Avenger Assembled

I'll say the tower takes 10, fails automatically, and topples. Boom! The robot is hit! The robot is unhurt But we'll say it's entangled, since that was a cool move that deserves something!

Fusion shook her head, the water slowly getting sucked back under her shiny black costume by the action of molecular fibers. "I took to the streets and fought the Grue where I could, nothing besides that. I admit my mindset wasn't the best, but I don't take alien warlords showing up to try and kill my family particularly well." She smiled thinly, her look fierce through the mask. "I don't know the Grue who donated the cells I'm wearing, but apparently he's a superhero. It's strange to think of one of them on the side of justice, but I've seen a lot of strange things over the years."

The two young men walked back to campus together, talking about the school and all it could do for Corbin, before Mark dropped the other teen off at the dorm. "I'm headed to study," said Mark, "sometimes it's our workload that's the most super thing about this place," he said wryly. "I appreciate the chat, Corbin, I'm glad we were able to get together. If you ever want to know anything more about the school, or just hang out, look me up. I'm here most of the time," he said with a little smile.

Supervillain Legacy PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 34 pp STR 16 (+3) DEX 16 (+3) CON 16 (+3) INT 16 (+3) WIS 16 (+3) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 28 pp ATK: +8 (+12 Ranged) DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +7 Grapple: +11/+20 Saves: 9 pp TOU +8 (+3 Con, +5 Protection) FORT +6 (+3 Con, +3) REF +6 (+3 Ref, +3) WILL +6 (+3 Wis, +3) Skills: 19 pp=76 pp Acrobatics 12 (+15) Climb 7 (+10) Craft: Chemical 7 (+10) Gather Information 8 (+10) Intimidate 13 (+15) Knowledge: Physical Sciences 2 (+5) Knowledge: Streetwise 12 (+15) Languages 1 (Spanish) (Base: English) Notice 7 (+10) Sense Motive 7 (+10) Feats: 17 pp Acrobatic Bluff Attack Focus: Ranged (4) Dodge Focus (6) Evasion Improved Initiative Luck Power Attack Startle Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 43 pp Glue Array [25+3=28 pp] Move Object 8 (Extra: Damaging) (PF: Improved Crit) AP: Snare 8 (Extra: Autofire) (PF: Reversible) AP: Snare 10 (Extra: Area [Line] (+0)) (PFs: Precise, Progression 2, Reversible) Leaping 1 (x2) [1 pp] Protection 5 [5 pp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] Super-Movement 4 (Slow Fall, Swinging, Wall-Crawling 2) [8 pp] costs abilities 34 + combat 28 + saves 9 + skills 19/76 + feats 17 + powers 43 = 150 pts --- Design Notes: You had no idea you had superpowers till the cops busted down the door during dinner. From the startled look on your father’s face as you blasted the guys tackling him across the room, neither did he. But you were new to your powers and surprised by a guy with a taser, and when you woke up you were in power nullifiers and the people from Social Services were having a talk with you. You’d always wondered what your parents did for a living; your father’s “scientific career” and your mother’s “consultancy gigs” were getting more and more vague even for a sixteen year old. But now you know: your mother was the famous assassin Triggerari, the deadliest gun on the Eastern Seaboard, and your dad was Glue-Gun-George, slightly goofy supervillain turned super-scientist for hire. Your folks had both settled down after your birth, sticking to hired-gun jobs to keep bread on the table, and truthfully they might have gotten away with it except for some good police work. The hell of it is, though, they actually raised you with fairly good values: when you saw the fiendish devices your father built and the body count left behind by your mom, you were shocked enough that when a man named Duncan Summers came to meet with you, you listened to what he said. And now you’re at Claremont Academy, putting the powers you absorbed from your mother’s training and your dad’s science to work for justice. But sometimes you think about your dad in his cell, and your mom. She’s still out there. Is she looking for you? Season to taste, obviously. This is one archetype we don’t have at Claremont, and it’s one I think would be worth exploring further: supervillains have a history as rich as superheroes in-setting, after all. Teen heroes are all about having complicated relationships with their parents, and you don’t get a more rich series of complications than one parent in jail, one parent on the run, and a family name that’s going to get all over the school as soon as someone makes a Gather Info roll. That’s going to suck. Maybe you should make them _pay_.

