Folkert

Exitus Rifle (Device 5: Easy to Lose) (15pp)

Blast: 8 (Feat: Improved range 2, Extra: Penetrating, Flaw: Full round action, Flaw: Distracting, Limited: 5 shots before full round action to reload) (22pp)

I think the pricing is a bit off:

Blast costs 2pp per rank

+1pp per rank with Penetrating

-1pp per rank for Full-round action

-1pp per rank for Distracting

= 8 PP + 2 PP (Improved Range 2) - 3 PP (Reloading DB)* = 7pp

* 5 shots before reloading is no limited flaw. (The Mastermind Manual offers a Drawback worth 3 PP: 5 shots before reloading with a move action.)

I don't think the combination of Full-round action and Distracting is a particularly viable choice unless it's meant to represent a dedicated sniper weapon 8 of no great use in the field: Unless firing from cover, he has no move action to get out of harm's way (behind cover or otherwise) and loses his dodge bonus to defense (and any defensive roll boni) at the same time.

A follow-up question as I tighten my PC's build:

The Supersense "Postcognition" has the Search skill working with it. My guess would be that this form of Search is a mental task as there is no physical component to it.

Correct?

Throughout Ultimate Power the "Drain Toughness" effect and it's consequences for objects are handled in a number of different ways. What's FC's official take on this?

Disintegration - apparently an object's Toughness can be reduced to -10 without any ill effects resulting from that.

Melt (AP for Plasma Control) - objects reduced below Toughness 0 are melted

Matter Eater - objects reduced to 0 Toughness are destroyed

Addendum: After a private, 2-hour-lecture from a friendly astrophysicist on what effects living under the light of an Orange Star would have on lifeforms, I've decided to go with comic science inastead. :roll:

I call Helmut Zemo! :P

Thanks for the replies, folks!

I'm not looking to create a useless gimmick character, but it looks like she'll primarily be an investigator and, well, find things. (Plus I'm probably wasting points trying to accurately create a humanoid organism that possibly might developed under an Orange Star.)

The least the Doctor still has his "intellectual foresight" ; Finder will probably undercut PL 4 easily (no combat training, no experience + pacifist mindset).

Still working on my PC and while going forth and back on what to include, I find my less and less inclined to include any truly offensive capability at all the more I work on the background. Finder is an alien from a culture that does not know violence and though her stay on earth taught her a lot so far, old habits (and brainwashing) die hard.

So I am considering nixing the combat part of the character, but I'm a bit worried that might also damage her ability to work with other PCs 'round here as a certain amount of combat ability seems usually needed.

Opinions?

My bad, then, I had associated the Dr.'s quickness with the typical comic "A higher-developed brain can do everything faster, you fool!".

Thanks for the asnwer's, Barnum and Dr. A! Now I'll have to find the best balance for Finder where I still get what I want from quickness without incurring those "side-effects".

Thanks, Dr. A, that's a good rule-of-thumb to use as the whole matter has me rather thoroughly confused.

I'd like Finder to excel (both skill and speedwise) at certain tasks but it becomes more cost-effective to just go with general quickness or a wild mix/combination at some point of the equation, leaving me with some undesireable side-effects like being able to do all physcial tasks at 50x speed or such.

BTW, no speed-reading for the Dr. then? :cry:

I'm wondering about the exact separation (or not) between physical and mental tasks for the purpose of the Quickness power.

For example, Quickness can be used with both Notice and Search. Are they mental or physical tasks (or even both)?

What about reading?

Definitely not just you. :D

Quick question, how do you do the -1 or more on the sight? E.g. you have Quickness 1 power point rank, and if you have the flaw -1 mental only, how do you do the costing here? Is it still 1 ppr? Or a 2ranks for every 1 pp? Ext ext?

Two ranks for every one powerpoint is the correct solution. (Or three ranks for every one powerpoint if you chose Quickness with the single task (-2) flaw.)

As with the New Years vignettes, about one page is what we are looking for. If it is longer that's fine, but my guess is most won't be by much. We didn't measure them or anything last time, but if a submission looks significantly shorter than one page, it won't be considered in the contest (should there be one ) nor will it earn a PP award (also same as last time).

Thanks!

Just asking because at my present line of work "one page" means "I'll stop reading at the bottom of that page."

Regarding the Shapeshift power: Better not plan with it. Variable powers are currently not allowed here.

So, as nareik123 said, Morph is the way to go to "look human".

How do I build a supersense that needs a certain amount of time to warm up /attune itself to the present surroundings?

Modifying the action via Drawback? Or something else?

THanks!

