Help creating life-draining touch ability?

[Talonos]

One of my players would like to have a specific sort of life-draining touch for his character, and I'm having a hard time trying to model it. Perhaps I could have some help?

He wants to be able to touch people and drain their life force (likely an innate attack dealing toxic damage.) He could then use the life he drained to heal others. (Healing advantage?) He wants to have a pool of energy that carries over, where every time he drains life, it is added to the pool, to a max of some number. When he heals, he subtracts from that pool. As GM, I also want to say he can only heal people of the same race he drained life from. (No going to the pet store and draining puppies to refill his pool.) He cannot heal people using FP, but he can drain his own life using his innate attack and heal people with it.

How would this best be represented?

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Talonos

One of my players would like to have a specific sort of life-draining touch for his character, and I'm having a hard time trying to model it. Perhaps I could have some help?

He wants to be able to touch people and drain their life force (likely an innate attack dealing toxic damage.) He could then use the life he drained to heal others. (Healing advantage?) He wants to have a pool of energy that carries over, where every time he drains life, it is added to the pool, to a max of some number. When he heals, he subtracts from that pool. As GM, I also want to say he can only heal people of the same race he drained life from. (No going to the pet store and draining puppies to refill his pool.) He cannot heal people using FP, but he can drain his own life using his innate attack and heal people with it.

How would this best be represented?

Leech + Energy Reserve + Healing

Edit: More specifically

Leech 1 (Accelerated Healing, +25%; Heals ER, +30%) [38.75 + 6.22/level]

Healing (Only FP from Energy Reserve, -5%) [29]

Energy Reserve (Special Recharge, Leech, -70%; Only to power Healing ability, -20%) [0.6/level]

I would figure a ER of 4 would do it bring the ability set up to a nice even 70 points

As for the one race only, that would cause extra bookkeeping on your part (no you have 3 FP you drained from a bird-monster so only bird monsters can be healed, so your fellow PC dies). If your serious about it though I would use a accessibility modifier of about -30%. The later would be just flavor text, he's absorbing his own HP to fuel his ER, 0-point feature at best.


Ghostdancer

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

As for the one race only, that would cause extra bookkeeping on your part (no you have 3 FP you drained from a bird-monster so only bird monsters can be healed, so your fellow PC dies). If your serious about it though I would use a accessibility modifier of about -30%. The later would be just flavor text, he's absorbing his own HP to fuel his ER, 0-point feature at best.

A simpler solution is, as a feature, have physiology modifiers apply to the Healing roll. Also limit the Leech to Sapients only (probably -10%-ish).

[NineDaysDead]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

A simpler solution is, as a feature, have physiology modifiers apply to the Healing roll. Also limit the Leech to Sapients only (probably -10%-ish).

Much more than -10%, as written, you can drain life from plants, which avoids lots of moral issues and trouble. Taking that away is significant!

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by NineDaysDead

Much more than -10%, as written, you can drain life from plants, which avoids lots of moral issues and trouble. Taking that away is significant!

Except that most foes are sapient, more than 50%, and abilities are basically priced for most likely adventuring use. If this was "Only on Women" that would be -20% and be vastly more limited.

[NineDaysDead]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Except that most foes are sapient,

Who said you are only going to drain your foes? Remember default Leech also functions as Regeneration: Very Fastish (anywhere there are plants), losing that is significant!

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by NineDaysDead

Much more than -10%, as written, you can drain life from plants, which avoids lots of moral issues and trouble. Taking that away is significant!

Is there a link to a ruling which made this explicitly legal? It seems overpowering to me, and the rules example, Leech(Mechanical), suggests that plants should be another such variant.

[zorg]

Originally Posted by Not another shrubbery

Is there a link to a ruling which made this explicitly legal? It seems overpowering to me, and the rules example, Leech(Mechanical), suggests that plants should be another such variant.

Unmodified Leech works on "living beings". Machines aren't living beings, so you need to take a variant Leech. Plants are living beings, so you can drain them with the unmodded ability.