Peering through the vines, Stesha was confronted with a scene at once incredibly mundane and at once incredibly bizarre. Inside the gigantic room her vines peered into, she was confronted with what looked like an unhappy group of prisoners: with downcast faces, they moved around the perimeter of the big layered cone where they lived, some listening to music from a built-in speaker system inset in the translucent yellow plastic walls, others watching television, still more tending to one round, stately prisoner who looked a lot like their mother. Outside, their guard sat at her own computer desk, a bored look on her face as she filed her nails. But on closer inspection, the site was actually as bizarre as could be for all those prisoners were gigantic bees, kept in a mighty artificial hive the size of a multi-story building, looming as large as the high-rise which contained Stesha's flowershop on the bottom floor. The bees did not look particularly happy, but based on Stesha's knowledge of the giant bees she knew, none of them looked sick, not even the queen complete with shiny gold crown attached to the top of her head. As for the jailer, it took Stesha only a moment to recognize an apified version of herself; a representation of Fleur de Joie cast as a bee-humanoid! (It also might be her imagination, but robot-bee-Stesha appeared somewhat more curvy than the woman she saw in the mirror in costume.) Bee-Stesha's shiny metal wings flashed as she hummed tunelessly, looking like a bored secretary in an office produced by a madman's dream, her desk set in the wide space that held the gigantic artificial hive.

Hepcat II PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 28 pp STR 26 [16] (+8/+3) DEX 24 [14] (+7/+2) CON 26 [16] (+8/+3) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 18 (+4) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+12 melee) DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +11 Grapple: +20 Saves: 9 pp TOU +8 (+8 Con) FORT +10 (+8 Con, +2) REF +10 (+8 Ref, +2) WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4) Skills: 18 pp=72 r Acrobatics 8 (+15) Bluff 11 (+15) Craft: Artistic 12 (+12) Intimidate 4 (+8) Knowledge: Current Events 5 (+5) Knowledge: Pop Culture 5 (+5) Perform (Hip-Hop Poetry) 11 (+15) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 21 pp Acrobatic Bluff Attack Focus: Melee 6 Distract (Bluff) Dodge Focus 6 Improved Initiative Move-By Action Power Attack Quick Change Takedown Attack Taunt Uncanny Dodge (visual) Powers: 45 pp Enhanced CON 10 [10 pp] Enhanced DEX 10 [10 pp] Enhanced STR 10 [10 pp] Leaping 4 (x25) [4 pp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] Super-Senses 10 (True Sight) [10 pp] costs abilities 28 + combat 24 + saves 9 + skills 18/72 + feats 21 + powers 45 = 150 pts --- Design Notes: The Bouncing Beatnik doesn’t get a lot of love on this site, or in Freedom City lore in general, so I thought I’d build a PL 10 playable version of Hepcat to try and raise awareness. Hepcat was a defender of the West End back in the 1950s and 1960s, a fast, acrobatic guy with a patter of taunts derived from beat poetry: no surprise, since he was a beat poet empowered by the spirit of freedom embodied by the movement itself! He gets a lot cooler when you realize that he was basically the Lee/Ditko Spiderman, roundly disliked by the authorities because he was operating in the mid-1950s in the period when superheroes were widely distrusted by the Freedom City public after the dissolution of the Liberty League after the McCarthy investigation. So it wasn’t just because the Freedom City public were big jerks, no indeed! My assumption here is that this build is basically Hepcat II, not the Silver Age hero returned from the dead but rather another young artist empowered by the spirit of artistic freedom that the Hepcat spirit represents. Adjust her artistic style however you want; I made the assumption that she’s the modern day equivalent of a beat poet like the original: aka, a hip-hop artist, but you can tweak as necessary. She’s a very good poet, equally good composing or performing. In costume, she’s a fast, charismatic acrobat the way the original was. I added the True Sight with the fluff that the power of artistic truth lets her see right through the lies of the world straight through the pure untarnished heart of the matter! Legacy heroes are always fun to play. One twist that might be interesting is taking the angle that this lady has no idea who the previous Hepcat was, but is engaged in her private investigation to find out about the last hero to bear her current name. Cross-generational legacies also open you up to time travel stories and ‘living up to the name.’ That’s worth thinking about Think about ways to keep up the legacy: Hepcat was a radical figure in his own era, how does Hepcat II measure up? Just make sure that if you play a political character that their poltiics are part of their story, not the point of their story.

Refurbishing a D&D character is not the way to go for your first superhero character.

