Old Gus' Daft DraftsAfter hearing a language spoken for a few minutes, you can speak it and make yourself understood. If you continue to use the language to interact with native speakers, your skills improve rapidly, to the point where you might be mistaken for a native speaker after just a few hours of speaking the new language.
Old Gus' Daft DraftsYou are trained in negative social interaction, including intimidation and coercion, but your demeanor and the grim appearance of your mouth hinders any pleasant social interaction you attempt.
It's Only MagicYou create quiet background music in a short area, loud enough to be heard in a room with normal conversation, but not so loud to be distracting or overwhelming.
The music repeats through up to ten songs you know, lasting up to an hour. In addition to the normal options for using Effort, you can use Effort to increase the duration; each level of Effort adds one hour to the play time and five songs to the playlist.
You are trained in balancing.
Your reputation draws a band of six level 2 desperado NPC followers who are completely devoted to you. You and the GM must work out the details of these followers. If a follower dies, you gain a new one after at least two weeks and proper recruitment.
You gain four level 3 followers. They are not restricted on their modifications.
This is a pummeling melee attack. Your attack inflicts 1 less point of damage than normal, but dazes your target for one round, during which time all tasks it performs are hindered.
You gain a level 2 follower. One of their modifications must be persuasion. You can take this ability multiple times, each time gaining another level 2 follower. When you use Basic Follower, the GM may require that you actually look for a suitable follower.
As long as you use your action each round giving orders or advice, attack and defense actions taken by your allies within short range are eased.
You scrutinize your surroundings, learning whatever facts the GM feels are pertinent about attacking, defending, maneuvering, and dealing with environmental hazards within a short distance. For example, you might notice a pile of rubble you can stand on for an advantage in melee, a sheltered corner to help protect against enemy attacks, a less-slippery part of a frozen lake, or a place where the poison gas is thinner than elsewhere. If you (or someone you tell) move to that location, you (or they) gain an asset on tasks related to that optimal position (such as attack rolls from the high ground, Speed defense rolls from the sheltered corner, balance rolls on the frozen lake, or Might defense rolls against the poisonous cloud). Instead of gaining an advantageous location, you might learn of a disadvantageous location that you could use against your enemies, such as maneuvering them into an awkward corner that hinders their melee attacks or a weak spot on the frozen lake that will break if they stand on it. You can apply Effort to learn one additional good or bad location within range (one location per level of Effort), increase the range of this ability (another short distance per level of Effort), or both.
You summon a horde of small animals or a single level 4 beast to help you temporarily. These creatures do your bidding for as long as you focus your attention, but you must use your action each turn to direct them. Creatures are native to the area and arrive under their own power, so if you're in an unreachable place, this ability won't work.
A level 2 creature of your size or smaller accompanies you and follows your instructions. You and the GM must work out the details of your creature, and you'll probably make rolls for it in combat or when it takes actions. The beast companion acts on your turn. As a level 2 creature, it has a target number of 6 and 6 health and it inflicts 2 points of damage. Its movement is based on its creature type (avian, swimmer, and so on). If your beast companion dies, you can hunt in the wild for 1d6 days to find a new one.
By linking to the creature from your Beast Companion ability, you can perceive through its senses if it is within 1 mile (1.5 km) of you. This effect lasts up to ten minutes.
Editor's Notes — Beast Eyes can be used to improve a familiar at tier 4.
Action to establish.
On five consecutive nights each month, you change into a monstrous beast for up to one hour each night. In this new form, you gain +8 to your Might Pool, +1 to your Might Edge, +2 to your Speed Pool, and +1 to your Speed Edge. While in beast form, you can't spend Intellect points for any reason other than to try to change to your normal form before the one-hour duration is over (a difficulty 2 task). In addition, you attack any and every living creature within short range. After you revert to your normal form, you take a -1 penalty to all rolls for one hour. If you did not kill and eat at least one substantial creature while in beast form, the penalty increases to -2 and affects all your rolls for the next 24 hours. Action to change back.
