Need help with Mystique

[horned god]

I'm working on Mystique and so far have come up with a set of powers which sorta works. It is her doppleganger ability that is a pain. She is listed as in the official book:

Mystique is a mutant metamorph. She can psionically shift the atoms and molecules of her body and of whatever clothing she is wearing so as to change her and its appearance. As a result she can cause herself to look and sound like an exact duplicate of any human, humanoid, or semi-humanoid being of either sex, wearing virtually any kind of clothing. Her control is so exact that she can precisely duplicate another person's retina pattern in her own eyes, finger, palm and skin-pore patterns on her own hands and skin, and vocal cords to match voices to the point of corresponding voiceprints.

Mystique, however, is limited by her inability to diminish or increase her own mass at will. As a result, while she can make herself look exactly like a person who is physically bigger than herself, she will not weigh as much as the real person does. Although she can maintain the form of a person of her height, weight, and build indefinitely (as with her own appearance as Raven Darkholme), the longer that she maintains the form of a person physically bigger than herself, the greater the strain she feels. If she maintains that bigger form for too long a period, the length of which is directly proportional to the difference in size between that form and her normal one, she will collapse and automatically revert to her normal form.

Mystique cannot duplicate the powers of the person she imitates: for example, when she turned herself into a duplicate of Nightcrawler, she did not gain the ability to teleport.

In the Classic marvel write up she has stuff like equipment such as a psionic dampening thingabob and stuff like that. I don't need help with all that nor her stats but with deciding what her shapechange is.

The issue is: Is her ability Shapeshift as it seems to be the closet in the book? If not is there something in power corrupts which might work?

If not then I need to make upa true 'Doppleganger' power and feel free to add that ability to Power Corrupt too, I don't care if you steal the idea.

Why am I asking. Well if you read shapeshift one answer is to take that ability but flaw the crap out of it to fit her concept into that power description yet, for example she can't gain by using extra effort a number of the extras listed. She cannot gain protection (at least not necessarily as it states elsewhere she does not know the limit of her power and is 'exploring it' so technically she could suddenly sprout the ability to shapeshift shift into a toaster which you could do with the shapeshift ability.

So if it costs an Extra to get one of those listed abilities under 'extra' then would not barring you from taking one through extra effort constitute a separate flaw for each one. For example, 'Limited-Cannot take Protection' is a heavy flaw if you think about it.

Also she could not use most of what you can do under Mimic when I counted she coudl take five flaws just for not being able to do most of it but she can mimic ability score: Strength for example, but not skills, not powers, and thus not 'all attributes' and not many of the others. She should have 'Exact' extra but could not take 'elongation' every not even if using extra effort so that should constitute a flaw right?

So what I am saying is if this were not mystique and just Average Joe shapeshifter they could do all that stuff listed. Mystique cannot and should get points for it to 'fit' her concept. Anyone agree or disagree.

Here is a sample of the rough draft of her shapeshift. I figured it cannot be more than rank 3 as at rank 4 you can if you allow her to shrink and grow slightly which she can and apparently at least on the cartoon can now turn into animals then at rank 4 she can actually switch size categories. So rank 3 it is. Which technically since it invovles no saving throw you can take it at rank 1 and she can still do everything mystique can do. Rank matters only for stuff like how far you can elongate or how much protection if you could have those and she can't do either of those. I was not going to give her rank 1 though, rank 3 sounded right and for the reason I just listed. I know it would seem like she'd have more ranks and yet those would just waste points, instead I think she'd have other extras and lots of flaws thus she'd end up paying 3 points for her mutation.

Here it is: Comments appreciated but not required. Cost is included at for rank 3. She can assume humanoid or animal form apparently.

6 B Shapeshift [mutation]
3 extra: Continuous
3 extra: Movement
3 extra: Plasticity
3 extra: Exact
3 extra: Mimic-Ability Scores
-3 flaw: Single Attribute (Strength)
-15 flaw: Limited-Cannot Push Mimic
-9 flaw: Limited-Cannot Push Shapeshift
-3 flaw: Limited-Humanoid or Animal forms only


Basically I am taking the 'take the power' and flaw it approach since it gives you a lot to start with or aleast a lot of potential.

