Control and Create discussion: Need help!

[vitruvian]

Originally Posted by satanicway

You cant link powers that use the Alternate Attack/Power rule.

Sure you can - just not to each other.

[naloth]

Originally Posted by satanicway

And about the Forest area, its not just an obscurate plus Affliction, the player wants a REAL forest, something he can control with Control Wood, and talk with Speak with Plants, and that will only block as much vision as a real forest.

First off, Create doesn't do living, complex (like a machine), or multiple things. It's really the wrong ability for a forest.

I'm loose with the physical effect. First determine what the game effect will be: if he wants combat assistance that he can potentially control then use Ally Group (Summonable, Minion) instead.

If it's inanimate I don't see a problem with Obscure giving something to control. After all, he's paying a fair bit for Control and it's something an enemy could potentially use against him. It wouldn't be any different if he made darkness and someone used Control: Light to negate that penalty.

Speak w/Plants wouldn't be that worthwhile to do with something you just created/summoned though it would be an interesting way to plant (no pun intended) a spy. That is more of a perk of having powers that work well together (being able to place a plant then come back and chat with it later). If he's able to divine information where no plant existed he should get psychometry instead.

[satanicway]

Create plus Control should obviously do it.

He dont want to summona allies, but to change the battlefield, to a place where hes at advantage, because he can control plants, speak with them to find the enemy, hide, and move better because he have survival, acrobatics and other abilitys that works in forests.

Its a mult-use power.
Nothing really that powerful. But have its utilitys.

Your example of an spy is one of many things that he may want to try.

Control and Create are not as abrangent as they should be.

[naloth]

Originally Posted by satanicway

Create plus Control should obviously do it.

G:Powers p90. "Control isn't available for machinery or living beings; to create animal-, plant-, and machine-control ability modify advantage..." Control isn't supposed to work on trees. That's for TK (animate). Create can't create living things. It only creates bulk matter. It doesn't even create things in useful shapes. It has to be linked to control for that (and see the limitations for control). At best you should be able to create a lookalike forest with dead plant matter.

.
He dont want to summona allies, but to change the battlefield, to a place where hes at advantage, because he can control plants, speak with them to find the enemy, hide, and move better because he have survival, acrobatics and other abilitys that works in forests.

Its a mult-use power.
Nothing really that powerful. But have its utilitys.

It's several abilities with an obvious effect: trees sprout up when he uses them. Animating plants is TK (w/Animate). Speak w/Plants is much too slow for combat use try Clairvoyance (forests) w/Speak as an out of combat alternative ability. Permeation (Woods), Terrain Adapation, Chameleon, and Stealth would allow him to move/hide.

[vitruvian]

For forest creation, I think you can lard Snatcher up with enough enhancements to make it work.

[naloth]

Originally Posted by vitruvian

For forest creation, I think you can lard Snatcher up with enough enhancements to make it work.

Forgot about that one... I don't know the size of a forest but it's obviously less than 1100 points for that power:

Originally Posted by Mgellis

Just for fun...

Maker of Worlds! You can make worlds, just like a god! You must concentrate for three days, but once you've finished, if you make your IQ roll, an entirely new universe pops into existence, which may contain up to fifteen octillion tons of matter, enough to have several different solar systems (the sun is about two octillion tons).

Snatcher (Creation, +100%, Large objects, +50%, Extra weight, up to fifteen octillion tons, +925%, Permanent, +300%; Cosmic, creates pocket dimension, too, +50%; Takes extra time, three days, -150%) [1100]

[SuedodeuS]

Originally Posted by satanicway

You cant link powers that use the Alternate Attack/Power rule.

I fail to see why not. The AA cluster is just a big meta-trait - you should be able to link something to it so that you can use one of the powers in the cluster along with another power. Alternatively, you should be able to apply the Link to every single one of the abilities in the cluster. They can't be Linked to each other, but they should be Linkable to other traits.
Of course, if you can't do such Links, then that makes wildcard even better - it's the only way to get such Links.

Originally Posted by satanicway

If you have control wood as a wildcard, you cant create a Ablative DR of Wood, even if it makes sense, because you cant add a limitation to a power that you are creating instantly for the situation.
Thats because it could be really exploitive.
Like adding huge levels of obvious and noisy, when you can call attention, and when you cant, you add low signature and no obvious neither neisy. So the limitations doesnt really work as limitations, because you are not bound to them.

Thats why you cant add limitations, but this also make the powers too expansive in some games where most of advantages are used with limitations.

Again, I fail to see why not. As per Supers, p.41 - "To use a wildcard power, choose any other ability whose cost, after all enhancements and limitations, is no greater than that of the base power." This implies you can enhance and limit the created abilities. Wildcard is essentially a limited form of Modular Abilities (Cosmic). It just costs 3 cp/level (a hefty discount, as you probably also have the Physical Only +50% Enhancement) and requires another Advantage to determine what the limitations are.
Obvious/noisy is -5%. You can't stack it up - you can't get worse than "stealth is impossible." And, of course, the GM should only allow Limitations that actually limit you.

Consider a character (call him Recca) with the ability to Create and Control fire (the two are Linked at the +10% level). Let's make this a meta-trait - call it Flame. Because Recca can only control fire he has made himself, we'll drop it down to Occasional, rather than Common. So, (15+10)+10%=27.5 cp for Flame. Thus, Flame! would cost 110/level. Let's buy two levels of it, for a whopping 220 points. Pretty high, yeah? Well, what can Recca do with this?

