Limited Telekinesis might be a good alternative approach for this.

 

Although the description is not a classic 'TK' sfx the Hero Power Telekinesis built with appropriate adders and modifiers (like Fine Control, IPE, AOE 1 Hex Accurate, Limited Power - Only to "X" etc..) could cover most Cyberpathy "control" situations quite well and already suggests a type of defense: Hardened.

 

 

Telekinesis really doesn't do a very good job of representing the kind of power where you make power flow past the switch and turn on someone's wrist saw. It's a clumsy makeshift approach because the power isn't usually supposed to represent the light switch being turned from off to on so someone else can turn it back to off. That's why I prefer "Transform: Gadget Off to On" or vice versa.

[KA.]

Re: Cyberpathy vs. People's Foci

 

The trick is...

 

 

why would EGO stop you from turning on someone's wrist-saw?

You're not telling them to turn it on, you're turning it on. . .

 

I guess the question is, what actually turns on the wrist saw?

 

If it is controlled by my mind, through some sort of cybernetic hookup, then, since my instinctive reflexive response would be to turn it back off, EGO does seem reasonable.

 

If it is controlled by some sort of mechanical switch, then we would be looking at TK to turn the switch ON vs. the armored character's STR trying to turn it OFF.

 

I don't think, in either case, that this should be easy to do.

 

Unless you have access to the blueprints for Iron Man's armor, how the heck would you know which one of the millions of circuits activate his boot jets?

 

I see a major difference between being able to take over a robot with no "free will" attached, to taking over someone else's Focus, Powered Armor, etc.

 

I am not even sure if something like "cyberpathy" should be able to work for this sort of thing.

 

It seems like you basically need to be able to take over the Character's mind to be able to control his foci for this to be in any way balanced.

 

At least the way most people seem to play the game.

 

Now if you are a strict enforcer of "A -1/2 Limitation means you cannot use the power about 1/3 of the time" then having people take over your Armor, Foci, etc. every other adventure would be fine.

 

But if you don't usually do things this way, then having Cybermancer be able to take over Dr. Destroyer's armor and make Dr. D into his houseboy may be a little jarring for most players.

 

KA.

[jtelson]

Re: Cyberpathy vs. People's Foci

 

The trick is...

 

 

why would EGO stop you from turning on someone's wrist-saw?

You're not telling them to turn it on, you're turning it on. . .

 

Rethought this; I had been thinking in terms of Powered Armor and on that I'd stay pretty firm but I'm thinking this is akin to a power duplication pool.

 

The effect of turning on someone's wrist saw is a continuous killing attack over there somewhere that you have a measure on control over. The effect of firing that guys rockets boots would be flight UAA (perhaps the only place I've seen it as valid). The pool would need to be more and less versitile that the power duplication one since it would include things like 'I tint his visor til he can't see'

[Balabanto]

Re: Cyberpathy vs. People's Foci

 

The problem with that theory, and the "Ego is as good at resisting this as anything else" is that objects in Champions do not have ego scores.

 

The "Transform Off to On"/"Transform On To Off" is that the transform is cheesy. If it were that simple, how many dice of transformation do I need? I need 2 dice penetrating, pretty much ever, because no one hardens their power defense, and all foci have ONE body. That's right. Fragile foci have one DEF. But all Foci have ONE body. You do not need to transform the character to transform their focus. This is way too broken for it's point cost.

[OddHat]

Re: Cyberpathy vs. People's Foci

 

Quick and Dirty suggestion, and note that this would be a campaign specific house rule.

 

Make Cyberpathy a +1/2 advantage to Dispel, based on the same price model as Transform (i.e. if you're doing enough damage to destroy something, you might as well be able to change it into something else).

 

So, your character buys 15d6 Dispel, Cyberpathy (+1/2), Cumulative (+1/2), All Gadget Powers Simultaneously (+2), 180 active points. Given a few phases, he can gain control of all of the Gadget based powers of a target, up to 90 active points each. Also as per the Transform model, there should be a reversal condition (re-booting the gadget being one simple possibility).

 

Advantages and limitations could then be applied to the base power to more closely simulate what you're looking for.

 

The advantage to this method is that it folds all of Cyberpathy into one power, rather than reqiring a list as per the official rules. The disadvantage is that it's a pure house rule.

[Tasha]

Re: Cyberpathy vs. People's Foci

 

The trick is...

 

 

why would EGO stop you from turning on someone's wrist-saw?

You're not telling them to turn it on, you're turning it on. . .

 

The Cyberpath is overcoming the Suit wearer's mental commands to the suit. That's why you use ego. One could even take skill levels with the powersuit and apply it to the Defensive ECV of the suit.

 

I guess it depends on the special effect of the Powersuit. Some powersuits are highly computerized, and those computers control all aspects of suit operation. Other suits have minimal or very primitive Computer Control (ie manual actuators or localized microcontrollers). So it would make sense for a Cyberpath to be able to "hack" the Suit with the Sophisticated Computer. The other kind of suit would need Fine manipulation TK to gain control of said suit. Though with TK being kind of weak and most power suits having strength bonuses built in, TK wouldn't control the suit for long.

 

Perhaps Cyberpathy should be purchased with "Requires a Computer Programing Skill roll" and that it is opposible with skill vs skill contests. (ie Comp Prog, vs either Comp Prog or Suit Operation).

 

I do think that for fairness to the Players all Mind Controls should be vs their Ego and Ego Defense. Special effects shouldn't be an excuse to hose the players, and give an attacking Special effect the ability to ignore all normal defenses. Perhaps if the player wants to go off of the suit's Int/Ego they should purchase AVLD on the attack or NND, to represent how much more powerful the effect is.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Cyberpathy vs. People's Foci

 

using the Targets EGO only assumes that the suit is in fact powered by Mental Commands.

 

If it's not controlled that way we still need another method. Preferably a slightly more consistent one. But I'm willing to adjust each use based on the Target's specific SFX.

 

 

My next Powersuit will be controlled by Chutzpah!!

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Cyberpathy vs. People's Foci

 

I think this discussion indicates that building a truly complete Cyberpath character would probably require some form of VPP to cover all the possible ways they could affect the wide and subtle variety of tech based foci.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Cyberpathy vs. People's Foci

 

Possibly.

 

I think a single Mind Control vs Machines works great as a Control Power.

 

And the target could logically vary in difficulty based specifically on the Tech involved (just like the Target varies a great deal in Characters depending on EGO+Mental Defense).

 

For directly Mentally Controlled units that are actively attached, you need to overcome the currently controllers EGO. (in this case Mental Defense applies).

For switch controlled items assume a Target of Active Points/5.

[Clonus]

Re: Cyberpathy vs. People's Foci

 

I think this discussion indicates that building a truly complete Cyberpath character would probably require some form of VPP to cover all the possible ways they could affect the wide and subtle variety of tech based foci.

 

Multipower would be cheaper since you only need three powers. It's either Mindcontrol (machine), Telepathy (machine) and Telekinesis (Only versus machines) or instead of Telekinesis, my preferred option, Transform.