Avenger Assembled

Gravity Controller PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 26 pp STR 30 [14] (+10/+2) DEX 16 (+3) CON 16 (+3) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 16 (+3) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Unarmed) DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +3 Grapple: +8/+20/+24 Saves: 10 pp TOU +8 (+3 Con, +5 Protection) FORT +6 (+3 Con, +3) REF +6 (+3 Ref, +3) WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4) Skills: 48 r=12 pp Bluff 7 (+10) Concentration 8 (+10) Diplomacy 7 (+10) Knowledge: Physical Sciences 10 (+10) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 12 pp Attack Specialization: Unarmed 2 Dodge Focus 6 Improved Initiative Power Attack Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (tactile) Powers: 66 pp Immunity 7 (falling damage, gravitic powers) [7 pp] Impervious TOU 5 [5 pp] Flight 5 (250 MPH) [10 pp] Force Field 5 [5 pp] Gravitic Array [33+2=35 pp] Enhanced STR 16 and Super-Strength 8 (PF: Groundstrike) (Heavy Load: ~360 tons) AP: Move Object 10 (Extras: Damaging, Range [Perception]) (Flaw: Up or Down Only) (PFs: Indirect 2, Subtle) AP: Move Object 10 (Extras: Area [burst], Damaging) (Flaw: Up or Down Only) (PFs: Indirect 2, Subtle) Super-Senses 4 (Analytical Extended Radius Ranged Tactile Sense) [4 pp] costs abilities 26 + combat 24 + saves 10 + skills 12/48 + feats 12 + powers 66 = 150 pts --- Design Notes: This is my build for a gravity controller, somewhat adjusting him from the bog-standard Energy Controller he appears to be in the book. He uses a low-level Force Field and has some minor Impervious, he's primarily a dodge monkey rather than the Toughness-shifted brute that energy controllers often are. He's fragile for someone so strong; after all, his 'strength' is just a product of greatly altering his localized gravity field. He can do the same thing at range, but not with the same kind of brute force that he can by touch. His primary attack is to fly around and punch people, but with his gravity control he can take out whole groups by slamming them to the ground or up against the ceiling, or he can do the same in a focused attack vs. a singular target. A formidable character, though as mentioned above something of a glass cannon on offense vs. defense. His powers allow for some pretty broad stunting; Teleport with the Portal extra to represent making wormholes? His immunity deserves a little explanation: what I'm saying there is that he has an instinctive ability to slow his own falls enough that even when he's unconscious, he takes no damage from hitting the ground: in short, he's not only immune to gravitic powers, he's immune to gravity itself! (Will this cover the effects of being thrown into a black hole? Well, maybe. Hopefully your GM will be lenient about the definition of falling...but OTOH, if he's making you fall into a black hole, he's probably not the lenient type to begin with. Bring a space suit, since you don't have life support!) He's got the Damaging so he can actually hurt people by smashing them to the ground: note that you do actually have to use the extra by the rules, so consider a Move Object (which is what Gravity Control is) without Damaging if you want to make people faceplant without actually breaking their teeth along the way. Throw in some Insubstantial if you want your character to actually be made of gravity, and of course more immunities if you want him to actually be space-worthy. Gravity seems like a narrow descriptor in the book, but you should feel free to use your imagination. Subtle Create Object with the solidified gravity descriptor? Hey, it's comics, you can be pretty rubber science about this stuff. Go gravity!

Seconds later, they emerged into the underground chamber where they'd planned to make their rendezvous: deep underground and within shouting distance of where Supercape had dropped them off, a perfectly placed location to make their final preparations for departure. It was also deep enough, and armored enough, that containing even a hostile Singularity would have been at least theoretically possible. As it was, though, they were alone in a room with tiled walls and shining lights on the ceiling, the hole in the wall left behind them sealing up as Caryatid gestured at it. A few moments later, she took the liberty of getting away from Singularity, adding, "I'm calling Mind-Master on the mental link he gave me. He says he and Talos are in transit; they're avoiding the subsidence that the incident at the school caused."

