Gravity Variants

JDRook · February 2, 2008

This is my first attempt with the M&M system and your board, so please forgive my first mistakes.

One of my character concepts is the Stickler (a name I use but IC he hates it ). He has a specialized gravity power, where instead of manipulating Earth's gravity, all he can do is increase gravitational attraction to his body, or to points on his body. After looking at both Gravity Control and Telekinesis, I'm thinking the base power would be simulated by either GC with a -1 Flaw (only pull toward self) or TK with a -2 flaw (only pull toward self) since that seems more limiting. I'm tending toward the latter for fit.

Stickler can of course Wall-Crawl, but can also pull himself along through the air by attracting to high points. This would look like Flight but operate much more like Swinging, save that his swinglines are "lines" of grav force. Would the Subtle feat be good to describe that, with only gravity detectors able to "see the wires"? Also, I guess the only way to increase my Swing speed and ONLY my Swing speed is to Link it to Swing. Is this right?

Swing (Rank 1) + Subtle (Rank 1) + Linked Speed (Rank 4) = 6

I want to give him Immovable as well, and if I understand Alternate Powers correctly, could I give him Immovable with the grav swing as an alternate power?

Immovable (Rank 10) = 10

AP Grav Swing = 6 = 1

I thought about throwing Wall-Crawling in as another AP, but it only saves 1 point and I figure it might be handy to be able to do both at once, while using Immovable and Grav Swing together would be pretty ineffective.

The "only pull" limit cuts down on a lot of the attack possibilities of TK, but I did think of a few ways to overcome that. Stickler could take an object and accelerate it in a few different ways: putting a grav point in an extremity and orbiting the object around it, building up speed like a bolo; set two points close together (fingertips, knees, or various combinations) and launch the object between them like a slingshot; or use mobile grav points to pull the object along and release at speed, similar to a railgun. So would this either be a Blast or a Thrown Strike (I'm tending to the latter again) with a Flaw to depend on found objects? Also, I still want the Subtle feat on his powers, but I don't know if that's workable with big random chunks of ammo.

Two more questions, both about senses. Stickler should have a gravity sense, but not finely tuned (yet). I figure he can sense any unusual gravity fluctuations (either power or other artificial sources) as well as detecting massive distant natural gravity sources, like the sun and moon (maybe even Jupiter). Obviously the base Gravity Sense would be 3pp to be a ranged sense - make that 4 so it's radial. I'm just wondering if he needs any Extended.

Also, as a side-benefit of the sun-and-moon sensing, I think he should have Direction & Time senses, but obviously this would only work on Earth. I don't think that's a sufficient flaw, is it?

I'll probably come up with more, and I have a whole other character to deal with, but I'll let you chew on that for now.

JD

JDRook · February 2, 2008

This is my first attempt with the M&M system and your board, so please forgive my first mistakes.

One of my character concepts is the Stickler (a name I use but IC he hates it ). He has a specialized gravity power, where instead of manipulating Earth's gravity, all he can do is increase gravitational attraction to his body, or to points on his body. After looking at both Gravity Control and Telekinesis, I'm thinking the base power would be simulated by either GC with a -1 Flaw (only pull toward self) or TK with a -2 flaw (only pull toward self) since that seems more limiting. I'm tending toward the latter for fit.

Stickler can of course Wall-Crawl, but can also pull himself along through the air by attracting to high points. This would look like Flight but operate much more like Swinging, save that his swinglines are "lines" of grav force. Would the Subtle feat be good to describe that, with only gravity detectors able to "see the wires"? Also, I guess the only way to increase my Swing speed and ONLY my Swing speed is to Link it to Swing. Is this right?

Swing (Rank 1) + Subtle (Rank 1) + Linked Speed (Rank 4) = 6

I want to give him Immovable as well, and if I understand Alternate Powers correctly, could I give him Immovable with the grav swing as an alternate power?

Immovable (Rank 10) = 10

AP Grav Swing = 6 = 1

I thought about throwing Wall-Crawling in as another AP, but it only saves 1 point and I figure it might be handy to be able to do both at once, while using Immovable and Grav Swing together would be pretty ineffective.

