Summon a Device

[Myo-chan]

Hello,

I'm working on one of my characters and I have a little problem with one of her powers. She can summon swords from nowhere. These swords are devices. How can I make this power? I tryed with the summon weapon power but I cannot but more then 6 ranks on it (well that's what my friend's hero lab told me...)...

Tanks
Myo-chan

[XLS]

Hello,

I'm working on one of my characters and I have a little problem with one of her powers. She can summon swords from nowhere. These swords are devices. How can I make this power? I tryed with the summon weapon power but I cannot but more then 6 ranks on it (well that's what my friend's hero lab told me...)...

Tanks
Myo-chan

What PL are you working with? I'm looking at the write-up in UP and don't see any limits beyond:

"At the default level, you can summon a weapon that provides a Ranged Damage effect at your Weapon Summoning rank."

[Myo-chan]

I'm at power level 10. I'm not sure that the "weapon summoning" power is the thing I'm looking for cause the idea of summoning the swords of my character is not making ranged damage, but just calling these swords from nowhere...

[UnkindMirror]

Unless you want to complicate things by introducing disarm-mechanics or similar, being able to summon swords out of nowhere is just a visual special effect for a bog-standard Damage effect.

If you want to be able to summon (and dismiss) an actual Device, that screws around with the ease of loss degree on which the Device discount is based (can't lose something that's not really there), and would probably need to be hand-waved somehow.

Personally, I think this is best done via the basic Damage effect.

[FuzzyBoots]

The Weapons Summoning defaults to the idea of ranged damage because 2 pp / rank is the standard array size. You can spend those points however you would like, and with a total rank higher than your Weapons Summoning "rank". In terms of Hero Lab warning you to not go over 6 ranks, my only thought is that you could be going over caps due to your attack bonus and/or simply running over on points.

[Myo-chan]

In fact, the reason why the character can summon things is because she have the "revive" power, so she can "revive" things but I limited her to swords for the moment. So she can by exemple call Excalibur or Kusanagi or any knowned sword. I didn't planned that they would be so easy to dismiss (I must talk with my GM about this part), but if the swords can be taken away/used agains her, should I simply use the Device structure or or something else? (and if something else, what?)

[FuzzyBoots]

The Weapons Summoning power assumes that the sword cannot be disabled or taken away from you (unless just as a special effect of the sword appearing back in your hand when you need it for its effects). There is a Flaw to allow the object to be disarmed (and not being able to resummon until you get it back), and an Extra to let others use it (including the bad guys!) but that's not the default.

It does also assume that the properties of the weapons are fairly fixed. If you're looking at being able to summon different sorts of swords, you'll either want to buy APs for the different types (or use Extra Effort to temporarily add a new one) or buy Weapon Creation, a Variable power, to build your swords on the fly.

[Myo-chan]

Should I simply use the device structure?

If yes, could it be something like that

Device: (4PP/r)
Extras: summonable from nothing, duration (continuous) (to put off the permanent), Dismissable
Flaws: limited dismissal, easy to lose, action (free)

And then I build my weapons as alternate powers of each other.

But I'm not sure of the cost... it cost 1pp/r more then when I had normal easy to lose devices (damn characters who broke or stealed them in the game ^^) But it cost more then if I was working with the weapon summoning power wich is anyway not exactly what I was thinking at first (it's more usefull for range equipement, i think...)

[XLS]

Well, I don't see why you don't use the Weapons Summoning power.

You said you're PL 10. I am going to assume that you're attack shifted. Let's say for the sake of the argument that your attack is +12, so that your max damage is +8. And let's assume that your strength is 16 or +3. You can have a build like this:

Weapons Summoning (Sword) 3 [Strike 5 (Feat: Mighty)] (6 pp).

With this, you can summon a sword into existence that does damage that stacks with your strength, for a grand total of +8. You could add a few extra Feats to this sword-- say, Improved Critical and Improved Block, making it Weapons Summoning 4 costing 8 pp.

To make an even better sword, you might give it some other powers, too. Give it a few ranks of Deflect, so you can use it sort of like a Jedi uses a Lightsaber.

Earlier, you'd talked about being able to have materialize various "specific" swords like Excalibur or Glamdring or whatever. You could make that your primary summoned weapon, and then have other weapons as APs of that. Excalibur might have ranks of Penetrating, as well as who knows what else-- maybe a Secondary Effect Extra, representing, perhaps, that the wound is so lethal that it deals damage again the following round.

Anyhow, you can have a lot of fun with this power, and there's no need to go to the troubles you've gone to in your hypothetical build.

[Myo-chan]

I'm Atk +10, Dmg +10 and Strength 18

When I tryed to work with this power, it didn't allowed me more than 6 ranks (I suppose that it's because i took the mighty feat so 6+4=10, but if I a correctly remember, I had just 6 points to use to my strike and i need more than that because of the feats of the weapons.

Weapon Summoning takes the damage as a base and limit me to the amount of points I can put in. I don't imagine Excalibur with 6 or 10 PP only...

And also, my character is a two-sword fighter, so I have to be able to sommon these two weapons, so it let me (with Weapon Summoning) with 3 or 5 points...

[FuzzyBoots]

The Hero Lab limitation may be because they assume that the base power is a 2 pp/rank Blast. The only real way to get around that is to build the power yourself using the Array power structure or simply building the base power and then building the APs.

[XLS]

I'm Atk +10, Dmg +10 and Strength 18

When I tryed to work with this power, it didn't allowed me more than 6 ranks (I suppose that it's because i took the mighty feat so 6+4=10, but if I a correctly remember, I had just 6 points to use to my strike and i need more than that because of the feats of the weapons.

Weapon Summoning takes the damage as a base and limit me to the amount of points I can put in. I don't imagine Excalibur with 6 or 10 PP only...

Yes, so that's exactly why that's your limit. And I guess, as Fuzzy notes, Hero Lab makes some assumptions about the power that need not be the case. You should totally be able to build a powerful sword with Weapon Summoning, adding in any number of extra powers (ranks of Penetrating or Deflect, as I noted, or even things like Force Field, or a Blast of lightening-- whatever).