Fountain of Youth question

[Colossus]

I am creating a Fountain of Youth which characters can use as part of their background.  Based on the legend of Prestor John in game the Fountain does exist in a "faraway kingdom," which in game terms is a pocket dimension.  Characters must bath in it once a season to receive the benefits which are:

 

+10 STR, CON, REC; + 20 END & +20 STUN; 4 Resistant PD & ED; +4 Leaping: LS: Longevity (400 years), and Regeneration 1 Body/5 Min with Regrow limbs. 

 

The aging slows and their abilities increase for the 90 day period and then they must bath again (which means a trip to a portal in a hidden area or Extra-Dimensional Movement).  They also need to stay on Prestor Johns good side. He is heroic, but got more of a Doctor Fate than Strange vibe and may request help.  Prestor John cannot leave his Dimension so he needs to work through agents.

 

This is 82 points worth of stats.  They are purchased as a template:

 

Fountain of Youth, all slots 1 Continuing Charge lasting 1 Season (+1); all slots OAF Immobile (-2)

So they cost 55.  Significant cost in a 400 point game, but some of these counter the need to purchase, 

 

This is a complex build and Unified would also work (for a little less savings), but I like this build better as the character can be denied access to the Fountain. 

 

Comics are full of things like this - various treatments, the Lazarus Pit.   

 

This should allow highly skilled normals (or powered characters with no physical powers) to fight superhumans.  It is not designed for characters who already have super human resisitance and it would not work with them. 

 

A 4 rPD/4rED is enough to blunt the force of attacks while still making bullets and swords a concern.  The added CON, REC, STUN, & BODY helps the hero keep fighting and the Regeneration is plenty to fix them up between battles.  

 

Has anyone used something like this in a game?

[archer]

I've not used a location that gives a recurring bonus which the players have to travel to over and over. It tethers the players to one spot in the world. Or if it's extra-dimensional and they have easy access to it, they'll use it to avoid combat, random encounters, a work-around for only one person having Stealth as the stealthy person carries the portal by the guards as the rest of the party waits inside the pocket dimension, and all sorts of other potential abuses.  

 

It's just not something that I've cared to introduce into my games.

 

But I can see the appeal from a setting standpoint if the PC's are essentially agents of Prestor John, sort of like Charlie's Angels down through the centuries have been agents of the immortal and unseen Charlie.

 

I have however used the Fountain of Youth as a one-time use origin story for a Golden Age hero. He became immortal and was given a large amount of Luck and a few Luck-based powers (like Missile Deflection "It missed me by that much"). As the decades passed and he became an NPC, he gained a lot of skills, martial arts, fame, and fortune.

 

He also found out he was an avatar (chosen instrument) for one of the conceptual entities of his universe.

 

But he never had to revisit the small uncharted Pacific Island where he was shot down, drank from the pool which was the Fountain of Youth, and fortunately rescued in WWII.

 

He's not even sure at this point whether the island was an entirely real place since he never found it again and the charts and logs of the ship which rescued him are muddled and contradictory. 

[Tjack]

It’s a nice setup but you may end up finding the “every 90 days” part too constricting for long term “chase around the world” adventures.  Possibly renewing twice a year on the Solstice and Equinox or once a year on the anniversary may be easier to work around.   Just an idea.

    Good luck on the game.

[Hugh Neilson]

If they just bought the stats, it would cost 82 points, so this is effectively purchasing the stats with a -1/2 net limitation.  Will the need to return to this location once a season be sufficiently frequent and troublesome to be comparable to, say, OIF or a 14- Activation Roll?

[Duke Bushido]

I like Hugh's suggestion, personally, but if it is important to you that it be modeled as specifically getring power from this one place, the simplest build for that (not as simple as Hugh' s, and not as clean, and there is the added problem that the characters aren't paying for this, if that is indeed a problem for you) is to build your fountain.  Give it lots of aid and a heavily-pushed-down fade rate. You may have to hand wave the "fades all at once;" I am not terribly 6e-savvy.