The "only pull" limit cuts down on a lot of the attack possibilities of TK, but I did think of a few ways to overcome that. Stickler could take an object and accelerate it in a few different ways: putting a grav point in an extremity and orbiting the object around it, building up speed like a bolo; set two points close together (fingertips, knees, or various combinations) and launch the object between them like a slingshot; or use mobile grav points to pull the object along and release at speed, similar to a railgun. So would this either be a Blast or a Thrown Strike (I'm tending to the latter again) with a Flaw to depend on found objects? Also, I still want the Subtle feat on his powers, but I don't know if that's workable with big random chunks of ammo.

Two more questions, both about senses. Stickler should have a gravity sense, but not finely tuned (yet). I figure he can sense any unusual gravity fluctuations (either power or other artificial sources) as well as detecting massive distant natural gravity sources, like the sun and moon (maybe even Jupiter). Obviously the base Gravity Sense would be 3pp to be a ranged sense - make that 4 so it's radial. I'm just wondering if he needs any Extended.

Also, as a side-benefit of the sun-and-moon sensing, I think he should have Direction & Time senses, but obviously this would only work on Earth. I don't think that's a sufficient flaw, is it?

I'll probably come up with more, and I have a whole other character to deal with, but I'll let you chew on that for now.

JD

JDRook · February 2, 2008

This is my first attempt with the M&M system and your board, so please forgive my first mistakes.

One of my character concepts is the Stickler (a name I use but IC he hates it ). He has a specialized gravity power, where instead of manipulating Earth's gravity, all he can do is increase gravitational attraction to his body, or to points on his body. After looking at both Gravity Control and Telekinesis, I'm thinking the base power would be simulated by either GC with a -1 Flaw (only pull toward self) or TK with a -2 flaw (only pull toward self) since that seems more limiting. I'm tending toward the latter for fit.

Stickler can of course Wall-Crawl, but can also pull himself along through the air by attracting to high points. This would look like Flight but operate much more like Swinging, save that his swinglines are "lines" of grav force. Would the Subtle feat be good to describe that, with only gravity detectors able to "see the wires"? Also, I guess the only way to increase my Swing speed and ONLY my Swing speed is to Link it to Swing. Is this right?

Swing (Rank 1) + Subtle (Rank 1) + Linked Speed (Rank 4) = 6

I want to give him Immovable as well, and if I understand Alternate Powers correctly, could I give him Immovable with the grav swing as an alternate power?

Immovable (Rank 10) = 10

AP Grav Swing = 6 = 1

I thought about throwing Wall-Crawling in as another AP, but it only saves 1 point and I figure it might be handy to be able to do both at once, while using Immovable and Grav Swing together would be pretty ineffective.

The "only pull" limit cuts down on a lot of the attack possibilities of TK, but I did think of a few ways to overcome that. Stickler could take an object and accelerate it in a few different ways: putting a grav point in an extremity and orbiting the object around it, building up speed like a bolo; set two points close together (fingertips, knees, or various combinations) and launch the object between them like a slingshot; or use mobile grav points to pull the object along and release at speed, similar to a railgun. So would this either be a Blast or a Thrown Strike (I'm tending to the latter again) with a Flaw to depend on found objects? Also, I still want the Subtle feat on his powers, but I don't know if that's workable with big random chunks of ammo.

Two more questions, both about senses. Stickler should have a gravity sense, but not finely tuned (yet). I figure he can sense any unusual gravity fluctuations (either power or other artificial sources) as well as detecting massive distant natural gravity sources, like the sun and moon (maybe even Jupiter). Obviously the base Gravity Sense would be 3pp to be a ranged sense - make that 4 so it's radial. I'm just wondering if he needs any Extended.

Also, as a side-benefit of the sun-and-moon sensing, I think he should have Direction & Time senses, but obviously this would only work on Earth. I don't think that's a sufficient flaw, is it?

I'll probably come up with more, and I have a whole other character to deal with, but I'll let you chew on that for now.

JD

Heridfel · February 2, 2008

Welcome again to the crunchier side of M&M. I'll jump in here, since this stuff is my bread and butter.

The power, as you describe it, is a kind of Move Object from Ultimate Power. That's also the power that Telekinesis is based on, so you are on the right track so far. The suggested flaw Limited Direction limits you to two directions, and the examples given are towards and away from ground (like Gravity Control) and towards and away from you (like what you're thinking). You are limiting yourself further, which is an additional -1 flaw, based on Gravity Control's Limited to One Direction. That puts the total cost of the base power at 1 pp/rank.

You may want to increase the range of the power to Perception, depending on how you envision it. That means you don't have to make attack rolls to use the base power. Subtle is also a possible power feat.

