Examples of Powers in Use

I've promised that my next post would include examples of how to use the generic powers to make specific powers, so here are some examples with one power. First, let me introduce our example power users.

• The Necromancers of Taj Neroth, a dangerous cult that worships pre-human deities in a 1920s pulp adventure world. They have cells hidden all over North America, Europe, and Asia and are doing their best to infiltrate all levels of society. Their ranks include socialites, politicians, captains of industry, longshoremen, fishermen, and lumberjacks (although rarely in the same cell together). Their cells go by different names and appear to worship different gods but they all ultimately serve the pantheon of Taj Neroth in various guises. For example, Nai Ctagn, may be worshiped as the Great Buck by lumberjacks in the north woods while urban middle-class businessmen worship it as the Black Stag in their local lodge hall and the idle rich worship it as Naitan, a hedonistic satyr-like figure, in wild debauches in swank hotel ballrooms.
• Elemental Magic, a loosely organized tradition of wizards in a medieval fantasy world. These wizards rarely convene in one place, but sages often communicate with each other to exchange advice and information. More adventurous wizards who travel the world in search of knowledge also seek out their more sedentary brethren to learn new spells and share the knowledge they have gathered in their travels. Some specialize in a particular element while others are generalists.
• Aetheric Engineering, an exciting field of scientific endeavor which is as much art as it is science in a "sword and planet" setting. Aetheric Engineering is used by all the great powers in the Solar System from Venus to Uranus to design and construct their advanced technology which is powered by nuclear reactors and aetheric power transmitters. The Mercurians and Neptunians both use some kind of psychic amplification technology which is not yet well understood (or functional) for the other peoples of the Solar System. Mercurian ascetics use technology based on the field of Hermetic Dynamics (which seems to allow them a greater degree of control over thermal and kinetic energy) and the mysterious Neptunian priesthood uses technology based on Cryobionics (which allows them to create pseudo-living machines of icy crystal). The piratical invaders from Planet X use a previously unknown type of power but reports are still too sketchy to speculate on what it might be.
• The Source, a mystical energy field that permeates the galaxy and can be harnessed for telepathic, clairvoyant, and telekinetic abilities in a space opera setting. The Dai Zha Templars use the positive Astral Source to defend justice and peace in among the worlds of the Galactic Confederation. The Ma Quy use the negative Cthonic Source to service their own ambitions of conquest and empire-building.
• The Tyrian Brotherhood, an order of holy knights whose signature purple tabards and standards have come to represent honor, courage, and goodness throughout all the known kingdoms. They travel the world righting wrongs and correcting injustices. They lead armies against the forces of evil and stand as a shining beacon in the darkness. They possess miraculous powers, but perhaps the greatest is the infectiousness of their incredible courage.

Powers can be used with one of 4 durations: Instant (has an effect one time, usually immediately), Focus (can be maintained from round to round but maintaining it counts as an action), Scene (effects last for the entire scene), and Permanent (effects continue indefinitely). The base difficulty to use these powers is 1, 2, 3, and 4 respectively (although Permanent powers may incur an additional cost). Using powers at range also increases the difficulty by 1 per Area (just like Shooting attacks). 

Now, let's take a look at a power and how it is used by these different groups and power sources. 

Enhance Weapon: This power adds +1D to a weapon's damage (including unarmed attacks) or other qualities for each point of Advantage. For example, a blade enchanted to guide its wielder's hand could be given the Precise quality (+1D to attack rolls), one given preternatural sharpness can be given the Brutal quality (+1D to damage rolls), etc.

• The Arrows of Nai Ctagn: Among the Necromancers of Taj Neroth, this Instant spell is used to temporarily enchant ammunition with a powerful corrosive venom. It grants a single shot the Brutal (+1D damage) and Armor-Piercing (+1D damage against armored targets) qualities. The difficulty to cast it is 2 (Instant power plus an extra point of Advantage for a second quality).
• Among the Elemental Mages, this power is known as many different spells. They are all  Scene powers that add one quality to a weapon. The Burning Blade sheathes the weapon in a halo of fire that grants the Brutal property. The Diamond Edge spell supernaturally hardens a weapon's striking edges to give it the Armor-piercing quality. The Fluid Weapon spell gives a weapon the flexibility of a rivulet of water which gives long weapons the Short quality and short weapons the Reach quality. The Storm Blade spell grants the Precise quality by surrounding a metallic weapon with crackling arcs of lightning; these arcs jump to foes on a near miss and help to draw the weapon into the foe.
• Aetheric Engineers use this power to create many upgraded melee weapons such as vibroblades (Brutal, Armor-piercing), shocklances (Armor-piercing, Tricky), and force field generating batons (Parrying, Shielding). Hermetic Dynamicists also use this power to boost the speed of their melee and ranged weapons (Quick, Sweeping).
• Templars use the Source to enhance their fighting abilities with an energy blade by using the Blade Focus Meditation, a Focus power that they use to give their blades a variety of weapon qualities as they need them (most commonly Parrying, Quick, and Sweeping). When targeted by blasters, they use the Shielding weapon quality to deflect the shots with their blades.
• The Tyrian Brotherhood knows this power as Reaping the Unrighteous, a Focus power with difficulty 3 that grants their weapons Sweeping and Brutal to allow them to mow through evil hordes.

