Homebrew Powers, Enhancements and Limitations

[Lindharin]

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.)

[Ratix]

Repost from the old forum:

Enhancements

Ignore Size
This enhancement can only be applied to powers for which size alters their effectiveness. Any benefits or drawbacks due to Growing, Shrinking, or Size are ignored by the power. Thus, large targets do not gain bonuses to soak or Brawn rolls involving this power, nor do small targets gain defense bonuses. Note that this can go both ways; a large target does not suffer a defense penalty if hit by an attack with this enhancement, and if the attacker also has Size 1+, does not gain damage bonuses if the attack is Brawn-based. Since ignoring size is never entirely detrimental though, these drawbacks do not count toward any sort of Limitation.

[AslanC]

Nice stuff guys!

Got anymore?

[Ratix]

So, on further thinking it seems there may be some problems with my Ignore Size Enhancement basically ignoring an important game mechanic. At the same time, there needs to be some way for ranged attacks to not be a complete joke against large characters. So...

Scaling
This Enhancement alters a power for which size matters (strength to break an Immobilization bond, soak to defend from an attack, etc). The character adds the dice bonus to Brawn to this power as well. The most common use of this Enhancement is to enhance the ranged attacks on a hero with the Growing power, granting proportional strength to their mighty blasts even when they have grown many stories taller. It does not actually change these attacks to Brawn-based attacks, it merely applies the bonus from the character's current size.

Example: Giga Man, a Japanese super hero with the power to grow 20 stories tall, is fighting a minion of the Kaiju King. He unleashes his Giga Beam attack [Special Attack, x5 dmg] sending the monster flying. With a roar, the creature grows to the size of an office building, and begins to trash the city block. Not to be left out, Giga Man poses dramatically and shouts "GIGA MODE! CHANGE!" and grows to match the monster [both at Size 4, with +20 to Brawn rolls]. He fires a giant-sized Giga Beam at the monster. Since his Giga Beam has the Scaling Enhancement, its damage is now x5 with a +20 bonus to the roll. He makes an impressive roll, and sends the monster scattering despite its increased size and resilience.

Actually size bonus already applies to all damage rolls.

[BASHMAN]

New Limitation: Diminished
This limitation only applies to powers that have multiple effects that vary by level. One aspect of the power is Diminished, meaning it functions as if it were at least 2 levels lower.

Example: A Utility Belt might have Conjuration 3 [Limit: Diminished Size] so that it cannot produce anything larger than a Conjuring 1 power could produce.

Example 2: A character with Growing 4 takes [Limit: Diminished Reach] so his Reach is only the same as a character with Growing 2.

Does this sound appropriate? Does anybody foresee problems with it?

[Dragonfly]

Hey Ratix,

I LOVE this! First, I love the way the enhancement works. Second, I LOVE the example you use. Kaiju King, in particular, is cool to the max!

One minor correction: It isn't a Die Bonus, but rather a Result Bonus. Otherwise, this is aces!

Best,

Dragonfly

[Dragonfly]

New Limitation: Diminished
This limitation only applies to powers that have multiple effects that vary by level. One aspect of the power is Diminished, meaning it functions as if it were at least 2 levels lower.

Example: A Utility Belt might have Conjuration 3 [Limit: Diminished Size] so that it cannot produce anything larger than a Conjuring 1 power could produce.

Example 2: A character with Growing 4 takes [Limit: Diminished Reach] so his Reach is only the same as a character with Growing 2.

Does this sound appropriate? Does anybody foresee problems with it?

Howdy Bashman,

Looks good to me!

Best,

Dragonfly

[Ratix]

Hey Ratix,

I LOVE this! First, I love the way the enhancement works. Second, I LOVE the example you use. Kaiju King, in particular, is cool to the max!

One minor correction: It isn't a Die Bonus, but rather a Result Bonus. Otherwise, this is aces!

Best,

Dragonfly

Haha, oh yeah... forgot about that. Thanks for the correction!

[Ratix]

Actually size bonus already applies to all damage rolls.

Not sure who added this in, but: thanks! The wording in Growing's description seemed to suggest otherwise, but that's good to know. The Enhancement should still be useful for powers like Immobilize, making giant-sized Immobilizations more challenging to escape from.

[AslanC]

BASHMAN, I think that is a great way to do a Utility Belt limitation and the Growth part is just neat

[AslanC]

Given that I find Double-tap far too limiting, compared to Swift Strike, here's my proposed solution;

Rapid Fire - The character may make 2 ranged attacks in the same page, and on different targets, but suffers a -2 Dice Penalty to both, cumulative with any other extra action penalties.

Thoughts?

[Lindharin]

Is it a 2 pt power like Swift Strike?

[AslanC]

I would think yes.

[Lindharin]

The concept seems reasonable to me. It seems to follow the pattern established by Off Hand Shooting vs. Paired Weapons, where the ranged version has a -2 penalty when the melee has -1.

Do you intend to limit it to a max of 2 ranged attacks per page, so that it won't stack with anything else like Super Speed or Off Hand Shooting? If not, then I'd change the wording a bit to be closer to what Swift Strike uses:

"The character may make one extra ranged attack per page..."

That would let it stack with Off Hand Shooting in one panel. If the person has Super Speed too they could use additional panels, including Off Hand Shooting, but they couldn't use this power a second time (just like Swift Strike, it is limited to one per page instead of per panel).

You might want to house rule that Double Tap isn't available, or at least can't be used in the same panel with Rapid Fire, unless you want ranged attacks to have an extra option to stack attacks that melee doesn't get.