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Bogatyr III

“In every revolution, there is ONE MAN with a vision.” -William Shatner

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 52 pp

STR 24 (+7)

DEX 18 (+4)

CON 24 (+7)

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 16 (+3)

CHA 20 (+5)

Combat: 24 pp

ATK: +6 (+8 melee)

DEF: +8 (+3 flat-footed)

Init: +8

Grapple: +15

Saves: 7 pp

TOU +12 (+7 Con, +5 Protection)

FORT +8 (+7 Con, +1)

REF +6 (+4 Dex, +2)

WILL +7 (+3 Wis, +4)

Skills: 16 pp=64 r

Bluff 12 (+17)

Climb 4 (+11)

Diplomacy 4 (+9)

Intimidate 8 (+13)

Knowledge: Civics 6 (+6)

Knowledge: History 6 (+6)

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

Ride 4 (+8)

Survival 6 (+9)

Feats: 18 pp

Attack Focus: Melee 2

Benefit (Hero of the People)

Dodge Focus 2

Improved Initiative

Inspire 5

Leadership

Luck

Move-By Action

Power Attack

Rallying Cry

Takedown Attack

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 33 pp

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

Impervious Toughness 10 [10 pp]

Leaping 1 (x2) [1 pp]

Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp]

Strike 5 (PF: Mighty) [6 pp] 'magic sword'

Protection 5 [5 pp] 'magic armor'

costs

abilities 52 + combat 24 + saves 7 + skills 16/64 + feats 18 + powers 33 = 150 pts

---

Design Notes:

This is my speculative build for the Bogatyr legacy, the father-son team of heroes who are the only actually mentioned Soviet/Russian-bloc heroes in the Freedom City universe. The name and timing of the character’s appearance (in the Golden Age) suggested to me a legacy similar to the Mystic Knight’s; a magical hero wielding a mystic blade and shielded by bulletproof armor, shielded from the slings and arrows of the world in his quest to rid the motherland of Nazis. So I made this guy, a tough melee combatant who’s also bulletproof and a very good leader. You could tweak the archetype in various ways, certainly, but I was trying here to cover all the bases.

I built this character with the idea that it could stand in for any member of the Bogatyr legacy, either the Golden and Silver Age versions of the character, his successor, or maybe a new Russian hero to carry the title. Freedom City is a low PL universe; a PL 10 guy is still pretty darn formidable. So how did this guy beat the Centurion? Through sneakiness (high Bluff), good teamwork (Inspire, Rallying Cry, and Leadership), and by sharing a mutual understanding with the Man of Adamant about the nature of duty and honor. Maybe Bogatyr’s masters were less honorable than those who cared for the Centurion’s movements, but both men knew what it meant to be a leader, as well as the necessity of giving everything they had to save the day.

Freedom City doesn’t do very well with international heroes, so having another around is definitely a good thing. This character is probably the leader of the current Russian super-team if he’s currently active, so might make a better NPC...but OTOH, what a great story if he isn’t! As a PC, this character is like Captain America’s time as Nomad, roaming the world in the name of justice, beholden to no man and no cause save duty, honor, and defending the downtrodden against the powers that seek to do them harm. In short, if this guy does become a PC, he’s very much on a Knight’s Quest...

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Mimic

“To hold, as twere, a mirror up to nature...” -William Shakespeare

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 28 pp

STR 30 [18] (+10/+4)

DEX 14 (+2)

CON 18 (+4)

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 14 (+2)

Combat: 28 pp

ATK: +6 (+10 Melee)

DEF: +10 (+4 flat-footed)

Init: +6

Grapple: +14/?

Saves: 10 pp

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

FORT +6 (+4 Con, +2)

REF +6 (+2 Dex, +4)

WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4)

Skills: 16 pp=64 r

Bluff 8 (+10)

Concentration 13 (+15)

Diplomacy 3 (+5)

Drive 3 (+5)

Knowledge: History 5 (+5)

Knowledge: Physical Sciences 5 (+5)

Languages 3 (pick three)

Notice 8 (+10)

Sense Motive 8 (+10)

Stealth 8 (+10)

Feats: 17 pp

All-Out Attack

Attack Focus: Melee (4)

Dodge Focus (2)

Improved Initiative

Luck (3)

Move-By Action

Power Attack

Takedown Attack (2)

Ultimate Save (Toughness)

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 51 pp

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

Object Mimicry 6 (Extra: Reaction [+2]) [48 pp] {30}

solid

-Density 6 (+12 STR, +3 Imp Tou, Immovable 2, Super-Strength 2) {18}

-Immunity 2 (suffocation) {2}

-Leaping 2 (x5) {2}

-Protection 3 (Extra: Impervious) {3}

-Speed 2 (25 MPH) {2}

Equipment: 10 ep

Cell Phone [1 ep]

Motorcycle [9 ep]

costs

abilities 28 + combat 28 + saves 10 + skills 16/64 + feats 17 + powers 51 = 150 pts

---

Design Notes:

This is my build for a Mimic, a very generic character type that I’ve tried to give some bite. The tough thing about characters with variable powers is that they cost so many points that it’s tough to build characters with a solid voice for them without a background. Unlike the corebook Mimic, this guy can’t absorb powers from other heroes or bad guys (something that’s not a lot of fun to play), rather, he gets his powers like the Absorbing Man in Marvel or Amazing Man in DC: he touches a solid object and absorbs some of its abilities. I’ve gone with the assumption that his base power is some metal like iron or steel, but he can copy anything he touches.

One thing I’ve done here that may not fly for you is I’ve bought his Object Mimicry up to a Reaction: this means he doesn’t actually have to take an action to change his allocation. He can do things like get hit by a flame blast and turn into fire, becoming immune to the hit, get exposed to poison gas and turn into gas himself, and the like: this is obviously a very powerful ability. As a GM, I’d make sure to keep an eye on it. (i.e.; “No, you can’t take an immunity to bullets because someone shot you, no, you can’t change allocations multiple times a round, just like what the book says,” etc). If this doesn’t fly for you, just give him Object Mimicry 8 (since Reaction is a +2 extra for this power) and have 40 points to play with rather than 30: it’s a loss, but you won’t complain too much about having another ten points to spend!

I figure this guy’s an experienced superhero given his powers, one who’s refined his abilities by long practice well enough to be able to use them so quickly. He’s a pretty competent PL 7 action hero without his powers, but suddenly becomes very powerful indeed when his powers come on: again, a sign of how long he’s been in this game. Tweak him by giving him different Mimic powers if you want, but I think Object Mimicry is the most heroic. Not that it’s a sin to copy other people’s powers, but you the player will feel cooler if you’re getting something from your own talents rather than by copying someone else.

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Atlantean

"Darling it's better, down where it's wetter, take it from me!"-Sebastian the Crab

Abilities: 74 pp

STR: 30 (+10)

DEX: 22 (+6)

CON: 24 (+7)

INT: 16 (+3)

WIS: 24 (+7)

CHA: 18 (+4)

Saves: 3 pp

TOU: +10 (+10 Con)

FORT: +8 (+7 Con, +1)

REF: +7 (+6 Dex, +1)

WILL:+8 (+7 Wis, +1)

Skills: 16 pp=64 r

Diplomacy 2 (+6)

Handle Animal 6 (+10),

Intimidate 11 (+15),

Knowledge (tactics) 12 (+15),

Knowledge (theology and philosophy) 4 (+7),

Language 1 (English) (Base: Atlantean),

Notice 8 (+15),

Ride 4 (+10),

Sense Motive 3 (+10)

Survival 3 (+10),

Swim 10 (+20)

Feats: 17 pp

Animal Empathy,

Attack Focus (melee) 3

Blind-Fight,

Cult Hero (Atlanteans),

Defensive Attack,

Dodge Focus 3,

Environmental Adaptation (underwater),

Master Plan 2,

Power Attack,

Startle,

Takedown Attack

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 17 pp

Immunity 4 (environmental cold, high pressure, breathe underwater) [4 pp]

Protection 3 [3 pp]

Super-Senses 2 (Tremorsense) [2 pp]

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

Swimming 6 (100 MPH) [6+1=7 pp]

AP: Leaping 3 (x10) and Speed 3 (50 MPH)

Combat: 28 pp

Attack +7 (+10 melee),

Grapple +21,

Defense +10 (+3 flat-footed),

Knockback –5,

Initiative +6

Drawbacks: -5 pp

Weakness (-1 Con per hour without water immersion, can kill) [5 pp]

--

Design Notes:

This is a somewhat tweaked repost of my earlier Atlantean build, a more standard version of the archetype I played with while constructing my Deep One build. This character is a skilled, powerful warrior of the seas, a champion of Atlantis and perhaps the finest soldier in its armies, now an ambassador to the surface world and a warrior on the surface as well. She doesn't have Favored Environment (underwater); Favored Environment is a mistake to give a PC build. Rather, she just has Environmental Adaptation for underwater survival: that way she doesn't take the heavy penalties that regular PCs take for underwater movement and combat. That way she's just as competent as they are on the surface, but is the original Atlantean Murder Machine below.

No talking to fish, no Animal Summoning powers: drop her massive attributes and combat skills some if you want those. She actually has very few powers as such; I figure that an Atlantean isn't going to have Enhanced STR so much as she's naturally going to be stronger and tougher than any human being. She's got the Cult Hero feat from Silver Age which works like a mutant Attractive: you get bonuses to social rolls with people from or friendly to your group, but take a penalty when dealing with people particularly hostile to your group. She probably doesn't get along at all well with polluters and such: she's like Captain Planet if he hurt people. Like real bad, like with elbow-strikes and such.

You can play characters like this anyway you want: the nice Silver Age ambassador who occasionally shouts at people because she's used to talking underwater and who has to explain that yes, of course she eats fish, what do people expect Atlanteans to eat, or the tough, no-nonsense Bronze Age champion of the oceans and enemy of polluters and thugs elsewhere. If she's at all influenced by the late 1980s, she needs some whale buddies: perhaps there was an incident with a whaling ship and some time travelers back then? Oceanic environmentalism is a _bit_ dated today, but it's still very much a contentious issue that's still well worth addressing with a character.

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Golden Age Hero

“It is, I believe, the greatest generation any society has ever produced.” Tom Brokaw

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 20 pp

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

DEX 20 (+5)

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

INT 14 (+2)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 14 (+2)

Combat: 20 pp

ATK: +4 (+8 Unarmed)

DEF: +8 (+3 flat-footed)

Init: +9

Grapple: +21

Saves: 9 pp

TOU +12 (+12 Con)

FORT +12 (+12 Con)

REF +8 (+5 Dex, +3)

WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6)

Skills: 8 pp=32 r

Diplomacy 4 (+6)

Gather Info 4 (+6)

Intimidate 4 (+6)

Notice 6 (+8)

Search 4 (+6)

Sense Motive 6 (+8)

Stealth 4 (+9)

Feats: 14 pp

All-Out Attack

Attack Specialization: Unarmed 2

Contacts,

Dodge Focus 2,

Evasion,

Improved Initiative,

Interpose,

Move-By Action,

Power Attack,

Takedown Attack,

Ultimate Effort (Toughness Checks),

Well-Informed

Powers: 79 pp

Enhanced CON 20 [20 pp]

Enhanced STR 20 [20 pp]

Impervious TOU 9 [9 pp]

Immunity 7 (disease, all environmental conditions, poison) [7 pp]

Immunity 5 (aging, starvation and thirst, sleep, suffocation) (Flaw: Limited [Half Effect]) [3 pp]

Leaping 5 (x50) [5+1=6 pp]

AP: Speed 5 (250 MPH)

Quickness 4 (x25) (Flaw: Physical Tasks Only) [2 pp]

Super-Strength 5 (Heavy Load: 45 tons) (PFs: Countering Punch, Super-Breath) [12 pp]

costs

abilities 20 + combat 20 + saves 9 + skills 8/32 + feats 14 + powers 79 = 150 pts

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Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive! Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound! I think I’ve managed to cover most of the basics with this character: she can break the sound barrier by moving all-out, lift a locomotive over her head, nothing short of a bursting shell can pierce her skin (I know Impervious 9 makes the Knockback math tough, but hey, waddya gonna do), and leap tall buildings in a single bound. She’s also got a super-charged internal anatomy that keeps her from suffering the slings and arrows of the world, shrugging off everything from poison gas to getting splattered with molten metal. (Though she should maybe use her cape for that one.) She's not a great hand-to-hand combatant; she punches people right in the face and lets that do the trick!

