pl8 Rot PL8 Huckleberry

[Huckleberry]

Rot
Power Level: 9 (122/132PP)
Unspent Power Points: 10

Trade-Offs:  -5 Defense / +5 Toughness; -5 Attack / +5 Effect

 

In Brief: Challenged with a repulsive and difficult-to-control power set, a young superheroine navigates the challenges of being a misfit and a hero at the same time

Catchphrase: “Like, uh, um, you know?”

Theme: Message to You, Rudy

 

Rot in Super Suit

Rot in Homemade Costume

 

Alternate Identity: Consuelo Nunez (Nominally Private, but pretty easy to figure out, as her powers manifested when she was pretty young, with very visible results. Also, how many people have green dreadlocks, really?)
Birthplace:  Freedom City

Residence: Claremont Academy
Base of Operations: not an HQ in technical game terms, but Claremont Academy
Occupation:  High School Student
Affiliations: The Study Group
Family: Relationship with mother (Maria) is very strained. Hasn’t seen here father (Hector) since she was six.

 

Description:
Age: 16, birthday is February 29, 2007
Apparent Age: 16
Gender: Female
Ethnicity: Hispanic
Height:  5’ 4” (162 cm)
Weight:  117 pounds (53 kg)
Eyes:  Brown
Hair:  Green dreadlocks

 

Consuelo dresses with a punk esthetic, or is it grunge? Who's to say. She has her hair in green-dyed dreadlocks. She can’t stop her powers from slowly decaying objects she touches, so her clothing is often ragged.

 

History:

Consuelo has had some challenges in her childhood. Her family is poor. Her dad was a tortured soul that was sometimes violent toward her mom. He left them when she was six. Her mutant powers started gradually manifesting at age nine. It’s not like they had a lot of things, so when young Consuelo accidentally destroyed things with a touch, it caused a lot of frustration. As her powers grew, people began to be reflexively repulsed from her upon physical contact, and eventually even at a short distance. This was hardest of all. Her life changed for the better when she was accepted into the Claremont Academy. But her same problems have followed her there as well.

 

Personality & Motivation:

Her mom suffered a lot of injustice, and her dad was a jerk. Fertile ground for the growth of super-heroism. Being repulsive upon close physical proximity was tough as a kid and is tough for her as a teen. A lot of why she does what she does is her way of dealing with this issue. She leans into the outcast trope. And she tries to think of herself as noble for trying to be a hero despite the shunning her powers can result in. Recently Consuelo succeeded in gaining much more control over the repulsive effect her condition had on others, as well as allow her to "undo" her disintegration.

 

Powers & Tactics:

Rot’s powers apparently annihilate matter and energy, but actually redistribute it in miniscule amounts across billions of alternate dimensions. She also siphons matter and energy from countless alternate dimensions to power her flight and durability. Active use of her powers creates a dark, warping, shadowy distortion in the area of effect. She can sculpt the area in which she disrupts matter and energy. Her powers are much more potent if she can actually touch her target, but she's only modestly adept at hand to hand combat. She can adapt how she empowers herself, focusing on speed, or reflecting damage of melee attacks. Recently, she has gained more control over the aura of repulsion that her abilities give off, reining it in except when she is scared, angry, or using her powers at full strength.

 

Power Descriptions:

All of Rot's powers have Mutant Origin, Biological Source, and Extradimensional Medium. Consuelo's mutant physiology allows her to instantly, unconsciously shunt atoms and molecules across to billions of alternate dimensions, causing corrosion and disintegration effects. Similarly, her powers instantly and unconsciously draw energy and/or matter in miniscule amounts from billions of alternate dimensions to power her flight and support her impervious toughness. Concentrated use of her decay powers results in a visual warping and darkening of space in the area of effect, and a soft sucking/hissing sound (provided there is atmosphere).

 

Complications:
 

Responsibility: Consuelo’s mother, Maria, is hooked on pills and has trouble keeping a job or an apartment. Consuelo kind of hates her mom for this, but also wants to help. It’s complicated. 

