Avenger Assembled Posted April 26, 2011 Author Posted April 26, 2011 Bouncy Hero “Bound and rebound....†PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 10 pp STR 24 [10] (+7/+0) DEX 24 [10] (+7/+0) CON 24 [10] (+7/+0) INT 14 (+2) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 12 (+1) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+13 melee) DEF: +13 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +7 Grapple: +28 Saves: 4 pp TOU +7 (+7 Con) FORT +7 (+7 Con) REF +7 (+7 Dex) WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4) Skills: 60 r=15 pp Acrobatics 8 (+15) Bluff 9 (+10) Climb 8 (+15) Knowledge: Streetwise 8 (+10) Languages 3 (German, Kashubian, Polish) (Base: English) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Stealth 8 (+15) Feats: 19 pp Acrobatic Bluff Attack Focus: Melee 5 Challenge (Fast Acrobatic Bluff) Dodge Focus 5 Evasion Luck Move-By Action Power Attack Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 70 pp Enhanced CON 14 [14 pp] Enhanced DEX 14 [14 pp] Enhanced STR 14 [14 pp] Immunity 5 (falling damage) [5 pp] Kinetic Array [16+1+2+2=21 pp] Autofire and Penetrating on Unarmed [Dynamic] DAP: Leaping 16 (x250,000) [Dynamic] DAP: Super-Strength 8 (Heavy Load: ~180 tons) Super-Movement 1 (Wall-Crawling) [2 pp] costs abilities 10 + combat 32 + saves 4 + skills 15/60 + feats 19 + powers 70 = 150 pts --- Design Notes: Here's my attempt at a Bouncy Hero: this character has the bouncing ability, but not the Bouncing power. (Which is not that great, and honestly breaks caps pretty badly) The idea is that she's a kinetic controller; in addition to enhancing her physique, her powers let her leap ridiculous distances (with Leaping 16 and STR 24, there's really nowhere you can't get in an urban environment, though it may take you a while), lift very heavy weights (not incidentally, that massive Super-STR means that she's a really, really good grappler, or hit really hard and fast with channeled kinetic damage. She can fall any distance and be unhurt, and leap back up without hesitation at the end of it: she can even fall while unconscious and her natural kinetic absorbing abilities will do just fine. I made her your standard high-Dex dodge monkey, as is fairly common for your quippy, bluffy, urban sort of hero. (She actually could pull off a leap from the suburbs to the city, but she loses a lot of the cool visuals of bounding and rebounding off skyscrapers to work up a really big hit if you do that) Another way to do this character would be to make her really physically tough, the way Cannonball is in Marvel. To do that, swap her Dodge Focus for Protection and maybe scrape up some Impervious, perhaps as a DAP built into her big array. You could make her significantly Damage-shifted if you wanted by shifting her tradeoffs around a bit, making that Autofire into a Strike or Enhanced STR in its own right. OTOH, Autofire has turned out to be a pretty effective way of being 'damage-shifted' with an Attack tradeoff. What the hell is Kashubian? Use Google, chums! I realized I was being a little too dull in the language choices I gave her, so I mixed it up a bit with one of Europe's more obscure languages: as written, this is a Polish girl (perhaps a hero of Chicago or a immigrant) who probably takes her clothes to the laundry to 'warsh' them and whose grandpa was probably a huge Richard Daley fan. There are ethnic groups beside Irish and Italian even in 'white' people in comics, and it doesn't do to forget that! Yes yes, no doubt she'll go build a screen door on a submarine. If you're interested in modeling her distant descendant in the future, give her some Growth and some Impervious to make a real Bouncing Hero...
Avenger Assembled Posted April 27, 2011 Author Posted April 27, 2011 Octopus Hero “When you’re good to Mama, Mama’s good to you.†-Chicago PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 30 pp STR 30 [14] (+10/+2) DEX 16 (+3) CON 20 (+5) INT 12 (+1) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+4) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Melee) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +7 Grapple:+24/+28/+32 Saves: 9 pp TOU +10 (+5 Con, +5 Protection) FORT +7 (+5 Con, +2) REF +6 (+3 Dex, +3) WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4) Skills: 44r=11 pp Bluff 8 (+10) Diplomacy 2 (+4) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Stealth 12 (+15) Survival 3 (+5) Swim 3 (+13) Feats: 18 pp All-Out Attack Attack Focus: Melee 4 Dodge Focus 4 Environmental Adaptation (underwater) Improved Initiative Hide in Plain Sight Luck Move-By Action Power Attack Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (tactile) Powers: 58 pp Additional Limbs 4 ‘tentacles’ (PFs: Innate, Subtle) [6 pp] Elongation 4 (25 ft) (Flaw: Tentacles Only) [2 pp] Enhanced STR 16 [16 pp] Immunity 3 (environmental cold, drowning, pressure) [3 pp] Protection 5 [5 pp] Regeneration 0 (PFs: Persistent, Regrowth) [2 pp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] Super-Movement 4 (Slow Fall, Swinging, Wall-Crawling 2) [8+2=10 pp] AP: Concealment 2 (normal vision) (Flaw: Blending) and Insubstantial 1 (fluid body) (PF: Subtle) AP: Swimming 8 (500 MPH) Super-Senses 4 (Darkvision, Tremorsense) [4 pp] Super-Strength 4 (Heavy Load: 12 tons) (PF: INK’D!) [9 pp] costs abilities 30 + combat 24 + saves 9 + skills 11/44 + feats 18 + powers 58 = 150 pts --- Design Notes: Here’s my build for an octopus-themed hero, much like Freedom City’s own Fusion. Octopi have a great number of different abilities, given the fantastic variety of different species and the many tricks they can pull off. This lady can swing around on long tentacley arms, swim on powerful underwater jets (much faster than a real octopus, of course, but enough to keep up with her fellow aquatic supers), regrow tentacles if they are torn off, and change colors to render herself invisible to normal vision so long as she moves slowly enough to adjust: with her nigh-boneless body, she can squeeze through any space! (I figure the Insub is in an array because she naturally has bones like a humanoid, but can soften them enough to get around wherever she needs to go.) Her Super-Strength PF is of my own devising: she sprays a cone of ink out in front of her as a full-round action (fluffing that it’s her fantastic strength that lets her do so), blinding anyone in front of her who fails their Reflex saves: it’s a full-round action, since Visual Dazzle costs 2 per rank naturally. Her high Stealth is a supplement from her Concealment, she really is just that sneaky. She has my standard package of immunities and Environmental Adaptation for underwater characters: she’s just as good on land as she is underwater, but underwater her opponents are generally much worse off. She’s really a fantastic grappler, her combination of Additional Limbs, Elongation, and Super-Strength making her nigh-inescapable. If she has the Insubstantial active, she’s even more threatening, as she can grapple without risk of being grappled herself. Note that as written, her limbs are probably going to be Permanent: you might be able to justify Sustained Innate tentacles, but Refs may find that questionable. Her Elongation is _not_ Permanent, however, so she can shrink the tentacles down to a manageable size and have her go about her business. She probably has a silhouette very different than your average superhero, but that’s OK: you can do everything from someone strong and confident in their freakish appearance, or someone who’s got some serious angst about their body issues. Either way, it’s great character fodder. Luckily Freedom City is on the coast, so she can get around at great speed underwater, then swing onto land and kick some butt! Consider the usual origins; mutated human, mutated octopus? Maybe she's an alien from a planet of octopi, or perhaps her powers are a result of a family connection to the Great Old Ones.
Avenger Assembled Posted April 27, 2011 Author Posted April 27, 2011 Hanuman “If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.†-James Goldsmith PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 70 pp STR 30 (+10) DEX 30 (+10) CON 30 (+10) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 16 (+3) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Melee) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +10 Grapple: +20 Saves: 6 pp TOU +10 (+10 Con) FORT +10 (+10 Con) REF +10 (+10 Dex) WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6) Skills: 72 r=18 pp Acrobatics 15 (+20) Bluff 12 (+15) Climb 5 (+15) Knowledge: Theology and Philosophy 5 (+5) Language 3 (English, Hindi, Tamil) (Base: Dravidian) Notice 12 (+15) Sense Motive 12 (+15) Stealth 5 (+15) Survival 5 (+7) Feats: 19 pp Acrobatic Bluff Attack Focus: Melee 4 Challenge 2 (Fast Acrobatic Bluff, Fast Taunt) Dodge Focus 4 Evasion 2 Grappling Finesse Move-By Action Power Attack Takedown Attack Taunt Uncanny Dodge (olfactory) Powers: 13 pp Immunity 1 (aging) [1 pp] Leaping 1 (x2) [1 pp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] Super-Movement 4 (Slow Fall, Swinging, Wall-Crawling 2) [8 pp] Super-Senses 2 (Acute Scent, Low-Light Vision) [2 pp] costs abilities 70 + combat 24 + saves 6 + skills 18/72 + feats 19 powers 13 = 150 pts --- Design Notes: In something of a twist on both the Divine Champion and Animal Totem archetypes, here’s a merger of both: Hanuman, divine trickster of the Hindu pantheon! He’s strong, fast, and incredibly cunning, a trickster and feinter who can cleave through the bad guys with skill and determination; he has the powers you would expect from a god who incorporates the aspect of monkeys. Be careful with this one, historically some Hindu folks have not been amused at seeing their divinities turn up in Western pop fiction: Xena famously had to apologize in a post-episode disclaimer after using Hanuman and Rama as major characters in story arc. (After all, it’s only fictional gods who appear in fictional works.) Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with it: the use of one’s divinities as a superhero is an argument _for_ that religion rather than against it in my mind! But you, and your audience, may disagree! That said, I think you have a solid build here for a character who is at once god, trickster, and monkey. He doesn’t have a great potential for power-stunts, but he has enough abilities you should be able to do something. If you do want to give him the chance to do that, give him some Enhanced Attributes: I’ve gone with the idea that his strength, speed, and endurance are innate to his godly nature, and removing them a plot device rather than a Nullify effect. Why is he on Earth? Well, perhaps his tricks finally got the other gods angry enough to banish him to Earth for a while, or maybe he’s come below on a special mission to fight for justice on this plane: given Freedom City’s Pact, no doubt he lingered bodiless for a while until a devout Hindu called upon his aid only to find himself transformed into the avatar of the god himself! Note that there aren’t any Additional Limbs on this build, AA adds to forestall jokes: those depictions in traditional Hindu art are understood to be metaphorical. I think the best way to go with a character like this is make him Indian-American; let the character’s dual heritage reflect the dual nature of his powers. (Then again in my mind Donald Blake really should be from Minneapolis but that’s another matter...) But you could also do just as well with making this a ‘hero of India’, though it would certainly be a little odd given the current religious climate. OTOH, if you want to be a little Iron Agey about it, maybe he got tired of being used as a political football by Hinduvata factions back home, and decided to go to a land where he could be a hero first and a god second. He should definitely not be encouraging worshippers: though he may have less of a problem with this than Thor does in the Marvel universe, since he’s not as media-friendly in an American market. (Most people, of course, should assume he’s just a mutant with a Hindu theme, much to the ire of actual Hindus, indeed, perhaps you have a situation where the guy’s elderly devout aunt constantly laments about that evil, evil ‘Hanuman’, much to our hero’s chagrin. Or did she know it was him all along, and was she just playing along?)