Neon RainYou hack a foe's brain implant, tricking them into hearing or seeing something they think they need to investigate. They might interpret this as someone calling their name, an ally waving for them to approach, or a text message asking them to move to a specific location. If your Intellect-based roll against the creature is successful, on their next turn they move up to a short distance to where you indicated, without thinking anything is amiss. The foe must be within short range and able to understand you. The command can't inflict direct harm on the creature or its allies, so you can't make them step off of a roof or into a trash compactor. Once the creature moves to the designated location, they are free to act normally (depending on the circumstances, they might think they imagined or misheard the call, that someone is playing a trick on them, or there is something suspicious going on). The foe can still defend themselves normally and return an attack if one is made on them.
Your decreased size makes it difficult to find you. While Shrink is active on you, all stealth tasks you attempt are eased.
You are trained in the lore of flesh-eating, nonhumanoid creatures— recognizing them, knowing their weaknesses, and knowing their habits and behaviors.
Any time you convince a foe that you are not a threat and then suddenly attack it (without provocation), the attack deals 4 additional points of damage.
You've developed drug cocktails specifically designed to work with your own biochemistry. Depending on which one you inject, it makes you smarter, faster, or tougher, but when it wears off, the crash is a doozy, so you use it only in desperate situations. You gain 2 to your Might Edge, Speed Edge, or Intellect Edge for one minute, after which you can't gain the benefit again for one hour. During this follow-up hour, every time you spend points from a Pool, increase the cost by 1.
If attacking from a hidden vantage, with surprise, or before an opponent has acted, you get an asset on the attack (if you have Surprise Attack, this is in addition to the asset from that ability). On a successful hit with this surprise attack, you inflict 2 additional points of damage (for a total of 4 additional points of damage if you have Surprise Attack).
When you use Enlarge, you can choose to grow up to 12 feet (4 m) in height, and you add 3 more temporary points to your Might Pool.
When you use Animal Shape, your animal form grows to about twice its normal size. Being so large, your beast form gains the following additional bonuses
+1 to Armor, +5 to your Might Pool, and you are trained in using your animal form’s natural attacks as heavy weapons (if you weren’t already). However, your Speed defense tasks are hindered. While bigger, you also gain an asset to tasks that are easier for a larger creature to perform, like climbing, intimidating, wading rivers, and so on.
When you use Beast Form, your beast form grows bigger than before, during which time you achieve a height of 12 feet (4 m). Being so large, your beast form gains the following additional bonuses: +1 to Armor, +5 to your Might Pool, and you are trained in using your fists as heavy weapons (if you weren't already). However, your Speed defense tasks are hindered. While bigger, you also gain an asset to tasks that are easier for a larger creature to perform, like climbing, intimidating, wading rivers, and so on.
Path of the PlanebreakerYou block dimensional travel by a target of level 3 or lower that is within short range. For the next hour, the target can't leave the dimension they were on when you used this ability on them; they can't use planar travel, teleportation, or a portal, whether the effect is created by the target or another source. In addition to the normal options for using Effort, you can choose to use Effort to increase the maximum level of the target. Thus, to bind a level 5 target (two levels above the normal limit), you must apply two levels of Effort.
You radiate a pulse of biomorphic energy up to a short distance away, but you tune it to disrupt life in an area an immediate distance across. All within the detonation take 5 points of damage that ignores Armor (unless it is Armor provided by a force field effect). If you apply additional Effort to increase the damage, you deal 2 additional points of damage per level of Effort (instead of 3 points); targets in the area take 1 point of damage even if you fail the attack roll.
You consciously send out a pulse of your biomorphic field (a strange energy your body generates) and focus it on a living creature within short range. The target gains a free and immediate one-action recovery roll. You can't use this ability again on that creature until after its next ten-hour rest.
Editor's Notes — It's unclear what the "+" in the point cost of Biomorphic Healing is in reference to. If the GM agrees, a PC can use a level of Effort to extend the range of the ability from short to long, to add an additional target, or to give the target +1 bonus to the recovery roll prompted by the ability.