Horus the Avenger PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 48 pp STR 24 (+7) DEX 16 (+3) CON 24 (+7) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 20 (+5) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+8 melee/+10 Blast) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Grapple: +16 Init: +7 Saves: 7 pp TOU: +10 (+7 Con, +3 Protection) FORT: +7 (+7 Con) REF: +5 (+3 Ref, +2) WILL: +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 19 pp=76 pp Bluff 5 (+10) Diplomacy 5 (+10) Intimidate 15 (+20) Knowledge: Arcane Lore 5 (+5) Knowledge: Theology and Philosophy 10 (+10) Languages 2 (Arabic, English) (Base: Ancient Egyptian) Notice 8 (+10) Pilot 7 (+10) Ride 7 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Survival 4 (+6) Feats: 20 pp All-Out Attack Attack Focus: Melee (2) Challenge (Fast Startle) Dodge Focus (4) Improved Initiative Inspire (5) Luck Power Attack Startle Takedown Attack (2) Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 29 pp Device 5 (Ankh of Horus) (easy to lose) (PFs: Restrictedx2 [Horus]) [17 pp] -Blast 10 (PFs: Accurate 2) -AP: Dazzle 10 (visual) (PFs: Accurate 2) -AP: Flight 5 (250 MPH) and Strike 5 (PF: Mighty) (Extra: Penetrating) -AP: Nullify 10 (deceptions) (PFs: Accurate 2) Immunity 1 (aging) [1 pp] Impervious Toughness 6 [6 pp] Protection 3 [3 pp] Super-Strength 1 [2 pp] costs abilities 48 + combat 24 + saves 7 + skills 19/76 + feats 20 + powers 29 = 150 pts --- Design Notes: This is my attempt at a PL 10 Horus the Avenger, the Thor analogue of the Freedom City universe who was active as a superhero in the Silver and Bronze Ages. This build assumes a new avatar for Horus, as before a mortal man imbued with the powers and memories of a god, but retaining his own basic humanity underneath. Thus, not a lot of immunities, since Horus’ divine essence is still technically in Heliopolis. (This is necessary in the Freedom City universe, since gods _can’t_ come into the mortal world without being invited, and even then generally only through avatars and other vessels. The nice ones do so voluntarily, the not nice ones...well.) Horus has CHARISMA! After all, gods should chew the scenery a little! With his massive Intimidate and Startle, he’s very good at reducing all but the sternest bad guys to quavering jelly. After all, the Avenging Son of Heliopolis has come to Earth to crush them! He has a light-theme to his powers, shooting out blasts of blinding sunlight, hitting people with the power of his mighty ankh, and otherwise making a spectacle of himself in the way only a scenery-chewing god can. Does he speak in Shakespearean English? Hey, it makes about as much sense as a Norse god doing so! (Maybe that’s when he learned the language, or maybe he just thinks it makes him sound more impressive!) You can build plenty of divine PCs, I have a couple on this very thread. Horus is fun, though, because of the connections to both Freedom City’s relatively recent past and Earthly mythology: why has the Avenger returned to Earth only a few decades after his last appearance? Is he eager to resume his relationship with the Freedom League, or does he seek to forge a new path this time? How does a god’s responsibility balance with a man’s, not to mention a hero’s? It’s a complicated road for the Avenging Son, one that he walks with considerably fewer friends these days...

Fusion, 12; Giant Robot 23 Giant Robot: 23 Midnight: 21 Gabriel: 18 Fleur de Joie: 14 Fusion: 12 The robot holds her action till she is attacked. (The cops opened fire...) Midnight is up.

Initiative!

Outside the Global Broadcasting Network building, the arriving heroes were assaulted by the sight and sound of one of the more horrible monsters any of them had yet encountered. It was a giant robot a good twenty feet tall, cast in the shape of a woman, no, a girl of perhaps fifteen or sixteen, wearing a bizarrely cut French maid costume, right down to little white hat perched on her head far above the ground. Marring her humanoid appearance was the gigantic machine guns positioned over her chest, fixed directly to her solid steel body. "I am the guardian of Otaku-san!" she chirruped in a high-pitched, breathy voice loud enough to shake the glass all around them. She wasn't talking to the heroes, though; she fired another sternum-level bombardment at a burning police car nearby, the two officers who had been inside visible taking cover behind a large truck. "No one will lay hands on his august personage before the show is over! NO ONE!"

OK, the math appears to hold up, and I like the backstory. Approved

"Uh, hello?" The man on the other end harrumphed and said, "This is, uh, a friend of Fusion, the superheroine. I have that you're a contact of hers, right? Well, I'm a friend of hers, and...did you see the broadcast? Is it still going on? Damn. Listen, uh, she just left here and she looked really, really angry. She can have, aheh, kind of a temper sometimes, and she really hates that Solo Takashi guy even on good days. If you could maybe get out to that station, see if you can find her, or maybe just stop Takashi, you could keep her from making a really big mistake. And maybe stop that guy before...before he has a chance to show that terrible show."

Stesha can see the 'battlesuit' parts are actually for some sort of humanoid robot; there's no space for a person to go inside, but there are parts she vaguely recognizes from pictures of celebrity androids and the like. As for Taylor, she can make out a pattern visible in a metal molding machine by the parts that looks exactly like an imprint of Fleur de Joie's face.

