Avenger Assembled

Space Ranger PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 24 pp STR 14 (+2) DEX 18 (+4) CON 16 (+3) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+13 Ranged) DEF: +14 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +8 Grapple: +10 Saves: 10 pp TOU +6 (+3 Con, +3 Protection) FORT +6 (+3 Con, +3) REF +7 (+4 Dex, +3) WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4) Skills: 19 pp=76 r Acrobatics 10 (+14) Bluff 6 (+6) Climb 4 (+6) Craft: Mechanical 6 (+6) Craft: Electrical 6 (+6) Knowledge: Civics 5 (+5) Knowledge: Technology 5 (+5) Languages 2 (Alien, Galstandard) (Base: English) Notice 10 (+12) Pilot 10 (+14) Sense Motive 6 (+8) Survival 4 (+6) Swim 4 (+6) Feats: 33 pp Acrobatic Bluff, All-Out Attack, Attack Focus: Ranged 5, Defensive Attack, Dodge Focus 6, Elusive Target, Equipment 10, Evasion, Improved Initiative, Luck, Move-By Action, Power Attack, Precise Shot, Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 32 pp Device 3 (Blaster Pistol) (Easy to Lose) [9 pp] -Blast 7 (PF: Precise) [15 pp] Device 5 (Space Suit) (Hard to Lose) [20 pp] -Communication 4 (radio) (1 mile) [4 pp] -Flight 3 (50 MPH) [6 pp] -Immunity 9 (Life Support) [9 pp] -Protection 3 [3 pp] -Space Flight 1 (1c) [1 pp] -Super-Senses 2 (Extended Analytical Vision) [2 pp] Super-Strength 1 (2+1=3 pp] AP: Leaping 1 (x2) [1 pp] and Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] Equipment: 50 ep Camera [1 ep] Space Fighter [49 ep] costs abilities 24 + combat 32 + saves 10 + skills 19/76 + feats 33 + powers 32 = 150 pts ---- Design Notes: So you’re an all-American astronaut stranded on an alien world, using your hi-tech equipment and knowledge of super-technology to guard and protect the people of your adopted home. It happens, particularly in the Raygun Gothic era of the Silver Age! Many characters like this actually predate the renaissance of superhero comics in the early 1960s, but wound up getting merged with superhero comics when superheroes became popular with the little kids. Adam Strange, eat your heart out! Non-superheroic variants of this kind of character include people like Charlton Heston’s hero in Planet of the Apes, and various other stories of spacegoing castaways adrift on alien worlds. Characters like this are usually ‘the space guy’ on super-teams, the human hero with alien friends who the team brings along when they need to go out into intergalactic space. What if you want to play one in our game? Well, you can say she’s like Adam Strange and popping home via some kind of intergalactic teleporter, or maybe she’s just recently returned home from time on an alien world and working on rebuilding her life on Earth. Or maybe she’s the daughter of a Silver Age human transported to an alien world, and she’s just now returning home to see what’s what! (You might want to give her a big sword and the power of an ancient castle for that one, naturally...) She’s got a generic spaceship, you can easily dress that up with more PP if you want to give her a more impressive ride. As it is her spacesuit is pretty good transportation, letting her get around in-atmosphere, send radio signals, and even do some limited interplanetary stuff. (With the speed of light, you can go most anywhere in a star-system if you can navigate your way there, but going any further is going to be much more complicated) She’s got a ray gun for blasting people, because what better than that? You can save points by merging it into the spacesuit, assuming you’re willing to cut some corners elsewhere. Her movement powers are a result of her human anatomy interacting with an alien world, natch.

