AA's Oddballs

Avenger Assembled · July 17, 2011

Djinn

"Phenomenal Cosmic Power!"-Disney's Aladdin

Abilities: 22 pp

STR 10 (+0)

DEX 10 (+0)

CON 24 (+7)

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 14 (+2)

Combat: 16 pp

ATK: +4 (+5 Ranged)

DEF: +5 (+2 flat-footed)

Init: +4

Grapple: +4/+20

Saves: 13 pp

TOU +15 (+7 Con, +8 Protection)

FORT +7 (+7 Con)

REF +5 (+0 Ref, +5)

WILL +10 (+2 Wis, +8)

Skills: 13 pp=52 r

Bluff 8 (+10)

Concentration 8 (+10)

Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 5 (+5)

Knowledge (History) 5 (+5)

Knowledge (Theology and Philosophy) 10 (+10)

Languages 4 (Arabic, Hebrew, Mandarin, Persian) (Base: English)

Notice 4 (+6)

Sense Motive 8 (+10)

Feats: 11 pp

All-Out Attack

Attack Focus: Ranged

Dodge Focus

Fearless

Improved Initiative

Luck 2

Move-By Action

Power Attack

Precise Shot

Uncanny Dodge (mental)

Powers: 77 pp

Flight 3 (50 MPH) [6 pp]

Genie Magic Array [35+5=40 pp]

Blast 15 (PFs: Improved Crit 2, Precise, Variable Descriptor 2 [any magic])

AP: Create Object 10 (Extra: Continuous) (PFs: Innate, Precise, Progression 2 (10 25 ft cubes) Subtle)

AP: Illusion 10 (visual and auditory) (PFs: Precise, Progression 4 (100 by 100 ft cubes)

AP: Move Object 15 (Heavy Load: 180 tons) (PFs: Improved Crit 2, Precise, Variable Descriptor 2 [any magic])

AP: Teleport 9 (anywhere on Earth) (Extra: Accurate) (PFs: Easy, Progression 6 [10k lbs], Turnabout)

AP: Transform 7 (500 lbs; inanimate to inanimate) (Extra: Duration [Continuous]) (Flaw: Action [Full])

Immunity 8 (aging, cold, disease, poison, sleep, starvation and thirst, suffocation) [8 pp]

Insubstantial 2 (gaseous form) (Extra: Continuous) (PF: Innate) [13 pp]

Protection 8 [8 pp]

Super-Senses 2 (Darkvision) [2 pp]

costs

abilities 22+ combat 16 + saves 13 + skills 13/52 + feats 9 + powers 77 = 150 pts

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Design Notes:

But suppose you want to play the genie alone? In that case, this build, inspired by the genie of the ring in the original Aladdin story as well as Ecal's genie build in his own thread, should give you an interesting sheet to play with. Djinn are doughty spirits of Arabic mythic lore, incorporated into the Islamic tradition rather than rejected as a demon like their animistic counterparts in the West: djinn are creations of Allah separate from humanity, and just as Muslim as any other civilized folks. While not actually invulnerable, his massive tradeoffs, immunities, and Insubstantial 2 would have made him damn near look that way in an Arabian Nights setting where only the most powerful mystics could have fought him on anything like even terms. His Strength and Dex may seem a little low but with the ability to summon mighty whirlwinds and fly, he's not going to lack for physical power or mobility. On that subject, though, his terrible Reflex save and lack of Evasion means that an Affects Insubstantial Snare or some other magical binding is going to be super-effective on keeping him sealed away in a ring or lamp or what have you for however long you need him there.

No three wishes, of course, those are just about the very definition of plot devices! Perhaps that sort of power is reserved for genies bound to a master, or was the power that genies had in the ancient days of magic before cold logic and reason came to the sands of the desert and man's interest in the wastes of old became what could be pumped from beneath them. I could see this build work just fine as a fresh-out-of-the-bottle genie; with his skills and feats he could have come from just about any era where they're important. (He's got the Mandarin Chinese, by the way, as a nod to the original setting of the Aladdin story. Note, however, that the story itself is Arab, it seems to have gotten a Chinese setting to add to the exoticism of it all and showcase the power of the djinn in the story.) This could also make a build for a mutant with a genie theme easily enough, perhaps a native hero of the Middle East. Or perhaps both, and he's something of a Muslim Captain Marvel, calling on the ancient power of the djinn to battle injustice in his homeland.

If you do give him a mortal identity, I do encourage you to keep him Arab or in some other way derived from the Islamic cultural world: while Cultural Appropriation Lad is a very common archetype in comics, it's not really a good sort of character to play around here. A devout Muslim hero is a good source for complications in these modern times, and no harder to play than any other member of a minority. You might get even more HP for it in a more Iron Age game where real-world concerns are going to be more common, but I think you could still get a lot of use out of them depending on how you play it. Note that devout Muslim doesn't have to mean fanatic, of course, especially if you take a page from my own portrayal of Heyzel and suggest that those with a more personal relationship with divine magic have a very different take on terrestrial religions...

Avenger Assembled · July 17, 2011

Downsizer

"I'll make you fun-sized!"

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 30 pp

STR 22 (+6)

DEX 14 (+2)

CON 20 (+5)

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 10 (+0)

Combat: 28 pp

ATK: +6 (+10 Melee/+14 Unarmed)

DEF: +12 (+4 flat-footed)

Init: +6

Grapple: +16

Saves: 10 pp

TOU +8 (+5 Con, +3 Protection)

FORT +7 (+5 Con, +2)

REF +6 (+2 Dex, +4)

WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +4)

Skills: 16 pp=64 pp

Bluff 5 (+5)

Concentration 8 (+10)

Craft (Mechanical) 10 (+10)

Disable Device 10 (+10)

Knowledge (Physical Sciences) 10 (+10)

Knowledge (Streetwise) 5 (+5)

Notice 8 (+10)

Sense Motive 8 (+10)

Feats: 14 pp

Attack Focus: Melee 4

Attack Specialization: Unarmed 2,

Dodge Focus 4,

Evasion,

Power Attack,

Takedown Attack,

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 52 pp

Gadgets 1 (Hard to Lose) (Flaw: Action [Full] to Reallocate) [6 pp]

Protection 3 [3 pp]

Shrinking Array [42+1=43 pp]

Concealment 10 (all senses) (PF: Close Range) and Insubstantial 4 (tiny) (PF: Subtle)

AP: Dimensional Pocket 10 (50000 lbs) (Extras: Duration [sustained]) (PFs: Progression 2 (1mk))

costs

abilities 30 + combat 28 + saves 10 + skills 16/64 + feats 14 + powers 52 = 150 pts

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Design Notes:

Okay, here's my take on a barely-hinted at Freedom City character: Dr. Raymond Smalley, the villainous Downsizer! What I've basically done is model him as per Hank Pym's short-lived career as a non-costumed adventurer in the 1990s. The idea is that he can shrink down anything he touches and carry it away in his pockets, or whip out any weapon he needs that he's shrunk down for just this occasion. The picture of this character (who is not described much or statted at all in any book, though he is referred to) is of Michael Douglas, circa Falling Down. Given the name and the era in which he was active, it seemed appropriate: I've gone with the idea that Smalley was a super-technician somewhere in Freedom City who took a firing in the early 1990s quite badly and went on a rampage of shrinking down and stealing whatever crossed his path. He's not terribly smart or likeable, which is probably why he lost that job in the first place: too bad he'd already discovered Smalley particles and decided to put them to good use!

He's something of a thug, too, just barely meeting his caps with his fists and posing a surprise to heroes who may expect that a mad scientist would actually be a threat in hand-to-hand combat. Still, if at all possible, he's much better off fighting with his powers than he is with a good right cross. Why did I build him this way? Because Attack Shrinking is a book-keeping nightmare and I wanted to give a character with that kind of power a chance: the idea is that his Concealment and Insubstantial represents shrinking himself, while his Dimensional Pocket represents shrinking enemies or priceless jewels and sticking them in his pocket for later use. (Hopefully he's got a lining in there, so people don't try and slip out between the fibers!) A Sustained Dimensional Pocket at PL is a powerful effect, but heroes with HP should be able to make it out just fine. Similarly, if you're using him as a heroic PC, high-level bad guys should be able to get out too, assuming you're not afraid to give him an HP for Fiating. His powers do require some careful watching; i.e, that he doesn't one-hit powerful bad guys with his Dimensional Pocket, or that his Concealment fails vs. characters with Microscopic Vision (as it really should.)

If you want to make a more straightforward shrinky guy, go ahead and use one of my many shrinking builds like the Tiny Titan on this very thread: I wanted to see if I could put a new spin on that power for this guy, though. I could see this as a build for Smalley himself on the loose again. He used to be bad, but now he's gone good. Maybe he's fresh out of stir and looking to start a new life, or maybe he's decided to reform without the benefit of paying for his crimes. (If that's the case, you should definitely make sure whatever he did was very mild; superhero, remember?) It could also make a fine Downsizer legacy if you want to keep Smalley in prison as a potential hazard, the dad who you only see on visiting day and whose stupid powers you inherited!

Avenger Assembled · July 17, 2011

Immortal Paragon

"When in doubt, toss them into space."

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 56 pp

STR 30 (+10)

DEX 14 (+2)

CON 30 (+10)

INT 14 (+2)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 14 (+2)

Combat: 24 pp

ATK: +6 (+10 Melee)

DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed)

Init: +2

Grapple: +21/max +26

Saves: 10 pp

TOU +10 (+10 Con)

FORT +10 (+10 Con)

REF +6 (+2 Dex, +4)

WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6)

Skills: 60 pp=15 r

Bluff 8 (+10)

Diplomacy 8 (+10)

Intimidate 8 (+10)

Knowledge (History) 15 (+17)

Notice 8 (+10)

Sense Motive 13 (+15)

Feats: 16 pp

Attack Focus: Melee 4

Beginner's Luck

Connected

Dodge Focus 4

Eidetic Memory

Jack-of-All-Trades

Leadership

Power Attack

Takedown Attack

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 27 pp

Comprehend 3 (speak, read, and understand all languages simultaneously) [6 pp]

Healing 1 (Extra: Total) (Flaw: Personal) [2 pp]

Immunity 3 (aging, disease, poison) [3 pp]

Immortal Power Reserve 8 (8 pp reserve; Flight [to Flight 4], Super-Strength [to Super-

Strength 4], Healing [to Healing 4]) [9 pp]

Flight 1 (10 MPH) [2 pp]

Regeneration 1 (Resurrection 1/week) (PFs: Persistent, Regrowth) [3 pp]

Super-Strength 1 (Heavy Load: 1.5 tons) [2 pp]

costs

abilities 55 + combat 24 + saves 10 + skills 15/60 + feats 16 + powers 27 = 150 pts

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Design Notes:

Here's my build for the Immortal, one of the premerie superheroes of the Invincible universe. He's something of an antagonist (if heroic one) for the main character, given his resentment towards Invincible for his father's actions: it was Omni-Man, after all, whose brutal actions first divided, then tore apart the first iteration of the Guardians of the Globe. The Immortal is something of a sympathetic enemy: he genuinely cares about the Earth and its people, but they're in a great crisis these days that he's just not powerful enough to stop. It weighs on him, as it would weigh on anyone. The Immortal is interesting on multiple levels: he's basically "What if Vandal Savage was Superman?", an immortal being who doesn't even recall his own birth (a complication for his Eidetic Memory) but who was around for uncounted centuries of life. He's died many times, each time re-emerging into a new life and new world.

In addition to being the setting's Golden Age Superman, the Immortal also was its Abraham Lincoln! (He is thus among the cooler characters in almost any comic book setting.) This has led to him having a very cozy relationship with the Invincible-verse's American government; perhaps a little too close. I've tried to build him as an immortal, charismatic paragon with that philosophy: he flies around, pummeling bad guys with his fists, and can also eventually recover from almost any hazard: the idea is that when killed, he recovers after a week then shifts his Immortal Reserve to healing, instantly allowing him to recover from any and all injuries. He's a decently competent leader, enough that you can see why he's headed so many superteams in the past (and been elected to office) but he is going to be outshined by the real specialists. His lack of Impervious may seem like a problem, but it does fit the backstory of a man who took fatal injuries from gunshots to the back of the head. He's not quite powerful enough to toss Bi-Plane into orbit, but that was probably a power-stunt or a descriptor for an unarmed strike that finished him.

Flying immortal Abraham Lincoln would make a perfectly fine PC for just about any game: get on that! Obviously, if you're playing him for this site, you'll need to make sure you can play the character with gusto. It's not easy! If you don't like the idea of playing the Eternal Emancipator, there are plenty of historical figures this guy could be that strike your fancy. Just make sure he wasn't one of those that was secretly a jerk! You will need a long backstory for this sort of character, of course. Take a page from the Immortal and make sure he's not public about who he used to be either, keep it something the character reflects on silently rather than broadcasts everywhere...

Avenger Assembled · July 17, 2011

Atomizer

"Time to rearrange your face!"

