Avenger Assembled Posted June 23, 2011 Author Share Posted June 23, 2011 Longinus I don't like to commit myself about Heaven and Hell: you see, I have friends in both places-Mark Twain PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 54 pp STR 30 (+10) DEX 14 (+2) CON 30 (+10) INT 12 (+1) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 20 pp ATK: +4 (+10 melee) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init : +2 Grapple: +21 Saves: 11 pp TOU +10 (+10 Con) FORT +10 (+10 Con) REF +5 (+2 Dex, +3) WILL +10 (+2 Wis, +8) Skills: 44 r=11 pp Intimidate 8 (+10) Knowledge: Arcane Lore 4 (+5) Knowledge: Theology and Philosophy 4 (+5) Languages 3 (Aramaic, English, Latin) (Base: Italian) Notice 10 (+10) Sense Motive 15 (+15) Feats: 15 pp Attack Focus: Melee 6 Dodge Focus 4 Fearless Startle Power Attack Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (tactile) Powers: 45 pp Enhanced Feats 5 (Extended Reach, Improved Crit, Improved Trip, Incurable, Variable Descriptor 1 [any slashing]) [5 pp] Flight 2 (25 MPH) (PF: Move-By Action) [5 pp] Immunity 6 (aging, environmental cold and heat, high pressure, suffocation) [6 pp] Luck Control 4 (spend an HP for another character, give HP to others, spend HP to negate HP/Fiat, force reroll) (PFs: Luck 5) [17 pp] Super-Senses 5 (Darkvision, Infernal Awareness [Mental], Tremorsense) [5 pp] Super-Strength 1 (Heavy Load: 1.5 tons) (PF: Groundstrike) [3 pp] Regeneration 2 (1/day) (PFs: Persistent, Regrowth) [4 pp] Drawbacks: 6 pp Vulnerable (vs. Holy) (uncommon, major) [-3 pp] Weakness (Dazed by Charisma check vs. holy symbols) [-3 pp] costs abilities 54 + combat 20 + saves 11 + skills 11/44 + feats 15 + powers 45 + drawbacks 6 = 150 pts ----- Design Notes: Aw yeah, an Avenger/Edge/Harrier/Freedom Angel/Fusion/Citizen mashup. In medieval Nice, Jacques Faretti 'cursed God and died' at the hands of the Inquisition, shouting infernalist blasphemies from the stake even as they lit the dry wood at his feet. To his horror, though, Faretti found that the grand Satanic struggle against the power of Heaven he'd been promised was a lie. Faretti had spent his life combating the tyrannical power of the Church in Nice, spreading forbidden books and teachings for the betterment of his fellow men and women, even worshiping at churches where women preached and taught before abandoning all faith altogether. But despite what he'd been told, the Devil was no romantic rebel against the power of a tyrannical Creator: rather Satan was more a petty child still spoiling for a fight after being rejected by his father, and Hell was as much a despotism as anything the medieval Church could have built for itself. Faretti was warped and changed by the dark powers he'd embraced without understanding, though in a twist of hellish irony he became a grim harrier of the same corrupt churchmen who he'd battled in life and who had joined him in the netherworld. Time passes strangely in Hell, and those who dwell there have much trouble with self-reflection. (After all, otherwise an eternity of torture would get dull real fast) It wasn't until the arrival of pure souls in Hell; the early generation of magical superheroes in the 1930s, that Faretti was able to realize the full extent of what had happened and of his own transformation. To be a mindless slave of the Devil was no way to live; he would fain escape this false world of torment and woe and return to the surface to fight again for the better world he'd once dreamed. He cheated for a while, helping those dispatched to Hell by Nazi sorcery escape, then intervening on the surface to warn off the infernalists who summoned him without a full understanding of what it meant, but finally he was caught and imprisoned by his former fellows. Luckily, Adrian Eldritch (who he had met during one of the latter's first trips Below) came to his rescue, and the former citizen of Hell came bodily to the surface on June 6, 1966. Rather than use his True Name and risk being found out by infernalists who might summon him, demons who might slay him, or crusaders who sought his blood, Faretti took the name of Longinus, another man cursed for a sin committed with the best of intentions, and became a crusader in his own right: determined to make sure that no tyrannies of magic, superstition, or any other dogma would dominate the souls of men. Now he travels the world, battling infernalists and others who would enslave humanity with evil magic, showing them that the promises of Hell are grim lies and only torment and slavery await those who embrace Hell's dark path. His lover Pasiphae, whom he met while banished to the dream dimension, is his greatest and best friend, and together they had spawned a child who he hopes may grow up in a world altogether free from dark magic. In combat he is a fearsome thing, tentacles like a spider's legs whipping around him as he slashes and cuts, flaming hellsword in his hand; his Devil's Luck letting him survive impossible odds again and again so long as he continues his crusade against the forces of Darkness. It's a tough life, but it's the life he deserves...and if he's truly honest with himself, the life he enjoys. Link to comment
Avenger Assembled Posted June 23, 2011 Author Share Posted June 23, 2011 Pasithea “Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today.â€-James Dean PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 26 pp STR 10 (+0) DEX 16 (+3) CON 16 (+3) INT 12 (+1) WIS 18 (+4) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+8 ranged) DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +7 Grapple: +6 Saves: 12 pp TOU +8 (+3 Con, +5 Protection) FORT +7 (+3 Con, +4) REF +7 (+3 Dex, +4) WILL +8 (+4 Wis, +4) Skills: 12 pp=48 r Bluff 8 (+10) Intimidate 8 (+10) Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 4 (+5) Knowledge (Theology and Philosophy) 4 (+5) Languages 2 (Chinese, Italian) (Base: English) Notice 11 (+15) Sense Motive 11 (+15) Feats: 16 pp Attack Focus: Ranged 2, Dodge Focus 6 Environmental Adaptation (dreams), Evasion 2, Improved Initiative, Move-By Action, Power Attack Ultimate Save (Will) Uncanny Dodge (mental) Powers: 60 pp Flight 3 (50 MPH) [6 pp] Dream Array [24+5=29 pp] Blast 12 AP: Dimensional Movement 1 (Dreamscape) and Insubstantial 4 (PFs: Selective, Subtle) AP: Drain Wisdom 10 (Extra: Range [Perception]) (Flaw: Action [Full]) (PFs: Reversible, Sedation, Slow Fade 2 [5 minutes]) AP: Emotion Control 12 (Extra: Autofire) (Flaw: Ranged) AP: Illusion 10 (all senses) (Flaws: Phantasm, Single Target) (PFs: Progression 3 [50 ft], Precise) AP: Stun 12 (Extras: Alternate Save [Will], Ranged) (Flaw: Action [Full]) Immunity 12 (aging, life support, starvation and thirst, sleep) [12 pp] Protection 5 [5 pp] Super-Senses 8 (Accurate Acute Analytical Extended (x10) Radius Ranged Mental, Dream Awareness [mental]) [8 pp] costs abilities 26 + combat 24 + saves 12 + skills 12/48 + feats 16 + powers 60 = 150 pts ---- Design Notes: Talia Albright was born to wealth and power and loved every second of it. Phantom Industries, her father's pride and joy, was one of the most powerful corporations in Hong Kong, its tendrils of influence reaching everywhere in China and even into America and Britain. Of mixed ancestry herself, she let her father's former lackeys run the business she had inherited. Rather than break into the insular world of Hong Kong business that would always look side-eyed at a woman of American and Chinese parentage whatever her personal power, she would use her wealth and influence to amass the largest collection of arcane artifacts in the world, becoming a power in the world of magic! She was actually something of a minor supervillain for a while, her garish costumes and spooky persona an elaborately cultivated way of distracting her enemies from what she wanted: money, power, and lots of both! It wasn't until she found the Amulet of Morpheus just a few years ago that she learned her mistake: cracking open the sealed geode within sucked the young adventurer into the world of dreams, where the King of Dreams showed her the petty, spoiled life she'd led and the tiny, small dreams of theft and seduction that had been hers. Horrified at the petty sight of her innermost self, she pledged herself to Morpheus' service to make amends for a lifetime of misdeeds. With his power in her, she became Pasithea, the guardian of the dream dimension, charged with battling the terrible monsters of the dream world and making sure that the nightmares of that dimension never intrude into our waking reality. It's tough work, and only recently has she been able to connect to her mortal life again, finding her great wealth now in the service of others. She met her husband Longinus when that demonic worthy was briefly exiled to her realm, and after a few clashes the two became lovers, then parents of a most terrible child. Okay, I think this Phantom/Psyche/Bombshell mashup is pretty valid. Check out Marvel's Sleepwalker for some other ideas. She's a powerful character, guardian of the dream dimension and easily capable of fighting successfully in our own. She can knock foes out in a variety of useful ways and use her Ranged Emotion Control to kick up some really high Will save DCs. Think throwing the sandman's sand in somebody's face! She can also just concentrate and put people to sleep and into their dreams, though that takes some special amount of work on her part: a valid reason to fight both with regular blasts and her Perception-range abilities. She makes a good counterpoint to the Slumberland Hero upthread; take a look at his sheet if you're interested in more HPs for her big dream control array. She's a lot squishier than most sorcerors, but OTOH she can survive in environments that most of them can't, and she's much better at getting out of the way of attacks. The Hero High supplements have some good ideas for dream-based baddies if you want to give her a rogues' gallery... Link to comment
Avenger Assembled Posted June 24, 2011 Author Share Posted June 24, 2011 Octopus Thief Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty; power is ever stealing from the many to the few. -Wendell Phillips PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 58 pp STR 30 (+10) DEX 14 (+2) CON 30 (+10) INT 14 (+2) WIS 16 (+3) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 18 pp ATK: +4 (+10 Melee) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +2 Grapple: +20/+24/+28/+32 Saves: 9 pp TOU +10 (+10 Con) FORT +10 (+10 Con) REF +7 (+2 Dex, +5) WILL +7 (+3 Wis, +4) Skills: 60 pp=15 r Acrobatics 8 (+10) Bluff 8 (+10) Craft (Mechanical) 8 (+10) Disable Device 8 (+10) Knowledge (Technology) 6 (+8) Notice 7 (+10) Sense Motive 7 (+10) Stealth 8 (+10) Feats: 17 pp Acrobatic Bluff Attack Focus: Melee 6 Dodge Focus 4 Move-By Action Power Attack Skill Mastery (Acrobatics, Bluff, Disable Device, Stealth) Takedown Attack Ultimate Save (Will) Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 31 pp Additional Limbs 4 (Extra: Duration (Sustained, PF: Subtle) [5 pp] Elongation 4 (50 ft) (Flaw: Limbs Only) [2 pp] Impervious TOU 6 [6 pp] Leaping 1 (x2) [1 pp] Speed 3 (50 MPH) [3 pp] Super-Senses 3 (Danger Sense [radio], Radius Sight) [3 pp] Super-Movement 4 (Slow Fall, Swinging, Wall-Crawling 2) [Dynamic] [8+1+2=11 pp] DAP: Super-Strength 4 (Heavy Load: 12 tons) costs abilities 58 + combat 20 + saves 9 + skills 15/60 + feats 17 + powers 31 = 150 pts ---- Design Notes: An unexpected mashup, here's a combination of Dr. Octopus and Catwoman to produce a lovely, acrobatic sneak who is also a powerhouse wielding gigantic metal tentacles that she can use to throw a car, ascend the sides of a building, and generally wreck up the place much more than you'd expect a master thief archetype to pull off. That means she's a bit lighter on skills than your typical master thief, but sheer physical power has a quality all its own: that costumed adventurer won't know what to make of it when you scoop him up in your giant steel arms and hurl him across the city. (He's got a grapple gun. He'll be fiiiine). In my mind, this character is a former military cyborg who decided go into business for herself when her time in the service was near ending: fill in to taste exactly what country she used to belong to. She'd also make a fine test subject for the Labyrinth or the Foundry gone rogue. I don't like using a Device to represent metal octopus powers; I figure the arms can be seperated from her as a plot device, but they'll always find their own way back one way or another. I figure her Super-Senses represent little sensors at the tips of her robot arms, while her impervious represents her ability to ricochet bullets and such off her whirling tentacles. You could use that as justification for the Shield power if you don't like her Dodge Focus. Her Super-Movement is arrayed with her Super-Strength; she can't climb and get around as easily when she's carrying heavy objects. With a base STR of 30, she can still get around at full speed while lugging that diamond she just tore out of its security housing up the side of a building. With her high Speed, that costumed adventurer is going to need his _mobile to chase her when she starts going through the city streets. Of course, she makes a perfectly fine hero if you want her as a PC rather than an NPC object of flirtation. There's no reason that military cyborg couldn't have gone into hero work after leaving the service; heck, if you want to give her an evil antagonist somewhere in her shadowy past, there's no reason she couldn't be on the run from employers that she has since discovered were pure evil! That would explain why she'd had to live covertly despite the rather obvious nature of her powers. (Note that, as written, she can retract and put those arms away and have no fear of exposure, though not being able to go through metal detectors is a definite Complication for her, especially if she's your team sneak!) She has enough mechanical ability to take apart locks and fix her arms if they break, but she needs a real gadgeteer to help her out when there's a problem. Where do the arms go when she's not using them? Straight into comic book science, my friend. Link to comment
