Overview
One of the greatest aspects of a superhero world is having other superheroes drop into the action. How often has Spider-Man dropped in on a fight between the X-Men or Avengers and their foes? We want to recreate that feeling while making the Connections feel more important.
We accomplish this in Absolute Overpower with a system we call Deployable Recruits. It gives players the ability to deploy another hero at any time during gameplay in exchange for spending Karma.
How to use Deployable Recruits
Deployable Recruits follow a similar process to using Team Maneuvers except they can be deployed as individuals and do not require teammate proximity unless the team has decided to pool Karma resources to deploy a chosen recruit.
Each recruitable hero has three different recruit levels that cost different amounts of Karma (1, 2, or 3 Karma points) to deploy. Unlike Team Maneuvers, this is not locked behind average team rank, but how powerful a deployable the character or party wants to use.
These ranks also correlate to the amount of standard actions and reactions a recruit can perform before disappearing from the map (unless deployed again).
Recruit Actions
The amount of actions (or rounds) a deployed recruit can make—whether in or out of combat—is determined by how much Karma was spent to recruit them. The amount of Karma spent (1, 2, or 3) equals the amount of turns (standard action, plus available reactions) the recruit can make.
Recruit Pool
Recruits can only be chosen from each player or party’s Recruit Pool. This includes anyone any player, party, or Commander has an established Connection with. This pool will grow and change as the party encounters more NPCs and establishes new Connections.
If the Connection is with a group, type, or role rather than an individual, players can choose anyone that meets that requirement.
Example Deployable Recruit
Spider-Man’s player is in a grueling fight with Carnage and it’s not going well. He’s not likely to survive the encounter. He needs an exit strategy, but can’t come up with one. However, he remembers he received surplus Karma points from handling his great power with great responsibility earlier and has enough Karma points to deploy a recruit.
He thinks about his connections: Reporters, Spiderverse, and Street-Level. He asks the Narrator if street-level includes Cloak and Dagger, which the Narrator confirms. With Cloak’s abilities, he can drop into the game, and draw one willing character into his Cloak, and the Darkforce Dimension. Spider-Man’s player decides that’s a better fate than continuing to face Carnage, and he spends the Karma to recruit Cloak, and willingly is dragged into The Darkforce Dimension leaving an enraged Carnage by himself.