Who here would support a Mind Control and/or Body Manipulation set for the Operator?
How this would work would be a set that allows you to make existing mobs into semi-permanent controllable henchmen. The sets weakness would be that the Operator would have no true pets to summon of their own, and need time to find some or build up an army. It could be a very strong set, or a very weak set.
Other games and mmo have pulled this off, they normally call it "taming" a pet. In Dark Age of Camelot and Everquest it was called charming, and it worked on pretty much everything. Find a hostile NPC you like? Think they are really cool? Take them with you! Done deal. If they are defeated you lose them and need to find another. Normally the charmer would also have a set of buff powers that allowed them to make their new pets even stronger, and/or debuff the enemy.
Perhaps this superhuman variation could have multiple brainwashed/charmed pets following them around in even numbers to other operator pets and henchmen. Maybe a number of pet points: a boss costs 3, lieutenant costs 2, and minion costs 1. So you could have 2 bosses, 3 lieutenants, or 6 minions, or a mix. Arch-beings and Giant Monsters would of course be off limits, as would anything outside your level range.
So one could travel around the city collecting the local mobs to build their personalized army. It would be, in essence, a true "Mind Controller", but Operator. As for possible names... puppeteering? Body snatching? Super charisma? It would be something along those lines.
This may tread into evil territory, possibly violating free will and all, but no power seems to be inherently good or evil. Not many would complain about a Hero forcing a criminal to perform good deeds or stopping someone from doing something they will regret, and for a villain there is little more dastardly than forcing an innocent to commit evil acts. It wouldn't even have to be mind control in the traditional sense, you could just be very very persuasive, or magically irresistible. It would be up to the individuals Bio and Origin to say how they accomplish such a thing.
Every villain is a hero in their own mind.
I love the idea!
Spurn all ye kindle.
This idea was actually brought up on this forum not too long ago (a couple of weeks maybe?) but I don't recall which thread it was in.
It's an interesting idea but I have a couple of points worth considering. First I assume the "charm/taming" power would be level-based in that it'd be very hard to catch things too many levels above your level and very easy to catch lower level things. But given that would these pets be permanent until killed/released or would they be automatically lost when you zone and/or log off?
Also would there be any limits to this power as far as what kinds of critters would be catchable? For instance would there be an assumption that unique/AV critters would always be immune to this? Otherwise this thing could easily get overpowered if you could run around with say a version of Ghost Widow as your pet. Additionally there might be problems if you managed to charm/tame a specific NPC that you were actually suppose to kill in order to complete a mission.
Otherwise with proper rules/limitations I could see this as a very interesting twist on the Mastermind theme.
P.S. I just realized that this power would indirectly solve that age-old desire of Masterminds in CoH who always wanted "female pets" as an option. With this charm/taming power you could easily have your own harem full of female NPCs. ;)
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
I love Emma Frost in MH for this ability..
I don't know rather or not I'll try to focus on using a charm effect on enemies on Kontrol because it greatly depends on how the power is handled. If it is a "pet generator" then I won't take it. If charming an enemy is a temporary targeting debuff (forcing the target to target their allies as enemies) then I'll definitely be taking it.
It's a mechanics issue for me. I love aggro control (and all debuffs) but I hate pets (and all buffs) for my charcter.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
WoW hunters "tame" actual pets from out in the wild, though you can just have one called by your side at any given moment.
Originally, this was way cool because you got the abilities of the pet. This meant you could search high and low for bosses, rares, etc., and tame them and get their abilities, including little extra ones because it was a rare. Later they standardized these to a single template for each type (e.g. any large cat, regardless of type, boss, rare, etc., they all had exactly the same set of powers).
Easier for balance. Disaster for coolness and reward for seeking out the rares.
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The very existence of the taunting tank irritates, for it requires idiotic AI that obeys the taunt.
Although you can still get some cool appearances; one of my hunters recently picked up a neon-green tiger. ^_^
Of coarse, as Gorgon said, it was no better in combat than the panther he already had :(
Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
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