Avenger Assembled Posted June 24, 2011 Author Share Posted June 24, 2011 Scarab Infinity "Time and tide wait for no man, and some heroes are forgotten..." -Samurai Jack PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 46 pp STR 30 [20] (+10/+5) DEX 26 [16] (+8/+3) CON 20 (+5) INT 20 (+5) WIS 20 (+5) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 melee) DEF: +8 (+2 flat-footed) Init: +8 Grapple: +10/+20 Saves: 6 pp TOU +12 (+7 Protection, +5 Con) FORT +7 (+5 Con, +2) REF +10 (+8 Dex, +2) WILL +7 (+5 Wis, +2) Skills: 52 r=13 pp Climb 5 (+10) Computers 4 (+9) Craft: Mechanical 5 (+10) Knowledge: Physical Sciences 5 (+10) Knowledge: Streetwise 5 (+10) Knowledge: Technology 5 (+10) Intimidate 5 (+5) Language 1 (Swedish) (Base: English) Notice 5 (+10) Sense Motive 5 (+10) Stealth 7 (+10/+15) Feats: 14 pp Attack Focus: Melee 4 Dodge Focus 4 Evasion Inventor Master Plan Power Attack Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (mental) Powers: 47 pp Concealment 3 (all mental senses and ESP effects) (Extra: Duration (Permanent] [+0]) [3 pp] Device 8 (Scarab Infinity Suit) (Hard to Lose) (PFs: Restricted 2 [Only You]) [34 pp] -Enhanced STR 10 [10] -Enhanced DEX 10 [10] -Leaping 4 (x25) [4] -Protection 7 [7] -Speed 3 (50 MPH) [3] -Super-Movement 3 (Slow Fall, Wall-Crawling 2) [6] Immunity 10 (mental effects) [10 pp] costs abilities 46 + combat 24 + saves 6 + skills 13/52 + feats 14 + powers 47 = 150 pts -- Design Notes: Gertrude Conroy grew up in the late 21st century in prosperous, peaceful Stockholm. That was not her birth name, though, nor was it the city of her birth. Her parents had died when she was just a little girl; one at the hands of Wilhelm Kantor himself, the other some years later in personal combat with Overshadow himself. But that parent's sacrifice had done more than simply buy young Gertie Conroy time: the last Scarab had burned out the kas of both Heru-Ra and Tan-Aktor in that last terrible battle, ending their 5000-year-long struggle in a terrible moment of annihilation. The shock of feeling her parents' death through the psychic link they shared was enough to close young Gertie off from the world for many years, and she grew up amid the science and machinery of a friend of her mother's who had been entrusted with her care thanks to the Rhodes-Hernandez Foundation, isolated in body and soul. It wasn't until Overshadow's return some months ago that Gertie realized how she needed to spend her life: though the ending of the Scarab's ka protected her from discovery, indeed, rendering her completely protected against any kind of psychic tampering, the world was not so protected. Whether this was Kantor yet, or some other monster in the guise of SHADOW's old master, she would make her mission to make the sacrifice of her family not in vain, to redeem the great struggle they'd spent so many years fighting. In a moment of burning, electric rage that overpowered a lifetime of rationality, she vowed that she would put an end to Overshadow! A Scarab/Black Hand/Thrude/Zephyr mashup, here's Scarab Infinity; rather than making her a psychic in a battlesuit, I've taken the idea that she's the very opposite of a psychic, her body locked away behind impenetrable walls thanks to her childhood trauma, but her body and mind at full human potential thanks to her battlesuit. She's fast, strong, and acrobatic inside her costume; a sneaky, dexterous agent who can get in and out of almost anywhere thanks to the suit's various movement powers. Her immunity and Concealment is quite a surprise for whatever evil mentalists she may encounter, who will not be anticipating a fast, lethal fighter immune to most of their most dangerous attacks. She's tougher than most Spidey-types, more likely to wade through grenade bombardments than dodge them, but she'll still need to get out of the way of bullets and such thanks to her lack of Impervious. She could definitely use some Super-Senses on her suit, but you may not notice that till you have enough PP to actually buy them. How dead is Heru-Ra? In my mind he's dead all right, and as Scarab Infinity will discover, so is Overshadow: the world of her parents really is gone for good. What she has now is a world overrun with cheap imitators and bad men using the names and faces of her people's enemies: it's up to her to bring them to justice, to make sure that Overshadow is as dead as Wilhelm Kantor spectacularly became. In my mind she has a fiery temper in combat matched with a cool rationality elsewhere, and is as brutal to criminals as she is to math problems: her isolated childhood hasn't given her a great connection to other people, and it's far easier to smack them around and study them like the bugs they are before she moves on. Scarab Infinity right now has a lot of potential power; it's all a question of where the player wants to spend their points and stretch this very flexible character. Link to comment
Avenger Assembled Posted June 25, 2011 Author Share Posted June 25, 2011 Adapter "I adapt to survive"-Darwin PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 44 pp STR 24 (+7) DEX 20 (+5) CON 24 (+7) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 12 (+1) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+13 melee) DEF: +13 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +11 Grapple: +20 Saves: 7 pp TOU +7 (+7 Con) FORT +7 (+7 Con) REF +7 (+5 Dex, +2) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 40 r=10 pp Climb 3 (+10) Drive 5 (+10) Knowledge: Pop Culture 10 (+10) Language 1 (Spanish) (Base: English) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Stealth 5 (+10) Feats: 17 pp Attack Focus: Melee 5 Dodge Focus 5 Improved Initiative Luck Move-By Action Power Attack Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 40 pp Adaptation 2 (Extra: Action [Reaction] (+4) ) [20 pp] Nemesis 2 (Extra: Action [Reaction]) (PFs: Assessment, Subtle) [20 pp] costs abilities 44 + combat 32 + saves 7 + skills 10/40 + feats 17 + powers 40 = 150 pts --- Design Notes: Here's my build for an adapter like Darwin from X-Men First Class. The character isn't sketched out well in the movie and I'm not familiar with his comics background, but I think this covers all the basics you see on screen. Some people want to play the guy who can adapt to any situation, and so this guy can: with his Adaptation, he can pick up 10 PP in Immunities that will let him survive in just about any environment. (In less harsh conditions like underwater, I'd let him pick up some Environmental Adaptations in the process, so he can function in those hard conditions without actually suffering for it.) With his Nemesis, he can adapt to any combat situation, pulling out whatever powers help him defeat a particular opponent. Normally Nemesis isn't a great power to take in a play-by-post setting, given how much work it creates for the GM, but at low-levels and without the character dependent on it to meet caps, you're probably fine: giving him Variable Descriptor (whatever weakness the bad guy has), some more combat feats, and Autofire on his Unarmed Damage will let you get by if you want a default combat form for him. Note that I would let Resurrection be created by a Reaction Nemesis if a given character was met with an inescapable assault too powerful for them to survive, given that Reaction doesn't require an action from them to maintain. Why did I give him an attack tradeoff? Well, in comics, while these adapting guys like Darwin get called out to all the big crises, they don't generally deal the final blow. While he'll be able to do quite well in almost all situations, he's not going to be throwing out the big punches that knock down the bad guys for good. Indeed, he's probably more likely to meet the fate of World War Hulk Darwin: his powers realize they can't help him here, so instead he winds up with Teleport 9 (Flaw: Long-Range Only) and reappearing somewhere in another state without a good ride home. Nemesis is Uncontrollable by default, so you don't even get an HP for that. Boo! A good motivation to try and keep his powers from getting out of control. We've generally suggested people avoid characters with Nemesis on this site. Since, as written, Nemesis requires the Ref to give your powers. This makes life very tough, especially since characters like the Instant Superheroes Nemesis build have very high levels of Nemesis, essentially forcing the Ref to make up a new character sheet for you every time you play. And no one wants to do that! So with this version of the character, I've gone with very low levels of Nemesis. Like most of my Variable Power builds, he meets his caps just fine without his powers, something which may well come as an unpleasant surprise to bad guys who think that dropping a Nullify on him will make him helpless. There's nothing wrong with being a Swiss Army character who's good in lots of situations but not a master of any. Consider buying up one more level of Nemesis just so he can consistently have 2 pp/rank powers in melee; he's probably got all the Adaptation he's ever really going to need, depending on what kind of movement powers you find yourself needing... Link to comment
Avenger Assembled Posted June 26, 2011 Author Share Posted June 26, 2011 Darkfire "A black flame that gives no heat, gives no light, and can never be put out!" -Stephen Colbert PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 34 pp STR 20 (+5) DEX 14 (+2) CON 20 (+5) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 16 (+3) Combat: 28 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Hellfire/Unarmed) DEF: +12 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +2 Grapple: +15 Saves: 12 pp TOU +8 (+5 Con, +3 Protection) FORT +7 (+5 Con, +2) REF +7 (+2 Dex, +5) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 40 r=10 pp Diplomacy 5 (+8) Intimidate 5 (+8) Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 5 (+5) Knowledge (Pop Culture) 5 (+5) Notice 10 (+10) Sense Motive 10 (+10) Feats: 12 pp Attack Specialization: Unarmed 2 Benefit (Status) Dodge Focus 4 Move-By Action Power Attack Precise Shot Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 60 pp Hellfire Control Array [22+2=24 pp] Hellfire Aura 5 (PFs: Improved Crit 2) AP: Damage 10 (Extra: Ranged) (PFs: Accurate 2) AP: Damage 10 (Extra: Area [burst]) (PFs: Progression on Area 2) Flight 5 (250 MPH) [10 pp] Immunity 15 (aging, fire damage, life support) [15 pp] Impervious TOU 8 [8 pp] Protection 3 [3 pp] Drawbacks: 6 pp Vulnerable (vs. Holy) (uncommon, major) [-3 pp] Weakness (Dazed by Charisma check vs. holy symbols) [-3 pp] costs abilities 34 + combat 28 + saves 12 + skills 10/40 + feats 12 + powers 60 -drawbacks 6 = 150 pts ------ Design Notes: Here's my build for Darkfire, our Hellion/Dark Star mashup from a little while back. He's basically an infernal Human Torch, covered in a black burning flame that incinerates anything he touches. Note that damage-dealing Auras do stack with your unarmed damage, so he can punch for DC 25 with a combo of unarmed damage and unholy hellfire. (Is there a holy hellfire? Come to think of it, probably not...) Failing that, he can shoot burning black flames at his enemies, or explode in Satan's own nova! I figure he still has the visual effect of his flaming aura even when he's shooting his fireballs, he just doesn't get the game effect of burning anything he touches without it. Since his powers are hell-based, not fire-based, he doesn't have the usual oxygen or underwater drawbacks of your Living Flame guys, and he can burn quite happily underwater or in space. (Hey, there's a badass image...) With his Precise Shot and Takedown Attack, together with his Aura and Blast, he's equally good at melee and ranged combat: he'll probably play more like Jim Hammond than what's his face, that guy in the Fantastic Four who you want to punch whenever you see him. If you want to save points, flaw his Impervious so it only works vs. weapons that melt or burn, with the descriptor that the bullets or blades melt before they can strike his skin. (In a superheroic setting, that's potentially a flaw, because he'll be running into lots of energy blasters and the like.) He's not just immune to hot environments, he's immune to fire too: his infernally-charged body can suck up multiple hits from fireusers and shrug it off. After all, he's on fire with the ur-element at the center of their abilities! As written, his hellish nature gives him a lot of problems with holy items and the like. If you want to dial back that part of his heritage, consider slowing his Flight some, or maybe dropping his Impervious, and either dropping his drawbacks or keeping those as Complications (i.e, sources of delicious, delicious HP.) He'd be a perfectly valid sort of blaster in other ways. He'd make a fine other kind of blaster if you don't like the hellbound thing, I could easily see this as a radiation controller who is 'on fire' with radioactivity or some other kind of energy-powered guy. He'd make an OK cosmic energy controller too, though you might want to give him some Space Flight for that. So flame on, or whatever he is, and go nuts! Link to comment
