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Aberrant RPG - Mega-Dexterity 6+ Feats


Sprocket

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It's a less-extreme version of trying to dodge every individual grain of sand that's flying your way during a sandstorm. Sure, the grains of sand may be molasses-slow from the POV of a swift, but there's literally almost no room in between the sand grains for the swift to maneuver.
As opposed to walking through a laser beam so fast you don't break it?
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::shrug The laser tripwire feat isn't quite as good a comparison as you seem to think. Speed isn't the only factor, the swift must also have sufficient room to maneuver. A very narrow beam of coherent light - the laser tripwire - will typically have nothing but empty air around the beam's path, so that makes things easy on the swift (apart from having to briefly move at FTL speeds).

Now contrast that with all those droplets of water found in a rain shower. A swift can stay dry in a light rain without much trouble (say, a few drops per cubic meter), but his room to maneuver becomes sharply curtailed as the rain gets thicker. Attempting to dodge raindrops headed towards the swift only puts him directly in the path of other raindrops, and so on. That's not a problem at Mega-Dex 10 (where reality becomes very flexible), but not having adequate room to maneuver should remain a problem at the lower dot ratings AFAICT.

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Now contrast that with all those droplets of water found in a rain shower. A swift can stay dry in a light rain without much trouble (say, a few drops per cubic meter), but his room to maneuver becomes sharply curtailed as the rain gets thicker. Attempting to dodge raindrops headed towards the swift only puts him directly in the path of other raindrops, and so on...
Sounds like a job for a contortionist... which is also a Dex thing.

Let's put this one on the back burner for now since it's kind of trivial anyway.

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Fair enough, that's where the M-Dex 10 version's been placed. ::smile

AFA my continuing attempts to dig up appropriate feats, I'm still coming up empty. ::brick Researching Runner & the Silver Surfer hasn't been as helpful as I'd hoped, since both of them seem to be described in the comics more in terms of Hyper-movement than high-ranking Mega-Dex.

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You run into the "are you outspeeding the projectile or the shooter" problem. Generally, though, I'd say its about the same as dodging yourself. While pushing someone else out of the way is harder, I'm not sure I'd say its sufficiently harder to be worth an extra point of benchmark ( what with that being an order of magnitude level change ).

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Mega Dexterity 9 or 10 should have the following

- Novas with mega-perception of 3 or less have a difficulty keeping track of you as you move.

The idea is that each new level of a mega-attributes is an exponential curve. So there is a bigger difference going from mega-dex 8 to 9, than 7 to 8.

Please remember that Dexterity is also body control. Not just your limbs or movement, but at the higher levels I can see underlying physilogical control. Lower heart rates, controlling blood pressure, and breathing. Sure you can't do things as well as Mega-Stamina, but you can start touching different attribute purviews.

*oh, another thought. Since you have such fanstic control of your movement and muscles. You should be getting very strong, or at the least be able to near/to super-human feats of strength.

Also, you reaction time is so fast I can see that you can only emulate certain low level powers, like Intuition.

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Please remember that Dexterity is also body control. Not just your limbs or movement, but at the higher levels I can see underlying physiological control. Lower heart rates, controlling blood pressure, and breathing. Sure you can't do things as well as Mega-Stamina, but you can start touching different attribute purviews.

*oh, another thought. Since you have such fantastic control of your movement and muscles. You should be getting very strong, or at the least be able to near/to super-human feats of strength.

Two problems with your suggestions:

1: physiological control is typically based on Wits, sometimes Stamina.

>&<

2: You're thinking in terms of RL biology, not those of Aberrant Mega-Attributes. A swift's Quantum & base Dexterity are much more of a factor than his or her base Strength.

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Fair enough, that's where the M-Dex 10 version's been placed. ::smile

AFA my continuing attempts to dig up appropriate feats, I'm still coming up empty. ::brick Researching Runner & the Silver Surfer hasn't been as helpful as I'd hoped, since both of them seem to be described in the comics more in terms of Hyper-movement than high-ranking Mega-Dex.

