Jake

[simplex409]

Hi folks,

 

New on here (well not that new but this is my first post). I'm not 100% familiar with M&M - I have the PDF (and HeroLab) but having moved to China I find myself without a gaming group these days. Anyway, my own problems aside I was hoping you lovely chaps and ladies would take a quick glance through the character sheet below and let me know if I've made any ghastly newbie type errors either in my maths or in my power selections and whatnot.

 

Thanks in advance, everyone!

 

 

Players Name: Simplex409
Character's Name: Jake
Power Level: 10
Power Points: 150/150

 

In Brief: Free floating ghost of a hanged man

 

Alternate Identities: None
Identity: Secret
Birthplace: London
Occupation: Indentured Haunter
Affiliations: Hereafter Scare Inc.
Family: None living

Age: DoB 1560, DoD around 1590
Apparent Age: About 40. Not really sure because of the bag
Gender: Male
Ethnicity: Caucasian
Height: 6'0"
Weight: looks about 180 lbs, actually weightless
Eyes: Yellowish green fire can be seen through holes burnt in the sack.
Hair: Unknown; he wears the burlap sack on his head - it doesn't come off (he's tried).

 

Description: When visible Jake is a human male floating in the air. He wears old style pants long since frayed and torn with patches here and there and a burlap sack covers his head. His only other clothing is a hangman's noose that is still tight around his neck, the long rope floating around him as though underwater.
His skin is pale white mottled with grey, and there are numerous cuts and gashes covering his torso. From his hands and feet strange glyphs have been carved into his flesh and they trail snakelike up his arms and legs respectively, glowing with the faintest of green lights.
The burlap sack covers his head entirely and it is matted with dirt and dried blood. There are a few burn marks on the material and two holes have been scorched through the material where eye slits would be and from within all that can be seen is a burning yellow green light that flickers with a hateful intensity.
His posture is wracked and tortured, writhing slowly with crooked arms and bent legs as though in perpetual pain on some sort of rack. This doesn't seem to be particularly bothersome to him however as he's usually chipper even while curled back against his own spine in seeming agony.

 

Power Descriptions: Jake is a ghost, with all the powers and complications which come with that particular state; insubstantial, floating, hard to kill, and mindless of most things the living find important such as breathable air.
He has a selection of supernatural abilities at his disposal for terrifying and combating the forces of darkness. Well hte forces of darker-than-him-ness. These are again the pretty basic suite of ghostly abilities; possession of the living, poltergeist activity, draining away live forces, and projecting his suffocating noose around the necks of those who are particularly troublesome.

 