The other approach is to make up a special Doppleganger ability which is basically shapeshift: only humanoid and animal form and you can only assume creatures of the same size category since medium or shrinking down can go as low as 2-6' and still be 'medium' correct or as large as 8' and that is enough for practically all things someone would want to turn into. I'd then make an extra which allows shrink/growth of one size less or more only yet it states her 'mass' does not change so you can alter size but not get any benefit penalties from the size change.

Also the doppleganger power would just come standard with Continuous as the duration thus it would not need it as an extra, and you'd get 'Exact' as standard too, thus it would like like a 3 point power with the eqivalency of some extras in shapeshift yet flawed permanently so that you can only do what a doppleganger can do, not true shape-shifting ie turn from a cow into a toaster like you can for only 2pp per rank thus I could even see a Doppleganger ability which is 2pp per rank.

Comments?

[Chrono]

Neo's conversion of Mystique

http://www.neo-innovation.com/Supers_Files/mm_mystique.pdf

Dunno if that'll help you any though


-Chrono

[Chrono]

http://www.neo-innovation.com/Supers_Files/mm_mystique.pdf

That should work

-Chrono

[Dr Archeville]

In the comics, I've only ever seen her take on other human forms, but she can mimic their fingerprints & retinal patterns. Looks like a cut-and dry Shapeshift 18 (Extra: Exact; Flaw: Limit-Only humans; Source: Mutation; Cost: 2pp] [36].

In X-Men: Evolution, though, she's taken on the forms of ravens, housecats, and wolves. She'd need Shrinking & Movement extras for that. Also, Magneto's Enhancer gave her Mental Protection (which is what her Psionic Scrambler does as a Device).

As for her costume -- easy enough to do what they did with the Atom Family in Freedom City and give her a costume of Unstable/Morphic Molecules.

[horned god]

I just didn't find her easy to do is all. Thanks for the comments.

Technically if I took neo's mystique and used her as is she could use extra access to access many extras I don't think she would have. I know someone playing her simply would not do so simply 'cuz she is mystique' and she cannot' (for example push her shape shift and Mimic powers which anyone with shapeshift could).

Neo what do you think. I am just trying to find a way to limit her from doing such things on paper. I like your write up by the way it is helpful.

[mgg]

No character should be able to use an extra or stunt through extra-effort that breaks character. Extra-effort isn't picking from a menu, it is using the character's powers in creative ways. The key is 'the character's powers', however they happen to fit character concept.

[horned god]

Mgg@ I agree with you.


Neo@ I was looking at your nightcrawler and with the logic just stated by Mgg you would not need to buy Obscure rank 1 for nightcrawlers 'poof' of smoke nor Swinging rank 1 for his tail as if you buy Extra Limb (tail) you could simply give for free rank 1 swinging and rank 1 obscure which is really just obscure with the flaw: range touch and further limited in character concept to only once he teleports. Perhaps you could save a few points for him and give him something like super-dex with the points you save from swinging and obscure? Just a thought and no there is nothing wrong with your character write up, leave it alone if you want it is just a suggestion.

So I think it works both ways if a character is limited by concept beyond what would purely be allowed via the stated rules then a character should also gain free little side-effects of his or her powers too without paying one or two or three points for them. Now that is for official comic characters, whereas a player's homebrewed hero I would say no as someone is then free to make a concept to fit the power description and thus perhaps granting a freebie now and then is ok but then so is having the issue come up one game 'no you can't do that even though it says you could with that power but it doesn't fit the concept'. Perhaps that is a special thing about super-hero roleplaying games whereas in other RPG's it doesn't work that way, if the book says my Vampire can do such and such then he can do it according to the Whitewolf book. Maybe part of it is the mindset of a gamer wanting rules to back it up.