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 20 pp

STR 10 (+0)

DEX 10 (+3)

CON 16 (+3)

INT 14 (+2)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 16 (+3)

Combat: 24 pp

ATK: +6 (+10 Ranged/+12 Molecular Powers)

DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed)

Init: +0

Grapple: +6

Saves: 16 pp

TOU +8 (+3 Con, +5 Protection)

FORT +7 (+3 Con, +4)

REF +6 (+0 Ref, +6)

WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6)

Skills: 48 r=12 pp

Bluff 7 (+10)

Craft (Chemical) 4 (+6)

Craft (Structural) 4 (+6)

Diplomacy 7 (+10)

Knowledge (Physical Sciences) 8 (+10)

Languages 2 (French, Swahili) (Base: English)

Notice 8 (+10)

Sense Motive 8 (+10)

Feats: 16 pp

Attack Focus (Ranged) 4

Dodge Focus 6,

Evasion,

Luck,

Move-By Action,

Power Attack,

Quick Change,

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 62 pp

Flight 2 (25 MPH) [4 pp]

Molecular Array [51+2=53 pp]

Create Object 10 (Extras: Duration [Continous], Moveable) (PFs: Innate, Precise,

Progression 7, Selective, Subtle)

AP: Disintegration 8 (Extra: Penetrating [4 on Damage and Drain]) (PFs: Accurate, Precise, Reversible)

AP: Transform 8 (250 lbs; any inanimate to any inanimate) (Extras: Duration [Continuous],

Range [Ranged]) (PFs: Accurate, Innate, Precise)

Protection 5 [5 pp]

costs

abilities 20 + combat 24 + saves 16 + skills 12/48 + feats 16 + powers 62 = 150 pts

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Design Notes:

Here's a build for Atom Eve, a heroine of the Invincible universe and lover of the titular character. Eve is a really, really powerful character, and I've had to dial her bells and whistles down a bit for this build. My idea is that her various frills that she's demonstrated over the years, especially in the wake of Conquest's attack on Earth, are a product of PP she's accumulated in play. This is a build for Atom Eve as she appears in the first few issues of the series, a teen heroine and good friend of Mark Grayson, not quite prepared for all the bad things that are going to come her way. (But then, no one there really is.) She's a very powerful blaster, flying around on reinforced air, and blasting her enemies with powerful molecular effects that can do tremendous damage: that Penetrating Disintegration is a very powerful ability. Her signature powers are her abilities as a transformer, so I've kept them but at a level more manageable for your average PC. Outside of her powers, she's very pretty and a good scientist, as fits her comic book background.

Her Create Object is very very powerful, given the tremendous power she has in her array: she can make just about anything and make it of tremendous size too. I didn't give her Impervious, I think Impervious Selective Create Object is just too powerful and makes it too easy to effectively break caps. Additionally, since the character has spent some years working for charitable organizations in the Third World, Impervious is a doubly-bad power for her since she's been making food and such: giving a sandwich with Impervious 10 to starving people is just about as mean as it is possible to be. Remember, if you have an extra on a power, you always have to use it! Her Quick Change represents turning whatever clothes she's wearing into her favored costume: this has led to her being drawn sometimes as a really blatant recolored nude, so I've gone with a slightly more attractive look for her.

This sheet is fun because the character is deceptively powerful: she probably pulls her punches a lot when dealing with mundane opponents, and it's only when the chips are down and the world is in danger that she Power Attacks the world conquerors and leaves them down for the count. She could use some super-senses if you want to upgrade her abilities: perhaps some Analytical Vision or Microscopic Vision to interpret the molecular structures she's rearranging: as it is, her abilities there are largely instinctive despite her formidable scientific training. She'd fit in just fine in our game, perhaps a scientist who's gained superpowers and is ready to take back the day!

Avenger Assembled · July 18, 2011

Demonic Investigator

â€œIâ€™m gonna be sore in the morninâ€™â€

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 46 pp

STR 24 (+7)

DEX 16 (+3)

CON 24 (+7)

INT 14 (+2)

WIS 16 (+3)

CHA 12 (+1)

Combat: 28 pp

ATK: +6 (+8 Melee)

DEF: +10 (+4 flat-footed)

Grapple: +15

Init: +7

Saves: 14 pp

TOU +10 (+7 Con, +3 Protection)

FORT +10 (+7 Con, +3)

REF +7 (+3 Dex, +4)

WILL +10 (+3 Wis, +7)

Skills: 72 r=18 pp

Bluff 4 (+5)

Diplomacy 9 (+10)

Intimidate 14 (+15)

Investigate 8 (+10)

Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 8 (+10)

Knowledge (Theology and Philosophy) 8 (+10)

Languages 5 (Ancient Egyptian, German, Latin, Greek, Spanish) (Base: English)

Medicine 2 (+5)

Notice 7 (+10)

Sense Motive 7 (+10)

Feats: 15 pp

All-Out Attack

Attack Focus: Melee 2

Dodge Focus 2

Evasion

Improved Initiative

Interpose

Move-By Action

Power Attack

Startle

Ritualist

Takedown Attack

Ultimate Save (TOU)

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 29 pp

Immunity 9 (aging, cold, disease, fire damage, poison) [9 pp]

Impervious TOU 5 [5 pp]

Leaping 1 (x2) [1 pp]

Protection 3 [3 pp]

Super-Strength 1 (PF: Groundstrike) [3 pp]

Strike 5 (PFs: Improved Crit 2, Mighty) [8 pp]

costs

abilities 46 + combat 28 + saves 14 + skills 18/72 + feats 15 + powers 29 = 150 pts

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Design Notes:

Here's a Demonic Investigator in the vein of Hellboy, a two-fisted pulp adventurer type who just happens to be the spawn of Satan himself. He's much more blue-collar and street-level than your average demonic type: he leaves fireball-tossing to other people on his team and is much more likely to get in there and hit bad guys with his giant fists than he is to do anything else. With his good combat skills, impervious, and immunities, he'll probably be just fine punching low-level opponents and other bad guys with relative glass jaws. When fighting the really big bads, though, he's more likely to pull out his big damage attack: it's up to you whether that's a giant stone fist like Hellboy or a more prosaic flaming demonic trident (trident sounds cooler than pitchfork, so they usually call it that) to use when he's really mad and really wants to meet his caps. He's not really a people person like other demons, either: though he's plenty scary, he's no one's idea of a face man. He's more likeable than you'd think given his gruff demeanor, though, and has a way of making friends everywhere.

He's smarter than he looks, though no genius, and has a lot of skills from his years as a Nazi-puncher and destroyer of evil magic. He's the sort of guy a lot of enemies will mistake for dumb muscle until he turns around and outsmarts them or just straight-out punches them through the wall. While the comic book Hellboy was a demon raised on Earth (by the US Army!), this build works for a demon proper who has since turned his coat and tried to rejoin the side of the angels: going good meant giving up a lot of hellish power, though, and now he has to rely on his wits rather than evil magic. He's got a little Ritualist when he needs to use some magic of his own, but he's more comfortable leaving that stuff to whatever specialists are on his team. He's got really good saves, as befits a two-fisted demon type, and is going to be able to shrug off many of those evil magic effects the bad guys are going to be throwing at him.

It's up to you whether or not he can pass for human, picture not withstanding. I didn't give him any ranged attacks, you can probably rustle something up to give him a big gun that shoots magic bullets into bad guys: he's not actually Fearless; anyone who's scary enough to startle him through his Intimidate deserves to be scary! (With his high Will save, he should always be able to rally at the last minute and face down whatever Cthulhoid threat is menacing the Earth today). Give him some Connected if you want to represent him as part of a powerful government agency; as it is this is more suitable for a noir demonic private eye type, fighting bad guys on the streets and drinking cheap whiskey while trying to stop today's evil cult from summoning the doom of all mankind.

Avenger Assembled · July 20, 2011

Kid Zeus

"And the thunder rolls!"-Garth Brooks

Abilities: 30 pp

STR 30 [16] (+10/+3)

DEX 14 (+2)

CON 30 [16] (+10/+3)

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 16 (+3)

CHA 18 (+4)

Combat: 24 pp

ATK: +6 (+10 Melee/+12 Lightning)

DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed)

Init: +2

Grapple: +20/+29

Saves: 8 pp

TOU +10 (+10 Con)

FORT +10 (+10 Con)

REF +5 (+2 Dex, +3)

WILL +8 (+3 Wis, +5)

Skills: 36 r=9 pp

Bluff 6 (+10/+14)

Diplomacy 3 (+7/+10)

Disguise 1 (+5/+10/+25/+30)

Intimidate 6 (+10)

Knowledge (Theology and Philosophy) 5 (+5)

Languages 1 (English) (Base: Greek)

Notice 7 (+10)

Sense Motive 7 (+10)

Feats: 13 pp

Attack Focus: Melee 4

Attractive

Dodge Focus 4

Power Attack

Precise Shot

Takedown Attack

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 66 pp

Enhanced CON 14 [14 pp]

Enhanced STR 14 [14 pp]

Flight 1 (10 MPH) [2 pp]

Immunity 10 (Aging, Life Support) [10 pp]

Morph 1 (humanoids) [2 pp]

Zeus Array [21+3=24 pp]

Blast 8 (PFs: Accurate 3, Indirect 2)

AP: Morph 6 (any humanoid) (Extra: Continuous, PFs: Covers Scent, Precise, Second Chance [Disguise checks])

AP: Super-Strength 9 (Heavy Load: 384 tons) (PFs: Shockwave, Super-Breath, Thunderclap)

AP: Teleport 6 (600 ft/20 miles) (Extra: Accurate, PFs: Easy, Progression [250 lbs], Turnabout)

costs

abilities 30 + combat 24 + saves 8 + skills 9/36 + feats 13 + powers 66 = 150 pts

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Design Notes:

Stripped of his immortality by his angry children, the mighty king of Olympus was cast down and reborn as a human boy on Earth. Gaining both his powers and some of his divine memories as he reached maturity, now Dis Pater, Zeus Alastor, has become a student at your local Hero High. He's strong, handsome, incredibly fast, a powerful shapeshifter, and he can hit his enemies with lightning bolts directly from the sky. He's the perfect guy to fill your Arrogant Jock/Prom King archtype: a powerful pretty boy who's dating the local Queen Bee and who gets away with way too much thanks to his good relationship with his teachers. He's quite an antagonist for that plucky team of misfits that so many Hero High teams turn out to be, and a possible rival or even enemy once they've all graduated, assuming he gets even more of his divine abilities as he ages. He'd also be a perfectly fine heroic archetype: there's nothing to say that a hero can't be a handsome, popular guy, for all that it doesn't fit the archetypes of American high school fiction that well. (Don't forget that there's a very good case to be made that Harry Potter, for example, is far more jock than nerd)

In addition to his high Charisma and powerful Morph, he's also attractive: Kid Zeus, a superhero, will be scoring with the ladies because they think he's really hot. (And really, some variant of Zeus should at least be lady-crazy). He's a really good sneak and faceman for your team, the perfect infiltrator, especially since he can throw down with flying and super-punches even while shapeshifted or dropping lightning bolts. (Though he's much _better_ at said infiltration when he's not using his big divine array for anything else) He also makes a good build for a teen celebrity hero, which I think works even if you keep his divine heritage. People love pretty boys, and if he is a jerk (and thus, an antagonist rather than protagonist) he's liable to have a fan-base among all the wrong people. If you want a whole team of spoiled arrogant super-kids who are rivals with your Hero High team, Kid Zeus here makes an excellent field commander for them.

The Olympians don't come across very well in the ancient myths, and Zeus comes across as among the worst of the worst. You can play that all sorts of ways: perhaps Kid Zeus is working to make amends for acts he can hardly understand and remembers only as the sins of another man. That would explain his overthrow too: perhaps the other gods just grew weary of their father-brother after so many millennia. His brother Hades will no doubt be glad to see him brought low, and will perhaps make his own plans to bring his brother low all the further. Or maybe those old stories are just tremendous exaggerations of a successful Lothario, tales told by men who imagined randy swans and golden showers rather than contemplate the reality that women might prefer company other than theirs.

Avenger Assembled · July 20, 2011

Nefer-Tina

"Egypt has suffered more ordeals than the other countries to get where it is."-Tahar Ben Jelloun

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 46 pp

STR 30 (+10)

DEX 16 (+3)

CON 20 (+5)

INT 12 (+1)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 14 (+4)

Combat: 24 pp

ATK: +6 (+10 Melee)

DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed)

Init: +7

Grapple:+24/+28/+30

Saves: 9 pp

TOU +10 (+5 Con, +5 Protection)

FORT +7 (+5 Con, +2)

REF +6 (+3 Dex, +3)

WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4)

Skills: 44r=11 pp

Bluff 8 (+10)

Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 4 (+5)

Languages 3 (Ancient Egyptian, Arabic, Hebrew) (Base: English)

Notice 8 (+10)

Sense Motive 8 (+10)

Stealth 12 (+15)

Feats: 18 pp

All-Out Attack

Attack Focus: Melee 4

Dodge Focus 4

Improved Grab

Improved Grapple

Improved Initiative

Hide in Plain Sight

Move-By Action

Power Attack

Takedown Attack

Uncanny Dodge (tactile)

Powers: 42 pp

Additional Limbs 4 (PF: Innate) [5 pp]

Elongation 2 (10 ft) [2 pp]

Immunity 9 (cold, critical hits, disease, heat, poison, starvation and thirst, suffocation) [9 pp]

Protection 5 [5 pp]

Speed 2 (25 MPH) [2 pp]

Super-Movement 4 (Slow Fall, Swinging, Wall-Crawling 2) [8 pp]

Super-Senses 2 (Tremorsense) [2 pp]

Super-Strength 4 (Heavy Load: 12 tons) [8 pp]

costs

abilities 46 + combat 24 + saves 9 + skills 11/44 + feats 18 + powers 42 = 150 pts

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Design Notes:

A few years ago, the wicked Egyptian sorcerer Heka kidnapped some tourists to perform various unpleasant arcane rituals on them. (Unpleasant for them because of the profound violations of body and soul, unpleasant for Heka because of all the whining!) He was in the middle of performing certain ancient enchantments over the girl Tina when he was interrupted by the Spirit of Egypt and other local heroes, and his plans to transform her (and then a great many others!) into an invincible mummy warrior loyal only to him were permanently defeated. (He insists it was those punk kids who were at fault and these days is always trying to talk Tina into getting on Team Heka so he can fix her up: naturally she is not very impressed). Gone awry, Heka's spell cast the young lady not into the body of the mummy, but into the wrappings that lay all around her body! With the help of teachers in Egypt, Tina learned to rebuild her body and infuse what had once been lifeless linen with the touch of humanity. Now Nefer-Tina, inspired by an ancient Egyptian queen, is using the powerful results of her transformation to become a mighty superheroine!

