Avenger Assembled Posted September 27, 2011 Author Posted September 27, 2011 Miniature Vampire “I bite! I bite!†Abilities: 0 pp STR 20 [10] (+5/+0) DEX 20 [10] (+5/+0) CON - INT 12 (+1) WIS 18 (+4) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 12 pp ATK: +3 (+15 as Vampire Bat) DEF: +3 (+15 as Vampire Bat) Grapple: +0 vs. Medium Init: +5 Saving Throws: 6 pp TOU: +5 (+5 Protection) FORT: - REF: +8 (+5 Dex, +3) WILL: +7 (+4 Wis, +3) Skills: 40 r=10 pp Concentration 14 (+15) Knowledge: Arcane Lore 4 (+5) Knowledge: Life Sciences 4 (+5) Language 1 (Spanish) (Base: English) Notice 4 (+8) Sense Motive 4 (+8) Stealth 5 (+10/+35) Survival 4 (+5) Feats: 4 pp Evasion Hide in Plain Sight Power Attack Second Chance (Concentration checks to maintain powers) Powers: 128 pp Alternate Form 10 (Vampire Bat) (Extra: Duration [sustained]) [50 pp] Flight 1 (10 MPH) (PFs: Move-By Action, Subtle) [4 pp] Shrinking 20 (Extra: Normal Strength; PFs: Normal Movement, Normal Toughness) (Drawback: Full Power) [41 pp] Super-Senses 5 [Accurate Extended Ultrasonic Hearing, Danger Sense (auditory)] ‘sonar’ [5 pp] Device 2 (Costume) (Hard to Lose) [8 pp] Enhanced Feats 3 (Defensive Attack, Takedown Attack 2) [3 pp] Feature 7 (Buys off Sunlight Drawback) [7 pp] Vampiric Physiology Container 14 (Extra: Duration [Permanent]) [70 pp] Drain Con 2 (Flaw: Requires Grapple) [1] Enhanced DEX 10 [10] Enhanced STR 10 [10] Immunity 30 (Fortitude saves) [30] Impervious TOU 5 [5] Protection 5 [5] Regeneration 6 (Recovery Bonus +0, Resurrection 1/week) (Flaw: Source [blood]) [3] Super-Senses 2 (Darkvision) [2] Drawbacks: -10 pp Weakness (repelled by crosses; stunned by holy symbols via Charisma check) (-3 pp) Weakness (sunlight; destroyed after 1 minute) (-7 pp) Abilities 0 + Skills 10 + Feats 8 + Powers 128 + Combat 12 + Saves 6 -Drawbacks 10= Total 150 -------------- Design Notes: College student Janet Palmer kept her ability to shrink down to a tiny, winged humanoid form a secret from everyone: she wasn't really cut out to be a superhero, or so she thought, and spent most of her time using her powers to commit the sort of low-grade shenanigans (stealing frat beer and snooping on her dormmates) that your average college freshman would think is a great idea. All that changed when she was caught by surprise and attacked by her boyfriend, a scientific genius who had been transformed into a vampire some weeks earlier and was too new to his own hungers to restrain himself. Though he tried to apologize by making her a costume to let her survive in the daytime, she'd seen the monster within and wasn't interested in a relationship with the man wrapped around it. Horrified and disgusted by what she had become, the girl made some hard decisions and decided to use her newfound abilities to _help_ others rather than be a drain on society as she had been her whole life. Taking the name Batwoman to represent her new self, she headed off to Freedom City to become a superhero, living on the sneakily-stolen blood of others while looking for a cure and fighting bad guys to earn some good karma in the world. Yes, it's the Undead Miniature Marvel, a shrinking hero who just happens to be an undead fiend! I've made her a straightforward undead Janet van Dyne, because fleeing a relationship with a predatory, dangerous partner is just about right for the kind of relationship that sees people escaping the domination of 'Vampire Dad'. She's not as strong as her fellow vampires, but her fantastic ability to transform herself down to tiny size merged with her undead state makes her a formidable fighter all the same, swooping along on leathery bat wings to bite and punch at her targets, almost impossible to hit in return thanks to her mobility and small size: she's an almost indetectable sneak, and could easily pull off the vampire bat trick of flying into a cattleyard and feeding on the cows while they sleep. (I built her skills with the idea that she's spent some time living on her own in the woods). She has a bat's keen auditory senses as well, letting her fly full speed in the darkness and easily navigate by sonar. I figure her costume has some tiny metal fangs built into it, making her a better fighter while wearing it. Her biggest weakness is being forced into a grapple, of course, so she's doubly best-served to be mobile in combat as often as she can be. If I were you, I would spend what earned PP I can towards upping her Flight speed and her Concentration, the better to avoid abruptly becoming PL 4 (as she is at full size) if you become stunned or dazed while in combat. (She was about PL 6 before becoming a vampire) If you don't want to give her a Vampire Pym in her backstory, maybe she was just attacked by the same vampire that transformed her boyfriend, and he built her the costume before they went their separate ways, unable to handle the changes that the undead state had brought to their relationship. Like most tiny heroes, she's best served taking advantage of her many ways to catch opponents flat-footed before laying them out with Power Attacks; they will probably not be expecting a tough fight from the team sneak and scout...
Avenger Assembled Posted September 27, 2011 Author Posted September 27, 2011 Vampire Atlantean “We’re going to need a bigger boat.†PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 24 pp STR 30 (+10) DEX 14 (+2) CON - (+-) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 16 (+3) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Unarmed) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +2 Grapple: +19 Saves: 12 pp TOU +10 (+10 Protection) FORT REF +8 (+2 Dex, +6) WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6) Skills: 15 pp=60 pp Handle Animal 8 (+11) Intimidate 15 (+18) Knowledge: Arcane Lore 8 (+8) Languages 1 (English) (Base: Atlantean) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Stealth 8 (+10) Survival 3 (+5) Swim 1 (+11) Feats: 14 pp Animal Empathy Attack Specialization: Unarmed 2 Dodge Focus 4 Environmental Adaptation (underwater) Evasion Move-By Action Power Attack Startle Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge Powers: 71 pp Comprehend 2 (Animals 2 [speak and understand], Limited [only sea life]) (2 pp) Concealment 2 (all auditory) (Extra: Duration [Permanent]) (Flaw: Machines Only) [2 pp] Drain Constitution 2 (Flaw: Requires Grapple) [1 pp] Flight 3 (50 MPH) [6+1-1=6 pp] (Drawback: Not in Daylight) AP: Swimming 6 (100 MPH) Immunity 30 (Fortitude saves) [30 pp] Impervious TOU 8 (Flaw: Not Vs. Magic/Silver/Holy) [4 pp] Protection 10 [10 pp] Regeneration 6 (Recovery Bonus +0, Resurrection 1/week) (Flaw: Souce [blood]) 3 pp] Super-Senses 6 (Acute Tracking 3 [full speed] Scent, Darkvision) [6 pp] Super-Strength 3 (Heavy Load: 6 tons) (Drawback: Not in Daylight) [5 pp] Swimming 2 (5 MPH) [2 pp] Drawbacks: -10 pp Weakness (Direct Sunlight; Uncommon, Major [-1 all physical ability scores], per 1 minute; -5pp) Weakness (lack of immersion in water; Very Common, Major [-1 all physical ability scores], per hour, potentially lethal; -5pp) costs abilities 24+ combat 24 + saves 12 + skills 15/60+ feats 14+ powers 71 -10 pp= 150 pts ------- Design Notes: The Atlantean government believes that no one survived the raid by the Dagon cultists on the isolated outpost near the Marianas Trench. And they're right. This brave Atlantean soldier was taken prisoner and made a grim sacrifice to the vampire gods of the ancient deep, rising from her watery grave three days later as a priestess of Hydra. But she escaped her tormentors, rage and predatory fury overriding the cthonic brainwashing, and fled into the watery depths. She hunted as a wild thing for who knows how long in the lightless depths below the photic zone where the sun never shines, devouring lanternfish, anglerfish, and the other bizarre creatures that live down there in the dark. It wasn't until some years ago when she encountered a wandering mystic of her own people that she remembered who she had been and what had been done to her, and what she had to do: the Dagon cultists (many of whom she had devoured) would never stop hunting their rogue, just as her own people would shun her as a monster if she returned to them. Only on the surface could she begin anew and perhaps remove the foul taint from her veins. Up above, she discovered that though her years in ultimate darkness had given her protection against the rays of the sun, it was still potentially a serious threat. OK, here's a vampire Atlantean, following up on my own background stuff written some months back and my thread with the vampire squid. She's something like a shark with legs and fangs, a predatory creature of the deep who's still extremely effective on the surface. (She doesn't show up on sonar, either, much to the horror of aquatic villains!) I figure her Atlantean upbringing protects her against the holy items she's liable to encounter on the surface; the Dagonic vampire are a blasphemy of a very different sort than what we have up here! Unlike her surface cousins, she doesn't simply die in the sunlight immediately: rather she dries out and dessicates like a squid on land. Being caught in the sun on dry land gives her about fifteen minutes to run like hell before the piscine ichor in her veins dries out, leaving her to die slowly beneath the pitiless sun: a serious threat for any Atlantean but doubly so for one such as her! I figure she spends a lot of time in the company of sharks down below, since they're the only ones who really understand her. Even on the surface, she's a spectacular tracker, having learned to hunt and stalk with only the smell of blood in the water to guide her. (Come to think of it, the strange smell of mammalian blood may be a good way for her to suppress her urges on land!) She plays the ferocious Atlantean warrior for surfacers, never minding that there might be very serious reasons why she has such a bloodlust to repress in combat. (Perhaps she tells them her short temper is a result of spending so much time in the air?) Naturally, this build makes for a very powerful potential antagonist, particularly if in large numbers or if jacked up to a higher PL: superheroes who have gone to investigate particularly violent Atlantean eco-terrorism may not realize that those dead polluters or illegal fishermen didn't die for their environmental practices, but rather because they were fool enough to go in the water after dark...
Avenger Assembled Posted September 28, 2011 Author Posted September 28, 2011 Vampire Mystic “There’s power in the blood.†PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 12 pp STR 10 (+0) DEX 12 (+1) CON n/a (-) INT 20 (+5) WIS 16 (+3) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 16 pp ATK: +4 (+8 Magic) DEF: +8 (+2 flat-footed) Grapple: +9/+16 Initiative +1 Saves: 9 pp TOU +12 (+4 Protection, +8 Force Field) FORT n/a REF +5 (+1 Dex, +4) WILL +8 (+3 Wis, +5) Skills: 12 pp=48 r Concentration 7 (+10) Intimidate 8 (+10) Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 15 (+20) Knowledge (History) 5 (+10) Languages 2 (English, Latin) (Base: German) Notice 7 (+10) Sense Motive 3 (+5) Feats: 9 pp Dodge Focus 4, Move-By Action, Precise Shot, Ritualist, Ultimate Save (Will) Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 98 pp Drain Constitution 2 (Flaw: Requires Grapple) Flight 2 (25 MPH, 250 ft per round) [4 pp] Force Field 8 (Extra: Impervious 6) [14 pp] Immunity 30 (Fortitude Saves) [30 pp] Mystic Array 12 (PFs: Accurate 2, Alternate Powers 4, Precise, Subtle) [31 pp] Blast 12 (fire) AP: Create Object 10 (PFs: Progression 2 [10 25 ft cubes], Selective) (conjuring) AP: Move Object 12 (Heavy Load: 48 tons) (telekinesis) AP: Mind Control 10 (Extra: Instant Command, Flaw: Action [Full], PF: Mental Link) (domination) Protection 4 (Extra: Impervious, Flaw: Not Vs. Fire/Magic/Silver) [4 pp] Regeneration 6 (Recovery Bonus +0, Resurrection 1/week) (Flaw: Source [blood]) [3 pp] Super-Senses 11 (Acute Scent, Darkvision, Detect Magic 3 [visual], Postcognition [Flaw: Source [blood], Precognition [Flaw: Uncontrolled] Ultrahearing) [11 pp] Drawbacks: -6 pp Power Loss (Flight, Force Field, and Magic, when unable to speak and gesture to cast spells) [-3 pp] Weakness (dazed by Charisma check vs. holy items) [-3 pp] costs abilities 12 + combat 16 + saves 9 + skills 12/48 + feats 9 + powers 98 -drawbacks 6= 150 pts ------------- Design Notes: When Anschluss meant the German members of the Thule Society assumed dominance over their new “fellow citizens†even as Germany itself was taking over Austria, Viennese-born Kristopher Wiese objected to the change and to the new power of one of the Society’s younger members, Wilhelm Kantor. Lacking the world-conquering ambitions of his fellows, he thought that magic should stay behind the scenes as it is had in the 19th century and earlier, not wanting to attract the kind of attention that had nearly led to its extinction during the Age of Reason. When it became clear that exactly what sort of magic Kantor preferred, Wiese moved from objection to action, attempting to organize resistance to Nazi rule through the Thule Society. He died for his pains after an ambush by Kantor and his followers, drugged and left unable to concentrate on his spells, as he was fed to Nosferatu, the Eastern European vampire ‘recruited’ for the society by Kantor’s dark magic. But Wiese survived his death, his murderer having decided he liked the idea of a pet sorcerer (since perhaps having his own magical expert on hand would help him break the bonds placed on him by Kantor and let him get back to what he really wanted to do: eating Carinthian peasants), and so Wiese awoke in Nosferatu’s castle in 1941, a helpless slave to his vampire master. Luckily for Wiese, Nosferatu perished some years later at the hands of Allied superheroes, freeing the vampire sorcerer to fashion his own destiny. From the protection of an ‘abandoned’ castle that even Allied occupation troops shunned as haunted, he slowly learned to rebuild his magic. While he’d lost his connection to the magic of others (hence no Detect) he still has his wits and his own formidable abilities as a mystic: in fact, his undead state had actually enhanced his mystic power at the cost of permanently limiting him to the magic of undeath and eternal night. Luckily, he still had the ability to craft a mystic protection for himself that let him cautiously venture out into the daylight! He scanned the world with his magic, studying the region, and learned with relief that the world was on the upswing. However, the world wasn’t safe, not with monsters like he’d become out there, not to mention Kantor and the surviving Thule members still out there and doing evil! After making a few cautious appearances to test the waters in the 1970s (in which he had the misfortune to encounter certain Allied vampire hunters who saw a Germanic vampire wizard with ties to the Thule Society, living in the castle of an Ubersoldaten, and came to all the wrong conclusions), Wiese decided that now was the perfect time to take to the skies as a superhero! A pretty straighforward vampire mystic build, with a flavor of German gothic magic to go with him. I wanted to see if I could make a sympathetic character with an unsympathetic background, and I think an undead Thule Society member who belatedly saw the light fits the bill pretty effectively. Ge really needs to be casting spells to function as a sorcerer. As with the psychic upthread, I left his vulnerability to sunlight off the table: if you do hit him with a magical nullify effect, though, give him that HP and make him run for cover under something opaque! (His vampiric nature shouldn’t be set off by that, given how it’s effectively impossible to Nullify a rank 30 power anywhere close to PL 10). Being a vampire helps you explain why he spends so much time avoiding other heroes, and what he’s doing in his mystic brownstone all day. (Or abandoned castle, if you say he had one moved to the setting somewhere) His spells are a bit generic, but that’s just a consequence of the lack of available points: don’t be afraid to make them more specific if you want him to be casting more ‘vampireish’ spells like Weather Control or Ranged Con Drain. (As it is, he's trying to avoid drawing that kind of attention to himself!) Naturally, he makes a fine villain.
