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Crusader, PL 7, GranspearZX (Bronze)


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Player Name: GranspearZX

Character Name: Crusader

Power Level: 7 (108/110PP)

Trade-Offs: None

Unspent PP: 2

Progress to Silver Status: 5/60 (Bronze Status earned with Arcturus)

In Brief: A high school teacher trying to follow in the footsteps of his father.

Alternate Identities: Clark Allen Noble

Identity: Secret

Birthplace: Freedom City

Occupation: High School Teacher

Affiliations: FDR High School

Family: Carla Noble (mother), Benjamin Noble (brother), Regina Noble (sister)

Age: 32 (DoB: May 1979)

Apparent Age: 32

Gender: Male

Ethnicity: Irish

Height: 6'2"

Weight: 231 lbs.

Eyes: Blue

Hair: Black

Description: Clark Noble could easily be mistaken as a professional athlete; tall and muscular, Clark is a wide-shouldered and often imposing figure to most. His short, blonde hair is often hidden underneath a featureless black cap, and sunglasses usually shade his dark blue eyes.

As the Crusader, his costume is white and red, with red boots and gloves. He also wears a white mask that covers his entire face. His round shield is white, as well, with a red cross dominating its center.

Power Descriptions: Clark doesn't appear to have much in the way of superpowers, but he manages to hold his own with the help of extensive physical training and the help of his shield. The shield itself seems to have unusual properties of its own, virtually indestructible.

History: Clark lead a fairly simple life. He was the first in a set of triplets, and for years it was speculated that being the first-born afforded him a unique advantage. He was an especially charismatic and focused young man, and while he was a fairly perceptive child, he never really noticed that his father wasn't around all that often. As a 5-year old, he was a bit too young to understand what exactly his father was doing. Eventually, Clark did find out, after finding his father sneaking into the house late one night--in costume as the Crusader. In exchange for keeping his father's secret, Brian Noble promised to teach Clark everything that he knew; with the climate as it was for superheroes in the early 80s, Brian could only hope the city would relinquish its ban on their activities.

Tragedy struck in 1993; the Terminus Invasion caused widespread chaos across the city, and Brian Noble went missing during the evacuation of their neighborhood, and when it was all over, many heroes were gone--including the Crusader. Only Clark knew his father's secret, and only he knew that his father was more than just 'missing'. It forced him to grow up a bit faster, taking on the responsibilities of his family even as his twin brother and sister put an increasing strain on his grief-stricken mother. In 1998, he graduated from high school; he nearly joined the military until he started having odd, unsettling dreams of his father. Keeping the part-time job he'd found, he started recreating his father's costume from memory--memories that, he soon discovered, weren't entirely his own. Visiting his father's grave in Memorial Grove, he was suddenly flooded mentally by a vision of his father's spirit--and every Crusader before him, stretching back to the 13th century. When he awoke, nearly a week had passed, and his father's shield lay along side his gravestone. Using his newly acquired powers, he began building on the legacy his father and his ancestors left behind.

Operating largely out of Hanover, Clark put himself through college and earned a B.S. in Athletic Training with a minor in biomechanics, later earning a Master's in education. By then, his sister had moved on, working for the World Health Organization; Robert, however, had developed a gambling addiction. More than once, Clark tried to bail his brother out of situations involving drugs and owing mobsters money, only to later have to take him down along with the other criminals he encountered as the Crusader.

Personality & Motivation: Most people who get to know Clark find him to be very easy going, although his naturally competitive nature often manifests itself from the sidelines when he's coaching. As the Crusader, he tries to curb that instinct and is exceptionally well-suited to working with others. As a leader, he can be an insufferable optimist, stubborn and unrelenting when it comes to achieving his goals. Driven by the desire to honor the Crusader legacy, he presses forward, no matter what, though never at the expense of sacrificing anyone but himself.

He isn't at all the single-minded simpleton that his moral code would lead one to believe, however; while strives to be the quintessential hero, he recognizes that he's human. If nothing else, he tries to conduct himself as a role model, but even he has moments of weakness where righteous indignation overtakes any pretense of taking the moral high road.

Powers & Tactics: Clark has never been one to shy away from a fight, but he's surprisingly adept at team tactics, able to analyze both his allies' strengths as well as his enemies' strengths and weaknesses. He often prefers to use the Crusader Shield's ricochet effect to dispatch weaker enemies before focusing on the greatest threat, charging shield-first into foes too tough to be taken out from a distance.


Complications:

Hatred: Clark's dislike for organized crime borders on the irrational; he's often a little bit rougher with gangsters and mobsters than he probably should be.

Mistaken Identity: Clark's twin brother, Ben, is a notorious gambler and owes a lot of people money, superpowered and not. Despite Clark's best efforts to keep his brother out of trouble, he often gets caught in the crossfire of his brother's immoral behavior.

