Aberrant RPG - Intangibility and Gravity

[Speed]

I want my games to be as realistic as possible, insofar as the powers function, and I am having a quandary with Density Decrease. If Gravity still affects the nova when the Density is decreased, then the nova would plummet to the center of the earth every time they went intangible. But if the nova is NOT affected by gravity, then there are many techniques that the player can use to get too much advantage from the DD power. For example, SuperLeap. How can an intangible character SuperLeap? Or walk, for that matter? And if they can walk, then cant they kindof fly? Slowly, to be sure, but can't they? My wife decided that if gravity doesn't affect her character, Wraith, then she can SuperLeap horizontally...turn intangible in the air and continue on the tragectory she was on before she turned intangible indefinately...then turn tangible until gravity causes her to come down where she wants, thus travelling many many miles instead of the 2 or 3 she should be travelling.

ALso, not gravity related, what's to stop an intangible character with attunement from taking a baseball bat, or a chair, or whatever...phasing it into a persons chest and letting go, causing aggravated damage in most cases? Surely this isn't the powers intended usage, but I havent' played a game yet where an intangible character didn't try this...

[Alex Craft]

It wouldn't be agg damage - it would be lethal. To be agg, you'd have to be talking about widespread, total destruction of tissue, and while having a baseball bat materialize in your chest would be pretty tramatic, it'd still just be a wound.

And there's nothing to prevent it. Hell, almost every comic book character with DD that I can think of has done the same thing (ok, to be fair, I can only think of one). Standard tactic. Just allow the PC to inflict lethal damage as per the object in hand.

If a lethal weapon, it inflicts damage normally, which isn't bad if the character has DD 4 or less. If it's a bludgeoning weapon or a found object, let it inflict its normal bashing damage as lethal. You might tweak this somewhat to reflect how large the object is, but don't go overboard - damage isn't just how big something is, it's also how effectively it can be wielded.

Of course, the character still has to make a Melee attack, and his/her weapon is effectively gone whether he/she hits or not (attunement was released, so it falls out of the character's immaterial hands). And attuning takes an action, so this probably isn't an attack that can be used repeatedly.

As for the DD and gravity thing, the answer is easy. Your abilities are controlled by your subconscious. Your subconscious believes both that you are affected by gravity and that you won't fall through the floor.

This is what it is used to, and just because it has been convinced that you can walk through walls doesn't mean that it is convinced of everything that the laws of physics would say follows. If you want to be able to defy gravity, convince your subconscious that this is possible by buying Flight.

It is also possible to convince yourself that you'll fall through the floor and get trapped at the center of the earth, but I wouldn't recommend trying.

To be clear - you are not simply intangible. You are acting as your subconscious mind thinks intangibility should work.

[kestrel404]

This is actually why I bought a warped version of DD for Alchemist. He's got a highly intuitive grasp of physics, and is very in touch with his subconscious mind. Thus, if he had hones DD without the ability to fly, he would simply plummet towards the nearest gravity well (the center of the earth), regardless of the intervening mass.

Instead, his DD is defined as the ability to shift matter around him at roughly running-speed, so he gets the walks-through-walls effect, along with the ability to jump into the floor for cover, or 'swim' up through the wall of a building to the roof. On the downside, he's limited to non-living materials (as the Molecular Manip rules) and has no resistence to high-kinetic objects like bullets, or energy weapons. His weight also doesn't decrease.

Moral of the story: work with your players on their power's exact expression. Find something that they're comfortable with, starting at the power's description, and apply advantages and disadvantages until it's something suitable to their character's view of how the power works. If DD also requires flight for some characters, then have them buy flight, or even add it as an extra on DD (although I'd go with the Gravity-manip's rules for flight in that case).

[Speed]

Alex, I like the subconscious mind explanation for the gravity thing. I disagree with you on the type of damage dealt, however. It's not like you shoved a bat into someones chest--that's a wound. The material of the bat is fused with the cells of your chest- you cannot simply pull the bat out of the chest, it is now part OF the chest, causing significant tissue damage...I would call that Aggro damage, and I think it is more powerful than the authors intended, especially for an invisible, intangible char....

[The White Rat]

I would look at DD and how it would affect living tissue. I would say that if you solidified an object in a novas chest, it would be lethal because the nova's quantum energies would prevent the bat from fusing with the molecules. The bat could either be destroyed by the nova's body, or the novas body would adjust around the bat as if it was thrust into a body.

I would make two distinctions, re-solidification in non-living and living tissue. With living tissue, the nova's mind with the DD could unconsciously make a distinction between defensive uses and offensive uses. They may not be able to actively pass through living tissue, but living tissue could actively pass through the nova.

Since the creators of Aberrant never addressed this issue, it would be up to the storyteller to adjudicate it.

[Kirby1024]

A few brief notes:

Gravity affecting DD should always be given some poetic licence, regardless of the "realism" of the game. If necessary, draw a black box around the power and let events fill it in later on. Truly realistic DD is not fun for Players.