Avenger Assembled Posted September 30, 2011 Author Posted September 30, 2011 Vampire Energy Controller "To the Abyss!" PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 6 pp STR 20 [10] (+5/+0) DEX 10 (+0) CON n/a (-) INT 16 (+3) WIS 16 (+3) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 16 pp ATK: +4 (+8 Entropic Powers) DEF: +8 (+4 Shield, +2 flat-footed) Grapple: +9/20 Initiative +0 Saves: 10 pp TOU +12 (+4 Protection, +8 Force Field) FORT n/a REF +5 (+0 Dex, +5) WILL +8 (+3 Wis, +5) Skills: 14 pp=56 r Bluff 6 (+8) Concentration 12 (+15) Intimidate 8 (+10) Knowledge (Physical Sciences) 7 (+10) Knowledge (Technology) 7 (+10) Notice 7 (+10) Sense Motive 7 (+10) Feats: 6 pp Fearless, Move-By Action, Power Attack, Precise Shot, Second Chance (Concentration checks to maintain powers), Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 110 pp Drain Con 2 (Flaw: Requires Grapple) [1 pp] Enhanced STR 10 [10 pp] Entropic Vampire Array 13 [26 pp; PFs: Alternate Power x4=30 pp] BE: Blast 12 (PFs: Accurate 2) 'fires of entropy' AP: Drain Charisma 12 (Extras: Alternate Save [Will], Range [Ranged]; PFs: Accurate 2) 'soul-blasting' AP: Healing 10 (Extra: Ranged; Flaw: Others Only; PFs: Accurate 3, Persistent, Stabilize) 'entropic redirection' AP: Move Object 12 (Heavy Load: 48 tons) (PFs: Accurate 2) AP: Teleport 8 (800 ft/2000 miles) (Extra: Accurate; PFs: Easy, Turnabout) 'entropic tunnel' Feature 7 (Buys off Sunlight Drawback) 'entropic shield' [7 pp] Flight 1 (10 MPH) (PF: Subtle) [3 pp] Force Field 8 (Extra: Impervious 6) [14 pp] Immunity 30 (Fortitude effects) [30 pp] Protection 4 (Extra: Impervious; Flaw: Not Vs. Magic/Silver/Holy) [4 pp] Regeneration 6 (Recovery Bonus +0, Resurrection 1/week) (Flaw: Source [blood]) [3 pp] Shield 4 [4 pp] Super-Senses 2 (Darkvision) [2 pp] Drawbacks: -10 pp Weakness (dazed by Charisma check vs. holy items) [-3 pp] Weakness (destroyed by sunlight; 1 minute) [-7 pp] costs abilities 6 + combat 16 + saves 10+ skills 14/56 + feats 6 + powers 110 -drawbacks 10= 150 pts ------------------ Design Notes: The eruption of her superpowers after an accident at the physics lab made Carrie the most popular graduate student on campus; the revelation that her power was to manipulate and control entropic energy (manifesting in blackish-purple blasts and tentacles) made her the most infinite. Though she hotly insisted she was no T-Baby, the negative publicity forced her to drop out of school. She managed to scrounge together a bargain basement laboratory, though, taking advantage of money she raised in her costumed identity (doing what her fixer discreetly called 'grey market demolitions and acquisitions', and began working to study the nature of entropic powers: she was making promising results with her discoveries, particularly the revelation that she was not a creator of entropy but an absorber and redirector of it, able to heal others with a gesture and make a powerful shield of entropic radiation around her body. Unfortunately, the Corrupt Corporate Executive who thought himself the rightful owner one of the pieces of high-tech she'd 'liberated' came looking for it, bringing with him a powerful mercenary whose abilities were far beyond what science could explain. She fled after being bitten, and recuperated in a fleabag hotel room long enough to sort out her new self and her new powers. Her life hadn't changed that much: she was still something feared and hated by everyone, and she had to be in her new costume with her force field active to go out in the sun, but at the end of the day, she was still a monster everyone feared and hated. Now she just had to find a cure for vampirism too! All right, here's a Vampire Energy Controller (with arguably a background as a villain depending on how you feel about supervillain propery rights), in this case one with the power to control entropy! (Yes, a T-Baby vampire, exactly what Jack Thompson and Art Bell have been warning us about all these years). Obviously her true nature is going to be a fascinating sort of complication for her as people realize there are layers to what an Acceptable Target she potentially could be. I tried to give her the sort of entropic powers (with a family-friendly plan) that a 'good'-natured Terminus mutant would likely have. She's not smart enough to be your team's gadgeteer or go-to science person, but her scientific training does make a fine supplement to her cosmic powers. (Now there's something you don't expect vampires to have!) She's an interesting spin on the Hank McCoy-style of monster, a scientist whose efforts to make herself no longer a freak turned around and made things very much worse! Naturally, given the many grim things about the character's power, she could make an excellent bad guy. If played as a villain, this could potentially be a scary character (well, duh), especially if you say that she's a vampire from the Terminus, perhaps an Annihilist or a scion of Taarvon the Undying (whose shadow powers means he probably hangs out with a lot of vampires) who has come to our Earth to do their masters' will, perhaps to persuade the vampire lords of Earth that if they join Omega's cause he will allow them to feed on the very life force of Creation itself! If you don't like the entropic angle, this would work fine for, say, a vampire shadow controller, perhaps one who has those abilities before her transformation as well.
Avenger Assembled Posted September 30, 2011 Author Posted September 30, 2011 Vampire Swashbuckler "Tis sharper than a serpent's tooth." PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 16 pp STR 20 (+5) DEX 16 (+3) CON - INT 10 (+0) WIS 16 (+3) CHA 24 [14] (+7/+2) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+12 melee) DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +3 Grapple: +11 Saves: 8 pp TOU +8 (+6 Protection, +2 Defensive Roll) FORT - REF +7 (+3 Dex, +4) WILL +7 (+3 Wis, +4) Skills: 80 r=20 pp Acrobatics 12 (+15) Bluff 8 (+10/+15) Climb 5 (+10) Diplomacy 8 (+10/+15) Gather Info 8 (+10/+15) Intimidate 8 (+10/+15) Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 2 (+2) Knowledge (Popular Culture) 10 (+10) Language 1 (Spanish) (Base: English) Notice 7 (+10) Sense Motive 7 (+10) Stealth 12 (+15) Feats: 13 pp Acrobatic Bluff Challenge 2 (Fast Acrobatic Bluff, Fast Taunt) Defensive Roll Evasion Move-By Action Power Attack Skill Mastery (Acrobatics, Bluff, Intimidate, Sense Motive) Takedown Attack 2 Taunt Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 65 pp Concealment 4 (all visual) (Extra: Duration [Permanent], Flaw: Only Vs. Machines; PF: Close Range) [5 pp] Device 1 (Sword) (Easy to Lose) [3 pp] -Strike 3 (PFs: Improved Crit, Mighty) [5] Drain Constitution 2 (Flaw: Requires Grapple) [2 pp] Enhanced Feats 12 (Attack Focus: Melee 6; Dodge Focus 6) [12 pp] Flight 1 (10 MPH) (PF: Subtle) (Drawback: Not in Daylight) [2 pp] Immunity 30 (Fortitude Saves) [30 pp] Protection 6 (Extra: Impervious; Flaw: Not Vs. Fire/Silver/Holy) [6 pp] Regeneration 6 (Recovery Bonus +0, Resurrection 1/week) (Flaw: Source [blood]) [3 pp] Silver Tongue Array [10+2-1=11 pp] (Drawback: Not in Daylight) Enhanced Charisma 10 AP: Enhanced Feats 10 (Fearsome Presence 10) AP: Mind Control 10 (Flaw: Sense Dependent [auditory]) Super-Senses 2 (Darkvision) [2 pp] Drawbacks: -8 pp Weakness (dazed by holy symbols versus Charisma check) [-3 pp] Weakness (Direct Sunlight; Uncommon, Major [-1 all physical ability scores], per 1 minute; -5pp) costs abilities 16 + combat 24 + saves 8 + skills 20/80 + feats 13 + powers 77 -drawbacks 8= 150 pts ------------ Design Notes: You grew up watching old movies, especially the old black and white swashbucklers on TCM. Maybe they didn't have a lot of people who looked like you in those Errol Flynn movies, but that's okay because that just made it easier for you to imagine yourself in those parts! You excelled on your fencing team in high school and were a pretty good gymnast, too, but you disappointed your coaches to head off to college to get your degree in film. You were going to get a degree, start out as the baddest stuntman in Hollywood, break into acting, and then get a spot behind the cameras making your own swashbuckling movies! All that came to a crashing halt when you met this girl in night class; normally you didn't like them waify and pale, but she was really, really hot and she was a huge film geek too. She preferred the movies of Lugosi and Karloff, though, insisting to you that they were much more authentic than Flynn and Fairbanks could ever hope to be. You told her that it didn't matter if Flynn and Fairbanks were authentic; they were heroes who laughed at danger and beat the bad guys, and that made them good. Finally, one day she lost her temper and showed you why she loved Lugosi so much: she'd taught him how vampires act! Sometimes, being a vampire sucks. You don't show up on film anymore _and_ you shrivel up in the sun like a prune. No wonder Lugosi's Dracula stayed inside all the time! But you've tried to handle this the way Flynn or Fairbanks would have; you've taken up your sword and you're cleaning up the streets, making everyone else's life better so you don't feel bad about how tough things are for you. And hey, you're not one to complain: you're faster and deadlier than you ever were, and you're a _devil_ with the ladies these nights, just like your heroes always were in the movies. So smile and flirt and don't feel bad about all your problems; you're the hero you always wanted to be, except you're doing it for real instead of in the movies. And hey, you can always direct... All right, I think this is a reasonable vampire swashbuckler, a fast, deadly fighter with incredible force of personality. He's a lot tougher than most swordsmen, no-selling rapier strikes as long as they're not enchanted with your typical vampiric weaknesses. (And if that does happen, he can get out of the way!) He's actually a pretty good fighter if his vampiric abilities are somehow suppressed, but he needs his vampire powers to hold his own in combat with high-level supervillains. He doesn't die in sunlight, he just lies there groaning like Bela Lugosi in Dracula if he's left out in the sun too long. Like most of my vampire builds, he uses Subtle Flight to fake things like leaping and running up walls. He has a _tremendous_ force of personality, and can woo a lady, send minions fleeing in terror, or talk a bad guy into doing something foolish with just a few well-placed words.
Avenger Assembled Posted October 1, 2011 Author Posted October 1, 2011 American Werewolf “Ahwooo!†PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 36 pp STR 26 [20] (+8/+5) DEX 20 [16] (+5/+3) CON 26 [20] (+8/+5) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 16 (+3) Combat: 18 pp ATK: +4 (+7 melee/+10 melee [werewolf]) DEF: +10 (+2 Shield, +2 Dodge, +2 flat-footed) Init: +3/+5 Grapple: +12/+20 Saves: 9 pp TOU +10 (+5 Con, +3 Enhanced Con, +2 Defensive Roll) FORT +8 (+5 Con, +3 Enhanced Con) REF +8 (+3 Dex, +2 Enhanced Dex, +3) WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6) Skills: 88 r=22 pp Acrobatics 10 (+13/+15)* Climb 2 (+7/+10) Concentration 4 (+6) Diplomacy 7 (+10) Drive 2 (+5/+7) Intimidate 12 (+15)* Knowledge (History) 5 (+5) Knowledge (Tactics) 10 (+10) Languages 2 (Chinese, Spanish) (Base: English) Notice 8 (+10)* Pilot 2 (+5/+7) Search 5 (+5) Sense Motive 8 (+10)* Stealth 5 (+8/+10) Survival 4 (+6) Swim 2 (+7/+10) Feats: 19 pp Acrobatic Bluff All-Out Attack Attack Focus: Melee 3 Benefit (Security Clearance) Challenge 2 (Fast Acrobatic Bluff, Fast Startle) Defensive Roll Evasion Master Plan 2 Move-By Action Power Attack Skill Mastery (Acrobatics, Intimidate, Notice, Sense Motive) Startle Takedown Attack 2 Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 49 pp Device 1 (Shield) (Hard to Lose) [4 pp] -Shield 2 [2dp] -Strike 2 (PF: Mighty) [3dp] Alternate Form 9 (Werewolf) (Extra: Duration [sustained]) [45 pp] Enhanced CON 6 [6 pp] Enhanced DEX 4 [4 pp] Enhanced Feats 5 (Attack Focus: Melee 3, Dodge Focus 2) [5 pp] Enhanced STR 6 [6 pp] Leaping 4 (x25) [4+1=5 pp] AP: Speed 4 (100 MPH) Regeneration 9 (Bruised 3 [no action], Injured 6 [no action]) (PF: Regrowth) (Drawback: Not Vs. Silver) [8 pp] Super-Movement 2 (Wall-Crawling 2) [4 pp] Super-Senses 6 (Danger Sense [Olfactory], Accurate Acute Tracking [quarter-speed] Olfactory, Ultrahearing) [6 pp] Drawbacks: -3 pp Vulnerable (silver) (uncommon, major) [3 pp] costs abilities 36 + combat 18 + saves 9 + skills 22/88 + feats 19 + powers 48 -drawbacks 3= 150 pts ---------- Design Notes: Jim Walker didn’t have the Patriot serum or special powers when he became an American hero, but back in the late 1970s the Vietnam veteran was a young, healthy war hero with a solid reputation for integrity: just the thing the US Army was looking for when they issued him a bulletproof steel shield and patriotic costume. Maybe he wasn’t up to soloing against supervillains, but he was a tactical genius and skilled fighter, easily able to break up the drug rings and criminal gangs that had infiltrated the Army during its nadir at the end of the war and become a hero to his fellow soldiers. All that changed one day when the contraband-smuggling ring he broke up turned out to be working for Lady Lunar! He beat up the thugs, but their Farsider escort crushed him with thrown objects and impaled him with a fragment of Moonstone mounted on his spear, imbuing his body with cosmic lunar radiation. Waking up in an Army hospital, Walker thought he was lucky to be alive, until the first full moon shone on him some days later and he began to _change_... USAgent and Cap-Wolf (the period where Captain America was a scientifically-created werewolf) were both creatures of the 1970s, so I made this character a native of that time and place. Most of the time he’s a PL 7 masked patriot, a skilled planner and goonsweeper who’s also a fantastic athlete. But when the chips are down, he can transform himself into a mighty werewolf and become PL 10. As a werewolf he can claw his way up walls, rip cars apart with his bare hands, and take fantastic punishment before dishing it out on his own. Note that he does still need to carry the shield to meet his offensive and defensive caps even as a werewolf; I figure bashing people with a shield is a good way to keep himself from ripping into them with his claws and teeth! He’s got good all-around saves, with no real weak ones even if none of them are particularly strong, either. He lacks Arcane Lore since he’s a scientific wolf rather than a mystical one, another legacy of the Bronze Age when they didn’t dare make major characters out of old-fashioned movie-style monsters. He’s not quite as personable as your typical Cap build, but with constantly being bombarded by new smells and sounds thanks to his heightened senses, that makes sense! He works just fine as a Bronze Age character, especially since his nature as a heroic symbol of the American dream that occasionally turns into a monster that wants to eat you is just the sort of understated message beloved by comics writers of the period. (In an Iron Age-influenced game, he’d almost certainly be an evil monster fed college students by a sinister organization) He works just fine as a modern-day PC, though you may want to make him an Iraq veteran or give him Immunity: aging. I tried to come up with a respectable Freedom City backstory for him, inspired by the Patriot as well as Jackwolf, the brief period when Jack Wolf was transformed into a werewolf thanks to the machinations of Lady Lunar. (Indeed, given Jack Wolf’s military background, the two men may have once been comrades-in-arms before going back to their respective careers). For a mystic werewolf, pick up some Arcane Lore, and maybe some more Regeneration.