Reputation: Being repulsive and destroying things all the time is plenty enough reason for Rot to have a bad reputation with most institutions and many people she encounters. 

Creepy Vibes: When she becomes angry or scared, or when she uses a power in her External Array at full strength, her abilities can trigger a fight or flight or disgust response in nearby people or animals. 

Cynic: Rot has been treated unfairly by authority figures for most of her life. Instead of receiving a benefit from Leadership (like clearing a condition), she may instead take a hero point, at GM's discretion.

 

Abilities: -2 + 4 + 4 + 0 + 4 + 4 = 14 PP
Strength: 8 (-1)
Dexterity: 14 (+2)
Constitution: 14 (+2)/36(+13)
Intelligence: 10 (+0)
Wisdom: 14 (+2)
Charisma: 14 (+2)


Combat: +2 + 2 = 4 PP
Initiative: +10
Attack: +3 (Poof!) +1 Base
Defense: +3, +1 Base, +1 Flat-Footed

Grapple: 0
Knockback: -10


Saving Throws: +0 +0 +4 + 6 = 10 PP
Toughness: +13 (+13 Con) (+8 Impervious)
Fortitude: +13 (+13 Con)
Reflex: +6 (Zip!) (+2 Dex, +4)
Will: +8 (+2 Wis, +6)


Feats: 8 PP

Attack Specialization 1 (Poof!)

Dodge Focus 2

Skill Mastery 1

Distract (Intimidate)

Startle

Luck 2 

Skills: 56 R = 14 PP

Intimidate 13 (+15) (M)

Notice 13 (+15) (M)

Sense Motive 13 (+15) (M)

Concentration 13 (+15) (M)

Language 1 - English, Spanish

Knowledge: Streetwise 3 (+3)

 

Powers:  2 + 22 + 8 + 2 + 1 + 10 + 29 = 74 PP

Flight 1 (stacked) [2 PP]
Stacked Power: Flight 5

Enhanced Constitution 22 [22 PP]

Impervious Toughness 8 [8 PP]

Enhanced Improved Initiative 2

Immunity 1 Own Drain and Damage Effects

Utility Array 4.5 (1 Alt) [10 PP]

•Base Power: Flight 4 (stacked); Enhanced Evasion (Zip!) {9/9 PP}
Stacked Power: Flight 5

•1st Alt Power: Add Reflection 8 (melee only) to Impervious Toughness(Feats: Affects Insubstantial 1; Descriptors: Disintegration) (Zap!) {9/9 PP}

Attack Array 14 (1 Alt) [29 PP]

• Base Power: Damage 8 (Extras: Area - Shapeable, Flaws: Distracting); Drain 8 (Toughness)(Extras: Area - Shapeable, Affects Objects, Linked; Flaws: Action - Full; Feats: Progression 2 - Area, Reversible, Affects Insubstantial 1) (Scour) {28/28 PP}

• 1st Alt Power: Damage  13; Drain 13 (Toughness)(Extras: Affects Objects, Linked; Flaws: Distracting); Feats: Reversible, Incurable (Poof!) {28/28}


Drawbacks: (-2 PP)

(-2) Why we can’t have nice things: Objects that Consuelo contacts for an extended time (clothing, chairs, mattresses, spacesuits, etc.) slowly decay away. Cumulative damage to the object is resolved as being hit by a Corrosion attack of Rank equal to the number of hours of contact, divided by 3, up to her PL. Her super suit is immune to this drawback.

 
Totals: Abilities (14) + Combat (4) + Saving Throws (10) + Feats (8) + Skills (14) + Powers (74) - Drawbacks (2) = 122/132 Power Points

Edited May 2 by Fox
+2pp for March 2024

[Huckleberry]

Doing a HellQ for this character got me thinking - with how virtual everything is these days, her "untouchable" drawback probably isn't quite a socially debilitating as I was thinking. So maybe just -4? Also in the HellQ, I came to realize her "why we can't have nice things" drawback is probably worse than I was realizing - especially with the part about slowly disintegrating whatever she sleeps on.  So maybe that's a -3. Also, it seems like the rate of decay might need to be slowed down to one rank of corrosion every two hours, for playability.  . . .

