Jump to content

AA's Oddballs


Recommended Posts

Vampire Sonic Controller

“Scream for me.”

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 12 pp

STR 20 (+5)

DEX 20 (+5)

CON - (-)

INT 12 (+1)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 12 (+1)

Combat: 32 pp

ATK: +8 (+10 Sonic Control, +15 Melee)

DEF: +14 (+4 flat-footed)

Init: +5

Grapple: +20

Saves: 7 pp

TOU +6 (+4 Protection, +2 Defensive Roll)

FORT - (-)

REF +7 (+5 Dex, +2)

WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5)

Skills: 52 r=13 pp

Acrobatics 10 (+15)

Bluff 10 (+11/+15)

Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 2 (+3)

Knowledge (Streetwise) 4 (+5)

Notice 8 (+10)

Sense Motive 8 (+10)

Stealth 10 (+15)

Feats: 9 pp

Acrobatic Bluff

Attack Focus: Melee,

Attractive,

Defensive Roll,

Dodge Focus,

Evasion,

Power Attack,

Takedown Attack,

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 87 pp

Device 2 (Costume; Hard to Lose) (PF: Restricted [Acrobatics +10]) [9 pp]

Feature 7 (Buys Off Sunlight Drawback) [7dp]

Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1dp]

Super-Movement 1 (Wall-Crawling) [2dp]

Drain Constitution 2 (Flaw: Requires Grapple) [1 pp]

Enhanced Feats 12 (Attack Focus [Melee] 6, Dodge Focus 6) [12 pp]

Immunity 30 (Fortitude Saves) [30 pp]

Regeneration 5 (Recovery Bonus +0, Resurrection 1/week) (Flaw: [source] Blood) [3 pp]

Protection 4 (Extra: Impervious, Flaw: Not Vs. Magic/Silver/Holy) [4 pp]

Sonic Control Array 10 (PFs: Accurate, Alternate Powers 2) [23 pp]

Blast 10

AP: Damage 10 (Extra: Area [Cone])

AP: Stun 10 (Extra: Ranged, Flaw: Action [Full])

Super-Senses 5 (Accurate Ultrasonic Hearing, Darkvision) [5 pp]

Drawbacks: -10 pp

Weakness (Repelled By Crossed; dazed by Charisma checks from holy symbols) [-3 pp]

Weakness (Sunlight; destroyed after 1 minute) [-7 pp]

costs

abilities 12 + combat 32 + saves 7 + skills 13/52 + feats 9+ powers 87 + drawbacks 10= 150 pts

Design Notes:

So there you were, living on your own away from other superheroes for the first time, with just your boyfriend for company. Things were grim and gritty, sure, but it seemed like you could do anything: he with his incredible combat skills and you with your powerful sonic scream. Until the gangsters you were fighting caught you by surprise one day at home, pinning you down and gagging you, delivering you into the hands of a torturer they’d hired at great expense, a specialist from Eastern Europe. He forced himself on you, doing more, and less, than you’d expected, and then he took the gag off afterwards. You weren’t breathing anymore, what was the point? When you screamed, and his body exploded to ash, he looked so very.._surprised_. What did he think, that you were just going to be there, half-naked and covered in your own blood, when your boyfriend kicked down the door to rescue you? For pity’s sake, you’re a superhero! Something you have to remind yourself of now every night that you hear blood swishing in the veins of helpless citizens, every time your screams leave a criminal bloody and helpless at your feet. You’re not just a canary anymore; you’re a bird of prey.

All right, here’s a streetwise sonic controlling vampire in the vein of DC’s Black Canary. (Those of you familiar with Mike Grell’s run on Green Arrow will recognize the awful story I’ve tweaked a bit to explain the character’s creation) In a Freedom City setting, she’s probably a Claremont graduate, a Golden Age legacy brutally attacked some years after moving out of town. I figure she’s moved back to Freedom City to get some help for her supernatural condition, subliminating her predatory drives into heroism, taking a serum to suppress her hunger for blood. She's got a costume as a hard to lose device that keeps sunlight off her skin and buys off the drawback. (Perhaps one that gives her more bluff-related feats, its implausible cut distracting onlookers (especially male ones) from noticing just how much the costume actually covers.)

Her old boyfriend, assuming he didn’t accept her transformation, is a good potential nemesis, especially since he’s carrying around all those pointy sticks! (Look, I’m not a Green Arrow/Black Canary shipper) She’s a PL 10 hand to hand fighter and great at bluffing and tricking, as befits a beautiful femme fatale vampire, but she’s likely to fall back on her blasts in combat, where she can either seriously hurt individual major threats or just shout her way through a room of thugs if necessary. She can’t be gagged to stop her powers anymore, after all, she doesn’t need to inhale to talk! Mix up her powers as necessary; this could be a vampire with a built-in fireworks display if you prefer, perhaps in the vein (ha-ha) of my Vampire Sidekick build upthread.

Link to comment
  • Replies 475
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

  • Avenger Assembled

    476

Gun-Toting Mutant Vampire From The Future

“Time is on my side.”

PL 10 (150)

Abilities: 22 pp

STR 26 (+8)

DEX 18 (+4)

CON n/a

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 14 (+2)

Combat: 24 pp

ATK: +6 (+12 Blaster/Unarmed)

DEF: +12 (+6 Dodge, +3 flat-footed)

Init: +4

Grapple: +14

Saves: 8 pp

TOU +8 (+8 Protection)

FORT n/a

REF +7 (+4 Dex, +3)

WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5)

Skills: 13 pp=52 r

Bluff 6 (+8/+12)

Diplomacy 6 (+8/+12)

Intimidate 10 (+12)

Knowledge: Arcane Lore 5 (+5)

Knowledge: History 5 (+5)

Languages 1 (Romanian) (Base: English)

Notice 3 (+5)

Sense Motive 3 (+5)

Stealth 11 (+15)

Feats: 17 pp

Attack Specialization: Blaster 3

Attack Specialization: Unarmed 3

Attractive

Dodge Focus (6)

Evasion

Power Attack

Takedown Attack

Uncanny Dodge: Auditory

Powers: 72 pp

Device 4 (Blaster) (Easy to Lose) [12 pp]

-Blast 8 (PFs: Precise 2, Variable Descriptor 2 [any energy]) [20dp]

Feature 1 (Temporal Inertia) [1 pp]

Flight 1 (10 MPH) (PF: Subtle) [3 pp]

Immunity 30 (Fortitude Saves) [30 pp]

Impervious TOU 8 (Flaw: Not vs. Wood/Silver/Fire) [4 pp]

Mind Reading 10 (Flaw: Duration [instant/Lasting]) [5 pp]

Protection 8 [8 pp]

Regeneration 6 (Recovery Bonus +0, Resurrection 1/week) (Flaw: Source [blood]) [3 pp]

Super-Senses 6 (Darkvision, Precognition [Flaw: Unreliable]) [4 pp]

Drawbacks: -6 pp

Vulnerability (vs. fire) (common, moderate) (-3 pp)

Vulnerability (vs. silver) (uncommon, major) (-3 pp)

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

Design Notes:

The vampire plague started small, with a single patient transformed into an undead mockery of life by viral infection, but spread like wildfire: within a few years of its initial appearance, human and metahuman alike had fallen beneath the talons and fangs of the new age. Many went mad from the change and became no better than wild beasts, but others of the newly-dead retained their humanity and realized the danger they were all in: vampire civilization was a corpse bleeding the planet dry, and very soon there would be no human race left, living or dead. Though a blood serum was eventually made, it came much too late and was only a stopgap measure as the last sentient scientists on Earth formed a final, desperate plan as blood ran in the streets all around them. With the clock to human extinction ticking down, you were selected among a group of volunteers, armed with an experimental weapon, and sent back using one of the world’s last time machines (most of the rest having been destroyed to keep the vampires from spreading their taint) to destroy the underground laboratory where the infection had begun. You expected to die in the process; you’d seen enough horrors as the vampire plague spread (and lived long enough with the Hunger) that you had no problem with that. But much to your surprise, you lived! In fact, there was no evidence of the synthetic vampire plague here at all, just research into vampirism that had reached a dead end. But the night was saved, and you weren’t destroyed by the process of saving our future from the plague that killed yours. You’ve even started acting as a hero now, the serum easily manufactured in contemporary labs, and you rest easy most nights. But one thing still bothers you. After all, the fact that you still exist, and that your memories of this era still hold true, suggests maybe you didn’t change as much about the future as you thought. No one knew for sure where the first plague-vampire came from, anyway. They just know it started with a single infected superhero.

For double-Iron Age action, here’s a telepathic vampire with a big gun from the future. Woo! He’s an okay shot with his big gun, though less handy with our old-fashioned clunky firearms. He can’t do the big magic tricks of supernatural vampires, but he’s a more realistic (well, sort of) take on vampire powers. That’s why he’s not particularly vulnerable to holy items or magic; while his undead body can be pierced by wood or burned by fire, or poisoned by silver, he has no particular issues with the Almighty. He’s got no Drain Con; he shouldn’t be running around biting people and risking the spread of his infection! (But ever the urge is there, the hunger that only the serum can stave off!) His Precognition is something of a plot device, but his Mind Reading is a solid ace in the hole power that gives him an advantage in investigation and reconnaissance. Feel free to stunt a low-level ESP or some other power off it as necessary, or to sink in power points to make him an effective telepath.

For a more realistic yet (again, loosely) take on vampirism, make him more like my Living Vampire build upthread. He’s not really any kind of a leader, but that’s something you could pick up with XP, buying up his Charisma and adding feats like Leadership and Master Plan. You could give him a team of hard-nosed young heroes as his allies if you did that! Note that while this is, well, a pretty Iron Age concept, it’s salvageable here: we’ve had characters with post-apocalyptic backgrounds before and we’ve had vampires before, it’s just a matter of how you finesse it. You don’t need to take this as a grim and gritty time traveler determined to save the world whatever the consequences. If you take this as a man delivered from a world of darkness to a bright and shining world of heroes, a world he is sworn to protect to make sure no dire fate ever befalls them, you get a much better idea of how to play him!

Link to comment

Famine

“A feast! I made a rhyme! How delightful.” -Vandal Savage

Abilities: 22 pp

STR 10 (+0)

DEX 10 (+0)

CON 24 (+7)

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 14 (+2)

Combat: 14 pp

ATK: +3 (+5 Swarm)

DEF: +5 (+2 flat-footed)

Init: +4

Grapple: +3/+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 13 (+15)

Intimidate 12 (+14)

Knowledge (Theology and Philosophy) 10 (+10)

Language 1 (Swahili) (Base: English)

Medicine 8 (+10)

Notice 3 (+5)

Sense Motive 3 (+5)

Feats: 11 pp

All-Out Attack

Dodge Focus

Fearless

Improved Initiative

Luck

Move-By Action

Power Attack

Precise Shot

Startle

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 79 pp

Flight 1 (10 MPH) [2 pp]

Immunity 10 (aging, anything consumed, critical hits, disease, poison) [10 pp]

Insubstantial 2 (swarm form) [10 pp]

Obscure 1 (5 feet) (all senses) (Extra: Selective; Flaw: Range [Touch]) [4 pp] 'swarm'

Protection 8 [8 pp]

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

Super-Senses 7 (Acute Scent, Darkvision, Radius Sight, Tremorsense) [7 pp]

Swarm Array [32+3=35 pp]

Damage 10 (Extras: Area [shapeable], Selective; PFs: Progression on Area 2) ‘famine’

AP: Damage 15 (Extra: Ranged; PFs: Accurate, Precise) ‘swarmblast’

AP: ESP 6 (20 miles) (all senses) (Extra: Simultaneous; PFs: Rapid (x10), Subtle) ‘ten billion eyes’

AP: Move Object 15 (Heavy Load: 180 tons) (Extra: Affects Corporeal; Flaw: Feedback; PFs: Accurate, Precise) ‘swarmgrapple’

costs

abilities 22+ combat 14 + saves 13 + skills 13/52 + feats 9 + powers 79= 150 pts

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

Design Notes:

Here’s Famine, the rider on the black horse, as a PL 10 starting character. My idea is that he’s a living swarm of mystic locusts (note that actual locusts are no more dangerous to people than any other grasshoppers, i.e., the only real risk is getting buried under or blinded by them) with the abilities you’d expect: he can scour an area of living and unliving matter or target his swarm to lift heavy objects (requiring enough focus that he can be attacked through them) or simply rip them apart with a billion tiny pincers. He’s also partially obscured by the billions of insects surrounding him, making it tougher to target him with attacks, and can send out smaller swarms to scout the surrounding area. Since so much of him is made up of bugs, and he always has a few around him, he’s very difficult to sneak up on. He’s got no Impervious, but with Insubstantial 2 he can take just about any one-on-one physical punishment that can be dished out on him. His only real weakness is area attacks (which destroy millions of insects at once) as well as energy attacks that do the same thing; that said, with his massive toughness he’s going to take a lot of those okay. He can eat _anything_, and is fully capable of devouring a nuclear bomb, payload and all, or chemical waste and any other poison heroes might try throwing at him to try and slow him down. (Though a nuke will hurt him as much as it wold any other character). He can’t be permanently killed, however, since my assumption is that at least one locust always escapes to reconstitute the swarm.

Locusts are an embodiment of famine across many cultures, that swarm from the skies having spelled doom for millions over the centuries. I’ve gone with the idea that this fellow was once a missionary doctor working in Africa before being forcibly transformed into an embodiment of everything he’d spent his life fighting. (Ah, angst!) The most famous Horsemen of the Apocalypse in superhero comics are those mutants kidnapped and altered by Apocalypse in the Marvel universe; Angel the most famous in the core universe, Wolverine from some terrible What Ifs, and Thunderbird from the excellent Exiles. In Freedom City, things are different; Mastermind, the local Apocalypse expy, doesn’t use a lot of religious imagery in his work. So how do you explain this guy? Well, maybe he was caught by some local warlords (or multinational mercenaries) while investigating the source of illegal dumping and was fed to some radioactive locusts, only to have his mind dominate theirs and embody the swarm itself: or maybe he was a victim of a foolish deal with Mr. Infamy. “Sign on the dotted line, and superheroes will be able to fight famine directly. Don’t worry, you’ll get power out of the deal too!” In any event, he had the self-will to not be a monster and instead to use his new powers for good!

It’s up to you whether or not he’s always a swarm of insects; if he’s scientifically based, it probably makes more sense to have him like Marvel’s Swarm and forever be a man of bugs; if he’s mystically based, it makes more sense to have him able to turn off the all-devouring insects all around him. (Yes, I know, it’s a little weird to get into what’s believable when you’re talking about a guy made of locusts, but bear with me.) Note that he is quite deliberately not immune to starvation; he’s got to eat something. He’s pretty slow in the air, since locusts aren’t terribly fast fliers. His immunity is a reskinned version of Matter Eater. I would rule that he does need the Feedback flaw on that Move Object to afford it as written, since he needs Affects Corporeal to have any effective STR with Insubstantial 2. If you’re interested in building a team of four, my Death and Doc’s Pestilence will serve you pretty well. As for War, well, watch this space in the future!

