M&M 3e Re-recruitment - (closed)

[Walking Dad]

I think Jemal put the finger on my unease. The Singularity is too much. While I like the concept very much, why he has to have summonable bots (even heroic ones) and massive transform powers? I could see the same character with the minion and sidekick advantages and without being able to change skyscrapers to tuffy with a glance.
The massive transform effect is just outside the scale of this game, I fear.
Your concept sounds like an evil gadgeteer, but the built is more a solo villain than a team character.
Do you think we can work something out that retains, but is more in the scale of the game?

 

[Jemal]

Amusing note : Singularity could Transform 3.5 Statues of Liberty into enough food to feed over 1,000,000 people.
as a standard action.

 

[Voidrazor]

I certainly don't mind removing the increased mass on transform, that kind of scale was beyond the original concept anyway. And if the versatility of Transform and Create need to need toned down beyond that, perhaps add the activation flaw to them? That way they would have less combat utility but would still have the feel of building stuff with nanotechnology. I have some reservation about using the minion and sidekick advantages though. Yes, they are more expensive. But they also inherently break the action economy, an abuse that I was trying to stay away from with my build. As it stands now, if The Singularity has a robot instanced, he essentially can't attack personally also; since commanding summoned critters takes a move action, the array points are allocated away from Transform/Create, and he has no attack bonus. His Variable could, in theory get around one of those factors, but is intended to be too small to provide an accurate attack on its own. I'd be happy to add a flaw specifying that inability if necessary. But using Sidekick/Minions, I don't see how to incorporate that either/or dynamic.

Does that sound reasonable and make sense?

 

[Shayuri]

Still recruiting in here, or has that ship sailed for now?

 

[Jemal]

[MENTION=4936]Shayuri[/MENTION] - Assuming both Dyanmo and Singularity join that puts us at I believe 5, but I'd be fine with 6 if WD and the others are.
[MENTION=41605]Voidrazor[/MENTION] -
Actually, the combat power of them doesn't bother me too much (considering you'll mostly be using the bots), it's the utility that I was iffy about. With both create and transform, you can solve practically any problem. Perhaps if they were more limited? Maybe some sort of tech limit? Can only make stuff that's average tech?
Honestly if you want the replicator bots thing, I'd just go with transform anyways, actual create is essentially making something from nothing, wheras transform would be the more standard 'nanobots taking stuff and changing it into what they want to build'.

Also, after looking it over again I realize you're not as indestructible as I'd first thought. Your defenses are far under par vs damage, leaving you relying entirely on your regen. Sure you're immune to fort and psionic (which I'd say covers the majority of will saves in this setting), but enough opponents will beat you down faster than you can heal. I had originally thought you were defense capped and that you still had regen 20, but I see now that's been reduced to 10 (which is only 1/round). Still very difficult if you aren't getting mobbed, but not AS bad.

Looking at things more in depth, I spot a few other things :

Yes it does take a move action to direct summons, but you can direct all them at once, and they'll keep doing what you say until they finish, you change orders, or they are beaten or dismissed.
Also, most combat actions require the standard which you'd still have free. Now, you don't have any attacks, but with a 2 point variable you could get an acceptable attack to kind fill in some 'pew pew'.
And as far as the 'action economy'.. you're already summoning 8 robots or 4 bombots, which is multiple actions in itself.

Dynamic System Reallocation: Immunity 30 (Fortitude Effects; Custom: reaction/continuous rather than none/permanent; Distracting, Removable, Quirk: Distration lasts an extra round after use, Side Effect 2: Damage 6) 6pp

This should be 7pp : As WD pointed out earlier, Reaction/continuouse Distracting essentially cancels itself out leaving it at 1/rank, side effect 2 makes it 1/3 ranks, reducing it to 10. Removable is 1/5, so that's another 2 reducing it to 8, and then the quirk would reduce it to 7.
However I still think gaining the extra point for that as a 'quirk' is a bit exploitive. As I pointed out earlier, Without that 'quirk', the distracting flaw isn't really a flaw at all since it's reactive. Also Distracting itself is pretty iffy on a PL 10 character with 6 dodge 0 parry. All you loose is 3 dodge for one turn after being affected by a fort save, at a cost reduction of-1/rank and an additional -1.

Here's an idea:
Dynamic System Reallocation: Immunity 30 (Fortitude Effects; Free/continuous, Removable, Side Effect 2: Damage 8) 8pp. Only costs 1 point more than your current, and avoids the entire distracting/reaction problem.

 

[Walking Dad]

Jemal already answered the action economy problem. I still don't like the idea that lacking abilities only gives a bonus for NPCs. Your transform is fine, but massivly out of scale.
The GM advantage of his robots not being summons are that they are not able to go anywhere with the character during a stealth mission. If they are damaged it is a bit more inconvenient than just having to re-summon them.

 

[Voidrazor]

Actually, the combat power of them doesn't bother me too much (considering you'll mostly be using the bots), it's the utility that I was iffy about. With both create and transform, you can solve practically any problem. Perhaps if they were more limited? Maybe some sort of tech limit? Can only make stuff that's average tech?
Honestly if you want the replicator bots thing, I'd just go with transform anyways, actual create is essentially making something from nothing, wheras transform would be the more standard 'nanobots taking stuff and changing it into what they want to build'.

