The Catch

Your Toughness abilities are limited in some way.

The Catch. You must specify something that bypasses your Toughness abilities. This will give you a discount on the total cost of any and all Toughness category powers that you take, based on how likely it is that the Catch will be met in play. Add all the relevant discounts from the list below:

1. If your abilities only protect you against something specific, you get a -2 discount. If they protect you against everything except something specific, you get nothing.
2. If the Catch is bypassed by something that anyone could reasonably get access to, but usually doesn’t carry on them (like cold iron), you get a -2. If it is bypassed by something only a rare class of people in the world have (like True Magic), you get a -1. If it is bypassed by something only one or two people in the world have access to or could produce (like a Sword of the Cross), you get nothing. Even the mere presence of the thing that satisfies your Catch will cause you discomfort.
3. If almost anyone with an awareness of the supernatural knows about the Catch or could easily find out (like from the Paranet, or Bram Stoker’s Dracula if you’re a Black Court vampire), you get a -2. If knowledge of the Catch requires access to specific research material that could be restricted (like a wizard’s library), you get a -1. If knowledge of the Catch requires knowing you personally to learn about it (like the effect of Judas’ Noose on Nicodemus), you get nothing.
4. Any Recovery powers you have are affected by the Catch, and so will not speed up the recovery of an injury caused by something that bypasses the Catch.

Note: Catches cannot reduce the total cost of your Toughness powers below –1. You may specify more than one Catch if you so choose, but you can only receive the discount once; take the best one.

Cost: Varies, naturally…

Inhuman Recovery

You have an incredible fortitude, able to exert yourself longer and heal faster than
a normal human can.

Musts: You must attach this power to a Catch.

Total Recovery. You’re able to recover from physical harm that would leave a normal person permanently damaged. You can recover totally from any consequence (excluding extreme ones) with no other excuse besides time; simply waiting long enough will eventually heal you completely.

Fast Recovery. Out of combat, you may recover from physical damage as if they were one level lower in severity. So, you recover from Motally Wounded as though it was Incapacitated, etc. Consequences reduced below Wounded are always removed by the beginning of a subsequent session.

Vigorous. You may skip a night of sleep with no ill effects. +2D to stamina checks.

Shrug It Off. In combat, once per combat sequence, you may clear away a Wounded result as an action.

Cost: 2

Inhuman Toughness

You’re unusually tough and have incredible fortitude. You’re able to take more punishment than a normal human can.

Musts: You must attach this power to a Catch.

Hard to Hurt. You naturally have Armor: +1D vs. Physical damage

Hard to Kill. You have +2D Strength vs. Damage rolls in addition to the Armor bonus.

Cost: 2

Supernatural Recovery

You can exert yourself constantly without issue and, given just a little downtime, you can recover from particularly nasty wounds.

Musts: This ability replaces Inhuman Recovery. You must attach this power to a Catch.

Total Recovery. As with Inhuman Recovery: You’re able to recover from physical harm that would leave a normal person permanently damaged. You can recover totally from any consequence (excluding extreme ones) with no other excuse besides time; simply waiting long enough will eventually heal you completely.

Faster Recovery. Out of combat, you may recover from physical damages if they were two levels lower in severity. So, you recover from Mortally Wounded as though it was Wounded, etc. Consequences reduced below Wounded are always removed by the beginning of a subsequent session.

Unfaltering. You may skip a week of sleep with no ill effects. +3D to Stamina checks

It’s Nothing. Twice per combat sequence, you may clear away a Wounded damage result as an action.

Cost: 4

Supernatural Toughness

Your body can take punishments that would easily kill a normal man.

Musts: This ability replaces Inhuman Toughness. You must attach this power to a Catch.

Harder to Hurt. You naturally have Armor: +2D vs. Physical damage

Harder to Kill. You have +4D Strength vs. Damage rolls in addition to the Armor bonus.

Cost: 4

Mythic Recovery

You heal faster than anyone should be able to. Prometheus’ liver has fits of jealousy.

Musts: This ability replaces Inhuman or Supernatural Recovery. You must attach this power to a Catch.

Total Recovery. As with Inhuman Recovery: You’re able to recover from physical harm that would leave a normal person permanently damaged. You can recover totally from any damage (excluding extreme ones) with no other excuse besides time; simply waiting long enough will eventually heal you completely.

Really Amazingly Fast Recovery. Out of combat, you may recover from all physical damage before the beginning of the next scene after you receive them!

Indefatigable. You never need to sleep. +4D to Stamina checks

Ha! You Call That a Hit? Three times per combat sequence, you may clear away a Wounded damage result as an action.

Cost: 6

Mythic Toughness

Issues of the flesh rarely trouble you. Your body has, to a great extent, transcended the petty concerns of mortality.

Musts: This ability replaces Inhuman or Supernatural Toughness. You must attach this power to a Catch.

Nearly Impossible to Hurt. You naturally have Armor: 3D against all physical damage.

Nearly Impossible to Kill. You have +6D to Strength checks versus damage after Armor reduction.

Cost: 6

Physical Immunity

You simply can’t take physical damage from anything normal.

Musts: You must attach this power to a Catch.

Physical Immunity. You take no stress and no damage from physical attacks and other harms, unless someone satisfies your Catch. This does not make you unusually tough to such attacks; if you want to be tough in all cases, even when your Physical Immunity is compromised, take Inhuman, Supernatural, or Mythic Toughness as well with a less susceptible Catch—or one of the Recovery abilities if you merely want to heal quickly when your invulnerability is pierced. If a character spends more than one Action Die on a successful attack only to discover you are completely immune to it, that character should be refunded all but one Action Die.

Stacked Catch [+varies]. Normally, all your Toughness powers can only receive the refresh rebate effect of one Catch, so you line them all up and choose the best one.
If you take Physical Immunity, and have other Toughness abilities already covered by a Catch, you may also receive the refresh rebate of a second Catch. This second Catch may only affect how the Physical Immunity works, and it’s called a Stacked Catch. If you take a Stacked Catch, the first Catch covering the other Toughness powers does not include the Physical Immunity as one of the abilities covered.

For example, let’s say a fire demon has Supernatural Toughness with the Catch that he’s vulnerable to cold. Normally, this would give him a point savings of -3: -2 because cold is easy to come by, and -1 because research would normally uncover it. In addition, he has physical immunity to damage from any kind of fire. The Catch is that it only applies to attacks with fire. Normally, this would give a savings of -5:
-2 for protecting against only one specific thing, -2 because “not fire” is easy to come by, and -1 because research would normally uncover it. Because you can stack these two benefits, the demon gets a total of -8 toward his Toughness powers, so his total cost is only 4 (4 for Supernatural Toughness, 8 for Physical Immunity, -8 for the stacked benefit). A character with a Stacked Catch that then inverts the conditions of the first Catch is strongly discouraged. A Physical Immunity to Fire layered on top of Supernatural Toughness that can only be pierced by Fire just never happens in reality, and if it did, one or both Catches would be rightly valued as worth zero.

Cost: 8