M&M + FF7: Jenova Powers

Grisly Scene in action.

As mentioned before, I'm really proud of how these turned out. They're essentially a concrete mechanical way of adding in the elements discussed in my post on drawing on the slasher genre, while also creating some engaging gameplay. Both the powers and the associated drawbacks are designed to give a character something of a sinister bent, whether they're a well-intentioned hero or BBEG.

Jenova Powers are only available to characters tainted with Jenova cells. They can provide a notable edge, but generally come with drawbacks and require special GM permission to customize beyond the options listed in their descriptions. If a character's current corruption score is less than a power's prerequisite, that power is nullified (any drawbacks remain in effect). Characters may opt to nullify extras that increase a Jenova Power's corruption prerequisite so that they can retain the use of the power in a weakened form.

ABSORB MATERIA (1 pt per rank, Corruption 3)
You gain a materia slot as though you were a Device with the same power rank. An absorbed materia can be knocked out of your body by a strong impact, so others can still attempt to disarm them if you're helpless.
Extras
-Additional Slot (+1, +1 Corruption): Each time you take this extra, you gain another materia slot or form a link between two unlinked slots.

BACKSTAB (1 pt per rank, Corruption 2)
You add your power rank to your damage bonus for lethal attacks against surprised opponents, as well as bluff, disguise, and stealth checks made to prevent someone from recognizing you as a threat. (The limited application of this bonus might lead the GM to declare that you partially succeed at a check. For example, he might say that a target's bodyguard rolled well enough to notice you lurking in the shadows, but not well enough to defeat your stealth check for the purpose of recognizing that you pose a threat; the guard orders you to come out in the open, but he doesn't draw his weapon or sound an alarm.)
Drawback: Temper
Choose a trigger that aggravates your character towards a person, such as being treated in a disrespectful manner. This trigger should have a frequency of Very Common (meaning there's a 25% chance that you'll get through an adventure without it coming up at least once). When someone sets off the trigger, your character must make a will save (DC 10+power rank) to avoid lashing out at the person in question. If your character is in position to "lash out" by making a lethal surprise attack, the save DC increases by 5, and if they fail the save by a margin of 5 or more they must make the attack rather than lashing out in another fashion (i.e. verbally).

BOOST (1 pt per rank, Corruption 0)
Each use of this power boosts one of your physical ability scores, as normal. The modifiers from these boosts are applied after the normal limits on ability scores, skill check bonuses, damage bonuses, and so on.
Extras
-Mental (+1, Corruption +3): You can also boost your mental ability scores.

DUPLICATION (2 pts, Corruption 6)
The power's duration is continuous, but a duplicate's Power Level decreases at the rank of 1 rate per hour until it reaches 0 and dissipates. Your clones have no will of their own; you must issue them commands, which can be done as a move action.
Power Feats
-Mind-Link: As normal.
-Progression: As normal.
-Long-Lasting: Each time you take this feat, the interval of the rate at which your duplicates fade increases by 1 step along the Time and Value table.
Drawback: Degradation
You suffer a penalty on to skill checks, attack rolls and Defense equal to half your power rank, rounded up. This penalty fades at the rate of 1 point per 20 minutes. This drawback occurs with a frequency of Common; with GM approval, a player may also voluntarily choose to have the degradation's effects occur as a Complication.

FRENZIED ASSAULT (1 pt per rank, Corruption 4)
As a full action, you can make a melee attack against all opponents you can physically reach within a radius of (power rank × 5 feet). This attack can be a normal strike or a special action like Disarm or Trip. Make one attack roll and compare it against all targets in the area.
Power Feats
-Agile: After making your attack, you may move adjacent to one of the opponents you targeted.
Drawback: Bloodlust
Whenever you attempt to inflict nonlethal damage, you must make a will save (DC 10+your power rank) or attempt inflicting lethal damage instead.

