JK7 Posted July 1, 2019 Report Share Posted July 1, 2019 Hi, I just got into this system, and I was wondering how I would make a power that would let me swap places with a duplicate. This is what I had so far: Teleportation 50m: 50 CP Safe for Aquatic: +5 CP Armor Piercing: +1/4 Safe Blind Travel: +1/4 Trigger: 1 condition, no time, full phase reset: +1/4 Locations only: -1 Linked: Must use lesser, must use both: -1/2 Real Cost: 38 Linked to: Teleportation 50m: 50 CP Safe for Aquatic: +5 CP Armor Piercing: +1/4 Safe Blind Travel: +1/4 Usable as Attack: +1 Locations Only: -1 Real Cost: 68 As you can see, the total cost for what I have drawn up costs 106 CP, and is by far my most expensive power. I was wondering if there were any cheaper alternative. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dialNforNinja Posted July 1, 2019 Report Share Posted July 1, 2019 Being able to switch with an expendable dummy is pretty powerful so it's not too surprising if it comes out to a high point total. I know I'm not seeing any better alternatives as described; I'm hardly an expert in the system though. Do you specifically need to switch with a functional duplicate, or would teleporting and leaving an Image or a new, very weak duplicate behind work? Can you reduce the cost a little more by specifying that it can only be used on your character and a duplicate, or is being able to switch with any similar target part of the intent? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JK7 Posted July 1, 2019 Author Report Share Posted July 1, 2019 (edited) Yes it needs to be a duplicate. The plan was for it to be only the duplicate, but I dont know if that gets me a bigger discount than the fixed location limitation Edited July 1, 2019 by JK7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottishFox Posted July 1, 2019 Report Share Posted July 1, 2019 Is the duplicate being created with the Duplication power? If so you might be able to have the real/primary character have just the teleport and then duplicates could have Teleportation built with the Trigger advantage to cause them to instantly teleport to where the real character was when he teleports to them. That way you don't have to have such an expensive ability on the main character. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JK7 Posted July 1, 2019 Author Report Share Posted July 1, 2019 (edited) I was thinking about that but I thought there would be a timing issue. That definitely sounds like the best option though. Thanks. I have a question though if I do this: If I apply the trigger advantage onto a power, can I still use it manually? Edited July 1, 2019 by JK7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottishFox Posted July 2, 2019 Report Share Posted July 2, 2019 You can pay an extra +1/4 advantage for a second condition on a power with a Trigger to have a 2nd condition that will activate it. Duplicate could set the 2nd trigger option to something like when I say Poof or when I snap my fingers. That way they preserve their own ability to teleport and have something that will allow for your instant swap with the Real character. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
massey Posted July 2, 2019 Report Share Posted July 2, 2019 Of course there’s a cheaper way to do it! There’s always a cheaper way to do it. How is the duplication built? What is the basic description of the character’s power? How would you explain it without using game terms? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassandra Posted July 2, 2019 Report Share Posted July 2, 2019 Have both you and the duplicate be able to teleport would be the simplest way. A mind link would allow you to see each other's location and safely teleport to it, and you can take a limitation that is the mind link's sole function. drunkonduty 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JK7 Posted July 3, 2019 Author Report Share Posted July 3, 2019 9 hours ago, ScottishFox said: You can pay an extra +1/4 advantage for a second condition on a power with a Trigger to have a 2nd condition that will activate it. Duplicate could set the 2nd trigger option to something like when I say Poof or when I snap my fingers. That way they preserve their own ability to teleport and have something that will allow for your instant swap with the Real character. That makes sense thanks. 8 hours ago, massey said: Of course there’s a cheaper way to do it! There’s always a cheaper way to do it. How is the duplication built? What is the basic description of the character’s power? How would you explain it without using game terms? The duplication is one of two projections from the main body. It's sort of a yinyang type of thematic. Most of the main character's skills(except for duplication, cross duplication telepathy, and ki blasts and HTH) are turned off while the duplicates are out. The duplicates are supposed to be perfectly controlled so this power was supposed to be a strategic counter move/ defensive maneuver. