Hey, that worked pretty good! Afterthought powers that worked well

[gmurie]

This is inspired by something someone posted in another discussion thread. I'm not sure how it got on the topic or where the original post was. But they'd talked about how they'd just tacked "Dispel any one fire one at a time." as an afterthought on a magical katana.

 

And how it ended up being REALLY useful. Apart from fire being a common SFX it let them extinguish normal fires and ended up being a crucial power to winning their group clear in scenarios on several occasions.

 

For me it was tacking HRRP along with +3 on all PER rolls for a flying brick called strike. I figured it as an RP thing; he could listen in on police broadcasts and be on the scene with his flight whenever he was needed. But is seems that lots and lots of gadgets, security systems, and enemy agent types use radios too. With is 15- PER rolls and the radio hearing he ended up getting a lot of tedious between battle stuff out of the way quickly. Totally worth the 19 points even back in the 100+150 days.

 

Any others?

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: Hey, that worked pretty good! Afterthought powers that worked well

 

My old character (Bolo) had a multipower of various lesser-used attacks: Running drain, relatively small explosion, etc. One of the slots was a short duration (2 phases, I think) force wall. When I bought it, I thought I was unlikely to use often, if at all, but hey, I had the points, so why not?

 

As I recall, that Force Wall got a lot of use in game, mainly protecting teammates from attacks to which they were vulnerable. I even used it once to make a ramp to save a falling NPC.

[gmurie]

Re: Hey, that worked pretty good! Afterthought powers that worked well

 

Force wall IS an amazing power! I never thought that a piddling little one would do much good, I'll have to give that another look. Like TK it looks unimpressive at first blush until you really look at it hard.

 

I wonder if anyone's ever had a small amount of TK (like 10 STR) work out that well? I bet it would.

[teh bunneh]

Re: Hey, that worked pretty good! Afterthought powers that worked well

 

I had a powered armor character with Images to Hearing. I got the idea off of an article I'd read in Popular Science (IIRC) that was about a conceptual speaker system that could beam concentrated sound waves at a solid object, and the music would sound like it was coming from that object. It was just a silly throw-away <5 point power, but one day it dawned on me that I could use it to distract villains. A bad guy would be kicking my @$$ and suddenly, my teammate's voice would sound directly behind him. He'd turn around, and WHAMMO!

 

That worked really well for a while until the villains started getting wise to it.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Hey, that worked pretty good! Afterthought powers that worked well

 

I wonder if anyone's ever had a small amount of TK (like 10 STR) work out that well? I bet it would.

 

With Fine Manipulation it worked great for me. When you're imprisoned you can grab useful objects like keys from a table, or push buttons on a telephone or computer. You can shut the ignition of a vehicle, or block the hammer of a hand gun so it won't fire. I once bought Sleight Of Hand specifically for my low-strength TK, letting me pick pockets and the like at range.

 

Also remember that TK is to all intents and purposes Indirect, so you could, for example, unbolt a window from the outside without breaking it. If you have some sort of barrier-penetrating Enhanced Sense you can manipulate things behind solid walls or inside containers.

[Guest steamteck]

Re: Hey, that worked pretty good! Afterthought powers that worked well

 

Force wall IS an amazing power! I never thought that a piddling little one would do much good, I'll have to give that another look. Like TK it looks unimpressive at first blush until you really look at it hard.

 

I wonder if anyone's ever had a small amount of TK (like 10 STR) work out that well? I bet it would.

 

 

My wife has a character that has a 6 STR TK with fine manipulation and an added sense to feel inside locks and stuff. its incredibly useful but she tends to forget about it and not use it as much as I would.

[hfergus]

Re: Hey, that worked pretty good! Afterthought powers that worked well

 

[

I wonder if anyone's ever had a small amount of TK (like 10 STR) work out that well? I bet it would.

I had a Character that had 10 str tk vs metal only (magnetism). Really useful for disarmong agents. (guns are normally metal) If the agent held on really tight, he could be lifted than dropped. Worked really well.