The Swinging doesn't quite work through real-world physics. Fortunately, we're in a comic book, so you're fine. The power would be built a lot like you say. However, Super-Movement is 2 pp/rank, and Limited to while Swinging is an appropriate flaw on the Speed. You don't need to link the powers with the flaw in place. It would look like this:

Super-Movement 1 (swinging; PF: Subtle); Speed 4 (Limited: While swinging)

It costs 5 pp, and you could swing at up to 200 miles per hour with a double move.

Since you aren't spending as many pp on your Super-movement power as you intend to spend on Immovable, you could include up to wall-crawling within the AP, so that it becomes this:

Immovable 10 (10 pp)

AP: Super-Movement 2 (swinging, wall-crawling 2; PF: Subtle); Speed 4 (Limited; While swinging) (1 pp)

That method allows you to stick to a surface with your hands or feet and move full speed. If you increased the rank of wall-crawling by 1, you could stick with any part of your body, but that would require another rank of Immovable or decreasing the speed bonus.

I personally like the bolo attack idea better than the railgun, especially if you want a thrown attack. I wouldn't call requiring something to shoot to be a flaw; it might be a Power Loss drawback, since I don't think it would happen frequently enough for a full flaw.

A base Super-Sense of Detect (gravity) costs 1 pp. Increasing it to Ranged costs 2 pp, and making it Radial costs 3 pp. I wouldn't require Extended to point out major celestial bodies, but technically speaking, the Earth itself would provide decent concealment against those bodies. Even ignoring that, simply being able to point to the sun or what have you wouldn't give you an easy way to calculate out your position and time (my mind boggles at trying to do that math in my head), so you wouldn't need to buy Direction Sense or Time Sense if you didn't want to. If you did, there's plenty of examples of super-human math ability as it relates to powers (like Cyclops' ability to calculate angles for his optic beams). You're right that only being able to do it on Earth isn't a flaw. It's more like a complication for the few times you might be off planet.

Heridfel · February 2, 2008

Welcome again to the crunchier side of M&M. I'll jump in here, since this stuff is my bread and butter.

The power, as you describe it, is a kind of Move Object from Ultimate Power. That's also the power that Telekinesis is based on, so you are on the right track so far. The suggested flaw Limited Direction limits you to two directions, and the examples given are towards and away from ground (like Gravity Control) and towards and away from you (like what you're thinking). You are limiting yourself further, which is an additional -1 flaw, based on Gravity Control's Limited to One Direction. That puts the total cost of the base power at 1 pp/rank.

You may want to increase the range of the power to Perception, depending on how you envision it. That means you don't have to make attack rolls to use the base power. Subtle is also a possible power feat.

The Swinging doesn't quite work through real-world physics. Fortunately, we're in a comic book, so you're fine. The power would be built a lot like you say. However, Super-Movement is 2 pp/rank, and Limited to while Swinging is an appropriate flaw on the Speed. You don't need to link the powers with the flaw in place. It would look like this:

Super-Movement 1 (swinging; PF: Subtle); Speed 4 (Limited: While swinging)

It costs 5 pp, and you could swing at up to 200 miles per hour with a double move.

Since you aren't spending as many pp on your Super-movement power as you intend to spend on Immovable, you could include up to wall-crawling within the AP, so that it becomes this:

Immovable 10 (10 pp)

AP: Super-Movement 2 (swinging, wall-crawling 2; PF: Subtle); Speed 4 (Limited; While swinging) (1 pp)

That method allows you to stick to a surface with your hands or feet and move full speed. If you increased the rank of wall-crawling by 1, you could stick with any part of your body, but that would require another rank of Immovable or decreasing the speed bonus.

I personally like the bolo attack idea better than the railgun, especially if you want a thrown attack. I wouldn't call requiring something to shoot to be a flaw; it might be a Power Loss drawback, since I don't think it would happen frequently enough for a full flaw.

A base Super-Sense of Detect (gravity) costs 1 pp. Increasing it to Ranged costs 2 pp, and making it Radial costs 3 pp. I wouldn't require Extended to point out major celestial bodies, but technically speaking, the Earth itself would provide decent concealment against those bodies. Even ignoring that, simply being able to point to the sun or what have you wouldn't give you an easy way to calculate out your position and time (my mind boggles at trying to do that math in my head), so you wouldn't need to buy Direction Sense or Time Sense if you didn't want to. If you did, there's plenty of examples of super-human math ability as it relates to powers (like Cyclops' ability to calculate angles for his optic beams). You're right that only being able to do it on Earth isn't a flaw. It's more like a complication for the few times you might be off planet.