Avenger Assembled Posted April 27, 2011 Author Posted April 27, 2011 Respiration Hero "Right Back Atcha!" PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 32 pp STR 10 (+0) DEX 20 (+5) CON 20 (+5) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 18 (+4) Combat: 20 pp ATK: +4 (+10 Ranged) DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +9 Grapple: +4 Saves: 7 pp TOU +8 (+5 Con, +3 Protection) FORT +6 (+5 Con, +1) REF +8 (+5 Dex, +3) WILL +5 (+2 Wis, +3) Skills: 40 r=10 pp Climb 10 (+10) Diplomacy 11 (+15) Languages 2 (English, Japanese) (Base: Grue) Medicine 1 (+3) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 19 pp Attack Focus: Ranged 6 Dodge Focus 6 Improved Initiative Luck Move-By Action Power Attack Precise Shot Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 62 pp Corrosion 10 and Mimic 10 (any one power) (PF: Extended Reach [total 10 ft], Variable Descriptor 1 [blow/suck]) [52 pp] Flight 1 (10 MPH) (Flaw: Duration [Concentration]) [1 pp] Immunity 2 (suffocation) [2 pp] Protection 3 [3 pp] Resurrection 1 (1/week) [1 pp] Super-Movement 1 (Slow Fall) [2 pp] costs abilities 32 + combat 20 + saves 7 + skills 10/40 + feats 19 + powers 62 = 150 pts --- Design Notes: This is my build for Kirby, the hero of various Nintendo games and at least one anime. Kirby's signature ability in the game is to inhale his enemies and either spit them back out or devour them, taking their powers as his own. (Kirby...Kirby would be pretty scary in a universe less cartoonish than his native dimension, honestly). While I could have used DImensional Pocket or Snare with the Engulf modifier, maybe with some kind of limited Move Object, to represent his most famous ability: I've chosen to model his abilities as Corrosion linked with Mimic: he sucks it in, destroys it, and absorbs its powers with his own. Obviously sentient targets should be targeted only with the 'breath blast' that I think is another viable expression of that big power: note that with the Concentration duration on his Flight, he has to 'hold his breath' during transit and so if he does use his powers while flying, he starts to fall! He has Slow Fall rather than an Immunity to falling damage because he can fall any distance onto a surface besides spikes and do no worse than bounce, but if he falls into a bottomless pit he's in trouble! He can come back from the dead if he does die; Kirby is much more prone to resurrection than his mustachioed Super Smash Brothers colleague Mario. (This is because Kirby's game is aimed at younger children; he's competitive without being death-prone in that obnoxiously Nintendo way.) He's still not that tough, since getting smacked in the face even by low-level bad guys is always a serious problem for him. He's got the high Diplomacy and Charisma because...well, just look at him! He's freaking adorable! He's also a really good shot, and very good at goon-sweeping, just like a Nintendo hero should be. Obviously he'll need a _little_ adjustment in a superhero setting, depending on what you want to do with him. Maybe he's fresh from the Japanese national super-team? I've gone with the theory that he's some sort of Grue bio-weapon on the loose, a natural fit for the setting given his alien nature and protean powers. Maybe give him a little human buddy and make him a Stitch expy? But you could go with that however you wanted; maybe he's an alien in his own right, or a creature from magical dimension. Or maybe he's some kind of crazy mutant!
Avenger Assembled Posted April 27, 2011 Author Posted April 27, 2011 Crabby Hero “You cannot teach a crab to walk straight.†-Aristophanes PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 40 pp STR 30 [20] (+10/+5) DEX 16 (+3) CON 20 (+5) INT 10 (+0) WIS 16 (+3) CHA 18 (+4) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Melee) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +7 Grapple: +23 Saves: 9 pp TOU +10 (+5 Con, +5 Protection) FORT +8 (+5 Con, +3) REF +5 (+3 Wis, +2) WILL +7 (+3 Wis, +4) Skills: 76r=19 r Bluff 11 (+15) Climb 1 (+11) Diplomacy 11 (+15) Intimidate 15 (+19) Notice 12 (+15) Sense Motive 12 (+15) Stealth 12 (+15) Survival 1 (+4) Swim 1 (+11) Feats: 17 pp Attack Focus: Melee 4 Challenge 3 (Fast Intimidate, Fast Startle, Powerful Intimidate) Dodge Focus 4 Environmental Adaptation (Underwater) Improved Initiative Power Attack Startle Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 43 pp Enhanced STR 10 [10 pp] 'pinchy claws!" Immunity 3 (environmental cold, high pressure, suffocation underwater) [3 pp] Impervious TOU 10 [10 pp] Protection 5 [5 pp] Speed 2 (25 MPH) (PF: Zig-Zag) [3 pp] Super-Movement 2 (Wall-Crawling 2) [4 pp] Super-Senses 2 (Darkvision) [2 pp] Super-Strength 3 (Heavy Load: 6 tons) [6 pp] costs abilities 40 + combat 40 + saves 9 + skills 19/76 + feats 17 + powers 43 = 150 pts ---- Design Notes: Here’s my build for yet another Totem hero; this time with a crab theme! I was inspired by the inclusion of a crab theme in the Totem archetype in the Archetype Archive; the idea seemed so odd I had to include it. So here’s a crab guy: he’s got strong pinchy hands, he can scuttle right up walls and into your bedroom window at night (to give you such a pinch!) and his armored crustacean body makes him bulletproof. He’s a good grappler, though not quite as skilled as my Octopus build up thread. His primary difference from my other aquatic builds is of course his scary nature: being crabby, he’s very good at being intimidating in combat, and using how scary he is as a weapon! (You think it’s just a lame joke? Look at a picture of a coconut crab sometime! Scary dudes). One possible change would be to find the points to give him more Super-Strength, perhaps at the cost of some Impervious, or maybe some Penetrating Unarmed to represent those pincy claws! Eyestalks and Elongations are another possibility: Radius Sight or Extended Sight being a natural way of representing that. If you want to make a Fiddler Crab, more Super-Strength Limited to one limb makes sense: you could also give him Regeneration or Anatomical Separation to represent his ability to let his claws drop off and grow another one: like many animal totems, you have a lot of potential abilities depending on how fast and loose you want to play with the biology. Maybe he owns a fast-food restaurant with a dour guy and a cheerful pixie man as his subordinates? Or maybe he was a plucky teenager pinched by a radioactive crab who turned his new abilities and fantastic crabby powers (look at how fast he scuttles!) to crime-fighting! His natural enemy is, of course, the Crushinator and his sidekick, Butter Lad! Complication: So Tasty? Believe it! He’s a natural part of an aquatic superteam as well, his high Charisma letting him function in worlds as crazy as diverse as a tidal beach. (Note that Speed defaults to Swimming underwater, so he gets by decently enough underwater as well)
Avenger Assembled Posted April 28, 2011 Author Posted April 28, 2011 Ocular Hero “Look into my eyes; you will see that they are googly!†-Cookie Monster PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 34 pp STR 14 (+2) DEX 16 (+3) CON 20 (+5) INT 12 (+2) WIS 16 (+3) CHA 16 (+3) Combat: 20 pp ATK: +5 (+10 Ranged) DEF: +10 (+2 flat-footed) Init: +3 Grapple: +7 Saves: 10 pp TOU +8 (+3 Con, +5 Protection) FORT +7 (+5 Con, +2) REF +7 (+3 Dex, +4) WILL +7 (+3 Wis, +4) Skills: 60r=15 pp Concentration 12 (+15) Diplomacy 12 (+15) Medicine 12 (+15) Notice 12 (+15) Sense Motive 12 (+15) Feats: 16 pp Attack Focus: Ranged 5 Improved Aim Inspire 3 Leadership Luck 3 Move-By Action Power Attack Uncanny Dodge (mental) Powers: 57 pp Eyebeam Array [34+1=35 pp] Blast 10 (Extra: Autofire) (PFs: Improved Crit 2, Precise Shot 2) AP: Damage 10 (Extras: Area [Cone], Selective) (PFs: Progression 4 on Area) Immunity 1 (own powers) [1 pp] Protection 5 [5 pp] Shield 5 [5 pp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] Super-Senses 10 (Accurate Acute Radius Ranged Mental Sense, Accurate Hearing, Tremorsense) [10 pp] Drawback: -2 pp Disability: Blind (common, minor) [-2] costs abilities 34 + combat 20 + saves 10 + skills 15/60 + feats 16 + powers 57 - drawbacks 2 = 150 pts --------- Design Notes: Here’s my spin on a character like Marvel’s Cyclops, a guy who can shoot powerful beams of destructive energy out of his eyes. He can strike with rapidfire beams of pinpoint light, or he can scythe through a whole area with a cone-shaped beam that starts at his eyes. (It’s tough to see a justification for the Cone Area _and_ the Ranged Extra, really, unless some sort of device is being deployed.) As with your typical Cyclops expies, the guy is a great leader and very observant, easily capable of rallying the troops while directing them from the front. (Inspire is a full-round action and takes an HP, so you should buy up Inspire as high as your Charisma can justify to get the maximum bonus) Note that unlike your typical eye-blasters, I’ve made this guy blind: I think it’s reasonable to say that someone who can shoot death rays out of their eyes might not be able to use them to see! Plus, that lets you have the quiet angst of guys like this without having the eyebeams that are forever turned on: instead, he’s bummed ‘cause he’s blind. His hearing and mental sense (fluffed as ‘radar’ that he developed since his vision was absent) let him get around much better than your typical blind guy, obviously, enough that he can function in combat, but he still can’t do Daredevil-style tricks like reading with his fingers or something. He also might have developed the mental abilities after a personal relationship with a psychic. He’s got lots of Luck; don’t be afraid to use it to stunt whatever you need off his big eyebeam array: he’s got pretty broad descriptors, and can get away with a lot. Penetrating Damage, different kinds of Area, a Full-Round Disintegrate? He’s a powerful character, and should be treated as such. If you drop the blindness angle, someone who shoots beams from his eyes has a decent chance of affording a Perception-range blast, seeing as how it’s hard to dodge somebody looking at you. All those HPs can go to acquiring more tradeoff feats, or you can drop a few to acquire them in play! As it is he’s got no problems clearing a room, and his Power Attack lets him smack much bigger and tougher looking guys right in the face if someone’s got them flat-footed. His natural rival is the Feral Canadian build from upthread, naturally.
