Impress Schticks (Action)
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| Heroic Action Role-Play |
Aura
Trigger Action (Defense)
There is something special about you. You are very ugly, majestic, holy, crazed, or otherwise special, and people tend to leave you alone because of it.
Use this as a trigger action when someone would bother you; make an opposed Impress roll to make them stay back and desist, losing the action. This works as long as you remain passive (neither attacking nor running away, though using Impress or Charm is OK).
Aura only works as long as the situation warrants it; if your goons have been defeated and your Master Plan revealed, you may have to follow the officer escorting you to prison. But he will be polite as long as your Aura holds.
Authority
Inherent
You have had an authority invested in you by the powers that be. You might be a knight, tax collector, police detective, inquisitor, witch hunter, or spy catcher. Whatever your title, you are seen as a lawful agent of a higher authority.
You can expect reasonable cooperation from authorities and respect from the general populace. You have the right and duty to investigate cases relevant to your authority and to use reasonable means to to enforce your edicts. Impress checks made under such conditions are routine.
You are allowed to use the gear your position requires, which often includes restricted weaponry. You may or may not wear a uniform, but you can always display proof of your authority and allegiance. In most cases your behavior is beyond inquiry, but if scandal erupts you might find yourself sacrificed as a scapegoat.
Backbone
Trigger Action (Defense)
When put under pressure, you can adopt a stubborn attitude and actively defend yourself. This gives you a +3 bonus to your Impress for any task where your Impress skill sets the difficulty. You and others also get this bonus when you do a Stand Up For stunt.
Blue Blood
Inherent
Your family is old and recognized for its nobility, one of the most prestigious in the land, a cut above everyone who does not have this schtick. In a campaign where most everyone is a noble (a chivalry campaign, for example) you may even be of royal blood. Those who care about such things will see you as a born leader, and your career often benefits. It is easy for you to be invited to parties and social functions, and you have relatives in high places. Your word is given due consideration, you are a valuable and reliable witness, and you will mostly be assumed to have a good reason to be wherever you are doing whatever it is you are doing, even if it might seem fishy. Even those who don't respect nobility find it hard to ignore your manners and bearing, it is clear that you are a person not to be trifled with. You're not automatically wealthy, some nobles are dirt poor. If you get caught with your hands dirty, Blue Blood may backfire; everyone loves a good scandal.
Challenge
Trigger Action
When a character you succeeded at an opposed Impress check against in this round or the round before takes a hostile action against anyone but you, you can use Challenge to get an Advantage against them. Treat groups of unnamed characters as one creature against Challenge; as long as at least one unnamed creature acts against you, you cannot trigger Challenge.
Display of Superiority
Finisher
When you defeat an opponent, you can offer them mercy and a chance to work for you. Make an opposed Impress roll. This is modified depending on personality and on how you defeated them. Single combat is generally the way to go. On a success, you turn the enemy into a follower, or at the very you least can extract some service or important concession from them.
An opponent defeated this way is not dying and takes no long-term side effects other than the service.
Fashion Icon
Inherent
You have knowledge of fashions of your time and understanding of what can be worn when and to provoke which reaction. This lets you dress for every occasion, and also gives you the savvy to dress oddly without causing a scandal. You have the presence and fame to create fashion trends. You are notorious in fashionable circles. You can make an upstage stunt routine when your kind of fashion is relevant. This most commonly applies to dress and toilette, but it can apply to art, architecture, cuisine and other cultural traits as well.
Follower Focus
Focus
When you lead someone who succeeds at a task you can focus. "Someone you lead" applies to such things as Henchmen and Minions, but also to leadership actions such as Hands-On Leadership and Time for Action. The GM can say that you are the effective leader in a situation outside those described.
Eerie
Trigger Action
There is something odd and unusual about you, that makes others leave you alone. This might be a mannerism, such as talking to yourself or staring vacantly into space, or an indefinable aura. The end result is that people expect odd tings from you and around you, and will pay no heed to such occurrences unless they cause some kind of direct harm. They might think you a harmless eccentric or leave you alone out of fear. If there is a witch-hunt in the area, this can backfire; people too cowardly or reserved to do something themselves might still report on you.