Even with the precise extra, the rules for Create mention that the GM determines the tech limit. The same can be assumed for Transform. So I don't think that it can or should be a solution to all problems. I'm hoping for some leeway when it comes to making 'death'-traps. But beyond that I don't expect to be able to replicate powers with it beyond the Afflictions mention in the powers' text and some Green Lantern tricks. As for having both Transform and Create, there is a lot of overlap, but the rules for how created objects interact with the world seem a lot clearer and better simulate some of the stuff a solid mass of replicator bots might do (the aforementioned GL tricks). Also, to my mind at least, assembling objects out of seemingly thin air (but air that actually has a bunch of nanobots suspended in it) falls well within the purview of comic-book-science nano.

Also, after looking it over again I realize you're not as indestructible as I'd first thought. Your defenses are far under par vs damage, leaving you relying entirely on your regen. Sure you're immune to fort and psionic (which I'd say covers the majority of will saves in this setting), but enough opponents will beat you down faster than you can heal. I had originally thought you were defense capped and that you still had regen 20, but I see now that's been reduced to 10 (which is only 1/round). Still very difficult if you aren't getting mobbed, but not AS bad.

Yeah, I cut his Regen back and actually upped his normal defenses from those of the first draft build, in an effort to normalize him a bit. Regardless, and mobbed or no, I expect to spend a fair amount of time staggered.

Looking at things more in depth, I spot a few other things :

Yes it does take a move action to direct summons, but you can direct all them at once, and they'll keep doing what you say until they finish, you change orders, or they are beaten or dismissed.
Also, most combat actions require the standard which you'd still have free. Now, you don't have any attacks, but with a 2 point variable you could get an acceptable attack to kind fill in some 'pew pew'.
And as far as the 'action economy'.. you're already summoning 8 robots or 4 bombots, which is multiple actions in itself.

I don't see anything about being able to direct them all at once. Certainly not to do different things. And if they are all doing the same thing, then they use the minion rules rather than getting multiple rolls. Also summoning each of the 8 robots or 4 bombots is a standard action.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I'd be happy to take a flaw specifying that the variable can't be used as an attack alongside active robots. Or I could not take the flaw and simply refrain from the cheese of configuring the variable with the flaws necessary to squeeze an effective (or even semi-effective) attack out of it.

This should be 7pp : As WD pointed out earlier, Reaction/continuouse Distracting essentially cancels itself out leaving it at 1/rank, side effect 2 makes it 1/3 ranks, reducing it to 10. Removable is 1/5, so that's another 2 reducing it to 8, and then the quirk would reduce it to 7.

Ah, you're right. Hero Lab balked at adding the reaction modifier, not processing the change to free/sustained. My math was off in trying a workaround.

However I still think gaining the extra point for that as a 'quirk' is a bit exploitive. As I pointed out earlier, Without that 'quirk', the distracting flaw isn't really a flaw at all since it's reactive. Also Distracting itself is pretty iffy on a PL 10 character with 6 dodge 0 parry. All you loose is 3 dodge for one turn after being affected by a fort save, at a cost reduction of-1/rank and an additional -1.

Here's an idea:
Dynamic System Reallocation: Immunity 30 (Fortitude Effects; Free/continuous, Removable, Side Effect 2: Damage 8) 8pp. Only costs 1 point more than your current, and avoids the entire distracting/reaction problem.

I don't mind not getting a point for the quirk. His dodge was actually raised from the previous build in hopes of making the distracting flaw more meaningful. I have some reservations about you version, but could maybe live with it. I was definitely thinking that he would suffer negative effects just when hit with a fort effect, rather than taking damage every round he was worried someone might decide to throw an Affliction his way.

 

[Jemal]

I don't see anything about being able to direct them all at once. Certainly not to do different things. And if they are all doing the same thing, then they use the minion rules rather than getting multiple rolls. Also summoning each of the 8 robots or 4 bombots is a standard action.

Forgot you didn't have the horde add-on, though there are ways around that (Summoning before combat if WD allows it, for example), and I'm fairly certain the 'minion team attack' rules are an optional simplification for GM's who're worried about the multiple actions, not a hard minion rule.
As far as the orders, I can't recall where I read it or if it was part of a discussion, but I thought you could give a group of minions the same order with one action.

RE: Immunity
I'm curious, what's your specific problem with the immunity version I posted? I would point out the only difference from yours is that i dropped reaction to free and dropped the distracting (Which was essentially paying for the reaction).
As it sits now, you can just keep it going so long as you want without any action - it's actually better than the reaction one, as you don't have to deactivate it. The only instance in which the reactive version is better would be if you happen to get caught 'with your pants down', which should be never, since you can just say you 'always' have it on except when you specify otherwise, or when it gets shut off (Which would negate the reactive version anyways).

Finally, as to the damage every round, I'd expect the Side Effect would only kick in when the power is 'used' (IE whenever it protects you from a fort save), not every round it's on... At least this is how I'd run it in this particular case.

 

[Voidrazor]

I had planned on sometimes summoning before combat, but had assumed that the minion rule would be in place to keep things manageable. It would be nice to be able to give them all the same order with a single action. That should work OK under minion rules. But I also would certainly understand if WD wanted to at least start out ruling it more conservatively to see how things balance out.

RE: Immunity
Heh, most of the reason why I was trying to configure it the way I was, was the assumption that having it available as anything other than a reaction meant that the power was on, as far as flaws are concerned. But if it works your way, then that is simpler and preferable.

 

[Shayuri]

Hehe...well, the premise of the game seems cool, but it seems like you guys have your hands full with the applicants you have, without needing to discuss adding another one.

I'll step back and see what else develops on the boards.

Thanks and have fun!