The idea here is that Nefer-Tina is made entirely out of living linen: she can just about pass for human in a funny costume thanks to some magical help, but she has no internal parts and is made purely of cloth. (You could easily justify giving her a Fortitude Immunity because of that, assuming you can rustle up the points) She gets around by swinging on her fabric, can slow her falls by whipping herself around into a parachute shape, and fights by entangling and grappling her foes into submission as befits someone who is a living restraint. I've represented her state with lots of Elongation and Additional Limbs, but that's not the only way you could do this. (You could give her an Engulf Snare too if you want) I figure her unarmed strikes are something like the feather attacks of the bad guy in Kung Fu Panda 2, striking with sharpened ends of fabric for some spectacular damage.

Tina here makes a fine choice for your "teen hero alienated from humanity by her powers", a common archetype in Hero High games, the changes in her body being the sort of metaphor that comic book writers like to use for that wild and crazy time called puberty. Being a living, or at least half-alive collection of bandages shaped like a teenager is a pretty serious issue as far as human contact! It beats being stuck inside a body suit all the time, that's for darn sure. Being a human being is going to be a pretty tempting offer when she encounters bad guys who may be able to give her a hard time, giving you lots of HP for those delicious complications!

Avenger Assembled · July 20, 2011

Asimova

"The three laws of robotics are...let me just look that up."

PL 10 (150 pp)

Abilities: 22 pp

STR 30 (+10)

DEX 14 (+2)

CON n/a (-)

INT 14 (+2)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 10 (+0)

Combat: 24 pp

ATK: +6 (+10 Unarmed)

DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed)

Init: +2

Grapple: +16

Saves: 7 pp

TOU +10 (+10 Protection)

FORT +n/a

REF +5 (+2 Dex, +3)

WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4)

Skills: 13 pp=52 r

Computers 8 (+10)

Craft (Electronic) 8 (+10)

Craft (Mechanical) 8 (+10)

Knowledge (Technology) 8 (+10)

Notice 8 (+10)

Perform (techno) 4 (+6)

Sense Motive 8 (+10)

Feats: 9 pp

Attack Specialization: Unarmed 2,

Dodge Focus 4,

Power Attack,

Takedown Attack,

Uncanny Dodge (radio)

Powers: 75 pp

Datalink 9 (anywhere on Earth; radio) (PFs: Online Research, Rapid 2 (x100), Subtle) [13 pp]

Immunity 40 (Fortitude Saves, Mental Effects) [40 pp]

Morph 1 (PF: Metamorph [ program]) [2 pp]

Protection 10 [10 pp]

Regeneration 6 (Recovery Bonus +0 [5], Resurrection 1/week) (PFs: Persistent, Regrowth) [8 pp]

Super-Strength 1 (Heavy Load: 1.5 tons) [2 pp]

costs

abilities 22 + combat 24 + saves 7 + skills 13/52 + feats 9 + powers 75 = 150 pts

---------------

Design Notes:

In the wake of a challenge by Gizmo, here's my take on Asimova, the future (though very unlikely!) offspring of Citizen and Ghost Girl. The general idea is that Ghost Girl was able to take on a 'solid' body while inhabiting computers attuned to Sharl's computer-dimension, and inside circuits and programs they fell in love and were able to produce a child. Asimova is something of a literal ghost in the machine, a bodiless cybernetic consciousness with the power to shape machines and computers into solid bodies for herself. (I'd build her 'program' state as something like a merger of my earlier Tronik hero and ghost builds, which after all is what she is!) A true PC version really should have the same mental abilities from body to body, unless being inside a robot makes her smarter. She can leave her solid body, flit around and explore computers, and then come out and pummel bad guys with her metal fists.

You don't get a lot of computer ghosts, at least not unless DC literally kills off Oracle (which I don't think is on the agenda, but you never know!) so building her was something of a challenge. I tried to distinguish her from the usual run of robots and other mechanical constructs by playing up both her Morph and her cyberkinetic abilities, letting her read computers by wi-fi and stay permanently connected to the Web. I really like the idea of Online Research as a Datalink Power Feat; it plays up how important her connection to the Web is for her knowledge of the word. (There have actually been recent studies that have explored declines in memorization of facts in the Internet generation, though that has come with an increase in accuracy as more and more facts are actually to hand.) I figure the descriptors for her Regeneration (in addition to having a body that 'thinks' its human) are the usual "restoration from stored backups"; now that I think about it, that's not a bad descriptor for Reincarnation too!

She's probably better off living in Tronik when she's older rather than out in the real world; after all, her mom was dead before she was born and so there's not a lot for her around there: perhaps the start of the Citizen legacy referred to elsewhere? Note that she can make her own robot body wherever she zaps herself out of local undifferentiated parts: that makes her a natural candidate for Variable Descriptor on her unarmed attacks if she starts diversifying what she's made of. There are a lot of places I'd have liked to have more points, but this works for a version of Asimova who's just now got a robot body (she pretends to be either a robot or an Evans-brand telepresence droid most of the time; not out of fear of prejudice but just because her backstory takes so long to explain) and has gone out into the world to adventure. You could save a lot of points by giving her some vulnerabilities to go with her powers; perhaps she has issues with magnets like her dad, or fire like her mom. Or worse, magnetic fire! But there's no such thing...right? :o

Avenger Assembled · July 21, 2011

Blue Moon

â€œI hate Nazis!â€-Bombshell

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 26 pp

STR 12 (+1)

DEX 18 (+4)

CON 16 (+3)

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 18 (+4)

CHA 12 (+1)

Combat: 24 pp

ATK: +6 (+10 Ranged)

DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed)

Grapple: +8/+20

Init: +3

Saves: 10 pp

TOU +8 (+3 Con, +5 Protection)

FORT +7 (+3 Con, +4)

REF +7 (+4 Ref, +3)

WILL +7 (+4 Wis, +3)

Skills: 48 r=12 pp

Bluff 4 (+5)

Diplomacy 4 (+5)

Intimidate 14 (+15)

Languages 2 (German, Japanese) (Base: English)

Notice 6 (+10)

Sense Motive 6 (+10)

Stealth 11 (+15)

Survival 1 (+5)

Feats: 16 pp

Attack Focus (Ranged) 4

Dodge Focus 6

Fearless

Improved Initiative

Move-By Action

Power Attack

Precise Shot

Uncanny Dodge (mental)

Powers: 62 pp

Device 6 (Power Ring) (Hard to Lose) (PFs: Restricted 2) [26 pp]

-Add APs to Nullify [2]

Damage 10

Extras:

Move Object 10

Extra:

-Enhanced Feats 2 (Quick Change 2) [2]

-Flight 4 (100 MPH) [8]

-Immunity 9 (Life Support) [9]

-Impervious Toughness 8 [8]

-Space Flight 1 (1c) [1]

Nullify Array 15 (30 pp; PF: Alternate Power) [30+1=31 pp]

BE

Disintegration 10

Flaw:

AP

Corrosion 10

Extra:

Flaw

Protection 5 [5 pp]

costs

abilities 26 + combat 24 + saves 10 + skills 12/48 + feats 16 + powers 62 = 150 pts

-----------

Design Notes:

Hereâ€™s a build for Blue Moon, the version of Agent H (the native hero of Erde) created by the temporal interference of Young Freedom during the events of Graduation Day. Iâ€™ve tried to blend a power ring, the training of a field resistance operative influenced by a longer-lived Travis Hunter, and Agentâ€™s own nullification powers. Iâ€™ve given her a lot of upgrades. Rather than the Nullify power Agent H has in her Hero High build, Iâ€™ve taken a page from Shaen's EMP construction and given her the ability to outright destroy machines (any machines, not just electronic ones) with a blast of destructive energy. You can still spin that as being a result of her injection with the Nazi machine-controlling serum, just say she wound up with a much more concentrated dose. She doesnâ€™t just shut Nazi war machines down this way, she outright destroys them! Given the reliance that the Nazis of Erde have on their giant killer machines (which serve the in-game function of keeping the German population from dwelling on the war and the out-of-game function of letting PCs go medieval on Nazi robots without thinking about any poor unfortunate pilots), this makes her an incredibly valuable asset for the American resistance.

The Protection is just a product of her mutated physiology, a way to make this character a little more durable given the very rough conditions from which she comes. In her own setting, even with just her base powers, sheâ€™d probably be packing a piece herself, and thus able to make short work of any Nazi squads opposing her: in the front ranks of a Resistance attack on a Nazi base, or a defense against a German counterattack, she could flat-out be the difference between winning and losing a particular battle. Sheâ€™s very scary, particularly back on Erde: when the Germans see her, they run, because they know very bad stuff is about to happen. Sheâ€™s also a good sneak, as befits a Resistance veteran trained by the organization spawned by Midnight I. And hey, this way sheâ€™s also got a power-ring! I went with the idea that the ring amplifies her innate abilities, letting her fly around and even go into space, and move things with her mind or blast even organic creatures with her powers. Sheâ€™s all the more scary with all the additional mobility; whoâ€™s to say she wonâ€™t go up to the Moon or the satellite stations the Germans have built and become the first American in space by means of blowing the lid off some Nazionauts?

She doesnâ€™t have the blaster she does in her core build because honestly she doesnâ€™t really need one when sheâ€™s packing a power ring! KD is working on a backstory for Cobalt Templarâ€™s ring; Iâ€™ve gone with the idea that Hope doesnâ€™t really care about that hippie magic stuff: sheâ€™s here to blow Nazis to pieces, meet the people who were remembered as her worldâ€™s greatest heroes, and maybe come back with enough help to completely blow the lid off the Nazi/Imperial Japanese occupation of her beloved homeworld: sheâ€™s a very straightforward blaster and grappler with her power ring, her object-destroying powers being one hell of a surprise for people not familiar with the young woman the Germans have dubbed "Das Panzertotenmadchen." Still, as a Claremont student sheâ€™s bound to have learned some flexibility over the years, and so has enough tricks in combat so as to take her enemies by surprise who may not be expecting her to fight with quite as much authority.

Avenger Assembled · July 21, 2011

Dimensional Prankster

â€œ"Did you honestly believe a fifth-dimensional sorcerer would resemble a funny little man in a derby hat?"-Alan Moore

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 18 pp

STR 10 (+0)

DEX 10 (+0)

CON 20 (+5)

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 14 (+2)

Combat: 18 pp

ATK: +3

DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed)

Init: +0

Grapple: +3/+20

Saves: 14 pp

TOU +8 (+5 Con, +3 Protection)

FORT +8 (+5 Con, +3)

REF +5 (+0 Ref, +5)

WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6)

Skills: 11 pp=44 r

Bluff 13 (+15)

Knowledge: Arcane Lore 10 (+10)

Knowledge: Pop Culture 10 (+10)

Notice 3 (+5)

Sense Motive 8 (+10)

Feats: 11 pp

Dodge Focus (6)

Luck

Power Attack

Ritualist

Taunt

Uncanny Dodge (mental)

Powers: 78 pp

Flight 1 (10 MPH) [2 pp]

Immunity 11 (Aging, Life Support, Starvation and Thirst) [11 pp]

Insubstantial 3 (magic) (PF: Subtle) [16 pp]

Magic Array 17.5 (35 points; PFs: Alternate Power 7) [42 pp]

Create Object 10

Extra:

PFs

Damage 10

Extra

PFs

Damage 10

Extra:

PFs

Move Object 10

Extra

PFs

Snare 10

Extra

PFs

Teleport 9

Extra

PFs

Transform 7

Extra

Protection 3 [3 pp]

Regeneration 2 (Resurrection 1/day) (PFs: Persistent, Regrowth) [4 pp]

costs

abilities 18 + combat 18+ saves 14 + skills 11/44 + feats 11 + powers 78 = 150 pts

---------

Design Notes:

Okay, hereâ€™s my attempt at your standard Fifth Dimensional magical prankster as a PL 10 starting character. He zips around, has tremendous magical power, and seems mostly impervious to most forms of harm. Immunity and Insubstantial can account for a whole lot of things! (Note that as of Word of Kenson, you donâ€™t need Affects Corporeal on Damage and similar effects when youâ€™re at Insubstantial 3, only on Strength: this lets you get a very powerful blaster who can shrug off almost any forms of attacks save non-magical energy). Heâ€™s got enough Bluff and Taunt to be pretty annoying, and enough magical knowledge he can at least be a factor in magical settings. These guys arenâ€™t really notable for their magical knowledge, mostly for their power, so Iâ€™ve built this build with that in mind. They also donâ€™t tend to be particularly observant or particularly clever at anything besides hilarious jokes, so Iâ€™ve tried to keep that in mind during the construction. Note that his abilities arenâ€™t technically magic, rather theyâ€™re a product of his dimensionâ€™s advanced relationship with ours, but theyâ€™re so powerful and so inexplicable to human beings that they might as well be magic for all they respond to our understanding of science.