GRISLY SCENE (4 pts per rank, Corruption 7)
You gain linked Mental Blast and Emotion Control [Fear] equal to your power rank. You may not use these abilities directly; instead, you use the "materials" on hand (usually fresh victims) to create grisly scenes which function like traps. Each time someone comes across one of your scenes for the first time, they must make a will save (DC 15+power rank) to resist your power's effects; if they succeed, they become immune to any other scenes you've created for the rest of the day. It takes five minutes to create a scene; you can invest additional time to increase the save DC by 1 for each rank the construction time moves up on the Time and Value Progression Table (So for example, a scene that took an hour to create will have a save DC of 18+your power rank).

MASTER OF THE ELEMENTS (1+ pts per rank, Corruption 5)
While outdoors, you can influence the atmosphere around you. This power functions identically to Environmental Control, except that instead of the ability to create light you can instead gain the Obscure [Auditory, Visual] effects.
Extras
-Improved Control (+1, Corruption 9) Your abilities also function indoors.
Flaws
-Gradual Influence (-1, Corruption -3): Any changes to the environment take an hour rather than a standard action.
Drawback: Negative Lifestream Link
You add your power rank to the DC of any attempts made to stabilize you, as well as subtracting it from your bonus on any recovery checks granted by healing effects.

MONSTROUS FORM (5 pts per rank, Corruption 7)
You have an alternate form, which you can change into or out of as a full action. While in this form, you may not use Device powers, but the limits on your Save DCs and Toughness save bonus both increase by half your power rank (rounded down). Your alternate form grants traits whose total value is equal to 5 power points per rank; these traits may include the Additional Limb, Growth, and Speed powers.
Drawback: Brute
Whenever you wish to communicate something to another person in a way that goes beyond simple gestures and body language, you must first make an intelligence check (DC 10+power rank). This DC increases by 5 if you want to use complete sentences and another 5 if the communication involves a measure of subtlety and/or detail. You may retry this check once per minute.

ONE-WINGED ANGEL (1 pt per rank, Corruption 8)
As a full action, you can grow (or retract) a single angelic wing that grants Flying at your power rank.
Power Feats
-Wingless: You can fly without growing your wing first, though this decreases your effective ranks in Flying by two.

PROFILER (2 pts per rank, Corruption 4)
You gain Emotion Control and Mind Reading equal to your power rank. You must may only use these abilities on targets you have observed for at least 5 minutes, and must speak with them in order to go beyond merely reading their surface thoughts.
Your mind-reading abilities are based more on your ability to extrapolate from behavioral cues than true psychic ability; at the GM's discretion targets may get an additional bonus of up to +10 on saves to avoid revealing information that should not be obtainable this way. For example, you could use your mind-reading power to accurately guess a security password consisting of a phrase the target selected themselves, but would have a much harder time if the password consisted of a string of random numbers the target had memorized.
Drawback: Obsessive
When given a choice between pursuing your current target and taking some other course of action, you must make a will save (DC 15+power rank) or be unable to put aside the current pursuit. You may reroll this save once per hour.

PUPPETEER (2 pts per rank, Corruption 5)
You can sense the minds of those with Jenova cells and/or Geostigma Syndrome, so long as they're within a radius equal to half your power rank on the Extended Range table, rounding down. You make a power check as a free action (DC 20-target's corruption score) and apply the result to each mind in range. You may then select one mind and continue to track it so long as you maintain concentration.
You also gain Mind Control at your power rank, usable only on targets you're tracking (meaning you can never target those who don't have Jenova cells or Geostigma Syndrome. You can purchase any of Mind Control's listed power feats, extras and flaws. Sustaining mind control also lets you continue tracking target's minds as a linked effect.
If someone else is using this power to continually track you, you automatically become aware of their mind as well and may attempt to mind control them yourself. If they're within the normal range of your own powers and have a lower corruption score, the amount by which your corruption score exceeds theirs is added to the save DC of your mind control.
Power Feats
-Accurate: You can recognize minds you've detected before, in the same way you can recognize faces.
-Corruption Sense: You know the current corruption score (if any) of each mind you can sense.
-Distance Sense: You know the rough proximity of each mind you can sense.
-Horde: Each time you take this feat, the number of of total minds you can simultaneously track and maintain control of (but not simultaneously *gain* control of) increases by one step along the time and value progression table.
-Vigilance: You may maintain concentration when a target you're tracking moves out of range, regaining your awareness of their presence if they come in range once more.
Extras
-Duration (+1): Your mind control's effects have a duration of Sustained (Lasting). You can't concentrate on subjects that are out of range or maintain any kind of mental link, but they continue to obey the commands they've been given.
Drawback: Disturbing
Your power rank applies as a penalty on all social interaction skill checks.