Yeah, I figured that'd be a problem. Both of their Dexterity feats tend to be of the "maintain awareness and interactibility with your surroundings while travelling at ludicrous speeds," which is hard to use for a benchmark.

I suppose "grab an small object while travelling past it at millions of times lightspeed" might work, as a Mega Dex 9 feat ( Surfer probably only has 8 by my estimate, but the Gauntlet-grab was done at his maximum speed possible, and he failed besides ).

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Yeah, I figured that'd be a problem. Both of their Dexterity feats tend to be of the "maintain awareness and interactibility with your surroundings while travelling at ludicrous speeds," which is hard to use for a benchmark.

I suppose "grab an small object while travelling past it at millions of times lightspeed" might work, as a Mega Dex 9 feat ( Surfer probably only has 8 by my estimate, but the Gauntlet-grab was done at his maximum speed possible, and he failed besides ).

Yeah, & I've already addressed that particular stunt with the FTL Reflexes (& FTL Reactions) enhancements, so that's a no-go.

I suppose extrapolating wuxia stunts as could be performed by the Surfer or Runner may be one of our few options left.

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Since we're scraping the bottom of the barrel idea-wise at the moment, can you folks think of any insanely delicate surgeries that would require Mega-Dex 8+ to perform (given equipment & appropriate medical training)? I'm thinking of procedures that one of Hans Moravec's hypothetical bush robots were supposed to be capable of.

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How about *without* the right stuff?

::blink Are we talking "insufficient training" or "inadequate equipment" here? I can see the latter being viable (to a degree), but the prior... that would get messy! ::devil

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Not sure I can agree. Generally fingers are going to be too big to carry out something like brain surgery without causing additional damage, no matter how fast or precise.

However, perhaps a suitably skilled and at least partially equipped swift could carry out the op quick enough to be unaffected by environmental factors. For example the buffet car of a speeding train?

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Repair the engine of a bullet train while it's working?

Various incarnations of the Flash DC Comics character have been disassembling car engines while they were running (and in a moving car, no less!) for decades, so this seems workable. Nice one, Alex. ::thumbup1

I suppose an M-Dex 10 analog would be "safely defuse a nuke after the trigger explosives have been set off".

How about "perform brain surgery with your bare hands"?

I find myself in agreement with Rorx on this; I can't really see "bare fingers brain surgery" happening without something like the Micromanipulators BodyMod. That said, I can see a Swift surgeon being able to use second- or third-rate surgical/medical tools to achieve first-rate results.

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Re: New M-Dex 8+ listings-

Despite some serious RL interference, I've distilled our latest speculations into high-caliber Mega-Dex feats.

Mega-Dexterity 8

• Perform the most delicate of surgeries quick enough to be unaffected by environmental factors.

• Repair the engine of a bullet train while it's running at full speed.

• Use a blade to completely flay a victim (removal of the victim's entire intact skin) in combat for a complete surprise before he can notice and react. It's done so quickly that it's bloodless and painless until the victim notices what he's missing.

• Use nearly any surface (such as leaves on a tree) for purposes of climbing.

• Walk or run along a stream of automatic gunfire or similar projectiles.

Mega-Dexterity 9

• Move faster than any camera can see.

• x.

• x.

• x.

• x.

Mega-Dexterity 10

• Safely defuse a nuclear bomb after the trigger explosives have been set off.

• x.

• x.

• x.

Your thoughts?

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Thank you.

• Use a blade to completely flay a victim (removal of the victim's entire intact skin) in combat for a complete surprise before he can notice and react. It's done so quickly that it's bloodless and painless until the victim notices what he's missing.

• Use a blade to completely flay a victim (removal of the victim's entire intact skin) in combat so quickly that it's bloodless and painless until the victim notices what he's missing.

