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Skip Navigation LinksHere There Be Monsters>Paradigm>Abilities>Talents
Paradigm Key Notes Assumptions Starting
House Rules Gear Abilities (Summary) Abilities (Skills)
Abilities (Talents) Abilities (Perks) Abilities (Powers)  
Custom Campaign Talents
The following custom Talents are in effect in Here There Be Monsters campaigns. Note that these abilities are purchaseable by any character as Talents.
Cost Ability
 
Awareness
5 Alert: a character with this ability is very difficult to surprise. In any situation where they would normally be surprised due to being asleep or unaware of a foe due to some circumstance, the character gets to make a special Perception check to avoid being surprised even if their lack of awareness is caused by a previously failed Perception check. This special Alert Perception check cannot be reduced to less than a 10- roll regardless of penalties; however if it is failed the character suffers the normal outcome of being surprised with no further chances to avoid it.
Example: Sabrina has the Alertness talent; going about her business one evening she is set upon by a Vampire using supernatural abilities to blend into shadows. The GM secretly made a PER check for Sabrina which was failed miserably due to the Vampire's extremely high Concealment result. However, thanks to having the Alertness Talent Sabrina gets a special additional Perception check to not be surprised by the Vampire's assault, and this roll can't be less than 10- regardless of the steep penalties that are in effect.
NOTE: Getting surprised can be lethal in the HERO System due to the doubling of Stun taken if surprised. Once knocked out, a character might never be given the opportunity to get up again. Further, many Supernaturals that survived the Age of Reason have done so because they are extremely sneaky or deceptive. Thus getting surprised by something that intends to eat you or worse is a not uncommon occurance for a Hunter. Alertness is a cheap alternative to Danger Sense and offers considerable protection against such an unseemly end.
 
10 Supernatural Awareness, Sight Based, Discriminatory. A character with this ability can see "auras" or "energy fields" around Supernatural things. Generally the stronger or more "active" a Supernatural effect, the brighter and more noticeable the aura.
The Supernatural exists in the world of Here There Be Monsters, and some people are preternaturally sensitive to this fact even if they are otherwise normal...or perhaps have innate potential they are not tapping. Either way, such an ability is a very useful thing for a Hunter to have.
Almost all Supernaturals have some kind of Distinctive Feature detectable to Supernatural Awareness, and define what information is provided. Further many Supernatural abilities are Perceiveable by Supernatural Awareness, which means that an observer with Supernatural Awareness can tell that some kind of ability is in use and descriptive adjectives such as "strong", "tough", "threatening", "draining", "burning".
A PER check made by 1 or more will also indicate the general type of Supernatural effect to an observer who has seen that kind before. For instance, Faerie or Fey magic is distinct from Daemonic magic, or Hermetic magic, or Psychic ability, or Faith, and can be differentiated by a person with Supernatural Awareness.
Characters that have further skills or abilities, such as a Lore skill or another detect, can use those abilities to interpret or otherwise interact with what they see with their Supernatural Awareness.
Beware however, some Supernatural abilities only affect or even specifically target those who have Supernatural Awareness; leaving mundanes unaffected.
NOTE: Supernatural Awareness is expensive, but is also one of the most useful (and thus more common) custom abilities available in Here There Be Monsters. Characters that have Supernatural Awareness are at a real advantage.
+5 Superior Supernatural Awareness, Add Analyze to Supernatural Awareness.
This improved version of Supernatural Awareness grants more detailed and specific knowledge about the nature and capabilities of Supernatural phenomena. Depending on degree of success on a PER check, this extra information can be anything ranging from a hint as to the sort of Power effect and potency to specifc base Powers and modifiers and even weaknesses or loopholes not covered by the effect.
+5 Pervasive Supernatural Awareness, Add Tracking to Supernatural Awareness.
This improved version of Supernatural Awareness allows an observer to not only see current Supernatural emanations in real time, but to also be able to see lingering traces and spoor of Supernatural emanations that have occured relatively recently. It is often possible to use these traces to track a Supernatural source to its current destination, or back to its origin point.
 
Deception
1 per +1, min 3 Masked Aura: for each point spent, a character with this ability imposes a -1 penalty to the Perception checks of others perceiving their aura; most typically in conjunction with the Supernatural Awareness Talent.
A failed perception check causes the perceiver to perceive the character's aura as being completely normal and unremarkable; exactly like whatever they would expect to see in the current situation.
This ability has a minimum cost of 3 points.
NOTE: Masked Aura favors characters that have some kind of Distinctive Feature visible to Supernatural Awareness (or more rarely, similar abilities). It allows a character to potentially blend in with mundanes and hide their supernatural nature.
 