 

Also, this is the first charcter I've ever made for M&M, so suggestions are very welcome. 

 

Also also, this is my first time posting on this site. So advice n how to start playing once I have an approved charcter is very much appreciated. 

[Fox]

Hello and welcome! Always a delight to see new players!

 

I hope you don't mind - I've taken the liberty of updating your sheet's formatting to match the template, more or less; we aren't extremely strict on every stray } or bolding but it's good to keep things neat, especially for brand new players. I didn't change any powers or abilities themselves, just rearranged and adjusted formatting to make it easier to read.

 

For very general feedback, if you want input from the larger player base before finalizing this character you're welcome to build them in our Character Building forum, or hop on our Discord to chat with folks and ask for input - both are optional, of course, but it's worth throwing out there.

 

As for my feedback in particular:

• Claremont is indeed a boarding school - and as such, that Untouchable drawback has the potential to be significant, not to mention having to deal with NPCs in person during any hero work.
• I do recommend toning down the "Why can't we have nice things" drawback, if only because we shouldn't have 16-year-olds running around without clothes on. A much slower decay that's more story-meaningful than purely mechanical would make for a good complication, which could be invoked by you or whoever's running a thread with you when appropriate, maybe?
• A character with flat 10's in every ability score is unusual - not impossible, of course, but unless she's intended to be perfectly average in every way it may be worth looking at her as a character and figuring out what she's good and bad at, at her most fundamental. Some of this could be done without even changing the overall cost of things, even - Toughness and Fortitude both get a bonus from Constitution, for instance, so taking a point away from both and buying Constitution 12 would lead to the same overall bonuses:
  • Constitution 10 (+0), Toughness +9 (+9 Protection), Fortitude +12 (+0 Con, +12) = 21PP total
  • Constitution 12 (+1), Toughness +9 (+1 Con, +8 Protection), Fortitude +12 (+1 Con, +11) = 21PP total
  • etc.
• I'm afraid you're a little over-budget on powers - the array's only paid for one out of the two Alternate Power slots in there, and both of them are over-budget if I've done my math right.
  • It's also worth noting that Vampiric powers can only heal you the same way they hurt your enemies - so if you harm with damage, you can heal your own damage; if you're draining enemy toughness, you can only heal your own drained toughness. If that's intentional (and it may be!) then great, but Vampiric can be weird so I thought I'd point it out just in case.

[Huckleberry]

Thanks for that, Fox. The invite for the discord I found on the manual came back as expired. Is there an updated one?

 

I'm not sure your math is right on the power budget. But I also didn't catch it was plus one PP per alternate power, so that will have to change. Very new to the rules. My understanding is that a bruised character suffers a loss of Toughness. Would a Toughness vampiric extra not recover that?

Edited October 22, 2023 by Huckleberry

[Fox]

I wasn't aware that our Discord links had expired! I've passed that along, and hopefully it'll get addressed soon.

 

Bruises do not actually reduce your Toughness - they impose a penalty on Toughness Saves (so your Toughness bonus stays the same, but when you roll, your roll gets a bite taken out of it). That seems very nitpicky, but it ends up mattering for effects like Drain - for instance, Draining an object's Toughness below -5 will destroy it!

 

For the power budget, let's break it down (and please do double-check me to make sure I didn't lose a +/-1 somewhere):

 

Extras add to the cost of a power that scales with the rank of that power - usually, they add +1pp/rank to the overall cost.

Flaws work like Extras, except instead of making the power more expensive they make it cheaper - usually -1pp/rank.

Power Feats add a flat cost to the power, no matter what rank the power itself has.

Power Drawbacks make the power cheaper by a flat amount, no matter what rank the power itself has.

