[Basic] Advantage of the Week: Blessed, Heroic Feats, Very Blessed

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

Actually, I forgot about the Moral Power Modifier - it's so rarely used in my campaigns. That would count as well.

It applies for Holy vs. Unholy in DF. That's why Resistant to Evil (or Good) Supernatural Powers are included in the various Holy (or Unholy) Abilities lists.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

It applies for Holy vs. Unholy in DF. That's why Resistant to Evil (or Good) Supernatural Powers are included in the various Holy (or Unholy) Abilities lists.

Which are powers with the Moral Power Modifier...

[Otaku]

The character would have been in 3e, so whatever 4e Advantage you might think it was, it probably was some far-too-discounted version of Invulnerability. By this point I am pretty sure I already had True Faith, and while I was thinking it might have been an Invulnerability to a sub-division of the Necromancy College, that still would at best take the price down to 50 points for Invulnerability (which was a "thing" you could get in 3e). Pretty sure I only paid 25 points.

Considering this was an 'after the fact' purchase, with me failing a Dodge roll, the GM making some rolls and getting a bad look on his face, then asking me if I had X points left (as stated, I think he said 25 - I can't imagine having had 50 saved up but I could be wrong) and all but stating "I am offering you the chance to buy this Advantage and if you turn it down your character is gonna die."

Thrilled to find out there are some non-system busting options in 4e, though. It certainly seems like something appropriate for a "Blessed" character (well, depending upon where the Blessing is from.).

[T.K.]

We have 2 chars in our current fantasy campaign that has these:

One of them is an Inquisitor of the God of Justice in the setting, possessing both Very Blessed and Heroic Feat: ST; He's part of the rigid church of the god, been trained since childhood in it's ways, following it's codes, morals and duties;

The other is a loosely related follower of the God of Seas, possessing Heroic Feats: DX; He doesn't dwell in the church dealings and has no position or whatsoever. His own belief is what led him to acquire the connection to the deity.

We've been playing this for about a year by now and so far, Blessed and Very Blessed has been more like RP oriented, working much like a type of divination and only mildly relevant most of the time.

Our GM leaves much to be discovered and is always extremely hazy to what guidance it comes from the Blessed/Very Blessing communions.

On the other side, Heroic Feats has been crucial and very relevant in all our important combats. The benefit is extremely noticeable and useful.

Only thing is our GM deemed that would be kinda OP to allow ST and DX to give the same buff, since DX costs so much more, so after many debating (considering versions where the buff would give 1D-3, 1D-2, flat 2 and so on...) he decided that the DX version gives 1D-1, min 1.

The player wasn't that happy with the nerf but still decided to go for it.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

No, it should work against supernatural abilities of a morally opposed power even if the attacker is wholly mundane.

I'm not getting what you mean. If the attacker is wholly mundane, how can it have supernatural abilities?

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I've devised at least two new variants: Harmony with the Tao in Chinese Elemental Powers (5 points, lets you learn peaceful cinematic skills) and The King's Two Bodies in Fantasy (IIRC, 10 points; creates a magical attunement between the health of the king's body and the health of the realm).

I came up with about half a dozen new versions of Blessed, that I posted here in this forum, many years ago. I don't remember the specifics, but as I recall I tried to make them all be 10 pointers so that they could trivially be "slotted into" templates, e.g. a Cleric Template might have under Advantages "Take 2 or 3 instances of Blessed [10 each]".

One may have been Extra Fatigue, Usable Only For Extra Effort In Combat. Long been a favourite idea of mine, with built-in recharge so that it's automatically full again next time you get into a fight, to reduce book keeping.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Not another shrubbery

I'm not getting what you mean. If the attacker is wholly mundane, how can it have supernatural abilities?

Maybe he meant to write "if the attacke is a mortal being"? In many fantasy settings, mortal beings can wield supernatural abilities, even though they as mortals beings are distinct from supernatural beings.

[Mailanka]

I use these often, but I don't actually like them. They're highly specific, almost spell-like, in their use, and not very generic. Like heroic feats gives you a buff to ST for a bit, a random amount for a short time at a cost of some fatigue (IDHMBWM, so I'm doing this from memory). But I could construct all of that with standard, existing advantages. The same is true of the "get guidance" Blessed, which is awfully similar to Precognition or Oracle. Why do we need three different versions of "Get guidance" all with their own specific rules? Why not have a general "Get guidance" advantage which we can customize?

The Blessed set seems like an old 3e legacy version of Divine Powers. Divine Powers is, in almost all respects, superior to Blessed.

[Varyon]

Pyramid #3/61 hijacks the Blessed Advantage to create Wizard-Hunter, which makes your weapons (or fists/feet, for Martial Artists) function as though they were made of meteoric iron. It's built as Blessed (Anti-Magic Weapon) [15]. Presumably, Inner Alchemy from the same article is a Perk version of this, making your unarmed attacks function ("for the sole purpose of exploiting monster weaknesses") as though they were holy, magic, fire, or silver, depending on which Perk you grab. It suggests that the GM create his own as appropriate - I could see something like Fist of Mars (iron), Midas Strike (gold), Frozen Fist (cold/ice), Lot's Remorse (salt), or Inner Demon (unholy).

[Otaku]

Weird question but besides the fact that it doesn't lend itself to more "action" style game play (and thus "Heroic Feats" doesn't sound apt to describe it), and the fact that DX already costs twice as much as ST or HT, is there a reason why you can't get an IQ boost?

To clarify; as we are dealing with something fantastic and supernatural that already is willing to give guidance, is there a specific game balance or flavor reason why a source for which brief moments of intellectual enlightenment aren't allowed? It seems to fit certain accounts of such things; someone struggles and struggles to session they roll well for both (the hypothetical) Heroic Feats (IQ) and then whatever relevant Skill one is rolling against for a concept or idea. Even though they only understand such a thing for three to 18 seconds, that actually fits. If it is something that just needs that much time, they get it. If it takes longer, they get a vital clue as for a split second they understand, then lose it again... but that brief window where they could see the idea, the concept, is like getting a glance at the completed image of a jigsaw puzzle.