Capt. Jack Harkness

[KOFFEYKID]

Ok, then what happens if you have a presence of 0? Do you loose a social stress bar? The black court vampires have a 0 presence and have a social stress bar of OO. Zombies too. Im more inclined to believe the power affects roll and not all applications of the skill, but if your right, then there is little to no benefit in putting any points in presence if you have either living dead or undying.

[Oxbow]

I was going by Jack's powers as a base. >_>

All the times he's 'died' and survived, after which he's up and at them pretty much straight away.

As far as I'm aware the only time he's taken longer than a few minutes to revive was when he met Abadon who's shadow consumed life (It took him 2 days or so iirc. xD)

Except when he willingly gave his life to save the inhabitants of New New York in 5,000,000,053 (c.e.?):
Dr Who Wiki,

Martha arrives at the Senate building where she sees human skeletons, and meets the dying Face of Boe, sprawled out on the ground. The Doctor urges him to live, since (as Boe says) the two of them are each the last of their kind; but the Face responds "Everything has its time"

Although the Face of Boe appeared to have died permanently (DW: Gridlock) this does not disprove the theory that he was once Jack Harkness. The Doctor simply may not have stayed long enough to witness Boe's resurrection, which is possible given that he did not suspect a connection between his two friends at the time and the more life energy Jack expels during a death the longer it takes him to be revived (TW: End of Days). Also, Boe's death may have been a metaphor for a desire to end the current life he was leading. Jack has been shown to have lived several different lives, most of which were presumably ended by his many deaths (TW: Children of Earth: Day Five). Alternatively it may be that, rather than being truly immortal, Jack Harkness instead had an excess of life. This could explain why he constantly heals from death, but does eventually die.



So, this of course only applies if indeed Jack = Boe. It might just mean he was never immortal, just "close enough".

[KOFFEYKID]

Ok, then what happens if you have a presence of 0? Do you loose a social stress bar? The black court vampires have a 0 presence and have a social stress bar of OO. Zombies too. Im more inclined to believe the power affects roll and not all applications of the skill, but if your right, then there is little to no benefit in putting any points in presence if you have either living dead or undying.

Also, I just thought of something, if it acts as you think it does, then as a zombie or black court vampire gets beat up (takes consequences) they'll loose more and more social stress boxes, making it easier to take them out by calling them a sissy. Im pretty sure this isn't how a penalty works, every instance Ive seen is referring to a penalty on a roll. Either by imposing a -1 modifier to a roll, or by increasing the threshold on the needed roll to succeed.

[Belial666]

You don't get stress penalties from a low skill. OO is the default minimum and you get extra for bonuses.

And yes, a zombie or black court vampire would be easy enough to "take out" in a social situation. It doesn't always mean they get angry by being called sissies. But if they arrive in a social situation looking half-rotted, nobody is going to include them in conversations either. Being totally ignored or losing social standing is also a social "take out".

[KOFFEYKID]

Yeah but Scaring them and making them run away is a takeout as well. I doubt that a black court vampire with a presence of 3, and a social stress bar of OOOO is going to run away just because its taken two physical consequences (knocking it down to OOO, if you are correct). Also, like I said, i've searched the pdf for the following words: Penalty, Modifier, Modify, and all of them refer to a roll, not the skill itself.

Here is a scenario using your interpretation.

Suzy the Sentient Zombie has a presence of 4. Her Social Stress bar is as if she had a presence of 3. Making it S: OOO.

Stan insults her for being a zombie, she takes two social stress, putting her at S: OXO. Then Jimmy decides he doesn't like zombies, so he stabs her in the back. She takes a Minor Physical Consequence of "OMG, MY BACK!".

Now she is pissed, but she also (in your interpretation), has lost a social stress bar (since she has a consequence putting her overall presence at 2, instead of 3, when she actually has a presence of four), putting her at S: OX. Jimmy's other friend, Brady laughs at her, ridiculing her. She takes 2 social stress, but wait, thats past her (now modified) stress track. She is embarrassed and runs away crying (can zombies cry? Probably not).

Now, since Suzy is a zombie, she cant ever recover from that mild consequence, but she can hide it, she covers it with a nice jacket. But the consequence is still there. Now she will forever be at S: OO.

I find this unlikely. Why would a rotting corpse be less socially resilient after taking a minor consequence?

-edit

Personally, I think the penalties are little too harsh on Undying as it is. Unless you intend to kill off the character, death would never be a result from being "taken out", the power itself doesn't prevent you from being taken out, it just prevents you from dying as a result of being taken out. Then of course, the downside is a -1 penalty to Rapport, Deceit, Presence, and Empathy, which is in the neighborhood of a total of 8 Shifts of effect (a permanent -1 for 4 skills, a stunt proved a 2 shift effect, an always on effect uses the shifts generated / 2), or +4 refresh. Thats by the book. Now, if you think the power is worth about -2 if you can recover from the wounds, then a -1 penalty on both deceit and rapport rolls should be enough, based on the information we have in the Creating your own stunts section.