Golden Hero PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 20 pp STR 30 [16] (+10/+3) DEX 14 (+2) CON 16 (+3) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Melee) DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +7 Grapple: +22 Saves: 13 pp TOU +8 (+3 Con, +5 Protection) FORT +8 (+3 Con, +5) REF +6 (+2 Dex, +4) WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4) Skills: 44 r=11 pp Concentration 10 (+12) Craft: Chemical 5 (+5) Knowledge: Physical Sciences 10 (+10) Language 1 (Greek) (Base: English) Medicine 2 (+4) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 16 pp Attack Focus: Melee 4 Dodge Focus 6 Improved Initiative Power Attack Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 66 pp Alternate Form 7 (Midas) [35 pp] -Enhanced STR 14 [14] -Immunity 4 (own powers, starvation and thirst, suffocation) [4] -Impervious TOU 8 [8] -Protection 5 [5] -Super-Strength 2 (Heavy Load: 6 tons) [4] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] Transform 10 (Duration: Sustained) (flesh to gold) [30 pp] costs abilities 20 + combat 24 + saves 13 + skills 11/44 + feats 16 + powers 66 = 150 pts --- Design Notes: Here's a lady with the powers of King Midas; whatever she touches turns to gold! Like Marvel's Grey Gargoyle, she turned that power on herself, and she can transform her entire body into living, breathing, walking and talking gold! Both powers are Sustained in duration, to prevent the complications of Continuous Transform when we're talking about 24K gold, as well as the potential hazards of kidnapping by greedy, greedy bad men. She functions decently well as a low-level powerhouse, getting around on foot and punching things, she's also nigh-bulletproof and the like. She's got relatively low TOU for somebody made of metal because gold of course isn't a particularly strong substance; she could also use a little higher Impervious in the process. My backstory for her is that she was a chemistry student exposed to a secret formula for making gold and, having absorbed said formula into her body, she's using her new abilities to fight crime. Play around with a build like this, sticking with the theme of her native metal. Gold has a lot of different uses and legacies! Don't be afraid to stunt things off her big power; more Super-Strength, some Elongation or Insubstantial 1? Either one would fit the power theme tolerably well. Change things up a little by giving her Density; as it is the 'organic gold' that makes up her augmented body isn't appreciably heavier than a normal woman would be. One possible change would be higher Charisma; a person with a gold body might well be quite attractive! (As for her clothes, luckily if she's in Freedom City; she's in a universe where her clothes change with her OR where she's got a good costume to go with it!) You could make her magical easily enough; perhaps she's the heir to the Midas family legacy. (That's why she's got the Greek language, just in case). You could also change up her base metal however you want: a lady made of plutonium would be an interesting character choice, as would diamonds or some other super-hard metal associated with beauty. An iron lady would be good for a British heroine, with the caveat that Margaret Thatcher was a terrible person and you shouldn't go around naming yourself after her. But maybe you got there first, and in the Freedom City universe sued her blind! Being made of a liquid or gas would be interesting too, just make sure you pick a good one!

For her part, Joan was being the good reporter and the good mom, keeping an eye on the situation while she followed the kids around on the tour. She didn't get along well with most of the parents at Lois' school, but she knew Richard, the father of Veronica, fairly well; he was a good guy, and not shy about making sure his kids worked hard too. The Lab here certainly was very impressive, she had to admit as they went through, and Miss A was a great tour guide. You know, she reflected, I can see what Lois admires in her. After all, Miss Americana was tall, beautiful, and athletic, obviously as strong as Joan herself with how casually she handled big pieces of equipment as they walked around. She was very personable as well, definitely something to attract a little girl, and she was, of course, a super-genius! Joan had been around enough super-scientists not to feel insecure as they walked around equipment she really didn't understand, just letting the talk wash over her, glad that the kids were enjoying the show so much. Miss A obviously knows how to take care of herself and do her job; to balance being a woman, a hero, and a scientist. That's not a bad role model. "Is it hard being a hero and being a scientist?" Lois was asking Miss A, having stuck to the beautiful paragon like glue through the whole tour. "I mean, what if something really bad happens when you're in the middle of a really important experiment?"

"I actually brought it with me," confided Lois, who practically lit up under all the attention from Miss Americana. "I was wondering if maybe we could run it on one of the Lab computers to see what it looked like in real 3-D." Lois, who'd written in her attached letter all about her ambitions to one day be a game programmer, had come up with a fairly realistic animation of a big Grue monster (well, for a ten year old on a home computer, working with over the counter software) walking down a busy street and getting smacked in the head by Lady Liberty, complete with little birdies around his head at the end. "Honey," said Joan with a mother's great patience, "I don't think we'll have time for that, Miss Americana and her colleagues are very busy doing their science stuff here at the Lab." Joan was not, as it happened, a great fan of scientists. It brought back some unpleasant memories...not that she wouldn't be happy if her daughter had a perfectly good career in science! "We are looking forward to the tour. Lois has been talking about this for days now, believe me!"

