All sorts of Duplication questions

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by transmetahuman

Where did you see this?!?

Throughout the forums and other internet areas I hear it's in Powers: The Weird. Since I don't have the book, I decided to figure out if they are actually fair based on options already available, namely Reliable 10.

Reliable 10 vs No Preparation Table; Reliable is strictly better, but considering a large part of buying it is specifically due to the -10, it's only marginally better.

Reliable 10 vs No Distance Penalties; Reliable is better unless you think you'll often and casually want to go in trips of 10 million miles, which isn't even an option in most campaigns, plus needing to 'see' your destination makes long distances still harder which Reliable can make up for.

Reliable 10 is overall better than either enhancement. Then comparing Cosmic as written in PU4:7, it sounds like an example of Avoiding Drawbacks. And No Distance Penalties is basically what Long Range 1 +50% would do to Warp if it was allowed to be bought on it.

I don't know if it's actually true (I still need to buy the book) but after comparing them both to Reliable 10 and other similar costed enhancements, it seems perfectly fair.

EDIT: Either is +50%. Both would then be +100%

[transmetahuman]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

Throughout the forums and other internet areas I hear it's in Powers: The Weird. Since I don't have the book, I decided to figure out if they are actually fair based on options already available, namely Reliable 10.

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

I don't know if it's actually true (I still need to buy the book) but after comparing them both to Reliable 10 and other similar costed enhancements, it seems perfectly fair.

EDIT: Either is +50%. Both would then be +100%

Wow, I've had Powers: The Weird for a while but I missed that bit. Or, since I have some serious issues with the enhancement/limitation breakdown, maybe I read it and figured I'd never use it. FYI, when you ignore all of the cost modifiers that have nothing to do with the range and concentration activation modifiers, you end up with both being ignored, along with another often advantageous change (and potentially intergalactic range), with one +50% Cosmic. And nothing stopping you from taking Reliable along with it. Yeah, I've got problems with this. Maybe I'm not seeing the downsides well enough, though; I'll give it more thought.

In any case, that seems to answer the question I put in my recent thread, so, thanks!

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by transmetahuman

Wow, I've had Powers: The Weird for a while but I missed that bit. Or, since I have some serious issues with the enhancement/limitation breakdown, maybe I read it and figured I'd never use it. FYI, when you ignore all of the cost modifiers that have nothing to do with the range and concentration activation modifiers, you end up with both being ignored, along with another often advantageous change (and potentially intergalactic range), with one +50% Cosmic. And nothing stopping you from taking Reliable along with it. Yeah, I've got problems with this. Maybe I'm not seeing the downsides well enough, though; I'll give it more thought.

In any case, that seems to answer the question I put in my recent thread, so, thanks!

It removes both with a single +50%? That seems a little nuts. Do mind elaborating on what you mean the +50% entirely affects?

[transmetahuman]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

It removes both with a single +50%? That seems a little nuts. Do mind elaborating on what you mean the +50% entirely affects?

I'm not sure how big a chunk of published material is fair game to post on here, so I want to guess conservatively.

The ability in question is Nonlocality, page 34 of P: The Weird. It's Warp, with eight or nine modifiers. Most of those can be found in other books. I was a little off in saying the one Cosmic in question gets rid of Concentration modifiers completely; it actually replaces that with a flat -5 to your roll unless you have certain memory related advantages (in which case you roll at +0 or +5). It does definitely, explicitly get rid of all range modifiers.

I won't give the description of the ability here, but I hope it's not too much to just say that the modifier in question is called "Cosmic, Based on memory of destination rather than spatial coordinates, +50%". The only other relevant modifiers are an accessibility that is arguably redundant with the Cosmic (I can't imagine how a version with the Cosmic but not the accessibility would work), and Blind Only, -50% - again, arguably redundant with the Cosmic, for the same reason. Unless being able to see your destination grants you automatic good knowledge of it. So, taking all of that together actually reduces the total cost of the ability.

You should just go ahead and buy the book. 🙂 My quibbles with that particular ability aside, it's a great read, and gives lots of ideas for how to use modifiers to deeply change the effects of advantages - maybe not as plentiful as Psionic Powers, but in that same vein, and much weirder (so, even more inspiring). And of course all the other cool stuff that they do mention in the description.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by transmetahuman

it actually replaces that with a flat -5 to your roll unless you have certain memory related advantages (in which case you roll at +0 or +5).

"Cosmic, Based on memory of destination rather than spatial coordinates, +50%". The only other relevant modifiers are an accessibility that is arguably redundant with the Cosmic (I can't imagine how a version with the Cosmic but not the accessibility would work), and Blind Only, -50% - again, arguably redundant with the Cosmic, for the same reason. Unless being able to see your destination grants you automatic good knowledge of it. So, taking all of that together actually reduces the total cost of the ability.

You should just go ahead and buy the book. 🙂

That -5 might be coming from Blind Only, but yes I definitely plan on getting the book. That is kind of crazy and I will look more into it, but I'll use the system I made for now until then.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

Construct 2 +160% is a house-ruled enhancement that you get all the benefits of Construct and no Construct (namely, there is no true you, with Dupe 2 either one could spend 10FP to get the other back). It basically has Cosmic +100% for breaking a rule. It hasn't seemed overpowered, but I don't know, what does the hivemind think?

As luck would have it, I was thinking about this just this morning in relation to a character I was tinkering with and searched the forum to see if it had been addressed before.

Construct is one of those uncommon enhancements that adds an inherent limitation not present in the base advantage. With base Duplication, you can summon another you that is just as ‘real’ as you are. If you are killed while Duplicated, the other you is hurt, but is still alive. The Construct enhancement means YOU aren’t hurt if your dupe is, but BOTH of you are killed if the real you is killed. In a sense, you are getting meat shield versions of the D&D spell Mirror Image (with greater utility, of course). Considering the question “What is it worth if there is no true you, just like in the base advantage?”, I first thought that it was just a flat cost equal to adding the Construct enhancement to yourself, as though you were a Duplicate (Duplicate 0), so +21 points. I reasoned that you weren’t changing anything with the other Constructs, just removing a vulnerability from the ‘original’. Thinking about it some more, it now seems to me that you are also enhancing the Constructs, because they no longer have YOU as a vulnerability. This makes me think that maybe you should be enhancing the Construct Enhancement rather than the Duplication advantage. The +100% Cosmic looks like it is appropriate but applied to Construct instead. The total enhancement would be +120% to Duplication, making the enhanced Constructs cost 77 pts each. That seems crazy expensive to me, but there you go. You might want to look at Kromm’s Ally build as an alternative.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Not another shrubbery

The +100% Cosmic looks like it is appropriate but applied to Construct instead. The total enhancement would be +120% to Duplication, making the enhanced Constructs cost 77 pts each. That seems crazy expensive to me, but there you go. You might want to look at Kromm’s Ally build as an alternative.

That's actually cheaper than what I came up with. At +160% it's still less than ATR. My reasoning for putting in on the advantage itself instead of doubling Construct was that you are getting both the benefits of Construct and not., or basically weighing the benefits of another regular dupe with making the construct get the upsides of the regular dupe.

Also, I did get Powers the Weird. Yep, it's really is just a +50% enhancement. Blows my mind.