Ok, the starting points for this power are:
Wizard's Constitution [-0]
Description: You are a wizard, or are like a wizard—incredibly long lived for a human, able to recover from injuries just a little better than the next guy.
Note: This ability is replaced by any Inhuman or better Recovery or Toughness ability, if any such abilities are taken. In terms of game effects, the uses of this ability are so minor that they’re really almost cosmetic; hence the zero cost.
Skills Affected: Endurance.
Effects:
Total Recovery. You’re able to recover from physical harm that would leave a normal person permanently damaged. You can recover totally from any consequence—excluding extreme physical ones—with no other excuse besides time; simply waiting long enough will eventually heal you completely. (Many wizards use this ability to avoid hospitals, where their tendency to disrupt technology can put others in serious danger.)
Long Life. As a side-effect of your improved ability to recover from injury, your lifespan is significantly extended. In game terms this will rarely have relevance, but it’s why the Senior Council of the White Council of wizards can talk at length about the events of the American Civil War (many of them were there) and several can go back even further than that.
Living Dead [–1]
Description: You’re dead, but you keep walking around. It’s kind of gross.
Musts: You’ve got to be dead.
Effects:
Corpse Body. Your body is a corpse. This means that you cannot recover from consequences with time, because your body does not regenerate. Any physical consequences you suffer are permanent until you take some kind of effort to remove them (know any good taxidermists?) or seek supernatural assistance to reconstruct your body.
Death is a Nuisance. Unless wholly destroyed or killed by special means, you’re already dead, and that doesn’t seem to have fazed you much. No “death” result is ever permanent unless special means are used (usually as determined by your creature type).
Dude! You’re Dead! And that’s pretty scary to a lot of people. When dealing with folks unaccustomed to the walking dead (and that’s most “regular” people), gain a +1 on Intimidation. The downside? Take a –1 penalty on nearly every other social skill (except Deceit). For every level of physical consequence you’ve sustained, increase the penalty/bonus by –1/+1. That said, the effect is short-lived with any one target—as they become accustomed to a reality where the dead walk, they eventually become inured to it as an additional reason to be terrified.
I suggest splitting the proposed new power into two parts. In other words,
Unaging [-0]
Description: You are practically immortal. Although you may still die by violence, you do not age past your prime and can eventually recover from almost any injury that does not kill you.
Note: This ability is replaced by any Inhuman or better Recovery or Toughness ability, if any such abilities are taken. In terms of game effects, the uses of this ability are so minor that they’re really almost cosmetic; hence the zero cost.
Skills Affected: Endurance.
Effects:
Total Recovery. You’re able to recover from physical harm that would leave a normal person permanently damaged. You can recover totally from any consequence—excluding extreme physical ones—with no other excuse besides time; simply waiting long enough will eventually heal you completely. (Many wizards use this ability to avoid hospitals, where their tendency to disrupt technology can put others in serious danger.)
Long Life. As a side-effect of your improved ability to recover from injury, your lifespan is practically unlimited. In game terms this will rarely have relevance, but you could easily have witnessed the events of the American Civil War, the fall of the Roman Empire, or Alexander's conquest of the Persian Empire.
Despite being 'more powerful' than Wizard's Constitution, the improvements are really little more than flavor text. Despite the character's potential lengthy life, the character's capabilities are still limited by skills on the character sheet. For example, the character's memories of ancient events will still be governed by Scholarship, with failed rolls possibly indicating that events were forgotten over the centuries, even if the character was there to see the events unfold.
The second part of the power is an upgraded version of Living Dead:
Undying [-?]
Description: As opposed to the living dead who stubbornly continue to walk around as their dead bodies rot, your body refuses to die.
Musts: You must have a Recovery power, including Wizard's Constitution, Unaging, or Inhuman Recovery (or better).
Effects:
That which does not kill me ... well, does not kill me. Unless wholly destroyed or killed by special means, you remain alive. Wounds stop bleeding on their own accord regardless of severity, organs continue functioning despite damage. You never suffer a “death” result unless special means are used. The GM determines what special means are sufficient to kill you, which will generally include total destruction of your body, removal of your head, cranial evacuation, etc.
Note that this power does not assist in recovery in any way. If your arm is hacked off, you will not bleed to death, but you will still suffer the Consequence(s) inflicted, and your arm will not 'grow back'.
The second power is a wildcard. It is like Living Dead, but clearly more powerful in that (1) you generally don't suffer even the nuissance of death (this is largely narrative in nature), (2) it allows normal recover and/or Recovery powers to work (which Living Dead does not), and (3) carries no penalties to social skills. Of these, the first is minor, and potentially carries both advantages and disadvantages (ie, if the guy who 'killed' you checks, he'll notice that you're still breathing and your heart is still beating). The other two are more significant, and it's hard justify charging less that two refresh for them. For example, difference between the 'normal' recovery of Wizards and the faster recovery of those with Inhuman Recovery is two refresh, then it seems reasonable that the difference between 'no recovery at all' and 'normal recover' is at least one refresh or more. Likewise, have a net penalty to five social skills can't possibly be a one refresh effect.
So at the very minimum, I see this as a [-3] power -- the original [-1] of Living Dead, plus at least one for each of the two improvements.
