Avenger Assembled Posted July 4, 2011 Author Posted July 4, 2011 Phantom Archer "To arms, citizens!" PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 40 pp STR 20 (+5) DEX 20 (+5) CON 20 (+5) INT 10 (+0) WIS 16 (+3) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+12 ranged) DEF: +12 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +5 Grapple: +13 Saves: 8 pp TOU +8 (+5 Con, +3 Protection) FORT +7 (+5 Con, +2) REF +7 (+5 Dex, +2) WILL +7 (+3 Wis, +4) Skills: 72 r=18 pp Acrobatics 15 (+20) Bluff 13 (+15) Climb 1 (+6) Drive 1 (+6) Knowledge: Streetwise 4 (+4) Languages 3 (English, German, Russian) (Base: French) Notice 12 (+15) Pilot 1 (+6) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Stealth 12 (+15) Survival 2 (+5) Feats: 21 pp Accurate Attack Acrobatic Bluff All-Out Attack Attack Focus: Ranged 4 Challenge 2 (Fast Acrobatic Bluff, Fast Taunt) Dodge Focus 4 Evasion Move-By Action Power Attack Precise Shot Quick Draw [draw] Taunt Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 31 pp Device 3 (Bow) (Easy to Lose) [12 pp] Blast 3 (PFs: Improved Crit, Improved Range 3, Mighty 5) [15] Protection 3 [3 pp] Teleport 4 (400 ft/1 mile) (Extra: Accurate) (PFs: Change Velocity, Easy, Progression, Turnabout) [16 pp] costs abilities 40 + combat 32 + saves 8 + skills 18/72+ feats 21 + powers 31 = 150 pts ---- Design Notes: Here's Phantom Archer, the French member of the NATO superteam in West Berlin in the Wargames universe. The Archer was once an Olympic athlete until a major car accident revealed his innate teleportation abilities, causing him to get called up to the French national superteam. France isn't actually a member of NATO these days, but they do have a unified command structure: something the Archer brings up to his comrades on a daily basis. He's not actually in the chain of command that his fellows are, he just has to do what he's told because that's what he was ordered to do by _his_ commander back in Paris. (Who had his own reasons for getting the Archer out of his hair and in West Berlin for a while.) He's basically the Longbow Hunters Green Arrow with Nightcrawler's abilities, popping around on the battlefield and skewering bad guys with sharpened arrows: he doesn't have the fancy trick arsenal that most of your comic book archers usually have: while he has plenty of room for stunting, he doesn't have a lot of options short of hitting bad guys with pointed arrows or hitting them with blunt arrows. That said, with his Taunt, Acrobatic Bluff, and high Stealth, not to mention Teleport, he really should never have any trouble catching his enemies flat-footed and Power Attacking hard. He's not popular with the leadership, but they know he'll fight to the last if West Berlin is overrun. He has a terrible crush on Avro Arrow, but he'd never admit it since he'd never admit being into a woman for her brains. (The fact that she doesn't really know who he is, being much more focused on her job than any romantic life, would genuinely hurt him if the subject comes up.) He's hard to work with, arrogant and boastful, and certainly a loud French patriot [he does not get along well with most of the Americans on the team], but he's very competent. He has reason to cop an attitude, or at least thinks he does: he was only 18 when his powers developed (and he's not that old now), and his Olympic dreams died the day of that car accident. It was hard giving up everything he'd ever wanted (metahumans can't compete in the Olympics, even if their abilities have zip to do with whatever they're competing at), and going from that to the sometimes low-rent life of a superhero has given him something of an attitude problem. That's mostly with authority figures, though: he gets along mostly fine with his fellow young supers, and has become a member of an informal team of younger heroes in West Berlin who patrol at night and occasionally clash with their Soviet opposite number cross the border. He's very proud of his superior athletic ability, and tends to take taunts about relying on superpowers pretty badly, since he's so sensitive about what they cost him in the first place. He's basically Johnny Storm meets Nightcrawler meets Green Arrow: arrogant heroes are hard to play well, so make sure you're not actually causing friction when you play this dude. What should be interesting with him is the story of becoming a hero, of realizing that he has a chance to give to the community in a way he never could when he was just an Olympian: he'll also get a lot more adulation for saving the world than he'd ever have gotten for hitting targets really well at the Olympics. He'd work just fine as is, either as a member of the French superteam or an American hero with an archery theme. He'd be an interesting character to age up a bit and play as the savvy old combat veteran, with his friends all ribbing him about his wilder younger days...
Avenger Assembled Posted July 4, 2011 Author Posted July 4, 2011 New American "In America, first you get the power..." -Scarface PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 42 pp STR 40 [24] (+15/+7) DEX 14 (+2) CON 24 (+7) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 16 (+3) Combat: 20 pp ATK: +5 (+10 Ranged) DEF: +5 (+2 flat-footed) Init: +6 Grapple: +12/+25 Saves: 10 pp TOU +15 (+7 Con, +8 Protection) FORT +8 (+7 Con, +1) REF +5 (+2 Dex, +3) WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6) Skills: 36 r=9 pp Bluff 4 (+7) Craft (mechanical) 4 (+4) Intimidate 12 (+15) Knowledge (Technology) 4 (+4) Notice 4 (+6) Pilot 4 (+6) Sense Motive 4 (+6) Feats: 20 pp All-Out Attack Attack Focus: Ranged 5 Challenge (Fast Startle) Fearless Improved Crit 2 (suit weapons) Improved Initiative Luck 3 Move-By Action Power Attack Startle Takedown Attack Ultimate Save (TOU) Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 53 pp Device 13 (New American Armor) (Hard to Lose) (PF: Restricted [security clearance]) [53 pp] -Flight 2 (25 MPH) [4 pp] -Immunity 9 (Life Support) [9 pp] -Impervious TOU 10 [10 pp] -Protection 8 [8 pp] -Super-Senses 2 (Low Light Vision, Radio) [2 pp] -Weapons Array [30+2=32 pp] -Blast 10 (Extra: Autofire) 'cannons' -AP: Blast 10 (Extra: Targeted Area [shapeable]) 'missiles' -AP: Enhanced STR 16 and Super-Strength 5 (Heavy Load: 96 tons) 'mass-driver' Drawbacks: 4 pp Normal ID (full round action to don suit) costs abilities 42 + combat 20 + saves 10 + skills 9/36 + feats 20 + powers 53 - drawback 4 = 150 pts --- Design Notes: The New American’s life is falling apart before his eyes. Things weren’t always like this. He was too young to fight in Vietnam, but he heard plenty growing up about how the hippies, liberals, and pot-smoking pacifists cost America victory. Determined to fight for a new America, the _right_ kind of America, he joined the US Army where he distinguished himself for his heroism, upright character, and outspoken political views. When General Striker came to him personally to offer him the New American armor, he was overjoyed: finally, a chance to change the world just like he’d always dreamed! The only downside was Old Glory: the so-called ‘hero’ was still a hero to the people, and any political change in America would be blocked by that wussy do-gooder. The New American was assigned to America’s national superteam to show up Old Glory and get him to retire, preferably in some embarrassing way that would permanently discredit him. The two men clashed again and again, but before a crisis could break out, the team went on a mission alongside their Soviet counterparts to find the mastermind plotting to start World War III, a monster who turned out to be an ex-Nazi with an Antarctic base planning to destroy all his old enemies by making them kill each other. And there, by that armored megalomaniac’s side, stood a proud and confident General Striker. He’d been the Nazi’s ally and tool all along, planning to use the New American and others in his armor to seize control of the nation and establish a military dictatorship. Striker and his allies hadn’t been plotting to save America. They’d been plotting to take it, and they’d assumed that the New American was their man all along. Horrified, the New American fought against his former mentor, and helped suppress a coup attempt launched by former allies back in the United States afterwards. He knew what exposing and defeating Striker would cost him personally, but in the end he he was willing to fall on his sword. He knew Striker’s papers would show how close they’d been, personally and politically, and fully expected a courtmartial afterwards: after all, he’d betrayed America’s trust, even if he’d done so with what at the time he’d thought were the best of intentions. But to his surprise, and his shame, Old Glory testified on his behalf: the man who he’d once thought of as a coward and fool, a man who he’d planned to publicly destroy and replace, told the world that the New American was a true hero, a man who’d been misled rather than been malicious. Not only did he keep his Army post, he even kept his armor! He got his second chance with the assignment to the West Berlin team, but things are still hard, very hard. His vision of America has been destroyed before his eyes, and he’s not thoughtful enough to find a new star to follow: he’s still a loud jock and patriot, but he doesn’t really believe it anymore. He drinks heavily in his spare time, and has begun what will surely be a self-destructive physical relationship with his Soviet counterpart the Iron Ghost. It’s not that he’s not grateful for mercy. It’s that deep down, after learning the kind of man he’d once been, he’s not sure he deserves it. With his massive TOU tradeoff, he can absorb fantastic punishment (particularly vs. mundane opponents), and with his varying melee vs. ranged tradeoff he can be an accurate marksman and a mighty powerhouse. OK, so my design philosophy here is that this is basically John Matrix in a set of power armor: he’s big, he’s tough, and his armor commands a tremendous quantity of dakka. He’s pretty formidable even outside the suit! Though he and Avro Arrow are in competition with each other as the US tries to sell their power-armored design to NATO, they actually could work out a modus vivendi together: her armor is suitable for aerial support, while his own suit is built for ground-pounding and ground support: he’s the A-10 Warthog to her F-16 fighter jet. Of course, to do that he’d have to be willing to show some humility and weakness, which is a pretty tough challenge for America’s armored hero. Removed from his own setting, this would make a decent build for an American soldier in a set of powered armor, perhaps designed to be a new generation of heroes. If that’s the case, save up for the Security Clearance Benefit for him. Note that he just _barely_ has enough knowledge to fix up his suit, assuming it’s not too beaten up. That’s why his Luck is so high, so he can pull off stunts with his armor that won’t fry the suit’s weaponry.