I figure his Snare is some sort of â€œtying the bad guys up with their own shoelacesâ€ or otherwise slightly goofy magical effect; while his various types of damage are broad enough that you should be able to drop almost any sort of magical effect you want: or just have an animated object (a descriptor for your TK) reach down and juggle them back and forth in the most hilarious way. How was this guy born? Maybe heâ€™s a native of the Fifth Dimension whoâ€™s decided he wants to be more than just an occasional bedeviler: maybe he wants to permanently relocate to our world thanks to admiring our heroic character, or perhaps heâ€™s just made some enemies back home and is hiding out here with just a fragment of his true power so they wonâ€™t find him. Another possibility is that maybe heâ€™s a half-breed: maybe his mom or dad used to bedevil some superhero back in the 1980s or 90s and wound up settling down to raise a family. Hey, if you can date Catwoman, why canâ€™t you date Gsptlsnz?

Be careful how you finesse tone here. The wacky cartoonish guy gets old real fast, thatâ€™s why he only shows up every couple of years in Superman. (Which is one reason why I like the idea of that person being a family member for this more serious version of the archetype; such a hilarious wacky mom or dad!) Maybe emphasize the characterâ€™s role as an outsider trying to understand the human condition; a powerful inhuman being who has chosen to become all-too-human in his efforts to learn more about us and our ways. For all his pranks (and keep those to a minimum, really), he genuinely loves our world and its people, and thatâ€™s definitely something for you to play up. Heâ€™s got one foot in his alien world and one foot in our own, just like many a comic book superhero.

Avenger Assembled · July 21, 2011

Incredible Stretcher

â€œThrow me!â€

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 50 pp

STR 24 (+7)

DEX 24 (+7)

CON 24 (+7)

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 14 (+2)

Combat: 32 pp

ATK: +8 (+13 melee)

DEF: +13 (+4 flat-footed)

Init: +7

Grapple: +20/+23/+26

Saves: 8 pp

TOU +7 (+7 Con)

FORT +8 (+7 Con, +1)

REF +8 (+7 Dex, +1)

WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6)

Skills: 60 r=15 pp

Acrobatics 13 (+20)

Diplomacy 8 (+10)

Intimidate 5 (+7)

Notice 8 (+10)

Pilot 3 (+10)

Sense Motive 8 (+10)

Stealth 13 (+20)

Feats: 19 pp

Acrobatic Bluff

Attack Focus: Melee 5

Dodge Focus 5

Evasion

Grappling Finesse

Improved Grab

Improved Grapple

Move-By Action

Power Attack

Quick Change

Takedown Attack

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 26 pp

Device 2 (Costume) (Hard to Lose) (PF: Indestructible) [9 pp]

-Enhanced Feats 2 (Second Chance 2 [vs. ballistics/fire damage]) [2]

-Impervious TOU 7 [7]

-Super-Senses 1 (Radio) [1]

Elastic Body 3 (6 points; PFs: Dynamic, Dynamic Alternate Power) [9PP]

Elongation 6

Super-Strength 3

Immunity 2 (suffocation) [2 pp]

Super-Movement 3 (Slow Fall, Swinging, Wall-Crawling) [6 pp]

costs

abilities 50 + combat 32 + saves 8 + skills 15/60 + feats 19 + powers 26 = 150 pts

----

Design Notes:

Alright, hereâ€™s my build for an elastic hero in the vein of Mrs. Incredible (nee Elasti-Girl) from The Incredibles. The idea here is that while she canâ€™t do the ridiculous tricks of someone like Plastic Man, sheâ€™s very capable despite her more limited powers: sheâ€™s a stretchy person rather than a person made of stretchy stuff. This could easily be an Elongated Man build if you tweaked the abilities and powers just a bit. I think Iâ€™ve largely captured the feel of the character from the movie: sheâ€™s strong, sheâ€™s fast, sheâ€™s tough, and sheâ€™s a really good fighter and grappler like most stretchy characters: sheâ€™s also got some skills that make her a formidable sneak and acrobat. (I got the idea from what we see of her in flashbacks, and in more recent years, that she had a backstory as a super-powered spy somewhere before she met Bob; perhaps sheâ€™s a former government agent herself who went into superheroing, and then homemaking: that would also explain why she was so much better at cooperating with their government handlers than Bob was!)

With her very high Grapple bonus, she could easily hold her own in combat against her powerhouse husband. Sheâ€™s also strong enough to carry a van with all her family inside it, though the weight is such that she wonâ€™t be very happy about it: she can also take being dunked in the ocean without any problems and survive high-altitude flight without more than a little annoyance. Her costume is a Device, of course, itâ€™s much more durable than equipment! It can stand up to multiple simultaneous assault rifles, stands a decent chance of shrugging off flamethrowers, and has a little commlink built right in: it takes an already-powerful heroine and makes her all the more awesome. Sheâ€™s not the ridiculously over-the-top grappler that many Elastic Heros can be, but sheâ€™s certainly more than competitive with anyone her size, and she has feats to back up her grappling that her more plastic allies may lack. Thereâ€™s no real reason in her powers why her kids would be a speedster, force field controller, and shapeshifter, but hey, super-genes can be pretty funky that way.

This build works just fine for that retired superheroine down the block whoâ€™s just now getting back into the game; give her some immunity to aging if you want her to be even older than someone whoâ€™s just now retired. (Of course, in that case sheâ€™s probably _not_ going to have young kids, unless the family immunities kick in way too early...) If her husbandâ€™s not a super, he needs to know what she does, otherwise itâ€™s really very creepy. Her family is a natural source of tremendous complications! She works just fine for a government agent heroine too, though she may need some more tradecraft skills for that: sheâ€™s not as powerful as some supers, but if played for sneakiness and speed she can throw down with just about any of them. And hey, she gets a regular salary to go with it!

Avenger Assembled · July 22, 2011

Incredible Brick

"I work alone."

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 56 pp

STR 30 (+10)

DEX 20 (+5)

CON 30 (+10)

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 12 (+1)

Combat: 32 pp

ATK: +10

DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed)

Init: +5

Grapple: +26

Saves: 6 pp

TOU +10 (+10 Con)

FORT +10 (+10 Con)

REF +7 (+5 Dex, +2)

WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4)

Skills: 52 r=13 pp

Bluff 9 (+10)

Drive 5 (+10)

Intimidate 9 (+10)

Knowledge (Business) 5 (+5)

Knowledge (Civics) 7 (+7)

Language 1 (Chinese) (Base: English)

Notice 8 (+10)

Sense Motive 3 (+5)

Stealth 5 (+10)

Feats: 10 pp

All-Out Attack

Dodge Focus 4

Luck

Move-By Action

Power Attack

Takedown Attack

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 33 pp

Immunity 5 (all environmental conditions) [5 pp]

Impervious TOU 10 [10 pp]

Leaping 4 (x25) [4 pp]

Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp]

Super-Strength 6 (Heavy Load: 48 tons) [12 pp]

costs

abilities 56 + combat 32 + saves 6 + skills 13/52 + feats 10 + powers 33 = 150 pts

--------------

Design Notes:

Here's my build for a brick like Mr. Incredible. This represents him around the first third of the movie or so: he's very tough, very strong, and surprisingly fast for a brick. There are stronger and faster guys out there, but there are few who can handle themselves as both sneak and brick the way Mr. Incredible can. He's a really good fighter: he's one of the first PCs I've built who has his whole ATK bonus bought up with base Attack. Rewatching the movie, he makes extensive use of thrown weapons and melee attacks both and he's notably quite accurate with either. I could have saved points by giving him an Attack Specialization in Improvised Thrown Weapons, but your GM may not like that in your own games. Note that despite his agility, he's not actually that fast: he doesn't make a lot of huge Hulk-style leaps in the movie. That fancy car of his wasn't just for show, it really did get him where he needed to go! He's still pretty mobile, though, at least tactically, and he can always stunt something off his Super-Strength if he really needs to get where he's going. He's a pretty straightforward fighter: All-Out Power Attacking vs. the big bads and dropping down a bit when he's engaged in the ancient art of goonsweeping.

He's got an okay Bluff, since he does seem to be able to get one over on Helen when he really needs to. He's a big, scary guy, but doesn't really have the Intimidate to have it be useful in combat: Helen shows no concern about shouting him down when they're suitably angry with each other, and he's not able to intimidate Syndrome when the two of them are facing off. If you're trying to build his younger self, I'd give him significantly higher Charisma. This is the version of the man beaten down by years of living a series of much-hated by secret identities, and it's going to take the events of the movie to give him back his old fire. Given the magazine covers we see in his trophy room, many of which have him on the cover without using his name, not to mention the teen would-be sidekick who takes an unseemly interest in him, my personal theory is that Mr. Incredible in his prime was something of a showpiece for costumed supers. Given what we see of his day and night's work, even on a day when his friends were presumably covering for him, the man more than earned that glowing reputation!

He's a surprisingly competent businessman, as we see demonstrated early in the movie, for all that he may be very loathe to admit it. (I haven't read the sequel comics or played the follow-up game, but I could easily see Bob Parr becoming a private insurance salesman as his secret ID after the events of the movie. He does seem to genuinely care about people, and if he's got a government salary the way Incredibleverse supers seem to, he can sell affordable but good insurance to people in need without having to worry about turning a profit!) He's got the Impervious and Environmental Immunities to run fearlessly around in a burning building, and the Super-Strength to punch his way free without any problems. I'm not much of an equipment building guy, but if you do want to make a younger version of Mr. Incredible (perhaps with his car), you should comb through Agents of Freedom, as well as Push and Midnight's sheets for well-designed rides. I'd probably give him a really fast sports car (with Speed 6 or Speed 7) and Enhanced Feats like Quick Change. We don't see a really good workout for his uniform the way we do for Helen and the kids, so I didn't bother to stat it out here. And of course the kids themselves are quite definitely their own characters!

Avenger Assembled · July 22, 2011

Earth F-Deluge-1

In 1995, in the wake of the Terminus Invasion, the newly-reformed Freedom League sent out expeditions to nearby parallel universes to warn them about the potential threat of Omega. Among the most distant universes they visited was Earth F-D-1, a very strange place that continues to baffle many of the Freedom Leagueâ€™s greatest scientists. On Earth FD1, Pseudo and Johnny Rocket found a drowned world. In defiance of all laws of science and nature, some seventy years earlier the oceans had erupted across the lands in a terrible few weeks of utter cataclysm that had destroyed all the old civilizations: billions had died in an apocalypse that left behind only a few pockets of civilization in what had once been the Rockies, western China, Afghanistan, and parts of west and east Africa. Where Freedom City had once been stood an entire floating city constructed from what had once been Freedom City, the spectacular engineering project of a young Alexander Atom that had saved a fragment of the old cityâ€™s population.

The Leaguers did what they could to improve the battered lives of the people of that world, but things were tough for a people who had lived as fishers and scavengers for generations, frequently beset by tremendous oceanic superstorms so massive as to make the worst hurricanes of Prime look like a rainy April afternoon in Freedom City. Seeming to lack an Atlantis or other undersea civilizations, the people had already begun to adapt to their new world: some had seemingly evolved gills, others webbed feet, and though those strange and secretive mutants were shunned by many of the surfacers, they did seem like the next step in human evolution. It wasnâ€™t until Grue and rookie returned home that the sheer oddity of Earth FD1 became apparent: how could the sedate genes of the human race evolve oceanic parts so quickly? And how _could_ the world flood? The melted ice caps and glaciers, even if all had somehow melted at once, could never produce such an overwhelmingly catastrophic flood in anything like the force and power that had so devastated FD1. But it was just one dimension, and eventually the attention of Daedalus, Dr. Atom, and the other scientists of Freedom City and elsewhere who took an interest in parallel worlds was focused elsewhere. There have been no follow-up expeditions to Deluge-1, but itâ€™s one of those areas of exploration thatâ€™s always on the Leagueâ€™s list.

The truth of F-D-1 is much worse than anyone on Earth-Prime has ever realized. The truth is, in February 1928 on a remote island in the South Pacific, the stars were right. Father Dagon and Mother Hydra rose, the continents sank as the oceans bloomed impossibly, and terrible kingdoms of magic and death were built beneath the waves. There _were_ Atlanteans beneath the sea once, but those who survived the rising of the Old Ones were no match for the armies of Dagon and Hydra. The isolationist theocracy in Central Asia that opened fire on Pseudo when he flew overhead wasnâ€™t the Tibetan successor state he thought it was; it was _Leng_, a grim empire of dark magic who stave off the beasts that lie beneath the waves with their own terrible rituals. Those insular mutants arenâ€™t the next step in evolution, they are the children of _Deep Ones_, and one day most will go below and join the terrible civilization below. No wonder so many work as slavers and traders of flesh: they are directly nourishing their undersea kin. The few tens of thousands of free human beings on Earth are in far more danger than the majority realize.