Avenger Assembled Posted April 28, 2011 Author Posted April 28, 2011 Set “I am dying, Egypt, dying.†-Marc Antony PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 48 pp STR 26 (+8) DEX 16 (+3) CON 26 (+8) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 16 (+3) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+7 Melee/+10 Blast) DEF: +7 (+3 flat-footed) Grapple: +15/+25 Init: +3 Saves: 9 pp TOU +13 (+8 Con, +5 Protection) FORT +10 (+8 Con, +2) REF +6 (+3 Dex, +3) WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4) Skills: 56 r=14 pp Bluff 12 (+15) Intimidate 12 (+15) Knowledge: Arcane Lore 5 (+5) Knowledge: Theology and Philosophy 5 (+5) Language 1 (English) (Base: Ancient Egyptian) Notice 8 (+10) Ride 2 (+5) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Survival 3 (+5) Feats: 10 pp All-Out Attack Attack Focus (Melee) Challenge (Fast Taunt) Dodge Focus Fearless Move-By Action Power Attack Startle Takedown Attack Taunt Powers: 45 pp Comprehend 2 (speak to and understand animals) (Flaw: Snakes Only) [2 pp] Device 5 (Ankh of Set) (Hard to Lose) (PFs: Restricted 2, Subtle) [23 pp] -Blast 10 (PFs: Accurate 2) {22+3=25} AP: Dazzle 10 (visual) (PFs: Accurate 2) AP: Flight 5 (250 MPH) and Strike 5 (Extra: Penetrating) (PFs: Improved Crit, Mighty) AP: Super-Strength 10 (Heavy Load: ~800 tons) (PFs: Groundstrike, Shockwave [shadows]) Immunity 3 (aging, disease, poison) [3 pp] Morph 2 (any humanoid) [4+1=5 pp] AP: Obscure 4 (50 ft) (visual) Impervious TOU 5 [5 pp] Protection 5 [5 pp] Super-Senses 2 (Darkvision) [2 pp] costs abilities 48 + combat 24 + saves 9 + skills 14/56 + feats 10 + powers 45 = 150 pts --- Design Notes: So it came to pass that the dark god Set, enemy of his brother Osiris and nephew Horus, and thus antagonist of the Silver Age Freedom League while Horus stalked the Earth, fell in battle against his old nemesis the serpent Apep, or very nearly did anyway. What rose from the battlefield was a younger, weaker version of the god of chaos, the desert, and foreigners: a very different person. This Set was clever, yes, a schemer and planner, but he was not the backstabbing monster that he would one day be; that he had once been. Shocked at the legacy of the god he’d been, the younger Set offered his services to the other gods of Heliopolis and was quietly turned away. They knew his secret heart, or thought they did; Set was ever the schemer, ever the plotter, the man who had once betrayed all of Heliopolis to rule as god of the Hyskos. It turned out to be, of all people, his old rival Horus who took him aside and told him what he had to do: if he could go into the world of mortals and prove himself to be the champion he once had been, he could one day take back his place in the hall of heroes. But the world of mortals remembered Set too, and even summoned by an admirer the god has few friends. But that’s all right. Because they were right about one thing back on Helipolis. Set is always planning something. It’s a good thing Horus is there to keep an eye on him! This is my build for Set, a villainous legacy in the World of Freedom, as a hero to match his early historic relationship with humanity as well as his later reputation as a villain. (He’s also pretty close to a match for his brother/nephew Horus, and certainly much more sneaky) He’s got a lot of power in his ankh, which he can reduce down to nothing with a thought, he’s good at debuffing his enemies in a variety of ways, and he’s got good sneaky talents. Between his ability to put up a cloak of darkness, to blind his enemies directly, and to simply cut them in twain with a mighty blow of his ebony ankh, Set has a lot of options in combat. He also sweeps goons like no one’s business, as befits a god in combat with mortals. His impervious isn’t that high, but he can really take a hit: above all else, Set chooses to survive. He’s an interesting divine hero; one with a strong reputation as a villain, but who was a hero in the earlier myths. I’ve always bought the narrative of Set as the cunning survivor: when the Hyskos came, he sided with them because they were the stronger; when he was pushed into the Outer Darkness by his brethren, he learned from the Things there in order to survive. But survival isn’t enough for this desert god: alongside the heroes of Freedom City, he’s ready to become again the man he always believed himself to be. Note that Set is remembered as a bad guy from the 1960s and 1970s, but most people in Freedom City will not realize that that (or this) is an avatar of a god. He will likely have a very poor relationship with his native Egypt.
Avenger Assembled Posted April 28, 2011 Author Posted April 28, 2011 Matrix Hero “Woah.†-Keanu Reeves PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 18 pp STR 30 [16] (+10/+3) DEX 14 (+2) CON 30 [16] (+10/+3) INT 10 (+0) WIS 12 (+1) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Melee) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +2 Grapple: +25 Saves: 9 pp TOU +10 (+10 Con) FORT +10 (+10 Con) REF +5 (+2 Dex, +3) WILL +7 (+1 Wis, +6) Skills: 36 r=9 pp Computers 15 (+15) Languages 3 (Chinese, Spanish, Russian) (Base: English) Notice 9 (+10) Sense Motive 9 (+10) Feats: 14 pp Attack Focus: Melee (4) Dodge Focus (4) Fearless Power Attack Second Chance (Computers checks) Takedown Attack Ultimate Save (Will) Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 76 pp Enhanced CON 14 [14 pp] Enhanced STR 14 [14 pp] Flight 5 (250 MPH) [Dynamic] [10+1+2=13 pp] DAP: Super-Strength 5 (Heavy Load: 48 tons) Immunity 9 (Life Support) [9 pp] Impervious TOU 10 [10 pp] Matrix Array [11+3=14 pp] Datalink 9 (anywhere on Earth) (PFs: Cyberspace, Subtle) [11+3=14 pp] AP: Mind Control 10 (Extra: Alternate Save [Reflex]) (Flaw: Machines Only) (PF: Subtle) AP: Quickness 11 (x10000) AP: Teleport 9 (anywhere on Earth) (Extra: Accurate) (Flaws: Long-Range Only, Medium [landlines]) (PFs: Change Velocity, Turnabout) Super-Senses 2 (Vision [Analytical]) [2 pp] costs abilities 18 + combat 24 + saves 9 + skills 9/36 + feats 14 + powers 76 = 150 pts --- Design Notes: It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the Matrix movies, but here’s my stab at a build that emulates Neo, the putative protagonist of the film. He’s basically a cyberpunk Superman in play, flying around and goon-sweeping bad guys, controlling machines with his mind, and having a blast. I modeled his ‘bullet-stopping’ trick with Impervious rather than Deflect, given how expensive Deflect is for its cost. He’s got INT 10 and CHA 10 because he’s Keanu Reeves, and because despite his abilities the character never seemed terribly smart or social during his time in the movies. Despite that, with his +15 Computers and Second Chance feat, he could probably function successfully enough as a hacker in the ‘real world’ as the character did in the movie. OK, so you want to use this build: how do you explain a Matrix-style hero in the Freedom City universe; aka a place where the world is not running on a computer? (Well unless you’re Citizen, and indeed I’m contemplating buying a variant of this sheet for Citizen with the Metamorph feat...) A couple of ways: maybe he was empowered by an ancient cyberkinetic intelligence during his hacking efforts, giving him fantastic abilities to guard the world. Or perhaps those machines are from the future, empowering him to protect the present so that one day they may finally replace mankind? Or maybe his powers came from a more sinister source, like the Curator? Perhaps that worthy watches his every moment, gaining all the knowledge he can through his eyes. I could see this as a magical hero as well, or maybe a cyborg with all kinds of crazy internal implants. Or perhaps this is a hero of the multiverse, empowered with the stuff of reality to make all of Creation a better place. This is a fun way to build a tech-friendly hero with a very unusual skill and powerset. He’s not a technical powerhouse like the real geniuses, but he’s got all sorts of good tricks. Cut his Impervious, or maybe his Immunities too, if you want someone who’s a little more ‘in the world’. (Note that the big bad guys, perhaps that so-and-so with Heroic Duplication, can get through his Impervious by Power Attacking, or just being a slightly higher PL) Datalink is a murky power: we’re somewhat agnostic on how it actually works. Use it however your GM lets you, or just stunt off it for a variety of fun effects that I’ve tried to emulate on the above sheet.
Avenger Assembled Posted April 29, 2011 Author Posted April 29, 2011 John Henry John Henry was a steel-drivin’ man.†PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 32 pp STR 18 (+4) DEX 20 (+5) CON 18 (+4) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 12 (+1) Combat: 28 pp ATK: +6 (+12 melee) DEF: +12 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +9 Grapple: +16 Saves: 18 pp TOU +8 (+4 Con, +4 Protection) FORT +10 (+4 Con, +6) REF +10 (+5 Dex, +5) WILL +9 (+2 Wis, +7) Skills: 72 r=18 pp Climb 1 (+5) Craft (Structural) 15 (+15) Intimidate 14 (+15) Knowledge: History 10 (+10) Languages 2 (Seminole, Spanish) (Base: English) Notice 13 (+15) Sense Motive 13 (+15) Survival 3 (+5) Swim 1 (+5) Feats: 24 pp All-Out Attack Attack Focus: Melee 6 Challenge (Fast Startle) Dodge Focus 4 Improved Initiative Luck 3 Move-By Action Power Attack Startle Steadfast Takedown Attack 2 Ultimate Save (Will) Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 26 pp Immunity 1 (aging) [1 pp] Impervious TOU 8 [8 pp] Leaping 1 (x2) [1 pp] Protection 4 [4 pp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] Steel-Drivin’ Array [10+11=11 pp] Strike 4 (PFs: Improved Crit, Mighty) (Extra: Penetrating) AP: Burrowing 5 (50 MPH) (Extra: Affects Others) (PF: Subtle) costs abilities 32 + combat 28 + saves 18 + skills 18/72 + feats 24 + powers 26 = 150 pts --- Design Notes: This is my build for John Henry, inspired by the DC Universe’s New Frontier version of the character. My take on this is that John Henry is a mythic legacy passed down from generation to generation like Freedom City’s Lady Liberty, but in this case is focused on the freedom and legacy of African-Americans. When the first John Henry died sometime in the 1870s, his spirit found a new successor, a courageous battler for his people and their salvation, and they’ve continued to tell their story through the generations. Now the hammer is a mythic instrument of power from which he can never be separated. This build would work just fine as a new version of the character, or as his Golden Age self from previous generations. John Henry’s legacy is one about working-class African-Americans surviving in a system dominated by powerful elites and new technology: equally heroic as Paul Bunyan and others, but also very different. He’s a badass abnormal with a lot of power; his hammer (which cannot be taken from him) is a threat to anyone with its Penetrating 4 and his use of Power Attack, and he can also use it to tunnel through the Earth. (Just as you’d expect him to be able to!) He’s a great builder, though no genius, an ability perhaps honed by decade upon decade of working with his hands. He stays on the move in a fight, walloping bad guys with powerful blows, and no crowd of Klansmen or CCCers can hope to slow him down once he’s in a real fight. He’s got massive saves, as befits a hero of this caliber, and with his Ultimate Will he can keep going even when everything in his body is telling him to stop and slow down. He’s also much faster than his enemies are likely to expect: his high Dex and Initiative give him a decent chance of beating someone to the punch, especially some guy with a steam-powered shovel working alongside him. He’s a natural fit for a team of American legends, playing to a story of American power and a legacy that the mainstream audiences may be uncomfortable dealing with. But that’s okay: John Henry just keeps driving his hammer. It’s what he’s here to do. If you don’t like this particular archetype, make him a ranged specialist for Pecos Bill, or perhaps add some ranks of Growth for Paul Bunyan. (Who’ll need Sidekick for his big blue ox, naturally). It’s up to you whether a character powered by myth is a magical one; you could easily come up with some science fluff about the collective gestalt and the power of the human psyche and make him basically a mental character. Or perhaps it is magic! It’s up to you. You can also remove the legacy aspect entirely and just make him Ultimate John Henry: i.e., is he just a crazy guy? But I rather like the image of a legacy of heroes since the 19th century, just not a legacy that most people really want to engage with. He makes an interesting ‘rebel’ character for a game set in the 40s; his story is mythic enough to make him part of, say, a government superteam, but he may see the cause of oppression as being one to fight beyond even fascism abroad. And who’s to say you can’t tell a story like that right here and right now?
