POWERS SummARy TABlE (CONTINuED)
ABSORPTION AS A DEFENSE
If a character’s Absorption feeds his PD or ED (or a Defense Power), the increase obtained from Absorption applies against attacks suffered later in that same Segment. It does not apply against the attack he Absorbed from to increase the defense. The same applies to Absorption that increases CON or BODY (for purposes of determining whether later attacks in the same Segment Stun or kill the character).
Physical Absorption works on the damage a character suffers when he performs a Move By/ Through on another character.
aBsorption as healing
Characters can use Absorption as a form of “healing” by having it feed the Absorbed points into BODY and/or STUN. As noted above the damage from the attack applies first to reduce those Characteristics, then Absorption applies to raise them again. The points of BODY and STUN gained this way fade at the standard rate for the power, but can still in effect serve as short-term “healing” by temporarily counteracting injuries.
ABSORPTION AS A DEFENSE
Absorption offers no defense against an attack — just because a character uses the energy or force of an attack to improve his Characteristics and/ or Powers temporarily doesn’t mean the energy or force doesn’t also hurt him (or Knock him Back). The attack applies normally against the character’s defenses after he calculates his Absorption (if the Absorption increases any defense applicable to the attack, only the pre-Absorption amount of defense protects him against that attack).
At the GM’s option, Absorption does function as a defense if the character buys the Advantage
Defensive Absorption. For a +½ Advantage the
BODY of Absorption counts as Normal PD (if Physical attacks are Absorbed) or Normal ED (if Energy attacks are Absorbed). For a +1 Advantage the defense is Resistant instead. Each BODY of Absorption purchased counts as 1 point of PD or ED. POWER EXAmPlES:
ABSORPTION
Strength Of my Enemies: absorption 20 BoDy (physical, half to str, half to pD), Delayed return rate (points fade at the rate of 5 per Minute, +1) (40 active points); only Works against hth combat attacks (-¼). total cost: 32 points. Warrior’s Shield Spell: absorption 10 BoDy (physical, to str), usable By other (+¼) (12 active points); only Works against hth Weapon attacks (-½), costs enD (-½), gestures (-¼), incantations (-¼). total cost: 5 points.5
volume 1: character creation n chapter Five 167
ADVANTAGES AND ADDERS
Area Of Effect: Area Of Effect makes a character’s Absorption work against any attack made within the area covered, whether the attack is against him or not. It does not work against phenomena that are not attacks, such as running water or electrical lines, or against attacks that are Blocked, Dodged, Deflected, Reflected, or the like by their intended target or someone else. Area Of Effect Absorp- tion is still restricted to Absorbing the maximum amount the character can Absorb, even if he has multiple sources to Absorb from.
Varying Effect (+¾): A character can switch Absorption with this Advantage from Phase to Phase to work against either Physical or Energy attacks. Thus, in one Phase, the character could Absorb from Physical attacks; in the next Phase, he might decide to Absorb Energy attacks instead (to Absorb from both Physical and Energy attacks at once, the character must buy Absorption twice). This does not change where the Absorbed points go (that remains as defined when the character bought the power) or the maximum amount the character can Absorb. Switching effects is a Zero Phase Action (though it can only be done once per Segment) and does not cause previously Absorbed points to fade.
If Absorption with Varying Effect is also Defensive Absorption, the defense provided switches with the type of phenomenon affected: PD when the character can Absorb physical; ED when the character can Absorb energy.
lImITATIONS
limited Phenomenon (-¼ or more): Absorption with this Limitation only works against certain types of Physical or Energy phenomena. If the Absorption only works against a Rare attack (Life Force Energy, Dimensional Manipulation attacks), the Limitation’s worth -1; an Uncommon attack (Sonic, Telekinetic, poisons), -¾; a Common attack (Electricity, Fire, Magic), -½; and a Very Common attack (Blasts, Killing Attacks, energy, punches), -¼. (Note: the given examples apply to most campaigns, but the GM is the final arbiter on how common an attack is in his campaign; for example, in many Fantasy campaigns Magic is a Very Common form of attack.)