 

Corrosion 7 (Withering Strikes; Extras: Autofire 1, Penetrating, Poison; Feats: Slow Fade) {43/36}

Corrosion is 3pp/rank by default (it's technically a Damage effect at 1pp/rank linked to a Drain Toughness effect at 1pp/rank with the Affects Objects extra tacked on for another +1pp/rank).

Autofire 1, Penetrating, and Poison are all +1pp/rank extras, for +3pp/rank total.

Slow Fade is a power feat that costs a flat 1pp.

So our cost is 6pp/rank (3pp/rank for the base power, +3pp/rank for the three extras), times 7 ranks (6*7= 42pp), plus the power feat (42+1= 43pp). The array's only bought 36pp of budget, so we're 7pp over-cost.

 

Disintegration 7 (Eraser; Extras: Area [Shapeable]; Feats: Precise) {43/36}

Disintegration is 5pp/rank by default (it's a Damage effect with +Range for 2pp/rank linked to a Drain Toughness with +Range and +Affects Objects for 3pp/rank).

Area is a +1pp/rank extra.

Precise is a power feat that costs a flat 1pp.

So our total cost is 6pp/rank (5pp/rank for the power, +1pp/rank for the extra), times 7 ranks for 42pp, plus the power feat is 43pp. Like Corrosion, this is over-budget by 7pp, so either the power must get smaller or the array must get bigger.

 

The math can take a bit to wrap one's head around; Mutants & Masterminds tries to be very flexible so that we can create whatever heroes our hearts desire, but the cost is that the more complicated the power gets, the more math we have to do to make sure it all lines up (which is why you see many characters and templates sticking with pretty straight-forward powers). It does get a lot easier with practice, since so many complicated Powers actually break down into the same smaller, basic Effects. We have a bunch of people on the site who enjoy tinkering with this kind of thing, too, and they're generally happy to give input when asked.

 

Addendum: I've gotten a response from our site admin, who has the permissions to offer discord invites; I've PMed you the link, and she's looking into getting a new thing in place for future players.

[Avenger Assembled]

just checking in to see how everything's going!

[Huckleberry]

Hmm, I thought this site was MM 2e?

 

In my copy of the 2e rules, Corrosion is listed a 2 pp per rank, and disintegration as 4 pp per rank. Also, Impervious is given as an extra specifically for the protection power. So taking a higher constitution and making your Toughness Impervious didn't seem like a legal option. I did read the 3e rule book about a year ago, and I think I remember Impervious could be an extra to any Trait in that system. Is it possible the costs you are quoting could be 3e values? If I could get approval to take a high constitution and make her Toughness Impervious, that would be way better though. Also, it seemed like 3e was a pretty well designed system, any thoughts about adopting it for the website?

 

I could get some points for ability scores by shaving an extra off each power in her main array. Would need to spend some on Ranged Attack if disintegration wasn't area effect, though. 

[Fox]

Aahh, I see what's gotten us turned around. The sins of the game designers are many.

 

I've been reviewing powers based on Ultimate Power, which is a 2e book that came out later and...well, covers Powers, their creation, and so on (it's very helpful for refs doing sheet reviews because sometimes the review gets into the nitty-gritty of things). Apparently they rethought the costs between the core book and this one...but since we can break it down into its core components and double-check the costs using those, I'm afraid the Ultimate Power costs do win. Many are the sins of the game creators. Many, many sins.

 

Impervious is indeed linked to Protection normally, but spy the easily-missed last sentence there: "This modifier can also be applied to the Toughness save bonus from Constitution (costing 1 point per +1 save bonus made Impervious)." - this usually gets noted on sheets as either extra ranks of Impervious under a Protection power, or "Impervious Toughness [1pp/rank]" as its own pseudo-power. We do allow Impervious on any of the saving throws (Toughness, Fortitude, Reflex, Will) though you only rarely see it on anything but toughness. That's the one that comes up the most!

