Avenger Assembled

Transmuter PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 32 pp STR 10 (+0) DEX 20 (+5) CON 20 (+5) INT 16 (+1) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 12 (+1) Combat: 20 pp ATK: +4 (+6 melee, +10 Corrosion/Transmutation) DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +9 Grapple: +6 Saves: 7 pp TOU: +8 (+5 Con, +3) FORT: +7 (+5 Con, +2) REF: +7 (+5 Ref, +2) WILL: +5 (+2 Wis, +3) Skills: 12 pp=48 r Acrobatics 4 (+9) Bluff 8 (+9) Craft: Mechanical 6 (+9) Craft: Structural 6 (+9) Knowledge: Physical Sciences 6 (+9) Knowledge: Technology 6 (+9) Notice 6 (+8) Search 6 (+9) Sense Motive 6 (+8) Feats: 18 pp Attack Focus: Melee 2 Beginner’s Luck Benefit: Status Challenge: (Fast Taunt) Defensive Attack Dodge Focus 6 Improved Initiative Luck Power Attack Takedown Attack Taunt Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 61 pp Alchemy Array [53+2=55 pp] Transmutation 10 (Extra: Duration [Continuous]) (Flaw: Range [Touch]) (1000 lbs) [inanimate to inanimate] (PFs: Accurate 2, Innate) {53} AP: Corrosion 10 (Extra: Autofire) (PFs: Accurate 2, Improved Crit 2, Reversible, Precise, Variable Descriptor 2 [any technological]) {48} AP: Create Object 10 (Extras: Duration [Continuous], Moveable, Selective) (PFs: Innate, Progression 2 [25 ft cubes-250 ft objects]) {53} Protection 3 [3 pp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] costs abilities 32 + combat 20 + saves 7 + skills 12/48 + feats 18+ powers 61 = 150 pts Design Notes: This build is for a transmuter, a character who transform one kind of matter into another kind by a touch. This is a very powerful ability, especially since I’ve bought her ability all the way up to Continuous and added the Innate feat. This means that when she touches something, it _stays_ transformed, especially since the Innate feat means that it can’t be easily undone: when she turns glass into water, how do you undo it? It’s actually water! With her Create Object effect, she can make any kind of object you care to name, and again they last and are perfectly ‘real’ objects. They go away when she wants them, and she can shift them and shape them however she pleases. I figure her Corrosion is her blowing things up by touching them, or maybe by summoning a wrench to hit them on the head! These are powerful abilities, but then notice she has spent a lot of points on them! The fact that she can’t change living flesh directly without a power stunt is a weakness she has, as is the fact that she has no ranged attacks other than trying to whack people with the things she makes. Bedevil her with a flying character with a high Reflex save if you think she’s too powerful. A lot of the possible abuses of Transmutation (and the Transform at its base) are helped out by the fact that she has to be standing there touching whatever it is she’s changing. But you know what, powerful characters deserve to be able to do cool and powerful things. I’ve built her with the assumption that she’s parlayed her career into a useful occupation as a community mechanic or ‘shaper’ of things for people in the town or neighborhood where she lives, but you can adjust her status to be military rank or whatever else you care to name. Add some Super-Senses (maybe Analytical Touch, or Microscopic Vision) to get a more sophisticated idea of the things she’s making, as it is, she’s a good mechanic and builder who does most of her bigger stuff by instinct. Up her skills if you want to make her more of a gadgeteer with a trick rather than the other way around. I guess you could really recast this character and make her a living suit of armor if you want, but that would take some pretty steep revisions!

Mark studied Erin, looking from her to Trevor, a truly evil look in his eye, before his innate good nature won out. There was no reason to embarrass Trevor when it wasn't his turn to be dared, after all. That was for the person getting dared! "All right...for the next five minutes, after everything you say, add 'in bed.' Just like eating a fortune cookie!" He added brightly. "Or is that too dirty?" he asked, suddenly unsure, looking at Erin for her reaction. "I did that once when I was playing truth or dare over Christmas, but that might be dirty."