The Pugilist PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 40 pp STR 22 (+6) DEX 18 (+4) CON 22 (+6) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+14 melee) DEF: +14 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +7 Grapple: +20 Saves: 10 pp TOU +6 (+6 Con) FORT +7 (+6 Con, +1) REF +7 (+4 Dex, +3) WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +8) Skills: 19 r=76 pp Acrobatics 1 (+5) Bluff 8 (+10) Drive 1 (+5) Gather Info 8 (+10)* Intimidate 13 (+15)* Languages 5 (Chinese, Italian, German, Russian, Spanish) (Base: English) Knowledge: History 6 (+6) Medicine 3 (+5) Pilot 1 (+5) Notice 13 (+15)* Sense Motive 13 (+15)* Survival 3 (+5) Swim 1 (+7) Feats: 33 pp All-Out Attack, Attack Focus: Melee 6, Beginner’s Luck, Defensive Attack, Dodge Focus 6, Eidetic Memory, Elusive Target, Evasion 2, Fearless, Improved Initiative, Improved Throw, Improved Trip, Luck, Move-By Action, Power Attack, Skill Mastery (Gather Info, Intimidate, Notice, Sense Motive) Startle, Stunning Attack, Takedown Attack 2, Uncanny Dodge (auditory), Well-Informed Powers: [12 pp] Enhanced Feats 2 (Affects Insubstantial 2 on Unarmed) [2 pp] Immunity 3 (aging, disease, poison) [3 pp] Regeneration 4 (Resurrection 1/hour) (PFs: Persistent, Regrowth) [6 pp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] costs abilities 40 + combat 32 + saves 10 + skills 19/76 + feats 33 + powers 12 = 150 pts --- Design Notes: This is my build for the Pugilist, one of the 1st ed. M&M iconic characters. He was the iconic Martial Artist of the Meta-4 universe, and one of the most skilled, experienced heroes in the setting. An immortal champion of justice, he first appeared a century ago at the scene of a global crisis, and has made appearance after appearance since whenever the world needed saving. He’s an anti-social guy, having lost or outlived several teams, but he’s got a very good heart. I couldn’t find a picture, but he cuts a distinctive figure in black domino mask, plaid scotch cap, trunks and taped hands. The picture I used is of Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion of the world and one of the greatest boxers of the early 20th century. If you like the picture, and Johnson’s biography, maybe you can say the character IS the historical Jack Johnson, a morally ambiguous man making up for his Earthly sins with an eternity of battling for justice. He’s pretty much your standard boxer build: an effective hand-to-hand fighter, fast on his feet, with the particular Pugilist powers that let him punch ghosts (seriously, it’s a good power) and return from death. He’s scarier than my Boxing Champion build; he’s a Tyson or Frazier to my earlier Muhammed Ali. His big weaknesses are that ultimately he’s a human being, no more sturdy or stronger than any strong, powerful Badass Normal at the peak of his physical powers. Shoot him with a gun, and he’s probably going to be in a world of hurt. Granted, he’ll get _better_, but sometimes recovering from death can be more trouble than it’s worth. That’s why he comes back so fast, so he can avoid getting buried underground by his friends before he can wake up and explain the situation to them. I gave him the skills to represent a lifetime of being a two-fisted man of action, I’m sure he has plenty of good stories to tell. The Pugilist is a reserve member of the government’s superhero team in his own setting, but things may be different in Freedom City. His long career will give him a whole host of complications, depending on what backstory you do wind up assigning him. A few changes include increasing his Regeneration so he can recover from conditions besides death more quickly, adding some Protection or more Con to increase his base Toughness, or adding more skills and feats if you can find the points for it. Pick the origin story you want for him: Irish boxer who returned from the grave after his family’s murder? Jack Johnson, restoring a name tarnished by his enemies as much as his deeds? Or perhaps he’s a practitioner of a different martial art altogether, a wrestler and a rival of...EL SPECTRO!

"Oh, neat! I didn't think you guys had servitor robots yet. Hey, little guy!" He waved to Emerson, watching him work with interest. He was careful to avoid the robot, stepping back when he got too close. "He's very efficient, even without antigravs. Cute voice, too." He cocked his head, leaning over and watching Gina work. He supposed a computer genius like she obviously was could easily have built her own robot, even if in the rest of the world they weren't that common. "Do you have more like him?" he asked.

Kav, You can't turn off a Permanent power; it's always on. What's really important right now, though, is that Permanent is not a -1 Flaw. It's a +0 Extra, it costs the same as Sustained. Your Alternate Form has too many points in it for overall cost.

