A Not-So-Random Power

[AliceTheOwl]

My Fantasy Hero world is an offshoot of the Champions Universe, created when someone with superpowers with No Conscious Control made it. Now, a low-powered super has fallen into the world.

But I don't know what his power is. I can't for the life of me decide which power I should give him, or if I'm not thinking of something.

What I'm aiming for is something that someone could've had his whole life without realizing it. I was thinking along the lines of X-Ray Vision, suppressable by the glasses he wears all the time, but there was too much danger that he'd notice it in the shower, or something.

So. I would very much appreciate it if you'd suggest a low-point-cost superpower. I'll be working with the points all the disadvantages from falling into this world have yielded, so it shouldn't exceed 25 points.

At least, to start. I'd like there to be an option to make it more powerful over time, though I could just, instead, lop off disadvantages as he earns experience.

And here's the tough part: I'd like it to be something noticeable, something you wouldn't expect in a fantasy world, something potentially useful.

I'm sorry I can't be more specific than that, but I'd really like to see what people come up with.

[Lucius]

Detect Magic.

+ Magickal Aptitude.

Lucius Alexander

The palindromedary notes that, interestingly enough, we've met someone with a superpower he only discovered when he got to college.....

[Pogo]

Autofire with swords.
Healing (simplified version), requires concentration.
1d6 cumulative transform: nonworking mechanical object into working mechanical object.

[AliceTheOwl]

Hmm. Sadly, none of those will work.

The world is low-tech, and the person in question is starting at a slightly-above-normal power level. No fighting skills, 2 dice of unluck, PhysLim: Doesn't Understand Via Culture and a Hunted. I'm starting all his stats at 8, though I might inflate a couple of those.

He's being mistaken for some kind of messiah in the world (hence the Hunted), so I want him to have a power that wouldn't really exist on an everyday basis.

Nobody's going to trust him with a sword long enough to find out if he has some special power when he uses them. He's being given a staff to defend himself, since it has the least potential to hurt himself or others if he messes up.

[Hermit]

VPP: Only to mimic the super(or magic) powers of those around him. If he never met another super, he never used it.

[AliceTheOwl]

Hmmmmm . . . That's a good one to keep in mind, actually. Thanks, Hermit.

*is still taking suggestions, though* . . . No offense, I just want to see if anyone can come up with anything else I haven't thought of.

[Hermit]

Happy to help :)

[Robyn]

No fighting skills, 2 dice of unluck, PhysLim: Doesn't Understand Via Culture and a Hunted. I'm starting all his stats at 8, though I might inflate a couple of those.

He's being mistaken for some kind of messiah in the world (hence the Hunted), so I want him to have a power that wouldn't really exist on an everyday basis.

Nobody's going to trust him with a sword long enough to find out if he has some special power when he uses them. He's being given a staff to defend himself, since it has the least potential to hurt himself or others if he messes up.

Give him something defensive. He would have avoided fights back home, so he wouldn't have discovered what happens when his life is endangered; and the power will give him some way of surviving the threats that his Hunted throws at him.

[Dr. Anomaly]

How about some of the various Life Support options? A lot of those a person could go their whole life without being in a position where they'd find out they had them, but those sorts of things might crop up a lot more often in a low-tech fantasy world. (Doesn't breath? What if a water elemental or some other water-dwelling type got a hold of him and tried to drown him? He'd find out...)

Or maybe some Regen, but only the Ressurection part, not the "rapid healing" part. He comes back from the dead, but doesn't heal faster than a normal person after that. Unless he'd ever recieved a fatal injury in the "real world", he wouldn't know he had that one...

[Log-Man]

Armor, 25 rED Only vs. Fire

How would someone learn that they were fireproof, especially if the power came upon them after they had learned to avoid it? Small, but can be very creatively utilized.

[caris]

Telepathy only against horses.

[AliceTheOwl]

Telepathy only against horses.
Heh. Good one, but that doesn't work. He's already established that, the last time he went near a horse, it bit him.

Telepathy only with elves, however . . .

Hmm.

[caris]

Well, all sorts of animals have potential. I'd avoid the common pet animals like cats and dogs, but you could do wolves, foxes, any of a variety of raptors, etc.