Avenger Assembled Posted June 27, 2011 Author Share Posted June 27, 2011 Bee-Keeper III "I like to keep bees. Keep 'em."-Eddie Izzard PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 20 pp STR 10/1 (+0/-5) DEX 16 (+3) CON 14 (+2) INT 14 (+2) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 12 (+1) Combat: 12 pp ATK: +3 (+15 w/Shrinking) DEF: +3 (+15 w/Shrinking) Init: +7 Grapple: +3/+0 Saves: 19 pp TOU +5 (+2 Con, +3 Protection) FORT +8 (+2 Con, +6) REF +10 (+3 Dex, +7) WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6) Skills: 72 r=18 pp Bluff 9 (+10) Disable Device 13 (+15) Handle Animal 9 (+10) Knowledge: Life Sciences 8 (+10) Notice 8 (+10) Ride 2 (+5) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Stealth 12 (+15/+35) Survival 3 (+5) Feats: 10 pp Animal Empathy Evasion 2 Hide in Plain Sight Improved Initiative Luck 2 Power Attack Second Chance (Reflex saves vs being Stepped On) Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 71 pp Alternate Form 11 (Bee-Keeper) [55 pp] Flight 2 (25 MPH) (PF: Subtle) [5] Protection 3 [3] Shrinking 20 (Extra: Continuous) (Drawback: Full Power) (PFs: Normal TOU, Normal Movement) [41] Super-Senses 6 [Accurate Acute Tracking Scent, Tremorsense) [6] Stinger Array [15+1=16 pp] BE: Stun 5 (Extra: Ranged) AP: Telekinesis 5 (Extra: Damaging) (Heavy Load: 400 lbs) costs abilities 20 + combat 12 + saves 19 + skills 18/72 + feats 10 + powers 71 = 150 pts ----- Design Notes: So eventually Barry Bowles got out of prison and moved far out of state, eventually hooking up with a lonely lady bee-keeper he'd met through a prison correspondence program. He settled down there somewhere in rural Wyoming and started a family, his beehives always healthy and prosperous but never, thanks to his powerful medication, sentient. He made sure to tell his daughter all about his exploits back in Freedom City, making sure she knew all about the mighty heroes and sneaky villains out there. It was inevitable, given all the exotic chemicals the second Bee-Keeper had been around, that his daughter would develop superpowers: and what a remarkable thing that those powers let her turn herself into a teeny girl with the size, wings, and senses of a bee! (That led to some times in her childhood that had her parents worried, let me tell you!) Luckily she had her mom and dad there, and the young Betty Bowles headed off to Freedom City when she was of age to make something of herself. Wanting to avoid her dad's years in prison, though, not to mention having been raised with good values by her mom, she decided that she was going to take the Bee-Keeper name and make it a heroic one. OK, so here's the third Bee-Keeper as a heroine; she makes a pretty good Wasp expy, I think. She flies around at about an inch tall, blasting people with bio-electric beams that can either knock them out or hurt them; she's got the TK built in there so she can carry things around somewhat close to the body weight of an adult. She's still not a great grappler, though, since she still takes the grapple penalties of Shrinking 20. (Note that she can't get any larger or smaller than that, since she's got Full Power and lacks Atomic Size, that way you don't have to worry about the variable scores of Shrinking, and she can get down to an inch but no more.) She's got Animal Empathy and a decent Handle Animal and Ride, so you could theoretically have her ride into action on the back of a bug like Ant-Man, or maybe a bird. She's more of a sneak than an inventor; she doesn't build the super-science device, but she's probably the person you send to crawl inside it and blast it right in its vulnerable spots. She's a great tracker and spectacular sneak for your team, taking advantage of the massive Stealth bonus from Shrinking and Hide in Plain Sight (which I would have her use while tiny especially) to sneak into almost anywhere. Debate with your GM about how much Shrinking gives you concealment vs. tactile senses too. It doesn't on the surface, but it's logical you'd get _some_ benefit to sneaking around vs. Tremorsense when you weigh about as much as an empty paper coffee cup. (Which is close to her heavy load without using the lifting function of her Stinger powers. Like most tiny characters, she's really vulnerable when not shrunken, so what you should do with her is shrink her down as soon as combat starts. She could easily be a bee-keeper in her civilian ID too, which is a great job that's good for the environment and gives you lots of honey! (What? It is!) Link to comment
Avenger Assembled Posted June 27, 2011 Author Share Posted June 27, 2011 Warrior Angel "I am woman, hear me roar." -Helen Ready PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 28 pp STR 16 (+3) DEX 10 (+0) CON 20 (+5) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 18 (+4) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Angelic powers) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +0 Grapple: +11 Saves: 14 pp TOU +10 (+5 Con, +5 Protection) FORT +8 (+5 Con, +3) REF +5 (+0 Dex, +5) WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6) Skills: 9 pp=36 r Diplomacy 6 (+10) Knowledge: History 5 (+5) Knowledge: Theology and Philosophy 5 (+5) Intimidate 6 (+10) Languages 2 (Chinese, English) (Base: Latin) Notice 4 (+6) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 9 pp Dodge Focus 4 Fearless Power Attack Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Ultimate Save (Will) Powers: 64 pp Angelic Array 21 (42pp; PFs: Alternate Power 3) [42+3=45 pp] BE: Damage 10 (Extras: Selective, Targeted Area [Cone]; PFs: Accurate 2) {42/42} 'sonic scream'AP: Damage 10 (Extras: Penetrating, Vampiric; PFs: Accurate 2, Extended Reach 2, Improved Crit 2, Incurable, Precise, Thrown, Variable Descriptor 2 [any holy]) {42/42} 'holy sword'AP: Emotion Control 10 (Extras: Area [burst], Range [Perception], Selective Attack; PFs: Mind Blank, Subtle) {42/42}AP: Healing 10 (Extras: Area [burst], Selective Attack; PFs: Persistent, Stabilize) {42/42} Flight 2 (25 MPH) (Drawback: Restrainable) [3 pp] Immunity 7 (aging, disease, poison, sleep, starvation and thirst, suffocation) [7 pp] Protection 5 [5 pp] Regeneration 1 (Resurrection 1/week; PFs: Persistent, Regrowth) [3 pp] abilities 28+combat 24+saves 14+skills 9/36+feats 9+powers 64=150 pp --- Design Notes: Another twist on the angel archetype, this one focusing on raw power. If someone like Heyzel (Freedom Angel) is Heaven's diplomat and ambassador, this is the frontline of Heaven's military. If Freedom Angel is the guy you send down to spread Heaven's word to Earth, this lady and her kin are the ones you send down if a rogue archangel decides the way to bring the Almighty back to His empty throne in Heaven is to purge the Earth of sinners as in days of yore. If someone were planning a thread like that. Anyway! I figure this lady and her sisters clear the air with sonic screams, shattering the air and anything in front of them (particularly anything unholy) with the sheer power of their holy might: if forced into melee combat, they bust out the holy sword and begin striking sinners down with holy might, their formidable abilities letting them heal their own injuries from the power of cleansing fire as they wield it on their opponents. That, plus Healing, helps keep all the angels and their allies on their feet in a fight. There are lots of different ways to interpret angels. This build is closer to the mechanics of Zauriel than Wonder Woman, if you're looking for that sort of thing. (I actually had a hard time building Heyzel since he had to be so good at so much, which left him significantly lacking in divine power as opposed to divine skills and attributes.) She lacks the wisdom and phenomenal social acuity of people like Freedom Angel, but she has the sheer power of the divine backing her. This is your angel for pulling off really big and really flashy miracles. Need someone to drop brimstone down on a wide area with a Selective Damage Burst? She's your lady. Need someone to part the waters with a massive Water Control effect? She's your lady again. Need someone to get rid of all the first-born in Egypt...yeaaah, steer clear from that stuff, Sherlock. (Fun fact: flesh to salt is a 4/pp Transform effect; a viable power stunt if you make sure to give it the Sustained Duration so you're not actually murdering someone.) I figure she flies around, screams, hits with her big sword; what's not to like? Think about what might make a warrior angel a warrior, and how all that power is going to influence her relationships with others and with mortals. This would work fine as the representative of any pantheon, not just the Abrahamic version thereof, or any other blaster with a strong force of personality and many immunities to go with great power. You could always have this just be a mutant rather than an angel; perhaps a Golden Age character with angelish powers who just happened to be similar to traditional depictions of powerful angels. It would be interesting to take a Warren Worthington type and have him actually be deeply religious and drawing on his name as more than just a wry joke: something like Nightcrawler as Angel? It's worth thinking about, anyway! Link to comment
Avenger Assembled Posted June 28, 2011 Author Share Posted June 28, 2011 Crimson Tarantula "My field is with apex predators, hence your crocodiles, your snakes, your spiders."-Steve Irwin PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 28 pp STR 26 [16] (+8/+3) DEX 26 [16] (+8/+3) CON 26 [16] (+8/+3) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 16 (+3) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+12 Melee/Spider’s Bite) DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +8 Grapple: +20 Saves: 5 pp TOU +8 (+8 Con) FORT +8 (+8 Con) REF +8 (+8 Dex) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 64 r=16 pp Bluff 12 (+15) Intimidate 12 (+15) Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 5 (+5) Knowledge (History) 5 (+5) Language 2 (English, German) (Base: Russian) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Stealth 12 (+20) Feats: 18 pp Attack Specialization: Melee 6 Challenge (Fast Feint) Dodge Focus 6 Power Attack Quick Draw [Draw] Stunning Attack Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (olfactory) Powers: 64 pp Device 4 (Spider’s Bite) (Easy to Lose) [12 pp] Blast 8 (PFs: Accurate 3, Precise) [20] Enhanced CON 10 [10 pp] Enhanced DEX 10 [10 pp] Enhanced STR 10 [10 pp] Flight 1 (10 MPH) [2 pp] Immunity 10 (aging, life support) [10 pp] Impervious TOU 8 (Flaw: Not vs. Fire/Silver/Wood) [4 pp] Regeneration 2 (Resurrection 1/day; PF: Regrowth) [3 pp] Super-Senses 3 (Acute Scent, Darkvision) [3 pp] Drawbacks: -6 pp Vulnerable (Wood [Piercing]; uncommon, major) [-3 pp] Vulnerable (vs. light-based Dazzles; uncommon, major) [-3 pp] ------ Design Notes: Here's Crimson Tarantula, one of my favorite characters from the Wargames universe (consisting of Wargames 1-4 and Defcon-1, published by Vigilance Press these days, I believe). Crimson Tarantula's backstory is this: a Soviet agent, she was sent to infiltrate the home of a prominent Romanian aristocrat to investigate strange rumors about his activities. It turned out, however, that said aristocrat was no less than Dracula, King of the Vampires! He saw through her deceptions and made her one of his immortal brides, but her commitment to the values of her mortal life (in this case, her devotion to Soviet Communism and the KGB) were enough to break her vampiric conditioning and fight her way free of Dracula's power. She presented herself to her former masters some months later, and now the superheroes of the Soviet Union include the Crimson Tarantula, an attractive, agile gun bunny who wears a full-body costume when she goes adventuring in daylight. The Wargames books are pretty Iron Age, but in a cheerful sort of way: CT's efforts to maintain her humanity are always getting hamstrung by the KGB's desire to have her just rip the throats out of dissidents and such. You'll have to dial that back some for our game, but I think you can keep the gist of it. She's basically Black Widow infected with Blade-style vampirism; she's a human with a disease rather than actual undead. I figure her Spider's Bite is some kind of high-tech super-gun she's picked up over the years, or was issued during her time in Soviet service: it shoots hard light or laser blasts, or maybe electrical bursts, rather than bullets, and so is fine under Comic Book Science for our site. She's quite a surprise for people expecting an unpowered agent and who get a vampire who can throw men twice her size across the room; she's also quite a surprise for people who may not expect a vampire to be a highly-trained and well-armed spy who responds to a cross by pulling out a gun and blasting them. (She's also based a little on Andy, one of my first M&M characters, a vampire vigilante who used guns to hide his teeth). She's fast, she's beautiful; she's a good ranged combatant and she's very good in melee. If you don't like the idea of her being a long-lived ex-Soviet agent, you could make her transformation of more recent vintage: this build would work fine for an AEGIS agent or a UNISON spook. Give her some Benefits like Security Clearance if she's still a spy for an active agency; AEGIS is pretty broad-minded and if one of their agents became a vampire, they might not necessarily boot them out as long as their behavior was under control. Her nature is a tremendous source of complications, ranging from the Secret of what she is to the Secret of who she works for, all the way up to how it is she gets the blood she needs. Being dependent on a serum of some kind, or on blood secured from blood banks, is probably of equal value to you as a Complication. Note that as written, I'd say her 'bite' represents a use of the Stunning Attack feat rather than Mind Control. She hasn't really developed more than the basic vampire powers, probably out of a concern for her own humanity. Link to comment