Is she the last daughter of an alien world, empowered by the yellow sunlight of our solar system, or is she from an advanced culture of super-evolved humans, where everyone has her amazing physical prowess? She’s got the usual powerhouse tricks like Interpose and Ultimate Toughness, though you can certainly shift that over to Ultimate Strength: it’s just that Toughness comes up so much more often! I went with the assumption that this character has just debuted, maybe as a mild-mannered reporter for a major metropolitan newspaper, but a little tweaking will give you a version of this character that’s been around for a long time: give her full immunity to aging, or go with the idea that she looks fifty when she’s actually closer to 90 given her half-immunity to aging. She's a decent investigator, though certainly no costumed adventurer, good enough to track down racketeers and fifth columnists and hurt them real bad!

Golden Age and Golden Age-influenced characters (maybe split the difference and say she’s been stuck somewhere for a few decades) often have some serious conflicts with contemporary superheroic morality. Sometimes that’s played for ‘drama’, as when yet another writer decides to say “The 1940s were actually really racist and sexist!”, but I think we can move past that a little bit with a PC: keep stuff like that to a bare, bare minimum, maybe throwing in an Old Shame where she appeared in a “Let’s Get Back to the Kitchen, Girls!” newsreel in the late 40s or summat. I think it’s more fun to just talk about the divide between generations and the different standards in place, not worry so much about rubbing everyone’s nose in how much the past sucked and how the people who lived there are dumb.

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Portalist

“Now you’re thinking with portals.” -Portal

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 18 pp

STR 10 (+0)

DEX 14 (+2)

CON 16 (+3)

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 16 (+3)

CHA 12 (+1)

Combat: 28 pp

ATK: +6 (+10 Portals)

DEF: +14 (+4 flat-footed)

Init: +6

Grapple: +6

Saves: 10 pp

TOU +6 (+3 Con, +3 Protection)

FORT +6 (+3 Con, +3)

REF +6 (+2 Dex, +4)

WILL +6 (+3 Wis, +3)

Skills: 21 pp=84 r

Bluff 8 (+9)

Climb 4 (+4)

Diplomacy 8 (+9)

Intimidate 8 (+9)

Knowledge: Civics 4 (+4)

Knowledge: Pop Culture 8 (+8)

Languages 8 (pick 8)

Notice 8 (+11)

Sense Motive 8 (+11)

Stealth 8 (+10)

Survival 8 (+11)

Swim 4 (+4)

Feats: 15 pp

Contacts,

Connected,

Dodge Focus 6,

Elusive Target,

Evasion

Improved Initiative,

Luck,

Move-By Action,

Uncanny Dodge (auditory),

Well-Informed

Powers: 57 pp

Portal Array [47+7=54 pp]

-Blast 10 (Extras: Autofire, Penetrating) (PFs: Accurate 2, Indirect 3, Variable Descriptor 2 [any physical]) ‘portal bombardment’

AP: Blast 10 (Extras: Area [shapeable], Selective) (PFs: Indirect 3, Progression 2 (25 foot cubes), Variable Descriptor 2 [Physical]) ‘portal storm’

AP: Disintegration 10 (Flaw: Full-Round Action) (PFs: Accurate 2, Reversible) ‘it goes away’

AP: ESP 10 (Earth to Moon) (all senses) (PFs: Rapid 6 (1mk), Subtle) ‘peeking through portals’

AP: Move Object 10 (Extras: Damaging, Range [Perception]) (PFs: Accurate 2, Indirect 3, Variable Descriptor 2 [Physical]) ‘mass transit’

AP: Teleport 8 (200 ft/2000 miles) (Extras: Accurate, Portal [+2]) (PFs: Change Velocity, Progression 5 (250x250), Turnabout) ‘portal’

AP: Teleport 20 (anywhere in the Universe) (PFs: Change Velocity, Easy, Progression 4 (2500 lbs), Turnabout) ‘long-distance teleport’

Protection 3 [3 pp]

costs

abilities 18 + combat 28 + saves 10 + skills 21/84 + feats 16 + powers 57 =150 pts

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‘

Design Notes: OK, I already made a teleporter, but durf’s great Portal construction got me thinking. So here’s a character who’s a teleporter of a different sort, someone who can open up portals to anywhere in the Universe! But since he can’t breathe in space, he restricts himself usually to opening up portals on Earth, something he’s very, very good at. He can do all sorts of crazy tricks with portals too; opening up portals underground and hitting opponents with jets of lava or steam, blasting them with high pressure water from the Marianas Trench, or anything else he can grab. He can do that against just one target with a torrent of portals, or hit a whole area with a massive array of destruction.

I figure his Disintegrate represents opening a portal up right in the middle of something and shredding it to bits, or maybe dropping it somewhere that it won’t be coming back. (Unless he reverses it!) The Move Object is a way of doing an ‘attack’ Teleport, taking an object and shifting it around as best he can in combat. As for the ESP, well, it’s just what it sounds like, looking through legions of tiny near-invisible portals to see what’s going on all around him, and doing it darn fast to boot. The Accurate on his Move Object represents hitting with 'thrown' objects, not the power itself, of course.

The picture is of Vortex, a book character (for M&M 3E) who has not been statted out yet. I hasten to add that this is not an attempt to infringe on that character! I figure this is a character who’s been literally everywhere at one time or another, speaking a legion of languages and possessing friends and allies all over the universe. And why not? Who doesn’t enjoy traveling across an incredibly vast distance of space and time, journeying anywhere they like?

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Battlesuit

"He likes me whatever size that I am." -Delta Burke

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 38 pp

STR 40/30/18 (+15/+10/+4)

DEX 18 (+4)

CON 24/18 (+7/+4)

INT 20 (+5)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 10 (+0)

Combat: 20 pp

ATK: +5 (+5 w/Growth/+2 flat-footed)

DEF: +5 (+5 w/Growth/+2 flat-footed)

Init: +7

Grapple: +27 max

Saves: 10 pp

TOU +15/+4 (+7/+4 Con, +8 Protection)

FORT +9/+6 (+7/+4 Con, +2)

REF +6 (+4 Dex, +2)

WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6)

Skills: 18 pp=72 r

Computers 8 (+13)

Craft: Electronic 8 (+13)

Craft: Mechanical 8 (+13)

Disable Device 8 (+13)

Intimidate 8 (+8/+10)

Knowledge: Physical Sciences 7 (+12)

Knowledge: Technology 8 (+13)

Languages 1 (English) (Base: Chinese)

Notice 8 (+10)

Sense Motive 8 (+10)

Feats: 8 pp

Attack Focus: Melee

Dodge Focus

Improved Initiative

Inventor

Master Plan

Power Attack

Takedown Attack

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 60 pp

Device 16 (Hard to Lose) (Mechsuit) [60 pp]

-Enhanced STR 10 and Super-Strength 3 {16+2=18}

-AP: Blast 10 (Extra: Area [Line] (+0) (Flaw: Unreliable [5 uses a day]) 'flamethrowers'

-AP: Blast 10 (Extra: Area [shapeable] (+0) (Flaw: Unreliable [5 uses a day] 'missiles'

-Flight 3 (50 MPH) {6}

-Growth 6 (Extra: Duration (Permanent) [+0]) (PF: Innate) {19}

-Immunity 9 (Life Support) {9}

-Impervious Toughness 10 {10}

-Protection 8 {8}

-Super-Senses 5 (Accurate Analytical Extended Radio Sense) {5}

Drawback: -4 pp

Normal ID (uncommon, major) [full round action; must put suit on]

costs

abilities 38 + combat 20 + saves 10 + skills 18/72 + feats 8 + powers 60 - drawback 4 = 150 pts

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Design Notes:

Here's a slightly tweaked take on the Battlesuit archetype: this lady doesn't just put on some tiny suit of armor to do her combat business in, she dons a gigantic mechsuit that bulks in at a massive twelve feet tall and several thousand pounds while she's wearing it. I figure the armor was originally intended as a combat battlesuit by the military, which is why it's maximized with various ways to bring the pain! She can Power Attack and hit as hard as the Centurion (though she'll need help from allies to actually hit anything that way), or just sweep her way through legions of goons in style. And hey, with a suit this big, she can afford to fit like a cupholder in there, or maybe a stereo.

Growth 6 is a pretty healthy Growth, but you can easily make her bigger or smaller as the situation calls for it: don't go over Growth 12 for a PC in this game, though, your character would have way too hard a time getting around in city streets. I figure you can explain the Con bonus from the battlesuit by saying it augments her body with its life support systems, armoring her up and patching injuries, its sheer bulk protecting her from the worst sorts of injuries out there. With her PL-maxed Impervious and massive Toughness tradeoff, she can take a tremendous amount of punishment, so don't be afraid to go out there and mix it up! She's also got pretty good saves for a battlesuit, so there's that.

Lots of different takes here: is she a genius solo inventor? Head of a multi-million dollar corporation? An army test pilot? I've gone with the idea that this is a very smart, very healthy, slightly anti-social lady who built her own battlesuit in her garage in her sparetime, but you can tweak her out of combat skills and feats however you want. Heck, maybe she stole this armor from people who wanted to do ill with it, and is now using it to fight for justice; perhaps the very same people who originally hired her to build the thing? She's PL 4.5 without her suit, which is about right for a decent superheroic character, even if most battlesuits have a much smaller (if any) tradeoff.