Avenger Assembled Posted October 1, 2011 Author Posted October 1, 2011 Martial Artist with a Power Ring “I’m the guy who fights.†PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 40 pp STR 24 (+7) DEX 14 (+2) CON 24 (+7) INT 10 (+0) WIS 20 [14] (+5/+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 16 pp ATK: +4 (+7 melee/+10 Blast/Move Object) DEF: +7 (+2 flat-footed) Init: +2 Grapple: +14/+20 Saves: 11 pp TOU +13 (+7 Con, +6 Protection) FORT +10 (+7 Con, +3) REF +6 (+2 Dex, +4) WILL +9 (+3 Wis, +2 Enhanced Wis, +4) Skills: 68 r=17 pp Acrobatics 13 (+15)* Bluff 13 (+15)* Concentration 2 (+4/+6) Intimidate 13 (+15)* Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 2 (+2) Knowledge (Pop Culture) 4 (+4) Notice 8 (+10/+13) Sense Motive 13 (+15/+18)* Feats: 21 pp Accurate Attack Acrobatic Bluff All-Out Attack Attack Focus: Melee 3 Challenge 3 (Fast Acrobatic Bluff, Fast Startle, Fast Taunt) Dodge Focus 3 Evasion Power Attack Skill Mastery (Acrobatics, Bluff, Intimidate, Sense Motive) Startle Stunning Attack Takedown Attack Taunt Ultimate Save (Toughness) Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 45 pp Device 11 (Verdant Flame Ring) (Hard to Lose) (PF: Restricted [those worthy]) [45 pp] Enhanced WIS 6 [6dp] Flight 3 (50 MPH) [6dp] Immunity 4 (disease, poison, suffocation) [4dp] Impervious TOU 6 [6dp] Protection 6 [6dp] Verdant Flame Array [25+2=27dp] Blast 10 (PFs: Accurate 3, Precise, Variable Descriptor 1 [any fire]) AP: Move Object 10 (Heavy Load: 12 tons) (PFs: Accurate 3, Precise, Variable Descriptor 1 [any fire]) AP: Strike 6 (Extra: Penetrating 6; PFs: Improved Crit 2, Knockback 10 [DMG 23], Mighty, Precise) ‘flaming fists’ costs abilities 40 + combat 16 + saves 11 + skills 17/68 + feats 21 + powers 45= 150 pts --------- Design Notes: Ted Scott was heavyweight champion of the world back in the day, a hard-drinking, hard-hitting boxer who was second to no one in the ring. His real hero was the superhero Verdant Flame, the keeper of the mystic green fire of Creation, who’d saved Ted from a scandal early in his career and who was a big fight fan himself. On the day Ted was due to retire from professional boxing, the Verdant Flame came to his last fight and was murdered himself by an old enemy, leaving Ted behind with his friend’s dead body and a mystic verdigris power ring that seemed to be calling him. Curiously, Ted put the ring on and was imbued with mighty mystic power: now he was the bearer of the Verdant Flame, a streetfighter from a bad part of town who now was fighting cosmic foes and mystic menaces the like of which no mortal man should ever have to see, much less battle. But with years of experience as a fighter and now bearing a mystic ring of incredible power, Ted Scott is no ordinary man! Based on Alan Scott and Ted Grant (Green Lantern I and Wildcat, respectively), here’s a Martial Artist with a Power Ring: a powerful heavyweight boxer with phenomenal magic powers! Without his ring he’s a mighty PL 7 boxer, a powerful fighter who can hold his own versus almost anybody. PL 4-5 boxers he shares the ring with are going to be standing only as long as he wants them to be. (He can lay almost anyone flat-footed with his trash-talking, scary demeanor, or good old-fashioned fancy footwork and then knock them down with a Power Attack; Stunning Attacks are good versus superhuman opponents with tough skin but weak little bodies.) He can actually hang out okay with high-level opponents, in fact, given how good he is at swinging for the fences and making it count every time. With the ring he’s an all right blaster, capable of hanging back and blasting from afar, using his usual combat patter to keep his opponents flat-footed and demoralized in the process. He’s also more observant and thoughtful while carrying it, though not any smarter. His Strike I figure is a combination of both worlds; igniting his hands into fists of mystic green flame and throwing mystically-empowered punches that could hurt anybody or knock them halfway across the state! (Don’t spam Knockback, though, as that’s just annoying) He’s got a big melee tradeoff, but again thanks to his skill as a fighter he can take advantage of that almost every time. He’s a bit weak on Impervious, but he can shrug off assault rifles and his high durability lets him come through most fights okay. With earned PP, I’d suggest buying up his INT and skills, reflecting an increase in his knowledge about the mystic world where he’s just been thrust, as well as maybe some Impervious. If you want to make his ring cosmic-focused, drop one of the APs off his Verdant Flame array and give him Space Flight, and shuffle points around (perhaps dropping the Impervious) to give him immunities enough to fly in space. He could use some Super-Senses too, like Detect Magic, which would help compensate for his dabbler-level Arcane Lore. He doesn’t have Create Object, but as he gets more creative with the ring and goes beyond just ‘bubbles and beams’, that’ll be a very plausible purchase for him. You could change up how his powers work if you want to get creative: one possible way might be to give him a Mighty Blast to reflect literally “throwing†flame-punches across the room. Making him more of a high-accuracy fighter without the ring might be interesting too, reflecting a more conventional martial artist, perhaps one wielding the Ring of Ki!
Avenger Assembled Posted October 2, 2011 Author Posted October 2, 2011 Atlantean Mentalist “Did I ever tell you about the time I saved the whole planet on Earth Day?†PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 56 pp STR 30 (+10) DEX 14 (+2) CON 30 (+10) INT 14 (+2) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 20 pp ATK: +4 (+10 Melee) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +2 Grapple: +26 Saves: 10 pp TOU +10 (+10 Con) FORT +10 (+10 Con) REF +6 (+2 Dex, +4) WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6) Skills: 60 pp=15 r Bluff 8 (+10) Diplomacy 13 (+15) Intimidate 3 (+5) Knowledge (Civics) 3 (+5) Knowledge (Life Sciences) 13 (+15) Languages 1 (English) (Base: Atlantean) Notice 8 (+10) Search 3 (+5) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 15 pp Attack Focus: Melee 6 Connected Dodge Focus 4 Environmental Adapation [underwater] Power Attack Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 30 pp Atlantean Mental Array [6+2=8 pp] Communication 6 (20 miles) [mental] (Extra: Two-Way; Flaw: Limited [Animals] AP: ESP 6 (visual) (20 miles) (Flaw: Medium [animals]) AP: Mind Reading 10 (Flaw: Duration [instant/Lasting]; PF: Subtle) Comprehend 2 (animals) (Flaw: Limited [sea Life]) [2 pp] Immunity 3 (drowning, environmental cold, high pressure) [3 pp] Super-Senses 4 (Acute Scent, Darkvision, Ultrahearing) [4 pp] Super-Strength 3 (Heavy Load: 6 tons) [6 pp] Swimming 6 (100 MPH) [6+1=7 pp] AP: Leaping 3 (x10) and Speed 3 (50 MPH) costs abilities 55 + combat 20 + saves 10 + skills 15/60 + feats 15 + powers 30 = 150 pts ---------- Design Notes: Here’s a two-fisted Atlantean mentalist powerhouse in the best tradition of Silver Age Aquaman (hence my use of the Superfriends character for the pic). He’s strong, fast on the water or on land, and he’s got the keen senses you’d expect from someone who lives underwater. He’s got the Diplomacy he needs to try and talk down evil pirates and polluters; he’s also got the physical abilities to wade in and engage them in melee before leaving them tied up in a net for the cops. He’s got the Life Sciences you’d expect from someone who probably does a lot of Earth Day PSAs. (This guy would make a decent Preachy 90s Environmentalist Hero build in the bargain). He’s also got some limited mental abilities; enough to read the minds of surface dwellers (with some effort, using the alternate Mind Reading mechanic discussed in Doc A and Shaen’s thread) as well as enough to talk to animals (particularly aquatic sea life) and to look through their eyes. (I could have flawed his mental powers like ESP and Communication to only work on sea life, but that would have had very low utility and anyway, as it is he can only talk to marine animals anyway: good thing Freedom City’s on the Atlantic Ocean!) People may underestimate him because he’s so nice, but he is a mobile fighter and good PL 10 powerhouse, albeit one without Impervious. It’s up to you what his Connected represents, depending on the backstory you settle on for him: he could be a member of the Atlantean royal family (perhaps one who has gone to the surface to explore the dimensions of his mental abilities) who has taken a more proactive approach to dealing with oceanic criminals, or maybe he’s just an ocean biologist mutated by exposure to pollution into a powerful superhero with connections at universities and the media. You could recast it as a version of the Cult Hero feat from Silver Age (which gives bonuses on dealings with your friends and problems while dealing with your enemies) and say he’s just really popular with those dolphin-saving types. Just one feat may not seem like much to represent being part of a royal family, but on the other hand Atlantis is very far away from Freedom City! This also might work (like Amphibian, the Champions character from Vibora Bay) as an aquatic sidekick grown up to be a full-bore superhero! This should be the nice Silver Age ambassador who occasionally shouts at people because he's used to talking underwater and who has to explain that yes, of course he eats fish, what do people expect Atlanteans to eat. He doesn't have Favored Environment (underwater); Favored Environment is a mistake to give a PC build. Rather, he just has Environmental Adaptation for underwater survival: that way he doesn't take the heavy penalties that regular PCs take for underwater movement and combat. That way he's just as competent as they are on the surface, but is a very powerful, highly competent hero below. You want to be careful about being The Water Guy, after all, since that is a common hazard for this archetype! Buying up more skills and feats for him is an excellent idea, with the specifics depending on exactly where you want to take the concept: another idea would be to pump up his mental attributes at the expense of the physical and make him more primarily a mentalist: as it is in play he’ll probably come across as a powerhouse with mental powers, which is what he is! A fast, easy way to get him points will be to give him some oceanic-related drawbacks like drying out or being vulnerable to heat-based attacks.
Avenger Assembled Posted October 2, 2011 Author Posted October 2, 2011 Gladiator If liberty has any meaning it means freedom to improve. -Philip Wylie PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 40 pp STR 30 [20] (+10/+5) DEX 14 (+2) CON 30 [20] (+10/+5) INT 14 (+2) WIS 16 (+3) CHA 16 (+3) Combat: 22 pp ATK: +5 (+10 melee) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +6 Grapple: +25 Saves: 8 pp TOU +10 (+10 Con) FORT +10 (+10 Con) REF +7 (+3 Dex, +4) WILL +8 (+3 Wis, +4) Skills: 52 r=13 pp Bluff 7 (+10) Diplomacy 7 (+10) Drive 2 (+4) Intimidate 12 (+15) Languages 3 (French, German, Mayan) (Base: English) Notice 12 (+15) Pilot 2 (+4) Sense Motive 7 (+10) Feats: 20 pp All-Out Attack Attack Focus: Melee 5 Beginner’s Luck Dodge Focus 4 Eidetic Memory Improved Initiative Jack of all Trades Luck Move-By Action Power Attack Startle Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 47 pp Enhanced CON 10 [10 pp] Enhanced STR 10 [10 pp] Immunity 1 (aging) [1 pp] Impervious TOU 10 (Flaw: Not Vs. Energy) [5 pp] Leaping 4 (x25) [4+1=5 pp] AP: Speed 4 (100 MPH) Regeneration 6 (Bruised 3 [no action], Injured 3 [20 minutes]) [6 pp] Super-Strength 5 (Heavy Load: 24 tons) [10 pp] costs abilities 40 + combat 22 + saves 9 + skills 13/52 + feats 20 + powers 47 = 150 pts ------------ Design Notes: Phillip Wylie’s 1930 novel Gladiator is almost totally forgotten today (if Wylie is remembered for anything, it’s most likely for his novel When Worlds Collide that became the 1951 movie of that title), but with his character Hugo Danner, a Colorado-born young man who was experimented on in the womb by his scientist father, Wylie created a pretty obvious inspiration for Superman. (Though Jerry Siegel denied having read the novel, he was a pulp fan growing up and the similarities are pretty striking). Hugo Danner was basically the Action Comics #1 Superman in a world without superheroes; able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, lift tremendous weights and run incredibly fast, and survive years of trench warfare in the Western Front during WWI, only finally being hurt when he was struck by multiple large artillery shells. Feared and hated by a world that resents his power, Danner travels the world and accomplishes much, but can’t ever work any lasting changes: finally at the end of the novel, he tampers in God’s domain and is struck by lightning and killed. Yeah, it’s that kind of story. I’ve tried to base this writeup on what I’ve read about the character in the novel, as well as somewhat on Iron Munro, the Gladiator legacy that Roy Thomas used as a Golden Age Supes stand-in after 1986. (That’s his picture up above). He’s fast, he’s strong, and what injuries he does take he can heal remarkably quickly. With his high mental attributes and skills, he can work a variety of jobs without any trouble the way Danner did, and with his high Impervious “nothing short of a bursting shell can pierce his skin.†(That’s also why he doesn’t have Evasion)! The character is extremely successful with women when he puts his mind to do it, but they usually kick him out of bed afterwards: hence a good Charisma and decent interaction skills but Intimidate above all else. (His success with the ladies is also where young “Arn†comes from, but that’s another story). He’s got good all-around saves, so he can hold his own if he runs into mentalists, mad scientists, and other threats that pulp novel/Golden Age heroes like him face. (One change I did make; the book Danner has Disabled Regeneration and lots of it, but since that condition comes up very rarely for PCs in our game I just left it off his sheet) This works just fine as a build for a modern-age low-grade powerhouse, one who’s more skilled and more charismatic than most at the price of physical might; but I think he works even better as a Golden Age hero or legacy. Maybe he’s the original, having been in retirement for some years and lost some of his mojo, or maybe this is his son: perhaps you could take a page from the original Iron Munro and say that his scientist father had gone mad and now seeks to build an unstoppable army of supermen! In a post-WWII origin, his powers are likely to be atomic rather than chemical, while if created today he’s more likely to be the product of genetic engineering.