History: Jake was born "James Marcus Wilson" in the London borough of Whitechapel in 1560. His parents were not particularly well off nor were they living on the street but rather that happy middle ground so admired by the middle classes. His childhood was one of much excitement and adventure as a small boy - since small boys find excitement and adventure in the simplest of places, and while he was perhaps a little unruly it was nothing out of the ordinary for the time - playing games of pirates and sailors, skipping school, and coming home covered in mud being the usual causes of a hiding.
As he grew into adolescence he took work as a carpenter and studied hard at architecture - most decidedly the construction of wooden homes in the form of cabins, and how they may be easily erected with the minimum of effort. Everyone knew of the magical new land discovered far to the west and already there was talk of settlements to be founded and brave adventurers needed to face the perils of the untamed frontiers.
Raleigh, the famous seaman, declared his plans to found a settlement across the sea in the early part of 1585 and though he submitted himself for the voyage he was deemed too inexperienced for the trials ahead. Downcast he watched the hulking ship leave the London docks and swore he would be a part of the next ship to leave.
He continued working and studying for several more years - long enough to see the return of the failed expedition funded by Raleigh - and took himself a young wife who shared his dream of the far frontier.
When Raleigh announced another attempt - better supplied and funded - to be departing in the spring of 1587 Jake again applied with his wife's full approval and they were overjoyed to be accepted. They packed, bid their families a tearful farewell, and boarded the ship heading west.
The journey wasn't pleasant for anyone, especially the untraveled pair, but they made it to the shores of American still in fine spirits and the whole of the expedition worked well together to unload the ship and begin making a base camp. The captain of the ship, John White, stayed on for some weeks as he and the crew assisted the settlers in founding the new colony before they boarded their ship and, with cheerful farewells to the new settlers, set off back for England where they would retrieve more supplies for the colony they had helped found. The trip should have taken less than a year.
But it didn't. War broke out between England and Spain and in the midst of the bloody conflict no ship was to set sail for the west when the Spanish galleons were so close to England's border.
The war was, for the time, short - finishing by 1590 and John White wasted no time in loading up the ship to return to the colony. He wasn't worried about the long absence - the colonists were well supplied, they had already begun tilling the land, houses and shacks had already been springing up, and the natives of the land were on friendly terms.
It was late in the year of 1590 when John White set foot once more into the settlement of Roanoke. Nobody was there. Not a living soul and no sign of any disturbance. Everyone had just... gone. Everyone, that is, except for Jack, whose body swung quietly in the breeze from the town hall beam.
(This is a basically true story, look it up! Although Jack wasn't there)
Jack has no real memories of the Roanoke colony after John White's departure - a few fragments of working hard and forming a town but no indication of what happened or why his was the only body left. And certainly not the faintest idea of what all the strange glyphs are about. A few years after his death is when he was recruited into Hereafter Scare Inc. They told him that he wasn't able to move on into the great hereafter until he'd worked as a Haunter long enough to clear his karmic debt. It sounded like nonsense to Jake but since he was unable to move on anywhere and sitting around doing nothing for eternity didn't seem like much fun he agreed to do as he was told. Since then he has been a rather pathetic excuse for a ghost - he doesn't like scaring people and he's more likely to fetch a sleepy child a glass of water than to leap out from under their bed shouting Boo.
He's been a haunted for hundreds of years and he hasn't any idea how much longer he has to keep doing it - maybe forever for all he knows, especially with his poor track record for frightening people. Still, he gets on with it and occasionally meets someone who isn't terrified of him so he has a friend for a few years.

 

Personality & Motivation: Jake looks like he should probably be a particularly creepy villain or at least a brooding anti-hero. The actual fact is that he's really quite happy go lucky and upbeat about most situations. After all - he's dead - how much worse can his day get? The other proverbial shoe has already dropped and he's glad to be still around.
He understands that his appearance is quite awful and is usually shy and invisible around new people, apologizing and trying to be nice to them in order to lesson the impact of his popping into being and making them shriek.
His job isn't rewarding for him in the least - having to go house to house scaring people in the dead of night by shouting "Boo!" in their closet isn't what he signed up for when he entered the afterlife, so through the night when he's working he can be a little disconsolate, but this fades as soon as he starts chatting and being friendly with people.
His motivation primarily stems from the fact that he's quite a nice guy who has a lot of power and likes people. When his nightly hauntings take him through the darker portions of the city he makes sure to go to each job the long way around and ensure that nobody is being unpleasant to someone else for the sake of a few dollar bills. 

Powers & Tactics: Usually, Jake finds that a good scare is all it takes to make most villains forget what they were doing and search quite urgently for a public restroom where they can sit and rethink their life choices. If that fails, he uses his suite of ghostly powers to combat his enemies in whatever way seems most effective or amusing at the time - he relies on the fact that he's already dead and can't strictly be killed again to ignore attacks coming his way (perhaps unwisely, but he's still around so it's not that bad).

 

COMPLICATIONS

Working Stiff: While not a day job as such, Jake is still indentured to the company and has to go about his hauntings. If he starts falling behind, he is quickly teleported to The Office and given a dressing down for some time before being released again. This can take anywhere from a few minutes to an hour, and he has no control or say in when he is returned to the living world.

 

Working for "The Man": Some spirits and ghosts see Hereafter Scare Inc. as an evil corporation bent on taking over the afterlife (which may be true, but it's not polite to point it out) and thus Jake is just a tool of 'The Man', man! Some spirits may react negatively to him or actively try to undermine whatever he's doing just to stick it to the corporate scum!

 

AAAIIIIEEEEEE!: Jake is pretty gruesome to look at and many people seeing him for the first time (or the second time. Maybe a third time. Probably not more than the fourth time.) may react in the only sensible way they know how and run screaming from the building.

