Aberrant RPG - Mega-Mental & Mega-Social Feats

metaphysician · September 1, 2008

So, a hierarchy of sorts.

Flee < Blind Panic < Fainting < Fainting + Quasi-Permanent Side Effects < Coma?

Alex Green · September 1, 2008

Another potential effect (Warning: Grim)

I've seen a couple of comic books or whatever where the baseline who saw the horror decided to remove his eyes to prevent even the impossibility of that in the future.

Sprocket · September 2, 2008

Idea: Baselines need to make a willpower roll to be in the same room?

I like that one! ::devil IIRC, we've got 1 or 2 of the low dot rating slots empty at the moment. Will get back to you after checking the document.

Cause baselines to faint for a few minutes.
Strong idea. Presumably as the result of an intimidation roll. Are we talking +5 succ over their willpower? +10?

Assuming that the typical baseline's WP is 3, The typical mook's is 4 & the typical baseline cop's is in the 5-7 range... +5 successes above the target's WP looks to be the better of the two options you present.

OTOH, requiring +5 successes to cause fainting might be a bit much compared to the other ideas in this batch. Fainting is a much less serious/more transitory form of mental shutdown than becoming comatose/catatonic.

Induce comatose or catatonic state in baselines for a variable amount of time - anywhere from hours to days, depending on the M-Ugly rating.
Sounds like another +5 succ... which is a good thing, it's pretty easy for succ to add up.

On this, the +5 successes is entirely plausible.

Panic baselines into doing appropriately pointless activities (hysterical screaming, attempts to run away, collapse into a sobbing wreck etc.) for a few minutes.
Probably just tag this as one level less than "faint".

Agreed, this is just temporary mental dysfunction instead of mental shutdown - unconscious people are a lot easier to deal with than those who are panicking.

Cause stress-induced physical effects (from extreme fear) in baselines - hair goes white and/or falls out, premature aging, sensory impairment.
One level more or less than coma?

It's definitely a "lesser" effect than rendering baselines comatose/catatonic - except for partial sensory impairment (caused by hysteria), we're talking about what's effectively just cosmetic damage, pun intended. ::sly

Cause brief physical seizures in baselines lasting a few minutes.
Sounds like the previous.

Aside from the possibility of physical damage incurred during the seizure? If it's anything like an epileptic fit, the target could wind up taking bashing or lethal damage either from hitting something or simple physical stress. It'd have to be pegged at a higher dot rating than the previous AFAICT.

I've seen a couple of comic books or whatever where the baseline who saw the horror decided to remove his eyes to prevent even the possibility of that in the future.

(Edited for clarity. ::smile )

Excellent! That's *just* the kind of impact that high-dot rating Mega-Ugliness should have AFAIK.

Alex Green · September 2, 2008

Mega-Ugliness

• 1 dot: x.

• 2 dots: x.

• 3 dots: People will do whatever you request, just to get you to leave.

• 4 dots: x.

• 5 dots: Cause various kinds of hysteria reactions in typical baselines who view your horrid visage.

• 6 dots: Make baselines involuntarily urinate and/or defecate out of the basic animal fear reaction upon catching sight of you.

• 7 dots: x.

• 8 dots: Predatory and parasitic animals would rather starve to death than touch you.

• 9 dots: x.

• 10 dots: x.

Succ on M-Ugly (App 0)

1: 3.3

2: 4.6

3: 5.9

4: 7.2

5: 8.5

6: 10.8

7: 13.1

8: 15.4

9: 17.7

10: 20.0

Comments: At Mega-6 and above, *no* *one* can avoid 5+ succ above their willpower. Even Mega-5 is pretty grim.

At Mega-1, the typical willpower 3 dude is going to be suffering from a "1.9" succ in intimidation, at Mega-2 it's 3+.

I suggest...

Mega-2: Standard baselines automatically attempt to leave any room you're in.

Mega-4: Even strong willed baselines automatically attempt to flee your presence

Mega-7: Even extremely strong willed baselines faint in your presence.

Mega-9: The Quasi-Permanent Side Effects thing.

