Toxin Immunity

[Smudge]

I'm trying to design a character who is basically a Sabertooth rip-off and I'm trying to model the toxin/disease immunity. Simple enough on the whole.

 

The problem is, I don't want the absolute immunity bestowed by LS - Toxin or Disease Immunity. I'd like it to be more of a resistance. i.e. it can be overloaded with huge doses of toxin and even with normal doses, the character gets a slight, temporary effect. After all, who'd want to be totally immune to all of the effects of alcohol?

 

Any ideas? Preferably costing less than the 10pts for absolute immunity!

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Smudge

[Tom McCarthy]

That's going to be tough to do cheaply.

 

Some toxins and diseases are RKAs and some are drains. If they were just drains, I'd say power defence (possibly ablative). If just RKAs, perhaps extra defence.

 

With both being possible, you need a really broad defence, and that's going to require GM approval. Probably something like a continuous uncontrolled healing aid of any characteristic reduced by poison or toxin, one at a time or all at once; regeneration of any characteristic reduced by poison or toxin; or 75% damage reduction plus power defence, only versus poisons and toxins. In each case, I see these as costing more than 10 points in the end.

 

The strangest one that might work is this. Buy the immunity as life support, then either limit the LS or take a disadvantage so the immunity is weakened. Either the LS only stops 75% of the effect for -1/4, or a 5 pt (or so) disadvantage that you take a 1/2D6 drain of any characteristic targeted by a poison or toxin but stopped by your immunities.

[Killer Shrike]

Take Immunity with 'Gradual Effect' or 'Extra Time' and handle as thier Immune System will fight off the effects of the toxin/poison but they do suffer from it initially.

 

This requires a little bit of GMs discretion to pro rate the effects of the toxin/poison as the Immunity kicks in by increments if using Gradual Effect (which is normally applied to attack powers), but is probably the closest thing to what you are trying for without some major hoop jumping. Major doses of poisons/toxins would hit them as hard as everyone else initially before thier Immune system can purge the poison/toxin.

 

IIRC something similar happened to Wolvie vs. The Brood; he was initially infected, but his mutant immune system purged the Brood spoor from his system. Of course, there are other power combinations that could be used to mimic that as well, but assuming the Bood spore was a biotoxin or a retrovirus of some sort, Immunity with Gradual Effect or Extra Time woul cover it.

 

 

 

Alternately, buy the Immunities as is; treat the 'feels some of the effects' as part of its Special Effect. In the final analysis, they are still Immune to the toxin/poison.

[Tech]

Which brings to mind something...

 

If a buy complete immunity to poison ala Life Support, and someone blasts the character with an EB with the special effect of poison, does it affect him? What about poison RKA, Drain, etc etc?

 

This question seems to mirror the Life Support vs Heat thread.

[Doug Limmer]

Originally posted by Tech

If a buy complete immunity to poison ala Life Support, and someone blasts the character with an EB with the special effect of poison, does it affect him? What about poison RKA, Drain, etc etc?

Technically, by the rules, this depends solely on how the attack was purchased. If I were the GM, I'd require all 'poison' special effect attacks to be bought as NND (defense is LS vs. poison) or with some limitation (doesn't affect target with LS vs. poison) or something like that. Without those, a 'poison' blast isn't affected by LS vs. poison at all. Unless, of course, the GM wishes otherwise.

[caris]

Originally posted by Tech

Which brings to mind something...

 

If a buy complete immunity to poison ala Life Support, and someone blasts the character with an EB with the special effect of poison, does it affect him? What about poison RKA, Drain, etc etc?

 

This question seems to mirror the Life Support vs Heat thread.

It depends on how the attack is defined/bought. If the power is bought in such a way that Life Support defends against it (e.g. NND not vs. LS:Immunity, toxins) than the LS will defend. Otherwise, strictly according to the rules life support provides no defense against attack powers.

 

Steve has suggested that GMs consider requiring all poison/diseases attacks built in games where the GM is allowing those immunities to be built with a limitation that they will not work against characters with the appropriate immunity.

 

Some GMs do house rule that life support can give some defense.

 

Edit: In other words: What Doug said.

[Smudge]

Originally posted by Killer Shrike

Take Immunity with 'Gradual Effect' or 'Extra Time' and handle as thier Immune System will fight off the effects of the toxin/poison but they do suffer from it initially.

 

This requires a little bit of GMs discretion to pro rate the effects of the toxin/poison as the Immunity kicks in by increments if using Gradual Effect (which is normally applied to attack powers), but is probably the closest thing to what you are trying for without some major hoop jumping. Major doses of poisons/toxins would hit them as hard as everyone else initially before thier Immune system can purge the poison/toxin.

 

This is pretty much the way I've been doing this. The character is in play with gradual effect (20 mins) on his LS Toxin Immunity and LS Disease Immunity, and luckily (other than copious amounts of alcohol consumed) it has never been put to the test. Unfortunately, there are several problems with this:

 

1) I'm a Poisons/Diseases nitpicker - a degree in Pharmacology does that to you. 20 minutes gradual effect means that he'll see pretty much the full effects of a fast-acting poison (e.g. tubocurarine) but will never even realise he's been poisoned by a slow-acting or cumulative toxin or been infected by a disease. There's not many diseases will kill you, or even show any symptoms, within 20 minutes of exposure. So it just doesn't feel right.

 

2) There's more than one GM running the campaign. We're running with a round-robin GMing system so there's roughly half-a-dozen GM's to interpret and okay this. It's one of the reasons I was looking for a more concrete way of modelling this power.

 

3) It may well become an issue at some point in the campaign as at least two other PC's and several NPC's have attacks defined as poisons or diseases (don't even ask!).

 

Originally posted by Killer Shrike

Alternately, buy the Immunities as is; treat the 'feels some of the effects' as part of its Special Effect. In the final analysis, they are still Immune to the toxin/poison.

 

Might just do this - buy off the limitations on the powers just to cut down on the potential hassle.

 

Thanks again.

 

Smudge

[Vondy]

For toxins:

 

What about just calling it regeneration?

 

Most poisons are gradual effect (in the bestiary at least) so regeneration will overcome the weak ones, and even if the powerful ones take them down, the regeneration will heal the damage done. If you tack on ressurection they're set.

 

If you want to totally ignore all but the really powerful ones why not buy 50% R DR with a -1 Lim (only versus poisons and diseases): 8 Points on top of the Regeneration (since I assume Sabertooth already has that)