Mind Control Vs. Summoning....

[ronyon]

Summoning has been nerfed pretty hard, Mind Control not so much.Both give you minions, but Mind Control also eliminates opponents as part of its function, and thereby seems more dangerous. There is no upper limit on how many minds a character can control at once, but having more than one Summoned minion is frowned upon , and carrys a heavy PP taxed. These biases seem weird. Even though neither powerset is especilly heroic, the Summoning at least doesn't suborn another persons will.

What is your opinion on why there is, or if there is a discrepancy in the treatment of these two powersets?

[Saltcrow]

Mind Controlling is resistible though So in my opinion, MC'ing trades the reliability for its combat utility and momentarily hindering the opponent/s if not outright controlling them.

Summon allows the player to have a full say on the traits of the controlled creatures too, which I think is a really crucial difference. It also provides a LOT of points to work with which some people might find attractive.

[danelsan]

Summon can also help when there is no one around for you to control. Perhaps you are still trying to get inside the enemy's hideout, or maybe you are dealing with a natural disaster. There can be plenty of situations where you want superpowered help even with no enemies around.

[Belial666]

Zombie Apocalypse [100pp]
You summon a horde of thirty-two thousand, seven hundred and sixty-eight zombies you can mentally direct however you wish, including but not limited to LARPing the Resident Evil series, terrorizing an entire country or have them doing construction work so you don't have to pay the workers' union.
Summon 3, Heroic, Horde, Extra Minions 14, mental link


Typical zombie;

Strength 5, Dexterity -2, Agility -1, Fighting 0, Stamina -, Intellect -, Awareness 1, Presence -
Dodge -1, Parry 0, Toughness 6, Fortitude Immune, Will Immune, Melee Attack 1
Immunity: Fortitude effects, Protection 6, Regeneration 5, Speed 2, Quickness 2
Spread the Plague: Affliction 3 (vs fortitude, impaired+vulnerable/disabled+compelled to attack bystanders/transformed into a wild zombie+controlled, reaction: touch, progressive, cumulative, secondary effect)

[danelsan]

Hahahaha! It is even the most fearsome kind of Zombie: inhumanly fast, doesn't go down in a single shot (heroic) and can infect other people.

No way I'd allow anyone to play with that power, though. The sheer number of actions available in a given round can smash the action economy of the game over it's knee

EDIT: by the way, assuming one of the immunities is a free perk of the null Abilities (I seem to remember that in the rules, though I don't like it. Away from the book so I can't check), that zombie is still 1 PP over the 45 you get with Summon 3

[JDRook]

Summon 3, Heroic, Horde, Extra Minions 14, mental link
Typical zombie;
Strength 5, Dexterity -2, Agility -1, Fighting 0, Stamina -, Intellect -, Awareness 1, Presence -
Dodge -1, Parry 0, Toughness 6, Fortitude Immune, Will Immune, Melee Attack 1
Immunity: Fortitude effects, Protection 6, Regeneration 5, Speed 2, Quickness 2
Spread the Plague: Affliction 3 (vs fortitude, impaired+vulnerable/disabled+compelled to attack bystanders/transformed into a wild zombie+controlled, reaction: touch, progressive, cumulative, secondary effect)

EDIT: by the way, assuming one of the immunities is a free perk of the null Abilities (I seem to remember that in the rules, though I don't like it. Away from the book so I can't check), that zombie is still 1 PP over the 45 you get with Summon 3

He could always drop the Quickness. I get the Speed, but what's a zombie going to do with 2 ranks of Q?

[ronyon]

Mind Controlling is resistible though So in my opinion, MC'ing trades the reliability for its combat utility and momentarily hindering the opponent/s if not outright controlling them.

Given the number of minions a character is liable to encounter, I don't think resistible is very limiting.
Even if it is, a Check Required or even a Resistible flaw is always a choice-would either of those even things up?

Summon allows the player to have a full say on the traits of the controlled creatures too, which I think is a really crucial difference. It also provides a LOT of points to work with which some people might find attractive.

