RIFTS style Tatoo man

[MisterD]

I am looking for suggestions on creating a TATOO MAN type character.

 

He is able to transform his tatoos to.

Animals (real and fantastic)

Weapons

Power Effexts (Fire ball, Lightning, Detect Invisible, ect.)

 

Any suggestions?

[Vanderbilt_Grad]

Animals can easily be done via summons. It would help to have the bestiary.

 

Weapons are easy. Just get HKAs, Hand Attacks, and maybe an RKA if you do the bows or are going T-Archer.

 

Individual power effects are easy too. EB or RKA for lightning bolt. Area hex EB or RKA for fireball. Etc.

 

The real trick will be how you build the PC.

 

Do you want to translate the PPE concept? If so you might want to build an END Reserve to represent the PPE. If not you can just have the tattoos drain END normally.

 

The tattoos could be bought individually converting them 1 on 1 as best you can.

 

Example:

 

Flaming Sword Tattoo: HKA (2d6) Only costs END to activate +1/4 (37 points)

 

Heart with Broken Chain: Str (+20) Only costs END to activate +1/4 (25 points)

 

Bought individually this could get pretty expensive. The cheapest route would probably be to buy a MP pool and put the tattoos as individual slots … but then you would be limited to activating only a few at a time.

 

An alterative would be to buy each tattoo in a EC … then you could have them all active at once but it would be more expensive. As I recall the Tattoos do take an action to activate so maybe if you bought full phase activation for the whole construct it might get cheaper.

 

In general IMO it’s not worth it to convert every tattoo. You don’t need a sword, a spear, & an axe as separate tattoos. Just get an HKA and define it as a weapon tattoo and then describe the appearance when you activate it.

 

Similarly you might want to see if it makes more sense to buy a lot of individual summoning powers or just buy one flexible summons instead.

[NuSoardGraphite]

If you want them to work pretty close to the way they work in RIFTS, go with the Elemental Control.

 

The EC itself should have the limitation : Restrainable. Which means if you Tattooed Warrior is tied up and can't reach his tattoos to activate them, he's screwed. "High Level" Tattoo warriors should eventually buy that off as in RIFTS, High Level Atlantean Undead Slayers can activate their tattoos by thought alone.

 

Also, as suggested above, I'd put the Cost Endurance to Activate limitation on them as well. I wouldn't require Full Phase Activation or any such limitation as that would unfairly cripple the character during combat (what kind of Supernatural fighting Badass can you be if you let every monster you face get the first shot?). At the most, I'd use a -1/4 limitation on powers that are normaly 0-phase and make them 1/2 Phase to activate.

 

For a little customization to make the character different from the RIFTS version, Gestures and Incantations (to activate) could replace the Restrainable limtation. You character must strike a pose, obviously touch his tattoo and utter the specific phrase that activates it. Something like that would make your character unique in the game.

 

I wish I had my RIFTS: Atlantis book out of the storage. If I did, I'd write up a good number of the Tattoo powers in Hero stats...