People's Champ: Clark is guided--and often bound--by his moral code, and he finds it difficult to do anything that might be perceived as 'unheroic'. He'll never willingly strike a downed opponent, and is extremely reluctant to put women or kids in jeopardy.

Secret Identity: No one else knows that Clark Noble is the Crusader--a separation that Clark will go to great lengths to keep a secret.

Warrior's Pride: Clark has difficulty backing down from a fight, especially a one-on-one challenge.

Working Stiff: Clark Noble is a high school football coach and history teacher at FDR High School. He takes his job pretty seriously, and has been known to lose sleep over trying to keep up with his double life.

Abilities: 4 + 8 + 10 + 2 + 2 + 4 = 30PP

Strength: 14 (+2)

Dexterity: 18 (+4)

Constitution: 20 (+5)

Intelligence: 12 (+1)

Wisdom: 12 (+1)

Charisma: 14 (+2)

Combat: 14 + 4 = 16PP

Initiative: +4

Attack: +7, +9 Blast

Grapple: +9

Defense: +6 (+2 Base, +0 Dodge Focus, +4 Shield), +1 Flat-Footed

Knockback: -2

Saving Throws: 0 + 0 + 3 = 3PP

Toughness: +5 (+5 Con)

Fortitude: +5 (+5 Con, +0)

Reflex: +4 (+4 Dex, +0)

Will: +4 (+1 Wis, +3)

Skills: 84R = 21PP

Acrobatics 6 (+10)

Climb 5 (+7)

Craft (Mechanical) 5 (+6)

Diplomacy 6 (+8)

Escape Artist 6 (+10)

Gather Information 6 (+8)

Intimidate 6 (+8)

Investigate 6 (+7)

Knowledge (History) 6 (+7)

Knowledge (Tactics) 6 (+7)

Notice 6 (+7)

Sense Motive 8 (+9)

Stealth 6 (+10)

Swim 6 (+8)

Feats: 15PP

All-Out Attack

Assessment

Beginners Luck

Defensive Attack

Fearless

Improved Critical (Shield) 2

Improved Disarm

Improved Sunder

Interpose

Luck

Power Attack

Seize Initiative

Startle

Takedown Attack

Powers: 18 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 21PP

Device 5 (25PP Container, Extra Effort applies to user, Flaws: Easy-To-Lose 2, Feats: Indestructible, Restricted 2 [Crusader]) (Crusader Shield, Impervium) [18PP]

Blast 2 (10 20ft Range Increments, 200ft Max Range, Feats: Accurate, Mighty 2, Split Attack 2) [9PP]

Deflect 4 (All Ranged Attacks, Extras: Linked [shield]) [12PP]

Shield 4 (+4 Dodge, Extras: Linked [Deflect]) [4PP]

Leaping 1 (x2 [24ft Running Long Jump, 12ft Standing Long Jump, 6ft Verticle Jump]) (Training) [1PP]

Speed 1 (10mph / 100ft per Move Action) (Training) [1PP]

Super Senses 1 (Danger Sense [Auditory]) (Training) [1PP]

DC Block:

ATTACK     RANGE     SAVE                       EFFECT

Unarmed    Touch     DC17 Toughness (Staged)    Damage (Physical)

Shield     Ranged    DC19 Toughness (Staged)    Damage (Physical)

Abilities (30) + Combat (18) + Saving Throws (3) + Skills (21) + Feats (15) + Powers (21) - Drawbacks (0) = 108/110 Power Points

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House rules say that you have to have at least 1/3 of your Attack and Defense bonuses come from base attack and base defense, rounded down. So if you have +6, you need at least +2 base. At +8, you need at least +3.

Your flat-footed Defense is half your base DEF rounded down. So if you have base DEF +1, your flat-footed DEF is +0, not +1.

Restricted is a power feat for Devices, not an extra, and to make it so that no one can use it but you costs 2 ranks of that feat.

If the shield is made of Impervium, you might wanna just go ahead and give it the Indestructible power feat.

Post-Ultimate Power, Deflect costs 1PP/rank to affect either slow physical projectiles (arrows, thrown weapons, etc.), fast physical projectiles (bullets), or energy attacks. So a Deflect that works against all ranged attacks costs 3PP/rank.

Improved Block counts against PL caps for Attack bonus. It's useless. I'd ditch it.

I just want to make sure you're clear about how the Thrown power feat works. Once you throw the shield, you lose it until you actually physically run over to where it landed and retrieve it. If you want it to come around back to you like a fictional boomerang, use Blast, not Strike.

If he's got memories from several previous incarnations, consider giving him the Beginners Luck and/or Jack of All Trades feats, and maybe even Postcognition with the Limited or Unreliable flaws, to represent tapping into that knowledge.

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Edits!

Abilities: Reduced Charisma by 2, from 16 to 14. Edited Skills accordingly.