The thread where Doc O goes down.

It was the day after Black Friday, and everyone in Freedom City was exhausted. Everyone who was a smart shopper, anyway, and Joan Collier certainly was a smart shopper. Normally she found it too stereotypical to do a lot of shopping for the family herself, especially given Charlie's skill at coupon-fu, but the truth of the matter was that he lacked a certain iron will that was necessary for serious shopping on Black Friday. You had to be willing to mark your territory and guard it by whatever means necessary, and that was something Joan Collier was certainly willing to do when it came to shopping for her family. She'd picked up a track and field set for Lois and a new set of running shoes, along with the Playstation 3 games Lois had actually asked for (and hadn't _that_ taken some manuevering!), and gotten Charlie the collected Martin Scorsese DVDs he'd been asking for. All in all, it had been a very successful day, though it had left her very tired. She was sitting at her desk typing away at a story about Young Freedom and other heroic teen teams when she heard her daughter call her name. "Mom! Come quick!" Joan was on her feet in an instant, recognizing the urgency in her daughter's voice, and was soon in the living room to see the leering face on network television. "Takashi!" she spit, recognizing an old nemesis from her days in Japan. "Looks like...that's Liberty Park, so that's the GBN building he's in! Honey," she said on instinct, "go into your room." "But Mooo,-" "GO!" Lois retreated, knowing better to argue with her mother when her blood was up, and Joan reached down, turning up the volume as Doc Otaku went back into his rant. "...silly gaijin and your silly notions of morality!" said Otaku, a leer on his face as he stared directly into the camera attached to whatever piece of super-science he was using to hijack the CBS station, and then probably all of Freedom City's channels through that. Freedom City's TV stations. His face was close enough to the camera that Joan could make out the spray of blackheads across his cheeks. "I've done enough to show you how your cops are fat, stupid Zenigatas and your superheroes musclebound freaks straight from the pages of Harmony Gold! So now, I think it's time to show you how stupid your blue-nosed censors are and your stupid notions of morality." He grinned. "So I've decided to hijack the airwaves and give you a little taste of Nihon!" He leaned back, the camera pulling back as well, and Joan briefly went blind and deaf from sheer unadulterated rage as she saw three black-clad, shapely figures surrounding Otaku worshipfully, tentacles wrapped sinously around him in multiple caresses, three recast versions of her own costume and arms smeared over what were obviously new versions of his Angel Androids. When she could hear and see again, she heard him saying, "...that's right, folks, with the help of my lovely friends here, I've got the whole run of "Beautiful American Tentacle Woman Heroine", even the second season that was too hot even for Japanese TV!" He snickered, and it was a sound that made her feel like she was standing under a leaking septic tank. "And I'm going to make sure everyone in Freedom City gets a chance to see the whole thing! Hahahah!" The androids laughed with him, girlish voices modded to sound oddly like Joan's herself in costume. "I've tied up the Freedom League with a little thing I like to call Dragonball BombZ, so don't count on anyone stopping this signal! Hope you've all stocked up on pocky!" And suddenly Otaku had disappeared, and the nightmarish strains of a horrible J-Pop tune Joan thought she'd forgotten assaulted her ears as a terribly twisted cartoon version of herself appeared on screen, dancing before she...Fusion grabbed the television with one tentacle and smashed it through the wall, the explosion of the rupturing parts loud enough inside to have Lois and Charlie both in the room, staring at their costumed mother and wife in shock. "Honey, what's-" Fusion wasn't listening, not really, instead she was boiling to the window, jerking it open with outstretched tentacles as she prepared to launch herself out the window. "I'm going to the GBN building. I'll be back later." _I'm going to kill the son of a bitch._ And with that, she vanished, rocketing herself out the window as tentacles unfurled into sails, her body rippling into near-invisibility as she turned on her camouflage cells. Inside the house, Charlie Smith hugged his daughter before heading for his wife's desk. He'd only seen her that angry a few times before, and it was hard not to be a little afraid as he dug through her cards before he found a phone number. Gabriel. I guess that'll work... And with that, he dialed.