Avenger Assembled Posted July 4, 2011 Author Posted July 4, 2011 Vampire Sidekick To me, the vampire is simply an evil monster. -Brian Lumley PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 52 pp STR 30 (+10) DEX 30 (+10) CON 18 (+4) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 28 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Unarmed) DEF: +12 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +10 Grapple: +16 Saves: 9 pp TOU +8 (+4 Con, +4 Protection) FORT +8 (+4 Con, +4) REF +10 (+10 Dex) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 60 r=15 pp Acrobatics 10 (+20) Bluff 10 (+10) Intimidate 10 (+10) Notice 8 (+10) Languages 2 (Mandarin, Japanese) (Base: English) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Stealth 10 (+20) Feats: 16 pp Acrobatic Bluff Attack Specialization: Unarmed 2 Dodge Focus 4 Evasion Fascinate (Bluff) Hide in Plain Sight Power Attack Set-Up Startle Takedown Attack Taunt Uncanny Dodge (olfactory) Powers: 34 pp Concealment 4 (all visual) (Flaw: Vs. Machines Only) [4 pp] Immunity 10 (aging, life support) [10 pp] Impervious TOU 8 (Flaw: Not vs. Magic/Silver/Holy) [4 pp] Protection 4 [4 pp] Regeneration 1 (Resurrection 1/week) (PFs: Persistent, Regrowth) [3 pp] Super-Senses 3 (Acute Scent, Darkvision) [3 pp] Teleport 2 (200 ft) (PFs: Change Velocity, Turnabout) [6 pp] Drawbacks: 6 pp Vulnerable (Holy) (uncommon, major) (-3 pp) Weakness (Dazed by Holy Objects via Charisma check) (-3 pp) costs abilities 52 + combat 28 + saves 9 + skills 15/60 + feats 16 + powers 34 -drawbacks 6= 150 pts ------------ Design Notes: So the idea here is this: this young woman was once a superhero, a teen fighter for justice alongside her young hero friends, maybe a sidekick to an older, grizzled hero. She learned the sort of fast, acrobatic style common to sidekicks, getting the combat style she needed to set the heavy hitters on her team up for really big hits. And then one day her powers went away: maybe they faded as she got older, maybe some accident or enemy’s scheme deprived her of them. Lacking her powers, lacking what she believed made her special, she made a desperate decision and turned to an old antagonist, and now the young hero is back on the streets, fighting bad guys and saving the day. She doesn’t have her old powers back, but she’s got new ones that make her a fast, powerful hand to hand combatant who can get into anywhere and sneak around right under your nose. There was just one little sacrifice she had to make of herself first. That’s right, here’s a build for Jubilee (as she currently exists) as a vampire! She’s a really good sneak and very fast, just as a vampire should be: she’s a living vampire, though, since there just weren’t the points to build her with a Fort Immunity. In comics, the character was transformed against her will, but I think it gives her more agency (and makes for a better story) if you assume she transformed herself deliberately: you can work in something about losing her powers to a terminal disease if you think that choice is a little too Iron Age. If you stick with the comics, maybe she went looking for powers so she’d stop being used as a weapon against her old mentor. My basic idea is that while she’s interested in a cure, since the thirst for blood (represented here as a complication) is much more threatening than she’d once thought, the idea of going back to being a nothing scrub bystander also hurts, and she’s stuck on the horns of a dilemma. In the meantime, she runs around superfast, bashing bad guys with her fists, and occasionally visits her local blood bank when nobody’s paying attention. You can keep the attack victim angle if you don’t want her to be implicit at _all_ in her transformation and its consequences, but I think it makes the character more interesting if she’s dealing with the consequences of a choice she made, reestablishing herself as a hero while trying to ignore the most unheroic impulses inside her. It’s possible to play a vampire superhero without being Iron Age, you just have to be willing to go the right direction with it. She could use a higher Charisma and maybe Attractive, but she's at least functional vs. bystanders and such. As someone who got into comics through the X-Men Animated series, I’ve always been a Jubilee fan: while some people see her as a Kitty Pryde ripoff, I tend to think of Kitty Pryde as being the old and busted version of a character I like! Her vampirism even gives you an excuse for keeping her in old outfits that aren’t nearly as cool and fashionable as they used to be: they were when she was alive! I’m using Teleport to represent vampiric speed, flight, and mist form all in one go, as well as to give you as the player something to stunt off. My idea is that she shouldn’t be pushing her vampire powers too hard; they lead her down some pretty dark and gritty roads! If you keep the date of her debut, she could have been a junior sidekick of the heroes of the Iron Age: if she’s younger, she could be that Claremont graduate nobody talks about. (Well, that _other_ Claremont graduate nobody talks about...)
Avenger Assembled Posted July 6, 2011 Author Posted July 6, 2011 Red Hammer But Satan now is wiser than of yore, and tempts by making rich, not making poor. -Alexander Pope PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 40 pp STR 40/24 (+15/+7) DEX 14 (+2) CON 24 (+7) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 24/14 (+7/+2) Combat: 20 pp ATK: +5 DEF: +5 Init: +2 Grapple: +13/+26 Saves: 11 pp TOU +15 (+7 Con, +8 Protection) FORT +7 (+7 Con) REF +7 (+2 Dex, +5) WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6) Skills: 52 r=13 pp Bluff 13 (+20) Diplomacy 3 (+10) Gather Info 3 (+10) Intimidate 13 (+20) Knowledge: Civics 5 (+5) Knowledge: History 5 (+5) Languages 4 (Chinese, French, English, German) (Base: Russian) Notice 3 (+5) Sense Motive 3 (+5) Feats: 7 pp Fearless Interpose Leadership Power Attack Startle Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (mental) Powers: 62 pp Enhanced Charisma 10 [10 pp] Flight 1 (10 MPH) [2 pp] Hellfire Control Array [32+3=35 pp] Damage 10 (Extra: Area [Trail]) and Flight 6 (total of Flight 7 [1000 MPH) AP: Hellfire Control 15 (PFs: Precise 2) AP: Hellfire Control 10 (Extra: Area [burst]) (PFs: Progression on Area 2) AP: Enhanced STR 16 and Super-Strength 6 (Heavy Load: 180 tons) (PFs: Countering Punch, Groundstrike) Immunity 2 (aging, environmental heat) [2 pp] Impervious TOU 10 (Flaw: Not Vs. Magic/Silver/Holy) [5 pp] Protection 8 [8 pp] Drawbacks: -3 pp Vulnerable (holy) (uncommon, major) [-3 pp] costs abilities 40 + combat 20 + saves 11 + skills 13/52 + feats 7 + powers 62 -drawbacks 3= 150 pts --- Design Notes: Here’s Red Hammer, the commander of the Soviet superteam in the Defcon/Wargames universe. Like Old Glory and John Bull, he’s a WWII veteran, a beneficiary of the captured German Ubersoldaten process as the Soviet Union desperately tried to stave off the tide of German super-soldiers. Unlike his American and British counterparts, though, Red Hammer was the beneficiary of the _entire_ process, thanks to a Thule Society mystic captured by the Soviet Union in Stalingrad who was, let’s say, induced, to part with the full secrets of the process: subjects are injected with alchemical chemicals while being subjected to secret magical rituals, said rituals guiding the process of transformation and allowing the subject to gain powers without going mad or being permanently transformed into a monster. Red Hammer survived war against the Germans and war at home as his friends died first at the hands of Nazi guns and then at the hands of Stalin’s whims as those who had been heroes one year became enemies of the state another. But Red Hammer himself survived; he was too popular with the Army to kill, but not popular enough with the people to be a threat even to the ever-paranoid Stalin. He was a committed Communist, once, but these days he’s a Russian patriot first. He’s seen too many corrupt leaders come and go, seen so many die in the name of one ideology or another, that he’s not inclined to believe any of them. He’s a soldier for the people. _All_ the people. He didn’t bear any ill will towards Iron Ghost when he had her demoted and transferred to the East Berlin team; he’d dealt with young hotheads before and figured she’d either learn some restraint there or she’d wash out. Red Hammer has a secret, though, one even he doesn’t know: his powers came with a price. The Ubersoldaten process required the surrender of the subject’s soul to infernal powers, something the Thule Society sorcerors opted not to tell even their own soldiers, much less their Soviet captors. Red Hammer traded his soul for great power, and soon his time will be up: there is a time limit of some decades on his immortality and invulnerability, as the forces of Hell don’t buy a soul and then make it so that person is never sucked into their ranks. Some time soon, very soon, Hell will open up and they will come for the greatest hero of the Soviet Union. Red Hammer has no idea where his powers come from: he’s an atheist who has no particular belief system, while he’s encountered sorcery in his decades-long career, he has no experience with infernalism (since he generally just punches infernalists in the face rather than talking to them) While he has no objection to dying for a worthy cause, he has no particular desire to spend an eternity as Satan’s warrior, and given the chance will resist paying back the bargain he never knew he was making. This is something of a re-imagining of the character’s sheet, since as written he’s basically a bland paragon. I liked the idea of building a character that’s effectively a satanic Superman, so I went with that route instead to make a powerful brick and blaster who is surprisingly accurate given his massive tradeoffs (i.e., with Precise Shot, he can drop that massive blast into melee and not worry about hitting his teammates). He’s not as good a leader as his contemporary Old Glory, or as good a planner as John Bull, but then again the guys with Inspire tended to get cacked in the fifties by Stalin and he tends to leave the planning to the higher ups: with his high Charisma he should be able to feint and startle easily enough, and then lay enemies out with massive punches or powerful bursts of “hammerfireâ€. He’s there for his people when they need him, taking big hits and dishing them out in return. He’s also good at clearing rooms, thanks to his long-time experience as a soldier. I think this would be a fun character to play, honestly, but you could drop the Soviet stylings and make this any kind of ex-supersoldier who got his powers from places he didn’t expect. It also works just fine as a build for a demonic character who has decided to get back to his roots and be an angel again.
