Grafting

Effect: Anatomic Separation, Variable

Action: Standard (active)

Range: Touch

Duration: Sustained

Saving Throw: Fortitude

Cost: 11 points per rank

This bizarre power allows you to “steal” parts of a target’s body and replace your own with them, gaining some of the target’s traits by doing so! For example, you might steal a target’s arms, gaining his strength, or steal her mouth, gaining her voice and vocal powers, and so forth. The only limitations are that you cannot steal a target’s head or brain nor replace your own head or brain, pretty much anything else is fair game, as the GM sees fit.

To steal a body part, you must touch the subject (requiring a successful melee attack roll in combat) and the target must fail a Fortitude saving throw (DC 10 + Grafting rank). If your attempt is successful, the affected body part disappears from the target and appears attached to your body (in place of your existing body part(s), if necessary). You can steal up to one body part per rank in Grafting; matched parts (like a pair of arms or eyes) count as two. In some cases, it

is up to the GM what part or parts are required to obtain a particular trait. For example, to get Immunity (drowning) from a water-breather might require his lungs, gills, or something else. You can acquire a maximum of (rank x 5) power points in traits from stolen body parts, regardless of how many you steal, so you may run out of available points before you hit your limit on stolen parts, particularly if you steal powerful traits. The target of this power is deprived of the body part, suffering an appropriate Disability drawback, but is otherwise unharmed. So stealing someone’s hand, for example, leaves a smooth stump

rather than a bleeding wound, but also leaves the target without a hand. Stealing someone’s eyes blinds him, stealing his mouth silences him, and so forth. Stealing a body part does not impair the target in anything other than a gross physical sense; so stealing someone’s lungs to gain Super-Breath doesn’t leave

the target unable to breathe, for example, neither does stealing both his nose and mouth. (Why? Mainly because this would be too effective an attack, and trying to apply realism to a power like this one is far more trouble than it’s worth.)

Example: The macabre Flesh Golem has Graft 12 (costing 132 power points). He can steal up to twelve body parts (one per power rank) for a total of 60 points

in traits (rank 12 x 5). Fighting the Hero League, he steals Johnny Rocketeer's legs (2 parts), gaining 10 ranks of Speed, costing 10 points from his available pool and leaving Johnny unable to move, much less run. The GM decides that Patchwork Man doesn’t gain Johnny’s full Super-Speed power, since he only has a speedster’s legs. On the following round, Flesh Golem steals Electrum's arm, gaining Electrical Control 10, Enhanced Strength 20, and Super-Strength 5, the latter two limited to one arm (a –1 flaw in the GM’s view), costing 35 more points. He can steal up to nine more body parts for a total of 15 more power points of traits. When the Grafting power’s duration ends, stolen parts return immediately to their proper owners, regardless of distance.

Grafting is an unusual power for a hero, although the GM should feel free to allow it, if desired. Villainous versions of Grafting are often X-traits with an unlimited rank (see X-Traits, M&M, page 211).

POWER FEATS

• Extended Reach: As a touch range power, Grafting can benefit from this power feat, which extends the reach of your touch attack.

EXTRAS

• Alternate Save: Reflex or Will save may be more appropriate for some types of Grafting, depending on the power’s descriptors.

• Duration (+2): Continuous duration Grafting lasts until you choose to reverse it. It costs twice as much (a +2 extra) since it applies to both the effect of robbing the target of a body part and the effect of gaining traits from it.

• Range (+2): Range likewise costs double for Grafting; a Ranged Grafting power can steal body parts with a ranged attack roll while a Perception Range Grafting power doesn’t require an attack roll, affecting anyone you can accurately perceive (although they still receive a saving throw).

• Vampiric: When you successfully steal a body part, you automatically gain a recovery check against your worst damage condition, with a bonus equal to your

Grafting rank.