Flame Blade: Focusing fire to extend as an arc from his arm, Recca can create a jet in the form of a blade. This is a Melee (C,1) Cutting Innate Attack, with a Follow-Up Burning Innate Attack. Recca can freely adjust the flame for longer/shorter reach, better/worse performance against armor (note - a negative armor divisor shouldn't be allowed, as it doesn't limit the character in most situations where he'd actually use it), or even change the Cutting/Burning split. Making the weapon better in one regard makes it worse in another (sacrificing burning damage for better armor penetration, for example), but Recca does have 55 cp to play with here.

Rapid Fireball: Focusing fire into small distinct packets, Recca can loose them in rapid succession, essentially giving him a fireball machine gun. At its most basic, this is a Burning Innate Attack with high level of Rapid Fire. Recca can sacrifice some of the Rapid Fire for things like more damage, better armor penetration, longer range, etc. Modifiers like Explosive would also be appropriate. Again, 55 points to play with.

Flame Whip: Recca can focus the fire into an agile whip, one that he can control virtually at will. This gives him a Melee (1-4) Binding Innate Attack, possibly with a weak Follow-Up Burning Innate Attack. It would probably have One-Shot, as he can't layer it, and probably some Limitation to represent the fact that he has to physically hold on. With 55 points to spare, that's going to be quite a strong whip. He can also sacrifice some of the whip's ST (or even range) to buy some enhancements, like Engulfing or Unbreakable.

Enhanced Strength: Wrapping the above whip around his own arm, Recca adds its strength to his own. This gives him Arm ST (one arm), and probably gives his punch the Incendiary modifier. 55 points is going to give him one hell of an arm!

There are many other applications, like a barrier formed of fire. Now, many of the above rely on comic physics - that is, that fire can cut, bind, etc. If you're playing supers, anime, or any number of other genres, however, it's perfectly appropriate. The beauty of wildcard powers, unless I'm mistaken about how they function, is that you can essentially tweak the abilities to the situation. Fighting a Brick? Depending on where his resilience comes from (high DR or high HP), you could either give your flame blade a nice armor divisor or wrap the Flame Whip around your hand (Enhanced Strength) and punch him in the face. Heck, you could just on-the-fly come up with a Melee (C) Burning Innate Attack that simply roasts him (10d+ burning? Ouch).

EDIT: Credit where it's due. As implied by that character's and power's names, I got the ideas for the flame-based attacks off of the manga Flame of Recca (EDIT2: and by "got the ideas" I mean "blatantly stole"). Recca's actual flame dragons would probably be built best as Alternate Abilities (eventually, the highest-value abilities in the cluster would be the combinations)... But wildcard would actually make the abilities more useful, as they could be varied up for the task.

[satanicway]

Originally Posted by SuedodeuS

I fail to see why not. The AA cluster is just a big meta-trait - you should be able to link something to it so that you can use one of the powers in the cluster along with another power. Alternatively, you should be able to apply the Link to every single one of the abilities in the cluster. They can't be Linked to each other, but they should be Linkable to other traits.
Of course, if you can't do such Links, then that makes wildcard even better - it's the only way to get such Links.

My bad, i was trying to say that you cant link a power to another of same AA cluster.

Originally Posted by SuedodeuS

Again, I fail to see why not. As per Supers, p.41 - "To use a wildcard power, choose any other ability whose cost, after all enhancements and limitations, is no greater than that of the base power." This implies you can enhance and limit the created abilities. Wildcard is essentially a limited form of Modular Abilities (Cosmic). It just costs 3 cp/level (a hefty discount, as you probably also have the Physical Only +50% Enhancement) and requires another Advantage to determine what the limitations are.

This lets you add Armor Divisor Disvantage if you are facing someone you knows have no DR. Or Obvious if you know theres no problem being spotted.
Or add Nuissance if theres no one looking. I think you understand what im trying to say.
Are you sure you can add limitations to those powers, and powers made with Modular Ability?

I would like some clarifications on this matter, if possible from some official source.
It makes for a HUGE difference in WildCard potential.

[SuedodeuS]

Originally Posted by satanicway

This lets you add Armor Divisor Disvantage if you are facing someone you knows have no DR. Or Obvious if you know theres no problem being spotted.
Or add Nuissance if theres no one looking. I think you understand what im trying to say.
Are you sure you can add limitations to those powers, and powers made with Modular Ability?

I would like some clarifications on this matter, if possible from some official source.
It makes for a HUGE difference in WildCard potential.

I don't know what the official stance is, but the fact that it doesn't say you can't (and it seems quite logical that you should be able to) implies that you can, in fact, apply Limitations to such abilities. As I noted before, however, if the Limitation doesn't actually limit you, you get no points for it. I'll admit this can cause odd effects, like only being able to make an attack with a (.5) armor divisor against armored foes, or only being able to make an obvious ability in situations where stealth might be useful... or even only being able to make an "only on women" ability when some of your foes are men! The alternative is to outright disallow these, but so long as you don't constantly use the same wildcards I think it would actually work out fairly well. For example, when Recca uses his rapid-fire attack, he could put on a poor armor divisor in order to boost the RoF (in hopes of scoring a hit on an unarmored or lightly-armored area). It works game-mechanically, and honestly doesn't stretch suspension of disbelief too much - as he's constantly using variable attacks anyway, it's not shocking that this one has slightly different attributes than normal. Heck, I could see it in a comic: "Crap, I can't get through his armor! I'll adjust the output - send a whole slew of fireballs at once. They won't be quite as strong, but all I need is for just one to get through..."

[satanicway]

An obvious that only works when you need stealth, would net you more them -5%.
It is a -5% because it isnt a real disvantage most of the time. Just in some situations. And in a cainpaign based on stealth, it can worth alot more.

So if you add just when it will cause problems to you, its too bad for the points, if its not limition you, them its too good.

=X

I really would like an editor or a rule expert to post an official position for this.
=/