Vampirism questions

[Magog]

Just had a couple of questions on the Vampirism power.

Does the power activate in addition to normal damage for the attack or instead of it? If it's instead, what happens if you are over your opponent's defense, but not four points over?

If you have the Drain Ka advantage on it, that could make for a very lethal power could it not? You drain 1d6 points of Ka with a successful roll of 4 above your opponent's defense. With one rank in the power and a lucky roll, someone could conceivably take down an opponent with a Presence of three or lower in one hit, no matter how many body points they have.

Also, I was wondering if anyone had linked any limitations/advantages or any other story-deepening effects onto it to represent a vampiric hunger?

And lastly, could a successful Know How roll give you the ability to only drain so much Ka or attribute points instead of possibly killing your victim?

[Momo]

*Blinkablink*

Okay. I thought you were talking about REAL vampyrism.

Sorry I couldn't help you with this. Just sounded like something interesting to read at the time.

[Jerry D. Grayson]

1st lets have a look at the power. S written in the book the power is a bit misleading. It should read as follows. I’ve highlighted the addendums to the power…

Vampirism
Duration: Activated
Range: Point Blank
Base Damage Value: n/a
Managing Skill: varies, usually Brawl
Cost: 5 Per Rank
This ability allows the character to drain attribute pips or Body Points from his target. The character must choose one set of attributes to target, either physical (Reflexes, Coordination, Physique), mental (Knowledge, Perception, Presence), Wounds, or Body Points. For example, most Vampires drink blood, and thus lower Body Points, while Succubi might target the soul and so weaken mental attributes. The player must specify in what manner the character drains these attributes (biting a vein, hypnosis, and so) It should involve some sort of successful attack result (either physical or mental).

When the character wishes to employ Vampirism, he makes an attack on his target using the relevant skill. If the attack is successful the hero must beat the target in an opposed resistants roll. For every four points over the target’s resistant’s roll (usually a stamina or willpower roll), the character drains one pip per rank off each of the target’s relevant attributes, or three points per rank from the character’s Body Points, or one Wound for every two ranks (remember that there are three pips in each die).

If any of the targets attributes or Body Points go to zero (or the character reaches the Dead Wound level), the target dies. If the target survives, she regains one attribute point (to each attribute affected) every hour after the attack. Body Points return at the normal rate.
For each attribute pip the character drains, he may add one pip to any attribute in his chosen category. He would get one Body Point for each Body Point drained or one Wound for each Wound drained.Drained attributes and unused Body Points or Wounds disappear at a rate of one pip or point per hour.
A character may have multiple versions of it of this super power.
Special Enhancement:
You Drain Ka
+2 per rank
Your hero can drain the Ka reserves of any living creature instead of Body Points. She drains 1D points per rank of Ka. This version of the power cannot kill its target.


Just had a couple of questions on the Vampirism power.

Does the power activate in addition to normal damage for the attack or instead of it? If it's instead, what happens if you are over your opponent's defense, but not four points over?
You have to 1st attack the opponent (usually a brawling attack to “hit” him). Once this is done the target must make a stamina or willpower roll depending on what the vampirism is affecting. If the hero beat this roll then he drains the appropriate amount of points.


If you have the Drain Ka advantage on it, that could make for a very lethal power could it not? You drain 1d6 points of Ka with a successful roll of 4 above your opponent's defense. With one rank in the power and a lucky roll, someone could conceivably take down an opponent with a Presence of three or lower in one hit, no matter how many body points they have.
Unlikely since there is the stamina or willpower roll involved. I think the confusion comes from the part about attacking the opponent and being 4 over their roll. It should be 4 over the resistants roll. That’s my fault and I can only blame myself since I wrote the book :o



Also, I was wondering if anyone had linked any limitations/advantages or any other story-deepening effects onto it to represent a vampiric hunger?
This cold easily be done with a power limitation or the disadvantage Achilles’ heel (dietary need)



And lastly, could a successful Know How roll give you the ability to only drain so much Ka or attribute points instead of possibly killing your victim?
That sounds perfectly reasonable…. :)

[Magog]

Thanks Attis!

Hmm...the idea Aaron and I have is a negative-Ka-based Vampirism power that drains the Ka and the life force from an opponent. I'd rather it drained Ka than another attribute, but it needs to be able to kill for the power to work how we're seeing it (closest TV concept I can think of would be the Wraith from Stargate Atlantis). I'll talk to him and see if we want to further enhance it to kill someone if their Ka reaches zero.