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Farsider Hero

"Orbiting rondelle..."-Moxy Fruvous

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 26 pp

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

DEX 16 (+3)

CON 16 (+3)

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 16 (+3)

CHA 14 (+2)

Combat: 24 pp

ATK: +6 (+8 ranged, +10 unarmed)

DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed)

Init: +7

Grapple: +20

Saves: 12 pp

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

FORT +6 (+3 Con, +3)

REF +6 (+3 Dex, +3)

WILL +9 (+3 Wis, +6)

Skills: 12 pp=48 r

Diplomacy 8 (+10)

Intimidate 8 (+10)

Knowledge: Civics 5 (+5)

Knowledge: Current Events 5 (+5)

Languages 1 (English) (Base: Farsider)

Notice 7 (+10)

Search 5 (+5)

Sense Motive 7 (+10)

Feats: 16 pp

Attack Focus: Ranged 2,

Attack Specialization: Unarmed 2,

Dodge Focus 6

Elusive Target,

Environmental Adaptation (low gravity),

Evasion,

Improved Initiative,

Luck,

Move-By Action

Uncanny Dodge (mental)

Powers: 60 pp

Comprehend 2 (speak and understand all languages) [4 pp]

Farsider Array [24+3=27 pp]

Blast 12 'telekinetic blast'

AP: Enhanced STR 16 and Super-Strength 4 (Heavy Load: 12 tons) ‘tactile telekinesis’

AP: ESP 6 (20 miles) (visual and auditory) (PFs: Rapid 5 (100k), Subtle) 'extra-sensory perception'

AP: Telekinesis 12 (Heavy Load: 48 tons)

Flight 3 (50 MPH) (PF: Subtle) [7 pp]

Immunity 9 (Life Support) [9 pp]

Protection 5 (Extra: Impervious) [10 pp]

Space Flight 1 (1c) [1 pp]

Telepathy 1 [2 pp]

costs

abilities 26 + combat 24 + saves 12 + skills 12/48 + feats 16 + powers 60 = 150 pts

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Design Notes:

So you grew up on a farm in Kansas, not really questioning why your parents were older than your friends' parents, imbuing good old-fashioned all-American values from your family, your community, and the superheroes you watched on TV. When you were eighteen and first began to manifest your superhuman strength, flight, and ability to read minds and look through walls, your dad finally showed you the rocket they'd been keeping in the barn, with a message from your real parents: you're royalty, part of the royal family of Farside City, a secret colony of humans on the dark side of the Moon planted there by the Precursors uncounted milennia ago. You were sent away as a infant when an enemy overthrew and slew your parents and family, no doubt on her way to slaughtering all the good people of Farside City, conditioned in your rocket to grow up as a powerful champion of justice! So you grew up and became a superhero, determined to defend your new home! Until you found out that Farside City is actually still there! (Superheroes overthrew Lady Lunar a long time ago.) But they're a democracy now, and they don't really want any telepathic funny-looking people with strong accents hanging around. D'oh! Besides, you're really happier on Earth...

Or maybe you're an ambassador. You're powerful, really, really powerful, maybe the strongest psychic born in Farside City since Lady Lunar killed off most of the royal family, and luckily you're short and fat enough that you can pass for a freakishly tall and skinny human being. The world of Freedom City is very different than Farside City; it's loud and boisterous and so overcrowded, and the people look and act so different, traveling wherever they want whenever it suits their fancy. But freedom and justice are the same here as they are back home, and even in triple lunar gravity your powers keep you going where your lesser brethern need to fall back on technological assistance. Just make sure to keep where you're really from a secret, as your people don't want any squatters coming in and lowering lunar property values.

This character is a hero from Farside City, the Inhuman/Attilan expies of the Freedom City universe. There aren't a lot of Farsiders on Earth given the gravity issues and the legendary isolationism of the Farsiders, a product both of their culture and genetic tampering by the Preservers who placed them on the Moon uncounted ages ago. (Don't blame the Preservers; Farside City has limited resources and can't afford to overtax things.) His fellow Farsider hero, Mentac, was tragically killed (or WAS he?) in the Terminus Invasion back in 1993. He's basically a mentalist riff on the energy controller archetype, with the exception that he can fly into space with the help of his psionic powers: his broad descriptors make power-stunting a dream!

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Rooftop Guardian

“We are defenders of the night!”-Keith David

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 60 pp

STR 26 (+8)

DEX 26 (+8)

CON 26 (+8)

INT 12 (+1)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 14 (+2)

Combat: 32 pp

ATK: +8 (+12 Unarmed)

DEF: +12 (+4 flat-footed)

Init: +12

Grapple: +17

Saves: 10 pp

TOU +8 (+8 Con)

FORT +10 (+8 Con, +2)

REF +10 (+8 Dex, +2)

WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6)

Skills: 18 pp=72 r

Climb 8 (+16)

Intimidate 8 (+10)

Knowledge: Arcane Lore 8 (+9)

Knowledge: History 8 (+9)

Notice 8 (+10)

Sense Motive 8 (+10)

Stealth 8 (+16)

Survival 8 (+10)

Feats: 13 pp

Attack Specialization: Unarmed 2

Dodge Focus 4

Elusive Target,

Evasion,

Fearsome Presence 5,

Improved Initiative,

Improved Throw,

Luck,

Move-By Action,

Power Attack,

Takedown Attack,

Uncanny Dodge (olfactory)

Powers: 12 pp

Flight 3 (50 MPH) [6 pp]

Immunity 1 (aging) [1 pp]

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

Super-Strength 1 (Heavy Load: 800 lbs) [2 pp]

costs

abilities 60 + combat 32 + saves 10 + skills 18/72 + feats 13 + powers 12 = 150 pts

--

Design Notes:

A familiar-looking character, translated into Mutants and Masterminds. He doesn’t have claws or a strike because as I noted in the Lycanthrope build, it sucks to be undercapped in combat against human beings and ripping people up with claws and teeth isn’t terribly heroic in the Freedom City setting. Give him an HP if someone grapples his wings, you’d much rather have that than get one PP for it at character creation, trust me! He has real Flight, not Gliding, because again, more fun that way! Remember that Flight 3 is all you’re going to need if you’re chasing cars in an urban setting like this one. He’s also got great Stealth for hiding in dark shadows, and Climb for going up walls.

He’d also need an HP for that ‘turning into stone by day’ complication if you really want to give him that: if he’s in a campaign that centers around his adventures (as in our threads here), by a strange coincidence most of his adventures will happen at night and he won’t really feel the bite of not being around during the day. I went with an immortal hero who can pass for human if he needs to, but if he does have a permanent monstrous appearance, you’d better give him an HP for that, and maybe get him a human ally to do some of his dirty work on the streets.

A super-smart, super-charismatic industrialist is a natural enemy for him, along with an old girlfriend who might have a somewhat more aggressive agenda than he does: perhaps she’s taken to killing the criminals they once fought? But you can make up your own complications and backstory all you want; maybe he lives in a castle set atop a skyscraper, or in a cathedral with his friendly neighborhood vampire? Team him up with a hyperactive cat policeman and a costumed adventurer with wings and a beak if you want to put this guy in his old stomping grounds.

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Terminus Hero

“And in the darkness, bind them...”

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 40 pp

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

DEX 16 (+3)

CON 20 (+5)

INT 16 (+3)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 16 (+3)

Combat: 28 pp

ATK: +8 (+10 melee)

DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed)

Grapple: +15/+25

Init: +7

Saves: 9 pp

TOU +10 (+5 Con, +5)

FORT +7 (+5 Con, +2)

REF +5 (+3 Dex, +2)

WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5)

Skills: 18 pp=72 r

Bluff 8 (+11)

Intimidate 12 (+15)

Knowledge: Civics 8 (+11)

Knowledge: Current Events 10 (+13)

Knowledge: Tactics 14 (+17)

Notice 6 (+8)

Search 6 (+9)

Sense Motive 8 (+10)

Feats: 20 pp

Accurate Attack,

All-Out Attack,

Attack Focus: Melee 2,

Dodge Focus 4,

Evasion,

Fearless,

Improved Initiative,

Improved Trip,

Luck,

Master Plan 2,

Move-By Action,

Power Attack,

Startle,

Takedown Attack,

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 35 pp

Immunity 2 (aging, poison) [2 pp]

Protection 5 (Extra: Impervious) [10 pp]

Terminus Array [20+3=23 pp]

Emotion Control 10 ‘gaze of the Coil’

AP: Enhanced STR 10 and Super-Strength 5 ‘Madrigal Strength’

AP: Strike 10 (Extra: Vampiric) ‘Terminus blade’

AP: Teleport 9 (anywhere on Earth) (PFs: Change Direction, Turnabout) 'Voidwalk'

costs

abilities 40 + combat 28 + saves 9 + skills 18/72 + feats 20 + powers 31 = 150 pts

--

Design Notes:

This character gets her powers from the Terminus. She's a terrifying monster in the World of Freedom, whether she got her powers directly from the Terminus itself or whether she's a mutant born in the years after Terminus energy poured into the bodies of unfortunate citizens of Freedom City. How to make a character like this heroic? Well, remember that Dark is Not Evil: A heroic character could easily be one of those infamous "Terminus babies" born right here in Freedom City, determined to fight for good and right despite the evil origins of her powers. Or maybe she's something a little darker yet: maybe she's from a dead world, or a native of the Terminus itself, and was a pupil of an Annihilist before she was able to see the light: now she seeks to undo the damage she did, or might have done, for all that she has powers that come from a very bad place to do it.

I went with something like a darker Big Barda here; perhaps trained as one of the Madrigal Martinet's Harpies before becoming her own woman. (The white eyes are when she's really, really angry.) She's a really good fighter, and between her ability to blast people with the despair and fear causing gaze of the Terminus (treat her inability to cause kinder emotions as a Complication, maybe a drawback), her enhanced Strength, and her ability to summon a black blade drawn from the Void itself...well, she's a formidable lady. When you add that to her formidable combat prowess, she becomes a serious force to be reckoned with. She's earned every point of that monstrously high Intimidate bonus!

Despite the grim appearance and powers, your best bet with this kind of character really is to play her like a Big Barda: She's a free woman, ready to live the life of a free person, and has a chance to build a better world. This works even if she's a Terminus baby; maybe she looks scary, maybe she's got her powers from the most evil place in the multiverse, but she's still a hero, even if some of the people don't believe her. The best way to do that is to be as boisterous and brave as she can, and the Void take the consequences!

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Beacon II

There are two kinds of light - the glow that illumines, and the glare that obscures. ~James Thurber

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 28 pp

STR 14 (+2)

DEX 16 (+3)

CON 16 (+3)

INT 14 (+2)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 14 (+2)

Combat: 24 pp

ATK: +6 (+10 Ranged)

DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed)

Init: +7

Grapple: +8

Saves: 10 pp

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

FORT +6 (+3 Con, +3)

REF +6 (+3 Dex, +3)

WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4)

Skills: 14 pp=56 r

Bluff 6 (+8)

Concentration 8 (+10)

Diplomacy 6 (+8)

Intimidate 6 (+8)

Knowledge: Arcane Lore 6 (+8)

Knowledge: History 6 (+8)

Notice 6 (+8)

Search 6 (+8)

Sense Motive 6 (+8)

Feats: 16 pp

Attack Focus: Ranged (4)

Dodge Focus (4)

Improved Initiative

Luck (2)

Move-By Action

Precise Shot (2)

Power Attack

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 58 pp

Pharos Array [20+5=25 pp]

Blast 10

AP: Create Object 6 (Extra: Moveable) (PFs: Progression, Subtle)

AP: Dazzle 10 (visual)

AP: Emotion Control 10

AP: Healing 10 (Extra: Ranged) (Flaw: Others Only)

AP: Light Control 10

Flight 4 (100 MPH) (PF: Subtle) [9 pp]

Immunity 9 (Life Support) [9 pp]

Protection 7 (Extra: Impervious) [14 pp]

Space Flight 1 (1c) [1 pp]

cost

abilities 28 + combat 24 + saves 10 + skills 14/56 + feats 16 + powers 58 = 150 pts

--

Design Notes:

This is my build for the Beacon, the Golden Age legacy that's an obvious setup for a new PC in the Freedom City book. There's a build for the Beacon in the PDF Freedom City Archetypes and Legacies, and it's actually not bad, but this one's a little better: she can do almost all of the same things, but has a lot more flexibility in a lot of ways. She can fly in space and even reach the speed of light, and do a lot of other Green Lantern-esque tricks. (Beacon I is something of an Alan Scott Expy, so I used a picture of Jade to represent his successor!) There's no device associated with the Beacon legacy; the mystic light of Pharos is passed down from person to person without the need for material items.