Link to comment

Demon with a Power Ring

"For Satan always finds some mischief still for idle hands to do."-Isacc Watts

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 48 pp

STR 26 (+8)

DEX 14 (+2)

CON 26 (+8)

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 28/18 (+9/+4)

Combat: 20 pp

ATK: +4 (+6 melee/+8 Hellfire)

DEF: +6 (+3 flat-footed)

Grapple: +14

Init: +2

Saves: 6 pp

TOU +14 (+8 Con, +6 Protection)

FORT +8 (+8 Con)

REF +5 (+2 Dex, +3)

WILL +10 (+2 Wis, +3, +5)

Skills: 44 r=11 pp

Bluff 11 (+15/+20)

Diplomacy 6 (+10/+15)

Gather Info 6 (+10/+15)

Intimidate 11 (+15/+20)

Knowledge: Theology and Philosophy 4 (+4)

Notice 3 (+5)

Sense Motive 3 (+5)

Feats: 7 pp

All-Out Attack,

Attack Focus: Melee 2,

Fearless,

Power Attack,

Startle,

Takedown Attack,

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 60 pp

Device 11 (Lucifer’s Ring) (Hard to Lose) (PF: Restricted [demons]) [45 pp]

Enhanced Charisma 10 (to Charisma 28 (+9) [10dp]

Enhanced Feat 1 (Subtle on Flight) [1dp]

Enhanced Will Save 5 (to +10) [5dp]

Hellfire Control Array [26+4=30 dp]

Blast 12 (PFs: Accurate 2)

AP: Create Object 7 (Extra: Duration [Continuous; PFs: Innate, Precise, Progression 2, Selective)

AP: Damage 12 (Extra: Targeted Area [Cone]; PFs: Accurate 2)

AP: Strike 6 (Extras: Autofire [6], Penetrating [6]; PFs: Extended Reach, Improved Crit 2, Improved Trip, Incurable, Mighty, Precise, Variable Descriptor 1 [bludgeoning/piercing/slashing])

AP: Teleport 8 (800 ft/2000 miles) (Extra: Accurate; PF: Easy, Turnabout)

Impervious TOU 4 (Drawback: Not Vs. Holy) [3dp]

Protection 6 [6dp]

Flight 3 (50 MPH) [6 pp]

Immunity 2 (Aging, Environmental Heat) [2 pp]

Impervious TOU 6 (Flaw: Not Vs. Magic/Silver/Holy) [3 pp]

Super-Senses 4 (Darkvision, Divine Awareness [olfactory], Infernal Awareness [olfactory]) [4 pp]

Drawbacks: -3 pp

Vulnerable (vs. holy) (uncommon, major) [-3 pp]

costs

abilities 48 + combat 20 + saves 6 + skills 11/44 + feats 7 + powers 60 -drawbacks 3= 150 pts

--------

Design Notes:

Hell, as a wise theologian said, is not a party place. Even for the demons, it’s a brutal hiearchy where all are pitted against all for the pleasure of Lucifer and his inner circle. (No wonder they take their frustrations out on the souls so often!) Blackwing was one of the lowest and weakest in Lucifer’s army, an assistant to a minor demon who spent most of his time toadying to those more powerful than he was. Being that close to the hiearchy gave him a pretty good education in the grim realities of Hell, that the grand war against Heaven was just a spoiled child’s war against his father, that the grand purging of the sinners was simply wretched beings punishing those even more wretched than themselves. So when he had the chance, Blackwing made his escape, snatching up a few trinkets from his master’s chest and fleeing through a mystic passage to the world above. He used up most of his stolen power giving himself a humanoid body, with only his black wings in flight a giveaway, and spent some time fleecing mortals for fun and profit, amassing a small fortune from tiny sins: thanks to the ring of infernal power he carried, he could fool mortals, hurl fireballs to escape, or simply step through hellfire and come out across the continent.

But he found a life of earthly sin held no pleasures for him, he was still a petty demon on a larger stage, and there were so many more terrible things up here: human beings with souls as black as any demon in the lowest pits of Hell. After an eternity of abuse from those more powerful than he was, ultimately he couldn’t carry out the same horrors on others: given the chance to be the monsters who’d always abused him, he found himself on the side of the victims. So he decided to become a superhero, making use of his formidable demonic powers backed up by the sheer infernal might of the Ring of Lucifer, to become a champion of justice and right. If he does enough for this world, maybe one day he’ll get a chance to see the place all the older demons always talked about with such contempt. Heaven must be pretty nice if the forces of Hell hate it so badly.

All right, here’s my build for a demon with a power ring: without the ring he’s a formidable PL 7 who can do significant damage in hand to hand and is good at feinting and scaring; with the ring, he’s a veritable lord of Hell, an incredibly charismatic, silver-tongued devil who can throw massive fireballs around, create anything he wants out of fire and flame, and step right through a hellish portal to go elsewhere. He’s got no Dimensional Movement, the last thing he wants to do is go back to Hell and be a nothing again! He’ll probably be pretty eager to avoid people paying attention to the black iron band around his finger, but luckily with his silver tongue he’s incredibly good at talking people into doing and saying whatever it is he wants. I figure the ring lets him fly without using visible wings. He can also summon a variety of hellish weapons from Hell’s arsenal, the best to take out the forces of evil! Like most demons, holy powers and weapons are a big weak spot, something which the ring only protects him from a little. I figure the ring’s Protection (which is obvious, coming from a device) manifests as red, wrought-iron looking armor.

Link to comment

Rapunzel

"I whip my hair back and forth!"

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 32 pp

STR 18 (+4)

DEX 20 (+5)

CON 18 (+4)

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 12 (+1)

Combat: 24 pp

ATK: +6 (+10 melee/prehensile hair)

DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed)

Init: +13

Grapple: +14/+20

Saves: 13 pp

TOU +10 (+4 Con, +6 Force Field)

FORT +8 (+4 Con, +4)

REF +8 (+5 Dex, +3)

WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6)

Skills: 52 r=13 pp

Acrobatics 5 (+10)*

Bluff 10 (+11/+15)*

Climb 1 (+5)

Concentration 8 (+10)

Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 5 (+5)

Language 1 (French) (Base: English)

Notice 8 (+10)*

Ride 1 (+6)

Sense Motive 8 (+10)*

Stealth 5 (+10)

Feats: 21 pp

Acrobatic Bluff,

Attack Focus: Melee 4,

Attractive,

Dodge Focus 4

Evasion,

Improved Initiative 2,

Move-By Action,

Power Attack,

Precise Shot 2,

Skill Mastery (Acrobatics, Bluff, Notice, Sense Motive)

Stunning Attack,

Takedown Attack,

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 46 pp

Flight 1 (10 MPH) (PF: Subtle) [3 pp]

Force Field 6 [6 pp]

Prehensile Hair Array [32+1=33 pp]

Move Object 10 (Heavy Load: 12 tons) (Extra: Damaging; PFs: Accurate 2)

AP: Damage 10 (Extras: Selective, Targeted Area [Cone]; PFs: Accurate 2)

Shield 4 [4 pp]

costs

abilities 32 + combat 24 + saves 13 + skills 13/52 + feats 21 +powers 46= 105 pts

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

Design Notes:

Here's Rapunzel, Amalgam and heroine of fairy tales (as well as the recent movie Tangled) as a PL 10 superheroine. I've gone with the idea that all that time locked up in the tower gave her time to work out, perhaps in endless swordfights against imaginary opponents, making her a serious threat in hand to hand combat (and a little stunted in interpersonal relationships despite being a great beauty). Rather than Prehensile Hair, a clunky power that leads to grossly inflated Grapple checks, I've given her Damaging Move Object as a descriptor for her hair, along with an area effect that represents whipping braids at great speed and accuracy. This way a guy climbing her hair is more about her grabbing him and pulling him up. (Why isn't there an action/reaction effect since her hair is a solid object? Well, maybe she doesn't want to get her hair ripped out by the roots! We're through the logic looking glass here, people)

She could use more combat feats; maybe Improved Ranged Disarm on her hair to represent ripping the guns out of bad guys' hands, or just improved crit for especially hard slashes with pointy hair. (Split Attack is a pretty poor feat, so I left it off there; you're much better off just using a Selective Area effect as she as. I figure she can block melee and ranged attacks both with her hair (giving her both Force Field and Shield). I let Subtle Flight stand in for making some kind of hair sail, or maybe just swinging around on her hair like Spiderman. (Well, he doesn't swing on his hair...you know what I mean!) If you do want to give her a more mystic focus, perhaps have her be an actual refugee from fae, perhaps some Super-Senses would make sense.

I think this build would work just fine in Freedom City; maybe she's a heroine with powers she's opted to tie into a particular storybook theme, or maybe she's the mythic character brought to life, or one who's become an avatar of that particular fable. With her Attractive, she makes a lovely damsel, if one who could plausibly fight a fantasy army and win. She could work fine as a PC in a Warriors and Warlocks game, perhaps one with a fairy tale theme, sweeping goons like they're going out of style and smashing evil queens through stone walls until they give her the key to the tower already!

Link to comment

Radioactive Gadgeteer Zombie

“Listen, bud, he’s got radioactive blood.”

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 10 pp

STR 34 [14] (+12/+2)

DEX 10 (+0)

CON n/a (-)

INT 20 (+5)

WIS 16 (+3)

CHA 10 (+0)

Combat: 16 pp

ATK: +4 (+8 Radioactive Powers)

DEF: +8 (+2 flat-footed)

Grapple: +6/+18

Initiative +0

Saves: 10 pp

TOU +12 (+12 Protection, +6 Imp)

FORT n/a

REF +5 (+0 Dex, +5)

WILL +8 (+3 Wis, +5)

Skills: 14 pp=56 r

Craft (Electronic) 10 (+15)

Craft (Mechanical) 10 (+15)

Intimidate 10 (+10)

Knowledge (Physical Sciences) 10 (+15)

Knowledge (Technology) 10 (+15)

Notice 2 (+5)

Sense Motive 2 (+5)

Feats: 10 pp

Dodge Focus 4,

Eidetic Memory,

Fearless,

Inventor,

Power Attack,

Takedown Attack,

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 91 pp

Radioactive Zombie Array [26+2=28 pp]

BE: Blast 12 (PFs: Accurate 2)

AP: Enhanced Feats 2 (Attack Specialization: Unarmed 2) and Enhanced STR 20 and Super Strength 2 (Heavy Load: ~5 tons)

AP: Nauseate 12 (PFs: Accurate 2)

Immunity 40 (Fortitude Saves, Radiation Effects (Flaw: Limited [Half-Effect])) [35 pp]

Leaping 1 (x2) [1 pp]

Protection 12 (Extra: Impervious 6) [18 pp]

Regeneration 6 (Recovery Bonus +0, Resurrection 1/week) [6 pp]

Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp]

Super-Senses 2 (Darkvision) [2 pp]

costs

abilities 10 + combat 16 + saves 10+ skills 14/56 + feats 10 + powers 91 = 150 pts

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

Design Notes:

When you realized the Greenpeace protester had gotten past the test fence and was about to get torn to pieces by the backwash from the nuclear rocket you designed, you did the only logical thing: you jumped in your jeep and rushed out there, dragged the hippie into your car, and drove him to safety as fast as you could! You shoved him into the shelter first, but before you could join him, the steel door slammed in your face! When the rocket went up, you took millions of rads and collapsed to the ground and were rushed to the hospital. Where you died. Well, duh! A few days later you woke up in your coffin and tore your way out, where you wandered the desert for days until you learned to stop irradiating everything around you. Unfortunately, now you're a wanted man: your old boss the colonel thinks you're a Grue imposter who stole his friend's body and you're scared to get anywhere near your girlfriend the nurse lest you irradiate her! So you've roamed the country since then, looking for a way to de-radiate yourself so you can go home and get your old life back!

Here's a radioactive gadgeteer zombie, a dead man animated by inner nuclear fires, or maybe what the Hulk would have been like if he'd been created by Marv Wolfman instead of Stan Lee. He can blast people with radiation, make them sick from a temporary dose of radiation poisoning, and punch people through the wall with radioactively empowered strength. He's not immune to radiation as such, but he can take some massive hits from it, and has the descriptors to pull off "absorbing radiation" if he has to. He can never be truly killed; radioactivity has a long, long half-life. He can also jump high and run fast enough to catch a car, and shrug off anything short of a vehicle-mounted machine gun. He can see in the dark thanks to his inner radioactive fires, fight fine in melee and at range, and he's a scientific genius who can pull off some fine inventions if you get him to a laboratory.

He makes a fine roaming monster if you want him as a villain; maybe his sympathetic girlfriend's dad brings in the heroes to capture his radioactively-warped would-be son-in-law before he hurts anyone else, or maybe he's come to the campaign city to burn things! As far as playing him as a Freedom City character, that'd work okay: a backstory as having once been a roaming monster (maybe the government has cleared him but the mass media isn't so sure) is a fine way to have Reputation complications. Or maybe he proves his good intentions by turning up in his first adventure to help with some big superhero crisis, like a mass supervillain prison breakout!

Link to comment

Vampire Thief

"Purr."

Abilities: 30 pp

STR 24 (+7)

DEX 18 (+4)

CON n/a

INT 12 (+1)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 22 (+6)

Combat: 24 pp

ATK: +6 (+10 melee)

DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed)

Init: +4

Grapple: +17

Saves: 9 pp

TOU +10 (+8 Protection, +2 Defensive Roll)

FORT n/a

REF +7 (+4 Dex, +3)

WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6)

Skills: 15 pp=60 r

Acrobatics 6 (+10)*

Bluff 10 (+16/+20)*

Diplomacy 5 (+11/+15)

Disable Device 9 (+10)*

Escape Artist 6 (+10)

Intimidate 4 (+10)

Knowledge (Streetwise) 4 (+5)

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

Notice 3 (+5)

Sense Motive 3 (+5)

Stealth 8 (+12)*

Feats: 18 pp

Acrobatic Bluff

Attack Focus: Melee 4

Attractive

Defensive Roll

Dodge Focus 4

Evasion

Move-By Action

Power Attack

Skill Mastery (Acrobatics, Bluff, Disable Device, Stealth)

Takedown Attack

Taunt

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 57 pp

Device 1 (Whip) (Easy to Lose) [3 pp]

Strike 3 (PFs: Improved Trip, Mighty)

Drain Constitution 2 (Flaw: Requires Grapple) [1 pp]

Immunity 30 (Fortitude Saves) [30 pp]

Impervious TOU 8 (Flaw: Not Vs. Fire/Silver/Wood) [4 pp]

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

Protection 8 [8 pp]

Regeneration 6 (+0 Recovery Bonus, Resurrection 1/week) (Flaw: Source [blood]) [3 pp]

Super-Senses 3 (Acute Scent, Darkvision) [3 pp]

Drawbacks: -3 pp

Weakness (dazed by holy items; Charisma check) [-3 pp]

costs

abilities 30 + combat 24 + saves 9 + skills 15/60 + feats 18 + powers 57 -drawbacks 3 = 150 pts

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

Design Notes:

She was one of the best thieves in town, fast, acrobatic, and beautiful. She'd come up from circumstances and she'd gotten rich in the process. At least up until the day she broke into that European aristocrat's house and discovered what had looked like an abandoned house, with no power hooked up and no heartbeat inside, was anything but! It's tough to cage a thief, though, and she escaped his clutches, if not his Embrace. She steered her buddy the costumed adventurer there the next day, and then disappeared to a new city. She still has needs to sate and itches for adventure that needs scratching, it's just she has new urges best solved by throwing lots of money at them: maybe it's for the best if she sticks to robbing blood banks and supervillains from now on, and maybe it's time to repay that karma sooner rather than later.

