AA's Oddballs

Avenger Assembled · August 22, 2011

Animal Shapeshifter

The beast within!

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 44 pp

STR 24 (+7)

DEX 20 (+5)

CON 24 (+7)

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 12 (+1)

Combat: 32 pp

ATK: +8 (+13 melee)

DEF: +13 (+4 flat-footed)

Init: +7

Grapple: +20

Saves: 7 pp

TOU +7 (+7 Con)

FORT +7 (+7 Con)

REF +7 (+5 Dex, +2)

WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5)

Skills: 40 r=10 pp

Climb 3 (+10)

Disguise 3 (+4/+9)

Handle Animal 9 (+10)

Knowledge (Life Sciences) 5 (+5)

Languages 1 (French) (Base: English)

Notice 8 (+10)

Sense Motive 3 (+5)

Survival 8 (+10)

Feats: 17 pp

Animal Empathy

Attack Focus: Melee 5

Dodge Focus 5

Evasion

Move-By Action

Power Attack

Takedown Attack

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 40 pp

Shapeshift 5 (Extras: Action [Free], Duration [Continuous]) (Flaws: Limited 2 [Medium-sized Animals]) [40 pp]

Sample Form: 'Bird of Prey': Flight 4 [8 pp], Improved Crit 2 [unarmed] [2 pp]Penetrating Unarmed Damage [7 pp], Super-Senses 6 (Extended Hearing x3, Extended Vision x3) [6 pp]

costs

abilities 44 + combat 32 + saves 7 + skills 10/40 + feats 17 + powers 40 = 150 pts

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Design Notes:

Here's my build for an animal-themed shapeshifter like DC Comics' Beast Boy or Marvel's Snowbird. She doesn't have the massive Shapeshift pool that most of your typical comic book shapeshifters possess, but she makes up for that via focus: as a free action she can pull up 25 pp and put them into any animal form she chooses: one round she's a leopard, then an eagle, and she stays in that form as long as she wants. She can be a flier, a tracker, or even a melee fighter (perhaps as a wolverine or ratel), and generally fit the many niches that an animal-shifter should be able to fit on your team. Note that her flaw isn't that she can only turn into animals that are naturally medium-sized, rather, that means she can turn into any animal but the form itself will be Medium-sized. That is a pretty stiff limitation, limiting her to just forms like large dogs and other good-sized animals if she wants to get around without being spotted for what she is.

No Growing or Shrinking means you don't have to worry about size penalties in play and can always keep playing the game you started in. Did she get her powers from a hilariously piece of bad vaccination science? Or is she the mystic guardian of the Canadian forests? Lots of ways to play with a character like this; if she can't change color, I'd call that a flaw rather than a drawback (at least assuming she herself is some strange color, perhaps green): after all, that'll pretty much kibosh almost every potential use of the power for infiltration unless your opponents are very dumb. Add more Teamwork and Taunt for an experienced sidekick turned young teenage hero; add more Arcane Lore for a hero in tune with her mystic or magical background. Add some Morph if you want to make her better at disguising herself (as it is, she probably has a 'tell' in one form or another) Note that a problem where she dies if taken out of her home country is definitely a Complication. (I've always assumed that Snowbird was just faking that and just was a big ol' snob about leaving Canada).

She lacks a really intimate connection to nature without her powers (no Comprehend and the like), but with the right use of her Shapeshift just about anything's possible. You could tighten up her flaws even further to make her an even more narrowly focused shapeshifter: maybe all she can turn into are different kinds of dogs! If you drop the Continuous extra, make sure to pick up Concentration, or else her secret's going to be out the first time she takes a really solid hit in combat. Or remove the animal theme altogether and just make her a pocket shapeshifter who's very formidable without her powers, letting her be much more effective in situations where they can't be used. Make sure to work up some sample forms before you enter play, a very good choice for a new player and part of our site rules.

Avenger Assembled · August 22, 2011

Rogue

Look at you, hacker: a pathetic creature of meat and bone, panting and sweating. How can you challenge a perfect machine?

I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You're a plague and we are the cure.

Tell me... what good is a computer... if you have no hands?

Background:

Glafe Hocter wasn't so different from the teenage boy who is now her greatest rival and the only other citizen of Tronik loose in the outside world. She was just six years old when the supernova threatened to destroy Tronik's first homeworld, old enough to remember the terror and grief on the faces of her parents as their world was faced with ultimate annihilation. When the citizens of Tronik saved themselves from destruction via their power and technological genius, it was all the proof the young girl needed of the superiority of Tronik's civilization. While some citizens of the misplaced city took an interest in restoring contact with the Lor Republic that had fostered the city's original civilization, Glafe was more than content with the planet that the Tronikians had won for themselves via cleverness and hard work. When she finished her education, she took a job working in the plankton fleet, gathering protein supplies from the oceans of Neo to help feed and clothe her fellow citizens. The sea drove some Tronikians mad with its isolation and lonliness, but she found herself strangely content with a world where she shared a space with only about a thousand people. She was happier among machines, really.

And then the disaster came. Her boat played host to one of Tronik's great scientists, a maverick who believed he could open a dimensional gateway and reconnect Tronik to the rest of galactic civilization. She lacked an interest in his work, and so was working down in the hold amid the great machines that gathered the uncounted trillions of Neo's familiar symmetrical plankton when the scientist's gateway opened...and the programming error it created promptly fragmented every subroutine in the local directory. For Grafe, as she plunged into the depths of the worldsea, it was as if the world had shattered into a thousand screaming fragments. Fragments of machines. Of plankton. Of people, of friends looking at her with segmented eyes but still horribly alive until finally they mercifully drowned beneath the cleansing waves. Another ship in the fleet found her a day later, clinging to a fragment of matter that still floated, the victim of a 'reactor breach'. The scientist's project was written off as unstable, and Leroj (then the only guardian of Tronik) believed that all had died thanks to the device he had failed to note until it was far too late.

She had survived the disaster, but not unchanged. Returning home to an empty room in a sector she hardly remembered, she was beset by...visions. This was something in her very soul, something her machines and computers could not save her from. When she dreamed, she seemed to walk through walls and hear voices from impossibly far away, when she was alone she seemed to see the walls warp and shift around her. Sometimes, when she was perfectly still and quiet for hours at a time, she seemed to be able to look past the walls of reality itself. Keeping her visions a secret rather than be branded a mutant, she began following cults like the Azure Curtain and other end-times sects, determined to find out the secrets of the world her accident had uncovered. In her obsessive drive to uncover the truth, she left behind her career, her friends, and her family, until finally after years of searching she found herself before a winking portal in reality on a sector's roof. Ignoring the screams of those who saw her as nothing but a suicide, she hurled herself forward into the segfault and fell into madness.

Glafe drifted on the Internet for more years than she can count. She spent a long time alone in the howling madness, learning cell by painstaking cell to rebuild herself, then to shape her perceptions of the world to see and understand the data all around her. It was child's play to realize where she was, on a primitive, savage alien world that wallowed in unharvested forests and uncontrolled weather, its population mired in backwater technology, beset by nigh-omnipotent monsters in flashy costumes. She began manipulating the systems around her, trying to figure out how she'd gotten there and how to get home, but someone else found her first. It was Talos who taught her how to assemble her own body out of projected light and

magnetism, it was Talos who taught her how to punish the organics around her, and it was Talos who told her about the real history of Tronik: about how aliens had betrayed them to death and into a computer, how another alien had stolen away their program and kept them running on his desk as a joke, and how the Freedom League had hid the real world from her people for years for so very long.

As she studied this primitive world that had held her own in bondage for so long, the rage coiled in her simulated heart. How dare they take the mighty civilization of Tronik and turn it into a joke? How dare these savages call themselves kings and queens of creation when they were but one step from rolling in the mud that had spawned their primitive ancestors? How dare these so-called heroes leave them on a desk and do nothing to tell them about the world all around them? How dare the Lor forget their people for 2000 years? She would be a rogue in their system, a program beholden to no one, one who would change everything. With some suggestions from Talos, she came up with a plan. She would free her people, all her people, and use them to take this planet from the primitive fools who had forgotten Tronik and who had wasted their own planet, their own lives. When all was said and done, the organics would be broken and the world would belong to its machines, the only things she knew she could truly trust. Only then could Tronik truly be safe from its enemies. Only then would they bow to her as their savior.

Role:

When she's not doing her best to show Citizen the fragility of organic life and how stupid it is for him to trust them, Rogue is Talos' way of dealing with troublesome hackers into the Foundry. Mundane hackers are usually only able to watch helplessly as she powers her way onto their system, shattering their defenses with her fists, before she steals their data, frames them for computer crimes, and watches them, laughing, when the vice squad comes for them. Even super-hackers may not expect a program who looks like a beautiful woman to step out of their screens and gently tease them into doing whatever she wants (hackers tend to be vulnerable to that sort of persuasion), whether it's shutting down an investigation or simply giving part of their harddrive over to the Foundry's research. Those she can't seduce or destroy, she simply beats to a pulp with her fists until they're in no position to hack anyone. She doesn't care. They had it coming the moment they dared lay hands on her systems, on her people. She and Scylla have a fine professional relationship.

She will very rarely fight superheroes openly. In a super-battle, she will not hesitate to ruthlessly exploit the sentimentality of her heroic antagonists to make an escape, often deliberately ramming vehicles into each other or shutting down vital power networks as a distraction. If caught inside a system, she will graphically demonstrate to almost anyone that this is her world and she will do so via beating her opponents as close to death as she can manage. After all, if they die, how will they learn about her true power as a lesson to others?

Stats:

Like any good archnemesis, Rogue has Citizen's stats.

Avenger Assembled · August 24, 2011

Utopian Paragon

â€œIf it means interfering in an ensconced, outdated system, to help just one woman, man or childâ€¦Iâ€™m willing to accept the consequences.â€

PL: 10 (150)

Ailities: 56 pp

STR 30 (+10)

DEX 14 (+2)

CON 30 (+10)

INT 12 (+1)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 16 (+3)

Combat: 24 pp

ATK: +6 (+10 Melee)

DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed)

Grapple: +25

Init: +2

Saves: 11 pp

TOU +10 (+10 Con)

FORT +10 (+10 Con)

REF +7 (+2 Dex, +5)

WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6)

Skills: 60 r=15 pp

Bluff 7 (+10)

Diplomacy 12 (+15)

Intimidate 7 (+10)

Knowledge (Civics) 4 (+5)

Knowledge: (History) 4 (+5)

Notice 13 (+15)

Sense Motive 13 (+15)

Feats: 15 pp

Attack Focus: Melee 4

Dodge Focus 4

Evasion

Move-By Action

Interpose

Power Attack

Takedown Attack

Ultimate Save (Will)

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 29 pp

Comprehend 3 (speak, read, and understand any one language at a time) [6 pp]

Device 2 (Golden Bracelets and Lasso) (Hard to Lose) (PFs: Indestructible, Restricted) [10 pp]

Snare 10 (Flaws: Limited [One Target At a Time], Range [Touch]) (PFs: Chokehold, Extended Reach 2 Tether) [9+1=10]

AP: Impervious Toughness 9 (Extra: Duration [sustained] (+0) )

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

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

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

costs

abilities 56 + combat 24 + saves 11 + skills 15/60 + feats 15 + powers 29 = 150 pts

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Design Notes:

Hereâ€™s a build for a Utopian Paragon, a champion of the island of Utopia in the Bermuda Triangle who has come to our world as a champion of peace and justice. Utopia is an offshoot of ancient Atlantis, an island of long-lived, beautiful, healthy people who have established a hidden utopian society. Utopia is a hidden place, having retreated from the world in the ancient days after Atlantis fell, their secret observations of our society having done little to convince them over the years that they should change that policy. They use their powerful technology to conceal themselves from the larger world, taking advantage of the weakened dimensional fabric in the Bermuda Triangle. (While anti-Utopians might point to the many disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle as a sign of sinister intent, Iâ€™ve always understood that the weak dimensional fabric in the Triangle lets monsters through: more physically-inclined Utopians probably spend time keeping giant plesiosaurs from attacking Bermudan shipping. As for those missing ships, perhaps a a few of those misplaced sailors were able to stay on Utopia!)

I figure her Comprehend is a psychic ability that makes her a better ambassador rather than a product of training, which is why it doesnâ€™t have the Innate PF. Her signature weapon is her golden lasso, a powerful weapon that lets her grab targets and bind them up, either using them as improvised weapons in the aftermath or just carrying them bound up for the cops. Put more points in if you want the lasso to have a linked Damage effect (like, say, being hit by lightning while bound) or having a Mind Control effect built into the lasso to compel those she has tied up to tell the truth. (Given the flaws that I think are a reasonable part of a lasso, you could fit those in without too many problems.) Her predecessor in the 1940s, Envoy, was a martial artist and warrior rather than the paragon she is; youâ€™ll have to work out an explanation for why she has the abilities he doesnâ€™t: perhaps itâ€™s a product of a particularly empowered parentage, or maybe itâ€™s part of all that fancy Utopian bling sheâ€™s wearing. (If sheâ€™s just the Utopian ambassador to the United States, that might explain why sheâ€™s got all that American-themed flair on: it helps you relate to these Americans if they think someone from a utopian civilization would just run around in a star-spangled outfit for kicks)

Sheâ€™s got good skills; sheâ€™s a great ambassador and sheâ€™s very people-friendly. Rather than give her Fearless, I went with Ultimate Will to represent her inner strength of character. Another low-level device could give you some good deflecting bracelets: not with the Deflect power per se, but rather with Impervious (to represent bouncing bullets off) or some Enhanced Dodge Focus to represent bouncing larger hits off the indestructible bracelets. I went ahead and made her bracelets an AP of her lasso, treated mechanically as one device: I think it makes a lot of sense that she can't deflect bullets when she's using her lasso to grapple people: that puppy takes both hands! She can deflect anything short of a tank shell with them, which I think fits with traditional depictions of Wondy. Sheâ€™s a Utopian, which is more of a science-so-advanced-its-magic sort of place, so she doesnâ€™t have Arcane Lore: if youâ€™re playing this as a heroic Amazon, she probably should have some Arcane Lore or Theology/Philosophy. Throw in some more skills if you want to represent someone who's grown up in a more rustic society.

