Alternate Form: Fusion of many into one

[Refplace]

I know this has been discussed on the forums but my search failed to find it.
What are some suggestions for characters who fuse into one more powerful being?
Examples from sources are Firestorm a DC Super hero.
Voltron and tons of giant robots from Animae and cartoons.
Lets say I want two or more PCs to be able to change into one combined form.
Preferably without crippling either of them with too expensive an advantage.

ANother example though less well known is Psi Hwk from a marvel line many years back. I forget the name of the universe or line but several psychics combined into 1 super psychic Astral form kind of thing.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Refplace

I know this has been discussed on the forums but my search failed to find it.
What are some suggestions for characters who fuse into one more powerful being?
Examples from sources are Firestorm a DC Super hero.
Voltron and tons of giant robots from Animae and cartoons.
Lets say I want two or more PCs to be able to change into one combined form.
Preferably without crippling either of them with too expensive an advantage.

Well one of them is going to be crippled just by you know, not having a body that he's in charge of any more.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Well one of them is going to be crippled just by you know, not having a body that he's in charge of any more.

Unless the combined form is a separate entity from the units.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Well one of them is going to be crippled just by you know, not having a body that he's in charge of any more.

Well ok. What I meant though was I thought some formula was pointed out or come up with where the cost was shared rather then one guy paying all of it for example.

So AF: Merged form. 200 points
Each PC Human so 0 base points.
Cost of AF: 15 + 180 [195]
Each pays some portion of that.
Then you get a limitation for requiring both PCs as some kind of accessibility limitation. Probably going up for more then 2 PCs.
Whats fair?

Then what if both PCs were Supers or say Power Rangers. So they may have a higher base value or racial template then human baseline.
So what then say each Super has 100 points that counts towards the AF making the AF be 200 -100 for each? Or 200 -200?

What if each PC already has a Super form they can morph into? Then the Super form might be cheaper if your only counting costs for that Pcs portion.
Then we just have the minimum cost of 15 points so now its affordable to have a combined form without losing a lot of individual utility when not merged.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Unless the combined form is a separate entity from the units.

That makes all the components who aren't in charge of their combined body no less crippled.

[Anaraxes]

Seems easy enough to do with Duplication (Shared Resources) with an Alternate Form. The being happens to spend most of its time divided into its Dupes. Sometimes they all merge, and then they switch from being lions to the giant robot form.

If you feel obliged to prohibit the "giant" robot form while divided (or the lion form when merged), just add an Accessibility to the forms ("only while merged" or "only when split"). Minor point savings, though.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Seems easy enough to do with Duplication (Shared Resources) with an Alternate Form. The being happens to spend most of its time divided into its Dupes. Sometimes they all merge, and then they switch from being lions to the giant robot form.

If you feel obliged to prohibit the "giant" robot form while divided (or the lion form when merged), just add an Accessibility to the forms ("only while merged" or "only when split"). Minor point savings, though.

Useful idea but not what I was looking for.
That would be more like building Voltron and then giving him the option to split into several lions. Good way to do this if you wanted a single PC to be able to have multiple forms. though it means each Lion has to pay AF like 6 times in the case of Voltron? Though should get a point break, possibly using Alternate Abilities on the other Lions you cant turn into.

[the_matrix_walker]

Details would vary based on the special effect you wanted to emulate.

PSI Hawk is really a manifestation of a PSI Gestalt, with the body provided by their leader's projection power at first, and after, by his necklace (which would then just be a party gadget) and his 'components' are unchanged so Psi-Hawk doesn't require any transformation advantages. He's probably most easily built as a summonable Ally/Patron

Fire Storm has had a number of incarnations, if IIRC When Ronnie wanted to Transform, Stein vanished and became part of him. So in this case I would probably give the professor Warp, and Permeation "Ronnie" (Meld) Linked together, with the Unconscious uncontrollable trigger : When Ronnie Transforms and just give Ronnie Raymond an Alternate Form. One or the other will need telepathy of some sort for them to chat. (alternatively, maybe some form of Cosmic Payload to hold Stein instead of giving him Permeation)

Voltron and the like, where the individual components can still be damaged and there is a little restructuring, but no real shape-shifting, That's something I would say just have the robot lions buy something like weapon mounts, where the mount attaches the robots to each other. Then just use their combined basic lift's etc, as they cooperate. (Have each of them buy a special power that's only usable when they're all connected to help add to the power of the whole too!)

This is one of those situations where there are allot of ways to go, it all depends on HOW they are merging. Do they become a part of the whole or vanish into the ether? Are their original abilities intact? Who is in control? etc

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by the_matrix_walker

Details would vary based on the special effect you wanted to emulate.

This is one of those situations where there are allot of ways to go, it all depends on HOW they are merging. Do they become a part of the whole or vanish into the ether? Are their original abilities intact? Who is in control? etc

Some good ideas there too. I particularly think the Weapon Mount idea is rather original. Pretty affordable too.
You could have something like Voltron or any combined vehicle be built with payload or weapon mount for the sub forms and use of Alternate Abilities or AF for some or each of those subforms that was only usable when merged.
Toss in some extra CM Controls for some effects as well. Works well for attacks, not as good for other powers like movements where you would possibly have to buy them Useable by others or something. But Controls could give you some good flexibility there.

I agree Psi hawk could have easily been built as a Gestalt. Does give em an idea to play around with though about a Supers gestalt using AF. Morph would work easier as AF would need to still buy a new form. But maybe those rules could be used to figure out its capacity and add that to the base 15 points.

[the_matrix_walker]

Originally Posted by Refplace

I agree Psi hawk could have easily been built as a Gestalt. Does give em an idea to play around with though about a Supers gestalt using AF. Morph would work easier as AF would need to still buy a new form. But maybe those rules could be used to figure out its capacity and add that to the base 15 points.

AF seems a little off base on this one, since all of their bodies were still around and in tact. Fits a Summoned Ally very nicely tho. Especially since he didn't always do exactly what they wanted or how they wanted... darn subconscious...