Reducing Time on Cramming

[Cassandra]

I was thinking about Rogue, and was wondering how to simulate her ability to pick up skills with her power. How does one reduce the amount of time in Cramming?

[Hyper-Man]

Speed Reading.

[Greywind]

It's part of her power framework. She usually doesn't retain skills any longer than she does powers.

[Lucius]

Yeah, it's pretty much absorbed however she absorbs any other Powers.

 

But when I do feel a need to give someone faster Cramming, I use Trigger, the standard way to get around such inconveniences. I don't think the description of Speed Reading or Cramming allows the one to speed up the other appreciably. And for a lot of Skills, Speed Reading pretty irrelevant.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

You can't learn to ride a palindromedary from reading a book

[Christopher]

Someone posted an approach by giving people lots of "Skill Levels, Only to counteract the penalty for doing skill fast". But I am not certain this approach can affect Cramming.

 

But for Rogue I think the easiest way for the GM would be to allow Skills in her Mimik VPP.

If this is a gamebreaker, then Rogues ability to absorb Skills is the problem - not the Cosntruct of the VPP.

[Steve]

The Marvel villain Taskmaster is also able to mimic any physical skill he sees, and Cramming would not work for this. Another vote for the VPP approach, I think.

[Greywind]

Does the Taskmaster ever lose any of those skills, though? That's one major difference between him and Rogue.

[Cassandra]

I see Rogue as a flying brick thanks to an early encounter with Ms. Marvel. Her mutant power comes off like an always on Ego Attack linked to Telepathy. The Ego Attack would have No Range and Must Follow Grab to simulate the skin to skin touching, along with Gestures (removal of Rogue's Gloves).

 

Cramming seemed to be a way for Rogue to gain skills on a temporary basic. Let's say that it takes 6 hours to use Cramming. You purchase a reduction of time for Cramming, along with Linked to Ego Attack, No Range, Must Follow Grab, and Gestures, and a [1c/Duration 1 Turn/Recoverable].

[Greywind]

Rogue is a classic Mimic Pool that includes skills on top of the Flight, Strength, and memories she pilfered from Carol.

[psyber624]

Technically her power works like a dual linked Transform as she has been shown to steal other mutants powers, not just copy them.

[Greywind]

Doesn't have to be a mutant.

[Christopher]

Rogues abilities differ between Interpretations, as with any long running Super.

In some her "memory and skill copy" comes closer to Telepathy at the memory level then actually copying Skills.

You don't need KS: Quantumteleporters to disable one, just the knowledge of "Critical part whose removal will not cause an explsion". Wich can be easily pilfered from the mind of the person who build it.

All this part of her ability does is reveal an information the target knows but won't or can't part with. That isn't copying skills, that is Telepathy.

Is there anything rogue can do with her "Copy Skills" ability that Professor X could not also do by having a open full access connection to the targets mind?

 

Actually her usual time limit on how long she retains stuff doesn't even allow her to use any Skills meaningfully. So she can Sneak for 4 minutes? Average infiltration + getting out takes more then that.

She now has the comparative skills of an english teacher? Well class won't start till next morning and it takes longer then 4 minutes.

 

Remmeber that the common language term "Skill" and the Hero System Term "Skill" may not cover similar things.

 

 

Edit: Perhaps to get a feel for the whole "Rogue as contact Telepath" idea, a comparsion.

Other or "normal" Telepaths only open a connection to the Brain over a very slow network (wireless) and searching/downloading a file.

Rogue on the other hand goes to the physical hardware, copies everything into her own brain (running processes and data), then proceeds to just read the stuff from her own Brain. One big dump instead of an open connection.

It's the difference between remote access and cloning the system.