Tycoon Hero PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 38 pp STR 12 (+1) DEX 14 (+2) CON 18 (+4) INT 26 (+8) WIS 18 (+4) CHA 20 (+5) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 DEF: +14 (+4 flat-footed) Grapple: +10 Init: +8 Saves: 12 pp TOU +6 (+4 Con, +2 Shirt) FORT +6 (+4 Con, +2) REF +6 (+2 Dex, +4) WILL +10 (+4 Wis, +6) Skills: 22 pp=88 r Bluff 10 (+15) Craft: Chemical 7 (+15) Craft: Electronic 7 (+15) Craft: Mechanical 7 (+15) Diplomacy 10 (+15) Gather Info 10 (+15) Intimidate 10 (+15) Languages 4 (Cantonese, French, Russian, Spanish) (Base: English) Knowledge: Business 7 (+15) Knowledge: Physical Sciences 7 (+15) Knowledge: Technology 7 (+15) Notice 11 (+15) Sense Motive 11 (+15) Feats: 18 pp Benefit 3 (Wealth 3) Challenge (Fast Distract) Connected Contacts Distract (Bluff) Dodge Focus 6 Eidetic Memory Equipment Inventor Master Plan Speed of Thought Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Well-Informed Powers: 28 pp Gadgets 4 (hard to lose, standard action to change allocation) {20 pp to spend} [28 pp] Equipment: 5 pp Cell Phone [1 ep] PDA [1 ep] Undercover Shirt (Protection 2) (PF: Subtle) [3 ep] costs abilities 38+ combat 32 + saves 12 + skills 22/88 + feats 18 + powers 28 = 150 pts ---- Design Notes: What can I say, I always thought Lex Luthor had a point! There's something remarkable about a self-made billionaire genius, even if in the real world they tend to be more like Warren Buffet or Bill Gates than Lex Luthor. Well, this is a Lex Luthor type turned hero: a very rich, very powerful mastermind who's decided to get his hands dirty in a personal battle for justice. Sure, you could be like Bruce Wayne and spend your life training to be the world's greatest athlete and detective, but why not be the world's greatest scientist and one of the richest and most powerful people on Earth instead? (Unlike that costumed adventurer guy, you can go to those wild parties and actually enjoy them!) His big weakness is the standard action it takes him to switch gadget allocations: I've put up a few sample construction that might be his 'default' arrangement of his Variable Power points. My advice in combat is to take advantage of his high Charisma, Bluff, and Move Action Distract to keep that (villainous) paragon distracted while you pull out the blaster pistol super-charged with that certain element to which he's so deliciously vulnerable. (Or your emergency teleporter, if you're just trying to get away.) Of course, since he can pull out 20 pp worth of ANYTHING that can be explained as a super-science gadget, his Variable Power isn't exactly a weakness... You're one of the richest men on Earth, and one of the sneakiest; take advantage of it! If you get captured by bad guys, offer to double whatever Dr. Stratos is paying them. Or use your high Gather Info to donate ten million bucks to the orphanage where that one supervillain grew up if he'll tip you off to what his friends are getting up to. Drop the Gadgets some to buy more Feats and Skills, or maybe cut his base Attributes some for more points. Save up points to buy Move or Free Action allocation on those gadgets to really be dangerous!

Bionic Hero PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 28 pp STR 30 [16] (+10/+3) DEX 30 [16] (+10/+3) CON 30 [16] (+10/+3) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 16 (+3) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Unarmed) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +14 Grapple: +16 Saves: 6 pp TOU +10 (+10 Con) FORT +10 (+10 Con) REF +10 (+10 Ref) WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6) Skills: 20 pp=80 r Acrobatics 15 (+25)* Bluff 12 (+15)* Climb 1 (+11) Disable Device 10 (+10)* Knowledge: Civics 5 (+5) Languages 2 (Chinese, English) (Base: Albanian) Notice 12 (+15)* Pilot 5 (+15) Sense Motive 4 (+6) Stealth 10 (+20) Swim 4 (+14) Feats: 23 pp Acrobatic Bluff All-Out Attack Attack Specialization: Unarmed 2 Benefit (Security Clearance) Challenge (Fast Acrobatic Bluff) Connected Contacts Dodge Focus 4 Evasion Fearless Improved Initiative Luck 2 Move-By Action Power Attack Skill Mastery (Acrobatics, Bluff, Disable Device, Notice) Takedown Attack 2 Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 49 pp Enhanced CON 14 [14 pp] Enhanced DEX 14 [14 pp] Enhanced STR 14 [14 pp] Leaping 1 (x2) [1 pp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] Super-Senses 5 (Extended Normal Hearing and Vision, Sonar [Accurate Ultrasonic Hearing]) [5 pp] costs abilities 28 + combat 24 + saves 6 + skills 20/80 + feats 21 + powers 49 = 150 pts --- Design Notes: Here’s another reimagined Silver Age archetype, this time of the Bionic Hero. I dropped the Impervious Protection and the Blast, and made her a fairly straightforward representation of a Austin/Sommers-style cyborg. She’s stronger, faster, and tougher than any human being thanks to her enhancements, capable of vaulting over a high-wire fence, chasing down a car, and with significantly enhanced sight and hearing. The Blast was too expensive to appear regularly on network TV in the 70s (stunt it off her Enhanced STR if you want it), and I think the lack of Impervious fits a super-agent better. Sure, she’ll probably be OK in the end if that mook shoots her, but she stands a decent chance of getting hurt, and it might even be a serious injury if it misses her robotic parts and hits something vital. She's a really good fighter: do some backflips and your opponent WILL (unless they're some freak) be flat-footed trying to resist a DC 35 Acrobatic Bluff as a move action. I could have limited her Enhanced Attributes to one limb, but that's real hard to police in play and a little janky. Figure she's got all new limbs everywhere! There are lots of ways to play a bionic hero, rebuilt by the government after some accident (I’ve deliberately left open this lady’s background before her accident, but she’s definitely an agent now!), our own Jackgarprime is hitting a lot of the high notes with his character Victory. The Silver Age book has some advice that I won’t repeat here, the better to promote people to get out there and buy 2nd edition Freedom City books! You can’t go too dark if you are an agent of a ‘friendly’ agency/government. Freedom City is basically a lawful good setting; agencies like AEGIS and UNISON are on the side of justice, and they’re not going to be your enemy. But in the world of espionage, they may not always be your _friend_, either. It’s an important distinction that your character will have to learn the minute they switch from the Silver Age to the Bronze Age. If you do want to play a rogue agent on the run from her former masters, remember that AEGIS and UNISON aren’t the only super-agent builders in the world of Freedom, and most of the others aren’t as nice.