Mega-10: Without physical intervention uninspired creatures attempt to blind themselves rather than risk seeing you again.

I skipped coma and convulsions, they both seemed like enhancement territory.

Note Mega-5 is already "blind panic"-ish.

Sprocket · September 2, 2008

I suggest...
Mega-2: Standard baselines automatically attempt to leave any room you're in.
Mega-4: Even strong willed baselines automatically attempt to flee your presence.
Mega-7: Even extremely strong willed baselines faint in your presence.
Mega-9: The Quasi-Permanent Side Effects thing.
Mega-10: Without physical intervention uninspired creatures attempt to blind themselves rather than risk seeing you again.

Not bad at all. ::thumbup1 The first three feat suggestions can be plugged in as is, while the latter pair require only minor touch-up editing. To wit:

• 9 dots: The extreme fear your visage provokes can cause stress-induced physical effects in baselines. Examples of such effects include the victim's hair going white and/or falling out, premature aging and partial hysterical sensory impairment.

• 10 dots: Without physical intervention non-Inspired creatures will attempt to blind themselves rather than risk seeing you ever again.

Provided no one objects, I'll go ahead & plug these into the mini-chart. If they pass muster, that leaves us with just one empty slot for the M-Ugly 1 dot rating feat. Ideas? ::smile

Alex Green · September 2, 2008

• 10 dots: Without physical intervention non-Inspired creatures will attempt to blind themselves rather than risk seeing you ever again.

"Ever" is redundant, and considering they're going to "attempt" it anyway, and succeed in it without physical intervention...

• 10 dots: Non-Inspired creatures will attempt to blind themselves rather than risk seeing you again.

---or----

• 10 dots: Without physical intervention Non-Inspired creatures will blind themselves rather than risk seeing you again.

• 9 dots: The extreme fear your visage provokes can cause stress-induced physical effects in baselines. Examples of such effects include the victim's hair going white and/or falling out, premature aging and partial hysterical sensory impairment.

The extreme fear your visage provokes causes stress-induced physical effects in baselines.

Sprocket · September 2, 2008

• 10 dots: Without physical intervention Non-Inspired creatures will blind themselves rather than risk seeing you again.

That one looks to be the better of the two. AFA the redundancy of "ever", it wouldn't be the first time it's been used like that. That said, I'm not going to quibble when we're so close to getting this thing finished.

• 9 dots: The extreme fear your visage provokes can cause stress-induced physical effects in baselines. Examples of such effects include the victim's hair going white and/or falling out, premature aging and partial hysterical sensory impairment.
The extreme fear your visage provokes causes stress-induced physical effects in baselines.

Sorry, but I cannot agree with that revision. We are going to need those examples to give the readers a benchmark to go by AFA the caliber of said stress-induced physical effects.

Re: The current M-Ugly chart-

With the latest feats plugged in, it looks like this:

Mega-Ugliness

• 1 dot: x.

• 2 dots: Standard baselines automatically attempt to leave any room you're in.

• 3 dots: People will do whatever you request, just to get you to leave.

• 4 dots: Even strong willed baselines automatically attempt to flee your presence.

• 5 dots: Cause various kinds of hysteria reactions in typical baselines who view your horrid visage.

• 6 dots: Make baselines involuntarily urinate and/or defecate out of the basic animal fear reaction upon catching sight of you.

• 7 dots: Even extremely strong willed baselines faint in your presence.

• 8 dots: Predatory and parasitic animals would rather starve to death than touch you.

• 9 dots: The extreme fear your visage provokes can cause stress-induced physical effects in baselines. Examples of such effects include the victim's hair going white and/or falling out, premature aging and partial hysterical sensory impairment.

• 10 dots: Without physical intervention Non-Inspired creatures will blind themselves rather than risk seeing you again.

Alex Green · September 3, 2008

Fair enough.

RE: Mega-1

3.3 vs. a willpower of 3 means the typical baseline is suffering from a 2 succ intimidation effect.

Typical Baselines...

...can't make eye contact?

...?

Sprocket · September 3, 2008

RE: Mega-1
3.3 vs. a willpower of 3 means the typical baseline is suffering from a 2 succ intimidation effect.
Typical Baselines...
...can't make eye contact?
...?

