Android/Robot Character question

As the subject says, I have a question concering android/robot characters. My character, a mutant has both Hyper-Invention and Reason both at Amazing. However, I'm pretty much broke.

The question came up though regarding another character in the group (Player Character aka PC), that my character created. Now the question came with upgrading abilities, talents, and powers. Could my character make resource feats and then creation feats, to perform these upgrades on the aforementioned PC? Would this still require the PC to spend karma? Would this not require him to spend karma?

Basically I'm looking for some input on how you would handle this situation?

The android/robot character should be the one making any resource feats and karma expenditures in order to get upgraded, since it's for his benefit after all. Just as an organic character can't have someone else pay for his power upgrades it wouldn't be fair for someone non-organic to be able to have someone else be able to pay for it. In game it'd be easy enough to justify that once he saved up enough he simply came back to his creator in order to have himself improved.

Hyper-Invention does at least supply that benefit of reducing the actual cost of building something for yourself at least, a 2CS reduction is useful and you can always try and set up in-game where your character is constantly acquiring old computers, TV sets, and other electronics discarded by others due to their insatiable need for what's newest and recycle it for your own benefits. Heck in real life if you've the skills you could build a crude super-computer from computer stuff discarded as junk because it's just a year old, so imagine what a person in a game with that Amazing Reason AND Amazing Hyper-Invention could do with it.

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Nightmask,

Out of curiousity where are you getting the -2CS on pricing? I do realize that the engineering talent grants a -1CS. Just curious if this was your opinion or actually something listed.

In character my character wanted to improve his body armor from Remarkable 26 to Incredible 40. Basically I planned on just making new body armor at Incredible Material Strength. The GM basically said I could just upgrade my existing at the same resource FEAT. So I had to make an Incredible FEAT to make it (easy with Unearthly Reason due to hyper-invention) and then a Remarkable Resource FEAT, -1CS on price due to Engineering. I had to take a bank loan since my resources are at Excellent.

What I'm wondering is what would prevent me from making a helmet with vision powers at typical, and give it to my android friend? Now why do I need to make a helmet? Couldn't I just design cybernetic eyes, pop his out, and replace?

I think you've got Hyper-Intelligence and Hyper-Invention confused, or else I misread what powers you listed your character having. Hyper-Intelligence adds its power rank to your Reason which if base Reason was Amazing and Hyper-Intelligence was also Amazing you'd have a net Unearthly Reason. Hyper-Invention doesn't add its power rank to Reason, it's a separate power to check against for comprehending/designing/developing existing and new technologies and when building something from scratch gives you a bonus of reducing the Resource cost of whatever you're building by 2CS. So if you're building something that's got an Amazing Resource cost after all adjustments are made the power of Hyper-Invention lowers that to Remarkable for what Resources you need to build it. Whether or not you can get away with stacking that bonus with the bonus for the Engineering feat is up to the individual GM.

As far as creating new armor goes, with the costs being the same either way it's just good sense to make the new suit and keep the old one in reserve, much like Iron Man did before Marvel amped him up like some of the animated versions to have a warehouse with hundreds of copies of his various armors so he's never at a loss for armor.

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Nightmask Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I think you've got Hyper-Intelligence and
> Hyper-Invention confused, or else I misread what
> powers you listed your character having.
> Hyper-Intelligence adds its power rank to your
> Reason which if base Reason was Amazing and
> Hyper-Intelligence was also Amazing you'd have a
> net Unearthly Reason. Hyper-Invention doesn't add
> its power rank to Reason, it's a separate power to
> check against for
> comprehending/designing/developing existing and
> new technologies and when building something from
> scratch gives you a bonus of reducing the Resource
> cost of whatever you're building by 2CS. So if
> you're building something that's got an Amazing
> Resource cost after all adjustments are made the
> power of Hyper-Invention lowers that to Remarkable
> for what Resources you need to build it. Whether
> or not you can get away with stacking that bonus
> with the bonus for the Engineering feat is up to
> the individual GM.
>

Maybe I'm reading it differently then out of the UPB.

