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The Dreamer PL 7 or PL 10


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Player Name: shatterspike1

Character Name: The Dreamer

Power Level: 7 105/105 PP

Trade-Offs: -5 Defense/+5 Toughness, -1 Damage/+1 Attack Blast, +5 Damage/-5 Attack Move Object

Unspent Power Points: 0

Progress to Bronze Status: 0/30

 

In Brief: Teenaged girl infested by a malevolent dream spirit. Her competitive and fearless nature led to her conquering the spirit instead of being devoured by it, and she gained powers from the hybridization.

 

 

Alternate Identity: Shelby Ryan

Identity: Secret

Birthplace: Freedom City

Occupation: Student

Affiliations: None so far

Family: Derrick Ryan (Father), Elena Ryan (Mother), Shannon Ryan (Older Sister), Renee Ryan (Younger Sister)

 

Description:

Age: 16 (DoB: August 21st, 1998)

Apparent Age: 16

Gender: Female

Ethnicity: Caucasian

Height: 5' 7"

Weight: 110 lbs

Eyes: Blue

Hair: Black

 

Shelby is fairly tall and thin, with long straight hair. She constantly fidgets, having trouble sitting still, and takes up enormous amounts of room whether sitting or standing through virtue of spreading her arms as far as possible.

 

In costume, Shelby wears a green mask that covers the upper half of her face, letting her hair free. Her top is colored blue with many intricate patterns in green running along it and sleeves running long enough to be tucked into green gloves. She wears flared out blue pants that end in green and blue combat boots. The eternity of her costume has weird pearlescent sheen to it, a telltale sign of the costume being produced by her powers.

 

History:

There was a malevolent spirit that came from the world of dreams. It would find dreamers and overwhelm them with a terrible nightmare so it could feed off their fear. When engorged on their fear, it would overwhelm the sleeping person and possess their body, casting the dreamer's mind into the cellar and keep it imprisoned with fear. The spirit would channel its power through the body and attempt to dominate the world around it until the body was killed, at which point it would move onto another dreamer in another world and the process would start all over again.

 

Shelby Ryan is a middle child, born to a wealthy North Bay lawyer father and heiress mother. Simultaneously an overachiever and a troublemaker, Shelby caused her parents more trouble than the other two sisters combined. Partially, this is due to her competitive and intense nature, but it's also due to a traumatic brain injury she had in a car accident when she was twelve. Her amygdala was damaged, turning an already courageous and risk taking child into one entirely without fear. Much to the relief of her parents, she recovered from the injuries quickly. Soon, she was back in school and back to her old ways. Things seemed to return to normal for a few years, until Shelby was fifteen.

 

The dream spirit attacked Shelby with what might be a horrible nightmare for anyone else, and closed in on her to try and take over her body. The spirit infested her, but it had made a severe mistake. Instead of Shelby being imprisoned by fear in her own mind, the reverse happened. Shelby was left with the spirit's powers, and the spirit was stuck in her mind. Knowing that it would be free only when Shelby was dead, the spirit began whispering to her in her mind. At first the spirit tried to undermine her self-confidence, then when that didn't work, it started trying to bolster her ego and dare her into dangerous situations. One of these dares was the one that revealed her powers to her parents.

 

The details aren't important, but her parents and siblings learned that Shelby had powers. At a loss as to what to do at first, Elena was contacted by Claremont Academy in an attempt to recruit Shelby. Elena and Derrick were relieved to have a place to send their daughter that could help teach her some restraint, and Shelby was elated at the prospect of new challenges. She starts there in the fall of 2014 as a Junior.

 

Personality & Motivation:

Shelby is intense, energetic, driven, competitive, and very cocky. She's also loyal to those she considers friends, quick to try to bring everyone's spirit up when they're down, and relatively straightforward in dealing with other people. She tends to dominate conversations that she's in, to the annoyance of others. Shelby also has the odd tendency to be a graceful loser but a very poor winner, mocking the people she defeats.