HAID
Type: adjustment power Duration: instant
Target: target’s Dcv Range: no range Costs END: yes
Cost: 6 character points for every 1d6 of aid
A character with Aid may increase one or more of his or someone else’s Characteristics or Powers. Some examples of Aid include a character who acts as a “living battery” to boost others’ STR and END, or an enchanted item that increases a wizard’s magical powers. A character must define what Characteristic(s) and/or Power(s) his Aid can increase when he buys it (though the Variable
Effect Advantage, 6E1 142, can change this). Each
1d6 of Aid costs 6 Character Points. Aid costs END to use.
uSING AID
To use Aid, the character must first succeed with an Attack Roll. (If the target’s willing to be affected by the Aid, including when the character uses his Aid on himself, the Attack Roll succeeds automatically, but the character still has to use an Attack Action.) The character then rolls the dice and counts the total, which represents the Character Points added by the Aid. The Character Points rolled apply directly to the Active Points of the Characteristic or Power being Aided. The maximum effect of the Aid, which can be achieved in one or more rolls, is the maximum that could be rolled on the dice (for example, 30 Character Points for an Aid 5d6.)
Aid cannot give a character Characteristics, Powers, or Advantages he doesn’t already have (to do that, buy Transform or a Power Usable On
Others). It only increases or improves Characteris-
tics or Powers a character already has.
If Aiding a Power increases its END cost, the character using the Aided Power must pay the additional END. If a character uses Aid to increase an expendable ability (such as STUN or END), any lost or used points come out of the boosted points first (see Increasing Expendable Abilities, 6E1 135).
Example: Gigawatt has an Aid 4d6 (half to STUN, half to END). Before going into combat, he uses it on himself, gaining 10 STUN and 20 END. During the combat, Gigawatt uses 15 END and takes 8 STUN worth of damage. When the Aided Characteristics fade back down to their normal levels, Gigawatt doesn’t subtract any STUN or END from his normal starting totals — it all comes out of the enhancement he got from his Aid.
FaDe rate
The points gained from an Aid fade at the rate of 5 Active Points per Turn, even if the Aided Characteristic or Power was below its starting level. (To restore lost Characteristics or Powers permanently, use Healing, 6E1 232.) The character can extend the fade period (i.e., move it down the Time Chart) with the Delayed Return Rate Advan- tage (6E1 142).
Example: Nighthawk is hit by a Drain STR that lowers his STR of 25 by 10, down to STR 15, with a long fade rate. The Medic uses an Aid STR 4d6 to give Nighthawk 18 points of STR, thus raising his STR from 15 to 33. At the next Post-Segment 12, Nighthawk loses 5 Character Points’ worth of STR (i.e., 5 STR), down to STR 28. On the next Post-Segment 12, Nighthawk loses 5 more Character Points’ worth of STR, down to STR 23 — the Aid cannot permanently restore his STR to its starting level; that would require Healing.
OPTIONAl AID: BOOST
As an option for Aid, GMs can allow charac- ters to buy a slightly different form of the Power known as Boost. Boost is Aid with the Limitation
Costs Endurance (to maintain; -½); it’s considered
a Constant Power. This means the character has to continue to pay END every Phase to keep the Boosted Characteristic or Power at its Boosted level (doing this is an Action that takes no time). As long as the character pays END, the Boost doesn’t fade at the usual rate of 5 Character Points per Turn. Once the character stops paying END, the Character Points gained from Boost fade immediately.
Boost does not keep adding and adding more Character Points every Phase automatically. The END the character pays simply maintains the points added by the first roll. To add more points, the character has to use an Attack Action, roll the dice again, and pay more END. The maximum effect for the Aid still applies.
ADVANTAGES AND ADDERS
Constant: If a character applies Constant (+½) to Aid, he keeps rolling his Aid dice every Phase the power remains in effect until he reaches the power’s maximum effect. Thereafter, the normal rules for the fading of the effect apply. For example, if the Aid is at maximum, and Post- Segment 12 rolls around, the subject loses 5 of the Aided points. The Aid kicks in again in the character’s next Phase to Aid him back up to the power’s maximum effect.
Reduced Endurance: Characters can only buy this Advantage for Boost with the GM’s permis- sion. Since Boost is an Aid that Costs Endurance to maintain, by definition it has to cost END. However, the GM could allow a character to buy Reduced Endurance (½ END; +¼) if desired. If he goes further and lets a character buy Boost to cost 0 END, then the value of Costs Endurance (to maintain) goes down to -0, and the character must specify some reasonably common and obvious way for an affected character to lose his Boosted Characteristic or Power (this loss of power occurs at once when the victim meets the condition). For example, the victim of a Boost defined as an Energy Enhancer might lose its Boosted power if it’s unplugged from the device.
