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Old 08-02-2010, 03:07 PM   #1
DarkSoldier
 
Join Date: Aug 2010
Default [Power] Material Mimic

I am in the process of beginning my first campaign. Before any of my players new I was running a game, I went to everyone and asked them this question, "If you could choose one Super Power, what would it be?".

I tried to get everyone to think about their characters and develope a mind set before we created characters.

After looking through the Core Books (4th ed) of Characters and Campaigns, I was able to take and modify Telekenisis, Teleportation, and Mind Control for three of my PCs. I liked how everything turned out.

The 4th PC is what leads to my problem.
The Power he thought up was "Material Morph", (ie. He can touch any non-living material and change his bodies molecular structure to match the material.)
When it comes down to it I have no problems imagining this Power and thinking about future ways it may develop.

But, the problem I am facing is how to build this character's Power.
(I am trying to keep the cost of this Power between 60 and 100 points)

The direction I am moving right now is this:
I want to build 3 basic Templates for the character. One for Solid, Liquid, and Gas.
Based on how many points he has to spend he may only have enough points to buy the first Template: Solid.

I am hoping to build each template so that the character can literally change stats with each form he takes.

Which brings even more things into pay.
How do I scale DR for materials? If the character turns into Steel, by the book his DR is around 56. That is crazy powerful, I need to add weight for the material and add some kind of disadvantage to being in that form.

I have spent the last couple days thinking about this power, and how to let it do what it should do, without letting it become broken.
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Old 08-02-2010, 03:11 PM   #2
lexington
 
Join Date: Jan 2010
Default Re: [Power] Material Mimic

Quote:
Originally Posted by DarkSoldier View Post
I am in the process of beginning my first campaign. Before any of my players new I was running a game, I went to everyone and asked them this question, "If you could choose one Super Power, what would it be?".

I tried to get everyone to think about their characters and develope a mind set before we created characters.

After looking through the Core Books (4th ed) of Characters and Campaigns, I was able to take and modify Telekenisis, Teleportation, and Mind Control for three of my PCs. I liked how everything turned out.

The 4th PC is what leads to my problem.
The Power he thought up was "Material Morph", (ie. He can touch any non-living material and change his bodies molecular structure to match the material.)
When it comes down to it I have no problems imagining this Power and thinking about future ways it may develop.

But, the problem I am facing is how to build this character's Power.
(I am trying to keep the cost of this Power between 60 and 100 points)

The direction I am moving right now is this:
I want to build 3 basic Templates for the character. One for Solid, Liquid, and Gas.
Based on how many points he has to spend he may only have enough points to buy the first Template: Solid.

I am hoping to build each template so that the character can literally change stats with each form he takes.

Which brings even more things into pay.
How do I scale DR for materials? If the character turns into Steel, by the book his DR is around 56. That is crazy powerful, I need to add weight for the material and add some kind of disadvantage to being in that form.

I have spent the last couple days thinking about this power, and how to let it do what it should do, without letting it become broken.
I suggest modifying the elementals from Dungeon Fantasy: Summoners (wood, metal, wind, fire, water, sound IIRC). They all come in a bunch of sizes and types so his powers have room to grow.
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Old 08-02-2010, 10:56 PM   #3
DarkSoldier
 
Join Date: Aug 2010
Default Re: [Power] Material Mimic

I checked out the Dungeon Fantasy: Summoners book, from what I was reading it looked a lot like the Meta-Traits from the Basic Set Characters book in the Templates section.

Thanks though.
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Old 08-03-2010, 04:05 AM   #4
Dinadon
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Default Re: [Power] Material Mimic

You're having issues building it because most of the modifiers for it are in Powers, not Basic. A suggested build:

Morph (Cannot Memorize Form -50%, Need to touch -15%, Unliving Forms Only -0%) [35], then work out how many points you want in the pool. Note that this particular build would let him become anything unliving, such as cars and toasters.

As to the DR 56 steel form problem, I would say just ensure that his forms maintain proportionality for different materials. Also he isn't a solid slab of steel, an I assume still as mobile as normal, so an inch thickness may not be a sound starting point. Try a quarter of an inch, which I would find more sensible. Finally, super-power! Why worry about exactly matching, when feel is often the better thing for super powers.
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Old 08-03-2010, 07:36 AM   #5
Blarg
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Default Re: [Power] Material Mimic

This sounds very much like Grunge's power from the Gen 13 comics. There is probably a GURPS conversion Somewhere Out There on the Intarwebs.
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Old 08-03-2010, 08:07 AM   #6
Dustin
 
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Location: The former Chochenyo territory
Default Re: [Power] Material Mimic

I would try to keep it simple, and just use Shapeshifting (Alternate Form) to model this. Maybe one each for metal, stone/concrete, wood, and plastic, each with varying levels of ST, DR, and DX/Move to roughly balance out.
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Old 08-03-2010, 08:44 AM   #7
Ze'Manel Cunha
 
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Location: Stuttgart, Germany
Default Re: [Power] Material Mimic

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dinadon View Post
Morph (Cannot Memorize Form -50%, Need to touch -15%, Unliving Forms Only -0%) [35], then work out how many points you want in the pool. Note that this particular build would let him become anything unliving, such as cars and toasters.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DarkSoldier View Post
The direction I am moving right now is this:
I want to build 3 basic Templates for the character. One for Solid, Liquid, and Gas.
Based on how many points he has to spend he may only have enough points to buy the first Template: Solid.
I would add a limitation to the above Morph suggestion along the lines of "Solid, Liquid and Gas Elemental Forms Only, -25%".