[AliceTheOwl]

*nods*

Wild animals would be a lot more likely than tame ones. Mythological ones, more so.

[Supreme Serpent]

Absorption, magic to str, with some defenses vs magic.

Extra NCM multiples, only useable by others in contact with + reduced end. If he does finally get on a horse/griffin/etc. he can travel REALLY fast with it. "Super Rider" power. Only works on living things, so never encountered with his tricycle/car/etc.

XDM to any relatively recently created universe (last 1million years or so ;)). Also explains exactly how he got there. Not generally useful, but if gets seperated from this world, could hop back, and could go to a wizard's private pocket dimension, etc.

Emits "positive energy" - invisible to undead, protection vs negative energy/life draining effects, damage shield vs undead, or combination.

Power Defense. Protected vs being turned into a toad, turned to stone, lycanthropy, vampirism, etc.

Extra End, only for pushes. If he's lived a pretty sedate life, may never have really noticed, especially if it kicked in after the dangerous days of childhood. :)

[David Johnston]

And here's the tough part: I'd like it to be something noticeable, something you wouldn't expect in a fantasy world, something potentially useful.

I'm sorry I can't be more specific than that, but I'd really like to see what people come up with.

Healing. If he's never touched a seriously injured person then he might be totally unaware of his power to make the owies go away, particularly if he can't do it to his own injuries. And if Healing does damage to undead that's another thing he never would have had a chance to learn.

[Silbeg]

And here's the tough part: I'd like it to be something noticeable, something you wouldn't expect in a fantasy world, something potentially useful.

I'm sorry I can't be more specific than that, but I'd really like to see what people come up with.

Ok, I was starting to think about some sort of regeneration thingie, with the argument that he doesn't know about it, since he just always "healed fast", and hasn't really taken any major trauma over his life (not everyone breaks bones, you know... )

However, you are also saying something that you wouldn't expect in a fantasy world... that makes it a little more difficult.

lessee....

Can I ask what template the character is based on? It could make a difference. I have some ideas... but this would be an important thing to add.

[Supreme Serpent]

Flight, but he has to free-fall over 10" to start it up. Fall ten feet, ouch. Fall off a mountain, start flying partway down.

Dispel vs mind control. Able to free someone else from mental influence.

Mind Link with one of the local gods. Maybe he IS a messiah.

[OddHat]

How about:


24 Unbreakable: Armor (12 PD/12 ED) (36 Active Points); Limited Power Power loses about a third of its effectiveness (Does Not Strop Penetration, First Body Always Gets Through; -1/2)

No reason for him to have noticed it; he can still cut himself shaving, visit the doctor, do all sorts of normal things. And, he can on average take a sword blow to the neck and only bleed rather than being decapitated. Add in some light regeneration, a 25 STR and some life support and he could be a variation on the Bruce Willis character from Unbreakable, an ordinary guy who never realized he had what it took to be a Superhero.

[WhammeWhamme]

He can stop/slow time. Normally, you don't notice because it's easily mistaken for boredom or adrenaline - but it kicked into high gear when he REALLY got scared.

Starts off as a bit of Teleport with +1 to Ego Rolls vs Boredom and maybe some DEX/SPD enhancement.


(Teleporting is actually fairly odd for most fantasy).


Mental Powers (probably Mind Control/PRE) that _don't_ work on people he's looking at.


Stretching? Maybe with a painful trigger, so it feels like he just broke/dislocated his arm so he never experimented - but he found out quickly after being the victim of a hanging. (Bandits? Found in The King's Forest next to a dead deer? Whatever).

[Murrkon5]

In a campaign that borrowed some of the mutant/X-Men riff, the equivalent of Cerebro detected a mutant whose potential was nearly off the scale. With trepidation, determination and palpitations, we confronted this mutant. Just an average little schmoe who didn't hit us with any cosmic thunderbolts and had no idea what we were referring to.

Eventually we determined he was "King Dinosaur", with absolute mental dominion over the thunder lizards. Nope, didn't work over modern birds, alligators, newts or whatnot. A man in search of a time machine...