The Beacon legacy is a fun one, connecting you directly to German heroes of World War II (the twin Lightbearers who escaped their motherland and battled against the forces of darkness that the Nazis represented) and Beacon himself, a hero of the latter part of the Golden Age, not to mention all the bearers of the Pharos legacy back to ancient Egypt. One thing to think about is that the Golden Age Beacon was one of the first African-American heroes and his predecessors were German anti-Nazi twins: you don't have to be one of those if you're playing his successor, but it's a whole lot cooler if an 'outsider' legacy goes to something more interesting than a generic suburban white kid.

As usual, big array, lots of Luck; power-stunt things you don't have. The Light of Truth mentioned under the description of the Magic Power (a ranged Nullify of deceptions) is a good thing for this kind of character. Switch Protection for Force Field; there are lots of good reasons to keep Force Field, I just don't like making a lot of Concentration checks when stunned. She still has a good Concentration score to deal with what happens when and if she gets stunned (i.e.; falling out of the sky!) This character could use higher saves, I went with the theory that she's new to her work and still has the saves of a relatively normal person. She has fun times; she flies around and blasts bad guys.

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Angel

“The reason angels can fly is because they take themselves lightly.” G.K. Chesterton

Abilities: 50 pp

STR: 22 (+6)

DEX: 16 (+3)

CON: 20 (+5)

INT: 10 (+0)

WIS: 22 (+6)

CHA: 20 (+5)

Combat: 16 pp

ATK: +4 (+10 melee)

DEF: +10 (+2 flat-footed)

Init: +3

Grapple: +16

Saves: 11 pp

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

FORT: +10 (+5 Con, +5)

REF: +5 (+3 Ref, +2)

WILL: +10 (+6 Wis, +4)

Skills: 17 pp=68 r

Diplomacy 10 (+15)*,

Intimidate 10 (+15)*,

Knowledge (arcane lore) 5 (+5),

Knowledge (history) 5 (+5),

Knowledge (theology and philosophy) 10 (+10),

Notice 14 (+20)*,

Sense Motive 14 (+20)*,

Feats: 21 pp

Attack Focus (melee) 6,

Dodge Focus 6,

Fearless,

Interpose,

Luck,

Skill Mastery (Diplomacy, Intimidate, Notice, Sense Motive)

Startle,

Takedown Attack,

Ultimate Save (Will),

Ultimate Skill (Diplomacy),

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 35 pp

Comprehend 2 (languages: speak and understand one at a time) [4 pp], 'Tongue of Babel'

Feature 1 (Cannot Be Lied To) [1 pp] 'angelic wisdom'

Flight 3 (50 MPH), [6 pp] 'winged'

Immunity 7 (aging, disease, poison, sleep, starvation and thirst, suffocation) [7 pp] 'angelic body'

Light Control 1 (5 ft) (Flaw: Range [Touch]) 'halo' [1 pp]

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

Protection 5 [5 pp], 'divine armor'

Strike 4 (PFs: Affects Insubstantial 2, Mighty) [7 pp] 'flaming sword'

Totals: Abilities 50 + Skills 17 (68 ranks) + Feats 21 + Powers 35 + Combat 16 + Saves 11 = 150

--

Design Notes:

Here’s a generic angel, based on the angel from the Archetype Archives. He’s got all the things an angel should have: he’s immune to Earthly concerns, can speak all languages, can’t be killed permanently, and he’s packing a flaming sword of righteousness which he can’t be deprived of. He’s also very charismatic, with a strong force of personality and extremely powerful soul. If he can’t lie, and he probably shouldn’t be able to, treat that as a complication, not a drawback. (What do you do if the Nazis ask you where the Jews are? You implore them to consider the state of their souls.) Angels are tough to build because they should be capable of doing a great many things, and it’s tough to pack all those things into a PL 10 build. I’d recommend playing characters like this: I had a lot of fun playing an angel myself, and when I get a character slot open again, maybe I’ll do just that!

One possible way to change this build up is to give him some kind of big “Divine Power” array for massive power stunts: as it is he’s got the flaming sword to stunt off: 7 pp is nice and all, but you could do more. If you wanted to do that, maybe drop his STR and up the Strike even further: if you do that, though, make sure you give him a Divine Strength AP or something: angels really should be powerful. If you don’t want to do that, do what I’ve done with Freedom Angel and buy up the array with PP: Teleport and Healing, Create Object and Light Control: all these can be yours, if the price is right! Throw in a heaping helping of polite disdain for the ‘pagan gods’, and you’ve got yourself a pretty solid character.

Another thing to think about is backstory. How exactly do you justify an angel from a monotheistic Heaven in a comic book world? My advice: don’t be afraid to fictionalize. Treat Judeo-Christian mythology as a good source for storytelling, but shift things around however much you want from the story you want to tell. I explained that Freedom Angel’s Heaven had lost its Almighty centuries ago, but you can shift that around how you want. Who’s to say that there’s only one Heaven and one Yahweh, anyway? It’s just a comic book story, folks: it’ll be OK. If we can play with other religions that have living followers, why not play with the ones out there in the deep water? I played Freedom Angel as a Wonder Woman expy, but there are plenty of other ways to make a character like this: there's at least one angel-as-Superman out there that was pretty cool. (And no, NOT the one from Worlds of Freedom...)

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Fortunate Hero

“Goodness had nothing to do with it.” -Mae West

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 30 pp

STR 10 (+0)

DEX 14 (+2)

CON 14 (+2)

INT 14 (+2)

WIS 18 (+4)

CHA 20 (+5)

Combat: 24 pp

ATK: +6 (+10 Blast)

DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed)

Init: +2

Grapple: +6

Saves: 14 pp

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

FORT +6 (+2 Con, +4)

REF +8 (+2 Dex, +6)

WILL +8 (+4 Wis, +4)

Skills: 17 pp=68 r

Acrobatics 8 (+10)

Bluff 15 (+20)

Knowledge: Pop Culture 12 (+14)

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

Perform (Cheesy Pop Music) 15 (+20)

Notice 8 (+12)

Sense Motive 8 (+12)

Feats: 15 pp

Attack Specialization: Blast (2)

Distract (Bluff)

Dodge Focus (4)

Fascinate (Perform)

Inspire (5)

Second Chance (Perform checks)

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 52 pp

Blast 10 [20 pp] 'rose petal bombardment'

Flight 3 (50 MPH) [6 pp] 'pop princess power'

Immunity 1 (aging) 'she must have gotten a face lift' [1 pp]

Luck Control 4 (spend an HP for another character, give HP to others, spend HP to negate HP/Fiat, force reroll) (PFs: Luck 5) [17 pp] ‘ting!’

Protection 8 [8 pp] 'too beautiful to be hurt'

costs

abilities 30 + combat 24 + saves 14 + skills 17/68 + feats 15 + powers 52 = 150 pts

---

Design Notes:

So I was thinking about Fortune Controllers based on my experience of playing Edge, and I realized that someone incredibly lucky could also be really annoying if you weren't careful. (I get around that with Edge by having him be a sympathetic idiot who is only gradually beginning to understand how different he is from everyone else.) So thinking about the combination, I produced this build: a generic pop princess and teen singing sensation who just happens to be an incredibly powerful luck controller. She's got max Luck for a Luck Controller of her PL, and with her maxed-out Luck Controller she can do some amazing things: she can shrug off bad fortune, give her opponents a really hard time, and generally make people wonder how someone with such tiny powers can be so successful! (Similar questions have been asked about her singing career, but I did make her among the best cheesy, sugary pop princesses in the world!)

You can make up the backstory all you want: my mental map here is something like "Teen princess gets meta-treatments on the side, thinking superpowers might boost her flagging career, but she winds up with a whole lot more than she bargained for and has to fight crime for real!" You can do some nice stuff with someone transitioning from screaming tween (and older, ew!) fans to people cheering them on because they're actually doing something heroic: now that's character development! Buy up her feats and social abilities if you want her to be more of a business player; my idea here is that she hasn't learned that much about the business side of things yet. Luckily, she hasn't had to do so! She's much smarter than she looks, though.

Obviously you can tweak the sheet too: in particular, you could give her the Probability Control that makes such a nice augment to Luck Control. But in my (admittedly limited to just one character) experience, Probability Control just doesn't come up as often as Luck Control. And besides, you can use the points to buy so many other exciting things! You don't have to make her a blaster, either, you could make her a more straightforward badass normal with higher combat scores. Either way, don't be afraid to chew the scenery a bit: Luck Controllers should be about _personality!_

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Tronik Hero

“Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy. “ Joseph Campbell

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 0 pp

STR 10 (+2)

DEX 16 (+3)

CON n/a (-)

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 10 (+0)

Combat: 24 pp

ATK: +6 (+12 melee)

DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed)

Init: +7

Grapple: +14

Saves: 7 pp

TOU +8 (+8 Protection)

FORT n/a

REF +6 (+3 Dex, +3)

WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4)

Skills: 11 pp=44 r

Bluff 6 (+6)

Computers 8 (+8)

Language 2 (English, Japanese) (Base: Latin)

Notice 8 (+10)

Knowledge: Technology 8 (+8)

Search 4 (+4)

Sense Motive 8 (+10)

Feats: 19 pp

Attack Focus: Melee 6,

Dodge Focus 6,

Fearless,

Improved Initiative,

Luck,

Power Attack,

Takedown Attack,

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 94 pp

Flight 1 (10 MPH) [2 pp]

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

Insubstantial 3 (Extra: Duration [Default] [+0]) (PFs: Innate, Subtle) [17 pp]

Protection 8 [8 pp]

Regeneration 5 (Recovery Bonus +0) (PF: Regrowth) [6 pp]

Tronik Array [18+4=22 pp]

Strike 8 (PFs: Affects Insubstantial 2) (Extra: Affects Corporeal) 'electro-punch'

AP: Datalink 9 (anywhere on Earth) (PFs: Rapid 8 (100 million), Subtle) 'networking'

AP: ESP 6 (20 miles) (visual and auditory) (Flaw: Medium [Electronics]) (PFs: Rapid 6 (1 million), Subtle) 'scanning''

AP: Teleport 8 (800 ft/2000 miles) (Extra: Accurate) (Flaw: Medium [Electronics]) (PFs: Easy, Turnabout) 'transmission'

AP: Super-Movement 2 (Dimensional Movement) (to dimensions with the 'Computer' descriptor) (Flaw: Medium [Electronics])

Drawbacks: -6 pp

Weakness (magnetic fields; Uncommon, Major [-1 all physical ability scores], per 1 minute, potentially lethal; -6pp)

costs

abilities 0 + combat 24 + saves 7 + skills 11/44 + feats 19 + powers 95 - drawbacks 6 = 150 pts

---

Design Notes:

This character is from Tronik, the Kandor expy in the Freedom City setting. The difference between Kandor and Tronik, though, is that instead of being shrunk, Tronik was digitized. The people of Tronik believe that their city was the sole survivor of some interstellar catastrophe, and they successfully recolonized a new planet named Neo. But they're wrong: their world is gone, and they were in the custody of the Curator (the Ringworld-controlling artificial intelligence who's the setting's Brainiac expy) when the Centurion found them. Deciding it was kinder not to tell them the truth, he put them in his Sanctum where their program could run safely inside an alien computer the size of a briefcase. It runs there still, occasionally visited by the Freedom League and their allies.