Avenger Assembled · August 30, 2011

Fear Controller

â€œKeep fear alive!â€ -Stephen Colbert

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 26 pp

STR 14 (+2)

DEX 14 (+2)

CON 16 (+3)

INT 14 (+2)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 14 (+2)

Combat: 24 pp

ATK: +6 (+10 Fear Array)

DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed)

Init: +2

Grapple: +8/+20 w/TK

Saves: 14 pp

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

FORT +7 (+3 Con, +4)

REF +7 (+2 Dex, +4)

WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5)

Skills: 14 pp=56 r

Bluff 3 (+5)

Concentration 8 (+10)

Diplomacy 3 (+5)

Gather Info 8 (+10)

Intimidate 13 (+15)

Knowledge: Pop Culture 3 (+5)

Language 1 (Spanish) (Base: English)

Notice 8 (+10)

Sense Motive 8 (+10)

Feats: 12 pp

Dodge Focus (4)

Fascinate (Intimidate)

Move-By Action

Precise Shot

Second Chance (vs. Fear effects)

Startle

Power Attack

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Well-Informed

Powers: 60 pp

Enhanced Feat 1 (Quick Change) [1 pp]

Fear Array [22+3=25 pp]

Damage 10 (Extra: Targeted Area [shapeable]) (PFs: Accurate 2)

AP: Create Object 6 (Extra: Moveable) (PFs: Precise, Progression 2, Selective)

AP: Emotion Control 10 (Extras: Selective, Targeted Area [shapeable]) (Flaws: Limited [Fear Only] Range [Ranged]) (PFs: Accurate 2)

AP: Move Object 10 (Heavy Load: 12 tons) (Extra: Damaging) (Flaw: Feedback) (PFs: Accurate 2)

Flight 3 (50 MPH) [6 pp]

Immunity 9 (Life Support) [9 pp]

Impervious TOU 10 (Extra: Duration (Sustained) [+0]) [10 pp]

Protection 7 [7 pp]

cost

abilities 26 + combat 24 + saves 14 + skills 14/56 + feats 12 + powers 60 = 150 pts

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Design Notes:

Hereâ€™s a fear controller in the vein of DCâ€™s Sinestro Corps. Fear is a perfectly healthy emotion for a superhero to instill in bad guys, so I think itâ€™s entirely reasonable to have a heroic fear controller. Note that he doesnâ€™t have Fearless himself, rather he has a high Intimidate score and Second Chance vs. Fear. (That way if you rejigger him as a bad guy, you donâ€™t have to rejigger his sheet in the process) Note that he doesnâ€™t have a power ring, rather his abilities come from internal psychic abilities. He can fire blasts of â€˜fear energyâ€™ to psychologically terrorize bad guys, or just smack them around with energy constructs like the gay Mexican bear heâ€™s making use of to back up his use of the Startle feat. Like most of my GL-style builds, he has Protection in place permanently (so he can take hits even when powered down) but has a â€œForce Fieldâ€-style construction for the Impervious: that way, while getting stunned is a serious threat, itâ€™s not a game-ender the way it could potentially be.

I borrowed liberally here from my Beacon build and Flame Octopus builds, of course. Heâ€™s a cousin of my patriotic hero build from upthread, perhaps. My idea here is that this is a fearmongering journalist or news commentator who unlocked his true inner power and realized he could now fight his enemies with superpowers. He also works as an unwitting Fear-Master legacy; perhaps an exposure to the sonic weapons of Fear-Master II triggered a protective reaction, giving him a psychic mastery of the very emotion that the Fear Master had sought to inflict on him! Itâ€™s up to you whether or not heâ€™s maintained a secret ID; he could work just as well as a celebrity hero as a celebrity with a really big secret. You could save points by cutting down his physical attributes some, Iâ€™ve gone with the theory that heâ€™s an adult in decent shape, but you could easily give him a physique more appropriate to a desk-bound journalist and spend those â€˜wastedâ€™ points in a more efficient fashion.

Heâ€™s very good at terrifying patriotic bluster that reminds you of the many terrible things just waiting for you under your bed, ready to spring! He's better at sweeping goons by force or fear than outright blasts, but he can do that too if he really has the need. He could use some super-senses if you can dig up the points. An easy way to save points is to put his powers in a device, of course! That would let you fluff out his skills and feats to make him more formidable without his powers, or to fluff his powers up some and make him an even more impressive Note that heâ€™s not actually space-worthy as such (well, he can survive there, he just canâ€™t get around) so give him some Space Travel if you want him to be part of an interstellar corps of fear-mongers: perhaps focused on uplifting sentients from animal panic by wielding those self-same instincts for the greater good.

Avenger Assembled · September 4, 2011

Agent P

"Curse you, Perry the Platypus!" -Heinz Doofenschmirtz

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 42 pp

STR 22 (+6)

DEX 18 (+4)

CON 20 (+5)

INT 14 (+2)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 14 (+2)

Combat: 32 pp

ATK: +8 (+14 Melee)

DEF: +12 (+4 flat-footed)

Init: +4

Grapple: +20

Saves: 10 pp

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

FORT +7 (+5 Con, +2)

REF +7 (+4 Ref, +3)

WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5)

Skills: 16 pp=64 r

Bluff 8 (+10)

Climb 4 (+10)

Disable Device 8 (+10)

Disguise 3 (+5)

Drive 1 (+5)

Escape Artist 6 (+10)

Gather Info 8 (+10)

Notice 8 (+10)

Pilot 1 (+5)

Sense Motive 8 (+10)

Stealth 6 (+10)

Survival 3 (+5)

Feats: 21 pp

Attack Focus: Melee 6,

Benefit (Security Clearance),

Dodge Focus 4,

Eidetic Memory,

Environmental Adaptation (Underwater),

Evasion,

Power Attack,

Quick Change,

Second Chance (vs. Drowning),

Takedown Attack,

Taunt,

Uncanny Dodge (auditory),

Well-Informed

Powers: 29 pp

Gadgets 1 (Hard to Lose) (Extras: Action [Free]; PF: Subtle) [10 pp]

Protection 3 [3 pp]

Damage 0 (Extra: Alternate Save: Fortitude) 'paralyzing pain' [6 pp]

Swimming 4 (25 MPH) [4+1=5 pp]

AP: Leaping 2 (x2) and Speed 2 (25 MPH)

Super-Senses 6 (Accurate Analytical Radio Sense, Acute Scent, Danger Sense [radio]) [6 pp]

costs

abilities 42 + combat 32 + saves 10 + skills 16/64 + feats 21 + powers 29 = 150 pts

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Design Notes:

Here's Perry the Platypus, the breakout star of Phineas and Ferb, as a PL 10 starting character. For those of you who haven't watched the show, Perry is the pet of the titular main characters, a platypus who 'doesn't do much'. (Monotreme pets aren't that unusual in the show's universe given that there is Platypus Chow available in pet stores in giant bags; the show's creators have mentioned they went with an unusual animal to make sure no copycat pets were purchased by parents). Despite this reputation, it turns out Perry the Platypus is actually just the secret identity of Agent P, the dashing secret agent of OWCA (Organization Without a Cool Acronym) who every week battles the machinations of the evil Dr. Heinz Doofenschmirtz to guard the citizens of the Tri-State Area from various In-ators.

I've fudged the character a bit; this is more a platypus-totem hero with secret agent training, but I think he still works as a decent conversion of the character: he can convincingly catch up to a speeding BO-AT underwater, he can change his appearance at the drop of a hat, and he's got the skills to put giant robots, ray-in-ators, and other dangerous mad scientist threats down for the count. In the show, while Perry's an OK shot, he's much more inclined to duke it out with his nemesis in hand-to-hand (er, hand-to-tail) so he's better at fisticuffs than most of your typical agent builds. He can still pull spy gadgets out as a free action, though, to explain all those wonderful toys he carries around like gliders and parachutes. He's also got the cool secret powers of your typical platypus (that we don't see on the show) like paralytic venom, electrolocation, and other powers that let him stand out from the crowd.

Add Shrinking, among other things like the Mute drawback, to get a better straight conversion of the character from the show. You could also give him Morph/Metamorph to let him turn into a real platypus. In my mind, this character was a low-level super who used his abilities to become a secret agent as well as a superhero: being a platypus totem (perhaps a mutant, or one injected with radioactive platypus venom) might be just a guy off the street, but with real secret agent training he could really make something of himself. People may not expect the funny animal guy to be a super-spy, or the super-spy to turn around and have natural animal abilities underneath his bland exterior. Get yourself an archenemesis, preferably a large ham-type, and go to town.

Avenger Assembled · September 13, 2011

Acrobatic Genius

Bwah-hah-ha!

Abilities: 46 pp

STR 20 (+5)

DEX 18 (+4)

CON 20 (+5)

INT 24 (+7)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 10 (+0)

Combat: 32 pp

ATK: +8 (+11 Melee/+15 Unarmed)

DEF: +15 (+4 flat-footed)

Init: +4

Grapple: +15

Saves: 10 pp

TOU +5 (+5 Con)

FORT +7 (+5 Con, +2)

REF +7 (+4 Dex, +3)

WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5)

Skills: 80 r=20 pp

Acrobatics 11 (+15)

Climb 5 (+10)

Computers 8 (+15)

Craft (Electronic) 8 (+15)

Craft (Mechanical) 8 (+15)

Disable Device 3 (+10)

Investigate 3 (+10)

Knowledge (Technology) 8 (+15)

Notice 8 (+10)

Pilot 1 (+5)

Search 3 (+10)

Sense Motive 8 (+10)

Stealth 6 (+10)

Feats: 24 pp

Acrobatic Bluff

Attack Focus: Melee 3

Attack Specialization: Unarmed 2

Beginnerâ€™s Luck

Dodge Focus 7

Eidetic Memory

Evasion

Inventor

Jack of all Trades

Master Plan

Online Research

Power Attack

Takedown Attack

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 18 pp

Gadgets 2 (Hard to Lose) (Extra: Action (Free) [+2]) [18 pp]

Grapple Gun Speed 2 (25 MPH) and Super-Movement 4 (Slow Fall, Swinging, Wall-Crawling 2)
Chameleon Gear Concealment 10 (all senses) (Flaw: Blending)
Lockpicks Enhanced Skills 12 (Disable Device) and Quickness 12 (x10000) (Flaw: Physical Tasks Only)

costs

abilities 46 + combat 32 + saves 10 + skills 20/80 + feats 24 + powers 18 = 150 pts

----

Design Notes:

Here's an acrobatic gadgeteer in the vein of DC's Blue Beetle II; a Badass Normal who's just about as athletic as he is smart. He's a good inventor and investigator, as well as a good utility player with his Gadgets handy. Note that he can at least function as a brain in any capacity thanks to his Beginner's Luck/Eidetic Memory/Jack of All Trades, enough that he can plug a lot of gaps on a potential superteam. While he's not as good in his core area of expertise as a focused gadgeteer or cowl, there's really no obstacle he can't handle with his broad range of feats, skills, and powers. I've included a few possible constructions for his Gadget power, but feel free to come up with as many as you like as long as you stay within the theme of a really tricked-out utility belt. If you want him to have a flying machine or zap gun, drop the gadgets, or discard them entirely and buy a stand-alone device or straight-up equipment.

Note that as it is, he's just in the regular working class, so shuffle some points around if you want to give him some wealth or status. He works at the lab, but unless he plows all his money into its operation (or unless he's underage and his money is in a trust) he doesn't have access to the cold hard cash. In my mind, this guy works best as a happy Batman type; a skilled athlete and genius who decided to fight crime not out of any dreadful inner angst or ancient vow to his murdered parents, but rather because crime is bad and because superheroes are totally awesome. (I loved the bit with Ted Kord as a supplier for the early Justice League in Mark Waid's work, and his thoughtful expression after meeting them). He's something of a more focused, probably less irritating version of my Wealthy Thrillseeker from the very beginning of the thread, someone who's lacked direction most of their life but has now found fulfillment taking out bad guys!

Give him lots of Intimidate if you want to make him more like Batman than Blue Beetle, on the scary side rather than flippy side. He's not really a people person; if he makes a lot of quips in combat, they're going to sound pretty corny and lame. Drop his INT some and buy up his CHA (or shuffle points around in some other way) if you want him to be more like a powerless Spiderman. You could make his background more sinister if you really wanted; perhaps his high physical and mental attributes are a product of selective breeding and he has only recently turned against his sinister eugenics-minded parents! Or maybe he just hit the luck of the draw genetically with an Olympian's body and Nobel Prize Winner's mind, and he's determined to pay back fate for how lucky he is!