Heridfel · February 2, 2008

Welcome again to the crunchier side of M&M. I'll jump in here, since this stuff is my bread and butter.

The power, as you describe it, is a kind of Move Object from Ultimate Power. That's also the power that Telekinesis is based on, so you are on the right track so far. The suggested flaw Limited Direction limits you to two directions, and the examples given are towards and away from ground (like Gravity Control) and towards and away from you (like what you're thinking). You are limiting yourself further, which is an additional -1 flaw, based on Gravity Control's Limited to One Direction. That puts the total cost of the base power at 1 pp/rank.

You may want to increase the range of the power to Perception, depending on how you envision it. That means you don't have to make attack rolls to use the base power. Subtle is also a possible power feat.

The Swinging doesn't quite work through real-world physics. Fortunately, we're in a comic book, so you're fine. The power would be built a lot like you say. However, Super-Movement is 2 pp/rank, and Limited to while Swinging is an appropriate flaw on the Speed. You don't need to link the powers with the flaw in place. It would look like this:

Super-Movement 1 (swinging; PF: Subtle); Speed 4 (Limited: While swinging)

It costs 5 pp, and you could swing at up to 200 miles per hour with a double move.

Since you aren't spending as many pp on your Super-movement power as you intend to spend on Immovable, you could include up to wall-crawling within the AP, so that it becomes this:

Immovable 10 (10 pp)

AP: Super-Movement 2 (swinging, wall-crawling 2; PF: Subtle); Speed 4 (Limited; While swinging) (1 pp)

That method allows you to stick to a surface with your hands or feet and move full speed. If you increased the rank of wall-crawling by 1, you could stick with any part of your body, but that would require another rank of Immovable or decreasing the speed bonus.

I personally like the bolo attack idea better than the railgun, especially if you want a thrown attack. I wouldn't call requiring something to shoot to be a flaw; it might be a Power Loss drawback, since I don't think it would happen frequently enough for a full flaw.

A base Super-Sense of Detect (gravity) costs 1 pp. Increasing it to Ranged costs 2 pp, and making it Radial costs 3 pp. I wouldn't require Extended to point out major celestial bodies, but technically speaking, the Earth itself would provide decent concealment against those bodies. Even ignoring that, simply being able to point to the sun or what have you wouldn't give you an easy way to calculate out your position and time (my mind boggles at trying to do that math in my head), so you wouldn't need to buy Direction Sense or Time Sense if you didn't want to. If you did, there's plenty of examples of super-human math ability as it relates to powers (like Cyclops' ability to calculate angles for his optic beams). You're right that only being able to do it on Earth isn't a flaw. It's more like a complication for the few times you might be off planet.

JDRook · February 3, 2008

Gravity Variants

Welcome again to the crunchier side of M&M. I'll jump in here, since this stuff is my bread and butter.

Crunchy bread and butter?

The power, as you describe it, is a kind of Move Object from Ultimate Power. That's also the power that Telekinesis is based on, so you are on the right track so far. The suggested flaw Limited Direction limits you to two directions, and the examples given are towards and away from ground (like Gravity Control) and towards and away from you (like what you're thinking). You are limiting yourself further, which is an additional -1 flaw, based on Gravity Control's Limited to One Direction. That puts the total cost of the base power at 1 pp/rank.

I looked again at TK and GC to figure out the difference between them, since both cost 2/rank at the base level and have identical power attributes (range, action, duration, etc). I didn't notice the built-in radius effect of GC before, so in terms of game mechanics I guess GC is just TK with Radius Extra and Limited Direction (2 dir) Flaw. So yes, the TK with Pull Toward User (-2) Flaw would be the way I'd want to go. Now unless the UP book lists it differently, isn't TK 2/rank and then -2 flaw to make it 1/2 ranks?

This would be before I add on any extras, of course, which I fully intend to do. Perception is tempting. In another incarnation I wanted Stickler to be able to use his power at great distances but with strength dropping over distance as per inverse square laws of gravity. Then again, I also wanted to limit his gravitic strength to equal to his base STR, but that might sell him too short. It might be interesting to make using his Immovable power (let's call it "Anchor") necessary to use his gravitic TK on anything heavier than himself or his base STR. Not sure how to write that one out, though.