 

Re: the disintegration, you could also add Flaws, if you don't want to remove anything - you don't have to, of course, but it's another tool in your belt. Stuff like Distracting (lose your dodge bonus for the round you use the power) and Action (you have to spend your whole turn on the power, no moving allowed!) definitely do hurt, but they also add some flavor that's nice sometimes.

 

We've toyed with the idea of moving to 3e, but it'd be a lot of headache (and probably some new expense!) inflicted on every player so we haven't so far. Maybe one day, but it's unlikely to be soon, alas.

[Huckleberry]

Thanks so much, Fox, for your feedback. I've toned down her powers a bit, given her some diversity in ability scores, given her some ability to avoid attacks, and moderated the rate at which she inadvertently degrades objects. I think Rot is getting closer to being ready!

 

Abilities: -2 + 0 + 18 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 16 PP
Strength: 8 (-1)
Dexterity: 10 (+0)
Constitution: 28 (+9)
Intelligence: 10 (+0)
Wisdom: 10 (+0)
Charisma: 10 (+0)


Combat: 6 + 4 = 10 PP
Initiative: +4
Attack: +7 Withering Strikes, +3 Base
Defense: +5, +2 Base, +1 Flat-Footed

Grapple: +2
Knockback: -8


Saving Throws: 3 + 12 + 12 = 27PP
Toughness: +9 (+9 Con)
Fortitude: +12 (+9 Con, +3)
Reflex: +12 (+0 Dex, +12)
Will: +12 (+0 Wis, +12)


Feats: 8 PP

Attack Specialization 2 (Withering Strikes)

Improved Critical 2 (Withering Strikes)

Improved Initiative 1

Dodge Focus 3

 

Skills: 24R = 6PP

Diplomacy 12 (+12)

Notice 12 (+12)

 

Powers: 30 + 6 + 9 = 45PP

Array (29+1 = 30 PP)

• Base Power: Corrosion 7 (Withering Strikes; Extras: Autofire 1;  Feats: Slow Fade) {29}

• Alternate Power: Disintegration 7 (Eraser; Extras: Area [Shapeable]; Flaws: Distracting, Action, Feats: Precise) {29}


Flight 3 [6PP]


Impervious Toughness 9 [9 PP]


Drawbacks: (-7 PP)

(-5) Untouchable: Consuelo’s powers render her touch or even close proximity repulsive. An NPC (or PC maybe too?) that physically touches her with no more than clothing between shifts 2 attitude categories towards Hostile (DC 10+Rot’s PL Will Save to resist). Even being within Rot’s PL in feet close to her results in a 1 attitude category shift towards hostile (Same Will Save to resist). This has no effect on constructs or undead.

 

(-2) Why we can’t have nice things: Objects that Consuelo contacts for an extended time (clothing, chairs, mattresses, spacesuits, etc.) slowly decay away. Cumulative damage to the object is resolved as being hit by a Corrosion attack of Rank equal to the number of hours of contact, divided by 3, up to her PL. She has a super suit that redirects all this damage to sacrificial material touching the suit (usually a cloth wrap) over the course of 16 hours. Without the sacrificial material, even the super suit would soon be worn away. The suit provides no protection for other objects she touches, just the super suit itself.

 

Totals: Abilities (16) + Combat (10) + Saving Throws (27) + Feats (8) + Skills (6) + Powers (45) - Drawbacks (7) = 105/105 Power Points

[Fox]

Yep, that's looking good to me - the only thing I spot at a glance is that you've shorted yourself on Knockback modifier (you have Toughness +9 and it's all Impervious, so Rot gets the full -9 Knockback modifier).

 

If that's the sheet you want to go with, you can copy it up into the original post - or create a new one that doesn't have all our back-and-forth attached and we can move this version into Character Building for you. If you're still tweaking and think there may be a final version in the future once you're happy with it, we can move this one into Character Building for now and you can submit the final version once you're ready.

[Fox]

APPROVED!

[Thevshi]

APPROVED!