It's Only MagicYou issue a disruptive ripple of energy within short range, creating an area where the electrical power grid fails. All devices relying on being plugged into the grid stop working.
Battery–powered devices still work. Any standby generator connected in this area functions normally, activating emergency power within a few rounds. The blackout otherwise lasts for one minute.
City-level power generators usually have redundancies that allow them to ignore a Blackout spell or overcome it within a couple of rounds.
You are trained in one of the following: deception, stealth, or disguise.
You emit a short-range blast of energy inflicting 4 damage on a target with a successful Intellect attack roll. Work with your GM to determine the type of energy comprising your blast (fire, cold, and so on).
If given a few rounds to concentrate, you can use the energy to slice through material of up to level 5 that’s no more than 1 foot (30 cm) thick. Each level of Effort you apply increases the level of the material you can cut through by 1.
The type of energy you release could be fire, in which case you might call this ability Blast of Fire. Alternatively, your focus might suggest the energy type. For instance, this ability could produce a ray of electricity—especially if your focus is Rides the Lightning—and be called Blast of Lightning.
Effort: Gain fine control over the effect, allowing you to vary the intensity as you wish within immediate range (for instance, you could use it to warm the area, cook food without burning it, provide bright light in the area, and so on); fine control lasts until you use a ten-minute or longer recovery.
Action for attacking; Last action to initiate fine control or cutting.
You can instantly transport yourself between two blaze symbols you've previously marked, as long as you use this ability while within immediate range of one of your symbols. In addition to the normal options for using Effort, you can choose to use Effort to bring other people within immediate range with you; each level of Effort used in this way affects up to three additional targets.
You gain an additional one-action recovery roll if you take it within long range of a blaze symbol you've made. Once you've used this ability, you can't use it again until after your next ten-hour recovery roll.
While Smoldering Gun is active, you inflict an additional 3 points of damage with your chosen weapon (+4 points of damage total). In addition to the normal options for using Effort, applying a level of Effort can cause the bullet to explode on impact, potentially dealing damage to all creatures in immediate range of your target; roll an attack for each separately. Even if you miss, you still deal 1 point of damage with fiery lead shrapnel.
When you blend in, creatures still see you, but they attach no importance to your presence for about a minute. While blending in, you are specialized in stealth and Speed defense tasks. This effect ends if you do something to reveal your presence or position—attacking, using an ability, moving a large object, and so on. If this occurs, you can regain the remaining period of effect by taking an action to focus on seeming innocuous and as if you belong.
Action to initiate or reinitiate.
Although people probably look upon a creature transforming into another creature as mystical lycanthropy, if the genre allows, the process might instead be accessing other dimensions of reality. A character either draws mass from an extradimensional space (perhaps somehow warping higher-dimensional mass into our lower dimensions) or switches places with a larger, more savage ultraterrestrial creature for a time. In this latter case, the character and the creature have a bond that allows them to share general intentions. The character, while shunted to another dimension, likely remains in stasis, unaware of anything until returning to the normal world.
As a servant of the gods, you can call up blessings in their name. This blessing depends on the god's general demeanor and area of influence. Choose two of the abilities described below.
Authority/Law/Peace (3 Intellect points). You prevent a foe that can hear and understand you from attacking anyone or anything for one round. Action.
Benevolence/Righteousness/Spirit (2+ Intellect points). One level 1 demon, spirit, or similar creature within short range is destroyed or banished. In addition to the normal options for using Effort, you can choose to use Effort to increase the maximum level of the target. Thus, to destroy or banish a level 5 target (four levels above the normal limit), you must apply four levels of Effort. Action.
Death/Darkness (2 Intellect points). A target you choose within short range withers, suffering 3 points of damage. Action.