Joan wasn't happy. Well, that wasn't true. She was proud that Lois had won the science fair, certainly; she knew her daughter was smart, and she liked the idea of her competing successfully against a team of other students. But she didn't like all the hours that the work had kept her daughter in front of the computer in this gorgeous spring, especially with the news that Lois had actually managed to get excused from phys. ed to spend all her time in the computer lab! I can understand her computer teacher wanting her to put all that time in but her gym teacher should be putting a little more moxie into it. Of course, said gym teacher was also a notoriously lax coach for the girl's soccer team, so maybe she shouldn't have been too surprised. Still, as they walked into the lobby, instantly sighting Miss Americana, she saw how happy Lois was to be there. As Lois held the zip-drive with her project firmly in her chubby hands, Joan decided not to spoil the day for her little girl. "Miss Americana!" said Lois excitedly, practically running up to her and peering at the tall, glamorous scientist. Lois Collier was short and round-faced, thick glasses perched on the end of her eleven-year-old nose giving her an owl-eyed look. But she had a cute smile, despite her braces, and she looked very happy to see Miss A. "You see, Mom! I knew she'd be here! It's Miss Americana!" "You're her favorite hero in the world," said Joan with a smile, opting not to mention herself. She knew...well, she couldn't really expect to be her daughter's favorite when there were so many others around. And Miss A certainly did have a very forceful personality, and was very pretty to boot. Maybe that was to be expected. At least she was smart to go with it. "Hello Miss Americana. Nice to see you again. This is my daughter Lois." "I read your paper on corralling high-volume datafiles loose on uncontrolled networks," offered Lois. "I didn't understand all of it, but it was really cool. Did you really catch a whole terabyte's worth of virus on your home computer?"

A nat-20! 30

"I'm just a kid," said Citizen, shaking his head, "and I can't live on my own. Miss Americana's so smart and so capable," he said with loyalty and honesty all at once, "she's a lot better at taking care of my needs as a teacher than I would be living on my own. I'm not really old enough, anyway..." He looked down at his shoes, then added, "School sounds...sounds really neat, though. Miss Americana is really, really great, but I wonder what the kids here are like sometimes. Do they let you have visitors there?" he asked Cobalt Templar curiously. "Or is it all locked down, like the military?"

Harrier had no hairs on the back of his neck to go up, but something about the corrupted nature of this place made him deeply uneasy. Magic was one thing with which he had little experience; sorcery was something for an Omegadrone to destroy, not something which they might hope to capture and learn from. Could the unquiet dead make a place such as this? He thought of some imaginary world in the depths of the Doom Coil, inhabited by the living souls of all who'd died in the Terminus, and shook his head. He'd seen too much annihilation to believe, to truly believe, in the existence of some immortal thing inside all that lived. He'd seen far too much destroyed to believe in _that_. For his part, Caradoc said, "I suggest we form a detachment and begin a spiral sweep of the building from our current location. Stay together; creatures who can manipulate perceptions will attempt to separate us in order to influence our perspective." Putting words to a tactical situation was a novelty for him, but he was able to do so with only minimal disruption. "If any of your fellows comes under the influence of the dead, d...er, show him the error of his ways before he can injure anyone. Jack of all Blades and Nick Cimitire, what have you discovered up there?" he called.

Edge turned to the others as they tried to corral the panicking Singularity, at least, that was what he guessed what was happening in the dark: Caryatid could sense the underground vibrations, Midnight and Wander could see and hear well in the dark, but he himself was nearly blind! Midnight's light helped immensely, of course, and by its glow he tried to think of something to say over the roar of rock as they raced forward in the darkness. "We're going to take you away from here, Erin," he said. "It's going to be okay. No one's going to hurt you. You're not going back in the box."

"I don't really go to school," said Sharl, "At least, not like you guys do. I'm Miss Americana's sidekick," he added. "She's a really great teacher, she's taught me all kinds of things about science and computers, but I don't really get a chance to hang out with a lot of kids here." He thought about the friends he'd left behind on Tronik and his own education by computer there. "What's it like going to school with lots of kids and, uh, socializing with them like that?" He'd had friends growing up, but too many kids in one place wasn't how they did things: singular education helped encourage people not to mix, which helped keep them from being too angry at each other.

"Not long!" said Edge, looking up at the falling ceiling. Caryatid screamed as the rocks started hitting near them, and suddenly Mark grabbed her around the waist and spread his hands. "We are not going to die here in some stupid cave!" And then there was a flash of light, brilliant and coruscating, spread out in a variety of colors, and they were all back in the tunnel from which they'd came; heroes, defector, and refugee all. "Wander, hang on to Erin!" he called as the avalanche began behind them. "We need to move NOW! Steer around the city, don't give them a track to follow!" And suddenly they were off, Caryatid hiding behind Edge (and away from Singularity!) as they zoomed through the darkness on a bed of rock and stone!