Inspired by the art in the recent Catwoman #2, here's a Vampire Thief perfect for stealing heroes' hearts (hopefully not literally) and anything else that isn't nailed down. She's fast, she's gorgeous, she's really athletic, and she's undead! She's not great at picking locks, but she is good at talking her way past guards and getting them to hand over their keys. Subtle Flight lets you do all kinds of crazy implausible acrobatic tricks and parkour stunts; I figure she's let some of her skills slip a bit now that she's got superpowers, a living conversion would probably have more Stealth and Acrobatics. She's a melee specialist but she's best with the whip, she probably 'swings' around the city with it when she's trying to get around without showing off. And hey, she's bulletproof!

She could use some more INT to back up her Disable Device, or maybe you could save up for Insubstantial 2 and say that she doesn't actually need to pick locks at all! As a semi-villain, she's a fine antagonist for heroes. she doesn't mean to be monster, and she does her best to retain her humanity even in the midst of shenanigans. (She also makes a fun outright villain, one who's really good at winking at the boys and distracting them while she's up to some pretty bad stuff). She could work just fine as a hero, too, where the reason for her Heel Face Turn really should be kept from other heroes until she gets to know them better...

Link to comment

Reality Warper

"You're a very bad man!"

Abilities: 22 pp

STR 10 (+0)

DEX 10 (+0)

CON 24 (+7)

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 14 (+2)

Combat: 12 pp

ATK: +3

DEF: +5 (+2 flat-footed)

Init: +0

Grapple: +3

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 13 (+15)

Intimidate 8 (+10)

Perform (guitar) 4 (+6)

Notice 12 (+14)

Sense Motive 13 (+15)

Feats: 6 pp

Dodge Focus 2

Fearless

Luck

Ultimate Save (Will)

Powers: 86 pp

Reality-Warping Array [62+4=66 pp]

Disintegration 10 (Extra: Range [Perception]; PFs: Reversible, Variable Descriptor 1 [psionic])

AP: Create Object 10 (Extras: Duration [Continuous], Movable, Range [Perception]) (PFs: Innate, Precise, Progression 7, Subtle)

AP: Move Object 10 (Extras: Area [Targeted Shapeable], Damaging, Range [Perception], Selective; PFs: Precise, Variable Descriptor 1 [psionic])

AP: Teleport 20 (anywhere in the Universe) (Extras: Accurate, Affects Others, Range [Perception]; PFs: Progression 2 (500 lbs))

AP: Transform 10 (5000 lbs) (inanimate to inanimate) (Extra: Range [Perception]; PFs: Precise, Subtle)

Immunity 5 (disease, poison, sleep, suffocation) [5 pp]

Protection 8 [8 pp]

Super-Senses 7 (Accurate Acute Radius Ranged Mental Sense, Danger Sense [mental], Uncanny Dodge [mental]) [7 pp]

costs

abilities 22+ combat 12 + saves 13 + skills 13/52 + feats 6 + powers 86= 150 pts

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

Design Notes:

In retrospect, you were one of the reasons the Moore Act passed. (You didn't know you were the problem, though) You were born powerful, damn powerful, one of the most powerful psychics in the world; unfortunately you were just a kid in a really small town in rural Ohio. You weren't bad so much as you were just a child, and you did what you wanted, when you wanted it, and there was no one to stop you. Luckily the Centurion showed up and talked you down, and got psi-nullifiers for your parents so they could keep a better eye on you till you could get one yourself. You had power enough to reverse the effects of almost everything you'd done, but your parents still moved very far away after that. They were scared of you till you turned 18, whereupon which they moved even further out of state. It wasn't until you were in your teens that you read about Psychic X; the ludicrously powerful small-town boy whose horrible deeds had helped inspire Franklin Moore to pass the Moore Act back in the 1980s. You already felt guilty about what you'd done as a kid, but now you knew what you had to do! When you were of age, you took off your psi-nullifier and headed into Freedom City so you could pay back the world for everything you owed it.

Here's my attempt at Bill Mumy's character from "It's A Good Life" as a PL 10 hero. (One thing he doesn't have is that character's telepathy, I've gone with the idea that he was able to tell what the PL 0 adults around him were thinking via very high Sense Motive). He's a very, very powerful character, able to take apart anything he sees, put it back together, and make anything he wants with Create Object and Transform. He can stunt tremendous effects off his 62 pp array. He's also got some decent mental senses, so you can't just throw a bag over his head and keep him from using his Perception-range powers on people. His big weakness is that he can't power attack, so someone with high enough saves and Toughness can take him down, and if you do have Concealment vs visual and mental senses he's much more vulnerable. (The Protection and Immunities come from wondering why his parents didn't just throttle him while he was sleeping or something). His big weakness is his Reflex save.

Make sure you have his descriptors nailed down exactly; a character as powerful as this really does need to have some significant weaknesses, and some pretty serious ideas about what he can and can't do. (Note that he's only got the one 'cornfield' power, and so can't fly or get around quickly; someone who's out of his line of sight and at all smart is pretty safe from him) You should definitely dial back the horror of the kid's early upbringing (he's based on a less creepy expy of his from PS238). An unrestrained child psychic is scary enough with just some implications here and there, without writing in horrible animal mutilations and the like; omnipotent children are scary enough on their own...

Link to comment

Fake God

“A million religions, but only one god.” -Ozzy Osbourne

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 30 pp

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

DEX 16 (+3)

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

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 10 (+0)

Combat: 30 pp

ATK: +8

DEF: +8 (+3 flat-footed)

Init: +3

Grapple: +21

Saves: 8 pp

TOU +10 (+10 Con)

FORT +10 (+10 Con)

REF +6 (+3 Dex, +3)

WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +6)

Skills: 44 r=11 pp

Diplomacy 5 (+5)

Knowledge (History) 5 (+5)

Knowledge (Theology and Philosophy) 5 (+5)

Intimidate 10 (+10)

Languages 3 (English, German, Old Slavonic) (Base: Russian)

Notice 8 (+10)

Sense Motive 8 (+10)

Feats: 9 pp

All-Out Attack

Challenge (Fast Startle)

Fearless

Interpose

Power Attack

Precise Shot

Startle

Takedown Attack

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 62 pp

Device 6 (Hard to Lose) (Axe of Perun) (PF: Restricted [sTR 30+]) [19 pp]

Blast 12 [24+1=25dp]

AP: Strike 2 (Extra: Penetrating 9; PFs: Improved Crit 2, Knockback 10 [DMG 22], Mighty)

Flight 1 (10 MPH) (PF: Subtle) [3dp]

Shield 2 [2dp]

Enhanced CON 10 [10 pp]

Enhanced STR 10 [10 pp]

Immunity 5 (aging, disease, poison, suffocation) [5 pp]

Impervious TOU 10 [10 pp]

Leaping 1 (x2) [1 pp]

Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp]

Super-Strength 3 (Heavy Load: 6 tons) [6 pp]

costs

abilities 30 + combat 30 + saves 8 + skills 11/44 + feats 9 + powers 62 = 150 pts

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

Design Notes:

In the mid-1960s, despite a strong institutional bias against “so-called pagan gods”, the Soviet government tried to summon a deity to Earth: after all, the Americans had Horus, the Avenging Son of Heliopolis a potent propaganda tool, and who was to say what ‘gods’ might be summoned by the capitalist nations? So in January 1965, the Soviet Union conscripted some mystics from confinement, volunteered some political prisoners, and in the Kazakh desert they summoned an avatar of a god to Earth! Perun the Stormbringer! Perun, the thunder god of the Slavic pantheon! Perun, who had been lusting for decades to kill the atheists who had been massacring his followers since 1917. What followed required the deployment of the front line of the People’s Heroes, as well as (after their evacuation) the ‘nuclear test’ that led to the formation of Lake Chagan and has left the homeland of the Slavic gods far too irradiated for all but the hardiest visitors. The new Soviet leadership hmmed: perhaps summoning a god was too dangerous, but they could make their own! Oleg Pavlov, aka Red Fist, was one of the minor members of the People’s Heroes, a brick and powerhouse, a pliable man who would loyally follow orders and glower on command. So they built him an impervium ax that could fire lightning bolts and levitate, they gave him fancy divine armor, and Oleg Pavlov became Perun, god of thunder! He stayed a steadfast member of the Heroes until the Soviet Union fell, when he picked up his axe and hit the road as an independent man.

All right, here’s my attempt at a technological ‘god’, a powerhouse with a weapon who is only shamming. He’s a PL 9 powerhouse without the axe (one who’s very good at grabbing and throwing things as weapons), but a solid PL 10 with it. He’s very good at both melee and ranged combat, with or without the ax. Note that unlike most “Thor” types, he’s not shooting real lightning, but rather electricity from his ax: he also can’t throw the ax, he has to actually wield it in combat. (Luckily he’s quite good at that!) Villains who hit him with Nullify Divine Powers will get a very unpleasant surprise, as will those who may assume he’s some sort of cyborg and hit him with some kind of technological effect to take out his ax. (My idea is that he’s probably the beneficiary of a super-soldier program, though he could easily be a mutant). He has a good ability to play with his caps, and is generally more ept than he looks. He’s slow, not very smart, but he’s got lots to stunt off and he’s got the sheer stubborn moxie to pretend to be a god and not care about divine payback.

It’s up to you what his relationship is like with the actual Slavic pantheon, they’ve had lots of time to recover from the conflict with the Soviets, and after all he’s sort of their only champion on Earth these days. If you don’t like the Soviet stylings (but whyyyyy), there are lots of countries that might have wanted a divine super-soldier: perhaps he’s an ‘avatar’ of Hachiman from Japan, or a Chinese champion of the ancient gods. Heck, maybe he’s an ‘angel’, though if he’s that one he’ll have some hard questions to answer from our divine PCs! Or you could mix it up altogether if you’re dissatisfied with the religion angle, maybe he’s an all-American Johnny Appleseed or Paul Bunyan, complete with phony magic weapon!

Link to comment

Burnt-Out Hero

"A still more glorious dawn awaits." -Carl Sagan

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 26 pp

STR 14 (+2)

DEX 14 (+2)

CON 14 (+2)

INT 16 (+3)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 14 (+2)

Combat: 24 pp

ATK: +6 (+10 Cosmic Array)

DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed)

Init: +2

Grapple: +8/+20 w/TK

Saves: 15 pp

TOU +10 (+2 Con, +8 Protection)

FORT +7 (+2 Con, +5)

REF +7 (+2 Dex, +5)

WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5)

Skills: 14 pp=56 r

Concentration 8 (+10)

Craft (Electronic) 7 (+10)*

Craft (Mechanical) 7 (+10)*

Knowledge (Technology) 7 (+10)*

Languages 3 (Arabic, English, Russian) (Base: Pashto)

Notice 8 (+10)

Pilot 8 (+10)*

Sense Motive 8 (+10)*

Feats: 13 pp

Dodge Focus (4)

Inventor

Luck

Move-By Action

Precise Shot

Quick Change

Power Attack

Second Chance (Pilot checks)

Skill Mastery (Craft [Electronic], Craft [Mechanical], Knowledge [Technology], Sense Motive)

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 58 pp

Cosmic Array [12+2=14 pp]

Blast 10 (Flaw: Unreliable [50%]; PFs: Accurate 2)

AP: Damage 10 (Extras: Selective, Targeted Area [burst]; Flaws: Action [Full], Unreliable [50%]; PFs: Accurate 2)

AP: Move Object 10 (Heavy Load: 12 tons) (Flaw: Unreliable [50%]; PFs: Accurate 2)

Device 6 (Battlesuit) (Hard to Lose) (PF: Restricted [Cosmic Energy Controllers]) [25 pp]

Feature 10 (Buys off Unreliable Flaw on Cosmic Array) [10dp]

Feature 5 (Buys off Unreliable Flaw on Flight) [5dp]

Feature 5 (Buys off Unreliable Flaw on Immunity) [5dp]

Feature 5 (Buys off Unreliable Flaw on Impervious TOU [5dp]

Feature 4 (Buys off Unreliable Flaw on Protection) [4dp]

Space Travel 1 (1c) [1dp]

Flight 5 (250 MPH) (Flaw: Unreliable [50%]) [5 pp]

Immunity 10 (Aging, Life Support) (Flaw: Unreliable [50%]) [5 pp]

Impervious TOU 10 (Flaw: Unreliable [50%] [5 pp]

Protection 8 (Flaw: Unreliable [50%]) [4 pp]

cost

abilities 26 + combat 24 + saves 14 + skills 14/56 + feats 13 + powers 58 = 150 pts

---------

Design Notes:

If he'd been born in the United States, or Europe, or Russia, or maybe even China, the future Cometfire could have been one of the most famous astronauts and explorers in the world. But Mohammed el-Fadil was born in Kabul in 1955, and despite all his dreams the stars seemed very far away indeed for a boy from what was already one of the poorest countries in the world. Denied space travel, he went for the next best thing: an education abroad, and then returning home to join his country's small air force. When the Soviets invaded in 1978, he thought it was a godsend: no more peasant madmen holding back his nation's future, a chance to turn Afghanistan into a modern nation that would be the envy of the world! Something in his drive and determination caught the attention of the 'allied' government in Kabul, and they approached the young lieutenant with an offer he could never have refused: the stars! After years of training, the young Afghani pilot became a cosmonaut, part of the Soviet Union's effort to include members of all Communist nations in their space program.

He went into space in 1986, the first Afghani in space, and read Pashto in orbit. Unfortunately, Soviet space science wasn't all it was cracked up to be: a close pass from Halley's Comet breached his suit during a space walk and exposed him to bizarre cosmic radiation. He passed out...and when he awoke, he was drifting in the depths of space, alive and well! He'd gone into space to be one kind of hero, but came home another: Cometfire, the first superhero of Afghanistan! Trained alongside the People's Heroes, he went home to inspire his people and end the war...only to discover how badly he'd been misinformed. Whatever scanty good intentions had come with the Soviet invasion had sunk into a decade of bitter strife and civil war; the conflict in Afghanistan was now between thugs in suits backed by the Soviet Union, and thugs in turbans backed by the hill tribesmen (and sometimes the United States!) He did his best to fight, but when the Soviets pulled out, he was left alone with an uncertain nation. The Taliban nearly killed him in 1996 when they used hired super-mercenaries to storm Kabul, but he survived and retreated to the mountains. He recovered there for years; realizing that he wasn't the man he'd used to be: his powers had nearly been burned out, leaving him barely able to fly and fight, much less survive life in Afghanistan. But he wasn't done reaching for the stars. There, in a cave with a box of scraps left over from the Soviets, and his considerable technical knowledge, he built a powersuit that let him control his powers again, and with it took to the air again. He's going to give Afghanistan back the stars. Whatever he has to do.