1 per +1, min 3 Occluded Mind: for each point spent, a character with this ability imposes a -1 penalty to the OMCV of others attempting to find the character with the Mind Scan power.
This ability has a minimum cost of 3 points.
NOTE: Occluded Mind favors elusive characters who want to be difficult to find even by those using supernatural means to find their mind.
 
1 per +1, min 3 Scrying Ward: for each point spent, a character with this ability imposes a -1 penalty to the Perception checks of others attempting to perceive them using Clairsentience with a supernatural SFX.
A failed perception check causes the perceiver to not be able to make out the details of the character or otherwise identify them. A perception check that fails by 2 or more causes the perceiver to not perceive the character at all; the character is effectively invisible to the perceiver.
If the character wishes, they can also cause a perception check that fails by 4 or more to cause everything in their vicinity (same room, 10m radius, etc) to be blocked from the perceiver with an effect similar to the Darkness Power.
This ability has a minimum cost of 3 points.
NOTE: Scrying Ward favors characters that wish to protect themselves against supernatural observation.
 
Heroic Virtues
2 / level Heroic Mayhem: a character with this ability can easily defeat lesser foes nearly effortlessly. As an Extra Segment action a character with Heroic Mayhem may immediately defeat any number of nameless "minion" level opponents within range of whatever attacks the character can muster, up to the number of levels of Heroic Mayhem the character has and wants to expend. Each level of Heroic Mayhem is only usable once per day.
When using this ability a character "uses" whatever weapons or attacks are handy (including weapons of opportunity), and unleashes a cinematically impressive display of efficient violence. This can take whatever form narratively fits a given scene; but the end result is a bunch of wiped out minions.
Note that Charges for ammunition, Endurance, and similar costs are not expended as despite whatever form the narrative explanation takes the only ability actually being used by the character is Heroic Mayhem.
What constitutes a "minion" is left to the GM's discretion, but any NPC that lacks a name is likely a minion, and run of the mill opponents such as anonymous cultists, zombies, imps, and similar low-threat opponents are also likely minions.
Example: Trey Halford has Heroic Mayhem: 5. Using his Heroic Mayhem ability as an Extra Segment action Trey may defeat up to five minions within range of whatever attacks Trey currently has available. Even if Trey "uses his gun" to wreak Heroic Mayhem he doesn'thave to track bullets; the gun usage is just SFX.
NOTE: Heroic Mayhem favors characters that want to be able to remove "bullet sponge" minions from the equation, or to have the cinematic ability often seen in movies to neutralize packs of unimportant foes seemingly without effort.
 
1 / level Heroic Parry: a character with this ability is able to briefly focus on protecting themselves by parrying incoming melee attacks. Each level of Heroic Parry has a Real Cost of 1 point.
Each level of Heroic Parry grants +1 OCV to Block.
Normally if a character misses an attack roll to Block, they can no longer continue to make successive Block attempts. However, a character can expend a level of Heroic Parry to allow themselves to reroll a failed Block attempt. A level of Heroic Parry used in this way does not also grant +1 OCV to the rerolled Block attempt.
The rerolled Block attempt granted by this use of Heroic Parry is subject to all of the same modifiers as the original roll, including OCV bonuses from Heroic Parry that were previously expended for the original attempt.
Each level of Heroic Parry is only usable once per day.
Example: Amanda Knox has Heroic Parry: 5, and also Martial Block. She is in HtH combat with an opponent and decides to Abort to Martial Block. Confident she can make the first OCV vs OCV check, Amanda does not spend any levels of Heroic Parry; but surprisingly an 18 is rolled and Amanda fails her Block. Amanda expends a level of Heroic Parry for a reroll, and succeeds; she has 4 levels of Heroic Parry remaining for the day.
Later in the Turn before her next Phase another opponent runs up and attempts to kick Amanda, but she is still blocking and can make another Block attempt versus the new opponent at a -2 OCV penalty. Amanda's player decides that she can't risk being knocked down or staggered by the attack; Amanda expends 2 levels of Heroic Parry to offset the OCV penalty, leaving her with 2 more levels of Heroic Parry for the day.
But Amanda is plagued by bad luck; another 18 is rolled and her Block attempt fails. Amanda expends another level of Heroic Parry to gain a reroll, leaving her with 1 more level of Heroic Parry for the day. The rerolled attempt benefits from the +2 OCV granted by the levels of Heroic Parry Amanda had expended for the attempt that failed.
NOTE: Heroic Parry favors characters with a higher OCV who occasionally use Block or a martial equivalent. The bonus to OCV allows the selective application of bonuses when needed and for some characters is a more point efficient alternative over buying combat skill levels with Block directly. However the main advantage of Heroic Parry is the ability to reroll a failed Block, which offers some insurance against losing to a bad roll,
 
