Power Profile: Tech Powers

[Jameson]

Read my review here.

Turned out longer than I expected. *shrug* Or maybe I just "talk" too much

[saint_matthew]

Read my review here.

Turned out longer than I expected. *shrug* Or maybe I just "talk" too much

You do talk to much, but i appreciate that in a review... *hugs jameson* Thanks for the reviews, they are much appreciated

[Jameson]

I'm glad to know people are reading them and getting something useful from them.

[Brianide]

A solid review. I think I'll be basing some of my future Profile purchases off of these, so thanks and keep them coming!

[King Snarf]

Bought it last night, actually my first Power Profile purchase thus far, and I liked it quite a bit.

[jaydarkson]

What happened to Speed Powers?

I said Speed Powers was "upcoming" not that it was next in line. You should be seeing that Profile in about a month or so, I believe.

Hopefully there is a "speedy disarm" power in that Speed Power Profile?

[JonL]

Your lack of a mind gives you full to powers that affect minds or apply the Limited to Half Effect modifier.

This sentence makes me weep. I think it should probably be read thusly:

Your lack of a mind gives you full immunity to powers that affect minds, or apply the Limited to Half Effect modifier if you are partially susceptible.

Facepalm.

Yes, my error. Sorry. I'll get that fixed.

Thank you!

Jameson, I just thought I'd let you (and everyone else) know that the Tech Powers PDF has been updated and you can get the new copy now.

Thanks for pointing out the error!

[Jameson]

Awesome Jon! I added a little addendum to my review mentioning that fact. While I hadn't docked points from my rating for it, I am glad to see it fixed in a quick fashion. You guys continue to impress.

[ronyon]

Ok I bit the bullet and bought this Profile. I thought it might adress a question I had about Animating Objects.I am perhaps more confused than ever.
What I wanted was some guidence on how to rule on devices and equipment that animated when in the possesion of an opponent. Either there is some mechanism that would prevent The Machine Muse from automatically animating the gun right out your hand or, The Muse is the ulimate trump to all Device/ Equipment/Vehical users.I just wanted to know what that mechanism is.
The other questions I have actually arise from the Profile itself, at least in part.


1.Animate Machines: This was built on a Summon Effect, but explicitly allows you to tranform one machine into another,going so far as to suggest that a power lacking this could be eligible for a Flaw.
So does Animate Machine just get a free Transformation Effect?

2.Control Technology: An Affliction,Control Technology doesn't transform anything,nor does it exactly animate things, but it does give the user control over a devices basic functions, like a track light switching on or off but not swivling, or a tank moving both treads and turret but not reloading or refueling itself.
This power leaves me with a burning question:
If using Affliction on objects is legit, why bother with Transform(Disassemble) or Nullify(Deactivate Technology), or even Summon( Animate Machine) and Move Object(Manipulate Technology) for that matter? You could Transform and Control in one step,much cleaner and more efficiently. Even if this option does more than you need, you could just Flaw or Complicate it back down to size.
I totally understand the desire to offer many ways to the same destination, so I am not downing these other options, but I am asking if I could just add Transform to the suggested Affliction and cover everything in all of the other listed manipulative powers?

[WanderingMystic]

Ok I bit the bullet and bought this Profile. I thought it might adress a question I had about Animating Objects.I am perhaps more confused than ever.
What I wanted was some guidence on how to rule on devices and equipment that animated when in the possesion of an opponent. Either there is some mechanism that would prevent The Machine Muse from automatically animating the gun right out your hand or, The Muse is the ulimate trump to all Device/ Equipment/Vehical users.I just wanted to know what that mechanism is.
The other questions I have actually arise from the Profile itself, at least in part.


1.Animate Machines: This was built on a Summon Effect, but explicitly allows you to tranform one machine into another,going so far as to suggest that a power lacking this could be eligible for a Flaw.
So does Animate Machine just get a free Transformation Effect?

2.Control Technology: An Affliction,Control Technology doesn't transform anything,nor does it exactly animate things, but it does give the user control over a devices basic functions, like a track light switching on or off but not swivling, or a tank moving both treads and turret but not reloading or refueling itself.
This power leaves me with a burning question:
If using Affliction on objects is legit, why bother with Transform(Disassemble) or Nullify(Deactivate Technology), or even Summon( Animate Machine) and Move Object(Manipulate Technology) for that matter? You could Transform and Control in one step,much cleaner and more efficiently. Even if this option does more than you need, you could just Flaw or Complicate it back down to size.
I totally understand the desire to offer many ways to the same destination, so I am not downing these other options, but I am asking if I could just add Transform to the suggested Affliction and cover everything in all of the other listed manipulative powers?

Animate Machine allows you to force the machine to do things that it could not normally do in real life, think electrical wires shooting out of the wall and ensnaring and shocking your foe. (Note the fact that it uses an existing machine at all is mainly for description purposes and is meant to be used on background items, like the cars on a street and not on actually devices or an opponents equipment, it lacks the necessary ability to nullify your opponents power unless you removed that cost from the available points for that summons)

Manipulate Technology allows you to apply physical control over a device, flipping a light switch on, unlocking a manual lock, remote driving

Control Technology, you tell the computer in a device to do something and feel more appropriate for electrical devices, tell the security system to turn off, the street light to all turn green, however on most guns you should not be able to tell them to fire since the gun itself is not capable of moving the firing pin on its own.