Avenger Assembled Posted June 28, 2011 Author Share Posted June 28, 2011 Ymir, the Radioactive Viking "Words of praise will never perish, nor a noble name." Abilities: 30 pp STR 30 [16] (+10/+3) DEX 14 (+2) CON 30 [16] (+10/+3) INT 18 (+4) WIS 16 (+3) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Melee/+12 Blast) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +2 Grapple: +21/+26 Saves: 7 pp TOU +10 (+10 Con) FORT +10 (+10 Con) REF +5 (+2 Dex, +3) WILL +7 (+3 Wis, +4) Skills: 36 r=9 pp Intimidate 10 (+10) Knowledge (Physical Sciences) 6 (+10) Knowledge (Technology) 6 (+10) Knowledge (Theology and Philosophy) 1 (+5) Languages 2 (French, Old Norse) (Base: English) Notice 3 (+5) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 13 pp Attack Focus (Melee) 4 Dodge Focus 4 Power Attack Precise Shot Quick Change Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 67 pp Enhanced CON 14 [14 pp] Enhanced STR 14 [14 pp] Flight 1 (10 MPH) [2 pp] Immunity 10 (Aging, Life Support) [10 pp] Super-Senses 1 (Low-Light Vision) [1 pp] Super-Strength 1 (Heavy Load: 1.5 tons) [2 pp] Viking Might Array 10 (20pp; PFs: Alternate Power 3) [20+3=23 pp] BE: Blast 8 (PFs: Accurate 3, Precise) AP: Drain Radiation 8 (Extra: Ranged; PFs: Accurate 3, Slow Fade) AP: Enhanced Feats 8 (Extended Reach 2, Improved Crit 2, Incurable, Precise, Variable Descriptor 2 [any energy]), Impervious TOU 10, and PFs on Super-Strength: (Groundstrike, Shockwave [both radiation])AP: Flight 5 (total of Flight 6 [500 MPH]) and Super-Strength 5 (total of Super-Strength 6; Heavy Load: 48 tons) Abilities 30+Combat 24+Saves 7+Skills 36/9+Feats 13+Powers 67=150 pp ----- Design Notes: Another Wargames build, here's Ymir, the Radioactive Viking! He's Canada's native superhero and one of the most powerful heroes in his native setting, as befits a Thor/Captain Atom mashup. He's a basically amiable guy, but scary if you tick him off. His backstory is this: Ymir was once a scientist in western Canada using a fission reactor to probe other dimensions for sources of power. It was all going great until one day when an overload of unknown energy exploded his equipment, heavily irradiating the scientist and leaving him dying. As he lay there, who should step through the portal from the other dimension but Loki Laufeyson, the Adversary of Asgard? (It turns out that he'd tapped into the dimension where the Aesir had once imprisoned Loki milennia ago) In gratitude for his salvation, Loki healed Ymir's injuries and granted him a measure of his own power before moving on, not incidentally just before his brother showed up determined to give him a savage pummeling. (Ymir and Thor are still on very bad terms after that incident) As someone who enjoys twists on Viking archetypes, I like the cut of Ymir's jib. (I opted not to reproduce the pictures of the character from the Halt Evil Doer supplements and elsewhere where he appears; track them down to get a look at his really awesome look.) I figure he can use his Viking-themed radiation powers in a variety of ways; flying fast and lifting heavy objects, blasting or draining radiation, or summoning a radioactive frost ax and armor and going to town on bad guys. Ymir works for NATO in his own setting, a proud Canadian patriot, but I think he'd work fine as Canada's Flying Brick paragon guy if you want to have one of those in your game. He makes for a fine tweak on the usual Norse mythology, even if you assume as we do that Loki is still a bad guy! Tweaks to one's loyalty are always interesting. He speaks French because he's Canadian, natch. People don't expect the big burly Viking dude to be particularly savvy, but this guy is hella savvy! He'd make an interesting rival for my Military Fairy build upthread, as well as any other Norse-influenced PCs running around. There's nothing to say there can't be good guys on Loki's team, and you can at least make a plausible argument that maybe that old bastard Odin should have his palace pulled down on his head. (OK, maybe not here since Shaen's been rehabilitating the Norse pantheon, but maybe in your own game those wing-headed so and sos can get what they deserve!) Ymir's not really a guy who's obsessed with old religions, though; he's a scientist and adventurer determined to be the best hero he can be, an example for all those Canadian schoolkids who might one day want to grow up to be a radioactive Viking paragon! (And who wouldn't be?) Link to comment
Avenger Assembled Posted June 28, 2011 Author Share Posted June 28, 2011 Black Orchid A man doesn't plant a tree for himself. He plants it for posterity.-Alexander Smith PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 18 pp STR 30 [16] (+10/+3) DEX 14 (+2) CON 30 [16] (+10/+3) INT 10 (+0) WIS 12 (+1) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Melee) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +2 Grapple: +25 Saves: 9 pp TOU +10 (+10 Con) FORT +10 (+10 Con) REF +5 (+2 Dex, +3) WILL +7 (+1 Wis, +6) Skills: 52 r=13 pp Bluff 15 (+15) Disguise 5 (+5/+25) Knowledge (Life Sciences) 10 (+10) Languages 1 (Spanish) (Base: English) Notice 4 (+5) Sense Motive 9 (+10) Stealth 8 (+10) Feats: 14 pp Attack Focus: Melee (4) Dodge Focus (4) Fearless Power Attack Second Chance (Disguise checks) Takedown Attack Ultimate Save (Will) Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 76 pp Enhanced CON 14 [14 pp] Enhanced STR 14 [14 pp] Flight 5 (250 MPH) [Dynamic] [10+1+2=13 pp] DAP: Super-Strength 5 (Heavy Load: 48 tons) Immunity 12 (Aging, Life Support, Sleep, Starvation and Thirst) [12 pp] Impervious TOU 10 [10 pp] Morph 4 (humanoids) [8 pp] Regeneration 2 (Resurrection 2 [1/day]) (PFs: Persistent, Regrowth) [4 pp] Drawbacks: -4 pp Vulnerable (vs. fire) (common, moderate) [-4 pp] costs abilities 18 + combat 24 + saves 9 + skills 13/52 + feats 14 + powers 76 -drawbacks 4= 150 pts ---- Design Notes: I don't recall how Black Orchid came up in chat, but checking her out on Wikipedia gave me a Batman/Superman hybrid who is also a living plant. It seemed worth building, so I did it! Her background's a little dark and gritty for our site, given that she is a child of early Vertigo, but I think you could come up with something interesting based on her early and contemporary (i.e. non-Iron Age) adventures. Murdered by her abusive husband, Black Orchid was revived by a good buddy scientist of hers with plant powers. Now she's a flying brick who's also a good sneak and great infiltrator, using her formidable abilities to fight crime and make sure no one was ever victimized as she was. If something bad does happen, that's okay; she'll just regrow underground in her greenhouse and fly out again in a day or so, ready to give one heck of a surprise to that baddie who thought he'd disposed of the Black Orchid. I went with making her Morph a power rather than just high Disguise; I figure it (and her other powers) are the result of moving her plant-based cells around as camouflage. Normally I don't give Impervious to Sentient Plant types, but bullets bouncing off the chest of a Superman expy are too iconic a moment to turn down. Like most of my plant-based builds, she is vulnerable to fire, but of course it doesn't actually kill her for good: getting set on fire just lets her come back later, new and revitalized and ready to take on new challenges. You know what would be kind of awesome, is if you took this character and made her a visitor from a grim, gritty other dimension where everyone talks in Britishisms and there's lots of really 'adult' magic, and now she's really happy to be in a nice, happy Silver Age setting like Freedom City. (Take that, Vertigo! Bam!) Coming from a rough background like that could give you the grim origin without the fridging stuff, and give you lots of complications as you adjust to the necessities of superheroing in a neo-Silver Age setting. (What does that mean? Well, look at it this way: it's like the Silver Age, but not stories written for hyperactive nine-year-old Baby Boomers reading Superman laugh in Lois Lane's face, while desperately hoping that someone will invent the Sexual Revolution before they get too old to enjoy it.) Look, she's a master of disguise plant paragon. What more do you want? Well OK: she could use more Regeneration if you don't want her constantly respawning at her greenhouse when she's getting into bad times, and maybe fewer immunities if you don't want her to be a space-going plant paragon. (I just liked the image of her being like interstellar seaweed if necessary.) Plants aren't actually immune to things like starvation and thirst, of course, but those things are pretty hard to emulate in M&M: it's not quite fine-tuned enough to get that kind of distinction. She get her powers from some kind of crazy connection to the plant dimension, go with that! Think about what it means to be empowered by the very substance of plants, and how it might influence your behavior. Remember, she's Batman and Superman before she's some hippie, though! She could use higher attributes, too, but if you take this as her just starting out with what were once a bystander's skills, she's fine. Link to comment
Avenger Assembled Posted June 29, 2011 Author Share Posted June 29, 2011 Yankee Doodle Jones "Sorry, Doctor, that was f-ed up" Dr. Tran PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 48 pp STR 30 (+10) DEX 14 (+2) CON 30 (+10) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (10 Melee) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +2 Grapple: +21 Saves: 10 pp TOU +10 (+10 Con) FORT +10 (+10 Con) REF +6 (+2 Dex, +4) WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6) Skills: 44r=11 pp Diplomacy 5 (+5) Intimidate 10 (+10) Knowledge (Civics) 5 (+5) Languages 3 (German, Japanese, Russian) (Base: English) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Survival 5 (+7) Feats: 14 pp Attack Focus: Melee 4 Dodge Focus 4 Fearless Power Attack Startle Takedown Attack Track Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 43 pp Immunity 32 (Critical Hits, Fortitude Saves) [32 pp] Impervious TOU 8 [8 pp] Leaping 1 (x2) [1 pp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] Super-Strength 1 (Heavy Load: 1.5 tons) [2 pp] costs abilities 48 + combat 24 + saves 10 + skills 11/44 + feats 14 + powers 43 = 150 pts --- Design Notes: Yankee Doodle Jones is among the most outright messed-up characters in comics. To make a long story short, Yankee Doodle Jones is a two-fisted Golden Age protagonist with a goofy kid sidekick. He is also made out of corpses. Yeah, he's made of disabled WWI veterans who volunteer to have their organs used (and a donation of serum made from the rest of their remains) to build the perfect patriot. The Golden Age was messed up, people. So that's what I've tried to do here: Yankee Doodle Jones is a low-grade powerhouse/living weapon, a two-fisted Golden Age guy who can punch his way through a crowd of Nazi thugs and shrug off a strangling with a reminder from his sidekick that he's actually okay. He also has full Fort immunity, despite being a living creature, and is fast, agile, and nearly bulletproof. So yeah, Golden Age patriotic Frankenstein-type. If you're not happy with the messed-up Golden Age origin, this would make an OK build for Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Frankenstein has actually been turned into a comic book character several times, mostly recently that I can remember by Grant Morrison in the pages of Seven Soldiers. (I might do a build or two from there myself one of these days) Note that you don't need to add a mute drawback there, since the Frankenstein in the book (and usually in comics) can actually not stop talking once you get him going. Picture it, a famous monster condemned as a killer, but actually with the soul of a hero! The Superlink supplement Algernon Fires: of War has an interesting take on the Frankenstein family as a legacy of evil geniuses opposed by their most famous creation. I think you could get a lot of meat out of a similar story for a hero like this! Heck, he could even still be a Golden Age hero. Note that it's not actually clear YDJ the product of patriotic Frankensteinism, but I prefer to take the most horrible route possible in matters like this. He's a horrible thing in a chiseled hero's body, an assemblage of the dead wearing the face of the living. I'd treat that, if you want to play it up, as Fearsome Presence with lots of Complications: maybe he is innately disturbing to the world around him, enough that dogs howl, children cry, and psychics clutch their head in pain when he walks by: he is the thing that should not be! But he is, and he's here to fight Nazis and other enemies of America! It's more fun to do that if he's still a noble, upright man himself, who's not going to feel bad about where he came from anymore than necessary: let the world decide if he should exist later, he's busy saving the day! Link to comment
Avenger Assembled Posted June 30, 2011 Author Share Posted June 30, 2011 The Scarlet Scarab "Anything but ordinary" PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 52 pp STR 18 (+4) DEX 26 (+8) CON 18 (+4) INT 12 (+1) WIS 26 (+8) CHA 12 (+1) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+14 melee) DEF: +14 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +8 Grapple: +22 Saves: 6 pp TOU +6 (+4 Con, +2 Costume) FORT +6 (+4 Con, +2) REF +10 (+8 Dex, +2) WILL +10 (+8 Wis, +2) Skills: 17 pp=68 r Acrobatics 12 (+20)* Climb 1 (+5) Intimidate 9 (+10) Investigate 4 (+5) Knowledge (Streetwise) 4 (+5) Languages 2 (English, Japanese) (Base: Spanish) Notice 12 (+20)* Sense Motive 12 (+20)* Stealth 12 (+20)* Feats: 25 pp Acrobatic Bluff Attack Focus: Melee (6) Beginner’s Luck Blind-Fight Challenge (Fast Acrobatic Bluff) Dodge Focus (6) Evasion (2) Grappling Finesse Luck Move-By Action Power Attack Skill Mastery (Acrobatics, Notice, Sense Motive, Stealth) Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (mental) Powers: 18 pp Device 2 (Scarlet Scarab Costume) (Hard to Lose) [8 pp] Enhanced Feat 1 (Second Chance (Tou. vs Ballistics]) [1] Flight 2 (25 MPH) (Flaw: Gliding) [2] Protection 2 [2] Super-Movement 1 (Wall-Crawling) [2] Strike 2 (PF: Mighty) [3] Enhanced Feat 1 (Ultimate Save [Will]) [1 pp] Leaping 1 (x2) [1 pp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] Super-Senses 7 (Accurate Acute Radius Ranged Mental, Precognition (Flaw: Unreliable)) [7 pp] costs abilities 52 + combat 32 + saves 6 + skills 17/68 + feats 25 + powers 18 = 150 pts ---- Design Notes: On Earth M-Lucas-1, Overshadow used his world's Elena Guerrero as a false version of the _real_ Scarab, Alexander Rhodes, the greatest ever to bear that title, as a weapon against the Freedom League of America. Rhodes fought back against Overshadow's forces and escaped, rescuing the League and the poor exploited young Latina who'd been used by his enemies from the consequences of Overshadow's machinations. Stripped of the power of the Scarab, Elena returned to her law school career and the barrio where she'd grown up and seemed inclined to slip out of the pages of history. But the world was changing around her, and changing around all the other heroes too. The barrio was no longer a home of cheerful Latins and their blousy wives; it was a place where good people were kept in poverty by the system, where exploitation by the powerful kept her Latino and Latina brothers and sisters down. And despite the promises of Alexander Rhodes, the voices in Elena's head never quite went away: her mind was opened now as it had never been before, with dreams of the future coming her way when she closed her eyes. The world had noticed her, just as she'd noticed the world, and there was no getting away from it. Alexander Rhodes was sympathetic, but his focus was on the skies, not the streets; he'd saved the world a thousand times over, but what had he ever done for the working man? Something in her words when she went to him for help chastened him, though, and earned her his support. So with the help of money from the Rhodes Foundation and her own hard work, Elena fashioned a costume like her mentor's and began training fanatically, using the fighting skills she'd learned growing up in the barrio and sharpening them with her new powers and training to become one of the world's greatest hand-to-hand fighters. And then one night, she took to the rooftops as the Scarlet Scarab, wearing a costume that homaged the man she'd once replaced, but unlike him she fought for the people on the streets. She's a streetwise protector of the barrio and _all_ the people who live there, a champion of the working class against the Man and all the people who want to keep down her brothers and sisters. I think this would make a fine build for a costumed adventurer with some psychic surprises: not bad for people expecting just a Badass Normal they can take out. OK, so this is House of L-Elena Guerrero as of the Graduation Day thread: with the universe around her having shifted from Silver to Bronze Age, she's gone from one-shot ethnic character quickly discarded to a streetwise ethnic hero designed to prove that the writer is politically correct. (Because all Latinas are streetwise and live in the barrio. I guess?) She's a very good hand-to-hand fighter and acrobat; a fast, sneaky fighter who plays a lot like a precognitive Daredevil with her super-senses: I figure her Strike is brass knuckles and such built into her suit to augment her punches, while she's got some kind of scarab wings under her costume that let her glide down from a fall with the help of her acrobatic training. She's got some kind of scarab-claws in her hands as descriptor for both her Strike and her Wall-Crawling. Link to comment
