Homebrew Powers, Enhancements and Limitations
Posted: Mon Apr 05, 2010 6:53 pm
Here are a few I'm play testing:
New / Altered Powers
Imitator
2-3 pts; Maintained, Personal
You are able to physically alter your body into another humanoid form of approximately the same size, including altering your cosmetic appearance (hair, eyes, skin, etc.). For 2 points, the effect includes your physical appearance and voice. For 3 points, the change is complete enough to include altering your smell and fine details like your fingerprints and retina patterns. If you attempt to imitate a specific person, and are trying to fool people who know the subject, it would still require an opposed Deception check but you bypass the need for a mundane disguise and have a +2 Dice Bonus to your check. To imitate a specific person's fingerprints or retina pattern, you would need some way to know what to duplicate, either by having access to those biometrics or by taking an enhancement to make it automatic. By default, the power also affects your clothing (and limited carried items; a purse but not a shopping bag, etc.), but you can take a limitation if it cannot affect your clothing.
Weapon Technique
The official version of this seems too expensive, in my (not-yet-very-experienced) opinion. Getting a +1 attack multiplier bonus with ranged weapons costs as much as just buying +1 Agility, which also provides defense, skills, priority, etc. I realize they stack, and it is a way to get over power caps, but it still seems too expensive to me. So my version is:
You are extremely well trained with the use of weapons. You may spend each point in this power to grant either a +1 Agility boost to hit or a +1 DM boost to damage with any hand-to-hand and ranged weapon attacks. You can add the Variable enhancement to be able to choose between to hit or damage bonuses before you roll the dice. You can take a limitation to apply the benefit to either hand-to-hand or ranged only. You can only improve your unarmed attacks up to a maximum of x5 to hit or damage. You cannot combine the benefits of this power with other powers (except other Intense Training powers).
Enhancements
Hyperspeed
This enhancement gives Super Running the same type of long-distance travel speed as the Space enhancement gives Flight, providing a simple alternative to the common (but IMO clunky) approach of buying teleport as a multipower of your movement power.
Mental Attack
You can change a normally physical attack power into a mental power with this enhancement. This changes your attack roll to use Mind instead of Agility, although the target still defends with Agility. Your damage (if any) is based on Mind, and is can be soaked by the target's normal mental defense of Mind + Mind Shield. (NOTE: This is probably overpowered in canon BASH. I'm using house rules to add a fourth stat, discussed in another thread, so in my game mental damage and soak is based on that fourth stat. In canon, with just 3 stats, this enhancement would let you increase both your to hit and damage based on a single stat, which would be bad IMO.)
EDIT: Based on another thread I just saw, you could balance this in canon BASH by having the Mental Attack advantage remove the Mind stat from the damage DM. So the DM comes entirely from the power ranks, and the Mind stat is only being applied once, for the attack roll. That avoids the double-dipping without needing a fourth stat.
Selective
You have the ability to select which targets are affected by a power. Typically applied to area attacks, you can apply damage only to the targets you choose (which also means they don't affect targets you don't know about due to invisibility, etc.) Certain other powers might allow this enhancement to represent greater control, like making only part of you intangible with Ghost Form, etc.
Limitations
Focus
This limitation can only be applied to powers that are normally Sustained. The power becomes Maintained instead, and if it is disrupted (due to damage, stun, etc.) it cannot be reactivated in the same page. (Trying to decide if the delay before reactivation should be longer than just the same page.)
New / Altered Powers
Imitator
2-3 pts; Maintained, Personal
You are able to physically alter your body into another humanoid form of approximately the same size, including altering your cosmetic appearance (hair, eyes, skin, etc.). For 2 points, the effect includes your physical appearance and voice. For 3 points, the change is complete enough to include altering your smell and fine details like your fingerprints and retina patterns. If you attempt to imitate a specific person, and are trying to fool people who know the subject, it would still require an opposed Deception check but you bypass the need for a mundane disguise and have a +2 Dice Bonus to your check. To imitate a specific person's fingerprints or retina pattern, you would need some way to know what to duplicate, either by having access to those biometrics or by taking an enhancement to make it automatic. By default, the power also affects your clothing (and limited carried items; a purse but not a shopping bag, etc.), but you can take a limitation if it cannot affect your clothing.
Weapon Technique
The official version of this seems too expensive, in my (not-yet-very-experienced) opinion. Getting a +1 attack multiplier bonus with ranged weapons costs as much as just buying +1 Agility, which also provides defense, skills, priority, etc. I realize they stack, and it is a way to get over power caps, but it still seems too expensive to me. So my version is:
You are extremely well trained with the use of weapons. You may spend each point in this power to grant either a +1 Agility boost to hit or a +1 DM boost to damage with any hand-to-hand and ranged weapon attacks. You can add the Variable enhancement to be able to choose between to hit or damage bonuses before you roll the dice. You can take a limitation to apply the benefit to either hand-to-hand or ranged only. You can only improve your unarmed attacks up to a maximum of x5 to hit or damage. You cannot combine the benefits of this power with other powers (except other Intense Training powers).
Enhancements
Hyperspeed
This enhancement gives Super Running the same type of long-distance travel speed as the Space enhancement gives Flight, providing a simple alternative to the common (but IMO clunky) approach of buying teleport as a multipower of your movement power.
Mental Attack
You can change a normally physical attack power into a mental power with this enhancement. This changes your attack roll to use Mind instead of Agility, although the target still defends with Agility. Your damage (if any) is based on Mind, and is can be soaked by the target's normal mental defense of Mind + Mind Shield. (NOTE: This is probably overpowered in canon BASH. I'm using house rules to add a fourth stat, discussed in another thread, so in my game mental damage and soak is based on that fourth stat. In canon, with just 3 stats, this enhancement would let you increase both your to hit and damage based on a single stat, which would be bad IMO.)
EDIT: Based on another thread I just saw, you could balance this in canon BASH by having the Mental Attack advantage remove the Mind stat from the damage DM. So the DM comes entirely from the power ranks, and the Mind stat is only being applied once, for the attack roll. That avoids the double-dipping without needing a fourth stat.
Selective
You have the ability to select which targets are affected by a power. Typically applied to area attacks, you can apply damage only to the targets you choose (which also means they don't affect targets you don't know about due to invisibility, etc.) Certain other powers might allow this enhancement to represent greater control, like making only part of you intangible with Ghost Form, etc.
Limitations
Focus
This limitation can only be applied to powers that are normally Sustained. The power becomes Maintained instead, and if it is disrupted (due to damage, stun, etc.) it cannot be reactivated in the same page. (Trying to decide if the delay before reactivation should be longer than just the same page.)
