The Black Terror PL10 Hero

[BType]

Power Level 10: 10 (150/152pp)

Trade-Offs: None

Unspent PP: 2pp

The Black Terror:

Benito "Ben" Santini:

Age: 25 (born March, 1984; Apparent Age 25)

Gender: Male

Height: 6ft

Weight: 188lbs

Eyes: Blue

Hair: Black

Description: Tall, physically well-built, slightly tanned, with blue eyes that seem to be constantly accusing you of doing something wrong. Surprisingly handsome out of costume, though clearly doesn't put effort into taking care of his appearance. His looks show somewhat through his Black Terror's part-face mask.

History: Benito Santini was like any other Italian-American kid in the bad parts of New York: he wanted to be a Made Man for the Mafia. When his elder brother (a Soldati himself) was gunned down by a street gang, he instead changed his colors, and devoted himself to becoming a Detective for the NYPD. After a highly successful mob-busting case, he quickly became a well-known bane of organized crime do to his utter devotion to bringing it's members to justice.

Unfortunately, there were consequences to his crusade, and he had stepped on the toes of someone with powerful allies.

Kidnapped one night in his home, drugged, and taken to a high-rise office building by shadowy professionals, and experimented upon for a length of time he later discovered to be over a year. The experiments performed on him enhanced his strength, agility, and rendered his muscles, skin, and bones incredibly durable, invulnerable to conventional firearms. Before they could truly discover the limits of his changed physiology, he managed to escape through freak accident, luck, and what appeared to be inside help (the memories of his escape are blurry and indistinct).

Returning to his old life, but keeping his powers a secret, he began moonlighting in a dark costume and identity based off of one of the Golden Age comic books he loved as a kid: The Black Terror. His activities focused mainly on investigating who it was who kidnapped and changed him, though he occasionally tackled the Mafia in-costume.

His investigations turned up three names: Cardistanic (a shell company who Ben believes is owned by the group who altered his body), something called the DNAscent Process (which he assumes is what he went through), and something called "Labyrinth" (on this point his is especially unsure, perhaps a person or a group).

Eventually he left New York for Freedom City, hoping his suspicions that the various empowered men and women there might have secretly had similar experiences, desperate for new leads. His sense of civic duty has also finally kicked back in: no longer does he ignore the Mafia for his personal vendetta, and out of costume is his a "transfer" to the FCPD from New York, assigned to the Special Crimes Unit.

Personality & Motivation: Ben is one part angry avenger, two parts dutiful civic servant. He has long held every Mafia organization in America responsible for the death of his brother, and therefore focuses much of his costumed activities on exposing their corruption to the public, not simply attacking only powered criminals (though he now brings them down when he must).

Outside of costume he is an excellent detective, but his noted for his slight temper control issues and his reckless investigative techniques (partially fueled by his knowledge of his near-invulnerability to mundane weapons). He is also something of a womanizer, though he has a great deal of difficulty retaining long-term relationships.

In-costume he lives up to his moniker: a shadowy avenger, using fear as a weapon to intimidate criminals into submission. He keeps to himself, operating almost entirely at night (his day job takes up much of his time), and trying to obscure his origins and the full extent of his powers to criminals. He is new to the hero job, having taken up his identity only two years ago. He isn't afraid to seriously injure criminals into talking, though he always stops short of killing them: a rule he abides by even as a gun-carrying plainclothes detective. He doesn't know how to react around other superheroes: they're much less common in New York, and he is slightly wary of them possibly being altered human beings like himself.

Both identities he wears tend to loose their temper and patience when it comes to the many dead-ends and stonewalls he runs into when investigating the cause of his mysterious powers. He also secretly doubts if he truly "escaped" at all: who was the person who helped him escape, and why did they help him?

Powers & Tactics: Ben's physical abilities have been augmented far beyond the human norm. His strength is superhuman, and he is able to lift just under 25 tons above his head. His durability and stamina are far more impressive: his skin is practically immune to the trauma caused by normal firearms, and his muscles and skeletal structure are similarly improved. His agility and reflexes are also superhumanly acute. His running speed is clocked at 50mph, and he can leap 120ft upwards without a running start.

Ben has learned to not rely on single parts of his physical abilities in the two years since he got them; there are tougher, stronger, and faster superhumans out there then he is, so he compensates by using all his abilities in concert. Before he changed he was a champion boxer for his police department's fundraisers, so his hand-to-hand techniques are sophisticated enough to give him and edge against much stronger foes, especially when he uses his superhuman agility to augment them.

Complications: Temper (Relatively known for it in the the FCPD and NYPD.)

Enemy (The Labyrinth Organization and it's tools and cronies, though he has next to no knowledge of this. They consider him a dangerous loose end, but also want to "re-aquire" him: he is easily one of their more well-rounded successes. Labyrinth is aware of his dual-identity, and when not attempting to ruin Santini's life from afar, they make more overt attacks on his costumed counterpart.)

