Extraordinary Abilities

Most games allow characters to make use of certain kinds of extraordinary abilities. Be those abilities magical, psionic, mutant, or otherwise in origin, they're written in the "Extraordinary Abilities" section of the character sheet. To create an extrardinary ability, create a Skill with which it is associated and a chart to define its range, duration, power, and any other effects of the spell.

Telekinesis

Duration: 5 rounds

For this ability, a "Telekinesis" Skill is created. The number of degrees rolled determines the results of the ability. In this case, two degrees represents a range of 10' and a capability to lift 20 pounds. If a character wishes to "shuffle" these degrees around, she can reduce one category to increase another. For instance, with two degrees, a player could attain a weight of 80 pounds by reducing the range to 5'.

There are a lot of options when designing extraordinary abilities. In this case, for example, the ability might have a Duration category and a set weight limit instead of a Weight category and a set duration (depending on what sort of spell is desired). Of course, the spell also could have both a Duration category and a Weight category if the GM regards this as balanced.

This Skill is developed like any other, though its cost will often be more than the usual x1 associated with other Skills, depending on the multiplier the GM decides to associate with it (this will vary depending on the coolness of the ability). The average extraordinary ability would have a development cost of x2. The Skill also has a drain, which is the amount by which the ability depletes some particular threshold (in this case an "Extraordinary Ability Threshold") as described above. The amount of this drain is usually based on the power of the individual ability being used (for example, the specific spell or mutant power being used). While Mental Disintegration would likely have a substantially high drain (perhaps 5), a fairly pathetic ability such as Psychic Butter Churn might have a drain of only 1.

Extraordinary abilities generally do not have results which result in permanent durations unless there is some kind of sacrifice associated with this use of the ability. The nature of the sacrifice will depend on the nature of the game, but in general a character should have to give up something important as a consequence of using the ability. For example, the end of a close relationship could be part of a ritual, or a limb could be a spell components. Alternatively, it might be necessary to undertake some kind of moderately difficult quest in order to make the effect permanent.

When defining an extraordinary ability, a player (under the guidance of the GM) also needs to select an Attribute with which each ability will be used when rolling to determine success, and create a Skill to go with it. For example, if a character decides to be a mage who can cast Gordsniffle's Unholy Buttplug, she would create a Skill called Gordsniffle's Unholy Buttplug. Her choice of Attribute can be any of the mental Attributes (Willpower, Charisma, Intellect, or Intuition). However, players should not be able to use the same Attribute for this and their extraordinary ability's threshold.

Characters usually need to have different thresholds for each distinct kind of extraordinary ability, but not for different divisions within the same category. For instance, all psychic abilities should probably use the same threshold, but a character with both spellcasting abilities and a mutant power needs to develop 2 thresholds. Individual games (and GMs) may make exceptions to this.

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