Avenger Assembled Posted June 30, 2011 Author Share Posted June 30, 2011 Radioactive Mermaid "King Triton's headstrong, lovesick girl would make a charming addition to my little garden." -Ursala PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 44 pp STR 24 (+7) DEX 20 (+5) CON 24 (+7) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 12 (+1) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+10 radiation/+13 melee) DEF: +13 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +5 Grapple: +20 Saves: 7 pp TOU +7 (+7 Con) FORT +7 (+7 Con) REF +7 (+5 Dex, +2) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 40 r=10 pp Bluff 13 (+15) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Stealth 5 (+10) Survival 3 (+5) Swim 3 (+10) Feats: 17 pp Attack Focus: Melee 5 Dodge Focus 5 Environmental Adaptation (Underwater) Move-By Action Power Attack Precise Shot Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 40 pp Flight 3 (50 MPH) [6+1=7 pp] AP: Swimming 6 (100 MPH) Immunity 4 (drowning, environmental cold, environmental radiation, high pressure) [4 pp] Super-Senses 7 (Darkvision, Radiation Awareness [2] [Extended 2 (x100)] (mental), Tremorsense) [7 pp] Underwater Radiation Array [21+1=22 pp] Blast 10 (PF: Accurate) AP: Damage 10 (Extra: Area [Cone]) (PF: Reverse Progression on Area) costs abilities 44 + combat 32 + saves 7 + skills 10/40 + feats 17 + powers 40 = 150 pts ------ Design Notes: You know, I don't recall how the subject of a radioactive mermaid came up in chat. But when you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. All kinds of pollution gets dumped into the ocean these days, some of it radioactive. And who's to say some of that might not mutate some legless denizen of the deeps, giving her the power to fire blasts of sickly green radiation at her enemies and to survive in radioactive environments. And now she's come to the surface to battle polluters everywhere, and make friends among her fellow heroes. You can play her so that she has a scaly lower body all the time, but in my mind you're better off taking a page from DC's Post-Crisis Lori Lemaris (who hey, was Superman's girlfriend for a while there) and say that she's in a human body while dry and in a mermaid body while wet. Keep that particular 'involuntary transformation' a complication, though, since you'll need the HP for it going off! She's got high enough Bluff to maybe talk a bored and randy sailor into the water with her, but clearly you should only do that for heroic reasons. She's really strong, easily meeting her caps both with her punches and her radiation blasts, making her a formidable fighter and probably a veteran of undersea warfare in her native community. She's fast underwater and in the air, and with her formidable super-senses she's very difficult to sneak up on wherever she lives. How do you work mermaids (and mer-dudes, I guess) into the World of Freedom? Well, presumably they are also Atlanteans, but perhaps from a sub-group of the original population. Maybe they used direct genetic fusion with fish and other undersea creatures to survive beneath the waves, or maybe they've adopted natural stylings (by science or sorcery) as a way of atoning for the disaster that brought Atlantis beneath the waves in the first place. Or more sinisterly, perhaps she's from a community punished by the gods for their role in bringing Atlantis underwater; worse yet, maybe she's from a line of Deep Ones that was cast out of Atlantis centuries ago. Our Atlantis is somewhere in the north Atlantic, so maybe mix it up a bit and say she's from the Pacific, or perhaps shes a hardy Great Lakes native! (Who's to say what lies beneath the waves there in Lake Superior...) Avoid the Stripperific costumes so common to mermaids, really: no one's interested in seeing that stuff. If a Disney cartoon can make that kind of outfit look innocent, you should be able to do the same thing. Speaking of physical characteristics, having legs at least part of the time also lets you enjoy a more personal relationship with surface-dwellers; as Futurama and other franchises have demonstrated over the years, there are actually some pretty serious biological differences between primates and fish, and someone who is a merger of both is going to have some strange cares. Play up the aquatic nature of the character to drive home the dual physical identity and earn delicious HP, but remember: contrary to some depictions of Aquaman, you probably don't care if people eat fish in front of you. You're from a volcanic trench off the East Coast. You've eaten fish your entire life. Fish are jerks. But delicious jerks. Link to comment
Avenger Assembled Posted July 1, 2011 Author Share Posted July 1, 2011 Haunter I have never yet heard of a murderer who was not afraid of a ghost.-John Curran PL: 10 (150) Abilities: -6 pp STR 10 (+0) DEX 10 (+0) CON n/a INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+12 melee) DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed) Grapple: +13 Init: +0 Saves: 13 pp TOU +8 (- Con, +8 Protection) FORT n/a REF +5 (+0 Dex, +5) WILL +10 (+2 Wis, +8) Skills: 40 r=10 pp Concentration 8 (+10) Disguise 0 (+0/+15) Intimidate 10 (+10) Notice 6 (+8) Sense Motive 6 (+8) Stealth 10 (+10) Feats: 18 pp Attack Focus: Melee 6 Dodge Focus 6 Fearless Luck Move-By Action Power Attack Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (mental) Powers: 91 pp Flight 1 (10 MPH) [2 pp] Ghost Array [16+4=20 pp] Concealment 8 (all visual, all auditory, all radio) AP: Damage 8 (Extra: Affects Corporeal) AP: Emotion Control 10 (Flaw: Sense-Dependent [visual]) and Morph 3 (any humanoid) AP: Illusion 4 (all senses) AP: Possession 8 (Flaw: Feedback) Immunity 30 (Fortitude saves) [30 pp] Insubstantial 4 (ectoplasm) (Extra: Duration [Default]) (PF: Innate) [21 pp] Protection 8 [8 pp] Regeneration 6 (Recovery Bonus +0 [5], Resurrection 1 [week]) (PFs: Persistent, Regrowth) [8 pp] Super-Senses 2 (Darkvision) [2 pp] costs abilities -6 + combat 24 + saves 13 + skills 10/40 + feats 18 +powers 91 = 150 pts ------ Design Notes: I did a Kitty Pryde-style 'ghost' build upthread, this one's a little different: here's a build for a ghost who is really and truly dead, man, inspired by Gizmo's recent Kimber build. He flies around and is invisible most of the time, create realistic illusions, and he can hurt things with a touch. He can also warp people's minds, terrifying them or luring them in, all while disguising himself as some other person. I gave him visual, auditory, and radio concealment because I like the idea of psychics growing concerned at the terrible knowledge that there is _someone_ there in the room with them, not to mention dogs and cats howling and hissing at the _thing_ they can sense somewhere near them. With the Default on his Insubstantial, his default is to have a ghostly body. An easy way out for his Insubstantial vulnerability is to make him vulnerable to whatever killed him in life, or maybe the OPPOSITE of that: i.e., a freezing victim who is vulnerable to fire. If you don't like that, you can always just make him vulnerable to magic. Ghosts are going to be running around trying to solve the problems they couldn't in life, or perhaps they're under the influence of some Tibetan deity and helping others in similar shoes before they themselves move onto the great Hereafter. Now, if that depresses you, you don't have to be stuck playing the walking (or rather, floating dead). If you don't like the idea of playing a walking ghost, another idea is to take a page from Orpheus and make him a 'sleeper'; say he is currently cryogenically frozen (having gone in alive or dead), and his projected self is the product of his organic brain being turned into a superconducter by its supercooled state. He does have a body to go back to, it's just not good for anything and is a plot device as far as people launching attacks against it. Putting him in a coma would also work just as well, though that might be a little too Fridge Horror for some people. As written, this guy doesn't have a lot going on: his skills are pretty thin, though he's a pretty good fighter. He probably wasn't anyone special like an acrobat before his death...but you can change that with points expenditure! Being a ghost is expensive, maaan. Note that you do need the Affects Corporeal extra on Damage with Insub 4 while you don't at 3. He's a really good sneak and infiltrator, though, and really good at catching people flat-footed or just sending them running with his powers. He's a good person to have on a team, and he may You could save points by dropping his STR to 0 and making his Insubstantial permanent, but goldangit I want my ghost to be able to be solid and hang around bothering people, or to be able to win a wrestling mask with other ghosts. (Of course, he'll need to pick up Affects Insubstantial on his Unarmed for that...) Link to comment
Avenger Assembled Posted July 1, 2011 Author Share Posted July 1, 2011 Stålkvinnan A house is a machine for living in. -Le Corbusier PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 48 pp STR 30 (+10) DEX 14 (+2) CON 30 (+10) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 16 pp ATK: +4 (+10 Melee) DEF: +10 (+2 flat-footed) Init: +6 Grapple: +20 Saves: 8 pp TOU +10 (+10 Con) FORT +10 (+10 Con) REF +6 (+2 Dex, +4) WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4) Skills: 52 r=13 pp Craft (electronic) 5 (+5) Craft (mechanical) 4 (+4) Computers 15 (+15) Knowledge (Technology) 10 (+10) Languages 2 (English, Galstandard) (Base: Swedish) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 18 pp Attack Focus: Melee 6 Dodge Focus 6 Evasion Fearless Move-By Action Power Attack Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (radio) Powers: 47 pp Datalink 1 (100 ft) [radio] (PF: Subtle) [2 pp] Enhanced Feats 2 (Eidetic Memory, Online Research) [2 pp] Impervious TOU 10 [10 pp] Immunity 22 (aging, life support, mental effects, sleep, starvation and thirst) [22 pp] Leaping 1 (x2) [1 pp] Quickness 6 (x100) (Flaw: Mental Tasks Only) [3 pp] Regeneration 1 (Resurrection 1/week) [1 pp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] Super-Senses 5 (Accurate Analytical Extended Radio Sense) [5 pp] costs abilities 48 + combat 16 + saves 8 + skills 13/52 + feats 18 + powers 47 = 150 pts ----------- Design Notes: Here's little Eira, Fenris' terminally ill niece uploaded into a robot body at the age of eight by Miss Americana, Dragonfly, and Sharl, in her full-sized adult body that she'll 'grow' into in a few years. I figure she was just an ordinary kid when she went in, so she's not particularly smart or wise, and years in a robot's body have left her with some issues with relating to people. But OTOH, she's also got a really nice robot body! It's a 'living robot' body that lets her pass for human, enough that she has self-repair systems and has all the normal biological functions. A lot of them are feigned, though; so she has very few human weaknesses. Being cybercized has made her mind unreadable to telepaths: they can tell her 'mental energy' is there, but they can't read or otherwise alter the 1s and 0s that make up her brain these days. She's got built-in radar so she can see in the dark, and she can talk to computers. She's bulletproof, faster and stronger than any human, thinks as fast as a computer, and has a permanent connection to the Internet that lets her always stay in the know. Her Resurrection, incidentally, referred to downloading from stored backups; feel free to give it whatever drawbacks or complications reflect the unreliable nature of whenever the last time was she went in and had her mind copied onto whatever form of harddisc they're using in the mid-21st century. Her name, loosely translated, means "Woman of Steel", which I think is a good choice for describing Sweden's first native cyborg heroine. She's not a great fighter, but she can fake it with her Super-Senses and +10 Melee Attack. She's not trained to fight, after all, she just happens to be in a robot body that's very, very good at it. She doesn't have any mechanical drawbacks or flaws (get it?) so she's not going to be knocked down by electrical charges or water getting inside her armor. Adding those things would certainly be viable sources of PP for you, or HP if you want to make them Complications. She's got no Enhanced STR or Enhanced CON, since all her abilities are a natural part of her robotic body, rather than being particularly boosted. If you need to stunt for her, do it off her radar or her datalink. I think this works just fine as a build for a full-body cyborg, particularly one in a high-tech future, but I could easily see this character running around on the streets of Freedom City now. You'll want to up her INT if you want her to be the author of her fortune; creator of her own body, unless you want to do something depressing like Silver Age Sentinels' Iron Duke. (Don't do that!) She could be a 'living robot' who was never an organic being as well, or maybe she's a military-grade cyborg that decided to go off the reservation when some shenanigans were going down. But I rather like the idea of a woman who has spent her whole life inside machines going off to save human beings with her powers! Link to comment