 

If asked why she became a hero, Shelby would probably say something along the lines of "It's difficult to do this; who wouldn't want to?" While this is certainly true, the other reason she never talks about is the realization that there are several people who died trapped inside their own bodies and terrified until she conquered the dream spirit. Even if she doesn't have fear, she never wants to be helpless to do something.

 

Powers & Tactics:

The Dreamer's powers all have a unique visual look, with physical objects and creatures manifesting with an pearlescent sheen and the energy of her blasts, transformations, and move object power all shining with a bluish-green glow. Her transformation can transform anything into anything else, including a total alteration of a person's mental state. She doesn't like to remake a person's mind, in general.

 

When her direct blast power smashes into someone, it also mixes all of their senses together and makes them impossible to distinguish, effectively rendering all of them useless.

 

Her ability to summon dream creatures is quite possibly her most powerful ability, and the one most frequently subject to a challenge not to use. While supposedly she could summon anything she likes, in reality, she usually relies on a handful of types of minions she's thought of before-hand. GMs, feel free to require a power stunt or something similar to create an all new minion in the middle of everything. The reason these creatures are so fanatically loyal is because they are extensions of her willpower, and not actual beings of their own. She commands them with her thoughts.

 

Unless she or a family member is in serious danger, she rarely uses the same tactic twice. She likes to constantly think of new ways to win fights as a way of testing herself. This tendency might fade as she learns how lethal fights can be.

 

Complications:

Won't Refuse a Challenge: Shelby is competitive to the point that she will not refuse most challenges given to her. Obviously impossible (I dare you to shoot down the sun!), suicidal (I dare you to fight Omega without using your powers), or dares against her nature (Kill as many people in this crowd as you can in five minutes) will be ignored, but other challenges (Fight me one on one!) will be hastily and gladly accepted.

Your Soul looks Wrong: The spirit infesting Shelby gives off an awful "EVIL HERE" vibe to Aura Readers and people with magic detection. To an outside uninformed observer with these abilities, it looks like the spirit is wearing a Shelby suit which may cause many harmful misunderstandings.

Whispers of the Damned: The spirit is constantly talking to Shelby in the back of her head, giving her bad ideas, stoking her ego, and challenging her. Not only this, the spirit notices nearby telepaths and will say anything to them to cause trouble for Shelby.

An Ordinary Family: Being the only super in a family of normal people can cause difficulty, especially if a villain threatens them or one of her sisters (or parents!) happens to tag along on one of her escapades.

 

 

Abilities: -2 + 0 + 0 + 2 + 0 + 2 = 2PP

Strength: 8 (-1)

Dexterity: 10 (0)

Constitution: 10 (0)

Intelligence: 12 (+1)

Wisdom: 10 (0)

Charisma: 12 (+1)

 

Combat: 6 + 4 = 10PP

Initiative: 0

Attack: +3 Melee, +3 Ranged

Grapple: +2

Defense: +2 (+2 Base), +1 Flat Footed

Knockback: -6

 

Saving Throws: 4 + 3 + 5 = 12PP

Toughness: +12 (+12 Protection)

Fortitude: +4 (+4)

Reflex: +3 (+3)

Will: +5 (+5)

 

Skills: 12R = 3PP

Intimidate 2 (+3)

Concentration 2 (+2)

Craft Artistic 2 (+3)

Craft Structural 2 (+3)

Craft Mechanical 1 (+2)

Diplomacy 1 (+2)

Gather Information 2 (+3)

 

Feats: 2PP

Second Chance against Mind Control

Fearless

 

Powers: 12 + 64 = 76PP

All powers have Magic and Dream descriptors.