 

We ain't afraid of no Ghost: Sure the grey jumpsuits are stylish and the backpacks look great, but these guys need to understand that running around shooting lights at every ghost in the world is just plain judgmental. They seem to have more franchises opening up all over the country these days, and it's a lucky night when one of their white hearses doesn't try to chase Jake down.

 

Mysterious Past: Not really a complication I guess, but we'll pop it here anyway. Jake doesn't know why he was hung nor why his body has all the strange glowing glyphs carved into it. Somebody does though and whether they're alive or dead it probably won't stop them showing up at some point with presumably nefarious intent.

 

Consecrated Ground: Jack can't enter consecrated ground and, if forced to do so, loses access to all his Haunting powers and his Protection. Additionally he whimpers and cries and can't do much of anything.

 

 

ABILITIES: (-10) + 4 + (-10) + 2 + 4 + 0 = -10PP 
Strength: ---
Dexterity: 14 (+2) 
Constitution: --- 
Intelligence: 12 (+1) 
Wisdom: 14 (+2) 
Charisma: 10 (+0) 

  
COMBAT: 18PP 
Initiative: +2 

Attack Bonus: +4
Attack: +10 Ranged (+4 Base, +6 focus), +4 Melee 
Grapple: +4
Defense: +5 (+5 Base)
Knockback: -12
  
  
SAVING THROWS: 0 + 3 + 5 = 8PP 
Toughness: +15 (Impervious 10)  /  +0 (+0 Impervious)  Vs Consecrated/Holy (Pretty much a sitting duck if you have a holy sword/gun/pointy stick - intentionally as I thought it fitted thematically)
Fortitude: --- 
Reflex: +5 (+2 Dex, +3) 
Will: +7 (+2 Wis, +5) 

  
SKILLS: 40R = 10PP 
Diplomacy 4 (+4)
Intimidate 10 (+10)
Investigate 6 (+5)
Medicine 6 (+4)
Notice 7 (+5)
Search 5 (+4)
Sense Motive 10 (+8)

  
FEATS: 8PP 
Attack Focus (ranged) 6
Fearless
Startle
  
Enhanced Feats 
Fearsome Presence 10 (From Horrify)

  
POWERS: 8 + 30 + 21 + 2 + 13 + 4 + 2 + 36 = 116PP 
All powers have the supernatural and undead descriptors.
  
Flight 4 (100 mph, 880ft/rnd) [8]
Immunity 30 (Fortitude Saves) [30]
Insubstantial 4 (Incorporeal, Permanent, Innate) [21]
Invisibility 4 (Total concealment from all visual senses, Action 2: Standard) [2]
Protection 15 (+15 Toughness, Impervious +10, Limited(weakness to Consecrated/Holy) [13]
Regeneration 4 (Resurrection 1/hour) [4]
Super Senses 2 (Darkvision) [2]
Haunting (36PP Array)
    Possession 10 ("Puppeteer" DC WILL 20, range 100', Continuous, Action1:Full rnd) [30pp]
    Confuse 10 ("Jacks Madness", DC Will 20, Perception Ranged, Duration: Concentration, Crit 20) [20pp]
    Drain 10 ("Weakness", Drains Strength, DC FORT/Staged 20, 100' range, Crit 20) [20pp]
    Enhanced Trait 10 ("Horrify", Fearsome Presence 10) [10pp]
    Obscure 5 ("Darkness of the Grave", Affects Visual Senses, Range 50', Radius 100') [10pp]
    Suffocate 10 ("Hangman's Noose", DC FORT 20, Range 100', Crit 20) [30pp]
    Telekinesis 7 ("Poltergeist", Strength 35, Carry 1.1k, 2.1k, 3.2k, 3.2tons,  Damaging, Perception Ranged, DC 22, Crit 20) [28pp]

  
TOTALS 
Abilities (-10) + Combat (18) + Saving Throws (8) + Skills (10) + Feats (8) + Powers (116) - Drawbacks (0) = 150/150 Power Points

Edited June 19, 2019 by simplex409
Suggested edits from Thevshi and RocketLord

[Thevshi]

Hey Sim, welcome to the site. You might find it helpful to join our Discord channel to chat with many of us real time. While a good number of us are in the States (or North America), we have members from all over the world, so there are likely to be at least some people on during convenient times for you.

