Question Limiter on a power mimic

I'm thinking of throwing a limiter on my mirror power mimic in the form of each morning she needs to reacquire any powers she wants to mimic that day. Sun reflects on mirror in the morning, can't see your refection, was my train of thought.

Does the idea work, need fleshed out mor, or just stupid?

Maybe it's due to them sleeping and that resets their form?

Or maybe, weirdly, the mimicry is solar-powered or something unexpected like that.

I always figured that a Mimicked power only had a certain duration. It's not natural to the mutant, after all, and there is strain on the mutant's metabolism. The trait lasts until the mutant's normal duration expires, or there is some 'placeholder' factor that keeps it going.

For instance, Thunderbird, Toni's problematic bf in Gen1, is a faux Avatar, who has bonded with Sparky, a Thunderbird spirit. Sparky's presence keeps the trait in place. Either Scott has a high tolerance, or his system has gotten used to Sparky. Which? That's to be decided.

There are a lot of different factors which can limit a power mimic, so what limits you want can be a bit of a mix and match game. The number of powers copied, the strength of each power copied compared to the original, duration of the copy, the type which can be copied, and so on. Sphere has permanently copied one set of powers but at the cost of only being able to copy other powers at a much weaker state. White Diamond can copy powers semi-permanently but only has a few slots available and can only copy certain types of warper abilities. I have another character which I have yet to make an appearance, who can copy a dozen different powers, but they can only last for a minute once used.

Falconer's a warper whose power (for the sake of this discussion) can be expressed as two channels that alter him to reflect current or recent effects in his environment. Effects mimicked are limited to a "2" or "not entirely lethal to the designated chew toy", whichever doesn't break the writer's sanity clause.

* Proximity/strength and signal-to-noise ratio of exposure matter. JB doesn't have the "library of powers" ability that some powerful mimics have.

* Note that knowledge, talent, and skill are not effects. A paragon copies those things from nearby folks, but that still doesn't mean that those folks know how to use manifesting or magic. Merely having EX-2 doesn't mean you automatically have the muscle memory for safely juggling eggs.

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You'll also need to make some early decisions about what happens when your mimic picks up an avatar ability. It's not inconceivable that a spirit might decide to shadow the mimic, just in case they get lucky.

If they pick up a wizard trait: where does the accumulated essence go when they let it go, and who notices that happening? Do the mystical and spiritual realms care that the character isn't currently magically active?

Distance, duration, control (if the mimic copies powers unconsciously it could prove a HUGE problem), the copied powers tend to be several scales less powerful than the original's, and others limitations are based on the type of mimicry said mutant has; Warping-based mimicry, or Shifting-based one.

The two primary means of power mimickry as an ability are through either Shifting (an extremely high power type of Shifting that requires the ability to create those biological enhancements AND the meta-dimensional components related to powering them) or Warping (which creates an alternately defined means of producing a similar effect by imposing an external dimensional set of universal laws within the context of the power's operation (makes those biological enhancements unnecessary because it changes the way the universe works).

My own power mimic; Poliforma (polyform) or Polycorpus (I haven't settled on a name yet). She's a Warper-based power mimic, her trait is attuned to a Manifesting one, basically she manifests bodies (limited to 3 different forms) and she cannot access her copied powers unless she manifests these alternate bodies. Her most prominent limitations are her manifestations cannot last more than 34 mins unless she recharges or merges (I could describe it as using a Manifested shell, but it's slightly more complicated than that, or so the mutant believes...), one power per body and once copied CAN'T be changed, all powers are copied at either a 2/3.

Not to mention a voracious Energizer (EN - 3) appetite from recharging these alternate bodies more than once per day...

Thanks guys, you've given me a lot to read, and think about.

Cryptic wrote: Thanks guys, you've given me a lot to read, and think about.

Yes, but we couldn't find any crushed hazelnuts

Bek D Corbin wrote:

Cryptic wrote: Thanks guys, you've given me a lot to read, and think about.

Yes, but we couldn't find any crushed hazelnuts

That's fine, I'm not a nuts fan.

Cryptic wrote: Sun reflects on mirror in the morning, can't see your refection, was my train of thought.

Is your character the Avatar of a mirror spirit? Or something similar?

Softdreams wrote:

Cryptic wrote: Sun reflects on mirror in the morning, can't see your refection, was my train of thought.

Is your character the Avatar of a mirror spirit? Or something similar?

Yup.
Spirit was 'created' using a variation of a Japanese ritual that bound a devil along with the spirit of the caster's apprentis into a mirror. Let simmer for a few decades and the devil is subsumed into the apprentice's spirit making a more pleasing to the eye user interface.

I think I have a decent framework for my mimic coming together.

My mimic's abilities are mystical in nature, stemming from the gifts of their 'partner' spirit. The kid is an Avatar 3. The spirit's origin is based on the Japanese mirror spirit called an Ungaikyō. I'm tossing some European Magic Mirror into the mix as well.

The spirit grants it's host Mimicry, shapeshifting, and Esper: Spirit sight. The levels of the first two are in flux yet, the Spirit sight esper ability is always on, but could be worse as the host only sees the spirits when they are reflected in a shiny surface. Might throw in a Wiz trait with a specialty in scrying. I also want to give them some kind of travel through the mirrors, but that feels greedy on top of everything else. I am not going for Team Kimba level of power.

The way I'm having the mimicry power is based on this line from Once Upon a Time “Mirrors reflect our... Mood, our desire, our essence. They are a temporary receptacle for some... Tiny fraction of our soul”. How I'm having the power work is that mirrors hold on to these races of essence and soul and the spirit draws it into herself, a remnant of the ritual that created her. She feeds on the un-empowered remnants, breaking it down into normal essence. The empowered traces get incorporated temporally into her. Thus they can only mimic powers that come from within the person. I haven't decided if the kid can mix and match yet, though if I decide to let them I'll have that be after some time at the school. They can't mimic another mimic. I haven't decided yet if they can mimic a class 2 or better entity, leaning towards No, but the entity can be sucked into the mirror spirit and broken down.

Duration is a year and a day keeping loosely with the theme. After that length of time Poof! No more power. This also applies to how long the duration a bit of soul remains viable when in a mirror. Energy brought in by way of an energy absorbing power gets dumped and grounded, not sure how safely yet.

My thoughts on it; since there is already mimicry, shapeshifting and an esper trait, well, although avatars don't have to be classically classified since their powers are provided by spirits, you might want to leave out the Wiz-trait.

If your character has any interest in the Mystic Arts, and they are surely going to take, at least, Basic Mystic Concepts 101, if the mimicry is controlled let it be a gateway power. They'll be surrounded by Wizards anyway.

Traveling through mirrors is a bit too much, as a power, but they could just learn a spell that allows them to do this.

Softdreams wrote: My thoughts on it; since there is already mimicry, shapeshifting and an esper trait, well, although avatars don't have to be classically classified since their powers are provided by spirits, you might want to leave out the Wiz-trait.

If your character has any interest in the Mystic Arts, and they are surely going to take, at least, Basic Mystic Concepts 101, if the mimicry is controlled let it be a gateway power. They'll be surrounded by Wizards anyway.

Traveling through mirrors is a bit too much, as a power, but they could just learn a spell that allows them to do this.

Thanks, I think I will do that.