Powers: Absolutes

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Absolutes

A few classic abilities are absolute: invulnerability, death rays, wishes, etc. They're rarely a problem when a skilled author creates all the heroes, and guides them through a plot that conveniently takes their gifts into account...but matters are rarely so simple in a roleplaying game. The GM never knows what the players will try, while the players are never sure exactly what will work. This uncertainty is part of the fun, and the finality of "irresistible forces" and "immovable objects" can diminish that. This makes allowing them a risky proposition – but some important genres simply won’t work without them.

Unerring Attacks

Attacks that can’t miss – divine thunderbolts, spears of vengeance, etc. – have one of the new forms of Cosmic described on p. 101: “no die roll required” or “no active defense allowed.” Heroes on a budget can obtain near-absolute reliability by tak- ing some combination of Accurate, Guided, Homing, and Surprise Attack (p. 104).

Unstoppable Attacks

There are several ways to create attacks that ignore DR: Malediction cir- cumvents DR but allows a resistance roll; Sense-Based bypasses DR but requires sensory contact; and Area Effect or Cone combined with Blood Agent, Contact Agent, or Respiratory Agent affect anyone without special defenses. To unconditionally avoid pro- tection requires the “irresistible attack” version of Cosmic (p. B103) – and even then, defenses with Cosmic can still interfere, if the GM allows them.

Instant-Death Attacks

The simplest attack that slays the victim outright – like a "death ray" – is an Affliction with the Heart Attack enhancement. For reliable lethality, take lots of levels; a godlike being with Affliction 19 (HT-18; Heart Attack, +300%) [760] could instantly kill anyone with human-level HT (20 or less).

Innate Attack can also do the job. The average man has 10 HP and experiences certain death at -5×HP. That requires 60 points of injury, which is about average for a 17d attack. The GM might instead allow a "0d+60" attack that deals a flat 60 points of damage; this costs the same as 18d. Total bodily destruction (-10×HP) calls for 110 points of injury. This is 32d-2, with a flat "0d+110" costing as much as 33d. Any damage type will do, but attacks that only affect the living should be Toxic Attacks. To affect targets with lots of HP or DR, add a few extra dice – or the Cosmic enhancement.

Disintegration

Follow the Innate Attack guidelines under Instant-Death Attacks and use a Corrosion Attack. A target reduced -10¥HP by corrosion damage is gone: dissolved, disintegrated, or vaporized. Resurrection is impossible. For a cheaper way to disintegrate one spe- cific type of unliving matter, use Create (p. 92) with the Destruction enhancement.

Petrifaction, Banishment, and Other Permanent Curses

Powerful spells and fantasy mon- sters can petrify their victim, banish him to a prison dimension, and so forth. He isn’t exactly dead . . . but his odds of recovering on his own are no better (and possibly worse) than his odds of returning from the grave. Treat all such curses as Afflictions.

Since Heart Attack (+300%) would kill the target on a failed HT roll, bar- ring special medical aid, the GM might let the same +300% buy an effect that removes the target from play without killing him. Since either takes care of the target for good in the absence of powerful external intervention, the dif- ference is largely a special effect.

Alternatively, the GM can treat such curses as a combination of Paralysis (+150%) and Extended Duration, Permanent (+150%). Once again, it’s the special effects that mat- ter. It’s no more “powerful” to petrify someone than to paralyze him forever.

Either option costs +300%. The net effect is that the victim is incapacitat- ed indefinitely until he receives a spe- cial cure – usually a spell of some kind, in fantasy settings.

Stopping Time

Beings that can stop time appear frequently in fiction...as plot devices. It’s risky to trust PCs with such capa- bilities. If the GM wishes to allow this, he should make the ability costly, and limit its scope and duration. The fol- lowing enhancement for Affliction is fairly balanced:

Temporal Stasis: The victim and his

equipment stop in time. Time contin- ues to flow in the rest of the universe, just not for him. He’s frozen in place – in mid-action or even midair. He does- n’t age, breathe, or require sustenance. Injury, disease, and poison halt their progress. He keeps his position in the local frame of reference (usually a planet), but the physical world doesn’t otherwise affect him. He can’t be injured, moved, robbed, etc. In most settings, this extends to supernatural powers (e.g., his mind is unreadable). Likewise, he’s unaware of the universe and can’t act in any way, not even mentally. This lasts for a minute per point by which he fails his HT roll. After that, his actions, perceptions, and so on pick up where they left off. This isn’t a metabolic effect; it can afflict objects (see Afflictions and Inanimate Targets, p. 40). +1,000%.