Much worse is that the brother-sister priests of Dagon and Hydra have learned of the existence of other worlds, places not blessed with the Great Drowning. Though surfacers survive as scum clinging to the fringes of their world, they are content with the empire they have built and the planet they have blessed. One day soon, perhaps very soon, they will come in their slithery squamous legions to our world and summon their terrible apocalypse. And the Drowning will come.

Avenger Assembled · July 23, 2011

Rustbelt

And for what? For a little bit of money. There's more to life than a little money, you know. Don'tcha know that? And here ya are, and it's a beautiful day. Well. I just don't understand it. -Fargo

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 16 pp

STR 30 [14] (+10/+2)

DEX 10 (+0)

CON 30 [14] (+10/+2)

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 14 (+2)

Combat: 24 pp

ATK: +6 (+10 Melee)

DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed)

Init: +0

Grapple: +25

Saves: 12 pp

TOU +10 (+10 Con)

FORT +10 (+10 Con)

REF +6 (+0 Dex, +6)

WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6)

Skills: 60 r=15 pp

Craft (Structural) 10 (+10)

Diplomacy 13 (+15)

Drive 3 (+5)

Knowledge (Earth Sciences) 10 (+10)

Notice 8 (+10)

Sense Motive 13 (+15)

Survival 3 (+5)

Feats: 14 pp

Attack Focus: Melee 4

Dodge Focus 4

Interpose

Leadership

Luck

Power Attack

Takedown Attack

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 68 pp

Corrosion 10 (Flaw: Limited [Metals Only]) [15 pp]

Enhanced CON 16 [16 pp]

Enhanced STR 16 [16 pp]

Impervious TOU 10 [10 pp]

Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp]

Super-Strength 5 (Heavy Load: 24 tons) [10 pp]

abilities 16+combat 24 +saves 12 + skills 15/60 + feats 14 + powers 68 =150 pp

-----

Design Notes:

Hereâ€™s my build for Rustbelt, one of the more likeable characters in the Wild Cards universe. In a world of jaded sybarites, mad gods, black ops agents, and spoiled playboys with superpowers, Rustbelt is a nice, straightforward guy from a small mining town deep in the heart of the Mesabi Iron Range in Minnesota. His powers fit his origins, in that heâ€™s basically a â€˜Minnesota Niceâ€™ Ben Grimm crossed with a D&D rust monster. Heâ€™s a big strong guy with iron skin and super-strength with a jaw like the machines in the open-pit mines around where he lives. What distinguishes him from regular powerhouses is the rusting touch that earns his name: with just a touch, he can make just about any kind of metal fall to pieces. I figured that metals is a broad enough flaw (especially in an urban setting) that itâ€™s only a -1 Flaw rather than anything bigger. Heâ€™s not as strong or durable as other powerhouses, but his rusting powers are a good surprise for people expecting just another iron guy. People around Rusty underestimate him: he genuinely is a good man willing to lead others in a fight against powerful enemies, something that makes him a little unusual in his home universe. Most people just think itâ€™s an act, but it really isnâ€™t! Heâ€™s a rare hero in a world that has very few of them.

You could build him with Density and/or Protection if you wanted; I went ahead and gave him full-blown Enhanced STR and CON to represent how strong he has to be to get around with iron skin: he weighs as much as a normal person, though! Of course, in a superheroic setting Rustyâ€™s good nature isnâ€™t going to be that weird: people are supposed to be genuinely good as a general rule around here. Find a good moral code for him and stick to it if you want him to have some good complications; the manâ€™s the sort whoâ€™s liable to have a Capeâ€™s solid, stubborn morals even in the most controversial of situations. Thatâ€™s why heâ€™s got things like Interpose and Diplomacy, so he actually does have a shot at talking the Big Bad down or taking his blasts for others without a qualm. With Leadership, heâ€™s a good guy to have on your side in a fight! Heâ€™s a natural for Inspire and other feats as his experience goes up; this is Rusty straight out of the mines and ready to be a hero in the big city! Heâ€™s still a small town guy nervous in the big city; heâ€™s the sort of guy who thinks of Minneapolis as the big city, much less wild and crazy Freedom. Note that being from a small town or going to church regularly doesnâ€™t mean Rustyâ€™s ignorant or bigoted; heâ€™s just a little naive. Superheroes are usually in urban settings, so taking a guy from a small town and putting them in the big city is a nice way to get lots of good fish out of water complications. Why not represent the rural hero turned big city champion?

With his iron body, a little magnetic vulnerability might go a long way to freeing up some more points for you. Itâ€™s up to you whether or not he can turn back to normal; the Wild Cards character canâ€™t. Having a freakish appearance is a good source for complications, but you might get tired of constantly looking like a diecast action figure of a steam shovel. In the Freedom City setting, Rustbelt might just be a mutant who wound up with a very striking appearance, but he could easily be a victim of some mutagenic industrial accident down there in the mines. It is a little pat that a man from the Iron Range wound up with an iron body and metal control, isnâ€™t it? Perhaps heâ€™s a DNAscendant who used his powers to escape, or some other variant of lab animal infused with all the wrong kinds of powers. He could have been tricked by Mr. Infamy like Silver Age heroine Mary Minstrel, given the powers of iron with all of the side-effects. Or he could easily be magic at his core without any infernal origins, perhaps infused with the mystic spirit of the Iron Range and given some measure of its power.

Avenger Assembled · July 26, 2011

Nungal

â€œYou have spilled the blood of the innocent! Look into my eyes and pay for your sins!â€

Abilities: 16 pp

STR 24 (+7)

DEX 18 (+4)

CON n/a

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 10 (+0)

Combat: 24 pp

ATK: +6 (+10 melee)

DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed)

Init: +4

Grapple: +17

Saves: 9 pp

TOU +8 (+8 Protection)

FORT n/a

REF +7 (+4 Dex, +3)

WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6)

Skills: 15 pp=60 r

Acrobatics 11 (+15)

Intimidate 15 (+15)

Knowledge (Theology and Philosophy) 10 (+10)

Languages 2 (Akkadian, English) (Base: Arabic)

Notice 3 (+5)

Sense Motive 8 (+10)

Stealth 11 (+15)

Feats: 18 pp

Acrobatic Bluff

Attack Focus: Melee 4

Dodge Focus 6

Evasion

Interpose

Move-By Action

Startle

Power Attack

Takedown Attack

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 68 pp

Damage 3 (PFs: Affects Insubstantial 2, Mighty) [6 pp]

Enhanced Feats 10 (Fearsome Presence 10) [10 pp]

Immunity 30 (Fortitude Saves) [30 pp]

Protection 8 [8 pp]

Regeneration 6 (+0 Recovery Bonus, Resurrection 1/week) (PFs: Persistent, Regrowth) [8 pp]

Speed 2 (25 MPH) (PFs: Wall Run, Water Run) [4 pp]

Super-Senses 2 (Darkvision) [2 pp]

costs

abilities 16 + combat 24 + saves 9 + skills 15/60 + feats 18 + powers 68 = 150 pts

------------

Design Notes:

Hereâ€™s my build for Nungal, the native heroine of Iraq. Aisha al-Tabari was a graduate student at the University of Baghdad when the American invasion came in 2003, specializing in antiquities and the history of Mesopotamia. When the bombs began to fall in Baghdad, she headed to the Museum of Antiquities where she worked to save the artifacts there from looters and bombs alike. Despite her fears, though, the greatest danger turned out to be to her: even as she was loading the last of the artifacts into the museumâ€™s truck, including a priceless obsidian blade that had supposedly once been carried by the gods themselves, a deserter from the Iraqi Army shot her in the back and stole her truck, tossing the artifacts out without recognizing them. Bleeding out, she clutched the blade to her chest and thought about how terribly unfair it was. And then she heard a voice in her mind: her life, and great power, if she would give that life over to the voice inside the blade. She was only human; of course she agreed. Aisha rose wrapped in tight black linen robes and carrying the black blade of Nungal in her hands: an avatar of the goddess of divine retribution of the Babylonians. Nungal had been cast out of the underworld by her cruel father Nergal when she had rebelled against his rule and bound into her own sacred blade until the lifeâ€™s blood of an innocent demanding retribution touched it. Now, as manâ€™s order and laws crumbled all around them, goddess and woman were bound together as one with the purpose of punishing the wicked in a very wicked time.

The overall idea is that Nungal can be whatever kind of character you need her to be for your campaign: she makes a perfectly fine heroic NPC as written, if one with something of a PR problem from the local authorities, or a PC for right here if you assume sheâ€™s relocated to Freedom City. I figure any native supers in Iraq probably were supersoldiers who died in Saddamâ€™s various wars and purges. She also makes a good solid antihero NPC; handing out grim retributive justice in her native Baghdad to anyone who would harm the weak. Sheâ€™d definitely be a potential antagonist for heroes that way, but one who they have to handle carefully: after all, sheâ€™s not going to get anything like humane treatment from the authorities of her own country. And all those people she goes after really are the scum of the universe: Antihero Nungal might be a threat to American soldiers, but only those whoâ€™ve spilled the blood of the innocent themselves. She also makes a good outright villain if you like; one determined to kill all the occupiers of Iraq and their puppets and to punish those who have betrayed the worship of the ancient gods. Sheâ€™s not likely to be in bed with the radicals in her homeland: sheâ€™s empowered by pagan gods, wearing a Babylonian costume immodest to their descendants, but on the other hand if desperate enough they might try and find a way to use her for their own advantage: in short, she works for whatever niche you want â€œIraqâ€™s native superâ€ to be filled by in your campaign.

Mechanics-wise, sheâ€™s basically an Abyssal Exalted in a superhero setting. Immune to most forms of harm and able to regenerate from any injury, sheâ€™s strong, sheâ€™s fast, and sheâ€™s very scary: her mystic black blade able to cut through almost anything. Sheâ€™s just the hero to break up a warlordâ€™s drug-smuggling ring and deliver him to the authorities; sheâ€™s just the villain to be a terrifying apparition to heroes as they try and protect the Army general targeted for destruction by an unkillable spectre of the night. At Speed 2, she can evade just about any vehicle in an urban setting, and can run right up walls and over water if she has to make a fast escape or catch a particularly slippery opponent. Stunt off her Fearsome Presence if you want to give her more tricks, perhaps Vampiric on the bladeâ€™s damage if you want to make her really scary in a stand-up fight. Finding the points to give her some Impervious wouldnâ€™t be a bad idea either given the number of armed thugs and soldiers sheâ€™s liable to be fighting...

Avenger Assembled · July 29, 2011

Armored Pyromaniac

Yes! We defeated you for all time! You will never rise from the ashes of your shame and humiliation!... Ah that was fun.-Azula

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 38 pp

STR 14 (+2)

DEX 18 (+4)

CON 18 (+4)

INT 14 (+2)

WIS 18 (+4)

CHA 16 (+6)

Combat: 32 pp

ATK: +8 (+10 Pyromancy/+12 Melee)

DEF: +12 (+4 flat-footed)

Grapple: +14

Init: +4

Saves: 9 pp

TOU +8 (+4 Con, +4 Protection)

FORT +7 (+4 Con, +3)

REF +7 (+4 Dex, +3)

WILL +7 (+4 Wis, +3)

Skills: 60 r=15 pp

Acrobatics 6 (+10)

Craft (Electronic) 8 (+10)

Craft (Mechanical) 8 (+10)

Intimidate 7 (+10)

Knowledge: Arcane Lore 3 (+5)

Knowledge: Technology 8 (+10)

Languages 2 (English, Japanese) (Base: German)

Notice 6 (+10)

Sense Motive 6 (+10)

Stealth 6 (+10)

Feats: 17 pp

Acrobatic Bluff

Attack Focus: Melee 4

Dodge Focus 4

Evasion

Inventor

Move-By Action

Power Attack

Startle

Takedown Attack

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 38 pp

Device 2 (Armor) (Hard to Lose) (PF: Restricted) [9 pp]

Immunity 5 (environmental heat, disease, poison, suffocation) [5]

Protection 4 [4]

Super-Senses 1 (Radio) [1]

Leaping 1 (x2) [1 pp]

Pyromancy Array [22+3=25 pp]

Blast 10 (PFs: Accurate, Variable Descriptor 1 [electricity/fire])

AP: Damage 10 (Extra: Area [Cone], PFs: Progression on Area, Variable Descriptor 1 [electricity/fire])

AP: Damage 10 (Extra: Targeted Area [Cone], PFs: Accurate, Variable Descriptor 1 [electricity/fire])

AP: Strike 6 (Extra: Autofire on Strength and Strike, PFs: Improved Crit, Mighty, Variable Descriptor 1 [electricity/fire])

Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp]

Super-Movement 1 (Slow Fall) [2 pp]

costs

abilities 38 + combat 32 + saves 9 + skills 15/60 + feats 18 + powers 38= 150 pts

--------------

Design Notes:

The Armored Pyromaniac is the daughter of two famous supervillains; you know the ones I mean, that Ruritarian maniac in the power armor and his on-again-off-again partner in crime, that East Asian pyromaniac martial artist from royal stock. She had a pretty cushy upbringing in her family's castle, but eventually she had some issues with Mom and Dad (really not that surprising, given the two of them) and she was kicked out of the house to go make something of herself in the real world just like her parents did when they were her age. She's been working as a mercenary for the last few years with some new buddies of hers, but honestly they don't really get along that well: she hardly even talks to them! She could easily break into independent supervillainy like her parents did when they were younger, but on the other hand maybe spending so much time on the outside will push her in the other direction. What better way to stick it to Mom and Dad than become a hero like the ones who beat them so often?