 

Protection 12 [12 PP]

 

Channeling the Dream (60 PP Array; Feats: Alternate Power 4) [64 PP]

Base Power: Transform 5 (Anything into Anything Else; Extras: Continuous Duration (+1), Linked to Mental Transform) {35/60}

+ Mental Transform 5 (Completely Alter; Extras: Continuous Duration (+1), Linked to Transform) {60/60}

 

Alternate Power: Create Object 17 (Unreal, Dream; Extras: Continuous Duration (+1); Feats: Precise, Innate, Selective, Affects Insubstantial 2, Progression 4) {60/60}

 

Alternate Power: Move Object 19 (Greenish-Blue Dreamlike Glow; Extras: Damaging (+1); Feats: Precise, Improved Range 2) {60/60}

 

Alternate Power: Damage 6 (Greenish-Blue Blast; Extras: Range (+1), Secondary Effect (+1), Contagious (+1), Linked to Dazzle; Feats: Accurate 3, Affects Insubstantial 2, Precise) {30/60}

+ Dazzle 7 (Affects all Sense Types; Extras: Linked to Damage; Feats: Accurate 2) {30 + 30 = 60/60}

 

Alternate Power: Summon Dream Creatures 7 (Projecting Dream Creatures; Extras: Fanatical (+1), Horde (+1), Type (+2), Range (+1); Feats: Mental Link, Progression 4, Sacrifice, Variable Descriptor 2, Improved Range 3) {60/60}

 

__________

 

So far, this is a somewhat complete WIP.  Minion write-ups and an alternate PL 10 version may be coming, and any help rules or fluff wise would be much appreciated.

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Just a scan. 

 

THe Dream Array is of concern. Aside from the inherent (but possibly legit) problems of "Reality warping", a Continuous duration status effect (like transform) is unlikely to fly. It turns into a "one shot kill". It is certainly possible if it is something like inorganic to inorganic - although transform is a power that is looked at carefully. 

 

Move Object and Create Object have special rules for capping (see house rules). A Damaging extra to Telekenesis will be capped at PL. I am not sure why this is ranged and damage is not?

 

Overall I like the idea/theme of "Dream powers", but overall this looks like a "Me do anything" Reality Warper?

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I'd add a -1 flaw to the Transform effect that lets it be a staged effect instead of all-or-nothing.

Avoiding cap breaks with Damaging TK is easy. Just don't buy Damaging for all TK ranks. You can have Move Object 20 (Extras: Damaging [10]) [50PP].

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Well, the Move Object is listed as having a tradeoff, increasing the damage to +12 at the sacrifice of accuracy. There is still a problem with that, as your BAB is +3, and could not be higher than +2 with the listed tradeoff.

But more generally, this character is really just one big array (with about 60% of her PP budget in that one array).

Also, how does 12 ranks of Protection fit into the concept of these magic/dream abilities?

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Hmm... it seems like the major issue, mechanics-wise, is that all of the powers are concentrated in array.  For the problematic individual powers, the fixes seem fairly easy.  Transform needs an anti-instagib add on (the staged effect and/or a really common turn back to normal effect).  I was thinking the sound of bells ringing or anytime the creature would normally fall asleep as a reversion (possibly both).  Move Object's damage fix is trivial.  The Summon power is the most obviously powerful of the effects, and I'm considering removing it entirely or replacing it with an illusions sort of power.  My question is how I would fit the general character concept into a character without making said character a giant array, like she is now.  Removing the Move Object effect also seems like it could help reduce the general "I can do anything" power the build has currently, and that power isn't particularly integral to the character concept.  As for the Protection power?  That's just to get up to PL, and it makes more sense fluff-wise to say "inhabitation by dream spirit increases your general toughness" then it is to take all of that as defensive roll and say "she's almost supernaturally good at getting out of harms way despite no prior training".

 

TLDR So far, I'm thinking Staged Transform Effect with suitable common reversion conditions, removed Move Object entirely (not core to concept), and removed Summon (enormously powerful).  The left-over array is far more manageable, and still makes sense fluff-wise.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Player Name: shatterspike1

Character Name: The Dreamer

Power Level: 10 150/150 PP

Trade-Offs: -5 Defense/+5 Toughness, -1 Damage/+1 Attack

Unspent Power Points: 0

Progress to Bronze Status: 0/30

 

In Brief: Teenaged girl infested by a malevolent dream spirit. Her competitive and fearless nature led to her conquering the spirit instead of being devoured by it, and she gained powers from the hybridization.