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Democracy Posted July 3, 2019 Report Share Posted July 3, 2019 6 hours ago, JK7 said: The duplication is one of two projections from the main body. It's sort of a yinyang type of thematic. Most of the main character's skills(except for duplication, cross duplication telepathy, and ki blasts and HTH) are turned off while the duplicates are out. The duplicates are supposed to be perfectly controlled so this power was supposed to be a strategic counter move/ defensive maneuver. I feel I need more. So we have a core character that creates duplicates, yes? Those duplicates are inferior to the main character but can act independently of it? You want to know how the core character can switch out from wherever he is to one of those duplicates and bring all his skills to a situation? I think Cassandra has it. If both the duplicate and the core character has duplication you can have a synchronised teleport. The main character would have the limitation on his teleport that he could only TP to a location where there is a duplicate TPing to his location. The duplicate would have a No Conscious Control TP that only went to the location of the main character. I think, for seemless use, you would want Invisible Power Effects on both and would need duplicates that were mind linked to the main character. Doc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dialNforNinja Posted July 3, 2019 Report Share Posted July 3, 2019 It's not the same thing and probably more expensive besides, but if the two duplicates are both projections you could give the original Desolid and Invisible or Extra-Dimensional Movement and Affects Real World/Transdimensional on Duplication, either way only available when there are two duplicates active, and have him teleport or return to "where a duplicate was just dispelled" while leaving the other in place, or dispel and pop to "where the duplicate that wasn't killed" was, like a photon forced out of quantum superposition. A different concept I guess, and yes, more expensive, but it's so cool... drunkonduty 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
massey Posted July 3, 2019 Report Share Posted July 3, 2019 I'm thinking there's gotta be a way to do it that doesn't actually use the Duplication power. Or perhaps your Duplicate goes away and you simply leave behind another Duplicate in your place when you Teleport away. Or perhaps you build the characters so that nobody teleports at all, and you merely swap power sets, as it were. 1) So for the first option, you could represent the Duplicate with something other than Duplication. Suppose your Duplicate just needs to be a guy who punches for 12D6. He goes on a Speed 5, like your main character, and he has an OCV of 8, like your main character. Everything else is just a matter of special effect. Well you could do that with Duplication, but you could also do it with Energy Blast with the right power modifiers. Let's take a 12D6 Energy Blast, and we'll make it Area Effect Radius, Selective, Continuous, Uncontrolled, Costs End Only to Activate. We'll put limitations on it so you can only attack one target per phase, and we'll give it Physical Manifestation, so it can be destroyed. We'll also throw a random additional limitation so that it can only move and act as your character could (it can be martial thrown, suffer knockback, it has to use movement to get around, etc). Now your "Duplicate" is just an attack power that continues to hit people, once per phase, without requiring any kind of action from you. If you did it that way, using 5th edition costs, you're looking at 240 Active Points. If you say "one target per phase" is a -1/2, "physical manifestation" is -1/4, and "has to move around, uses character's movement characteristics" as another -1/4, then you're at 120 points total cost. But theoretically you could fling these things around as long as you can pay Endurance to activate it. Maybe you want to limit it so you can only have one going at a time. Let's say that's another -1/2. And you've got a 17" Radius that the "duplicate" can move around within (and you can double that radius for another +1/4), so maybe you can take the No Range limitation for another -1/2. You activate your "duplicate" and he just runs around inside that area. With those limitations, the total points cost is only 80 points, for effectively another version of you running around within 17" (as long as you only plan on hitting things). If you go up to 85, you'll get a 34" radius. Now, you'd still have to buy your own Teleport, but you'd save points because you aren't having to move another character. The "duplicate" can just go away when you teleport to his spot. You can play with the wording of the "uses character's movement" limitation to clarify that the duplicate automatically switches spots with you. Just Teleport while you're within its radius. Total cost is 80 or 85 points plus the Teleport, which is probably cheaper than your Duplication plus a second Teleport route. 2) Purchase "Easy Recombination" on your Duplication for +10 points. You now recombine as a 0 phase action. Spend 5 more points to create a second duplicate (-2 limitation on those 5 points, "only for a phase"). Slap a Trigger on your Teleport, so it goes off when you use Duplication. So now you start your phase, and you create a second Duplicate. That's a half-phase action. Now your triggered Teleport goes off and you appear where your original Duplicate was. Then you recombine with him as a 0 phase action. Now you've got a half phase left over. Voila! 