"Why don't you watch where you're going yourself?" Avenger shot back, working his way out from under the crazy lady who'd fallen out of the sky. "What are you, blind?" He folded his arms and gave her a hard look, one that was ameilorated quickly when Santa Claus (Santa Claus!) patted him on the arm and gave him a fatherly look. "Jack, why don't you help Mrs. Claus with Lupita," he suggested, pointing to that grand lady and the tear-streaked little girl. "You're a father yourself, and an orphan too, who better to comfort a weeping child?" Swept along by the moment, Avenger agreed, and soon was following Ms. Claus and Lupita into the big bulk of the Workshop.

From behind Tarrant came a voice. "Hi!" said the owner of it, a dashing young man in a well-fitting black suit and tie, a smile on his face as he leaned close to him and whispered, "Are you going to the wedding?" When he was, he said, "Are you a friend of the family from Freedom City?" Mark waggled his eyebrows suggestively at that, belatedly realizing he might have been sending another message. "I'm, uh, a student of theirs. From there. Mark Lucas," he said, offering his hand. Waiting for both young men at the church was an unlikely pair. "And then, Adam said to Eve, there seems to be a leaf missing..." Sitting on the church steps, a handsome fellow in a black suit and tie was reading a picture book to a half-dozing baby he had cradled in his arms. The infant, past six months if Gaian Knight was any judge, was much more focused on the semi-opaque bottle of what was obviously juice or some new formula by its color. Looking up, Jack waved to the new arrival. Parenting when his wife was busy with wedding preparations wasn't easy, especially outside a church, but it was the least he could do. He wondered if her threat had been meaningful, and if he was actually going to wind up with custody of all the kids below a certain age.

"I...I...no, I won't do it!" Lupita exclaimed, her shimmering ice robes falling off her entirely to reveal a skinny, dark-eyed girl in a loosely-hanging Freedom City University T-shirt and jeans, obvious charity castoffs on a castoff girl. She pointed her finger at Mr. Infamy, exclaiming, "All you can give me is the power to hurt other people, and I'm tired of hurting people! I reject you, Mr. Infamy, and all your empty promises!" Infamy had focused all his attentions on the girl, so he looked decidedly put-out at her refusal. Casting an angry glance at all the heroes, he exclaimed, "Feh! This is your fault with your goody-two-shoes ways! Look at us, we're the big heroes coming to rescue Santy Claus!" He spat brimstone in the snow, his form smoldering slightly. "Make no mistake, I'll get you! And you! And you!" he said, pointing to all the heroes in turn before finally pointing to Jack of all Blades and adding, "And as for you, you may be the ruler of swords, but you know _nothing_ of fashion. Fools, all of you!" And with that, the devil vanished in a puff of brimstone, leaving behind one sad-faced girl who Ms. Claus immediately bustled into her arms for a hug that was the very essence of matronly. Santa Clause himself, big as life and bustling with energy, had been consulting with his allies during Infamy's rant, and turned to the heroes with concern on his face. "My friends, I fear our job is not yet done," he said gravely, pulling out his long pipe and puffing it with worry. "My sleigh was damaged during that poor little girl's time ruling the Workshop, and several of the reindeer had their power drained by the cold spirit of that devil. As for poor Rudolph, his nose took a terrible pounding, which means someone needs to light our way! Will you all join me to save Christmas tonight?"

"I'd love dessert," said Quo-Dis with a warm smile, not taking her eyes off Corbin. Maybe a more confident boy would have taken her to bed and had something wise to say just now, but she rather liked the power she had over him this way. It was...cute, she decided, and so was he. "Do you like cherries, Corbin?" she asked him ingenously, remembering a conversation she'd overheard Zarana have with her on-again off-again boyfriend Mark. "Because I love cherries."

"Hey, what's that do?" asked Sharl curiously, walking over to the box to inspect it. "I thought I'd at least knew the names of all your computer parts after going through all those computer websites, but this is all new. You're a real master of this stuff." He was still careful not to stick his hand through the box, especially now that he was a magnetic hologram. He knew enough about computers to know magnetic fields and computer software didn't mix." He sat down on the floor to try and get his bearings, still looking around the lab. "It's not that weird," he said with a little shrug. "Is there a way to set it so I can walk through things if I want to? Or is that too weird?"

