Description
You have learned the art of shaping and changing earth, whether this be rock, soil, or sand. You may have learned to do this purely through mental command, or with the assistance of raw strength. You have a deep connection to earthly areas, such as caverns and mountains. You likely wear brown or green clothing. Glaives are most likely to use and refine this ability, but Jacks and Nanos might also find it useful.
Details
GM Intrusion: The poor use of your power has created a small rock-slide.
- Connection:
Pick one other PC. This character can cause your earth powers to act oddly. Every once in a while, if he stands directly next to you, your powers are cancelled, but at other times, they seem improved when used near him.
- Esotery Effects:
All of your esoteries now involves some kind of rock, soil, or sand. This is merely for cosmetic purposes.
- Minor Effect Suggestions:
- The use of your powers has uncovered some small trinket or sellable object.
- Major Effect Suggestions:
- Your powers have twice their normal efficacy for the duration of this round.
- Tier 1:
Move Earth (1 Intellect point): You can exert force on earthly objects within short range for one round. Once activated, your power has an effective Might Pool of 10, a Might Edge of 1, and an Effort of 2, and you can use it to move, push, and lift earthly objects. This power lacks the fine control to wield with much speed, so it is typically not used as a means of attack on its own. Action.
- Tier 2:
Mountainous Strength: You gain +3 to your Might Pool and +1 to your Might Edge. Enabler.
Boulder Kick (4 Might and/or Intellect points): You can kick a boulder up and at an enemy. You use a Might roll to determine whether or not you hit. If you do, the attack deals 6 damage. Action.
- Tier 3:
Earth Armor (4 Might and/or Intellect points): You may shape earth in order to create a protective armor around yourself. You gain a +3 to Armor that does not have a Might point cost or a Speed pool reduction. However, you must be unarmored in order to use this ability. This armor lasts for up to 10 minutes. Action.
Magnetization: You may now magnetize your body to any type of stone. This makes scaling walls made of earth two difficulty steps easier. Enabler.
- Tier 4:
Earth Shelter (5 Might and/or Intellect points): Once a day, you can use earth to create a simple one-room structure with a door. If you wish, this structure may also have an open window. The structure is 10 feet by 10 feet by 10 feet (3 m by 3m by 6.1 m). It is permanent and immobile once created, although this ability can be used again to destroy the structure. If destroyed in this way, the earth will retake its “natural” shape and form once again. Action.
- Tier 5:
Wall of Rock (6 Might and/or Intellect points): You can raise a solid wall of earth from the ground. This wall is about as tall as you are. You must be either outside or at ground level in a building in order to use this ability. The wall can defend against most physical attacks, but not against psychic or beam attacks (plasma, laser, energy). Action.
- Tier 6:
Earthquake (9 Might and/or Intellect points): You can create an earthquake within 250 feet of you. This powerful quaking lasts for a natural length of time, likely no more than 5 minutes. However, its destructive force will likely devastate whatever it is used against.
Good pacing and wording of powers, leaving little open to abuse. However the tier 2 and 3 is a bit topsided in terms of power. Be aware that adding a permanent bonus to edge is a tremendous advantage. For tier 3 my only objection is that it seems the duration is indefinite and the armor equivalent to the best standard, effectively making any kind of armor and armor proficiency a non-issue. I would add a duration of 10 minutes or maximum an hour, so it becomes a choice to use it and of course requiring the terrain.
Personally I would make the tier 2 ability give +1 armor and an extra point of might pool instead of edge, possibly renaming it to “muscles of granite” or similar, and lower the armor granted by the tier 3 ability to only 2 and with a duration of 10 minutes. This way you still end up at 3 in armor when using the power, and if you choose to go around unarmored you are less vulnerable in a surprise situation. At the same time it allows somebody to seriously consider wearing armor, adding a bit more freedom for making the character as one would like it.
Also regarding the “and/or” with might and intellect. I think this is an excellent idea, but from the fluff it would sound like this is a choice upon choosing the Focus while the wording “and/or” implies that you can split the cost as you like.
Hey, thanks for your feedback. I felt that story-wise, it made sense for the rock armor to be heavy. I also felt that rock armor would be much too heavy on top of regular armor, even for the stronger PCs. Though I do intend to add a duration to that power. Making it permanent is way too overpowered. As for the permanent bonus to edge, by Tier 2 a character would already have a 2 edge for one of his stats, if he placed his bonus in the same stat as his edge at character creation. So this doesn’t seem like a huge bonus. Finally, my intent was for characters to be allowed to split the cost as they like. That’s what I meant by “assistance” of raw strength. I feel like a lot of these abilities could not be done with strength alone, so there needed to be a mental aspect to the power. Hope that clears everything up.
A bonus to Edge is one of the best bonii you can get, but it is not bad enough that I would disallow it at my table (I have somebody who for plot reasons got a bonus to Speed Edge temporarily). Just keep it in mind that for Foci such is usually kept for later tiers 😉
Also, that extra point of Edge means the character enters the free Effort threshold for that Pool. Just keep that in mind, as it effectively means he can reduce all Might tasks by one step for free at that point if he wishes to.
I really like the versatility of being able to split the cost across Pools, as it encourages more varied characters, but it should probably only run off one main Pool with regards to Edge, or you risk a “Master of All” type of character instead of a “Jack of Trades” in terms of versatility. Look at Brute Finesse and Analytical Combat Tier 2 and 4 Tricks of the Trades for Jacks which specifically states that you can use points from other pools as if they came from another pool. This means it still runs off the Edge of the main pool and not a combination of the two. Your wording does not have that distinction.
These are all small gritty mechanical details and they don’t really “break” anything directly. Overall I think the Focus is nice.