Teleport and illusionary clones

[Forged]

I want to create a character that can conjure illusionary clones, but also can swap places with any of his illusions. The basic part is easy, but for him to appropriately pal his mind games, I wanted to give him turnabout on his teleport, and the ability to leave illusions behind when he teleports. the idea being if you can't hit both/all his illusions their is no way to realize which one is the real one even if he just hit you. The other issue, is that since Illusion is a standard action, it would be difficult to create illusion clones mid combat and have the guy stay on the offensive.

This is because there is a hero who can see through illusions, and a powerhouse who can't. So this was a neat idea for someone that can "tank" a classic super strong character, but isn't a big problem for fast/finesse heroes. The problem is I have introduced the character as a bit of a Frenemy, and we often do tie-in episodes where people use some of the side characters instead of their own. How would you stat that power up?

[Brianide]

There are several ways to go about it. The simplest would just be some Visual Concealment with the descriptor of Teleporting among Illusory Duplicates. This makes it virtually impossible to target him unless you have some way to see through the deception or use an Area attack.

[Ryan M. Danks]

This reminds me of Mesmers from Guild Wars 2, which is probably where you got it.

It would be pretty cool to be able to create a clone over a chasm and then switch places with that clone, teleporting, as it were.

Using Concealment is a cool way of doing this, but I wonder if it would work as intended. Wouldn't it keep you from being detected completely?

Maybe Enhanced Luck, or Luck Control? You spend a Hero Point on a Toughness roll to say, "it wasn't me, he struck my clone." If you still fail a little bit, maybe you suffered some form of psychic backlash or some other creative way of explaining away the damage.

[FuzzyBoots]

I'd probably allow for a Quirk in that the character is fully visible when "Concealed" which eliminates the need to choose a square to target and also means they're regularly noticeable to skill checks.

[Ryan M. Danks]

I'd probably allow for a Quirk in that the character is fully visible when "Concealed" which eliminates the need to choose a square to target and also means they're regularly noticeable to skill checks.

I like that. I always forget about Quirks and Features as creation tools where an effect lies just outside of what the rules are meant to do.

[JDRook]

I'd probably allow for a Quirk in that the character is fully visible when "Concealed" which eliminates the need to choose a square to target and also means they're regularly noticeable to skill checks.

Maybe. Though narratively very different, I think the mechanical difference between "invisible to attackers" and "fooled by perfect decoys" kind of balances out, with at least a -5 to hit in both cases, if not an automatic miss. Against an invisible target, an attacker will only attack if they suspect the target is there and invisible, while an attacker will only not attack if they suspect their target is a decoy.

Then again, Concealment with a Noticeable Quirk does make a lot of sense in this context.

EDIT - you could also Flaw it with an Insight check to see through the decoys, which would make it even more like the Illusion effect without actually using Illusion, although you might want to buy up extra ranks.

[Forged]

Wow these are all great ideas. And yes playing a mesmer in GW2 did spark the idea. When I introduced the chractacter the players were fooled into thinking that they were under assault by an group of ninjas. When one of my players activated their second sight and realized it was one man swapping between illusions, they were impressed, but now I need to put some stats to this guy.

I have a fully loaded teleport with the change direction and other bells and whistles so he can change his pose while Tping. It only needs a few ranks, It doesn't have a medium since the player could pretend he was a freshly summoned illusion via teleporting and leaving the illusion behind.

The problem is linking. If I can make illusion a move action and tie it to teleport. OR make it a reaction that happens every teleport, that would work I think... would it count as a quirk to limit illusions initial creation to within 30m and have the teleport be equally as short?

I wanted to keep it illusion, because it ties in with the one PC's power. The illusions can be heard and seen (maybe smelled?) but touch ruins them.

I know I'm the DM, but I want a clear power that has minimal dependance on my yes/no on what can happen.

BTW thanks for the brainstorming.