Character building plans...

[Lord Fell]

I was linked to this site via Atomic Think Tank, and I've been lurking for a few days, deciding what I might be interested in doing. I'm... not quite sure what character concept I want to go with. I thought I'd throw it out for other players and GMs for input.

One of the characters I played in a Supers campaign, many moons ago was a lot of fun, and I thought I might resurrect him, er, it, er... them. Basically, there are 4 characters that occupy one space at a time. They are independent, share allegiance (created by a government program and 'indoctrinated' into service) but have different personalities and powers. They are: Aquamancer (water and weather controller), Razor Tongue (superhumanly insulting, psionic skulk), Blue Squirrel (Speedster) Revolver (Heavy Artillery).This would be a PL10 Hero concept. I'm not entirely sure what the best way to built a character like this is (although I did it in GURPS, and M&M is far less fiddly).

I'm also enjoying a character I built for another PbP site. That character is a PL6 made with 100 points (I can trim to 90). The character is something of a bargain-bin Paragon... Can do lots of stuff, just at a low power level. The basic premise of the character's background is... "If I'm a mad scientist, and I need human test subjects, I can pick one up on a street corner."

I was also told the site is short on Villains. I was going to submit a villain earlier, until I realized that her background was similar to the above characters -just not as well written, although I based it around the Cult of Set. This character is PL6, so I could run her and the 4Pack...

The other villains I'm inspired to build would have to be NPC submissions. Too powerful to be playable, I originally created them to be the premier villain group in my campaign world... it would probably take a major collaboration of the board's PL10+ heroes to take them on. I'd have to rethink their motives for this setting as well.

[N/A]

Welcome aboard.

My first and best piece of advice to you would be "Play what you want to play." Seriously.

The player base here is fluid enough. You might say "Oh, I really want to play X, but 5 people here are already playing X-type concepts. I better do something else." Then a month or two later, between people who had to take a hiatus because of Real Life and people who've retired their characters to play something else, suddenly no one is playing X.

As far as your listed concepts:

I'm not really clear on the first one. If it's 4 personalities trapped in one body, then you can probably make it with Morph, with the Metamorph feat (possibly with the Involuntary Transformation Drawback if the personalities aren't always cooperative with each other), or four different Alternate Forms arrayed together. If there are 4 characters who combine to form a 5th, that's Gestalt. If you just want to run 4 independent characters simultaneously as one team...No. You can run one character with one Sidekick (who would be less powerful than the "main character"), or one character with 3 Minions (who would be significantly less powerful than the "main" character). But no one here gets to run 4 PL10 characters simultaneously, even if they'd be sharing the same pool of 150PP. Not only would that not be fair to everyone else who only has one PL10 and one PL6, but it would be a nightmare for any GM to run. You'd be a one-man team unto yourself, and that's not really how we roll here.

And it sounds from the descriptions like any one of the four you described would make a fine PC on their own. Have you considered just choosing one and running with it?

There is a precedent for "bargain-bin PL6 paragons" here - check out Red Star by Geez3r. That would be fine.

This site tends to have a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio of active heroes to active villains at any given time, so your intel was correct on that front.

A PL6 villain with a cult of Minions certainly sounds do-able, as long as there aren't too many Minions and the mastermind can function without them.

You're welcome to submit NPCs. They have to be made by the same guidelines as PCs (15PP per PL, etc.), but can be created at any level up to PL14. And if the NPCs in question are associated with one of your PCs, the first 2 each gain you a bonus power point for that character.

[Lord Fell]

For my PL10 collective, I think the Metamorph makes the most sense. Just to Clarify how I'd build that...

I decide that they would all have "at least" certain stats, so I buy those as minimums. I could increase these base stats with points out of the Metamorph "pool"?

Same with Feats and Equipment? They would all generally have access to the same gear, with the exception of Revolver who carries an Old West Colt Peace Maker (for flavour)?

So... my point break down might look like this: Stats 16pts + Feats 18pts + Skills 8pts + Morph (Ex: Metamorph, 4 forms) 8pts =50pts, leaving each individual form 100pts for custom abilities?

Previously, the characters had to wait at least an hour between shifting and while sleeping (or unconscious) shifted forms randomly every hour or two. They may also bitch at each other through notes if they feel that someone is hogging "out" time, although they have limited awareness of what happened when they're not out themselves.