And Subtle is a definite on that one.

Super-Movement 1 (swinging; PF: Subtle); Speed 4 (Limited: While swinging)
It costs 5 pp, and you could swing at up to 200 miles per hour with a double move.

Since you aren't spending as many pp on your Super-movement power as you intend to spend on Immovable, you could include up to wall-crawling within the AP, so that it becomes this:

Immovable 10 (10 pp)
AP: Super-Movement 2 (swinging, wall-crawling 2; PF: Subtle); Speed 4 (Limited; While swinging) (1 pp)

That method allows you to stick to a surface with your hands or feet and move full speed. If you increased the rank of wall-crawling by 1, you could stick with any part of your body, but that would require another rank of Immovable or decreasing the speed bonus.

This looks good. That extra rank of Wall-Crawl fits the concept too well to let pass, so I think I will drop his Speed to 3. That works out, since I figured his top effortless speed should be somewhere around Free-Fall/Terminal Velocity (say roughly 100mph), with anything over that requiring Extra Effort. That also strikes me as a good in-city speed, since I see him as being very urbanite. I may still want to move his wall-crawl out of the AP, or maybe make it dynamic with Anchor, especially if I decide to use the Side Effect I'm thinking of.

Two more new things to throw at you:

Trip: With the Pull TK I figure I could make a Trip alternate or two. This would be Stickler gravitically grabbing some part of a target and pulling towards himself to knock a target down. I saw the Knockback bonus, and then thought,"What about a KnockForward?" Looking closer, I'd guess that this would require a 3-point Indirect Feat offset by a Only Toward Self Power Drawback of -X points. Maybe this could be simplified into a +1 or +2 Redirected KB.

Concealed Scent: This one I'm pretty proud of, and it's another thing the character is destined to hate. Stickler gets his nickname partly from his surname and partly from being a bit of a neat freak and perfectionist, which is a useful thing when you're a cat burglar. While playing with the idea of full radial pulls I realized it could be possible for him to "contain" his scent and various personal bits (sweat, loose hair, cloth fibre, etc) and keep from leaving evidence or a trail for a crime scene. The downside, of course, is that after an hour of tense and strenous second-story activity, Stickler is practically swimming in his own filth.

Concealment (Scent class) 2 ranks -1 Distracting (Disgusting!) Flaw (2pp)

So would this be sufficient to conceal his scent and various other CSI bits?

Almost got him figured out. I hope to post him for approval by Monday.

JD

JDRook · February 3, 2008

Gravity Variants

Welcome again to the crunchier side of M&M. I'll jump in here, since this stuff is my bread and butter.

Crunchy bread and butter?

The power, as you describe it, is a kind of Move Object from Ultimate Power. That's also the power that Telekinesis is based on, so you are on the right track so far. The suggested flaw Limited Direction limits you to two directions, and the examples given are towards and away from ground (like Gravity Control) and towards and away from you (like what you're thinking). You are limiting yourself further, which is an additional -1 flaw, based on Gravity Control's Limited to One Direction. That puts the total cost of the base power at 1 pp/rank.

I looked again at TK and GC to figure out the difference between them, since both cost 2/rank at the base level and have identical power attributes (range, action, duration, etc). I didn't notice the built-in radius effect of GC before, so in terms of game mechanics I guess GC is just TK with Radius Extra and Limited Direction (2 dir) Flaw. So yes, the TK with Pull Toward User (-2) Flaw would be the way I'd want to go. Now unless the UP book lists it differently, isn't TK 2/rank and then -2 flaw to make it 1/2 ranks?

This would be before I add on any extras, of course, which I fully intend to do. Perception is tempting. In another incarnation I wanted Stickler to be able to use his power at great distances but with strength dropping over distance as per inverse square laws of gravity. Then again, I also wanted to limit his gravitic strength to equal to his base STR, but that might sell him too short. It might be interesting to make using his Immovable power (let's call it "Anchor") necessary to use his gravitic TK on anything heavier than himself or his base STR. Not sure how to write that one out, though.

And Subtle is a definite on that one.

Super-Movement 1 (swinging; PF: Subtle); Speed 4 (Limited: While swinging)
It costs 5 pp, and you could swing at up to 200 miles per hour with a double move.

