Power Loss (Action)

Heroic Action Role-Play

Dependency

You need some unusual or exotic substance to survive. This can be a continuous need like the vampires blood-thirst, or you can be something you must keep, such as dirt from your grave or a fetish where your soul is kept. If denied this substance for a full day, you gain the Unliving limitation and suffer Power Loss. If the substance is rare enough that acquiring it is a challenge, you can manage a week between uses.

Mundane Form

Basic Action

You have two distinct forms; a powered form and a normal form. You can this as a power to change between these forms as a basic action. This might change your appearance, but any major change involves Transformation. You spend most of your non-adventure time in your mundane form.

When in your mundane form, you do not have access to your Powers. You also get rid of your Deviance limitations.

Sometimes you may have trouble transforming. The transformation is normally subtle enough to perform under even light cover, but transforming in public is embarrassing and shows your identity. If you have a transformation that is so troublesome that it is hard to achieve this is worth two limitations. Some examples:

• You need some special and cumbersome item; a power armor to wear, a vehicle that transforms, or a huge demonic sword that is hard to conceal.
• You need some special environment, such as being submerged in water, wrapped in flames or buried.
• You transformation is highly spectacular, and attract the attention of the nearest block (at least). Perhaps you create the image of a a huge fire bird as you transform.
• You need some unusual and limited substance; a rare drug, shamanic medicine or even physical contact and permission from another (usually non-powered) character.
• Your powers are triggered remotely by someone else; an agency, sorcerer, or mad scientist involved in your origin. This gives them a great deal of control over you.
• Anyone can trigger the transformation by doing some prescribed action, such as saying a magic word. This can make you powerless at inopportune times. Doing so requires knowing how to do it, and generally requires a Setback as well.

Power Attrition

There is a way in which your Powers (or most of them, anyway) can be taken away from you, one at a time. This is a relatively easy stunt (like cutting of the eyestalks of a Beholder), and generally requires only simple success on a stunt, but only negates one of your powers, and only for the session.

Recovery Focus

You have a large an unwieldy object you need to use to maintain your powers. At least once per day you must meditate for one hour using this object, or you lose your powers. Typical objects are spellbooks, shamanic circles, thrones of power, and so on. The object is portable, but heavy, cumbersome, and/or frail. It is a unique object; substituting another similar object does you no good, tough you might be able to recreate a lost recovery focus trough weeks of work. If your focus is irreplaceable it also has script immunity; it can be taken away from you, but the plot will always put it withing your reach again.

Situational Power Loss

You cannot use your Powers under certain circumstances. Any sort of circumstance can trigger this weakness, but it is commonly tied to your Tradition or theme. Examples include a zombie that cannot use its powers except at night or an invisible supernatural creature that cannot use its powers once it has been spotted. It should apply about half the time - and you are assumed to be able to chose when you are active to commonly avoid this flaw.

If Power Loss happens because of something that is random or cannot be predicted, such as the direction and presence of wind or the tolling of church bells, the flaw only occurs about one sixth of the time. You should still specify the condition and it should apply when reasonable, but the GM can often just roll a single die and say the limitation comes up on a roll of one.

If Situational Power Loss restricts you to using your powers only on certain occasions, one time in six or so, it is worth two limitations.