Haemptomancy

[JohnnyAppleseed098]

I'm making a character that uses blood as a divination. I know how to build many of the powers I want, but I don't know how to build his ability to control blood. I've thought about a way to do this. 

 

 

Mind Control (Blood Class Of Minds) Based on CON -1, However I want it to be indefinite that I can control blood, not it being based on a number of dice. 

 

 

So, if I come up with an idea for this, please let me know.  

 

[Doc Democracy]

I think you need to explain to us what you mean by control blood...I have no idea of what that would look like in a movie or a comic and what the haeptomancer would achieve through its use....

 

Doc

[JohnnyAppleseed098]

Ok, What I mean is that I want to MANIPULATE Blood, such as making a barrier of blood or launching missiles of blood from my weapons. In essence, imagine a fire mage with fire emerging from his staff. Now, imagine the same except the "Staff" is a spiked knuckle and the "fire" liquid blood. 

[Altair]

Ok, What I mean is that I want to MANIPULATE Blood, such as making a barrier of blood or launching missiles of blood from my weapons. In essence, imagine a fire mage with fire emerging from his staff. Now, imagine the same except the "Staff" is a spiked knuckle and the "fire" liquid blood. 

 

SFX: Blood? Just build the powers you'd like, and that's the way they're manifest.

 

A fire mage with fire emerging from his staff might have: Pyrokinetic Blast:  Blast 8d6 (40 Active Points, 20 Real Points); OAF: Staff (-1), SFX: Fire/Heat

 

The character you described might have this power instead: Hemokinetic Blast:  Blast 8d6 (40 Active Points, 20 Real Points); OAF: Spiked Knuckle (-1), SFX: Blood.

 

Does that sound about right?

[JohnnyAppleseed098]

Yes, I know, but I'm looking more for generic manipulation

[Tasha]

Yes, I know, but I'm looking more for generic manipulation

 

State in plain english what that Generic Manipulation does for the character/and or to Others. Be as specific and as complete as possible

 

Always work from plain english power descriptions before you try to apply game mechanics. It's far easier to design powers that way.

[pinecone]

Yes, I know, but I'm looking more for generic manipulation

You mean something like TK, liquids, only vs Blood?

[薔薇語]

Yes, I know, but I'm looking more for generic manipulation

 

I think this is where you are going to run into some odd problems. 

 

To give you an example of why this "Generic Manipulation" causes problems in Hero, think about X-men's NightCrawler and Wolverine. In NightCrawler's case, he has a generic teleportation power that lets him travel from one location to another. He can also use this power to teleport others with him, teleport objects so that they land on others, and potentially teleport away single body parts from individuals he is touching. To mimic all of these in a single "generic teleportation" power is way too difficult. We simply need to think of each instance where distinct effects occur as being separate powers. Thus the long range teleportation of himself (and maybe a single ally) and his ability to teleport large groups of people are different. Likewise, when we look at the way we could build TELEPORTATION (the power, not special effect) as an attack capable of dropping cars on a target, removing limbs, etc. we find that we start to run afoul of two HERO system issues: never use one power to mimic the role of another, The forced awkwardness of odd house rule calculations. By teleporting a car to drop on a foe it looks like we would be using the TELEPORTATION power but mechanically we are just performing an AoE attack with OIA (Car, etc). Same for the teleporting of limbs, we are not using TELEPORTATION the power but a HKA with Teleportation as the special effect of a very successful attack. The 'forced awkwardness of odd house rule calculations' comes in when we must determine the damage of a falling car on a target - if we are commonly needing to refer to odd mass/momentum charts and scaling those against damage charts in HERO, then we are setting ourselves up for failure. For NO commonly used* power should we need to reference anything off of the character's power description blurb. *commonly used meaning things that the player / character are likely to do in most every combat encounter - one off events that are very rare can just be hand-waved as a 'power-stunt'. 

 

This is also the case for Wolverine. I can recall when I first started to use HERO, my friend was building a wolverine-esc character and wanted help on the build. Because Wolverine is famous for his regeneration being able to make ineffective most simple attacks, I got wrapped up in the idea of having an insanely high REGEN power build for the character. As time progressed it became stupidly obvious that for that POWER to operate the MECHANICAL way needed, the player would dump all of her points into that build alone and it would be extremely broken. But taking a step back I started to think about the MECHANICAL effect of Wolverine's regeneration factor: The Ability to take a hit and keep operating at or near max capacity. What POWER mimics that MECHANICAL effect? Simple: rPD and rED. No need to build fancy REGEN POWER builds when I could just use rPD and rED with the special effect of "heals so fast as to hardly be noticed as damage." 

 

The above is why people are concerned about what you want to do MECHANICALLY with your blood manipulation. Simply giving you the ability to move blood around is actually rather straight forward, if that is your MECHANICAL goal. Telekinesis: affects porous & only vs blood. But that build doesn't let you actually hit someone with blood nor create walls of blood to guard you, or ride a stream of blood through the water / air. All it lets you do is slightly move blood (and only blood) around a bit. To get the MECHANICAL ability to do damage you need a BLAST or RKA, etc, with the 'blood magic' SPF/X. Same for defense, you need BARRIER or such with the 'blood magic' SPF/X. 

 

To sum up: ignore the special effect of blood magic. Only think about the mechanical effects you want (damage, defense, flight, etc) and the level you want them at (how much damage, how long, how far), and build THAT, then tack on the 'blood magic' special effect at the very end. 

 

Soar. 

[JohnnyAppleseed098]

I appreciate everything that you have said. And yes, I do see how this may be a problem. I understand now that I can't build a generic power, so I won't try to. Although, it does seem a bit strange the technicalities you have to work through. I actually love telekinesis much more than "Blood Control" as my GM called it. So, thank all who answered and I say "Good Night."

 

 

 

 

 

 

As The Words Die We See The World Revive

[Tasha]

Most generic Powers can be build by the clever use of Variable Power Pools and a good idea of how to pull of the effects you are looking to use.

[Lucius]

I'm making a character that uses blood as a divination.

You say this, but then nothing else you say has anything to do with divination. What does the character do, let a drop of blood fall into a bowl of water and read meaning from the dispersal patter or something?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Palindromomancy is the art of predicting the future by assuming it will be like the past, but backwards.

[JohnnyAppleseed098]

Not quite the definition I'm looking for. I was more using it as say a way to control my own destiny as such as term. And Yes, That Is exactly what Blood divination is.

 

 

 

 

As Words Die We Discover That The Blood Dispersal Patter Creates The Image of Blood

[Tasha]

So you want to control your destiny, you should have some Precognition to see what that future will be.

 

as for controlling destiny. Luck and Skill Levels (esp Overall Skill Levels) can be used to tilt things in a character's favor.

 

PS you still haven't really communicated clearly what you mean by control the character's destiny. ie what form would that take. You said " I was more using it as say a way to control my own destiny as such as term." I am not really sure what you mean by that sentence. the last 4 words don't go together in my head with meaning.

[JohnnyAppleseed098]

Ok. I meant it more as an expressive term. For Emphasis

 

 

 

 

As Words Die, We Realize That I Used A Politically-Incorrect Statement