Avenger Assembled Posted April 30, 2011 Author Posted April 30, 2011 Scary Hero "Always do what you are afraid to do." -Ralph Waldo Emerson PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 26 pp STR 30 [16] (+10/+3) DEX 14 (+2) CON 16 (+3) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 16 (+3) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Melee) DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +3 Grapple: +22 Saves: 13 pp TOU +8 (+3 Con, +5 Protection) FORT +6 (+3 Con, +3) REF +6 (+2 Dex, +4) WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6) Skills: 44 r=11 pp Bluff 7 (+10) Concentration 8 (+10) Intimidate 12 (+15) Language 1 (Chinese) (Base: English) Notice 3 (+5) Sense Motive 13 (+15) Feats: 16 pp Attack Focus: Melee 4 Dodge Focus 6 Fearless Power Attack Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 60 pp Alternate Form 9 (Fear Demon) (PF: Subtle) [46 pp] Emotion Control 10 (Flaw: Fear Only) [10] Enhanced Feats 5 (Challenge 3 [Fast Startle, Mass Intimidation, Powerful Intimidation], Second Chance (Startle) and Startle) [5] Enhanced STR 14 [14] Leaping 1 (x2) [1] Morph 5 (same mass) (Flaw: Objects of Fear Only) [10] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] Super-Strength 2 (Heavy Load: 3 tons) [4] Immunity 3 (aging, disease, poison) [3 pp] Protection 5 [5 pp] Regeneration 1 (Resurrection 1/week) [1 pp] Super-Senses 5 Detect Fear 2 (Acute, Analytical, Extended, Radius) [mental] [5 pp] costs abilities 26 + combat 24 + saves 13 + skills 11/44 + feats 16 + powers 60 = 150 pts --- Design Notes: Here's my build for a 'fear-controller', modeled on Marvel's Trauma. He's a scary guy: he has the ability to sense whatever you're afraid of and turn into it, bringing about an impressive transformation that makes him very formidable in combat. He's a good hand-to-hand fighter and a low-grade powerhouse, with a power that lets him scare the pants off anyone. Anyone without Fearless, anyway, and since that lets you target almost all NPCs, why not? The idea is that his Detect lets him pick up on what you fear (though maybe not why, since it isn't Mind-Reading) and then become that thing, blasting you with a wave of terror in the process. Note that I've built him so that his shapeshifting powers work even on people who are Fearless: sure, it may not have a game mechanic effect, but he can still annoy them. And even on mindless robots, he can still beat them up with his fists. I've gone with the idea that this character is the offspring of a mortal person and some physical embodiment of the emotion of fear: this can be a magical story, or a rubber-science one about the archetypes of humanity's dreams: perhaps he's a monster of clinical psychology! You can finesse that however you want; perhaps he 'should' be a true shapeshifter and aura reader, but a grim childhood or something locked him into some fairly grim powers. Accidentally making enemies by turning into their worst fear (zombies, perhaps?), or getting a beating from them all unawares, is going to be a potential source of great complications for you, and the more complications you get, the more HP you get! This is a natural build for a Hero High setting; so many potential emotional problems he could have! Just don't get annoyingly emo about it; the character may be depressed, but there's no reason why he has to be depressing; IOW, he may be dark, but there's no reason why he has to darken all the threads he's in. Putting a smile on his face should be your goal, as well as putting expressions of pure terror on the faces of your enemies (and maybe your friends, but only if they're being real big jerks to you). He's Fearless himself, which really does seem to fit someone with his apparent background.
Avenger Assembled Posted April 30, 2011 Author Posted April 30, 2011 Pinball Hero "And the thing that concerns me is the amount of kids that stand on street corners, or go into pinball parlours, and call it recreation." -Rex Hunt 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 (+10 Unarmed) DEF: +10 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +6 Grapple: +15 Saves: 10 pp TOU +10 (+5 Con, +5 Protection) FORT +8 (+5 Con, +3) REF +5 (+2 Dex, +3) WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4) Skills: 64 r=16 pp Acrobatics 13 (+15) Computers 5 (+5) Concentration 5 (+7) Knowledge: Popular Culture 10 (+10) Knowledge: Technology 5 (+5) Languages 1 (Japanese) (Base: English) Notice 8 (+10) Perform (pinball wizard) 9 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 14 pp Acrobatic Bluff Attack Specialization: Unarmed 2 Challenge (Fast Acrobatic Bluff) Dodge Focus 2 Fast Overrun Improved Initiative Improved Overrun Luck 3 Seize Initiative Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 50 pp Alternate Form 10 (Pinball) [50 pp] -Damage 10 (Extras: Area [Trail], Selective) [30] -Immunity 3 (nausea, suffocation) [3] -Impervious TOU 6 [6] -Protection 5 [5] -Speed 5 (250 MPH) (PFs: Wall Run, Water Run) [7] -Super-Senses 1 (Sight [Radius]) [1] -Drawback: No Hands (while in Ball Form) [-2] costs abilities 30 + combat 28 + saves 10 + skills 16/64 + feats 14 + powers 50 = 150 pts -- Design Notes: Here's a somewhat unusual hero: he has the power to turn into a giant ball! With his Speed and Area Damage, he can tear through a given area like a bat out of hell, sweeping through minions easily with the sheer power of his steel-hard body. He can roll up walls and across water, and if he pushes himself to all-out speed he can even break the sound barrier! Not bad for somebody who doesn't even have hands while in his ball form: it's up to you whether or not he actually turns into the ball, or whether he's just inside its casing and holding on like somebody inside one of those spinny gyroscope things at the mall or Spacecamp. I've gone with giving him a pinball feel, perhaps making this guy one of those uber-popular Bronze/Iron Age trendy heroes who has now fallen on hard times: but perhaps recently rediscovered as people have started playing pinball again for nostalgia reasons? His big weakness is probably TILTing; i.e., falling: with his low Impervious, falling off a surface on which he's rolling on is probably going to hurt. Luckily he usually doesn't need to worry about that! I gave the immunity to nauseate and radius sight because they seemed like logical power developments for somebody whose power is being inside (or being!) a giant hamster ball. (As his enemies have probably pointed out more than once over the years...) The Trail extra on his Damage means that it affects people _behind_ him: I figure in combat he'll clean up by rolling right through an area, then use his move action to go wherever he wants to be at the end of his turn. Someone like this would have been a natural for slam attacks, but that didn't quite fit the concept of the character so instead I went with this way of doing things. He's a good goonsweeper, but his lack of Power Attacking means he's better off getting someone else in to fight the final boss. I admit, I got the idea for this character from Holy Roller, one of the more enjoyable Wild Cards characters of the last couple of years. (The Rev. Thaddeus Wintergreen is that vanishingly rare evangelical Protestant from Mississippi in genre fiction: a happy man with no bigotry or prejudice in his heart, who believes in a Creator who loves all men and women). If you like the religious theme, by all means, pick it up! There' s nothing that says you have to play the pinball theme, I just liked the connection to the vast and glorious world of Bronze Age theme heroes. And who wouldn't enjoy a Rogues Gallery with a pinball theme; all pinball!
Avenger Assembled Posted May 1, 2011 Author Posted May 1, 2011 Motorcycle Daredevil "Now a lot of people are going to be telling you you're crazy, and maybe they're right. But the fact of the matter is: Bones heal. Chicks dig scars. And the United States of America has the best doctor-to-daredevil ratio in the world!" -Captain Lance Murdoch PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 50 pp STR 24 (+7) DEX 24 (+7) CON 24 (+7) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+13 Melee) DEF: +13 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +11 Grapple: +20 Saves: 10 pp TOU +7 (+7 Con) FORT +10 (+7 Con, +3) REF +10 (+7 Dex, +3) WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4) Skills: 60 r=15 pp Acrobatics 13 (+20) Craft (Mechanical) 5 (+5) Drive 13 (+20) Notice 8 (+10) Perform (Daredevil) 13 (+15) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 22 pp Acrobatic Bluff All-Out Attack Attack Focus: Melee 5 Dodge Focus 5 Evasion Fast Overrun Fearless Improved Initiative Improved Overrun Move-By Action Power Attack Second Chance (Drive checks) Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 21 pp Device 5 (Motorcycle) (Hard to Lose) (PF: Restricted [+12 ranks in Drive]) [21 pp] -Enhanced Feats 2 (Quick Change 2) [2] -Immunity 3 (environmental heat, suffocation) [3] -Impervious TOU 7 [7] -Speed 5 (250 MPH) (Extra: Affects Others) (PFs: Wall Running 2, Water Run) [13] costs abilities 50 + combat 32 + saves 10 + skills 15/60 + feats 22 + powers 21 = 150 pts ----- Design Notes: Here's my take on the Motorcycle Daredevil archetype from the Silver Age book (aka, Ghost Rider if he hadn't sold his soul, or Evel Knievel as a superhero). I've re-envisioned the concept as a very, very good stunt driver with a really very good motorcycle: I figured that his fancy red white and blue costume (complete with cape!) is part of the motorcycle, so I weighed the costs together. He's as strong, tough, and fast as it's possible for a human being to be: even without his souped-up bike he can take monster hits and recover after just a little time in the hospital. (With Ultimate TOU, he can take a terminal velocity fall (+20 damage) and come away with being stunned and injured; luckily being a daredevil, this guy is going to have lots of Complications powering his HP pool) With his fancy motorbike, he can ride up the side of buildings, across ceilings, and even over water! Note that while a regular motorcycle had Speed 5; equipment can't use accelerated and all-out moves the way Device-powered Speed can: this guy can break the sound barrier in his lean machine and he can do it in style! The Impervious and Environmental Immunities help while doing the FLAMING WHEELS OF DEATH, while Quick Change means he can pop right back into his swinging 70s open-chested leisure suit before he goes and flirts with the ladies. (Yeah, this guy has a definite mid-70s funk about him, but there are still insane people doing this sort of thing on a regular basis in backlots and on dirt tracks all over America!) In combat he'll zip around on his bike, clearing the room of goons, or he'll just punch them right in the head! (Affects Others Speed is my way of giving him the ability to ride with a passenger, something that's not easy to model with non-vehicle stuff when it's not his strength being directly exerted here) Give him an aquatic theme to play a latter-day Tommy Bartlett (look it up!), or perhaps a suit that gives him Wall-Crawling if you want to play the Human Fly II. In Freedom City you run the risk of getting confused with Captain Knievel, notorious supervillain, but I like to think you'll be able to reclaim the legacy of the insane daredevil by demonstrating the sheer awesomeness of your heroism! Ride right up the side of the Pyramid Plaza and jump to another tower while rescuing the lady tossed in the air by a supervillain? Yessss.
Avenger Assembled Posted May 2, 2011 Author Posted May 2, 2011 Projectile Hero “You are certainly the most distinguished group of highway scofflaws and degenerates ever gathered together in one placeâ€- Cannonball Run 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 (+10 w/Strike) DEF: +10 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +6 Grapple: +21 max Saves: 10 pp TOU +10 (+5 Con, +5 Protection) FORT +8 (+5 Con, +3) REF +5 (+2 Dex, +3) WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4) Skills: 64 r=16 pp Climb 5 (+10) Concentration 10 (+12) Craft: Structural 10 (+10) Knowledge: Earth Sciences 10 (+10) Notice 13 (+15) Profession (miner) 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 14 pp All-Out Attack Dodge Focus 2 Fast Overrun Improved Initiative Improved Overrun Luck 3 Move-By Action Power Attack Takedown Attack 2 Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 52 pp Cannonball Array [20+1+2+2+2=27 pp] Flight 10 (10000 MPH) [Dynamic] DAP: Damage 10 (Extra: Area [burst]) DAP: Damage 10 (PFs: Accurate 2, Improved Crit 2) DAP: Super-Strength 10 (Heavy Load: ~180 tons) Impervious TOU 10 (Extra: Duration [sustained] (+0) ) [10 pp] Protection 5 [5 pp] costs abilities 30 + combat 28 + saves 10 + skills 16/64 + feats 14 + powers 52 = 150 pts Design Notes: Here’s a hero who flies around on a jet of energy, surrounding himself in a shield of energy to make himself bulletproof. He’s really, really fast, easily capable of breaking multiple Machs in flight, and at the same time he punches really, really hard while having the ability to generate massive explosions! He’s a familiar enough archetype, similar to Freedom City’s own Victory. I gave an origin similar to his comic book progenitor; i.e. that he’s a miner or geologist with the power to take to the air, breaking the surly bonds of Earth and touching the face of God! He’s fast, he’s really strong (with redirecting his powers towards ‘towing’), and in general he’s your go-to guy for aerial combat while covering a not terribly-populated niche in the sciences: only dedicated science types are liable to have a higher Earth Sciences total than this guy even with his average INT. I didn’t give him the ‘must be flying’ drawback on his Strike or his Impervious TOU, I think those things are better left to complications. Rather than give him the Force Field power, I went with giving him Impervious TOU with a Sustained duration: that way he’s not totally vulnerable when his field isn’t turned on (and he has a decent chance of surviving a failed Concentration check at high speed), but he still has a definite advantage to be gained by turning on his ‘force field’; he’s freaking bulletproof with it! He can fight military jets on even terms as it is; shrugging off their machine gun fire and going toe-to-toe with even your larger missiles: with Flight 10, he can outpace almost all flying characters, and all mundane aircraft as well. Note that I avoided giving him any extras on his Strike, so he can hit for full damage and still keep up a respectable flying speed with the Dynamic power construction. This is a pretty flexible concept. One thing to give him might be Immunities to reflect someone who can survive the vicissitudes of high-altitude travel; as it is, while he can survive flight at 10000 MPH, he’ll freeze or suffocate if he goes too high. With a few more immunities, he can even fly in space! (Though you’ll probably want Space Flight for that, given just how far it is even to the Moon at the 20000 MPH that is this guy’s accelerated move) You could also give him some Leadership or Inspire if you want to represent someone with experience managing his teenage superteam. Consider making him part of a big family of superpowered folks, perhaps as a result of all the uranium their family mined over the years. (How much did they mine? So much!)