Looks fine to me. APPROVED

Avenger arrived late, just in time to see the weeping girl and hear the speeches of the heroes towards the grieving Snow Queen and the smugly smirking demon. He didn't recognize the first, but he certainly knew the second. Not for the first time, he wished his wife was there: fighting a being widely suspected to be the most powerful demon in Freedom City, perhaps the entire mortal plane, wasn't something he wanted to do. Ever! But if what he'd heard was right, maybe they didn't have to. "Lupita..." Avenger fearlessly walked up beneath the girl, pulling away his mask to reveal the man underneath. "I don't know you. I don't know your parents. But I know what it's like to be a father, and to lose family of my own. Hurting other people is fun, it's easy, it's satisfying, but at the end of the day, all you've done is build a pile of ash that's no place for you to live in. Living is hard. Building is hard. But if you hurt these people, and destroy this place, you won't have a kingdom, you won't have followers. You'll just be you, except you really will be all alone. Is that what you want?"

The temple was already crumbling under Gaian Knight's bombardment, and Wander's attack was the final straw that broke the camel's back. Under the weight of falling rocks, not only did the temple's igneous walls give way, but the whole rockface beneath crumbled away and deep into the underwater pit nearby. The temple collapsed into the rift below with a roar muffled by the sheer quantity of water all around them, a cloud of thick, black, oily filth rising into the water as the dark temple plunged into the cleansing heart of the earth itself. That, of course, didn't eliminate the threat of the undersea monsters, but with the heart of their temple destroyed and their controller fled or dead, the vampire sea monsters had the heart go out of them. Literally, sometimes, as superheroes and Atlanteans closed in on them in fantastic displays of undersea combat. Fusion was everywhere in the fight, at home and in her element as she grabbed and decapitated sea-monsters left and right, tearing through legions of vampire squid and rays, until finally the cloud of monsters parted and she saw a whale bearing down on her...a red-eyed sperm whale whose mouth glittered with gigantic fangs! "Let's go!" she exclaimed, raising her fists and arms as she charged the great beast!

I'll get something up in the next couple of days.

Radiant: Good news! Your movement powers are redundant, you can scrap all of them but Flight.

Full Power is still not a suitable drawback for a Permanent Power. Also, Permanent is a +0 duration on powers like Alternate Form. You don't get extra points for it.

Northstar, as I mentioned, lots of good thoughts here. This is a character I fully intend to approve, I just want to suggest some more things: Fatigue effects are not likely to come up. In your shoes, I'd get Immunity 5 (disease, poison, sleep, suffocation) and get more utility out of it. Don't forget to put in his height/weight with Growth (up where you have his regular size), and you should specify his lifting Strength and leaping distances under those powers.

It is true, Arcturus is not (or so I've been led to believe), a Claremont student. Assuming I've the time, I'd be happy to help, Rav; did you have any specific plots in mind, or just a "Welcome to campus" story?

Rav, given that Omega-centered stories are already 'in use' by a significant number of characters, and given that Jackgar is already working on an adventure with the plot you describe above, I think you should cut the Terminus angle out of your story. Start small with your new team. Work in the Grue, or other aliens, or something like that.

Sharl's edits: Change the base power of his Tronik array to: [1 pp] Enhanced STR 12 [12 pp] and Affects Corporeal 6 [6 pp] on STR {18 pp} 'magnetic strength' Buy the Feat [1 pp] Attack Specialization 1 (Unarmed) 4 ranks in Computers, raising his total to 14 (+14) [1 pp] Doktor'd

Sharl walked in a slow circle, watching his own interaction with the world as much as he did the strange room around him. He'd thought at first he was sinking into the carpet, but in actuality he was not quite touching it, his relative 'floor' perhaps an inch below where the carpet actually was. As he watched, though, he seemed to float just a little higher as he went. "Putting my hand through the stairs was weird enough," he agreed. "I expected it to feel like something, but it was as if nothing was there at all." Reaching out, he touched the wall, smart enough not to risk sticking his hand through any computer parts around. "So what exactly am I made of right now?" he asked. "Just a conventional hologram?"

"Gina? Is that-Hi!" He raised his hand in an automatic greeting, sizing up the face his friend wore. He was familiar with the idea that people's online avatars might look very different than their real face, but he was still surprised to see this side of her. Maybe she liked being a 'mom' online; she'd certainly taken good care of him. "Wow! So this is what you really look like? That's neat." He smiled at her, the holographic displays that made up his body giving his skin a faintly phosphorescent cast to Gina's practiced eye. "I feel...I feel pretty good," he said, thinking about it. "I feel solid and real." He checked, tapping himself on the side of the head, and nothing felt strange about the gesture. "A little cold," he admitted.