Avenger Assembled Posted July 7, 2011 Author Posted July 7, 2011 Warbird “Risen from the ruins†-DDR National Anthem PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 34 pp STR 22 (+6) DEX 16 (+3) CON 22 (+6) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Melee) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +7 Grapple: +16 Saves: 13 pp TOU +10 (+6 Con, +4 Protection) FORT +8 (+6 Con, +2) REF +8 (+3 Dex, +5) WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6) Skills: 72 r=18 pp Acrobatics 12 (+15) Bluff 12 (+12) Craft (Mechanical) 5 (+5) Diplomacy 5 (+5) Knowledge (Technology) 5 (+5) Languages 2 (English, Russian) (Base: German) Notice 13 (+15) Pilot 4 (+6) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Stealth 7 (+10) Feats: 19 pp Acrobatic Bluff All-Out Attack Attack Focus (Melee) (4) Challenge (Fast Acrobatic Bluff) Defensive Attack Evasion Improved Initiative Luck Power Attack Set-Up Takedown Attack (2) Ultimate Save (TOU) Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 34 pp Device 8 (Warbird Armor) [Hard to Lose) (PFs: Restricted 2) [34 pp] -Communication 4 (1 mile) (radio) (PF: Subtle [encrypted]) [5] -Flight 5 (250 MPH) (PFs: Moving Feint, Move-By Action) [12] -Immunity 3 (environmental cold, low pressure, suffocation [altitude]) [3] -Impervious TOU 6 [6] -Protection 4 [4] -Shield 4 [4] -Strike 4 (PF: Mighty) [5] -Super-Senses 2 (Extended Vision [2] (x100) [2] costs abilities 34 + combat 24 + saves 13 + skills 18/72 + feats 19 + powers 34 = 150 pts ---- Design Notes: To tell the story of Warbird, you first have to tell the story of the Steel Eagle. A few years ago, NATO decided collectively that West Germany needed a superhero. It was forty years since the Second World War, after all, and the West German population needed a native champion to rally around. There was some controversy about the eventual selection of a West German soldier to wear the Steel Eagle armor, a specially constructed battlesuit shaped like winged medieval armor: the West Germans, especially in the 80s, were not comfortable with many overt symbols of nationalism. But eventually, after proving himself time and time again, Steel Eagle became first accepted, then admired, by his countrymen, and what began as a NATO project from on high has given birth to West Germany’s first national superhero. (After all, the German champions of old were many things, but you could hardly call them heroes.) Warbird is a result of the Soviets seeing Steel Eagle’s success, deciding they had to get in on that, and putting an East German Air Force pilot in the first suit of battle armor they could whip together for him. Warbird is the first native superhero of East Germany, and he’s totally an authentic creation of the people’s will ahaha but seriously folks. Anyway, Warbird’s not actually that bad a guy: he’s mostly a sociable fighter jock type who likes to chat up ladies in his spare time. He’s young, too, and doing his best to grapple with an enormous responsibility. His biggest fear is that he’ll be assigned to guard the Wall one night; he doesn’t want to think about that particular balance of duty and loyalty between job and humanity. Think of him as one of the guys from Top Gun in power armor. Like most East Germans, he doesn’t really give a damn about Communism and would dearly love for the Soviets to get out of his country: in the meantime, though, he’s got this job and he’s going to do the best he can for his people. He compensates for any concerns about his loyalty by being the toughest, hardest fighter he can be: maybe it’s Iron Ghost and Siberian Shadow who talk the biggest game about fighting the imperialists, but like or not Warbird will be the last Warsaw Pact fighter to leave the field. My take on his niche in the Soviet team is that he’s their melee guy: he’s the one who flies in with sword and wing and cleaves through enemy mooks in hand-to-hand combat, he’s also the one who can cut a rampaging Nazi robot apart with a powerful sword swing. With extensive use of Acrobatic Bluff and Move-By Action (not to mention Power Attacking), he’s got a really good shot of catching most of his likely enemies flat-footed and laying them out. With his Extended Vision, he’s also got a good chance of spotting ground-bound bad guys from high up and swooping down on them with glorious golden wings extended before they know what’s coming: those range penalties on Notice really stack up! Discerning readers will notice that Warbird’s armor kind of sucks, especially compared to his American and Soviet counterparts; that’s a deliberate design choice, the Soviets made his armor fast (to copy Steel Eagle) and on the cheap; they’re also not going to give a particularly powerful suit of armor to the East German guy, not when they’re still paranoid about German defection. So I went with the idea that this is a badass guy in a pretty cruddy suit; he’s made a lot more powerful by the armor, sure, but at the end of the day what’s really important about the man is the guy inside the armor, not the cheap costume and imitative style. He’d work fine as the native superhero of any low-rent country you want to put in your game, or maybe a hero who’s recently acquired or inherited a power suit and used it to break into superheroing: I could see this as the suit of a supercriminal who has decided to turn good too. If you do want to keep this as Warbird, it’s up to you what happened to him when the Wall fell: he hated the Stasi like poison, sure, but he was still a symbol of a much hated regime. If you want to use him as a villain, or at least as an NPC antihero, maybe in retirement he was embraced by the former East Germans who got nostalgic for Communism, and has decided to do his own part to further that cause in his declining years just as he did in his yoth.
Avenger Assembled Posted July 8, 2011 Author Posted July 8, 2011 Patriotic Robot "America is a young country with an old mentality."-George Santayana PL 10 (150 pp) Abilities: 22 pp STR 30 (+10) DEX 14 (+2) CON n/a (-) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 16 pp ATK: +4 (+10 Melee) DEF: +10 (+2 flat-footed) Init: +2 Grapple: +21 Saves: 8 pp TOU +10 (+10 Protection) FORT +n/a REF +6 (+2 Dex, +4) WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4) Skills: 13 pp=52 r Diplomacy 4 (+6) Craft: Mechanical 5 (+5) Intimidate 8 (+10) Knowledge: History 5 (+5) Knowledge: Tactics 5 (+5) Knowledge: Technology 5 (+5) Languages 4 (French, German, Russian, Spanish) (Base: English) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 17 pp Attack Focus: Melee 6 Dodge Focus 4 Fearless Master Plan 2 Move-By Action Power Attack Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 77 pp Device 1 (Shield) (Hard to Lose) [4 pp] -Enhanced Feats 3 (Improved Defense, Interpose, Ultimate Save [Toughness]) [3] -Shield 2 [2] Immunity 40 (Fortitude saves, Mental effects) [40 pp] Leaping 1 (x2) [1 pp] Protection 10 (Extra: Impervious) [20 pp] Regeneration 5 (+0 Recovery Bonus) (PF: Regrowth) [6 pp] ‘smart metal body’ Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] Super-Senses 3 (Darkvision, Radio) [3 pp] Super-Strength 1 (Heavy Load: 1.5 tons) [2 pp] Drawbacks: -3 pp Vulnerable (magnetic effects) (uncommon, major) [-3 pp] costs abilities 22 + combat 16 + saves 8 + skills 13/52 + feats 17 + powers 77 -drawbacks 3= 150 pts ---------------- Design Notes: He was a hero, and champion of the people: a soldier for his nation who fought for his country as long as there was breath in him. With only his tremendous physical abilities, granted to him by a super-soldier serum, and his mighty shield, he stood alongside superpowered gods and monsters. But he was just a man, a man who grew old and ill, until finally one day he lay in a hospital dying. His old friends came to him, though, and offered him a chance to have his life back...as long as he was willing to spend it fighting for his country again. And now he's back, fighting for the homeland and freedom, but he's not a man anymore. Here's a build for a robotic supersoldier like Freedom City's Patriot or Image Comics' Diehard, a once-mortal man who has become an all-American machine! Combining a robot's powers and a super-soldier's isn't an easy blend, but I think I've captured a pretty good blend of the two archetypes: he's a powerful machine with just a few machine-related problems, and also a pretty good fighter and skilled tactical planner: he's not much for the inspiring speeches these days, but he's still definitely someone you want on your team in a fight. I had to scrimp here and there, but he's still reasonably effective. He's got +4 to Ranged Attack, which is at least comparable to soldiers and police officers: even super-soldiers shouldn't be using many guns! (Much less robots: I figure they keep the guns in the hands of people who need them). He could use Security Clearance or Connected if you want to play up his agency ties, right now I figure he's just starting out so his former allies aren't inclined to trust him quite as much as they used to. Even those who know the secret of his resurrection may have those thoughts: after all, who's to say just how trustworthy a robot is? The conflict between having once been an all-American man and now a machine, if one with a human face, is going to be one good for many internal as well as external complications. He's got a lot of mental readjustment to do, as do the people who knew him while he was alive! Comparisons to the Patriot are likely an issue in the FC Universe: perhaps this guy was a beneficiary of an identical procedure, or perhaps he's from another nation or group that opted to copy what happened to Jack Simmons. Or you could make things more complex: perhaps he's a robotic double of the Patriot gone rogue, a man determined to find an identity for himself and get away from the legacy of the man whose face he wears and whose memories he still has (if in a very fragmented form). Note that he doesn't actually throw the shield: it's a defensive weapon, though it's a fine idea to flavor his melee strikes as hitting someone with the ridge of the shield. Look at my Cold War Relic build upthread for an idea how to build a decent throwing shield. If you don't like the idea of playing a man who is now a machine, a robot built for patriotic purposes makes sense in a cheerfully Golden Age way: a steel soldier fighting for the values of an America he was programmed to believe in!
Avenger Assembled Posted July 8, 2011 Author Posted July 8, 2011 Shapeshifter With A Power Ring “In brightest day...†PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 44 pp STR 24 (+7) DEX 20 (+5) CON 24 (+7) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 12 (+1) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+13 melee) DEF: +13 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +7 Grapple: +20 Saves: 7 pp TOU +7 (+7 Con) FORT +7 (+7 Con) REF +7 (+5 Dex, +2) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 40 r=10 pp Bluff 9 (+10) Diplomacy 4 (+5) Disguise 0 (+1/+21/+96) Knowledge (Pop Culture) 5 (+5) Language 1 (English) (Base: Grue) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Stealth 5 (+10) Feats: 17 pp Attack Focus: Melee 5 Dodge Focus 5 Move-By Action Power Attack Second Chance (Disguise checks) Takedown Attack Ultimate Save (Will) Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 40 pp Device 6 (Cosmic Ring) (Hard to Lose) (PFs: Restricted 2) [26 pp] Variable Power 3 (any cosmic) (Extras: Action [Free], Duration [Continuous]) [30] Grue Array [12+2=14 pp] Morph 4 (Extra: Continuous) (any humanoid) AP: Drain Wis 7 (PFs: Improved Crit, Reversible, Slow Fade 2 [5 minutes], Subtle) AP: Mind Reading 10 (PFs: Rapid, Subtle) Sample Power Allocations (15 pp to spend) -Blast 10 (Flaw: Action [Full]) (PFs: Accurate, Improved Crit 2, Incurable, Precise) ‘blaster’ -Communication 5 (mental) (1 mile) and Immunity 9 (Life Support) and Space Flight 1 (1c) ‘space travel’ -Flight 7 (1000 MPH) (PF: Moving Feint) ‘flight’ -Morph 15 (not a Grue) ‘not a Grue’ -Super-Senses 15 (Accurate Analytical Extended Radio Sense; True Sight) ‘cosmic awareness’ -Teleport 4 (400 ft/1 mile) (Extra: Accurate) (PFs: Easy, Progression, Turnabout) ‘super-speed’ costs abilities 44 + combat 32 + saves 7 + skills 10/40 + feats 17 + powers 40 = 150 pts ------------ Design Notes: Here’s a build for a Grue with a power ring, based on Marvel Comic’ Crusader, one of my favorite recent character introductions in the Marvel Universe. The idea here is that this character used to be just another Grue drone until she got her hands on an artifact of great cosmic power, one that awakened her individuality and gave her tremendous power. Neither of those things are welcome among drones of the Unity, and so she fled as soon as she could with a Grue battlefleet behind her! She knew there was only one place she _could_ go to avoid the Unity’s wrath and get a handle on her powers, for all that it was a place of legends and terror for the others of her species. What better place _to_ hide? Now she’s on Earth, blending in among other superheroes and hiding from the Meta-Mind, while also letting everyone else believe she’s just another bystander who found a power ring and got power! Which is certainly true in its own way, but leaving out some pertinent details... She meets her caps in hand-to-hand combat, being a trained Grue warrior, and she’s a talented shapeshifter and infiltrator in her own right. The Drain WIS is a standard Grue tactic, a way they suck the mind out of their targets before they replace them: similarly the Mind Reading is a common strategy of theirs. You could actually reshuffle the points from the ring and make this just a very good Grue super-agent, or just buy her Flight and Blast to be a Lyja knockoff: I think she’s much more interesting with the ring, though! Normally I prefer to build power rings with blasts and force fields: your Green Lantern and Doctor Spectrum types tend to have a half-dozen or so big tricks they use and power-stunt everything else (i.e., they have an array), and it also makes book-keeping easier. But here, to emphasize the protean nature of the character’s outlook, I went with a variable power: with a free action, she can have 15 pp in any cosmic power, and that power sticks around until she rearranges it. This is a very powerful ability, but the fact that she’s paying through the nose for very limited ranks and thus limiting her talents in other areas should make your life easier: the last thing you want to do is have no one want to thread with your character because she’s too broken and TOO versatile. As it is she’s a Swiss Army Knife without being a Mary Sue: while she can do almost anything thanks to her Variable Power and broad descriptors, she can’t do it well enough to overshadow actual specialists in those areas. I've made this a cosmic artifact, but you could make it a magic one easily enough: perhaps this is that ultra-rarity, a heroic Grue Arcane? As PP accumulate, you should buy some things outside the ring for her: low ranks of Impervious, low ranks of Flight, and other things that will let her concentrate on putting big points into big powers and abilities in the ring: as it is she’s got to buy utility powers to go with whatever her current big trick is. This hero makes a fine character to play, given her merger of the “shapeshifter†and “ring-bearer†archetypes. Her origin gives her all sorts of complications in the Freedom City setting, where almost everyone is a survivor of one Grue invasion or another and everyone has reason to mistrust the shapeshifting psychic vampire hive mind from space. (You know, when you put it that way, they do seem pretty bad!) Free Grue have to deal with prejudice from those who’d find them out, but they also have to deal with enemies as their former masters seek them out on Earth by means of disguised agents. So many complications, and so many delicious HP to hang onto in the crisis. And for this character, one way or another, there’ll be a lot of those!
