Traits you buy just for the Coolness Factor / Pure Awesomeness

[vicky_molokh]

Greetings, all!

Inspired vaguely by the 4½ spec thread. What traits did you, or other players you know, buy just for the coolness, as opposed to practical consideration? Primarily GURPS examples, though it doesn't hurt to throw in the occasional case from another system. Here are some of mine:

• An aerospace fleet as a Patron just to be able to call in an airstrike exactly once (it made sense in context).
• Move! and Instant Improvised Morph in order to make a warrior-priest whose method of sacrificing enemies is by providing a flashy fight as a show to its deity. (Ended up mostly acting as support with Bindings and stuff, alas.)
• (Equipment.) A glove granting the Stretching (Force Extension, one arm) trait, in order to mimic the Sword-and-Armoured-Gauntlet style from the 7th Sea. This was a space operah game with force swords and stuff.
• If I even get to play in a low-Powers fantasy game: Strikers (Limbs, Arms) for a monk of some sort.
• Manul once bought the ability to summon Cue balls for his character, mostly as a projectile for Innate Attacks. He also fought with a cue 'staff'. The game was anything-goes 300ish points.
• My ex once considered letting her character learn a modified version of the Bodice Cutting Technique. Seems like it was worthy of a rules discussion.

So . . . what are your stories?
Thanks in advance!

[Figleaf23]

I've bought a lot of Sig Gear over the years that wound up being pure eye-candy when the campaign played out.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Greetings, all!

Inspired vaguely by the 4½ spec thread. What traits did you, or other players you know, buy just for the coolness, as opposed to practical consideration? !

Well, if we were to consider impractical traits I think the winner in my experience is Secret:4 Arms.

I once gave a pregen for a player who couldn't make the chargen session Delusion;I'm Not as Dumb as I Look.

I could list Perk:Always Has String but that turned out to be practical.

[sir_pudding]

Referencing the source, I've found Dodge and it's chain to be extremely useful in D&D 3.x/Pathfinder. I'm not sure what ErhamDJ is even on about. I'm playing a Gunslinger in Pathfinder now with Leaping Shot Deed and it's ridiculous cool.

[gilbertocarlos]

I have a player that EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER have handsome and sex-appeal, just to be sure his character is good with the ladies. Even if it is a fighter, an assassin or a sniper that never talks to no one.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Referencing the source, I've found Dodge and it's chain to be extremely useful in D&D 3.x/Pathfinder. I'm not sure what ErhamDJ is even on about. I'm playing a Gunslinger in Pathfinder now with Leaping Shot Deed and it's ridiculous cool.

Uh, Dodge, in 3.5? +1 AC against one opponent at a time? As a prerequisite, it leads to some potentially interesting things, but on its own it's not much of a feat.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Uh, Dodge, in 3.5? +1 AC against one opponent at a time?

In Pathfinder it's +1 all the time, and Dodge bonuses stack.

As a prerequisite, it leads to some potentially interesting things, but on its own it's not much of a feat.

Yeah, but ErhamDJ was complaining that nothing on the chain was useful, which IME isn't true. Mobility alone generally lets you ignore AoOs without messing around with Tumble/Acrobatics checks.

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by gilbertocarlos

I have a player that EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER have handsome and sex-appeal, just to be sure his character is good with the ladies. Even if it is a fighter, an assassin or a sniper that never talks to no one.

"If there's any girls there, I want to DO them!" -The Dead Alewives

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by gilbertocarlos

I have a player that EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER have handsome and sex-appeal, just to be sure his character is good with the ladies. Even if it is a fighter, an assassin or a sniper that never talks to no one.

Oh, many (but not all) of my characters have those traits (though I don't think I ever took more than Attractive in GURPS). But those traits usually just lay there, because romance turns out to not be considered an appreciated part of the campaign (there were some notable exceptions, but I still think romance is out of place in most campaigns I've personally took part of).

[ErhnamDJ]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Yeah, but ErhamDJ was complaining that nothing on the chain was useful, which IME isn't true. Mobility alone generally lets you ignore AoOs without messing around with Tumble/Acrobatics checks.

The biggest issues we had with it were:

1) It wasn't worth the opportunity cost. There was always something so much more powerful as to make it a laughable choice. Unfortunately, new players did not know this. A +1 situational bonus just was not that useful. If your declared dodge target attacked you, it would only matter if your armor class happened to fall into that small range where they didn't always either hit your or miss you. And the monsters in our games were ruthless. The casters' AC was too low for it to matter, and the cleric wasn't going to go with the 13 Dex needed to get the feat. And +1 AC to a wizard is negligible. What percentage of the time was it going to stop an attack aimed at you? Not very often. It was always more useful to take a feat that helped with your main shtick.

2) New players had trouble keeping up with the game since they were new, and often forget to declare who they were dodging.


It also didn't help that its main use was as a prerequisite. That meant you could go months before getting what you had really wanted. The other problem was that by the time anyone could get Spring Attack--which always looked so much more useful to new players than it really was--the casters were dominating and the only way to keep up with them was to take a full attack as often as possible.