4 / d6 Heroic Recovery: a character with this ability can somehow make a heroic comeback, springing back into action despite seemingly serious injuries or fatigue. Conceptually the character wasn't as badly hurt as they appeared to be, or are made of sterner stuff than less heroic individuals.
Heroic Recovery dice work like Self-Only simplified Healing (the face value equals Stun and the "body count" equals Body); the additional STUN and BODY can only take a character up to their normal STUN and BODY, and is not subject to a Fade rate. When using Heroic Recovery, a player can roll as few as one die or as many as all their available dice, or any increment in between. However, each die of Heroic Recovery is only usable once per day.
A player can choose to use their character's Heroic Recovery at any time as a Non-Action, even if their character is currently unconscious. If a character is staggered (CON Stunned), they immediately recover from it when they use any number Heroic Recovery dice. If a character is bleeding out, the usage of Heroic Recovery stabilizes the character (though other later actions might cause them to start bleeding out again).
Heroic Recovery is not visible per se, though a character benefitting from it will generally appear revitalized.
Example: Tyrone "Big T" Jackson has 5d6 Heroic Recovery. At any time, Tyrone's player can opt roll 1d6 to 5d6, adding the "face" total to Tyrone's current Stun, and the "body" total to Tyrone's current Body (up to normal values).
In a life and death battle with a monster, Big T takes a massive blow to the head and is badly hurt; he is also CON Stunned. To avoid almost certain death, Big T's player opts to use 3d6 of Big T's total of 5d6 dice of Heroic Recovery immediately, saving 2d6 for later use. In addition to the Stun and Body healed, Big T also recovers from being CON Stunned. Amazingly, Big T shakes off the blow and keeps on fighting the good fight.
NOTE: Heroic Recovery favors characters with lower Speed as it helps protect them against losing actions due to being staggered (i.e. CON Stunned), but is useful to almost all characters in general.
 
1 / level Heroic Resilience: a character with this ability is harder to get rid of than appearances might suggest. Each level of Heroic Resilience is equivalent to a level of Physical Damage Negation, usable once per day.
The character may chose to use levels of Heroic Resilience against an attack after they have been hit and before damage is resolved. The SFX of each usage is left to narrative resoltion as suits the situation.
Example: Antony Scantanelli has Heroic Resilience: 5. He is shot by an enemy with a pistol that does 2d6 killing damage. Antony's player chooses to expend three levels of Heroic Resilience to reduce the attack to a 1d6 killing attack. The player describes snatching up a nearby trash can to absorb some of the bullet's force.
NOTE: Heroic Resilience favors characters with a high DCV who rarely get hit, but want a little insurance for when they do. It is also occasionally useful for protecting oneself against penetrating 1 pip killing attacks.
 
1 / level Heroic Shifting: a character with this ability is able to react incredibly fast to reposition themselves immediately before impact. Each level allows the character to move an attack that has hit them 1 position on the hit location chart.
Each level is usable once per day as long as a character is conscious, not restrained, and aware of the attack. A character can use as many levels as they wish against an attack, from zero up to their current total.
As an optional rule, a GM might allow a character to expend ten (10) levels of Heroic Shifting to make an attack miss them entirely.
Example: Amanda Knox has Heroic Shifting: 5. An opponent shoots her, hitting location 5...the Face. Preferring to not get shot in the face (and take the x2 Body multiplier), Amanda's player opts to move the hit location one position from location 5 to location 6...the Hands (and a much more advantageous 1/2 Body multiplier). Amanda Knox has four more levels of Heroic Shifting to use for the duration of the day.
NOTE: Heroic Shifting favors characters that wear sectional defenses, as well as characters who'd like a little insurance against getting shot in the head or vitals.
 
Luck
5 / d6 Luck: The standard form of Luck used in Here There Be Monsters uses the following resolution. At the beginning of each session or when otherwise indicated by the GM, a player rolls their character's Luck dice and totals the die roll. This total serves as a pool of points which the player can later use throughout the session to modify any standard 3d6 resolution roll made by their character up or down by one point per point of luck spent; thus to modify a 3d6 skill roll of 12 to an 8 would cost 4 Luck points.
A player cannot effect other characters directly with this form of Luck; thus a player couldn't make it more difficult for an opponent to hit their character by modifying that character's attack roll, but they could opt to block or dive for cover and use their character's luck to modify their own 3d6 roll to successfully block or dive out of the way.
 