Inspired by the Burnt-Out Hero build from Street-Level Archetypes, my desire to build a native superhero for every country with problems, and the remarkable life of Abdul Ahad Mohammed, here's Cometfire, the native hero of Afghanistan. The basic idea is that he's a powerful blaster who's lost some control of his powers; without his suit, he rolls a d20 to use any of his abilities, something he has to do round to round in the air (if I remember right). Luckily the suit solved that problem for him, letting him be a low-level techhead as well as a fast, mobile blaster. He fits any niche you want in your game, particularly if you're visiting Afghanistan: a heroic, misunderstood champion of a much put-upon people, a grim antihero waging a private war no one else can understand, or a cold, heartless Communist bent on reimposing his own notion of order on a people who've already suffered enough. He'd make a fine Freedom City PC too; maybe he's come here pursuing a drug lord who's taken shelter in the states, or maybe he's permanently relocated here at the request of the new government as a "superheroic liason". This build works fine for his son or daughter, a Claremont student with a suit to control her powers, training to one day go home and guard their people.

Link to comment

Magus of the Starry Host

“We three kings of Orient are...

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 34 pp

STR 10 (+0)

DEX 14 (+2)

CON 20 (+5)

INT 20 (+5)

WIS 20 (+5)

CHA 10 (+0)

Combat: 32 pp

ATK: +6 (+10 Starry Magic)

DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed)

Init: +5

Grapple: +6/+20 w/Move Object

Saves: 12 pp

TOU +12 (+5 Con, +7 Force Field)

FORT +8 (+5 Con, +3)

REF +8 (+2 Dex, +6)

WILL +8 (+5 Wis, +3)

Skills: 56 r=14 pp

Concentration 5 (+10)

Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 15 (+20)*

Knowledge (History) 5 (+10)

Knowledge (Physical Sciences) 5 (+10)

Knowledge (Theology and Philosophy) 5 (+10)

Language 6 (Akkadian, Ancient Egyptian, Aramaic, English, Greek, Hebrew) (Base: Persian)

Notice 5 (+10)*

Sense Motive 5 (+10)*

Survival 5 (+10)*

Feats: 6 pp

Master Plan

Ritualist

Skill Mastery (Knowledge (Arcane Lore), Notice, Sense Motive, Survival)

Speed of Thought

Ultimate Skill (Arcane Lore)

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 61 pp

Flight 1 (10 MPH) (Flaw: Platform) ‘stars beneath your feet’ [1 pp]

Force Field 7 [7 pp]

Immunity 1 (own powers) [1 pp]

Shield 4 [4 pp]

Starry Magic Array [32+5=37 pp]

Blast 10 (Extra: Autofire; PFs: Accurate 2) ‘capture starlight’

AP: Create Object 8 (Extras: Impervious 5, Movable; PFs: Stationary, Selective, Subtle) ‘circle of stars’

AP: Damage 10 (Extras: Area [shapeable], Duration [Concentration]; PFs: Progression 2 (10 25 ft cubes)) ‘wall of stars’

AP: Dazzle 10 (visual) (Extra: Autofire; PFs: Accurate 2) ‘sunbeam’

AP: Healing 10 (Extras: Area [shapeable], Selective; Flaw: Others Only; PFs: Persistent, Regrowth) ‘heaven’s light’

AP: Move Object 10 (Extras: Area [shapeable], Selective; Flaw: Up or Down Only; PFs: Precise, Subtle) ‘reverse gravity’

Super-Senses 13 (Darkvision, Detect Magic 3 [visual], Postcognition, Precognition [Flaw: Uncontrolled]) ‘celestial vision’ [11 pp]

costs

abilities 34 + combat 24 + saves 11 + skills 14/56 + feats 6 + powers 61 = 150 pts

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

Design Notes:

Here’s my build for a magi of the starry host, my favorite character type from my favorite 3.0 D&D supplement: Green Ronin’s Testament: Roleplaying in the Biblical Era. Yes, it was a D&D supplement set in Old Testament times! So yeah, you can probably understand why it didn’t have a huge appeal, the cross-set of people who are interested in the Old Testament and who want to play a fantasy RPG set there is not real big. But that’s okay. The general idea of the magi is that they’re the wizards of the Fertile Crescent, a magical tradition stretching down from the Sumerian era through the rise of Cyrus the Great and the establishment of the Persian Empire. Since they’re from a culture that writes on clay tablets, they don’t carry spellbooks: instead they get their spells by studying the stars overhead every night! Their special thing is that they learn new spells by going on spell pilgrimages to auspicious celestial occasions. It’s mentioned that particularly auspicious occasions, allowing as they do access to high-level spells, will often have multiple magi converging on the same spot simultaneously.

As befits someone who walks around all the time, he’s a little buffer and more robust than most mystics without his powers: he can survive in the wilderness and navigate there just fine. When he flies, it’s by walking along a starry path that travels through the air, hence the Platform flaw on his flight. He has pretty broad descriptors based on a general “starry magic”, and I’ve tried to give him stuff from the Heaven domain that magi have access to: he can dazzle with starlight, blast with a beam of burning stars, control gravity all around him, and heal and burn an area with magic starlight. He can also see in the dark (thus making it easier to be out at night all the time) and can summon the wisdom of the stars to learn more about the world on which their light shines. I’ve given him enough of a command of the languages of the Ancient Near East so that he could turn up just about anywhere. With his Ritualist and extremely high Arcane Lore, he can whip out just about any kind of magic you like.

He’d work fine as a character in a Warriors and Warlocks game with a Near Eastern theme (where he’s probably one of the more powerful mystics in the world), or he could work as a Freedom City character in a couple of ways: maybe he’s a time traveler sealed away from the world for milennia, only recently freed to practice his mystic arts. Or maybe he’s a mystic from the contemporary Near East; perhaps the Islamic government in Iran today looks poorly on Zoroastrian sorcerers and he and his order have had to relocate to the United States, or perhaps he’s simply here on yet another mystic quest. Something that would put him beneath the light pollution of the American East Coast has to be pretty important indeed. Perhaps a birth?

Link to comment

Qedeshot

“Hello, boys!”

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 40 pp

STR 12 (+1)

DEX 14 (+2)

CON 20 (+5)

INT 14 (+2)

WIS 16 (+3)

CHA 24 (+7)

Combat: 18 pp

ATK: +3

DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed)

Init: +2

Grapple: +3

Saves: 13 pp

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

FORT +6 (+5 Con, +1)

REF +7 (+2 Dex, +5)

WILL +10 (+3 Wis, +7)

Skills: 16 pp=64 r

Acrobatics 3 (+5)

Bluff 13 (+20)*

Diplomacy 13 (+20)*

Gather Information 8 (+15)*

Intimidate 3 (+10)

Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 3 (+5)

Knowledge (Theology and Philosophy) 3 (+5)

Languages 2 (English, Hebrew) (Base: Canaanite)

Medicine 7 (+10)

Notice 2 (+5)

Perform (dance) 3 (+10)*

Sense Motive 2 (+5)

Feats: 24 pp

Distract (Bluff, Diplomacy) 2

Challenge 4 (Improved Distract, Improved Feint, Improved Taunt)

Dodge Focus 6

Fascinate (Bluff)

Inspire 5

Leadership

Set-Up

Skill Mastery (Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Information, Perform [Dance])

Taunt

Ultimate Skill (Perform [Dance])

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Well-Informed

Powers: 40 pp

Protection 3 [3 pp]

Qedeshot Array [32+5=37 pp]

Damage 10 (Extra: Range [Perception]; PFs: Incurable, Reversible) ‘dance of pain’

AP: Damage 10 (Extra: Range [Perception]; PFs: Precise, Variable Descriptor 1 [bludgeoning/piercing/slashing) ‘dance of damnation’

AP: Damage 10 (Extras: Alternate Save [Will], Range [Perception]; Flaw: Action [Full]) (PFs: Incurable, Reversible) ‘dance of death’

AP: Drain All Ability Scores 10 (Extra: Range [Perception]) (PFs: Slow Fade 2 [1 minute]) ‘bestow major curse’

AP: Emotion Control 10 (Extras: Area [Perception], Selective Attack; Flaw: Action [Full]; PFs: Longer-Lasting 2 [10 rounds]) ‘token of romance’

AP: Healing 10 (Extra: Range [Perception]; PFs: Persistent, Regrowth) ‘touch of the goddess’

costs

abilities 40 + combat 18 + saves 13 + skills 16/64 + feats 24 + powers 40= 150 pts

----------

Design Notes:

In another Testament-themed build, here’s a qedeshot, one of the sacred priestesses of Astaroth or Ishtar from the Canaanite tradition. (Yes, let me get it out of the way now: you cannot play a temple prostitute. But there’s no reason why we can’t play with the archetype while discarding some of its larer implications) The authors of Testament take the position that the Canaanites were no more evil than any other Near Eastern civilization (i.e., they did a lot of bad things and a lot of good things), that their great ‘sin’ was being the enemies of the ancient Hebrews: i.e., the people who gave us the dominant cultural/historical record of the Bronze Age Near East. (That’s actually open for debate, given the very strong archeological and contemporary accounts of the Canaanite ‘daughter’ civilization, the Carthaginians, enthusiastically practicing infant sacrifice, but the evidence about the people back in Canaan doing so is much much less prevalent). What you have is a skilled dancer and master of social manipulation, one whose dances can summon up a variety of powerful effects: she can heal with a gesture, summon creatures to attack her enemies, cloud men’s minds, or simply punish them with powerful magics summoned up by her dancing.

She’s really good as part of a team, excellent at empowering her team-mates and healing their injuries, but with her summoning abilities and mental attacks she can fight just fine on her own. With her very high social skills, she’s excellent at leaving people flat-footed or distracted. (Since all of her attacks are perception-range, she can’t actually take advantage of flat-footed targets very well, just taunt them and lower their mental and physical resistance, that’s why she’s got Set-Up so her very tough to resist feints and tricks can assist her allies in laying out bad guys.) She’s competent enough at dealing with magic and the gods, but with her high social skills and medical training she’s more focused on dealing with the community rather than her divine patrons. Though dancing is based on Charisma rather than physical attributes, I gave her OK physical stats to explain someone who can dance for hours on end in public. While she’s not particularly observant, she’s very good at seeing through lies and persuading people to come over to her side.

Downplay the aspects of the character that may be offensive to modern readers if you want her to be a successful PC hereabouts. (No, it’s not that we’re grossed out by the idea of a woman in control of her sexuality, it’s that we’re pretty sure you’ll play her really badly). There’s no reason you can’t say the ‘temple prostitute’ stuff was a serious exaggeration based on the accounts of the Canaanite enemies. She makes a fine Warriors and Warlocks PC, perhaps as the on-again off-again lover of my Barbarian Champion build upthread. While you could play her as a member of a secret Ishtar cult that has survived to the present day (or one that’s recently been revived), I think she works best as a time traveler actually from the ancient (or at least the mythic) Near East who has had to relocate to the United States; a dancing priestess of Ishtar in a pagan costume is not going to be welcomed by any side in the current political situation in Israel!

Link to comment

Agent Tom Thumb

“What I lack in size, I more than make up for in personality and good looks.

Abilities: 34 pp

STR 18 (+4)

DEX 16 (+3)

CON 18 (+4)

INT 14 (+2)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 14 (+2)

Combat: 24 pp

ATK: +6 (+14 vs. Medium-sized)

DEF: +6 (+14 vs. Medium-sized)

Init: +3

Grapple: -4 vs Medium

Saves: 15 pp

TOU +6 (+4 Con, +2 Defensive Roll)

FORT +8 (+4 Con, +4)

REF +8 (+3 Dex, +5)

WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6)

Skills: 64 r=16 pp

Bluff 13 (+15)

Climb 1 (+5)

Disable Device 8 (+10)

Gather Info 3 (+5)

Investigate 8 (+10)

Knowledge (Streetwise) 3 (+5)

Languages 3 (Japanese, German, Russian) (Base: English)

Notice 8 (+10)

Sense Motive 8 (+10)

Stealth 10 (+13/+30)

Survival 3 (+5)

Feats: 12 pp

Defensive Roll

Evasion

Fearless

Hide In Plain Sight

Move-By-Action

Power Attack

Second Chance 2 (Disable Device checks, Reflex save vs. being stepped on)

Takedown Attack

Taunt

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Well-Informed

Powers: 48 pp

Device 1 (Sword) (Hard to Lose) (PF: Restricted [shrinking 12 or smaller]) [5 pp]

Strike 2 (PFs: Improved Crit, Mighty, Precise) [5dp]

Flight 1 (10 MPH) (PF: Subtle) [3 pp]

Immunity 1 (Taunts about his Height) [1 pp]

Shrinking 16 (Extras: Duration [Permanent] (+0), Normal Strength; PFs: Normal Movement, Normal Toughness) [34 pp]

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

Super-Senses 3 (Microscopic Vision [dust-sized], Vision [Radius]) [3 pp]

costs

abilities 34 + combat 24 + saves 15 + skills 17/68 + feats 12+ powers 48 = 150 pts

---------

Design Notes:

Here’s Agent Tom Burkhalter, aka Tom Thumb, one of the characters from the excellent Algernon Files: Fires of War by Aaron Sullivan. Tom Burkhalter was an FBI agent back in the early 1940s, a hard-working, two-fisted crimefighter who was the guy the agency brought in to solve problems that other agents couldn’t handle: in his case, the mad Dr. Diablo, a cruel and bloody mad scientist. Tom pursued Diablo again and again, until finally Diablo turned the tables and captured Burkhalter, blasting him with his powerful dollmaker ray and transforming Burkhalter into a man permanently three inches tall. Much to Diablo’s surprise, Burkhalter survived the transformation, ralled his strength, and subdued him! Now Agent Tom Thumb is the agency’s go-to guy for supercrime (particularly mad scientists), and a member of the Sentinels, the local super-team. He used to be just another buttondown FBI agent in a grey suit, but he’s taken the opportunity of becoming a superhero as a reason to open up and have a much more outgoing personality, complete with snappy new duds and look. Or maybe, as he’ll admit privately, he’s just adopted the swashbuckler persona as a way of overcompensating: he may have to live small, but that’s no reason he can’t live large!

Unfortunately there’s no good way in M&M to model Agent Thumb’s status as a tiny powerhouse. You can’t hit hard and be tiny without having basically no Attack or Defense, something that’s hard to fit into our house rules and that doesn’t really make sense for a character with an agent background anyway. So instead I’ve used the picture (and his characterization) as inspiration and gone with the idea of him as a tiny swashbuckler, it’s up to you whether or not his sword actually is a repurposed scissors blade. His Subtle Flight covers big leaps where his man-sized strength propels his doll-sized body to tremendous heights, or maybe gliding on currents of air if that’s more your thing for tiny characters. If you’re sold on small and dense, his high Strength and Con (at least, relative to a normal man) can be explained by a compaction Or maybe he was just always this buff; without his Shrinking and with his current physical abilities, he’s PL 5 offensively and defensively, just about right for a competent guy in an agent-level campaign. I made his Shrinking Permanent, but not Innate, so maybe he can get a high-end nullifier and have normal times now and again.

