So I have been running my game for a while now. And we are on the last scenerio, just did the first half and in scene 3 now. Will finish it next meet up.
My unity constantly wants to try and hack ALL the robots she sees and turn them on her side. I don’t see a reason she couldnt do this. So mechanically I say she has to attack and"kill" the robot, then she can spend an action to “create a robot”. Story wise she spent a turn or two attacking the robots programming and repurposing it to her will.
I also have my bunker wanting to take a Laser Shark and mount it on his shoulder as a cannon… I kinda followed the same principle here. He has to subdue the shark (by “killing” it with attacks) then he could spend an action to “mount” it on his shoulder as a perm boost (one of his abilities is to create perm boosts).
I told both of them they could do it in one action if they took a major twist, but they still had to successfully kill the robot for it to work. But now I wonder if it should have been for a minor twist…
I was wondering what other GM’s thought, was this a good way to handle it? Do you have any suggestions for a different way to do it?
In part I am asking because my unity player keeps getting frustrated at me for making it “so hard” to do this ability and is claiming I am stiflingly his creative ideas and not letting him do stuff…
Sounds like you have munchkins for players. Good luck with that. This isn't a good system for munchkins.
Unity isn't a hacker or programmer. She builds robots and controls them telepathically. She can telekinese other robots to tear them apart, but she can't gain control of them. I think your ruling was perfectly appropriate, converting what they wanted to do into the standard actions suggested by the rules, and the abilities of the character.
As for Bunker, there's no way mounting a shark to his chassis would create a more effective weapon than what he already has. I probably would have let him try, and if he succeeded, grant him a new temporary "Shark Laser" power at a d8--strictly inferior to the Riot Cannon but if wants to use it instead, he can.
I'd view the Unity situation a little differently than the Bunker one.
For Unity, I'd likely ask for an Overcome action. A complete success would mean that she's overridden the robot's programming and now has a bot of exactly that type (I'm guessing this is for Issue #1, so likely one of the spider-bots). She could then use another action on her next turn to transmogrify that robot into another form, if she's not happy with having a generic spider-bot.
For Bunker, I'd likely rule that you would have to actually disable the shark before you could use it as a weapon. And, yeah, it's likely not going to be any better than the Riot Cannon is anyway...
Also, if your Unity player is foundering, why not let them make a bot that they can enter combat with? Give them a baseline--maybe something like a Platform Bot or Raptor Bot--that they can immediately jump into combat with, then change on the fly? It'll likely make your player happier and get them into the action faster.
For my unity player I laid down some groundrules about how they take over other robots.
1. It's an overcome but is treated as an attack by the target in that they can resist by rolling over the result on their die as she's attempting to forcibly puppet them to follow her orders instead of their programming (this means that she has suffered a minor twist and still lost control immediately).
2. At the start of each turn she has to make another overcome check to maintain control with a -1 hinder for each turn it's been under her control, if she fails it breaks free and gets an immediate attack on her, if she succeeds it's reduced by a die size due to the stress of it attempting to follow it's programming and her forcing it to act against it's programming.
3. The robot can only perform the last basic action it performed before she took control of it.
4. I reserve the right to label any robot off limits if it would trivialise the encounter.
i kind of like this one, but I’d be going with “Unity doesn’t control bots. She makes them.” So she could destroy a spider bot and remake it into one under her control. I’d even give it a bonus against other spider bots as they don’t initially register it as a threat. But she can’t take over them. Tachyon or Wraith would be better for not stealing with lightning fast reprogramming or remote hacking.
Once the characters are in the players hand their lore changes. It sounds like you are at the end of the Starter kit, plan to go on?
I had a Unity roll an overcome followed by a spawn minion roll if it was a minion to "take control of them". it is stronger than that I make it a multi-step overcome.
But it sounds like your player has a different Idea on unity and let it happen. Do they not spawn too many bot? what actions are they doing. I would let them remake the F5 to fit their idea after they beat BB. There is an ability that can let you control Minion, Violet Heart has one.
And Bunker did describe a boost and has the Ability to make it Persistent. I see no problem with this. has a boost call "shark lazer". I like your ruling on that. (no major action) Unity has Hasty Augmentation with also would help with the shark lazer.