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Power Surpressing/Draining Drugs or Chemicals in CU?
gradii
Posts: 11,716 Arc User
I have listed as one of my heroes weaknesses that she is susceptible to certain chemicals which can temporarily shut down a majority of her powers from prolonged or large amounts of exposure. are there any specific chemicals or drugs in the champions universe which could have this effect?
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Most of the specifically superpower-negating technology in the CU has progressed to the level of projected or explosive energy, such as some exotic weapons employed by the above agencies, and the broad-effect power negators at Stronghold. The CU does have a few substances which induce or augment superpowers.
What I would suggest is either that such targeted compounds have a greater than normal effect on her, or that commonly-used chemical weapons additionally affect her powers.
Fair enough, although those are uncommon, and wouldn't normally be administered as an offensive weapon, unless someone knows the character has this weakness. They also tend to focus on enhancing specific types of powers or physical abilities, so the opposite effect might not impare your character's powers.
Or something like Moxocillin, from Aberrant, that targets the part of the brain that controls the powers (in Aberrant, the M-R Node), making it diificult (if not impossible) to use their powers until their body can flush the drug from system.
Power-dampening energy is the tech of choice for superpower negation in the CU.
Just to let you know how it is, I have completely blown off players who have tried to 'EMP magic killswitch' my character. Why? Because it's cheap, lazy... and oh, EMP isn't 'harmless' to living, breathing people. It can cause extreme neurological damage and a lot of folks don't like to roleplay out the repercussions of that. That, and I handwave cheap RP 'kryptonite' attacks like that away (biological faraday cage around the vital augmentations, etc- also, it's not normal to go out bar-hopping with an EMP grenade).
How to be more fair about 'kryptonite' attacks? Say X element 'weakens'. The general idea is, take a lycanthrope. I'd expect a mook werewolf to drop and howl and scream if I skewered or slashed him with a silver-alloyed bayonet or fighting knife. He's a mook, he's supposed to do that. A player? I'd expect a 'weakening' or 'something like being poisoned'.
These things should be equalizers, not 'magic bullets'. My character employs a variety of weapons for supernatural foes, like silver-alloyed weapons/silver-filled hollowpoints, rock salt/orichalcum/silver/etc shotgun shells and grenades. I don't expect them to ever 'down' another player. It's cheap and lousy.
As far as circumventing a weakness goes- there's a reason you go to other heroes in this field of expertise. Get warded, or something.
Also, they would have saved even more points on their defensive powers by excluding or getting only reduced protection from kyptonite-based attacks- as this is the case, the player of this character must know that those were not free points and that by putting a kill-switch into their character, the chance of it eventually being discovered and used against them would occur.
So if you build a killswitch into your character, expect it to get used sooner or later.
**
Sorry- just noted on re-reading you did not use kryptonite and killswitch together- sorry about that.
- something to incapacitate target toon via exposure, takes time
- has to be magical
- cannot be a direct attack, which an enchanted waistcloth is designed to defend
However, there are 2 assumptions I have to make:
- the target toon has to breathe air, isn't a robot or a cyborg with lung filters, etc.
- ignaetium is a fuel that gives off fumes like gasoline, but the scent can be disguised
The chemical used to target this toon would not be ignaetium, but the ignaetium fumes.
The real-life counter-example is gasoline. Gasoline is toxic; like you shouldn't drink it or y'know, bathe in it, open flames notwithstanding. I mean we all know that, duh. However, accidentally breathing in the fumes is a possibility.
Breathing gasoline fumes can be fatal, just from the carbon monoxide from it, which is odorless. Then there's the other toxic bits in the gasoline in the hydrocarbons, all of which is pretty unhealthy for the body.
So I imagine ignaetium, also a fuel, would at least have -some- qualities like that. It's not a direct attack, so might not be negated by an enchanted waistcloth, it's something in the air that enters the target toon's body via breathing.
The effect won't cancel the target toon's powers per se. It's meant to make the target toon very sick, dizzy, possibly unconscious, rendering him/her useless in combat. Then, in that weakened state, you'd be able to shackle on a power negater, etc.
Regarding implementation, I'd set up a trap for this toon, some sort of crime scene investigation for him/her in an enclosed space, like an abandoned factory. Lots of chemical smells, that vent in these ignaetium fumes to disguise its scent.
Alternative approach - using magical bacteria instead of magical gas fumes, but I actually have more trouble imagineering magical bacteria than fumes that come from this magical fuel that already exists/is a Rampage token in-game.
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