Since you aren't spending as many pp on your Super-movement power as you intend to spend on Immovable, you could include up to wall-crawling within the AP, so that it becomes this:

Immovable 10 (10 pp)
AP: Super-Movement 2 (swinging, wall-crawling 2; PF: Subtle); Speed 4 (Limited; While swinging) (1 pp)

That method allows you to stick to a surface with your hands or feet and move full speed. If you increased the rank of wall-crawling by 1, you could stick with any part of your body, but that would require another rank of Immovable or decreasing the speed bonus.

This looks good. That extra rank of Wall-Crawl fits the concept too well to let pass, so I think I will drop his Speed to 3. That works out, since I figured his top effortless speed should be somewhere around Free-Fall/Terminal Velocity (say roughly 100mph), with anything over that requiring Extra Effort. That also strikes me as a good in-city speed, since I see him as being very urbanite. I may still want to move his wall-crawl out of the AP, or maybe make it dynamic with Anchor, especially if I decide to use the Side Effect I'm thinking of.

Two more new things to throw at you:

Trip: With the Pull TK I figure I could make a Trip alternate or two. This would be Stickler gravitically grabbing some part of a target and pulling towards himself to knock a target down. I saw the Knockback bonus, and then thought,"What about a KnockForward?" Looking closer, I'd guess that this would require a 3-point Indirect Feat offset by a Only Toward Self Power Drawback of -X points. Maybe this could be simplified into a +1 or +2 Redirected KB.

Concealed Scent: This one I'm pretty proud of, and it's another thing the character is destined to hate. Stickler gets his nickname partly from his surname and partly from being a bit of a neat freak and perfectionist, which is a useful thing when you're a cat burglar. While playing with the idea of full radial pulls I realized it could be possible for him to "contain" his scent and various personal bits (sweat, loose hair, cloth fibre, etc) and keep from leaving evidence or a trail for a crime scene. The downside, of course, is that after an hour of tense and strenous second-story activity, Stickler is practically swimming in his own filth.

Concealment (Scent class) 2 ranks -1 Distracting (Disgusting!) Flaw (2pp)

So would this be sufficient to conceal his scent and various other CSI bits?

Almost got him figured out. I hope to post him for approval by Monday.

JD

JDRook · February 3, 2008

Gravity Variants

Welcome again to the crunchier side of M&M. I'll jump in here, since this stuff is my bread and butter.

Crunchy bread and butter?

The power, as you describe it, is a kind of Move Object from Ultimate Power. That's also the power that Telekinesis is based on, so you are on the right track so far. The suggested flaw Limited Direction limits you to two directions, and the examples given are towards and away from ground (like Gravity Control) and towards and away from you (like what you're thinking). You are limiting yourself further, which is an additional -1 flaw, based on Gravity Control's Limited to One Direction. That puts the total cost of the base power at 1 pp/rank.

I looked again at TK and GC to figure out the difference between them, since both cost 2/rank at the base level and have identical power attributes (range, action, duration, etc). I didn't notice the built-in radius effect of GC before, so in terms of game mechanics I guess GC is just TK with Radius Extra and Limited Direction (2 dir) Flaw. So yes, the TK with Pull Toward User (-2) Flaw would be the way I'd want to go. Now unless the UP book lists it differently, isn't TK 2/rank and then -2 flaw to make it 1/2 ranks?

This would be before I add on any extras, of course, which I fully intend to do. Perception is tempting. In another incarnation I wanted Stickler to be able to use his power at great distances but with strength dropping over distance as per inverse square laws of gravity. Then again, I also wanted to limit his gravitic strength to equal to his base STR, but that might sell him too short. It might be interesting to make using his Immovable power (let's call it "Anchor") necessary to use his gravitic TK on anything heavier than himself or his base STR. Not sure how to write that one out, though.

And Subtle is a definite on that one.

Super-Movement 1 (swinging; PF: Subtle); Speed 4 (Limited: While swinging)
It costs 5 pp, and you could swing at up to 200 miles per hour with a double move.

Since you aren't spending as many pp on your Super-movement power as you intend to spend on Immovable, you could include up to wall-crawling within the AP, so that it becomes this:

Immovable 10 (10 pp)
AP: Super-Movement 2 (swinging, wall-crawling 2; PF: Subtle); Speed 4 (Limited; While swinging) (1 pp)

That method allows you to stick to a surface with your hands or feet and move full speed. If you increased the rank of wall-crawling by 1, you could stick with any part of your body, but that would require another rank of Immovable or decreasing the speed bonus.

