Avenger Assembled

Half the fifty survivors attack Wander: they do bupkis. The other half press the attack on Midnight: 8 successfully aid their neighors One of those successfully latches on DC 14 Fort save, Midnight.

They stood there watching the earthen beehives for several minutes before they became conscious of a low thrumming that seemed to come from the landscape all around them! Gaian Knight in particular could feel the rumbling in the earth as something gigantic erupted from the ground some fifty feet away! A jet of searing fire roared up to scorch the earth nearby as a sixty-foot monstrosity of a bee came clambering out of the hole, each gigantic footstep of the big-rig-sized insect shaking the ground as she rose to her full awesome height, shook herself off, and focused on Fleur and Gaian Knight. "HELLO!" It was Beatrizz. "FLEUR DE JOIE! IT IZ ZO GOOD TO ZEE YOU!" She bumped Fleur with a head larger than her body. "WE HAVE BEEN DIGGING TUNNELZ, BUT IT IZ NOT GOING ZO GOOD. WHO IZ YOUR TINY FRIEND?"

Giz, I'll round up and say that takes out all fifty as well.

The beast's tough hide soaked up the radiation entirely, leaving a faint, obviously superficial scorch mark as the only sign Supercape had done anything at all. Roaring with frustration, the blinded beast tried to scrub at its eyes with its tentacles, Fusion's sticky fluid clinging to it even half-in and half-out of the water. The octopus lady herself was doing her best to avoid any remaining squid monsters, sticking to a nearby rooftop and staying hidden from everyone dependent on vision. "Fusion..." gasped the princess. "They're coming, you have to..." "Yes, they're coming!" agreed Fusion. "They are well past coming and are arriving! What are they?" But before Nereid could explain, Fusion was forced to turn back to the battle!

And she makes the save. New round! Midnight is up, with a shiny new HP in his pocket!

Heh, I don't think I feel like making all those rolls! We'll call that fifty down: 100 left! Supercape is up.

Hissing and shrieking, the mother squid (for that it had to be, Fusion had surmised) churned up the water as it got closer and closer to the dock, tentacles as big around as telephone poles writhing madly all around Fusion and Nereid. Fusion looked up and made the mistake of meeting the creature's eyes as it gave a terrible roar. Jesus Christ, that's no ordinary giant squid! It's after something! Something...with blood. My blood. Nereid's blood... Gritting her teeth as she felt a cold surge of terror in her gut, Fusion wrapped her tentacles around Nereid and felt her skin tone changing, stretching her flexible body as far as she could to cover the girl, matching the docks, the squished monsters around her as Wander (who was obviously her guardian angel) began her killing spree, everything and anything to hide and get away and...No! Drawing her head back, Fusion put all her breath into vomiting up a sludge of pure black ink, a cascade of fluid that poured up high enough to cascade over the great red eyes of the hideous squid-fiend! The beast, already maddened by pain, gave a terrible cry as it was blinded by the thick, flowing mass of ink across its face. Now, she thought, scuttling away as massive tentacles came crashing down on the docks all around her, Time to get the hell out of here!

Vampire Squid's Turn: She shakes off the stun. Have an HP, Gizmo! She's too big to get out of the water, but she spends her move action getting within melee range of the dock She uses her Fearsome Presence 7 as a standard action: that's a DC 17 Will save for everyone on the docks who isn't Fearless. Fusion's Turn: Fusion is shaken Well, darn. As a free action, she stunts Affects Others on her Concealment with the Distracting drawback As a standard action, she vomits into the mother squid's eyes! It hits And the mother squid is blinded As a move action, she scuttles!

OK, we'll call that a hundred down, since Wander is optimised for goon-sweeping. Go ahead and post.

In the wake of Midnight's attack, the great sea monster hissed and shrieked a terrible cry, flexing those gigantic tentacles as a shower of...something erupted from its maw against the bright night sky. It wasn't until the shower of debris came into view of the many security lights at the dockyards that all the assembled heroes could make them out, however: a veritable storm of wriggling, squirming, tentacled little beasts was hurtling towards them. Some splattered to oily ash as they hit the pavement, but others proved terribly vital, whipping along on long, black tentacles as they began racing across the surface of dry land. As great clots of the writhing squid-things came flying past Supercape and Gaian Knight, others landed in a great wriggling mass in front of the Night Cycle: before Midnight could veer away, the squid monsters were underwheel and attacking! They spurned the humans for the moment, however, and fell upon the machine that was crushing their number, fangs and claws and maws sucking and pulling at steel as they did their best to grab and rip apart Trevor's pride and joy! Things weren't much better for Fusion, who was faced with not just falling squidlings but squids in the water as well: their eyes glowing with a terrible intent. She had the presence of mind to grab the injured Neried and hold her above the attacking tide, but that didn't do anything to save herself: Fusion cried out as fangs and claws sunk into her flesh, spilling her blood out onto the dock to join the Atlanteans. This didn't look good...