Rock and Roll Hero PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 14 pp STR 30 [10] (+10/+0) DEX 14 (+2) CON 30 [10] (+10/+0) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 16 (+3) Combat: 28 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Unarmed) DEF: +10 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +6 Grapple: +16 Saves: 10 pp TOU +10 (+10 Con) FORT +10 (+10 Con) REF +6 (+2 Dex, +4) WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6) Skills: 13 pp=52 r Bluff 11 (+14/+18 w/Attractive) Drive 5 (+7) Knowledge: Pop Culture 8 (+8) Perform (Rock and Roll) 12 (+15) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 12 pp Attractive Attack Specialization: Unarmed 2 Distract (Bluff) Dodge Focus 2 Fascinate (Perform) Improved Initiative Luck Power Attack Quick Change Uncanny Dodge (sonar) Powers: 73 pp Enhanced CON 20 [20 pp] Enhanced STR 20 [20 pp] Immortality (1 day) [5 pp] Leaping 1 (x2) [1 pp] Rock and Roll Array [20+2=22 pp] Sonic Control 10 (Extra: Area [Cone] (+0)) ' AP: Blast 10 (Extra: Area [Cone] (+0) ) AP: Trip 10 (Extras: Area [Cone] (+0), Knockback) Super-Senses 5 (Accurate Ultrasonic Hearing, Analytical Normal Hearing) [5 pp] costs abilities 14 + combat 28 + saves 10 + skills 13/52 + feats 12 + powers 73 = 150 pts ---- Design Notes: This is a reimagined version of the Silver Age archetype, influenced by my own earlier optimization of the build as well as taking an interest in building competent characters. He may not be the king of rock and roll, but he has an excellent claim to royal blood: he’s one of the world’s greatest musicians, as well as a low-grade powerhouse and master of musical blasts. The core book build is a pure blaster, but I went with the theory that people like punching bad guys! His music is suitable for goon-sweeping, or perhaps you can argue that while minions can yet be touched by the power of music, it takes a good right cross to deal with the real bad guys! His skills are pretty generic, quite deliberately so, to better reinforce his flexibility. Put him in a doofy wig and he’d fit in fine with the Monkees, give him a psychedelic look to put him at Woodstock, put him in big hair to make him a metal guy! He’s not smart, not really, but he is very savvy about people, and he’s in touch with what the kids want to listen to. If he’s not a solo act, maybe his secret identity is the bassist in whatever band he’s a member of! (No one cares about the bassist) If your GM is a square about rock and roll being more than one Perform skill, shave some points here and there to pump up whatever you decide he specializes in. I went with the theory that this is an immortal musician who’s been around for decades, perhaps having faked his death at least once along the way, but of course that only applies for a Silver Age character in a Modern Age game. You can drop the immortality for something else if you’re playing in his own era, but of course he may want that immunity to poison the first time he experiments with reefer. (Reefer will kill you dead in comics, man, deader than a doornail! And as for pills, well...) You can just give a modern look and put him in the context of contemporary pop music, but frankly I shudder at the thought of building a boy band member.