Some advice: Drop your base defense to +4 and add Dodge Focus 4: that'll give you more points to play with. Buy Impervious. You don't have to be 'bulletproof', you can represent it as the nanites moving out of the way of the attack if you want. (If you've seen Terminator 2; bullets don't bounce off the T-1000, but they don't kill him, either) Sink more points into the Strike; maybe make it Corrosion to represent the nanites tearing something up. That'll give you points to afford a decent array. Make sure you have the range of her Datalink on the sheet when you submit it. (In general, make sure you're using our template when you're at submission time; it's OK to have rough notes at this stage, though!) If you're gonna have INT 18, make it work for you: buy up her skills. You've got Inventor!

Suddenly, with a loud hiss like the world's biggest griddle heating up, the steel walls thrown up by the Marks in their struggle erupted in clouds of shimmering three-colored particles that fell apart into nothingness, energy spattering everything with red, blue, and yellow dots of color. In the center of the cavern Edge and Hex were struggling in hand-to-hand combat, not a strength for either of them, reality around them both shifting and warping, colors tasting on the tongue and sounds tickling on the skin of those who watched, as they punched and kicked each other. "You're nothing but a pathetic waste of skin!" spat Hex. "A weak little nothing with my face and my body, but you're nothing, you hear? You think you're like me? You're just the nothing I crawled out of, and that's all you'll ever be! You're alone, Mark!" he spat. "No one will ever understand you, no one will ever give a damn about you. You'll always be the freak with the insane father with no past, no present, and no future!" "...says you!" said Edge, grabbing his counterpart by the collar. "You're just a jumped-up bully who thinks your powers make you better than you are, but you know deep inside you're just a worthless little piece of garbage who got lucky! I know who I am! And I know who my friends are! And I know that I'm going to save EVERYTHING!" And suddenly the flash of color washed over both young men in an almost-blinding glow, and when it was cleared Hex had simply disappeared off the face of the Earth. "Freedom beats tyranny!"

It was a tough question to answer, Sharl reflected, particularly with everything that had happened recently. As friendly as this guy seemed, he wasn't inclined to share his family life and his whole story right there in the air. "Maybe. My home life is very...very complicated." He looked away for a moment, then focused on Cobalt Templar again. "Are there other superheroes there?" he asked naively. "I know there are many teenage superheroes in the city, but the only one I know doesn't go to school. It must be very tough balancing being a superhero with being in school."

With a slow, measured stride, Caradoc walked to the phone, picked it up, and hung it up on the wall. "We should not let them talk," he suggested, his voice tight. "Nothing they say will be good for us to hear." Inside the armor, Harrier was growing more and more uneasy at the corruption of this place. He had experience with the dead, a very great experience indeed, but this place felt strange even for that. Of course, the dead I have known were quiet...eventually. He imagined this place as if he were hunting the walking dead; those who had survived the initial destruction of their world's defenses and were now poisoned ants wriggling their death throes in the unbreachable edifice of the Terminus. He opted not to mention that metaphor aloud, instead wondering how the dead had come in the first place. "I do not know your history. Has there been some carnage here?"

Suddenly, the Model A behind them roared to life, its headlights like twin angry spots as they glared at the teen heroes. Behind the wheel, a tiny toon woman with a bobbed haircut and cigarette holder laughed as she gunned the engine. "Surrender to THIS, coppahs!" The Model-T roared to life and smashed into Wander with a huge crunch, the front end crumbling as it hit the invulnerable teen. "Aw, raspberries!" she declared from inside. Looking uneasy at this turn of events, Lucky threw down his cutting torch and yelled "All right, all right, I quit! But I won't sing!"

Caradoc had no idea what they were talking about, but he laughed a short fakey laugh anyway just to be polite. It was what all the heroes besides Wander were doing. Was it a joke of adults? He didn't really understand most jokes people told, and they could usually tell when he was faking, but he thought it was important to at least pretend to understand. How else was he ever going to learn to fit in with normal people? Everyone seemed to banter with each other so easily, but he doubted he could do the same. As the others entered the theater, he waited at the last for them all to enter, cocking his head as the scent of death gently wafted out the doors. Harrier knew the scent of death well; very well.