"No, I'm good!" Mark sprang up, towel wrapped neatly around his waist, everything luckily having fallen into place. Even his hair was looking slicked-back and neat, no small feat with his crew cut. "A little bump on the noggin never actually hurt anyone," he said with a breezy wave, looking unruffled by his recent flashing of the entire team. "I fall off things all the time and nothing bad happens. Heck, I think it sobered me up!" It normally didn't work that way, but this was Mark. "If you guys wanna keep going, I'm totally good. Hey Erin, truth or dare?" asked Mark, ducking behind a table to pull a spare pair of boxer shorts on. "You're up, or at least I think you are."

19

32 with the HP, so he's Bruised

Jack stared at Trevor for a long moment, then broke into a grin and clapped him on the shoulder. "Good man! I like your style, kid. You're welcome here any time." Looking much more relaxed, and far less scary, he walked past Erin, ducking his head to kiss the baby. "Nice one," he added sotto voce with a wink at Erin before getting his coat. "We'll be back around 3 or 4 in the morning. Do either of you like Indian food?" he asked, not something he usually did before leaving. "Because we can probably pick something up after, you know, the meeting," he said to Taylor.

"And if you're confronted with a monster, Mr. Hunter?" said the sharply staring father. "If a fiend from the very pits of Hell came bubbling forth at this moment to lay waste to the populace, would you have the fortitude to do whatever it took to protect the innocent? That very thing has happened in this house, young man, and if I'm going to trust you with the very life of my son, I want to know that you have what it takes. If an unholy monster attacked at this very moment, how would you respond?" Jack had learned from his encounter with Erin, and wasn't going to have yet another teenage hero beat him up in his own house. Hopefully.

Fear in combat was something new to Harrier. It wasn't something he'd ever felt as an assimilated drone, not even as horrible things happened all around him, but life as a free man meant life inside his own head. Which meant that now, blinded and faced with a superior opponent, even if one he'd already injured badly, he felt fear. Fear of his own destruction, the far-worse fear of reassimilation...No. No, I won't give in. Never. He'd heard the flier take off, no doubt planning to strafe him as he flailed helplessly in darkness, a strategy Harrier himself knew only too well. Cities burning as poison gas choked their inhabitants, picking off lone defenders one-by-one from the air... I cannot outfly him. Especially not blind. DIG.Gritting his teeth inside his armor, his mouth bare against cold metal, Harrier raised his staff and drove it straight down: he might have gone nowhere fast if he hadn't been close to a manhole, the metal giving way before the concrete beneath his feet did. Harrier plunged into a deeper darkness, a deep, dark hole whose dimensions he couldn't see or hear. Come find me!

"Aw, I'm sorry," said Mark, instantly apologetic as he looked at Trevor. "I didn't meant o be too friendly. I just, you know, thought that was how people talked to each other when they were buddies. Aw." He rubbed the back of his head and said, "Anyway, I'd probably keep my costume the way it is, because it's fully awesome, and use a standard 3/4 inch stale for their actual construction, I mean, those big toys are nice, but it's a lot more fun to have the little figures that you can stick in your pocket or your bag or inside your costum...er, inside your pocket, and go to town!" He coughed, scratching his chin, and said, "I'd use Mike's new costume, of course, because oit's FULLY AWESOME! And eeveryone else's ois pretty OK. Maybe juse some kind of inernal fog unit for the Midnight, but that would probably have to go in an attached alley playset or something since it's hard to minaturize those safely." He was wobbling back and forth, as were his words, but his train of thought stayed intact. "Accessoires for eeveryone, like Erin's bat and Mike's new glame cape! And to go with it, a YIKES!" Suddenly, Mark catapulted backwards and fell off the back of the tub and onto the carpeted floor below, his Speedo flying away as his concentration was disrupted and the fabric gave way.