This archetype is a blend of blaster, gadgeteer, and martial artist, all blended together to produce a fast, mobile little ass-kicker. She's one hell of a surprise for people expecting her to be dependent on her suit (which I've reimagined as just body armor combined with heat insulation and an internal respirator), and she's a lot smarter than you'd expect her to be from her crazy persona. (She picked that trick up from her parents, natch). She's got a lot of options in combat and can goonsweep with her own personal flamethrower, blast individual targets with quick bursts of lightning, or just wade into melee and have it out with powerful energy-packed blows backed up by fire and lightning. She works just fine as a hero, maybe a student at Claremont picked up by Duncan Summers eager to make sure she grows up far from the tree. But she's also just fine as a villain, a terrifying pyrokinetic with a wide array of abilities and formidable technical skills, one eager to prove herself to her parents via greater and greater acts of terror!

She's quite a surprise for people expecting someone in armor that bulky to be slow and clumsy! If you are playing her as a PC hero, playing up her difficulties with relating to other people (having only known her crazy parents and servants her whole life) will give you some great opportunities for Complications. Being a hero isn't just about doing good deeds, it's also about caring for others beyond what they can do for you yourself. She has a bit of a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none thing going on, but on the other hand if you take this as a starting version of the character that just makes it easier for you to find a niche for her to fill and to run with it. If you do play her as a Claremont student, naturally pitting her against her parents in some great final confrontation is absolutely necessary...

Avenger Assembled · July 31, 2011

Toad Man

"Pants are an illusion. So's death."

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 40 pp

STR 40 [24] (+15/+7)

DEX 14 (+2)

CON 32 [24] (+11/+7)

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 14 (+2)

Combat: 28 pp

ATK: +7 (+5 w/Growth)

DEF: +7 (+5 w/Growth)

Init: +6

Grapple: +32

Saves: 10 pp

TOU +15 (+7 Con, +4 Growth, +4 Protection)

FORT +12 (+7 Con, +4 Growth, +1)

REF +5 (+2 Dex, +3)

WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6)

Skills: 48 r=12 pp

Diplomacy 4 (+6)

Intimidate 9 (+11/+15)

Languages 3 (Cajun French, Seminole, Spanish) (Base: English)

Notice 8 (+10)

Perform (banjo) 8 (+10)

Pilot 4 (+6)

Sense Motive 8 (+10)

Survival 4 (+6)

Feats: 11 pp

All-Out Attack

Challenge (Fast Startle)

Environmental Adaptation (Underwater)

Evasion

Fearless

Improved Initiative

Move-By Action

Power Attack

Startle

Takedown Attack

Uncanny Dodge (olfactory)

Powers: 52 pp

Additional Limb 1 'tongue' [1 pp]

Enhanced Feats 1 (Incurable Unarmed Damage) [1 pp]

Elongation 4 (50 ft) (Flaw: Tongue Only) [2 pp]

Growth 8 (Extra: Duration [Permanent] (+0) )(Huge size) (PF: Innate) [25 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 2 (disease, suffocation [half]) [2 pp]

Leaping 3 (x10) [3+1=4 pp]

AP: Swimming 3 (10 MPH)

Protection 4 [4 pp]

Speed 2 (25 MPH) [2 pp]

Super-Senses 2 (Acute Scent, Low-Light Vision) [2 pp]

Super-Strength 3 (Heavy Load: 96 tons) (PFs: Groundstrike, Super-Breath, Thunderclap) [9 pp]

Drawback: -3 pp

Normal ID (free action) [-3 pp]

costs

abilities 40 + combat 28 + saves 10 + skills 12/48 + feats 11 + powers 52 -drawback -3 = 150 pts

--------------------

Design Notes:

Here's a build for Toad Man, aka Buford Calhoun, another one of the more appealing characters to recently debut in the Wild Cards universe. Buford is a native of Loxahatchee, Florida from deep in the heart of the Everglades. He's a big, amiable guy who looks straight out of central casting for a likeable hick from the middle of nowhere. He lives with his uncle Rayford in the middle of the swamp and makes his money taking tourists out on his uncle's old swamp boat. He'd probably have spent his whole life there, maybe one day marrying a local gal and having a big passel of kids, if it wasn't for his power to turn himself into a giant toad! He's a car-sized version of the giant cane toad, but bulking as big as a car, he's the biggest giant toad there ever was in the swamp yessir. He's a good leaper, a good swimmer, and he's got poison glands just like a real cane toad! He's also got a massive tongue that he can whip out a tremendous distance. As a guy who just might be the native superhero of rural Florida, he's quite a surprise to throw at supervillains who may not be expecting a monstrous powerhouse in the middle of the swamp!

He makes a perfect fine PC. I've downplayed his abilities a bit under the theory that in a superheroic setting, poisoning someone trying to chew on you is probably not going to come up that much. Despite his amphibious nature and talents underwater, Buford's just fine on land and suffers no drawback for being on the surface: cane toads are great at getting around on land and don't need much water at all. He's really, really strong and amazingly fast for his bulk: he can catch a fleeing car by bounding, ensnare it with his tongue, and chew on it till the bad guys jump out to surrender! He's got no Impervious, but with TOU +15 and Ultimate Tou he should be able to shrug off hunters bullets with no problem. He's not as comfortable underwater as, say, an Atlantean or native denizen of the ocean; after all he is an amphibian, but he's still going to be much more successful operating underwater than any regular surface dweller. He doesn't have a lot of skill outside his own abilities, though, so if you need a guy to call the heroes in for advice on the crashed alien spaceship, supervillain lair, or rampaging swamp yeti he's a good NPC contact.

He's a nice antidote to the stereotype of all hicks being crazy inbred freaks; Buford's an amiable guy who everybody likes, and he's just too easy-going to make enemies of his fellow heroes. He'd make a fun toad out of water PC in a Hero High game, a kid from the backwoods operating with his big thumping powers in the big city; if you do that, make sure to give the other characters a chance to be in his shoes on a couple of adventures into the middle of the swamp where suddenly Buford is unto a god! In a superheroic setting, you can get more creative with Buford's origins: while he's a Wild Card carrier in his own setting, things may be more complex in Freedom City. One suggested origin for him is that he's the long-long heir to the throne of the Frog Prince, spirited away from his enemies and raised in the mortal world where no one would ever think to look for him.

Avenger Assembled · August 12, 2011

Squirrel Hero

"I don't need luck. I eat nuts." -Squirrel Girl

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 30 pp

STR 20 (+5)

DEX 20 (+5)

CON 20 (+5)

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 12 (+1)

Combat: 32 pp

ATK: +8 (+15 melee)

DEF: +15 (+4 flat-footed)

Init: +5

Grapple: +21

Saves: 9 pp

TOU +5 (+5 Con)

FORT +7 (+5 Con, +2)

REF +7 (+5 Dex, +2)

WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5)

Skills: 40 r=10 pp

Acrobatics 5 (+10)

Bluff 4 (+5)

Climb 5 (+10)

Notice 8 (+10)

Pilot 2 (+7)

Sense Motive 8 (+10)

Stealth 5 (+10)

Survival 3 (+5)

Feats: 21 pp

Acrobatic Bluff,

Attack Focus: Melee 7,

Dodge Focus 7,

Eidetic Memory,

Evasion,

Move-By Action,

Power Attack,

Takedown Attack,

Uncanny Dodge (mental)

Powers: 48 pp

Additional Limb 1 â€˜fluffy tailâ€™ [2 pp]

Comprehend 2 (speak to and understand animals) (Flaw: Squirrels Only) [1 pp]

Leaping 1 (x2) [1 pp]

Luck Control 2 (spend HP to negate HP/Fiat, force reroll) (PFs: Luck 5, Subtle) [12 pp]

Nemesis 3 (PF: Subtle) [25 pp]

Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp]

Super-Senses 2 (Acute Scent, Low-Light Vision) [2 pp]

Super-Movement 2 (Wall-Crawling 2) [4 pp]

costs

abilities 30 + combat 32 + saves 9 + skills 10/40 + feats 21 + powers 48 = 150 pts

---------------------------------------------

Design Notes:

Here's a more straightforward conversation of Marvel's Squirrel Girl than my previous attempt, concentrating on the idea that she's a powerful totem character who has her ways of being almost unbeatable in combat. She doesn't look that prepossessing: she's been around enough to have decent skills and is nice to talk to, and has the sort of powers you'd expect a squirrel totem to have. (Her ability to chew through wood is a function of power attacking with her STR 20). Her real ace in the hole is her Luck Control and Nemesis, subtle powers that someone looking at her isn't easily going to notice. Her Nemesis is straightforward enough, giving her 15 PP to assign towards any effect that'll target the weaknesses of her opponent. (Nemesis technically means more work for the GM, but it might be worth letting that slide in this setting) With her Luck Control, she can cancel an opponent's expenditure of HP, GM Fiat, or forcing an opponent to reroll and take the worst of two rolls.

Between these two abilities and her innate abilities as a fast, squirrel-themed wrecker, she should be able to hit way out of her weight in any combat situation. She's not omnipotent (the comic book version is probably PL X), but she's got a pretty good chance of taking out some surprisingly powerful characters. She's best versus the ones who have a hilariously debilitating weakness, which she just so happens to have on hand in the form of squirrels! If you go with the idea that she's the local heroine of a remote area, she helps explain why supervillains are so reluctant to go to Wisconsin or whatever region she's from. If you assume she was born in the early 90s, she's just the right age to be a college-age superheroine at the moment of her debut. You could make her a legacy, too, if you want to say her mom or dad were that weird-but-powerful squirrel totem of the last generation.

She's formidable, as well she should be. She's not totally without weaknesses, though; she's squishy if you do get a hit in, and she's not possessed of great exotic saves. (With her abilities, though, she could avoid a lot of attacks before they ever got to her) Avoid irritatingly breaking the 4th wall with her. She could use some more Bluff and Taunt, depending on what aspects of her you want to play up. I went with a character who plausibly could go live in the woods with the squirrels for a while, as well as fly a squirrel-copter or climb a tree fast if the situation called for it. Remember to stay cheerful!

Avenger Assembled · August 19, 2011

Kid Cthulu

"Ia! Fthagn fthagn!"

Abilities: 22 pp

STR 10 (+0)

DEX 10 (+0)

CON 24 (+7)

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 14 (+2)

Combat: 16 pp

ATK: +4 (+5 Ranged)

DEF: +5 (+2 flat-footed)

Init: +0

Grapple: +4/+20

Saves: 13 pp

TOU +15 (+7 Con, +8 Protection)

FORT +7 (+7 Con)

REF +5 (+0 Ref, +5)

WILL +10 (+2 Wis, +8)

Skills: 13 pp=52 r

Concentration 8 (+10)

Intimidate 13 (+15)

Knowledge: Arcane Lore 15 (+15)

Notice 8 (+10)

Sense Motive 8 (+10)

Feats: 11 pp

All-Out Attack

Attack Focus: Ranged

Dodge Focus

Environmental Adaptation (Underwater)

Fearless

Luck

Move-By Action

Power Attack

Ritualist

Startle

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 77 pp

Eldritch Power Array 17.5 (35 points; PFs: Alternate Power x5) [35+5=40 pp]

BE

Blast 15

PFs

AP

Damage 10

Extras

PFs

AP

ESP 10

PFs

AP

Mind Control 10

Extra:

PFs

AP

Move Object 15

PFs

AP

Teleport 10

Extra:

PFs

Flight 2 (25 MPH; PF: Subtle) [5 pp]

Immunity 8 (aging, cold, disease, poison, pressure, starvation and thirst, suffocation) [8 pp]

Insubstantial 2 (gaseous form; PF: Subtle) [11 pp]

Protection 8 [8 pp]

Regeneration 1 (Resurrection 1/week; PFs: Persistent, Regrowth) [3 pp]

Super-Senses 2 (Darkvision) [2 pp]

costs

abilities 22+ combat 16 + saves 13 + skills 13/52 + feats 9 + powers 77 = 150 pts

---

Design Notes:

I did a hero powered by Lovecraftian mythos earlier, but that character was more like a pumped-up human sorcerer or cultist. This is a straightforward pocket avatar of Cthulu (or the Unspeakable One, as heâ€™s referred to in Freedom City). Heâ€™s an extremely powerful character with many mighty abilities, able to shrug off most forms of mundane attacks thanks to his Insubstantial (perhaps exploding into a cloud of stinking green gas when hit especially hard) and his high base Toughness (thanks to a scaly green hide?). Heâ€™s capable of dishing out devastating punishment on his own: Iâ€™ve built him with the idea that he can hurl flaming blasts of star-vampire fire, summon grasping, reaching tentacles from beyond to grapple his enemies, and generally command the sorts of dread arcane power that your average cthonic monster should able to dish out. He easily could live in a sunken city underground thanks to his immunities and environmental adaptation, and watch the whole world from his lair before going out to battle his foes. (ESP and Teleport arenâ€™t that problematic in an array; by the time he strides from one corner of reality to another, who knows whatâ€™s changed on the way?)

