Do Shapeshifters duplicate the objects of their victims?

[Coinage]

Question about Shapeshifting. I was looking at creating a specific form of doppelganger. This doppelganger is like the doppelganger from Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 3. However, my doppelganger is able to duplicate the physical objects of another person.

Basically, my idea is to make an evil mirror-image of a character. The evil mirror-image would basically have the exact same Stats, Traits, and Equipment of the original. They would just be an evil NPC.

How would I do that? Would I need the enhancement Link (B106), and link Shapeshifter (B83-85; P74-75) with the Snatcher (P76) with Creation (P76) and Large Items (P76). Would I need some version of Create (P92-94)?

Thanks for any suggestions?

[Varyon]

Signature Gear is worth [1] per 50% of Starting Wealth worth of gear the character has. So, add up the worth of the target's gear (leaving anything they actually bought as Signature Gear out, as those points are already accounted for), divide by Starting Wealth, and multiply by 2 - add this number to the target's point total (you're taking whatever gear they had on them as Signature Gear). If you have enough points in your "morph budget" (the points you spent beyond the initial [100], plus whatever you lose by giving up your own stats) to meet this new total, you can turn into them; if you don't, you either fail or - if those additional points of Signature Gear made the difference - may be able to turn into them with less or no gear.

Optionally, you may want to apply an Enhancement to Morph to account for the fact that you create (temporary!) gear when you transform. Seeing as being able to turn into literally anything within your budget is only +50%, I wouldn't charge more than +20% (and note this applies to the initial [100], not to the additional points to increase your budget).

[Coinage]

Thanks for the reply. I am concerned that the first method you suggested would lead to a LOT of number crunching.

Once possibility is making a Cosmic: Godlike [+300%] (PU4, p. 9) enhancement, which would allow the doppelganger to duplicate the equipment.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Coinage

Thanks for the reply. I am concerned that the first method you suggested would lead to a LOT of number crunching.

Just adding [20] to the target's point total will likely cover you in the bulk of cases - that's enough to have 10xStarting Wealth worth of Signature Gear ($200,000 in a TL8 campaign). Also, as GM, you can probably just count on a rough estimation, provided you didn't actually equip the OpFor on a budget (if you did, just give enough points in SigGear to cover said budget). Also note you'll only need to worry about this if the character being copied is close in price to the character's morph budget - if you've got a lot of points left over before accounting for the Signature Gear, you probably don't need to bother calculating it unless the target has really expensive stuff.

I'll note my suggestion of possibly adding a +20% Enhancement was in addition to increasing the target's point value based on their gear, not in place of it.

[Anaraxes]

Create is for bulk matter/energy, not particular objects (Powers 93). You'd also need Control to recreate specific items. You're probably better off with Snatcher. Create/Control are more a fallback for filling in those characters can can "do anything with water/ice/fire/light/etc" where other abilities don't quite provide the right effects.

Originally Posted by Varyon

Seeing as being able to turn into literally anything within your budget is only +50%, I wouldn't charge more than +20%

Morph lets you replace your character with the thing it turns into. Becoming a toaster, losing your superhero and its actions and other abilities, is considerably less valuable than becoming yourself plus a toaster, much less yourself plus any special equipment (with special abilities) that you can imagine. That's more like Duplication for as many individual items as you need, Linked to Morph, so that you can split into a dozen or more copies, all but one of which chooses to become a different item of equipment. (Probably worth inventing some special Limitations for "Equipment Only" and "Can't Act Other than to Re-Merge", but the result is still going to be a positive number. Seems like one of those approaches that could be made to work, but the uphill climb suggests it's not the best approach.)

[Coinage]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Create is for bulk matter/energy, not particular objects (Powers 93). You'd also need Control to recreate specific items. You're probably better off with Snatcher. Create/Control are more a fallback for filling in those characters can can "do anything with water/ice/fire/light/etc" where other abilities don't quite provide the right effects.

Thanks for the heads-up. So I would go with either 1 or two options.

First, I could use enhancement Link (B106), and link Shapeshifter (B83-85; P74-75) with the Snatcher (P76) with Creation (P76) and Large Items (P76).

Second, I could use a Cosmic: Godlike [+300%] (PU4, p. 9) enhancement, which would allow the doppelganger to duplicate the equipment.

[Christopher R. Rice]

I'd just borrow the Duplicated Gear enhancement from Duplication (p. B51) and call it a day. That's 100 points of unfairness. Seems fine to me.

[Anthony]

Most of the time I just give doppelgangers natural weapons and armor to emulate equipment, but for evil mirror images I would be tempted to just have a trap (or mirror, or something) with Affliction (advantage: duplication, duplicated gear; duplicate is evil).

[Coinage]

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

I'd just borrow the Duplicated Gear enhancement from Duplication (p. B51) and call it a day. That's 100 points of unfairness. Seems fine to me.

I did not know that Enhancements for Duplication could be transferred like that. If so, then that is a third option.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Coinage

Question about Shapeshifting. I was looking at creating a specific form of doppelganger. This doppelganger is like the doppelganger from Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 3. However, my doppelganger is able to duplicate the physical objects of another person.

Basically, my idea is to make an evil mirror-image of a character. The evil mirror-image would basically have the exact same Stats, Traits, and Equipment of the original. They would just be an evil NPC.

How would I do that? Would I need the enhancement Link (B106), and link Shapeshifter (B83-85; P74-75) with the Snatcher (P76) with Creation (P76) and Large Items (P76). Would I need some version of Create (P92-94)?

Thanks for any suggestions?

You could do that. But why are you calculating the point values of an NPC that isn't even anyone's ally? Doing that kind of thing is how GMs burn out.