Use this as a trigger action when someone would bother you because you did odd or unusual things; make an opposed Impress roll to make them stay back and desist, losing the action. This is a social ability and does not work when you are engaged in combat.
Hands-On Leadership
Basic Action
You can give a direct order to another creature and expect to have the order executed quickly and well. Decide on a basic action the target is to do; he must have any relevant powers, skills, or schticks to actually do the action you ordered them to do. The target may immediately do the action you ordered them to, but are not obliged to do so. They use their own skill value or your Impress, whichever is better.
If you use this on a an unnamed character the action is executed for free, but a named character must take a Trigger Action to execute your order.
Henchman
Inherent
You have a follower, a loyal Henchman Extra with points 2/3 of yours. He looks out for your interest and can accompany you on adventures, tough he is not as accomplished as a true hero. Unlike most heroes, he is willing to perform menial tasks and can be ordered about more or less as you like, tough he will resent actual mistreatment. He is also capable of carrying out advanced orders independently, and performs well as a lieutenant or advanced errand boy. You can take this schtick several times to have several henchmen, to get a larger selection of followers to choose from, but generally only one of them accompanies you on adventures. . Your other henchmen other act as your agents and look out for your interests elsewhere
Heroic Identity
Inherent
You have a well-established costumed identity. Few people will question your right to investigate things, bear arms or ask pointed questions while in your heroic identity. You can also gain access to places and people unavailable to the general public. Police and other law enforcement figures will often cooperate with you, but not always. People will not question who you are and why you are in costume.
Over time, your costumed identity has built an identity and reputation of its own. You can make two contacts checks for a skill, one for your mundane identity and one for your costumed identity. People may also turn to your costumed identity for help.
You need not purchase this schtick to gain access to places your job ought to give you access to. Cops usually get access to crime scenes, military officers can get into military bases. But with Heroic Identity, you can usually get into either.
Maverick
Inherent
You have an established role; forthright, successful, and center stage but seen by some as crude or even evil. You might be the archetypal diva or the artist with a chip on his shoulder. You might be a legal eagle with courtroom manners worthy of your own TV show. You might be a maverick cop that all but tortures perpetrators. You might be a bulldog politician or shotgun journalist. You say the things most people wished they had the guts to say.
You may use the full range of the Impress skill in situations where it would normally be inappropriate, and you are (almost) never punished for it. Your established domineering ways get much more tolerance than one would expect. You can browbeat witnesses into confessing, you can make the boss appear like a fool, and you can make colleagues and onlookers cry or cringe and get away without a reprimand.
Minion Experts
Limit Break
You have a group of versatile, dedicated, competent, unnamed NPCs. They are not the best in a fight, but they can perform backup tasks, investigations and the like while you handle the serious threats. They are often supplied by an organization you work for. Construct your experts as a group of Minion Rabble, with 1/2 of your points. All experts need not be identical; you can have a number of different experts equal to your Mind. You can define these beforehand or during play, but you can only call on the services of one expert each session, potentially discarding old ones as needed to make room. If a minion expert is defeated, they or an equivalent replacement are available again for the next story.
Minion Gang
Limit Break
You have a group of dedicated followers, a small group of elite but identical and unnamed NPCs who act as your bodyguards or close assistants. Construct your followers as a group of Minion Rabble with 1/2 of your points. You gain a number of followers equal to your Mind attribute. If they are defeated or lost, you can renew them up to your normal limit at the beginning of each session, tough the GM may not allow this if you are isolated.
Minion Horde
Basic Action
You have a horde of faceless minions, loyal but rather incompetent lackeys that follow your every whim. They follow you when ordered to, and spread out over the neighborhood, making a nuisance of themselves but also ready to come to your aid at a moments notice.
You generally have a number of lackeys equal to your Mind in play at once. If they are defeated or lost, you can renew them up to your normal limit by using a Basic Action, and they renew themselves at the start of each round in an action scene.
Construct your followers as a group of identical Minion Rabble with half your points -20 and a maximum value three lower than yours. Your minions are not allowed to take the Formation or Troop schticks. You can pick this schtick an additional time to allow your minions to take these schticks. This also gives you a number of minions equal to your Impress. You can then pick this schtick further times, each time you gain an additional large group of followers.