Heâ€™s got Ritualist and a decent Arcane Lore score so he can come up with some magical effects on the fly and be familiar with magic artifacts, but for the most part heâ€™s more likely to stunt off his massive magic array if he needs a new trick on the fly. He doesnâ€™t have higher Arcane Lore or Magic-based Super-Senses because heâ€™s not familiar with other magics; other magics are familiar with _him!) While seemingly weak with his low STR, his Move Object and Blast let him toss people around with the power of an elder god. He doesnâ€™t fly that fast, those stubby little wings never looked terribly fast to me. Heâ€™s a lot scarier than most of your mortal mystics, specializing in terrifying his enemies into submission before laying them out with powerful blasts. His biggest weakness is that he canâ€™t really do much other than being a powerful avatar of eldritch magic; of course, thatâ€™s not much of a weakness when you get right down to it. For a more modern change of pace, make his abilities about terrible science and mathematics rather than â€˜simpleâ€™ eldritch sorcery.

Obviously this characterâ€™s true nature is going to be one hell of a Complication for him! Perhaps heâ€™s the scion of a family of Cthulu cultists, raised by someone else after the police and superheroes came for his parents, and only now is he beginning to understand his true destiny. (Iâ€™m working on a similar character for a Pathfinder game, so the archetype has been on my mind for a while now.) Make no mistake, what he represents is the dissolution of all reality into the maw of the Unspeakable One, but that doesnâ€™t make him evil anymore than being an infernalist makes you evil. It just means that heâ€™d better make sure to spend a lot of time fighting the sort of people who call him â€œmasterâ€. Or even better: â€œMy son.â€

Avenger Assembled · August 20, 2011

Nina al-Darsah

â€œIâ€™m a people person.â€ -Azula

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 22 pp

STR 14 (+2)

DEX 14 (+2)

CON 24 [14] (+7/+2)

INT 12 (+1)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 14 (+2)

Combat: 32 pp

ATK: +8 (+10 Blast/+15 Melee)

DEF: +13 (+4 flat-footed)

Init: +2

Grapple: +17

Saves: 10 pp

TOU +7 (+7 Con)

FORT +7 (+7 Con)

REF +7 (+2 Dex, +5)

WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5)

Skills: 56 r=14 pp

Acrobatics 12 (+14)

Bluff 10 (+12/+16)

Intimidate 8 (+10)

Knowledge (Civics) 4 (+5)

Languages 3 (Arabic, Dravidian, English) (Base: Soqotri)

Notice 8 (+10)

Sense Motive 8 (+10)

Swim 3 (+5)

Feats: 21 pp

Acrobatic Bluff

Attack Focus: Melee 7

Attractive

Benefit (Status)

Dodge Focus 5

Environmental Adaptation (Underwater)

Evasion

Move-By Action

Power Attack

Takedown Attack

Taunt

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 51 pp

Enhanced CON 10 [10 pp]

Flight 2 (25 MPH) (Extra: Affects Others; Flaw: Platform) [4 pp]

Immunity 3 (drowning, environmental cold, pressure) [3 pp]

Noahic Array 14 (28 points; PFs: alternate Power x4) [28+4=32 pp]

BE

Blast 10

PFs

AP

Corrosion 5

Extras

PFs

AP

Damage 5

Extras:

PFs

AP

Damage 10

Extra:

PFs

Super-Senses 2 (Darkvision) [2 pp]

costs

abilities 22 + combat 32 + saves 5 + skills 14/56 + feats 21 + powers 51 = 150 pts

--------

Design Notes:

Hereâ€™s Nina al-Darsah, the daughter of Typhoon, as a PL 10 starting character. The basic idea is that sheâ€™s your standard â€˜supervillainâ€™s beautiful daughterâ€™ type, with the caveat that sheâ€™s actually perfectly content with the kind of man her father is and the way he rules: all the world knows the wisdom and power of Typhoon! But sheâ€™s the youngest of the despotâ€™s children, and has time to grow and realize that there are better ways she can spend her life than as a hanger-on at her fatherâ€™s court, and systems of justice and honor that donâ€™t rely on brutality and despotism. Sheâ€™s in Freedom City for college at FCU, but as a jet-setting celebrity with superpowers she could turn up just about anywhere. She and her father are from Socotra, an island chain off the coast of Yemen that Iâ€™ve spun off into an independent nation thatâ€™s a mashup of Latveria and Madripoor.

I figure her Enhanced CON is a result of her inherited mutant physiology; sheâ€™s not bulletproof, but sheâ€™s still pretty darn tough and hard to hit in a fight. (Ideally, her class resentment should be played for laughs as she gradually, if reluctantly, warms up to the people all around her: sheâ€™s not a bad person, sheâ€™s just had a weird childhood.) Like her father, sheâ€™s a hydrokinetic. Unlike him, she doesnâ€™t do the â€œmassive tidal waveâ€ thing or the â€œgrabbing people with the oceanâ€ thing; instead sheâ€™s simply a straightforward combat monster: she can summon water out of nothing and use it to slice and cut at her enemies, she can rip the water out of people and stab them with it, and she can even do significant damage to objects by using water in the air to cut at them or just giving them the same dessication treatment. Sheâ€™s fast, acrobatic, and with her sharp tongue sheâ€™s got a lot of great ways to lay opponents out. She could potentially be a lethal threat if you use her as an NPC, but you could easily have her powers used in a non-lethal way. I figure she flies around on a column of water, one thatâ€™s big enough she can give her friends rides on as she stays mobile in combat. Sheâ€™s also quite effective underwater, enough that she easily could stage the visits to Atlantis that her father has in the past. (Though hopefully without the bloodshed)

For more subtle uses of her powers, consider a Limited Noticeable Mind Control that lets her move the limbs of her targets around by manipulating the blood within, or a more arctic variant that lets her fire shards of ice at people. Shed of the backstory, she makes a fine martial artist/elemental controller for you Avatar fans. While sheâ€™s a fast, fluid fighter with water, she could easily function as a controller of any other element: perhaps even fire to stick with her inspiration, Azula. Sheâ€™s very vulnerable to her own powers if she is hit given that sheâ€™s just a human with peak toughness, but OTOH thatâ€™s not necessarily a bad thing. She should probably consider countering if sheâ€™s fighting another water controller, or maybe just using lots of the Total Defense manuever to avoid getting zapped. You could also give her Shield in place of Dodge Focus, but as it is she uses her powers for offense, not Defense.

Avenger Assembled · August 20, 2011

Mastermindâ€™s World

Mastermindâ€™s World is an eerie reflection of our own. Thereâ€™s a Freedom City and a Freedom League, thereâ€™s a United States and United Nations. The newbreed of the Freedom League keep baseline humanity safe from the threats of terrorists, aliens, and anyone else who would dare harm the man on the street. Itâ€™s only on closer inspection that the utopia begins to drop; the haunted look on the faces of some, the carefully organized, heavily armed ranks of the Freedom League, and finally (if the visitor is lucky enough to avoid detection) a visit to the work camps and scientific laboratories of the interior will show the visitor to Mastermindâ€™s World the grim horror behind the utopia. This is Mastermindâ€™s dream and world, a metahuman dictatorship where superpowers grant rule and favor while the baselines on the street can hope for nothing better than status as favored slaves. In some ways, itâ€™s even worse than the Anti-Earth it superficially resembles: the Crime Syndicate and their allies know themselves full well for the brutal tyrants they are. The Freedom League of Mastermindâ€™s World believe themselves beneficient protectors of a humanity that has proven itself unable to govern itself. After all, they have the evidence of history!

In 1945, The Centurionâ€™s death during the nuclear-backed invasion of Japan via â€˜friendly fireâ€™ soured many superheroes on the US government, particularly as the evidence grew that President Booth had secretly put the Man of Adamant in mortal danger over Tokyo in order to remove a political rival. Faced with an radicalized postwar electorate full of disaffected veterans, Boothâ€™s successor President Stillson used superhumans as a convenient whipping boy: after all, if superheroes were so great, why hadnâ€™t they stopped the war before it started, or at least made sure the hundreds of thousands of American dead in Normandy and Japan had had superheroic backup? With the arrest of much of the Liberty League in the early 1950s on suspicion of being Communist agents, relations grew even worse: unchecked supervillains were met with brutal retaliation by embattled police and military forces, sparking further cycles of violence, gradually convincing more and more of the general public that humans and superhumans could never hope to live together in peace. Those few supers who did try to act as protectors of the commonweal were hunted and hated, many meeting deaths at the hands of the people theyâ€™d sworn to protect.

Things finally came to a head in the 1960s with the emergence of the newbreed leader: Mastermind, the prime physical specimen, super-genius, and powerful telepath: promising a beneficient new world under newbreed rule, Mastermind attracted a wide host of followers; those who might have been heroes who wanted to protect the world, those who might have been villains who wanted to rule it, and even normal humans who wanted protection and the benefits of newbreed science that they couldnâ€™t get from an increasingly corrupt, authoritarian government. After Mastermind stopped an attempt by President Ryan in 1968 to launch nuclear weapons against Mastermindâ€™s compound in the California desert, public opinion turned against the civilian government. The War of Liberation was short and to the point, and when it was over Mastermind was the power behind the throne of the United States of America. The New Constitution with its new rights for superpowered individuals, its discriminatory laws that treated baselines rather like children had once been treated under the old system, and its all-powerful President, the Presidency became a model for the rest of the world thanks to some good old-fashioned gunboat diplomacy by Mastermind and his handpicked successors as leaders of the United States. The Communists were a tough nut to crack, but then the Chinese fell in 1989 and the Soviets in 1991, leaving only a last few small nations to gradually be empowered by Mastermindâ€™s regime. By 2011, only an isolated few tiny, irrelevant republics and monarchies in the Pacific retain rule by legally elected baseline authorities. (And even they exist so that the rich and powerful newbreed of America and Europe have a place to enjoy vices outside the reach of the authorities in First World nations)

Itâ€™s a world of aircars and space travel where every computer watches its user and reports on his doings, a world of cancer cures and designer drugs that helpfully remove wrong thinking from the minds of those who take them. Mastermind is in semi-retirement these days, allowing his â€˜nieceâ€™ and protege Empath Psion more and more power in hopes that she may replace him when and if he chooses to leave the Earth to spread the gospel of power elsewhere. His regime is a benevolent utopia with a grim face, a world where those who speak out against his rule are _changed_ by psychic powers and advanced surgery until they do so no longer, where those who continue to resist are (so sorrowfully) used as lab animals by an immortal being who hopes to use their genes to unlock the secret of the human potential: one day, all human beings will have superpowers and the galaxy will be theirs. No more will humanity be the pawns of alien outsiders. They will have the universe, at the cost of their souls.

And they will have Mastermind to thank for it. Only a select few now alive: Mastermind himself, Resistance leader Duncan Summers, and a very few more know the simple truth. Mastermind has been manipulating humanity since his awakening in the 1930s. The death of the Centurion, the incarceration of the Liberty League, the war between man and superman that ended in the latterâ€™s victory; all have been engineered (some regretfully) by Mastermind in order to make a world where superbeings rule and believe they have every right to do so, with even many of their baseline subjects believing the very same thing. They are courteous and friendly to any stranded super-travelers from other dimensions; after all, they don't want to attract any unpleasant attention. Worse, they truly believe they're in the right. The triumph of the immortal is almost complete...

Avenger Assembled · August 21, 2011

Celebrity Hero

The name with the claim to fame is...

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 40 pp

STR 30 [20] (+10/+5)

DEX 16 (+3)

CON 30 [20] (+10/+5)

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 20 (+5)

Combat: 24 pp

ATK: +6 (+10 Melee)

DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed)

Init: +3

Grapple: +21

Saves: 9 pp

TOU +10 (+10 Con)

FORT +10 (+10 Con)

REF +6 (+3 Dex, +3)

WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6)

Skills: 60 =15 pp

Bluff 10 (+15)

Diplomacy 10 (+15)

Drive 2 (+5)

Gather Info 5 (+10)

Intimidate 5 (+10)

Knowledge: Business 5 (+5)

Knowledge: Pop Culture 5 (+5)

Notice 8 (+10)

Pilot 2 (+5)

Sense Motive 8 (+10)

Feats: 20 pp

Attack Focus: Melee 4

Benefit 2 (Fame, Wealth 2 [realistically rich])

Challenge (Fast Taunt)

Distract (Bluff)

Dodge Focus 4

Luck

Move-By Action

Power Attack

Takedown Attack

Taunt

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Well-Informed

Powers: 42 pp

Enhanced CON 10 [10 pp]

Enhanced STR 10 [10 pp]

Flight 5 (250 MPH) [Dynamic] [10+1+2=13 pp]

DAP: Super-Strength 5 (Heavy Load: 24 tons)

Immunity 4 (disease, poison, suffocation) [4 pp]

Impervious TOU 10 (Flaw: Limited [Physical Damage Only] [5 pp]

costs

abilities 40 + combat 24 + saves 9 + skills 15/60 + feats 18 + powers 42 = 150 pts

--------------

Design Notes:

Here's my build for a Celebrity Hero, a fame-hungry sellout who has used his superpowers to become rich and famous as well as act like a superhero. He's got his name on billboards advertising all sorts of themed merchandise, and probably has an annoying website with lots of Flash movies that autoplay when you click on them and spyware that makes sure you're buying his brand of product by steering you in the right direction. He's got a smile as bright as gold and a bankroll to match, making him as dangerous an opponent in social combat as he is in hand-to-hand. I made him a paragon because the handsome flying brick type often finds himself cast this way in slightly more cynical adaptations of the superhero story; though he's not as tough or durable as his mightier paragon cousins, his social acumen makes him equally as useful to have on your team (as long as he's not engaged in trying to steal the spotlight from everybody!)