Avenger Assembled Posted October 3, 2011 Author Posted October 3, 2011 Armored Chimp "Some apes, it seems, are more equal than others." -George Taylor PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 42 pp STR 36 [24] (+13/+7) DEX 12 (+1) CON 24 (+7) INT 20 (+5) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 16 pp ATK: +4 (+7 melee in suit) DEF: +7 (+4 w/out suit, +2 flat-footed) Init: +1 Grapple: +12/+24 Saves: 11 pp TOU +13 (+7 Con, +6 Protection) FORT +7 (+7 Con) REF +7 (+1 Dex, +6) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 64 r=16 pp Climb 3 (+10/+15) Computers 10 (+15, Skill Mastery) Craft (Electronic) 10 (+15, Skill Mastery) Craft (Mechanical) 10 (+15, Skill Mastery) Knowledge (Life Sciences) 5 (+10) Knowledge (Technology) 10 (+15, Skill Mastery) Languages 2 (French, Swahili; Base: English) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 3 (+5) Survival 3 (+5) Feats: 6 pp Challenge (Accelerated Climb) Eidetic Memory Inventor Jack of all Trades Second Chance (Climb checks) Skill Mastery (Computers, Craft (Electronic), Craft (Mechanical), Knowledge (Technology) Powers: 57 pp Device 12 (Power Armor) (PF: Restricted [apes]) [49 pp] Enhanced Feats 7 (Attack Focus: Melee 3, Dodge Focus 3, Takedown Attack) [7] Enhanced STR 12 and Super-Strength 4 [5 total] (Heavy Load: 48 tons) [20+1=21 pp] AP: Damage 10 (Extras: General Area [Cone], Selective; Flaw: Action [Full]) Flight 3 (50 MPH) [6] Immunity 9 (Life Support) [9] Protection 6 (Extra: Impervious 7) [13] Super-Senses 4 (Accurate Radio Sense, Uncanny Dodge [radio]) [4] Leaping 1 (x2) [1 pp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] Super-Movement 1 (Swinging) [2 pp] Super-Senses 2 (Acute Scent, Low-Light Vision) [2 pp] Super-Strength 1 (Heavy Load: ~1500 lbs) [2 pp] costs abilities 42 + combat 16 + saves 11 + skills 16/64 + feats 6 + powers 57 = 150 pts ------------ Design Notes: On Earth-Ape, a genius inventor had a wakeup call after witnessing the carnage weapons he had helped design for the government had brought to a Middle Eastern country wracked by civil war. (The government, trying to overthrow an anti-Western dictatorship, had sold his weapons to the gorilla forces in the mountains, only to see those gorilla leaders become promoters of vicious terrorism once they came to power.) Realizing that science and engineering weren’t as morally neutral as he’d once believed, he decided to use his technical expertise, no longer for his own gain, but rather for the betterment of ape and monkey alike! He constructed a badass suit of armor for himself with an onboard combat computer, a jetpack, a built-in radar and early-warning system, a completely sealed airtight environment, powerful weapons like strength-enhancing servos and explosive mini-missiles, and steel plating that made him tough enough to stand up to anything short of military-grade heavy weapons. But as the years went on, he began to grow uneasy: he wasn’t smart enough to replace the scientists and engineers on the more established super-teams, and his armor wasn’t really powerful enough for him to replace their strongapes and blasters either. So after some consideration, when the Primate Patrol opened up an exchange program with the Freedom League on Earth-Prime, the Armored Ape volunteered and headed off to Freedom City to be a superhero on this alien world! OK, so this is my attempt at a chimpanzee in power armor. (Note that at four feet tall, he’s juuust large enough to be considered Medium-sized.) Outside of his armor, he’s a fast, agile climber and just as brilliant an inventor and engineer: he’s PL 5 without the armor, about right for a chimpanzee who’s had some combat training. (Chimpanzees are scary, scary animals). He’s strong, has an animal’s keen senses, and can monkey his way up a wall without any concerns. In his armor, he’s your standard battlesuit user, albeit not quite as fast as those squishy humans who put all their points into their tin cans. He’s got a big array for stunting off; he’s also got respectable super-senses and the technical expertise to plausibly upgrade his suit. Since he’s from another dimension, he doesn’t have Handle Animal or Comprehend (simians); the apes he’s used to are fully sentient and live in cities, and he’s probably a little creeped out by the treatment of his wild cousins (not to mention by them proper) here on Earth-Prime! He’s an experienced hero, though, and he knows this is an alien world, so he’s not going to go around blasting open animal research laboratories: Freedom City’s own Dr. Simian is a natural rival for him (especially since Earth-Ape’s Dr. Simian is a power-mad Lex Luthor type who attempted to brainwash all of his own world’s heroes into being his mind-controlled pawns), especially if he’s not interested in leading an ape revolution on this world. he Golden Age’s Aryan Ape is another serious threat. Earth-Ape is a nice place, basically a Silver Age vision of a sentient ape society, and a good place to live; there are no mindless human slaves there, just apes and records of the pale-skinned, nearly furless creatures they evolved from hundreds of thousands of years ago. If you don’t like the Earth-Ape angle, this could easily be an uplifted ape from our world, one who has built himself a suit of armor to make relations with other heroes and human beings a little easier to understand. Or maybe he used to be a human and was mutated by an enemy, and he’s modded his suit to accommodate his new physiology while working on a cure in his spare time. He could be from another dimension altogether, though; perhaps he’s a refugee from Earth-Affe, still trapped under the tyrannical paw of Nazi Gibbony after all these years. For a slightly darker take on the character, he could be from a future society where apes have largely replaced mankind as the dominant species, whether by being uplifted by a humanity who’s left the planet, or by a war or plague that cut down on human numbers. If he’s a villain, he’s come back to ensure that the fall of man and the rise of the planet of the primates comes; whatever the consequences!
Avenger Assembled Posted October 3, 2011 Author Posted October 3, 2011 Street-Level Gadgeteer Chill out! PL: 7 (105) Abilities: 6 pp STR 10 (+0) DEX 10 (+0) CON 12 (+1) INT 20 (+5) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 DEF: +7 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +0 Grapple: +6 Saves: 18 pp TOU +6 (+1 Con, +5 Protection) FORT +8 (+1 Con, +7) REF +5 (+0 Dex, +5) WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6) Skills: 68 r=17 pp Computers 10 (+15) Craft (Electronic) 10 (+15) Craft (Mechanical) 10 (+15) Disable Device 10 (+15) Knowledge (Technology) 10 (+15) Notice 8 (+10) Search 4 (+9) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 9 pp Beginner’s Luck Eidetic Memory Equipment 3 Jack of all Trades Improvised Tools Inventor Skill Mastery (Computers, Craft (Mechanical), Craft (Electronic), Knowledge [Technology]) Powers: 31 pp Device 4 (Armored Costume) (Hard to Lose) [16 pp] Enhanced Feats 5 (Accurate Attack, All-Out Attack, Defensive Attack, Dodge Focus 1, Power Attack) [5dp] Flight 3 (50 MPH) [6dp] Immunity 3 (environmental cold and heat, own powers) [3dp] Protection 5 [5dp] Super-Senses 1 (Infravision) [1dp] Device 5 (Freeze Ray) (Easy to Lose) [15 pp] Blast 8 (Extra: Autofire) [24+1=24dp] AP: Snare 8 (Extra: Transparent) Equipment: 15 ep Tricked-Out Workshop Size: Small; Toughness: 15; Features: Communications, Computer, Concealed 2, Defense System (Blast 10 [ice gun]), Fire Prevention System, Laboratory, Library, Living Space, Power System, Security System 2 [DC 25], Workshop costs abilities 6 + combat 24 + saves 18 + skills 17/68 + feats 9 + powers 31 = 105 pts -------------- Design Notes: Here's a street-level PL 7 gadgeteer, a super-scientist who takes care of bad guys in his neighborhood with the help of his armored labcoat and his trusty freeze ray, fluffed here as the ability to slow down molecular motion. (The picture is of Neil Patrick Harris as Dr. Horrible, but fans of that work will notice that this isn't a straight conversion.) He doesn't have the budget for a force field generator or a suit of armor, but with enough time he could probably whip one up for in his trusty basement laboratory. (The hard part is getting the darn thing to work consistently; i.e., saving up the PP to buy it as another device rather than just another invention.) I took a lot of leads from Ecal's Gadgeteer build for this one, building him so he can work just about any skill and so that he's a sigificantly better fighter while in his labcoat. (I figure the goggles, with their targeting scanners and trackers, are built right into the suit itself.) Where does this guy come from? Maybe he's a self-taught mutant genius whose impressive technical abilities let him stand out from the crowd; or maybe he's just a local prodigy who hasn't yet caught enough attention for himself to get a grant or a job at a good government lab. Maybe he's a professional scientist just moonlighting in his spare time who hasn't yet made the step towards being a true hero; or maybe he's an ex-mad scientist looking to go straight in the name of that pretty girl down the block he's in love with. I went with the cold control theme because that's a good, iconic power-set for a scientist type in a superhero game, it's also got lots of good stunting opportunities available. But you could mix that up however you want: maybe give him a 50s movie scientist style and equip him with a gun that fires clean, pure, nuclear energy! In Freedom City, this guy is an obvious successor to the mighty Madame Zero, the setting's iconic scientist-cold controller. (Note that MZ, a local Mr. Freeze expy, is PL 14, so she's way outside his scope) Maybe this is a former employee of hers who saw the error of his ways and grabbed some gear to make amends for all the evil science he was a part of, or a heroic scientist who found some of her stuff (maybe he works CSI or in some other capacity at analyzing captured supervillain gear) and he decided to repurpose all this stuff for heroic ends! If that's the case, he'd better hope she doesn't mind the copycat, or he goes up some PLs and gets some friends before she goes to track him down.
Avenger Assembled Posted October 3, 2011 Author Posted October 3, 2011 Brer Rabbit Please don't throw me in dat briar patch!-Brer Rabbit PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 30 pp STR 26 [16] (+8/+3) DEX 26 [16] (+8/+3) 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: +8 Grapple: +20 Saves: 8 pp TOU +8 (+8 Con) FORT +8 (+8 Con) REF +10 (+8 Dex, +2) WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6) Skills: 76 r=19 pp Acrobatics 7 (+15)* Bluff 11 (+15)* Climb 2 (+5/+10) Diplomacy 6 (+10) Gather Info 6 (+10) Intimidate 6 (+10) Knowledge (History) 5 (+5) Languages 3 (Cherokee, French, Yoruba) (Base: English) Notice 13 (+15)* Sense Motive 8 (+10)* Stealth 7 (+15) Survival 2 (+4) Feats: 26 pp Acrobatic Bluff Attack Focus: Melee 6 Challenge 3 (Fast Acrobatic Bluff, Fast Taunt, Fast Trick) Distract (Bluff) Dodge Focus 6 Evasion Improved Initiative Move-By Action Power Attack Skill Mastery (Acrobatics, Bluff, Notice, Sense Motive) Takedown Attack Taunt Ultimate Skill (Bluff) Uncanny Dodge (olfactory) Powers: 43 pp Enhanced CON 10 [10 pp] Enhanced DEX 10 [10 pp] Enhanced STR 10 [10 pp] Lapine Array [5+1=6 pp] Leaping 5 (x50) AP: Speed 3 (50 MPH) and Super-Movement 1 (Wall-Crawling) Super-Senses 7 (Accurate Acute Tracking [quarter-speed] Olfactory, Low-Light Vision, Tremorsense, Ultrahearing) [7 pp] costs abilities 30 + combat 24 + saves 8 + skills 19/76 + feats 26 + powers 43 = 150 pts ---------------- Design Notes: Here's my build for the native hero of the state of Georgia, Brer Rabbit. The idea I have here is that he's a rabbit totem and trickster from ancient lore, a cultural legacy passed down from West Africa, merged with Native American and Creole traditions, and finally adopted as the sort of cultural totem and mystic cachet in the Deep South that can inspire a superpowered legacy. He's got the superpowered traits you'd expect from a giant rabbit; he's able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, run as fast as a car on city streets, or claw his way right up the side of a building. He's also got great super-senses from his whiskers and his ears, and is able to sense vibrations, follow trails by scent, as well as hear into high frequencies and fight just fine while blind-folded. (In fact, talking his opponents into blind-folding him would be an excellent use of that high Bluff of his.) He'll probably play a lot like Peter Parker with bunny ears and a fluffy tail in place of web-shooters. Note that despite their association with The Song of the South, the Brer Rabbit stories are generally empowering ones about cunningly outsmarting the powerful, dangerous predators all around you. (i.e., they were perfect stories for slaves and freedmen to tell each other, and to somewhat bowdlerize for mass white consumption back before the days of civil rights.) Naturally he's a master feinter and tricker, as befits an iconic trickster character of American folklore. (Like most of my animal totem characters, he can just about survive and forage on his own if he has to.) His INT is a bit low, true, but if you read the stories he's more about getting into trouble and talking his enemies into getting him out of it (and getting themselves laid low) than he is about a lot of plans and schemes. I didn't give him any kind of Perform skills, I figure he uses Bluff and Diplomacy to tell his best stories, leaving those for the entertainment of the audience. If you don't like the magic angle, he could easily be a rabbit-themed mutant, or an uplifted animal, or even a refugee from the planet of the bunnies! (He could be from Ani-Earth too, I suppose, but that world's laws are a bit more cartoony than I see this guy being. A good trickster will have lots of Complications; this is a character who if played right will have a thousand enemies. (All of them bad guys, naturally) For another take on fictional rabbits (without adding lots of Shrinking), give him some Precognition to represent that far-seeing rabbit who saw poison gas about to destroy his home, or maybe lots of Penetrating Unarmed Damage to represent a bite that can go right through a knight's full plate. Both of those make good native heroes of the United Kingdom!