The monster rolled a 31 (sorry, I should have posted last night). Since she's already stunned, I won't bother with the Fort save vs. the Daze. (he said, looking round shiftily) The baby monsters are up; there are 250 of them. Group 1 (w/20) drops near Midnight and Wander: they attack the biggest, loudest thing they can see-The Midnight Cycle itself! They're smart enough to use combined attacks. Luckily, they're not very good at them: 3 out of 20 hit. That's a DC 25 Toughness save for the Midnight Cycle, Gizmo. Good thing none of you guys were bleeding. Supercape and Gaian Knight, I need a DC 20 Reflex save to avoid being hit by falling masses of vampire squids: If you are hit, it's a DC 39 Grapple check to avoid being grappled by them, and a DC 21 Fort save to avoid being drained. Fusion and Nereid, hmm. A group of 20 falls near them: I'll say Fusion is able to protect Nereid by holding her out of reach with her tentacles, but but that leaves her open to attack: Considerably more hit her.: 5 out of 20 hit. That's a DC 29 (yeesh) Toughness save for Fusion. Injured and stunned I'll spend an HP to shake her stunned condition on her turn.

"I'm fine," Fusion insisted. "I've fought Otaku before, just as Fleur de Joie has, I can help everyone keep an eye out for his tricks. He's a devious little bastard, especially now that we've cornered him like the rat he is. It'll be..." Suddenly, the wall of monitors along one side of the room flickered to life, not with Otaku's face or that of any secret robots he'd been holding out, but a series of rapid-fire flickering images synched with bouncily cheerful Japanese animation. Within seconds, it had resolved itself into another broadcast of Joan's much-hated self-titled show, this one already in progress. "...no." Fusion's voice was cold and angry as she studied the increasingly pornographic hentai images play out, furious as a giant squid in grapple with a sperm whale. "No, he's trying to distract us. Distract me. I won't have that." Her hands balled into fists, she said, "We need to stop him before he hurts any more hostages, or before he gets another transmitter built. Let's go."

The robot imploded in a shower of sparks, collapsing in on itself with another wet shriek. Fusion walked up to the fallen machine and drove her foot through its fallen head, stomping down so hard she broke the linoleum floor beneath. The shuddering rage seemed to have left her body, and at first glance she was perfectly calm. "All right. Let's find Otaku and put an end to all this madness. Midnight, if you can use that EMP device on him, you can keep him from using his mechsuit: Fleur, wherever you are, you can grab him with plants, and Gabriel, you can shout him down. Between all of us, we can take him. Lead the way, Midnight."

Midnight: 19 Vampire Squidlings: 16 Wander: 15 Vampire Squid: 13 Fusion: 9 Gaian Knight: 9 Supercape: 8 Nereid is too badly hurt to take actions.

No way. This build will not be approved as written. It's way too complex, and no custom Variable Powers, please.

The OOC thread for the Atlantean vampire thread.

December 10, 2010 Midnight Waterfrot Joan knew she really should be heading home, but the temptation to sneak into her costume and up to the nearby warehouse rooftop had been too powerful to ignore. Daedalus II is actually a Grue, the product of a mating between his father and Pseudo during their space travel?!? She'd have to investigate this story considerably more if she actually did anything with it, probably just tightening up whatever leaks existed in Daedalus' organization as well as double-checking that he wasn't just a secret Grue agent. You never can tell with shapeshifters. Distracted as she was with the file of early 80s mimeographs that her contact had liberated for her, she'd turned her back to the water, and so missed the arrival of the princess of Atlantis until she heard the thump on the dock behind her. Turning, she saw the battered young woman pulling her way across the dock. "Nereid!" Fusion had visited Atlantis more than once, and knew the princess fairly well. "Dear Lord..." Snapping the papers shut and caching them underneath a vent, Fusion leapt from the warehouse rooftop, gliding down to the battered young woman's side. Bleeding from her flanks and arms, Nereid looked like she'd been attacked by sharks or barracuda, toothmarks on her sides, and she looked up wildly, water briefly rising all around her until she recognized an ally. "Fusion, thank Triton," she gasped, her skin unusually pale. "They're right behind me! You need to get us off the docks now, before they..." Behind her, something very, very big was breaking the water, and as Fusion and Nereid watched, a gargantuan head broke the surface and two red eyes as big as her body watched her as a thing rose out of the water and gave a terrible roar that broke windows blocks away and rang out across the city "Holy-!"

