10-02-2019, 09:19 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Oct 2019
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A Very Slow Leech Aura
I'm having trouble stat-ing out an ability that needs to be cheap.
The situation is this: I'm playing a 175pt character (hereafter referred to as Xh) amongst a group of ethically grey, but ultimately righteous, heroes. Some god or other made Xh with the intent to follow a course of action that would result in a global chaotic catastrophe. Thus, he needs to play at being a hero, so he can live long enough to become the villain. He doesn't try to hide this, but he doesn't make it obvious, either. Rather, he openly proclaims his love of chaos and frequently performs actions that have no moral leaning, just that they cause excitement and ruckus, even if it means casting a drunkenness spell on an ally during diplomatic undertakings, or exposing the carefully planned heist of some local criminals, just prior to the operation. Xh recently made a deal with a demon that he pulled from the metaphorical fire. He gives the demon a ride on his soul and performs services for it, and the demon bestows significant power on him over time. A real basic familiarity contract in which the familiar is controlled exclusively by the GM and is subject to plot devices. It's prudent to Xh that the other characters don't know about this deal or the demon, so any benefit he gets must be easy to hide. To this end, I've devised an extremely subtle version of leech, but I don't know if it's exactly legal or CP-balanced. I've been roleplaying this character well, doing things like forgoing control rolls for disads like Trickster and Overconfidence, and giving up turns in combat to laugh at an ally that screwed up or the misfortunes of an enemy Xh Afflicted with a Curse, so I think the GM is providing some leniency. Given Xh's nature and likely fate, this is supposed to be a slightly munchkin-y character so some use of rule loopholes or mechanics exploitation is fine. The proposed leech works like so: Every whole hour spent within a 16yd radius (32yd diameter) of Xh's presence, Leech 3 has been considered to have been active on all valid targets ('allies' included) for the equivalent effect of 1 second. Normal resistance rolls apply by the end of that hour. This only saps FP and only bestows FP to Xh or his Specialized Energy Reserve(ER). This means that every 1 hour you spend in a reasonable distance to Xh, you will have lost 3 FP and Xh's FP or his ER will go up by 1 for each person affected. The idea is that the demon can't quickly pull energy from people without them noticing who the effect is coming from, so he has to drag it out of them slowly, in chunks. If they leave the AoE, the demon loses all progress on sapping their energy. Here's how I've built it: Leech (3HP/sec) (1 Second/Exposure Delay; Always On (effects are dangerous); Area Effect (16 yd); Aura; Granted by Familiar; Magical; Malediction (Receives -1/yd range); Melee Attack: Reach C; No Signature; Onset (Exposure Time) (Delay 1 hour); Steal FP (only drains FP)) [21] And the ER to go with it: Energy Reserve (Magical) (18) (Granted by Familiar; Special Recharge) [11] The problem is that I couldn't find anything in the books that specifically works like the bold/underlined limitation. I had to add that in manually and gave it a 0.2* cost modifier. Every limitation I could find didn't address the idea that this version of Leech only ticks once over an interval of time longer than a second. As far as I could tell, without it Leech would just tick for the first time after an hour of being in Xh's presence and would continue to tick every second thereafter which, while powerful and clever, is incredibly expensive. Is there a better way to stat this for around about the same price? If not, I'd like to hear your thoughts. Is this custom limitation fair? Is the ability too strong for its price? Last edited by DoctorJerk; 10-02-2019 at 09:48 PM. |
10-02-2019, 09:48 PM | #2 | |
Join Date: Mar 2016
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Re: A Very Slow Leech Aura
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10-02-2019, 10:01 PM | #3 | |
Join Date: Sep 2004
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Re: A Very Slow Leech Aura
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Once per hour sounds like "Recharge: Hourly" instead of a .2 multiplier. Instead of getting 3 levels, I'd use the One for One mod from powers and only do one level. Each FP drained is an ER healed. You can also save a few points if it only recharges the ER. Leech normally wouldn't allow you to drain multiple targets at once, but since the interval is so slow I'd probably just hand waive the rest especially if you consider it a trade off that targets must be in the area for a full hour for each FP drained. Upon further consideration, I'd probably forgo the whole Leech aspect. Most targets will recover fatigue faster than they are losing it from this attack. Just call it a special recharge on the ER pool that it recharges based on hanging out with groups of people. Last edited by naloth; 10-02-2019 at 10:05 PM. |
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10-02-2019, 10:09 PM | #4 |
Join Date: Feb 2016
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Re: A Very Slow Leech Aura
I do not believe that you can take Area Effect with Malediction, only Cone. Since Aura requires Melee Attack and Leech is not technically a Melee Attack, I believe that would likewise be illegal (honestly, Leech does not really need Aura, since it requires ongoing contact rather than touch).
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10-02-2019, 10:13 PM | #5 | |
Join Date: Oct 2019
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Re: A Very Slow Leech Aura
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10-02-2019, 10:24 PM | #6 | |
Join Date: Mar 2016
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10-02-2019, 10:24 PM | #7 | ||
Join Date: Oct 2019
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Re: A Very Slow Leech Aura
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10-02-2019, 10:32 PM | #8 |
Join Date: Oct 2019
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Re: A Very Slow Leech Aura
RAW, Takes Extra Time, just delays the time required to activate an ability, it doesn't space out the intervals of damage. It'd be for something like making a continuous laser beam attack require a slow build-up of energy before firing its 30 bu damage/sec
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10-02-2019, 10:40 PM | #9 | |
Join Date: Sep 2004
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Re: A Very Slow Leech Aura
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Recharge makes sense if your ability readies itself after a while. Takes Preparation makes sense if there's something you have to do to get it ready to be used again. |
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10-02-2019, 11:04 PM | #10 | |||
Join Date: Oct 2019
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Re: A Very Slow Leech Aura
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You're right, I forgot how quickly FP regenerates. I do want it to be harmful, though, even to the other players in the group. That's just part of the whole demon contract, callous, chaos-obsessed-manchild thing. Perhaps a missed sleep hazard would characterize this since they'd have to sleep to recover. Last edited by DoctorJerk; 10-02-2019 at 11:21 PM. |
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aura, leech |
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