Characters cannot apply the Costs Endurance
Only To Activate (+¼) Advantage to Boost.
lImITATIONS
Only Aid Others (-½): This form of Aid does not work on the character who has the Power. He can only use his Aid to improve other characters’ Characteristics or Powers.
Only Aid Self (-1): This form of Aid only works on the character who has the Power. He cannot use his Aid to improve other characters’ Characteris- tics or Powers.
POWER EXAmPlES:
AID
Tipsy Giant Potion: aid str 6d6 (36 active points); oaF Fragile (potion, -1¼), only Works on characters Who are Drunk (-1), 4 charges (-1). total cost: 8 points. Spell Of The Hungry Flames: Boost Fire 6d6, expanded effect (eight powers [all powers] at once; +4½) (180 active points); oaF expendable (piece of flint; -1¼), costs endur- ance (to maintain; -½), gestures (-¼), incanta- tions (-¼), requires a Fire Magic roll (-1 per 20 active points; -¼). total cost: 51 points. Fast Time: aid spD 5d6, ranged (+½). total cost:
45 points. Cerebral
Enhancer: aid int 3d6, Delayed return rate (points fade at the rate of 5 per hour; +1¾) (49 active points); oiF (headband, -½). total cost: 33 points.
volume 1: character creation n chapter Five 169
HBARRIER
Type: Defense power/standard power Duration: instant
Target: area
Range: 10m x Base points Costs END: yes
Cost: 3 character points for a 1m long, 1m tall, ½m thick barrier with 0 BoDy and 0 pD/0 eD; 1 character point per +1m of length or height or +½m of thickness; 1 character point per +1 BoDy; 3 character points per +2 points of resistant Defense
A character with this Defense Power can create a wall, primarily for defensive purposes. Some examples of Barriers include protective screens of energy, raising a wall of “living rock” up from the ground, force domes, and walls of enchanted glass. Barrier costs END to use.
BuyING BARRIER
When buying Barrier, a character has to consider three factors: the size of the Barrier; the BODY of the Barrier; and the defenses provided by the Barrier.
Barrier size
A Barrier starts at 1m long, 1m tall, and ½m thick for 3 Character Points.
Each +1m of length or height, or each +½m of thickness, costs +1 Character Point. The maximum dimensions of a Barrier are fixed once the Power’s purchased, and cannot be changed thereafter unless the character buys the Configu-
rable Advantage for the Barrier (see below). For
example, if a character buys a Barrier that’s 20m long and 4m high (cost: 25 points), he can’t change those dimensions to make it 10m long and 14m high, or 15m long, 5.5m thick, and 4 m tall. He can choose to create it at less than its full dimen- sions (perhaps to save END), but he can’t recon- figure the dimensions at will.
A character can define his Barrier as being less than 1m long, 1m tall, or ½m thick if he wishes. This has no effect on the Barrier’s BODY or defenses; they’re bought separately and have no direct relation to the Barrier’s dimensions.
Barriers are ordinarily transparent to Sight and all other Senses, but characters can purchase the
Opaque Adder to make them block perception
(see below). Barrier BoDy
All Barriers start with 0 BODY per 2m x 2m x 2m section (or fraction thereof, if the entire Barrier’s smaller than that in one dimension). A character isn’t required to buy any BODY for his Barrier, though a Barrier with 0 BODY collapses if it takes even 1 BODY in damage from any source. Each +1 BODY for a Barrier costs 1 Character Point; this applies to all 2m x 2m x 2m sections of the Barrier. See 6E2 171-72 for examples of how much BODY typical walls have as a point of comparison. The GM may restrict how much BODY a Barrier can have.
Barrier DeFenses
A Barrier starts with 0 defenses of any sort. A character isn’t required to buy any defenses for his Barrier, though that makes it fragile. Each +2 points of defense for a Barrier costs 3 Character Points. These 2 points are Resistant, and must be defined when bought as PD or ED.
Example: Sapphire is buying an “Energy Shield”
power with Barrier. She decides her Barrier has 6 PD, 10 ED. That’s a total of 16 points of defense, so it costs 24 Character Points.
Valerius the wizard knows a spell that causes a “Wall of Iron” to “grow” out of the ground. Although it’s created by magic, the iron is ordinary iron, so Valerius buys it with 6 PD and 6 ED. That amount of defense costs him 18 Character Points.