[Deadmanwalking]

Personally, I very much doubt that the penalty applies to the Stress track. IMO, it's intended as a penalty to skill rolls, not actually the skills per se (the specific wording notwithstanding). Any other interpretation is way too fiddly to be quick and enjoyable in play.

[Jeckel]

Ok, been a while, but I think I've put together a custom power that works nicely, but first I'm going to cover the reasons I think a new power is justified.

1) I don't like the idea of locking down Physical Immunity. Since, unlike Immortals, they don't have a weakness to their death immunity, I don't see any harm in an Undying character taking a Physical Immunity of whatever type would normally be allowed by the group.

2) Wording it as a catch gets confusing since you have to describe the exceptions to the power instead of as its effects. In other words, "You are immune to death" is easier to understand then "Physical Immunity doesn't apply to anything except death", at least when it is more complex then those simple examples.

3) There are other particulars I think fit well with the template and they need their own power any way, so it don't hurt to move the no-death effect to that power.

Anyway, that said, here is the power I came up with.

Deathless [-2]

Note: The result of extreme measures that could cause total destruction of the character (for example, immersion in a star) should be decided during character creation if they are applicable to the story.

Effects:

Endless Life: Drowning, starvation, gun-shots, stabbing, explosions, fire, etc, the cause doesn't matter, you are so full of life-force that death can not touch you; however, if your brain is in a shape to process input, you'll get to feel every agonizing moment of it. You take stress and consequences normally, though no "death" result is ever possible. This essence of life resides in a specific organ of the body (generally head or heart) decided on at creation time. Without any upgrades to this ability, the character can only control pieces of their body when they are connected to this organ. For example, if the life-essence was centered in the head and the head was removed, the eyes and mouth would still be controllable, but the body would not.

Parts of a Whole [-2]: Increasing the refresh cost of this ability by 2 will allow severed body parts to be controlled independently, hands can still grab, eyes can still see, legs can still kick, etc. All actions performed by the body parts not connected to the specified essence center receive a -1 penalty if they are visible to the character and at least -2 if not. If a new body part is regenerated to replace the old one, then all connection to the previous part is lost.

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My question, does the upgrade cost of -2 sound right?


I also have a third effect I'm working on, but I can't figure out what type of benefit it should get. This is what I have so far.

The thematics...
Pain Don't Hurt: Living through death a handfull of times really puts pain into perspective.

Here is what I've been thinking about for the rest...

a) Gain +3 on any roll to resist or overcome physical pain.

or

b) Receive 2 additional Mild (umm.. Mental or Physical?) Consequence.

or

c) You get 2 additional (again.. Mental or Physical?) Stress boxes.


As you can see, I'm not sure if the "resistance to pain" should model around Mental or Physical. As for the numbers in any of those, they were just of the top of my head.

Any advice on the mechanics of how to implement "getting use to the pain after living though damage that would kill everyone else"?

[Drachasor]

Ok, been looking at this as it is one of the two kinds of characters I needed the most for an upcoming RP (Immortal being the other one). Here is what I've put together for the 'Musts' section of the Template.

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Physical Immunity [-8] (page YS:186): Death can not touch you. Drowning, starvation, gun-shots, stabbing, bombs, fire, etc, the cause doesn't matter, you do not die and - if your brain is in a shape to process input - you feel every bit of it. No resistance to damage is gained, but regardless of what wounds are inflicted upon you, death will not come... no matter how much you may wish it would.

The Stacked Catch [+6] (page YS:187): This catch allows everything except for the specific act of death to bypass the Physical Immunity power. When one of the Undying is Taken Out, death will not result from any action taken as part of the victory conditions. Similarly, nothing - except perhaps plot device level effects - can cause the character to be made temporarily or permanently dead. Discovering the conditions of this catch would not be difficult, though some might wrongly assume that death can be caused by some specific means.

Must also take one of: <i>Inhuman Recovery [–2]</i> (page YS:185), <i>Supernatural Recovery [-4]</i> (page YS:186), or <i>Mythic Recovery [-6]</i> (page YS:186).

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From what I read in this thread the numbers are good, but I'm hoping I worded everything correctly in the catch to justify the +6 refund.

For Jack take out the "temporarily dead" part.  He can die for brief bits, but sort of plot devices at the end of the scene he's alive with his Mythic Recovery having taken effect.

So Jack's immortality is Mythic Recover (full -6, nearly impossible to figure out or bypass), with a -2 Physical Immunity (Death only with your mods)

That seems to compare fairly well with a nearly impossible to breach Physical Immunity.

[wyvern]

Jeckel - how's this look?  I deliberately made it apply only to physical consequences, though; something that lets you shrug off mental consequences would muck around with spellcaster balance.  Despite that, it can still be used to improve your mental defenses in some instances - for example, the simplest form of torture is inflicting physical consequences to wear down the subject's resistance (i.e. occupy the consequence slots so they can't be used for mental defense) - in which case, the ability to shrug off a physical consequence does help.