 

 

Alternate Identity: Shelby Ryan

Identity: Secret

Birthplace: Freedom City

Occupation: Student

Affiliations: None so far

Family: Derrick Ryan (Father), Elena Ryan (Mother), Shannon Ryan (Older Sister), Renee Ryan (Younger Sister)

 

Description:

Age: 16 (DoB: August 21st, 1998)

Apparent Age: 16

Gender: Female

Ethnicity: Caucasian

Height: 5' 7"

Weight: 110 lbs

Eyes: Blue

Hair: Black

 

Shelby is fairly tall and thin, with long straight hair. She constantly fidgets, having trouble sitting still, and takes up enormous amounts of room whether sitting or standing through virtue of spreading her arms as far as possible.

 

In costume, Shelby wears a green mask that covers the upper half of her face, letting her hair free. Her top is colored blue with many intricate patterns in green running along it and sleeves running long enough to be tucked into green gloves. She wears flared out blue pants that end in green and blue combat boots. The eternity of her costume has weird pearlescent sheen to it, a telltale sign of the costume being produced by her powers.

 

History:

There was a malevolent spirit that came from the world of dreams. It would find dreamers and overwhelm them with a terrible nightmare so it could feed off their fear. When engorged on their fear, it would overwhelm the sleeping person and possess their body, casting the dreamer's mind into the cellar and keep it imprisoned with fear. The spirit would channel its power through the body and attempt to dominate the world around it until the body was killed, at which point it would move onto another dreamer in another world and the process would start all over again.

 

Shelby Ryan is a middle child, born to a wealthy North Bay lawyer father and heiress mother. Simultaneously an overachiever and a troublemaker, Shelby caused her parents more trouble than the other two sisters combined. Partially, this is due to her competitive and intense nature, but it's also due to a traumatic brain injury she had in a car accident when she was twelve. Her amygdala was damaged, turning an already courageous and risk taking child into one entirely without fear. Much to the relief of her parents, she recovered from the injuries quickly. Soon, she was back in school and back to her old ways. Things seemed to return to normal for a few years, until Shelby was fifteen.

 

The dream spirit attacked Shelby with what might be a horrible nightmare for anyone else, and closed in on her to try and take over her body. The spirit infested her, but it had made a severe mistake. Instead of Shelby being imprisoned by fear in her own mind, the reverse happened. Shelby was left with the spirit's powers, and the spirit was stuck in her mind. Knowing that it would be free only when Shelby was dead, the spirit began whispering to her in her mind. At first the spirit tried to undermine her self-confidence, then when that didn't work, it started trying to bolster her ego and dare her into dangerous situations. One of these dares was the one that revealed her powers to her parents.

 

The details aren't important, but her parents and siblings learned that Shelby had powers. At a loss as to what to do at first, Elena was contacted by Claremont Academy in an attempt to recruit Shelby. Elena and Derrick were relieved to have a place to send their daughter that could help teach her some restraint, and Shelby was elated at the prospect of new challenges. She starts there in the fall of 2014 as a Junior.

 

Personality & Motivation:

Shelby is intense, energetic, driven, competitive, and very cocky. She's also loyal to those she considers friends, quick to try to bring everyone's spirit up when they're down, and relatively straightforward in dealing with other people. She tends to dominate conversations that she's in, to the annoyance of others. Shelby also has the odd tendency to be a graceful loser but a very poor winner, mocking the people she defeats.

 

If asked why she became a hero, Shelby would probably say something along the lines of "It's difficult to do this; who wouldn't want to?" While this is certainly true, the other reason she never talks about is the realization that there are several people who died trapped inside their own bodies and terrified until she conquered the dream spirit. Even if she doesn't have fear, she never wants to be helpless to do something.