A character must choose the defense(s) his Barrier provides when he buys it, and cannot change them thereafter. The ratio of points in the various defenses stays the same, even when he uses his Barrier at lower power. (But see the Allo-
catable Advantage, below.)
At the GM’s option, a Barrier’s defense can be defined as Flash Defense, Mental Defense, or Power Defense for the same cost (3 Character Points per 2 points of Resistant form of those defenses). However, in many cases this simply serves to protect the Barrier itself, since the very nature of the Barrier prevents many “exotic” attacks from getting through it even without these defenses (see below). Standard Barrier rules still apply; a Barrier that provides, say, Power Defense but no PD is going to shatter quickly if hit with a Physical attack. (If a character wants to create a “barrier” that just provides Flash Defense, Mental Defense, or Power Defense, he typically shouldn’t use Barrier; he should buy the defenses with some form of the Usable On Others Advantage, such as Usable By Nearby (6E1 358), or with the GM’s permission apply Area Of Effect to a Defense Power (see 6E1 147).)
Even if a Barrier’s defenses aren’t defined as Flash Defense, Mental Defense, or Power Defense, a Barrier still has protective properties that may thwart attacks that apply against those defenses. For example, a Barrier with the Opaque Adder to the Sense Group affected by a Flash prevents characters on the other side of the Barrier from perceiving the Flash. Similarly, an Opaque Barrier blocks Line Of Sight with the defined Sense (Group), thus preventing a character with Mental Powers from attacking through it unless he can get around it somehow (for example, by flying into the air and looking over the Barrier at his target). Similarly, since a Barrier is a physical object, attacks that work against Power Defense can’t “go through it” any more than they could go through an ordinary wall (though it would be possible to attack the Barrier directly with them in some cases, such as using a Drain BODY to reduce the Barrier’s BODY).
With the GM’s permission, a character can buy Flash Defense, Mental Defense, or Power Defense only for his Barriers for a -1 Limitation on the defense. That protects a Barrier from attacks made against it specifically (like a Drain BODY intended to weaken it, or a Mental Blast that Does BODY). If that sort of Barrier is used to englobe a target (see below), the victim has to “penetrate” the defense before he can affect targets outside the globe. For example, Mental Defense on an englobing barrier would subtract from the effects of Mental attacks made by an englobed victim against targets outside the globe.
uSING BARRIER
Characters can use Barrier at Range. To place a Barrier in the desired Area at Range, the character must succeed with an Attack Roll against DCV 3.
Barrier is an Instant Power, so a character only pays END when he first creates a Barrier. A Barrier, once created, is a physical object that remains in existence until destroyed by attacks, the passage of time, or other factors. If a char- acter wants a Barrier that he has to “maintain,” he should apply the Limitation Costs Endurance (to maintain; -½).
Once in existence, a Barrier functions just like an ordinary wall (albeit a transparent one). No attack of any sort will penetrate in either direction through the Barrier unless (a) the attack’s damage exceeds the Barrier’s appropriate defense and does enough BODY damage to get through the Barrier (see Damaging A Barrier, below), or (b) the attack can pass through transparent ordinary walls according to the rules which govern it. (For example, a Mental Power, targeted by Line Of Sight, could be used on a target on the other side of a standard Barrier, which is transparent and doesn’t block LOS.) Thus, a Barrier may be as much of a hindrance to the character creating it as to his enemies. An attack with a properly- defined Indirect Advantage (or inherent “Indirect” properties, like Telekinesis) can bypass a Barrier, or a Barrier might have the One-Way Transparent Advantage (see below). A Barrier is transparent to all Sense Groups, though characters can buy the
Opaque Adder for it to change that (and frequently
do; most Barriers defined as physical objects are Opaque to the Sight Group, for example).
Barriers are not inherently airtight. They do not prevent gases, mists, and the like from passing through them, nor do they cause an englobed character (see below) to suffocate. At the GM’s discretion, a character can make a PD Barrier airtight by Linking Life Support (Self-Contained Breathing) to it, and then it will block gases, vapors, and similar physical effects in most cases (the GM is, as always, the final arbiter of what a Barrier blocks, based on special effects, common sense, and dramatic sense).
Barrier creation anD characters
A character might want to create a Barrier in the precise space already occupied by another character or object. In that case, it’s up to the GM to determine what happens based on special effects, common sense, and dramatic sense, without allowing Barrier creation to become an effective attack, to destroy existing objects, or the like. Some possibilities include:
n the Barrier is created underneath the character, leaving him standing on top of it