[Supers] Oddity in Duplication

[Donny Brook]

Regarding the Duplication ability, Supers describes a new enhancement as follows:

"Multiplication: In noncombat situations, by spending 1 FP
in extra effort, you can form more than your normal number
of duplicates. Look up your standard number of duplicates in
the Base Value column of the Super-Abilities Table (see p. 146).
Read over to the Supervalue column. The number shown there
is the number of bodies you can split into. This does not
enhance your combat abilities; only one of your bodies can initiate
any combat action. Nor does it let you learn faster than
normal by having your dupes study the same subject in parallel.
But it lets you do many tasks at the same time, speeding up
work and other noncombat activities. +20%."

Regarding the bold part, if taken literally it would seem like this Enhancement actually deprives you of use of your Dupe in combat. Is that the intent? Or should the word "bodies" be "dupes" in that phrase?

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

Regarding the bold part, if taken literally it would seem like this Enhancement actually deprives you of use of your Dupe in combat. Is that the intent? Or should the word "bodies" be "dupes" in that phrase?

I would say no. For a very minor increase in cost your getting a lot of extra bodies. That has to have a downside to counter effect the benefit.
Making them not helpful in combat is the stated tradeoff. Note that by making it cost FP it is an enhancement you can switch off even without Selectivity.
That means you can make your Duplicate a normal one or a noncombat one when you turn it on.

[kirbwarrior]

What is a combat action? When I had a duplication build with this, I assumed only one dupe could actually 'fight', while the other ones just moved around, switching which one was actually 'fighting' each turn.

[Bruno]

The intent was to allow supers with Duplication an "extra effort" mode that would allow e.g. a Duplication based super to search an entire library rapidly, tear down a car rapidly, etc. at a fair price.

Duplication is priced based on the idea that it's a force multiplier - if you don't need piles of dupes for a force multiplier, just for "everything else", a discount is appropriate. This was the chosen way to get a "discount" that's consistent with Super ST and it's ilk (instead giving you a very cheap multiplier).

Having actually played a Duplication based character, I think the base advantage should be priced at about 100 points per level, like Altered Time Rate. You have some potential trouble applying all your actions to the same problem, unlike with ATR, but then again you can apply them to multiple problems in multiple locations which you can't do with ATR, and it acts as a sort of Extra Life to boot. I frequently stashed one Dupe a long away away from the action :P

Getting a pile of further free extra actions when you need them, as long as you aren't using them to take combat maneuvers (which I presume is Attack, All Out Attack, Committed Attack, Defensive Attack, Aim, and possibly All-Out-Defense) is just gravy and clearly better than not getting those extra maneuvers.

[Bruno]

To be clear, a character with this enhancement switches between modes depending on whether they're spending FP or not.

So if you have Duplication 10 (Multiplication) you can have 10 regular old Duplicates for no FP cost or when you are out of combat you can spend one FP per minute and get 100 Duplicates, to do out of combat things with.

This is also a very useful build for some kinds of super-speedsters.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Bruno

This is also a very useful build for some kinds of super-speedsters.

Oh... very interesting!

[Flyndaran]

I have to admit that it is how they visually represent speedsters in cartoons. Numerous Flashes cleaning, building, fighting, etc.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I have to admit that it is how they visually represent speedsters in cartoons. Numerous Flashes cleaning, building, fighting, etc.

Not just represent. Rapidly swapping between two spots (pretending to be two different people) was how one of the enemy speedsters in the rebooted Flash series on TV managed to fool the team.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

Regarding the bold part, if taken literally it would seem like this Enhancement actually deprives you of use of your Dupe in combat. Is that the intent? Or should the word "bodies" be "dupes" in that phrase?

The people who have been telling you that it's "bodies" and not "dupes" have it right. It's based on the super-effort modifier to Altered Time Rate, which is similarly limited, and is parallel to the one for Compartmentalized Mind. Basically they're three different ways to accomplish the same end result.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I have to admit that it is how they visually represent speedsters in cartoons. Numerous Flashes cleaning, building, fighting, etc.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Not just represent. Rapidly swapping between two spots (pretending to be two different people) was how one of the enemy speedsters in the rebooted Flash series on TV managed to fool the team.

Obligatory obscure quote: "He's everywhere! he's everywhere! Chickenman!"

(Which I'm not sure anyone is going to get, but I've got a Pavlovian compulsion to say it. What can I say, I'm the child of two nerds.)