As for the Templates, just start with the different Elemental Meta-Traits and tweak them for different things. The Morph above will cost a base of [20], then you can add 40-80 points for the templates which you'll have to tweak since the Body of Earth/Metal templates cost [175] you'll want to reduce that down by giving him -DX and such until he can put more points into the pool.

So as an example, the Body of Metal has 175 points in it, if the Morph has an 80 point pool he'll maybe only be able to do a form without a few things like (Doesn't Breathe, Pressure 3, Sealed and Vacuum Support), dropping the cost down to 120, then -2 DX and the cost drops down to the 80 points available in the pool and you have a "Body of Organic Steel" template with DR 9 and -2 DX and a "Body of Organic Stone" template with DR 5 and -1 DX.

Just add in and subtract out DX, Basic Speed and Basic Move to the templates to get them down to the available pool # and you get a reasonable variation.
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Old 08-03-2010, 08:53 AM   #8
vitruvian
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Default Re: [Power] Material Mimic

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ze'Manel Cunha View Post
I would add a limitation to the above Morph suggestion along the lines of "Solid, Liquid and Gas Elemental Forms Only, -25%".

As for the Templates, just start with the different Elemental Meta-Traits and tweak them for different things. The Morph above will cost a base of [20], then you can add 40-80 points for the templates which you'll have to tweak since the Body of Earth/Metal templates cost [175] you'll want to reduce that down by giving him -DX and such until he can put more points into the pool.

So as an example, the Body of Metal has 175 points in it, if the Morph has an 80 point pool he'll maybe only be able to do a form without a few things like (Doesn't Breathe, Pressure 3, Sealed and Vacuum Support), dropping the cost down to 120, then -2 DX and the cost drops down to the 80 points available in the pool and you have a "Body of Organic Steel" template with DR 9 and -2 DX and a "Body of Organic Stone" template with DR 5 and -1 DX.

Just add in and subtract out DX, Basic Speed and Basic Move to the templates to get them down to the available pool # and you get a reasonable variation.
What he said... between no memorization, needing to touch the stuff you become, and restricting it to 'Body of' forms (so no complex machinery, no real change of shape except to flow around a bit when in gas or liquid forms), you should be able to get the cost of the base Morph down nice and low. Maybe a full -80% for 20 CP. Problem is, you'll need a sizeable Morph pool on top of that just to cover things like Injury Tolerance (Diffuse) for fluid forms, unless you come up with templates that have a lot of disadvantages to them to counterbalance.

Also be aware that you'll need to be willing to help the player come up with templates you believe are fair whenever he touches something you haven't statted up before. I'd start off already having them for air, water (or other liquid without special properties), stone, concrete, plastic, wood, glass, earth, rubber, and a few others.
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Old 08-04-2010, 12:04 PM   #9
Phantasm
 
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Location: On the road again...
Default Re: [Power] Material Mimic

I ran into this problem somewhat when statting the Absorbing Man for my Reboot project.

Here's how I ultimately ended up doing him:

Morph (Extra Morphing Capacity: +175; Accessibility: Body of... Meta-Traits Only, -10%; Cannot Memorize Forms, -50%; Mass Conservation, -20%; Needs Sample (Must Touch Subject), -5%; Retains Shape, -20%; Magical, -10%) [195]

In your case, you can change the Magical to Super, or to any power modifier you wish.

I used the Extra Morphing Capacity +175 because several Body Of... meta-traits run that high, primarily Body of Earth, Body of Metal, and Body of Water. Without it, using Morph would limit him to Body of... meta-traits with point values of 0 or less, which a quick scan of GCA with all the files loaded indicates doesn't exist - Body of Fire is the cheapest at 6 points (56 if you want him to have his hands and feet).
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Old 08-04-2010, 12:42 PM   #10
vitruvian
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Default Re: [Power] Material Mimic

Quote:
Originally Posted by tbrock1031 View Post
I ran into this problem somewhat when statting the Absorbing Man for my Reboot project.

Here's how I ultimately ended up doing him:

Morph (Extra Morphing Capacity: +175; Accessibility: Body of... Meta-Traits Only, -10%; Cannot Memorize Forms, -50%; Mass Conservation, -20%; Needs Sample (Must Touch Subject), -5%; Retains Shape, -20%; Magical, -10%) [195]

In your case, you can change the Magical to Super, or to any power modifier you wish.

I used the Extra Morphing Capacity +175 because several Body Of... meta-traits run that high, primarily Body of Earth, Body of Metal, and Body of Water. Without it, using Morph would limit him to Body of... meta-traits with point values of 0 or less, which a quick scan of GCA with all the files loaded indicates doesn't exist - Body of Fire is the cheapest at 6 points (56 if you want him to have his hands and feet).
Wait - mass conservation? That would mean he shrank when he changed to lead or something...
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