Avenger Assembled Posted July 1, 2011 Author Share Posted July 1, 2011 Serpent Hero "No, snakes are no problem. I'd go to any country, anywhere, any snakes, not a problem." -Steve Irwin PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 38 pp STR 26 (+8) DEX 14 (+2) CON 20 (+5) INT 14 (+2) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+12 Melee) DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +2 Grapple: +20 Saves: 15 pp TOU +8 (+5 Con, +3 Protection) FORT +8 (+5 Con, +3) REF +8 (+2 Ref, +6) WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6) Skills: 17 pp=68 r Climb 2 (+10) Intimidate 15 (+15) Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 13 (+15) Languages 2 (English, German) (Base: Lithuanian) Notice 13 (+15) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Stealth 13 (+15) Survival 2 (+4) Feats: 18 pp Attack Focus: Melee 6, Dodge Focus 6, Power Attack Prone Fighting, Ritualist, Startle, Takedown Attack, Uncanny Dodge (tactile) Powers: 42 pp Concealment 1 (Infravision) (Extra: Duration [Permanent] (+0)) [2 pp] Insubstantial 1 (snaky body) [5 pp] Protection 3 [3 pp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] Super-Movement 4 (Slithering, Slow Fall, Wall-Crawling 2) [8 pp] Super-Senses 3 (Infravision, Tremorsense) [3 pp] Venom Array [18+2=20 pp] Drain All Ability Scores 8 (PFs: Extended Reach, Improved Crit) AP: Paralyze 8 (PFs: Extended Reach, Improved Crit) AP: Stun 8 (PFs: Extended Reach, Improved Crit) Drawbacks: -3 pp Vulnerable (vs. cold) (uncommon, major) [-3 pp] costs abilities 38+ combat 24 + saves 15 + skills 17/68 + feats 18+ powers 42 -drawbacks 3= 150 pts ---------- Design Notes: I've always been fascinated by Baltic mythology. Forget your Victorian Celtic fanboys and your Norse stuff; Baltic paganism survived historically intact in many places up until the early 18th century. There were snake cults within a horseback ride of the first Enlightenment-era universities in Prussia and Lithuania, and that's pretty boss. The idea here is that this character is empowered by those ancient legends and their focus on snakes to summon a snaky body for herself, giving her a reptilian physiology and a powerful poisonous bite with a variety of effects she can change up at will. As the picture shows, she's got legs, I just couldn't wrap my head around the image of a humanoid snake without lower limbs. So she's a humanoid snake with normal limbs, with all the powers and abilities you would expect from that. I figure that since she's the avatar of snakes, or maybe a snake goddess, rather than a snake herself, she can change up the effects of her venom: she also can spit it like a spitting cobra! With her Ritualist feat, she can summon up some useful magical powers for herself. I got to thinking about mythological heroes in a Soviet setting as I was working on Ymir upthread, and potentially (if her backers are willing to acknowledge her) she could easily be a counter to Ymir: if not, or in a modern game, she makes a fine pagan-inspired local hero for Lithuania or elsewhere on the Baltic. If you don't like the tie-in to Baltic legend, this could be someone using Serpent People sorcery. In fact, she could actually _be_ a Serpent Person, a rare heroic variety of a people often corrupted by dark magic. (Heck, put the two together; perhaps the snake-focus of Lithuanian and other legends is a result of beneficent Serpent People being chased out of the underground by their relatives and worshiped as divine for a while by the people of the eastern Baltic.) Serpent People are mistrusted across the cosmos given how many of them tend to be Unspeakable One cultists, so that (plus the fact that she's a snake-woman!) will be a natural source of complications for her. She's cold-blooded! Hence the vulnerability and the Concealment vs. infravision, and she's got a scaly hide. Debate whether or not she's stuck in snake-person form all the time or if she can change back and forth like the Hulk, probably buying some Quick Change to go with it. Snakey urges in general are something best left to Complications; does she want to bask in the sun, brood over some eggs, or maybe hunt down and eat some mice? (With her Survival skills and strong athleticism, she could do both of those things quite easily.) Depending on how serpent she is in general, she may have larger or lesser issues with socializing with mammals in general: there are certainly some physical issues to work out before anything romantic is attempted. Link to comment
Avenger Assembled Posted July 1, 2011 Author Share Posted July 1, 2011 Immortal Adventurer "I did not stoop so low as to attack you while you slept. But now?" -Macbeth PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 48 pp STR 20 (+5) DEX 18 (+4) CON 20 (+5) INT 16 (+3) WIS 20 (+5) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+9 Melee/+15 Unarmed) DEF: +15 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +4 Grapple: +14 Saves: 7 pp TOU +5 (+5 Con) FORT +7 (+5 Con, +2) REF +7 (+4 Dex, +3) WILL +7 (+5 Wis, +2) Skills: 80 r=20 pp Climb 1 (+6) Drive 1 (+5) Knowledge (History) 12 (+15) Knowledge (Streetwise) 7 (+10) Knowledge (Tactics) 12 (+15) Intimidate 13 (+15) Notice 10 (+15) Sense Motive 10 (+15) Ride 1 (+5) Swim 1 (+6) Stealth 11 (+15) Survival 1 (+6) Feats: 20 pp Attack Focus: Melee Attack Specialization: Unarmed 3 Beginner’s Luck Dodge Focus 7 Eidetic Memory Jack of all Trades Master Plan 2 Power Attack Startle Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 24 pp Comprehend 3 (speak, read, and understand any language at once) [6 pp] Immunity 3 (aging, disease, poison) [3 pp] Regeneration 13 (Recovery Bonus +9 [4], Disabled 6 [standard action], Resurrection 3 [five hours]) (PFs: Persistent, Regrowth) [15 pp] costs abilities 48 + combat 32 + saves 7 + skills 20/80 + feats 20 + powers 24 = 150 pts ------------- Design Notes: OK, here's a concept I loosely define as "Immortal Batman", modeled on my favorite character from the 90s Gargoyles series, Macbeth. Macbeth the character actually was the historical king of Scotland, and, well...go find a place where you can watch it! It was very good, and he was voiced memorably by John Rhys-Davies. He doesn't have the bells and whistles he demonstrated on the show: his Wealth, Equipment, and Devices (the last two were usually flying bikes to give him competitiveness with the flying Gargoyles and swords, blaster pistols, and body armor to fight them on even terms) should be purchased with PP or be the product of him as an NPC if you choose to make him an antagonist in your game. Obviously you don't have to make this the historical Macbeth if you play him, the build works for any sort of PC that stays loyal to the character's core concept. An NPC build would probably have base Attack and Defense right up to PL maximum, but stuff like that is prohibitively expensive with a PC: he's best with his fists, at home when stripped of all weapons and with only his immortal wits to back him up. He's a man, just a man, who happens to have lived forever: no special powers, no particular special abilities beyond an inability to age and a return even from the grave, along with a command of all the languages he's acquired in the centuries of his lifespan. All he has are his wits, his fists, and centuries of experience to get by in a fight. With Beginner's Luck, Eidetic Memory, and Jack of all Trades ( a must for any immortal PC defined by their centuries of life), and his high base attributes, he can do almost anything with some competence, and with his 2 ranks of Master Plan and tremendous Tactics, he's an unparalleled planner: if Daedalus is an immortal Iron Man, this is an immortal Batman, drawing on his centuries of life experience to hold his own in almost any field. I gave him the fast Disabled recovery because of how Regeneration works in Mutants and Masterminds: since he recovers from the Disabled after the Resurrection, without Disabled Regen he'd just lay there and groan (or otherwise be in a very bad way) after coming back from the dead. I wasn't a fan of that; if you look at how these immortal characters usually work, though death may slow them down, when they recover they tend to spring right back up and be ready to fight. Another way to emulate that would be to give him a Personal Limited Healing that he can use to heal his injuries whenever he's alive, perhaps one distracting enough that he can't effectively use it in combat. He's got a lot of low-level skills to represent having lived through the early modern period; don't forget you can use Beginner's Luck to make him even more of an expert in things like climbing and riding to reflect drawing on his centuries of life. Link to comment
Avenger Assembled Posted July 1, 2011 Author Share Posted July 1, 2011 Quickchange PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 48 pp STR 30 [22] (+10/+6) DEX 16 (+3) CON 24 [20] (+7/+5) INT 20 (+5) WIS 20 (+5) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 [+9 melee/+11 Unarmed] (+5 w/Growth, +8 Melee, +10 Unarmed) DEF: +11 [+6 flat-footed) (+5 w/Growth, +10) Init: +11 Grapple: +15/+20 Saves: 6 pp TOU +10 (+7 Con, +3 Protection [8]) FORT +7 (+7 Con [5]) REF +7 (+3 Dex, +4) WILL +7 (+5 Wis, +2) Skills: 80 r=20 pp Concentration 5 (+10) Craft (Electronic) 10 (+15) Craft (Mechanical) 10 (+15) Intimidate 14 (+14/+15) Knowledge: Technology 15 (+20) Notice 10 (+15) Sense Motive 5 (+10) Stealth 11 (+14/+10) Feats: 17 pp Attack Focus: Melee 3 Attack Specialization: Unarmed Dodge Focus 5 Evasion Inventor Master Plan Move-By Action Startle Power Attack Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (olfactory) Powers: 35 pp Enhanced Feats 5 (Improved Crit, Improved Initiative 2, Incurable, Stunning Attack) [5 pp] Growth 4 (Extra: Duration (Sustained) [+0]) [12 pp] Power Reserve 5 (10 pp reserve; Quickness (to Quickness 11 (x5000) and Speed [to Speed 11 (25,000 MPH)]) [10 pp] Protection 3 [3 pp] Quickness 1 (x2) [1 pp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] Super-Movement 3 (Wall-Crawling 2, Water-Walking) (Flaw: Only While Moving) [3 pp] costs abilities 48 + combat 24 + saves 6 + skills 20/80 + feats 17 + powers 35 = 150 pts -------------- Design Notes: Here's Quickchange, an Amalgam mashup of Atlas and Dynamo. He's an interesting character, a speedster who has the power to turn himself into a gigantic rampaging powerhouse! It's not often you see an eight-foot-tall musclebound giant running straight up the side of a building at you, but I imagine the sight would be suitably memorable. He has some limited lightning powers, enough to clothe his fists in sparking electricity when he punches and to augment his already formidable fighting talents. While he needs to be a giant to meet his caps, he's still effective in or out of a fight without it: he's a savvy gadgeteer and scientist (which may be how he wound up with these powers and this monsterism thing in the first place) as well as a decently capable (if lower-PL fighter). He'd make a fine addition to any team, and could probably get by for a while (assuming they don't get into a lot of life-or-death brawls) without them ever-knowing about the beast inside him. He's a lot scarier than most speedsters even without his powers, and so can function in combat roles that his jokier brethren can't really handle. He's in really good shape with no powers at all, either as a result of internalized speed radiation permanently augmenting his body, or just as a result of being in really, really good shape before becoming a scientist. My idea here is that his mutation is the product of exposure to speed energy from the dawn of time and the end of history simultaneously, transforming him into a creature that hearkens back to man's primitive past even as he might open a doorway into the future. It's quite a surprise for people expecting Zippy the Speedhead as their opponent, especially since he can take a hit much better than his typical speedster fellows. He doesn't have the options for stunting that those guys do, but he has least has his lightning fists to play with...and anyway, those speedier guys can't lift a car, or stunt off their Speed and Quickness to pull off all kinds of tremendous feats. With Power Reserve (which works a bit like dynamic arrays) he can put points into Speed and Quickness both, shifting them around as a free action: since he's got some outside his array, he will never be as slow physically or mentally as a normal human being unless you do something to his powers. He's a really good person to have on a team, filling the speedster roles and gadgeteer roles and also having at least a decent contribution towards powerhouse. (If you want to play up his STR, save up and buy Super-Strength as part of his Power Reserve, thus letting him carry great weight at the cost of being slower on his feet. Which makes a lot of sense when you t think about it! Picture and fluff aside, he's actually at full INT and WIS while jacked up on super-speed giantism. He's a really great great goonsweeper with his Takedown Attack, Speed, reach, and his damage, as you'd expect a supersonic giant to be. He has a much lower init than most PL 10 Speedsters, but OTOH his massive TOU means he'll able to take any surprise round hits much better than those shrimpy guys... Link to comment