As to cooperation, aside from having different personalities, their allegiance and goals are roughly the same... Although, in their original campaign, Razor Tongue did arrange to poison the other aspects with sleeping gas. He had decided that they were going rogue, and didn't want someone changing his plans if he fell asleep himself.

...after writing that up, I think I am settled into rebuilding Mosaic (which is what they were collectively known as).

My PL6 villain concept... well, maybe I'll just go post that...

[N/A]

OK, if it's 4 personalities sharing 1 body, here's how to build what you described:

Build each character separately, on PL10/PP150. Build them with as many similarities as you wish, but make it all make sense.

Give each one the Morph power, with the Metamorph feat. Since there are 3 additional identities, you need 3 ranks of Metamorph. Each Morph rank gives +5 Disguise, so take as many ranks as you want, depending on how different you want each aspect to look from the others. If you really don't want people to be able to tell it's the same person, I'd take something in the range of 4-6 ranks, just to be sure.

The Metamorph feat basically let's you turn your entire character sheet into an array. Each different form is basically an Alternate Power off of your entire character sheet.

If you want it to take longer to switch between aspects, first, apply the Action Flaw to Morph. Once you get it down to a Full Action, apply the Action Drawback, until you reach the change-time you're looking for. See "Drawbacks" in Chapter 6 of the core rulebook for how this works.

[Dr Archeville]

If you want it to take longer to switch between aspects, first, apply the Action Flaw to Morph. Once you get it down to a Full Action, apply the Action Drawback, until you reach the change-time you're looking for. See "Drawbacks" in Chapter 6 of the core rulebook for how this works.

That's not entirely correct. This'd fall under the "Action is a Drawback, not a Flaw, for some powers" discussion.

[Dr Archeville]

Also, speaking purely personally, I would prefer to see Multi-Man done as a series of Alt Forms, not via Metamorph. Metamorph means you have an entirely different character sheet for each additional form, which can get unwieldy (in part because each separate sheet would need to go through the approval process).

[Lord Fell]

I would be leaning towards doing it as Alternate forms, and creating a single (although very long) character sheet. As long as both methods are valid -I don't want to get into the middle of a GM fight about that, though.

I think what I want is the Power Drawback "One Way Transformation," which is on p.108 of Ultimate Powers. This is worth between -3 and -5 points. I suspect that a time limit (60 + (1d20x3) minutes), with no other modifiers would qualify me for only -3. So... Morph 3 (Ex: Metamorph, Drawback: One Way Transformation) [ (3x2) -3 = 3 ], yes? Although, close reading of the rules does indicate that I do have to buy the Power for each of them... it occurs to me that it might be very appropriate if each form could only morph into two of the other forms. It would be legitimately limiting, too, especially since there's a significant wait between shifts.

The Metamorph extra reads thusly:

This feat allows you to have an alternate set of traits, essentially a complete alternate character you change into.

I would think that this means that there is no disguise to speak of... the new form is absolute. Also, because the character shifts between a set of specific forms, they can't use Morph to change their appearance.

[N/A]

There's no Ref fight here. The red name means that Archeville is the Admin. The highest authority. I'm just a rookie Staffer. If he contradicts me, follow his advice.

[Lord Fell]

So I've started to do some work on Mosaic (alternate forms character). I've decided that Metamorph is definitely the way to build the characters different forms. I had a couple of thoughts. Part of the way this character gets built will reflect some of the events shaped the character in the original campaign. Although I didn't originally intend this, I realized that each of them had a close tie to one of the traditional 4 elements, and I began spending points to enhance this Elemental aspect. It occurs to me that it would make a lot of sense if the diametrically opposed elements couldn't morph into each other. I suspect that the Morph power should look like... Morph 2 (Extra: Metamorph, Drawback: One Way Transformation (60+(3xd20) minutes)) [1]. The question here is, do I need to pay for 2 or 3 ranks of Morph. I'd say 2, because each form can only change into 2 other forms, and the Drawback makes it a genuine limitation. A purist might argue that I've got a total of 4 forms, so I need to buy 3 ranks.

Would it be appropriate to group a collection of combat Feats together, to describe them as a specific Martial Art? Eg...

Aikido A balanced style of strikes and throws, known for circular movements.

Attack Specialization (Aikido) +2 [1] (and is this an acceptable specialization?)

Defensive Attack

Power Attack

Improved Throw

Improved Trip