Avenger Assembled Posted October 4, 2011 Author Posted October 4, 2011 Vampire Necromancer "This is pretty messed up right here." PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 0 pp STR 16 [10] (+3/+0) DEX 10 (+0) CON - INT 14 (+2) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 12 (+1) Combat: 16 pp ATK: +4 (+6 Ranged) DEF: +7 (+2 flat-footed) Init: +0 Grapple: +7/+20 Saves: 11 pp TOU +13 (+6 Force Field, +7 Protection) FORT - REF +5 (+0, +5) WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6) Skills: 64 r=16 pp Concentration 8 (+10) Diplomacy 4 (+5) Intimidate 9 (+10) Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 8 (+10)* Knowledge (History) 3 (+5) Knowledge (Theology and Philosophy) 3 (+5) Languages 3 (Greek, Italian, Latin) (Base: English) Notice 8 (+10)* Search 3 (+5)* Sense Motive 8 (+10)* Stealth 8 (+8) Feats: 10 pp Attack Focus: Ranged 2 Dodge Focus 3 Fearless Ritualist Second Chance (Concentration checks) Skill Mastery (Knowledge [Arcane Lore], Notice, Search, Sense Motive) Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 109 pp Comprehend 1 (spirits) [2 pp] Drain Constitution 2 (Flaw: Requires Grapple) [1 pp] Enhanced STR 6 [6 pp] Feature 7 (Buys Off Sunlight Drawback) (Extra: Duration [sustained [+0]) [7 pp] Flight 1 (10 MPH) [2 pp] Force Field 6 [6 pp] Immunity 30 (Fortitude Saves) [30 pp] Magic Array [20+5=25 pp] Blast 8 (PFs: Affects Insubstantial 2, Improved Crit 2) AP: Drain Charisma 8 (Extras: Alternate Save [Will], Ranged; PFs: Affects Insubstantial 2, Slow Fade 2 [1 pp per 5 minutes) AP: ESP 5 (5 miles) (visual and auditory) (PFs: Rapid 4 (x10k), Subtle) AP: Healing 5 (Extra: Affects Objects [+1]) AP: Move Object 8 (Heavy Load: 3 tons) (PFs: Affects Insubstantial 2, Precise, Subtle) AP: Summon Undead 4 (summons any undead of up to 60 pp; Extras: Attitude [Fanatical], Type [General]; PFs: Progression 2 [5 additional]) Protection 7 (Extra: Impervious; Flaw: Not Vs. Fire/Silver/Holy) [7 pp] Regeneration 6 (Recovery Bonus +0, Resurrection 1/week) (Flaw: Source [blood]) [3 pp] Super-Senses 4 (Darkvision, Detect Undead [visual], Undead Awareness) [4 pp] Vampiric Magic Array [12+5-1=16 pp] (Drawback: Not in Daylight) Blast 6 [to Blast 14] [12 pp] AP: Drain Charisma 6 (Extras: Alternate Save [Will], Ranged) [to Drain 14] AP: ESP 4 (visual and auditory) (1 mile) [to ESP 9 (anywhere on Earth)] AP: Healing 4 (Extra: Affects Objects [+1]) AP: Move Object 6 (Heavy Load: 1500 lbs) [to Move Object 14 (Heavy Load: 180 tons)] AP: Summon Undead 3 (summons any undead up to 45 pp; Extras: Attitude [Fanatical], Type [General]) [to Summon Undead 7 (105 pp)] Drawbacks: -10 pp Weakness (dazed by holy symbols via Charisma check) [-3 pp] Weakness (destroyed by sunlight; dead in 1 minute) [-7 pp] costs abilities 0 + combat 16 + saves 11 + skills 15/60 + feats 9 + powers 109- drawbacks 10 = 150 pts -------------------- Design Notes: Alice first heard ghosts talking when she was eight years old, and cast her first spell when she was twelve. It was natural, all things considered, that she'd grow up to be a necromancer. Lacking drive and ambition, and mostly learning what she could from the Internet, she traveled the country's back roads after high school, consulting with the dead for where to go and supporting herself as a medium and spirit consultant. She wasn't Adrian Eldritch or Nick Cimiterie, but she could summon ghosts, fire blasts of black soulfire, and surround herself in a protective blanket of ectoplasm; she could also repair injured undead (a good way to help ghosts who had no Earthly fetters these days), as well as search an entire city by sending out waves of summoned ghosts to do her bidding. She might have continued that way for years if she hadn't met a beautiful man in the cemetery one night, a handsome, smooth-talking man in black robes who persuaded her to show her what kind of power she had. Impressed, he offered to take her into his family and show her what real magic was all about! And so he did, ushering her into the aristocracy of the night and transforming her into a powerful vampire! Being the walking dead herself greatly empowered her magic, not to mention making her tougher and stronger in her flesh; a shield of ghosts could let her walk in the daylight at the price of betraying her secret identity, but she'd never been much of a sun-going girl. It didn't take her long to realize the mistake she'd made: her maker and his circle weren't just admirers of the dead, they were devotees of Malador the Undying who had promised them great spiritual power in return for plunging the Earth into unholy darkness! She pulled herself back from the brink and turned on her master, defeating his circle and fleeing for Freedom City, where she could hide among fellow practioners as she studied more about her condition. She'd wasted her life, but she wouldn't waste her unlife! Here's your typical vampire necromancer, based on Doc's idea of converting the Vampire: the Masquerade clans into superheroes. (In this case, the Giovanni) She's got some disadvantages versus her fellow necromancers since she's the walking dead herself (and thus vulnerable to many of their specialized abilities), but on the other hand her supernatural toughness and resiliency means she can take a lot of punishment. Being a magus herself, she's a lot more resistant to spells than most vampires; since she's tapping into her innate undead nature these nights rather than casting spells per se, she doesn't need to make the old gestures and chants to cast spells. She's focused on spell-like abilities rather than vampire powers per se, but she could easily stunt Insubstantial 2 or Mind Control 10 (Flaw: Sense-Dependent [auditory]), or even a Mighty Strike if you were so inclined.
Avenger Assembled Posted October 4, 2011 Author Posted October 4, 2011 Calamity Jane Light it up. Abilities: 22 pp STR 10 (+0) DEX 10 (+0) CON 24 (+7) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 14 pp ATK: +3 (+5 Fireball) DEF: +5 (+2 flat-footed) Init: +4 Grapple: +3 Saves: 13 pp TOU +15 (+7 Con, +8 Protection) FORT +7 (+7 Con) REF +5 (+0 Ref, +5) WILL +10 (+2 Wis, +8) Skills: 13 pp=52 r Concentration 8 (+10) Intimidate 12 (+14) Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 10 (+10) Language 1 (Afrikaans) (Base: English) Medicine 8 (+10) Notice 3 (+5) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 11 pp All-Out Attack Dodge Focus Fearless Improved Initiative Luck Move-By Action Power Attack Precise Shot Ritualist Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 82 pp Flight 1 (10 MPH) [2 pp] Hematokinesis Array [50+4=54 pp] Damage 10 (Extras: Alternate Save [Fortitude], Duration [Concentration], Range [Perception], Secondary Effect) ‘bloodfire’ AP: Damage 10 (Extras: Alternate Save [Fortitude], Area [burst], Secondary Effect, Selective Attack) ‘bloodfirestorm’ AP: Damage 10 (Extras: Duration [Concentration], Range [Perception], Secondary Effect) 'ignition' AP: Damage 10 (Extras: Area [burst], Duration [Concentration], Secondary Effect, Selective Attack) 'firestorm' AP: Damage 15 (Extras: Range [Ranged], Secondary Effect; PFs: Accurate 2, Improved Crit 2, Precise) 'fireball' Immunity 8 (aging, disease, environmental cold and heat, poison, sleep, suffocation) [8 pp] Impervious Toughness 6 (Flaw: Not vs. Magic/Silver/Holy) [3 pp] Protection 8 [8 pp] Super-Senses 7 (Acute Scent, Darkvision, Detect Blood 3 [visual], Ultrahearing) [7 pp] Drawbacks: -3 pp Vulnerable (vs. holy) (uncommon, major) [-3 pp] costs abilities 22+ combat 14 + saves 13 + skills 13/52 + feats 9 + powers 82 -drawbacks 3= 150 pts --------- Design Notes: Here’s a hematokinetic like Marvel’s Adam-X the X-Treme, a character with the power to set your blood on fire! I went with the idea that this is the adult version of Jane, the kid Electra’s character and mine had in an old paranormal investigation game; the offspring of her pyrokinetic witch and my vampire agent from upthread. (Yes, I have ridden at the “spellcaster and vampire have an unlikely kid†rodeo before) The overall idea is that Jane’s innate power is a combination of her mother’s heritage and her father’s, giving her tremendous power over fire and blood both: she can burn targets up from the inside out just by looking at them, either singly or in groups, or just be a plain old firestarter who burns objects with a glance or hurls tremendously destructive fire blasts at people. She doesn’t have Fire Control except as a power-stunt; she’s much more a straight-forward howitzer, taking heavy punishment herself while burning everything around her with hit after hit. Even with some vampiric weaknesses, she’s much much tougher than a normal person, with keen senses to go with her tremendous magical power. Sure, she’s not as smart or as diverse as most other mystics, but she can set them on fire with gusto, attacking a save that most squishy wizards don’t have a lot invested in. I went with the idea that Detect Blood is about as common as Detect Life for purposes of point-costs; sure, there are things that are alive that don’t have any blood, but OTOH (especially in a comic book universe) there’s plenty of blood around that isn’t in someone alive. Yes, her powers are a bit Iron Age if played the wrong way, but the base idea is that she does have the finesse not to pop heads every time she uses her abilities: think of a non-lethal use of the power as being more like giving someone a sunburn on the inside. Power stunts might include a Vampiric Blast or Healing, as well as the various suggested stunts under Fire Control. Or you could take a page from Doc’s Biomancer and let her move organic things around by blood manipulation; a Perception-range Damaging Move Object that only works on targets with blood in them, alive or otherwise. This makes a fine teen prodigy magician, a powerful character without much finesse, but she could be a uniquely empowered mutant as well. Perhaps her powers come not from vampiric, but infernal heritage! If her powers are the result of spells rather than innate abilities, perhaps you should pick up the “not if bound/gagged†drawback for her magic. This build could be a decent stand-in for an alternate version of Ember Psion, or maybe the (good-aligned) twin sister Ember never knew she had! (If one set of kids can be twins, perhaps it’s something that runs in the Psion side of the family) Another possibility might be the villainous blood controller from the Time of Vengeance adventure, reformed and stripped of part of her powers by abandoning her dark bargain with Mr. Infamy. Shuffle the drawback points around if you’re removing the supernatural elements from her backstory. She has decent first aid, and she’ll be better at it if you drop the magical stuff and give her skills to go with being a scientist; perhaps she got her powers from an experimental blood serum? She can do some minor stuff with rituals and can help out with big projects, but she’s more likely to be there blasting away at bad guys in the background while the more knowledgeable mystics work the really big stuff. With her background and skills, she’d make a fine employee at the local blood bank. Indeed, given her preternatural skill at burning things (even vampires, who are vulnerable to plain old-fashioned getting burned to ash, some even more than humans) and all the new vampire NPCs running around this thread and over in Doc’s Laboratory, perhaps she’s newly been put on retainer by your local blood bank to keep out all the night-going riffraff who are trying to steal the merchandise. (Responsible vampires know you secure the blood bags discarded by blood banks as unsuitable, that way nothing is taken out of the local stock for humans. There’s a shortage, you know!)
Avenger Assembled Posted October 6, 2011 Author Posted October 6, 2011 Robot Martial Artist "It's robot fighting time!" PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 8 pp STR 20 (+5) DEX 20 (+5) CON - (-) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+15 melee) DEF: +15 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +5 Grapple: +20 Saves: 7 pp TOU +5 (+5 Protection) FORT - (-) REF +9 (+5 Dex, +4) WILL +5 (+2 Wis, +3) Skills: 40 r=10 pp Acrobatics 10 (+15) Climb 5 (+10) Concentration 2 (+4) Knowledge (Theology and Philosophy) 5 (+5) Languages 2 (Chinese, Japanese) (Base: English) Notice 3 (+5) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Stealth 5 (+10) Feats: 21 pp Acrobatic Bluff Attack Focus: Melee 7, Dodge Focus 7, Evasion, Fearless, Power Attack, Stunning Attack, Takedown Attack, Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 72 pp Combat Array [10+2=12 pp] Damage 0 (Extras: Autofire, Penetrating) AP: Damage 0 (Extras: Autofire, Duration [Concentration]) AP: Damage 0 (Extras: Selective, Targeted Area [shapeable]) Immunity 40 (Fortitude Saves, Mental Effects) [40 pp] Impervious TOU 5 [5 pp] Leaping 4 (x25) [4+1= 5 pp] AP: Speed 1 (10 MPH) (PFs: Move-By Action, Wall Run, Water Run) Protection 5 [5 pp] Regeneration 5 (Recovery Bonus +0) [5 pp] costs abilities 8 + combat 32 + saves 7 + skills 10/40 + feats 21+ powers 72= 150 pts ------------------ Design Notes: Robotic super-soldier achieves sentience and escapes his makers, determined to find a human identity and not be used as a killing machine. Tale as old as time. But this guy was different, looking for a spiritual purpose that generally eludes even the most moral of mechanical men. He roamed the world on a quest for wisdom and understanding, looking to light the fires in his own soul. Finally, after years of tirelessly striding through the coldest parts of the Himalayas, he reached Shamballa Vale and the sages there. There was some debate over accepting an automaton into the ranks of the warriors of the Vale, but after he defeated the Ghost Hun Army single-handedly when they overran the Vale's spiritual defenses, the sages welcomed the robot into their ranks. His lessons were different than the others; after all, meditating in a snowbank for hours was no challenge, nor was going without food or water, but he was as challenged as any man, perhaps more so, when confronted with the sacred koans of wisdom. When at last he emerged from the vale, he was no longer just a machine: he was one of the finest warriors in the world! All right, so here's a robotic martial artist for all your robotic martial arts needs. Though he can stand up to small arms fire, he's not nearly as tough as your typical combat robot, and will need to rely on his incredible agility to avoid taking hits in combat. He's faster than any man and far more agile, his mechanical servos letting him be as fast and mobile as his ki-empowered brethern. Able to run right up walls and leap over buses, he can lay down a world of hurt with super-fast robotic punches, either sweeping through a room full of thugs or concentrating his blows on particular targets to whittle them down to size like they're being torn apart by a hurricane of robotic punches! He's got lots of points in that combat array of his and he meets his full caps in melee; don't be afraid to stunt things like Stun or Paralyze, as well as just good old-fashioned more and better kinds of damage. I figure he uses a lot of Stunning Attack versus his squishy human opponents, since all in all most of your martial artists tend to have relatively low Fort saves. (At least compared to their Will and Reflex saves, that is.) Being a robot, he could definitely use some Super-Senses. Maybe he got out of the habit of using them while in the Vale (since it's mystically protected from technological investigation anyway) and needs to get in the habit of turning them on again, or perhaps he's just an older-model robot (or even a clockwork golem like the Great Ten's Shaolin Robot) and he needs to get some parts upgraded before he goes in that direction. He may be a soulless robot, but he's got the wisdom and control of the finest martial artists in the world tucked away in his programming.