Avenger Assembled · September 14, 2011

Cat Totem

â€œHey, Iâ€™ll just Google myself and... â€

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 56 pp

STR 24 (+7)

DEX 24 (+7)

CON 24 (+7)

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 18 (+4)

CHA 16 (+3)

Combat: 32 pp

ATK: +8 (+13 melee)

DEF: +13 (+4 flat-footed)

Init: +7

Grapple: +20

Saves: 8 pp

TOU +7 (+7 Con)

FORT +8 (+7 Con, +1)

REF +10 (+7 Dex, +3)

WILL +8 (+4 Wis, +4)

Skills: 56 r=14 pp

Acrobatics 8 (+15)

Bluff 1 (+4)

Climb 8 (+15)

Intimidate 12 (+15)

Notice 6 (+10)

Language 1 (Spanish) (Base: English)

Sense Motive 11 (+15)

Survival 6 (+10)

Swim 3 (+10)

Feats: 19 pp

Acrobatic Bluff

Attack Focus: Melee 5

Challenge 2 (Accelerated Climb, Fast Acrobatic Bluff)

Dodge Focus 5

Evasion

Move-By Action

Power Attack

Startle

Takedown Attack

Uncanny Dodge (olfactory)

Powers: 21 pp

Leaping 2 (x5) [2 pp]

Penetrating Unarmed Damage 4 (PFs: Improved Crit 2 [unarmed]) 'claws and teeth' [6 pp]

Speed 2 (25 MPH) [2 pp]

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

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

costs

abilities 56 + combat 32 + saves 8 + skills 14/56 + feats 19 + powers 21 = 150 pts

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

Design Notes:

In the spirit of the idea that no character concept is totally without redemption, hereâ€™s a cat totem in the vein of Marvelâ€™s Tigra or Feral, or Freedom Cityâ€™s own El Gato. (Iâ€™ve always assumed, BTW, that the bad Spanish in El Gatoâ€™s name is a deliberate Take That by Freedom Cityâ€™s writers against inept Iron Age comics writers; that or they just got the Spanish wrong) The existence of otaku and cosplayers has sexualized this concept pretty heavily, so Iâ€™ve done my best to downplay it here: sheâ€™s much more the feral creature of the jungle, easily able to sustain herself via hunting for meat without equipment or other tools, than the purring kitten in the bikini. Note that despite our image of domestic cats, quite a few big cats are totally comfortable swimming in the water, so Iâ€™ve gone with the idea that this lady is quite at home in the water. Sheâ€™s really quite scary in an urban context, able to run up the sides of buildings like a cat climbing a tree, her claws sharp enough to cut through even superhumanly tough armor, and she has lots of ways of laying opponents out in combat.

As is usual for me with â€˜clawedâ€™ characters, sheâ€™s got Penetrating Unarmed Damage to reflect the fact that she doesnâ€™t have to be slicing up street-level thugs to take them out. The Slow Fall is because sheâ€™s a cat, but also because sheâ€™s so very fast and athletic and such a good climber in general. Cats donâ€™t have as strong as a scent ability as canines, so Iâ€™ve tried to divide up her super-senses based on what cats can actually do: she can see in the dark, but not true darkness, she can navigate by touch (thanks to whiskers) and scent, and even track targets across the city that way. She doesnâ€™t have a lot of skill outside of being a hunter and tracker, but her modifiers are high enough you could easily shuffle her skills around to make her a policewoman, or an uplifted housewife.

While catlike behavior is a viable source for complications, itâ€™s really for the best if you donâ€™t play being an obligate carnivore and large predator in human skin for sex appeal, and really shouldnâ€™t be used to make the character look silly, either. While weâ€™re pretty reluctant to engage a lot with Iron Age legacies, I could see someone spinning a potential character out of a successor to the Iron Age El Gato: perhaps her mother left her to be raised by others while she was busy fighting her familyâ€™s drug syndicate. Thereâ€™s a story to be told there, and no reason why the archetype itself canâ€™t work as part of a Modern Age historical legacy. If you donâ€™t want to get involved with that, though, there are plenty of other ways you could get this character feline, whether by genetic engineering, mystic ritual, or some other form of empowerment.

Avenger Assembled · September 14, 2011

Survivor

â€œHere comes the next contestant.â€

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 18 pp

STR 30 (+10)

DEX 14 (+2)

CON n/a

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 10 (+0)

Combat: 22 pp

ATK: +5 (+7 Melee)

DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed)

Init: +2

Grapple: +17

Saves: 9 pp

TOU +10 (+10 Protection)

FORT n/a

REF +5 (+2 Dex, +3)

WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +5)

Skills: 36 r=9 pp

Intimidate 10 (+10)

Knowledge: Arcane Lore 2 (+2)

Notice 8 (+10)

Sense Motive 8 (+10)

Survival 3 (+5)

Stealth 5 (+7)

Feats: 12 pp

Attack Focus: Melee 2

Dodge Focus 4

Fearless

Power Attack

Startle

Takedown Attack

Track

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 80 pp

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

Strike 3 (PFs: Critical Strike [undead], Mighty)

Immunity 30 (Fortitude saves) [30 pp]

Protection 10 [10 pp]

Regeneration 32 (Recovery Bonus +9 (14), Recovery Rate: Injured [no action] (6), Disabled [no action] (8), Resurrection 1/hour [4]) (PFs: Persistent, Regrowth) [34 pp]

Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp]

Super-Senses 2 (Darkvision) [2 pp]

costs

abilities 18 + combat 22 + saves 9 + skills 9/36 + feats 12 + powers 80 = 150 pts

-----

Design Notes:

The monster came and it murdered her friends and nearly killed her, but she showed that psychopathic killer that the cursed waters of the swamp didnâ€™t just benefit soulless monstrosities. She rose and defeated the beast for all time, taking its weapon for her own. Now she hunts the night as a creature of destruction, tracking down all the soulless monsters that would kill and maim the innocent and dispatching them before they can do their wicked work. Having created plenty of monster builds before, I decided to try my hand at the â€œunstoppable slasher movieâ€ monster, this time cast through the lens of heroism: in this case, a Final Girl who has gained the same powers as her former tormentor and who now hunts the night as a predator on her own. (Sheâ€™s similar to the revenant build in Instant Superheroes, though that one is more like the Crow than Jason). In play, sheâ€™ll function like a horror movie monster, stalking her prey in darkness before unleashing devastating attacks from her melee weapon.

With her Regeneration, she will not go down in a fight: the only way to stop her is to do enough damage to put her down, do something to Snare or Paralyze her, or use something to take advantage of her relatively low exotic saves. If you assume she has the stats of your typical movie monster, the fact that her typical opponents were about PL 4-6 at the most helps illustrate how incredibly dangerous in a fight she could be. Itâ€™s up to you whether or not she still has a family; depending on how long sheâ€™s been away from humanity (perhaps having disappeared in the 1970s), they may have completely moved on. Playing this archetype as a superhero may be a little challenging, but I think it could be done if written properly: perhaps sheâ€™s put aside her feral years and is trying to learn how to be a superhero and also a human being again, or maybe sheâ€™s horrified by her transformation and has come to the city to try and get her old life back. She doesnâ€™t have to be as Iron Age as she looks if she has genuinely stuck to hunting spectral burn victims or freaks in hockey masks.

If you donâ€™t see this concept as working for a hero, thereâ€™s still plenty you could do with the sheet and the background. If youâ€™re playing a friendly neighborhood monster like Avenger or Dead Head, however, the Survivor makes a great antagonist, an enemy with fanatic determination, a sympathetic motivation enough that the reader can almost root for them, and one who may not see the moral distinction between one kind of monster and another: sheâ€™s threatening enough that your hero may be forced to use (or tempted to use, at least) the same kind of brutal tactics she does, thus giving you a lot to think about while you brood on your nearby gargoyle. And whatever her fate, whatever giant explosion sheâ€™s caught up in, she _will_ be back.

Avenger Assembled · September 15, 2011

Mr. Sensitive

"Can you hear me now?"

Abilities: 46 pp

STR 20 (+5)

DEX 18 (+4)

CON 20 (+5)

INT 12 (+1)

WIS 24 (+7)

CHA 12 (+1)

Combat: 32 pp

ATK: +8 (+13 Melee/+15 Unarmed)

DEF: +15 (+4 flat-footed)

Init: +4

Grapple: +18

Saves: 10 pp

TOU +5 (+5 Con)

FORT +8 (+5 Con, +3)

REF +8 (+4 Dex, +4)

WILL +10 (+7 Wis, +3)

Skills: 80 r=20 pp

Acrobatics 11 (+15)*

Bluff 9 (+10)

Climb 5 (+10)

Concentration 1 (+8)

Intimidate 9 (+10)

Investigate 4 (+5)

Knowledge: Streetwise 4 (+5)

Notice 13 (+20)*

Sense Motive 13 (+20)*

Stealth 11 (+15)*

Feats: 24 pp

Acrobatic Bluff

Attack Focus: Melee 5

Attack Specialization: Unarmed 1

Challenge (Fast Acrobatic Bluff)

Blind-Fight

Dodge Focus 7

Hide in Plain Sight

Move-By Action

Power Attack

Second Chance 2 (Notice checks, Sense Motive checks)

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

Takedown Attack

Uncanny Dodge (tactile)

Powers: 18 pp

Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp]

Super-Senses 17 (Hearing [Extended 2 [x100], Penetrates Concealment], Sonar [Accurate Ultrasonic Hearing], Scent [Acute, Analytical, Tracking], Touch [Analytical], Tremorsense, Vision [Extended 2 [x100]]) [17 pp]

costs

abilities 46 + combat 32 + saves 10 + skills 20/80 + feats 24 + powers 18 = 150 pts

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

Design Notes:

Here's Mr. Sensitive, one of the more interesting characters from Peter Milligan's X-Statix (and one of the few characters from that book who would make a viable PC here.) Mr. Sensitive is basically a sighted Daredevil in terms of powers; with mutant-style angst about his abilities: he was born with tremendously enhanced senses that meant he spent most of his childhood in a haze of constant pain and medication. His only salvation was the training and discipline of the martial arts, which taught him self-control and the ability to block out discomfort, letting him find inner peace through meditation: later, Tony Stark came along and built him a numbing costume so he could get around without having to concentrate all the time. (One of the highlights of the book is a fist-fight between Tony Stark out of his armor and Mr. Sensitive with all his senses being triggered at once; it's downright ludicrously tragic.)

You could pretty much take Mr. Sensitive here and put him in Freedom City without too many problems. He's a mean mother of a martial artist; he's almost impossible to bluff and fool in combat, and easily capable of laying most foes out with a Fast Acrobatic Bluff. He's also got tremendous super-senses; he can track by scent, detect by touch, and hear right through soundproofing: note that he has 100 times the usual hearing and visual range, giving him Notice increments of 1000 feet rather than 10! That lets you do something dramatic where he poses on the gargoyle like Batman, but can hear and see the crimes of the city below just like Superman: he has to save the people. He can hear them.

He's proof of just how much you can get out of reshuffling the points in an existing build! I tried to keep his super-senses within the realm of comic book enhanced human: he can't see through walls and he can't hear radio signals, but senses a normal person could plausibly have he has cranked up about as high as they could plausibly go. He makes a great lie detector too; he's not supernaturally immune to lies but between his Skill Mastery and Second Chance, he's almost impossible to convincingly lie to. He's pretty vulnerable if you do somehow manage to catch him flat-footed, given how dependent he is on Dodge Focus, but on the other hand that's not going to be easy!

Avenger Assembled · September 16, 2011

Xenomorph Hero

â€œKikikikiâ€

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 56 pp

STR 26 (+8)

DEX 30 (+10)

CON 26 (+8)

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 10 (+0)

Combat: 24 pp

ATK: +6 (+12 Acid Vomit/Unarmed)

DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed)

Init: +10

Grapple: +18

Saves: 4 pp

TOU +8 (+8 Con)

FORT +8 (+8 Con)

REF +10 (+10 Dex)

WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4)

Skills: 48 r=12 pp

Acrobatics 5 (+15)

Climb 2 (+10)

Intimidate 15 (+15)

Notice 8 (+10)

Sense Motive 8 (+10)

Survival 3 (+5)

Stealth 5 (+15)

Swim 2 (+10)

Feats: 18 pp

Acrobatic Bluff

Attack Specialization: Unarmed 3

Dodge Focus 6

Evasion

Fearless

Grappling Finesse

Hide in Plain Sight

Power Attack

Startle

Takedown Attack

Uncanny Dodge (olfactory)

Powers: 35 pp

Additional Limbs 2 [2 pp] 'forelimbs'

Blast 8 (PFs: Accurate 3, Precise) [20 pp] â€˜acid vomitâ€™

Leaping 1 (x2) [1 pp]

Speed 2 (25 MPH) [2 pp]

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

Super-Senses 6 (Accurate Acute Tracking [quarter-speed] Olfactory, Darkvision) [6 pp]

costs

abilities 56 + combat 24 + saves 4 + skills 12/48 + feats 18 + powers 35 = 150 pts

-----------

Design Notes:

Back in 1992, after a violent encounter with an unknown alien species killed the governmentâ€™s only expert on the subject, someone decided the most logical thing to do would be breed an alien/human hybrid. Look, the Cold War was over, people were pretty desperate to keep their funding. And nothingâ€™s scarier than an academic looking for funding. Except maybe an alien human hybrid with acid for internal bodily fluids, predatory instincts, and an insectile body. Thatâ€™s pretty scary. But eventually she escaped and, after hunting animals for food for a while, she was found by superheroes who got her steered onto the right path: getting an education and using her remarkable abilities to be a superhero. But between the shadowy organization that spawned her (perhaps an Iron Age government lab that now works for the Labyrinth or SHADOW) and her own mysterious predatory species, sheâ€™s going to need a lot of friends to get by.