He's great at sneaking and feinting, like most tiny people. I figure his Radius Sight and Microscope Vision come from being so small, so the 'normal' world is easier for him to take in all at once, and it's easier for him to make out small stuff. I think he works fine as-is, either as a transformed AEGIS agent (one who is on “medical leave” and so has the free time to be a superhero) or as your garden-variety tiny swordsman. (He’s certainly not the first one in this thread!) While his unique powers fit in well in a Golden Age game (where he was something of a “Doll Man with Green Arrow’s personality” kind of guy), this kind of illogical stuff happens in Neo-Silver Age games too. For a slightly darker take on the character, maybe he’s more like the modern-day Doll Man, a tiny agent who has escaped his black ops agency to embark on a one-man crusade to bring said agency down!

Link to comment

Khery-Heb

"And a great cry went over Egypt..."

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 22 pp

STR 10 (+0)

DEX 10 (+0)

CON 14 (+2)

INT 16 (+3)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 18 (+4)

Combat: 24 pp

ATK: +6 (+10 Egyptian Magic)

DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed)

Init: +0

Grapple: +6/+20 w/TK

Saves: 17 pp

TOU +10 (+2 Con, +8 Force Field)

FORT +7 (+2 Con, +5)

REF +7 (+0 Dex, +7)

WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5)

Skills: 14 pp=56 r

Bluff 6 (+10)*

Concentration 5 (+7)

Diplomacy 6 (+10)*

Gather Info 6 (+10)*

Intimidate 6 (+10)*

Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 7 (+10)

Knowledge (Theology and Philosophy) 7 (+10)

Languages 4 (Akkadian, English, Hebrew, Phoenecian) (Base: English)

Notice 3 (+5)

Sense Motive 3 (+5)

Survival 3 (+5)

Feats: 5 pp

Luck

Ritualist

Skill Mastery (Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Info, Intimidate)

Ultimate Save (Will)

Well-Informed

Powers: 68 pp

Egyptian Magic Array [33+1=34 pp]

Move Object 10 (Heavy Load: 12 tons) (Extra: Damaging; PFs: Accurate 2, Precise) 'summoned avatar'

AP: Damage 10 (Extras: Selective, Targeted Area [shapeable]) (PFs: Accurate 2, Progression on Area) 'summoned swarm'

Flight 1 (10 MPH) [2 pp] 'barque of the Gods'

Force Field 8 [8 pp]

Light Control 4 (100 ft) [8 pp] 'sunhawk'

Shield 4 [4 pp] 'ba guardian'

Super-Movement 1 (Duat) (Extra: Portal) [4 pp] 'doorway to the underworld'

Super-Senses 10 (Detect Magic 3 [visual], Magic Awareness 3 [visual], Precognition [Flaw]) [8 pp] 'portent'

cost

abilities 22 + combat 24 + saves 17 + skills 14/56 + feats 5 + powers 68 = 150 pts

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

Design Notes:

This is my build for a Khery-Heb, the new Egyptian mystic class from the Green Ronin supplement Testament. I haven't been quite as faithful to the book class as I was with my previous Testament builds, since the khery-hebs gave me a little less to work with. The general idea is that khery-hebs are the wizards-priests of Egyptian society, acolytes of the various gods and goddess of Egyptian culture who can cast powerful arcane spells in their name. I've tried to build the khery-heb thus as a charismatic mystic with strong people skills, but who doesn't have the raw arcane might or powerful theological connections of a more focused wizard or priest. He has enough social skills that he can either talk down or scare off most interlopers against the throne with his powerful magics, but antagonists with high Charisma (perhaps thanks to divine backing) or Fearless will give him trouble.

I've simplified the various khery-heb spells down to the basic idea of summoning: khery-hebs summon the mystic avatar of whatever god they worship (or of their signature animal) and said avatar strikes their enemies, moves heavy objects, or does whatever needs doing. Thus a priest of Thoth would summon a sacred ibis, while a priest of Horus a falcon. (Note that the famous incident with the staff would here be represented as Moses and Aaron winning a countering check vs. the khery-heb's Move Object effect. Contrary to what pulp Hollywood would tell you; those were probably not priests of Set, since the association of Set and serpentry comes from modern pulp fiction: Set's priests would have summoned a jackal to his service.) You could represent that summoning with the actual Summon power, but Damaging Move Object covers a great deal of ground. Said summoning isn't Subtle in this case, since the priest is standing right there calling on Imhotep or whatever.

Though khery-hebs appear as villains in the Old Testament, that's more a matter of who they were facing: khery-hebs, male or female, make fine heroic PCs; either as time-travelers (having taken the long way or the slow way) from Ancient Egypt to the modern era (Perhaps he or she sealed themselves away until Tan-Aktor rose again to lay waste to the world, or until Prince Heru-Ra returned in his glory!) or as modern-day people inspired by ancient Egyptian sorcery. Another possibility: the 1930s coincided with a flowering of Egyptology (though the mania of the 20s had died down somewhat) as well as with the first superheroes: perhaps the PCs are a legacy of an Egyptian-themed mystic of the Golden Age!

Link to comment

Vampire Psychic Investigator

“Some questions can only be measured with a mask.” -Renee Montoya

PL 10 (150)

Abilities: 10 pp

STR 26 [18] (+8/+4)

DEX 14 (+2)

CON n/a

INT 12 (+1)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 10 (+0)

Combat: 24 pp

ATK: +6 (+12 Unarmed)

DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed)

Init: +2

Grapple: +14

Saves: 10 pp

TOU +8 (+6 Protection, +2 Defensive Roll)

FORT n/a

REF +7 (+2 Dex, +5)

WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5)

Skills: 16 pp=64 r

Bluff 8 (+8)*

Concentration 3 (+5)

Disguise 0 (+2/+22)

Gather Information 8 (+8)

Investigate 4 (+5)

Knowledge (Behavioral Sciences) 4 (+5)

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

Notice 8 (+10)*

Search 9 (+10)*

Sense Motive 8 (+10)*

Stealth 8 (+10)

Feats: 5 pp

Evasion

Power Attack

Takedown Attack

Ultimate Save (Will)

Uncanny Dodge (Mental)

Powers: 92 pp

Auspex Array [5+1-1=5 pp] (Drawback: Not In Daylight)

Communication 2 (100 ft) (mental) (Extra: Two-Way; PF: Subtle)

AP: Mind Reading 10 (Flaw: Duration [instant/Lasting])

Dementation Array [10+1-1=10 pp] (Drawback: Not in Daylight)

Confuse 10

AP: Mind Control 10 (Flaw: Sense-Dependent [visual])

Enhanced Feats 13 (Attack Specialization (Unarmed) 3, Defensive Roll, Dodge Focus 6, Second Chance (Well-Informed checks), Skill Mastery (Bluff, Notice, Search, Sense Motive), Well-Informed) [13 pp]

Drain Constitution 2 (Flaw: Requires Grapple) [1 pp]

Enhanced STR 8 [to STR 26 (+8)] [8 pp]

Flight 1 (10 MPH) [2 pp]

Immunity 30 (Fortitude Saves) [30 pp]

Impervious TOU 6 (Flaw: Not vs. Wood/Silver/Fire) [3 pp]

Obfuscate Array [5+1-1=5 pp] (Drawback: Not in Daylight)

Concealment 10 (all senses) (Flaws: Passive, Phantasm)

AP: Morph 4 (any humanoid) (Flaw: Phantasm; PF: Covers Scent)

Protection 6 [6 pp]

Regeneration 6 (Recovery Bonus +0, Resurrection 1/week) (Flaw: Source [blood]) [3 pp]

Super-Senses 2 (Darkvision) [2 pp]

Super-Senses 8 (Postcognition (Flaw: Source [blood]), Precognition (Flaw: [uncontrolled]) [4 pp]

Drawbacks: -9 pp

Vulnerability (vs. fire) (common, moderate) (-3 pp)

Vulnerability (vs. silver) (uncommon, major) (-3 pp)

Weakness (repelled by crosses; dazed by holy symbols via Charisma check) (-3 pp)

Design Notes:

In another life, she might have grown up to be a superhero. But she came of age in the 1980s, in an era when Freedom City had abandoned its heroes. So instead, after her psychic powers manifested in her teens (during an incident when she accidentally switched bodies with her mother), she became a spook, recruited directly out of Yale to work for AEGIS’ Psi division. Initially brought in to help catch a brutal fleshwarping serial killer, she rose quickly in AEGIS’ ranks, dealing with everything from first contact with a powerful alien species (that proved to be a psionic offshoot of the Lor) to a child who’d disappeared on board an airliner in flight (as part of an OVERTHROW attempt to hijack the plane and detonate it over Freedom City.) The only stain on her record was the brutal serial killer who’d escaped during her very first case, a powerful psychic killer who’d fed on his victims’ innermost fears. When he re-emerged some years ago, she took charge of the investigation. Some people said it was an obsession. But her target was different now, stronger (particularly odd for a man many years her senior, who’d been middle-aged upon his disappearance years earlier), more charismatic, and deadlier, as if the universe itself was bending to his whim. Through dogged policework and a keen study of human behavior, she finally caught her target, only to have him turn on her and her team: he was no human predator now, but an immortal vampire transformed by another killer who’d admired his work! He killed several of her friends, tormented her psychologically, and then finally transformed her into a vampire like him, planning to feed one of her surviving colleagues to her. But she proved to be of sterner stuff than he’d imagined: she overcame his vampiric and psychic brainwashing and slew him, saving her allies from the unholy monster. Afterwards she couldn’t go back to the agency, but instead became her own agent, a creature of the night determined to make sure that no one else falls victim to the other monsters out there.

Here’s a Vampire Psychic Investigator, based on the Malkavian clan from Vampire: the Masquerade, the Psychic Investigator build from Instant Superheroes, my own Psilent build, as well as Doc’s Vampire Psychic and Jodie Foster’s star turn from Silence of the Lambs. If she’s obsessed with catching criminals, that’s not an unhealthy obsession for a superhero, though it may give her a reputation as a well-known crackpot: in my mind she’s basically the Helena Bertinelli Huntress with the Question’s style and interest in criminology. (And, you know, with some fangs!) Her psychic powers aren’t enough to catch criminals on their own, but they do give her some powerful heads-up: she can read minds and communicate with allies psychically, as well as turn herself invisible and give people false memories of her appearance. I figure the Mind Control and Confuse are legacies of her vampiric heritage, so she may have a Complication about only using them in a crisis. Her powers also make her a better fighter, letting her predict opponents’ moves in combat (as long as she can see them) and thus hold her own even against more powerful opponents. (She probably carried a gun in her AEGIS days, but doesn’t need to anymore). In life she had Con 12 and was PL 7 without her vampire powers; right now if her psychic abilities are negated she’s still a solid PL 6.5 with her vampiric strength (quite a surprise for the guards who put a psi-nullifying helmet on her and thought that would leave her helpless).

She’s got a lot of powers, and a lot of potential ways to expand her repertoire: you can up her sensory powers, make her a better sneak, or a more powerful mentalist: as she is, she’s something of a jack of all trades, but an effective one for all that. As TVTropes says, vampires are natural for private investigator/noir style stories: they have a murky past, hang out in dark alleys with shady characters, usually have a turbulent relationship with the opposite sex, organized religion, and law enforcement: oh yeah, and they usually have a drinking problem! Characters like this are a good way to have a street-level costume that’s still definitely a costume: a fedora, a mask (a full-face mask to conceal fangs and red-rimmed eyes, perhaps?), and a trenchcoat and you have a perfectly serviceable-looking character. It’s a superhero game, you really do need some choices from the costume, codename, and secret identity buffet.

Link to comment
  • 2 weeks later...

Redcap Living Weapon

I'm the best there is at what I do.

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 40 pp

STR 24 (+7)

DEX 14 (+2)

CON 24 (+7)

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 14 (+2)

Combat: 16 pp

ATK: +4 (+7 melee, +13 Unarmed)

DEF: +7 (+2 flat-footed)

Init: +2

Grapple: +14

Saves: 9 pp

TOU +13 (+7 Con, +6 Protection)

FORT +8 (+7 Con, +1)

REF +6 (+2 Dex, +4)

WILL +7 (+3 Wis, +4)

Skills: 68 r=17 pp

Bluff 15 (+17)

Intimidate 15 (+17)

Language 1 (French) (Base: English)

Notice 8 (+10)

Sense Motive 13 (+15)

Stealth 8 (+10)

Survival 8 (+10)

Feats: 21 pp

Attack Focus: Melee 3

Attack Specialization: Unarmed 3

Challenge 2 (Fast Startle, Fast Taunt)

Dodge Focus 3

Evasion

Fearless

Move-By Action

Power Attack

Second Chance (Taunt checks)

Startle

Takedown Attack

Taunt

Ultimate Save (Toughness)

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 45 pp

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

Matter Eater 13 [18 pp]

Protection 6 (Extra: Impervious) [12 pp]

Super-Senses 5 (Accurate Acute Analytical Tracking [quarter-speed] Olfactory) [5 pp]

costs

abilities 40 + combat 16 + saves 9 + skills 17/68 + feats 21 + powers 45= 150 pts

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

Design Notes:

They told you awakening your fae heritage would be a beautiful thing. They lied. Instead you were filled with dreams of rage and hunger as your body was warped and changed into a squat, feral thing with spiky hair and flat teeth that could chew through anything: Canada's way of mastering the world of magic. You beat them, though; your own impressive willpower and the might of the beast inside you gave you the strength to escape your handlers. You chewed your way right through the impervium cage where they kept you and ran for the hills, living off the land until you were found by heroes from Freedom City. Now you're here and living among happy, contented people: you've mastered the voice in your head that tells you to eat your way through your problems, and instead you use your ferocity and terrifying nature against criminals, satisfying your predatory urges by hunting in the state forest and living off the land when you're not catching human bad guys. But that hunger is ever there...

Here's my build for a redcap, Changeling the Dreaming-style, based on the Living Weapon archetype from Instant Superheroes. (Redcaps basically are the Wolverines of the Changeling world, so that makes a lot of sense.) Let me tell you, I never really _got_ Changeling society, where the PCs are evidently supposed to be content with the recent brutal conquest of fae society by the recently reawakened sidhe. PCs shouldn't be kowtowing to European aristocrats with pointy ears and anime hair just because they have lots of Charisma, emotion controlling superpowers or not. Especially not when they're powered by dreams that want to be free! So I always had a lot of sympathy for characters like redcaps, monsters of hunger and rage, who wanted to pull the system down and _eat it_.

He's a powerful combatant who can soak up massive hits, a good thing when he's in combat against sidhe weapon masters and troll powerhouses: he's also a good martial artist who can hit hard and do some damage with his fists. His real power is his mighty jaws, with Matter Eater 13, he can without a roll chew through any mundane substance with a single bite (inflicting a massive Drain TOU 13 on objects) and be damn threatening even to super-tough substances like impervium or magic swords and such. (He should not be using that on anything but robots, demons, etc). He can put anything in his mouth without harm, so he can just eat bombs and super-weapons if necessary. He can also trash-talk anybody even close to his PL, able to bedevil even opponents who aren't afraid of him thanks to his masterful ability to tear them down to size. I figure his Super-Senses make sense for such a feral character. He'd be a scary guy to meet in a dark alley.