Lady Liberty Abilities: 30 pp STR: 30 [14] (+10/+2) DEX: 16 (+3) CON: 14 (+2) INT: 12 (+1) WIS: 16 (+3) CHA: 18 (+4) Saves: 17 pp TOU: +10 (+2 Con, +8 Protection) FORT: +8 (+2 Con, +6) REF: +7 (+3 Dex, +4) WILL: +10 (+3 Wis, +8) Skills: 15 pp=60 r Bluff 6 (+10) Diplomacy 11 (+15) Knowledge: Civics 9 (+10) Knowledge: History 9 (+10) Languages 4 (ASL, Cantonese, French, Spanish) (Base: English) Notice 7 (+10) Profession: Lawyer 7 (+10) Sense Motive 7 (+10) Feats: 19 pp Attack Focus: Melee (4), Benefit: Hero of the People, Dodge Focus (4), Inspire (4), Luck, Power Attack, Quick Change, Taunt, Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 50 pp All-American Array [22+4=26 pp] Enhanced Strength 16 and Super-Strength 3 (180 tons), AP: Deflect 11 [all ranged attacks], AP: Light Control 11 AP: Healing 11, AP: Nullify 11 [all binding and imprisoning effects at once]), Flight 5 (250 MPH) [Dynamic] [11+2=13 pp], DAP: Super-Strength 5 Protection 8 (Extra: Impervious) [16 pp], Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 melee), DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed), INIT: +3 Grapple: +20/+28 Drawbacks: -5 pp Power Loss (all powers, when bound or imprisoned, –5 points) ------ Design Notes: This is my attempt at a PL 10 (150 pp) version of Lady Liberty, the premiere patriotic paragon of the Freedom City setting. This build would work OK as a Year One version of Beth Walton-Wright, the current Lady Liberty, or as a similar character empowered by her death/retirement. (There's a mention that she and her husband are thinking about kids, and as they're in their mid-40s, it's getting about time to deal with that or not!) It's one of my favorite Kenson builds and concepts, though as usual it needs significant reworking to make the build worth playing. Lady Liberty is an old legacy in the Freedom City universe stretching back to the American Revolution, with connections reaching out to democratic movements all over the world. The new Lady Liberty, having come to power by retirement or death, is instantly going to be an international celebrity. So what exactly did I do? I made her powers more of an array, putting her Enhanced Strength together with the 'light of liberty'; she can fly at the speed of sound, deflect bullets and missiles with her liberty shield, heal the wounded, and with the power of Liberty itself shatter bonds both mental and physical! (The sample use of the power has her breaking a mind control effect on a teammate, and of course she could use it to break chains and such...assuming she wasn't bound herself! Yes, she does have the goofy Marstonian 'lose-my-powers-when-tied-up' weakness of the Golden Age Wonder Woman. But I think that's not so bad: at least it fits her backstory, and she's much less likely to take it as Fetish Fuel.) Keep this build as a woman, please: all the known Lady Liberties are female. You can take or leave Southern Belle, the supposed 'Confederate' spirit of Liberty told in a really awful way in Worlds of Freedom. The spirit of Confederate liberty is a _villain_, not a hero. Consider it a dark chapter in a character's bright and shiny backstory, a suggestion that she really does get her powers from _America_ (a major source of complications) or even better look at it as a mystery for the character to uncover: who was Southern Belle? Where did her powers REALLY come from? Perhaps from a certain Infamous blockade runner who just didn't give a damn?

