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Necromantic Drain to Fuel Dark Magics


Mosswood17

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Relatively new to Hero and was hoping to get some help for an idea I had.  

 

I am going for a pretty standard Drain power.  It's by touch (any skin contact with the Necromancer triggers this).  It's a 3d6 Body Damage drain (30 points) with an Area of Effect - Damage Shield (+1/4), Damage Over Time (Every 5 minutes, 6 Damage Increments), it's Always On (=1) and costs no Endurance to use (+1/2).  

 

So far so good, I think!  

 

But the next part is where I'm hitting some difficulty.  How do I have it be that the damage this Necromancer Drains from a target gets added to an Endurance Reservoir to allow it to cast magical spells?  I've got one solution below that I found.  

 

Under Endurance Reservoir, it has a limitation, Limited Recovery (-2).  I figured that would likely be enough to justify recovering END equal to the Body Damage that the Drain power kicks in.  I'm debating if this the correct way to do this, and if I should drop a Linked on the Endurance Reservoir to attach it to the Drain power.  It seemed like the Limited Recovery should take care of that, though?

 

Any and all help is appreciated!  

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If this is the only way to recover END on the reserve buy a linked healing instead of recovery.  That way you get all the points when the drain occurs.  Recovery on an END reserve takes at least a turn.  Since healing is adding character points it should not take a lot of dice to make it work.  Aid could also work, but has a fade rate which does not work well. 

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This is simple concept Drain + Aid, that requires a lengthy build in 6th.

 

Went ahead and built this in Hero Designer but I made a few changes in your modifiers. 

 

First the Drain: Drain BODY 3d6, Area Of Effect (1m Surface; +1/4), Persistent (+1/4), Constant (+1/2), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2), Damage Over Time (6 damage increments, damage occurs every 5 Minutes, +1), Delayed Return Rate (points return at the rate of 5 per 5 Minutes; +1 1/4) (142 Active Points); Always On (-1/2)

 

I added the Delayed Return Rate because without it this is not a Power that can kill. The target would recover all the damage before the next increment kicks in if they are only struck once or twice without it. I didn't add Lockout for the same reasons

 

Next the boost to the END Reserve:  Aid  END Reserve 3d6, Persistent (+1/4), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2), Damage Over Time (6 damage increments, damage occurs every 5 Minutes, +1) (49 Active Points); Only to Aid Self (-1), Always On (-1/2), Linked (Drain; Lesser Power can only be used when character uses greater Power at full value; Greater Power is Constant or in use most or all of the time; -1/2)

 

The Aid is Linked to the Drain(This is how the Transfer power is  done in 6th) and triggers when the it does for the same 3d6. You could buy the Aid larger or smaller, increase the fade rate or some combination of both.

 

So what does this Power combination do? 

 

First, the target is affected and takes 3d6 Drain vs their Body less any Power Defense and halved for being a Defensive Characteristic. Secondly, your END Reserve will get a 3d6 infusion of also halved for being a Defensive Characteristic.

 

So against a target with no Power Defense this will Drain 5 Body and add 25 END to your Reserve. The Body will heal 2.5 Points in the 5 minutes  it takes for the next increment to trigger.  So -5 Body, recover 2 to -8 Body, recover 3 to -10 Body recover 2 to -13 Body, recover 3 to -15 Body, recover 2. There's 1 or 2 additional Body damage in there because I didn't use 10.5 at each increment.

 

On the END Reserve side of things, you get 25 END every time your Drain affects any target. But you need to use it quickly, because it fades 1 Turn after the boost. You're also limited to 90 Points aided at any given time which shouldn't be a problem unless you use all 90 before any of it fades.

 

You might want to think about not having this as always on or at least making it only affect living creatures, otherwise you'll be a naked vortex of destruction who can't remain in any non-shielded or vehicle building for any length of time without it collapsing.

 

 

 

 

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You're going to run into an issue with point efficiency.  Honestly you're probably going to pay way too much for your powers, if I understand your proposed build correctly.

