[Movie Supers] Iron Man

[ErhnamDJ]

I like the idea of using Alternate Form. It's elegant and you have to pay points for the stuff you get.

But there are certainly instances where it might not work as you would like. It would be nice if you could purchase a different Alternate Form for different parts of your body. One for your head, to represent the helmet, and another for each leg, and so on.

If you were able to do that, then you could get close to what we would expect to see in the films. But using Alternate Form as-is doesn't allow for something like his leg armor getting ripped off. I don't know if that's possible. If it's not, then maybe Alternate Form would work.

Otherwise you end up needing to purchase each individual ability as a gadget, which probably costs a lot less. But then you have to figure out how to swap out the armor. Tony might well own a hundred different suits of armor each with its own abilities.

I guess you could give him a Modular Ability to handle that, but it's going to be much more expensive. Whereas if you go the Alternate Form route you can purchase a Modular Ability that allows him to swap around his Alternate Forms.

I don't know if I would allow that were I the GM, though. It's nothing but a huge point break over purchasing those abilities as gadgets. The thing isn't animate. I guess it can be stolen, but gadgets can as well.

I wouldn't allow it to be purchased with money, since it's not something you can just purchase. If we were allowing that, then Thor should purchase his hammer with money. They're both technological items that could theoretically be put up for auction, or be reproduced and sold, but that doesn't seem right either that you could get those powerful abilities that way.

The best I can think of is to use Alternate Form, but to give each ability in the form its own separate gadget limitation DR with (Leg only, -x%; Leg armor, -x%) and separate DR for the chest, arms, face, head, crotch, and so on.

[Figleaf23]

Alternate Form says: "you can switch it “on” and “off.”"

Stark has to don his armor, there's nothing switchable about it. Why would folks try to shoe-horn AF into this build when there are more accurate representations available?

[ErhnamDJ]

Originally Posted by Figleaf23

Alternate Form says: "you can switch it “on” and “off.”"

Stark has to don his armor, there's nothing switchable about it.

Isn't that exactly what an AF with gadget modifiers on it looks like?

Why would folks try to shoe-horn AF into this build when there are more accurate representations available?

What ways are those? Purchasing the abilities as powers and then purchasing each suit's different abilities as alternative abilities? Purchasing each suit as an Ally? Purchasing each suit with money, even though they're not things that anyone can purchase with money?

Alternate Form combined with a Modular Ability for each new ability is the closest we can get to what we see in the movies without doing something that's abusively cheap. This is the same discussion that comes up with mech suits for those kinds of games. My preferred way of handling that is either with money if you can purchase them or as Alternate Form if you can't.

The reason for it is that I don't think those other methods are more accurate. It's not that I'm sacrificing accuracy for some other end. Maybe I'm mistaken about that, though, and someone will convince me of it.

[Dragondog]

Originally Posted by Figleaf23

Alternate Form says: "you can switch it “on” and “off.”"

Stark has to don his armor, there's nothing switchable about it. Why would folks try to shoe-horn AF into this build when there are more accurate representations available?

If that was all you had to worry about, Takes Extra Time or Needs Preparation or other limitations would easily cover that.

Personally I think the gadget limitations or Ally seems like the best fit. I don't have Supers, so there may be other options there.

[naloth]

Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ

Isn't that exactly what an AF with gadget modifiers on it looks like?

It would probably be a trigger (requires X) instead of gadget limitations.

Alternate Form could work but it doesn't really give you the battlesuit (tough suit, squishy human inside) feel. For Iron Man, he's really more of a cinematic super so either way seems fine to me.

What ways are those? Purchasing the abilities as powers and then purchasing each suit's different abilities as alternative abilities? Purchasing each suit as an Ally? Purchasing each suit with money, even though they're not things that anyone can purchase with money?

IIRC, the dreadnaught template from Supers purchases each armor piece as a gadget.

I've always felt like a battlesuit Ally was a bit of a point crock since you're buying it as non-sentient, using its abilities as your own, and getting a pretty good discount for it. It's slightly different than having a "normal" ally vehicle that's an alternative to equipment, that's controlled through skills, and well into the territory where your Ally is granting you abilities you should be purchasing yourself as if your Ally was a familiar.

Using money, if you invent stuff from UltraTech, it's not going to resemble what you would get using points instead and obviously his equipment isn't available at this TL for any price. You can spend quite a bit inventing a high TL luxury item or a relatively small amount inventing a devastating weapon. UT's costs aren't meant to reflect the campaign usefulness. They instead price things like they might cost if you were go out an buy them retail. Last, the amount of disposable money you can get to buy gadgets using Multimillionare and a few points translated into cash can give ridiculous amounts of ultra tech stuff.

[ErhnamDJ]

Originally Posted by naloth

IIRC, the dreadnaught template from Supers purchases each armor piece as a gadget.

And that would be fine if Tony only had one suit. But he has a bunch of different suits that he can swap out.

So you're looking at this being much more expensive if you use gadget abilities than if you use Alternate Form, because it's much cheaper to get a Modular Ability to swap AF than it is to get one for every gadget ability he might want to swap out to.

I don't know what the point cost would work out to if you did all those other suits with Modular Abilities if you were purchasing them that way as alternative abilities

[naloth]

Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ

And that would be fine if Tony only had one suit. But he has a bunch of different suits that he can swap out.

If you were going the Dreadnaught route, I imagine you would have each suit as an alternate ability i.e. pay full cost for the most expensive and 1/5 for each additional one. You could be creative with a "base suit" to cover shared traits then have add on packages to specialize reducing the overall cost.

[ErhnamDJ]

Originally Posted by naloth

If you were going the Dreadnaught route, I imagine you would have each suit as an alternate ability i.e. pay full cost for the most expensive and 1/5 for each additional one. You could be creative with a "base suit" to cover shared traits then have add on packages to specialize reducing the overall cost.

Yeah, and then every time he invents a new suit he has to pay points for it, where with Alternate Form he can easily handle that with a single Modular Ability. There's not telling how much those alternative abilities would cost. The extra suits, which really aren't ever going to be all that useful, might cost him an extra five hundred points.

[naloth]

Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ

Yeah, and then every time he invents a new suit he has to pay points for it, where with Alternate Form he can easily handle that with a single Modular Ability. There's not telling how much those alternative abilities would cost. The extra suits, which really aren't ever going to be all that useful, might cost him an extra five hundred points.

Are you suggesting a single modular ability worth the cost of a single alternate form level should cover the cost of changing into any template up to the value of his most expensive alternate form? It sounds like a house rule that could invalidate the need for regular Morph entirely...

[the_matrix_walker]

Originally Posted by naloth

Are you suggesting a single modular ability worth the cost of a single alternate form level should cover the cost of changing into any template up to the value of his most expensive alternate form? It sounds like a house rule that could invalidate the need for regular Morph entirely...

It's not a House Rule... It is the use of Rule Zero and wary GMs that prevent putting Alternate Forms into a Modular Ability, nothing in the RAW prohibits it.