3) It doesn't matter who the Duplicate is and who the original is. You switch places because one guy has a higher Stun total or something. Or maybe because the Duplicate is Stunned and you aren't, or he's on his back and you aren't, or it's not a perfect Duplicate and you've got an extra power that you want to use. So instead of actually teleporting, you're going to create both your character and your Duplicate with powers that can only be used by one person at a time. Each character gets the same "Swap with Duplicate" package: --Position Shift on movement -- 5 points, only when one of the two characters is still on his feet, using this places other character prone. --Cannot Be Stunned -- 15 points, only when one of the two characters is not Stunned, using this makes the other character Stunned (effectively allowing you to choose which character gets stunned by an attack) --+30 Stun -- 30 points, only to bring character up to Stun total of highest Duplicate, other character drops to Stun total of swapped character --+30 END -- you get the idea --4D6 HKA magic sword -- only usable by one character at a time (this is the special attack that only the original gets) Make it a Unified Power for an additional -1/4, and maybe slap a limitation so it uses up their movement half-phase to "swap" places, and you're good. Basically all you're doing is switching the "status" effects and Stun and END totals between the characters. So those are three alternate ways that jumped out to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ninja-Bear Posted July 3, 2019 Report Share Posted July 3, 2019 Why not just T-port with Duplicate (-1) and put Side Effect Duplicate must switch with Character? Seems easiest to me. ScottishFox 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassandra Posted July 3, 2019 Report Share Posted July 3, 2019 Why not just say the duplication was there in the first place? It's what Ultron would do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher R Taylor Posted July 3, 2019 Report Share Posted July 3, 2019 The way I built the ability to castle for a character whose power was to do just that was a linked pair of teleports: teleport you to there, and them to here (as an attack, ranged). Its pretty cheap unless you want to teleport people miles away. However, although he's hard to spot, I like Ninja-Bear's idea of side effect. You wouldn't get the "only to swap places" limitation on the teleport on yourself, but this would make it work: Castle: Teleportation 15m, Ranged (+1/2), Usable As Attack (+3/4), Grantor can only grant the power to others, Grantor pays the END whenever the power is used, Recipient must be within Limited Range of the Grantor for power to be granted; Only to swap places (-1), Side Effects, Side Effect occurs automatically whenever Power is used (Teleport character to target's former location; -1/2) 34 active cost, 14 real cost, 3 END dialNforNinja and massey 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dialNforNinja Posted July 3, 2019 Report Share Posted July 3, 2019 26 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said: Castle: Teleportation 15m, Ranged (+1/2), Usable As Attack (+3/4), Grantor can only grant the power to others, Grantor pays the END whenever the power is used, Recipient must be within Limited Range of the Grantor for power to be granted; Only to swap places (-1), Side Effects, Side Effect occurs automatically whenever Power is used (Teleport character to target's former location; -1/2) 34 active cost, 14 real cost, 3 END YOINKED! That is a really great little power, and I will love it and hug it and hug it and call it George. George Castle. George Castle the private detective/bodyguard, who has never let a client take a scratch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher R Taylor Posted July 3, 2019 Report Share Posted July 3, 2019 Hm, And if you wanted to be sneaky about it, there's this version: Sneaky Castle: Teleportation 15m, Position Shift, Usable As Attack (+1), Grantor pays the END whenever the power is used, Grantor can only grant the power to others, Recipient must be within Standard Range of the Grantor for power to be granted, Invisible Power Effects (Fully Invisible; +1) (60 Active Points); Only to Swap Places in the same position (-1), Side Effects, Side Effect occurs automatically whenever Power is used (Teleport character to target's former location; -1/2) 60 Active Cost, 23 Real Cost, 6 END You swap places, but nobody can sense what happened, and are in exactly the same poses as the opposite was in. Good for identical-looking multiples or duplicates. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dialNforNinja Posted July 4, 2019 Report Share Posted July 4, 2019 It occurred to me after waking up that either of these could still be used for the classic ninja replacement trick to switch with a nearby object, unless you add another Limitation to that effect, either Only Works on Living Target, which still allows animals, or Only Works on Humanoid Target, which still allows statuary and aliens/animals close enough to human proportions within the weight limit and could lead to some funny moments depending on exactly how closely "humanoid" was enforced. This lowers the Real Cost a bit more but doesn't affect Active Cost, however the rest of the modifiers should be applicable to both except for Position Shift and there's no need to add Ranged to the 30AP version any more than the 60AP version when UAA already specifies range and the range you buy for Teleportation is always going to be well under Standard Range, hence falling into the Limited Range element of UAA. Making those changes does drop the AP a bit, so if desired you could increase the range Teleportation is usable at to 17m while still staying under AP budget of 30 or 60 points, in case the villain set up his ambush to happen when you're just outside the normal round number breakpoints. Castle: Teleportation 15m (15cp), Usable As Attack (+3/4), Grantor pays the END whenever the power is used, Grantor