"Hm." Jack's whole body language seemed to change as he studied Trevor, back slumping, shoulders going up, and a feral look in his eye. He cleared his throat, then said, "Yes, you have quite a look about you. It's hard to tell without seeing the eyes, but I think I can take the measure of a man from the way he stands. It's good to see someone young willing to work in the rough side of the business. It's all poorly-socialized types like Arrowhawk and myself doing it these days, outside of Raven herself. How do you feel about magic, Mr. Hunter?"

"D-no, Truth!" said Mark, waving his hand. "Everyone thinks I'm too drunk to bubble everybody to Dakana, so I won't do it. I believe in practining safety and ood judgement, thank you! Gimmie the truthiest truth you've got," he said, waving his hand in Trevor's general direction. "I'm not too drunk to teo tell you the thruth about stuff and junk." He nodded, pulling himself up before his head disappeared under the water entirely, waving back and forth as he sat on the edge of the jacuzzi. "Yeah. Lay it on me, baby!" He giggled.

A civilian would have screamed and run from the monster. Even a hardened soldier might have done the same at the sight of a superpowered individual, particularly a cyborg so like the Omegadrones, dripping with the terrible power of the Terminus. A more experienced superhero would have bantered with Vanquisher, perhaps throwing an insult about his ugly face out as he prepared for battle. Murdock simply charged, armor exploding from his body in a shower of slick and blood, smashing shoulder-first into Vanquisher's chest, his jetpack roaring to life as it erupted from his back, letting him slam Vanquisher against the wall behind them hard enough to crack the brick. Harrier didn't talk, he didn't banter: he brought the sharp end of his pike up, the end shrieking with rapidly cycling electrical charges, and smashed it into Vanquisher's chin. He wasn't trying to knock him out or stun him; he was trying to put the blade through the soft, vulnerable tissue beneath the jaw and shove it up through the brain. He'd done it before, too many times; the fastest, easiest way to kill a humanoid with a powerpike in melee. Harrier was no killer, not anymore. But he'd made the natural assumption that this was Victory as an Annihilist, a version of his friend corrupted by the powers of the Terminus and sent to bring him back to Omega. And to prevent that, he'd kill, oh yes. When the blade scored off Vanquisher's armor, simply slicing him across the face rather than through the soft parts of the skull, Harrier swung the blunt end around and smashed it into Vanquisher's midsection, once, twice, until he heard soft, vulnerable flesh crack inside the armor, through not a deep enough crack for the internal bleeding and ruptured organs he'd hoped to inflict. Smash the organs at center mass, break the heart and lungs; another fast way to kill. But not this time; fate seemed to favor the monster as he grabbed the blade, deflecting it before a fatal blow could fall. Harrier heard the whine of his enemy's energy capacitors charging to fire, and spoke for the first time just before the blast came, defiance in his voice. "My. Name. Is. Harrier."

All right, Harrier can't make that save, so I'll just let him be Dazzled till he rolls Fort next round. Posting IC...

Surge! (will be Fatigued next round without spending an HP, as usual) 22 OK, hit him exactly! That's 15+12=DC 27 TOU.

Harrier stabs the SOB again. Move Action: Startle 11; ouch. Well if he was scared of Omegadrones, I guess he wouldn't hang out in the Terminus! Standard Action: Attack! The first one misses so HP for a reroll: 28, so that hits That's DC 12+15+3 (the +3 is from the Autofire that I forgot to add during the Surprise Round, since Harrier exceeded Vanquisher's DEF by 6) DC 30 Lemee know how that goes...

"Me me!" said Mark, drunkenly waving his arm. "I'm full of hilariousness, and also booze!" He was getting a little sloppy by dipping into the champagne, but still was vaguely coherent. "Wow, I don't think we've all ever been drunmk together like this before! Pretty wild, huh? I guess it's the pause that refreshes. Or no wait, that's Coca-Cola. Anyway, I think American drinking laws are dumb now! This stuff isn't so bad, and I don't feel impaired at all. In fact, I bet I could..." He looked out the window, a speculative look in his eye. "No...no, not till after the game," he decided.