Avenger Assembled Posted May 2, 2011 Author Posted May 2, 2011 Vampire Slayer "A house divided against itself cannot stand."-Abraham Lincoln PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 50 pp STR 24 (+7) DEX 16 (+3) CON 24 (+7) INT 14 (+2) WIS 16 (+3) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Ax) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +7 Grapple: +13 Saves: 13 pp TOU: +10 (+7 Con, +3) FORT: +10 (+7 Con, +3) DEX: +6 (+3 Dex, +3) WIS: +10 (+3 Wis, +7) Skills: 100 r=25 pp Bluff 13 (+15) Intimidate 13 (+15) Knowledge: Arcane Lore 13 (+15) Knowledge: History 8 (+10) Knowledge: Civics 8 (+10) Knowledge: Tactics 8 (+10) Languages 1 (Old Slavonic) (Base: English) Notice 12 (+15) Sense Motive 12 (+15) Stealth 12 (+15) Feats: 23 pp All-Out Attack Attack Specialization: Ax 2 Blind-Fight Dodge Focus 4 Fearless Improved Initiative Leadership Luck Master Plan 2 Move-By Action Power Attack Quick Draw [draw] Second Chance (Arcane Lore checks) Skill Mastery (Bluff, Intimidate, Notice, Sense Motive) Takedown Attack Taunt Ultimate Save (Will) Uncanny Dodge (mental) Powers: 17 pp Device 1 (Axe) (Easy to Lose) [3 pp] -Strike 3 (PFs: Critical Strike [undead], Mighty) [5] Immortality (1/week) [4 pp] Protection 3 [3 pp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] Super-Senses 6 (Undead Awareness, Detect Undead 2 (Acute, Analytical, Radius) (all mental) [6 pp] costs abilities 50 + combat 24 + saves 6 + skills 25/100 + feats 23 + powers 17 = 150 pts Design Notes: WHO drove a stake through the heart of the Grave Power? WHOSE armies burned Atlanta, where the shrieks of the undead within were sweet music to the cause of righteous freedom? WHOSE Emancipation Proclamation ensured that all Americans would be free and that none, white nor black, would ever again be bought and sold like cattle? And WHO, by his sheer force of will, has continued his struggle against the unrighteous hordes of vampires even after his own alleged demise? Ladies and gentlemen, none other than the 16th President of the United States, the Great Emancipator himself, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, VAMPIRE SLAYER! True, his legacy may have been tainted by time: his heirs may have accommodated so-called 'loyalist' vampires so much that ultimately a kind of undead domination survived to hold down the South for another few generations. How many undead Senators held their posts in the Deep South for decade upon decade? Many. But today, only a few would openly call themselves pro-vampire in America. (I do think it's a pretty obvious dogwhistle that the other party keeps calling President Brooks a dhampir; as if his race or his place of birth were an issue in 2011!) So yeah, here's Abraham Lincoln as an immortal vampire slayer. I've had to compromise on the original Lincoln a little (i.e., a faithful non-supernatural Lincoln should be a grappler), but with his mystic rail-splitting ax in hand and his supernatural ability to hunt the undead, this version of Abraham Lincoln is ready to take to the streets of the campaign city with vampire-hunting on his mind. In re the Critical Strike on his ax: I took a page from the corebook Martial Artist for that. If he rolls a critical hit while fighting the undead, he can spend an HP to gain Favored Opponent (undead) and thus score a crit even on something usually immune to them. I figure his century and a half of vampire fighting has given him an encyclopedic knowledge of their ways, and a larger presence in the supernatural community than you might think. Various herbs and treatments have prolonged his life, giving him a supernatural resilience in his battles. With his Master Plan and Leadership, he's a great leader, while his Taunt feat represents all those old-timey jokes Lincoln used to tell, but this time at the expense of the ravening hordes of undead! His STR and CON may seem high, but Abraham Lincoln was a big, imposing guy. His CHA may seem a bit low, but most people who met Lincoln didn't think much of him: perhaps a use of that high Bluff to better confound his enemies? He's got the Blind-Fight so he can engage his enemies in the dark of the night that is their natural home, but of course he's better off fighting them on his own ground. He could benefit from a purchase of the Ritualist feat, but Honest Abe always preferred to rely on specialists rather than being a specialist in everything himself. He'd make an interesting counterpart to the Rough Rider upthread, a solo champion while RR is head of a secret government faction. Perhaps they've been rivals down the many long years?
Avenger Assembled Posted May 2, 2011 Author Posted May 2, 2011 Charismatic Magnetic Controller Well, don't fear God, Senator, and certainly don't fear me. Not any more.-Magneto PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 24 pp STR 10 (+0) DEX 16 (+3) CON 14 (+2) INT 12 (+1) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 18 (+4) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Thrown Objects/TK) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Grapple: +6/+20 Saves: 15 pp TOU +10 (+2 Con, +8 Protection) FORT +5 (+2 Con, +3) REF +7 (+3 Dex, +4) WILL +10 (+2 Wis, +8) Skills: 56 r=14 pp Bluff 6 (+10) Diplomacy 11 (+15) Intimidate 11 (+15) Knowledge: History 4 (+5) Knowledge: Physical Sciences 4 (+5) Languages 4 (Chinese, English, German, Polish) (Base; Yiddish) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 16 pp Beginner’s Luck Dodge Focus 4 Improved Initiative Inspire 4 Jack of all Trades Leadership Luck Move-By Action Power Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 57 pp Flight 1 (10 MPH) [2 pp] Impervious TOU 8 (Extra: Duration [sustained]) [8 pp] Magnetic Mastery Array [33+2=35 pp] Telekinesis 10 (Extra: Damaging) (PFs: Accurate 2, Precise) AP: Telekinesis 10 (Extras: Area [burst], Selective) (Flaw: Range [Touch]) (PFs: Reduced Progression 2, Precise) AP: Telekinesis 10 (Extra: Range [Perception]) (PFs: Attack Specialization (Thrown Objects) 2, Split Attack) Protection 8 [8 pp] Super-Senses 4 (Metal Awareness, Detect 2 (Metal) [Radius]) [4 pp] costs abilities 24 + combat 24 + saves 15 + skills 14/56 + feats 16 + powers 57 = 150 pts ---- Design Notes: Here's a radical mutant activist turned superhero: a Malcolm X after his conversation to non-violence. He's an incredibly charismatic man, capable of leading a team of low-level characters into basically even combat with much more capable and well-trained fighters. He's also a powerful magnetic controller, who has emancipated his powers from the shackles of magnetism to be able to fight and win in very broad terms: his need for some rubber science version of electromagnetism to use his powers is a Complication, not a Flaw or a drawback. In other words, he's really very badass! (If you're looking to build the movie version of this guy, I'd put him at about this range with almost everyone else closer to 6-8; emulating his comics version as an NPC should be in the 12-15 range. After all, he could fight the PL 10 X-Men and the PL 12-15 Avengers and come out about as well each time) He's got broad descriptors. Need to rip the metal out of the bones of the Feral Canadian? Stunt an Incurable Damage, or even Affects Objects Corrosion, off your big array. Need to kill a security guard for the iron in his blood? (Note, hero characters shouldn't do that, obviously!) Drain Con! For stunts like disarming a room full of thugs, you've got your Selective Area TK: your STR score with the Telekinesis should easily let you disarm those bad guys. He's got a very good Will Save, as befits someone who has so often gone up against a famous mentalist, but as demonstrated in X-2 his Fort save is something of a weak spot. I did not include any sort of asteroid base for him; bases are usually jointly shared if he's on a team, and if not he should save his PP to buy something like that in play. A family of annoying super-kids is a complication. (Why do your daughters dress like that? A reaction to their repressive postwar Eastern European childhoods perhaps? Feh! And why does your son never call...) That shapeshifting girlfriend of yours (represented by my Sneak Thief build upthread) is her own character and decidedly not a Sidekick or Minion. In Freedom City, this character is almost certainly a Terminus baby, perhaps a product of the invasion of 1965 who is using his new powers to protect the younger generation of Terminus mutants from a world that fears and hates them. An Immunity to aging is a good idea if you want to make him around and active since WWII; as it is any deaging he's undergone is definitely a plot device. An ex-supervillain will have quite a series of Complications around him, especially if he's still political. But luckily he's persuasive enough that even his enemies still take him in, Revolving Face-Heel Door or not.
Avenger Assembled Posted May 3, 2011 Author Posted May 3, 2011 Spinning Hero If ballet were easy, they'd call it football. -Anonymous PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 30 pp STR 14 (+2) DEX 24 (+7) CON 16 (+3) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 12 (+1) Combat: 28 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Melee) DEF: +10 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +11 Grapple: +12 Saves: 8 pp TOU +10 (+3 Con, +7 Spinning) FORT +6 (+3 Con, +3) REF +15/+8 (+7 Dex, +1, +7 Spinning) WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4) Skills: 36 r=9 pp Acrobatics 8 (+15) Concentration 4 (+6) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Stealth 8 (+15) Feats: 16 pp Acrobatic Bluff Attack Focus: Melee 4 Challenge (Fast Acrobatic Bluff) Dodge Focus 2 Evasion 2 Improved Initiative Move-By Action Power Attack Takedown Attack 2 Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 59 pp Concealment 4 (all visual) (Flaw: Partial) (PF: Close Range) [5 pp] Corrosion 10 [30+2=32 pp] AP: Damage 10 (Extras: Area [burst], Selective) AP: Damage 10 (Extras: Autofire, Penetrating) Flight 3 (50 MPH) [6 pp] Immunity 1 (vertigo) [1 pp] Spinning 7 (PF: Radius Sight) [15 pp] costs abilities 30 + combat 28 + saves 8 + skills 9/36 + feats 16 + powers 59 = 150 pts --- Design Notes: Here's another build that makes use of a rarely-used power: Spinning. As long as our plucky heroine maintains her velocity, she has +7 to her TOU and +7 to her Reflex save. (With Radius Sight, she can see in all directions as she does so, making it very tough to sneak up on her and also making logical that immunity to vertigo. Not to the film stylings of Alfred Hitchcock, that is, but rather that her attacks on her inner ear don't bother her. I've tried to give her powers that I think befit someone with super-speed spinning: she can soar into the air like a top o the breeze, she can only barely be seen while she's going full-speed, and additionally she can cut through enemies like a buzzsaw with rapidly whirling hands. With Takedown Attack and her various attacks, she can cleave through a group like nobody's business. If she focuses all her attention on one dance partner, well, she can just about take them down easy as pie. In my mind, this is the greatest heroine of Hobart, Tasmania: perhaps her native abilities manifested while under stress at a dance competition in the big city? That makes her something of a country girl in the big city, given Tasmania's relative poverty and isolation from the rest of Australia. Plenty of good roleplaying potential there. Despite the low whine she emits in my mind when her powers are operating, she's also a very good sneak, perhaps instead revolving through the air with the invisible grace of helicopter blades. Balancing her career as a dancer and performer is going to be an important part of her superhero career, naturally! Perhaps she's hit it big in her career in more ways than one, and has come to Freedom City to make her fortune. With her decent TOU and massive Reflex bonus, she's basically invulnerable vs. Area attacks: use that to your advantage vs. area spammers! People will think of this as a girly character right up until you punch them several thousand times in a second; use this to your advantage as everyone underestimates the gaudily dressed ballet dancer! Problems you may have with taking other people in Flight (what with the puking and all) are very valuable complications! (They also mean your friends won't want to bum a ride off you!) You've got broad stunting possibilities: Deflect? Nauseate? I could see Impervious too, as the character rotates so fast that anything fired at her bounces off. She'd be pretty fun to play, I think.