As suggested at earlier in the thread, this could be altered to gryphons or dragons or some such. A lower level version where said monsters do not obey him, but are somehow inclined to be calm and even polite in his presence. A person who could engage in friendly chitchat with a dragon would catch attention.

[Cancer]

Suppose the character never seems to lose stuff, but it's actually deeper than that.

Low-powered variable Summon, only works on small preexisting inanimate objects "nearby" (and you'd have to define that more precisely, I know), which are owned by the character, or are "public domain" (that is, in a finders-keepers situation), or would be acceptable to take. Character can't knowingly commit theft with this Summon (and it may take a GM fiat sort of arrangement that he can't Summon in something that would cause him to be caught red-handed with an object that clearly belonged to someone else), but he can call up stuff that no one knew was there. Once he's done with it and puts it away, it goes back to where it came from if appropriate. (Some things like money shouldn't vanish once he's given it away, but other small stuff would.)

SFX would be ... he always has change in his pocket; he always has the tool he's thinking of in his backpack; he can retrieve things that were stolen (as long as he doesn't realize they were stolen; if he knows they're gone, he can't bring 'em back any more); "oh, here's one lying on the floor, that's cool". It'll work even if he's naked (so if chained up, he'll be able to Summon a key, lockpick, or something that'll function as one).

This is off the top of my head, and I haven't statted this out, so I don't know if it fits in the point cap you specify. It is a power that someone might not realize they have (they could be smug/delusional enough to believe they really are that foresighted and well prepared).

[AliceTheOwl]

Can I ask what template the character is based on? It could make a difference. I have some ideas... but this would be an important thing to add.
I'm sorry, my Hero vocabulary is lacking. I don't know what you're asking. After statting out his disads, I have him at 0+75, if that's what you mean.


Mind Link with one of the local gods. Maybe he IS a messiah.
Heh. Actually, he's literally the son of this world's god. There's only one. Basically, "god" has a super power, NCC, that whatever he writes becomes real. It's built so that he's completely unaware he's doing it, and the power actually has steps built into it to keep him from figuring out he can do something so corruptably powerful.

And there's only one thing my NPC managed to bring with him from home: his cellphone.

It only works in churches. :D Hopefully the battery won't run out before he gets a chance to find that out.

[OddHat]

Heh. Actually, he's literally the son of this world's god. There's only one. Basically, "god" has a super power, NCC, that whatever he writes becomes real. It's built so that he's completely unaware he's doing it, and the power actually has steps built into it to keep him from figuring out he can do something so corruptably powerful.

And there's only one thing my NPC managed to bring with him from home: his cellphone.

It only works in churches. :D Hopefully the battery won't run out before he gets a chance to find that out.

If that's the story hook, you could give him Johnny Thunder syndrome. Give him a Summon for a very powerful creature (Johnny's was a sort of Superman class wish granting thunder thing), then make it NCC, 2 Charges Per Day (one renews at sunrise, the other at sunset). His character growth occurs as he first realizes that this creature is actually "his", and then uses XP to buy off the NCC. The charges take care of the END cost and allow the NCC to be bought off in a reasonable amount of time.

[AliceTheOwl]

Heh. Certainly being able to summon Seraphim at will would be fitting . . .

[OddHat]

Heh. Certainly being able to summon Seraphim at will would be fitting . . .

Yup. And undeniably a power. Restricted to twice daily NCC usage it won't be unbalancing either. Alternatively, let him have a NCC twice daily Multiform. At first he can't remember his time as The Other, but as he gains XP he buys the NCC and other limits down.

[freakboy6117]

how about something like Mr immortal from the GLA his power is he can't die possibly he gets tougher every time he dies adapting to what ever killed him or a resurrection man type power where he gets a new super power every time he dies.

how about something small but terrifying in a fantasy world fire starting.
its a pretty simple power with some concentration he can start fires of course he never has the need to start a fire. that is until one day he's trapped in the wilderness and needs to start a fire and has no matches no flint no nothing
and just prays hard as he can that there is a fire and a log or something ignites to keep him warm.

its not a really potent ability but in a fantasy world where just about everything will burn given a little encouragment it could be devastating.