Chapter 2 - Part 4 - Qualities And Drawbacks - Section R

## Rank

1-POINT/LEVEL QUALITY OR DRAWBACK

Your character is is part of some other seriously hierarchical organization. High rank has privileges; subordinates obey your character’s orders. On the other hand, low-ranking cogs are at a disadvantage; they get ordered around, and disobeying is not a good career option. The value of the Rank feature ranges from -1 to +9, and costs one point per level (or grants one point at the lowest level). Keep in mind that high Rank also entails numerous duties that may restrict your character’s actions even more than very low Rank. The Ranks Table shows some law enforcement, government agency, and U.S. Army ranks. Ranks titles in other organizations vary.

## Recurring Nightmares

1-POINT DRAWBACK

Your character is plagued by terrifying dreams that relive some traumatic experience, or are just frightening and disturbing. Every night, the Director may check to see if your character suffers from nightmares. They may be imposed at the Director’s discretion, or may be rolled randomly (a roll of 1 on a D10 means the character experiences a nightmare that night). On any night when the character is afflicted by the nightmare, she suffers -1 to all rolls the following day as a result of exhaustion.

## Reduced Damage [Demons and Supernaturals]

VARIABLE QUALITY

Some critters aren't easy to damage like normal folks. A demon from a fiery dimension might take half damage from fire or heat, for example. Vampires are highly resistant to bullets and falls due to their undead nature. This power comes in three levels. The first reduces damage by half, the second divides damage by five and the third drops damage by a factor of ten. Damage is rounded down, to a minimum of one point. In all cases, the base damage is adjusted after Success Levels have been added. Damage type modifiers are not applied.

The cost of the trait depends on what form of damage is affected. It'd be neat to be nearly invulnerable to everything but that's gonna cost quite a bit.

Cost of Different Types of Reduced Damage
 Specific Attack
 Limited

## Regeneration [Demons and Supernaturals]

1, 3, OR 6-POINT QUALITY

You can't keep a good demon down. Or a bad one for that matter. Some supernaturals heal very rapidly. The amount healed is equal to the character's Constitution Attribute. The faster this amount heals, the more expensive the power is. Healing Point per hour costs one point. Healing every minute costs three points. The very handy regeneration-every-Turn runs six points. While regeneration allows the regrowth of limbs, it does not convey immortality or invulnerability. No matter how fast a character heals, if he gets into the negative Life Points, is forced to make a Survival Test, and fails, it's curtains for the mug.

## Resistance

1-POINT PER LEVEL QUALITY

Some people are just innately better at ignoring the bad things life (or the unliving) throws at them. This ability allows your character to fend off the effects of a particular type of harm. Each different type of Resistance Quality must be purchased separately. We’ve given some examples, but feel free to devise others.

### Demonic Powers

For some reason, your character is able to resist the supernatural abilities of some types of demons. She adds her Resistance level to any rolls against being controlled or dominated through supernatural means. This includes the hypnotic powers some demons and vampires have, and the infection/possession power of deaditess.

### Hunger/Thirst

This is a fan made Quality. This can usually be taken up to level 5. Each level adds 6 hours to the time increment for hunger and 3 to that for thirst.

### Mystical/Paranormal

Each level adds one to any resistance roll allowed against a mystical effect, or subtracts one from any opponent’s targeting roll or Score. Rolls to perceive invisible people are also enhanced. If the mystical effect does not involve dice rolling, your Director may want to soften or otherwise adjust it in relation to a resistant character. Characters with this Quality may not purchase the Sorcery, Enchanter/Superscientist, Telepathy, or The Sight Qualities (or any other your Director thinks incompatible). Also, your Director may break this Quality into two versions, one for magical effects and one for non-magical stuff like invisibility and psychic powers.

### Pain

Each level of this Quality reduces the penalties associated with severe wounds, and adds to Willpower and Constitution rolls (see Bad Stuff: Consciousness Tests) to stay conscious or fend off death when severely injured.