[gmurie]

Re: Hey, that worked pretty good! Afterthought powers that worked well

 

So...

 

Dispel Fire vs. any one fire (+1/4)

HRRP plus PER bonus with all sense groups

Small Force Wall

Small Magnetism TK crude (10STR)

Very small TK with Fine Manip and ranged on touch

Basic hearing group images

 

Is that all we got? I was hoping for a bigger list than this. It only to prove that Champion's players aren't always angling to get the most powerful build and that some GMs will reward people for taking non-ideal builds.

[poptoad]

Re: Hey, that worked pretty good! Afterthought powers that worked well

 

I had a big breakthrough when I realized how useful small powers could be if time wasn't a factor. For example:

 

7 Effortful Mental Powers

 

-1 1/2 takes 1 minute, -1/2 0 DCV, -1 x3 END usage, 30 active points

 

1u Burning eyesight

 

1 point RKA, +5 = + 2 1/2 variable advantage

 

1u Deep telepathy

 

1d6 Telepathy, +2 x4 penetrating, +1/2 cumulative, +1/2 invisible to mental senses, +2 = x1024 maximum effect

 

Given enough time to just sit there are stare, this character could accomplish amazing things, like burn through any material (+2 1/2 of advantages makes for a lot of piercing) or read any secret in any mind. Both would take a long time in combat terms, but not so long in real-word terms.

 

Of course, both of those abilities could be plot breakers. Maybe this is more an exercise in "How to make a mere 9 points totally unbalancing." Still, it was an interesting new (to me) possibility. If you're willing to take a "long time" in combat terms -- 5 minutes? 20 minutes? -- you can accomplish some amazing things with very few points.

[Bloodstone]

Re: Hey, that worked pretty good! Afterthought powers that worked well

 

Analyze for Normal Taste - combined with a high PER roll and a slew of Scientific/Medical skills... this ability was amazing and usually quite disturbing.

 

Heavy Metal: "Did.. did you just lick blood off the wall?

 

Chimera: "Yes, but that's not important right now! What IS important is that your sister was here and was wounded by a firearm. Small caliber, judging by the chemical traces. She also isn't your biological sister? You never told me that! Is she single? Oh... hmm... her hCG levels are very high. It's almost as if she were pregna.... oh my... well I guess that answers that question..."

[gmurie]

Re: Hey, that worked pretty good! Afterthought powers that worked well

 

Analyze for Normal Taste - combined with a high PER roll and a slew of Scientific/Medical skills... this ability was amazing and usually quite disturbing.

 

Heavy Metal: "Did.. did you just lick blood off the well?

 

Chimera: "Yes, but that's not important right now! What IS important is that your sister was here and was wounded by a firearm. Small caliber, judging by the chemical traces. She also isn't your biological sister? You never told me that! Is she single? Oh... hmm... her hCG levels are very high. It's almost as if she were pregna.... oh my... well I guess that answers that question..."

 

THAT is hilarious!

 

And no, I wasn't thinking of "how do I abuse X points" right from the outset. More like simple powers that were tossed in as an afterthought and turned out to work really well.

[csyphrett]

Re: Hey, that worked pretty good! Afterthought powers that worked well

 

The gravity axe spell my son picked out. He just selected it to fill out a slot. It's turned into a major stopper.

CES

[Drhoz]

Re: Hey, that worked pretty good! Afterthought powers that worked well

 

One of the very first spells I wrote up when translating Vitus from his AD&D origins into Sundog's Champions campaign was Affect Normal Fires. Simply a Change Environment, with lots of limitations.

 

And he's never had a chance to use it, until last session, when one player unwisely blasted apart two petrol tankers that were being dropped on us from a great height.

 

Blasted apart with a fire attack.

 

So we had several thousand gallons of flaming gasoline descending upon us at speed.

 

Cue Affect Normal Fires.

 

Sure, we were still wading knee-deep in a fuel-air bomb waiting to happen, but at least we weren't actually on fire, yet.