Absorption as an Attack... Is it possible?

[frogboy7]

Hi, i'm still somewhat new to 6th and HERO in general, so if this sounds dumb please be gentle I'm creating a monster that heals by absorbing bodies (living or otherwise) into itself. What i cant seem to figure out is if the Absorption power can be used to simulate this effect. Please help!

[Steve Long]

Re: Absorption as an Attack... Is it possible?

 

Nope, you wouldn't do that with Absorption. I'll move your question to the Discussion board so other folx can chime in with their ideas.

 

Now, for my take specifically. How you define this in HERO System terms depends on exactly what the ability does. Does absorbing a living being kill that being? If so, I'd call that a Killing Attack, with a Linked ability that makes the monster grow bigger or tougher in proportion to each body he absorbs.

 

Does absorbing a living being trap that being inside the monster, so that other people have a chance to free him? If so, that's probably best defined as an Entangle (with various Limitations, perhaps including a limit on how many beings the monster can "store" inside itself).

 

In terms of absorbing unliving bodies, that you can simply define as adding to the monster's BODY (or whatever you think it should add to) with the Limitation Requires Dead Bodies (or the like). You buy an amount of BODY equal to the maximum extra BODY the monster can obtain this way, then apply that Limitation to it. You'd do the same for the BODY he gets from living beings, but as noted above that would probably also be Linked to an attack.

 

Hope that helps! I'm sure other posters will have further ideas.

[frogboy7]

Re: Absorption as an Attack... Is it possible?

 

Thank you for responding to what did turn out to be kind of an off question and for the cool ideas for me beasty By the way, Hero 6th rocks

[Steve Long]

Re: Absorption as an Attack... Is it possible?

 

Glad you're enjoying the books! Sounds like a pretty cool beasty, too.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Absorption as an Attack... Is it possible?

 

I might suggest a Body Transfer, or Heal (or Regeneration) linked to a Body Drain or Killing Attack. The 'absorbtion' is then just sfx.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Absorption as an Attack... Is it possible?

 

Well...heres my take.

 

Unless there is no Resurrection capability in your campaign, destroying "dead" bodies has the effect of preventing resurrection either via Regen or Healing so its not entirely "SFX" oriented to me.

 

To model this, my first attempt would start with Transfer Body to Body using the Healing option; such a Transfer can only restore the thing they are boosting to their starting value(s) but does not FADE - when applied to STUN and or BODY this works out to a "Heal" effect.

 

Now, some might make the argument that "dead" things no longer have positive BODY -- that's generally how they got dead in the first place -- but notionally you can keep going past the "dead" threshold. If a killing attack does gobs of "extra damage" beyond what is necessary to kill a target for instance.

 

Such an effect would also prevent or at least interfere with a Regenerator attempting to make a comeback.

 

So, Transfer seems good. However, Transfer has been removed from 6e in favor of a linked Drain / Aid combination. The only example I could find in the book is:

 

 

STUN Transfer:

Drain STUN 3d6 (30

Active Points); Unified

Power (-¼) (total cost:

24 points)

plus

Aid STUN

3d6, Trigger (when character

uses Drain, activating

Trigger takes no

time, Trigger immediately

automatically resets; +1)

(36 Active Points); Linked

(-½), Unified Power (-¼),

Only Aid Self (-1) (total

cost: 13 points). Total

cost: 37 points.

 

 

Modify this slightly to be vs BODY rather than STUN, apply "Only vs Dead or Dying Organic Beings; -1 1/2", adjust the effect levels to suit, and call it a day.

 

SFX wise, "absorbing" or otherwise consuming the bodies seems justified for this; I would say that if you Transferred another 10 BODY past dead from a corpse then that corpse is obliterated / absorbed for most targets. Large / grown characters I'd probably include the BODY added from their size as a modifier to that rule of thumb to represent their extra mass.

[Bodkins Odds]

Re: Absorption as an Attack... Is it possible?

 

I'd buy it as a killing attack with a linked Heal with an expendable OIF(Dead Body of Opportunity). I'm not sure how to make the dead body actually disappear though.

 

EDIT: Wait. Can you define a linked power so that it only goes of after the KA it's linked to has done it's damage?

[frogboy7]

Re: Absorption as an Attack... Is it possible?

 

Thanks for the great ideas all

After taking all y'alls help into consideration (and modifying the original idea) came up with this power suite:

 

Entangle 4d6/4 PD/4 ED, Reduced Endurance (Half END; +1/4), Concentration (0 DCV Throughout; -1), No Range, Unified Power (-1/4),

plus…

Drain BODY 3d6, Damage over Time (damage occurs every Round Entangle is maintained; +1), Reduced Endurance (Half END; +1/4), No Range (-1/2), Unified Power (-1/4)

plus...

Aid 3d6 (half to STR/half to BODY), Limited (only works on self; -1/4), Linked (-1/4), Unified Power (-1/4)

 

 

Now I'm not entirely sure if this is a valid combo. Could someone check my work so to speak?

Thanks again all