 

As for what you have so far (crunch wise), I am not so sure about the ZERO for Base Attack Bonus. I understand you are trying to save points and have no real need for it given any power that normally requires an attack roll is bought as perception ranged. I personally am not the biggest fan of lots of Perception ranged powers as I sort of feel that if someone spends a lot of points making their character super agile and hard to his (like Spiderman or the Flash), having someone with nothing but auto-hit powers is annoying. But I am more in the minority on this so don't worry about that.

 

I do see one big problem though, that is your total defense of only +2. We would require Jake to meet PL caps for defense and toughness, so he would need 10 Defense (at lest +4 of which would have to be base defense bonus) and 10 Toughness (which you do have). If you wanted to use trade-offs, you could go as low as 5 Defense (only 2 of which would need to be BDB) and 15 Toughness (you would still be limited to only 10 ranks of Impervious).

 

It would also be helpful if you gave us the point costs for all the alt powers in the array.

[simplex409]

Awesome, thanks Thevshi!

 

I've made a few changes as suggested;

 

1. Pumped up his defense attribute to 10 so he's not quite as easy to bop.

 

2. Gave him some Ranged specialization so he can hit things with his new power choices. He doesn't have a physical body and his ghostly body isn't really under his control all that much (writhing around all the time) so I can't picture him engaging in fisticuffs.

 

3. Changed a bunch of his Haunting powers so they're no longer Perception ranged. One or two are, but mostly they're Ranged attacks - I think I agree with you that having a full suite of auto-hit powers wouldn't be any fun for people with a high defense.

 

There are a few other little tweaks here and there to balance the numbers, but I've popped the pp cost of all the array powers on there now as well so it's a bit easier to read.

 

Thanks loads for the feedback!

 

I can't use Discord from China - the Great Firewall doesn't approve of it and I don't have a VPN in order to sneak through. I need to get one, I really do.

[RocketLord]

Hey Sim, welcome to the site.

 

A thing I spotted about the new ranged attack, it breaks this house rule from the Abilities page: 

Quote

A minimum of 1/3 (rounded up) of a character's total Attack and Defense bonuses must come from Base Attack and Base Defense, rather than feats like Attack Focus or Dodge Focus.

• Report Record
  

 

So for +6 attack, you'd need 2 of that to be from Base Attack bonus. On that note, unless you're doing trade offs, which you don't seem to be, its best to try and hit PL limits, so the total attack bonus and DC for your skill is PLx2, except of course for Perception range skills which can at max be PL. 

 

Also, a ref might have to correct me here, but I think the Rank 15 Fearsome Presence feat breaks PL limits, since it would be a Rank 15 Perception effect.

[simplex409]

Awesome stuff RocketLord, thanks!

 

Adjusted a few more numbers here and there.

 

I dropped the +10 defense to +5 and pumped up his toughness to 15 with 10 impervious (still drops to Zero toughness if you come at him with a holy relic, of course!). Is this going to be okay? I know the +/- 5 rule which it falls into but I didn't want to push that too much so I can easily swap back to 10/10 if that's more in line.

 

I also fiddled about with his powers a bit and wanted a clarification on the Invisibility power. I gave it the flaw Action 2: Standard Action. Basically being invisible takes a fair bit of effort for him so while invisible he only gets a Move action - he needs to reveal himself in order to do much of anything else. Is that okay?

 

Finally, Possession is a full round action now - I figured that invading someone's brain would take a while, after all!

 

Thanks for your help everyone

[Thevshi]

Yeah, having +15 Toughness to +5 Defense is fine. It is the limit of trade off and we approve characters with that all the time.

 

One problem with the Concealment/Invisibility power. Per our house rules, changing the action on the power is only a drawback, not a flaw (so a -2 PP drawback). The reason is the action is just to turn the power on. Once it is on, it is sustained and a free action to keep up. If you want a flaw, you need to change the duration of the power.

[simplex409]

Okay, that's fine - so a full round to turn on and then a Concentration duration works out at the same cost which is kinda handy!

 

Thanks for all your help; time to submit