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• Use a blade to completely flay a victim (removal of the victim's entire intact skin) in combat for a complete surprise before he can notice and react. It's done so quickly that it's bloodless and painless until the victim notices what he's missing.

• Use a blade to completely flay a victim (removal of the victim's entire intact skin) in combat so quickly that it's bloodless and painless until the victim notices what he's missing.

I take it you're suggesting a rewording of the latter feat? If so, I've nothing against tightening it up. I'll change the listing in the main document.

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Like I said, no problems. The original feat did read a bit clumsy. ::cool

Now that that's out of the way, have you (or anyone else posting on this thread) any ideas for M-Dex 9 and/or 10 feats? The inspiration for the "safely defuse an already-triggered nuke" feat came from the recent Iron Man: Hypervelocity arc/miniseries, but I've yet to find any other feats of similar caliber as yet.

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Type computer code faster than it can evaluate it.

::confused I'm afraid that my knowledge of computer tech isn't sufficient to grasp the plausibility/implications/uses of that feat. Could you expand on this?

Pull molecules out of place and replace them with others before the laws of physics notice there's an imbalance.

Molecular rearrangement by hand?

"Throw" pockets of air like they're solid.

This sounds possible - in the Kingdom Come novelization, the Flash is shown "sculpting" a jet of water from a fire hydrant to direct it towards a close-by house fire. The only question is whether air is or isn't too diffuse a fluid to be "snowballed" in this way at M-Dex 9 or 10.

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Type computer code faster than it can evaluate it.

Too computer dependent, IMO. Some computers, *I* could do this. And I think we already have a 'type fast enough to destroy a keyboard'.

Pull molecules out of place and replace them with others before the laws of physics notice there's an imbalance.

Would require that 'manipulate tiny objects' enhancement, but I can see it. Doing more than weird science experiments with this would probably require theme powers, though.

"Throw" pockets of air like they're solid.

Sounds fine for me at 8+, though doing more than unarmed non mega-strength damage should probably require a theme power.

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Re: Superfast typing-

OK, AFAICT both the "destroy keyboards/jam typewriter keys" & "enter data too fast for a computer to evaluate" feats are not up to snuff for either Mega-Dex 9 or 10.

Re: Molecular manipulation by hand-

That would be "Fine Manipulation" from the APG (p. 102). And since we're focusing on what's possible without the use of enhancements, I'm sad to say this looks like it's unusable too.

Re: Throwing literal airballs-

We've already got a M-Dex enhancement in Chapter 4 that allows a swift to make physical attacks at a distance (just reviewed the document). Also, this trick might only work with the gases that are heavier than Earth-normal atmosphere - pure carbon dioxide, chlorine gas, halothane, etc.

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>By way of superfast bodily vibrations (usually the hands) the swift may alter or cancel out surrounding sounds. Those with mega wits and mega intelligence may even create the sounds of intelligible speech, or alter someone else's speech to change what seems to be said.

>Shatter steel/titanium/etc. by laying your hands upon it and ramping up the sympathetic vibrations.

>Redirect bullets (rail gun rounds at greater dex) to a new target without costing them any kinetic energy.

>Throw sonic booms by way of your insane speed; throw Cerenkov radiation (a light boom).

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>By way of superfast bodily vibrations (usually the hands) the swift may alter or cancel out surrounding sounds. Those with mega wits and mega intelligence may even create the sounds of intelligible speech, or alter someone else's speech to change what seems to be said.

This one sounds good to me. Probably relatively low end, though. Most of the mega dex would be needed for precision, not speed.

>Shatter steel/titanium/etc. by laying your hands upon it and ramping up the sympathetic vibrations.

Hmm. . . yeah, I can see it. What I'd probably do is allow a Dex + Science roll, and treat it functionally as an attack roll, except with no cap on attack sux adding to damage. The trade-off would be, you need sufficient Mega Dex to try at all, and it only works on stationary rigid objects.

>Redirect bullets (rail gun rounds at greater dex) to a new target without costing them any kinetic energy.