This is a powerful character, built with an attempt to capture the feel of a sentient computer program walking around in the real world. He's a construct, but one made of energy (magnetic or electrical) rather than metal and steel or undead power. He's also immune to mental powers, since I don't think a telepath should be able to read a sentient program's mind any more than they can read a regular computer's mind. I might make him save against some similar effect by a technopath: treat a problem like that as a Complication. His Insubstantial is built with the unnamed but suggested +0 extra that makes Insubstantial his default state. He flies (like a Second Life character?), zaps people with his electrified punches, and his computerized nature gives him the ability to email himself, control electronics, or just look through them, all of it far faster than any human mind could. By the same token, magnetic fields erase him.

How did he get out? Maybe he followed a doorway left behind by the League or some other hacker when they were visiting Tronik for purposes nefarious or heroic: given the nature of life in Tronik, he'd have seen a door in a blank wall, or simply in mid-air, and stepped through it, only to find it lock shut behind him. Or maybe he was kidnapped by those same visitors, only to claw his way out of the computer and reconstitute himself in the real world. A computer program shouldn't be there in the real world; it requires an uncommon effort of will for him to be there at all. Why does he speak Latin? The people of Tronik were from a world in the Lor Republic; aka, humans transferred by the Preservers millennia ago. I've gone with the idea that they were Latin-speaking humans, and the language they speak (despite many, many changes since) is still recognizable Latin: that gives them a connection to the Centurion to justify being characters in his story! This is a character looking for the meaning in his own story: have fun finding it!

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Objectivist Vigilante

“A equals A.” -Ayn Rand

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 36 pp

STR 14 (+2)

DEX 16 (+3)

CON 18 (+4)

INT 16 (+3)

WIS 16 (+3)

CHA 16 (+3)

Combat: 36 pp

ATK: +10 (+13 ranged)

DEF: +13 (+4 flat-footed)

Init: +7

Grapple: +12

Saves: 11 pp

TOU +7 (+4 Con, +3 Vest)

FORT +7 (+4 Con, +3)

REF +7 (+3 Dex, +3)

WILL +8 (+3 Wis, +5)

Skills: 22 pp=88 r

Acrobatics 4 (+7)

Bluff 10 (+13)

Disable Device 5 (+8)

Drive 5 (+8)

Escape Artist 5 (+8)

Gather Info 5 (+8)

Intimidate 10 (+13)

Investigate 5 (+8)

Knowledge: Business 5 (+8)

Knowledge: Current Events 5 (+8)

Knowledge: Streetwise 5 (+8)

Notice 5 (+8)

Search 5 (+8)

Sense motive 5 (+8)

Stealth 5 (+8)

Swim 4 (+6)

Feats: 25 pp

All-Out Attack,

Attack Focus: Ranged 3

Contacts,

Defensive Attack,

Distract: Bluff,

Dodge Focus 5,

Elusive Target,

Equipment 3,

Fascinate: Bluff,

Improved Initiative,

Luck,

Power Attack,

Precise Shot,

Quick Draw [Draw],

Redirect,

Startle,

Taunt,

Well-Informed

Powers: 21 pp

Device 5 (pistols) (hard to lose) (PF: Restricted [Family Line]) [21 pp]

-Blast 7 (Extra: Autofire) (PFs: Improved Crit 2, Precise) {25}

Equipment: 20 ep

Grapple Gun [2 ep]

Motorcycle [9 ep]

Undercover Vest (Protection 3) (PF: Subtle) [4 ep]

costs

abilities 36 + combat 36 + saves 11 + skills 22/88 + feats 25 + powers 21 = 150 pts

--

Design Notes:

Ayn Rand. A complicated lady! Like many Russian philosophers and political writers in the 20th century, she attracted a strong, very committed group of followers around her. Among her fans is Steve Ditko, the mad elder statesman of comics who frequently worked Objectivist themes into his work with Stan Lee and Jack Kirby on Spiderman. Ditko’s more notably Objectivist characters are Charlton heroes like the Question and Mr. A, jut-jawed fedora’d men with heroic hearts but very little compassion. Later writers would soften the first, but the second character remains among the most ringing examples of what Ditko thought a hero should be.

So here’s my attempt at one of those grim-visaged Objectivist heroes: a well-armed figure with a determination to stamp out the parasites of crime wherever he finds them. He’s a good fighter, and good at paralyzing the room with a speech about the virtues of John Galt. Why play a character like this in our game, where you definitely can’t shoot bad guys to death and where we tend to look down on missionary PCs? A couple of ways: maybe he’s recently had a change of heart and is no longer the small-hearted man he once was. Maybe he suffered a near-fatal injury on the job, or maybe he’s a new father. Or maybe he’s an emotional adult, and can shut up about his politics when they’re not the subject of conversation. Or maybe the ideology is just a cover, and this is the son or grandson of a brutal Bronze Age vigilante now with his own agenda.

Mix up the weapons if you want: drop the ‘stun ammo’ for regular bullets for an Iron Age killer (and antagonist in this game!), or give him a gas gun and a flying sidekick for a 90s take on the character. Some mommy issues are OK, but don’t get all creepy weird about it. He really doesn’t need to know any prostitutes. A rivalry with an Egyptian-themed antihero is a must, as is a murky relationship with a hot, scantily-clad archer vigilante is also a great idea. His favorite food is beans, what else?

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Glacia

“It’s cold outside, but I’ve got the month of May...”

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 34 pp

STR 16 (+3)

DEX 18 (+4)

CON 20 (+5)

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 16 (+3)

Combat: 24 pp

ATK: +6 (+10 Ranged)

DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed)

Init: +7

Grapple: +9

Saves: 8 pp

TOU +8 (+5 Con, +3 Force Field)

FORT +7 (+5 Con, +2)

REF +6 (+4 Ref, +2)

WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4)

Skills: 13 pp=52 r

Climb 4 (+6)

Concentration 4 (+6)

Diplomacy 7 (+10)

Intimidate 7 (+10)

Languages 2 (English, German) (Base: Ice People)

Notice 6 (+8)

Sense Motive 6 (+8)

Survival 8 (+10)

Feats: 19 pp

All-Out Attack

Attack Focus: Ranged 4

Dodge Focus 6

Improved Initiative

Improved Throw

Improved Trip

Luck 2

Move-By Action

Power Attack

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 54 pp

Flight 5 (250 MPH) (Extra: Affects Others) (Flaw: Platform) [10 pp] ‘ice slides’

Force Field 3 [3 pp] ‘icy armor’

Glacia Array [30+4=34 pp]

Blast 10 (Extra: Autofire) ‘icicle shards’

AP: Blast 10 (Extra: Alternate Save [Fortitude]) ‘brain freeze’

AP: Create Object 10 (Extras: Independent [+0], Selective) ‘ice sculptures’

AP: Snare 10 (PF: Reversible) ‘icy bonds’

AP: Trip 10 (Extras: Area [burst], Selective) ‘icy patches’

Immunity 6 (aging, cold damage) [6 pp]

Super-Senses 1 (Infravision) [1 pp]

costs

abilities 34 + combat 24 + saves 8 + skills 13/52 + feats 19 + powers 54 = 150 pts

----

Design Notes:

The People were alone: they’d been travelers once, or explorers, but then they’d gone too far north as the world froze. Only a lucky encounter with an artifact from the heavens had changed them, giving them bodies to survive in and powers to shape their new frozen homeland. But Glacia was different than the others: she wanted to explore where they wanted to build their icy towers ever higher, and one day she left home, traveling far until a storm finally brought her down. Trapped far from home, and injured, in desperation she covered herself in a coating of ice to survive...

It was a long time until the frost came. This is a build for one of the ‘Ice People’ of the Arctic, the mysterious civilization in the extreme far north of which the Freedom City supervillain Glacier was the only known survivor. I’ve filled in a few more details of their city, hinting that they were once Vikings, Inuit, or some other primitive people who were transplanted by the Preservers to an unbreachable home far away from any other human beings. But of course that civilization did breach and it did fall, and only Glacier and now this distaff version of him survived attempts at thawing. Glacier’s unstable as it is, the knowledge that a female of his race survived will produce actions that will make him Number 1 on her enemies list.

I’ve tried to give her standard cold control powers, with a few good tweaks. Note that she does not actually have the cold control power in her array; Environmental Control is not useful enough in my opinion to justify doing it as something other than a stunt. She also doesn’t have a weakness to hot environmental conditions: if you want, give her that, and use it to buy more feats for her array, or more feats and skills. She’s got the two blasts so she can hurt people immune to cold damage: it doesn’t matter if you’re immune to cold, if you get an icicle through the midsection, the fact that it’s frozen is the least of your problems...

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Canadian Champion

“We stand on guard for thee!”

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 50 pp

STR 24 (+7)

DEX 24 (+7)

CON 24 (+7)

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 14 (+2)

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

Combat: 32 pp

ATK: +8 (+10 melee)

DEF: +10 (+4 flat-footed)

Init: +11

Grapple: +17

Saves: 8 pp

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

FORT +7 (+7 Con)

REF +7 (+7 Dex)

WILL +10 (+2 Wis, +8)

Skills: 10 pp=40 r

Diplomacy 12 (+14/+19)

Knowledge: History 6 (+6)

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

Notice 4 (+6)

Sense Motive 12 (+14)

Survival 4 (+6)

Feats: 13 pp

Attack Focus (Melee) (2)

Dodge Focus

Improved Initiative

Inspire 3

Leadership

Luck

Move-By Action

Power Attack

Takedown Attack

Uncanny Dodge (mental)

Powers: 46 pp

Canadian Array [20+4=24 pp]

Drain Mental Ability Scores 10 ‘Mulroney Madness’

AP: Emotion Control 10 (Extra: Area [burst]) (Flaw: Limited [Calm Only]) ‘Pearson Persuasion’

AP: Illusion 10 (visual and auditory) (Flaw: Feedback) ‘Trudeau Trickery’

AP: Strike 10 (PFs: Improved Crit 2, Knockback 8) ‘Chretien Clobber’

AP: Teleport 9 (anywhere on Earth) (PFs: Easy, Turnabout) ‘Campbell Clip’

Device 1 (Easy to Lose) (Canadian Shield) [3 pp]

-Enhanced Feat 1 (Dodge Focus) {1}

-Strike 3 (PF: Mighty) {4}

Enhanced Charisma 10 [10 pp] ‘King’s Crown’

Leaping 3 (x10) [3 pp] ‘Laurier’s Leap’

Protection 3 [3 pp] ‘Abbot’s Armour’

costs

abilities 50 + combat 32 + saves 8 + skills 10/40 + feats 13 + powers 45 = 150 pts

----

Design Notes:

American superhero comic books have had a strange relationship with Canada ever since writers from Ontario created a Canadian superteam made up of a gay Quebecois with superspeed powers who was literally a fairy, his insane slutty sister, a tiny man named after a hockey instrument, two Natives with Native Powers, some guy from the West, and of course a giant hairy monster. This build is something of a gentle homage to those old stereotypes: he’s the greatest superhero in Canada, equipped with the ancient weapons and powers of previous guardians of Canada’s fortunes in order to protect the motherland against her many enemies.

