4. Modifiers

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[forthcoming]

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A, B
Adamantium Skeleton 3w
As per the core rule book p.68

Animal Senses MN+0 CL
As per the core rule book p.68, with the following exception:

Animal Senses does not grant a discount to Reflexive Dodge.

Armor Penetration
see the Material Class Advantage

Bone Weapons
see Generic Modifier

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C, D
Claws
see Generic Modifier

Cybernetic Senses MN+4 CL
As per the Guide to the Hulk and the Avengers p.68

Defense, Energy
As before, with the following options:

Options
+1, +2 or +4 CL = Absorb Energy. Any stones of damage blocked by your Energy Defense are instead absorbed. Set aside an Action Box or start a second pile of stones representing absorbed stones of energy. You may store up to twice your MN at a time; any stones absorbed beyond this maximum are wasted. At the end of any page in which you did not absorb energy, subtract one stone from your Absorb Energy action box.

You may spend stored energy normally, as though it was your Energy Pool. You can apply a -1 CL option to any Action indicating that that Action can only be powered with absorbed stones.

As a +1 CL Option, you only absorb energy from a single element, such as fire, or acid, or gamma radiation. For +2 CL you can choose a group of related elements, such as "heat" (which may include lava, fire, or plasma), "radiation" (which may include microwaves, light, cosmic radiation, etc), or so on. For +4 CL you can absorb any kind of energy.

-2 or -3 CL = Limited Scope. As a -3 CL option, your Energy Defense only defends against a single element, such as acid or electricity. As a -2 CL option, choose instead a group or related elements, such as "weather" (which might include lightning, wind and frost).

Defense, Mental MN+0 CL
As per the core rule book p.68

Duplicate Self 30w
As per the Guide to the X-Men p.49

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E, F, G, H

Extended Life/Immortality
see Self Contained Life Form

Generic Modifier MN+3 CL
Not all heroes are created equal; some just happen to have the upper hand. Whereas Actions represent skill and supernatural potential, Modifiers to those same Actions represent some kind of inherent edge that makes them easier to use. Wolverine's claws, a famous example, complement his Close Combat training, making him a very dangerous foe (or a powerful ally) in a fight.

Modifiers provide free stones from the General Pool, but they can't do all the work: you may only benefit from one free stone per stone of your own energy placed in the appropriate Action.

By default, generic modifiers only work in some limited situations. For example, Wolverine's claws won't help him if he's drop-kicking an opponent or putting him in a choke hold. Generic Modifiers that apply at all times, representing a very broad benefit or advantage, exist, but are more expensive.

Options
+2 CL = No Condition. Your Modifier works in any circumstance, in any application of the Action or Action it modifies.

+1 CL or +2 CL = Versatile. Some advantages can logically be applied to more than just a single Action. For +1 CL, choose a second Action to which your Modifier applies. If you use both of these Actions in the same panel, you must split your Modifier between them as you like. For +2 CL, you can work with your GM to choose a bundle of Actions along a common theme, such as "Psionics" (which might apply to Telepathy, Telekinesis, Force Fields and Psi-Weapons), or "Targeting" (which might apply to Ranged Combat, Tendril Whip, or any Ranged Combat the character may possess).

+5 CL = Universal Action. Your Modifier applies to every action you undertake. For whatever reason, you are at least a little talented in every thing you do.

Example: Spider-Man is known for his fast quips and cutting remarks, which he likes to toss out even in the middle of heated fights. It may not seem like much to the untrained eye, but Spidey uses his jokes to keep himself calm, while simultaneously throwing his opponents off their game.

To represent this, his player chooses a Generic Modifier at MN 2 and names it "Razor Wit". First, he records that it modifies Social Skills, with the condition that it only works when coming up with jokes and taunts. For +2 CL, the GM allows him to apply the Modifier to a range of combat Actions as well, such as Close Combat, Ranged Combat, and the Entangle attacks of his Web Shooters, under the condition that the player must come up with some sort of witty remark to spout during each page. The whole Modifier costs him 6 white character creation stones, but it gives him a distinct edge in combat - and makes him fun and challenging to play!

Healing Factor (variable cost)
Characters whose bodies heal at supernatural rates are said to have Healing Factors. Spider-Man needs only a few hours of rest to recover from an injury that might leave a normal person in the hospital for several days; Wolverine would be good as new in a minute or two.

Since healing times vary, so do the costs. Healing Factor are figured by Cost Level rather than a flat white stone count so that Advantages, Disadvantages and Options can be applied:

3 CL = x2 Natural Healing Factor. You heal roughly twice as fast as a normal person. Check out of the hospital a couple days early. No matter what your doc tells you, you've got better things to do than rack up medical bills - like getting revenge.

