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Old 02-09-2010, 05:46 AM   #1
vicky_molokh
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Default Digital Duplication problem: combining digital, construct, and no 'first dupe' . . .

Greetings, all!

I'm 'building' a VI Ally (read: NAI) for Christie's Mass Effect campaign. The trouble I'm having, is that I want to give it Duplication to represent the ability to copy it to other cybershells. However, I see no way of making it possible to produce an arbitrary number of copies - NOT copies active simultaneously, but rather producing new copies if the old ones are destroyed. Apparently with Digital, the character whose dupe got destroyed loses one level of Duplication. How do I avoid that for Digital?

Thanks in advance!
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Old 02-09-2010, 06:40 AM   #2
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Default Re: Digital Duplication problem: combining digital, construct, and no 'first dupe' .

Extra Life (Digital Only)?
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Old 02-09-2010, 06:45 AM   #3
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Default Re: Digital Duplication problem: combining digital, construct, and no 'first dupe' .

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Originally Posted by davidtmoore View Post
Extra Life (Digital Only)?
Nope. Extra Lives get used up, and then they're gone. (Besides, all NAI tempaltes have Extra Life, Requires Body, Copy.)
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Old 02-09-2010, 08:23 AM   #4
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Default Re: Digital Duplication problem: combining digital, construct, and no 'first dupe' .

Doesn't the construct enhancement let you bring back a dupe that was destroyed if you pay a bunch of FP?
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Old 02-09-2010, 08:34 AM   #5
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Default Re: Digital Duplication problem: combining digital, construct, and no 'first dupe' .

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Originally Posted by lexington View Post
Doesn't the construct enhancement let you bring back a dupe that was destroyed if you pay a bunch of FP?
Yes it does, however it has three problems:
  • If #0 is destroyed, then #1 and up cannot duplicate.
  • NAIs can't meaningfully pay FP.
  • It is incompatible with Digital in the first place.
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Old 02-09-2010, 08:40 AM   #6
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Default Re: Digital Duplication problem: combining digital, construct, and no 'first dupe' .

I had a similar, but physical, character concept. IIRC, with the GMs blessing I solved it with Construct, and Cosmic: "No True You", +100% (because it's a quick ticket to being VERY hard to kill).

Another approach would be no Construct or Cosmic, and instead Unkillable 3 ("No Unkillable 1", -50 points; "Achilles' Heel" - damage on my last surviving copy, -10%; Trigger - One of my Dupes spends 10 FP, -5%)

There's a lot of handwaving going on here -

"No Unkillable 1" isn't cannonical, but it's something that's been thrown around for characters who are just as easy to put down as normal folks but still get back up later.

Achilles' Heel is a legitimate limitation, but to make it work here I've taken a bit of liberty with the concept - it's not damage of a particular TYPE that kills you for good, but damage taken when you've run out of duplicates. I assessed it as a Rare condition - it's too easy to take one of your dupes and stuff them somewhere far away from the "action". I did it all the time with my crows :D

The Trigger is also a little weird, as in this case it's not an external condition. As such, I assessed it as a VERY COMMON trigger because the PC just has to get a dupe back up to 10 FP (or near enough if he has spare HPs) before being able to "pop off" replacements.

With this build you don't need Construct, because ALL your duplicates have the Unkillable. You may want No Sympathetic Injury though.
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Old 02-09-2010, 08:49 AM   #7
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Default Re: Digital Duplication problem: combining digital, construct, and no 'first dupe' .

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Originally Posted by Molokh View Post
Yes it does, however it has three problems:
  • If #0 is destroyed, then #1 and up cannot duplicate.
  • NAIs can't meaningfully pay FP.
  • It is incompatible with Digital in the first place.
Well you're going to have to fudge something, probably quite a lot. You could replaced the inability to pay FP by saying that so long as he survives survives a new one is created every 12 hours. Cosmic +50% to let you break the rule against mixing Construct and Digital.

I strongly suspect that making it so there is no #0 would shatter game balance at any cost. Inspired by Invincible I would suggest having #0 never go into the field and taking Zeroed (-20% only for the location of #0). That way it will seem that there is no original to almost everyone and leave the potential for being in real danger open.
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Old 02-09-2010, 09:08 AM   #8
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Default Re: Digital Duplication problem: combining digital, construct, and no 'first dupe' .

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Originally Posted by Molokh View Post
Yes it does, however it has three problems:
  • If #0 is destroyed, then #1 and up cannot duplicate.
  • NAIs can't meaningfully pay FP.
  • It is incompatible with Digital in the first place.
Mmm. Missed the incompatability with Digital. You'll probably want to go with the Unkillable build then, and come up with some other version of the Trigger to "reactivate" a copy. "Find new hardware to act as a host and spend an hour Concentrating on copying yourself" sounds sufficiently inconvenient.

In retrospect, I would have gone with the Unkillable build - I think it's just plain simpler, and makes it a lot clearer what the actual effect of this sort of modification is - your character becomes silly hard to kill off.

Quote:
Originally Posted by lexington View Post
I strongly suspect that making it so there is no #0 would shatter game balance at any cost. Inspired by Invincible I would suggest having #0 never go into the field and taking Zeroed (-20% only for the location of #0). That way it will seem that there is no original to almost everyone and leave the potential for being in real danger open.

I don't think there's an issue with there being no #0, any more than there is an issue with vanilla Unkillable - which is after all the advantage of being impossible to kill. You just have to price it out accordingly.
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Old 02-09-2010, 09:12 AM   #9
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Default Re: Digital Duplication problem: combining digital, construct, and no 'first dupe' .

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Originally Posted by Bruno View Post
Mmm. Missed the incompatability with Digital. You'll probably want to go with the Unkillable build then, and come up with some other version of the Trigger to "reactivate" a copy. "Find new hardware to act as a host and spend an hour Concentrating on copying yourself" sounds sufficiently inconvenient.

In retrospect, I would have gone with the Unkillable build - I think it's just plain simpler, and makes it a lot clearer what the actual effect of this sort of modification is - your character becomes silly hard to kill off.




I don't think there's an issue with there being no #0, any more than there is an issue with vanilla Unkillable - which is after all the advantage of being impossible to kill. You just have to price it out accordingly.
Well, by canon infomorphs have Extra Life (Copy, Needs Body) instead of Unkillable. But the extra problem is that I'm building a NAI for a setting where xoxing NAIs for personal use is no big deal compared to THS (as long as you maintain proper licensing...).
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Old 02-09-2010, 09:39 AM   #10
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Default Re: Digital Duplication problem: combining digital, construct, and no 'first dupe' .

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Originally Posted by Molokh View Post
Well, by canon infomorphs have Extra Life (Copy, Needs Body) instead of Unkillable. But the extra problem is that I'm building a NAI for a setting where xoxing NAIs for personal use is no big deal compared to THS (as long as you maintain proper licensing...).
It's one of those basic GURPS problems, I guess. What you're asking is "can I have endless Extra Lives without having to spend points for each Extra Life?" and the answer's either "no" or Unkillable.

I guess this is the main reason for the social rules regarding xoxing in TS; it allows the system to conform to the GURPS assumption that you should pay points for backup lives.

To get what you're asking for, you'll either have to persuade the GM to let you have ELs for no CP cost, or find some way to pervert Unkillable into shape. Bruno's build seems reasonable.
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