 

Is the Endurance Reserve the only way you can cast your necromantic magic?  Because if so, yeah you're probably paying too much.  A normal power is priced based on the assumption that you can use it whenever you want.  It doesn't take any extra time, you can just use it over and over again.  Characters are basically assumed to have enough Endurance to use their powers regularly.  But if you don't buy any Endurance, or you make your spells run off of an Endurance Reserve that doesn't recharge... that's a pretty hefty restriction that you aren't actually getting any points back for.  

 

How often do you think your character will be able to Drain somebody and fuel up his End Reserve?  Now if you're allowed to do that "off camera", and so your character is always walking around with a full End Reserve and he can whip out those necromantic spells whenever he wants, then that's probably fine.  But if you have to do it in the course of regular play, then functionally what's happening is you have something that keeps you from using all your spells as often as you normally could.

 

I'd suggest skipping the End Reserve, skipping the Aid, and try this instead.  Slap a Recoverable Charges limitation on all your necromancy spells.  That's a limitation directly on the spells, so it makes them cheaper.  Make the recovery condition (where you get your charges back) when you successfully Drain somebody of most of their Body. So you always basically start with a full tank of gas, and you can Drain people to get back up to full.  You can presume that off camera, the character murders some unimportant people to refill.

 

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The hidden step is that these are classified as Defensive Characteristics so the effect of both negative and positive Adjustment powers on them is halved. Page 46 of Champions Complete.

 

So 10.5 Character Points of Body given no Power Defense, which is then halved to to 5 and thus 5 actual Body Damage. The same with END, 10 CP is Aided, which would be 50 END but is halved to 25.

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As an alternative, instead of Drain BODY, you could do it with a Killing Attack, and similarly Aid the END Reserve.  The Killing Attack doesn't have to mess with Delayed Return Rate or halving its effect against Defensive Characteristics.

 

Replacing the Drain BODY 3d6 with an RKA 1 1/2d6, even switching it to AVAD (Power Defense) and Does BODY, drops that portion of it to 125 Active, and with the No Range, Concentrate (1/2 DCV throughout, -1/2), and Only Against Helpless Targets (-1) Limitations, it comes to 42 Real.  

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@LoneWolf, that's a pretty sweet alternative and I'm going to have to look it over.  This probably works better in that those points that are dropped into the Endurance Reserve don't go away.  It lets my evil Necromancer "fill up" (ewww...) and then unload on people later.  Thanks for the alternative plan!  HERO really makes my brain happy like a really satisfying Excel spreadsheet (I know...NERD!) because there are multiple options to get you to where you want to go!

 

@Grailknight, First, I didn't put Delayed Return Rate on this because on pg. 331 under Recovering in the DOT power, it says "In most cases, the victim of a Damage Over Time attack cannot Recover any of the damage sustained until the Damage Over Time has entirely run its course."  I assume this is so that poisons that kill you slowly actually kill you slowly and don't let people just naturally heal faster than the poison's effect.  This was a power I came up with for a villain, too!  I'm still in the building bits and bobs, haven't even gotten to the character creation stuff yet!  But the idea of having an evil Necromancer who walks into town and sucks the life force out of all the people and whose very touch is enough to kill normal people just seemed like a really cool thing to stat up!

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Okay, just picked up Hero Designer and I'm pretty excited once I got it up and running!

 

I'm digging on the idea of a Heal power linked to my Endurance Reserve, allowing those points to go to the Reserve and not drain away again.  This is the first iteration.  I'm probably going to make it into a Charges power, too. 

 

The Drain part as I created it in Hero Designer:

Entropic Skin:  Drain BODY 3d6, Area Of Effect (1m Surface; Damage Shield; +1/4), Damage Over Time (6 damage increments, damage occurs every 5 Minutes, can be negated by Holy Implements; +1/4), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (60 Active Points); Always On (-1/2*).  Cost: 40

 

This is the part that puts it into the Pool: 

Power Leach:  Healing Pool of Darkness 3d6, Expanded Effect (x2 Characteristics, Body & Pool of Darkness) (+1/2), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (60 Active Points); Linked (Entropic Skin; Lesser Power can only be used when character uses greater Power at full value; -3/4). Cost: 34

 

HERO Designer is pretty AWESOME.  

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