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Kraken
Federated Suns
Marshal
Joined: 04-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 2753
Location: United States
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 Posted: 18-May-2002 21:11 Post subject: Munchy? |
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Here's a question for you.
This is something that I am looking at doing as part of a fanfic, but I wanted to get everyone's opinions on.
I'm assuming that most of the older players know what the Phantom Mech skill is, and that it can only be triggered under very rare circumstances. However, the main character has a *unique* variation on this. This character is a jaded, realist battle hero. After he returned from war, his 'real' government (that's right, he's intelligence. I'm tossing the idea around of him being a citizen of one nation but working for the intel of another, to boot) decides that they want to use him in an experiment. I won't go into detail, but it involves a lot of surgery and some advanced technology. The experiment was desigend to test whether or not these 'improvements' could enhance the ability of a pilot.
About three years later. The character is out of the military, owns his mech, is happily married, and half owner of a growing corporation when he is again called upon to be an agent. But, there's a catch. Instead of waiting for the very rare instances for it to trigger, he can actually will himself into Phantom mode whenever he chooses- even if he's not in a mech!
No one- not even him or the scientists- know how this is possible or how long he can do this before something bad happens as a result. Either way, he and his team- an isolated, ragtag group, are all that stands in the way of some serious trouble.
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"I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat." -Edgar Allen Poe"I knew there was something special about you, but I never realized you were really a cat." Wolfwood to a random cat (Trigun)
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Ares
Clan Jade Falcon
Star Colonel
Joined: 20-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 737
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| Posted: 18-May-2002 21:33 Post subject: Munchy? |
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For the uninformed, what is the "phantom mech" skill?
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I have the right to remain silent. Anything I say will undoubtedly incriminate me.
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Sir Henry
Team Bansai
Senior Tech Specialist
Joined: 04-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 4899
Location: United States
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| Posted: 18-May-2002 22:32 Post subject: Munchy? |
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It sounds like Stealth Tech to me....
Sir Henry
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Sir Henry
A Dragon in the disguise of a bunny, is still a Dragon.
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Nightmare
Lyran Alliance
Kommandant-General
Joined: 03-May-2002 00:00
Posts: 2214
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| Posted: 19-May-2002 00:42 Post subject: Munchy? |
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Of course it`s utter munch, unless there`s
a really good plot around it. Phantom Mech
is tough as it is, and this guy can use it
even without his mech? Why aren`t you playing Vampire: the Masquerade already?
Nah, do as you please, just don`t tell me 
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A tree fall in the forest, and no one is around, and it hits a mime. Does anyone care?
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Cadet
ComStar
Lieutenant, SG
Joined: 17-Mar-2002 00:00
Posts: 495
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| Posted: 19-May-2002 01:47 Post subject: Munchy? |
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Oh you're killing me.
Phantom Mech skill is bad enough (what idiot came up with that??? Oh yeah GRRRRR) but tieing it into some piece of technology to be used at will?
My boy, that is the very definition of munch.
Don't do it! Return to the light!
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I'm not family friendly. That's why I don't post here.
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Gunslinger Patch
Royal Black Watch Regiment
Major
Joined: 04-Mar-2002 00:00
Posts: 1611
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| Posted: 19-May-2002 04:26 Post subject: Munchy? |
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Phantom mech is the novels in 3025. Morgan Kell had it first, and gaining the skill scared him so bad he disbanded the Kell Hounds from a mech regiment down to a mixed battalion (without telling anyone why, not even his brother) and took off to spend I think 16 years in a monastary trying to deal with it, while meanwhile his enemy Yorinaga Kurita was in a Zen monastary figuring out how he could do it too. Patrick Kell discovered it when he gave his own life in battle to save the ship Silver Eagle and Melissa Steiner from being captured by Yorinaga. His last words were "Tell Morgan I finally understand."
He accepted his own death so completely that he achieved some kind of zen or chi state never seen before. A person with Phantom Mech skill in a mech can be seen by the naked eye, but his mech is invisible to the computers and sensors of other mechs, it just doesn't exist. You can still shoot at him manually, but there is a hefty to-hit penalty if I recall.
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"Those who beat their guns into plows will plow for those with guns..." -Thomas Jefferson
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The_Nice_Guy
Capellan Confederation
San-ben-bing
Joined: 19-May-2002 00:00
Posts: 10
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| Posted: 19-May-2002 08:47 Post subject: Munchy? |
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I did the same for two of the characters in my fanfic New World Order. One survived, the other got wiped out by orbital bombardment.(it was a real horror of a fight, and why the skill kicked in the first place)
Not at all easy to write, but future story possiblities are endless...
Not all battles take place in a mech, and not all dangers can be seen. A knife in the back, a drop of poison in a drink, kills as easily as a gauss shot to the head.
If you translate the skill to outside the mech, the story will become very difficult to write while trying to maintain beliveability for readers.
The Nice Guy
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Kraken
Federated Suns
Marshal
Joined: 04-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 2753
Location: United States
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| Posted: 19-May-2002 19:30 Post subject: Munchy? |
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The main thing with the character is just that: he has essentially learned and accepted some rather deep truths about warfare and life, above and beyond what even his closest friends know. As it is, while the guy had it from the start, the fact that he can control it manually is a total *fluke.* *No one* knows how or why he has this ability- the entire experiment was physical and mental enhancement for better pilots, not to be able to do the PM at will. As a result, no one knows what the potential side effects are if he continues to use the ability for too long.
_________________
"I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat." -Edgar Allen Poe"I knew there was something special about you, but I never realized you were really a cat." Wolfwood to a random cat (Trigun)
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Culverin
Draconis Combine
Gunsho
Joined: 15-Apr-2002 00:00
Posts: 97
Location: Canada
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| Posted: 20-May-2002 03:14 Post subject: Munchy? |
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i'm a munchkin and even i think the phantom mech skill is ludicrous.
check out macattack's page.
he's made rules on the chances of actually having the CAPABILITY to have the skill.
then you need to see if it surfaces.
and the trigger at will thing makes it all the more retarded.
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War fought without respect is but a massacre.
Culverin, Lord of the Munchkins
Culverin's Domain
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Cadet
ComStar
Lieutenant, SG
Joined: 17-Mar-2002 00:00
Posts: 495
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| Posted: 20-May-2002 23:49 Post subject: Munchy? |
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My take of this.
I once found myself in a bad place. I was 19, she was 30...and married (and not to me). She didn't tell me that in advance.
HE came home.
I tried to will myself invisible. I had been inbibing and thought I could do pretty much anything.
I caught a serious beating.
It doesn't work.
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I'm not family friendly. That's why I don't post here.
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Ronin
ComStar
Colonel
Joined: 05-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 907
Location: United States
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| Posted: 23-May-2002 10:22 Post subject: Munchy? |
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Well, Cadet, you weren't fighting off overwhelmingly suicidal odds to save the lives of others in a heroic fashion. Plus you didn't have Stackpole writing a script for your life.... 
Oh, and the rules for the Phantom Mech ability are in the Kell Hound Sourcebook. That is where they go through the tough rigamorole of seeing if you have the a CHANCE at the ability, then it takes a trigger event to actually activate it. The most important thing, though, is that the rules state that once a character exhibits the ability, that character is removed from play. Period. He goes to a monastery or something, or commits suicide, or whatever it takes to remove him from the game permanently.
Ronin
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