Avenger Assembled Posted July 2, 2011 Author Share Posted July 2, 2011 Mad Scientist “Only the liberation of the natural capacity for love in human beings can master their sadistic destructiveness.â€-Wilhelm Reich PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 32 pp STR 14 (+2) DEX 16 (+3) CON 16 (+3) INT 16 (+3) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 16 (+3) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Ranged) DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +3 Grapple: +8 Saves: 14 pp TOU +8 (+3 Con, +5 Protection) FORT +8 (+3 Dex, +5) REF +6 (+3 Dex, +3) WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6) Skills: 64 r=16 pp Bluff 12 (+15) Craft: Electronic 7 (+10) Craft: Mechanical 7 (+10) Knowledge: Behavioral Sciences 7 (+10) Knowledge: Technology 7 (+10) Medicine 3 (+5) Languages 5 (English, French, Greek, Hebrew, Russian) (Base: German) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 20 pp Attack Focus: Ranged (4) Distract (Bluff) Dodge Focus (6) Fascinate (Bluff) Inventor Luck (2) Power Attack Precise Shot (2) Taunt Uncanny Dodge (mental) Powers: 44 pp Immunity 1 (aging) [1 pp] Orgone Array 16 (32 pp; PFs: Alternate Power 4) [32+4=36 pp] BE: Damage 10 (Extras: Autofire, Range [Ranged]; PFs: Improved Crit, Reversible) AP: Emotion Control 10 (Extra: Autofire; Flaw: Range [Ranged]; PFs: Improved Crit 2) AP: Healing 10 (Extra: Range [Ranged]; PFs: Regrowth, Stabilize) AP: Nauseate 10 (Extra: Ranged) (PFs: Improved Crit, Reversible) AP: Nullify 10 (all technological effects; PFs: Improved Crit 2) AP: Weather Control 16 (100 mile radius, 32pp mix and match environments: Cold, Hamper Movement [icy or Wet Surfaces], Heat, Reduced Visibility [Rain]; Extra: Independent [+0]; PF: Slow Fade) Protection 5 [5 pp] costs abilities 32 + combat 24 + saves 14+ skills 16/64 + feats 20 + powers 44 = 150 pts ---------------------- Design Notes: Here's the greatest mad scientist of the 20th century, Dr. Wilhelm Reich, as a PL 10 starting PC. Reich led a colorful and exciting life; going from a colleague of Sigmund Freud to an eccentric refugee from the Nazis (that he was a Jewish Communist psychoanalyst and advocate of free love made him very high on their enemies list) to finally a quack doctor imprisoned for fraud with his books burned by a vengeful FDA who died in prison. Reich has been a superhero before, Alan Moore made a teenage Reich a member of the League of Infinity (the local Legion of Super-Heroes expies) in the pages of Supreme, but reading about Reich's remarkable life inspired me to recreate him here. Reich is a decent scientist and analyst, but his greatest strength is the gift of gab, letting him persuade all kinds of people about his ridiculous theories and how wonderful they were even against tremendous physical and scientific evidence to the contrary. Reich's work is still the subject of Internet fanboyism today, so here's a short summary. Orgone is blue in color, he wrote, omnipresent, visible to the naked eye, and responsible for such things as weather, the color of the sky, gravity, the formation of galaxies, and the biological expressions of emotion and sexuality. Reich argued that St. Elmo's Fire is a manifestation of it, as is the blue color of sexually excited frogs. Red corpuscles, plant chlorophyll, gonadal cells, protozoa, and cancer cells are all charged with orgone, he said. He argued that humankind had previously split its knowledge of orgone in two: "ether" for its mechanistic, physical aspects, and "God" for the spiritual, the subjective. He wrote that "God-Father is the basic cosmic energy from which all being stems, and which streams through (the) body as through anything else in existence." If you assume that Reich survived his 'death' in 1957, having absorbed enough orgone that it now powered his body, and went on to become a superhero, I think this build is a decent representation for him. Reich's theories were pretty nutty, but a universe with superheroes can accommodate them. He was no weirder than his contemporary William Marston, at least. If you don't like Reich, I could see this as any other mad scientist who managed to internalize the results of their work. Another way to take this is say that this man was once a deliberate con artist, taking the money of the gullible and too-rich through phony science. Realizing his mistake the first time his powers appeared, he decided to make a change in life and became a hero to make amends for all the people he'd wronged. Being a crazy scientist who got lucky is fun too, though! Link to comment
Avenger Assembled Posted July 3, 2011 Author Share Posted July 3, 2011 John Bull Britain today is suffering from galloping obsolescence.-Tony Benn PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 42 pp STR 26 (+8) DEX 10 (+0) CON 26 (+8) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 16 (+3) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+7 Melee/+10 Blast) DEF: +6 (+3 flat-footed) Grapple: +15/+25 Init: +3 Saves: 12 pp TOU +14 (+8 Con, +6 Protection) FORT +10 (+8 Con, +2) REF +6 (+0 Dex, +6) WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4) Skills: 60 r=15 pp Craft (Artistic) 4 (+4) Knowledge (History) 10 (+10) Knowledge (Tactics) 10 (+10) Intimidate 12 (+15) Languages 4 (French, German, Russian, Spanish) (Base: English) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Survival 3 (+5) Feats: 11 pp All-Out Attack Attack Focus (Melee) Challenge (Fast Startle) Fearless Interpose Master Plan 2 Power Attack Startle Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 46 pp Device 5 (Electro-Mace) (Easy to Lose) [15 pp] -Blast 10 (PFs: Accurate 2, Improved Crit 2) -AP: Strike 5 (PFs: Extended Reach, Improved Crit 2, Incurable, Mighty) (Extras: Penetrating [5]. Secondary Effect [10]) Immunity 1 (aging) [1 pp] Impervious TOU 10 [10 pp] Leaping 1 (x2) [1 pp] Protection 6 [6 pp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] Super-Senses 2 (Acute Scent, Low-Light Vision) [2 pp] Super-Strength 5 (Heavy Load: 12 tons) [10 pp] costs abilities 42 + combat 24 + saves 12 + skills 15/60 + feats 11 + powers 46 = 150 pts ----- Design Notes: Here's John Bull, the most respected British superhero in the Wargames universe. John Bull was the only survivor of Britain's supersoldier program in the early 1940s, and even he just barely made it. With all the Allied powers trying to copy the tremendously successful German program, the British unfortunately had neither the tremendous resources of their American counterparts or the sheer number of German prisoners of their Soviet counterparts. They had less captured material to work with, and less of a base with which to develop that work. This meant that while the man who had been John Bull survived his transformation, even gaining tremendous physical strength, bulletproof flesh, and significant toughness, he also turned into a bull-headed man! Needing any kind of help they could get, the British made John one of their leading agents, giving him a costume like a Beefeater and equipping him with an electrified mace that can even throw lightning bolts. Bull served as a defender of the homeland through the war, and was one of the few British heroes to survive the last terrible days of the conflict when the Germans came looking for retribution. He wishes he hadn't. Showing no signs of aging even decades after the Second World War, Bull is growing increasingly unhappy with spending however many decades he has remaining in the body of a bull-monster. He's still active as one of Britain's most famous supers and the last living link to much of Britain's superpowered World War II history. He lives in seclusion in an isolated country estate, working on his artwork, feeling the weight of years as his world passes him by and more and more people forget about him as anything other than that old funny-looking superhero. He's too proud and too loyal to quit, but it's getting harder and harder to work with the younger heroes: the Yanks especially honestly believe they're bonding with him when they call him Hornhead and make jokes, and his stiff-upper-lip persona convinces most of them he's secretly in on the joke. But he really isn't. It doesn't help that Old Glory and Red Star, his American and Soviet counterparts, came through their own empowerments just fine. When he sits down with a pint in his favorite pub, the one where most patrons are old enough that they remember his wartime goals, sometimes he thinks about just taking his mace and...well, that's probably the bitters talking. John Bull is something of a tragic hero, a man kept isolated from society by his own shyness and hideous appearance. (I've actually downplayed how bizarre he looks here, dropping the Growth 6 on his Wargames build...) In the World of Freedom, he'd still have plenty of opportunity to feel bad after the demise of the Allies of Freedom; you could say that JB was the only survivor of that team, perhaps back in Britain recovering from injuries when all his friends died on the battlefield. He's a natural to have connections to the Labyrinth: perhaps his transformation activated some latent genes left in his family line by a distant ancestor like Taurus, or maybe the famous Man-Bull tampered with his DNA to create an offspring of his own in the heroic community. Perhaps one of these days, the lord of the Labyrinth will step down and offer great power and respect to his son (perhaps one of the first survivors of the nascent DNAscendant process) in return for helping him betray his fellow heroes. He'll say no, of course, and do all he can to defeat the monster with his own face. Perhaps that, even if he finally falls, will let him put aside the demon that stares at him every morning in the mirror. Link to comment
Avenger Assembled Posted July 3, 2011 Author Share Posted July 3, 2011 Avro Arrow "Some people talk about courage. Well, we took a stand in reference to the 'Arrow.' No one wanted to take that stand"-John Diefenbaker, 1963 PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 30 pp STR 30 [14] (+10/+2) DEX 16 (+3) CON 18 (+4) INT 18 (+4) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 in suit) DEF: +8 (+6 w/out suit) (+3 flatfooted) Init: +3 Grapple: +8/+27 max Saves: 13 pp TOU +12 (+3 Con, +8 Protection) FORT +8 (+4 Con, +4) REF +7 (+3 Dex, +4) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 64 r=16 pp Acrobatics 13 (+16) Computers 6 (+10) Craft (Electronic) 6 (+10) Craft (Mechanical) 6 (+10) Knowledge (Technology) 6 (+10) Languages 4 (Chinese, French, German, Russian) (Base: English) Pilot 7 (+10) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 9 pp Acrobatic Bluff All-Out Attack Inventor Move-By Action Power Attack Precise Shot 2 Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (radio) Powers: 62 pp Device 15 (Avro Arrow Suit) (Hard to Lose) (PFs: Restricted 2) [62 pp] -Enhanced ATK 4 [8 pp] -Flight 7 (1000 MPH) [Dynamic] [14+1+2=17 pp] -DAP: Super-Strength 7 (Heavy Load: 12 tons (max 96 tons) ) -Immunity 9 (Life Support) [9 pp] -Impervious TOU 8 [8 pp] -Protection 8 [8 pp] -Shield 2 [2 pp] -Super-Senses 1 (Radio) [1 pp] -Weaponry Array [20+2=22 pp] -Damage 10 (Extras: Selective, Targeted Area [shapeable) (Flaw: Unreliable [5 uses a day]) ‘missiles’ -AP: Damage 10 (Extras:Ranged, Penetrating) (Flaw: Unreliable [5 uses a day]) ‘lasers’ -AP: Enhanced STR 16 and Enhanced Feats 4 (Improved Crit 2, Incurable, Stunning Attack) Drawbacks: -4 pp Normal ID (full round action to don suit) [-4 pp] costs abilities 30 + combat 24 + saves 13 + skills 16/64 + feats 9 + powers 62 -drawbacks 4= 150 pts ---- Design Notes: Here's Avro Arrow, the younger of Canada's two superheroes on the NATO superteam in the Wargames universe. She has something of a reputation as a loudmouth firebrand among the heroes on her team; she's the one most likely to spout off about the Commies, the superiority of the West and its many freedoms there, and the one most likely to be suspicious of their counterparts across the Berlin Wall. This is largely because of overcompensation: Arrow is young, she's a woman, she's a legacy hero worried about how much influence that's given her, and she's a scientist on a team where most of the guys in battlesuits are just that (and fighter jocks to boot). So she's louder, tougher, and more patriotic than all of them! She gets along well with Ymir, who is something of a friendly uncle figure to her, though she does get annoyed when her buddy flirts with the more attractive members of the Soviet team, but not at all well with the New American, the other battlesuit wearer on the NATO team. It doesn't help that the New American's armor was manufactured by a competitor, and she's worried that if he's more successful than she is that NATO will buy American rather than Canadian armor to equip its elite super-soldiers. That's why she's in Berlin at all: she needs a place to show her armor can strut its stuff and outcompete American rivals and Soviet enemies alike, and what better place for that than right here on the front lines of the Cold War of the 1980s? (At least, that's her hope: Berlin is actually one of the quieter places conflict-wise given what a matchpoint it is politically; NATO supers in Berlin are much more likely to fight vampire death cults or Nazi resurgences than scrap with the Commies over the line). Arrow is, of course, named for the Avro Arrow, a prototypical Canadian fighter jet scrapped and destroyed by the Diefenbaker government and their successors well before its time. In the Wargames universe, the Avro people started making battlesuits instead, and their famous designs are sleek and reliably known the world around. She's not as smart as your super-duper comic geniuses, but OTOH that's why she's trying to get a government contract instead of just flying around like a sober Tony Stark: she's still wicked smart, though, and a talented inventor in her own right. She has a relatively low Computers since she lives in the 1980s, and they're not as important even for scientists as they're going to be for the modern era. The theory I had here was that the Arrow suit is basically a jet fighter: she can easily outfly anything in the air with her that's not another super (she's much faster than even the military jets of the 1980s), she's equipped with a full suite of armaments like a jet fighter (though rather like a GI Joe jet with her laser blasters) and she's got some built-in targeting computers and defense systems in there. With just a built-in suit radio, she doesn't have the elaborate super-senses of some battlesuits: her biggest weakness as a military craft may be her need to invest in radar. But hey, they're still in beta... Link to comment
