SPOILER: When Powers go Wrong
Brian[edit]
the original. Well…if he’s altering gravitational fields, nearby stuff could suddenly gain/lose inertia, sort of like Marvel’s Vindicator/Guardian character used to do. Suddenly stuff accelerates to Mach 5. Nasty for bystanders. Maybe his force-field is too good, and blocks his senses. Maybe his mimic skills alter his motivations and personality to match the person he’s mimicking. Well, the gravity guy could easily destabilize the earth on it's axis, sending it off it's regular rotation and spinning faster or slower, perhaps causing the planet's shape to change due to the speed of the rotation. Could really screw with the weather that. He could affect the moon, pulling or pushing it and messing up the tides, causing floods. If you want a more personal disaester, have him start creating singularities by accident; stuff starts getting sucked into a microscopic black hole, uh oh... imagine, that for 5 seconds, gravity didn't work... strength would be useless. many mechanical things would stop. sewers and gutters would flood the air instead of streets. Firing a gun would send you backwards as well as firing the bullet. it would be inheritly useless to try to resist being pushed. all moving vehicles would fly as soon as they hit the smallest bump. most elevators would fail, many people would get dizzy, and many other natural functions of the body would fail. the waves would simply fall out of the ocean and alot of heavy objects would float ever so little into the sky (like boulders, tanks, missles... atomic bombs?) building would float too, many of which rely on gravity for stucture. dangerous substences would float out of any open containers, like arsanic, ether, oil, lava etc... then, it would all come down, sunamis, falling rock, bombs going off cars and trucks falling all over, the poor people who fall under the way of lye and powerful acids, lava and sewage waste. take a moment and count to yourself 5 seconds... go ahead, seriously. the world would end because of that short period of time A force field that triggers when danger is near, so a force field that triggers on a subconcious level? Have fun with this! It can trigger at times he is not really in danger, cause things to slam into it, etc. might be embarasing. Gravity control? He can't fly but what if it activates and he starts floating, when outside, holding a baby for a photo op?
Jack[edit]
Perhaps his super-intelligence could actually become a handicap, if he’s rapidly becoming non-human. Remember how Dr. Manhattan in The Watchmen became so isolated? He forgot how to be human. In game terms, you could make the character make intelligence roles to do mundane stuff – like hold a conversation with a normal human. He might even become so machine-centric as to have to make spot checks to even notice humans anymore. I'd say instead of HIM making checks to communicate with others that others would all have to make rolls to communicate with him... the DC based on 10+ his Intelligence level. That way the the people communicating with him can use THEIR OWN intelligence to help him understand them. But HOW would I describe this in game terms?? Would he "hear" them talking like babies or how else would I describe it to the player to confuse him as to what's happening until he works it out?? I love the thing to make spot checks to even notice other base-line humans (I'd say he COULD recognize other Godlike survivors). I love that!! computers don't lie, they deal with exactly what they were told. Jack shouldn't be able to deal with lies. when they happen, he should be utterly confused and almost need to reboot in a way. sitting and seeing how things are effected by the contridicting data. He is not a machine, but this inclantion into the machine world has it's effects. look at all the computer junkies you know personally. Most may know excatly whats going on in the news, but usually from a friend in the area who he knows from Yahoo! I think the Nieve weakness is very fitting for Jack Anytime he gets upset at a machine, it malfunctions, explodes, etc. or even better, he gets upset at a guy who cuts him off in traffic, all of a sudden the offensive drivers cars wheels fall off, or the engine catches on fire. Migraines
Mandy[edit]
Her flame control might be dependent on her emotions…in a fight, she could make concentration checks, or else fires in a certain radius might balloon out of control. When her danger-sense gets triggered, she might not be able to sense her own body anymore…just the scene of the danger. (That may be unplayable…I’d still let the other PCs talk to her. In game terms, she’d be sight-blind as well as touch-blind.) Mandy's internal temperature and body's hardness could just match each other and expand exponentially. To explain; the hotter her interior gets, the denser and heavier her body becomes to cope with it. She needs to learn to control it somehow as her body's heat increases until it radiates from her, making the ground melt at her footsteps, leaves and paper burst into flame around her, burning and melting whatever she touches. At the same time her body hardens, becoming denser and denser, perhaps turning almost into blackened iron. She's as heavy as iron and can no longer register's her sense of touch, smell or taste. When her fire breathing manifests, have it be a nonstop stream of fire that occurs whenever she exhales, until she controlls it, have her wondering if she is burning up or etc, real tense scene idea.
Arthur[edit]
He’s a speedster – speeding objects wreck stuff. Have an inordinate amount of collateral damage happen when he uses his powers. Make him roll skill checks to keep from destroying nearby things every time he zooms up. Maybe his time control isn’t just personal – it falls off with the square of the distance, so bystanders suddenly find different parts of their circulatory and nervous systems functioning at different speeds. Ouch. that'd almost force him to watch his powers. He recently "ran" from DC to Seattle and back in 3-4 hours... I haven't discribed anything yet, I could rock to tell the PCs the news is reporting a series of collateral damage the creates almost a continuous line from DC to Seattle..... The thing with bystanders getting caught in his time functions could be interesting... Maybe along the corse of that distruction there's a series of people that now find themselves older or younger, cancers and diseases in remission or come on from nowhere... etc... Arthur can't turn his chronal power off; he tries to speed port somewhere and finds himself stuck in the in-between second he usually travels in. Meaning, when he moves with his power, time stops for him and he moves wherever he wants, boom, there he is. But now he does it and he's frozen in that moment; he's trapped in the world with no time, he can't interact with anyone or anything. what if aurther accidentally drifts between time lines? think of it as schitzophrenia, in one world, he is married to Mandy, in the next Mandy and Brian are dating. He wouldn't know the difference until he tried to non-chalantly kiss Mandy on the cheek before saying goodbye. He starts aging or youthening rapidly. Things around his crumble into dust. I kinda like the idea someone mentioened of people along his path getting cancer and wierd stuff. Insomnia. His powers work when asleep and he he finds himself going to bed one minute and waking up the next. Or, his powers work backwards while asleep and he wakes up days later.
