Afflicting Multiple Targets

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Crystalline_Entity

I'm trying to develop a power like a Star Trek transporter which allows someone to use Warp on multiple targets.

My best guess is:

Affliction (Warp +1000%; Area Effect 1 (2 yards), +50%; Selective Area, +20%) [135]

Can you add Area Effect to an Affliction and have it affect certain people in the radius like this? Do they roll their HT to resist individually?

.

If they don't wanna go, yeah. Note incidentally that this is better than a Star Trek transporter which isn't all that picky about what it grabs in the area of effect.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by naloth

Eh?

Selective Area wasn't repeated or clarified in PU4.

"Removed the cone/area taboo" was referring to Selective Effect, since Selective Area has always been fine for those.

Originally Posted by naloth

Selective Effect is exactly the same as it appears under Selective Area in Powers with additional uses for doing "parts of things."

P105's introduction was changed from:

Abilities without Area Effect or Cone can have “Selective Effect” if they have the potential to affect an area or multiple targets actively

to this on PU4p16:

Any ability that can affect multiple targets may have this enhancement.

Changes include the removal of "actively" (it just has to affect multiple targets, so presumably "passively" is now on the table) and the "without Area Effect or Cone" requirement.

Originally Posted by naloth

Some of those uses are better suited to be a limitation rather than an enhancement anyway. After all, there are mighty few times you're better off aiming for and only paralyzing a hand than the whole person, and if you can only paralyze the body parts you randomly roll on the hit table, that's worse than the normal effect.

The added option to paralyze just a hand is definitely an enhancement, much like "Variable" is even though all it does is allow you to hit with less damage using Innate Attack.

If someone could ONLY paralyze hands (or 1 random body part) then yeah that should totally be a limitation, though I'm not sure how much.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

this is better than a Star Trek transporter which isn't all that picky about what it grabs in the area of effect.

I'm trying to fathom what attribute would resist that device and I'm drawing a blank.

[naloth]

Originally Posted by Plane

The added option to paralyze just a hand is definitely an enhancement, much like "Variable" is even though all it does is allow you to hit with less damage using Innate Attack.

Less damage is usually to avoid serious injury or murder. Less paralysis seems less impressive and it's far more than +5%. I wouldn't compare it with variable.

If someone could ONLY paralyze hands (or 1 random body part) then yeah that should totally be a limitation, though I'm not sure how much.

With Bind I used to call it about a -20% (only body part that is hit), since it represented what you get with either randomizing the location (only foot, only arm) or by taking a penalty to hit where you want to hit.

I'm trying to fathom what attribute would resist that device and I'm drawing a blank.

HT is the default. TNG had an enhanced soldier that could resist and it even caused enough feedback to overload the transporter for his escape. "Science!"

[Plane]

Originally Posted by naloth

Less damage is usually to avoid serious injury or murder. Less paralysis seems less impressive and it's far more than +5%. I wouldn't compare it with variable.

Good point. But if selective effect in its basic form can do any combination of variation in paralysis, a selective effect with more limited options should probably be worth less.

Much like how Stretching borrowed "Limbs Only -20%" from Damage Resistance, maybe you could borrow that in constructing a limited-enhancement for Selective Effect?

Limbs-Only Selective Effect would reduce +20% to +16%, whereas "Extremities Only" or "Limb Only" would be -40% reducing it to +12%, and "Extremity Only" would be -80% reducing it to +4%, less costly than Variable.

Originally Posted by naloth

HT is the default. TNG had an enhanced soldier that could resist and it even caused enough feedback to overload the transporter for his escape. "Science!"

Sounds awesome, I probably should rewatch eps from that series, I've forgotten a lot of stuff from it.

Given that normal people don't seem to ever resist it (it doesn't even seem like being healthy would normally even help) I wonder if at a baseline it's like Affliction 20 so that even being some uber HT 20 guy won't stop the transporter from working, but then this super soldier has some kind of "Power Block" which doubles some kind of +8 Resistance into +16 which on top of innately high HT helped him overwhelp it?

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Plane

I'm trying to fathom what attribute would resist that device and I'm drawing a blank.

Actually I might go with DX based on the idea that you move just enough to avoid it.

[Plane]

You could have DX20 and Move 1 in theory though, which shouldn't get you out of range of a huge 5-yard AE transporter beam...

But I think you hit on something... I'm trying to remember if there are difficulties caused in locking onto someone if they're moving around v stationary.

[Crystalline_Entity]

Originally Posted by Plane

You could have DX20 and Move 1 in theory though, which shouldn't get you out of range of a huge 5-yard AE transporter beam...

But I think you hit on something... I'm trying to remember if there are difficulties caused in locking onto someone if they're moving around v stationary.

Nothing springs to mind immediately to me, the best I can come up with off the top of my head is that if you want to use the transporter at warp speed you have to be travelling at an identical warp factor (which I think it from TNG somewhere).

[Crystalline_Entity]

So my final draft build of this is:

Affliction (HT; Advantage: Transport, +1350% Area Effect 1, +50%; Selective Area, +20%; Malediction, +200%) [567]

where Transport is:

Warp (Improved, +10%; Extra-Heavy Encumbrance, +50%; Blind Only, -50%; Reliable 7, +35%; Maximum Range (10,000 miles), -10%) [135]

Where five levels of reliable cancel the penalty from Blind Only, and two levels offset the penalty for using the ability in eight seconds rather than thirty (which is probably about the same as a Star Trek transporter).

Does this look like a valid build? I'm not quite sure how to do the targetting (the range restriction on malediction makes targetting something 10,000 miles away difficult - and presumably you have to know where it is, this doesn't include any sort of scanning sense or detect).

[naloth]

Originally Posted by Crystalline_Entity

So my final draft build of this is:

Affliction (HT; Advantage: Transport, +1350% Area Effect 1, +50%; Selective Area, +20%; Malediction, +200%) [567]

where Transport is:

Warp (Improved, +10%; Extra-Heavy Encumbrance, +50%; Blind Only, -50%; Reliable 7, +35%; Maximum Range (10,000 miles), -10%) [135]

Seems good. I'd use an attached sense in place of Blind to justify getting a "lock" before doing any beaming.

Does this look like a valid build? I'm not quite sure how to do the targetting (the range restriction on malediction makes targetting something 10,000 miles away difficult - and presumably you have to know where it is, this doesn't include any sort of scanning sense or detect).

I'd use Detect, where you have to succeed with a detect to target with the Affliction. Of course, you wouldn't need Blind if you have a precise Detect roll.