Banding (Benalish Hero, Magic: The Gathering)

Banding

◊Descriptors – empathy, sensory, talent

◊Effect – Detect Emotions, Empathic Link, Enhanced Advantages • 20 points

Banding (acute, area Senses 2, area Communication 1, and area Enhanced Traits 1 which can all selectively affect others)

◊Modifiers – affects others: +1/rank, area: +1/rank, continuous: +1/rank, selective: +1/rank, sustained: +0/rank (Senses), affects others: +1/rank, area: +1/rank, continuous: +1/rank, selective: +1/rank (Communication), affects others: +1/rank, area: +1/rank, continuous: +1/rank, selective: +1/rank, sustained: +0/rank (Enhanced Traits)

◊Action – free

◊Range – personal

◊Duration – continuous

◊Results – The hero has the ability feel directed emotions and broadcast emotions; the hero benefits from the Teamwork advantage; the hero can form a band with each member gaining these abilities

Description

A Benalish hero has the ability to form a powerful bond between diverse groups of creatures by Banding. They have the empathic ability to share their emotional state with others within 100 feet and to “feel” emotions directed at them (other characters must have a Detect Emotions Sense effect to “feel” the emotions the hero broadcasts).

They also have the benefits of the Teamwork advantage.

As a standard action, the Benalish Hero can share these abilities with others within a range of 30 feet. These characters become a part of the hero’s “band”. The hero can choose to grant these effects to any characters she can accurately perceive within the effect area. All such characters gain the benefits of the Teamwork advantage as well as the hero’s empathic abilities (allowing them to detect and communicate their emotions to anyone other banded characters).

The empathic connection of the band does not allow communication as effective as language and does not act as a substitute for language, but it does enhance the ability of the band to respond as a unit. The band knows when one of its members is in danger, confident, confused or hurt, for example. Very simple concepts such as “come”, “flee”, “go” or “help” can be understood when shared. The receiver of the emotions must succeed an Insight check to interpret the emotional concept correctly. The difficulty of this check is typically easy (DC 5) unless the band members are very different sorts of creatures.

A benalish hero can continue to add members to the band by using another standard action. All members remain banded until the hero removes them from the band (as a free action). The banded characters can use their band abilities until then, even if the hero should lose consciousness. If the hero dies, the gamemaster decides if the banding effect disperses immediately or if it persists for a time. In any case, the abilities fade at the end of the scene.

Note: At the gamemaster’s discretion, Banding can allow diverse creates to join a Force (as per the Mass Combat rules on pg. 194 of the Gamemaster’s Guide). This would be appropriate when dealing with large numbers of summoned creatures. Generally, different kinds of creatures would gain a troop quality which aggregates the abilities of those creatures and that troop quality would then be adjusted upwards by their Force Modifier. With Banding, aggregate all of the banded creatures’ traits except Toughness and Morale. Use the best value from among all of the creatures with Banding, or one creature which is in a band, but does not have Banding itself for these two traits as the base trait before adjusting Toughness for the number of creatures in a force. If this comes into play often, the gamemaster may require an additional point cost be paid for this ability as a Feature.