This does bring up another question though.




Special Enhancement:
You Drain Ka
+2 per rank
Your hero can drain the Ka reserves of any living creature instead of Body Points. She drains 1D points per rank of Ka. This version of the power cannot kill its target.


You have to 1st attack the opponent (usually a brawling attack to “hit” him). Once this is done the target must make a stamina or willpower roll depending on what the vampirism is affecting. If the hero beat this roll then he drains the appropriate amount of points.


Unlikely since there is the stamina or willpower roll involved. I think the confusion comes from the part about attacking the opponent and being 4 over their roll. It should be 4 over the resistants roll. That’s my fault and I can only blame myself since I wrote the book :o

Okay, if you take the You Drain Ka advantage, and the amount you drain is based on your Ka attribute instead of the power's rank, and the resistance roll is based upon your brawl (or other managing skill), then what reason would a Ka Draining Vampire have to raise the power beyond 1D? Nothing appears to be based upon the power rank in Vampirism.

[Jerry D. Grayson]

If its your game you can make these powers do what ever you want. Thats the great thing about being the GM :)

[Magog]

Well Aaron is the GM, not I, but he is ALSO the one who had the idea for the power, so the fun part about being the PLAYER is that I get to leave it up to him. :D

I am curious about what a Vampirism power with the You Drain Ka advantage on it would give you if you had it at higher ranks though. I've reread it and can't see where anything is based upon the power's rank. Am I misreading something?

Oh and if I haven't said it enough lately, thanks for your help!

[Jerry D. Grayson]

Ok, here is a quick example of how it should work. Vampire man has the ability to drain body points as his vampire power. They roll initiative and Vampire Man goes 1st.

Vampire Man
REFLEX: 4D, brawl 5D, dodge 5D,
COORDINATION: 3D,
PHYSIQUE:2D, stamina 3D
KNOWLEDGE: 4D,
PERCEPTION: 2D,
PRESENCE: 2D, willpower 3D
POWERS:
Vapirism 4
KA Points: 4 Body Points: 25, Strength Dmg: 1D Funds: 4D

Police Officer Jones
REFLEX: 3D, brawl 5D, dodge 4D,
COORDINATION: 3D,
PHYSIQUE:3D, stamina 4D
KNOWLEDGE: 4D,
PERCEPTION: 2D,
PRESENCE: 2D, willpower 3D
POWERS:
None
KA Points: 4 Body Points: 19, Strength Dmg: 1D Funds: 4D

Round 1
Vampire wants to use his vampirism power on the cop. But he needs to make contact with the officer so he rolls a brawl attack. He rolls a 16 which is enough to hit the cop since the cop didn’t doge or anything.

Now that he has TOUCHED the officer he may now USE his Vampirism power. Vampire Man rolls his Vampirism power versus the Officer’s Stamina (since he is draining body points). Vampire man rolls 4 dice (his rank in the power) versus the Officer’s 4 dice in stamina.

Vampire Man rolls a total of 18 and the Officer got only a 12.

He beats the cops roll by 6

Now according to the rules his power would “suck” out 3 points of body per rank of the power. He has a rank of 4 in the power so he would suck out 12 points. He adds these body points to his own for the duration of the powers effect.
If he had beat the cops roll by 8 he would have sucked out 24 points!!!

The power only works upon contact. And that contact doesn’t figure into the amount of damage. Only the opposed resistance roll versus stamina or willpower affect how much damage is done. A person with only one rank of the power would do far less damage to his target.

Hopefully this clears up any confusion that the powers wording may have caused you.

[Jerry D. Grayson]

The power could be linked to another power such as Natural Weaponry (teeth, claws etc..) so that when the hero attacks with , lets say teeth, he also drains body points like a vampire.

When building GODSEND Agenda I wanted to be able to use the powers to emulate any type of genre I could think of. So with the system as presented you could play a fantasy game with vampires or dragons just as well as a super hero game. Its just a matter of modeling the powers with enhancements and limitations to get the proper effect or special effect from the powers as presented in the bo

[Magog]

Ahhh crud. I realize now where I was reading it wrong. :p

I was thinking "per rank of Ka" was talking about your own Ka ranks for some dumb reason, not the number of Ka points you drain per rank of the power.

Sorry about being a bonehead.... :(

But I do think I have a very good line on how the power works now. Thank you for that.