Sneak Thief PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 42 pp STR 18 (+4) DEX 24 (+7) CON 20 (+5) INT 10 (+0) WIS 16 (+3) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+14 melee/pistols) DEF: +15 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +11 Grapple: +21 Saves: 9 pp TOU +5 (+5 Con) FORT +8 (+5 Con, +3) REF +10 (+7 Dex, +3) WILL +6 (+3 Wis, +3) Skills: 16 pp=64 r Acrobatics 4 (+11) Bluff 13 (+15)* Disable Device 13 (+13)* Disguise 4 (+6/+31)* Notice 7 (+10)* Sense Motive 7 (+10) Stealth 8 (+15) Feats: 31 pp Acrobatic Bluff Attack Focus: Melee (6) Attack Specialization: Pistols (3) Challenge (Fast Taunt) Defensive Attack Dodge Focus (7) Equipment (3) Grappling Finesse Improved Initiative Power Attack Second Chance (Disable Device checks) Skill Mastery (Bluff, Disable Device, Disguise, Notice) Sneak Attack Takedown Attack Taunt Uncanny Dodge (Auditory) Powers: 18 pp Morph 5 (any form) (PFs: Attractive, Covers Scent, Precise) [18 pp] Equipment: 15 ep Dual Machine Pistols: (Blast 4 (Extra: Autofire): 12 ep Grapple Gun: (Speed 1 (10 MPH) and Super-Movement 1 (Swinging): 3 ep costs abilities 42 + combat 32 + saves 9 + skills 16/64 + feats 33 + powers 18 = 150 pts -- Design Notes; OK, here’s my take on a sneaky femme fatale-style sneak thief. She’s got a lot of options, putting her somewhere between Catwoman and Mystique on the scale of “cool things I can do.” She’s a pretty good anti-tech thief with her Disable Device Skill Mastery and Second Chance, but she’s _really_ good at subversion. Why break into the bank when you can seduce the bank manager, knock him out, and show up looking just like him the next morning? It’s a matter of taste, and this is definitely a character who may be popular with the fellas on both sides of the law. Is she a reformed bad girl made good, or an honest lady who just happens to have powers that make her very, very good at sneaking around and getting up to business? Morph is a fun power. Is she naked all the time or does she have clothes? Is she as hot as Rebecca Romijn-Stamos in blue in her natural form, or does she look average (or not like a woman at all!) when her powers are turned off? I gave her Morph for any form: it lowers the overall rank, but she really can turn into ANYTHING. You can drop it to humanoids to make her better at Disguise if you want, that’ll raise the rank and thus give her a higher skill total. Or keep the relatively low rank and spend the points elsewhere. She’s a little ‘powers-heavy’ for a character like this, and might benefit from some higher skills. She’s a good combatant, though very squishy, and vulnerable to being caught flat-footed. She can handle herself in melee, but works quite well as a two-guns-blazing gun-fu martial artist. It’ll be very easy for her to make a target flat-footed, especially if she’s made herself Attractive to them ahead of time; between her machine pistols and her martial arts skill, it won’t be hard at all for her to take the bad guys down if you play her as the smart, fast fighter she’ll have to be. Give her a complicated relationship with the local Cowl, natch...

1 more rank of Luck for Avenger [1 pp] +2 Fort +2 Ref +1 Will for Edge [5 pp] Strike 2 (PF: Mighty) for Harrier (to represent punching with a spiked fist; this doesn't stack with his pike) [3 pp] +2 Charisma [2 pp] Fusion: +2 Attack Focus: Melee [2 pp] Edits done by Geez3r

"So, Trevor," said Jack, giving the young man a searching look while Erin took the baby from Taylor. "Erin tells me you're very responsible. Do you have any experience watching children, or other dangerous animals?" He grinned at that, perhaps off just a beat, as the baby gave Erin a hopeful look before bursting into loud fusses when he realized she had no bottle. Or did she? He was too little to snap, but not too little to show teeth as he threw his head toward her, closing and unclosing his jaws with a sucking noise.