I know, he sounds like a villain, and this archetype certainly makes an effective antagonist, stealing the spotlight from your hard-working PCs and perhaps even hiring supervillains to stage fights with him to increase his personal glory. Selling out is not something that really respectable heroes do in the world of Freedom. However, I think you could make a decent case for playing this guy as a hero: maybe he was a little naive and sold his name to greedy businessmen before he hit the big time, and he doesn't really get why he makes other heroes uneasy. Another possibility is that maybe he has no choice: maybe in his secret ID he's a disgraced college dropout who can't find a decent job any other way, or maybe he's something more outlandish and is a time traveler with no legal identity and he has to sell his image to make enough money to eat!

He might be an international hero too, perhaps from a country where they're more relaxed about merchandising. Note that he doesn't have the usual charismatic paragon feats like Inspire or Leadership. I figure those will come later in his career when he starts working more for others rather than himself; in other words, as he learns more about how to be the man he's always imagined himself to be. As it is he's more focused on the witty quips and combat tricks, which is certainly a respectable enough niche to fill. You can save points by moving his powers into a battlesuit, giving him more room for powers or maybe more feats and skills: you could give him various Overruns to make him more of a football player type, or maybe work up to a Blast APed off his Enhanced Strength to give him even more options in combat. Or Temporal Inertia and an equipment Time Machine!

Avenger Assembled · August 21, 2011

Gorilla God

"Twas beauty killed the beast."

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 40 pp

STR 40 [24] (+15/+7)

DEX 14 (+2)

CON 32 [24] (+11/+7)

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 14 (+2)

Combat: 28 pp

ATK: +7 (+5 w/Growth)

DEF: +7 (+5 w/Growth)

Init: +6

Grapple: +34

Saves: 10 pp

TOU +15 (+7 Con, +4 Growth, +4 Protection)

FORT +12 (+7 Con, +4 Growth, +1)

REF +5 (+2 Dex, +3)

WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6)

Skills: 48 r=12 pp

Climb 8 (+15)*

Intimidate 9 (+11/+15)*

Languages 2 (French, Swahili) (Base: English)

Notice 13 (+15)*

Sense Motive 8 (+10)

Stealth (-6)

Survival 8 (+10)*

Feats: 11 pp

All-Out Attack

Challenge 2 (Accelerated Climb, Fast Startle)

Fearless

Improved Initiative

Move-By Action

Power Attack

Skill Mastery (Climb, Intimidate, Notice, Survival)

Startle

Takedown Attack

Uncanny Dodge (olfactory)

Powers: 52 pp

Additional Limbs 2 (PF: Innate) â€˜prehensile feetâ€™ [3 pp]

Growth 8 (Extra: Duration [Permanent] (+0) )(Huge size) (PF: Innate) [25 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)

Leaping 1 (x2) [1 pp]

Protection 4 â€˜tough hideâ€™ [4 pp]

Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp]

Super-Movement 2 (Swinging, Wall-Crawling) [4 pp]

Super-Senses 5 (Accurate Acute Tracking Scent, Low-Light Vision) [5 pp]

Super-Strength 4 (Heavy Load: 180 tons) (PF: Super-Breath [mighty roar]) [9 pp]

Drawbacks: -3 pp

Normal ID (free action; gorilla roar) [3 pp]

costs

abilities 40 + combat 28 + saves 10 + skills 12/48 + feats 11 + powers 52 -drawbacks 3= 150 pts

--------------

Design Notes:

Forget your psychic apes and gorilla mad scientists, here's a full-fledged giant ape as a PL 10 superhero: a mighty gorilla mountain who stands nearly fifteen foot tall at the shoulder! She's a very powerful powerhouse thanks to her tremendous strength, size, and prehensile feet, able to convincingly wrestle just about anyone at her PL. She's also a good tracker and very scary when she wants to be, as befits a gigantic gorilla. Since giant gorillas don't exist in nature (that we know about! ) I went with the idea that she has a normal human ID (which she's pictured next to here) that she transforms into and out of by roaring like a gorilla. She's very focused on natural skills as a gorilla, so presumably her human half is more focused on people things: feel free to adventure in your normal ID if necessary, but remember that it's a drawback, not the Metamorph PF. She should always be at a disadvantage when she's powered up, even if she's competent enough (perhaps as a badass naturalist/wildlife photographer) in her regular body.

Maybe she's the avatar of an ancient and forgotten gorilla god, a champion of a faith older than the age when men learned to walk erect. You could make her the champion of a human gorilla god too, but then you get into some thorny questions about white people appropriating the cultural identity of indigenous folks. Just make sure you write her well and respectfully wherever you go with it. She makes an interesting variation on giant characters, since even most of them will probably have some issues with going hand-to-hand with a giant gorilla. She's not as bulletproof as your typical powerhouse, but then it makes sense that really high-powered rifles applied with sufficient skill and daring could bring down a giant super-gorilla: it very much fits the genre. As tough and fast as she is, she should have no problem sweeping away hordes of gun-using mooks anyway: with her high Notice, she's almost impossible to sneak up on by nearby gunmen anyway. (Though with her Stealth penalty, she's not sneaking up on anyone!)

Perhaps she's horrified by the beast inside her; perhaps she embraces the power and freedom of her mighty simian half. Note that she can't talk to gorillas; she's not really the same species they are and anyway...gorillas can't talk. They're animals. Hey whaddya gonna do. Perhaps she's the great-granddaughter of a famous 1930s actress kidnapped to Gorilla Island who has inherited some of the power her mother absorbed there or even a mutant human who grew up on that island. Switch descriptors (and power durations) around a little bit and maybe her natural state is her gorilla self and she's only recently learned how to transform herself into a human. Either way, culture clashes ahoy!

Avenger Assembled · August 21, 2011

Street Avenger

"The world will know me as Luke Cage"-Isiah Mustafa

Abilities: 40 pp

STR 30 [20] (+10/+5)

DEX 14 (+2)

CON 30 [20] (+10/+5)

INT 12 (+1)

WIS 16 (+3)

CHA 18 (+4)

Combat: 24 pp

ATK: +6 (+10 Melee)

DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed)

Init: +2

Grapple: +24

Saves: 8 pp

TOU +10 (+10 Con)

FORT +10 (+10 Con)

REF +6 (+2 Dex, +4)

WILL +7 (+3 Wis, +4)

Skills: 76 r=19 pp

Bluff 6 (+10)

Diplomacy 1 (+5)

Gather Info 6 (+10)

Intimidate 11 (+15)

Investigate 4 (+5)

Knowledge (Streetwise) 14 (+15)

Languages 2 (Chinese, Spanish) (Base: English)

Notice 12 (+15)

Sense Motive 12 (+15)

Stealth 8 (+10)

Feats: 17 pp

All-Out Attack

Attack Focus (Melee) 4

Benefit (PI License)

Dodge Focus 4

Luck

Move-By Action

Power Attack

Startle

Takedown Attack

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Well-Informed

Powers: 42 pp

Enhanced CON 10 [10 pp]

Enhanced STR 10 [10 pp]

Impervious TOU 10 [10 pp]

Leaping 2 (x5) [2+1=3 pp]

AP: Speed 2 (25 MPH)

Super-Strength 4 (Heavy Load: 12 tons) (PF: Countering Punch) [9 pp]

costs

abilities 40 + combat 24 + saves 8 + skills 19/76 + feats 17 + powers 42 = 150 pts

-------------------

Design Notes:

Here's a badass streetwise powerhouse like Marvel's Luke Cage. He's not that fast, he's not that strong, but he's the toughest man on the streets. While the Freedom League takes to the sky and battles rampaging gods and crazed monsters, he's down there on the streets of Lincoln (Freedom City's largest black community) defending the weak and fighting the scum of the Earth with nothing but bulletproof skin, super-strength, and an uncommon devotion to the man and woman on the street. He has a tremendous force of personality, just the thing you'd expect from a fearless defender of the streets, and is best at being scary indeed in combat. He's got a PI license and actually is an extremely competent detective, a man with an ear to the ground in his native district and with his ways of finding out the secrets of the people who he lives among. Maybe he's had some trouble with the law himself in his past, but now he's on the up and up and ready to make sure that no one in his home area ever makes the same mistakes he did.

He should have no trouble cleaving through the skells and drug dealers who are the scourge of his neighborhood. Against superhuman opponents, he's probably best off trying to get them flat-footed by fair means or foul before laying them out with an All-Out Power Attack. I've made him black, like most of his fellows in other comic book settings, but of course you could tweak him to be part of any minority group you want. That doesn't have to be race-based, either, maybe he's 'poor white trash' from a meth-addled trailer park on the edge of the city, fighting biker gangs for a community that most people in Freedom City hardly ever notice While most of your powerhouse builds focus on power (hence the name), this guy focuses more on very high skills and on his relationship with the community all around him. He's a good candidate for the Cult Hero benefit from the Silver Age book, representing someone looked down on by the larger world but much beloved by his own people.

Team him up with my Afro-Vulcan build above thread. He can basically shrug off any form of attack he's going to encounter when dealing with street-level opponents, but he'll sweat once those drug dealers and kingpins start hiring supervillains to bring him down. That also makes a great time to team up with other superheroes and start making broader connections! A good way to compromise on the secret identity thing is to have him active under a 'real name' that doesn't actually appear on his birth certificate. People expecting him to be dumb muscle are in for quite a surprise. If your group needs a detective but no one wants to be Batman, giving them Luke Cage isn't a bad alternative. Maybe he doesn't have the smarts of someone with a full education, but very few people indeed are as savvy as he is when it comes to his community and the people who live there.

Avenger Assembled · August 21, 2011

Lucky Typhoon

"Water can flow, or it can crash."-Bruce Lee

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 34 pp

STR 14 (+2)

DEX 18 (+4)

CON 16 (+3)

INT 16 (+3)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 16 (+3)

Combat: 24 pp

ATK: +6 (+12 Ranged)

DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed)

Init: +4

Grapple: +8/+20

Saves: 13 pp

TOU +8 (+3 Con, +5 Protection)

FORT +8 (+3 Con, +5)

REF +7 (+4 Dex, +3)

WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5)

Skills: 52 r=13 pp

Acrobatics 8 (+12)

Bluff 8 (+11/+15)

Diplomacy 8 (+11/+15)

Knowledge: Civics 7 (+10)

Language 2 (Arabic, Soqotri) (Base: English)

Notice 8 (+10)

Sense Motive 8 (+10)

Swim 3 (+5)

Feats: 14 pp

Acrobatic Bluff

Attack Focus: Ranged (6)

Attractive

Environmental Adaptation (Underwater)

Evasion

Move-By Action

Power Attack

Precise Shot

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 51 pp

Flight 1 (10 MPH) [2 pp]

Immunity 3 (drowning, environmental cold, pressure) [3 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]

Protection 5 [5 pp]

Shield 6 [6 pp]

Super-Senses 2 (Darkvision) [2 pp]

Water Control Array [16+1=17 pp]

Blast 8

AP: Move Object 8 (Heavy Load: 6 tons)

costs

abilities 34 + combat 24 + saves 13 + skills 13/52 + feats 14 + powers 51 = 150 pts

-------------------

Design Notes:

Because I am part of the problem, not part of the solution, here's my build for Edge and Nina's kid: Typhoon III. She's a powerful character who is both water controller, luck controller, and acrobat. She's very beautiful and very savvy, with the kind of intelligence you'd expect from someone who learned to wrap her father around her little finger from a very early age. She's not the incredibly lethal fighter that her mom is, but with her abilities in other areas she can still more than hold her own, staying mobile in a fight and disappearing underwater when sorely pressed by serious threats, using her own personal firehose to blast enemies or pin them down or toss them around under giant tentacles of water. Her abilities aren't tremendous, but when coupled with her Luck Control she can do damage all out of proportion to what they appear to be on the page.

As this plot is something of a spontaneous development, I'm leaving the character's origin open to speculation. Is she the product of a long-term relationship between Mark and Nina as he gradually won her over to the side of heroism, finally culminating in a match between the House of Lucas and the House of Typhoon? Or is she a latter-day Lian Harper (but with awesome superpowers obviously), the product of a fling between a superhero and a troubled young woman who ultimately settled decisively on the side of super-villainy? If the former, her family's dark past is certainly a Complication; if the latter, her mother's attempts to lure her back to Socotra to take her rightful place as ruler is another serious matter for her to deal with. (Either way, she'll have a lot of Complications to hand, perfect for a Luck Controller!)

If she's Muslim, as the al-Darsahs are at least culturally, she's got some good complications from her religion as well in the modern world. Water Control is a pretty broad ability; I went with the basics of blasting and moving things around with water. She's also got enough mobility to get by underwater, but she's actually better off flying outside the water given how much faster Flight 1 is than Swimming 1. As more points come into the character, feel free to boost that! One thing she could use is an area attack. Add more social skills if you want to play her up as a potential ruler, and more knowledges too. She works fine as an international hero stripped of all the fluff, perhaps a native heroine of the Arabian Sea or Indian Ocean with the power to bring water to the very desert!

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