5 CL = Healing Factor. You heal 1 white stone of health per hour. Just had a severe beating? Call it a night and you'll be ready to do it all over again come morning. Try not to lose this time.

7 CL = Accelerated Healing Factor. You heal 1 white stone of health every two Pages (roughly 1 white per minute outside of combat). Take some risks, push your luck and get in over your head if you like - you can handle the punishment. You'll be ready for the next beating before the bodies are cold.

8 CL = Enhanced Healing Factor. You heal 1 white stone of health per Page (roughly 2 white per minute outside of combat). If they can't put you down in the first round, chances are they never will.

Options
+1 CL = Reconstitute Self. With this option, even death is just a setback. Your Healing Factor continues to function even if you are killed by losing your last red stone of health.

Example: Mister Sinister has an Accelerated Healing Factor with the Reconstitute Self option. During a climactic battle with the X-Men his luck runs sour and he finds himself badly beaten. Rather than suffer the humiliation of being captured alive, his player opts to be killed by Cyclops' optic blast.

He sustains enough damage to take out his last white stone and his last 2 red stones of health, and is slain. His body is torn and ruined.. however, he is not truly dead. His mastery over every molecule in his body keeps him from expiring, and slowly but surely he continues to regenerate.

It will take time, but he'll be back on his feet before long. With luck, the X-Men will have forgotten about his corpse and moved on. Even as his body slowly reconstitutes, Sinister plots his revenge.

Hensin 2r
Perhaps you have super speed and keep a costume under your clothes at all times, or maybe your powers are magical or cosmic in nature and include a disguise - for whatever reason, you have the ability to quickly change into a distinct costume or uniform at will. Doing so costs only a Free Action. (Catch phrase optional.)

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I, J, K

Immolation MN+1 CL
Note: This is a house rule modified only for clarity. I'm not sure who deserves the credit.

Some characters are just downright harmful to be around. Characters with the Immolation Modifier are constantly surrounded by a dangerous aura that does not distinguish between friend or foe.

Choose an element such as fire, lightning, acid, radiation, etc. An aura of this energy type extends around you in an Area of size 1 on the Difficulty & Resistance chart. On every Page, characters (other than yourself) who enter or remain inside this area suffer stones of attack equal to your Modifier Number.

Unless you are able to turn the power off, buy at least 1 stone of Self Contained Lifeform: It's really hard to eat a sandwich when it turns to ash in your hands in a matter of seconds...

Options
+1 CL = Increased Area. Increasing the Range of Immolation as an Advantage effectively increases its Area.

+1 CL = Can Turn Aura Off. You can spend an Action to turn your Immolation on or off.

-1 CL = Touch Only. Your Immolation has no Area; instead, characters suffer stones of attack when they touch you or you touch them. If you attack an opponent in Close Combat, treat Immolation as a separate attack, rather than combining stones.

Immovable MN CL
When your feet are firmly planted on the ground, you are surprisingly difficult to move. So long as you remain conscious, you may add your MN to your weight to determine your total effective weight (consult the Weight row on the D&R chart). Anyone attempting to move you against your will must overcome this effective weight.

Example: The Brotherhood of Mutants has just attacked the X-Mansion. Avalanche knocked a big hole in the wall, giving the the rest of the Brotherhood a way inside the school; Blob's assignment is to block the hole back up, keeping the X-Men from escaping. His actual weight is somewhere around 500 lbs (admittedly, it's been a while since he stepped on a scale), but his Immovable Modifier 7 gives him an effective weight of somewhere between 75 to 100 tons! Someone would need a Strength of 10 to even try to lift him. Nobody moves the Blob!

Immunity to Reality Distortion 8w
As per the Guide to the X-Men p.50

Inter-Dimensional Travel 9w
As per the Guide to the Hulk and the Avengers p.43

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L, M, N

Leaper MN CL

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For those characters who excel at jumping, the Leaper Modifier helps you overcome the Difficulty and, in particular, the Resistance of a jump.

Add your MN to your Strength for the purposes of overcoming the Difficulty of a jump. Additionally, subtract your MN from the Resistance of a jump, to a minimum of 1.

Example: Toad has just been caught spying on the X-Men from a near-by alleyway, and he figures he should try to escape before they catch him. The GM informs him that the two buildings that share Toad's alley are two and three stories tall - roughly 20 feet and 30 feet, respectively. His Strength of 2 is barely enough to get him 5 feet into the air, but fortunately he bought the Leaper Modifier at an MN of 3. This gives him a total effective Strength of 5 when making leaps, meaning that he can clear up to 50 feet vertically (or 100 feet horizontally!). He decides to leap up onto the third story roof, a Difficulty 5 leap. The Resistance drops to only 2 stones, which he easily covers with his Acrobatics. Toad puts as many stones as he can into Acrobatics and shifts the rest to defense. With luck, the X-Men will have a hard time following him.[/quote]

Luck MN+4 CL

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Perhaps you have a guardian angel watching over you, or the mutant ability to skew the laws of probability, or maybe you're just lucky - either way, things just tend to work out for you in the end.