Power Summary

This is my most recent trimmed down version of the powers list. It could be trimmed down further because some of them are just specific uses of other powers, but I'm going to keep them separate for now. The categories are just for ease of reference and don't really have any effect.


Attack Powers
Enhance Weapon: This power adds damage and/or weapon qualities. A specific form of Instill Traits.
Bolt: This power makes a ranged attack for 3D damage with a basic success.
Strike: This power allows its user to deal 4D damage to a target in the user's Area. (This includes short range attacks that can hit multiple opponents in other systems, like spray or "cone" area effects.)
Blast: This power allows its user to deal 3D damage to every target in an area. (This is the usual area effect attack like the fireball spell, grenades, etc.)
Energy Drain: This power causes Strain in an area.
Push: This power moves a target from one area to another.
Puppet: Take control of someone with an opposed roll.

Defense Powers
Armor: This power increases a character's Toughness. (A specific form of Alter Attributes, but I think it will be commonly used so I'm leaving it as its own power for easier reference.)
Deflection: This power misdirects attacks. (A power that could be done with Enhance Skill but this specific form will probably be commonly called for in many settings.)
Dispel: This power negates another character's power.
Intangibility: This power allows its user to become ethereal and insubstantial.

Divination Powers
See the Past: This power allows the user to see the past of an object, person, or place.
Detect/Conceal Aura: This power reveals or hides the presence of powers. (Also useful for realizing when Obi-Wan Kenobi is on your battlestation...)
Analysis: This power identifies important information about people, places, or things.
Locate: This power is used to find something specific.
Mind Probe: This power is used to find, hide, or implant information
Clairvoyance: This power senses places and events beyond normal limits.
Major Divination: This power determines the circumstances of a future event.

Utility Powers
Communication: This power communicates with entities normally unable to. (Speak to animals, plants, etc.)
Environmental Protection: Immunity to the background hazards for a particular environment.
Healing: This power restores wounds and treats afflictions like poison and disease.
Environmental Control: This power alters ambient environmental penalties such as light/darkness etc. Specific examples would be creating light, darkness, gusts of wind, etc. (probably as separate powers in most settings).
Telepathy: communication at a distance

Skill Powers
Alter Attributes: This power allows its user to modify the target's attributes by rearranging, adding, or subtracting dice.
Instill Traits: Gives the target a Talent or Drawback.
Enhance Skill: This power grants a bonus to a skill or gives a skill to someone who doesn't have it.
Incite/Still Passion: Double up or forbid uses of Passions.
Skill Swap: Use one Attribute or Skill in place of another. (For example, telekinesis is using Will instead of Might to move things around.)

Movement Powers
Barrier: This power creates a barrier (i.e. a wall or gap) to impede movement between Areas.
Portal: This power penetrates barriers and crosses gaps (i.e. makes bridges and doorways).
Jump: Rapid movement across short distances, including short teleportation hops.
Entangle: This power hinders or stops movement.
Petrify: This power puts a character in stasis. (Medusa, Han Solo in carbonite, etc.)
Fly: This power ignores movement penalties.

Summon Powers
Creation: This power produces mundane items. (Although they might not look that mundane if you're creating them temporarily with something like a Green Lantern power ring, but they are still just equipment and gear to be used by characters and don't have their own attributes.)
Summoning: This power summons another character, creature, vehicle, etc. (These are things with their own attributes.)

Are there any important powers that I'm missing?

Power Taboos continued

Ok, it's later. So, I was watching the Clone Wars cartoons and thinking about the Sith/Jedi division. The Sith favor passion and believe that the best way to use the Force is through emotion, while the Jedi prefer to keep their cool and remain free from attachments. So the Sith use the Dark side to gain power more quickly, but then they always seem to pay a price for it. Some Star Wars games use Dark Side Points to represent the accumulation of corruption. If a character gains too many, they fall to the Dark side. I never really liked this because it feels too much like hit points in D&D, but instead of "I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm dead", it's "I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm evil". I want to see more of a slippery slope.