Avenger Assembled Posted May 3, 2011 Author Posted May 3, 2011 Master Thief Men are not hanged for stealing horses, but that horses may not be stolen.-George Savile PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 34 pp STR 16 (+3) DEX 18 (+4) CON 18 (+4) INT 10 (+0) WIS 16 (+3) CHA 16 (+3) Combat: 28 pp ATK: +6 (+12 Melee/+12 Thrown Objects) DEF: +14 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +4 Grapple: +15 Saves: 9 pp TOU: +6 (+4 Con, +2 Armor) FORT: +7 (+4 Con, +3) REF: +7 (+4 Dex, +3) WILL: +6 (+2 Wis, +4) Skills: 80 r=20 pp Acrobatics 11 (+15) Bluff 12 (+15) Climb 2 (+5) Disable Device 15 (+15) Language 1 (French) (Base: English) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Sleight of Hand 10 (+14) Stealth 11 (+15) Swim 2 (+5) Feats: 28 pp Acrobatic Bluff Attack Focus: Melee 6 Attack Specialization: Thrown Objects 3 Dodge Focus 6 Equipment 2 Improved Initiative Luck Move-By Action Power Attack Skill Mastery (Acrobatics, Bluff, Disable Device, Stealth) Second Chance (Disable Device checks) Sneak Attack Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 31 pp Device 1 (Staff) (Easy to Lose) (PF: Subtle [collapsible]) [4 pp] -Strike 3 (PFs: Extended Reach, Mighty) Immunity 1 (own powers) [1 pp] Throwing Stuff Array [24+2=26 pp] Blast 6 (Extras: Autofire, Penetrating) AP: Damage 10 (Extras: Area [Cone], Selective) AP: Drain TOU 10 (Extras: Affects Objects (+0), Area [burst]) (PFs: Reduced Progression on Area 3, Precise) Equipment: 10 ep -Body Armor (Protection 2) (PF: Subtle) [3 ep] -Grapple Gun (Super-Movement 3 (Slow Fall, Swinging, Wall Crawling) and Speed 1 (10 MPH)) [7 ep] costs abilities 34 + combat 28 + saves 9 + skills 20/80 + feats 28 + powers 31 = 150 pts Design Notes: Here’s a Francophone master thief who gets around by throwing exploding objects for fun and profit. He’s not terribly clever, but he’s very pretty: there are better thieves out there, but thanks to his very high total and his Second Chance, he can probably handle himself vs. any mundane lock in the world and do pretty good even vs. various kinds of high-tech stuff. (He still needs to be careful; Disable Device’s difficulties are pretty high, and while he’s very good, he’s not as incredibly talented as the Cat Burglar upthread. But that’s why he fits in better as part of a team when he’s doing superheroic stuff.) He’s also got a staff to bust out if he’s in barfights or something, and doesn’t want to reveal that he’s some kind of crazy superpowered guy. He’s better with his pretty face, unlocking doors by talking the guard out of parting with the key, and he’s equally good with ladies and gentlemen too. (Even if he keeps doing bad stuff, he always seems to be able to talk his way back onto whatever team he’s on) His power revolves around blowing things up, which he can use in a variety of ways: I figure his Area Attack is something like a storm of playing cards, or jacks, or whatever his signature ‘thing’ is, creating an effect that clears the room in front of him. His base power is very effective, doing damage comparable to a super-charged machine gun. The big power, Drain TOU, lets him blow up objects by concentrating on them: this is primarily a tool since it only affects objects, but he can do some effective damage with it: that steel door blocking your way and its jammed lock unpickable? Blow it down! With the Reverse Progression on the Drain, he can limit his destruction to one small area, perfect for taking out that big lock. He’s natural to team up with that Energy-Draining Paragon above thread, or her twin the Mindtaker. Or both at once! (He can dream, can’t he?) His low exotic saves do mean that she was totally right to be worried about poisoning him with her touch. But with the right complications for this kind of character, maybe that sort of thing won’t bother him! He should be something of a laughing rogue and a daredevil, perhaps with an ungrammatical French nickname for everybody. If he’s known as an ex-supervillain, switching sides will be a problem, but a character this sneaky and charismatic shouldn’t be known for stealing anything except hearts. And maybe wallets. And lots of covers in the 90s. And once the Hope Diamond, off a really hot lady.
Avenger Assembled Posted May 3, 2011 Author Posted May 3, 2011 Flying Brick She's sort of like Nancy Drew with super powers or something-Alan Moore PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 44 p STR 40 [30] (+15/+10) DEX 12 (+1) CON 40 [30] (+15/+10) INT 10 (+0) WIS 12 (+1) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 20 pp ATK: +5 DEF: +5 (+2 flat-footed) Init: +1 Grapple: +26 Saves: 10 pp TOU +15 (+15 Con) FORT +15 (+15 Con) REF +5 (+1 Dex, +4) WILL +7 (+1 Wis, +6) Skills: 40 r=10 pp Diplomacy 15 (+15) Knowledge: History 5 (+5) Languages 2 (German, Russian) (Base: English) Notice 9 (+10) Sense Motive 9 (+10) Feats: 6 pp All-Out Attack Interpose Luck Power Attack Takedown Attack Ultimate Save (TOU) Powers: 60 pp Enhanced CON 10 [10 pp] Enhanced STR 10 [10 pp] Flight 6 (500 MPH) [Dynamic] [12+1+2=15 pp] DAP: Super-Strength 6 (Heavy Load: 360 tons) Immunity 10 (aging, life support) [10 pp] Impervious TOU 10 [10 pp] Super-Senses 5 (Extended Hearing [x10], Extended Vision [x10], X-Ray Vision [blocked by lead]) [5 pp] costs abilities 44 + combat 20 + saves 10 + skills 10/40 + feats 6 + powers 60 = 150 pts -- Design Notes: This is my build for Suprema, probably my favorite Alan Moore character. She’s from Alan Moore’s excellent revamp of Rob Liefeld’s crappy Supreme series: Supreme is a Superman expy, while his cousin Suprema was his Supergirl. Moore used Supreme to tell insightful Superman stories that he couldn’t have gotten away with at DC (I really can’t recommend the series enough), and Suprema filled a particular niche: she’d been the cheery Silver Age Supergirl of the Supreme Universe. Always cheerful and optimistic, possessed of great might, she fought for right in a world that rewarded heroes and where the endings were always happy. Until the age changed, and Suprema found herself trapped on the other side of the galaxy. Making her way home, she found herself lost in time: the girl from the height of the Silver Age was plunged into the heart of the Iron Age. The Liefeld Youngblood Iron Age, as a matter of fact! But that was OK, because she was still ridiculously powerful, and she was going to make the heroes of the new age see how a hero was supposed to act. She’s a really straightforward Flying Brick type, a classic sort. She flies in, punches people as hard as she can, and then punches them again; she can also fly in and take the hit for a teammate, absorbing fantastic punishment thanks to her Ultimate TOU. Versus most mundane foes, she’ll All-Out Attack since there’s very little they could do to actually hurt her even if they do manage to hit her. Like a lot of damage-shifted characters, she needs someone around to give her the kind of bonuses (via Teamwork, Master Plan, or Inspire) that let her All-Out Power-Attack all the time and basically destroy anything she gets her fists on. She’s really, really strong. After going back and forth on what Super-Strength power feats to give her, I didn’t use any: power-stunt ones as they come up, and then buy them with PP as you accumulate more points with the PC. Go with what you want! Note that her X-Ray Vision (with the Not Vs. Lead drawback) only costs 3 pp according to our house rules. You lose _some_ of the bite that made the character so much fun in the Iron Age, but I think you can still get a lot of joy out of the culture clash. The Centurion didn’t have a cousin in Freedom City, but I could imagine this as a young heroine who he took under his wing and mentored for many years: perhaps Nova Roma had a native heroine after all. Or maybe she’s the daughter or cousin of the Centurion of another dimension, tossed here by a strange quirk of fate. (She might be the Centuria mentioned in Future Freedom in Worlds of Freedom) Or if you want to make her origin slightly more sinister, maybe she’s from a world canon here on FcPbP: Maybe when Rick Lucas cast a Silver Age version of Freedom City from his own nostalgic memories, one of his creations proved more enduring than most and now she’s loose in a real world she never made!
Avenger Assembled Posted May 5, 2011 Author Posted May 5, 2011 The President of the United States If you're headed for a cliff, you have to change direction. -Barack Obama PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 36 pp STR 30 [20] (+10/+5) DEX 16 (+3) CON 30 [20] (+10/+5) INT 12 (+1) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Unarmed) DEF: +6 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +7 Grapple: +21 Saves: 7 pp TOU +14 (+10 Con, +4 Protection) FORT +10 (+10 Con) REF +5 (+3 Ref, +2) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +6) Skills: 14 pp=56 r Bluff 8 (+10)* Diplomacy 13 (+15)* Knowledge (Civics) 9 (+10)* Languages 4 (Bahaus Indonesian, Hawaiian, Latin, Swahili) (Base: English) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 13 (+15)* Feats: 16 pp All-Out Attack Attack Specialization: Unarmed (2) Connected Fearless Improved Initiative Leadership Luck (2) Move-By Action Power Attack Quick Change Takedown Attack Skill Mastery (Bluff, Diplomacy, Knowledge [Civics], Sense Motive) Ultimate Skill (Diplomacy) Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 55 pp Enhanced CON 10 [10 pp] Enhanced STR 10 [10 pp] Immunity 9 (Life Support) [9 pp] Impervious Toughness 10 [Drawback]) [9 pp] Protection 4 [4 pp] Super-Strength 5 [Dynamic] [Heavy Load: 24 tons] [10+1+2=13 pp] DAP: Flight 5 (250 MPH) Drawback: 2 pp Vulnerable (vs. magical damage) (uncommon, moderate) [-2 pp] costs abilities 36 + combat 24 + saves 7 + skills 14/56 + feats 16 + powers 55 - drawback 2 = 150 pts ---- Design Notes: Inspired by Alex Ross's famous painting, my recent build for a more damage-focused paragon, and various builds on this thread, I present the President of the United States as a superhero! Though he's a tough paragon and very powerful, his primary area of strength lies in his social skills and ability to maneuver: he's very persuasive and very reassuring, and generally good at keeping the people on his side. (He's a natural for Inspire, but that should be something he accumulates with time as his relationship with the American people grows.) With his +10 Civics, he could easily have taught Constitutional Law on the collegiate level; with his Diplomacy, he'd have made a great community organizer. I didn't buy a lot of status or benefits to reflect his position as President: given the many demands that position will surely place on his time, its benefits are about equal to its drawbacks. The Complications of the White House are, of course, a great source for HP! It's up to you whether or not he's public with his super-identity or not. I'm not going to lie, the Refs may not be open to you playing the President of the United States as a PC. When you think about it, it could lead to a whole host of problems. But that's OK, you can easily make this some other politician, or wealthy community leader or what have you: something like Geez3r's Brick with (Bankroll/Bible) build over in his own thread. He also works as a retired hero who has gone into politics but has now been pushed into taking up his old career: you can explain a paragon with no attack tradeoffs as someone who is weaker than he used to be, or someone with a significant amount of training to make relatively weak strength formidable. This could be a challenger for Mayor O'Connor or Congressman Walsh, or even a holder of some other elective office in or around the city. Senator Paragon? Why not? Your classic flying bricks have all kinds of potential origins. Is he from an alien planet, rocketed here by his father to escape a dying sun? Our savior from the distant future, or a relic of a forgotten Atlantean past? Or maybe you take a page from Freedom City's own Centurion and say he came here in a machine that took him across dimensional boundaries? I went with the classic vulnerability to magic: any magical damage effect will force a save given that it bypasses his Impervious, and he'll be weaker against your typical wizardy blasts and the like. (That keeps him from being a creampuff before any and all magical effects like Mind Control, but it means that if he gets zapped by a magical entity's powers, it's really gonna hurt!) You could give him Normal ID easily enough, but I've gone with the idea that he always has his powers and is using Quick Change in the pic above.