Link to comment
  • 2 weeks later...

Vampire Weather Controller

"And seven thunders uttered their voices!"

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 0 pp

STR 18 [10] (+4/+0)

DEX 12 (+1)

CON n/a

INT 14 (+2)

WIS 12 (+1)

CHA 12 (+1)

Combat: 16 pp

ATK: +4 (+10 Melee/Weather)

DEF: +10 (+2 flat-footed)

Init: +1

Grapple: +14/+20

Saves: 10 pp

TOU +10 (+4 Protection, +6 Force Field)

FORT n/a

REF +5 (+1 Dex, +4)

WILL +7 (+1 Wis, +6)

Skills: 56 r=14 pp

Bluff 4 (+5)

Concentration 9 (+10)

Intimidate 9 (+10)

Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 3 (+5)

Knowledge (Physical Sciences) 3 (+5)

Languages 2 (Romanian, Russian; Base: English)

Notice 9 (+10)

Sense Motive 9 (+10)

Stealth 4 (+5)

Survival 4 (+5)

Feats: 18 pp

Attack Focus: Melee (6)

Attack Specialization: Weather (3)

Dodge Focus (6)

Environmental Adaptation (Stormy Weather)

Move-By Action

Second Chance (Concentration checks)

Powers: 102 pp

Feature 7 (Buys Off Sunlight Drawback) [7 pp]

Feature 1 (Weather Sense) [1 pp]

Flight 2 (25 MPH) [4 pp]

Force Field 6 [6 pp]

Super-Senses 1 (Uncanny Dodge [tactile]) [1 pp]

Weather Control Array [25+1+2+2+2+2=34 pp]

BE: Environmental Control 8 (Extra Selective Attack; Flaw: Range [Touch]) (1000 ft) (mix and match) (PF: Precise) [25/25]

DAP: Blast 10 (PFs: Precise, Variable Descriptor 1 [any weather]) [22/25]

DAP: Damage 10 (Extra: Area [shapeable]; PFs: Precise, Variable Descriptor 1 [any weather]) [22/25]

DAP: Move Object 10 (Heavy Load: 12 tons) (PFs: Precise, Variable Descriptor 1 [any weather]) [22/25]

DAP: Obscure 8 (Extra: Selective Attack; Flaw: Range [Touch]) (1000 ft) (visual and auditory) (PF: Precise) [25/25]

Drain Constitution 2 (Flaw: Requires Grapple) [1 pp]

Enhanced STR 8 (to STR 18 [+4]) [8 pp]

Immunity 30 (Fortitude Saves) [30 pp]

Protection 4 (Extra: Impervious; Flaw: Not Vs. Blessed/Fire/Silver) [4 pp]

Regeneration 6 (Recovery Bonus +0, Resurrection 1/week) (Flaw: Source [blood]) [3 pp]

Super-Senses 3 (Acute Scent, Darkvision) [3 pp]

Drawbacks: 10 pp

Weakness (Holy Items; dazed by Charisma check) [-3 pp]

Weakness (Sunlight; dead in 1 minute) [-7 pp]

costs

abilities 0 + combat 16 + saves 10 + skills 14/56 + feats 18 + powers 102 - drawback 10 = 150 pts

-----

Design Notes:

Here's a build for a Vampire Weather Controller, based on Doc's earlier build along these same lines. (What can I say, it's a classic vampire archetype!) This is a character not directly empowered by her transformation, rather her transformation into a vampire toughened and strengthened her without actually increasing her weather control abilities. I'm a big believer that vampires with superpowers should still be a threat, even just versus minions, even if their powers are nullified: she's a PL 7 vampire if her weather control abilities are nullified, and a fine street-level weather controller if her vampiric heritage is nullified or altered. Unlike Doc's build, she can keep her "weather shield" up without actually dropping PLs: while it's a power and subject to nullification or the effects of being dazed or stunned, it doesn't take away from the force of her lightning bolts or the darkness of her thunderstorms. Depending on descriptors, her weather shield may be the source of some potent complications: being able to walk outside during the day is a potent ability, but a superhero who's constantly causing floods may have some moral issues to grapple with! (If you don't like that idea, maybe she just sets up a cloudy shield overhead).

She's a serious threat in melee, at least compared to your average squishy weather controller: this is a weather controller who could easily fight the leader of the underground mutants hand to hand. The way her weather shield works does mean she's really vulnerable to her mutant abilities being nullified, but that's the risk you run when you're a vampire superhero running around in the daylight. She has the 3/pp mix and match weather control variant, letting her drop various effects adding up to 3 pp a rank in up to a 1000 foot radius all around her; not as powerful as typical weather controllers might be, but she does have her formidable vampiric abilities to back it up! I figure her main attack is generally a lightning bolt (as is common with your weather controllers) but she can also hit single targets with focused tornados or anything else she can work in under the rubric of weather: she can do the same all around her, hitting everything near her with a localized storm or other effect to strike down her enemies. She has lots of potential power stunts, look at your typical weather controller for ideas!

Note that, as a point-saving measure, her area effects are all centered around her: her Environmental Control and Obscure all form where she's standing. Good thing she's got so much range! Mechanically her Weather Sense is Precognition with (Limited -2 [the weather]) applied. Where did her powers come from? In my mind she's a mutant, and that's why her abilities weren't particularly empowered by her vampiric transformation. Perhaps she was part of one of those gritty teams of adventurers in the 1980s and 1990s, one that went missing around the time of the Terminus invasion and got confused with all its counterparts that bore similar names. But in reality it had been a battle against the lord of the vampires that killed her team rather than her, with only one hero surviving tht last great battle, a torrential downpour smothering the fires in the crypt before they could destroy her as well. Another way is to build in a history as a hero active in another city, one that came to an abrupt end when she moved out and moved across the country. With the rain that follows her everywhere, she might have done just fine as a Seattle hero.

Link to comment

Street-Level Archer

"Pew pew!"

PL: 7 (105)

Abilities: 24 pp

STR 14 (+2)

DEX 14 (+2)

CON 14 (+2)

INT 14 (+2)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 14 (+2)

Combat: 24 pp

ATK: +6 (+10 Bows)

DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed)

Init: +6

Grapple: +8

Saves: 18 pp

TOU +4 (+2 Con, +2 Defensive Roll)

FORT +7 (+2 Con, +5)

REF +10 (+2 Dex, +8)

WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5)

Skills: 16 pp=64 r

Acrobatics 12 (+14)

Bluff 8 (+10)

Climb 3 (+5)

Knowledge (Streetwise) 8 (+10)

Language 1 (Spanish) (Base: English)

Notice 12 (+14)

Sense Motive 8 (+10)

Stealth 12 (+14)

Feats: 16 pp

Acrobatic Bluff

Attack Specialization: Bows 2

Defensive Roll

Dodge Focus 4

Evasion

Improved Initiative

Luck

Move-By Action

Power Attack

Precise Shot

Quick Draw

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 8 pp

Device 2 (Bow) (Hard to Lose) [8 pp]

Blast 2 (PFs: Improved Crit 2, Mighty 2, Variable Descriptor 1 [bludgeoning/piercing/slashing]) [9+1=10dp]

AP: Speed 1(10 MPH) and Super-Movement 4 (Slow Fall, Swinging, Wall-Crawling 2)

cost

abilities 24 + combat 24 + saves 18 + skills 16/64 + feats 16 + powers 8 = 105 pts

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

Design Notes:

Here's my build for a street-level archer, just about right for a gritty 'realistic' archer hero who has recently begun his career. This could be a high school student (perhaps the captain of the school archery club) who has just taken up a bow and arrow to fight crime in his spare time, a young man who needs recruitment into a place like Claremont, or perhaps he's an Olympic athlete who has just begun moving into the realm of the superheroic. He doesn't have the many trick arrows of your typical comic book archer, even the more limited selection like more 'realistic' superarchers like Arrowhawk: instead he fires arrows, be they pointy or otherwise, and can put swinglines on some to better get around in the city. So he's not perfectly realistic by any means, but he fits the "gritty, street-level" standard thereof well enough.

His saves are great, letting him stand up to some pretty serious threats close to his PL. He's a really good shot with his bow, though like most archers he's in trouble if forced into serious melee combat. Still, at PL 4, he can at least ward off a thug or two until he can evade or retrieve his weapon. (I made it hard to lose to represent having a strap for it or something, or just as a reflection of how strong archers can actually be!) His skills are fine too; he's great at sneaking and feinting, and since Acrobatic Bluff works at range he should be able to power attack most opponents without any worries. His biggest weakness is that he's also pretty vulnerable to being caught flat-footed, and he doesn't really have a good way of fighting groups.

He's only 21 pp at character creation for you folks looking for an archer sidekick, preferably not one you will abandon when he's got a problem with drugs. With Ref permission, perhaps this is a new self-styled Arrow, trying to get Bowman's attention to get a job! You can customize him however you want, perhaps adding some wealth and business skills to represent a rich kid with a bow, or maybe some Survival to represent someone raised in a rural setting like a Native American reservation, or even Streetwise to depict a street kid with a powerful weapon! Being an archer is a great niche to fill in comics, and there are plenty of good potential sub-niches out there for the discerning Bowman.

Link to comment

Burning Ghost

"I see you!"

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 22 pp

STR 10 (+0)

DEX 10 (+2)

CON 18 (+4)

INT 20 (+5)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 10 (+0)

Combat: 24 pp

ATK: +6 (+10 Vengeance Powers)

DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed)

Init: +5

Grapple: +6/+20 w/Move Object

Saves: 15 pp

TOU +10 (+4 Con, +6 Protection)

FORT +7 (+4 Con, +3)

REF +7 (+0 Dex, +7)

WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5)

Skills: 14 pp=56 r

Concentration 8 (+10)

Craft [Chemical] 5 (+10)

Craft [Electronic] 10 (+15)*

Craft [Mechanical] 10 (+15)*

Intimidate 7/15 (+7/+15)*

Knowledge [Technology] 10 (+15)*

Notice 3 (+5)

Sense Motive 3 (+5)

Feats: 12 pp

Dodge Focus 4

Eidetic Memory

Inventor

Second Chance (Concentration checks)

Skill Mastery (Craft [Electronic], Craft [Mechanical], Intimidate, Knowledge [Technology])

Speed of Thought

Startle

Ultimate Save (Will)

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 63 pp

Container 9 (Extra: Duration [sustained]) (Burning Ghost) [45 pp]

Blast 10 (PFs: Accurate 2, Affects Insubstantial 2) [24+1=25 pp]

AP: Move Object 10 (Heavy Load: 12 tons) (PFs: Accurate 2, Affects Insubstantial 2)

Enhanced Feat 1 (Fearless) [1 pp]

Enhanced Skills 8 [intimidate 8 (to 15 (+15))] [2 pp]

Flight 1 (10 MPH) [2 pp]

Immunity 7 (Fire Damage, Suffocation) [7 pp]

Protection 6 [6 pp]

Super-Senses 2 (Acute Scent, Infravision)

Gadgets 2 (Hard to Lose; Free Action) [18 pp]

Blast 4 (PFs: Accurate 2) [10dp]

cost

abilities 22 + combat 24 + saves 15 + skills 14/56 + feats 12 + powers 63 = 150 pts

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

Design Notes:

Here's my build for the Burning Ghost, a so-far-unexplored Claremont plot hook. The Burning Ghost, the Spirit of Vengeance, was summoned to Freedom City in the 17th century when Lucius Cabot murdered a witch and sold his soul to the Devil for immortality. Unable to attack Cabot directly, the ghost was bound to the land where Claremont itself now stands. When assassins sent by Cabot murdered Constance Vervain, the mystic guardian of the area and wife of the British governor during the Revolution, her husband went mad, possessed by the flaming ghost, until finally he perished in battle with the American heroes who Cabot had successfully framed for his wife's murder. Again and again, the Ghost has returned to empower those looking for revenge; an angry construction worker in the 19th century when St. Thomas Aquinas, the school that once stood where Claremont does now, was being built, then William Warner, a much-bullied student in the 1930s. Only recently has the Ghost been tamed to serve heroic ends; the Iron Age vigilante Hellrider (whose secret identity was a troubled student at the dying Thomas Aquinas) was partner to the Burning Ghost rather than its pawn, a hero in his own grim way in the dark days of the Moore administration. (And precisely because vengeance did not consume him, Hellrider was able to retire safely after the Terminus Invasion, and still runs a motorcycle shop near the area)

It's not that hard to imagine a high school student once again becoming host to the flaming wrath of the Burning Ghost, teenagers being notorious for their strong emotions, viciously petty politics, and a thousand other things that can bring forth dark powers. And there's nothing to say such a teenager, if he or she were sufficiently strong-willed, couldn't master that ghost even as Hellrider did in the 1980s, using the power within to fight for justice as a true hero: the time of Lucius Cabot's destruction is coming very soon now, and the Spirit of Vengeance's fury at its centuries of confinement may have lessened with the final promise of justice. The idea I've gone with here is that the Spirit of Vengeance's current host was a teenage gadgeteer, an angry young man or woman with a talent for whipping out just the right gadget in a crisis. With enough strength of character to master the desire for flaming revenge, said student now has powers for reasons that go far beyond just intelligence! (This also gives the Ghost depth, as you don't expect a Ghost Rider expy to be a talented inventor)

I've tried to build this as something of a mystic fire controller, since the Ghost's Insubstantial 4 and Affects Corporeal Blasts don't really work if you assume the ghost is a person these days. Without the ghost's empowerment, this build works just fine for a grumpy street-level gadgeteer at a solid PL 7, as it is he's a fine PL 10. The once-grim nature of the Ghost means the new inheritor of the legacy will have lots of Reputation complications to overcome, especially if he or she was something of a delinquent around campus before their new empowerment. The Burning Ghost has generally meant trouble in the area, and even the Hellrider may not be particularly popular with those who remember the bad old days of the 1980s...

Link to comment

God with a Power Ring

"Whosoever finds this ring, if he be crafty enough, shall have all the power of Loki."