UNDYING (1 pt. per rank, Corruption 6)
You gain Regeneration [Resurrection] at your power rank. You can use some of these ranks to increase the bonus on the recovery checks made to resurrect yourself (these checks do not benefit from any power that boosts normal recovery checks).
Drawback: Dark Rebirth
Whenever you successfully resurrect, you permanently gain a point of corruption.

UNSTOPPABLE (3 pts per rank, Corruption 1)
You gain Impervious Protection and Regeneration at your power rank. You may only use your Regeneration ranks to improve your Recovery Bonus and Recovery Rate. Subtract your power rank from the damage bonus of enemy attacks when determining knockback distance.
Drawback: Numb to the World
Your power rank applies as a penalty to all Notice checks you make. This penalty doubles when making checks against someone who's deliberately trying to avoid being noticed by you.

Read all

M&M + FF7: Jenova Corruption

During character creation, you may choose to have your character be tainted by Jenova cells. This neither costs nor grants power points. They could have been injected with cell samples deliberately as a test subject or member of the SOLDIER program, exposed to them by accident, or had grown them naturally because their body surrendered to Jenova's influence through the lifestream (rather than killing itself in the process of suppressing that influence, meaning they recovered from a seemingly terminal case of Geostigma Syndrome).

Characters who are tainted by Jenova can spend power points to purchase Jenova Powers. They also have a Corruption score, which starts at 1. Whenever you use Extra Effort and have a Jenova Power active at some point on the same turn, you must make a will save (DC 20+your current corruption score) or gain another point of corruption. You may ignore the fatigue Extra Effort would normally impose by giving up this saving throw. You can lose a point of corruption by refraining from using any Jenova powers for period of time equal to a rank of (10-(1/2 your Corruption score, rounding down)) on the Time and Value Progression Table. If your corruption score ever reaches 10, you permanently lose your free will and become an npc puppet under Jenova's control.

In addition, your corruption score provides drawbacks of equal total value, selected from the following list; for example, at Corruption 2 you could choose to have the basic versions of the Tainted and Puppet powers, or just the Tained power with either a moderate frequency or moderate intensity. Reducing your corruption score causes the drawbacks to diminish as well, with the most recently selected developments fading away first.

Puppet: If you fail your d20 roll against this drawback's Intensity, you fall under the effects of Mind Control with the Conscious flaw, at a power rank equal to your corruption score plus half your level. While controlled, you are compelled to take actions that will advance Jenova's agenda- this could mean damaging/corrupting the lifestream, aiding one of her more willing puppets, or just trying to kill people. You make will saves to break this control, as per the normal power rules.

Tainted: If you fail your d20 roll against this drawback's Intensity, you gain an additional point of Corruption.

Weakness (Lifestream): You suffer the standard penalties when exposed to an object (such as holy water) or location (such as sacred ground or a cave with natural materia deposits) that carries high amounts of healing lifestream energy. At higher frequencies, the penalties could also begin cropping up due to normal healing magic. Note that you still gain any normal benefits, such as holy water's improvement to your corruption score's reduction interval; you're just simultaneously weakened.

So why in the world would you want to have a corruption score? Because Jenova Powers let you do things no one else can. But that's a matter for the next post.

Image by Zetari.

Read all

M&M + FF7: Materia

Adapting Materia from their original role in the videogame proved rather tricky. From a fluff perspective, they're raw crystallized magic. From a mechanical perspective, they provide the world of FF7 with spells you cast mid-combat, and yet they also serve as interchangeable equipment upgrades. I tried to reach a compromise that was balanced, made sense within the setting (omitting the materia that increases the amount of coinage you find, for example) and still stuck to the same underlying mechanics of materia slots. Oh, and it also had to still be fun.