Avenger Assembled Posted July 8, 2011 Author Posted July 8, 2011 Commander USA “Salvation for a race, nation or class must come from within.†-A. Phillip Randolph PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 56 pp STR 24 (+7) DEX 24 (+7) CON 24 (+7) INT 10 (+0) WIS 20 (+5) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+13 melee) DEF: +13 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +7 Grapple: +20 Saves: 3 pp TOU +7 (+7 Con) FORT +7 (+7 Con) REF +7 (+7 Dex) WILL +8 (+5 Wis, +3) Skills: 40 r=10 pp Craft: Chemical 10 (+10) Drive 3 (+10) Knowledge: Physical Sciences 10 (+10) Language 1 (German) (Base: English) Notice 5 (+10) Pilot 3 (+10) Sense Motive 5 (+10) Stealth 3 (+10) Feats: 18 pp Attack Focus: Melee (7) Dodge Focus (7) Leadership Power Attack Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 39 pp Leaping 1 (x2) [1 pp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] USA Array [37+1 pp] Transform 7 (inanimate to inanimate; 100 lbs) (Extra: Duration [Continous]) (PFs: Innate, Precise) AP: Create Object 10 (Extras: Duration [Continuous], Impervious 5) (PFs: Innate, Selective) costs abilities 56 + combat 24 + saves 3 + skills 10/40 + feats 18 + powers 39 = 150 pts ---- Design Notes: Here’s a build for Commander USA, the leader of the Freedom Brigade. (They’re basically the Freedom Fighters expies of the Freedom City universe, being a Golden Age team of B-list heroes who relocated to Erde to fight the Nazis in the future there). He’s an interesting character; one of the first black superheroes in the Freedom City universe, he’s also a merger of the super-soldier and transformer archetype, able to rearrange the molecular bonds of anything inorganic he touches while also running around with a peak human physiology. He can also ‘transform’ air into things via Create Object, something which probably gets used mostly for making cover for himself and his allies. (Air has a pretty low weight, so I figure he can get a lot of mass by transforming a large amount of it) Selective Create Object can get broken very very quickly, so I’ve gone with limiting its Impervious: making a brick wall for his allies to shoot through is very helpful, but it’s not going to win the fight for him without getting out there and landing some good old-fashioned Golden Age style punching. His low Transform rank may not seem that helpful, but remember he’s got the accuracy to do things like target guns, and with his goon-sweeping abilities he can give a whole roomful of thugs nothing but flowers for guns before he lays them out with a good right cross. The Commander’s story is as follows: a patriot, he volunteered for Army service even before Pearl Harbor. Though he was a trained chemist, his race and the segregation of the contemporary Army meant he was assigned menial guard duty in the Army. Instead of working at Army labs as a researcher, he found himself standing guard outside with a rifle on long, lonely dog shifts. One day, though, his world turned upside down when fifth columnists attacked his base! Heroically fending them off as long as he could, he realized he couldn’t stop them forever. There was only one way to keep the Ratzis from getting their hands on the secret Allied formula: drink it! He passed out and the Nazis left, thinking him dead, but he rose to find himself alive, well, and bursting with strength, vitality, and power: the miracle formula had transformed his body, making him the perfect soldier, but they’d also given him the power to transform whatever he touched! Given a patriotic costume and name by the Army, the new Commander USA [which, hey, as it wasn’t an Army rank, didn’t give anyone funny ideas about black officers...] became a heroic costumed defender of the American legacy, though tragically he and his team disappeared (and were thought KIA) when they launched a retaliatory raid on Japan just after Pearl Harbor. What had really happened, though, was that the Freedom Brigade had traveled to Erde in the future to fight the Nazis there: a visit by Dr. Tomorrow had shown them that their mission was doomed to failure, but that they could redeem their legacy by traveling to another world that desperately needed superheroes. Now he fights the Nazis there as one of the big guns of the Resistance, determined to free that world even as his contemporaries freed his own. Where he failed in one world, he can succeed in another, and freedom for all men and women can triumph once again! This works just fine as an NPC build for the Commander if you want to take a trip to Erde and fight alongside one of America’s favorite patriotic heroes: it also works just fine as a legacy of one of America’s very first patriotic heroes. Perhaps he’s the grandson of the original Commander, the family’s mutation passed down through a child the original never knew he had, or maybe you’re going to say there was a Silver Age Commander USA after all and this guy is carrying on his ancestor’s legacy. He’ll still have lots of Complications to deal with. There’s still prejudice aplenty in America, but a patriotic hero determined to redeem his family legacy in _this_ world has a lot of ground to cover. And hey, maybe the Commander’s war against fascism failed, but at least _he_ never sold the Liberty League out like his rival (and much more family-friendly [i.e., white guy]) the Patriot.
Avenger Assembled Posted July 10, 2011 Author Posted July 10, 2011 Accomplished Perfect Physician "Damn it, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a-oh, right." PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 40 pp STR 16 (+3) DEX 18 (+4) CON 20 (+5) INT 16 (+3) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 16 (+3) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Ranged) DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +7 Grapple: +9 Saves: 10 pp TOU +8 (+5 Con, +3 Protection) FORT +7 (+5 Con, +2) REF +7 (+4 Ref, +3) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 13 pp=52 r Bluff 7 (+10) Diplomacy 7 (+10) Investigate 7 (+10) Languages 4 (English, French, Russian, Tibetan) (Base: Mandarin) Medicine 5 (+7) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Stealth 6 (+10) Feats: 17 pp All-Out Attack Attack Focus: Ranged 4 Dodge Focus 6 Eidetic Memory Improved Initiative Jack of all Trades Move-By Action Power Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 48 pp Flight 4 (100 MPH) [8 pp] Physician Array [30+5=35 pp] Blast 10 (Extra: Autofire) (PFs: Improved Crit 2) AP: Create Object 10 (Extra: Moveable) (PFs: Selective, Subtle) AP: Damage 10 (Extras: Area [Cylinder], Selective) (PFs: Progression x2 on Area) AP: Drain Toughness 10 (Extras: Affects Objects, Ranged) (PFs: Slow Fade 2 [5 minutes]) AP: Healing 10 (Extra: Ranged) (PFs: Regrowth, Stabilize) AP: Paralyze 10 (Extra: [Ranged]) (PFs: Improved Crit 2) Protection 3 [3 pp] costs abilities 40 + combat 24 + saves 10 + skills 13/52 + feats 17 + powers 48 = 150 pts -------------- Design Notes: Here's my build for Accomplished Perfect Physician, the politically outspoken guy/rebel of the Great Ten, the Chinese national superteam in the DC Universe. He's something of a Neal Adams-era Green Arrow in his native setting, which means he was actually an outlaw for a while there. The defender of Tibet and its peoples from the oppression of the Chinese government, the Physician is heir to a long and noble legacy of Tibetan physician-sages, imbued with powerful sonic abilities that let him perform remarkable deeds with a touch: he can fly, make walls, heal the injured, and even blast and paralyze his enemies with a sound. He's not actually Tibetan himself: the young man he once was joined the PLA to escape poverty and found himself assigned to Tibet to break the lamas once and for all. He killed a man, fled, was actually shot by his former commander for desertion, and woke up in the hands of the last Physician: he'd killed that man's son, you see, and the price for taking the life of that man was to take his place and take up his title. For years the Physician dueled with his archrival, the August Soldier (of various ranks) in Iron before finally that worthy persuaded him to join him in the Great Ten: he could do more good for China inside it it than out. But it's not working. They're already deploying him to break riots in Lhasa despite his vigorous protests, and he's more and more being identified as a creature of the government rather than the independent actor he used to be. Tibet's only superhero may be about to face a very serious crisis. OK, so despite his hotheaded politics and frequent clashes with his superiors, the Accomplished Perfect Physician actually has a pretty bland and uninteresting array: he's a sonic controller with a healing theme, able to patch up injuries with a word or rip them apart with a shout. I've tried to rep "all the experiences of the past Physicians" via Eidetic Memory and Jack of all Trades, giving him quite a bit of access to past life memories. He can fly under his own power, and flies just a little bit faster than the August General in Iron will when I get him up. Doc has an upcoming post about some of the scientific basis of sonics, check that out for ideas for powerstunts for him. He's in decent shape and a competent sneak to reflect his years on the run as well as his military service: he's an OK doctor, but he's got his powers handy to solve any serious medical crises that come up. You could change the name and the backstory some and drop him just fine into our game, particularly if you go with him as a Tibetan hero escaped to the West, or perhaps more trickily a rebellious Chinese super who has left his government backers behind and gone his own way. Being an ex-supersoldier and/or fugitive is a great source for complications! He doesn't have to have a Chinese background at all with these descriptors, of course. Another fine way to do it would be to make him an American (but not necessarily white!) hero empowered with Tibetan mysticism as a way of playing up the cultural divergences he really should have: noble intentions or not, he's still a guy fighting for a culture that isn't his own. Of course, if you think about the circumstances of the guy's empowering a bit, perhaps that makes sense and the Physicians were tired of their number constantly getting killed off by Han Chinese.