OK, this is my attempt at an HR Giger-style Alien-inspired superheroine, with a dash of Species for flavor. Sheâ€™s a sci-fi twist on the living weapon archetype, a skilled hand-to-hand combatant who can easily sweep her way even through legions of heavily armed soldiers, as well as vomit up an acidic substance to burn her way through prison walls. Sheâ€™s also a fast hunter, skilled sneak, and has lots of ways of making even powerful opponents flat-footed. (If youâ€™re looking for a more sophisticated modeling of the movie bad guys, Iâ€™d drop the PL to 8 or so, thus making them absolutely murder in large numbers against PL 6 space marines, even if those aliens counted as minions: this build would function fine as some kind of â€˜junior queenâ€™ with that in mind)

Given her appearance and likely age, sheâ€™s a natural fit for a Hero High campaign. Itâ€™s up to yo whether or not she can pass for human; despite the ganked picture above, my idea is that she can just about pass for normal while wearing bulky sweaters and not concentrating on her native abilities. Her alien physiology may be a source of Complications for her, not just for acid lips and toxic breath (or however you want to showcase her abilities) but Prejudice as well: if her alien species is some sort of dangerous vermin to spacefaring races, she may be about as popular (or maybe as unsettling) with aliens as a Grey-black widow spider hybrid would be with us. Itâ€™s up to you whether or not her alien species does make a further appearance on Earth; its last few incursions have not been very popular...

Avenger Assembled · September 17, 2011

Barbarian Champion

"Long ago in a distant land, I, Thoth-Amon...hey, wait a minute!"

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 44 pp

STR 26 (+8)

DEX 14 (+2)

CON 26 (+8)

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 14 (+2)

Combat: 24 pp

ATK: +6 (+10 Melee)

DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed)

Init: +2

Grapple: +18

Saves: 14 pp

TOU +8 (+8 Con)

FORT +10 (+8 Con, +2)

REF +8 (+2 Ref, +6)

WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6)

Skills: 23 pp=92 r

Acrobatics 8 (+10)

Climb 7 (+15)

Handle Animal 8 (+10)

Intimidate 13 (+15)*

Knowledge (Tactics) 10 (+10)

Notice 13 (+15)*

Sense Motive 8 (+10)

Ride 8 (+10)

Stealth 8 (+10)

Survival 8 (+10)*

Feats: 35 pp

All-Out Attack,

Animal Empathy,

Attack Focus: Melee 4,

Defensive Attack,

Challenge 2 (Accelerated Climb, Fast Startle)

Dodge Focus 6,

Evasion,

Fearless,

Interpose,

Luck 3,

Master Plan 2,

Move-By Action,

Power Attack,

Second Chance 2 (Climb checks, Ride checks)

Skill Mastery (Climb, Intimidate, Notice, Survival)

Startle,

Takedown Attack 2,

Track [visual],

Ultimate Save (Toughness),

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 10 pp

Container 1 (Barbarian Phyisology) (PF: Innate) [6 pp]

-Leaping 2 (x5) [2]

-Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1]

-Super-Senses 2 (Extended Hearing (x10), Extended Vision (x10) [2]

Device 1 [barbarianâ€™s Sword] (Easy to Lose) (PF: Restricted [sTR 24 or greater) [4 pp]

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

costs

abilities 44 + combat 24 + saves 14 + skills 23/92 + feats 35+ powers 10 = 150 pts

--------

Design Notes:

To go with the Serpent Man over in Doc's thread, I present to you the mightiest barbarian of them all: Conan! I watched the 90s animated series as a kid too, though this is more based on my general understanding of the character. I tried to build a version of the Barbarian Champion who could reasonably cover all the bases. He's incredibly strong and tough, particularly in a Warriors and Warlocks setting where he is probably one of the baddest dudes in the world, and could indeed injure a god with his mighty sword, strong enough to keep pace with a horse for a while, and with the keen senses of a hunter and wild animal. He could potentially survive a bite from a god of snakes, given his massive Fort save. He's a smarter, better fighter than he looks, and capable of some very great surprises for people who think he's just dumb muscle: he has a strong personality, but gets along better when he's trying to be scary or talking to his horse, who may well be the only person who really understands him.

His sword is a device because nothing else is going to accommodate his formidable physical abilities; he'll still look very impressive with a dagger or bow, though, pulling his punches so he doesn't break the equipment he's carrying. At STR 26, he is the strongest man in the world that doesn't have superpowers, probably the strongest in history, in fact, and he's as tough as any man in full armor in his own setting while at the same time much faster and nimbler. (That may well be the reasons he gives for fighting in a loincloth). Even without his sword, he's PL 9 on the offense and just as tough with no equipment at all. (I figure he has to be really, really drunk to lose barfights vs. the usual run of bystanders and sellswords in his own setting) He's got a lot of Luck to go with all the high-level opponents he fights on a regular basis. I didn't give him Rage; I think he's a better character if you just play him as getting really angry while All-Out Power Attacking.

How can you play this guy? In a Warriors and Warlocks campaign, he's an epic-level hero who can fight anybody on even terms: definitely the mightiest hero of them all. As an antagonist in a Warriors and Warlocks campaign, he can plausibly fight the entire party simultaneously assuming a PL 6-8 campaign and some minion allies of his own; if you're doing that, give him all the Equipment and armies he needs to be head of a mighty barbarian army! You could make him an FcPbP hero easily enough by transporting him into the future; you'll have to work on why his level of personal brutality has dropped a bit, but perhaps the experience of being flung into the distant future has convinced him to take life no more. The world is far bigger than even he knew.

Avenger Assembled · September 17, 2011

Whip-Wielding Hero

"Honor Guard had recently begun licensing its members' images, donating the proceeds to charity- and I don't know what wounded me more- the discovery that my t-shirts and dolls were the least popular- or the discovery that the sales of such trinkets actually mattered to me."

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 40 pp

STR 20 (+5)

DEX 20 (+5)

CON 20 (+5)

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 16 (+3)

CHA 14 (+2)

Combat: 32 pp

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

DEF: +12/+10 (+4 flat-footed)

Init: +9

Grapple: +15

Saves: 12 pp

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

FORT +7 (+5 Con, +2)

REF +10 (+5 Dex, +5)

WILL +8 (+3 Wis, +5)

Skills: 80 r=20 pp

Acrobatics 10 (+15)

Bluff 13 (+15)

Diplomacy 8 (+10)

Intimidate 8 (+10)

Knowledge (Business) 4 (+4)

Knowledge (Streetwise) 10 (+10)

Language 1 (Spanish) (Base: English)

Notice 12 (+15)

Sense Motive 12 (+15)

Stealth 10 (+15)

Feats: 21 pp

Accurate Attack

Acrobatic Bluff

All-Out Attack

Attack Focus: Melee 2

Attack Specialization: Whip

Benefit 2 (Wealth 2)

Challenge 2 (Fast Acrobatic Bluff, Fast Taunt)

Contacts

Dodge Focus 2

Evasion

Improved Initiative

Luck

Move-By Action

Power Attack

Takedown Attack

Taunt

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 23 pp

Device 1 (Costume) (Hard to Lose) (PFs: Quick Change Subtle) [6 pp]

Protection 3 [3]

Shield 2 [2]

Device 4 (Whip) (Hard to Lose) (PF: Restricted [Attack Specialization: Whip]) [17 pp]

Damage 3 (PFs: Extended Reach, Improved Crit, Mighty, Precise) and Speed 2 (25 MPH) and Super-Movement 4 (Slow Fall, Swinging, Wall-Crawling 2) [17+3=20 pp]

AP: Damage 3 (PFs: Extended Reach, Improved Crit 2, Mighty, Precise) (Extra: Penetrating)

AP: Stun 8 (PF: Extended Reach)

costs

abilities 40 + combat 32 + saves 12 + skills 22/88+ feats 21 + powers 23 = 150 pts

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

Design Notes:

Hereâ€™s a build for El Hombre, the secondary lead of the Astro City series Tarnished Angel. El Hombre, born Esteban Rodrigo Suarez Hidalgo, was a Bronze Age hero of the 1960s and 1970s, a whip-wielding Zorro expy whose ward Bravo went on to found the local New Teen Titans expy, the Irregulars. El Hombre is something of a deconstruction of Bronze Age ethnic heroes, given how he was ultimately rejected by a Los Angeles barrio that had very little interest in the rich Latino playboy who â€˜protectedâ€™ them. I hate to spoil a great story, but as Tarnished Angel goes on, itâ€™s fair to say that (as the readers learn) El Hombre is a commentary on characters like Hank Pym, too. (For those of you who havenâ€™t read Astro City, by far Kurt Busiekâ€™s greatest work, go and do that: itâ€™s decently close to being Freedom City: the Comic Book, and indeed one of the early inspirations for Mutants and Masterminds was an attempt to secure a license for a tie-in Astro City comic).

This is El Hombre before all the bad times, though; a rich, handsome playboy who defends the Los Angeles barrio with grit and quip, armed with a titanium-steel alloy whip that can cut a gun barrel in half, stun a man with a hidden electrical charge inside, and clear the room of a bunch of thugs before they can even notice heâ€™s there. Heâ€™s an all right businessman, but heâ€™s happier on the streets that are his second home. Heâ€™s very rich, but thereâ€™s no sign in the story that he has Bruce Wayne-style money. (Though we do see that, in retirement, he has managed to get enough money to buy quite a bit of super-tech). With his Acrobatics, Bluff, and Stealth, heâ€™s got lots and lots of ways of leaving his enemies flat-footed and Power Attacking them into unconsciousness. I figure the Shield in his costume is his billowing cape, a nice way to represent that sort of stylistic choice in-game. Heâ€™s got Precise on his whip so you can do things like cutting belt loops to make pants fall down and slicing your initial into bad guys as a descriptor for Taunts or non-lethal attacks, a classic maneuver for a Zorro expy.

You could easily pull up a renamed version of this build as a heroic PC, a noble defender of the West End determined to lift up his people through charitable contributions and heroic action. He also makes a fine mentor if you want him as an NPC in retirement, a Bronze Age hero mentoring a modern-day successor to the legacy (with similar stats), perhaps one who is less inclined to be a public champion of his ethnic group. (Which is easy enough to explain in a Bronze Age context, presumably the â€˜ethnicâ€™ heroes of the era were so determined to inspire their people they played up their roots perhaps a little stridently from the perspective of a more modern, enlightened age) A fallen (but still trusted) hero makes a fine counterpart for a villain-turned-hero (like Steeljack, his rival in Tarnished Angel [note that the title is about _both_ men, the fallen superhero as well as the heroic man in metal]), but you should at least change his powers up a bit if you want a similar NPC to square off against your character.

Avenger Assembled · September 17, 2011

Hideous Hero

Iâ€™m a freak, inside and out.

Abilities: 58 pp

STR 30 (+10)

DEX 14 (+2)

CON 30 (+10)

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 16 (+3)

CHA 18 (+4)

Combat: 24 pp

ATK: +6 (+10 Melee)

DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed)

Init: +2

Grapple: +20

Saves: 8 pp

TOU +10 (+10 Con)

FORT +10 (+10 Con)

REF +5 (+2 Dex, +3)

WILL +8 (+3 Wis, +5)

Skills: 32 r=8 pp

Disguise 0 (+4/+34)

Intimidate 11 (+15)

Knowledge: Physical Sciences 5 (+5)

Notice 7 (+10)

Sense Motive 7 (+10)

Survival 2 (+5)

Feats: 13 pp

Attack Focus: Melee 4

Dodge Focus 4

Move-By Action

Power Attack

Quick Change

Takedown Attack

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 39 pp

Elongation 1 (5 ft) [1 pp]

Horrible Array [20+2=22 pp]

Drain Charisma 10 (Extra: Secondary Effect) "I hate it!"

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

AP: Nauseate 10

Immunity 5 (disease, own powers, poison, suffocation) [5 pp]

Insubstantial 1 (semi-solid body) (Extra: Duration [Permanent]) [5 pp]

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

Super-Senses 2 (Darkvision) [2 pp]

costs

abilities 58 + combat 24 + saves 8 + skills 8/32 + feats 13 + powers 39 = 150 pts

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

Design Notes

â€œA supervillain made entirely out of globs of fat. Plus he's always wet and he stands way too close to you, and his special move is he puts his finger in your mouth and you hate it. And the heroes are all "Oh, crap, The Phlegm is at it again, he's down at the children's hospital and just ... just leaking everywhere, and bumming everyone out. He smells like a bag of butts that got peed on. Last time I fought him he kept trying to pinch my thighs. That's, f-ck it, I'm just gonna kill him. Soon as I see him." -quote courtesy of Cracked.com

Okay, I built this one on a dare from my wife. Hereâ€™s the hideous Phlegm, a monstrous creation with the soul of a hero. The idea is that he was once a man before becoming the victim of a terrible experiment that warped him inside and out, transforming him into a monster hideous to look upon! His very unnatural existence is a weapon he can use against his enemies, disgusting them with his very presence even as he savagely pummels them. He can slither up walls, extend his digits in weird and unnatural ways, and exude the sort of foul chemicals that make even strong men have to go lay down rather than deal with his horrible self. His unnatural body does give him some protection against the slings and arrows of life, though he still has just enough internal organs (is that one wiggling by now, reeking of nameless horrors?) that he still has to worry about getting poked in the eye. Heâ€™s got a lot of Charisma; heâ€™s owned this transformation! He can also turn himself back into a person long enough to sneak around, but nothing he can ever do will mask his hideous smell!