That idea has possibilities. The resulting feat would be something along the lines of "Typical baselines must force themselves to make eye contact with you", perhaps?

Alex Green · September 3, 2008

Typical Baselines...

...move away to let you pass?

Sprocket · September 3, 2008

Typical Baselines...
...move away to let you pass?

I don't know about that one, it seems like what some non-Inspired guy with a decent Intimidation rating would be capable of.

I suppose a viable option would be looking at the feats of intimidation pulled off by the Batman. :batlogo: Problem is, aside from my copy of Kingdom Come & The Kingdom my DC knowledge is rusty as all get out. Examples of such which a M-Ugly 1 squid could plausibly duplicate would be welcome.

Alex Green · September 4, 2008

I don't know about that one, it seems like what some non-Inspired guy with a decent Intimidation rating would be capable of.

At mega-1 and 3.3 succ we're looking at the baseline equiv of 8 dice.

So by baseline standards he'd be one of the most intimidating guys on the planet, but not in the top 10. Call it 3 App and 5 dice in Intim.... or maybe 6 dice (professional skill) with special circumstances.

Say Tony Soprano when he got out the bolt cutter and seriously told a tied up guy he was going to cut his dick off. Of course that was also the finishing move...

Batman probably uses feats or something and would equiv something like mega-ugly 2 or even 3.

So...

Typical baselines are always actively afraid of you?

Typical baselines are always aware that they're actively afraid of you?

Typical baselines sweat from fear in your presence?

Sprocket · September 4, 2008

Typical baselines sweat from fear in your presence?

Other than possibly rewording this as "Typical baselines break out into nervous sweat in your presence", I think you've got a winner there. ::wink

metaphysician · September 4, 2008

Perhaps a consideration of situational modifiers for intimidation? Like, what effect does being armed have on attempts to intimidate you? Or outnumbering the other side?

Sprocket · September 4, 2008

Perhaps a consideration of situational modifiers for intimidation? Like, what effect does being armed have on attempts to intimidate you? Or outnumbering the other side?

I don't think those would apply here. What you're talking about would support intimidation done by anyone, regardless of their looks.

metaphysician · September 4, 2008

No, I mean when applied to the *defender*. Such as when your trying to intimidate someone who has a gun pulled on you already, and ten friends standing behind him.

Alex Green · September 4, 2008

RE: Rewording

I'm good with that.

No, I mean when applied to the *defender*. Such as when your trying to intimidate someone who has a gun pulled on you already, and ten friends standing behind him.

Presumably all modifiers are simply extra dice, either added to Willpower (for the defender) or for the Attacker (i.e. more Intim dice).

Tony presumably has an App of 2 and an Intim of 3, for 5 dice. Under special situations I was assuming he'd have another 3.

Note the ST could and should disallow intim roles of any sort if the subject obviously has *no* way of hurting you. So if our mega-ugly nova is facing a dozen armed thugs and they're pretty confident that they could kill him, intim is going to be pretty hard... although not impossible.

Sprocket · September 4, 2008

Re: Intimidating targets who have friends and/or weapons at hand-

AFAICT it looks like Alex has the right take on that. Nicely done. ::cool

Re: The finalized M-Ugly feat chart (w/ blurb)-

...is as follows. Barring any reasonable objections or unless any of you have a serious suggestion for another "gray sidebar subject" like "Mega-Appearance Variations", this third appendix is finished. Many thanks to everyone who helped out on this! ::happy

Mega-Ugliness

A squid's surreal repulsiveness grants him a shock value that is outside the context of the typical baseline's experience. Faced with a horror of which cinematic movie monsters are but pathetic imitations most people can and do lose their self-control, which allows the squid to terrorize and/or dominate them as he pleases. Similar to an idol, the squid can also distract people with his hyper-abhorrent looks, with said people quickly losing track of whatever they were doing in their panic over seeing the squid. Likewise, a squid also retains his hideousness in everyday circumstances and can draw attention to himself with relative ease.

• 1 dot: Typical baselines break out into nervous sweat in your presence.