Joan listened to the boy natter about how she should be talking about the government cyborg and felt pity, then anger. Criminy, is that how they teach kids to talk at Claremont? I thought that was supposed to be an elite prep school, not just another diploma mill for poorly socialized children of the elite. Maybe he's a legacy, she thought, and that nice Erin girl I met is a scholarship candidate. I'll have to do more research. If he was ten years older, I'd rip his skin off, but I'm not going to get in trouble with Fletch because I got into a fight with a stupid kid. She hmmed inside, still listening as the boy went on and on about being polite to ladies and the mean old journalists who dared take a picture of the underage boy partying with scantily-clad adults at an alcohol-fueled party for the rich. God, just think, in twenty years, he could be President, and Lois could be getting drafted to go fight whatever war his rich backers want our children to fight. Don't do it, baby! "That's very nice, Mr. Hughes," she said, all daggers in her smiles. "I'm going to go talk to Ms. Loeb over there in the corner," she said politely as she left the pair behind. "You have a lovely rest of the evening."

"Good evening, children!" exclaimed a voice from the upper stairs. Just coming down into the hallway as Trevor and Erin entered was Jack Faretti himself, looking dashing in a rather romance-novel cover sort of way in his poet shirt and tight leather pants. Somewhat ruining the image, or maybe helping it if you were into that sort of thing, was the round-faced baby in his arms. "Jack Jr. and I have been having some father-son bonding time up in the library. He's a sweet boy! Aren't you sweet?" The little baby gave a half-smile to Trevor and Erin, but Erin knew the face that said the baby wanted his bottle and then his blankie before bed. "You must be Trevor," he said, shaking the boy, no, young man's hand as he got closer. For his part, Jack didn't look to be more than a few years older than Trevor himself. "It's a pleasure to meet you. Erin says nothing but good things about you. Are they true?"

SURGE! (spending my new HP next round to cancel the fatigue) Standard Action: Strike 25 Darn, I missed critting by 1! 15+17+1=DC 33. Don't forget that he's flat-footed and down -1 Tou from being injured. OK, the DC to hit Harrier is now 17. Go ahead and post OOC, and I'll get the IC post up.

14 Surprise Round: Free Action: Pop Armor Free Action: Pop Staff, setting it to an electrical descriptor. Standard Action: Strike Attack: FAIL with a 13 Standard Action: Reroll with HP...That's a crit, oh yes And with an All-Out Power Attack no less. OK, that's DC 15+17+5+1 (since it's 15 for a Tou save, 17 for the Power Attack, 5 for the Crit, and +1 because it's Electricity) so DC 38. Harrier is frightened enough to do lethal, so that's what he's doing. OK, let me know how that turns out, and I'll post IC.

"He's a government-assembled cyborg," agreed Joan. "I've met several models of a similar design in Japan, but he's among the first to be presented openly to the public in the United States. That's where I first met you, Dr. de Haviland," she added, "when I was writing for the Japan Times. But I doubt you'd remember me. That was a crowded press conference," she added with a thin smile. Shooting a look at Corbin, she added, "Yes, I saw you were having some trouble with those paparazzi. Ghastly stuff, not the sort of thing you'd expect to see in a credible newspaper. Did they give you any reason why they were harassing you?"

Fusion looked up at the ceiling, her tentacles sliding through the air soundlessly, and reached up to press them against the ceiling overhead as she felt for the source of the vibrations. "I heard it, but what did we hear?" the inquisitive octopus asked. "It's amazing what the power of psychological suggestion can do," she said with determination in her voice. "A couple of guys with hammers in a so-called haunted house can get away with murder. Though I don't think that's exactly what happened here..."