What do you mean by this strange "you have to give it back"? Pray tell!

* looks wistfully at two rows of borrowed stuff on his shelves *

The previous New Year's vignette was an "at least 1 page" vignette. Am I understanding correctly that this will be a "maximum 1 page" one?

In the mood for some 'easy listening', so it's:

Manowar's "Kings of Metal" album

Well, A) happens to me all the time and I'd probably never have caught anything if I weren't brooding over a build using both ESP and Move Object effects herself right now. Anyway, better to get these things out of the way before the Judges look.

One tiny error and one question:

A) ESP 7 (all senses) would cost 28 pp instead of the of 26 you have available.

Are you sure of that grapple bonus of +15 w/ telekinesis? According to the base effect Move Object you grapple "with a Strength bonus equal to your power rank" which would be 6.

I see, I wasn't clear on how alternate powers worked (I thought they shared power points). So I guess I just have to buy some more ranks of device?

In a way they do since an alternate power will be built on the same maxium of power points as the main power and because they can't be used at the same time they get the great discount of costing only one PP.

Buying another rank of device would give you another 5 points of which one would be used to pay for the AP and the other 4 could be distributed as you see fit. The other option would be to downgrade the Strike power to Penetrating 5 or Affects Insubstantial 1 and use that point to pay for the AP. (Since the main power would still cost 14 PP, the blast could stay at rank 7. )

Well, there are still two tiny mistakes in the statblock:

I: Device 9 (battlesuit; hard to loose) 36PP

1.Protection 10 [impervious 10] 18PP

Protection 10 [impervious 10] costs 20 PP. (Guess you had it at 9 before.)

II: Device 3 (Excalliber; easy to loose) 9PP

1a.Strike 6 [penetrating 6; mighty; affects insubstantial 2] 15PP

1b.Alternate power: Blast 7

1a already costs the full 15 PP a Device 3 gives so you don't have the PP left to buy Alternate Power 1b.

That's because you'd presumably give a motivation for your super-science computer that would allow for the GM to decide whether the power loss would come into effect. I'd probably go with the complication for this reason; you get a hero point each time that your computer gets upset with you.

So the GM playing the sidekick might lead to arguments, but the GM adjudicating whether the Power Loss comes into effect and whether the AI works against the PC via GM's Fiat would not?

Frankly, I fail to see that.

Really, your description of your sentient computer as a minion or sidekick sounds like an excuse to take Insubstantial 4 and avoid spending any power points on defense, then get the benefits of having a second character for a fraction of the cost to buy the skills, feats, attacks, etc. directly.

Interesting.

The Power Loss drawback and GM Fiat handle the ability of the device or powers to not work for you or to work against you, respectively. This is almost exactly what "Meg" is on Megastar. In his case, it's simply a Benefit along the lines of "Can consult Meg for advice".

It sounds like you want to handle it as a minion or sidekick. At that point, the GM is controlling the character anyway, and I think we'd get into arguments about whether the sentient computer is acting the way that you would have wanted. That is a road I don't want to travel.

First: Yes. I'd really like to make the AI a minion/sidekick because that is exactly what it is. But if I can't I won't.

You say that wouldn't work because it might lead to arguments, something you don't want to get into. Okay, I've no trouble understanding that.

But what I don't understand is why you think that relying on vague devices such as Power Loss (When the DPA doesn't feel like it) and GM Fiat would avoid getting into such arguments, especially as now the specific framework of the DPA's abilities (the statted-up minion/sidekick) is no longer available.

Folkert

Device (hard-to-lose) with Restricted 3, so that only you can use it properly and most others can't take it away from you. Add whatever bonuses that the computer gives you as the Device's effect.

Enhanced Feats and Skills, maybe Datalink and Communication and some Super-Senses. I wouldn't even say it'd be a Hard to Lose Restricted 3 Device, since a "cloud of free-ranging quarks" sounds like something that'd be as difficult to remove as implanted cyberwear (i.e., requires fairly specialized tools & knowledge, and more than a few rounds, to do it safely).

The sentient/sapient part is largely flavor text, or possibly with a Check Required (Diplomacy, or Intimidate, or maybe even Knowledge/Civics to come up with a legal precedent for letting you do X, Y, or Z) flaw to convince the A.I. to help you.

Interesting conceptions but both fail to cover what I consider the essential core of the idea.

Where is the distinctly different personality that not only supplies powers "to order" as your builds would do but can also act on its own and use its abilities perfectly - not only without the conscious control of Finder, but also circumventing without problems it if necessary - and for it's own purposes if it wants to? That can und will turn on Finder down the road because their purposes no longer mesh?