Pain Don't Hurt: -1 refresh.

Musts: In order to have this power, you must have survived enough pain to have an aspect referring to that - something like "I'm Not Dead Yet," or "CIA Agent Training".

This power offers a +1 on any skill check to resist pain (typically endurance or discipline).  In addition, you get the "Shrug It Off" trapping of Inhuman Recovery - with the difference that, instead of healing the injury, you simply ignore it - that cut across your shoulder just doesn't bother you enough to be worth slowing down for.

While this frees up the consequence slot to be used again, keep in mind that the injury is still there, still heals at whatever its normal rate is, and may still be subject to some (generally quite unusual) compels - for example, an open wound would allow someone to apply a poison that has to go directly into the bloodstream.

This power may be purchased up to three times; each time allows an additional use per scene of Shrug It Off, but does not increase the bonus on skill checks to resist pain.  In addition, you may (with GM permission) spend two uses to shrug off a moderate physical consequence - if it's something that can reasonably be ignored (GMs are encouraged to be relatively lenient with this - a cracked rib could be ignored, for example, while a broken right arm probably couldn't be - but the latter would probably be a severe consequence anyway.)
However, doing this upgrades the level of the consequence, and only lasts for the duration of the scene; if you ignore that cracked rib, the injury is going to get worse, will take longer to heal, and - by the end of the scene - is past your limits of what you can ignore.  (If this results in the character temporarily having two taggable severe consequences, so be it.)

This ability also explicitly does not stack with the existing recovery powers - an individual with inhuman recovery could spend no more than two refresh on Pain Don't Hurt, and someone with mythic recovery couldn't buy it at all.

[Valarian]

How about the ability to change a physical consequence to a mental one? The pain is still there, but the character has learnt to ignore it while the body recovers (be about -2 upgrade to the Deathless power). However, the character is still affected by the wound mentally. 

[Jeckel]

Some nice ideas guys. I've had a few in-depth debates with some friends on this topic and the consensus seems to be that the extra effect to the Deathless power is unnecessary as the same thematic result could be achieved other ways and isn't central to the purpose of the power at hand. I don't 100 percent agree, but I see their point and after reading wyvern's post I'm starting to think that what I was looking for could better be done as its own stand-alone power or maybe a stunt.

Either way, the Deathless power as I posted solves my main concerns, namely convoluted writing of the descriptions and locking down of the Physical Immunity power.

For Jack take out the "temporarily dead" part.  He can die for brief bits, but sort of plot devices at the end of the scene he's alive with his Mythic Recovery having taken effect.

Ahh, but does he die briefly or is he just unconscious? I site the event where he was buried for 2,000 years and when his body was brought out his skin was still nice and pink. This would seem to suggest that his body wasn't truly dead, just in a deep suspended animation-like state.

EDIT: I made the template its own thread since it is more general then just Jack. Thanks for all the help guys, this turned out better then I could have hoped for.

[Jersalyn]

Should Jack be put down for violating the 6th Law? While Rose would have to answer for: the 1st, 2nd, 5th, 6th while skimming the 7th? heh

[Deadmanwalking]

The Laws only apply if you're using Magic to break them. So I don't think any Doctor Who characers have broken any of them. Well, Rose may've broken the 2nd by making Jack immortal, depending on what you count as magic...

[Drachasor]

Ahh, but does he die briefly or is he just unconscious? I site the event where he was buried for 2,000 years and when his body was brought out his skin was still nice and pink. This would seem to suggest that his body wasn't truly dead, just in a deep suspended animation-like state

When he's been killed, people check his vitals and there is no sign of life.  When he was buried, they talk about how he was constantly dying and being reanimated for 2000 years.

[Jeckel]

When he's been killed, people check his vitals and there is no sign of life.  When he was buried, they talk about how he was constantly dying and being reanimated for 2000 years.

True, but not having vitals (especially when the check for vitals is done by a person and not machines and tests) isn't the same as massive cellular death throughout your body. There are many things in real life that could make a person seem dead to the standard checks for life. I define "dead" as the point when the bacteria in your body start eating and decomposing you. Its been awhile since I've watched the ep, but I seem to remember a scene where he was in the morgue on one of the tables and a dead body was on the table next to him. His skin was nice and pink, while the dead guy's body was the standard dead-body-gray color. This to me shows that his body never truly died, though I'm sure it felt like he had more then once.

You can't base in-world mechanics off of characters' conversational dialogue. People say inaccurate things all the time, especially when the people around them know what they are talking about anyway, and the same thing applies to the conversions of characters. Jack saying he died and came back to life over and over doesn't carry any weight because he is the one suffering through the traumatic situation and his perspective is understandably clouded. If he had died or gone unconscious from shock, suffocation, etc, he wouldn't know the difference between that or dieing and coming back. Once you're unconscious your heart can stop, be shocked back, and you would never know it.