 

Powers & Tactics:

The Dreamer's powers all have a unique visual look, with physical objects and creatures manifesting with an pearlescent sheen and the energy of her blasts and transformations all shining with a bluish-green glow. Her transformation can transform anything into anything else, including a total alteration of a person's mental state. A creature that was living when it was transformed will revert to its original state when either twenty-four hours pass or a bell rings nearby. She doesn't like to remake a person's mind anyway.

 

When her direct blast power smashes into someone, it also mixes all of their senses together and makes them impossible to distinguish, effectively rendering all of them useless.

 

Her illusion power is incredibly extensive, and seems to remake much of reality into a dreamscape. However, someone with a keen enough eye or a strong enough will can see through the complex, multilayered illusion. She doesn't know it, but her illusions could potentially be miles in size.

 

Unless she or a family member is in serious danger, she rarely uses the same tactic twice. She likes to constantly think of new ways to win fights as a way of testing herself. This tendency might fade as she learns how lethal fights can be.

 

 

Complications:

Won't Refuse a Challenge: Shelby is competitive to the point that she will not refuse most challenges given to her. Obviously impossible (I dare you to shoot down the sun!), suicidal (I dare you to fight Omega without using your powers), or dares against her nature (Kill as many people in this crowd as you can in five minutes) will be ignored, but other challenges (Fight me one on one!) will be hastily and gladly accepted.

Your Soul looks Wrong: The spirit infesting Shelby gives off an awful "EVIL HERE" vibe to Aura Readers and people with magic detection. To an outside uninformed observer with these abilities, it looks like the spirit is wearing a Shelby suit which may cause many harmful misunderstandings.

Whispers of the Damned: The spirit is constantly talking to Shelby in the back of her head, giving her bad ideas, stoking her ego, and challenging her. Not only this, the spirit notices nearby telepaths and will say anything to them to cause trouble for Shelby.

An Ordinary Family: Being the only super in a family of normal people can cause difficulty, especially if a villain threatens them or one of her sisters (or parents!) happens to tag along on one of her escapades.

 

 

Abilities: -2 + 0 + 0 + 4 + 0 + 4 = 6PP

Strength: 8 (-1)

Dexterity: 10 (0)

Constitution: 10 (0)

Intelligence: 14 (+2)

Wisdom: 10 (0)

Charisma: 14 (+2)

 

Combat: 8 + 4 = 12PP

Attack: +4 Melee, +5 Ranged

Grapple: +3

Defense: +5 (+2, +3 Dodge Focus), +1 Flat-footed

Knockback: -7

 

Saving Throws: 6 + 5 + 9 = 20PP

Toughness: +15 (+15 Protection)

Fortitude: +6 (+6)

Reflex: +5 (+5)

Will: +9 (+9)

 

Skills: 16R = 4PP

Intimidate 4 (+6)

Concentration 2 (+2)

Craft Artistic 2 (+3)

Craft Structural 2 (+3)

Craft Mechanical 1 (+2)

Diplomacy 2 (+4)

Gather Information 3 (+5)

 

Feats: 6PP

Second Chance against Mind Control

Fearless

Dodge Focus 3

Attack Focus Ranged 1

 

Powers: 15 + 87 = 102PP

All powers have magic and dream descriptors.