"I am Caradoc!" boomed the putative mystic knight, giving the theater a mistrustful look, or so it seemed from beneath his full-face mask. He shook Gabriel's hand as he came in for a landing on the sidewalk, feeling a little bad at being dishonest about his identity in front of so many people he knew. Gabriel, Jack of all Blades, Wander...well, they are all good people, and powerful as well. But I promised Miss Americana I would try and keep the secret! He was glad to see Wander hadn't yet attacked the Terminus; a natural assumption he made thanks to her lack of visible wounds and the look of sanity in her eye. "You are my betters," he said, keeping a space at the rear of the group. "I will follow and provide rear support."

Overhead, Caradoc, the shining knight, flew down from his patrols, his body rippling as he shifted back from the magical dimension where he lived. "Greetings, officer!" he shouted to the police below, the flaming dragonsbreath from the jetpack on his back darkening the sidewalk beneath him. "What seems to be the trouble inside your theater?" He was shouting a little too loudly to really seem that convival, but on the other hand his dragonpack was roaring quite loudly! His magic sword in hand, the gleaming silver knight was every inch the shining, perfect hero. Harrier was nervous; too nervous. He'd been outside of Freedom City lately, making public appearances and saving people all over New Jersey, and though he'd enjoyed that very much he felt strange above all these admiring eyes. He'd told Miss Americana what a good feeling that would be, and it was...but still, in his heart of hearts, he expected the screaming, the terror, the desperate struggle below, and it felt odd. That was one of the things that had drawn him out here in the first place from his dreams. It was...not like the rest.

Citizen shook his head. "It's amazing how many animal species you have here. And so integrated into the way you live. Where I'm from, things aren't like that at all." He thought for a moment, studying Cobalt Templar, before saying, "Hey, do you go to school here? Like, uh, in Freedom City with other kids?" He tried to keep the hopefulness out of his voice. Dragonfly, the only other teenager he knew, definitely did not go to school, and she wasn't much like other kids either.

A flying tour guide! Wait, no, he's another hero. Confronted with his first teenager from Freedom City who talked like a normal person instead of like a genius, Sharl confessed, "I'm not from around here. I'm actually a citizen of...another place." Citizen studied Cobalt Templar through his sunglasses. "Your monuments are fascinating. Do people still ride those things around here?" he asked, pointing to the marble cavalryman on an indifferently-executed Appaloosa. "I've seen what you do with your pets. I would think the stench from all the waste would be terrible."

Cobalt Templar soon saw he wasn't the only person in the air, orbiting around the big Civil War memorial outside the Federal building was a figure he didn't recognize. The tall, angular teenager in the air was floating around the statue, his face half-obscured by big wraparound mirrored sunglasses, wearing a black leather coat that hung behind him like a cape. On his chest, clearly visible, was a marking he recognized as the universal wi-fi symbol. A moment later, the figure in question flew right through the statue and out the other side, still examining it, his body shifting to green-tinted electrical translucency a moment before doing so. For his part, Sharl was doing his best to absorb what he could of Freedom City's history in his day out; a very difficult affair indeed! It was really hard to believe that these peaceful, civilized people in their tiny buildings and with all their space could have gone to war with each other only a hundred and fifty years earlier, but he supposed it fit everything he'd heard about their crazily rapid development. They''d even been riding around on quadrapeds from the statue (the statue made of rock!), so really it was a wonder they hadn't all ridden into walls and such.

"All right," said Sharl quietly. "I'm going to let my...program rest, I guess, and hook myself back up to the mobile emitter down here. I'll be around the house some today if you need me, then I'll go out and see if anyone needs more help....and someday," said Sharl, having gone so quiet Gina'd almost thought he'd left, "when I'm home again, and I have children, I'll tell them about the hero from another world who saved me when everything was lost; who gave me my life and my future back. And it won't be about Miss Americana. It'll be you." And with that, he did fly up through the ceiling.

As the sound of the weirdly echo-less cartoon explosion faded, Joey Scars, his face already covered in soot from the blast, staggered back as Cobalt Templar's energy bullets found their mark. "Agh! You got me!" he called out, his eyes turning to crossed-out X's and a flower sprouting in his hand, the one over his chest, as he fell backwards onto the concrete. Boss Moxie fared a little better, but under the same barrage from Mercury he too went down, calling out dramatically "Sweet mudda Mary! It's moida!" And with that he was down, his fedora falling off his giant head to reveal his hideous combover beneath. Ox shook his muscly fist at the teenage heroes, he and Lucky the only Toon gang members still standing. "Why'd you hafta knock off his hat, you mooks?"