Avenger Assembled Posted October 7, 2011 Author Posted October 7, 2011 Empty Battlesuit "I sure do love drinking!" PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 4 pp STR 30 [20] (+10/+5) DEX 10 (+0) CON - (-) INT 16 (+3) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 20 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Blast/Unarmed) DEF: +10 (+2 flat-footed) Init: +0 Grapple: +11/+22 Saves: 10 pp TOU +10 (+10 Protection) FORT - REF +5 (+0 Dex, +5) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 52 r=13 pp Bluff 11 (+11) Computers 7 (+10) Craft (Electronic) 7 (+10)* Craft (Mechanical) 7 (+10)* Disable Device 7 (+10)* Knowledge (Technology) 7 (+10)* Notice 3 (+5) Sense Motive 3 (+5) Feats: 11 pp Dodge Focus 6 Inventor Online Research Second Chance (Computers checks) Skill Mastery (Craft (Electronic), Craft (Mechanical), Disable Device, Knowledge (Technology) Well-Informed Powers: 95 pp Energy Systems Array [24+1=25 pp] Enhanced Feats 2 (Attack Specialization: Unarmed 2) and Enhanced STR 10 and Super-Strength 6 (Heavy Load: 48 tons) AP: Blast 10 (PFs: Accurate 2, Improved Crit, Precise) 'lasers' Flight 4 (100 MPH) [8 pp] Immunity 40 (Fortitude Saves, Mental Effects) [40 pp] Impervious TOU 10 (Flaw: Limited [Physical Only]) [5 pp] Protection 10 [10 pp] Regeneration 5 (Recovery Bonus +0) [5 pp] Super-Senses 2 (Infravision, Radio) [2 pp] Drawback: -3 pp Vulnerable (vs. Knockback) (since the suit is so light without a person in it) (common, moderate [+50%]) costs abilities 4 + combat 20 + saves 10 + skills 13/52 + feats 11 + powers 95 -drawbacks 3= 150 pts -------------- Design Notes: Everyone thought the troubled billionaire in the battlesuit died in that last big battle with his old foe the Dragon. But now he's back in a new suit of armor, one where he can live full time and shielded against telepathic incursion so he can dwell in the privacy of his own head. He's not as talkative as he used to be, or as personal, and he spends most of his time in the lab when he's not out fighting crime, researching the problems of cybernetics. His old friends, those who still associate with him, anyway, are fairly sure that their friend suffered some crippling injury in that last great battle and has confined himself to the armor for the protection of both his life and his pride: that's probably why his role as a researcher and scientist has taken such a hit since the "battle" as well. The truth is, the billionaire in question is as dead as a disco duck: his body is buried on the remote island where he fell in battle in the process of finally destroying his arch-nemesis. There is actually _no one_ inside the battlesuit, at least nothing save the advanced combat AI who has now abruptly found himself the master of a hollow cybernetic body, having learned to his own surprise (indeed, his surprise that he could be surprised!) that his artificial intelligence actually extended to much more than just fighting and making his boss's phone calls. (I imagine he's probably named after his boss's late butler, a long-time friend of the family.) So now he's scared, and doing his best to keep up appearances while he researches a robot body that won't cause so many questions. Perhaps an android that looks just like his creator! Here's my attempt at building a robot with a battlesuit's typical powers: he flies around and punches things with Super-Strength, he shoots things with frickin' lasers (which double as welding torches in a pinch), and he's bulletproof and has some super-senses in the mix. I figure he has self-repair systems to take care of most of his injuries, though he'd better be careful not to let people see if the tin can is ripped open and there's absolutely nothing inside! He's smart enough to at least pass for a tech-head and he has a permanent wi-fi connection for hastily doing research on things he 'should' know about, but he's new enough to people that he still has trouble reading their moods or passing for human. I think he'd be a gas to play, especially if you flesh out his 'old' identity. In my head, he sounds like Norm from Phineas and Ferb. Doc A suggested his drawback, which I think makes a lot of sense.
Avenger Assembled Posted October 7, 2011 Author Posted October 7, 2011 Robot Psychic “Deus ex machina. Abilities: 22 pp STR 24 (+7) DEX 20 (+5) CON - INT 14 (+2) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 16 pp ATK: +4 (+7 melee/+10 psychic powers) DEF: +7 (+3 Dodge, +2 flat-footed) Grapple: +14/+20 Init: +5 Saving Throws: 8 pp TOU: +13 (+13 Protection) FORT: - REF: +5 (+5 Dex) WILL: +10 (+2 Wis, +8) Skills: 36 r=9 pp Concentration 8 (+10) Knowledge (Civics) 3 (+5) Language 1 (English) (Base: Burmese) Notice 8 (+10) Search 3 (+5) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Stealth 5 (+10) Feats: 7 pp Attack Focus: Melee 3 Dodge Focus 3 Second Chance (Concentration checks to maintain powers) Powers: 88 pp Flight 1 (10 MPH) [2] Immunity 30 (Fortitude saves) [30] Impervious TOU 10 (Extra: Duration [sustained]) [10] Psionic Array [24+4=28 pp] Blast 10 (PFs: Accurate 3, Precise) AP: ESP 6 (600 ft/20 miles) (visual and auditory) (PFs: Rapid 5 (x100k), Subtle) AP: Mind Control 10 (PFs: Insidious, Mental Link, Second Chance [Mind Control], Subtle) AP: Mind Reading 10 (Extras: Area [burst], Selective; Flaw: Duration [instant/Lasting]; PFs: Insidious, Precise, Progression on Area, Subtle) AP: Move Object 10 (Heavy Load: 12 tons) (PFs: Accurate 3, Precise) Protection 13 [13] Regeneration 5 (Recovery Bonus +0) [5] Abilities 22 + Skills 8 + Feats 7 + Powers 88+ Combat 16 + Saves 8 = Total 150 ------ Design Notes: When the Freedom League broke up the super-soldier program run by a ‘breakaway’ faction of the brutal Burmese military dictatorship, they found they’d come too late for some of the prisoners. Paranoid and cruel, the Burmese secret police had rounded up anyone in the country with superpowers and experimented on them horribly to find the secret of their abilities: dozens were already dead, and more would die even after their salvation. One in particular struck them; Suu Aung, a budding psionic and sister of a dissident, died just a few days after the liberation of the jungle base where the prisoners had been held. Heedless of her own safety, she had used her psychic powers to contact American heroes even through her inhibitor brace, and the lingering effects of exhaustion and starvation had been enough to take her life. Vowing that this young hero would not be the last victim of her tormentors, Daedalus and Dr. Atom worked together to save Suu Aung’s brain, installing it in a robot body modeled on the Furies Three. Now safely encased in a steel shell, Suu is a Claremont student who plans to one day return home and liberate her people from their cruel overlords! All right, here’s my attempt at a Robot Psychic, based on Marvel’s No-Girl (one of the more interesting concepts of Grant Morrison’s run on the X-Men). The idea, as discussed above, is that she is a psychic brain in a regenerating robot body, giving her lots of tricks not possessed by either your typical robot or your typical psychic. I’ve tried to give her a blend of the natural abilities of both; a bulletproo psychic force field over tough robot skin and enough physical strength to make her a surprisingly potent threat in melee! (She’s PL 7 if her powers are somehow suppressed, thus giving her a chance to bust her way out of psi-nullifiers, and has enough psychic finesse to stay moving even if her robot parts are somehow dissassembled). She’s obviously got quite a road to go to maintain her humanity, especially if she opts to stay with the obviously mechanical body. Unlike most robots (PC ones, anyway), she’s not immune to mental effects, largely because she does actually have a human brain in there. If you don’t the Burmese angle (if anything, I have _undersold_ the brutality of the Burmese generals here), you could give her an origin closer to home; perhaps her powers are a result of a Terminus mutation and she was attacked by bigots who mortally injured her body, or maybe she was a victim of a degenerative physical ailment (perhaps one that her powers evolved as a respose to) and had the body constructed as a humanitarian gesture by a famous superhero; the latter would certainly let you have a character with a happier upbringing! If you do want to make her a straightforward psychic robot, swap out the Impervious TOU for an immunity to mental effects and specify that she was built with some of the first artificial telepathic generators in the world!
Avenger Assembled Posted October 7, 2011 Author Posted October 7, 2011 Psionic Weather Controller “There’s going to be a change in the weather. PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 34 pp STR 20 (+5) DEX 14 (+2) CON 22 (+6) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 28 pp ATK: +6 DEF: +12 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +2 Grapple: +15 Saves: 11 pp TOU +8 (+6 Con, +2 Force Field) FORT +7 (+6 Con, +1) REF +7 (+2 Dex, +5) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 40 r=10 pp Concentration 5 (+7) Intimidate 3 (+5) Knowledge (Physical Sciences) 3 (+3) Notice 8 (+10)* Pilot 8 (+10)* Sense Motive 3 (+5) Survival 3 (+5)* Swim 5 (+10)* Feats: 9 pp Dodge Focus 4 Endurance Move-By Action Second Chance (Weather Control power checks) Skill Mastery (Notice, Pilot, Survival, Swim) Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 56 pp Flight 3 (50 MPH) [6 pp] Force Field 2 [2 pp] Immunity 5 (all weather effects) (Extra: Duration (Sustained) [+0]) [5 pp] Super-Senses 8 (Postcognition [Flaw: Unreliable], Precognition [Flaw: Unreliable]) [4 pp] Weather Control Array [33+5=38 pp] Blast 10 (Extra: Range [Perception]; PFs: Indirect 2, Variable Descriptor 1 [any weather]) AP: Damage 10 (Extras: Area [shapeable], Selective Attack; PFs: Indirect 2, Variable Descriptor 1 [any weather]) AP: Dazzle 10 (visual and auditory) (Extra: Range [Perception]; Flaw: Action [Full]; PFs: Indirect 2, Variable Descriptor 1 [any weather]) AP: Environmental Control 10 (1 mile) [3/pp mix-and-match] (Extras: Duration [independent] (+0), Total Fade [+1]; Flaw: Range [Touch]; PFs: Slow Fade 3 [5 minutes/rank]) AP: Move Object 10 (Heavy Load: 12 tons) (Extra: Range [Perception]; PFs: Indirect 2, Variable Descriptor 1 [any weather]) AP: Obscure 10 (1 mile) (visual and auditory) (Extra: Duration [independent] (+0); PFs: Slow Fade 2 [1 minute/rank, Variable Descriptor 1 [any weather]) costs abilities 34 + combat 28 + saves 11 + skills 10/40 + feats 8 + powers 56 = 150 pts --------- Design Notes: Here’s Semper Paratus, aka Ted White, one of the first super characters I ever played from an old Aberrant game with Electra. Ted was a Coast Guard rescue pilot, one of those guys who flew choppers in to rescue people from storms and capsized ships. He was good at his job and happily married to his wife Veronica, a NASA research scientist and astronaut, right up until his wife developed superpowers during a space mission: now she was an impossibly beautiful, super-strong flier who could bruise him with a touch, and he was just this guy who flew helicopters, you know? (It didn’t help that, having become beautiful and tough instead of smarter, Ronnie had been shunted out of her scientific work by NASA and put to work on the rubber-chicken circuit, so she was under significant stress herself). When Ted’s powers emerged during a lightning storm over their home (being near a nova is a great way to develop powers yourself), everything seemed better until his newly-formed psychic abilities gave him an up-close-and-personal graphic perspective on the long-term affair Ronnie had been having with another nova. (It wasn’t really her fault, since an enhanced constitution in Aberrant terms gives you very, very strong drives). Stripped of the very Aberrant backstory, I think Ted’s sheet works just fine as a psychic weather controller: someone who can predict the coming weather and who can go out there and do something about it! He wound up as a hurricane fighter in the Coast Guard (it helped that he lived in Florida) and I think this character could do that job just fine, flying up into the heart of storms and taking them on mono-a-mono. Mechanically he’s not that different from your average weather controller, with a few changes. He’s buffer than most weather controllers, and a better hand-to-hand fighter, but his best strategy in a fight is to hang back and make with the hostile weather conditions: he can drop lightning bolts from the clear blue sky on command, deafen people with near-miss thunderclaps, or knock people around with high winds, or drop a tornado on the spot where he’s standing. He’s immune to the effects of his powers as long as he’s conscious, so if he fails a Concentration check while in the middle of a raging Category 5 (even one he created) he’s in trouble! Given the particular utility of his powers, he might be a super-person who’s grown up under military tutelage, perhaps an early graduate of one of those T-mutant schools. Weather controllers have lots of pretty broad opportunities for stunting, with his big array it shouldn’t be that hard for you to build whatever it is that you need. He shouldn’t have many issues with living in comfort wherever he does happen to settle down, thanks to that big environmental control power of his. (There’s always some debate over how Independent exactly works, so make sure you get clear with your GM his interpretation of it before you take it out for a spin.) If you put the powers in some other direction, he works just fine as a Steve Trevor-type who has hooked up with your local Hot Amazon. If you take him as a villain, which he was for a while when his powers emerged, he makes a fine scary weather god, perhaps a crazed stalker of some famous celebrity who he imagines is cheating on him...(he's craaazy)