Communicate with machine + mind read object only allows you to do most everything you could with affliction, you mind read the machine to find out the access codes then use communication to command it sending the appropriate codes to verify your authorization, think hacking security systems. (a little disappointed this was not in the article since it was used in a few threat reports and H&V)

so while most of them can accomplish similar effects it goes about them in different ways and may or may not be appropriate for the character you are creating.

[ronyon]

Animate Machine allows you to force the machine to do things that it could not normally do in real life, think electrical wires shooting out of the wall and ensnaring and shocking your foe. (Note the fact that it uses an existing machine at all is mainly for description purposes and is meant to be used on background items, like the cars on a street and not on actually devices or an opponents equipment, it lacks the necessary ability to nullify your opponents power unless you removed that cost from the available points for that summons)

This seems like a good explantion. Perhaps one could Chain or Link it to Manipulate Technology.
The Self Powered Flaw seems like cheating, given the prevalance of machines in most game worlds, and the ease just bringing Machines with you.Seems like something that won't come up much, more worthy of a Complication.

Manipulate Technology allows you to apply physical control over a device, flipping a light switch on, unlocking a manual lock, remote driving

This is my understanding as well.It does seem underpowered, but bringing up the ranks should be no problem.

Control Technology, you tell the computer in a device to do something and feel more appropriate for electrical devices, tell the security system to turn off, the street light to all turn green, however on most guns you should not be able to tell them to fire since the gun itself is not capable of moving the firing pin on its own.

This description is odds with entry in the Profile. There is no sign of this Power being intended to work on electronic devices only. In fact ,the firing of weapons is line itemed into the Power:

This allows you to cause a weapon to fire,or suit of power armor to act on its own

If one can cause a peice of tech to perform an act, one can presumably prevent it from acting as well. Thus with Control Technology you duplicate the functions of Deactivate Technology, and Control Technology.
Animate Machine,Disassemble,and Assemble on the other hand, involve changing the target.
Since Affliction with the 3rd degree condition,Controled, was used to build Control Technology, can we use the 3rd degree condition,Transformed, to build a "Mold Machinery" or "Transform Technology"?
Would it be unbalanced? Broken? This is the crux of my query.

One could have it seprate from Control Technology, linked with it, or built into it with Extra Condition.These seem like obvious choices, but none of them were used, thus my own hesitation.
The only drawback I see is the fixed nature of the Transformed condition.A player might want to change machines into something other than just Robots, or Inert, or Toasters. A few array slots might remedy this...

Communicate with machine + mind read object only allows you to do most everything you could with affliction, you mind read the machine to find out the access codes then use communication to command it sending the appropriate codes to verify your authorization, think hacking security systems. (a little disappointed this was not in the article since it was used in a few threat reports and H&V)

Now this a Power build mostly confined to manipulating electronics.I will note, that as written, it would work just fine on the Spinx,or an intelligent sword assuming the GM allows it.[/quote]

so while most of them can accomplish similar effects it goes about them in different ways and may or may not be appropriate for the character you are creating.

True, I just wanted some of the (to me) obvious question answered.
I think a Ranked up Manipulate Technology, Linked to a Transforming Affliction that adds a Complication:Cannot act without heros permision, might cover what I need. Or maybe a Compulsion or Control would be enough...
Either way, most of the manupulitive powers are redundant/limited compared to a Transforming version of Control Technology, assuming such a thing is kosher, which is essentially what I am asking...

[Techno]

Hmmm... well from the sound of things and Jameson's reviews all GR needs to do is make "Power Profile: Gadget Powers" and I should have all I need to stat up about three-fourths of all the superheroes I've created (tech heroes rule.) The rest will have to wait for "Plant Powers," "Elasticity," and "Powerhouses". Sounds good though, might have to break down and buy this one.

[WanderingMystic]

The reason I conclude that you could not force movement of an item (i.e a gun firing by itself) is that that's not exactly how the controlled condition works. Controlled lets you determine what actions a person or in this case a device takes but to my knowledge (and this could just be my interpretation of the wording) it cannot give the person or device the ability to do something that it could not normally do.

A standard pistol dose not have the ability to pull its own trigger, it relies on an outside force to do so, just like a rope can not tie a person up, to me these actions require the use of either over object or summon (described as the object coming to life). A car with out gas can not move forward since it lacks the propulsion, however with most modern vehicles it could turn on (assuming it had gas), even accelerate if it had gas in it, I also would have problems with it turning since in most cars it requires the wheel be manually moved.

I read the controlled effect similar to hacking (or movie hacking to be precise) and not capable of bestowing animation to an inanimate object even if it has moving parts, or granting power to a device that has no power source (like an unplugged computer with no battery)


Note: somehow I just saw that you were talking about using the Transformed condition and not the controlled condition for making robots, hmm I hate to say it but personally i would not allow it how ever im not sure if I can pin down why.
I guess if the ability or power gained from the transform was no more than the cost of the Affliction I might be ok with it, however it you are getting a free summons out of it that is vastly more powerful that the points you put into it IO would tell you no, that you were abusing the rules. In a way transform on an affliction for objects is already breaking the rules because there is a transform power which is cost a bit more (due to the weight by rank limits on transform).
Ah ha I found it, the power point total for an object transformed by the transformed condition (i.e affliction) can not be more than the object originally had. A standard car is only worth 8 points so you could not do much with it, hence needing to use summon to make it more powerful.