### Poison/Disease

Your character has a cast-iron stomach and an overactive immune system; add the level of this Resistance to any Constitution rolls to resist the effects of poison or disease. At your Director's option, this may be two different Qualities - one for poison and one for disease.

## Resources

2-POINTS PER LEVEL QUALITY OR DRAWBACK

Money doesn't mean much to Promised Ones - they very likely won't travel with more than what's in their hands or on their backs. It's also not hugely important for most in the Middle Ages. Each of them - peasant, craftsman, soldier, knight, nobility - have a status. Goods and services are provided according to that societal position (or not provided as the case may be). Barter is the usual medium of exchange.

But this isn't universally true. Certain merchants could be wealthier than knights, and their wealth is in a more easy to use form. Serfs with large estates could be effectively as wealthy as their local lord even though they have less land, because they don't have the massive costs of the lord (warhorse, armour, and noble household to maintain, and gifts to give). Lords could be so overextended (due to poor harvests and over-borrowing from his local merchants) that his effective wealth level does not reflect his position. For those special situations, you might purchase a separate Resources level for your character.

Also, for games situated in the modern world, or those involving more grounded individuals - those who aren't sucked up in cyclonic timestreams every other week - money and status are completely separate features. These folks should deal with the Resources and Status Qualities differently.

A character’s Resources determines how much material wealth he has access to. This trait varies widely. Some levels are described below. In the case of a student or other person dependent on parents or guardians, the Resource level detailed applies to that older type. Whether your character has access to these assets at any given time is a matter for the Director and the plotline.

[Side note: though the costs are the same in the Buffy and Army of Darkness books, the Angel costs are different. If needed, this value is the one given, divided by 2.]

DESTITUTE (-10): Has the clothes on her back, ten dollars’ worth of stuff and maybe a shopping cart. Lucky to scrounge a few dollars a month.

MISERABLE (-8): Personal wealth of about $100 in property (including the clothes on his back). May live in public housing, or might be homeless. Might earn $100 a month.

POOR (-6): Personal wealth of some $500 in property and lives in low-income housing. Has an income of $500 a month or what he gets from welfare.

HURTING (-4): Personal wealth of about $1,000 in property, and lives in a small apartment in a bad part of town. Income of $1,000 a month before taxes.

BELOW AVERAGE (-2): Personal wealth of $5,000 in property (including an old vehicle, perhaps), and lives in an apartment. Has a pre-tax income of $1,500 a month.

OKAY (0): Personal wealth of $15,000 in property and income of $2,500 a month before taxes.

MIDDLE CLASS (+2): Personal wealth of $50,000 in property (will usually include a partially-paid house or condominium as well as a new or slightly used car). Has an income of $5,000 a month before taxes.

WELL-OFF (+4): Personal wealth of $300,000 in property and an income of $10,000 a month before taxes.

WEALTHY (+6): Personal wealth of $700,000 in property. Has an income of $40,000 a month.

RICH (+8): Personal wealth of $2,000,000 in property. Income of $50,000 a month.

MULTIMILLIONAIRE (+10): Personal wealth of $5 million in property and an income of $200,000 a month. Each additional level adds an additional $5 million in property and $200,000 to monthly income.

## Revenant [Demons and Supernaturals]

17-POINT QUALITY

This unusual form of undead is an instrument of vengeance or justice (even they aren't sure) who may be agents of the Powers That Be or some other entity interested in fighting the forces of darkness. Revenants are men and women who died violently, usually through supernatural means. They come back as avenging angels, hunting down those they deem 'tainted' with evil or the supernatural. Unlike most undead, however, they do not reincarnate in their original bodyÑinstead they take over the corpse of another victim of violence or supernatural activity. Driven by powerful visions and a thirst for revenge, Revenants need to get used to the idea of living in a stranger's body for the rest of their existence, driven by powerful visions and a thirst for revenge.