Avenger Assembled Posted July 10, 2011 Author Posted July 10, 2011 Celestial Archer “As the Fletcher whittles and makes straight his arrows, so the master directs his straying thoughts.â€-Buddha PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 22 pp STR 14 (+2) DEX 14 (+2) CON 24 [14] (+7/+2) INT 12 (+1) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 34 pp ATK: +9 (+15 Ranged) DEF: +13 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +7 Grapple: +11 Saves: 10 pp TOU +7 (+7 Con) FORT +7 (+7 Con) REF +7 (+2 Dex, +5) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 56 r=14 pp Acrobatics 12 (+14) Bluff 8 (+10) Disable Device 9 (+10) Knowledge (Theology and Philosophy) 9 (+10) Languages 2 (Cantonese, English) (Base: Mandarin) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 20 pp Acrobatic Bluff Accurate Attack All-Out Attack Attack Focus: Ranged 6 Dodge Focus 5 Evasion Improved Initiative Power Attack Precise Shot 2 Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 52 pp Disintegrate 5 (PFs: Improved Crit 2, Improved Range 3 (1 5000 ft range increment), Variable Descriptor 2 [any magic]) [32 pp] 'celestial bow' Enhanced CON 10 [10 pp] Immunity 3 (aging, disease, poison) [3 pp] Super-Senses 3 (Extended Vision 3 [x1000]) [3 pp] Super-Movement 2 (Dimensional; any Chinese mystic) [4 pp] costs abilities 22 + combat 34 + saves 5 + skills 14/56 + feats 20 + powers 52 = 150 pts --------------- Design Notes: Here's the Celestial Archer, another Great Ten character, as a PL 10 starting character. He's an interesting concept, essentially an archery-themed Thor, in that he's a normal man empowered with the celestial bow of Yi, the divine archer, of Chinese mythology and legend. He has an explicit mythological connection to the divine, the sort of character who travels to the Moon to talk to the gods there by means of shooting an arrow and riding its trail up into the Moon. (When explaining this story to his atheist superiors and colleagues, he adds "I know how this sounds...") I've gone with the theory that his bow is a powerful Disintegrate effect, packing enough of a punch to seriously injure any opponent. With his Improved Range feats and Extended Vision, he's an incredibly powerful sniper, easily able to both see and hit anything within his range of 5000 ft. With his range, he can catch the bad guys flat-footed even when they can't see him: when they can, he's fast and deadly enough that he can usually feint them up close too. And when he Power Attacks with that bow, what he hits is going to suffer for it. With his Variable Descriptor, he can pull out any arrow he needs to hurt whatever opponent it is he's firing on. I don't recall any mention in the book of him being immortal, but I've given him a couple of the immunities I usually give to divinely empowered PCs. Stunt anything you need off his bow to give him whatever kind of arrows he needs: he's got a tremendous number of points to spend there and can pull out almost any divine/magic effect that can plausibly be fired out of an arrow. The character winds up having some serious issues in his story: being the champion of the old gods in atheist China is a tough row to hoe, especially for a former street thief turned superhero. Maybe that's why the old gods do return, or seem to, he ultimately sides with them over his putative allies...at least at first. Being the champion of a divine pantheon can have its downsides when said pantheon is still taking an issue with the world around it. His empowerment story would work just fine in any normal superhero story, and indeed would give him fine claim to be one of China's superheroes in a more Neo-Silver Age setting (i.e., like ours). He makes a good antidote to the Indo-European idea that divine characters all have to be blustering braggarts with gigantic hammers. Honestly, he seems like he'd be fun to play. He'd make a fine companion to my Asgardian Archer build upthread, as the two of them are both unusual archers (who have a tendency to be squishy normal people most of the time). Given that he actually _is_ a very, very good archer and could easily meet his caps even with just a regular bow in hand, he also doesn't need to feel quite so unbadass if he's in an archery contest with more mundane heroes. He works just fine as a super-soldier or independent hero both. He could work as the bow-wielding champion of all kinds of gods, too, as well as a mutant with a bow theme like my earlier archer thread. Closer to home, I could see this as the sheet for a Native American champion like Dani Moonstar as well, though of course you'd have to finesse the backstory a bit to avoid being the bad kind of Magical Native American in that case...
Avenger Assembled Posted July 10, 2011 Author Posted July 10, 2011 Seven Deadly Brothers "Everybody was kung fu fighting..." PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 44 pp STR 24 (+7) DEX 20 (+5) CON 24 (+7) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 12 (+1) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+13 melee) DEF: +13 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +11 Grapple: +20 Saves: 7 pp TOU +7 (+7 Con) FORT +7 (+7 Con) REF +7 (+5 Dex, +2) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 60 r=15 pp Acrobatics 10 (+15) Bluff 9 (+10) Knowledge (History) 10 (+10) Languages 4 (Cantonese, English, Japanese, Mongolian) (Base: English) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 13 (+15) Stealth 5 (+10) Survival 1 (+3) Feats: 22 pp Acrobatic Bluff All-Out Attack Attack Focus: Melee 5 Challenge (Fast Acrobatic Bluff) Dodge Focus 5 Fearless Improved Crit 2 (Unarmed) Improved Initiative Move-By Action Power Attack Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 30 pp Concealment 10 (all senses) (Flaw: Miss Chance Only) [10 pp] Duplication Array 7 (14pp powers; PF: Alternate Power) [15 pp] BE: Add Selective and Targeted Area [burst] to UnarmedAP: Add Autofire and Penetrating to Unarmed Immunity 1 (aging) [1 pp] Regeneration 1 (Resurrection 1/week) (PFs: Persistent, Regrowth) [3 pp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] costs abilities 44 + combat 32 + saves 7 + skills 15/60 + feats 22 + powers 30 = 150 pts --------------- Design Notes: Here's Seven Deadly Brothers, the martial artist of the Great Ten. He has an interesting concept, a duplicator who can split into seven copies each of whom is a master of a different style of martial arts. I've built him the way I build most duplicators, giving him area attacks and autofire on his unarmed damage as he either sends copies out to fight a group or focuses multiple unarmed strikes on one opponent, as well as a limited Concealment that makes it much harder to target the 'original'. Rather than worry about the kung fu fighting style in the book, I've tried to give him a generalized flavor of martial arts badassery: with his high Improved Crit, high STR, and powerful unarmed attacks, he really should be able to fight superhuman opponents at a much higher PL than he is and holds his own. He's put out the story that he got his powers after saving an old man from a mugging, and there's enough martial arts stuff floating around the PRC that his superiors and the general public believes him. The truth, though, is somewhat darker: Seven Deadly Brothers is actually several hundred years old, a former soldier in the Imperial army who took part in the purge of Shaolin monks hundreds of years ago. Impressed by what he saw, he tried to present himself to another group of kung fu masters as an innocent potential pupil. They saw through his deception, though, and cursed him with a terrible gift: he knows all seven styles of kung fu as a master, but each style has its own mind and own voice inside his head, and his soul is forever at war with seven voices shouting in his mind at all times. He only knows peace when he's fighting, and so has become one of the world's greatest fighters. (His 'teachers' used him as a weapon at first to eliminate those kung fu masters who had sided with the Imperial purge, but even they aren't around for him to talk to anymore.) Seven Deadly Brothers has joined the Great Ten because fighting is the only thing that brings him even a momentary peace, and because he hopes deep down in his soul that one day he will fight an enemy that will finally end his life. As written, Seven Deadly Brothers makes an excellent tragic villain, especially for martial artist characters or those otherwise influenced by Chinese culture. He's a good Arrogant Kung Fu Guy to fight as a one-off, perhaps satisfying his never-ending lust for fighting by going around to cripple the masters and students of somebody's local dojo, but he's even more dangerous as a recurring antagonist for a given hero that he happens to latch onto, constantly ramping up the violence and threat level against that given hero in the hope that one day his antagonist will snap and finally put an end to his centuries-long life. If you like the concept, though, the math works for a PC, and you could easily make this an eternal kung fu champion, forever battling against the wicked with the power of all seven kung fu styles behind him!
Avenger Assembled Posted July 10, 2011 Author Posted July 10, 2011 Socialist Red Guardsman "Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy." -Mao Zedong PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 22 pp STR 40 [24] [12] (+15/+7/+1) DEX 14 (+2) CON 18 (+4) INT 12 (+1) WIS 16 (+3) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 20 pp ATK: +5 (+8 Ranged) DEF: +5 (+2 flat-footed) Init: +6 Grapple: +6/+22/+27 Saves: 10 pp TOU +15 (+4 Con, +3 Density, +8 Protection) FORT +7 (+4 Con, +3) REF +5 (+2 Dex, +3) WILL +7 (+3 Wis, +4) Skills: 36 r=9 pp Craft (Mechanical) 4 (+5) Knowledge (Physical Sciences) 4 (+5) Knowledge (Technology) 4 (+5) Intimidate 12 (+12) Languages 3 (Cantonese, English, Japanese) (Base: Mandarin) Notice 3 (+5) Sense Motive 3 (+5) Survival 3 (+5) Feats: 8 pp Attack Focus; Ranged 3 Fearless Move-By Action Power Attack Startle Takedown Attack Powers: 81 pp Device 11 (Socialist Red Guardsman Armor; Hard to Lose; PF: Restricted [radiation control]) [45 pp] Density 6 (Extra: Duration [Permanent]) (PF: Innate) [19] Enhanced STR 12, Imp TOU 3, Immovable 2, Super-Strength 2, Mass x5Enhanced Feat 1 (Ultimate Save [Toughness]) [1]Flight 1 (10 MPH) [2]Immunity 9 (Life Support) [9]Impervious TOU 2 [2]Protection 8 [8]Radiation Control 0 (buys off Uncontrolled) [8]Suit Array (3 APs on 29 pp Radiation Control) [3]Blast 12 (PFs: Improved Crit, Improved Range, Incurable) Enhanced STR 16 and Super-Strength 5 (Heavy Load: 720 tons [w/Density]) (PFs: Countering Punch, Groundstrike, Shockwave) Flight 14 (total of Flight 15 [500000 MPH) (PF: Moving Feint) Super-Senses 3 (Darkvision, Radio) [3] Drain Constitution 5 (25 ft) (Extras: Action [Reaction], Area [burst], Flaw: Uncontrolled) and Environmental Control 3 (25 ft) (moderate radiation) (Extras: Action [Reaction], Duration [Permanent], Flaws: Range [Touch], Uncontrolled) [29 pp] Immunity 6 (aging, radiation damage [includes environmental radiation]) [6 pp] costs abilities 22 + combat 20 + saves 10 + skills 9/36 + feats 8 + powers 81 = 150 pts ------------- Design Notes: OK, this rather complex build is for Socialist Red Guardsman, the only actual Maoist (much to his annoyance) on the Great Ten. The Guardsman is China's oldest active super, having been a leading figure in the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. Kept young but isolated by his powers, he's watched with increasing anger as his leaders betrayed the revolution he fought for in the name of market capitalism. Of course, that's not the only thing he has to be cranky about the Guardsman is very much in the Tragic Radiation Controller mode (see Shaen's build in his thread) like Positron from City of Heroes. He's permanently, dangerously radioactive and has to spend all his time around human beings in a powersuit that was the best the People's Republic of China could make in the mid-1970s. Isolated from the world in more ways than one, frankly these days he prefers to be alone in his hermitage in the Gobi Desert, where he can at least live in peace without fear of hurting anyone or being shunned by them for his appearance. OK, the basic idea behind his powers is that the Guardsman (without his suit) constantly irradiates an area of about twenty-five feet around his body, poisoning anyone there with radiation, potentially lethally, as well as making all the objects around him dangerously radioactive. He does this all the time, every round, whether he's conscious or not, and he has absolutely no control over this. He's a threat even to some superhumans, though most PCs will be just fine with repeatedly making a DC 15 Fort save if his suit comes off: it's mostly bystanders who are at issue. Odds are pretty good that your average bystander will be dead in two rounds being near him. Luckily, he probably won't be out of his suit around them! Buy a good headquarters, though. I went with the smaller area (compared to Shaen's build) because I think it makes him easier to function as a PC. If his suit gets broken, it's a serious problem for him, but he's not a threat to the entire city, just to anyone standing around him. The suit lets him control his powers, giving him the ability to fire powerful blasts of radiation, fly at tremendous velocities, or just punch people really hard so they fall over. It looks really big and bulky in all the pictures, so I gave him Density to reflect a big, heavy powersuit. (No Growth, though, since we see him standing next to people and not looking out-sized) Expect to be kidnapped and shoved in a bad guy's machine as a power source a lot. This build is a natural if you want an angsty guy bummed out because he can't have any normal human contact. Hey, a lot of people are into that sort of thing! Just don't make him depressing to be _around_, even if he himself is depressed a lot. (I try to have Harrier, my own Super-Depressing Guy, at least be some comfort to be around because his own life sucks so much more than the other PCs, they feel better hanging around with him!) If you want to keep his Communist origins, maybe he got tired of constantly being promised a cure by his masters (who were actually much more interested in using his abilities for their own ends), and has headed off to Freedom City to be an independent superhero? He works fine as a super-soldier too, perhaps a Chernobyl survivor if you want to keep the Commie stylings (maybe he's a supersoldier of Belarus?), or even an American more depressing Captain Atom. Probably a little too soon to make him a Japanese hero, though..