You gain a pool of red "luck stones" each issue equal to 3x your MN. These stones are spent by adding them to an Action you undertake, at GM's discretion. You can announce that you would like to use your luck stones, but ultimately the decision of whether your luck kicks in, and to what extent, is up to the GM. Alternately, the GM can spend these stones to cancel the stones of effect of an Action used against you by an opponent (on a 1 for 1 basis).

Options
-1 CL = "Good" Luck Only. Your luck stones can only be used to enhance your own Actions. You cannot spend Luck Stones to cancel stones of effect used against you.

-1 CL = "Bad" Luck Only. Your luck stones can only be used to cancel stones of effect used against you. You cannot spend luck stones to enhance your own Actions.

-1 CL = Backfire. Your luck stones may backfire and be used against you instead of for you if you violate some taboo or fail to meet or uphold some condition.

Example: Black Cat has Luck 3 with the "Bad Luck Only" option. She begins each issue with a pool of 9 luck stones. In this issue, she successfully infiltrated a museum and cleaned out a safe containing a priceless ancient Egyptian scepter without tripping any alarms. It seems she'll make a clean escape.. but as she climbs up to her extraction point on the museum roof, she finds herself confronted by Spider Man!

After trading some witty banter, Black Cat decides that Spider Man isn't going to let her go easily this time. She pounces suddenly, delivering a powerful dropkick, then plans to swing to safety on her grapple gun. Spider Man has higher initiative and acts first, however. He places 6 stones into Entangle to hit Black Cat with his Web Shooters - easily enough to overcome her Reflexive Dodge of 3.

Figuring that this will stop the thief in her tracks, Spider Man doesn't bother allocating any stones to defense. Ordinarily this would be a safe move, but the GM rules that Black Cat's wicked luck comes into play. The GM spends 3 of Black Cat's luck stones and reduces Spider Man's Entangle Action to only 3 stones of effect. Spider Man's webshooters both jam simultaneously!

Unhindered, Black Cat's dropkick connects brutally, knocking the hero flat on his back. She gives him some barbed parting words as she swings to safety on her grapple gun.[/quote]

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O, P, Q
Photographic Memory 2r
As per the Guide to the X-Men p.50

Power-Up MN +1 CL
Some characters take a while for their powers to warm up before they can really show off their potential; others, like the Incredible Hulk, are frightful to begin with, but become utterly devastating under the right circumstances.

Choose a physical Ability and record a trigger, such as when you are overcome with rage, when you are standing still or instead when you are in motion, or so on. Once your trigger activates, you gain a 1 point increase in your chosen Ability, per page, until a total bonus equal to your MN is reached (or until your Ability hits a maximum of 10). The effect ends when your trigger deactivates - if you become calm, if you move or are stopped from moving, or whatever the case may be, depending on the trigger you selected.

With your GM's permission, you may choose an appropriate Action or even a Modifier in place of an Ability.

Options
+1 CL = Rapid Buildup. You gain an additional point to your Ability score at the start of each Page. You can choose this Option multiple times, representing an almost instantaneous power upgrade.

+1 or +2 CL = Additional Power. For +1 CL, choose an additional Ability; when you power up at the start of each Page, you can choose which Ability gains the boost. Each Ability can be raised a maximum number of points equal to your MN. For +2 CL, choose an additional Ability as usual - however, both Abilities power up at the start of each Page. You can choose this Option multiple times, representing a broad scope of power.

+2 CL = Limit Breaker. Your Ability can power up beyond the normal limit of 10, pushing you into uncharted territory. This can be dangerous to say the least, both to yourself and others, so be warned!

-1 CL = Trade-Off. Choose an Ability that is naturally at least AN 2 or higher; this Ability actually decreases by one point each time you power up at the start of a Page, to a minimum of 1.

Example: The Incredible Hulk had only been mildly irritated by the puny soldiers and their silly little guns, and had been content simply to smack them out of his way - until the helicopters and tanks arrived. A tank shell exploded in the sand right in front of the Hulk's face. That made Hulk angry!

Hulk naturally has a Strength of 10 and a Recovery of 7, but he also has the Power-Up Modifier (renamed "Rage") with an MN of 8. As one might expect, he chose Strength as his primary Ability, but he also paid an extra 2 cost levels for the Additional Power Option to have his Recovery increase as well. He also bought one level of Rapid Buildup and, of course, the Limit Breaker Option.

Immediately at the start of the next Page, the Hulk's Strength and Recovery each jump up by 2 points, to 12 and 9 respectively. So long as he remains furious, his rage will build, only leveling off at a maximum of Strength 18 and Recovery 15. In case you ever wondered, that's why you wouldn't like him when he's angry.