Theme power, really. Its identical to Deflect/Reflect.

>Throw sonic booms by way of your insane speed; throw Cerenkov radiation (a light boom).

Theme power, I'd say. I've never been a fan of the automatic sonic booms from hypermovement.

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Theme power, really. Its identical to Deflect/Reflect.

I was thinking specifically limited to physical projectiles, no energy allowed. You would also have to be able to percieve the projectile and also be aware of it. I was thinking of an old chopsocky movie where a martial arts master struck at incoming musket balls and knocked them back at the shooters, just dressed up.

Theme power, I'd say. I've never been a fan of the automatic sonic booms from hypermovement.

Didn't word that one quite right.... Not as an automatic effect of normal hyperspeed, but more as a short range sonic boom punch created with punch or kick motions at hyperspeed. Less powerful than something like Thunderclap, this is after all for a feat and not an enhancement. Think of a short term deafening effect with the possibility of unbalancing or breaking concentration. The enhanced Cerenkov effect would include a blinding flash as well.

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>Shatter steel/titanium/etc. by laying your hands upon it and ramping up the sympathetic vibrations.
Hmm. . . yeah, I can see it. What I'd probably do is allow a Dex + Science roll, and treat it functionally as an attack roll, except with no cap on attack sux adding to damage. The trade-off would be, you need sufficient Mega Dex to try at all, and it only works on stationary rigid objects.

I like this, and would set the "affected target range" as anything with sufficiently crystalline/rigid molecular structure. That would cover metals, rocks, glass and possibly (as a longshot) living bone. Imagine a swift doing that with her hands on some poor sap's skullcase... ::devil

>By way of superfast bodily vibrations (usually the hands) the swift may alter or cancel out surrounding sounds. Those with Mega-Wits and Mega-Intelligence may even create the sounds of intelligible speech, or alter someone else's speech to change what seems to be said.

Another keeper for its sheer funkiness, methinks. If this can be done at with M-Dex lower than 9 or 10, what specific dot rating would you folks peg it as?

Do energy damage (not physical) because you're beating the speed of light.

If "you're beating the speed of light" translates as "moving at FTL speeds", I'm OK with it. However, if this is going to be rated as M-Dex 8, which of the current M-Dex 8 feats should be bumped up or axed to make room for it?

Didn't word that one quite right.... Not as an automatic effect of normal hyperspeed, but more as a short range sonic boom punch created with punch or kick motions at hyperspeed. Less powerful than something like Thunderclap, this is after all for a feat and not an enhancement. Think of a short term deafening effect with the possibility of unbalancing or breaking concentration. The enhanced Cerenkov effect would include a blinding flash as well.

The "short range sonic boom punch" sounds like a variant of the Thunderclap enhancement using Mega-Dex as its base instead of Mega-Strength. The APG talks about that sort of thing on p. 101.

AFA the Cerenkov flash, this sounds like a cheap way to use the Strobe quantum power.

What happens when you break the time barrier? Hit people before you swing at them? Finish repairing things before you start? Function as a perm time stop?

::confused I'm afraid you've lost me here. Is this "time barrier" a reference from the Flash DC character(s), or is it something from current RL theoretical physics?

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::confused I'm afraid you've lost me here. Is this "time barrier" a reference from the Flash DC character(s), or is it something from current RL theoretical physics?
M-Dex 8 lets you go at the speed of light. Ergo M-Dex 9 lets you go past it. ::devil

Objects moving faster than the speed of light presumably move backwards in time.

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I would keep temporal 'side effects' as the domain of either aberrations ( "I cannot use my full speed lest I risk bouncing across time!" ) or theme powers ( ". . .you mean you haven't learned to control those bounces yet?" *cough* ). Trying to come up with meaningful non-game breaking temporal effects, probably not worth it.

Likewise, I'd say ignore relativity for Mega Dex 7 novas as well, barring aberration or specific power effect depending on it ( the Infinite Mass Punch ).

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