He's got some Survival to survive in the sewers. Perhaps he's an unfortunate victim of the DNAscendant process? This build works better as a villain, a hideous monster of a man who has become as disgusting to look at as he always was inside, and makes a respectable Clayface knockoff for your costumed adventurer to fight. Heâ€™s also not bad as a living incarnation of pollution (medical waste in particular) for your preachy environmentalist paragon to spend time punching. You could easily play him as a tragic hero, however, an innocent forever scarred by his hideous powers who has discovered the hidden personal reserves that make him a powerful superhero with the soul of a hero: thatâ€™s less funny than punching the Human Scumbag, though, so keep that in mind. Thereâ€™s no reason the character canâ€™t be comfortable in his own skin (or lack thereof), though, and take advantage of his appearance to gently tease his more delicately-minded comrades.

Avenger Assembled · September 19, 2011

Armored Vampire

"Don't Bite Your Friends!" -Yo Gabba Gabba

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 0 pp

STR 30 [18] [10] (+10/+4/+0)

DEX 10 (+0)

CON n/a

INT 20 (+5)

WIS 12 (+1)

CHA 10 (+0)

Combat: 16 pp

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

DEF: +10 (+2 flat-footed)

Init: +0

Grapple: +14/+26

Saves: 11 pp

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

FORT n/a

REF +5 (+0 Dex, +5)

WILL +7 (+1 Wis, +6)

Skills: 48 r=12 pp

Bluff 6 (+6/+10)

Computers 5 (+10)*

Craft [electronic] 5 (+10)*

Craft [mechanical] 5 (+10)*

Disable Device 5 (+10)

Intimidate 8 (+8)

Knowledge [technology]) 5 (+10)*

Language 1 (German; Base: English)

Notice 4 (+5)

Sense Motive 4 (+5)

Feats: 19 pp

Attack Focus: Melee (6)

Benefit (Wealth 1)

Dodge Focus (6)

Eidetic Memory

Equipment

Fascinate (Bluff)

Inventor

Jack of All Trades

Skill Mastery (Computers, Craft [electronic], Craft [mechanical], Knowledge [technology])

Powers: 102 pp

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

Device 11 (Power Armor) (Hard to Lose) (PF: Restricted [voiceprint]) [45 pp]

Blast 12 (PFs: Accurate 2) [26+1=27dp]

AP: Enhanced STR 12 and Super-Strength 6 (Heavy Load: 48 tons) (PFs: Takedown Attack 2)

Drawback 2 (No Olfactory Sense) [-2dp]

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

Flight 3 (50 MPH) [6dp]

Protection 6 (Extra: Impervious) [12dp]

Super-Senses 5 (Accurate Extended Radio Sense, Uncanny Dodge [radio]) [5dp]

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

Enhanced Feat 1 (Attractive) [1 pp]

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

Immunity 30 (Fortitude Saves) [30 pp]

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

Quickness 1 (x2) [1 pp]

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

Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp]

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

Drawbacks: 10 pp

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

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

Equipment: 5 ep

Underground Laboratory

Size: Small; Toughness: 10; Features: Concealed, Infirmary, Living Space, Workshop

Cost: 0+1+4 = 5 EPs

costs

abilities 0 + combat 16 + saves 11 + skills 12/48 + feats 19 + powers 102 - drawback 10 = 150 pts

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

Design Notes:

I just can't stop tinkering with this archetype, originally posted by Doc over in his own thread. I think I've hit the right balance here between a vampire and a battlesuit wearer; I've gone with the idea that he's significantly reworked his suit since his transformation in order to accommodate his new needs, so the suit he's wearing may not be the armor he had when he was alive. He's not the staggering genius that many battlesuit wearers are, but on the other hand he probably wouldn't have gotten attacked and turned into a vampire if he was Tony Stark smart or rich. He was probably about PL 7/8 while he was alive; indeed, if his vampire powers are somehow negated his armor puts him at PL 8 in melee and PL 10 with his blast. He's PL 7 without the armor too, thus making him an exciting surprise for people who expect him to be another helpless battlesuit user without his armor. As with Doc's build, his armor protects him both from the light of the day and the smell of blood, letting him keep his terrible hungers in check.

No Normal ID drawback here; he spends all his time in his battlesuit when he's out in the day so he doesn't burst into flames! He has an underground laboratory to work in during the day as well, a sparsely-furnished place that has just enough blood on hand to keep him fed (i figure he probably has a system built into his suit as well). He's got the skills to seduce if necessary, his transformation having altered a nebbishy scientist into a beautiful creature of the night, but depending on your take on vampirism it may be more moral for him to go buy blood from a butchers. (Luckily, Freedom City is the sort of place where there's probably a surviving butcher trade and you can go buy all the blood you need.) Combat-wise, I've given him a trimmed-down but functional suit (and a good model, I think, for people looking for a budget battlesuit for the non-undead) that can handle both blasting and melee combat: I figure his Blast (lasers, maybe flamethrowers if he's worried about his fellow undead) is what he uses when fighting the big guns while he breaks out the fisticuffs for goon-sweeping. (Hence the Takedown Attacks)

Was he brutally attacked and transformed by a vampire who tore him out of his first suit to get at the sweet juices within? Was he a technically-minded vampire who decided to turn hero in a way no one would ever expect? Or did he build the suit and then become victim of a random attack or seduction? All of these make good character backstories. If you make him formerly an established hero, he makes a character with a mysterious past for his fellow heroes with an inclination to investigate his backstory; an armored hero who wears his suit most of the time (like they do) but who some years ago abandoned his life in his old home city, moved here and settled down again in a new facility...

Avenger Assembled · September 19, 2011

Nuclear Hero

"Nuclear power is your friend"

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 18 pp

STR 10 (+0)

DEX 10 (+0)

CON 20 (+5)

INT 14 (+2)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 10 (+0)

Combat: 15 pp

ATK: +3

DEF: +5 (+2 flat-footed)

Init: +0

Grapple: +3/+20

Saves: 14 pp

TOU +15 (+5 Con, +10 Protection)

FORT +8 (+5 Con, +3)

REF +5 (+0 Ref, +5)

WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6)

Skills: 11 pp=44 r

Craft (Electronic) 3 (+5)

Craft (Mechanical) 8 (+10)

Knowledge (Physical Sciences) 8 (+10)

Knowledge (Technology) 8 (+10)

Language 1 (Polish) (Base: English)

Notice 8 (+10)

Sense Motive 8 (+10)

Feats: 5 pp

Luck 2

Move-By Action

Quick Change

Uncanny Dodge (mental)

Powers: 85 pp

Flight 1 (10 MPH) [2 pp]

Immunity 12 (Aging, Life Support, Sleep, Starvation and Thirst) [12 pp]

Insubstantial 3 (nuclear energy) [15 pp]

Nuclear Array [35+5=40 pp]

Damage 10 (Extras: Range [Perception] (PFs: Indirect 3, Precise, Reversible)

AP: Damage 10 (Extras: Area [shapeable], Selective) (PFs: Progression on Area 5 (10 250 cubes)

AP: Move Object 10 (Extras: Affects Corporeal, Range [Perception]) (Flaw: Action [Full]) (Heavy Load: 12 tons) (PFs: Indirect 3, Precise, Subtle)

AP: Teleport 5 (500 ft/5 miles) (Extras: Accurate, Affects Others, Area [shapeable], Selective Attack) (PFs: Progression on Mass 5 [5000 lbs])

AP: Teleport 16 (1600 ft/nearby star systems) (PFs: Easy, Progression on Mass [250 lbs], Turnabout)

AP: Transform 5 (25 lbs) (inanimate to inanimate) (Extras: Duration [Continous], Range [Perception])

Protection 10 [10 pp]

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

Space Travel 1 (1c) [1 pp]

Super-Senses 4 (Precognition) (Flaw: Uncontrolled) [2 pp]

costs

abilities 18 + combat 15+ saves 14 + skills 11/44 + feats 5 + powers 85 = 150 pts

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

Design Notes:

Here's my take on a PL 10 version of Dr. Manhattan, the most powerful being in the Watchmen universe. Indeed, he's almost certainly the only being with superpowers as such, though the existence of at least psychic powers is strongly implied. He's not as powerful as the character we meet in the course of the Watchmen story, but if you take this as the Year One version of the character, he's pretty solidly bad-ass. (After all, Dr. Manhattan has been an active PC since the early 1960s as of the 1980s, and we all know how fast those points add up.) If you were going to build an NPC of comparable might, I would use these numbers as a base, upgrade him to somewhere around PL 15, and add something like Shapeshift 12-15 to allow for the many, many stunts we see the character pull off in the course of his adventures.

Note that he can reasonably fake invulnerability vs. anyone without superpowers; he can hang out completely insubstantial while dismantling things with his mind, shrugging off a near-infinite number of bomb blasts and bullets. He'll feel that lack of Impervious if he ever gets into a serious fight with another superhuman; i.e, someone with energy powers, but hey if worst comes to worst and he is dismantled he can always just put himself back together over a period of some days. He's still a mortal man in some ways, and his energy body does have some of the limitations of the human form. He can take tanks apart mentally and put them back together without blinking, look into the future (at least, when the GM wants him to), and he can reliably go to Mars, bring a friend, build a house there, and then decide to go visit other star systems if the mood strikes him. He could use more super-senses when and if you get the time, but that's probably something to buy up with PP.

With his high Luck, he can stunt anything he doesn't have until he can afford it with earned PP. He's an OK scientist, but especially early on the character never seemed earth-shakingly brilliant to me: he's certainly outsmarted by the book's real villain at its climax: Alan Moore's deflated sense of self-worth in the 1980s. Wait, what? Anyway, he'd work fine as a transformed PC; in some ways he's not that different from Dark Star or Supercape. I'd avoid the nakedness, though, as we're not a fan of Stripperiffic fashion choices even on the dudes, and the general alienation from humanity is pretty trite at this point.

Avenger Assembled · September 20, 2011

Combat Illusionist

â€œYou're in the Army now.â€

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: 24 pp

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

DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed)

Init: +2

Grapple: +12

Saves: 15 pp

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

FORT +7 (+5 Con, +2)

REF +7 (+2 Dex, +5)

WILL +10 (+2 Wis, +8)

Skills: 14 pp=56 pp

Bluff 14 (+15)

Drive 3 (+5)

Languages 4 (Arabic, Pashtun, Spanish, Vietnamese) (Base: English)

Notice 8 (+10)

Pilot 3 (+5)

Sense Motive 13 (+15)

Stealth 8 (+10)

Survival 3 (+5)

Feats: 16 pp

Attack Focus: Melee 3

Attack Specialization: Unarmed 3,

Dodge Focus 6,

Evasion

Second Chance (Illusion checks)

Ultimate Save (Will)

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 53 pp

Illusion Array [44+2=46 pp]

Illusion 10 (all senses) (Extra: Selective, Flaw: Phantasm, PFs: Progression 4 (100x100 ft area)

AP: Concealment 10 (all senses) (Extras: Affects Others, Area [shapeable], Selective; Flaw: Phantasm) (PFs: Progession on Area 3 [10 50 ft cubes], Selective)

AP: Mental Blast 10 (PFs: Incurable, Reversible, Sedation, Stunning Attack)

Protection 3 [3 pp]

Super-Senses 4 (Vision [Counters Concealment and Illusion]) [4 pp]

costs

abilities 30 + combat 24 + saves 15 + skills 14/56 + feats 14 + powers 53 = 150 pts

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

Design Notes:

Here's a character inspired by a picture. In my mind, this character is a reluctant hero of the 1960s and 1970s [a Bronze Age attempt to attract 'hippie' readers to the world of superhero comics], a campus radical with illusion powers (perhaps gained through a youthful brush with drugs!) who chose military service over going to jail in the wake of a protest gone wrong. He found discipline and order in the service while not abandoning his ideals about fighting for a better world, and became one of the most valuable assets possessed by the United States Army: an illusionist with tremendous psychic abilities. He stayed in the service after Vietnam, serving in places like Grenada and Afghanistan, before retiring and going into business for himself as an independent super-agent. His crazy uniform is technically regulation; the idea is that he draws attention to himself while the small unit he's part of does their covert work while the guards are distracted by the laughing phantom in the day-glo purple uniform.

He can also make his whole unit (and everyone around them) invisible, as well as punish individual bad guys with direct psychic attacks. Thanks to his military service, he's much buffer and more physically adept than your average psychic, though he's by no means great in hand-to-hand combat compared to actual PL 10 martial artists: he can handle himself just fine against PL 3 soldiers and such, though. He could definitely use some more combat feats like Power Attack and Takedown Attack as you accumulate more PP; right now he's pretty dependent on turning his enemies against each other (via an Illusion vs. Sense Motive check) or coming at them under cover of Concealment or Illusion. (It's been the subject of some debate whether or not Illusion can be used to provide Concealment; I've split the difference and allowed the character to do both, though not simultaneously) He works just fine as either a Bronze Age veteran or a newly active character.

Maybe he decided to quit the service and become an independent hero, or maybe he's bored with his Army work and gets into superheroic shenanigans while he's home between deployments. He can make pretty big illusions; in particular, big enough ones that even if someone drops Area damage in the middle (like a missile or grenade) he has a decent chance of being somewhere where he won't take as much damage. Normally I hesitate to give Counter Concealment as a power, since it's such a big problem for the Concealment power (that a 2 PP power can get around a potentially 20 PP one without a roll), but I think it fits the concept of a character with enhanced perception and perception-influencing powers; presumably he's run into his share of enemy illusionists over the years and has learned how to counter them. He has the skills you would expect an Army grunt to have; his +6 ranged attack may seem low for a soldier, but that's still higher than the corebook soldier NPC. (Why doesn't an army-influenced hero have a gun? Well, maybe they give guns to the people who can't blow up brains on command!)