Editor's Notes — In a cost comparison against Onslaught, Blessing of the Gods (Death) should probably ignore a target's Armor. s
Desire/Love/Health (3 Intellect points). With a touch, you restore 1d6 points to one stat Pool of any creature, including yourself. This ability is a difficulty 2 Intellect task. Each time you attempt to heal the same creature, the task is hindered by an additional step. The difficulty returns to 2 after that creature rests for ten hours. Action.
Earth/Stone. You are trained in climbing, stonecraft, and spelunking. Enabler.
Knowledge/Wisdom (3 Intellect points). Choose up to three creatures (potentially including yourself). For one minute, a particular type of task (but not an attack roll or defense roll) is eased for those creatures, but only while they remain within immediate range of you. Action.
Nature/Animals/Plants. You are trained in botany and handling natural animals. Enabler.
Protection/Silence (3 Intellect points). You create a quiet bubble of protection around you to an immediate radius for one minute. The bubble moves with you. All defense rolls for you and all creatures you designate within the bubble are eased, and no noise, regardless of its origin, sounds louder than a normal speaking voice. Action to initiate.
Sky/Air (2 Intellect points). A creature you touch is immune to airborne toxins or contaminants for ten minutes. Action.
Sun/Light/Fire (2 Intellect points). You cause one creature or object within short range to catch fire, inflicting 1 point of ambient damage each round until the fire is extinguished (requiring an action). Action.
Trickery/Greed/Commerce. You are trained in detecting the deceptions of other creatures. Enabler.
War (1 Intellect point). A target you choose within short range (potentially yourself) deals 2 additional points of damage with its next successful weapon attack. Action.
Water/Sea (2 Intellect points). A target you touch can breathe water for ten minutes. Action.
You deactivate the sensory apparatus of a machine, making it effectively blind until it can be repaired. You must either touch the target or strike it with a ranged attack (inflicting no damage).
If you have a source of light, you can use it to make a melee attack against a target. If successful, the attack deals no damage, but the target is blinded for one minute.
You move up to 1,000 feet (300 m) in one round.
You inflict 2 additional points of damage with unarmed attacks, or 3 points when you are one or more steps down the intoxication track.
You automatically block the next melee attack made against you within the next minute. Action to initiate.
If you use a light or medium weapon, you can block attacks made against an ally near you. Choose one creature within immediate range. You provide an asset to that creature's Speed defense tasks. You can't use Quick Block while using Block for Another.
When you have no points in one or two Pools, you gain an asset to attacks or defense rolls (your choice).
When you wish it, you can use points from your Might Pool rather than your Intellect Pool to activate a magical ability (including applying Effort to that ability). If you use your Might Pool this way, you use your Might Edge instead of your Intellect Edge.
If you take down a foe, you can move a short distance, but only if you move toward another foe. You don't need to spend the points until you know that the first foe is down.
You move so quickly that until your next turn, you look like a blur. While you are blurred, if you apply Effort to a melee attack task or Speed defense task, you get a free level of Effort on that task; you can move a short distance as part of another action or a long distance as your entire action.
You alter your facial and bodily features and coloration for one hour, hiding your identity or impersonating someone. If you apply a level of Effort, you can imitate a specific person accurately enough to fool someone who knows them well or has observed them closely (including fingerprints and voice prints, but not their retina print or DNA). You have an asset in all tasks involving disguise (this is in addition to the asset from Face Morph). You must apply a separate level of Effort to be able to impersonate a different species (such as a human morphing into a humanoid alien).
s
Claim the SkyYou give one of your visual illusions a limited physical reality that viewers can smell, taste, hear, and feel. This effect is bound to that illusion and acts appropriate to the illusion itself. For example, it can make the illusion of a brick wall feel like brick, the illusion of a person smell like perfume and able to open a door, and the illusion of a fireplace hot to the touch.
The physical reality provided to your illusion is a level 1 effect with 3 health. If the illusion is used to make attacks, it inflicts only 1 point of damage (whether this is regular damage like an illusory punch or kick, or ambient damage like a falling brick wall or a fireplace’s flames). You can increase the level of the created effect by applying levels of Effort to this ability, each level of Effort increasing the effect’s level by 1.