Avenger Assembled Posted July 10, 2011 Author Posted July 10, 2011 Ghost Fox Killer “My films are always concerned with family, friendship, honor, and patriotism.†-John Woo PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 30 pp STR 14 (+2) DEX 20 (+5) CON 18 (+4) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 34 pp ATK: +9 (+13 ranged) DEF: +13 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +9 Grapple: +11 Saves: 10 pp TOU +7 (+4 Con, +3 Protection) FORT +7 (+4 Con, +3) REF +7 (+5 Dex, +2) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 48 r=12 pp Acrobatics 10 (+15) Intimidate 10 (+12) Languages 2 (English, Mandarin) (Base: Cantonese) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Stealth 10 (+15) Feats: 15 pp Acrobatic Bluff Attack Specialization: Ghost Fox (2) Dodge Focus (5) Eidetic Memory Improved Initiative Move-By Action Power Attack Precise Shot (2) Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 49 pp Enhanced Feats 2 (Second Chance 2 (Notice, Sense Motive) [2 pp] ‘summoned spirits’ Ghost Fox Array [25+2=27 pp] Drain Constitution 5 (Extra: Aura [+3]) AP: Blast 7 (Extra: Autofire) (PFs: Affects Insubstantial 2, Variable Descriptor 2 [any magic]) AP: Damage 7 (Extras: Area [burst], Selective) (PFs: Affects Insubstantial 2, Variable Descriptor 2 [any magic]) Immunity 3 (aging, disease, poison) [3 pp] Protection 3 [3 pp] Super-Senses 4 (Darkvision, Radius Vision) [4 pp] Teleport 4 (400 ft/1 mile) (Extra: Accurate) (Flaw: Short-Range Only) (PFs: Hide in Plain Sight, Turnabout) [10 pp] costs abilities 30 + combat 34 + saves 10 + skills 12/48 + feats 15 + powers 49 = 150 pts ------------ Design Notes: Here's Ghost Fox Killer, or "What if Wonder Woman was a John Woo character?" She's the native superheroine of Hong Kong in the DCU, a grim vigilante dealing out lethal justice to the triads there with her ghost fox weapons that look just like strange pistols, accompanied everywhere by the spirits of the evil men she's killed. She has her reasons, though: her home dimension of ghost fox women is powered by the souls of the evil dead, and so every man she kills helps sustain her and her entire family. She's a new member of the Great Ten, and falling in love with her commander August General in Iron, the only man she can touch without poisoning him. I tried to build her as a fast, stealthy, deadly warrior, cleaving through goons with a 'death blossom' style area attack, or just blasting away with powerful autofire damage from pistols she can never lose. I didn't put her jade lion in this build: I decided to take that (and the souls of the dead all around her) as a descriptor for her super-senses. In combat she should play as the mobile creature she is, shadow-stepping from room to room and eliminating bad guys before they even know she's there. She'd make a good PC as is in an Iron Age game, but in our game she's much more suitable as an antagonist: a murderous vigilante who is just sympathetic enough in who she kills and why that the PCs may have some qualms (if short-lived) about bringing her down with particular force. She'd make an interesting counterpart to the Silencer in our own game, a mystic killer to his high-tech version. She's probably a rival to Crimson Katana, and I'm sure the two have had many a duel over the years if you put them in the same place. Of course, you should make her "Ghost Fox Woman" (i.e., not a killer) if you want to make her a PC in our game: perhaps if you like the backstory, her dimension is powered by the _defeat_ of evil rather than by its death, and so she has to go out into the world and battle darkness as a way of keeping the lights on at home. You can even keep the ghosts by saying she can call on the "good spirits" of those she's defeated as a way of redeeming all the bad things they've done. Being a grim street vigilante doesn't mean you have to be a jerk to be around: a little levity (particularly at the expense of the scumbags you fight) can make the most depressing day be lots of fun! Some heroes may object to you using guns on principle, but since the pistols are just descriptors for her Blast (and her non-lethal Blast at that), you shouldn't have a lot of issues with the setting. Complications with those other PCs, though, are a great source for HP for you! She's got some pretty broad descriptors and should have no problems pulling out whatever kind of weapons she needs. Note that her lion is a fine descriptor for a blast if you want it to be featured in her combat, though as usual with minions and such I went with what you typically 'really' want out of having an ally: more chances to see what's going on, and more things to do in combat!
Avenger Assembled Posted July 10, 2011 Author Posted July 10, 2011 Shaolin Robot "Hail, hail Robonia! A land I didn't make up!" -Bender PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 16 pp STR 26 (+8) DEX 16 (+3) CON n/a INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+12 ranged) DEF: +12 (+4 flat-footed) Grapple: +16 Init: +3 Saves: 7 pp TOU +8 (+8 Protection) FORT n/a REF +7 (+3 Dex, +4) WILL +5 (+2 Wis, +3) Skills: 52 r=13 pp Acrobatics 12 (+15) Craft (Mechanical) 4 (+4) Knowledge (Technology) 4 (+4) Languages 4 (Cantonese, English, Japanese, Russian) (Base: Mandarin) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Stealth 12 (+15) Feats: 18 pp Acrobatic Bluff All-Out Attack Attack Focus: Ranged 4 Dodge Focus 4 Evasion Fearless Move-By Action Power Attack Takedown Attack Precise Shot 2 Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 64 pp Device 4 (Easy to Lose) (Arsenal) (PFs: Restricted 2) [14 pp] Blast 8 (PFs: Improved Crit 2, Precise) AP: Strike 4 (PFs: Improved Crit, Mighty) (Extra: Penetrating [10]) Immunity 40 (Fortitude Saves, Mental Effects) [40 pp] Leaping 1 (x2) [1 pp] Protection 8 [8 pp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] costs abilities 16 + combat 32 + saves 7 + skills 13/52 + feats 18 + powers 64 = 150 pts ---- Design Notes: Here's Shaolin Robot, the robot member of the Great Ten. (Hence the name!) He's an interesting character, a clockwork golem originally built as an ornament for the tomb of Shi Huang Ti, the great and terrible first emperor of a unified China. Shaolin Robot was originally one of 100 such golems, but he alone possessed a human soul: their maker was sealed up with them by a jealous emperor determined to make sure he never built for anyone else, and before his death of starvation and despair he programmed his own mind into the Shaolin Robot by means of iconography from the I Ching. When the golems were released by archeologists some years ago, only Shaolin Robot did not join his fellows in their attack on Beijing when they sought to restore the long-deposed emperors to rule. Thus he was the only one who survived, and (with a little help from the Great Ten) was armed with high-tech weapons by the Chinese government and transformed into a robot superhero! I love his origin, both for its ties to history and because in a Great Ten game, fighting rampaging clockwork imperialist robots is the sort of things that PCs should be doing in a game where they're the defenders of Communist China. (Since they're unlikely to want to beating on protesters) A few differences here from his comic book self: he can actually speak languages and is not just limited to communicating with quotes from the I Ching, which would effectively make him mute. (That would get old really fast). I've gone with the idea that his upgrade with alien weaponry took the form of devices slotting into his arms: that's where the gun you see up there comes from, as well as his energy sword. They can be yanked right out by someone fast enough and thoughtful enough: that also makes it much easier for him to get upgrades in the field. He has no capacity for automatic self-repairs, unlike most of my robotic builds: he really does need his human buddies around him to repair his damage. He can do a little himself, but he'll take some penalties in the process. He hasn't got a lot of interpersonal skills, being a robot and all, but he's a really good fighter. He works just fine as a superhero here if you want to haircut some things here or there: maybe he tired of the brutality that his new employers wanted and decided to go on the lam, or maybe he's a robot ambassador from China's heroes to our own! (You'd have to write up what you want China's supers program to be like in FC, of course, since you can't just cut and paste the whole group here) If you don't like his backstory, this makes a perfectly good build for Zeta or any other ex-killbot now on his own as an independent superhero. Maybe he's a new model Foundrybot who's gone on the lam and is being pursued by his former maker! Perhaps he's a robotic visitor from an alien planet, or a super-soldier from the government? This would also make a perfectly fine build for a robot from the future come back to kill, or save, their future messiah...