Avenger Assembled · September 22, 2011

Patriotic Vampire

â€œWhat would you do for your country?â€

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 28 pp

STR 26 (+8)

DEX 18 (+4)

CON n/a

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 20 (+5)

Combat: 24 pp

ATK: +6 (+8 melee, +10 Shield)

DEF: +12 (+4 Dodge, +2 Shield, +3 flat-footed)

Init: +4

Grapple: +16

Saves: 8 pp

TOU +8 (+8 Protection)

FORT n/a

REF +7 (+4 Dex, +3)

WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5)

Skills: 13 pp=52 r

Bluff 6 (+11/+15)

Diplomacy 6 (+11/+15)

Intimidate 10 (+15)

Knowledge: Arcane Lore 5 (+5)

Knowledge: History 5 (+5)

Languages 1 (English) (Base: Russian)

Notice 3 (+5)

Sense Motive 3 (+5)

Stealth 11 (+15)

Feats: 17 pp

Attack Focus: Melee (2)

Attack Specialization: Shield

Attractive

Dodge Focus (4)

Evasion

Inspire 5

Power Attack

Takedown Attack

Uncanny Dodge: Auditory

Powers: 64 pp

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

Shield 2 [2]

Strike 2 (PF: Mighty) [3]

Flight 1 (10 MPH) [2 pp]

Immunity 30 (Fortitude Saves) [30 pp]

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

Protection 8 [8 pp]

Regeneration 8 (Recovery Bonus +0, Resurrection â…• hours) (Flaw: Source [blood]) [4 pp]

Super-Senses 2 (Darkvision) [2 pp]

Vampire Array 5 (10pp; PFs: Alternate Power x2; Drawback: Not in Daylight) [11 pp]

BE: Damage 0 (Extras: Alternate Save [Fort] 8, Vampiric 8; Flaw: Requires Grapple; PFs: Insidious, Subtle)

AP: Insubstantial 2 (mist)

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

Drawbacks: -6 pp

Weakness (dazed by holy symbols; Charisma check required) (-3 pp)

Vulnerability (vs. holy) *(uncommon, major) (-3 pp)

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

Design Notes:

Revised and redone, here's the Patriotic Vampire build. He's an inspiring leader and heroic commander, a hero wielding a mighty shield that he can smack people with or stop bullets with. (Can't throw it, though, court order!) He's stronger than any man, fast, and with his enhanced physiology he's nigh-bulletproof. In my mind, he's a former hero of a Soviet bloc country, perhaps a nation like Romania who had reason to not look too closely at their native supers: for the very simple reason that this heroic patriot is also a bloodsucking fiend! His vampiric abilities are certainly one heck of a surprise for people expecting a patriotic hero to be all about the jumping and leaping! He can stand the daylight, being from original Balkan stock, but has a serious problem with holy items as well as the usual array of vampiric weaknesses that aren't about going up like a Roman candle in the day.

Yeah, so he's a combination Communist superhero and vampire: he is basically a lot of my personal strange attractors right there. Was he a private soldier transformed by a vampire who his superiors opted to keep alive for publicity purposes? Or was he a volunteer who learned too late what his superiors were willing to do to him in the name of having a super, any super, in his native country? Note that he's almost certainly not working for his previous employers: in my mind, he realized his masters planned to transform themselves into vampires and rule the motherland forever! He assisted in their overthrow and fled the country, vowing to battle his own predatory urges by making sure everyone else was free from the kind of tyranny that had taken his mortal life from him.

He's not really outstanding at anything right now. His best combat option is to catch foes flat-footed with Stealth and Power Attack, or try and feint them with his high Bluff. (This works especially well with people attracted to him). Buy some Startle if you want to play up his Intimidate. He's likely to be the subject of some scorn by evil vampires, who see him as throwing away his birthright in defense of a nation or a heroic ideal rather than hunting for food as he ought to be doing. This is all the more if he IS still working for the government, maybe if you don't like the Soviet stylings and make him a patriotic hero who fights for the RED, white, and blue...

Avenger Assembled · September 23, 2011

Agent Ape

"Shaken, not stirred!"

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 48 pp

STR 30 [22] (+10/+6)

DEX 16 (+3)

CON 24 [20] (+7/+5)

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 20 (+5)

CHA 20 (+5)

Combat: 24 pp

ATK: +6 (+5 w/Growth, +8 Melee, +10 Unarmed)

DEF: +6 (+5 w/Growth, +10)

Init: +3

Grapple: +22

Saves: 6 pp

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

FORT +7 (+7 Con)

REF +7 (+3 Dex, +4)

WILL +7 (+5 Wis, +2)

Skills: 80 r=20 pp

Bluff 10 (+15)

Climb 9 (+15)

Drive 2 (+5)

Diplomacy 5 (+10)

Disable Device 15 (+15)

Disguise 0 (+5/+20)

Gather Information 5 (+10)

Handle Animal 5 (+10)

Intimidate 9 (+14/+15)

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

Notice 5 (+10)

Pilot 2 (+5)

Sense Motive 5 (+10)

Stealth 6 (+9/+5)

Feats: 17 pp

Attack Focus: Melee 3

Attack Specialization: Unarmed

Benefit (Security Clearance)

Dodge Focus 5

Evasion

Startle

Power Attack

Takedown Attack

Taunt

Uncanny Dodge (olfactory)

Well-Informed

Powers: 35 pp

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

Comprehend 2 (speak to and understand simians) [2 pp]

Device 1 (Holo-Watch) (Hard to Lose) [4 pp]

-Morph 3 (Agent Ape) (PFs: Covers Scent, Precise) [5]

Enhanced Feat 1 (Animal Empathy) [1 pp]

Growth 4 (Extra: Duration (Permanent) [+0]; PF: Innate) [13 pp]

Leaping 1 (x2) [1 pp]

Protection 3 [3 pp]

Super-Movement 1 (Swinging) [2 pp]

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

Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp]

costs

abilities 48 + combat 24 + saves 6 + skills 20/80 + feats 17 + powers 35 = 150 pts

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

Design Notes:

He used to be one of the world's top agents, a dashing rogue with a girl in every port and a list of commendations a mile long. He'd come through everything and thought he was completely untouchable, blowing up mad scientists' lairs, wooing their seductive female underlings, and escaping via tricked-out sports car as the credits rolled. Until the day he picked a fight with the wrong mad scientist; one who captured the agent and subjected him to a terrible experiment that transposed his bio-electric consciousness from his own handsome human form to a mighty mountain gorilla! But the agent proved to be made of sterner stuff than his nemesis realized, and with his intellect intact he made his escape from the animal's cage and defeated the monster who'd transformed him. Now he's back at work for his old agency, this time wearing a holographic disguise to fool onlookers, working with supers rather than the old run of crooks: now that he's a super, he can tackle super problems!. He'd like to get his old body back, assuming it's still cryonically on ice somewhere: the ladies are mostly out of the question these days. Though at least he can put away a lot of martinis.

Yes, it's James Kong, Gorilla Agent! He's a badass secret agent with the skills to pay the bills, easily capable of talking his way out of a jam, taunting his enemies into doing something stupid, and making an escape with a lady friend in tow: it's just that he's also a mighty gorilla as well! He can Startle and Taunt to catch enemies flat-footed, or swing down and grapple goons in his mighty paws by coming up at them along the ceiling. He's not a tech genius, but +15 Disable Device will let him pick locks and the like, as well as disable the giant doomsday device the local supervillain has running. His Morph will make him very difficult to detect as unusual to any but the most sharp-eyed heroes and villains: his size and the anatomical differences between gorilla and man does mean that anyone who gets too close to him for too long is going to notice some distinctly odd things. He's got enough Diplomacy to get some decent aid from his agency through his Security Clearance, but of course a hero should be fighting on his own.

Of course, maybe he's not a transformed human: maybe the agency hired a talking gorilla they rescued from a supervillain's lair, or maybe he's an elite operative from Gorilla Island sent to work with human heroes by a government looking to make diplomatic arrangements with people for the first time. Alternatively, perhaps he's an agent of APEGIS, a super-spy from Earth-Ape, and he's come to our dimension as an agent and observer from his home world. You could take him a lot of directions; more equipment and devices could let you get some cool spy gadgets, maybe even a tricked-out sports car. As it is, I've assumed that they haven't finished giving him those bucket seats in his sports car yet, or putting the pedals up high for a gorilla's posture...

Avenger Assembled · September 23, 2011

Mystery Man

"I know."

Abilities: 46 pp

STR 20 (+5)

DEX 18 (+4)

CON 20 (+5)

INT 16 (+3)

WIS 16 (+3)

CHA 16 (+3)

Combat: 32 pp

ATK: +8 (+13 Melee)

DEF: +13 (+4 flat-footed)

Init: +4

Grapple: +18

Saves: 9 pp

TOU +7 (+5 Con, +2 Protection)

FORT +7 (+5 Con, +2)

REF +7 (+4 Dex, +3)

WILL +8 (+3 Wis, +4)

Skills: 88 r=22 pp

Bluff 7 (+10)

Climb 1 (+6)

Concentration 4 (+7)

Drive 1 (+5)

Gather Information 12 (+15)

Intimidate 12 (+15)*

Knowledge (Streetwise) 12 (+15)

Language 1 (Chinese) (Base: English)

Medicine 5 (+8/+10)

Notice 12 (+15)*

Sense Motive 12 (+15)*

Stealth 11 (+15)*

Feats: 24 pp

Attack Focus: Melee 5

Challenge (Fast Startle)

Dodge Focus 5

Equipment 5

Hide in Plain Sight

Move-By Action

Power Attack

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

Startle

Takedown Attack

Well-Informed

Powers: 17 pp

Concealment 10 (all senses) (Flaw: Phantasm) [10 pp]

Device 1 (Costume) (Hard to Lose) [4 pp]

-Protection 2 [2]

-Strike 2 (PF: Mighty) [3]

Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp]

Super-Senses 2 (Darkvision) [2 pp]

Equipment: 25 ep

Grapple Gun: Speed 1 (10 MPH) and Super-Movement 4 (Slow Fall, Swinging, Wall-Crawling 2) [9 ep]

Masterwork Medical Kit (+2 to Medicine checks) [1 ep]

Stately Manor: [15 ep]

Size: Large, Toughness: 15, Features: Communications, Computers, Concealed 2, Defence System (Damage 10 [mechanical dinosaur]), Fire Prevention System, Infirmary, Isolated, Library, Living Space, Security System 2 (DC 30), Workshop

costs

abilities 46 + combat 32 + saves 9 + skills 22/88 + feats 24 + powers 17 = 150 pts

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

Design Notes:

Here's a Golden Age mystery man, modeled after the Masked Adventurer in the Golden Age book with a dash of the Lamont Cranston Shadow. He's a Badass Abnormal with psychic powers of invisibility, no doubt having gleaned those powers from time spent living in the exotic and mysterious East. He disdains the twin .45s of his more brutal contemporaries, instead preferring to use his martial arts training from the Far East to lay down the hurt on bad guys. His trademark costume helps protect him from harm; I figure he's got brass knuckles in the gloves that let him punch hard enough to really hurt. He's still a respectable PL 9 without his costume, though, enough that he can mix it up as a gentleman adventurer before he puts on the hat and scarf and becomes the mask. He gets around via a kick-ass grapple gun that lets him do everything comic book grapple guns do, and he's a really good detective with a matchless knowledge of the city. There's really no one near his PL who he should have trouble sneaking up on and laying out with a massive Power Attack.

He's also got a stately manor (and underground cave system) to call home, a swanky pad that's got all the gadgets an enterprising crime fighter could possibly need. One thing he does lack is a cool ride; maybe what you need is to accumulate some earned PP and buy up his ranks of Equipment, justifying a cool car or even an autogyro. He also doesn't have Wealth; maybe all his money goes into keeping his place up? His Concealment is a very powerful ability, especially in the Golden Age when there are precious few automatic security cameras in place. (In fact, I would probably not make Phantasm a flaw in a Golden Age setting at all...) Use it to stunt various things like auditory Mind Control, or even Mind Reading, depending on exactly what mystic arts he learned in the Mysteeeerious East. Maybe he's active as a superhero on the West Coast, or even in the Pacific, helping his Chinese friends throw off the Japanese occupier!

You could mostly port this character to the Modern Era without any problems; a low-level psychic/mystic adventurer is a perfectly fine concept. While training in the Far East is a little controversial for a white character ("What, the one white guy was better than all the Asian guys?"), who's to say there isn't a whole order of Asian monks with similar powers in Tibet? He could be a time traveler easily enough, or perhaps someone who was put into cryogenic suspension "until the world needed him" again. Or maybe he actually is Asian, perhaps the descendant of a Golden Age hero's butler who has inherited the family psychic tradition, and not a square-jawed WASP at all.