If you really want to come up with some explanation, make the assumption that the intangibility comes with some buffer around the person that requires specific force to counteract - The buffer keeps the nova on the ground, but if the nova dives into the ground, the extra force counteracts the buffer. It's also why objects (and ground) may still slow down an intangible nova, because they're constantly having to push against the buffer. This still protects them from high-velocity objects and energy - they go through the buffer due to their high energy - but stops them from falling through the earth. Easy and simple.

[kestrel404]

I like that explanation. Mind if I steal it for another character?

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

RE: Attuned Bat appearing inside someone.

IMHO, this is only an issue in theory, in practice it won’t work. Why? Because there is/should be a slight delay between you letting go of the object and it becoming solid. During that delay your target will get an action, and even a half move would nullify the attack. This is the same reason why you can’t use an attuned gun on someone while under DD3+. The rules say you can’t affect someone, so you can’t.

RE: DD & Immunity to Fields

The fields they are talking about is field effects from Gravity Control, or Temporal Manipulation. Standard gravity would still work because novas are immune to the negative effects of their own powers.

[Ouchfest]

The standard response is "quantum powers violate physics blah blah blah" and everything is storyteller fiat.

For the sake of discourse: at DD 3 you are intangible and can walk through walls. To me this says that you are no longer made up of molecules (the charges of the electrons in your molecules would bounce you off of other molecules, preventing walking through walls), and therefor you have no mass. Since you have no mass at DD 3, you are immune to gravity at that point. Gravity is the attraction between two masses. Okay, so gravity technically affects things like photons and neutrinos, but it's slight and wonky. At DD 1 and 2, the nova may have to constantly move like walking up stairs or swimming to keep from slowly sinking into the ground.

I might allow the horizontal superjumps, but take into account the curvature of the Earth (she'll gradually rise relative to the ground), and if she has to solidify to stop, she might take damage as if falling or knockback. Balance out the advantage.

I would allow object-insertion attacks, but I might say that the nova has to turn off the power, not just let go of the weapon. Whatever seems appropriately balanced for your game.

Similar to Alchemist, I had a DD character "Bender" whose DD was just bending space around herself. I liked the concept. Ignore the name, go for the effects. Play around.

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

I would allow object-insertion attacks, but I might say that the nova has to turn off the power, not just let go of the weapon.

Now that sounds like a good way to deal with it.

[Noir]

That would mean he could attune a rifle, fire at a target through several objects which the bullet will pass through phased, and then turn off the power so it becomes solid and hits the target. Combine that with a high caliber, long range sniper rifle, and a few certain mega-attributes and things get sick.

~Noir

[Ashnod]

Same argument can be made for Temporal and Spatial powers. You stop time on someone and they stay in place - but THE PLANET and everything else continues to move. So a few seconds later THE PLANET is a few thousand miles away while the timestopped individual is now out in space.

Try factoring in planetary movement along the orbit of the sun, plus the movement of the solar system within the galaxy, then the galaxy as it itself moves....and teleportation becomes downright impossible to achieve unless you have some kind of prodigy enhancement to do the math before the jump.

Nova powers shatter the laws of physics, blah blah blah.

Sometimes it's best to say the mind compensates for these things when the powers initially manifest.

[Noir]

Exactly.

~Noir

[Kirby1024]

Quote:

Originally posted by Alchemist:
I like that explanation. Mind if I steal it for another character?

Go ahead...

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

Quote:

Originally posted by Noir:
That would mean he could attune a rifle, fire at a target through several objects which the bullet will pass through phased, and then turn off the power so it becomes solid and hits the target. Combine that with a high caliber, long range sniper rifle, and a few certain mega-attributes and things get sick.

~Noir

Make him buy Q-Bolt + Homing.

[Noir]

Quote:

Originally posted by David 'Dr. Troll' Smith:
Make him buy Q-Bolt + Homing.

Eh?

~Noir

[Amped]

I would say the item would unattune as soon as the it left the Nova's person. Though I had a character based upon being able to DD completely out of harms way and he would use weapons. The way I interpreted it, the bullets returned to normal space and worked fine.

[Magus]

Figment uses the same technique in one of the books as she fires a tranquilizer dart that returns to normal as it leaves her "person" and detunes before striking a mafia boss. In the comic world; Ghost of the Darkhorse line is based on similar abilities, albeit with the permanent power aberration for her DD.

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

Figment presumably has DD5 and can make her hand solid. Said hand is then holding a gun.

That is within the rules and her hand could be attacked at that time (normal targeting rules would apply). The few times I've seen this come up the ST has ruled that although a hand or gun would work, Q-Bolt would not (the plain reading of the rules for DD says you can't affect things if DD3+ is on).

RE: Homing

What Noir described basically is a way to develope the 'homing' extra. You fire the bolt and it will go around a corner. If a player tried to pull some thing like that, the ST should make him buy the appropriate power. You don't get something for nothing.

Though I had a character based upon being able to DD completely out of harms way and he would use weapons. The way I interpreted it, the bullets returned to normal space and worked fine.

Don't think so. With DD3+ fully up, you can't affect the world. Your argument makes sense, it's just we already know q-physics doesn't work that way. Similarly, if my Q-Bolt is defined as a big spear that I throw at people, the Q-Bolt won't become solid after it leaves my hands if I'm DD3+.