Avenger Assembled Posted July 11, 2011 Author Posted July 11, 2011 August General in Iron "Let a hundred flowers bloom: let a hundred schools of thought contend is the policy for promoting progress in the arts and the sciences and a flourishing socialist culture in our land."-Mao Zedong PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 38 pp STR 24 (+7) DEX 16 (+3) CON 16 (+3) INT 14 (+2) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+8 Melee/+10 Blast) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +3 Grapple: +15 Saves: 16 pp TOU +10 (+3 Con, +7 Protection) FORT +8 (+3 Con. +5) REF +8 (+3 Dex, +5) WILL +8 (+2 Wis. +6) Skills: 52 r=13 pp Bluff 8 (+10) Craft (structural) 4 (+6) Diplomacy 4 (+6) Intimidate 8 (+10) Knowledge (Tactics) 8 (+10) Languages 4 (Cantonese, English, Russian, Tibetan) (Base: English) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 15 pp Attack Focus: Melee 2 Dodge Focus 4 Evasion Luck Master Plan 2 Power Attack Precise Shot 2 Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 44 pp Device 6 (Power Staff) (Easy to Lose) (PFs: Restricted 2, Subtle) [21 pp] Blast 10 (PFs: Accurate 2) [22+1=23] AP: Damage 5 (PFs: Extended Reach, Improved Crit 2, Improved Trip, Mighty) (Extra: Vampiric [12]) Flight 3 (50 MPH) (PF: Subtle) [7] Immunity 9 (Life Support) [9 pp] Protection 7 (Extra: Impervious) (Drawback: Noticeable [iron plates]) [13 pp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] costs abilities 38 + combat 24 + saves 16 + skills 13/52 + feats 15 + powers 44 = 150 pts -------------------- Design Notes: Here's the August General in Iron, the field commander of the Great Ten, as a PL 10 starting PC. He's an interesting concept, essentially a blend of the Thing and Captain America. Horribly mutated by the aftereffects of an alien virus while in service to his country, the future General's body became covered in a bulletproof iron shell attached directly to his skin. (Note that that is NOT a battlesuit he's wearing, that is his skin.) Rejected by his fiancee for his monstrous appearance, armed with a power staff given to him by the government, he became Communist China's most public superhero and champion. He was the one who spent all those years chasing Accomplished Perfect Physician (who he despised as a deserter turned traitor to his country) and so thanks to his years of loyal service he was the natural choice to become commander of China's first super-team. He tracked down the others himself to make personal contact, with the exception of the Socialist Red Guardsman who was already in Chinese service. He's spent years focused on his work and his country, and only now is he beginning to admit to himself that he's developing feelings for his comrade Ghost Fox Killer, who can touch him alone among other men and who is the first woman not to fear his own twisted visage. I've gone with the idea that while he's an excellent planner and thinker, the General doesn't go in for the touchy-feeling inspiring speeches: he saves that for people like Thundermind. He's more charismatic than he looks, and smarter too: note that he's still a young man, and he's actually earned his general's rank thanks to years of backroom manuevering inside the CCP and PLA. He's a skilled melee fighter and blaster too, and his power staff (which also collapses down to fit on his belt) lets him fly around. His staff isn't actually mentioned as absorbing life energy in the comic, but I borrowed the mechanic from Geez3r's Strike of Valor Super-Strength PF: the General seems like the kind of guy who'd be pragmatic enough to make sure he stayed in a fight even at the cost of badly hurting those he was engaged in battle with. His Craft skill comes from the suggestion that his armored form above is not actually his 'natural' appearance, but is the result of him learning to trim and sculpt his own body. I rather liked that moment, I think it humanizes an otherwise slightly dour character. I originally considered using a version of this for Harrier's sheet; I think it would work just fine for an experienced soldier with a similar powerset. In the Freedom City universe, the alien virus that mutated the General was probably a Grue innovation: perhaps he was engaged in fighting them during one of their recent invasions and was so terribly injured by their virus his form was 'frozen' in an entirely new one. This guy makes a fine old super-soldier and agent, though you'll have to explain why he's still got the staff if he's no longer working for his former masters? (It's fine if he stole it, but only if the people he was once working for were some pretty bad dudes!) The Blessed With Suck guy cursed with hideous powers is a fine old trope in superhero comics, though the General is a bit unusual in that he had his nation to back him up in a crisis. He'd work fine as an all-American guy too, if you want to go that route.
Avenger Assembled Posted July 11, 2011 Author Posted July 11, 2011 Immortal Man In Darkness Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail. -Thomas Jefferson PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 32 pp STR 34 [18] (+12/+4) DEX 14 (+2) CON 26 [18] (+8/+4) INT 14 (+2) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (-2 Growth, +4 Unarmed: +8 Unarmed) DEF: +6 (-2 Growth, +2 Dodge, +6/+3 flat-footed) Init: +2 Grapple: +22 Saves: 10 pp TOU +14 (+8 Con, +6 Protection) FORT +10 (+8 Con, +2) REF +6 (+2 Dex, +4) WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4) Skills: 56 r=14 pp Craft (Mechanical) 8 (+10) Knowledge (Technology) 8 (+10) Languages 3 (Cantonese, English, Russian) (Base: Mandarin) Notice 13 (+15) Pilot 8 (+10) Search 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 8 pp Attack Specialization: Unarmed 2 Dodge Focus 2 Fearless Move-By Action Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (radio) Powers: 65 pp Device 16 (Dragonwing) (Hard to Lose) (PF: Restricted [Pilot +8 ranks] [65 pp] Damage 10 (Extra: Targeted Area [Cone]) (PFs: Accurate 3, Homing 2 (x10), Variable Descriptor 2 [any technological]) [17] 'weapons array' Growth 8 (Extra: Duration [Permanent]) (Huge size) (PF: Innate) [25] (-2 ATK/DEF, +8 Grapple, -8 Stealth, +4 Intimidate, 16 ft tall, 4K-32K lbs, 15 ft space, 10 ft reach, x2 carrying capacity) Flight 5 (250 MPH) [Dynamic] [10+1+2=13] DAP: Super-Strength 5 (Heavy Load: 720 tons) Immunity 9 (Life Support) [9] Impervious TOU 10 [10+1=11] AP: Insubstantial 2 (gaseous) Protection 6 [6] Super-Senses 1 (Radio) [1] Drawbacks: No Hands while using suit [-2 pp] Drawback: (-3 pp) Normal ID (say activation code) (free action) (-3 pp) costs abilities 32 + combat 24 + saves 10 + skills 14/56 + feats 8 + powers 65 - drawback 3 = 150 pts ------- Design Notes: Okay, after a lot of finessing, here's Immortal-Man-in-Darkness, one of the more challenging constructions of the Great Ten. The Immortal-Man-in-Darkness is one of a series of volunteer Chinese Air Force pilots who wear an experimental battlesuit made of alien technology. While in that suit, they can transform themselves into the Dragonwing, the most powerful and advanced fighter jet in the world! The secret of the IMD, of course, is that the Immortal part is something of a wry jest: the suit actually kills the pilot, each use taking a year off their life until finally the flesh dissolves from their very bones thanks to the alien fluid required to bond to the craft. But each time someone else steps up to fly the Dragonwing, young pilot after pilot willing to die If it means flying the finest aircraft ever made in the service of their country. I've tried to build IMD as a fighter jet superhero, giving him most of the abilities you'd expect and that he's described as having in the comics. I kludged a bit with his weapons array a bit, and for good reason: it is really, really tough to build a character with Growth and a ranged attack, since they are actually significantly impeded by Growth thanks to its attack penalties and lack of a boost to things like Blast. (I guess you could make a giant with a discus or something, but that's not this build!) As it is, he should be able to drop things like missiles, lasers, and other kinds of bombardment in the area in front of him without too much worry. In combat he's probably best off ramming his enemies with his impervious hide, doing tremendous damage even given his lack of hands. With Takedown Attack and his speed, he shouldn't have any trouble clearing the skies of Nazi fighter planes, ravening demon-birds, or whatever it is you're putting him up against: note that he doesn't have the usual drawbacks of a jet fighter, and can hover, fly VTOL, and generally do all the other things that comic book superheroes do with their flight. He might have trouble grabbing onto things since he's got no hands, but he can always push falling planes back into the sky or something. In our game, you're probably best off making his suit be Grue in origin, the result of Chinese experimental technology. In fact, Grue technology is probably not a bad expy for Durlan technology in Freedom City, given how feared they are and how many powerful, but dangerous abilities you can get from just a little experimentation. That said, playing this as a guy bonded to a Grue supersuit would be pretty fun! (It would explain the shapeshifting too.) Maybe he's a super-soldier empowered by illicit technology, or maybe he's a pilot who was a victim of Grue experimentation during the last invasion. Note that I didn't represent "kills you" on his sheet; that's at best a Complication, and really awfully dark for here. Throw in something about the usage of the suit being hazardous to his health and how he's working on that, and you're good.
Avenger Assembled Posted July 11, 2011 Author Posted July 11, 2011 Thundermind All wrong-doing arises because of mind. If mind is transformed can wrong-doing remain? -Buddha PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 22 pp STR 30 [14] (+10/+2) DEX 12 (+2) CON 16 (+3) INT 12 (+1) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Telekinesis/Unarmed) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +3 Grapple: +8/+19/+20 Saves: 17 pp TOU +10 (+3 Con, +7 Protection) FORT +7 (+3 Con, +4) REF +6 (+1 Dex, +5) WILL +10 (+2 Wis, +8) Skills: 48 r=12 pp Concentration 8 (+10) Diplomacy 4 (+6) Knowledge: History 4 (+5) Knowledge: Theology and Philosophy 4 (+5) Languages 4 (Cantonese, English, Japanese, Russian) (Base: Mandarin) Notice 4 (+6) Search 4 (+5) Sense Motive 4 (+5) Feats: 16 pp All-Out Attack Attack Specialization: Unarmed 2 Benefit (Hey, It's Thundermind!) Challenge (Lip-Reading) Dodge Focus 4 Fearless Interpose Move-By Action Power Attack Takedown Attack Ultimate Save (Will) Uncanny Dodge (mental) Powers: 62 pp Flight 2 (25 MPH) [4 pp] Impervious TOU 10 [10 pp] Protection 7 [7 pp] Sutra Array [22+7=29 pp] Enhanced STR 16 and Super-Strength 3 (Heavy Load: 6 tons) AP: Communication 6 (20 miles) (mental) (Extras: Area, Two-Way) (PFs: Rapid 2 (100), Selective, Subtle) AP: Concealment 10 (all senses) (Extra: Affects Others) (Flaw: Phantasm) (PFs: Progression 2 [5 others]) AP: ESP 6 (20 miles) (visual) (Extra: Simultaneous) (PFs: Rapid 3 (1k), Subtle) AP: Illusion 6 (visual and auditory) (PFs: Precise, Progression 3 [25 ft]) AP: Mental Blast 10 (Flaws: Unreliable 2 [1 use a day]) (PFs: Incurable, Reversible) AP: Mind Reading 10 (Extra: Area [burst], Selective) (Flaws: Duration [instant]) (PFs: Insidious, Subtle) AP: Telekinesis 10 (Heavy Load: 12 tons) (PFs: Accurate 2) Teleport 6 (600 ft/20 miles) [12 pp] Drawbacks: (3 pp) Normal ID (say magic sutra) (free action) costs abilities 22 + combat 24 + saves 17 + skills 12/48 + feats 16 + powers 62 -drawbacks 3= 150 pts --------- Design Notes: For my last Great Ten build, here's Thundermind, the most beloved superhero in the DCU's Communist China. Thundermind is pretty explicitly the Chinese Superman: he's got lots and lots of powers, he's got a nerdy secret ID (as a public school history teacher), he's got a crush on a lovely lady who thinks his secret ID is the best ever, and he's the man everybody loves. That's what his benefit is for: treat it as basically a version of Connected. He's the guy everybody loves and wants to be like, and something of the conscience of his own team. He's no alien from another planet, though; he's basically a Buddhist Captain Marvel in his origins, having learned the secret magic phrase that unlocked the mystic powers of his pure soul. I was something at a loss about how to build his powers till I decided to just take the guy and do some heavy arraying: most of his powers are tied up in a formidable mental array with a mystic theme. He's likable, he can take a hit, and he can do a hell of a lot of things for your team. (I figure, BTW, that his Illusion is what lets him do ridiculous-looking things without power-stunting all the time.) I figure a typical day for Thundermind involves him flying around the city while scanning it with his ESP. (With Simultaneous, he can do that and not lose track of where he himself is.) If he sees something bad going on, he'll teleport over there and make with the Blow of a Thousand Buddhas or smacking people around telekinetically. If need be, he'll hit them with a powerful mental blow as a last resort; it disturbs his chakras, though, so he can only use it once a day. This lets him look like he has a lot of abilities, and indeed he does, without actually going ridiculously overcost. His Mind Reading has the Area extra to represent opening his mind to all the universe; note that his superiors may not be aware of just how much Thundermind knows, and just how many minds he's been inside over the years. He's Buddhist magical Superman; what's not to like? OK, you could surely flavor him with the enlightened texts of any other major religion, even Christianity or Islam! He could go without the religious symbolism entirely, and just be a powerful psychic paragon. Paragon-types like Thundermind, beloved and respected by the people, have a lot of complications: This is the sort of guy who should never take the easy way out. Whatever team he's on, he should always be their compass, their center: he can't actually make the Great Ten better people, (well, maybe he could with Mental Transform), but he can show them the right road and trust that they will eventually follow him. That applies to whatever team he's on, and whatever source you choose to give him (enlightenment, patriotism, corn-fed Kansas upbringing) for those strong values: wherever he's from, he's there to catch the others when they fall.