Fortunate Hero PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 30 pp STR 10 (+0) DEX 14 (+2) CON 14 (+2) INT 14 (+2) WIS 18 (+4) CHA 20 (+5) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Blast) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +2 Grapple: +6 Saves: 14 pp TOU +10 (+2 Con, +8 Protection) FORT +6 (+2 Con, +4) REF +8 (+2 Dex, +6) WILL +8 (+4 Wis, +4) Skills: 17 pp=68 r Acrobatics 8 (+10) Bluff 15 (+20) Knowledge: Pop Culture 12 (+14) Languages 2 (Japanese, Spanish) (Base: English) Perform (Cheesy Pop Music) 15 (+20) Notice 8 (+12) Sense Motive 8 (+12) Feats: 15 pp Attack Specialization: Blast (2) Distract (Bluff) Dodge Focus (4) Fascinate (Perform) Inspire (5) Second Chance (Perform checks) Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 52 pp Blast 10 [20 pp] 'rose petal bombardment' Flight 3 (50 MPH) [6 pp] 'pop princess power' Immunity 1 (aging) 'she must have gotten a face lift' [1 pp] Luck Control 4 (spend an HP for another character, give HP to others, spend HP to negate HP/Fiat, force reroll) (PFs: Luck 5) [17 pp] ‘ting!’ Protection 8 [8 pp] 'too beautiful to be hurt' costs abilities 30 + combat 24 + saves 14 + skills 17/68 + feats 15 + powers 52 = 150 pts --- Design Notes: So I was thinking about Fortune Controllers based on my experience of playing Edge, and I realized that someone incredibly lucky could also be really annoying if you weren't careful. (I get around that with Edge by having him be a sympathetic idiot who is only gradually beginning to understand how different he is from everyone else.) So thinking about the combination, I produced this build: a generic pop princess and teen singing sensation who just happens to be an incredibly powerful luck controller. She's got max Luck for a Luck Controller of her PL, and with her maxed-out Luck Controller she can do some amazing things: she can shrug off bad fortune, give her opponents a really hard time, and generally make people wonder how someone with such tiny powers can be so successful! (Similar questions have been asked about her singing career, but I did make her among the best cheesy, sugary pop princesses in the world!) You can make up the backstory all you want: my mental map here is something like "Teen princess gets meta-treatments on the side, thinking superpowers might boost her flagging career, but she winds up with a whole lot more than she bargained for and has to fight crime for real!" You can do some nice stuff with someone transitioning from screaming tween (and older, ew!) fans to people cheering them on because they're actually doing something heroic: now that's character development! Buy up her feats and social abilities if you want her to be more of a business player; my idea here is that she hasn't learned that much about the business side of things yet. Luckily, she hasn't had to do so! She's much smarter than she looks, though. Obviously you can tweak the sheet too: in particular, you could give her the Probability Control that makes such a nice augment to Luck Control. But in my (admittedly limited to just one character) experience, Probability Control just doesn't come up as often as Luck Control. And besides, you can use the points to buy so many other exciting things! You don't have to make her a blaster, either, you could make her a more straightforward badass normal with higher combat scores. Either way, don't be afraid to chew the scenery a bit: Luck Controllers should be about _personality!_

Rav, If you want a shorthand, think: "Is this a DIRECT result of the Transform?" That's why I built the Transmuter with Corrosion and Create Object, so she has the power to directly make solid objects and do direct damage outside of Transform.