Avenger Assembled Posted October 7, 2011 Author Posted October 7, 2011 Acrobat in Power Armor “Fighting for special interest groups!†PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 10 pp STR 24 [10] (+7/+0) DEX 24 [10] (+7/+0) CON 24 [10] (+7/+0) INT 16 (+3) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+13 melee) DEF: +13 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +7 Grapple: +26 Saves: 5 pp TOU +7 (+7 Con) FORT +7 (+7 Con) REF +7 (+7 Dex) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 56 r=14 pp Acrobatics 8 (+15) Bluff 15 (+15) Climb 3 (+10) Craft (Artistic) 2 (+5) Craft (Mechanical) 2 (+5) Knowledge (Technology) 2 (+5) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Stealth 8 (+15) Feats: 19 pp Acrobatic Bluff Attack Focus: Melee 5 Challenge (Fast Acrobatic Bluff) Dodge Focus 5 Evasion Luck Move-By Action Power Attack Takedown Attack Taunt Powers: 70 pp Device 5 (Acrobat Armor) (Hard to Lose) (PF: Restricted [DNA lockout]) [21 pp] Additional Limbs 4 (Extra:Duration: Sustained) [4dp] Concealment 4 (all visual) (Flaw: Passive) [4dp] Enhanced Feats 2 (Quick Change) [2dp] Flight 1 (10 MPH) (PF: Subtle) [3dp] Immunity 2 (disease, poison) [2dp] Impervious TOU 5 [5dp] Super-Senses 5 (Direction Sense, Infravision, Radio, Time Sense, Ultrahearing) [5dp] Enhanced CON 14 [14 pp] Enhanced DEX 14 [14 pp] Enhanced STR 14 [14 pp] Super-Senses 2 (Danger Sense [mental], Uncanny Dodge [mental]) [2 pp] Super-Strength 2 (Heavy Load: 1 ton) [4+1=5 pp] AP: Leaping 2 (x5) and Speed 2 (25 MPH) costs abilities 10 + combat 32 + saves 5 + skills 14/56 + feats 19 + powers 70 = 150 pts --------- Design Notes: A few years ago, a young man sat in his room and swore an oath of vengeance and responsibility. His foster father was dead, murdered by a nameless criminal, and he and his foster mother were faced with unimaginable poverty and grief. Making matters worse was his own secret knowledge that he could have prevented the crime! If only he had used the amazing physical powers he’d gained from that lab accident some months ago to be a hero instead of trying to become a super-celebrity, he could have been there when his family needed him. And then, there came a knock at the door, and a man was standing there he’d never met. The playboy industrialist had recently suffered a life-changing accident himself, and while laid up in recovery he’d read about the murder of one of his company’s employees and been struck with sympathy. After all, he’d lost his own parents from a young age. From the equipment scattered around the room, the industrialist recognized a budding gadgeteer and offered the high school student an internship (along with paying his family’s way for the rest of their lives), and the young man at that moment finally unburdened his secret shame and secret pride to the older, wiser man. Hmming, the industrialist stroked his goatee and made a proposition to him. You see, he’d been working on this suit of armor for himself, but perhaps he and the young man could build one for him, too? Together? Yes, here’s my attempt at building a PL 10 version of the Iron Spider armor; this requires essentially taking the very very early Spiderman and putting him in a brand-new suit of Starktech armor. (In this universe, he had a full research laboratory and didn’t have to make do with dinky little fluid shooters.) He’s fast, he’s mobile, he’s really strong, and he’s bulletproof (at least vs. small arms fire); with the additional limbs on his armor and his own innate super-strength, he’s a very good grappler. His suit’s not actually sealed, but he is in something of a restricted environment: he can avoid being exposed to airborne toxins and pollutants, he’s just got no supply of oxygen in there! I figure this is a version of the character who’s a good mechanic and something of a techhead, but not really a super-genius yet; that’ll come with time and earned PP. (That’s one of the problems with Spiderman conversions, there have been so many versions of the character that capturing him at any one point in his career is always a challenge) I think this works fine as any acrobatic hero in powered armor; shuffle the points around and this could easily be a patriotic hero in an all-American costume. In the Freedom City setting, this guy is probably a Claremont student, perhaps one sponsored by one of our tech heroes or a heroic NPC like Daedalus. He could easily have built his own suit, or borrowed someone else’s. You can certainly save him a lot of points if you have him be a pure techie and put all his enhanced attributes in the suit too! Like a lot of Spidey-esque builds, he’s in trouble if you nullify his Danger Sense and Uncanny Dodge. (Why such a low Charisma? Well, taunts aside, nobody seems to like Spiderman, especially this early in his career) As a villain, maybe this is a sneak thief who stole someone else’s suit of power armor (or built it himself off-camera) and now he’s sneaking into places and stealing the most valuable things there.
Avenger Assembled Posted October 8, 2011 Author Posted October 8, 2011 Luck Controller With a Gun "Pew pew!" PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 28 pp STR 20 (+5) DEX 20 (+5) CON 20 (+5) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 36 pp ATK: +9 (+14 Blasters/+15 melee) DEF: +15 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +5 Grapple: +20 Saves: 9 pp TOU +5 (+5 Con) FORT +7 (+5 Con, +2) REF +7 (+5 Dex, +2) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 56r=14 pp Acrobatics 10 (+15) Climb 5 (+10) Drive 5 (+10) Language 1 (Spanish) (Base: English) Notice 8 (+10) Pilot 5 (+10) Sense Motive 12 (+14) Stealth 10 (+15) Feats: 25 pp Acrobatic Bluff Attack Focus: Melee 5 Dodge Focus 7 Move-By Action Power Attack Precise Shot Quick Draw [draw] Takedown Attack Ultimate Save 4 (Fortitude, Reflex, Toughness, Will) Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 38 pp Device 4 (Paired Blasters) (Hard to Lose) (PFs: Restricted [DNA Lockout], Subtle [concealed]) [18 pp] Blast 6 (Extra: Autofire; PFs: Accurate 2) [20dp] Leaping 2 (x5) [2+1=3 pp] AP: Speed 2 (25 MPH) Luck Control 4 (spend an HP for another character, give HP to others, spend HP to negate HP/Fiat, force reroll) (PFs: Luck 5) [17 pp] costs abilities 28 + combat 36 + saves 9 + skills 14/56 + feats 25 + powers 38 = 150 pts -------- Design Notes: Here's Domino, a luck controller with a gun, an Iron Age character so iconic she made it into the Iron Age book via her Freedom City expy Kismet. She got to sleep with Cable back at the height of the Iron Age, which pretty much makes her one of the memetic sex gods of comics in the 1990s. She's a sneaky, acrobatic gun bunny who's equally skilled in hand-to-hand as she is with her stunning laser pistols. Her Luck Control makes a fine supplement to her strong training, making her one of the most badass women in the world. This is a very Iron Age archetype, of course, but so long as you put non-lethal weapons like the Black Widow's Spider Bite in her hands and make her a skilled hand-to-hand fighter as I did here, you should do just fine. I added a little bit of superhuman acrobatics to go with her abilities, but for the most part she's just very very good, and very very lucky. This probably isn't our Kismet; you shouldn't pick up Iron Age characters or legacies here without a _very_ good story to go with it. Besides, FORCE Ops is dead. Odds are pretty good that the anti-heroine Kismet died in the Terminus Invasion, giving her life as the real hero she'd never really believed she was. But it could be a relative; 1993 was a long time ago, and a daughter born sometime near the end of Kismet's life (perhaps as a result of one of those wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am relationships the Iron Age loved so much) would be an adult now; if she was raised by a friend of Kismet's from her mercenary days, she may have gotten the same kind of training her mother had, though without the personal, Iron Age style education in the realities of doom and gloom. If she's not a direct Kismet legacy, maybe she's just a luck-controlling agent that UNISON or AEGIS has sent off to be a superhero. Hey, if it worked for Black Widow; you can make it work for you! There's no reason she can't be open about her background, but a mysterious and secretive past works just fine too. Consider paying for the Enigma feat. I've made her a fairly serious gun-bunny type with strong physical skills; up her Charisma and Bluff if you want to make her more the flirty femme fatale type: Attractive is a must for that sort of character. Another possible change might be to her signature weapon; maybe instead of stunning energy blasts you prefer arrows or some other iconic type of comic book weapon.
Avenger Assembled Posted October 8, 2011 Author Posted October 8, 2011 Satanic Spider "Did the Devil make the world/when God was sleeping?" -Tom Waits PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 10 pp STR 24 [10] (+7/+0) DEX 24 [10] (+7/+0) CON 24 [10] (+7/+0) INT 16 (+3) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 24 [10] (+7/+0) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+13 melee) DEF: +13 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +7 Grapple: +27 Saves: 5 pp TOU +7 (+7 Con) FORT +7 (+7 Con) REF +7 (+7 Dex) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 64 r=16 pp Acrobatics 8 (+15)* Bluff 13 (+20)* Climb 3 (+10) Craft (Artistic) 1 (+4) Diplomacy 5 (+12) Intimidate 13 (+20)* Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 2 (+5) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 3 (+5) Stealth 8 (+15)* Feats: 19 pp Acrobatic Bluff Attack Focus: Melee 5 Dodge Focus 5 Evasion Move-By Action Power Attack Skill Mastery (Acrobatics, Bluff, Intimidate, Stealth) Startle Takedown Attack Taunt Powers: 74 pp Additional Limb 1 (tail) [1 pp] Enhanced CHA 14 [14 pp] 'diabolical charm' Enhanced CON 14 [14 pp] Enhanced DEX 14 [14 pp] Enhanced STR 14 [14 pp] Immunity 2 (aging, environmental heat) [2 pp] Impervious TOU 6 [6 pp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] Super-Senses 2 (Danger Sense [mental], Uncanny Dodge [mental]) [2 pp] Super-Strength 2 (Heavy Load: 1 ton) [4+2=6 pp] AP: Leaping 4 (x25) AP: Super-Movement 2 (Wall-Crawling 2) Drawbacks: -6 pp Vulnerable (vs. holy) (uncommon, major) [-3 pp] Weakness (repelled by crosses; dazed via Charisma check vs. holy symbols) [-3 pp] costs abilities 10 + combat 32 + saves 5 + skills 14/56 + feats 19 + powers 74 -drawbacks 6= 150 pts ------------ Design Notes: A murdered uncle; a grieving teenager faced with an awesome responsibility. Until that is, a man of wealth and taste came to see him, offering him great power in return for, well, nothing! (Or so it seemed, anyway). Faced with no other choices, the young man chose the Devil's bargain and gained inhuman powers! Now superhumanly fast and strong, with a tremendous force of enhanced personality, the young man is a devil with the ladies and feared and hated by criminals everywhere. He can't throw hellfire, his enhancements are all internal, but he's still enormously powerful (and actually bulletproof) thanks to his infernal enhancements, enough that sometimes he forgets he had superpowers before all this started out! What's not to like? Well, perhaps that little voice gnawing at the back of his head that tells him he made a terrible mistake and the price of gaining all these good things from infernal powers Spiderman getting something valuable from the Devil? Only in a What If, Shirley. If you do want him tossing around infernal webs, perhaps black sizzling strands of tar, shuffle the points around as you need it: with 21 points in non-spider powers, you can get Hellfire Control 10 (PF: Accurate), even more if you shuffle more points around and maybe add some more satanic drawbacks. In the Freedom City setting, this young man is a Claremont student empowered first by an accident, then by the terrible Mister Infamy. As Infamously empowered people tend to be ticking time bombs in one way or another, he's closely watched by his fellows at the school as he tries to do as much good in the world as he can before the consequences of his hellish mistake come back to haunt him. Naturally he's done his best to keep all this from his aunt, as he certainly wouldn't want her to know about it! Satan or not, this character has many of the powers and attributes associated with comic-book arachnids. He can jump hella high, climb walls as easy as you or I climb up a flight of stairs. He’s very hard to sneak up on: most characters don’t have Concealment vs. mental senses, and between Uncanny Dodge and Danger Sense he's very protected that way. Not saying it can’t be done, but it’ll take a smart character, and maybe a specific immunity (perhaps a result of knowing this character especially well, or having once been a very close ally) to get close. He needs a good supporting cast and a good relationship to get into, though perhaps he'll want to cultivate a relationship with the Almighty before any girlfriends!
Avenger Assembled Posted October 8, 2011 Author Posted October 8, 2011 Spider-Monkey "Ook ook!" Abilities: 46 pp STR 20 (+5) DEX 24 (+7) CON 20 (+5) INT 14 (+2) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+11 Melee/+15 Unarmed) DEF: +15 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +11 Grapple: +20 Saves: 10 pp TOU +5 (+5 Con) FORT +7 (+5 Con, +2) REF +10 (+7 Dex, +3) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 72 r=18 pp Acrobatics 13 (+20)* Bluff 8 (+10) Climb 10 (+15)* Knowledge (Life Sciences) 8 (+10) Language 1 (Swahili) (Base: English) Notice 8 (+10)* Sense Motive 8 (+10) Survival 3 (+5) Stealth 13 (+20)* Feats: 26 pp Acrobatic Bluff Attack Focus: Melee 3 Attack Specialization: Unarmed 2 Challenge 2 (Accelerated Climb, Fast Acrobatic Bluff) Dodge Focus 7 Evasion 2 Grappling Finesse Improved Initiative Move-By Action Power Attack Skill Mastery (Acrobatics, Climb, Notice, Stealth) Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 18 pp Leaping 2 (x5) [2 pp] Speed 2 (25 MPH) [2 pp] Super-Movement 2 (Swinging, Wall-Crawling) [4 pp] Super-Senses 6 (Accurate Acute Tracking 2 [half-speed] Olfactory, Low-Light Vision) [6 pp] Super-Strength 2 (Heavy Load: 1500 lbs) [4 pp] costs abilities 46 + combat 32 + saves 10 + skills 18/72 + feats 26 + powers 18 = 150 pts -------------- Design Notes: Here's Spider-Monkey, an obvious Spider-Man expy from the pages of Randy Milholland's excellent Super Stupor. He's basically a simian Peter Parker, a fast, acrobatic guy with a quick wit, the proportional strength of a monkey (which is a lot; monkeys are strong as) and a keen simian nose. I made him a biology guy rather than a technical expert like Peter, with the idea that he was a lab tech bitten by an irradiated monkey during a test. We see him swinging on a vine in the comic, but there's no evidence he can produce that kind of effect, so my assumption is that there was just a convenient vine hanging somewhere in the picture we see. (It's no crazier than all those comics where Batman's grapple gun is extending off into the middle of nowhere.) He's equally at home swinging on lamp-posts and water towers as well as trees and jungle vines, and like most of my animal builds could do just fine living in the wild. He doesn't hit quite as hard as most Spidey-types, but since he can basically Power Attack all the time (given his mobility, his Acrobatics, and his Stealth, he should take people flat-footed basically all the time) you should still be satisfied with his capacity at kicking butt: he's certainly an excellent goonsweeper versus thugs and low-level bad guys. In the comics he looks like a person, but you could make this an animal-looking guy like Marvel's Gibbon just fine if you wanted. If you shuffled the points around a bit, upping the Strength and Intelligence, probably at the expense of powers, and dropped the physical skills for more mental ones, this could be a perfectly fine Beast build. In the Super Stupor, he's happily married (eventually, probably; his fate is left ambigious after the fanboy retconner who ruined his life is decisively disposed of) so why not run with that here? There's nothing wrong with a story about a boy becoming a man, about learning that his greatest power and his greatest responsibility is being a husband and a father. (And that balancing that relationship with the need to defend the innocent is part of the _Big Leagues_ of being a superhero.) If he's in his thirties now, he was probably an up-and-coming young hero of the 2000s, just the sort of mature statesman who might be about to move on to bigger and better things!