can only grant the power to others, Recipient must be within Limited Range of the Grantor for power to be granted; Only to swap places (-1), Side Effects, Side Effect occurs automatically whenever Power is used (Teleport character to target's former location; -1/2) 26 Active Cost, 10 Real Cost, 3 END + Only Works On Living Target (-1): 7 Real Cost + Only Works on Own Duplicate (-1 1/2): 6 Real Cost +2m Teleport: 30 Active Cost, 12 Real Cost +2m & Only Works On Living Target (-1): 9 Real Cost +2m Only Works on Own Duplicate (-1 1/2): 7 Real Cost Sneaky Castle: Teleportation 15m (15cp), Position Shift (+5cp), Usable As Attack (+3/4), Grantor pays the END whenever the power is used, Grantor can only grant the power to others, Recipient must be within Limited Range of the Grantor for power to be granted, Invisible Power Effects (Fully Invisible; +1); Only to Swap Places in the same position (-1), Side Effects, Side Effect occurs automatically whenever Power is used (Teleport character to target's former location; -1/2) 55 Active Cost, 22 Real Cost, 5 END +2m Teleport: 60 Active Cost, 24 Real Cost, 6 END + Only Works On Humanoid Target (-1): 16 Real Cost + Only Works on Own Duplicate (-1 1/2): 12 Real Cost +2m & Only Works On Humanoid Target (-1): 17 Real Cost +2m Only Works on Own Duplicate (-1 1/2): 13 Real Cost You could also raise Castle's range up to 34m within a 60AP budget, or trade 5m increments of that for Increased Mass modifiers to allow for switching with heavier objects/bigger living things. Hm, would bushes or (small) trees count? Praise the Log, for the Log shall save you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dialNforNinja Posted July 10, 2019 Report Share Posted July 10, 2019 Hopefully since it's been a week now JK7 won't mind me using the thread for a different "how do you build...?" question; it seemed pointless to make a new one when this has a suitably descriptive yet generic title. So... let's talk about speed. Serious speed. Speed like The Flash for real, not just normal tricks with speed SFX. This kind of speed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ys_yKGNFRQ As a reminder, I only have Champions Complete and Champions Powers (or the 4e BBB, if that butters your muffin more) to work from, so if it's already been addressed in, say, DOJ2331: Linear Algebra Hero, just pointing it out without explaining how it was done doesn't help much. Now, actually doing what they do in the video is relatively easy, Detect: Rapid for Sight, +3 per x10, so just count the zeroes on 10,000,000,000,000 and it's 13*3=39cp, and you too can have that camera for the low, low price of an Obvious Inaccessible Focus (-1/4), Immobile (-1), Not Expendable (0), Fragile (-1/4), Universal, total -1 1/2 aka 16 Real Points, whatever that works out to in Herobux. I know Fuzion is practically a cussword to most Hero fans, but porting it through Option Points would make that $80,000 I guess? No, can't be, given the point value of various example guns and vehicles. They never mention the cost of the system in the video AFAICT, but I must be remembering the conversions wrong. Actually doing things at that speed, though... I'm going to be stuck with Extra Dimensional Movement again to "enter the Speed Force" or something, aren't I? 20 Base Points for a single dimension, any physical location (+5cp) potentially, but only corresponding to the real world (-3cp), not dealing with time travel for sanity's sake (+0), so 22cp to start off with, but what does that actually get you? And of course you need Transdimensional on your senses (Well, probably on Detect: Spatial Awareness modified with Rapid as above since light is moving at a snail-like few millimeters per subjective second and sound doesn't exist) and STR and any other powers to see and affect the real world, but my question is how do you actually model the character having subjective hours or days (or realistically years if not centuries) to do stuff in the time it takes a normal bloke to throw a punch? Obviously there would be problems with this in a game setting unless the entire team was speedsters, but then the base level of the power would be free anyway since anyone relevant to the campaign has to have it and it's not actually an advantage unless they're better at it than the new waterline - but I'm not trying to build something for actual game use at the moment, just figure out how it could work at all. ... though now that I think about it, a story where someone gains ridiculous speed powers and discovers there's a Masquerade of speedsters going on in an otherwise frozen world would be kinda cool, if probably better in prose than a game. Maybe add that the speed is linked to Shrinking, so you have (relative to the mini-speedsters) the kind of massively huge planets often included in Xianxia web-novels to go with the trillions-of-years-old dynastic civilizations and so on. Going back to the realm of normal powers described as speed tricks, "I stepped off to the Speed Force dimension and built/retrieved/etc. this gadget" would be decent SFX for an equipment VPP, wouldn't it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher R Taylor Posted July 10, 2019 Report Share Posted July 10, 2019 You can kind of justify anything at all with speed as the Flash has been written. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dsatow Posted July 10, 2019 Report Share Posted July 10, 2019 I would think that unless you're desolid, going at that speed, everything will be like an infinite defense object as molecules would still be moving at normal speed. But this is comic book physics, so the most important limitation to observe is comic book physics law one (if it doesn't look cool in the comic, it doesn't work). dialNforNinja and Christopher R Taylor 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duke Bushido Posted July 10, 2019 Report Share Posted July 10, 2019 If I missed this being asked or answered, forgive me; I'm in the middle of a lot right now. Are the duplicates identical copies of the primary character (sans Duplication, of course)? Frankly, if all the duplicates are identical to the primary character, I'd likely just stick a custom advantage on the Duplication power that lets any given duplicate be the primary character, and thus the holder of the duplication. I say that because from what I understand, unless you really _are_ pulling a castle maneuver and you each end up displaced from where you started, that's the final in-game effect of this power: someone else now has Duplication (again, assuming that all duplicates are the same as the primary). So the way I would approach this: Duplication: Usable by others, Usable by Duplicates Only; Only one person can use it at a time. There. Move the Duplication power to the guy you want to hold it, and any personality change, etc-- it's all just SFX. He's now the Primary, and the Primary is now him. Now if the Duplicates are _not_ the same, well I'm still pretty sure a cleaner build can be had than the hundred-and-six (or whatever the OP stated it was) T-Port build he started with. dialNforNinja 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dialNforNinja Posted July 12, 2019 Report Share Posted July 12, 2019 On 7/10/2019 at 12:14 AM, dialNforNinja said: how do you actually model the character having subjective hours or days (or realistically years if not centuries) to do stuff in the time it takes a normal bloke to throw a punch? Wow, nothing? I guess that means I get to try weaving a silk purse on my own then... Alright, standard modifier for powers is +5cp to double non-damage effects, but looking at the time chart it's more like x4-5 per step after you get to an extra turn so call the base effect one turn per external phase and +10cp per step after that. That still ends up being something like +130cp for a subjective century in a phase, but you're getting a century in a single second so it's hard to complain. Even that is only a factor of about three billion to one, not ten trillion, though, so we have to go deeper (foghorn!) 317,019 years precisely, so following the 1-5-25-100 pattern that's 500, 2500, 10k, 50k, 250k, close enough to five more steps, so 202cp total on EDM, plus Spatial Awareness: Tachyon Perception (32cp) given the Discriminatory (+10cp,) Sense (+2cp,) and Targeting (+10cp) modifiers along with Rapid x13 (+39cp,) for 93cp and a total (still not including Transdimensional on whatever needs it though) 295cp. Let's see, Transdim is +1/2, so that makes our non-photonic Tachyon sense cost 139cp. I'll be merciful and say normal STR is "indirect" enough to just get Transdim applied on its own instead of requiring TK with Fine Manipulation and a bunch of skill levels to make the roll meaningless, so just 6cp there for a minimal superhero STR of 13. 202+139+6=347cp Ouch! But it is just barely possible within a standard 400pt build, if you don't raise Characteristics much above the baseline and let your actual ten-trillion-times-normal super speed be the whole of your powers. Well, we knew going in this wasn't going to be cheap. I guess you could just ignore the photon speed issue much like it ignores air friction and put Rapid and Transdimensional directly on Sight to save a hundred or so points, but when the point is to be able to dodge laser beams like they're nothing but snails that seems to violate the internal logic of the power, let alone our measly earth-logic, and even when powers make no earthly sense I still feel they should have internal consistency. What do you think, does it pass the sanity test? It would break the game completely to actually use, but as a construct within the rules, I mean. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher R Taylor Posted July 12, 2019 Report Share Posted July 12, 2019 I think you might be too literal in your interpretation. What is the perception meant to simulate? It might be better to just give him overall levels to simulate "yeah I studied that just now" or a power pool for "did things in a hurry" powers. You can use transformation to make things that took ages be done instantly, also. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dialNforNinja Posted July 12, 2019 Report Share Posted July 12, 2019 Being literal is the point, so you actually are fast enough to see light move like the camera in that video, so you have three hundred thousand years per second to do whatever, even if you'd usually use far less than that for any purpose that involved interaction with slow events. Though I did forget to account for only having SPD 2 normally, so add another +10 to EDM: Enter the Speed Force to account for being spread out over six phases rather than just happening in one, making the final result 357cp. edited: Life Support to avoid aging instantly and needing all the food and water in the world, plus the Absolute Time Sense and Eidetic Memory talents sound like good investments for the highly limited remaining point budget, too Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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