Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Racial Template: Jack O' Lantern (Blog or Treat)


The one with the
famous catchphrase
"YOLO."
I like exotic racial templates, and this week, I have an excuse to try to make some more because halloween, right? Well, Jack O' Lanterns aren't that scary I guess, but they are a common fixture of the holiday, so loophole! Let's see what kinda interesting stuff we can do with this idea.

Mechanics

So, a pumpkin is small, but it can also be big? But a typical pumpkin is SM-4, right? Right. Let's just agree that it is correct.
A Jack O' Lantern is like a type of fae, so, let's give it an extreme mana dependency like all the other fairy races in Dungeon Fantasy 3.
Now here's the weird part. This guy is wearing a poncho around a torso that isn't there. This could be statted as Insubstantiality maybe for part of the body but I have a heretical creative idea instead. I'm going to give this template Injury Tolerance for several different locations.
Injury Tolerance (No Arms, No Feet, No Groin, No Legs, No Neck, No Torso, No Vitals)[35]
Oh, and also
Can't Kick[-5]
It's a special effect that the parts are invisible, but he can wear clothes or armor on them if he wants now. If I were totally going by the picture, he'd also have one arm, but I don't like that!
Oh, and to cover a few weird edge cases, let's give Flight(Gliding, -50%)[20] He now has the ability to hover, and if he falls off a precipice, at least he can fall slowly.
Now, this character functions as a SM+0 character, but he effectively has the mass of a SM-4 character anyway, this means buying down Hit Points to match that size, so we need to give him -7 HP (!!!) You're dancing on a razor thin edge, kiddo! The rest of the ST is the same though. He can wield weapons as if he were a normal human.
Overall, this template looks like this:

Jack O' Lantern

20 points
Secondary Characteristics:  FP+1[3], HP-7[-14]
Advantages:  Flight (Gliding, -50%)[20], Injury Tolerance (No Arms, No Feet, No Groin, No Legs, No Neck, No Torso, No Vitals)[35], Magery 0 [5]
Disadvantages: Cannot Kick[-5], Dependency (Mana, Frequently, Constantly)[-25]
Perks: Accessory (Candle)[1]
Features: The "missing" body parts are invisible, though technically, if an "invisible foot" were out where someone could see it, then by RAW, they can see it. As a small boon, you can wear armor over this invisible body of yours to appear more normal if you so decided to do so. Maximum HP is ST+30% -7.

Power-Ups

Ok, so interesting power-ups.

  • Anything in Dungeon Fantasy 11 that applies to any other Fairy Race.
  • Detect (Demonic)[10] Jack O' Lantern is a guide that protects spirits as he leads them to the underworld, he can therefore tell if demon trickery is afoot.
    • Danger Sense[15] If Detect(Demonic) is learned, Jack O' Lantern can go one sense further and tune his danger sense to even the mundane.
  • Infravision[10] - Put on a fancy filter lens, and you can *kinda* see in the dark! Cool!
  • Insubstantial Body[77] - Your body exists it just can't be touched by most things. This power-up adds Insubstantiality (Everywhere but hands and head, -10%, Partial Change, +20%)[88] Removes Injury Tolerance (No Arms, No Feet, No Groin, No Legs, No Neck, No Torso)[30] but leaves No Vitals[5]; it removes Cannot Kick[-5], and it adds an additional 7 HP, as well as changing Maximum HP to "ST+30%" Kicking however requires a foot to be substantial, at which time it is vulnerable to attack.
    • Injury Tolerance (No Eyes)[5] When one acquires the Insubstantial Body power-up, they are allowed to acquire Injury Tolerance (No Eyes). This doesn't mean that you are blind, this just means that no matter how hard someone stabs you in the eye-hole it has no effect beyond normal damage.
  • Regrowth[40] - You are a plant, even if you are carved, hollowed out, and gutted, provided you can heal, you can always grow back any removed body parts.
  • Rapier Wit(Words of Power, +100%)[10] The legend goes that the Jack O' Lantern ticked off the devil with his wits, you can become so supernaturally witty, you can zing anyone.
  • Constriction Attack[15] - Pumpkins do have a close association with vines, so here's the obligatory Constriction attack.
  • Burning Innate Attack
    • Jack O' Lanterns are also closely associated with fire, so here's your crazy chance to go wild. For each level of Magery past 0, you are allowed to buy any burning innate attack that is less or equal to that level, and spend 50% more on enhancements. Multiple abilities may be bought as Alternative Abilities for a discount. Include the magical modifier on the ability always. This maxes out at 6 levels.
      • At Magery 1 This lets you make any ability up To Burning Attack 1 (that your GM allows) and whatever 50% enhancements would get you. That is, any burning innate attack that is less than or equal to 1d and costs less than or equal to 8 points.
      • At Magery 4 you can buy any burning innate attack that goes up to 4d damage and costs up to 30 character points.
      • If you don't like Magery, either because you prefer a different spell system, or you aren't a magic user, try to find a close corollary. Perhaps every level of a similar power talent, every two levels of ST, or every one level of DX, just to throw out some ideas could substitute for Magery. If based on a different power talent, and it would make sense to use a different power modifier on the innate attck, use that instead of the 10% magic power modifier.

Racial Maxima

The racial maxima for stats are the same as for humans except maximum hit points are limited to ST+30% - 7. This is changed if you take the Insubstantial Body power-up so that you may have up to ST+30% Hit Points.

Other Thoughts and Conclusion

I think I regret that a lot of the power-ups seem to go in the direction of cancelling the weaknesses that would make this character interesting, but eh, that's up to any GMs and players that would even think to entertain the use of this. I tried to be verbose with my reasoning hoping that makes it more helpful. The template is pretty cheap, so pretty easy to apply, but that is owing to the fact that it has some pretty severe drawbacks to counter all the good stuff it comes with. I think it could be pretty fun and unique. Having Magery makes this race, of course, more easily align with magical professional templates, but I never make it a sticking point that someone is required to take magery if they want to use a different power talent, that's just me though... wonder what a Pyro Jack based on Chi Talent looks like...

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