This looks good. That extra rank of Wall-Crawl fits the concept too well to let pass, so I think I will drop his Speed to 3. That works out, since I figured his top effortless speed should be somewhere around Free-Fall/Terminal Velocity (say roughly 100mph), with anything over that requiring Extra Effort. That also strikes me as a good in-city speed, since I see him as being very urbanite. I may still want to move his wall-crawl out of the AP, or maybe make it dynamic with Anchor, especially if I decide to use the Side Effect I'm thinking of.

Two more new things to throw at you:

Trip: With the Pull TK I figure I could make a Trip alternate or two. This would be Stickler gravitically grabbing some part of a target and pulling towards himself to knock a target down. I saw the Knockback bonus, and then thought,"What about a KnockForward?" Looking closer, I'd guess that this would require a 3-point Indirect Feat offset by a Only Toward Self Power Drawback of -X points. Maybe this could be simplified into a +1 or +2 Redirected KB.

Concealed Scent: This one I'm pretty proud of, and it's another thing the character is destined to hate. Stickler gets his nickname partly from his surname and partly from being a bit of a neat freak and perfectionist, which is a useful thing when you're a cat burglar. While playing with the idea of full radial pulls I realized it could be possible for him to "contain" his scent and various personal bits (sweat, loose hair, cloth fibre, etc) and keep from leaving evidence or a trail for a crime scene. The downside, of course, is that after an hour of tense and strenous second-story activity, Stickler is practically swimming in his own filth.

Concealment (Scent class) 2 ranks -1 Distracting (Disgusting!) Flaw (2pp)

So would this be sufficient to conceal his scent and various other CSI bits?

Almost got him figured out. I hope to post him for approval by Monday.

JD

Heridfel · February 3, 2008

I think I had been assuming that you were using Perception when I said you'd have to spend 1 pp/rank on your power. The other possibility is that I was thinking you were going to have Area, which would also raise the cost.

The "power is stronger closer and weaker farther away" doesn't work as well for the base Move Object, but any area effect could have the Explosion Area, which does a similar thing.

The Speed would have to be lowered to 2 to pay for the final pp in Wall-crawling. Its cost is 1 pp / 2 ranks, due to the limitation.

I'd allow the regular Knockback extra to knock a character forward. You're basically making a tether on the character while you're tripping them, rather than making an indirect attack. Because your character doesn't get an advantage from having someone close, I'm not worried about the ways that you could abuse a knockforward effect.

Concealed Scent seems fine to me.

Heridfel · February 3, 2008

I think I had been assuming that you were using Perception when I said you'd have to spend 1 pp/rank on your power. The other possibility is that I was thinking you were going to have Area, which would also raise the cost.

The "power is stronger closer and weaker farther away" doesn't work as well for the base Move Object, but any area effect could have the Explosion Area, which does a similar thing.

The Speed would have to be lowered to 2 to pay for the final pp in Wall-crawling. Its cost is 1 pp / 2 ranks, due to the limitation.

I'd allow the regular Knockback extra to knock a character forward. You're basically making a tether on the character while you're tripping them, rather than making an indirect attack. Because your character doesn't get an advantage from having someone close, I'm not worried about the ways that you could abuse a knockforward effect.

Concealed Scent seems fine to me.

Heridfel · February 3, 2008

I think I had been assuming that you were using Perception when I said you'd have to spend 1 pp/rank on your power. The other possibility is that I was thinking you were going to have Area, which would also raise the cost.

The "power is stronger closer and weaker farther away" doesn't work as well for the base Move Object, but any area effect could have the Explosion Area, which does a similar thing.

The Speed would have to be lowered to 2 to pay for the final pp in Wall-crawling. Its cost is 1 pp / 2 ranks, due to the limitation.

I'd allow the regular Knockback extra to knock a character forward. You're basically making a tether on the character while you're tripping them, rather than making an indirect attack. Because your character doesn't get an advantage from having someone close, I'm not worried about the ways that you could abuse a knockforward effect.

Concealed Scent seems fine to me.

JDRook · February 5, 2008

Okay, I think I've got almost all the powers figured out. Just a few details and tweaking.

I've grouped them all into 3 arrays plus a few miscellaneous powers.