Ultiman Exile Abilities: 56 pp STR: 30 (+10) DEX: 14 (+2) CON: 30 (+10) INT: 14 (+2) WIS: 14 (+2) CHA: 14 (+2) Saves: 10 pp TOU: +10 (+10 Con) FORT: +10 (+10 Con) REF: +6 (+2 Ref, +4) WILL: +8 (+2 Will, +6) Skills: 8 pp=32 r Concentration 8 (+10) Knowledge: History 8 (+10) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 11 pp Attack Specialization: Unarmed (3) Dodge Focus (6) Eidetic Memory Jack-of-all-Trades Powers: 49 pp Comprehend 2 (speak and understand all languages) [4 pp] Cosmic Array [24+6=30 pp] Cosmic Energy Control 10 (PFs: Accurate 3) [Dynamic] DAP: Flight 10 (total of Flight 11 [15,000 MPH] ) DAP: Healing 10 (Extra: Action [standard]) (Flaws: Personal) DAP: Super-Strength 10 (total of Super-Strength 11 [1440 Tons] ) Flight 1 (10 MPH) [2 pp] Immunity 12 (aging, life support, starvation, sleep) [12 pp] Regeneration 1 ([Resurrection 1/week] (PFs: Persistent, Regrowth) [3 pp] Super Strength 1 (Heavy Load: 1.5 tons) [2 pp] Combat: 16 pp Attack +4 (+10 Cosmic Energy Control/+10 Unarmed), Defense +10 (+2 flatfooted), Knockback -5, Initiative +2, Grapple +24 ---- Design Notes: Criminy, it really, really is not easy to build an Ultiman (expies of Marvel's Eternals) at PL 10 (150 pp). Damn you, Steve Kenson! I made some massive modifications here to suit both our house rules and to try and trim down the ridiculous fat from the Kenson-built template. With Standard Action Personal Healing, this guy can concentrate and appear to regenerate quickly from most injuries, while with Dynamic Flight and Super-Strength in his big Cosmic Array he can go really, really fast and be really strong: with Flight and Super-Strength both outside the Array, he can also lift heavy objects and blast people with cosmic powers at full power while staying in the air. I dropped the low-level Telepathy entirely: he can still use it as a descriptor for his Comprehend, and if he really needs psychic communication, he can stunt it off his array. (Heck, maybe being 'mute' among his people is why he left home in the first place.) He's still immortal thanks to Immunity and Regeneration, and still immune to most of the Earthly concerns of your average person for the same reasons. He's a crummy fighter. Hey, he's spent centuries living in contemplation in Hyperborea, he's not been brawling on the streets with human scumbags! But if he's active long enough as a superhero, he'll certainly change there! His origin, among the secret Ultimen who live in Hyperborea, is one heck of a complication for him. Stop and think about why he left; particularly when cast against the nature of his immortal existence. Was he inspired like his relative Kal-Zed by the Nazi intruders who came in the 1930s, except to protect rather than rule those people? Or did he come later, inspired by the heroes who came to visit Hyperborea in the decades since. Remember, to an Ultiman, a decade is just a few months, if that... So many complications! Besides his origins, there's his treacherous 'cousin' Kal-Zed, aka Superior, the Nazi Superman, not to mention having no idea how to get along in the crazy world of modern humanity. He's gone from being among the weakest and youngest of his people to being among the most powerful beings on Earth, that's bound to have a certain impact on your personality! Since he's a hero, hopefully it'll be for the best. You can mix the sheet up however you want, this is just my attempt to trim down a very over-built template into an actually PC-sized character sheet. I'm sure there are lots of other ways to do it, but this is a way I think'll work OK!

I need a DC 25 Notice check.

Inside, the two heroines were greeted by the strong smell of honey in the air and distantly playing late 70s Muzak. What they found looked exactly like the stereotypical supervillain lair, right down to colored beakers on lab tables along the wall, half-finished weapons of doom that were clearly parts of the Bee-Keeper's most recent battlesuit, and a chalkboard covered with schemes. It was only on closer inspection that things started to look weird: the beakers were actually colored water, or gave a very convincing imitation thereof, and the chalkboard's equations and battle-strategies were dotted with occasional "Bee-Keeper+Fleur de Joie" doodled in hearts. There was, from down a narrow steel door along one wall, the distant sound of echoing buzzing, as if a very large number of very large things were making quite a noise.

Before the teens could linger too much on friends lost, regained, and the new relationships formed accordingly, musicians took to the stage along the far wall and began to play. Traditional Dakanan music turned out to be a blend of Arabic-sounding pop, traditional African rhythms, and some notes unique to Dakana's traditional, isolated culture: Rift or Breakdown probably could have told them more, but as it was, it was a good beat and they could all dance to it! As a fast, lively dance came up, Edge was pulled over onto the dance floor by his friend from the Agricultural Commission, the lovely young woman in the purple-print kanga looking very interested in his company, leaving the others from Young Freedom to pick amongst themselves and the many other unescorted guests very interested in getting to know the American superheroes in their company. For his part, the king of Dakana escorted his Egyptian-born wife to the dance floor as if he was king of the dance as well as king of the nation!

Joan watched the party with some interest before heading home, having taken careful note of the story she'd write the next morning. Felix Fassbinder certainly threw a mean party, even if the real party had been about the other guests rather than the show he put on. It was late when she got back; Lois was asleep on the couch and Charlie working on the city accounts; she chased the first off to bed, and hugged her husband before sitting down at her own desk to start getting her ideas down on paper. She thought back to her conversations with Bombshell and Ms. Americana, with Corbin Hughes and Estelle de Haviland, and as she started to wrote she began to smile. "At Felix Fassbinder's famous society party last night, some surprising things were on the menu..."