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Write-up Search: Dresden-esque Techbane Aura


Black Rose

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This is one of my least-preferred threads to find -- the "I read this somewhere, but now I can't find it. Find it for meee!" request. My apologies.

 

I am 99.9% sure (though that is slowly shrinking) that I read in a HERO System book a short (maybe a column or so) discussion of a spell casters' aura interfering with technology. I might be wrong about this point, but I think there was an example of both a "pure Complication, can't twist it to your use" version and a "PITA, but can sometimes use it for your own benefit" version. I first found it looking for a good example of a gremlin to use for a summoning spell; I was surprised that the Bestiary doesn't have one.

 

I have also seen a thread here that used a 1-pt RKA Damage Shield, with a Suppress to... well, suppress the effect to a degree.

 

Can anyone help?

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5 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Well I had a thread about using Drain to break items and THAT got into a lot of disagreement. Mainly that even though you can break a item using Drain body per Raw, some try to say that the item would still recover (like a normal drain).

I dunno, that makes sense to me. I'd say that only unimportant things can be permanently broken using Drain, though.

 

This was actually in a book. Unless I've reached the point where I am dreaming so lucidly I can actually read it. I mean, I can actually see (in my head) the text in the right-hand column and everything.

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16 hours ago, Black Rose said:

I dunno, that makes sense to me. I'd say that only unimportant things can be permanently broken using Drain, though.

 

This was actually in a book. Unless I've reached the point where I am dreaming so lucidly I can actually read it. I mean, I can actually see (in my head) the text in the right-hand column and everything.

 

I remember a gadget-breaking power in one of the martial arts books.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 4/23/2018 at 5:26 PM, Black Rose said:

This is one of my least-preferred threads to find -- the "I read this somewhere, but now I can't find it. Find it for meee!" request. My apologies.

 

I am 99.9% sure (though that is slowly shrinking) that I read in a HERO System book a short (maybe a column or so) discussion of a spell casters' aura interfering with technology. I might be wrong about this point, but I think there was an example of both a "pure Complication, can't twist it to your use" version and a "PITA, but can sometimes use it for your own benefit" version. I first found it looking for a good example of a gremlin to use for a summoning spell; I was surprised that the Bestiary doesn't have one.

 

I have also seen a thread here that used a 1-pt RKA Damage Shield, with a Suppress to... well, suppress the effect to a degree.

 

Can anyone help?

You can find this discussed in Urban Fantasy Hero.

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21 hours ago, Steve said:

You can find this discussed in Urban Fantasy Hero.

Ah, finally found it under Physical Limitation. Very frustrating that it never came up anywhere else, especially considering the sheer number of Harry Dresden quotes in the book.

 

OTOH, the description suggests using, "Suppress, usually from 1-3d6 (similar to the amount of Unluck dice as outlined above), Damage Shield, Invisible Power Effects, Reduced Endurance, Persistent, Always On, Only Affects Technology (-1)." Since you gotta keep the END cost for Suppress now, that won't quite work. I suppose you could use Drain...

 

If you Drain an inanimate thing down to "nothing", and then the Drained points return, is it fine?

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There was a recent discussion here about Dispel & foci.

 

Some said that Dispel would destroy the focus. Some said it should only turn it off.  Drain has similar issues.

 

I believe that a Drain on BOD that does 2x the focus's BOD would destroy the focus. Anything less than that and the device recovers from it. How an inanimate object is meant to recover without outside help I don't know.

 

How about a fully invisible RKA with 0 range that only effects tech? Make it AVLD  with the DEF being dependent on how high tech the item is, with lower tech items get more DEF. This bypasses the recovery  problem. Also only a little BOD damage needs to get through to start making the device lose powers.

 

The question I have now is, is it a power the player should pay points for or is it a disadvantage that they should get points for?

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