Bloody But Unbowed

One of the things that I like best about super heroes is that they never give up, no matter the odds. When heroes are outmatched, when they’re injured and time is running out and we just know that this time our hero might fail, that tension and drama is what makes them truly heroic.

Invulnerable RPG heroes face that kind of danger all the time. Here are a handful of healing Power Enhancements, to keep your heroes in the fight when the odds are against them and their luck is running out. And if hero mortality just doesn’t fit the Campaign you want to run, below is an Optional Rule, Fighting Spirit, that you can implement to keep heroes alive even after they take a pounding.

> Cauterize (Enhancement)
Requirements: Elemental Control [Fire] Power, Level 1+
Description: Your flames close the target’s wounds. Though painful, the flames stop the bleeding and prevent infection.
Game Mechanics:

  • Enhancement Type: Miscellaneous
  • Cost to Use: 1 VIG
  • Action to Use: Attack
  • Range: Touch
  • Grants a +5 Bonus to Medicine Rolls for closing open wounds caused by Edged or Gunfire damage. However, unless the target has 1+ Levels of Hyper-Toughness, they’re Stunned for 1d3 Rounds.

> Cryogenics (Enhancement)
Requirements: Elemental Control [Ice] Power, 1+ Levels
Description: When your allies start to bleed out, you put them “on ice,” arresting their deterioration until help arrives.
Game Mechanics:

  • Enhancement Type: Miscellaneous
  • Cost to Use: Standard
  • Action to Use: Transform
  • Duration: Standard (resisted) or (Levels) hours (resisted)
  • Range: Standard
  • This Enhancement works like Elemental Entanglement, except that targets are Stunned as well as Manacled and Shackled for the Standard Duration. However, all Afflictions or damaging effects with a Duration halt while the target is frozen. The target cannot die while frozen, unless they take additional damage while frozen. If the target chooses not to make a Save when Cryogenics hits them, the Duration is extended to (Levels) hours.

> Phasic Surgery (Enhancement)
Requirements: Intangibility, 3+ Levels
Description: Reaching into an ally’s wounds, you pull out the bullets that lodged in their flesh.
Game Mechanics:

  • Enhancement Type: Miscellaneous
  • Cost to Use: Standard
  • Action to Use: Transform
  • Range: Touch
  • If the target has taken Gunfire damage, the target regains (Levels)/2 HLT. This Enhancement can only be applied once per Gunfire attack.

> Dull Pain (Enhancement)
Requirements: Telepathy, 3+ Levels, or Healing, 1+ Levels.
Description: You dampen the target’s neurons, reducing the pain and trauma they feel. Momentarily numb, they can ignore their wounds and fight on for now.
Game Mechanics:

  • Enhancement Type: Miscellaneous
  • Cost to Use: Standard
  • Action to Use: Standard
  • Range: Touch
  • The target temporarily gains (Levels) HLT in all Body Parts, for 1d3 Rounds.

Optional Rule: Fighting Spirit

The combat rules in Invulnerable are geared for supers games where death is a very real possibility, if the players aren’t careful. This reflects the reality of modern comics, where injury and death (and subsequent plot resurrection) aren’t too uncommon.

In four-color games, and games modeled on Saturday morning cartoons, though, that might not be appropriate. For these kinds of games, we recommend the following rule. After losing all LIF, all further injury reduces the hero’s DET before impacting the hero’s TGH. The hero doesn’t begin to die until their DET drops to 0; at that point, the hero begins to lose 1 TGH per Round until dead, as normal.

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