If the entire universe freezes, the GM may represent it by combining Temporal Stasis with an extreme level of Area Effect. More modestly, a high level of Altered Time Rate (p. 41) with Super-Speed or Non-Combat Speed can give functionally similar results by greatly speeding up just the user.

Invulnerability

True invulnerability that makes every attack bounce off harmlessly has no fair price. A fixed cost, however high, invites comparison with the same number of points spent on Damage Resistance...and a finite DR is always less favorable than “infinite” DR.

Effective invulnerability is attain- able in a variety of ways, each with several inherent limitations to keep things fair. Multiple options could coexist in a given setting.

• Damage Resistance. In settings

where “invulnerability” means “can’t be harmed by typical threats,” just buy enough DR to stop the deadliest ordi- nary threat, at the rate of DR 6 per die of damage. Before TL6, DR 30 is enough to stop the blows of the might- iest normal man, ballista bolts, early firearms, dragon’s fire, etc. At TL6-8, DR 80 will stop small arms up to heavy machine guns, cars hitting at 50 mph, falls from aircraft, etc. At higher TLs, add levels of Hardened to negate the armor divisors of beam weapons. This gets expensive, but limitations such as Can’t Wear Armor and Tough Skin can make it affordable. The Limited modifier is useful, too, as many supers and mythic creatures are only invulnerable to specific threats.

• Injury Tolerance (Damage Reduction). The GM might permit

heroes to buy divisors larger than 4. A divisor of 5 costs 125 points. To price a divisor of 10 or more, find it in the Linear Measurement column of the Size and Speed/Range Table (p. B550), add 2 to the corresponding entry in the Size column, and multiply the sum by 25. This gives 150 points for a divisor of 10, 300 points for 100, 450 points for 1,000, and so on. The GM might require Limited, but he could waive this restriction for those who are sup- posed to be almost untouchable. Minimum injury from an attack that pierces DR is always GM may rule that those with Cosmic, +50% only suffer this if the injury is at least 1 HP after applying the divisor. See Injury Tolerance (p. 52).

• Injury Tolerance (Diffuse). By lim-

iting injury from impaling and pierc- ing damage to 1 HP per attack and that from other damage to 2 HP per attack, this trait provides limited invulnerability. Even the deadliest hits cause little more than flesh wounds. The GM might allow super-tough heroes who aren’t truly diffuse to buy this advantage. It doesn’t help against area effects, cones, or explosions, though.

• Insubstantiality. The GM may

allow the ability to become insubstan- tial for just an instant when exposed to damage. Physical and energy attacks pass through harmlessly. Attacks with Affects Insubstantial or Malediction – and spells, Mind Control, and similar abilities – work normally. This is Insubstantiality (Affect Substantial, +100%; Can Carry Objects, Heavy, +100%; Partial Change, +100%; Reflexive, +40%; Unconscious Only, -20%; Uncontrollable, -10%) [328]. Reflexive briefly activates Insubstantiality when hit. Affect Substantial, Can Carry Objects, and Partial Change keep the user from dropping things, falling through the floor, or losing control of other abili- ties. Unconscious Only and Uncontrollable prevent him from con- sciously becoming insubstantial – he can only avoid damage. Those with this ability can't shield others with their body, of course.

Wishes

"Granting wishes" can mean many different things. Some godlike entities control the outcome of events. Buy this as Super Luck (Wishing, +100%) [200]. Those who can do this reliably might have higher levels of Super Luck. In most games, 12 or 13 levels (2,400 or 2,600 points) suffice to affect every die roll made in the user's presence.

Other beings fulfill wishes for material goods. Snatcher (Creation, +100%; Large Items, +50%; More Weight, 100 lbs., +40%; Permanent, +300%) [472] can create most items of personal equipment – armor, weapons, etc. Improve More Weight to 1,500 tons (+175%), and raise total cost to 580 points, for enough capacity to summon a modest castle. The GM should probably set an upper weight limit!

A few beings grant new abilities. This is Affliction (Advantage, +10% per point of advantages; Extended Duration, Permanent, Irreversible, +300%). Thus, each level costs 40 points plus the price of the advantages – although one level is probably enough. To keep things fair, the GM might rule that the advantages take effect for only one minute times the margin of the HT roll, but let the recipient buy them "for real" if he has enough unspent points.

Entities that can grant any advantage require Cosmic Power (see Modular Abilities) with Physical (+50%) and Limited, Afflictions that grant permanent advantages (-50%). This costs 10 times as much (400 points plus 10 times the cost of traits granted). For instance, a god with 600 points in this ability could grant any advantage worth up to 20 points.