Avenger Assembled Posted July 3, 2011 Author Share Posted July 3, 2011 Iron Ghost "A specter is haunting Europe - the specter of communism." -Karl Marx PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 28 pp STR 30 [14] (+10/+2) DEX 14 (+2) CON 16 (+3) INT 14 (+2) WIS 14 (+2) CHA: 14 (+2) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+10 Melee/+12 Armaments) DEF: +10 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +6 Grapple: +12/+25 Saves: 14 pp TOU +10 (+3 Con, +7 Protection) FORT +7 (+3 Con, +4) REF +7 (+2 Dex, +4) WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6) Skills: 72 r=18 pp Bluff 4 (+6) Craft: Electronic 3 (+5) Disable Device 8 (+10) Intimidate 13 (+15) Investigate 3 (+5) Knowledge: Civics 4 (+6) Knowledge: Technology 4 (+6) Language 2 (English, German) (Base: Russian) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Stealth 15 (+17) Feats: 14 pp All-Out Attack Attack Focus: Melee (2) Challenge (Fast Startle) Dodge Focus (2) Improved Initiative Hide In Plain Sight Luck Move-By Action Power Attack Startle Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 48 pp Device 12 (Iron Ghost Suit) (Hard to Lose) [48 pp] -Blast 8 (Extra: Autofire) (PFs: Accurate 2) [26+1=27 pp] -AP: Enhanced STR 16 and Super-Strength 5 (Heavy Load: 24 tons) -Concealment 8 (all visual, all auditory, all radio) [16 pp] -Flight 3 (50 MPH) (PF: Subtle) [7 pp] -Immunity 4 (disease, poison, suffocation) [4 pp] -Impervious TOU 6 [6 pp] -Protection 7 [7 pp] Drawbacks: -4 pp Normal ID (Full Round to don suit) [-4] costs abilities 28 + combat 32 + saves 10 + skills 18/72 + feats 14 + powers 48 - drawbacks 4 = 150 pts ---- Design Notes: Nobody really likes the Iron Ghost, not even on her own team. The only actual KGB agent on a team of civilian 'volunteers' (a polite euphemism for the meta-draft in the Soviet Union) and military personnel, her record as sneak and spy doesn't really endear her to many of her colleagues, all of whom are as concerned as anyone else about disloyalty being reported to the higher-ups. (Though the Soviets give their metas a long leash, when they pull back they pull back _hard_). Her KGB work is known to the Americans, too, so she has few friends on the other side of the fence. It doesn't help that she's only in Berlin because of a terrible failure on her part: her backers in the KGB, enthusiastic Stalinists who don't like the reformer Gorbachev one bit, put her up against Red Hammer, the most beloved hero of the Soviet Union and something of an ally of the Gorbachev government...but the canny old WWII veteran ran rings around her politically, assigned her to the career dead end that is East Berlin, and used his own influence to break the power of many of her backers. She kept her armor and her job, but she's under tremendous stress. One more slipup and it's curtains for her... Though she's ever the ruthless, sneaky professional on the job, Iron Ghost has begun drinking in her spare time, raising the threat of becoming an alcoholic even by Russian standards. Much worse, she's begun a clandestine affair with the New American, her battlesuit-wearing counterpart from across the line who is also under a tremendous amount of job-related stress and is also seeking out self-destructive forms of behavior. (Career soldiers who embrace ideologies not popular back home, the two have more in common than you'd think.) The truth is, the Iron Ghost is a young woman who rose high and fast in her career through hard work and skills, and she doesn't really know how to deal with the consequences of failure. She knows she's a good Leninist, why hasn't she succeeded? Is it because she's a failure herself? Or is it because Lenin was wrong? Or maybe, if she's really honest with herself, could it be both? Unbeknownst to her, she has a serious problem: her colleague the Crimson Tarantula, also isolated and mistrusted by her peers, has started tailing her at night out of curiosity, thinking she's found a kindred spirit. If she catches the Ghost with her American lover, there will be hell to pay. Here's a build for a stealth-themed battlesuit, based on Wargames' Iron Ghost. She's potentially a very powerful character, able to fight at both range and in melee while fully concealed against most opponents, particularly mundane ones. She's a good fighter and good sneak even without her suit, and a very good spy. She doesn't have full environmental immunity, but her suit does let her get around in a sealed environment. Her Impervious is a bit low, but with her Concealment and Stealth she probably shouldn't be getting hit anyway. She doesn't really have the technical skills to be the author of her suit, but she could have stolen it or been assigned it as a government perk if you go with the super-agent route. Indeed, while she'd be an interesting armored sneak and thief in a supers game, in an agents game she makes a terrifying, bulletproof invisible monster that American agents tell stories about in the dark. Link to comment
Avenger Assembled Posted July 3, 2011 Author Share Posted July 3, 2011 Siberian Shadow "Just me and my shaaadow." PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 30 pp STR 12 (+1) DEX 18 (+4) CON 20 (+5) INT 14 (+2) WIS 16 (+3) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Ranged) DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +4 Grapple: +7 Saves: 12 pp TOU +8 (+5 Con, +3 Protection) FORT +8 (+5 Con, +3) REF +8 (+4 Ref, +4) WILL +8 (+3 Wis, +5) Skills: 13 pp=52 r Intimidate 12 (+12) Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 12 (+14) Languages 3 (English, German, Russian) (Base: Siberian) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Stealth 6 (+10) Survival 3 (+5) Feats: 17 pp All-Out Attack Attack Focus: Ranged (4) Dodge Focus (6) Evasion Hide in Plain Sight Power Attack Precise Shot Ritualist Uncanny Dodge (mental) Powers: 56 pp Darkness Array [20+2=22 pp] Blast 10 ‘shadow blast’ AP: Concealment 10 (all senses) AP: Teleport 6 (600 ft/20 miles) (Extra: Accurate) (PFs: Change Velocity, Easy) Flight 1 (10 MPH) [2 pp] Immunity 9 (Life Support) [9 pp] Insubstantial 3 (shadows) [15 pp] Obscure 3 (visual) (25 ft) (Flaw: Range [Touch]) [3 pp] ‘shadows’ Protection 3 [3 pp] Super-Senses 2 (Darkvision) [2 pp] costs abilities 30 + combat 24 + saves 12 + skills 13/52 + feats 17 + powers 56 = 150 pts ------------- Design Notes: Here's Siberian Shadow, one of the more sympathetic members of the Soviet superteam in Wargames and one that would be the easiest to convert to functioning as a Neo-Silver Age-style superhero. (Wargames is an Iron Age setting both chronologically and in tone, and the Soviets more so than their NATO counterparts.) Her name is no random selection, she's the daughter of a Russian soldier and a Siberian tribeswoman from Yakutia. She's sensitive to her upbringing: she's younger than most of her teammates and very much a country girl, she's also much more the girl from the middle of nowhere than she is the sophisticated superhero. Her comrades think that her youth and her ethnicity (racism in the USSR is nothing like its American counterpart, but it's a very real problem, especially for 'primitive' Siberians) are why she's such a firebrand: even Iron Ghost is frankly annoyed at how obnoxiously patriotic and Communist the Shadow is. They assume she's overcompensating for her upbringing. That's almost right. The truth is, Siberian Shadow's not the mutant she makes herself out to be: her powers come from magical training. As a little girl, the wise woman in her village took her aside and told her that Russia would one day soon need a champion in its darkest hour, and that the young Shadow herself was that champion! When she presented herself to the government some years later, though, she was smart enough to present herself as mutant rather than sorcerer: the Soviet government officially denies the existence of sorcery and those claiming to practice magic are taken away for further study. What only a tiny handful of individuals know is that this isn't just rationalist bigotry: the Iron Crone Baba Yaga has suborned the head of the Red Directorate, the Soviet agency charged with regulating supers, and is using his power to eliminate any potential magical rivals before staging her own coup d'etat. It's inevitable that one day the two will collide...but when they do, Siberian Shadow will have the most powerful heroes in the Soviet Union on her side. As written up in the books, Shadow is a pretty bland Darkness Controller using the corebook Energy Controller archetype, I think I've made her a lot cooler here. She's basically a living shadow who can fire blasts of darkness at her enemies, shrug off physical attacks, and hide in her own darkness. (I arrayed Concealment with her Blast so she can't just blast while fully concealed, the better to keep her from being too powerful.) She probably spends most of her time fighting inside bubbles of darkness, where she can see easily and her targets stand at least a decent chance of being flat-footed. If you put her in the World of Freedom, Shadow may well be related to the infamous German soldier Nacht-Krieger: perhaps someone in her family tree is one of that monster's children conceived before his full transformation into a creature of eternal darkness. If she ever meets with that worthy, their shadow war will be a lethal fight. Link to comment
Avenger Assembled Posted July 4, 2011 Author Share Posted July 4, 2011 Patriotic Giant America is a large, friendly dog in a very small room. Every time it wags its tail, it knocks over a chair.-Arnold Toynbee PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 34 pp STR 40 [24] (+15/+7) DEX 10 (+0) CON 30 [22] (+10/+6) INT 12 (+1) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 20 (+5) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+7 melee) (+4 w/Growth, +5 melee) DEF: +7 (+3 flat-footed) (+5 w/Growth [+2 flat-footed)) Init: +3 Grapple: +16/+27 Saves: 12 pp TOU +15/+11 (+10 Con, +5 Protection) (+6 Con, +5 Protection) FORT +12/+8 (+10 Con, +2) (+6 Con, +2) REF +5 (+0 Dex, +5) WILL +8 (+3 Wis, +5) Skills: 56 r=14 pp Concentration 10 (+12) Diplomacy 10 (+15) Intimidate 11 (+16/+20) Knowledge: History 4 (+5) Languages 2 (German, Russian) (Base: English) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 14 pp All-Out Attack Attack Focus: Melee Dodge Focus Inspire 5 Power Attack Second Chance (Concentration checks to maintain powers) Startle Takedown Attack Ultimate Save (TOU) Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 52 pp Growth 8 (Extra: Duration [sustained] (+0) )(Huge size) [24 pp] (-2 ATK/DEF, +8 Grapple, -8 Stealth, +4 Intimidate, 16 ft tall, 4K-32K lbs, 15 ft space, 10 ft reach, x2 carrying capacity) Immunity 6 (aging, disease, poison, starvation and thirst, suffocation) [6 pp] Impervious TOU 9 [9 pp] Protection 5 [5 pp] Regeneration 1 (Resurrection 1/week) (PFs: Persistent, Regrowth) [3 pp] Super-Strength 2 (Heavy Load: 48 tons) (PF: Groundstrike [5 pp] costs abilities 34 + combat 24 + saves 12 + skills 14/56 + feats 14 + powers 52 = 150 pts -------------- Design Notes: Just in time for the 4th of July, here's my take on a Patriotic Giant like Quality/DC's Uncle Sam. He's big, he's tough, and he's the kind of all-inspiring leader America needs! At 16 ft tall he's not the world-spanning giant that the character sometimes was back in the Golden Age, but he's still very big and very buff. Growth 8 lets him be an impressive giant without being potentially broken like the higher ranks of the power, and also lets him afford things like his immunities, impervious, and Super-Strength; Geez3r has more on this subject in his excellent treatise on size-changing characters. He's your guy to charge onto a Golden Age battlefield and punch Nazi tanks around, then go home and laugh it up with the cops after beating up criminals on the home front. He's an upright, honest man with no Bluff; preferring to concentrate on his role as diplomat and leader. His size makes him very scary to bad guys, enough that there are very few things that could ever faze America's two-fisted champion! He's got a stronger will than most giants, powered as he is by sheer American optimism, and like America he can never really die. (You know, you could always go with his size being tied to America's national identity, and explain that he is in fact just not as big as he used to be back in the Golden Age.) Patriotic heroes get something of a bad rap sometimes, but who's to say what America needs isn't a giant man in an Uncle Sam costume ready to punch bad guys in the face? Flag heroes are as important today as they ever were, even if you don't want to get political and have him go fight those bad people in foreign countries. It's easy enough to justify that in the World of Freedom; the US Army's experiments in deploying superhumans have largely been failures, and so the US has made a deliberate policy to avoid using superpowered people in wartime, at least on the battlefield. So he could easily be a hometown hero with American pride, saving the world at home so the men and women in uniform can feel confident in their deployments that their families are protected from rampaging killbots and mole-men and the like. Of course, if you do play him in a Golden Age game, he really should be there on the front lines punching Nazis whenever the occasion presents itself. Of course, if you really want to send a message with this guy, just make him Latino or some other ethnic group that isn't the typical WASP in red white and blue that makes up so many patriotic heroes. He'd need some kind of ax to be Paul Bunyan, if you want to go another mythological route. If you're not wedded to being an American hero, lots of countries have good symbols, some of which were played with in Alex Ross' Uncle Sam graphic novel some years back. This could be Columbia easily enough, or the Russian bear, or even Brittania! In the World of Freedom, this guy has probably had a lot of dealings with the various Lady Liberties over the years. One major distinction (though bad WoF writers have dropped this ball lately) is that Uncle Sam is very much an _American_ symbol, for all that entails, which may or may not have anything to do with the Spirit of Liberty... Link to comment
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