Angel Abilities: 50 pp STR: 22 (+6) DEX: 16 (+3) CON: 20 (+5) INT: 10 (+0) WIS: 22 (+6) CHA: 20 (+5) Combat: 16 pp ATK: +4 (+10 melee) DEF: +10 (+2 flat-footed) Init: +3 Grapple: +16 Saves: 11 pp TOU: +10 (+5 Con, +5 Protection) FORT: +10 (+5 Con, +5) REF: +5 (+3 Ref, +2) WILL: +10 (+6 Wis, +4) Skills: 17 pp=68 r Diplomacy 10 (+15)*, Intimidate 10 (+15)*, Knowledge (arcane lore) 5 (+5), Knowledge (history) 5 (+5), Knowledge (theology and philosophy) 10 (+10), Notice 14 (+20)*, Sense Motive 14 (+20)*, Feats: 21 pp Attack Focus (melee) 6, Dodge Focus 6, Fearless, Interpose, Luck, Skill Mastery (Diplomacy, Intimidate, Notice, Sense Motive) Startle, Takedown Attack, Ultimate Save (Will), Ultimate Skill (Diplomacy), Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 35 pp Comprehend 2 (languages: speak and understand one at a time) [4 pp], 'Tongue of Babel' Feature 1 (Cannot Be Lied To) [1 pp] 'angelic wisdom' Flight 3 (50 MPH), [6 pp] 'winged' Immunity 7 (aging, disease, poison, sleep, starvation and thirst, suffocation) [7 pp] 'angelic body' Light Control 1 (5 ft) (Flaw: Range [Touch]) 'halo' [1 pp] Regeneration 1 (Resurrection 1/week) (PFs: Persistent, Regrowth) [3 pp] 'immortal soul' Protection 5 [5 pp], 'divine armor' Strike 4 (PFs: Affects Insubstantial 2, Mighty) [7 pp] 'flaming sword' Totals: Abilities 50 + Skills 17 (68 ranks) + Feats 21 + Powers 35 + Combat 16 + Saves 11 = 150 -- Design Notes: Here’s a generic angel, based on the angel from the Archetype Archives. He’s got all the things an angel should have: he’s immune to Earthly concerns, can speak all languages, can’t be killed permanently, and he’s packing a flaming sword of righteousness which he can’t be deprived of. He’s also very charismatic, with a strong force of personality and extremely powerful soul. If he can’t lie, and he probably shouldn’t be able to, treat that as a complication, not a drawback. (What do you do if the Nazis ask you where the Jews are? You implore them to consider the state of their souls.) Angels are tough to build because they should be capable of doing a great many things, and it’s tough to pack all those things into a PL 10 build. I’d recommend playing characters like this: I had a lot of fun playing an angel myself, and when I get a character slot open again, maybe I’ll do just that! One possible way to change this build up is to give him some kind of big “Divine Power” array for massive power stunts: as it is he’s got the flaming sword to stunt off: 7 pp is nice and all, but you could do more. If you wanted to do that, maybe drop his STR and up the Strike even further: if you do that, though, make sure you give him a Divine Strength AP or something: angels really should be powerful. If you don’t want to do that, do what I’ve done with Freedom Angel and buy up the array with PP: Teleport and Healing, Create Object and Light Control: all these can be yours, if the price is right! Throw in a heaping helping of polite disdain for the ‘pagan gods’, and you’ve got yourself a pretty solid character. Another thing to think about is backstory. How exactly do you justify an angel from a monotheistic Heaven in a comic book world? My advice: don’t be afraid to fictionalize. Treat Judeo-Christian mythology as a good source for storytelling, but shift things around however much you want from the story you want to tell. I explained that Freedom Angel’s Heaven had lost its Almighty centuries ago, but you can shift that around how you want. Who’s to say that there’s only one Heaven and one Yahweh, anyway? It’s just a comic book story, folks: it’ll be OK. If we can play with other religions that have living followers, why not play with the ones out there in the deep water? I played Freedom Angel as a Wonder Woman expy, but there are plenty of other ways to make a character like this: there's at least one angel-as-Superman out there that was pretty cool. (And no, NOT the one from Worlds of Freedom...)

I'd allow the first, but not the second.

The bound, helpless robot Fleur is grappling takes no actions. Otaku (who Midnight has tracked down successfully) does...something. Gabriel is up.

"There's something down the hall. Something...a lot of somethings. Feels like rats." Fusion had felt rats before, and as she drew her teeth back in a snarl, she remembered just how unpleasant that had been. "I don't know if any of you have seen a rat swarm before, much less one jacked up on somebody's powers, but they're tenacious little bastards. They go for the throat, and they can climb walls and ceilings. If you've got some way to hit a whole lot of little things at once, get it ready. Right now, we're going to see them before they see us!" And with that, Fusion whipped out a tentacle and yanked open the door where she'd heard the noise.

Spending an HP for Fusion's complication there to surge without fatigue. OK, new round, Midnight is up: one injured robot standing (though grappled!)

"You perverted little sex toy!" Tentacles whipping around her in rage, Fusion stepped up and drove her fist into the second robot's smoking face, driving her hand deep as the robot's head jerked backwards, sparks and chunks of metal flying everywhere. "I'm going to rip you limb from limb, then use you to beat Takashi's head in!" With Fusion's second punch, the robot's head exploded with a shriek and gush of fluid and parts! Whirling, Fusion turned on the other robot, fighting mad!