It states, "This is a special form of Hyper-intelligence that is common enough to merit its own classification. It is a permanent enhancement of the hero's overall intelligence that is channeled into the field of mechanical design and engineering."

When I read that, I basically see it as doing the same thing Hyper-Intelligence does for Reason, but only when using Reason for making things. So for mechanical design and engineering my character's reason is considered Unearthly in this situation. The individual feat rolls seem to be for learning new technology by merely looking at it, even without instruction.

If this wasn't the case, I see no reason at all for taking Hyper-Invention over Hyper-Intelligence. Other then the -2CS on price and the feats to learn new technology (which technically anyone with a reason score could roll to do).

You can open it up as a discussion thread in the Discussion section (although I've thoughts of starting one up myself and might save you the trouble), but Hyper-Invention doesn't actually increase your Reason that way, it just gives you that quick short-cutting to analyzing new technologies and developing them, as well as giving you that Resource break. I think you're being too quick to dismiss it if you feel if it doesn't give you an Unearthly Reason it's worthless. Consider that Weapons Tinkering doesn't do anything to increase your Reason either even though it's also a specialized enhancement to Reason for the purposes of creating ancient and modern weapons.

I suppose some examples of characters considered to have Hyper-Invention to look to for comparison would be Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic, Dr. Doom, and Tweedle Dope of the Crazy Gang. Someone with just an Unearthly Reason doesn't comprehend and turn out new technologies with the same ability as someone with Hyper-Invention can.

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Nightmask,

Actually power does raise your effective Reason, it states this within the power. "It is a permanent enhancement of the hero's overall intelligence that is channeled into the field of mechanical design and engineering."

But in addition to this it allows you to learn things that would normally be beyond even your enhanced effective Reason by making Feats to learn. As follows "The hero can learn new technologies at a rate determined by his rank, the complexity of the technology, and the amount of instruction available."

The Feat lvls and ranks are as follows...
Modern technology - Excellent FEAT.
Advanced technology - Remarkable FEAT.
Alien or futuristic technology - Incredible (Shi'ar) to Unearthly (the Watcher)

To learn new technologies require something to learn from, as follows..

A green FEAT requires instructional materials that explain the technology (a teacher, books, holocubes).

A yellow FEAT is required if the hero has
access to materials not specially designed
to instruct someone in that technology
(readouts, performance specs, operating
manuals, a copy of a working device).

A red FEAT is required if all the hero is has
an inoperational device if that technology

So there-fore, here is an example.

Mongo Brain : Ex Reason + Am H.I. = Mn(70) effective Reason in the mechanical arena.

Has a Broken Shiar B.F.G-900 and wants to figure out how to make one or repair this one.

Shiar Tech (In) + Broken Item (Red) = Effective Feat needed to learn AM (yellow) or in Mongo Brain's case a Green on his Mn(70) collum.

As I stated, all this is listed in the power write-up. Hope I was of some small service.

Your Humble Servant,

Gene

That was quite helpful and the simplified layout to explain much appreciated. I'll have to make sure to keep that in mind for my characters that have Hyper-Invention, like Paragon and Salvage.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/12/2008 05:00AM by Nightmask.

Still wondering about making items/upgrades for the android character. How would people handle this in game?

Since you're an actual PC and not NPC, and since he's not making the upgrades himself, I'd allow you to make the resource and power feats applicable to the situation, but the karma expenditure would come from the other PC. The downside though, is that if you flub any of your rolls, then the upgrades don't go through, and he'd have to wait the allotted time to try and upgrade again, and any karma spent would be wasted.


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I would say, since it's a robot, and robot's get some downsides for popularity and such...

The inventor can make the applicable feats, and if successfull, that would translate into a Karma discount the robot would have to pay in karma for the power level increases.

capocastillo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I would say, since it's a robot, and robot's get
> some downsides for popularity and such...
>
> The inventor can make the applicable feats, and if
> successfull, that would translate into a Karma
> discount the robot would have to pay in karma for
> the power level increases.

I like this idea. I'll pass it on to my GM and see what he thinks.