Powers gone awry.

[GCMorris]

Professor Chaos has totally chaotic powers. He has a personal teleport field gadget in his belt which teleport foes in a random direction when they get a certain distance from him. He can also use his Chaotic Random Ray Gun to cause someone to lose control of their powers. He doesn't turn the powers off but the victim can't control the power affected. The power is selected randomly.

 

My question is... How to implement the second ability?

[Chris Goodwin]

What exactly does "can't control their powers" mean?  Does it mean that a random power activates, perhaps at a random target?  Does it mean all of their powers activate?  

 

Once you've got that worked out then we can figure out how to achieve it.

[GCMorris]

A random power activates or shuts off or fires in a random direction.

[dsatow]

As in anything HERO related, your mileage and creation of the power may vary.  I can only speak for how I would build it.

 

I would make it a massive mind control with telepathy and effects can not be controlled.  Then generate a randomization chart.  Something like (you should generate your own).

 

1 - Some focus explodes (change active into EB explosion).  If no focus, go to 2.

2 - So aid type power (AID, healing, anything beneficial) hits a random target.  If no aiding ability, go to 3.

3 - All applicable attack powers go off (starting with AoEs) at ground zero.  Targeted attacks hit self or the ground.

4 - Some attack randomly goes off at random target.

5 - Some movement power runs rampant (treat as a pushed movement, if no applicable movement power go to 4)

6 - Something turns off (if not turns off go to 5)

[doccowie]

Mind Control is certainly a good option - but then Captain Chaos will be able to affect bricks easily, and have a lot of difficulty with mentalists, and not be able to affect automatons at all. Is that how you see it working in game?

Alternatively you have the old standbys of either Transform (to inflict a complication), or the Change Environment effect from one of the APGs that forces a limitation on powers?

Or even a multipower/VPP with Indirect (origin the opponent) and a pile of limitations ("Only to duplicate powers", "No Conscious Control"). That wouldn't mean that the opponent was unable to use their powers normally on their phase, though.

[Hugh Neilson]

Actually, CE to make a Power Skill roll at -X or roll on dsatow's random table seems like it could work. Definitely requires thinking on the fly, as all random results typically will.

[Tjack]

I tend to like quick & dirty solutions so as not to slow the game down. Check the game sheet of the player who got zapped and a couple of dice.

Roll 'em and count down that number of powers. That's what got affected.

It's truly random and there should be no way a player could think the GM was being unfair.

[PhilFleischmann]

A large OCV Drain might work to cause powers to fire in random directions, but not to go off unexpectedly, and it wouldn't work for non-attack powers.

 

How about a naked UAA Advantage, applied to a random power on the target?  That is to say, a "naked" UAA for up to X Active Points of power, with UAA on *that*, so the Prof can use it as an attack.  This would be a pretty high AP power, but you could then limit it with "Affects Random Power" -1, and "Affected Power Behaves Randomly" -1.  These are legitimate limitations, because if Professor Chaos is facing down BlastyMan, he might want BlastyMan's BlastyBeam to "randomly" fire at his sidekick, BlastyBoy - that would be the best possible outcome for Professor Chaos, but instead, he gets something random - like BlastyMan flying fifty feet up into the air and flipping upside-down.

[Hugh Neilson]

hmmm...how about a Naked UBO Advantage, purchased UAA, so I can force you to grant me your power, and now I get to use it...

 

Indirect, with the point of origin being the target of my UBO UAA, of course...

[Lucius]

One of the things Hero struggles with - the kind of power that is incredibly cosmically ultra-powerful but in practical terms is just not that useful.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

No, I wasn't talking about a palindromedary.....

 

 

 

[Hyper-Man]

The Palindromedarian Thread Necromancer strikes again!

 

The original description reminds me of the random nature of how red kryptonite affects Superman each time he is exposed. I think a massive Transform and a basic random roll as others described would be the easiest solution.

[massey]

For things like this, I like to use a Multipower with a few broadly defined slots.  I'm presuming Captain Chaos is a villain who is designed to take on a group of heroes.  Give him a good Speed advantage and you can fake what you need most of the time.   So let's assume you've got a 12D6 game with an average Spd of 5 or 6.

 

Captain Chaos' Chaotic Random Ray Gun

Multipower  105 pt multipower

--16D6 Mind Control (only to cause random power activation), telepathic

--Missile Deflection at range + Reflection

--10D6 Minor Transform to person whose powers are malfunctioning

--12D6 EB, variable special effect, indirect (comes from opponent)

--6D6 Entangle, variable special effect, indirect

--16D6 Suppress vs any one power

 

Now give Captain Chaos a 9 Speed so that he can take more actions than the people he's fighting.  Their powers can activate on phases that they don't have (i.e., when he goes with a 9 Spd).  There might be somebody somewhere with a power that he can't cause to activate accidentally (Robot Guy has 30 Mental Defense and 30 Power Defense, doesn't use ranged attacks, and has Desolidification-based powers).  But you adjust Captain Chaos' powers to account for whatever the PCs have.

[Watchman Mk. IV]

Suppress was the first thing that came to mind, but the ability to suppress any power would be ludicrously expensive.  Of course, he is a supervillain...

[Cassandra]

EB 6d6, Variable Special Effect [Any] (+1), No Conscious Control on VSEX (-1)

 

Total Cost: 37 Points

 

Mind Control 8d6, Telepathic (+1/4), Set Effect [Use Powers on Ally] (-1/2)

 

Total Cost: 33 Points