The easiest way to prevent this sort of thing is to say that attuned objects don't unattune for an undetermined, but short, period of time.

[kestrel404]

I've always thought DD, as is, is broken. At level 5, it's more effective than two broad-category immunities. Yes, you need to maintain it, but combat doesn't last that long.

As an ST, I'd make it as difficult to attack while DDed as possible. The 'I can shoot you, and all you can do is psy-blast me' idea is quite twisted, and shouldn't work without some additional effort (i.e. XP expenditure on new abilities).

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

I've always thought DD, as is, is broken. At level 5, it's more effective than two broad-category immunities. Yes, you need to maintain it, but combat doesn't last that long.

Mostly that's because people ignore the problems associated with it. DD4 allows you ignore combat. But part of that ignoring combat is you can't take part in it. Someone with Psy-blast can attack you, but you can't attack them with your psy-blast.

DD5 lets you still take part. But that comes with a price tag. If you do take part anyone can hit you with a +2 difficulty on their targeting roll (normal if it's Area).

[Kirby1024]

Quote:

Originally posted by David 'Dr. Troll' Smith:
Figment presumably has DD5 and can make her hand solid. Said hand is then holding a gun.

One slight problem - The Attunement background vignette in the APG (p77) shows Figment - while DDed - phasing out a bomb, throwing it into the ground, where it unDDed and became harmless. A clear and simple interpretation on the ruling that Attuned objects have to be in contact with the nova to remain Attuned, and once they move out of contact, they stop being Attuned.

If we assume this ruling, then the Phase rifle works like a charm. The bullet, once released, ceases it's DDness, becoming a solid object. I don't see what rule contradicts this ruling.

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

One slight problem - The Attunement background vignette in the APG (p77) shows Figment - while DDed - phasing out a bomb, throwing it into the ground, where it unDDed and became harmless. A clear and simple interpretation on the ruling that Attuned objects have to be in contact with the nova to remain Attuned, and once they move out of contact, they stop being Attuned.

True, but that doesn't imply: Once they move out of contact, they instantly stop being Attuned.

Figment was dealing with a bomb that still had several rounds to go off. She let go of it. If the bomb turned solid the next round, or even later that same round, it would have been exactly the same.

[kestrel404]

I think that, unless you have a specific power that modifies it, whatever you drop should take a combat round (at least 3 seconds) to un-phase. With a slight unpredictable variance (+/- 1 second), just so that can't be abbused either.

Meaning the bomb example works fine, cause you don't care where it un-phases, but the bullet trick doesn't, since you can never be sure it'll unphase before reaching the target, unless it's going such a long distance that being phased when you fire it doesn't matter anyway.

[Splitmind]

One nice thing about Aberrant powers is that, as the Player's Guide mentions, Novas have what they need in order to use their powers. Technically, most uses of Mega-Strength should obliterate the Nova's muscles in the process, but as long as they don't think about it too much, they're fine. It also mentions in the Elites book that novas tend to lose some power when they start thinking about how their powers work.

So rather than trying to force realism on your Nova PC's, have realism hit them hard when they don't expect it. The Alchemist clearly thought out how his powers work, but if another PC is just "going intangible," maybe he/she has the buffer like Kirby suggested, until he/she stops to think about it and realizes they don't know how their powers work. At that point, maybe make them start rolling Willpower to avoid gravity's effects for a while, or perhaps have them experience side-effects like those that accompany learning a new power, until the PC can either make logical sense of the power or just accept that it works.

One nice thing about the D and D mechanics of teleportation is that if something went horribly wrong, the magic of the spell will usually shunt you aside into the nearest empty space, maybe causing some damage in the process. We can do something similar with DD: whenever a person or object solidifies within another solid object, have it take an unsoakable bashing level for every meter it has to move in order to emerge into the nearest relatively open space. If either of the two intertwined objects is broken by this, they fuse. Otherwise, one pops out of the other.

Similarly, if you leave a weapon in somebody, it doesn't have to travel very far in order to exit, so most things that are worth being weapons will phase out, maybe causing one unsoakable bashing in the process (perhaps have the defender and the attacker roll opposing Quantum to see whose quantum field holds sway, and applying the damage or not depending on the result).

Objects that couldn't survive the less than one meter journey to the outside world are likely extraordinarily flimsy, perhaps paper or glass. So it fuses with the body and quickly causes a tear (since papery muscles and bones with a glass pane quickly are ruined). The initial damage may be an unsoakable lethal (again assuming that the quanrum contest fails), but any further damage should be fully soakable by stamina and invulnerability (not so much armor). A nova with high enough Mega-Stamina can swallow broken glass with little problem, and there's no reason to assume that glass shards within his muscles will be any different.

[Magus]

Quote:

Originally posted by Splitmind:
Technically, most uses of Mega-Strength should obliterate the Nova's muscles in the process, but as long as they don't think about it too much, they're fine.

More to the point; it doesn't obliterate the building they pick up when it fact the structure should collapse into powder as soon as they try.

That's is the measure of power in the hands of a nova.