Precognitive Flashes 1r
As per the Guide to the X-Men p.50

Prescience MN +2 CL
You have a 6th sense that alerts you to danger even when your other senses cannot. When you would ordinarily take damage from a physical attack, subtract up to your MN's worth of damage from your Energy Reserve first. Any stones of damage that remain can be converted to white stones of health lost, as usual.

Additionally, if you also have Reflexive Dodge, your Prescience allows your reflexes to act even when your other five senses fail to trigger them. You can apply a number of your stones of Reflexive Dodge up to Prescience MN towards your defense even when you have absolutely no other warning of the attack.

Example: High up on a rooftop, the Amazing Spider Man watches as Silvio Manfredi holds meeting of underworld sub bosses in an abandoned warehouse across the street. But little does Spider Man know, he is being watched, as well.

A Maggia sniper has managed to spot the meddling wall-crawler and has him in his sights. He is flanking the costumed hero from a safe distance; there is no way he can miss. The GM allocates 5 stones in the sniper's Ranged Combat Action, and factors in 2 more stones from the General Pool for his rifle scope's Targeting for a total of 7 stones of attack. Due to the rifle's high caliber, the sniper also inflicts x2 damage. If he bags the Spider Man, he'll be a made man for sure!

Spider Man is not anticipating an attack and does not have any stones shifted to defense; he will have to rely on his Modifiers to save him. He has Toughness 2, which is a good start, but because the sniper's bullet is traveling faster than the speed of sound and is coming in from behind, the GM rules that Spidey's Reflexive Dodge 3 is useless.

Or it would be, were it not for his trademark Spidey Sense (bought as Prescience 3). The familiar tingling warns our hero of the impending danger, allowing his Reflexive Dodge to kick in. With both his Toughness 2 and Reflexive Dodge 3 working for him, only 2 stones of damage remain. These last two stones come out of his Energy Reserve, as though he had them shifted to defense the whole time.

Miraculously, Spidey ducks just in time to dodge the bullet; it grazes his shoulder, slicing through his uniform but leaving him unharmed. The Maggia sniper has been made alright, but not the way he hoped.

Psycho-Centric Power Template
see Generic Modifier

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R, S
Radar Sense
As per the core rule book p.69

Reconstitute Self
see Healing Factor

Reflexive Dodge MN+3 CL
As per the core rule book p.69, with the following exception:

Reflexive Dodge does not come with a discount when purchased with Animal Senses.

Self-Contained Life Form (variable cost)
As per the core rule book p.70, with the following addition:

Extended Life/Immortality can be purchased as part of Self-Contained Life Form for a cost of 1 white stone.

Sonar Sense MN+0 CL
As per the core rule book p.70

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T, U
Targeting
see Generic Modifier

Toughness MN+3 CL
as per the core rule book p.70, with the following exceptions:

Options
For the "No Armor Penetration" option, see instead the Material Class Advantage.

+3 or +4 CL = Absorb Kinetic Energy. Any stones of damage blocked by your Toughness are instead absorbed. Set aside an Action Box or start a second pile of stones representing absorbed stones of energy. You may store up to twice your MN at a time; any stones absorbed beyond this maximum are wasted. At the end of any page in which you did not absorb energy, subtract one stone from your Absorb Energy action box.

You may spend stored energy normally, as though it was your Energy Pool. You can apply a -1 CL option to any Action indicating that that Action can only be powered with absorbed stones.

As a +3 CL Option, you absorb only blunt-force trauma, such as punches, falls, being hit with a baseball bat, and even bullets, but not attacks from sharp weapons, such as knives, swords, claws, or spears. (Your Toughness still defends against cutting attacks, but you do not absorb their kinetic energy.) As a +4 CL option you absorb all sorts of physical trauma, including cutting attacks.

Transform Self
see the rules for Transform Self.

Transform Self by Touch
see the Metamorphosis Action

Translation (variable cost)
As per the Guide to the X-Men p.51

Unstoppable MN CL
The "Irresistible Force". This power gives you the ability to crash through any obstacle in your path with a hardness less than or equal to your MN, regardless of resistance, and keep on running. (If you want to be unstoppable when flying, buy the Unstoppable Option for Flight!)

What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? If you should be unfortunate enough to encounter an opponent with the Immovable Modifier and an effective weight greater than your Unstoppable Action, any stones of attack you direct at them are reflected back at you, instead. If your Unstoppable Action and their effective weight are equal, you both suffer the attack. Otherwise, you plow through them just like everyone else!

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V, W, X, Y, Z
Vision, Enhanced (special cost)
As per the core rule book p.71

Wealth MN+0 CL
As per the core rule book p738