Capt. Jack Harkness

[GoldenH]

Just posting that Captain Jack has now officially appeared in my campaign (Well, John Barrowman has, no Who crossover just yet)

[paul_Harkonen]

if you wanted to you could also create your own "Deathproof (TM, not my property)" power as well.  You could base it off a combination of the physical immunity and recovery powers, but construct it such that it only triggers on death.  This would allow you to better emulate Jack's near instantaneous recoveries from most normal deaths without paying huge amounts of refresh for superhuman or better recovery in addition to the physical immunity.

I think something like -4 or -5 for a power that allows you to recover consequences rapidly when taken out and killed (but only in those circumstances) would work pretty well.

[Wordmaker]

I'd be very wary of suggesting that the recovery powers grant a character the ability to return from death. Plenty of powerful characters have Inhuman Recovery or higher, and the only instance we've seen anything close to someone coming back from the dead was in White Night, when

(click to show/hide)

Cowl showed up, despite apparently having been killed by the failed Darkhallow in Dead Beat,

though he could just be tough enough to have survived...

None of the Recovery powers allow a character to recover from an extreme consequence any better than a regular mortal, and it is mentioned that death could be viewed as an extreme consequence.

I'd imagine the reason that it states that ghouls can be taken down by extreme physical trauma is provide an example of the kind of mundane damage that might not be healed by their powers. It's also possible the writers were trying to make a clear distinction between ghouls and uber-ghouls, which are pretty much unkillable.

To make a PC that couldn't die, I'd consider making a unique power that was an alteration to the Living Dead power, like this:

Unkillable [-3]
Unless utterly destroyed or killed by special means, you will eventually recover from any fatal wound. No "death" result is ever permanent unless special means are used (as determined by your creature type).

Granted, this just makes you immune to death. You would still have to buy other recovery powers or wait to recover from injuries at the same rate as a mortal.

[Jeckel]

I'd be very wary of suggesting that the recovery powers grant a character the ability to return from death...

I could not agree more. At best and with a very generous GM death is an extreme concequence and recovery powers healing death would be a bad president to set.

To make a PC that couldn't die, I'd consider making a unique power that was an alteration to the Living Dead power, like this:

Unkillable [-3]
Unless utterly destroyed or killed by special means, you will eventually recover from any fatal wound. No "death" result is ever permanent unless special means are used (as determined by your creature type).

Granted, this just makes you immune to death. You would still have to buy other recovery powers or wait to recover from injuries at the same rate as a mortal.

Hmm, that's not a bad idea. Let me work on it and I'll post something here in a few days.

[Deadmanwalking]

Um...how is that different from Physical Immunity: Death Only? They cost just about the same and the Physical Immunity solution has already been discussed here extensively.

[Wordmaker]

Well strictly speaking, taking Physical Immunity only prevents you from taking physical Stress and Consequences. Since "Death" isn't a form of attack, but the possible result of an attack, I would interpret this as meaning that you wouldn't take Stress from an attack that was going to kill you.

So either you're changing what the power actually does in order to allow you to take Stress and Consequences, or else any attack that would kill you simply does no Stress at all. Since it's up to the player whether to take Consequences in order to avoid being Taken Out, such a character could go through a whole fight aganst a largely superior opponent suffering absolutely no ill-effects.

Now, I'm guessing that what's intended is that with a base power, the character can still suffer Stress and be Taken Out, but just not die. So that means changing what Physical Immunity does.

With that in mind, why not simply amend an existing power that literally does exactly what seems to be the desired effect, costs less, and involves less juggling of refresh modifiers?

[Jeckel]

Um...how is that different from Physical Immunity: Death Only? They cost just about the same and the Physical Immunity solution has already been discussed here extensively.

I'm not sold on a custom power, but I do have some ideas. I will say that the new power can't just have the "doesn't ever die no matter what" effect. If it does get included, then the power will be used to clearly layout other effects of being an Undying in addition to the not dieing part.

Well strictly speaking, taking Physical Immunity only prevents you from taking physical Stress and Consequences. Since "Death" isn't a form of attack, but the possible result of an attack, I would interpret this as meaning that you wouldn't take Stress from an attack that was going to kill you.

Hmm, I've sat here thinking about what you said and re-reading the Physical Immunity text several times. The line in question is, "You take no stress and no consequences from physical attacks and other harms, unless someone satisfies your Catch."

I'm thinking that since death isn't a form of attack it isn't dealing the stress. When the attack is made and stress is dealt, the result of death hasn't happened yet so the attack satisfies the catch and stress is applied normally. If that applied stress leads to the Undying being Taken Out, then the Immunity kicks in and Death is not allowed as part of the victory conditions.