Responsibility (He must effectively split his time between the FCPC Special Crimes Unit detective duties, and his personal agenda as The Black Terror)

Stats: 6+6+6+2+0+0 =20pp

Str: 30/16 (+10/+3)

Dex: 26/16 (+8/+3)

Con: 30/16 (+10/+3)

Int: 12 (+1)

Wis: 10 (+0)

Cha: 10 (+0)

Combat: +16+12 = 28pp

Attack: +8, +10 Melee

Grapple: +24

Defense: +10 (+3 flat-footed)

Knockback: -8

Initiative: +12

Saves: 2+2+7 = 11pp

Toughness: +10 (+10 Con)

Fortitude: +12 (+10 Con, +2)

Reflex: +10 (+8 Dex, +2)

Will: +7 (+0 Wis, +7)

Skills: 32 ranks = 8pp

Acrobatics 4 (+12)

Notice 5 (+5)

Investigate 5 (+6)

Stealth 3 (+11)

Sense Motive 4 (+4)

Intimidate 8 (+8)

Search 3 (+4)

Feats: 23pp

Acrobatic Bluff

Attractive 2

Attack Focus: Melee (2)

Benefit: FCPD Detective

Connected

Dodge Focus 4

Fearsome Presence 4

Hide in Plain Sight

Improved Critical (unarmed)

Improved Grab

Improved Grapple

Improved Initiative

Move-by-Action

Takedown Attack 2

Powers: 14 + 10 + 14 + 7 + 4 + 3 + 8 = 60pp

Enhanced Constitution 14

Enhanced Dexterity 10

Enhanced Strength 14

Impervious Toughness 7

Leaping 4 (x25)

Speed 3 (50mph)

Super-Strength 4 (24 tons)

DC Block:

Unarmed Strike 10 --- 25/Toughness --- Bruised, Staged

Costs: Abilities (20) + Combat (28) + Saves (11) + Skills (8) + Feats (23) + Powers (60) - Drawbacks (00) = 150/152pp

[BType]

Though his costume and name are titled the same as the Golden Age hero, his origins, name, and powers are actually completely different. It's merely meant as a homage to the character, both in-character and out.

Plus Black Terror is a badass supername :P

[Sandman XI]

We have a template. It makes the math easier for us to read. It also looks spiffy Also, put your complications, skills and feats in a list-style, not a sentence-style.

[BType]

Okay, altered it, hope I altered it properly. I rarely frequent message boards like this one, sorry for my unfamiliarity with templates.

[N/A]

Overall, the fluff looks good.

I'm not quite clear as to whether The Labyrinth is just hunting Detective Santini, or if they've figured out that Santini = The Black Terror.

Abilities: The math is good.

Combat: Your flat-footed Defense bonus is equal to half your base Defense bonus, rounded down. With a +7 base Defense, BT's flat-footed Defense is +3. The Knockback modifier is off, too. Impervious Toughness 7 + (1/2 Non-Impervious Toughness 3, rounded down) = 8, not 9.

Saving Throws: The math is good.

Skills: BT has 32 ranks, not 36. These should cost 8PP, not 9PP.

Feats: Please list your feats in alphabetical order. All PCs here get Diehard for free. There is no need to list it on your sheet. You have 17PP worth of feats, not 19PP.

The powers and access granted to a police officer are probably worth a 1PP Benefit feat.

Powers: The math is wrong. His point totals should read "14 + 10 + 14 + 7 + 4 + 3 + 8 = 60PP."

Strategic Notes:

• [*:ngvyzwkv]BT hits PL10 combat caps offensively (his ideal Attack and Damage average out to PL10), but he falls short defensively. His +7 Defense and +10 Toughness only average out to PL8.5. It's not required for characters to hit their caps, but it's generally recommended.
  [*:ngvyzwkv]Odd-numbered ranks in base Defense are generally considered "useless," because you round down for flat-footed Defense. Most people buy ranks of the Dodge Focus feat instead. Defense +7 costs 14PP, and has a flat-footed Defense of +3. Defense +6 & Dodge Focus 1 provides a +7 total Defense bonus, and has a flat-footed Defense of +3, for 1PP cheaper.
  [*:ngvyzwkv]BT has an effective +1 Search skill. Investigate is skill used to gather and process clues, but Search is the skill used to find them in the first place.

[BType]

Thanks for the math corrections (numbers are my kryptonite). I made some slight modifications based on your suggestions and tips.

I actually wanted him to be more vulnerable to damage then the usual "bulletproof" guy, so I purposely left his Toughness low, but I figure giving him Defensive Roll works well with his style of fighting and makes up for it (when he's not flat-footed of course).

I also noticed his flat-footed vulnerability, and decided I liked it: it made him more "human" that he could be snuck up behind and knocked out (so long as he's hit hard enough).

Basically, I'm making a medium-power street-level hero. I wanted him to be versatile and flexible, but still vulnerable, as befits a street-level character with powers, akin to Spider-Man or Luke Cage; both are high-powered guys (Spider-Man has insane reflexes and Cage is basically bulletproof), but anything remotely superhuman, or even things like high-tech weaponry can put them down or give them a hard run.

I'm trying to make his crunch equate with his fluff.

I've also altered the Complication about Labyrinth, not note their tactics used on him: when he's Ben Santini they do their best to disrupt his investigations from afar using their influence, and they are aware of his dual-identity (wasn't hard to put together: a costumed guy with all the powers they gave him suddenly appears and starts asking questions about them, and looks into the shell company they used to create him). What makes them such a dangerous villain of his is that while they actively seek to disrupt his investigations, he's practically unaware of their existence, only knowing them as a shadowy "them" who changed him, and doesn't put the Labyrinth name to the conspiracy.

[N/A]

OK, everything looks good to me.

APPROVED

[Sandman XI]

Approved

[Dr Archeville]

Archived due to inactivity.