You can activate this ability as part of the action to create an illusion (using whatever ability it is that you use to create illusions, such as Minor Illusion), or use a separate action to apply it to one of your existing illusions. The effect ends if the illusion is destroyed, you let the illusion lapse, the effect’s health is reduced to 0, or ten minutes pass.
Depending on how your powers work, the effects of Bolster Illusion might be due to a shaped force field, conjured helpful spirit, cloud of tiny drones, and so on.
You can bear one additional app cypher (your cypher limit increases by one, but only if the extra cypher is an app cypher). When you advance to a tier where you can select Expert Cypher Use, Adroit Cypher Use, or Master Cypher Use, you can replace this ability with the cypher ability you qualify for.
Claim the SkyThe manifest cypher you activate with your next action functions as if it were 2 levels higher.
Claim the SkyAdd 3 to the functioning level of a manifest cypher that you activate with your next action, or change one aspect of its parameters (range, duration, area, etc.) by up to double or down to one tenth.
You can move a long distance from one location to another almost instantaneously, carried by a bolt of lightning. You must be able to see the new location, and there must be no intervening barriers.
You blast a fan of lightning out to short range in an arc that is approximately 50 feet (15 m) wide at the end. This discharge inflicts 4 points of damage. If you apply Effort to increase the damage rather than to ease the task, you deal 2 additional points of damage per level of Effort (instead of 3 points); targets in the area take 1 point of damage even if you fail the attack roll.
You make a melee attack that inflicts no damage. Instead, if the attack hits, make a second Might-based roll. If successful, a foe of level 3 or lower is knocked unconscious for one minute. For each level of Effort used, you can affect one higher level of foe, or you can extend the duration for an additional minute. If you use a whiskey bottle to make the attack, your attack is eased. If you have a similar sort of knockout ability from another source (such as your type), the attack is eased by an additional step.
Editor's Notes — Bottle KO is almost identical to the Knock Out ability.
When you use Throw Force Shield, instead of dissipating after one attack (whether it hits or misses), it will attack up to two additional targets within short range. Effort or other modifiers applied to the first attack affect all other targets as well. Whether you hit all, some, or none of your targets, the shield dissipates and then reforms in your grasp. (If you choose Bouncing Shield and have previously taken the Throw Force Shield ability, you have the option to exchange that ability for Healing Pulse.)
You have a magic ally bound to a physical object (perhaps a minor djinn bound to a lamp, a lesser demon bound to a coin, or a spirit bound to a mirror). The magic ally doesn't yet have the full power that one of its kind could possess when mature. Normally, the ally remains quiescent in its bound object. When you use an action to manifest it, it appears next to you as a creature that can converse with you. The creature has its own personality determined by the GM and is a level higher than its base level for one area of knowledge (such as local history). The GM determines whether the magic ally has a long-term goal of its own.
Each time the magic ally becomes physically manifest, it remains so for up to one hour. During that period, it accompanies you and follows your instructions. The magic ally must remain an immediate distance from you; if it moves farther away, it is yanked back into its object at the end of your following turn and cannot return until after your next ten-hour recovery roll. It doesn't attack creatures, but it can use its action to serve as an asset for any one attack you make on your turn. Otherwise, it can take actions on its own (though you'll likely roll for it).
If the creature is reduced to 0 health, it dissipates. It reforms in its object in 1d6+2 days.
If you lose the bound object, you retain a sense of the direction in which it lies.
Action to manifest the magic creature.
You use trickery, well-spoken lies, and mind-affecting chemicals (or other means, like magic or high technology) to make others temporarily do what you want them to do. You control the actions of another creature you touch. This effect lasts for one minute. The target must be level 3 or lower. You can allow it to act freely or override its control on a case-by-case basis as long as you can see it. In addition to the normal options for using Effort, you can choose to use Effort to increase the maximum level of the target or increase the duration by one minute. Thus, to control the mind of a level 6 target (three levels above the normal limit) or control a target for four minutes (three minutes above the normal duration), you must apply three levels of Effort. When the duration ends, the creature doesn't remember being controlled or anything it did while under your influence. Action to initiate.
