Anti-Morphing Feild

[Lord Schnibb]

Hi all. I'm trying to come up with a way to model and ability that a creature in my campainge uses to force morphing enemies to return to their normal form. I need it to prevent them from morphing for some time (2-3 hours) thereafter. It also stuns them and causes slight knockback, but I can handle that.

[Bruno]

Affliction: Negated Advantage (Morph), Extended duration 4 should do it. The character will loose access to Morph for 100 minutes per point he fails the HT roll by. It should also return any Morphed character to his normal form.

EDIT:
That works out to Affliction (Negated Advantage: Morph, +100%; Extended Duration 4, +80%) = 28 points for the first level. Add Area Effect to make it a ranged AOE attack, add on Emanation if it's a "zero range" are effect.

[GnomesofZurich]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Affliction: Negated Advantage (Morph), Extended duration 4 should do it. The character will loose access to Morph for 100 minutes per point he fails the HT roll by. It should also return any Morphed character to his normal form.

EDIT:
That works out to Affliction (Negated Advantage: Morph, +100%; Extended Duration 4, +80%) = 28 points for the first level. Add Area Effect to make it a ranged AOE attack, add on Emanation if it's a "zero range" are effect.

That would work for the basic Morph advantage, but what if you've bought Morph with significant enhancements, thus increasing its value? Should you have to pay extra points for an Affliction in this case, or does it only consider the base cost of the advantage?

[Lord Schnibb]

That's actually what I was wondering^. They can morph anything with DNA and a CNS, regardless of points. I don't know the cost of that to begin with because all the PCs have it, let alone what it would do to the cost of the power.

[GnomesofZurich]

It's a difficult question: in most fiction, someone with those sort of ability would be able to negate a shapeshifter's ability, and there is no differentiation between "power levels" of shapeshifting.

On the other hand, it seems logical that someone who has paid for 500 points of Morphing plus the basic advantage should not be as easily negated as someone who has just paid 100 points for the basic advantage.

I don't know the answer to this, but I'll be interested to see what others have to say.

[Bruno]

Morph doesn't have levels, so I let it nuke all morph unless otherwise specified. If you want your morph to be resistant, buy Protected Power (from Powers), IMO.

Same way that Afflicting someone with Lame (Crippled Legs) slows everyone to half Move, really.

[naloth]

Since it's impossible to buy every permeation of the ability, I've always let an Affliction that negates the base advantage negate it regardless of modifiers. Those that want to protect that power they are investing in should take a high resistance.

[vicky_molokh]

Doesn't everybody remember that Shapeshifting already includes a factor which forces one to drop all forms and revert to normal, aside from being unconscious?

[PK]

Molokh's right -- if everyone's Morph advantage is defined as being vulnerable to an "antimorphic field", then it is. You have to specify that drawback when you buy Morph (unless you add Cosmic specifically to remove it, of course.)

But if you're looking for a field that negates the Morph advantage regardless of where it comes from, how it's defined, and what the special effect (and included negation) is, then Affliction (Negated Advantage, Morph, +100%) should be fair to remove all Morph advantages. Think of it this way -- you're removing the base advantage itself. So what if that leaves template points left over? It's not like you can make use of them without the base advantage.

[transmetahuman]

Negated Advantage and Negated Disadvantage would be nearly useless if they didn't work on every variation of the base traits. "Nyah, nyah, my Invisibility has Switchable - you can't touch it!".

That said, I'd let Negated Disadvantage work on some of the Disads that have cost multipliers (e.g. Frequency of Appearance or Self Control level) as if they were leveled traits - if you pay for your Remove Pyrophobia as if the phobia were the listed price, you might only partially remove a more serious version with SC of 9 or 6 (making it SC 15 or 12, respectively).

And some disads are grouped together but quite different from each other. It's possible that an ability that temporarily removes the maintenance requirement from a machine wouldn't have any affect on a god's need for worship, and vice-versa. That would have to be a GM call based on the non-rules description of the ability. A GM could even go the opposite way, and let (for instance) all Phobias be affected as if they were listed as one trait - why should all obsessions be umbrella'd but not phobias, just because of the arbitrary way they are categorized?