Revenants look alive (if a little pale), but they don't have a pulse, don't sweat, and don't need to eat. Their bodies are only slightly above room temperature. Most importantly, they cannot be killed normally. If their body 'dies,' their spirit takes over the body of the closest person who dies by violence after their 'demise.' In crime-ridden L.A., this takes little or no time. The only way to destroy a Revenant permanently is to burn its body while it's still alive. The flames trap the spirit and remove it from this plane of existence.

Killing a Revenant (without burning it) means the Cast Member needs to start over in a new body. Your Director decides when and where the new body is found. In general, the character is going to be out of the game for a bit. The newfound body usually has average levels (2) in all Attributes. To determine the Attributes to come, roll a D10 and distribute those 'extra' Attribute points as desired, then add in the bonuses of the Revenant Quality. Over time, the body 'grows into' these higher stats, as the Revenant's spirit reshapes the body. This occurs at the rate of one Attribute level per week. In general, skills, Qualities, and Drawbacks carry over to the new body, and replace those possessed by that body.

Revenants get a +2 bonus to Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution, and a +3 bonus to Willpower. They have Regeneration (Per hour) and their unique body-switching power (10 points which includes their Unique Kill (Fire) Quality). Finally, they have Psychic Visions - the debilitating version. A Revenant's total cost is 17 points.

### Anybody Home?

For simplicity's sake, newly infested bodies should be as blank a slate as possible. Perhaps an Attribute or two could vary from the norm, but otherwise, it's best to just let the Revenant mold the body to his previous Attributes without worrying overly about 'left-over' clutter.

The "under the hood" folks among you no doubt have noticed that the Revenant's "new body" Attribute points range from 13 to 22 (the 12 from the "body" plus D10). Thus, a Revenant could have more or less Attribute levels in total than it had in its first body (built using the Champion or Investigator Character Type). That's designed to add a bit of variety to the character and give the player a bit more ability to adjust his character after a fatal encounter. Some players or Directors might like to keep the character's Attribute levels more consistent. In that case, simply set the "Attributes to come" level at the former body's Attributes. Alternatively, you could keep the mental Attribute maximums the same as the former body and allow some variation on the physical side (use half a D10 result, rounded down, to spread around). This all adds complexity, of course.

Another way to twist things (and add complication) arises if your Director varies the non-Attribute aspects of the body that your Revenant infests. Keeping some Qualities or Drawbacks (or even skills in very odd cases) flavors the assumed body. What if your Revenant took over someone who had deranged-level Mental Problems, or was half-demon, or had superhuman healing abilities, or retractable adamantine claws, or was really, really short. The variations are limitless.

## Robot

5-POINT QUALITY

Your character is a robot, endowed with artificial intelligence by its creator. Robots in the Buffyverse are intelligent, but typically don’t have a will of their own, being restricted by their programming. Some robots eventually become independent operators, often with tragic results. Also, a disembodied demon has managed to inhabit a robot body in the past; a human being might find her mind or soul trapped in a robotic frame as well. This Quality assumes the character is an independent robot. Notorious Robots include Moloch the demon (1.8 I Robot, You Jane), Ted the perfect boyfriend (2.11 Ted), April the love-bot (5.15 I Was Made To Love You), and the ever-delightful Buffybot (5.18 Intervention).

Robots get +4 to Strength, +1 to Dexterity and +2 to Constitution (these scores can exceed normal human levels). Figure Life Points normally, but the robot cannot heal damage normally and must be repaired. Anybody with Science skill 3 or higher can fix a robot. Each Success Level in a Science and Intelligence Task restores one Life Point per Constitution level of the robot; each repair attempt takes one hour. When a robot falls “unconscious,” she has been deactivated. She may recover consciousness (like any other unconscious character) on his own, or require the help of someone with the Science or Mr. Fix-It skills (or Occultism for things like golems), at the Director's discretion.

The Robot Quality may also be used to cover things like arcane clockworks, golems made from the river mud, homunculi, or any other type of artificial being. When used for cyborgs, the Quality assumes that the being is mostly mechanical and that its life support is dependent on its artificial parts (we aren't talking Lee Majors with just an arm, two legs, and an eyeball here).