FAQ 5

Powers

Does my character have to have powers?

Preferably, yes. We've had two non-powered PCs in the game - Dr. Moira MacTaggart and Dr. Madelyn Bartlet - and ultimately they were very limited in their options for gameplay. Moira is now a modsocked NPC and Madelyn (an OC) has been permanently retired.

What age is normal for powers manifestation?

Powers manifest normally at two stages: birth (such as Kurt Wagner) or, more commonly, at adolescence, from around 10 or 11 at the earliest to 16 or 17 at the latest. In some cases, trauma might bring on early manifestation (Crystal Amaquelin at age 7 during an assassination attempt, for example) or delay it (Amahl Farouk did not manifest his telepathy fully until his twenties due to seeing a mutant beaten to death in his early teens).

If you want your character to have manifested before adolescence, you'll need to provide a reason why - trauma, extreme early development, outside influence, etc.

How powerful can my character be? Can I play someone with Beyonder-like powers?

No. While we don't specifically ban applications for particular characters due to their powers, any application for a highly-powerful character would have to have the powers toned down to mesh with the rest of the game's characters. The rule of thumb is that any character whose powers and skills make them able to defeat a foe that would normally require several X-Men is too powerful.

Also, reality warping powers are considered too destabilising to the game as a whole, and would have to be limited to the point of near-to-useless to be allowed in-game.

You talk about limits. What do you mean?

Limits can take a number of forms in order to ensure no one character makes the rest of the characters superfluous to a plot or to the game as a whole.

• Power levels: Sheer strength of the ability. This can be reduced to prevent your character being 'too strong'. For example, Nathan Dayspring has markedly reduced telepathy, and before it was burned out, his precognition was only to a certain point in time, rather than history-spanning.

• Applications: The number of things someone can do with their powers. Where someone in the comics canon might be able to do all sorts of things as the plot demands, in XP this can be reduced to a set skill set. For example, Amanda Sefton in the comics is a witch with any number of spells. In XP, she is restricted to more 'urban' type magic and only has a specific range of spells she has control over.

• Consequences: The 'cost' of using a power. This is particularly useful for canon characters whose powers are innately flexible and strong. For example, Marie D'Ancato can absorb the abilities and memories of other mutants, but if she does so for too long or too often, she gains that personality as a 'resident' in her mind and eventually loses her sanity; Marius Laverne cannot access physical powers without an exchange of blood, and only holds borrowed powers for a limited amount of time.

Does my character have to have a unique power, or can they have the same as someone else?

Obviously, given the number of telepaths/telekinetics in the game (and in canon!), overlap is possible, however we ask that players of characters with similar powers work together to ensure no-one is rendered superfluous to the game because they can't do anything that isn't already being done by someone else. The rule of thumb is to ask yourself "does my character make another useless?" If the answer is "yes", you need to look at the powers skillset again.