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 44 pp

STR 26 (+8)

DEX 10 (+0)

CON 26 (+8)

INT 20/14 (+5/+2)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 20/14 (+5/+2)

Combat: 16 pp

ATK: +4 (+6 melee/+8 Blast)

DEF: +6 (+2 flat-footed)

Grapple: +14

Init: +0

Saves: 11 pp

TOU +14 (+8 Con, +6 Protection)

FORT +8 (+8 Con)

REF +5 (+0 Dex, +5)

WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6)

Skills: 48 r=12 pp

Bluff 10 (+12/+15)*

Diplomacy 5 (+7/+10)*

Disguise 0 (+37/+40)

Gather Info 10 (+12/+15)*

Intimidate 10 (+12/+15)*

Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 5 (+7/+10)

Languages 3 (English, Norwegian, Swedish) (Base: Old Norse)

Notice 3 (+5)

Sense Motive 3 (+5)

Feats: 11 pp

Attack Focus: Melee 2,

Challenge (Improved Trick),

Dodge Focus 2,

Master Plan,

Skill Mastery (Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Info, Intimidate)

Power Attack,

Takedown Attack,

Taunt,

Well-Informed

Powers: 56 pp

Device 11 (Loki's Ring) (Hard to Lose) (PF: Restricted [those worthy]) [45 pp]

Enhanced CHA 6 (to CHA 20/+5) [6dp]

Enhanced INT 6 (to INT 20/+5) [6dp]

Feature 1 (Library) [1dp]

Flight 1 (10 MPH) [2dp]

Magic Array [30+4=34dp]

Illusion 10 (visual and auditory) [30/30]

AP: Blast 12 (mystic blast, PFs: Accurate 2, Precise, Variable Descriptor 1 [any elemental]) [30/30]

AP: Morph 7 (any form) (Extra: Duration [Continous], PFs: Covers Scent, Precise) [30/30]

AP: Strike 6 (Asgardian arsenal, Extra: Penetrating [6]; PFs: Extended Reach 2 [10 ft.], Improved Crit 2, Improved Disarm, Improved Trip, Knockback 6, Mighty, Precise, Takedown Attack, Variable Descriptor 2 [any energy or weapon]) {30/30}

AP: Teleport 6 (600 ft/20 miles) (Extras: Accurate, Portal) [30/30]

Protection 6 [6dp]

Immunity 8 (aging, cold damage, disease, poison) [8 pp]

Leaping 1 (x2) [1 pp]

Super-Strength 2 (Heavy Load: 1.5 tons) [4 pp]

costs

abilities 44 + combat 16 + saves 11 + skills 12/48 + feats 11+ powers 56 = 150 pts

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

Design Notes:

Smaller and weaker than the other Asgardian boys thanks to his Frost Giant heritage, Loki Laufeyson was a constant target for ridicule: sometimes being smarter than the big boys just means you're their favorite target, and even the best brother in the world can't constantly protect you. And what young man wants to be constantly protected, anyway? One day, after being tossed in Odin's treasure room and locked inside by some of Thor's buddies, Loki found something there he'd never seen before: a mystic ring of great and awesome power, an artifact once worn in battle by the frost giant all-father Ymir in his war against the Asgardians. Recognizing the opportunity, Loki donned the ring and gained a great and mighty mystic power: he was craftier, more confident, and tougher too, as well as becoming one of the most powerful mystics in Asgard. Little did he realize, though, that donning the ring would make him something neither frost giant or god, a transformation that forcibly cast him out of Asgard and hurled him to Midgard, leaving him with just the ring and the remnants of his godly power. Now he's determined to do good on Earth so that his father will see the mystic power and warrior's heart that it is his and take him home to his bosom!

At least, that's how Loki tells it. It's also entirely possible he stole the ring and was cast to Earth for his transgressions by his father, or that his father stripped him of his magic for some transgression and imbued it in the ring to keep him from getting into too much trouble, even that he successfully escaped Asgard with the ring and is now after his own designs on Earth. You never can tell with the Father of Lies. Anyway, here's my build for a God with a Power Ring, based on a recent watching of the Thor movie, where I found Loki a very compelling character. He can do most of the tricks we see in the movie, as well as many from mythology, disguising himself as a SHIELD operative (or horse, for that matter), firing carefully aimed mystic blasts (he can throw around fire if you want to play up his role in the myths some, or ice if you want to emphasize the frost giant thing), as well as walk across a city or summon mighty mystic weapons. He's also a really good illusionist, one with a particular talent for getting his enemies to do something unwise, whether it's to run off a cliff or go get into a really big fight with really powerful opponents. (He can't return to Asgard, which I figure is a condition of his exile and one of the things that helps him get around the Pact). Even without the Ring, he's a smart, savvy PL 7 god who could easily take on a base full of soldiers and agents all by himself.

As points develop, consider taking powers out of the ring and giving them directly to Loki, or taking the easy way out and emphasizing the power he gains through the ring. Create Object to represent force fields/stolen items, maybe? He could some Impervious; despite his extremely high TOU, even a thug's gun could hurt him. I've tried to build him as close to the Loki we see in the movie as I reasonably could, he's equally likely to pull out an illusion in a fight as he is a blast or a blade, especially since most of the people he's likely to be dealing with are much more powerful than he is. In the mortal world, in the company of heroes as part of their number, he's likely to play up his role as the wacky trickster, especially since that's liable to downplay just how clever he actually is. (Remember that though Loki is an antagonist to his fellows in the earliest Norse myths, he doesn't become a Satanic figure until very late in the story...) Complications include dealing with his kids, because it's tough to be a hero and a dad!

Link to comment

Ghul

“GHOUL, n. A demon addicted to the reprehensible habit of devouring the dead." -Ambrose Bierce

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 8 pp

STR 30/20/12 (+10/+5+1)

DEX 20 (+5)

CON - (-)

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 10 (+0)

Combat: 32 pp

ATK: +8 (+10 melee, +10/+12 Owl)

DEF: +10 (+4 flat-footed, +12 Owl)

Init: +5

Grapple: +15/+20 Hyena/+5 Owl

Saves: 7 pp

TOU +10 (+10 Protection [+5 Impervious, +5 vs. blessed/fire/silver], +8 Owl)

FORT - (-)

REF +7 (+5 Dex, +2)

WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5)

Skills: 56 r=14 pp

Acrobatics 5 (+10)

Bluff 6 (+6)

Climb 5 (+10)

Disguise 0 (+20 voices, +30 animal forms)

Handle Animal 10 (+10)

Intimidate 10 (+10/+6)

Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 5 (+5)

Language 1 (English; Base: Arabic)

Notice 3 (+5)

Sense Motive 3 (+5)

Stealth 5 (+10/+18)

Survival 3 (+5)

Feats: 10 pp

Animal Empathy,

Attack Focus: Melee 2,

Dodge Focus 2,

Evasion,

Power Attack,

Startle,

Takedown Attack,

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 82 pp

Comprehend 2 (speak to and understand animals) [4 pp]

Ghul Array 10 (PFs: Alternate Powers 2) [20+2=22 pp]

BE: Hyena Form

Drawback (no hands) [-4]

Enhanced Skill 4 (Bluff 4 (to Bluff 10 (+10))

Enhanced STR 10 (to STR 30/+10) [10]

Morph 6 (to Hyena, +30 Disguise; PFs: Cover Scent, Precise) [8]

Super-Senses 5 (Olfactory [Accurate 2, tracking 3]) [5]

AP: Owl Form

Drawback (no hands) [-4]

Flight 2 (25 MPH) [4]

Morph 6 (to Owl, +30 Disguise; PFs: Cover Scent, Precise) [8]

Shrinking 8 (Tiny; -8 Str, -2 Toughness, +2 Combat, -8 Grapple, +8 Stealth, -4 intimidate) [8]

Super-Senses 4 (Extended Hearing [all, 2] and Vision [all, 2] [4]

AP: Ghul Form

Flight 2 (25 MPH) (Extra: Linked [insubstantial] [4] + Insubstantial 2 (sirocco, Extra: Linked [Flight]) [10] + Strike 5 (PF: Mighty) [6]

Immunity 30 (Fortitude Saves) [30 pp]

Protection 5 [5 pp]

Protection 5 (Extra: Impervious, Flaw: Not Vs. Blessed/Fire/Iron) [5 pp]

Morph 4 (humanoids, +20 Disguise) (Flaw: Voices Only) [4 pp]

Regeneration 6 (Recovery Bonus +0, Resurrection 1/week) (Flaw: Source [blood]) [3 pp]

Super-Senses 4 (Acute Scent, Darkvision, Ultrahearing) [4 pp]

Undead Movement Array [3+1+1+5 pp]

Super-Movement 3 (Permeate [full speed]) (Flaw: Earth/Sand Only)

AP: Leaping 3 (x10)

AP: Speed 3 (50 MPH)

Drawbacks: 3 pp

Vulnerable (Iron; uncommon, major) [-3 pp]

costs

abilities 8 + combat 32 + saves 7 + skills 14/56 + feats 10+ powers 82 -drawbacks 3= 150 pts

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

Design Notes:

He grew up in the Arabian peninsula, the son of an Irish mining engineer and a Saudi mother, and found himself not really comfortable in either world. His mixed heritage and some poor early choices meant that back in Europe he was likely to be accused of committing petty crimes or even outright terrorism, while among his deeply religious Arab relatives he felt sometimes like a detached clinical researcher from an alien species. He eventually found work as a soldier of fortune and mercenary, rescuing kidnap victims, acting as a bodyguard for famous scientists visiting the area, and even heading his own team of mercenaries. It all came to an end one hot Arabian summer day, though, when a brutal ambush in the Empty Quarter by a group of undead monsters killed most of his team. He was left for dead, his throat torn out, alongside the burnt-out ruins of the medieval fort the monsters had once occupied, buried by the Arabian sands.

He awoke three nights later, clawing his way out of the sand, to find himself transformed into a ghul, an undead creature from Arabian folklore. He lived alone in the desert for months mastering his new condition; transforming into a hyena or desert owl to hunt the animals whose blood he needed to survive, digging in the sand to evade detection whenever he got too close to a human settlement, sometimes transforming into a mini-sandstorm to escape attacks by the other creatures of the desert. At least now the pitiless heat and sun of the desert wasn't a problem for him thanks to his tireless undead state; good thing he wasn't a European-style vampire better suited to the murky skies of the Balkans. Finally, though, he couldn't hold back any longer: he hunted down and slew the last of the ghuls who had killed his team, then decided to head back to civilization: somewhere like America where he wouldn't be recognized, a place where he could use his new abilities for good, to finally be the hero he'd always wanted to be.

Okay, based on Doc's Vampire Shapeshifter build, as well as the ghul from Arabian folklore, here's a new build. (The use of Liam Neeson as the picture is something of a pun based on his Batman Begins role). He's a scary guy, especially for people expecting him to have the traditional weaknesses of European vampires: he has no problem with sunlight, and even holy symbols are no threat. Instead I gave him an allergy to weaponized iron (not to the iron in blood, of course) given that meteoric iron swords were much prized in ancient Arabia, and carrying such a mighty weapon might have been a good way to fight ghuls. He's PL 7.5 offensively with just his fists (as befits the concept), and he can grow massive claws to fight in melee without turning into a hyena. He's got the vocal Morph (and the Enhanced Bluff) to represent the traditional folkloric role of hyenas (and ghuls!) as monsters that hid just outside the light of the campfire and lured men to their deaths by imitating the voices of loved ones...

Link to comment
  • 2 weeks later...

Klimpaloon

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 30 pp

STR 20 (+5)

DEX 16 (+3)

CON 20 (+5)

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 10 (+0)

Combat: 36 pp

ATK: +9 (+15 w/Fists of Fury)

DEF: +15/+9 (+4 flat-footed)

Init: +3

Grapple: +14/+20

Saves: 14 pp

TOU +5 (+5 Con)

FORT +8 (+5 Con, +3)

REF +8 (+3 Dex, +5)

WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6)

Skills: 48 r=12 pp

Acrobatics 7 (+10)

Climb 5 (+10)*

Languages 2 (Nepali, Tibetan) (Base: English)

Notice 13 (+15)*

Sense Motive 13 (+15)*

Survival 8 (+10)*

Feats: 12 pp

Acrobatic Bluff

All-Out Attack

Defensive Attack

Evasion 2

Luck

Move-By Action

Power Attack

Second Chance (Acrobatics checks)

Skill Mastery (Climb, Notice, Sense Motive, Survival)

Takedown Attack

Uncanny Dodge (mental)

Powers: 45 pp

Immunity 2 (aging, environmental cold) [2 pp]

Klimpaloon Array [13+1=14 pp]

Damage 0 (Extra: Autofire 5) and Enhanced Feats 8 (Attack Focus: Melee 6 and Improved Crit 2 [unarmed]) 'fists of fury'

AP: Strike 6 (Extra: Penetrating 6, PF: Mighty) 'nang-nang punch'

Leaping 1 (x2) [1 pp]

Shield 6 [6 pp] 'mystic precognition'

Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp]

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

Super-Senses 13 (Cosmic Awareness 2 [mental, Acute Extended Radius Ranged]) Darkvision, Detect Mood 3 [visual], Postcognition, Precognition [Flaw]) [17 pp]

costs

abilities 30 + combat 36 + saves 14 + skills 12/48 + feats 12 + powers 45 = 150 pts

Design Notes:

Oh, oh, oh

He stands in winter, he's striped and frozen

He is completely out of style

He got no hands, he got no feet

All mouth and teeth, but he don't smile

He's the magical old-timey bathing suit

That lives in the Himalayas

They call him Klimpaloon (Klimpaloon)

All the sherpas think that he's just a fool

Are you on a quest for a swimming pool?

Tell me, Klimpaloon (Klimpaloon)

Lives in the mountains (oh), the frozen mountains (oh)

Unlived, unfriendly, and unmapped

He's so short-sleevey (oh), more knit than weavy (oh)

His lips are really, really chapped

He's made out of wool, he's itchy to wear

He's got broad stripes and savoir-faire

He's out of place almost everywhere

Since 1883

He's a costume out of time

Both ridiculous and sublime

Seems innocuous, but I'm

Afraid he's scarin' me

He's the magical old-timey bathing suit

That lives in the Himalayas

They call him Klimpaloon (Klimpaloon)

If you're between Tibet and Nepal

And you're quiet, you can hear the call

Of Klimpaloon: (Klimpaloon)

Klimpaloon: Nang-nang-nang-nang-nang-nang-nang-nang-nang!

Link to comment
  • 2 weeks later...