For the "Source" sample power set that I wrote up, I divided the Source into two sides: Astral and Cthonic. The Astral Source can only be accessed in a calm and peaceful state of mind, which prohibits using it with the character's Passions or any emotional Talents (like being a berserker or something). Calling upon the Cthonic Source can be done with Passions, but when you do so, you gain an emotional or psychological Drawback (such as "vengeful", "jealous", "paranoid", etc.). These Drawbacks don't apply when calling on the Cthonic Source, but they do hinder accessing the Astral Source. "Falling" is what happens when you accumulate so many penalties that you can no longer access the Astral Source. The Cthonic Source is a faster route to power because you can use it with large bonuses ("free" Drama Points from the character's Passions), but as you draw upon the Cthonic Source, you become more and more hateful and fearful until finally you lose access to the Astral Source. So, turning to the "Dark Side" is a faster route to power, but the power you achieve leaves you more limited in what you can do. If you just want to be an evil jerk, then it won't matter so much. But if you try to turn to the dark side with good intentions (like Anakin trying to save his wife's life), you'll end up being the kind of person who won't pursue those good intentions (like Anakin becoming so angry and paranoid that he killed his wife in a jealous rage). It's sort of a Catch-22: the Dark side can give you the power to do good things, but once you have achieved that power you will no longer be the kind of person who wants to use that power for good.

The Passions can also be used to tie other types of powers to the setting. For example, a classic fantasy paladin or cleric who gains power from a deity but must maintain a strict code of conduct. Their powers may be limited by their adherence to the code or you can take things a step further and require that they define their passions in terms of their deity. Paladins are usually presented as being much more focused and zealous than clerics, so that could be a distinguishing feature. Both are required to follow their deity's code of conduct, but the Paladin must go a step further and have all their Passions defined in terms of their deity. The cleric of a god of justice may have a Noble Passion of "Let Justice be done" and then Rage and Fear Passions unique to himself. But the Paladin would have a Rage Passion of "Injustice must be punished" or "My wrath undoes the wicked" and a Noble Passion of "Let Justice be done though the Heavens fall!" and a Fear Passion of "None". Passions are fairly useful and powerful resources, so giving one of them up is a notable sacrifice that really sets the paladin apart from the priests.

This idea of using Passions and mental Drawbacks can also be applied to powers that are described as leading to a degradation of the user's humanity. There are numerous examples of this in games and fiction. In some (non-Transhumanist) cyberpunk, characters who get a lot of cybernetic parts in their bodies worry about whether or not the cyberdocs will eventually take out the soul and replace it with a computer chip. In some horror stories (particularly those inspired by Lovecraft), acquiring knowledge of "things man was not meant to know" can lead to madness and loss of one's morality and humanity. In "sword & sorcery" fiction, magic is often depicted as one of those things that corrupts men and turns them into inhuman sorcerers.

In the early stages, this could be represented by adding phobias and quirks in the form of Drawbacks. When the character starts to feel crippled by too many Drawbacks, they could "compile" their Drawbacks into a new Passion. For example, a Lovecraftian sorcerer who has accumulated several psychological quirks such as phobias of right angles, furry things, or the dark, could get rid of those phobias by compiling them all into a new Fear Passion like "Aspects of the Hounds of Tindalos". For very severe cases, such as S&S fiction where sorcerers develop inhuman mentalities, they could actually lose their Passions completely as they gain in their magical knowledge. The order in which they lose them could be a character defining trait as well. A sorcerer with more curiosity than sense will probably lose Fear first, while one with ambition and lust for power at any cost will probably lose Noble first, for example. Once they've lost all their Passions, they are cold and inhuman like the reptilian sorcerers of the ancient Snakemen civilization that always seems to be hiding somewhere in the jungles of these S&S worlds.

Power Taboos

Just a quick update before I run out the door. The Powers chapter is coming along nicely. I did another round of revisions on the sample power sources to trim them into a shape more suitable for the game table. This morning I also spent some time writing up an example power source that I'm calling "The Source". It's a mystical energy field that has two sides that are--shall we say--"light" and "dark". This has helped me to consider some classic restrictions on the use of powers in RPGs. For example, taboos such as "the Force can't be used in anger or out of hate without falling into the grip of the Dark Side" or "a paladin who commits and evil act will fall from grace". While writing up the "Source", I thought an interesting and simple way to incorporate that into the Impressionist system. I'll add more about that later, but for now I'm running late for an appointment so I have to go.