15 / d6 Extreme Luck: This form of Luck works exactly the same as the default Luck described previously, except that Luck points generated from Extreme Luck dice can be used to modify other character's 3d6 resolution rolls positively or negatively if the outcome of the modified resolution would benefit the character using Extreme Luck. Range is Line of Sight.
A character targeted by a harmful use of Extreme Luck can opt to respond by using their own Luck to improve the roll, and this can go back and forth until no one else wants to spend further Luck points to modify the roll.
 
5 / d6 Lucky Damage Die: This special form of Luck takes effect when a character rolls for damage, either Normal or Killing. When rolling for damage a character may roll a specially colored (or otherwise easily identified) die for each level of Lucky Damage a character has in place of a die they would normally roll. When a Lucky Damage die rolls a 6 the player can roll that die again and add the total to their damage total, continuing until that die stops rolling 6's. No matter how many Lucky Damage dice a character has, they do not roll more dice of damage than the attack they are using actually does. This form of Luck has no other effect.
Example: Clark Dugard has 2d6 Lucky Damage; shooting a werewolf with one of his Desert Eagles that does 2d6+1 killing damage he rolls 2 Lucky Damage dice and adds 1 to the result. One of the Lucky Damage dice is a 4, and the other is a 6. The sub-total is 11, but the Lucky Damage die that rolled a 6 is rolled again, and comes up with another 6 bringing the subtotal to 17, and is then rolled again for a 3 which stops the chain and leaves Clark with a final total of 20 Body inflicted.
 
8 / use Lucky Clue: the player of a character with this ability can demand that the GM provide them with one solid clue or lead per usage per session, sufficient to allow the character to move on to the next scene. The proferred clue can take the form of reminding the player out of character of various things that have already been revealed but were not picked up on, or a little deus ex machina in game as the current scene progresses, as the GM prefers.
 
Meta
5 / use Miraculous Survival: This ability allows a character to escape certain death...once. If a character with this ability would be killed, the GM is obligated to orchestrate some scenario or chain of events whereby the character instead escapes, scrapes through, were playing possum, weren't as dead as they seemed, it all turns out to be part of an elaborate sham, or something else even more unlikely. No matter how disbelief-suspending the character's continued existence may seem, they somehow manage to avoid doom for at least the duration of a scene.
After this ability is used it is permanently gone, and the points for it are not regained. A player can opt to purchase multiple levels of this ability at character creation and after play starts, if they wish.
Example: Michaila Bast's player bought several levels of Miraculous Survival at character creation. During play Michaila might somehow, against all odds, survive many challenges.
 
Mitigation
3 / point Supernatural Resistance: the character is more difficult to damage using Supernatural forces. Each point of Supernatural Resistance negates a point of damage or effect caused by any sort of ability with a Supernatural SFX. Supernatural Resistance counts as Resistant Defense and can be applied against attacks that normally target any standard or exotic defense, and can be stacked with any other relevant defense a character might have.
Supernatural Resistance is considered to have one level each of Hardened and Impenetrable. This can be increased by applying Advantages to Supernatural Resistance.
Example: Murgatroyd has Supernatural Resistance: 5. Hunting down a rogue Warlock, Murgatroyd is attacked by a mystic bolt, an attempted mind control spell, and a curse; 5 points of damage and / or effect are subtracted from each attack.
Supernatural Resistance is the most efficient way to gain comprehensive protection against direct Supernatural effects, and though somewhat expensive, is generally worth the investment.
 
Status Immunity
3 Fugue Immunity: a character with this ability is immune to the effects of mesmerism, toxins, pheremones, drugs, and similar mechanisms of willpower sapping that use the Stun option for Change Environment described in the Advanced Players Guide (APG; 6e) on page 83. For example, the Ecstasy of Blood ability contained in the bite of a Vampire.
 
3 Lycanthropy Immunity: a character with this ability cannot be turned into a lycanthrope of any kind (such as a werewolf); they are immune to the Infectious Bite ability all true-born were-creatures possess (which is built as a Minor Transform Xd6 (Person Into Lycanthropy Infected Person, Permanent)).
 
3 Necromantic Immunity: a character with this ability cannot be turned into a Zombie or any other kind of non-sentient Undead; they are immune to the Infectious Bite some unliving possess (which is usually built as a Transform Xd6 (Person Into [X Undead], Permanent)), and similar abilities.
 
3 Possession Immunity: a character with this ability cannot be Possessed; they are immune to any use of the Possession Power against them. They are still able to be affected by Mind Control directly; their immunity only protects against abilities bought using the Possession Power described in the Advanced Players Guide (APG; 6e).
 
3 Vampirism Immunity: a character with this ability cannot be turned into a Vampire; they are immune to the Infectious Bite ability all true Vampires possess (which is built as a Minor Transform Xd6 (Person Into Vampirism Infected Person, Permanent)).
 
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