With that in mind, why not simply amend an existing power that literally does exactly what seems to be the desired effect, costs less, and involves less juggling of refresh modifiers?

I'm not against amending small pieces of canon powers, as that is what I did to remove the sleep thing from the Immortal Template's Recovery powers. However, I don't know half the powers, so if you could suggest another power that could be easily amended, suggestions are always awesome.

[KOFFEYKID]

i've been intrigued with an idea like this for a while, because I loved the Lucas Villalobos character from the Dante Valentine series. Here is a quote talking about Lucas Villalobos

Besides, Lucas's reputation would suffer if one of his clients got hashed at the breakfast table with him. I was pretty sure he cared about his reputation, if nothing else. There was a story that he'd once taken on a whole corporation's security division when a stray shot had accidentally killed his target before he could get to it.

The rumor further was, he'd won-after being knifed, shot, blown up, knifed again, shot five more times, and blown up the last time with a full half-ounce of C 19. No, you didn't mess with Lucas Villalobos or his reputation.

Here is what Ive got so far for a character.

Jim Danvers
High Concept: Undying Warrior
Trouble: Death Has Plans For Me
Other Aspects: Strait Into the Fray; War Veteran; I Hunt Monsters; Terrifying Reputation; Collector of Favors

COST   POWERS
+0      Undying
 -1      Wall of Muscle
 -1      Just a Flesh Wound
 -1      No Pain, No Gain
+0      The Catch (Nobody Knows)
 -6       Mythic Recovery

SKILLS
5   Endurance
4   Guns, Weapons, Alertness
3   Fists, Lore, Presence
2   Intimidate, Athletics, Might
1   Contacts, Deceit, Conviction

Stress: P OOOO M OOO S OOOO (+2 Mild Physical Consequences)

Armor: Bulletproof Vest (Armor: 2)

Equipment: Serbu Super Shorty Shotgun (Weapon: 3), Throwing Knives (Weapon: 2), Short Sword (Weapon: 2), Grenades (Weapon: 4)

Wall of Muscle: You are accustomed to just taking hits, and continuing to move on. You may use the endurance skill in place of athletics when rolling for defense.

Just a Flesh Wound: You have experienced wounds so grievous as to make most men sick to their stomach. When somebody invokes your physical consequences, anything less than an extreme consequence only provides a +1 benefit.

Undying [-0]
Deathless. Unless utterly destroyed or killed by special means, you will eventually recover from any fatal wound. No "death" result is ever permanent unless special means are used (as determined by your creature type).
Estranged. Most people around you feel uncomfortable, as if they can tell that you are different from others. Take a -1 Penalty on all Rapport and Deceit based maneuvers or attacks you make.


This guy is a total nightmare in combat, he can take a total of 6 Mild consequences (he can recover 3 via Mythic Recovery), a moderate and a severe, and be fresh as a daisy in the next scene.

[Belial666]

Living Dead: -1
Mythic Recovery: -6
Human Form: -1

The above combination means you can be taken out/killed/whatever. In the next scene, you're fully healed. Human Form is equivalent to flesh mask; you appear human and don't get penalties from Living Dead. (I simply didn't want to flavor it as flesh mask)

[KOFFEYKID]

true but Living Dead probably precludes having a recovery ability. Also, note that the Undying power I put up gives a penalty to everything but intimidate which doesn't get any bonus. In Living dead, Intimidate gets a bonus, thus the lower than Living Dead refresh cost of 0.

[Belial666]

Your ability only gives penalties to:

Rapport and Deceit based maneuvers or attacks

It doesn't give penalties to defenses or blocks with those skills and it doesn't give penalties to Presence, Performance, Empathy and the social uses of Contacts and Resources. So it is only 1/5th as big a penalty as the Living Dead equivalent.

[KOFFEYKID]

True, I guess I can widen it to include all of the things you mentioned. How about:

Undying [-0]
Deathless. Unless utterly destroyed or killed by special means, you will eventually recover from any fatal wound. No "death" result is ever permanent unless special means are used (as determined by your creature type).
Estranged. Most people around you feel uncomfortable, as if they can tell that you are different from others. Take a -1 Penalty on all social skill rolls except for Intimidate.

[Belial666]

Yeah, I would probably accept that. Just reduce your social track by 1 to account for your effective Presence being 2, not 3.


The only weakness I can see for the character is if someone uses Disruption or Psychometry on him and acheives a take-out. Fancy having your identity obliterated or being transformed into a newt?

[KOFFEYKID]

Well, you dont roll presence to determine your social stress track, you just use your presence skill. However whenever he is rolling to command somebody or something like that, that would be a presence roll, then he would take the penalty. So his social track stays the same.

[Belial666]

Not if you want to match the Living Dead penalty. It is -1 to nearly every social skill, not just for skill rolls.