Juggling Array: 44pp total

Deflect Projectiles 2, Reflect +1, Redirect +1: 10 ranks + PF: Subtle 1 = 41pp

AP: Deflect Projectiles 2, Free Action +2, Automatic +1: 8 ranks + PF: Subtle 1 = 41pp [1pp]

AP: Strike 1, Thrown +1, Autofire +2: 9 Ranks (36) + PF: Accurate 2 + PF: Ricochet 2 + PF: Split Attack 2 - DB: Power Loss 1 = 41pp [1pp]

AP: Nauseate 2, Move Action +1: 10 ranks (30) + PF: Extended Range 1 + PF: Split Attack 1 + PF: Subtle 1 = 33pp [1pp]

The Deflect has 2 settings: an automatic one for safety or when under heavy fire, and a counterattacking one. In practice, Stickler would use a grav point on his body (usually hands or arms) to cause the missile to orbit around the point and redirect elsewhere.

The Strike is the bolo style attack, using the same orbiting trick to build momentum in an object (usually titanium juggling balls which I intend to get as standard equipment for him) and launch at speed. I realized the Ricochet and Split Attack combo would be a great way to bounce an attack off more than one target and do damage to each. The Power Loss is running out of ammo, at your suggestion, which probably wouldn't happen often since his TK could pull back anything he throws easily.

The Nauseate I figured would be a good melee range effect with Stickler using varying external gravities on a target and basically shaking up their guts, giving them motion sickness.

For me, the big question for this array is whether the Subtle fest is appropriate for the powers that actually have objects in them (incoming or outgoing missiles), since those effects seem pretty obvious. I prefer Subtle since I don't think his grav powers should have arbitrary colors and noises associated with them, but if the effects are already obvious, I don't want to have pay for subtlety.

Movement Array: 15pp total

dP: Super-Movement (Swinging [2pp], wall-crawling 3 [6pp]; PF: Subtle [1/power - 2pp]);

Speed 4 (Limited; While swinging) [2pp] (2+6+2+2 +1 dynamic = 13 pp)

dAP: Immovable 1: 10 Ranks = 10pp [2 pp]

The movement array I made similar to your suggestion, but I decided to make the whole thing Dynamic. I wanted to be able to have Immobile active while using Wall-Crawling, and possibly even Swinging, with it being most effective while he's standing still or at least moving slowly. This should allow him to use full Immovable on the ground, and 8 ranks when he's stuck to a wall or hovering (although I may make Immovable unusable while swinging - can't decide yet).

Gravity Array: 24pp total

Trip 2, Knockforward +1, Perception +1, Side Effect -2: 10 ranks (20) + PF: Subtle = 21pp

AP: Telekinesis 2, Perception +1, One Direction -2, Side Effect -2: 10 Ranks (4) + PF: Subtle 1 = 5pp [1pp]

AP: Trip 2, Knockforward +1, Explosive Area +1, Touch Range -1: 6 ranks (18) + PF: Subtle = 19pp [1pp]

AP: Telekinesis 2, Explosive Area +1, One Direction -2, Touch Range -1: 10 Ranks (5) + PF: Subtle 1 = 6pp [1pp]

I think this is pretty self-explanatory, save of course for the Side Effect. I thought an interesting effect would be if Stickler tries to pull a ranged target with too much power he would be pulled toward it. Essentially, it's the action/reaction that TK powers specifically ignore in effect. The obvious Side Effect would be an equal rank Trip toward the target every time he uses the perception range powers above (I figured the Area Effect forces would balance out). The question is, can he use his full defenses against the SE Trip, including his active Immovability? If he can, it's going to be easy for him to resist in most cases as long as he has Immovable up, so is it still a -2 Flaw? On a less troublesome note, the 2 TKs are very cheap, even without the Side Effect, and could fit into a single AP slot like you did with the Movement powers. Would that be acceptable?

Other Powers: 16pp total

Concealment (Scent Class) 2, Distracting -1: 2 ranks = 2pp

Immunity Vacuum 1, Gravitic 2 = 3pp

Enhanced STR 4 + DEX 4 = 8pp

Supersenses: Gravitic Awareness 1, Direction Sense 1, Time Sense 1 = 3pp

Continuing in the multiple-powers-in-an-AP-slot vein, I thought I might put the Enhanced abilities in the Nauseate slot, since in my mind the effect would fit that array (body-range gravitics simulating external muscles) and it would be a good combination for melee combat.

And in conclusion, the current total points in powers is over 90, while even the most powerful archetypes seem to top out around mid-80s, so I may need to do some trimming.

JD

PS - Realized I never made the Area Effect zero range. Editted now, but now I have a new idea, which I better put in a fresh post.

JDRook · February 5, 2008