Ice Vampire

Blood on the ice

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 10 pp

STR 10 (+0)

DEX 14 (+2)

CON n/a (-)

INT 14 (+2)

WIS 16 (+3)

CHA 16 (+3)

Combat: 16 pp

ATK: +4 (+8 Ice Powers)

DEF: +8 (+2 flat-footed)

Grapple: +4

Initiative +2

Saves: 10 pp

TOU +12 (+4 Protection, +8 Force Field)

FORT n/a

REF +5 (+2 Dex, +3)

WILL +10 (+3 Wis, +7)

Skills: 14 pp=56 r

Bluff 7 (+10)

Diplomacy 7 (+10)

Intimidate 7 (+10)

Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 3 (+5)

Knowledge (History) 3 (+5)

Knowledge (Pop Culture) 3 (+5)

Knowledge (Theology and Philosophy) 3 (+5)

Language 1 (English; Base: Old Norse)

Notice 7 (+10)

Sense Motive 7 (+10)

Stealth 8 (+10)

Feats: 13 pp

All-Out Attack,

Dodge Focus 4,

Fearless,

Luck,

Move-By Action,

Power Attack,

Precise Shot 2,

Taunt,

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 91 pp

Drain Constitution 2 (Flaw: Requires Grapple) [1 pp]

Flight 3 (50 MPH) (Extra: Affects Others, Flaw: Platform) [6 pp]

Force Field 8 [8 pp]

Ice Vampire Array [27+6=33 pp]

BE: Blast 12 (PFs: Accurate 2, Ranged Pin) 'icicle blast'

AP: Create Object 8 (Extra: Continuous, PFs: Precise, Progression, Selective) 'ice walls'

AP: Damage 12 (Extra: Alternate Save [Fortitude], PFs: Accurate 2, Improved Crit)

AP: Drain Toughness 12 (Extras: Affects Objects (+0), Ranged, PFs: Accurate 2, Slow Fade)

AP: Environmental Control 8 (1000 ft, extreme cold) (Extra: Selective)

AP: Snare 12 (PFs: Accurate 2, Reversible)

Immunity 30 (Fortitude Saves) [30 pp]

Protection 4 (Extra: Impervious, Flaw: Not Vs. Blessed/Fire/Silver) [4 pp]

Regeneration 6 (Recovery Bonus +0, Resurrection 1/week) (Flaw: Source [blood]) [3 pp]

Super-Senses 5 (Darkvision, Tracking 3 [full-speed, darkvision]) [5 pp]

Drawbacks: 3 pp

Weakness (Repelled by Fire; dazed by Charisma check vs. fire) [-3 pp]

costs

abilities 10 + combat 16 + saves 10+ skills 14/56 + feats 13 + powers 91 -drawbacks 3= 150 pts

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

Design Notes:

Here's my build for an ice vampire, a vaguely holiday-themed build that seemed appropriate for the holiday season. He's based on cold controllers like Killer Frost who absorb heat from the world around them to survive, except he really is a heat vampire! He's basically an undead Bobby Drake who flies around on ice slides, armors himself up with thick, bullet-absorbing ice, and fires a variety of icy blasts at his foes: he can hit them with a sharpened icicle, freeze them from the inside out with a touch, or wrap them in icy bonds or build sculptures out of ice to impress his girlfriend. He can also track targets by their body heat, and so precisely he can see even background-temperature objects in the dark. He doesn't have the traditional vampiric aversion to holy symbols, rather instead he's repelled by fire that breaks down his innately frozen body. He's smarter than he looks, and something of a trash-talker in combat, much like Bobby Drake himself. Similarly, his control over cold keeps him from bursting into flames in the daylight, though going out in the sun probably doesn't feel very good at all!

You could go with the idea that this was an ice-wielding mutant who was attacked and bitten by a vampire, or perhaps an Alaskan sheriff who was transformed into a vampire and who learned to harness his icy environments to stave off the supernatural hunger of his condition. (As with most of our vampires, his need to drink blood is a Complication, not a drawback as such) However, I've built him with a novel assumption: this is a Norse vampire, an escapee from Nifelheim in particular, one whose body is infused with the supernatural cold that was his fate for a millenium before he made it into mortal flesh again: perhaps clawing his way back into his own body, or perhaps being summoned to possess (in a comradely, not masterly, sort of way) a modern-day hero. He's PL 6 defensively without his ice powers, enough to at least evade bad guys and perhaps even get that power nullifier off him.

You could go a lot of ways with this, playing up his supernatural nature and giving him more ice powers, or boosting up his pretty solid skills: as it is he's a good face man for the group, and one who can keep everyone's drinks chilled at parties! (Even if he has to keep his own refreshments rather warmer these days, unless he's got blood pops or something...look, it's best not to think about it) He could use some Impervious on his Force Field to represent some really tough ice; alternatively you could add more vulnerabilities: perhaps he outright melts in fire and has an Involuntary Transformation background, or even just a really heavy vulnerability to flame.

Link to comment

Vampire with a Power Ring

"Solomon was actually not that wise."

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 0 pp

STR 18/10 (+4/+0)

DEX 12 (+1)

CON n/a

INT 12 (+1)

WIS 12 (+1)

CHA 14 (+2)

Combat: 16 pp

ATK: +4 (+8 Magic/+10 Melee)

DEF: +10 (+2 flat-footed)

Init: +1

Grapple: +14/+20

Saves: 10 pp

TOU +10 (+4 Protection, +6 Power Ring)

FORT n/a

REF +5 (+1 Dex, +4)

WILL +7 (+1 Wis, +6)

Skills: 56 r=14 pp

Bluff 8 (+10, Skill Mastery)

Concentration 4 (+5)

Diplomacy 8 (+10, Skill Mastery)

Knowledge (Theology and Philosophy) 4 (+5)

Languages 4 (Arabic, English, German, Hebrew) (Base: Yiddish)

Gather Information 8 (+10, Skill Mastery)

Intimidate 8 (+10, Skill Mastery)

Notice 4 (+5)

Sense Motive 4 (+5)

Stealth 4 (+5)

Feats: 21 pp

Attack Focus: Melee (6)

Benefit (Wealth 1)

Connected

Contacts

Dodge Focus (6)

Eidetic Memory

Fascinate (Bluff)

Skill Mastery (Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, Gather Info)

Ultimate Save (Will)

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Well-Informed

Powers: 98 pp

Concealment 4 (all visual) (Extra: Duration [Permanent]; Flaw: Vs. Machines Only) (PF: Close Range) [5 pp]

Device 11 (Seal of Solomon) (Hard to Lose) (PF: Restricted [Cohenic bloodline]) [45 pp]

Comprehend 2 (speak to and understand animals) [4dp]

Feature 7 (Buys Off Sunlight Drawback) [7dp]

Flight 3 (50 MPH) (Flaw: Platform) [3dp]

Impervious TOU 6 (Flaw: Not Vs. Blessed/Fire/Silver) [3dp]

Magic Array [27+2=29 pp]

BE: Blast 12 (PFs: Accurate 2, Variable Descriptor 1 [any divine])

AP: Move Object 12 (Heavy Load: 48 tons) (PFs: Accurate 2, Precise)

AP: Strike 6 (Extra: Penetrating; PFs: Affects Insubstantial 2, Extended Reach 2 [+10 ft], Improved Crit 2, Improved Trip, Variable Descriptor 1 [bludgeoning/piercing/slashing]) [20/27]

Protection 6 [6dp]

Super-Senses 3 (Detect Magic 3 [visual]) [3dp]

Drain Constitution 2 (Flaw: Requires Grapple) [1 pp]

Enhanced STR 8 (to STR 18/+4) [8 pp]

Immunity 30 (Fortitude Saves) [30 pp]

Protection 4 (Extra: Impervious; Flaw: Not Vs. Blessed/Fire/Silver) [4 pp]

Regeneration 6 (Recovery Bonus +0, Resurrection 1/week) (Flaw: Source [blood]) [3 pp]

Super-Senses 2 (Darkvision) [2 pp]

Drawbacks: 10 pp

Weakness (Holy Items; dazed by Charisma check) [-3 pp]

Weakness (Sunlight; dead in 1 minute) [-7 pp]

costs

abilities 0 + combat 16 + saves 10 + skills 14/56 + feats 21 + powers 98 - drawback 10 = 150 pts

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

Design Notes:

For another holiday-themed build, here's a vampire with Solomon's seal just in time for after Hannukah. Look, it happens. My idea here is that this was a rebbe or some other Jewish theologian native to Eastern Europe in the 19th or early 20th centuries. Attacked and transformed by a vampire who'd learned that feeding on outcasts like Jews and Roma was safe, he was able to use his faith to control his hunger, as well as find justification for his own existence. (While blood isn't kosher, one can eat non-kosher food in order to survive and he has no further options) However, he still looked for a cure, and so headed to Jerusalem looking for answers. He found no salvation there, living in the shadows and culverts of the holy city under Ottoman rule, but his explorations did lead him to something close: the long-lost Seal of Solomon, the magic ring carried by the legendary Hebrew king. With the powers granted to him by the ring (which weakened, but did not abolish, the effects of his curse), he became a defender of the Jewish people, donning a mask and costume after the appearance of the first costumed heroes.

As with the Solomon of legend, he can talk to animals, as well as summon all manner of demons and djinn to assault his foes, with abilities even to shove around djinn and pin them fast, or smite monsters with summoned divine weapons that can even cleave the (actually imprisoning genies permanently is a little outside the scope of a PC's abilities, and should probably be treated as a plot device) He can visualize magic by concentrating on them, or summon Solomon's mystic chariot to fly around at speed. He's a solid PL 7 without the ring, as you'd expect from a vampire of great power, though his abilities are grounded more in tremendous force of personality (like Doc's ring-bearing vamp, a cheap way of buying 'mental powers'). Logical progression would include letting his ring protect him from more vampiric vulnerabilities (i.e., buying off his aversion to holy symbols as it does sunlight), or perhaps adding more magic powers like Create Object (which he lacks, unlike most ring-breaing characters.

Obviously there are some unfortunate implications here, but I rather like the idea of an Ashkenzic Jew who rises above forcible transformation at the hands of an evil vampire to become a creature of power. The assumption is that this character has been carrying the ring for at least a century, you could easily mix things up a little and have the ring be in the hands of a recently Embraced devout Jew who has decided to use his people's legacy to change the unholy fate given to him by another. He makes for an interesting NPC in a Golden Age campaign, especially if a Nazi vampire is out there as one of his great antagonists. (And yes, I do have this out of my system now, and you won't be seeing any Christmas vampires here...)

Link to comment
  • 3 weeks later...

Madrigal's Hounds

Madrigal's Hounds are the eye and fist of the Madrigal Martinet, her agents in the Terminus and the enforcers of the will of the commander of Omega's dread armies. Six deadly assassins, warriors, and generals, closer than friends, closer than family, they are among the most feared beings in the Terminus. Like many Annihilists, they were heroes once on their own world: champions of love and peace in a world ruled by a benevolent lunar goddess. But when the Moon fell from the sky in a curtain of flame and chaos swarmed the land in blood and death, the Hounds came together in a pact that they would defeat the cruel sun god and his bride Chaos. Whatever the cost. When the war was done and the planet cleansed of chaos and the life it had contaminated, it was the Madrigal Martinet who came to them from the sky with a maternal offer: join her as her warriors and make sure no other planets could fall to the powers of cruel light, mad chaos, and foul freedom. Once they had gazed together into the Doom Coil, they knew exactly what they had to do.

Madrigal's Hounds are suitable for use in the Terminus as a squad of Annihilists that can pose a serious threat to the average party, or as "bosses" in an adventure where the PCs have just spend several rounds slogging their way through Omegadrones. They are also possible choices for a hit squad sent to eliminate a troublesome person or group of persons, or as challenges to face during an invasion scenario. With the exception of Hellstorm, they work well together as part of a team, and will happily gang up on powerful opponents, target weaker ones as necessary, and generally do whatever it takes to get the job done. With Omega's power currently in abeyance and the Annihilists at war with each other, the Martinet has begun relying on the Hounds more than ever.

Blood Diamond: Cruel and selfish, Blood Diamond is the leader of the Hounds. Truthfully, she'd rather be playing the backstabbing, ruthless games of politics at which she is a master, but the Martinet prefers her favored hunters to dirty their hands with the blood of their enemy: Annihilists have many enemies, after all, and she is determined that her carefully-molded weapons will be as formidable as she is. Blood Diamond's favored weapons are the exotic gems she has gathered and internalized from a hundred worlds, mastery of which have given her tremendous powers. Resplendent in royal purple colors, her body covered in glittering gems, she loves nothing better than to seduce an enemy and let them watch helplessly as she destroys all they once loved. Her rooms in the Martinet's palace in Nihilor, covered in a gigafortune of deathgem jewels, are a testimony to her artistic genius, an inspection that reveals the screaming face on each one is a testimony to her cruelty.

Discordia: Once a priestess in the temple of Chaos, Discordia went cheerfully mad when her world died around her. Gathering up weapons and armor from the Chaos arsenal, she went out to do battle with the demons in her head, and actually engaged the Martinet herself in hand-to-hand combat when she appeared. Impressed at the young warrior's mad ferocity, the Martinet took her under her wing, advanced her weapons and training, and unleashed her upon an unsuspecting world. What she lacks in powers, Discordia makes up for in determination and madness; she will loyally follow the commands of her sisters-in-darkness to the best of her ability, and is the only team member who will actually sacrifice herself for the benefit of the others. She wears a pink and purple costume like a jongelur's, and carries a massive particle cannon over her shoulder.

Hellstorm: If it's raining blood and the sky is burning with a black flame that gives no heat, gives no light, but can never be put out, Hellstorm's probably to blame. A beautiful adrenaline junkie in gold and blue, who cares more for her own pleasure than anything else, many have believed she's the weak link of the party: at least until she hurls them into the sky and watches them fall a lon, long way, or on a whim burns them to ash with a burst of entropic lightning that leave behind not even a soul to rescue. She's something of a thorn in Blood Diamond's side, and usually does her own thing in a fight whatever her orders had once been. She's succeeded, so far, but one day her luck is likely to run out and she will be corrected by the 'gentle teachings' of the Martinet in a way no one who sees it will ever forget.

Nightmare Doom: People think of Discordia as the mad one of the Hounds, but it is actually the mighty entropic weaver Nightmare Doom who is far more unstable than her fellows. It was her research into the nature of death and destruction that unleashed the forces of entropy upon her own world that ultimately corrupted and destroyed it, it was she who helped summon the Martinet when all was said and done and their world was ash and smoke. But she is not the Terminus loyalist one would expect: rather, Nightmare Doom has ambitions to one day be mother of even more destruction, perhaps even of the Martinet herself and her fellow Annihilists. She studies her fellow carefully, ever-looking for a sign of weakness that will one day let her destroy them all. She wears black robes and a cape that trails behind her, her eyes dark with true madness.

Omnibeast: Quiet and reserved when forced to participate in social gatherings, Omnibeast is often underestimated by her fellow Annihilists...at least until she glares a terrible soul-searing glare and tears them to pieces with the fangs and claws of impossible hellbeasts from long-dead worlds. She is the hunter and stalker of the group, a feral creature of rage and hunger who has stalked the Hundred Worlds of the Terminus and beyond, gaining the power to warp her body into the shapes and colors of the creatures she has slain and devoured. She embodies the animalistic cruelty so beloved by the Martinet, a reminder of the hungry beast that lies in the center of even the most innocent-seeming soul. She has the pale flesh and staring eyes of one who spends most of her time hunting the ghettos of Nihilor, and her black and red costume (as well as her hands and face) is usually stained with things best left unconsidered.

Razorwhip: Razorwhip wields a cruel weapon derived from the forges of Shadivan Steelgrave, a nano-thin whip that can cut through steel with a flick of her lovely wrist, as well as snap tight and let her haul even the most fearsome targets around. Perhaps the whip's most fearsome power is its neural applications: fibers from the whip can attach themselves to the nerve endings of a living target, letting her control their mind and weaken their resistance enough to render them powerless to resist her commands. No secret is safe from the whip, and few souls are either. Despite this (and her razor-edged brown and blue costume that looks almost impossible to wear), Razorwhip is the most practical of the Hounds: she's interested in her own survival first, and is the most willing to negotiate (temporarily, of course) with enemies, as well as beat a retreat when the situation calls for it. It's all just business. She and Shadivan Steelgrave are secretly lovers.

Link to comment

×
×
  • Create New...