Concept Help

[Russoboo]

Alright, I'm looking for a little numbers/mechanics help before I try to put a full sheet together. It's been awhile since I've made an MnM character, so please help me make sure I didn't botch anything up. Hopefully everything is formatted correctly.

Diamond Control 10 (40 points; Descriptors: Diamonds, Mutant; PFs: Alternate Power) [41 pp]

BE: Transform 10 (Any inanimate into diamond, Extras: Duration, Flaws: Range) {40/40}

AP: Create Object 10 (Diamonds; Extras: Duration; PFs: Precise, Innate) {32/40}

AP: Move Object 10 (Diamonds; Extras: Range; Flaws: Limited Material; PFs: Precise) {21/40}

AP: Blast 10 (Extras: Penetrating, Autofire) {40/40}

AP: Snare 10 (Extras: Area [blast], Selective) {40/40}

Diamond Flight 3 (Flaws: Platform) [3 pp]

Diamond Skin 4 (Alternate Form; Descriptors: Mutant) [20 pp]

Protection 10 {10}

Immunity 10 (Life Support, Starvation/Thirst) {10}

[Raveled]

"Look at this here, it's a character sheet, now look at me, now look back at it, the character sheet is now diamonds!"

Sorry, couldn't resist. Quick look over things: Creating and Moving just diamonds seems very limiting. Why not just stick the Move extra onto Create?

Transform looks powerful, and possible broken. The character can turn anything they can touch into diamonds, permanently? Okay, I suppose the power can be Nullified, but how often do you think the character will really be turning things into diamond? It's not like turning them into paper or wood where they'd be weaker, after all.

[Cubist]

Transforming stuff into diamonds… hmm. The base Transform power has a duration of "Sustained", meaning it lasts as long as you continue to divert some part of your attention keeping it that way, and it goes away when you stop making that conscious mental effort to keep it going. Add the Duration Extra to it, and the transformation lasts until you explicitly decide to end it—which is pretty much the same as Permanent, in brute practical terms. Hmm.

The problem with an effectively-permanent transformation to diamond, is pretty much the same problem that Teleport with the Attack Extra has: If it works at all, the target is utterly nuked. Just as Teleport-with-Attack is explicitly forbidden by this campaign's House Rules, I rather suspect any nuke-'em-in-one-shot power is likely to be forbidden, on much the same grounds.

One interesting alternative: There's a strict weight limit on inanimate Transforms. A 1-Rank Transform can zap 1 (one) pound of inanimate matter; your 10-Rank Transform is good for half a ton. So, what if your Transform-to-diamond has a real stringent weight limit, such that only part of the target's body gets all Diamondy when you zap them? That way, you can whittle the target down one piece at a time, as opposed to the current nuke-or-nothing deal.

Another alternative: What if the Transform-to-Diamonds power has bad effects on the character themself? Like, say, whenever they transform someone into diamond, the character themself turns into solid, inert diamond. Yeah, the character can do this thing… but do they really want to?

If you'd rather not go that far, you might want to consider putting the Flaw, Tiring, on the power; that way, any time you use the power, people will know that Things Just Got Serious.

Third alternative: Leave the Transform-to-diamond power completely off the character sheet, and if you decide you need it at some point, pull a Power Stunt (pp 120 in the Core MnM rulebook) to make it an Alternate Power that will stick around until that particular encounter is done. Even if you do go this route, it's likely that you'll want to tweak the power so it's no longer nuke-or-nothing.

Fourth alternative: Don't have an actual, explicit Transform-to-diamonds power in the first place. MnM worries about the actual, practical effect of a power, and not so much the mechanism by which that effect was achieved. So okay, what are you going to do with your shiny new Transform-to-Diamonds power? A lot of the things you might want to use it for are basically covered by the power Create Object—which you already have on your sheet. If you just want to immobilize your targets, that's what the power Snare is good for… and again, you've already got Snare on your sheet. So, what sort of things would you use Transform-to-diamonds for, which aren't already handled by one of your existing powers?

On the plus side, the Range Flaw means you gotta touch the target in order to transform them. This is a good thing, and you probably want to keep that Flaw on the power, methinks.

[Curious Key]

The transform into diamonds already has INANIMATE to diamonds on it, Cubist. How will that be nuking anybody? Even robots are still technically animate, so I don't see what the cause for concern is.