Avenger Assembled Posted May 6, 2011 Author Posted May 6, 2011 Femme Fatale “No object is so beautiful that, under certain conditions, it will not look ugly.â€-Oscar Wilde PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 40 pp STR 10 (+0) DEX 14 (+2) CON 20 (+5) INT 10 (+0) WIS 16 (+3) CHA 30 (+10) Combat: 18 pp ATK: +3 DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +2 Grapple: +3 Saves: 13 pp TOU +8 (+5 Con, +3 Protection) FORT +6 (+5 Con, +1) REF +7 (+2 Dex, +5) WILL +10 (+3 Wis, +7) Skills: 16 pp=64 r Bluff 15 (+25)* Concentration 3 (+6) Diplomacy 15 (+25)* Gather Info 5 (+15) Intimidate 15 (+25)* Notice 7 (+10)* Sense Motive 4 (+7) Feats: 21 pp Distract (Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate) 3 Challenge 4 (Improved Distract, Improved Feint, Improved Startle, Improved Taunt) Connected Dodge Focus 6 Fascinate (Bluff) Skill Mastery (Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, Notice) Startle Taunt Set-Up Uncanny Dodge (mental) Well-Informed Powers: 43 pp Femme Fatale Array [32+2=34 pp] Damage 10 (Extras: Duration [Concentration, Range [Perception]) (Flaw: Sense-Dependent [auditory]) (PFs: Insidious, Subtle) AP: Emotion Control 10 (Extra: Penetrating) (PFs: Insidious, Subtle) AP: Mind Control 10 (Extra: Conscious) (PFs: Insidious, Subtle) Protection 3 [3 pp] Super-Senses 6 (Accurate Acute Extended (x10) Radius Ranged Mental Sense) [6 pp] costs abilities 40 + combat 18 + saves 13 + skills 16/64 + feats 21 + powers 43 = 150 pts ---- Design Notes: Here's an unspeakably gorgeous femme fatale, ready to spin webs of social trickery, deception, and persuasion for the greater good. She's a tremendously talented social manipulator, easily capable of wrecking anyone close to her PL who isn't equally talented, she also has tremendous powers of persuasion that may well be influenced psychically. Did she mind-control that guy into punching himself in the face, or is she just that persuasive? Did those people unlock the door for her with a smile because she batted her eyelashes at them, or because she's an incredibly powerful psychic who got in their heads and changed their minds for them. Archetypes like this are classic bad-girls-made-good, a perfect comic book archetype. The downside being that male writers will assume that confident women in control of their sexuality are prostitutes and dress them accordingly. Luckily, we have the scorn and derision of our player base to prevent you from doing that here. Depending on descriptors, I could see this as a magical heroine as well: perhaps a latter-day Siren or descendant of some other impossibly beautiful race that specialized in manipulating people. (There's actually a certain Marvel heroine who turns out to have that as her origin, but I don't want to spoil the story for you...) If that's the case, you probably want to shuffle her Super-Senses around to give her a more magical feel. She works just fine as a psychic, though, her inhumanly high base Charisma perhaps a result of being attuned to the thoughts and emotions of others from earliest infancy. (That also might explain why she used to be a manipulator rather than a hero, until she had whatever defining moment that induced her Face-Heel-Turn). You could easily build her with much more Wealth and social connections than I've given her here, but I've gone with the idea that this is her having just walked away from her villain career, and thus without having had time to rebuild her connection. Remember that interaction skills are not something you really want to use on PCs. Don't press too hard about how likeable/scary you are, and you'll do just fine. If other people don't react to your character the way you want, well, that's their lookout! You can only control your character and make her the awesome lady you know she is. If need be, seek out stories where her supernatural charisma and manipulation will be a blessing for you rather than a problem. And hey, the nice thing about having Emotion Control in your array (which with Penetrating can threaten anyone) is that if need be, you can use it on occasions when interaction skills shouldn't be used. (Though you obviously shouldn't Emotion Control your colleagues! Anymore...)
Avenger Assembled Posted May 6, 2011 Author Posted May 6, 2011 Friction Controller "I was told there would be no math." -Chevy Chase Abilities: 26 pp STR 14 (+2) DEX 16 (+3) CON 16 (+3) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 16 (+3) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed) Grapple: +8 Init: +7 Saves: 15 pp TOU +8 (+3 Con, +5 Protection) FORT +6 (+3 Con, +3) REF +7 (+3 Ref, +4) WILL +10 (+2 Wis, +8) Skills: 48 r=12 pp Acrobatics 7 (+10) Bluff 8 (+10) Diplomacy 8 (+10) Knowledge (Civics) 4 (+6) Knowledge (History) 4 (+6) Language 1 (Dutch) (Base: English) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 16 pp Acrobatic Bluff Challenge (Fast Acrobatic Bluff) Dodge Focus 6 Improved Initiative Improved Throw Improved Trip Move-By Action Luck Taunt Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 57 pp Friction Control Array [40+3=43 pp] Damage 10 (Extras: Duration [Concentration], Range [Perception]) AP: Paralyze 10 (Extras: Duration [Concentration], Range [Perception]) AP: Snare 10 (Extras: Duration [Concentration], Range [Perception]) AP: Trip 10 (Extras: Duration [Concentration], Range [Perception]) Immunity 1 (aging) [1 pp] Protection 5 [5 pp] Speed 2 (25 MPH) [2 pp] Super-Movement 3 (Slow Fall, Wall-Crawling 2) [6 pp] costs abilities 26 + combat 24 + saves 15 + skills 12/48 + feats 16 + powers 57 = 150 pts --- Design Notes: Here's former President Gerald Ford as a friction controller. Whaaaaaat. I'd wanted to build a friction controller for a while, and America's 38th President provided a convenient hook. With his friction controlling abilities, he can heat up someone's body so their movement sets them alight, knock them down and keep them down by making their feet too slick to adhere to any surface, and keep them from moving at all by 'locking down' a layer of impenetrable friction all around them. His Concentration and Perception Range abilities make him a formidable character; as long as he keeps taking a standard action, they stay down! (I would be very reluctant to see Damage and similar powers bought up past Concentration, but I think this is at least arguably a reasonable build.) With his Speed and Super-Movement, he can get just about anywhere in an urban setting by manipulating the friction of his body as it contacts walls and such. His high Acrobatics score comes from his years as a college football star, while his decent Charisma from his years as a male model and President of the United States. You need Dutch to be a politician in Grand Rapids, one of the centers of Dutch-American immigration in the United States. (It's the centerplace of the grocery chain Meijer, hence the Dutch name, as well as the very conservative Calvin College) Not much Intimidate; Gerald Ford was not a very scary guy, but he does have the high Will save that a master of nuclear weapons at the height of the Cold War really ought to have. His immunity to aging is a natural result of being America's longest-lived ex-President. He's very unlikely to trip and fall down himself even on very wet surfaces, but perhaps he'll pretend he does as a way of warding off suspicion! (I've actually read at least one espionage story that did just that!) If you don't want to play the 38th President as a superhero for some reason, perhaps part of a secret order of former US President with superpowers, this is a perfectly nice build for a friction controller. He's got a lot of points going to 'waste', i.e., a decent attack bonus and STR that aren't really part of how his powers work, but are an important part of the concept of being Gerald Ford, football hero turned President turned superhero. If you were looking to refine things a bit and save points, drop them and shuffle them elsewhere for more fun! He could easily be made a Charisma monkey or a Dex monkey if you're playing a younger man without so many life experiences.
Avenger Assembled Posted May 6, 2011 Author Posted May 6, 2011 Skill Mimic I can do anything you can do better. _Annie, Get Your Gun_ PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 30 pp STR 26 [16] (+8/+3) DEX 26 [16] (+8/+3) CON 26 [16] (+8/+3) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 18 (+4) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+12 Melee) DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +8 Grapple: +20 Saves: 9 pp TOU +8 (+8 Con) FORT +10 (+8 Con, +2) REF +10 (+8 Dex, +2) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 72 r=18 pp Acrobatics 7 (+15) Bluff 11 (+15)* Diplomacy 11 (+15)* Drive 2 (+10) Intimidate 6 (+10) Notice 13 (+15)* Pilot 2 (+10) Sense Motive 13 (+15)* Stealth 7 (+15) Feats: 20 pp Acrobatic Bluff Attack Focus: Melee 6 Dodge Focus 6 Evasion Improved Initiative Move-By Action Power Attack Skill Mastery (Bluff, Diplomacy, Notice, Sense Motive) Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 49 pp Enhanced CON 10 [10 pp] Enhanced DEX 10 [10 pp] Enhanced STR 10 [10 pp] Mimic 2 (skills and feats) (Extras: Action [Free], Duration [Continous], Range [Perception], PF: Subtle) [19 pp] costs abilities 30 + combat 24 + saves 9 + skills 18/72 + feats 20 + powers 49 = 150 pts --- Design Notes: As part of my ongoing efforts to make a polymath character that isn't brain-bustingly broken or useless, here's the Skill Mimic. She's fast, strong, and tough, and very personable: and at any time she can have up to 10 pp in any skills or feats she wants as long as she's near someone who's a specialist in the field, or has been near a specialist of that sort in the recent past. (She has to 'forget' if she wants to adopt the skills and training of others). She can hold onto those abilities for as long as she wants, since she can keep them even while sleeping, but the relatively low rank of her Variable Power does render her pretty susceptible to Nullifies. Even with that, though, she's pretty badass, and can function just fine with her non-mimicky abilities. She makes an interesting savant style character, as well as one who can function in a lot of ways: after all, she can have the abilities of a lot of superheroes! While she can also function as part of a science-type or magic-type team, her average INT means she's never going to outshine a science specialist. That's just fine by me; she can be part of the team and a good helper in a magical or scientific setting, but she's never going to outshine the people who've actually sunk a significant number of points towards their area of interest. She's sneaky in a lot of ways, both socially and physically: I see her as the sort of person who has been on a lot of super-teams and has quite an active career before people realize that she seems to be able to do just about anything! She can't break her PL with her Mimic (basically a better version of Reflex Memory), but she can push it to the limit. Normally mimicking someone's mental skills means "you know everything they know", but that's way unfair without a saving throw! Knowledge skills are one thing, social security number and mother's maiden name are entirely another. Characters like this are generally mutant in origin, perhaps latent telepaths with particularly flexible muscles to go with them, 'reflex memory' without the Reflex Memory power, but with comic books and Jack LaLanne Superpowers, you could fluff her abilities as being of the training descriptor: no doubt with quite a lot of training to boot! She'd also have been a natural secret agent type, and perhaps she's gone from fighting as one of AEGIS or UNISON's secret agent types to being her own person. There are several NPCs with similar powers in Freedom's Most Wanted; you could always take a page from Marvel's Finesse and give this lady a very personal connection to those guys.
