Impress Schticks (Action)
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| Heroic Action Role-Play |
Aura
Stance
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.
As long as you remain passive (neither attacking nor running away, though using Impress or Charm is OK), you will not get attacked. This 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 gentleman escorting you to prison. But he will be polite as long as your Aura holds.
In dramatically appropriate situations it is possible to try and penetrate your Aura, the opponent must make an opposed Impress rolls as a 3-shot action. You may defend against this.
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.
Bulletproof Nudity
Stance
Nudity can distract an opponents at critical moments. If nothing else, it makes the audience root for you. Add +2 to your Dodge. Several different Dodge bonuses do not stack.
You must be mostly naked to use this and must not encumbered by excessive gear.
Challenge
Stance
Challenge compels one named character to attack you; if their last action was to attack any of your friends get a +2 bonus on any action directed at them. The effect is negated if they are themselves interfered with by others.
Cold Fish
Inherent
You are not easily impressed by charm and whiles. You can use your Impress skill as a defense against the Charm skill.
Dazzling
Stance
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 Impress roll against everyone in your presence, on a success they notice you and are impressed, just as if you spent an action to specifically impress them. This makes it easy for you to get into social events.
Followers
Inherent
You have a group of dedicated followers, a small group of elite but unnamed NPCs who act as your bodyguared or close assistants.
Construct your followers as a group of unnamed characters using the Constructing NPCs section, using your Impress skill as the baseline. You gain a number of followers equal to your Mind attribute. If they are defeated, it will take some time for you to recruit new ones, but they are generally there again forthe next adventure.
Hands-On Leadership
Basic Action
You can give a direct order to another 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 it. An unnamed character can immediately do the action, costing him no shots. A named character has the option to immediately execute the action as a Trigger Action. In either case, they use their own skill value or your Impress, whichever is better.
Henchman
Inherent
You have a henchman, a loyal follower who 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.
Construct a henchman as a named character suing the Constructing NPCs section, using your Impress skill as the baseline.
You can take this schtick several times to have several henchmen, but generally only one of them accompanies you on adventures: the other act as your agents and look out for your interests elsewhere.
Heroic Identity
Inherent
You have a costumed identity that is a well-established hero. Few people will question your right to investigate things, bear arms or ask pointed questions. 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 will 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.
Inspiration
Trigger Action
You are an inspiration to others. Whenever someone else performs an action, you can use Inspiration to give them an additional bonus die, and this is cumulative with any Fortune points they may spend themselves.
Lackeys
Inherent
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.
At any time, a number of lackeys equal to your Mind in play at once. They are renewed each round as long as you are in action; new ones come rushing to replace those who have fallen in combat.
Construct your followers as a group of unnamed characters using the Constructing NPCs section, using your Impress skill -3 as the baseline.
Legal Eagle
Inherent
You are a licensed practitioner of law and have courtroom manners worthy of your own TV show. You can browbeat witnesses into confessing, you can make the judge appear like a fool, and you can make the jury cry or laugh as you dictate. In short, you may use the full range of the Impress skill in court. You may often be in contempt of court, but you are never punished for it. You have a reputation to go with your cohunes; clients line up to pay you great wads of money.
Look Out Sir!
Trigger Action (Result)
With this schtick, your unnamed followers are exceptionally loyal and willing to sacrifice themselves. Whenever one of your mooks is near you, that mook will throw himself between you and a successful attack, taking the attack. This saves your skin at the expense of your mooks.
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 entire organization. You can usually use this authority to gain access to places and resources of related organizations as well.
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 a 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.
Star Stuff
Stance
You are a really impressive performer and have an almost mystical ability to entrance an audience. This can be acting, playing an instrument, dancing or any performing art. You are famous in your field, and can easily get into social events or arrange performances.
When you perform, people get distracted. They will not ignore obvious dangers, like a shoot-out, but minimum difficulty of any Spot toll is your Impress skill +3.
When you perform about melodrama, people cannot help but react, though the reaction will vary with the character. Any interaction going along with the mood of your song (such as a seduction with a love song) gets a +3 bonus. A particular use of Star Stuff only conveys one type of interaction, but you can activate the stance again to change your tune.
Taunt
Stance
A taunt compels all unnamed enemies in an area with a diameter equal to your Impress skill in meter to attack you; if their last action was to attack any of your friends get a +2 bonus on any action directed at them. The effect is negated if they are themselves interfered with by others.
Vision
Inherent
Vision
You have some vision, perhaps of divine origin, perhaps just a personality quirk. 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.
This is a schtick for great visionary leaders, like Martin Luther King and 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.