The Materia power is identical to the 4-point version of the Device power, with the following restriction: The power points must be used to create a single ability that takes a full action to use and has a duration of Instant or Instant (Lasting). Additionally, Materia must be mounted onto a device's materia slot (see below).

Device Extra: Materia Slot
The device in question can hold one Materia, letting you use that materia's ability as an Alternate Power. The Materia's effective PL is limited to your device's PL. This Extra can be taken multiple times.
Device Extra: Linked Slots
A pair of unlinked materia slots on the device become connected. Materia stored in these slots may be used together as though they were combined via the Linked extra, assuming their powers are compatible.

Feat: Materia Attunement
You may attune yourself to a Materia, allowing you to use it whenever it's on your person rather than having to equip it in an appropriate slot. You must first concentrate on the materia for a total amount of time equal to half it's power rank on the Time and Value progression table. You may only be attuned to one Materia at a time.

Players can also use Support Materia. This type of materia always costs 1 point per rank, and grants one of the following Power Modifiers to any materia in a linked slot whose power is of equal or lesser rank:
-Action
-Added Effect (Links paired materia to Device's power)
-Area
-Autofire
-Penetrating
-Selective Attack
-Turbo (Paired Materia gets +2 to effective rank, gains the Fades flaw, recharges by not being used for 8 hours)
-Vampiric

Read all

Mutants & Masterminds: Final Fantasy 7 Rules

Using Mutants & Masterminds to run a game set in the world of FF7 is fairly simple; you just limit the powers people can select, making them available in several different ways.

All characters can buy ranks in the following powers:
-Deflect
-Device
-Leaping (max ranks=1/5 PL, rounding up)
-Luck Control
-Materia
-Protection [Cannot include the Impervious extra]
-Shield
-Strike
-Super Movement [Sure-Footed, Wall Crawling, Wall Run] (Wall Run is from Super Speed and must be taken before Wall Crawling)
-Super Strength (max ranks=1/5 PL, rounding up)
-Trip

Personal Devices can have the following powers:
-Blast
-Deflect
-Shield
-Strike

Non-personal devices should generally be adapted from the Equipment section rather than being custom-made.

Materia (see next post for full details) can be created using one of the following powers:
-Adaption
-Blast
-Concealment
-Confuse
-Corrosion
-Dazzle
-Element Control
-Emotion Control
-Enhanced Ability
-Fatigue
-Healing [Cannot include the Resurrection extra]
-Mimic
-Nauseate
-Snare
-Stun
-Summon

Read all

Final Fantasy 7 + Slashers

Back in that post reviewing what I'd been up to this last month or two, I mentioned that "World Of Darkness' amazing Slasher supplement inspired me to go back and revisit. . .my old idea for setting a campaign in the world of the FF7 series. I know it sounds deranged, but these two concepts are peanut butter and chocolate, seriously."

See, it's like this. In the wake of the original video game's events, you've got a setting with a military force of supersoldiers that's now been disbanded- plus untold numbers more that have been exposed to Jenova Cells in one fashion or another, even just by having blood from a SOLDIER spill on an open wound. And all of these people are being influenced by an alien subconsciousness; this influence largely consists of making them want to kill everyone.

Literally, everyone.

As in they want to personally murder every last human being on the planet.

Granted, Slashers in FF7 don't beat your skull in with a cement block; they slice through steel doors with swords and have duels on the backs of motorcycles. But the "those who fight monsters" theme seen in White Wolf's book very much applies here, since the ones best suited to fighting the slashers are other ex-SOLDIERs who have managed (so far) to resist the mental corruption.

I'm not suggesting your FF7-based campaign be a horror game; the idea is to enhance the adventuring setup described in the earlier post, in two different ways.

First, npc slashers provide a temporary shift towards thriller movie territory; a scary iconic enemy (similar to Dragons in D&D) that alters the nature of the encounter/adventure by being a far more serious threat than any normal enemy. Yes, the players are going to be far more powerful than any average joe slasher movie victim, but that boost in power applies to both sides, meaning they'll still be facing a very real threat.