"Hello?" said Sharl cautiously. "Gina, are you here?" He had a few eyes for the computer parts all around, but lacking her guidance they were just segments to an alien computer network. He did appreciate a system that meant she didn't have to get up to work, it made sense given what he'd seen of her age. It was too bad she didn't have access to anti-gravs. He took a few steps and peered up the steps, casting his gaze for his friend and rescuer. "I made it through okay." He put his hand on the step automatically to lift himself up a few inches, and gave a little yelp as his fingers sunk into the wood as if it wasn't there. Peering down at himself, he seemed to be glowing ever so slightly, with a faint pattern that might have just been in his imagination. "Holy cow! I'm a hologram!" He didn't sound as displeased by that fact as most normal people would be; he was thrilled. "That's awesome!"

"Because...because if I can't have Christmas, no one else can!" She seemed to shrink in on herself, losing the already-shaky image of the haughty Snow Queen and becoming a sad-faced young girl with a tear-streaked face, her diaphanous white gown hanging loose now that she looked closer to 14 than 24, and skinny and gawky to boot. "Why did my mom and dad have to die? Why?" Suddenly, behind her, a dapper fellow in a pitch-black suit appeared, a sardonic look on his face as he surveyed the crowd. Walking on air as if it was the ground, he said, "Because, my dear Lupita, life isn't fair. Not for you, anyway, so why should it be for anyone else? If these heroes are so powerful, why couldn't _they_ save your parents?" The wicked tempter's words seemed to be having an effect, but the girl's mind was definitely not made up.

Fusion stepped out into darkness with the others, feeling the comforting grip of the ocean's depths all around her. For all the assembled heroes, it was immensely dark and fantastically cold in the ocean's depths, a world as alien as any far-off exotic world. They could hear screams and curses echoing through the water, feel the vibration of the Atlantean ships through the icy, crushing depths all around them, but the battle itself was an ominous mystery. Closing her eyes and extending her tentacles, Fusion could feel the battle raging all around her, a scene that became more obvious to the other heroes when one of the Atlantean gunships fired a flare over the battlefield. It was a grim scene indeed. Atlantean warriors were locked in battle with hordes of little vampire manta rays, their armor and gleaming mystic weapons their sole protection against the beasts' terrible snapping jaws. The king himself was in battle against what was, of all things, a another giant vampire squid, struggling mightly against his tentacles. The battle was ferocious, but by the light of the flickering flare, as vampires were sliced asunder into oily ash, they seemed to be holding their own. "Quickly!" the king shouted to the others. "We'll hold them off! You must destroy the temple!" He pointed down below, to the crack in the sea floor where an eerie red glow marked the only natural light in the area. "Go quickly!" "I've got this one! Hang on everybody!" The fastest swimmer in the group, or at least the most adept at navigating the underwater depths, Fusion shouted a warning to the others before she lashed out with her tentacles, grabbing her fellow heroes by the ankles before she opened her mouth and fired a jet of bubbling water from beneath her arms, blasting them all right through the line of rays and straight for the rift! The water warmed as they approached, a sharp contrast to the freezing bottom, and down inside the crack they could make out a rough-hewn structure as big as a Claremont dorm carved from the living volcanic rock itself!

Sharl wasn't quite bouncing off the walls while Gina was gone, but he was close. The knowledge that he was close to liberation was intoxicating, for all that it would just be in a little room somewhere in Gina's basement. _And I probably won't be able to touch anything, unless I try really, really hard, and that's if she's using magnetic holograms._ He sighed, the moment deflating just a little. _Well...it'll still be all right. I'll be out of these rooms, nice as they are, and able to see part of the world! Even if her basement is just her substitute lab, I bet it's still pretty cool._ Maybe Gina was his mom's age, but she was obviously a scientific genius. _And maybe I'll be able to hang out with her, and she can teach me more about computers. That's pretty important..._ She was a lot smarter than he was, that was obvious, and he wasn't vain enough to pretend otherwise.