Avenger Assembled · September 23, 2011

Paragon with a Power Ring

Abilities: 22 pp

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

DEX 10 (+0)

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

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 14 (+2)

Combat: 24 pp

ATK: +6 (+10 Cosmic Energy/Unarmed)

DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed)

Init: +0, +12 w/ring

Grapple: +19/+20

Saves: 10 pp

TOU +10 (+10 Con)

FORT +10 (+10 Con)

REF +5 (+0 Dex, +5)

WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5)

Skills: 32 r=8 pp

Diplomacy 8 (+10)

Intimidate 8 (+10)

Notice 8 (+10)

Sense Motive 8 (+10)

Feats: 10 pp

Attack Specialization: Unarmed 2

Dodge Focus 4

Power Attack

Quick Change

Takedown Attack

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 78 pp

Device 6 (Power Ring) (Hard to Lose) [24 pp]

Cosmic Array [12+2=14]

Blast 10 (Flaw: Unreliable [5 uses daily], PFs: Accurate 2)

AP: Create Object 6 (Extra: Moveable; Flaw: Unreliable [5 uses daily])

AP: Move Object 10 (Flaw: Unreliable [5 uses daily], PFs: Accurate 2)

Enhanced Feats 3 (Improved Initiative 3) [3]

Feature 1 (Directed Inspiration) [1]

Flight 3 (50 MPH) [6]

Immunity 1 (Suffocation [total]) [1]

Impervious TOU 8 (Flaw: Vs. Energy Only) [4]

Space Flight 1 (1c) [1]

Enhanced CON 14 [14 pp]

Enhanced STR 14 [14 pp]

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

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

Impervious TOU 8 (Flaw: Vs. Physical Damage Only) [4 pp]

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

AP: Speed 5 (250 MPH)

Super-Strength 3 (Heavy Load: ~12 tons) [6 pp]

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

Design Notes:

The young farmboy had known for years he was different than the other kids; able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, run faster than a speeding bullet, and even (when he really put his back into it) lift a mighty locomotive up over his head! It wasn't until he was a young man and his adoptive parents showed him the rocketship on which he had crashed to Earth that he realized just how different he was: he was an alien from another planet! (At least by birth; in his heart he was always 100% human). He studied the recording left behind by his biological parents, and when it was done they showed him where to find, hidden in the rocket, a cosmic artifact of great power that would help him survive on his new world. Taking his own native powers and the ring's formidable augmentation to his might, the young man decided to use his fantastic abilities to fight for truth, justice, and the heroic way!

So yeah, it's Action Comics #1 Superman with a power ring. (The build is based on The Last Son of Earth, a DC Elseworlds where a human Clark Kent is shot to Krypton by the Kents where he eventually finds a power ring, alongside much else!) On his own he's a perfectly capable PL 10 powerhouse, if not quite as puissantly mighty as his more powerful fellows. He's fast, strong, bulletproof, and every inch a powerful hero. He's even better with the ring, though, flying around and even into deep space, now able to stand up to death rays with as much gusto as he weathered bullets to the chest without the ring. The ring makes him faster and more capable in other areas, including letting consult the stored memory patterns of his biological parents for advice. (This would be a more valuable Feature, but given the differences between human culture and the world that spawned him, sometimes all they can really offer are some words of encouragement.) Note that his ring can easily run out of power if misused, so he has to be very thoughtful about when to go in for blasting and when to go in and slug it out with bad guys in hand-to-hand.

Power rings are famous for their weird weaknesses, don't be afraid to assign one (A power loss vs. wood, say, or a color) as a way of picking up points; you could give him a weakness to glowing meteors if you wanted to reflect his alien heritage. Heck, maybe wearing his power ring is what lets him carry around those glowing green space rocks without feeling any negative effects from them. Buying up more points in the ring is a good idea; it would be nice if he could fly faster than he could run. One way to get that at character creation would be to drop the Cosmic Array and use it to jack up his Flight and other ring powers; perhaps that's from a story where the young man was taken into the future by a group of fanboys from the 2500s, and he was clever enough to take one of their flight rings back with him to get a chance to be a much more effective hero in his own era. Or, maybe (instead of the cosmic stylings here) this is actually a hero whose native powers come from an infusion of divine power, one who took the ring from his dead mentor's hand (at his dying request!) when a falling stone kept him from empowering the paragon with what should have been his full might.

Avenger Assembled · September 23, 2011

Vampire Paragon

â€œA strange visitor from the planet Transylvania!â€

Abilities: -4 pp

STR: 30/10 (+10/+0)

DEX: 14 (+2)

CON â€“ â€“

INT: 10 (+0)

WIS: 10 (+0)

CHA: 12 (+1)

Saves: 11 pp

TOU: +10 (+10 Protection)

FORT: â€“

REF: +6 (+2 Dex, +4)

WILL: +7 (+0 Wis, +7)

Combat: 24 pp

ATK: +6 (+10 Unarmed)

DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed)

Init: +10

Grapple: +16/+21

Skills: 15 pp=60 r

Bluff 10 (+11/+15)

Diplomacy 10 (+11/+15)

Intimidate 11 (+12)

Knowledge: Arcane Lore 5 (+5)

Knowledge: Pop Culture 5 (+5)

Language 1 (Romanian) (Base: English)

Notice 5 (+5)

Sense Motive 5 (+5)

Stealth 8 (+10)

Feats: 21 pp

All-Out Attack

Attack Specialization: Unarmed 2

Attractive

Dodge Focus 4

Equipment 2

Fascinate (Bluff)

Fearless

Improved Initiative 2

Interpose

Move-By Action

Power Attack

Startle

Takedown Attack

Taunt

Uncanny Dodge (olfactory)

Powers: 92 pp

Concealment 4 (all visual) (Extra: Permanent; Flaw: Vs. Machines Only) [4 pp]

Drain Constitution 1 [1 pp]

Enhanced STR 20 [20 pp]

Flight 5 (250 MPH) [Dynamic] [10+1+2=13-1=12 pp] [Drawback]

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

Immunity 30 (Fortitude Saves) [30 pp]

Impervious TOU 10 (Flaw: Limited (not vs. Holy/Fire/Wood) [5 pp]

Protection 10 [10 pp]

Regeneration 6 (Recovery Bonus +0, Resurrection 1/week) (PF: Regrowth; Flaw: Source [blood]) [4 pp]

Super-Senses 6 (Acute Extended Tracking [one-quarter speed] Scent, Extended Darkvision) [6 pp]

Drawbacks: -10 pp

Vulnerable (Holy) (uncommon, major) (-3 pp)

Weakness (Dazed by Holy Objects via Charisma check) (-3 pp)

Weakness (Direct Sunlight; Uncommon, Major [-1 all physical ability scores], per 10 minutes; -4pp)

Equipment: 10 ep

Headquarters

Solitary Crypt

Size: Small; Toughness: 15; Features: Communications, Computer, Concealed 2, Fire Prevention System, Living Space, Power System, Security System.

Totals: Abilities -4 + Skills 15/60 + Feats 21 + Powers 92 + Combat 24 + Saves 11 -Drawbacks 10= Total 150

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

Design Notes:

She's a beautiful Flying Brick, bulletproof and super-strong, easily capable of keeping pace with an airplane, with enhanced senses that let her track opponents all the way across the city: she's so fast that no clear pictures of her have ever been taken, thus furthering her mythos and letting her stay the mysterious avenger of justice she wants to be, known the most for the flapping of her magnificent leather wings. Though her methods are occasionally brutal, she never quite crosses the hero's line, and so is a respected member of the local heroic community, albeit one with a dark secret. She was just another American college student studying abroad in Eastern Europe when an attack by a particularly physical, brutal species of vampire took her life and transformed her into an unholy bloodsucker. She escaped her dark master and fled back to the States, where she took stock of herself and her new abilities and decided to shield herself from her darker impulses by becoming a superhero!

Though she's still very beautiful and very good with people, this take on the vampire mythos is much more physical, in the vein of the vampires we encounter in the Van Helsing movie: she flies around, pummeling her enemies with massive blows, taking tremendous hits and dishing them out in return. I figure she's modified an abandoned mausoleum in her home neighborhood to use as her stronghold, a fortress of dark solitude with lots of Gothic-looking statues and weeping angels. While this could be a very dark character, I think she works best as a Perky Goth-type, someone aware of her dark nature but one who is channeling it towards being a better person and making a better world for everyone else. She actually can stand sunlight for a while, but given that it will eventually paralyze her and its merest touch renders her unable to fly and weak (comparatively) as a kitten, she's better off avoiding the daylight for as long as possible.

Note that she doesn't have the Restrainable drawback on her leather wings, since she can retract those as necessary to get them out of binds. She's probably best off finding a way to disguise her wings as a really dramatic-looking cape rather than broadcasting anything particularly bizarre about herself. Odds are pretty good she'll be fighting her own kind in pretty short order, given that her fellow vampires may object to her choosing to 'switch sides'; perhaps her dark master will recognize stories about her and go to Freedom City to track her down. In my mind, I think she works the best as the paragon of a really bad area; a Fens or a Gotham (pace MDSnowman's Batgirl build): a cheerful Supergirl or brawling Power Girl (particularly the latter), who just happens to have a particularly formidable reason for her inner rage...

Avenger Assembled · September 25, 2011

Psionic Vampire

â€œI see dead people.â€ -The Sixth Sense

Abilities: 0 pp

STR 24 [10] (+7/+0)

DEX 20 [10] (+5/+0)

CON -

INT 12 (+1)

WIS 12 (+1)

CHA 16 (+3)

Combat: 16 pp

ATK: +4 (+7 melee/+10 psychic powers)

DEF: +7 (+3 Dodge, +2 flat-footed)

Grapple: +14/+20

Init: +5

Saving Throws: 6 pp

TOU: +13 (+7 Protection, +6 Force Field)

FORT: -

REF: +5 (+5 Dex)

WILL: +7 (+1 Wis, +6)

Skills: 32 r=8 pp

Bluff 7 (+10)

Concentration 4 (+5)

Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 4 (+5)

Knowledge (History) 4 (+5)

Notice 4 (+5)

Sense Motive 4 (+5)

Stealth 5 (+10)

Feats: 8 pp

Attack Focus: Melee 3

Dodge Focus 3

Fascinate (Bluff)

Second Chance (Concentration checks to maintain powers)

Powers: 115 pp

Psionic Powers Container 9 (Extra: Duration [sustained]) [45 pp]

Enhanced Feat 1 (Ultimate Save [Will]) [1]

Flight 2 (25 MPH) (PF: Move-By Action) [5]

Force Field 6 (Extra: Impervious 4) [10]

Psionic Array [23+6=29]

Concealment 10 (all senses) (Extra: Affects Others; Flaw: Phantasm; PFs: Progression 2 [5], Selective) 'psychic invisibility'

AP: Damage 10 (Extra Ranged; PFs: Accurate 3) 'TK blast'

AP: Emotion Control 10 (PFs: Insidious, Selective, Subtle)

AP: ESP 6 (visual and auditory senses) (PFs: Rapid 4 [x1000], Subtle)

AP: Mind Reading 10 (Extras: Area [burst], Selective; Flaw: Duration [instant/Lasting]) (PFs: Insidious, Rapid, Subtle)

AP: Mind Control 10 (PFs: Insidious, Mental Link, Subtle)

AP: Move Object 10 (Heavy Load: 12 tons) (PFs: Accurate 3)

Vampiric Physiology Container 14 (Extra: Duration [Permanent]) [70 pp]

Drain Con 2 (Flaw: Requires Grapple) [1]

Enhanced DEX 10 [10]

Enhanced STR 14 [14]

Immunity 30 (Fortitude saves) [30]

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

Protection 7 [7]

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

Super-Senses 2 (Darkvision) [2]

Drawbacks: -3 pp

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

Abilities 0 + Skills 8 + Feats 8 + Powers 115 + Combat 16 + Saves 6 -Drawbacks 3= Total 150

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

Design Notes:

Once there was a super-team, a gritty street-level group of outsiders who handled the crimes the law couldnâ€™t touch and the supervillains who slipped below the radar of the big superteams. Finally, a few years ago, they fought their last great battle against a powerful vampire who was in the process of building an army of vampire slaves in their home city. They died in that fight, destroying the vampire lord at the cost of their own lives. But there was one survivor of that battle all the same, the team psychic who recovered from multiple vampire bites thanks to her innate strength of will: she was, however, much changed. Yes, hereâ€™s a build for a psychic vampire, modeled on DCâ€™s Looker. (Hence the picture). The combination of psychic powers and vampiric physiology makes her extremely dangerous: sheâ€™s fast, sheâ€™s strong, and sheâ€™s also extremely good at using her powers to fool and manipulate people. She can fly around invisibly, blast people with Telekinesis or throw them around, read the minds of her opponents [using Shaenâ€™s Mind Reading structure], and mentally scan an entire area. She can take much more punishment than most vampires with her Force Field up, and between that and her undead nature she can take much more punishment than your typical frail comic book psychic. She doesnâ€™t have particularly high skills or saves for a psychic, but then again she has her own ways of dealing with people fighting her â€œon her own level.â€

Without her psychic powers, sheâ€™s a nice normal PL 7 vampire. Without her vampiric physiology, sheâ€™s a nice straightforward PL 7 psychic. (Note that if you recast her psychic abilities as perception range and assume a former Con of 12 (+1), she functions just fine as a PL 7 psychic if you want to do any flashbacks). Note that I did not give her a sunlight-related drawback. While that makes sense for device-based vampires, I think it works less for people who are using their own abilities to protect themselves against sunlight. Borrowing a concept from the Looker writeup, my general take is that she uses a invisible telekinetic force field, one thatâ€™s active even when sheâ€™s not paying attention, to screen herself from the sunâ€™s rays. That way, if you do want to hit her with a psychic nullifier while sheâ€™s walking around at high noon and she has to duck into shadows to avoid being incinerated, she gets an HP for it, an HP she would probably really like to have at that juncture!