Avenger Assembled Posted May 8, 2011 Author Posted May 8, 2011 Four-Leaf Clover “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.â€-Seneca PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 20 pp STR 10 (+0) DEX 14 (+2) CON 16 (+3) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 16 (+3) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Plant Control) DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +6 Grapple: +6 Saves: 13 pp TOU +8 (+3 Con, +5 Protection) FORT +7 (+3 Con, +4) REF +6 (+2 Dex, +4) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 44 r=11 pp Bluff 7 (+10) Knowledge: Life Sciences 10 (+10) Notice 7 (+10 Perform (brass) 4 (+6) Profession (florist) 3 (+5) Sense Motive 3 (+5) Survival 3 (+5) Stealth 7 (+10) Feats: 13 pp All-Out Attack Dodge Focus 6 Improved Initiative Move-By Action Power Attack Precise Shot 2 Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 72 pp Immunity 6 (aging, disease, poison, starvation and thirst, suffocation) [6 pp] Luck Control 4 (spend an HP for another character, give HP to others, spend HP to negate HP/Fiat, force reroll) (PFs: Luck 5) [17 pp] Plant Control Array [22+2=24 pp] Blast 10 (PFs: Accurate 2) 'flower bomb' AP: Snare 10 (PFs: Accurate 2) 'entangling vines' AP: Teleport 6 (600 ft/20 miles) (Extra: Accurate) (PFs: Easy, Progression 2 [x500 lbs], Turnabout) 'plant-walking' Protection 5 [5 pp] Regeneration 19 (Bruised 3 [no action], Injured 6 [no action], Staggered 5 [standard action], Disabled 4 (5 minutes), Resurrection 1 [1 week]) (PF: Regrowth) [20 pp] Drawbacks: Vulnerable (fire) (common, moderate) [-3 pp] costs abilities 20 + combat 24 + saves 13 + skills 11/44 + feats 13 + powers 72 -drawbacks 3= 150 pts ---- Design Notes: In response to a challenge, here's Four-Leaf Clover, a luck controller/plant controller mashup. The son of Edge and Fleur de Joie in a very, very alternate timeline? Maybe! He could also function perfectly well as a native Irish, or Irish-American superhero, if you don't mind the Bronze Age Unfortunate Implications. ("An Irish superhero with Luck Control and a shamrock theme, eh? Reaaaaally.") He's got many of the biological properties of a plant: living on carbon dioxide and sunlight, growing back from injuries with remarkable speed, along with an unfortunate tendency to burst into flames if exposed to too much heat. Perhaps he just needs a good watering. He's got a decent-sized plant array for power-stunting off, and of course that'll be much easier thanks to his huge pool of HP and his many Luck Controlling abilities. His array is pretty basic: he throws exploding flowers that knock people to the ground, he also entangles them in bursts of vines he throws at them (fast-grown from seeds to hand), or just steps right through plants to come out anywhere in the city. One thing I wanted to note here is how uneasy I am personally at how Irishness is often depicted in comics: Ireland is a successful, developing country that's moving away from its long dependence on the Catholic Church to take it place as a prosperous part of Europe. There is and was an unfortunate terrorism problem in Northern Ireland (though it's gotten much better in recent years), but most actual Irish people didn't really have an investment there either way. (For all that there was strong resentment of British occupation in the North, no one actually wanted to take in those people...) Ireland is, in particular, not a demon-haunted land with the Celtic gods just waiting to jump out like a bugaboo and make everyone dance a leprechaun's jig. That stuff is about taking your money and putting it in the pocket of those nice folks working in the Irish tourist industry. So you can play an Irish hero who doesn't seem likely to put on a tam o'shanter and dance a jig, honestly. He could use a bit more Impervious, but given his massive Regeneration he can absorb tremendous punishment and still get up and fight at the end of the day. Even if he burns to ashes, he'll still put himself together, it'll just take him a while. You could use this build to make any sort of luck controller/something else you want, it's just a matter of shuffling things around so that you can have the right descriptors for it. Luck Controllers are good at being team players, and natural fits for buying things like Inspire and Leadership if you can scramble together the points for them: kick up the Charisma as high as you want if you've got the points for it. Don't be afraid to let him grow a little once he's in play. After all, he is a plant...
Avenger Assembled Posted May 9, 2011 Author Posted May 9, 2011 Midnight IV "I am the night!" -Batman PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 58 pp STR 30 (+10) DEX 14 (+2) CON 30 (+10) INT 14 (+2) WIS 16 (+3) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Melee) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +2 Grapple: +22 Saves: 9 pp TOU +10 (+10 Con) FORT +10 (+10 Con) REF +7 (+2 Dex, +5) WILL +7 (+3 Wis, +4) Skills: 60 pp=15 r Craft: Mechanical 4 (+6) Drive 3 (+5) Gather Info 4 (+6) Intimidate 8 (+10) Investigate 8 (+10) Language 1 (ASL) (Base: English) Notice 7 (+10) Perform (dance) 3 (+5) Perform (woodwinds) 4 (+6) Sense Motive 7 (+10) Stealth 8 (+10) Survival 3 (+5) Feats: 15 pp Attack Focus: Melee 4 Dodge Focus 4 Move-By Action Power Attack Skill Mastery (Intimidate, Investigate, Notice, Sense Motive) Startle Takedown Attack Ultimate Save (Will) Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 27 pp Immunity 1 (own powers) [1 pp] Impervious TOU 6 [6 pp] Leaping 1 (x2) [1 pp] Obscure 4 (50 ft) (visual and olfactory) (midnight mist) [12 pp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] Super-Senses 4 (Accurate Hearing, Darkvision) [4 pp] Super-Strength 2 (Heavy Load: 3 tons) [4 pp] costs abilities 58 + combat 24 + saves 9 + skills 15/60 + feats 15 + powers 27 = 150 pts ---- Design Notes: Here's my build for Midnight IV, the future scion of Midnight II and Wander. (Midnight III was introduced in the currently-active Full Circle thread). He's a blend of the talents of his mother and father: he's a low-grade powerhouse/costumed adventurer who makes his own smoke bombs via midnight mist. He's not as smart as his dad or as fast and strong as his mom, but he can still pretty well hold his own. He doesn't have the Midnight Cycle Mk. V or the Midnight Manor because his parents, still active heroes, still pay for that out of their own Equipment pool: this is Trevor W. Hunter the first time he puts on his tights and goes out hunting in the night for bad guys. (Similarly, his mom is still using that bat, just as he doesn't get to use his dad's gadget belt until he's made it clear that the incident won't happen again) His Impervious may seem a little low, but given the street-level thugs a costumed adventurer is likely to fight, that and his high TOU will basically make him invincible vs. anything but high-level foes. When the skells on the street of Freedom City Beyond say that the new Midnight is bulletproof, they're right! He's something of a generalist, but that also means he can play multiple roles on whatever future team you put him on. I repped his dad's mental immunity with Ultimate Will, the Midnight men have always had very solidly-built psyches. He's not Fearless yet, though, his mom has managed to shield him from the sorts of horrors she grew up with: she knows they're no place to raise a child! He learned ASL to talk to Aunt Eve, naturally, as well as to have a useful hand signal when silent communication is required. I (deliberately) didn't look at either Wander or Midnight's sheet while building this, but I think a midnight mist that works visually and olfactorally makes sense for something that's an opaque, strong-smelling gas. As Giz has done, you can use the midnight mist array to stunt a variety of things as necessary: more Super-Strength, more immunities? It's all good. I figure the innate high abilities are a result of absorbing powers from his mother's genes: he's not a mutant (at least, not because of that), it's natural for him to be strong enough to punch through steel. If you want more things for him to stunt off, though, feel free to buy those abilities as Enhanced. (That's what's really important, that you have _something_ on your sheet for power-stunting, something that really is a good game mechanic) If not playing Wander and Midnight's kid, this sheet would work fine for a Batman/Wonder Woman offspring, or any other hero who has reason to fuse a costumed adventurer's skills and feats with a powerhouse's sheer physical power. So sneak into the fray, drop Midnight Mist to make your foes flat-footed, and power attack away, sweeping goons and ripping up the place in style!
Avenger Assembled Posted May 9, 2011 Author Posted May 9, 2011 Lucky Psychic "You can't get pregnant from having your breast touched, for goodness sake!" -Psyche PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 26 pp STR 10 (+0) DEX 16 (+3) CON 16 (+3) INT 10 (+0) WIS 16 (+3) CHA 18 (+4) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+8 ranged) DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +7 Grapple: +20 w/TK Saves: 12 pp TOU +8 (+3 Con, +5 Protection) FORT +5 (+3 Con, +2) REF +6 (+3 Dex, +3) WILL +10 (+3 Wis, +7) Skills: 12 pp=48 r Bluff 10 (+14) Diplomacy 6 (+10) Knowledge: Current Events 4 (+4) Languages 1 (German) (Base: English) Notice 7 (+10) Perform (keyboard) 6 (+10) Search 5 (+5) Sense Motive 7 (+10) Feats: 16 pp Attack Focus: Ranged 2, Dodge Focus 6 Elusive Target, Evasion 2, Improved Initiative, Move-By Action, Precise Shot 2, Ultimate Save (Will) Uncanny Dodge (mental) Powers: 60 pp Concealment 3 (Extra: Duration (Permanent) [+0]) (PF: Close Range) (all mental senses, ESP) [4 pp] Flight 3 (50 MPH) [6 pp] Luck Control 4 (spend an HP for another character, give HP to others, spend HP to negate HP/Fiat, force reroll) (PFs: Luck 5) [17 pp] Mental Array [24+2=26 pp] Blast 12 'telekinetic blast' AP: ESP 6 (20 miles) (visual and auditory) (PFs: Rapid 5 (100k), Subtle) 'extra-sensory perception' AP: Telekinesis 12 (Heavy Load: 48 tons) Protection 5 [5 pp] Telepathy 1 [2 pp] costs abilities 26 + combat 24 + saves 12 + skills 12/48 + feats 16 + powers 60 = 150 pts --- Design Notes: It's true what Psyche said above. You can't get pregnant from touching someone's breast. But what if Mark Lucas hadn't gone to health class? What if he thought you could? Then Psyche just might, nine months later, have birthed a child like this: a very powerful psychic carrying her mother's great power, her father's reality-warping abilities, and the sheer insanity of her own creation making her an incredibly powerful character in her own right. This is the sort of character who comes back from a grim and gritty dystopian future, has lots of ill-defined abilities, and gets downplayed or taken out whenever the writers don't want to explain why the ridiculously powerful character couldn't just go beat this new bad guy up. (Luck Control is a good way of saying 'this character is really powerful' while keeping them within caps; they have a massive lot of oomph, but they're still vulnerable, and they do eventually run out of HPs...) Naturally, this character's insane conception and birth will give her quite a few complications to deal with! I figure she picked up the German from spending so much time around Viktor Archeville. That's also where she learned the Bluff, since her nature requires a certain flexibility. She lacks her mother's incredible insight and intelligence, but OTOH the lack of both actually makes it much easier to relate to her dad. With her mother engaged to another man, her father shocked but not displeased, I'm sure her childhood was a world of very strange things happening, with possibly some trips to the Moon to find where Phalanx has thrown her dad this time. (Luckily, Mark has always had a spacesuit along...) If you want to play a PL 10 Phoenix (as opposed to Jean Grey), this isn't a bad way to do it: she's a powerful psychic with a massive array and reality-warping abiliies to go with it. She can't actually do anything, but with her broad descriptors and vast powers (not to mention huge HP pool) she may well convince you that she can! (Particularly if she powerstunts Mind Control or Emotion Control). If you do want to make her a refugee from a dystopian future, perhaps a good buddy of the Gun-Toting Mutant from the Future upthread, that would make a lot of sense, and let you get away from a direct connection to PCs on our site.
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