 

Protection 15 [15 PP]

 

Channeling the Dream (84 PP Array; Feats: Alternate Power 3) [87]

Base Power: Transform 7 (Anything into Anything Else; Extras: Continuous Duration (+1), Linked to Mental Transform) {49/84}

+ Mental Transform 7 (Completely Alter; Extras: Continuous Duration (+1), Linked to Transform) {49 + 35 = 84/84}

 

Alternate Power: Create Object 25 (Unreal, Dream; Extras: Continuous Duration (+1); Feats: Precise, Innate, Selective, Affects Insubstantial 2, Progression 4) {84/84}

 

Alternate Power: Damage 9 (Greenish-Blue Blast; Extras: Range (+1), Secondary Effect (+1), Contagious (+1), Linked to Dazzle; Feats: Accurate 3, Affects Insubstantial 2, Precise) {42/84}

+ Dazzle 10 (Affects all Sense Types; Extras: Linked to Damage; Feats: Accurate 2) {42 + 42 = 84/84}

 

Alternate Power: Illusions 10 (Affect all Sense Types; Extras: Duration (+2), Selective Attack (+1); Feats: Progression 10, Precise 1) {81/84}

____

This is a PL 10 version of the character, hopefully somewhat more balanced.  I'm not sure how to implement staged effects on the transform power, but since that power seems to be the primary concern, I've taken some steps to reign it in.  I removed her Move Object power and Summon Minions, and replaced them with an Illusion power, which fits the theme much better.  Updated the Powers & Tactics section.  If there are any more concerns fluff or crunch wise, I'd really appreciate help.

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No Shatterspike, this is not more balanced, instead, you have gone in exactly the opposite direction of what was discussed above. For one thing, this character is extremely min/maxed, and it was already pretty min/maxed before.

You took what was already a VERY large array (as I mentioned) and made it EVEN BIGGER!

There are a lot of issues I have with this massive array, but the BIGGEST is that completely works around the main limitation of an array! Arrays allow a HUGE discount in cost of the powers placed inside, because you can only use one at a time (dynamic arrays aside). You have four powers, THREE of which are Continuous in duration. That means you can, one by one, turn on the three Continuous powers, each power remaining in effect after the array is changed to another power (because they are Continuous). Thus the main limitation of an array is completely overcome. You can effectively have the three non-Continuous powers all running at the same time, while using the only non-Continuous (naturally, an offensive power) as well.

I could go on about a number of things within the various alt powers as well, but there really is no point. The entire thing needs to be overhauled. My suggestion, would be to make two separate arrays. One for the Transform and Create Object powers, the other for the Damage and Illusion powers.

Also, as I asked before about the Protection power, why is it Protection and not something like Force Field? That is, why is she always harder than steel?

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I will second what Thevshi says. 

 

To be blunt, you must understand that this site is not a "gamist" site. Our characters do not die without player permission. We are here to have exciting stories. And the dreamer will not have exciting stories. Doing anything is not an exciting story. 

 

But to hone down on some specific issues:

 

A continuous duration transform (anything to anything) will not fly. Not ever. We are, overall, pretty suspicious of any transform effect affecting NPCs or PCs (as any failed save means win). Continuous or even sustatined duration anything to anything will never fly. By all means, create a "Transmuter" character who can transform inorganic to inorganic as continuous duration. 

 

A secondary effect extra in an array is potentially cheesy allready. Linking it with contagious and a dazzle effect to all senses, makes it frankly difficult to swallow. 

 

I know this sounds hard to hear, but it looks like a min/max nightmare, and the reason we are concerned is because your rebuild does nothing to address the suggestions. 

 

We would like you to stay in the site, we would like you to enjoy it, but we are not sure that "Do anything reality warper" is appropriate in the first place. You may be best placed just to drop that and go for something conventional (but still fun, exciting, and powerful). 

 

Apologies if this sounds harsh or authoritarian. I can empathise with the initial reaction you may have to this. The fault is with us not sufficiently redirecting you on this character and not explaining the (Admittedly broad) feel of the site. 

 

If you do wish to persevere with this character I would strongly suggest reworking that array into something more limited, and ensuring the character has a theme to his powers  (Which does not mean "I dream it, it is so", but rather there is a theme in terms of what effects he can produce, and most importantly, a goodly number of things he cannot).

 

A final point to consider: Even if a PC is "Legitimate" and approved, you will want to play it. As it stands, I don't think character will be popular with GMs or other players for the reasons above. 

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