She could use more vampiric weaknesses if you want to go for more points, as it is her force field and other psychic powers help shield her from the worst effects of things like holy weapons and fire, though being confronted with actual symbols of the divine is still a serious threat to her undead nature. If you donâ€™t like the â€˜transformed superheroâ€™ angle, this could just as easily be a vampire who has cultivated the psychic abilities of some of her kind at the expense of the more overtly physical stuff. Perhaps it was learning to read minds reliably that reawakened her humanity, teaching her that her prey had thoughts and feelings just as she did, and that the inner nature of her fellow predators was too inhumane to bear on closer inspection. Obviously, if used as a bad guy, this character would be an extremely serious threat, capable of manipulating large numbers of people in order to feed on their delicious blood!

Avenger Assembled · September 25, 2011

Street God

â€œSweet Wodenstag!â€

Abilities: 42 pp

STR 24 (+7)

DEX 16 (+3)

CON 30 [24] (+10/+7)

INT 12 (+1)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 18 [12] (+4/+1)

Combat: 24 pp

ATK: +6 (+7 melee/+10 Blast)

DEF: +7 (+3 flat-footed)

Init: +3

Grapple: +17

Saves: 8 pp

TOU +13 (+7 Con, +3 Enhanced Con, +3 Protection)

FORT +10/+7 (+7 Con, +3 Enhanced Con)

REF +7 (+3 Dex, +4)

WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4)

Skills: 40 r=10 pp

Bluff 4 (+5/+8)

Intimidate 9 (+10/+13)

Knowledge: Streetwise 4 (+5)

Notice 8 (+10)

Sense Motive 8 (+10)

Stealth 7 (+10)

Feats: 9 pp

Attack Focus: Melee

Challenge (Fast Startle)

Dodge Focus

Evasion

Move-By Action

Power Attack

Startle

Takedown Attack

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 59 pp

Device 11 (Divine Hammer) (Hard to Lose) (PF: Restricted [Worthy]) [45 pp]

-Divine Array [22+2=24 pp]

-Blast 10 (PFs: Accurate 2) 'thrown hammer

-AP: Damage 5 (PFs: Improved Crit 2, Knockback 4 (DMG 17), Mighty) and Flight 5 (250 MPH)

-AP: Damage 10 (Extras: Selective, Targeted Area [shapeable]; PFs: Indirect 2) 'lightning bolts'

-Enhanced Constitution 6 (to 30 [+10]) [6 pp]

-Enhanced Feats 5 (Fearless, Interpose, Master Plan 2, Ultimate Save [Toughness]) [5 pp]

-Enhanced Skills 16 (Knowledge [History] 4 (+5), Knowledge [Tactics] 4 (+5), Knowledge [Theology and Philosophy] 4 (+5), Languages 4 [Danish, Old Norse, Norwegian, Swedish]) [4 pp]

-Enhanced Charisma 6 (to 18 [+4]) [6 pp]

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

-Protection 3 (Extra: Impervious 4) [7 pp]

Impervious TOU 6 [6 pp]

Leaping 1 (x2) [1 pp]

Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp]

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

costs

abilities 42 + combat 24 + saves 8 + skills 10/40 + feats 9 + powers 59 = 150 pts

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

Design Notes:

So there you were, a tough, streetwise defender of the common man. While there were plenty of stronger, tougher guys out there, you were the toughest guy on your block: no-selling assault rifles thanks to your iron-tough skin, leaping over cars and running as fast as a motorcycle on your city streets, and fighting well enough to hold your own against lots of common thugs and street-level bad guys alike. Your already-crazy life took a turn for the wild, though, the night you followed a falling star and found a giant hammer sticking out of the ground. When you reached down to pick it up, suddenly you were infused with the mighty power of the ancient gods! Now you defend your people with supernatural strength and power, your command of thunder and lightning, mighty hammer blows, and bulletproof skin making you even more formidable than you once were. But now that youâ€™ve chosen to step up and be something more than the baddest man on the block, youâ€™ve got responsibilities you never could have imagined before.

OK, so itâ€™s Luke Cage as the Mighty Thor! (In Freedom City, youâ€™re probably better off picking a different pantheon, given the association between Nazis and the Asgardians; the Egyptian pantheon or the voudon makes a lot of sense given the way magic in the setting works. OTOH, that same association with the Asgardians make a black man wielding the power of the Norse gods all the more awesome!) Heâ€™s a balanced PL 7 without the hammer, the sort of man who could be the deadliest man alive in a world of thugs and machine guns: with it heâ€™s a powerful PL 10, throwing his hammer hard enough to blast through walls, summoning the lightning to smite his enemies, or just engaging people in melee with gigantic blows that could knock them across the city! The hammer makes him tougher and more imposing, but it also makes him smarter, infusing him with some of the memories of the hammerâ€™s wielder, giving him visions of a divine world beyond this one, as well as showing him ancient battles that make him a smarter fighter.

This would work just fine as a heroic PC here once you figure out what pantheon has empowered him, or maybe as a street-level enemy jacked up on divine power and thus a serious threat to the PL 7 PCs that used to be his major opponents. His divine abilities are pretty generic as written; you can pump them up easily enough with earned PP, it all depends on what sort of divine being you decide he is representing. As it is, his hammer is a hard to lose device: if you made it easy to lose, meaning he could have it wrenched out of his hand and lose its abilities, you could get a lot of points back to improve his native abilities or make the hammer itself more awesome. I didnâ€™t give him a normal ID drawback since heâ€™s got powers in his normal form, but if you make him, say, an iron-fisted martial artist, maybe you could make him just a normal guy (if a badass one) in his natural identity. On the other side of things, if you want to improve his natural abilities at the expense of the hammer, you could easily make this a more super man with a hammer...

Avenger Assembled · September 25, 2011

Teen Vampire

"Let's go eat some people!" -Twilight, Howitshouldhaveended.com

PL: 7 (105)

Abilities: 20 pp

STR 22 (+6)

DEX 20 (+5)

CON n/a

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 14 (+2)

Combat: 16 pp

ATK: +4 (+8 melee)

DEF: +8 (+2 flat-footed)

Init: +5

Grapple: +14

Saves: 7 pp

TOU +6 (+6 Protection)

FORT n/a

REF +7 (+5 Dex, +2)

WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5)

Skills: 36 r=9 pp

Bluff 9 (+11/+15)

Concentration 3 (+5)

Diplomacy 9 (+11/+15)

Intimidate 3 (+5)

Language 1 (Spanish) (Base: English)

Notice 3 (+5)

Sense Motive 3 (+5)

Stealth 5 (+10)

Feats: 12 pp

Attack Focus: Melee 4

Attractive

Dodge Focus 4

Fascinate (Bluff)

Takedown Attack

Uncanny Dodge (olfactory)

Powers: 48 pp

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

Flight 1 (10 MPH) (Drawback: Not in Daylight) [1 pp]

Immunity 30 (Fortitude Saves) [30 pp]

Impervious TOU 6 (Flaw: Not Vs. Magic/Silver/Holy; Drawback: Not in Daylight) [2 pp]

Protection 6 [6 pp]

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

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

Drawbacks: -7 pp

Vulnerabilty (vs. holy) (uncommon, moderate) [-2 pp]

Vulnerability (vs. silver) (uncommon, moderate) [-2 pp]

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

costs

abilities 20 + combat 16 + saves 7 + skills 9/36 + feats 12 + powers 48 -drawbacks 7= 105 pts

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

Design Notes:

For my first PL 7 build, here's a hunky teenage vampire ready to woo pretty girls while fighting bad guys with his shirt off. He's strong, he's fast, and he can fly! He's also a really good sneak who can see in the dark and smell you across the school. Yowsa! Note that despite the picture, he's not modeled on Edward Cullen directly: as overpowered as Twilight vamps are, it would be very difficult to wedge them into a PL 7 framework. And anyway, who wants to venerate that stuff? He's significantly weaker in daylight than he is at night, but he's not helpless at high noon by any means either. Confrontation with crosses, holy powers, and silver are really going to mess up his day. At night, though those things are still a threat, he's a bulletproof, he can fly, and he's really in his element.

There's something tragic about a teenage vampire when you think about it, someone who's been transformed into an unaging monster and trapped forever at sixteen. In my mind, this guy got really into vampires online, and actually accepted the offer made by a particularly down-on-her-luck vampire to transform him into a creature of the night in return for certain favors. Or perhaps a vampire with some personal problems dallied at his high school, and he's the result of an incredibly foolish teenage romance. That gives you lots of potential angst to deal with, but I think the character is more fun to play if he's basically confident in himself: perhaps he's building his native abilities so he can use his curse to better himself and others, or maybe he's learning how to be a man before he can learn how to be a vampire. Rocky relations with his vampiric progenitor, who may want him to come back to the fold, are a must.

Season powers and skills to taste as his abilities develop: ever-increasing his Charisma is always a good decision, as is buying up enough points to afford things like Insubstantial 2 and other abilities key to the vampiric condition in the Freedom City verse. (As it is, powers and skills are both pretty generic, as they pretty much have to be at this low level) Another way to free up some points would be to make this a 'living vampire' or dhampir, perhaps someone whose mother was transformed while she was pregnant, or the son of a male vampire and a human woman: if that's the case, switch his Fort Immunity out for Aging and Life Support, and spend 20 pp to buy his Con up to something superhuman. (You can redistribute his Protection and Regeneration some in the aftermath, as needed)

Avenger Assembled · September 25, 2011

Symbiotic Vigilante

â€œItâ€™s good to have friends.

PL: 10 (150)

Abilities: 34 pp

STR 22 (+6)

DEX 14 (+2)

CON 22 (+6)

INT 10 (+0)

WIS 14 (+2)

CHA 12 (+1)

Combat: 24 pp

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

DEF: +8 (+3 flat-footed)

Init: +2

Grapple: +12

Saves: 15 pp

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

FORT +8 (+5 Con, +3)

REF +8 (+2 Dex, +6)

WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6)

Skills: 16 pp=64 pp

Climb 4 (+10)

Disguise 0 (+1/+26)

Drive 2 (+4)

Intimidate 14 (+15)*

Knowledge (Streetwise) 5 (+5)

Knowledge (Tactics) 10 (+10)

Notice 13 (+15)*

Sense Motive 5 (+7)

Stealth 8 (+10)*

Survival 3 (+5)*

Feats: 16 pp

Attack Focus (Ranged) 2

Challenge (Fast Startle)

Defensive Attack

Dodge Focus 2

Evasion

Master Plan 2

Power Attack

Precise Shot 2

Skill Mastery (Intimidate, Notice, Stealth, Survival)

Startle

Takedown Attack

Uncanny Dodge (auditory)

Powers: 45 pp

Flight 2 (25 MPH) [4 pp]

Protection 4 (Extra: Impervious 10) [14 pp]

Symbiote Array [21+3=24 pp]

Blast 10 (PF: Accurate)

AP: Morph 5 (any humanoid) (Extra: Continuous; PF: Precise)

AP: Snare 10 (PF: Accurate)

AP: Strike 4 (Extra: Autofire; PFs: Accurate 2, Extended Reach, Improved Crit 2, Mighty)

Super-Senses 3 (Danger Sense [Mental], Darkvision) [3 pp]

costs

abilities 34 + combat 24 + saves 15 + skills 16/64 + feats 16 + powers 45 = 150 pts

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Design Notes:

Another build based on a Marvel What-If, hereâ€™s my take on a Venom-style symbiote merged with a Gritty Urban Badass like Frank Castle, demonstrating some of the abilities he showed in that comic. Heâ€™s a very effective fighter, able to sweep goons in melee combat or blast them away with weapons forged from alien flesh, heâ€™s very scary, very hard to sneak up on, and heâ€™s got the skills of a trained combat veteran conducting his own private war in the middle of a major city. He can fly on symbiote wings, shrug off automatic weapons fire, and disguise himself to get close to his enemies. He hovers around PL 7 if you take his powers away, just about at the level where a suitably deranged man could seriously do some damage if he loaded up with body armor and assault rifles and began taking out street-level thugs and gangsters. He doesnâ€™t carry that sort of equipment these days, though; he certainly doesnâ€™t need it and anyway it doesnâ€™t fit the tone of our site.

So how do you take this double-Iron Age concept and make it work here? Well, maybe you say this is a shell-shocked combat veteran who found peace after bonding with an alien symbiote recovered from a meteor strike, learning from his newfound partner that there was a way besides murder and killing to fight for a better world. (Before he went out and busted a cap in anyone, obviously). Perhaps heâ€™s divorced rather than a widower, his wife having moved out and taken the kids rather than deal with his psychological issues, but rather than dwelling on his loss heâ€™s moved on and is looking to be a better man; to be the hero his kids used to see him as before he went off to the war. (i.e., what if American Patriot was a superhero instead of a horrible, horrible thing) You should handle issues like PTSD sensitively, of course, and keep it to a minimum given the tone of our site: think Batman, not the entire cast of Funky Winkerbean. He can show bad guys what _real_ monsters are alike, all while keeping his humanity enough not to give into a killer instinct.

You could flesh this build out some (pardon the pun) by giving more stats to the bonded symbiote, probably a Grue or a Grue offshoot given the settingâ€™s local cosmology, perhaps even freeing up some points by making it a hard-to-lose device rather than something permanently bonded to the human being underneath. Enhanced Skills could teach him something about the creatureâ€™s homeworld, while Directed Inspiration or Library as a Feature could give him access to alien records somewhere. If you donâ€™t like the street-level badass stuff, maybe this guy was an astronaut who encountered a creature while on a Mars or lunar mission, and they bonded together to save each otherâ€™s lives. As it is, while the symbiote may be there in the characterâ€™s mind, thereâ€™s only one This build would also make a scary antagonist in a low-level story; perhaps a mobster or merc empowered by an evil alien with grim intentions, or even a friend driven mad by possession, who the heroes have to take down before he can hurt any more innocents.

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