Good point. Of course one could combine the two as Belial666 pointed out, making an Affliction an even better choice. Even keeping the power within the realm of the Mind, we could easily rewrite peoples brains into mental copies of ourselves-In fact I recall a recent thread on just this subject. I belive it was cheap enough to leave room for plenty of other powers.Basically Duplication on the cheap.
true , you are limited to what points are available in your target, but for most minion style applications this is hardly a deal breaker.
Even if they are "just" made into a thrall, still more bang for the buck(PP) than Summon.

[ronyon]

Summon can also help when there is no one around for you to control. Perhaps you are still trying to get inside the enemy's hideout, or maybe you are dealing with a natural disaster. There can be plenty of situations where you want superpowered help even with no enemies around.

True, but given the cost break that I think a Mind Control Affliction gets, plus the potential for unlimited minions, I still think Summon gets the shaft by comparision. Besides , mind controling a guard is a classic way to get into an enemy's base.

[danelsan]

Well, full mind control is not really easy to get, though. Failing the check by 10 is not that common for you average villain...

[ronyon]

Zombie Apocalypse [100pp]
You summon a horde of thirty-two thousand, seven hundred and sixty-eight zombies you can mentally direct however you wish, including but not limited to LARPing the Resident Evil series, terrorizing an entire country or have them doing construction work so you don't have to pay the workers' union.
Summon 3, Heroic, Horde, Extra Minions 14, mental link

This is crazy expensive, and pointedly frowned upon.I believe there is a side bar warning against both large numbers of minions and the Heroic Extra.The cost compared to Mind Control Affliction is outrageous.Even a -3 Flaw:Must Incapacitate a Foe for each Minion Summoned, wouldn't make the cost comparable to a Mind Controlling/Body Transforming Affliction, and you would still have to have a viable way to Incapacitate your foe.

Spread the Plague: Affliction 3 (vs fortitude, impaired+vulnerable/disabled+compelled to attack bystanders/transformed into a wild zombie+controlled, reaction: touch, progressive, cumulative, secondary effect)

This. Pump up the Ranks to PL, and you have a viable attack/deterrent defense that is also a minion maker.
What does this cost? 7 per rank? The Reaction is perhaps not needed, but Range or Perception,Area and/or MultiAttack might be nice.
We should be able to keep it under 70 points, roughly half of a PL10 characters normal allotment, compared to 2/3rds for the Summoning.
We can even keep it within the realm of the mind:

We Are Legion: Affliction 10 (vs Will, Dazed+Entranced/Defenseless+Compelled to Protect Afflictor/Transformed into a Mental Duplicate of the Afflictor+Controlled,Ranged,Multiattack ,Progressive, Cumulative, Secondary Effect,Subtle,Insidious,Indirect(X4).

I think that's about 66 PP.For 5 more PP we get an Accurate,Acute,Ranged Detect Minds, and we are just over 70.
I think this Power nearly as useful/dangerous as the zombie Summoning, cheaper, and most to the point, there isn't a sidebar throwing up warning flags specifically concerning Affliction Control, or Transform.

And that is the crux of the matter. Mind Control can give you a viable attack and cheap minions, for less than a Summon with a comprable Flaw(Must Incapacitate a foe to get a minion). But its Summoning that is PP taxed for more than one minion, a feature that is free with Mind Control.Even then this Extra is warned against by name.

[Belial666]

Except that the big summon effect? You summon 32 thousand minions in one action. And what happens if your army is defeated? Well, summoned minions that are taken out will vanish. They are summonable again as soon as they recover. With regeneration, that's four rounds.

That's right. Your army is effectively immortal. If they get taken out, you summon them back. The only reason I even gave the "heroic" extra was flavor - your average cop not being able to shoot down a zombie easily. It is not strictly required; the army works just as well if you remove it and reduce the cost to 94 pp.




Besides, the big bad necromancer isn't going to have either the Zombie Plague affliction or the Zombie Army summon. He's going to have both, one as an alternate effect to the other. With the third alternate effect naturally being a Killing Wind spell that can spiritually eviscerate an entire city.

Are your heroes scared yet?

[danelsan]

Except that the big summon effect? You summon 32 thousand minions in one action.

And thus is created an opportunity to test the mass combat rules in the GM's Guide