Combat: I totally missed that house rule; my apologies for that. To fix, I bought up his defense and reduced the rank of the Shield power, giving him a base defense of 2 and a dodge bonus of 4.

Skills: Fixed all his skills to properly reflect their modifiers; a lot of them were wrong. @.@

Feats: As per your suggestion, I dropped Improved Block 2. I also dropped Attractive, Inspire, Leadership, and Connected, and picked up Beginner's Luck.

Powers: Changed his shield to Device 5, and added Indestructible as a power feat. Also changed the Strike power to Blast, and added rank to the Ricochet power feat. The idea behind Postcognition was really interesting, so I went with that too; not entirely sure I needed Limited AND Unreliable, but if that needs to be changed, let me know.It even gave me another idea for a complication (Hostile Takeover) to add.

Hopefully I didn't miss anything else; thanks again for reviewing. :)

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He's paying for 88 skill ranks but you've only allotted 86.

With everything else, you've only got room for one rank of Ricochet on the Blast within the device.

The Unreliable flaw means that either the power has a 50/50 chance of not working when you use it, or that you can only use it a limited number of times before it needs to be "recharged"/"reloaded"/etc. somehow. I was suggesting the former as an option.

Postcog costs 4PP base. You certainly don't need both Limited AND Unreliable, though you could if you wanted to. The way the pricing works out, with one -1 flaw it would cost 2PP, and with two it would cost 1PP (at which point, it's basically a Benefit/Feature). You could also just take it without one or both flaws, and accept them as Complications instead (which might work out better for you, since that means it's a Hero Point fountain).

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I think I'm getting better at this. :D

Edits this round:

Spent the 2 unspent skill ranks in Climb

Changed Super-Senses to just one of the two flaws (limited it to just his past lives), and used the extra point to add Danger Sense (visual). Also added the complication of too much use of the Postcognition to give the Crusader a massive headache.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Good background, lots of meaty plot hooks.

Abilities: 4 + 8 + 10 + 2 + 2 + 4 = 30PP

Strength: 14 (+2)

Dexterity: 18 (+4)

Constitution: 20 (+5)

Intelligence: 12 (+1)

Wisdom: 12 (+1)

Charisma: 14 (+2)

Adds up.

Combat: 12 + 4 = 16PP

Initiative: +4

Attack: +6

Grapple: +8

Defense: +6 (+2 Base, +0 Dodge Focus, +4 Crusader Shield), +1 Flat-Footed

Knockback: -2 (-6 w/Crusader Shield)

Adds up.

Saving Throws: 0 + 0 + 0 = 0PP

Toughness: +5 (+5 Con, +0 [Other])

Fortitude: +5 (+5 Con, +0)

Reflex: +4 (+4 Dex, +0)

Will: +1 (+1 Wis, +0)

Adds up, but you really might want to sink some pp into here as soon as possible. Especially into Will.

Skills: 88R = 22PP

Acrobatics 6 (+10)

Climb 5 (+7)

Craft (mechanical) 5 (+6)

Diplomacy 6 (+8)

Escape Artist 6 (+10)

Gather Information 6 (+8)

Intimidate 6 (+8)

Investigate 6 (+7)

Knowledge (history) 6 (+7)

Knowledge (tactics) 6 (+7)

Notice 6 (+7)

Sense Motive 8 (+9)

Stealth 6 (+10)

Survival 4 (+6)

Swim 6 (+8)

Adds up.

Feats: 16PP

All-Out Attack

Assessment

Beginner's Luck

Defensive Attack

Fearless

Improved Critical 2 (Blast 3)

Improved Disarm

Improved Sunder

Interpose

Luck 1

Power Attack

Seize Initiative

Startle

Takedown Attack 1

Ultimate Effort (Toughness)

Adds up.

Powers: 18 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 21PP

Device 5 (15PP, easy to lose, effort applies to userPF: Indestructible, Restricted [usable only by the Crusader]) (Crusader Shield, Impervium) [18PP]

Deflect 4 (all ranged attacks; Extras: Linked w/ Shield) [12PP]

Shield 4 (+4 dodge bonus; Extras: Linked w/Deflect) [4PP]

AP: Blast 3 (PF: Accurate, Mighty, Ricochet (4 bounces)) [14PP]

Immovable 4 (Extras: Unstoppable) [8PP]

Leaping 1 (x2 [24/12/6 ft. running/standing/vertical jump], training)

Speed 1 (10 mph, training) [1PP]

Super Senses (Danger Sense [Auditory], training) [1PP]

A couple of issues with the shield:

One: really bad idea having your defensive and offensive power arrayed. It means you're going to get your ass kicked in ever more painful ways.

Also, with Blast, you need to spend one rank of Mighty per rank of Strength bonus applied, one rank won't add your whole Strength to it.

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  • 8 months later...
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