TRANSFER

Effect: Trait

Action: Standard

Range: Touch

Duration: Instant

Cost: 2-10 points per rank

Saving Throw: Fortitude

Optional: Fatigue

You can take character points from one of a target’s traits and add them to one of your own.

You must touch the target (succeeding at a melee attack roll) and the target makes a Fortitude save. If the save fails, each rank of Transfer removes one power point from the affected trait and transfers it to yours. The trait lowered does not have to be the same as the one increased (so you could, for example, transfer an opponent’s Strength to your Blast power). The traits you can transfer from and to must be chosen when you take this power and cannot change. You do not need to have points already in the acquired trait; in other words it can be a trait or effect you gain only after transferring points into it. You lose transferred points, and the target regains them, at a rate of one per round. The Slow Fade power feat reduces this rate (see page 110).

You can only transfer character points up to your power rank. Once you have done so, you cannot transfer any more from a subject until some of the transferred character points fade.

To determine your Transfer’s cost, take the cost of a Drain power (see page 82) with the appropriate effect and add it to the cost of a Boost power (see page 77) with the appropriate effect. So if you lower one target trait and raise one of yours, for example, Transfer costs 2 character points per rank.

FLAWS

• Tainted (–1): You acquire the subject’s drawbacks (see Drawbacks, page 124) as long as you retain transferred points from the subject.

UNDER THE HOOD: TRANSFER

Like Boost and Drain (which it essentially combines), Transfer can be a powerful effect. Gamemasters may wish to limit player characters to lower levels of Transfer, as well as limiting levels of the Slow Fade power feat. One means of simulating the effects of Transfer while making it a little less fearsome is to use the Mimic power instead (see page 92). Increase its cost by 1 point per rank, and have the target suffer from a Linked Fatigue effect (see Linked, page 112), to represent the loss of “vital energy.” So the target retains his normal traits, but might be somewhat tired out by the “energy transfer,” making for a more even struggle.