Look Out Sir!
Trigger Action (Result)
With this schtick, unnamed allies near you tend to end up in the line of fire instead of you, as if your minion had used the Interpose stunt. The minion pays the shot cost, not you. Whenever you take a Hit and such an NPC is near (within his Move meters), that NPC becomes the target of the attack - which is then executed normally with the new target. This saves your skin at the expense of your unnamed allies. You can use this Trigger Action even when you would normally not be allowed to take actions, such as in reaction to another Trigger Action, against a Sneaking enemy, or when out of shots.
Official
Inherent
You are a ranking official in some important organization, and your word is law there. You could be a military officer, district attorney, chief medical officer, chief of police and so on. No-one in your organization questions your authority. You do have superiors, but for one of them to correct you would be a loss of face for the organization. You can usually use this authority to gain access to places and resources of related organizations as well.
Overbearing Presence
Inherent
When you make a successful Impress stunt to affect an opponent, add +3 to your Outcome. This works as if you had Advantage which means it stacks with anything else. Outcome is commonly used to determine if you score a Setback.
Rally
Limit Break
You can inspire people to extraordinary efforts. You heal one Hit on a number of creatures equal to your Mind within Impress meters of you, as long as they can hear your voice and have not suffered any Damage Setback. You can even revive defeated/unconscious allies this way.
Shock and Awe
Trigger Action
When you use At Weapon Point against multiple opponent's, you can take a trigger Action to attack each of them, not just one.
Signature Summon
Inherent
You have a creature that you keep summoning throughout your career and that develops as you do. This is a Henchman Star, and it must spend at a third of its points on Attributes. Your fates are entangled, but the creature is entirely free-willed. In order to use its services you must Summon and either control it or bargain with it.
Silver Spoon
Inherent
You were born with the proverbial silver spoon; you have never lacked for wealth. Whenever you are in a culture with normal commerce with your home, you have access to lots of money, and can easily buy or hire most things you could ever want.
You are richer than someone who is Self Made, but he is more versatile; he can make money anywhere. If you have both Silver Spoon and Self Made, your wealth multiplies and your heirs for several generations will be rich as well.
Make sure you have some motivation to adventure other than money, or you might retire from adventuring before you know it.
Streetwise
Inherent
You are at home on the streets and in sub-cultures of the downtrodden and outcast. You can gain instant respect and a fair degree of trust from criminals, the impoverished, and outcasts. They may or may not treat you as one of their own, but neither will they try any of the tricks they play on outsiders. You keep abreast of rumors and developments on the street. You can to use Impress on all Gather Information checks.
Swagger
Basic Action
You have "the look", and can dazzle onlookers by your mere presence. This is great for becoming the center of attention at social events. You can make an upstage stunt as a basic action.
Tactics
Inherent
You have a good sense of personal and small unit tactics. You can sense at what shot creatures within Impress meters will act, and you can sense the groups minions and are organized in, who leads who, and creature's typical combat mode and Role. All of these actions are automatic and take no time to use. You cannot read creatures whose Impress is higher than yours.
When the GM has you make a roll to discern enemy tactics or deployments, such rolls are Confident.
Vision
Inherent
You have a vision, perhaps of divine origin. You wholeheartedly believe in this vision, and you have a strange power of attraction, gathering followers and creating enemies of this new vision of yours. Your vision appeals to a certain type of people, few of them are unaffected by it. It might be a vision to liberate all slaves or to reform a religion, and all slaves and slave owners or all who believe in the religion will be very much concerned. In this way, you will quickly gather followers, but you have very little control over their actions. They will hold you in high esteem, as a spiritual guide and mentor. You also get enemies opposed to your views.
This is a schtick for great visionary leaders, like Martin Luther, Martin Luther King, or Mahatma Gandhi, but also of tyrants such as Adolph Hitler. It makes you very much the center of the campaign, and should therefore only be taken with the GMs permission. Generally, visionaries tend to be NPCs who the PCs are either to help or hinder.