And so many enemies there are! Zombie Louis Riel propelled by evil Metis magic! (It’s no more offensive than evil voodoo sorcerers, but you should probably work in heroic Metis too), the once-heroic Brian Mulroney, corrupted by evil dollars bearing a terrible curse, now determined to plunge his homeland into the dark maw of Yanqui, the corrupt being from beyond reality whose very name invites woe! Work some super-science rivals in there too, like that so and so in Ontario who thinks he’s the only superhero in Canada. That terrible Quebecois serial killer known only as “Le Separationist!” (At least in the English press) Fighting hairy men from the woods is a must, naturally.

So you’re a Canadian Captain America, with a few surprises in an array of psionic abilities handed down from generation to generation by those who held your title before. Mix that up as necessary: an immunity to poisons inherited from John A. MacDonald? A sonic burst inherited from John Diefenbaker? Your jaw is jut, your heart is clear, and you’re one of the finest, most competent superheroes in the world: just like the country that gave you birth! O, Canada...

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Magmin

“Burn baby burn! Disco Inferno!”

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 28 pp

STR 16 (+3)

DEX 20 (+5)

CON 18 (+4)

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 10 (+0)

Combat: 26 pp

ATK: +7 (+10 Melee)

DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed)

Init: +7

Grapple: +16

Saves: 9 pp

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

FORT +6 (+4 Con, +2)

REF +8 (+5 Dex, +3)

WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4)

Skills: 10 pp=40 r

Bluff 6 (+6/+10)

Intimidate 6 (+6)

Knowledge: Physical Sciences 6 (+6)

Notice 6 (+8)

Sense Motive 6 (+8)

Survival 6 (+8

Feats: 16 pp

Attack Specialization: Melee (3)

Attractive

Dodge Focus (4)

Fascinate (Bluff)

Improved Initiative

Luck

Power Attack

Second Chance (Bluff checks)

Uncanny Dodge (tactile)

Powers: 65 pp

Damage 7 (Extra: Aura) [28 pp]

Flight 1 (10 MPH) [2 pp]

Immunity 14 (Heat Damage, Life Support) [14 pp]

Impervious Toughness 8 [8 pp]

Insubstantial 1 (PF: Subtle) [6 pp]

Protection 6 [6 pp]

Super-Senses 2 (Tremorsense) [2 pp]

Drawback: -4 pp

Vulnerable (Cold) (common, major) [-4 pp]

costs

abilities 28 + combat 26 + saves 9 + skills 10/40 + feats 16 + powers 65 - drawback 4 = 150 pts

--

Design Notes:

Her people lived in communities far away from anything else. They hunted wild game and traveled with the tides, building homes and sometimes temples, but always moving on when things grew too uncomfortable where they lived. It was a good life, part of an ancient culture and people with roots stretching back before recorded history. But our heroine wanted more: she wanted more out of life than the casual, easy living of her parents and grandparents. She wanted to follow the legends of the other world. She wanted to visit Outer Space. And so one day, with the help of friends, she built a craft and launched herself high, high, high, and landed in the vast, frozen openness of space. Marveling at how her body could endure the alien, deeply unpleasant conditions there, she stepped out and greeted her first aliens with a hearty handshake.

And then the SCREAMING AND SCREAMING AND SCREAMING! Oh, that was a bad day. But contact has been made with the Magmin now, living so far below the surface of the Earth, and once the battle was over it was clear that not all of them had the hostile intent that they’d had in clashes with superheroes. (Those Magmin had a natural fear of the horrible gaseous ice monsters from beyond the lithosphere, naturally!) She’s the ambassador of her people on Earth now, and has even learned some control of her natural powers, enough that she doesn’t instantly set her friends on fire when she touches them.

Lava monster turned superhero, hooray! She flies on a column of combustion, has a basically fluid (though not liquid) body, and she burns things. BURNS THINGS. Note that anyone who touches her takes the damage, as well as anyone she touches. Get her shoes, and a costume, at least, if you want her Aura to be Permanent. Shuffle points around to give her a lava blast, maybe with Indirect 2 if you want her to be more directly a lavakinetic. As it is, she’s not a lava _controller_ as such, anymore than human beings are flesh controllers because of what we’re made of. Treat her problems with cold as a complication besides the vulnerability drawback: she'll want that HP if she has to save against paralysis in cold weather!

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Utopian Envoy

“Keep on the sunny side...”

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 60 pp

STR 26 (+8)

DEX 26 (+8)

CON 26 (+8)

INT 12 (+1)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 14 (+2)

Combat: 32 pp

ATK: +8 (+12 Unarmed)

DEF: +12 (+4 flat-footed)

Init: +11

Grapple: +16

Saves: 10 pp

TOU +8 (+8 Con)

FORT +10 (+8 Con, +2)

REF +10 (+8 Ref, +2)

WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6)

Skills: 18 pp=72 r

Acrobatics 7 (+15)

Climb 2 (+10)

Diplomacy 13 (+15)

Intimidate 8 (+10)

Knowledge: Current Events 4 (+5)

Knowledge: Civics 9 (+10)

Knowledge: History 4 (+5)

Notice 8 (+10)

Sense Motive 12 (+14)

Survival 3 (+5)

Swim 2 (+10)

Feats: 12 pp

Acrobatic Bluff,

Attack Specialization: Unarmed 2,

Beginner’s Luck,

Dodge Focus 4,

Eidetic Memory,

Elusive Target,

Evasion,

Improved Initiative,

Improved Trip,

Jack-of-all-Trades,

Luck,

Move-By Action,

Stunning Attack,

Takedown Attack,

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 13 pp

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

Device 1 (Shield Bracers) (Hard to Lose) (PF: Indestructible) [5 pp]

-Enhanced Feats 4 (Defensive Attack, Improved Defense 2, Ultimate Save [Toughness]),

-Luck Control 1 (force rerolls) (Flaw: Limited (Only Attack Rolls Against You [-2])

Immunity 1 (aging) [1 pp]

Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp]

costs

abilities 60 + combat 32 + saves 10 + skills 18/72 + feats 12 + powers 13 = 150 pts

---

Design Notes:

Here’s a Utopian Envoy, another significant reworking of a Freedom City universe archetype. He’s strong, fast, and tough, at the absolute peak of human physical perfection: just like his Utopian brothers and sisters. (Utopia Isle, of course, is populated by the descendants of Atlantis located in the Bermuda Triangle, using high technology and superpowers to keep their location a secret even from the world of 2010). The last Utopian envoy was a PC here, but I think you can safely build a second variety without any worries about that old character. The classic Utopian envoy was Envoy back in the Golden Age!

His bracers are my attempt at building Wonder Woman’s Amazonian bracelets on a PL 10 PC’s budget: Deflect is way too overcosted to be of any actual value for a character who has other things going on. So instead he has various effects associated with them that he can use to simulate shrugging off the strongest of attacks via bouncing them off his bracers. It seems a good homage for a character who’s a fairly straightforward homage to the Golden Age Wonder Woman.

The books don’t say what Utopia Isle is actually like. If I were you, I’d make it a fairly straightforward takeoff on Golden Age Amazon Island: full of bizarre schizotech where the Utopians wrestle in the Greco-Roman style here but over there build Purple Healing Rays, where worship of the old gods is combined with a practical, rational comic book science that produces impossible feats. It should be a pleasant place to visit, though deeply odd to outsiders. Utopians tend to be brave, trustworthy people who are horrified to find out about lies and deceit from their less-honorable regular human friends. What a cultural clash, eh?

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Black Prince

“A black king, and I don’t mean Shaka Zulu!” -Will Smith

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 54 pp

STR 24 (+7)

DEX 24 (+7)

CON 24 (+7)

INT 12 (+1)

WIS 16 (+3)

CHA 14 (+2)

Combat: 32 pp

ATK: +8 (+13 melee)

DEF: +13 (+4 flat-footed)

Init: +11

Grapple: +20

Saves: 8 pp

TOU +7 (+7 Con)

FORT +8 (+7 Con, +1)

REF +8 (+7 Dex, +1)

WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6)

Skills: 17 pp=68 r

Acrobatics 8 (+15, Skill Mastery)

Climb 8 (+15, Skill Mastery)

Diplomacy 4 (+6)

Intimidate 8 (+10)

Knowledge: Civics 4 (+5)

Knowledge: Current Events 4 (+5)

Languages 4 (Arabic, English, French, Swahili) (Base: Native)

Notice 8 (+10)

Sense Motive 8 (+10, Skill Mastery)

Stealth 8 (+15)

Survival 4 (+6, Skill Mastery)

Feats: 23 pp

Acrobatic Bluff

All-Out Attack

Attack Focus 5 (Melee)

Benefit 3 (Security Clearance, Status, Wealth)

Defensive Attack

Dodge Focus 5

Hide in Plain Sight

Move-By Action

Power Attack

Skill Mastery (Acrobatics, Climb, Stealth, Survival)

Takedown Attack

Track

Uncanny Dodge (olfactory)

Powers: 15 pp

Leaping 2 (x5) [2 pp]

Speed 2 (25 MPH) [2 pp]

Super-Movement 3 (Slow Fall, Wall-Crawling 2) [6 pp]

Super-Senses 5 (Accurate Acute Scent, Darkvision) [5 pp]

costs

abilities 54 + combat 32 + saves 8 + skills 17/68 + feats 25 + powers 15 = 150 pts

---

Design Notes:

This is the head of state of an isolated sub-Saharan African country, a powerful man at the peak of physical perfection who also happens to be imbued with the mystic powers of jungle animals. (Actually, he’s probably better off as the king’s heir, just so you don’t get weird questions about who’s running the show at home. Unless he’s a constitutional monarch, which helps explain why he’s so busy with being a superhero in America). He doesn’t have ridiculous powers or implausible super-science: he’s just fast, strong, and as deadly as the great cat which gives him his powers.

This kind of hero is easy to be stereotypical: he’s a black guy from the jungle with animal powers, hurr hurr! The best way to make him awesome (without making both him and his country an equally insulting counter-stereotype) is to play up the fact that he’s a _king_, a monarch of the people, a man of dignity and power who battles for others because it’s his duty as a sovereign. This doesn’t mean you have to make him some dour son of a gun: dignity doesn’t mean an inability to laugh, it just means you should always be able to make sure that the joke is on someone else.

Give him more Wisdom and Charisma for a more experienced build: like a lot of my character concepts, this is a construction suitable for Year One of the archetype. You can easily move some points around and buy him a palace or embassy if you want, but as it is he’s his own man, looking to earn his kingly legacy through heroic deeds. The complication of his dual role is, of course, a natural for him, as is the forever living in the public eye that comes from his monarchical ties.