Avenger Assembled Posted October 9, 2011 Author Posted October 9, 2011 Totally Legit Mage “A dream doesn't become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work.†-Colin Powell PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 40 pp STR 10 (+0) DEX 16 (+3) CON 20 (+5) INT 20 (+5) WIS 18 (+4) CHA 16 (+3) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+8 Staff Array) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +3 Grapple: +6/+20 Saves: 10 pp TOU +10 (+5 Con, +5 Protection) FORT +8 (+5 Con, +3) REF +6 (+3 Dex, +3) WILL +8 (+4 Wis, +4) Skills: 56 r=14 pp Bluff 12 (+15) Craft (Electronic) 10 (+15) Craft (Mechanical) 10 (+15) Knowledge (Technology) 10 (+15) Notice 6 (+10) Sense Motive 6 (+10) Feats: 7 pp Distract (Bluff) Eidetic Memory Equipment 2 Luck Inventor Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Secret Laboratory [10 ep] Size: Medium; Toughness: 15; Features: Concealed 2, Laboratory, Library, Living Space, Security System, Workshop Cost: 1+2+7 = 10 EP equipment points Powers: 60 pp Device 2 (Armor of Ages) (Hard to Lose) (PF: Subtle) Flight 3 (50 MPH) [6dp] Impervious TOU 4 [4dp] Device 3(Mystic Robes) (Hard to Lose) (PF: Restricted, Subtle) [15 pp] Protection 5 (Extra: Impervious 4; PF: Subtle) [10dp] Shield 4 (PF: Subtle) [5dp] Device 6 (Staff of Power) (Hard to Lose) (PFs: Restricted 2, Subtle) [27 pp] Staff Array [27+3=30dp] Blast 12 (PFs: Accurate, Improved Crit, Precise) AP: Damage 10 (Extra: Area [Cone]; PFs: Reduced Progression on Area 7) AP: Move Object 12 (Heavy Load: 48 tons) (PFs: Accurate, Indirect, Subtle) AP: Stun 12 (Extra: Range [Ranged]; Flaw: Action [Full]; PFs: Accurate, Improved Crit 2) Gadgets 1 (Hard to Lose; Standard Action to switch) (PF: Subtle) [8 pp] costs abilities 40 + combat 24 + saves 10 + skills 14/56 + feats 8 + powers 60 = 150 pts ---------- Design Notes: A man, a plan, an amazing knowledge of science. You were going to be a superhero! But you needed something to differentiate you from those other gadgeteer guys, something that would make you stand out in a forest of scientific geniuses in lab coats with funny accents. Then, one day, it came to you: magic-type heroes really seemed to be in lately, so you’d style yourself after a wizard of ancient lore. You were sure that magic was just something that ignorant people called superpowers and that mystics were either deluding themselves about the way their powers worked or trying to fool everyone else; you’d always been very good at letting people believe whatever you wanted them to believe (which was great for fund-raising), so why not go on doing it as a hero? Sure, maybe it was a little unethical, but you’d be saving lives and doing good, and if people thought you were just some magic guy they’d never try and steal your dangerous high-tech devices. So you put a tiny portable generator in an impervium-cored rod, mounted a daka crystal at the tip, and you had yourself a ‘Staff of Power’ that let you blast people with lightning or move things around with cunningly-placed diamagnetic waves that just happened to look like magic hands; you took an old flight harness and modified it to look like a magic breastplate, and you ran impervium fibers through a Kevlar robe, charged them with power, and got yourself a bulletproof coat to wear into battle! Now you are, by all appearances, a mighty wizard, if one who doesn’t socialize with his putative peers much, so sit back and enjoy yourself. What could go wrong? Well, obviously a lot, since there is such a thing as magic out there, as you are no doubt going to get an up-close-and-personal demonstration of as soon as someone out there figures out what you’re about. For real fun (as long as everyone’s on board with it), see if you can get yourself on a mystic superteam where you persuade your allies that your magic is just that subtle that you can hide it from mystic probes, and just that powerful that you can blast your way right through nullifying wards. But that’s what complications and the HP that come with them are for; given your massive persuasive abilities you can probably talk yourself out of most bad situations, or at least talk bad guys down until help can arrive. Electricity’s a pretty broad descriptor: check out Doc’s Electricity page on his thread for a good idea of some of the many effects you can power-stunt, at least as long as you can plausibly sell it as some sort of crazy magical effect. Note that with your good INT and Beginner’s Luck, you can roll +5 on any Knowledge, including Arcane Lore, so you’ll have at least an idea of what that demon-looking creature (obviously some resident of a weird parallel dimension) is jabbering about while it throws balls of flaming death at you. Note that ideally this guy will eventually confess his secret to at least his teammates, hopefully before (rather than after) his deception has led them to make a serious mistake in dealing with a magical threat, or even being targeted by same. He’s on the naughty side of heroism, but liar or not, he’s still out there fighting the bad guys and being there for his friends and the world when they need him, and that covers a lot of scars. This build is obviously inspired by Doc’s Electrokinetic Gadgeteer and his Poseur Mage build, whose picture (and very loose concept) I used for the above build. If you change the fluff and feats around, he makes a perfectly fine “mystic with magic artifacts†build, or “gadgeteer with a battlesuit and lightning gunâ€, for that matter.
Avenger Assembled Posted October 9, 2011 Author Posted October 9, 2011 Dr. Shark Vengeance! PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 40 pp STR 30 [20] (+10/+5) DEX 14 (+2) CON 30 [20] (+10/+5) INT 20 (+5) WIS 16 (+3) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 20 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Unarmed) DEF: +10 (+2 flat-footed) Init: +2 Grapple: +20 Saves: 8 pp TOU +10 (+10 Con) FORT +10 (+10 Con) REF +6 (+2 Dex, +4) WILL +7 (+3 Wis, +4) Skills: 68 r=17 pp Craft (Chemical) 10 (+15) Craft (Electronic) 5 (+10) Craft (Mechanical) 5 (+10) Intimidate 8 (+10) Knowledge (Life Sciences) 10 (+15) Knowledge (Technology) 10 (+15) Medicine 12 (+15) Notice 3 (+5) Sense Motive 3 (+5) Survival 1 (+4) Swim 1 (+6/+11) Feats: 13 pp Attack Specialization: Unarmed 2 Dodge Focus 6 Eidetic Memory Inventor Power Attack Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (olfactory) Powers: 52 pp Enhanced CON 10 [10 pp] Enhanced STR 10 [10 pp] Feature 1 (Iron Stomach) [1 pp] Immunity 4 (aging, drowning, environmental cold, high pressure) [4 pp] Impervious TOU 8 [8 pp] Super-Senses 6 (Accurate Acute Extended Tracking 2 [half-speed] Olfactory) [6 pp] Super-Strength 4 (Heavy Load: 12 tons) [8 pp] Swimming 4 (25 MPH) [4+1=5 pp] AP: Leaping 2 (x5) and Speed 2 (25 MPH) costs abilities 40 + combat 20 + saves 8 + skills 17/68 + feats 13 + powers 52 = 150 pts ------------ Design Notes: Here’s Dr. Shark, one of the more appealing members of Wonderella’s supporting cast. Once a respected scientist (and Wonderella’s 10th grade biology teacher), a laboratory accident mutated Dr. Tiberius Shark into a shark-hominid, driving him to the brink of madness and prompting him to declare a mutagenic crusade on the world. Luckily he and Wonderella go way back, though, so she talked him down with just a few casualties that were never referenced again thanks to the series’ usual Negative Continuity. He generally fulfills the role of a happier Curt Conners in Wonderella’s life, acting as her science consultant, occasional ally, and semi-occasional antagonist when he gets bored and slips back into old habits. I’ve tried to build him here as a brilliant, though not super-brilliant, scientist, with a speciality in medicine and the life sciences to set him apart from other gadgeteers; his shark abilities (only occasionally referenced in the strip) make him a decently competent underwater powerhouse. Despite his sharky nature, he doesn’t seem that scary, so while he’s decently intimidating he’s not particularly scary: he’s also no larger than the rest of the cast, so he doesn’t get any ranks in Growth. I’ve got with a humanoid version of the character, but not necessarily one who can pass for human like my Mako build upthread: in my mind he looks more like a Street Shark than his (slightly cartoony) strip appearance: if nothing else, having hands makes it a lot easier to justify a continued career as a scientist! Comprehend Sharks or Aquatic Life would be a valid ability to pick up with earned PP, as would the ability to transform completely into a shark to get around better underwater! (Or, for that matter, all the way into human so he can get around on land without any issues) He's got the feats to be competent in most areas of science and knowledge, and with a little tweaking could have any kind of "smart powerhouse" theme you wanted. He’d fit just fine into a superheroic setting, particularly in Freedom Ciy where the shark-man Megalodon is the local Lizard expy: a scientist constantly tormented by the beast he’s unlocked inside him. Perhaps this is a heroic Megalodon who has finally mastered the dark impulses inside him, or maybe this is another scientist forcibly mutated by the mad Doctor Langstrom to help him in his dark work! (Another possibility, if you want a degree of separation, is perhaps he was trying to recreate the lab accident that made the first Megaladon again, perhaps looking for a cure or to further study the first transformation, before another accident exposed him to the shark serum all over again!) An inner predatory drive is a good complication, as is a mistrust from the community given that they already have dire experience with a shark mad scientist!
Avenger Assembled Posted October 9, 2011 Author Posted October 9, 2011 Powerhouse Shaman “Oh-ho it’s magic!†PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 20 pp STR 30 [14] (+10/+2) DEX 14 (+2) CON 30 [14] (+10/+2) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Unarmed) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +2 Grapple: +18 Saves: 9 pp TOU +10 (+10 Con) FORT +10 (+10 Con) REF +5 (+2 Dex, +3) WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6) Skills: 52 r=13 pp Diplomacy 3 (+5) Intimidate 8 (+10) Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 15 (+15) Knowledge (Life Sciences) 5 (+5) Languages 2 (Cree, French) (Base: English) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Survival 3 (+5) Feats: 11 pp Attack Specialization: Unarmed 2 Dodge Focus 4 Power Attack Ritualist Second Chance (Ritualist checks) Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 72 pp Enhanced CON 16 [16 pp] Enhanced STR 16 [16 pp] Impervious TOU 10 (Flaw: Limited [Physical Only]) [5 pp] Gadgets 3 (Hard to Lose) (Extra: Action [Free] to Change) [27 pp] Speed 2 (25 MPH) [2+1=3 pp] AP: Leaping 2 (x5) Super-Senses 1 (Acute Scent) [1 pp] Super-Strength 2 (Heavy Load: 3 tons) [4 pp] abilities 20+combat 24 +saves 9 + skills 13/52 + feats 11 + powers 72 =150 pp ------------ Design Notes: From the pages of Exiles, here’s John Proudstar as Shaman II, the mystic support of Alpha Flight in a universe where the Canadian national super-team is the most prominent super-team on Earth. (The local Wolverine, the field commander of Alpha Flight, is surprised to hear there are universes where he joined the X-Men). The idea is that Proudstar, a mutant powerhouse who grew up facing prejudice as a Native Canadian and mutant both, was recruited to Alpha Flight by the first Shaman during a joint mission between the X-Men and Alpha Flight. (Though it’s not stated outright, I like to think it’s set in the same universe where Wolverine took Cyclops aside and said “Listen, kid, you’ve got a good thing going with that Jean Grey. Don’t blow it.â€) Learning magic helped him calm his anger at the world, and now he’s a respected, valuable member of his team and a much-loved man. (Note that in the mainstream universe, John Proudstar died in his first mission with the X-Men as a way of proving that the Giant-Size X-Men were going to be a whole lot more serious than their SIlver-Early Bronze Age counterparts!) The challenge here was building someone who can function plausibly as both a magical consultant and a team brick; he’s something of a jack-of-all-trades, master of none, but he does have a lot of versatility. He’s fast, bulletproof, strong enough to throw a small car in a pinch, and he can reach into his medicine bag and pull out any 15-pp magical effect as a free action: if he needs a really sophisticated Detect Magic power-set, he’s got it, if he needs a ranged attack or something to heal injured allies, he’s got that too. He won’t ever take the place of a real mystic, but he’s certainly extremely valuable to have around. His dual descriptors are a nice bonus too: if he’s put in a mutant-nullifying field he can plausibly whip out a respectable magic effect (perhaps a Touch-Range Technological Nullify) and even if his magic bag is taken away he can still punch people in the face. One possible idea for him is to use his Gadgets to supplement his already impressive melee abilities, transforming him into a mighty, near-unstoppable powerhouse. In the Freedom City universe, this could work just fine as a generic powerhouse who’s undergone a mid-story career change. Maybe he hooked up with a mystic who taught him some magic tricks, or maybe he’s a street mystic who was exposed to gamma radiation and gained mutant powers from all the fallout. Perhaps he was a hero investigating the Labyrinth who was captured and subjected to the DNAscendant process! You could combine the two origins easily enough if you don’t like the idea of someone with magic and mutant powers: perhaps his gadgets are a utility belt and he’s a skilled mechanic in addition o being so strong, or maybe he’s purely magical. Sticking with the Labyrinth theme, this guy works just fine as a minotaur (perhaps a mini-Taurus) who has left behind his bulling days and has decided to fight with cleverness (and magical artifacts he’s manufactured) as much as physical strength!
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