You have an eye for group discipline and hierarchy, even among your foes. If a group of foes is gaining any kind of benefit from working together, you can attempt to disrupt that benefit by pointing out the weak spot in the enemy's line, formation, or swarm attack. This effect lasts for up to a minute or until all the affected foes spend a round assessing and resetting themselves to regain their normal advantage. Action to initiate.
You move up to a short distance and attack up to four different foes as a single action as long as they are all along your path. Any modifiers that apply to one attack apply to all the attacks you make. If you have another special ability that allows you to move and take an action, when you use Break the Ranks, you gain an asset to attacking these foes.
Using your clever words and knowledge of others, and given a couple of rounds of conversation to gain a few specific pieces of context regarding your target, you can utter a sentence designed to cause your target immediate psychological distress. If the target can hear and understand you, it suffers 6 points of Intellect damage (ignores Armor) and forgets the last day of its life, which might mean it forgets you and how it came to be where it currently is. In addition to the normal options for using Effort, you can choose to use Effort to attempt to break the mind of one additional target who can hear and understand you.
Action to initiate, Action to complete.
You are trained in tasks related to damaging objects with the goal of breaking, piercing, or demolishing them. It is a Might action to damage an object, and on a success, the object moves one step down the object damage track. If the Might roll exceeds the difficulty by two steps, the object instead moves two steps down the object damage track. If the Might roll exceeds the difficulty by four steps, the object moves three steps down the object damage track and is immediately destroyed. Brittle material reduces the effective level of the object, while hard material like wood or stone adds 1 to the effective level or 2 for very hard objects like those made of metal.
When they wish, a Cardsharp doesn't walk away from a game or bet having lost any money. They may not have any winnings, either (especially if they didn't use their Cardsharp abilities), but at least they're not out any money. The specific mechanism of how this happens varies by game and circumstance, but somehow, the invisible force associated with the Cardsharp tweaks the situation so the Cardsharp breaks even.
You deal 4 additional points of damage with all melee attacks until the end of the next round.
Choose one character standing next to you. That character becomes your buddy for ten minutes. You are trained in all tasks involving finding, healing, interacting with, and protecting your buddy. Also, while you stand next to your buddy, both of you have an asset on Speed defense tasks. You can have only one buddy at a time.
Action to initiate.
Biomechanical implants, a magical jewel fused to your forehead, or something just as wild now provides you with inherent weaponry. This allows you to fire a blast of energy up to long range that inflicts 5 points of damage. There is no cost for you to use this ability.
Every Spell Bullet you fire leaves a faint path of magic that you can see and follow. Choose the path of one Spell Bullet within long range that you fired in the past minute; you instantly teleport to any place you want along its path. Alternatively, you can use Spell Bullet to conjure a standard bullet, fire it at a target within gun range, and jaunt as part of the action of firing the bullet.
Action to teleport along an existing path or to fire a bullet and teleport along its path.
You send a beam of light at a creature within long range and then tighten the beam until it burns, inflicting 5 points of damage.
You can take two separate actions this round, as long as one of them is to hide or to move in a direction that is not toward a foe.
You get past a door, force field, or other barrier up to 3 feet (1 m) thick that is blocking your way. Depending on the barrier, this might involve finding a weak spot you can push through, pressing the right button by luck, just breaking through, or even weirder explanations like touching a thin place between dimensions or an unexpected interaction with your equipment. The difficulty of the task is the level of the barrier. This ability allows you alone to pass through, not anyone else, and the way through closes at the end of your turn (which might mean you're trapped on the far side). You have an asset in any attempts to get through it again. In addition to the normal options for using Effort, you can choose to use Effort to increase the maximum thickness of the barrier, each level adding 3 feet (1 m).