Second, the Slasher villians and the chance to play as a character with Jenova Cells both help provide an overarching conflict to the setting (and thus the player's adventures). Western fantasy has holy knights fighting the corrupting influence of the devil and his foul servants; in the world of FF7, you have hardy survivors engaged in a similar struggle against Jenova and her psychopathic pawns. And in both cases, the future of humanity is at stake.

Now in case it's not clear, I'm not saying to gloss over all the fun, inventive aspects of the setting in favor of black leather bodysuits and ominous latin chanting. My goal here's just to facilitate a game where you can have it all- to capture both the madcap fun of parts like FF7's early Midgar sections, and the chilling tension that came from moments like escaping confinement in the Shinra headquarters only to see the hallways outside are covered in fresh blood.

Read all

FF7 Game Idea

Here's a random string of ideas spawned by this video and then this article. To start: Final Fantasy VII has an interesting setting that's not easily categorized- a sort of modern magipunk, perhaps. Is there the makings of a decent game in there? It seems like there are two ways you could go. There's a small collection of individuals who are outright superpowered- first class SOLDIERS and the like, who can practically fly and take on hundreds of normal individuals. And then you've got collections of people who are a little more "mundane" (Turks, Barrett and Cid) but still have some very thrilling adventures. Most (Maybe all) of the superpowered individuals seen so far in the setting are the result of Shinra's experiments, but I'd rather not do a game that ties players to the main plotline/characters or steals their thunder. So, here's an idea for an overall plot:

The players are a group of young adults, all in a similar age group; say 18-21. The game takes place about 15 years after the events of Final Fantasy VII, so the kids know about the history in theory but don't have much in the way of personal memories. The game will be based in the city/settlement of Edge (The setting for Advent Children), with the players having lived there all their lives, probably as street urchins. There are numerous opportunities here- you've got a sort of frontier urban setting, with the ruins of Midgar literally next door; you could easily have the whole game take place within these boundaries. If you want to say that the city of Edge is having to really fight to survive, then just exploring the ruins to salvage supplies is a valid adventure hook. There can be bandit hideouts and other sinister agents lurking in the shadows. In Dirge of Cerebus, the enemies are "Deepground" soldiers who were trapped in complexes underneath the city and brought out of cyrogenic sleep by the personality of the mad scientist Hojo, preserved on the facility's computer network; the dungeon opportunities don't get more clear-cut than that.

The plot twist, which allows you to move into a more superpowered game if you feel so inclined, is that the players were all exposed to Mako as kids in the same way as members of the SOLDIER program. However, in their case this wasn't due to any deliberate experiment; instead, they were all children living in the slums around the generator that was destroyed by the player in the beginning of Final Fantasy VII. The GM can give the players unexpected reserves of strength, similar to the young Cloud at Nibelheim (2:00 to 2:30). At the same time, you can use elements of Mako Poisoning as a plot device/motiviation- the players are suffering from a strange disease, so how can they cure it? It also serves as a way of providing exposition- as the players explore the ruins of Midgar, they might find themselves experiencing memories that aren't theirs.

A potential employer for the PCs is the World Regenesis Organization, which is a mix of charity organization and private militia. The organization's goal is to help rebuild the planet, and they're based in Edge. The founder, Reeve Tuesti, makes for a good "boss" who gives the kids jobs which involve searching for some lost piece of technology that he recently got a lead on or something. He could also be aware of their condition and be observing them out of a sense of responsibility (Or a concern that they might snap and go on an overpowered rampage).

In terms of system, I'd be inclined to use 2nd Edition M&M for a superpowered game involving and d20 Modern for a more normal one, maybe mixing in some spycraft 2nd Edition. Either way you'd want to make the flavor clear beforehand, getting the players to think about the character first rather than taking these flexible systems in ways that don't fit the setting.

With regards to this game idea, my preference is to start things on a small scale and then escalate from there. Begin as d20 modern characters and only drop hints about their Mako abilities, the sort of details that only get noticed when they look back later. As things step up, add on the benefits of M&M levels. The advantage of this setup is that the players have gotten this boost in power through a route previously unseen in FF7, so the GM can dictate how things work without having to worry too much about previous canon.

Read all