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Military Fairy

Abilities: 58 pp

STR 34 [26] (+12)

DEX 18 (+4)

CON 28 [24] (+9)

INT 14 (+2)

WIS 16 (+3)

CHA 20 (+5)

Combat: 24 pp

ATK: +6 (+5 w/Growth, +8 melee w/size)

DEF: +6 (+5 w/Growth, +6 w/size)

Init: +8

Grapple: +24 w/size

Saves: 9 pp

TOU +14 (+9 Con, +5)

FORT +12 (+9 Con, +3)

REF +7 (+4 Dex, +3)

WILL +6 (+3 Wis, +3)

Skills: 19 pp=76 r

Intimidate 15 (+20/+21)

Knowledge: Arcane Lore 8 (+10)

Knowledge: History 8 (+10)

Knowledge: Tactics 15 (+17)

Languages 2 (Arabic, English) (Base: Old Norse)

Notice 12 (+15)

Sense Motive 12 (+15)

Survival 4 (+7

Feats: 16 pp

Attack Focus: Melee 3,

Benefit (Security Clearance),

Dodge Focus,

Improved Initiative,

Luck 2,

Master Plan 2,

Power Attack,

Rallying Cry

Startle,

Takedown Attack 2,

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 24 pp

Growth 4 (Extra: Duration [Permanent]) (PF: Innate) [13 pp]

Immunity 1 (aging) [1 pp]

Protection 5 [5 pp]

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

Super-Strength 1 [2 pp]

costs

abilities 58 + combat 24 + saves 9 + skills 19/76 + feats 16 + powers 24 = 150 pts

---

Design Notes:

So a few years ago, the US Army tried summoning a troll into the body of a volunteer soldier. You know, it wasn’t even the least logical or most dangerous experiment the Army has ever carried out! It went OK, producing an eight-foot-tall powerhouse with the mind of a tactical genius and strength to rend steel in his bare hands. His lack of Impervious makes him less than useful on the battlefield, though: tough as he is, a volley of sustained machine gun fire can take him down. So the experiment wasn’t repeated, and the US Army was left with its very own troll. In the wake of recent budget cuts, they’ve farmed him out as a superhero!

So here’s a different take on the super-soldier archetype, drawing heavily on Norse mythology for his powers rather than your typical serum and such. Who says the government can’t pay for magic, either by twisting arms of magical bad guys or just by offering cash dollars to your more typical comic book mage. He lacks some of the traditional vulnerabilities to electricity and sunlight that your typical troll has, but that sort of thing should be added by you if you want to give him more points: he’s pretty darn formidable as it is! He’s a great goon sweeper, a very good planner and leader, and very, very scary in combat: wouldn’t an attacking eight-foot-tall troll in a patriotic superhero costume scare YOU? (Well it would scare me!)

Some possible tweaks on this character might make him a super-soldier in the _Norwegian_ Army: who’s to say they don’t want their own super-powered agents? You also might want to delve more into the mythological side of things: how do heroes from the Norse pantheon feel about one of their antagonists being mastered by the US Army? Or worse, do they see it as an old foe returned in the guise of a new body? He makes a great antagonist for that Viking-powered PC you’ve got running around somewhere in your story. Save up points to actually buy him that hammer; as it is he just uses it for intimidation purposes and is much better fighting with his fists in melee.

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Dragon

"“It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age; but, if so, it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that guards the door..." Bertrand Russel

Abilities: 24 pp

STR: 40 [16] (+15/+3)

DEX: 10 (+0)

CON: 40 [28] (+15/+9)

INT: 10 (+0)

WIS: 10 (+0)

CHA: 10 (+0)

Combat: 32 pp

ATK: +8 (+5 w/size) (+4 ranged)

DEF: +8 (+5 w/size) (+2 flat-footed)

Init: +0

Grapple: +43 max

Saves: 15 pp

TOU: +15 (+15 Con/+9 w/out Growth)

FORT: +15 (+15 Con/+9 w/out Growth)

REF: +7 (+0 Dex, +7)

WILL: +8 (+0 Wis, +8)

Feats: 9 pp

Attack Focus: Melee

Dodge Focus

Luck

Move-By Action

Power Attack

Startle

Takedown Attack

Ultimate Save (Toughness)

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Skills: 10 pp=40 r

Intimidate 8 (+8/+12)

Notice 8 (+8)

Search 8 (+8)

Sense Motive 8 (+8)

Survival 8 (+8)

Powers: 63 pp

Draconic Might Array [20+1=21 pp]

Damage 10 (Extra: Line) [21 pp] ‘fire breath’

AP: Super-Strength 9 (PFs: Super-Breath, Thunderclap [bellow]) (Heavy Load: 12.5 kilotons)

Flight 1 (10 MPH) [2 pp]

Growth 12 (Extra: Duration [Permanent] (+0) ) (PF: Innate) [37 pp]

Immunity 1 (aging) [1 pp]

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

Drawback: (-3 pp)

Normal Identity (free action) (-3)

---

Design Notes:

A dragon, for all your dragonning needs. it certainly wasn't possible to fit all the powers of your typical D&D dragon on a PL 10 150 pp basis, so instead I just went with the classics: she's huge, she breathes fire, and she's really, really strong. Note that she's not immune to fire; not even her own firebreath! (Perhaps thanks to insulation in her throat and mouth that doesn't protect the rest of her body) The normal ID is so she can actually walk around and talk to people in a Freedom City setting: it's up to you whether she's a dragon who turns into a human or a human who turns into a dragon. I went with the assumption that this is ultimately a 'feral' dragon, one way or another: a character who is not familiar with the origins of her people/species, perhaps an orphan or a stray, a victim of a purge or parental abandonment.

The general assumption here is that she's a freaking wrecking machine against an army, particularly a low-tech one: with her massive Toughness, Takedown Attack, and wide variety of area attacks thanks to her various types of breath attacks to what's caused by the sheer effect of a thirty-foot dragon punching a normal-sized man. Is she a dragon from song and story, that sort that used to throw down with knights in shining armor? Maybe that Golden Knight above thread used to scrap with her back in the day. Or is she an alien dragon that used to fly around on planet Draconis? It's only like twenty light years away, and if she was in hypersleep or aboard a particularly large warpship...

The product of scientific experimentation and deliberate mutation, perhaps as a deliberate echo of European monsters in order to strike extra fear into the hearts of her 'makers'? Maybe she enters your campaign when a very odd wave of cattle mutilations is sighted, where the animals have been chewed up and dropped from a very great height? Tweak as necessary. Drop the Flight to make a more traditional Asian dragon; season with languages and skills and such to taste. There's nothing to say she has to be as ignorant as she is! You certainly don't need to stick with the fire breath, but it is a classic. This character is probably _very_ interested in accumulating a headquarters for herself as soon as possible, and filling it with lots of cool shiny stuff...

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Christmas Crusader

"We're just a couple of misfits..."

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 34 pp

STR 16 (+3)

DEX 18 (+4)

CON 16 (+3)

INT 16 (+3)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 14 (+2)

Combat: 32 pp

ATK: +8 (+12 Ranged)

DEF: +12 (+4 flat-footed)

Init: +8

Grapple: +11

Saves: 11 pp

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

FORT +6 (+3 Con, +3)

REF +7 (+4 Dex, +3)

WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5)

Skills: 20 pp=80 r

Craft: Mechanical 8 (+10)

Craft: Electronic 8 (+10)

Investigate 8 (+10)

Knowledge: Physical Sciences 8 (+10)

Knowledge: Technology 8 (+10)

Medicine 12 (+14)

Notice 8 (+10)

Pilot 4 (+6)

Sense Motive 12 (+14)

Survival 4 (+6)

Feats: 28 pp

Attack Focus: Ranged 4

Dodge Focus 4

Equipment 12

Improved Initiative

Inventor

Luck

Power Attack

Quick Draw [Draw]

Skill Mastery (Craft [electronic], Craft [mechanical], Medicine, Sense Motive)

Ultimate Skill (Medicine)

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 25 pp

Device 2 (Hard to Lose) (Elven Garments) [8 pp]

-Protection 5 (Extra: Impervious) {10}

Device 5 (Easy to Lose) (Christmas Cannon) [15 pp]

-Blast 8 (Extra: Autofire) 'gumdrop bombardment' {24+1=25}

-AP: Stun 8 (Extra: Ranged) 'dental anesthesia' {24}

Immunity 4 (aging, environmental cold, sleep, starvation and thirst) (Flaw: Limited [Half-Effect]) 'Christmas elf physiology' [2 pp]

Equipment: 60 ep

Commlink [1 ep]

Grapple Gun (Speed 1 (10 MPH) and Super-Movement 1 (Swinging)) [3 ep]

Handcuffs [1 ep]

Street Sleigh

(STR 45 SPD 7 DEF 8 TOU 10

Size: Huge

Features:

Computer,

Communications,

Ejector Seat,

Navigation System,

Security System,

Remote Control,

Powers: Blast 8 (candy cane shower), Immunity 9 (Life Support), Radar) {55 ep}

costs

abilities 34 + combat 32 + saves 11 + skills 20/80 + feats 28 + powers 25 = 150 pts

---

Design Notes:

There are a million stories in the Christmas City. Here's one of them. There's a war on Christmas, waged by determined opponents in bitter, sometimes very public battles: evil sorcerers and dark magicians trying to seize control of the phenomenal wellspring of arcane and psionic power embodied in the person of old Kris Kringle. And there's another war, a war on the streets. Do you have any idea how many toys are made in Christmas City? How much wealth and power changes hands every day? Sure, most elves make toys because they want to, but they still need to eat and sleep, even if all the sugar in their diet makes that less important than it is for people. Who's going to control all that wealth and power? Who's going to keep the elf on the _street_ safe from the machinations of their ancient superiors as they war with each other to be Kringle's favorite, much less keep them safe from the bumbles and monsters outside? The reindeer do what they can, especially the red-nosed hero that's the Crusader's oldest and best friend...but there are some battles that need to be fought on the streets.

So I give you the Christmas Crusader, a brilliant gadgeteer and inventor who's determined to do everything he can to clean up the mean streets of Christmas City. He's a dentist in his civilian ID, naturally, and it's up to you (and what age you put him in) to decide whether or not he's a dentist in a mask or a mask who sometimes pretends to be a dentist. As a lover of the classics, I prefer the first, naturally: I also think it helps humanize the hero. That's also one hell of a Complication for him in North Pole-based games: Christmas elves who don't make toys are decidedly _weird_ to their fellows, for all that he provides an essential service to the community. If you're running him in Freedom City, maybe the resentment of his peers is why he left. I tried to base his abilities off what you see in the old stop-motion cartoons that show his early non-costumed career, with a few hints here and there of logical extrapolation.

So many potential enemies! The Saturnalian, driven mad by the loss of his people and determined to destroy the enemy that took away their homes and lands centuries ago; the Turkey Strut and the various Halloween ghoulies, Father Time with his terrible scythe, Baby New Year with her drinking powers, and many many more. In Freedom City, he's probably met the aging Doc Holiday at least once, and is a natural candidate for being mistaken for that harmless Silver Age villain if he doesn't make his identity clear early on. In a Golden Age game, maybe he gets arrested and accused of madness, and he has to go to court to prove that he really is a Christmastime hero! You could revive that idea in a Modern Age game, but it probably won't go over as well...

