Seeking Suggestions For "Mixed Blessing" Powers

[Vordark]

I'm brainstorming for ideas of powers that not only provide some benefit, but also create a weakness or otherwise have an at least somewhat nasty trade-off.  As an example...

A power that gives the player a chance to rip the soul from a living target, killing it instantly.  But, in exchange for this, the character becomes a member of the living dead themselves.

I'm not terribly concerned with how powerful such abilities are, so long as they are balanced against a suitably nasty trade-off.

So, any thoughts?

[chronoplasm]

There's this character I came up with for a game I was working on called The Chimera. He gained a super-human healing factor, but the downside was that it caused a teratoma in his chest to start growing. Now he has a little conjoined twin poking out of his ribcage. One of them wears a goat mask and the other wears a lion mask.

Just make sure that your trade-offs do in fact balance the powers.
I don't play GURPS because of a guy who knew who played a quadrapalegic with telekinesis. The power to move objects with his mind mooted the point that he had no limbs.

[Vordark]

There's this character I came up with for a game I was working on called The Chimera. He gained a super-human healing factor, but the downside was that it caused a teratoma in his chest to start growing. Now he has a little conjoined twin poking out of his ribcage. One of them wears a goat mask and the other wears a lion mask.

You now have me thinking of little "half-people" poking out of someone's torso wearing porcelain masks and muttering sweat nothings to the "bearer".  I love you.

Just make sure that your trade-offs do in fact balance the powers.
I don't play GURPS because of a guy who knew who played a quadrapalegic with telekinesis. The power to move objects with his mind mooted the point that he had no limbs.

Yeah, I've had my fill of disadvantages that aren't really disadvantageous.  I'm being very careful about what I will and will not consider a Bad Thing.

[Egonblaidd]

There's this character I came up with for a game I was working on called The Chimera. He gained a super-human healing factor, but the downside was that it caused a teratoma in his chest to start growing. Now he has a little conjoined twin poking out of his ribcage. One of them wears a goat mask and the other wears a lion mask.

You now have me thinking of little "half-people" poking out of someone's torso wearing porcelain masks and muttering sweat nothings to the "bearer".  I love you.

"Open your mind!"  Total Recall, anyone?  No one?  Oh well.

Hmm, lemme think of some things.

You can strip a creature of it's life energy, causing it to age years in a matter of seconds (until either you stop draining it or you kill it), and doing so causes you to become an equivalent amount younger, however, it also increases the speed at which you age.  Sooner or later, you'll be aging faster than you can drain life, and die.

You can feel the presence of other living creatures, but you are incapable of recognizing them.  A complete stranger could walk right up to you and tell you that he is your friend, and you'd have no reason to disbelieve him.  Therefore, you can know exactly how many people are nearby, and where they are, but you can't tell who they are, even if you can see them.

You can connect to the minds of others and destroy their mind, however, in doing so you also destroy a part of your own mind due to the connection between minds.  As you use this ability, you become more and more insane until you must be committed.

Your mind exists in an alternate dimension, one in which the human mind was not meant to dwell.  You know the secrets of the universe, and they drive you to insanity.

When someone looks into your eyes, you gain complete control over them.  However, you are blind.

You can turn into a monstrous beast, however, while in your beast form you cannot recognize friends and foes (except through great strength of will), and you only return to human form when your beast form wishes to.  Sooner or later, your beast form will decide to remain as it is forever.

You can speak with animals, otherwise you are mute.

You cannot be killed.  Damage will instead drive you to insanity.

When you sleep, your spirit leaves your body and you can move around and perform limited actions while your body sleeps.  However, a large number of disembodied spirits roam the world that will steal your body if they find it vacant.

You are able to discern truth from lie, however, you cannot speak.

A creature dwells inside of you that grants you great power.  However, as the creature feeds (off of what, I don't know), it will eventually mature and burst out of you.  Most likely you won't survive.

You can breathe underwater, however, air is poisonous to you.

Neither heat nor cold affect you, but water burns you like acid.  Consequently, you probably don't have to drink, at least, not water, in order to live.

Sunlight grants you unusual powers, but without it (i.e. at night) you go comatose.

Moonlight grants you unusual powers, with the strength varying with the moon phase.  However, sunlight burns your skin and weakens you.

Hmm, one last one, back on the subject of teratomas.  You have a conjoined fetal twin that tells you the future.  Maybe.  He plays mean tricks on you most of the time.

How's that for a few ideas?

[Vordark]

Egonblaidd:  I'm lovin' it.

[Brimshack]

You can heal others, but only by taking on the wounds yourself. Perhaps you can tranfer wounds yourself, but only to willing recipients. So, your character can't actually remove damage, but she can help spread it around and try to distribute the harm to those that can manage it.

You have a high magic resistance, but it applies to friendly spells just as it does hostile ones.

Your character is magically able to understand any languages spoken to her, but she can speak none intelligibly, nor communicate meaningfully in any way.

[JoyWriter]

Is looking at Mortal Coil actual-play plagiarism? If not that game is pretty much an engine for this kind of stuff!

How about you can force anyone within a sphere to answer any question truthfully, but that sphere is centred on you!

You can fly without any effort, but if you ever touch the ground you die.

Or you spin off the planet and must be held down with weights, depending on how physics-y your setting is.

Injuries heal you, but if you get healed too much you explode from health! (Recognise the game anyone?)

You can lie effortlessly, but you can never tell the truth.

You become prosperous, but also heavily magnetic!

[GozerTC]

The Midas touch pops first and foremost in my mind.

One of my personal super hero characters I've used for a while has the ability to create any weapon he wants as long as he can "draw it."  I.e. pull out a pistol from a "holster" that may or may not really exsist.  "Unslinging" and pulling up an Assault rifle etc.  Just by itself this power is limited in the fact that you have to physically pantomime the action to call forth the weapon.  On the up side you have every weapon you can imagine just by figuring out how to "draw" it.  The other restriction I had my kid have was that he didn't know how to USE any weapons.  He was a modern city kid, what did he know about wiedling a sword? Plus the exact weapon that appears is hard to control as well.  I mean if you just "draw" a pistol what kind is it?  A Walter PPK is VERY different from a Desert Eagle.  A short sword is much different than a claymore or even worse an anime sword.

Another power is the ability to convert kinetic energy into another energy.  In my case heat.  BTW do you know how NON heat resistant clothes are?  It's a very embarising ability but helpful in a pinch. 

[Bossy]

You foresee the future, no one believes her. Cassandra.

You see through walls, you can't see through glass.

You give life to objects, they are all evil.

You travel through wires, static kills you.

You adjust your size, your skin doesn't. Gross.

You have to sacrifice as much as you heal.

[Vordark]

You adjust your size, your skin doesn't. Gross.

I picture growing very small and being trapped in a floppy "Me Suit".

Yeah, "gross" sums it up.