MTH:New Flaws & Permanent Conditions

NEW FLAWS

For all their powers and abilities, superhumans often possess great foibles and weaknesses that serve to temper their strength. The flaws listed below function in the same way as the flaws listed in the World of Darkness core rulebook; IE, any time the flaw comes up during gameplay and significantly hinders the flawed character, that character gains an additional experience point.

ALLERGY

The character is violently allergic to a specific substance or condition, and begins to physically weaken if exposed to this allergen. On average, the character would take on one -1 penalty to all actions, cumulatively, for each turn of exposure, and does a bashing level. This flaw only provides experience if the character is hindered by it ; for example, a hero weakened from allergen exposure might be unable to pursue a fleeing villain, who later returns to abduct the hero's love interest.

DEPOWERING

There is a certain condition or substance that causes the character to begin to temporarily loose their powers. This can either be instantaneous and last a scene (for example, they loose there powers when they lie), or it can cause their abilities to fade gradually until the issue is resolved (a kryptonian looses one dot from all superpowers pur turn until there is no kryptonite nearby).

NEMESIS

Your character has an arch-rival, a natural enemy, a lifelong opponent; a Nemesis. The Joker to your Batman, the Leader to your Hulk, the Lex to your Superman, the Claw to your Death Defyin' Devil, or the bourbon to your Iron Man. The capabilities, methods, goals, and renown of your Nemesis is determined collaboratively by you and your ST. They may be mostly harmless, but enjoy one-upping your character. They may also be a murderous psychopath with terrifying powers and nigh-limitless resources, hellbent on destroying everything you've ever loved and burning every acre of land you've ever walked on. Typically, the more deadly and powerful your Nemesis, the more famous you are by extension due to being the number one object of his hatred, and with the most harrowing of arch-enemies, you may find certain mutual foes may seek to assist you when it is to the detriment of this Nemesis - an example might be Magneto helping the X-Men to defeat the Sentinels.

PASSENGER

Your character is a host to some other intelligence. It could be an alien symbiote, a demon, a sapient virus, a spirit, or anything else the Storyteller will approve. What matters is the passenger is the source for at least some of the character's powers, it has some control over their use or other aspects of the character's life, and it has an agenda.

The specific nature of the passenger and what it wants is something the ST and the player should come up with together. Whenever the character wishes to act in a way contrary to the desires of their passenger, the passenger can choose to resist, giving a penalty to the action. The penalty starts at the Power Lever of the character, and increases by one for each time the passenger resists in a session.

Should resistance result in a dramatic failure, the passenger will add a permanent point to the penalty they can levy, and take control of the character for an entire scene.

The passenger could conceivably shut down any power it is associated with, thus this could be used as a rational for a weakness for any associated power.

UNNATURAL

For one reason or another, your character doesn't heal naturally with time. They may be a machine, undead, or simply have a condition, such as leprosy. Weather or not the character can heal at all, and how they do if they can, must be set up with the ST before hand. Remember, the more difficult to achieve, the more often it will yield exp.

INHUMAN

The character either has some physical abnormality which makes them appear less then human, and/or they actually are something non-human (alien, robot, ect) but are close enough to both be a viable character and use the rules presented in this system. This flaw applies only if the character's nature is in some fashion repugnant to most of humanity, causing them to have to deal with social stigma or outright hatred. Note that many other merits and flaws can be coupled with this one to represent the nature of the character.

As written, this flaw must be obvious or known be an issue. In some settings, such as the Marvel universe, mutants may have enough stigma associated with them to have this flaw. In others, such as the Green Lantern Corp, it may be nearly impossible for this merit to come up.

PERSISTENT CONDITIONS

If using the God Machine Chronicles rules update, replace the Flaws above with the following persistent conditions. They have the same descriptions as the flaws above.

ALLERGY

This Flaw becomes a new Persistent Condition.

Resolution: The character must have their nature fundamentally changed so as to no longer have the extreme allergy.

Beat: The character fails a critical roll due to the wound penalties of the allergen.

DEPOWERING

This Flaw becomes a new Persistent Condition.

Resolution: The character is permanently cured of her vulnerability.

Beat: The character fails a critical roll due to the Depowering, or is unable to make the roll at all in a critical situation.

PASSENGER

This Flaw becomes a new Persistent Condition.

When your character disagrees with their passenger enough for it to become a problem, they take on additional Conditions. A player and ST should work out how this manifests, but potential Conditions include Disabled, Deprived (the Passenger can alter the character's biology, possibly), Mute, Fugue, or Leveraged. When some of these are permanent conditions they are temporary when created by the Passenger. Otherwise persistent conditions end when the Passenger is appeased.

Resolution: Your Passenger is permanently removed.

Beat: As per resolution of the gained Condition.

PREJUDICED (category)

The Character has an unreasoning dislike of a particular group of people. You take a -2 penalty to and social die pool when dealing with this group, and also loose the 10-again quality from those rolls. Any members of that group also have this penalty when dealing with you.

Beat: When your prejudiced views cause you a meaningful problem, take a beat.

Resolution: Overcome your bias.

UNNATURAL

This Flaw becomes a new Persistent Condition.

Resolution: Your character's nature is fundamentally changed or augmented in a radical enough way to make natural healing possible for them.

Beat: Gain a beat when you are wounded, had time to heal, and are still in danger before regaining health.

INHUMAN

If the character keeps their nature secret, use the Embarrassing Secret. If the secret is revealed or not hidden to begin with, use Notoriety.

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