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Slumberland Hero

“Good night everybody!” -Yakko Warner

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 30 pp

STR 20 (+5)

DEX 14 (+2)

CON 20 (+5)

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 12 (+1)

Combat: 28 pp

ATK: +6 (+9 Melee/+15 Unarmed)

DEF: +12 (+4 flat-footed)

Init: +6

Grapple: +12

Saves: 10 pp

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

FORT +8 (+5 Con, +3)

REF +5 (+2 Dex, +3)

WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4)

Skills: 16 pp=64 pp

Acrobatics 4 (+6)

Bluff 9 (+10)

Climb 5 (+10)

Knowledge: Arcane Lore 6 (+6)

Knowledge: Behavioral Sciences 6 (+6)

Notice 13 (+15)

Sense Motive 15 (+17)

Survival 4 (+6)

Swim 4 (+9)

Feats: 14 pp

Attack Focus: Melee 3

Attack Specialization: Unarmed 3,

Dodge Focus 4,

Evasion,

Fearless,

Power Attack,

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 52 pp

Enhanced Feats 2 (Affects Insubstantial 2 on Unarmed) [2 pp] 'dreamtouch'

Protection 3 [3 pp]

Slumber King Array [41+4=45 pp]

Illusion 10 (all senses) (Extra: Selective) (Flaw: Phantasm) (PF: Progression (10 square feet) ) 'summoning dreams'

AP: Mental Blast 10 (PF: Reversible) 'nightmares'

AP: Mind Reading 10 (Extras: Action [standard/Move], Area [burst]) (PF: Subtle) 'dream-reading'

AP: Stun 10 (Extra: Perception Range [+2]) (Extra: Sleep [+0]) (PF: Sedation) 'go to sleep'

AP: Teleport 9 (anywhere on Earth) (Extras: Accurate, Affects Others) (PFs: Change Direction, Change Velocity, Easy, Progression (250 lbs), Turnabout) 'dream-walking'

Immunity 1 (Sleep) [1 pp]

Super-Movement 1 (Dimensional Movement [slumberland]) (Flaw: Limited (Nighttime Only) ) [1 pp]

costs

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

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Design Notes:

Once upon a time, there was a boy named Nemo with the power to journey into other worlds while he slept. He had many fantastic adventures in Dreamland, meeting his enemy-turned-friend Flip, his ally the Imp, and of course the young lady he loved, the Princess, daughter of Queen Morpheus of Dreamland. In the modern era, Nemo might have become a superhero...but this was a long time before superheroes were ever dreamed of. So instead Nemo became something of a gentleman adventurer, exploring the fantastic and wonderful world of dreams, then coming home and telling his stories to a family friend with a job as a cartoonist. Some of those tales, suitably edited, made it into the newspapers.

In the summer of 1914, the seventeen year old Nemo fell asleep one last time and took the Princess as his bride. His wealthy, neglectful parents barely noticed he was gone, leaving not even a body behind. Those were grim years for the couple; the coming World War changed the world of dreams forever, bringing forth nightmares that required his heroic efforts. King Morpheus died of that war, engaging the Nightmare Hun in hand-to-hand combat over the River of Sleep, and Nemo became Regent. Regent Nemo ruled long and wisely, even though the world of dreams was never quite the same as it had been in his youth. He fought alongside heroes like Randolph Carter and Adrian Eldritch in subsequent decades, his children growing to adulthood even as the world of dreams kept him a vital middle age.

Finally, nearly a century after Nemo’s first arrival in Dreamland, his grandchild decided to follow where King Nemo had come from, and headed to the world of the wakeful. Yes, it’s a legacy character for Winsor McKay’s Little Nemo in Slumberlandverse. He can put people to sleep, hit them with waking dreams that fool the senses, hurt them with really bad nightmares, read their dreams, or just step through their minds and come out thousands of miles away. He’s a bit more of a man of action than the usual mentalist/mystic, having plenty of experience punching monsters back where he came from.

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Rough Rider

"Believe you can and you're halfway there." -Theodore Roosevelt

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 56 pp

STR 24 (+7)

DEX 18 (+4)

CON 24 (+7)

INT 16 (+3)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 20 (+5)

Combat: 32 pp

ATK: +8 (+9 melee/+13 unarmed)

DEF: +10 (+4 flat-footed)

Grapple: +16

Init: +7

Saves: 13 pp

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

FORT +10 (+7 Con, +3)

REF +8 (+4 Dex, +4)

WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6)

Skills: 19pp=76 r

Climb 4 (+11)

Bluff 8 (+13)

Diplomacy 8 (+13)

Intimidate 8 (+13)

Knowledge: Arcane Lore 4 (+7)

Knowledge: History 4 (+7)

Knowledge: Tactics 4 (+7)

Languages 4 (German, Green, Latin, Spanish) (Base: English)

Notice 8 (+10)

Sense Motive 8 (+10)

Perform (Oratory) 8 (+13)

Ride 4 (+8)

Survival 4 (+6)

Feats: 26 pp

All-Out Attack,

Attack Focus: Melee

Attack Specialization: Unarmed 2

Benefit 3 (Security Clearance, Status, Wealth)

Connected,

Contacts,

Dodge Focus 2

Defensive Attack,

Elusive Target,

Improved Initiative,

Inspire 4,

Luck,

Master Plan 2,

Power Attack,

Startle,

Takedown Attack,

Taunt

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 4 pp

Immunity 1 (aging) [1 pp]

Protection 3 [3 pp]

costs

abilities 56 + combat 32 + saves 13 + skills 19/76 + feats 26 + powers 4 = 150 pts

---

Design Notes:

Back in 1919, the Rough Rider helped found the very first super-agency in the employ of the American government. (I'm not counting the various private contractors and individual agents employed during the late 19th century, mind you: those were more a result of the upswing in giant mechanical spiders after the Civil War left so many Confederate geniuses unemployed and crazy). Recognizing that the new breed of enemy (the first generation of early supervillains like Robur and the Phantom, the nascent rumblings of the worshippers of the Unspeakable One, newly empowered by the carnage of the World War, and even conventional crime bosses) was something special, the Rough Rider faked his own death and came to head the unnamed agency that became America's very first line of defense against the things that go bump in the night.

He's been an effective leader all these years; sustaining himself by means of a secret formula he stole from the Lord of Strange Deaths, allying with superheroes and battling against eternal threats that have bedeviled the American people for generations. Adapting to the new age hasn't been easy, and he's made some big mistakes. But he's helped protect the nation he's spent so much time defending time and time again, and he's as active and vital as he ever was. The thing is, though, now that there are so many other super-agencies and superheroes out there, he's got a little more time on his hands, and he's thinking about getting back in the field.

The Rough Rider should play well in a Freedom City game: AEGIS and other US government agencies don't focus on the sort of pulp-style or magical threats that the Rough Rider's agency does. An ideal story should see him leading his agents into battle against Cthulu one day, Fu Manchu the next, and then romancing a lovely operative from the other side at the same moment. Play him as a cordial Nick Fury running the BPRD, a man much more popular than the Patriot in his prime. (Treat his one eye as a Complication, since it didn't seem to slow him down that much in real life.) An obvious Silver Age-era teamup would have been with the Beast Genius upthread, naturally.

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Pirate

"Life's pretty good, and why wouldn't it be? I'm a pirate, after all." -Johnny Depp

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: 24 pp

ATK: +6 (+8 Melee)

DEF: +8 (+3 flat-footed)

Init: +10

Grapple: +15

Saves: 11 pp

TOU +12 (+7 Con, +5 Protection)

FORT +10 (+7 Con, +3)

REF +6 (+2 Dex, +4)

WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4)

Skills: 19 pp=76 r

Acrobatics 8 (+10)

Bluff 8 (+10)

Climb 8 (+15)

Intimidate 12 (+14)

Languages 4 (Carib, Dutch, French, Spanish) (Base: English)

Notice 8 (+10)

Sense Motive 8 (+10)

Pilot 8 (+10)

Survival 4 (+6)

Swim 4 (+11)

Feats: 21 pp

Acrobatic Bluff,

All-Out Attack,

Attack Focus: Melee (2)

Challenge 2 (Fast Acrobatic Bluff, Fast Startle)

Dodge Focus (2)

Fearless,

Improved Initiative (2),

Leadership,

Luck (3),

Move-By Action,

Power Attack,

Startle,

Takedown Attack (2)

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 35 pp

Device 5 (Cutlass) (easy to lose) [15 pp]

Corrosion 5 (PFs: Improved Crit 2, Incurable, Mighty, Precise) (Extra: Penetrating 4) {24}

-AP: Teleport 6 (20 miles) (Extra: Portal) (PFs: Progression 6 [500 by 500 ft]) {24}

Device 4 (Ring) (Hard to Lose) [16 pp]

-Immunity 9 (Life Support) {9}

-Impervious TOU 5 {5}

-Protection 5 (PF: Subtle) {6}

Immunity 1 (aging) [1 pp]

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

costs

abilities 40 + combat 24 + saves 11 + skills 19/76 + feats 21 + powers 35 = 150 pts

---

Design Notes:

A pirate, for all your piratey needs. My backstory for this lady is as follows: around 1640, a young woman living in a Maroon community in the Caribbean basin saw a meteor fall from the sky. Tracking its impact, she found what looked like a shattered suit of armor, the Star Knight inside having burned up during his descent into Earth's atmosphere. (Far away in Greece, Taurus chuckled as he looked into Medea's scrying pool: now that their explorer had been so thoroughly and untraceably annihilated, surely the men from the Heavens would no longer trouble the great bull and his master Hades!) subject of our tale was friendly with the local blacksmith, and she took what she'd found to see if he could make anything useful for her. When he let her wield the cutlass, and try on the ring, she realized the awesome power of the items, and used them to make her people grow great. She could shrug off punches and bullets, cut through _anything_, even the sky itself, leaving open great gouges that her ship could sail right through. But eventually her reign as pirate queen came to an end when a powerful shaman of the Carib froze her in time, trapping her beneath the surface of Mt. Pelee until a recent eruption freed her. Now she's ready to fight for justice just as she did hundreds of years ago!

Obviously a somewhat romanticized take on piracy! Piracy in the Caribbean is very much a story about the Americas, so I tried to work that in without losing sight of the time and place where it happened. I've already got a keen lady swashbuckler in the thread, so instead I decided to draw on fictional pirates like 7th Sea's Captain Reis (if you see Reis, run) to create a character who can fight way, way out of her weight class thanks to the cool artifacts she's got on hand. I'm bored with making magical characters, M&M ain't D&D or your local Harry Dresden novel, so instead I gave her an alien connection and a tie-in to the setting of Freedom City. If she's got a ship or a crew, that's something to buy with Equipment or Minions. You could always have her ship docked somewhere and make it a headquarters, since a wooden pirate ship is not going to be that great on today's seas.

Tweak her a little bit and she'd make a dandy space pirate: I have given her Pilot deliberately for that. (I think Pilot works OK as a skill for navigating a boat) Change the feats and skills up a bit to make her a lady pirate from some other ocean: there were some remarkable Chinese pirates in past generations, and making one an immortal with a sword that'll cut through anything is certainly a remarkable way to play with that archetype. You can make her more Iron Age if you want, play up how crappy and miserable life as a Caribbean pirate actually was, but that's not very heroic! She's probably a lot more chaotic good than your average superheroine, which may cause her some issues. The fact that she's a woman out of time from the 17th century will cause even more issues.

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