Avenger Assembled Posted July 11, 2011 Author Posted July 11, 2011 Agent Orange "Mine! Mine! Mine!"-Seagulls, Finding Nemo Abilities: 20 pp STR 14 (+2) DEX 16 (+3) CON 16 (+3) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Melee) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +3 Grapple: +12 Saves: 12 pp TOU +10 (+3 Con, +7 Protection) FORT +5 (+3 Con, +2) REF +5 (+3 Dex, +2) WILL +10 (+2 Wis, +8) Skills: 52 r=13 pp Concentration 10 (+10) Craft (Mechanical) 5 (+5) Gather Information 5 (+5) Knowledge: Technology 5 (+5) Notice 8 (+10) Pilot 2 (+5) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Stealth 4 (+7) Feats: 11 pp Attack Focus: Melee (4) Dodge Focus (4) Power Attack, Takedown Attack, Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 74 pp Device 18 (Agent Orange Suit) (Hard to Lose) (PFs: Restricted 2) [74 pp] Concealment 2 (normal vision) (Flaw: Blending) (PF: Close Range) [3 pp] Enhanced Feat 1 (Well-Informed) [1 pp] Flight 2 (25 MPH) [4 pp] Immunity 4 (disease, poison, suffocation) [4 pp] Mimic 10 (all powers at once) (Extra: Range [Perception]) [60 pp] Protection 7 [7 pp] Super-Senses 1 (Radio) [1 pp] Drawbacks: -4 pp Normal ID (full round action to don suit) [-4 pp] costs abilities 20 + combat 24 + saves 12 + skills 13/52 + feats 11 + powers 74 -drawbacks 4= 150 pts -------- Design Notes: Here’s Agent Orange, based on the general concept of the DC Universe’s Orange Lanterns. My general idea here is that Agent Orange is a battlesuit designed to fight supercriminals. Using his stealthy armor, he flies up close and copies bad guys, then shifts into combat mode and goes to town. (Note that he can copy any superhuman he sees, but the stealth mode lets him study his targets and decide which would be the most useful to copy.) Inside his armor, he’s got 50 pp to reallocate however he likes and can handle just about any situation, assuming there’s somebody around for him to copy. He meets his PL 10 defensive caps in the suit, but he needs to use his Mimic power to hit his caps offensively. He’s an OK fighter for someone with such a low PL outside of his suit, furthering my theory that he’s military or police personnel. He can only mimic one target at a time and he loses his allocation if he’s stunned or knocked out, but he doesn’t acquire his targets drawbacks or flaws in the process. He’s a very powerful character! He doesn’t have a fully sealed environment as a default, but he’s got some protection against the hazards of the outside. Note that Mimicing doesn’t actually remove the powers of the target, and it’ll probably annoy them enough that you’ll be next on the target list! If you’re using this guy as an NPC (he’d make a great street thug flying around in power armor he stole), I’d change his Mimic power as follows: add the Saving Throw Required flaw to his Mimic (probably Will) as well as the Tainted flaw. That means targeted people (i.e., mostly likely PCs) get a Will save to resist having their powers copies, and that the suit wearer acquires all the problems that go with their powers too. (i.e., the guy Mimicing Superman with Tainted had better not hang out around Kryptonite Man...) That’ll let you afford extras like Progression (letting you copy multiple people simultaneously), Continuous (so he keeps his copied powers even while sleeping), Stacking (so multiple stolen powers do stack), and many other cool stuff depending on your preference. I left those off here just for game balance purposes and to make life easier for the player: he can't push his powers too far, but what he does have is nice and reliable when he needs it.. I figure his Enhanced Well-Informed represents some sort of Wikipedia function built into the suit (it also gives him a shot at knowing the powers he can get from particular bad guys even if they haven’t demonstrated them yet), and of course I like to give most powersuits at least some kind of radio function. He’s got the skills to be a melee fighter, but you could easily copy enough to make him a tremendously powerful ranged attacker too. Let the GM decide exactly how much control you have over allocating your Mimic points. He’s got just enough skills to maintain the suit if it breaks down, but he’s not the builder by any stretch of the imagination. If he’s not a government agent, maybe he’s a former supervillain turned straight, or someone who’s inherited their suit from someone else and decided to go hero. Perhaps he was the test pilot for a bad guy’s new project, or an evil military project, and he’s decided to go on the lam with his fine new toy!
Avenger Assembled Posted July 12, 2011 Author Posted July 12, 2011 Winterfire “Ice ice baby...†PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 34 pp STR 20 (+5) DEX 14 (+2) CON 20 (+5) INT 12 (+1) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 28 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Cold Control/Unarmed) DEF: +12 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +2 Grapple: +15 Saves: 12 pp TOU +8 (+5 Con, +3 Protection) FORT +7 (+5 Con, +2) REF +7 (+2 Dex, +5) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 40 r=10 pp Concentration 5 (+7) Intimidate 8 (+10) Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 4 (+5) Knowledge (Physical Sciences) 4 (+5) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Survival 3 (+5) Feats: 12 pp Attack Specialization: Unarmed 2 Dodge Focus 4 Move-By Action Power Attack Precise Shot Startle Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 52 pp Cold Control Array [22+4=26 pp] Frozen Aura 5 (PFs: Incurable, Precise) 'winterfire' AP: Damage 10 (Extra: Ranged) (PFs: Accurate 2) 'frozen blast' AP: Damage 10 (Extra: Area [Cone]) (PFs: Progression on Area 2) 'ice breath' AP: Obscure 10 (1 mile) (visual and auditory) (Extra: Independent) (Flaw: Range [Touch]) (PFs: Slow Fade 2 [5 minutes]) 'snowstorm' AP: Snare 10 (PFs: Accurate 2) 'ice cage' Flight 3 (50 MPH) [6 pp] Immunity 15 (all cold effects, fire damage) [15 pp] Protection 3 [3 pp] Super-Senses 2 (Infravision, Tracking (visual) [quarter-speed] [2 pp] costs abilities 34 + combat 28 + saves 12 + skills 10/40 + feats 12 + powers 52 = 150 pts ------------- Design Notes: Here's my build for Winterfire, an ice and cold controller based on the look of White Lantern Firestorm. My general idea is that Winterfire is basically a living dire snowstorm, capable of firing blasts of cold and encasing enemies in ice, or just surrounding his body with cold so profound he freezes anything he touches. He's either some guy possessed by the elemental spirit of winter (like happens) or a hapless research scientist whose accidental exposure to ice-nine transformed him into an ice elemental. He's a very powerful cold controller, shrugging off all cold-based effects and even fire! He's so cold, he can't burn from even the hottest flames! He can also track people by their heat signatures, see by heat, and get around by means of convection-powered flight. He's pretty scary; I mean just look at him! Man's a pretty tough customer. He's got just a little Survival to represent a guy who can get along just fine in Arctic conditions. Note that he can see through his own Obscure since it has the cold descriptor, but he can't see through typical weather effects that may be more broadly based. He has some weaknesses in other areas too; He'll have to powerstunt while fighting other cold controllers, since all his damage has the cold descriptor. One good way to do that is streams of icicles: it doesn't matter if you can shrug off the cold if you get smacked in the face by a big heavy icicle. Note that while he's immune to fire _damage_ (no doubt to the horror of your local Johnny Storm expy), he's not immune to fire effects: a savvy heat controller will cook him with a Ranged Stun or blind him with a fireball, and go from there against an opponent who may have thought he was invincible earlier. He's also not bulletproof, though he is tougher than a normal human being. Remember that Damage Auras do stack with Unarmed Damage, so he's doing a whopping +10 damage with his unarmed strikes when he punches people with his Aura up: I'd assume that the visual effects of that power are on all the time, but he can only actually do damage with it while punching. He's good in melee and ranged combat, either wading in with frozen punches or hanging back and tossing iceballs at people. If you want to make this an international hero, I think he'd work just fine as the champion of Russia: call him General Winter, like the Sentinel's antagonist in Silver Age Sentinels! You could also make this Antarctica's native superhero: perhaps he was a scientist posted to one of the stations there who saw his mutation emerge at a very good time, or perhaps he got lost in a storm one day and made contact with a _thing_ that lives in the ice and cold that took a liking to him...
Avenger Assembled Posted July 13, 2011 Author Posted July 13, 2011 Galatea "It is the absolutism of theism, its pernicious influence upon humanity, its paralyzing effect upon thought and action, which Atheism is fighting with all its power." -Emma Goldman PL: 10 (150) Abilities: -4 pp STR 30 (+10) DEX 14 (+2) CON n/a (-) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 20 pp ATK: +5 DEF: +5 (+2 flat-footed) Init: +2 Grapple: +17 Saves: 9 pp TOU +15 (+3 Density, +12 Protection) FORT n/a REF +5 (+2 Dex, +3) WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6) Skills: 40 r=10 pp Intimidate 10 (+10) Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 5 (+5) Knowledge (History) 5 (+5) Languages 4 (English, French, Hebrew, Latin) (Base: Greek) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 6 pp All-Out Attack Fearless, Power Attack, Startle, Takedown Attack, Uncanny Dodge (Mental) Powers: 101 pp Density 7 (Extra: Duration (Permanent) [+0]) (PFs: Innate, Subtle) [23 pp] -Enhanced STR 14, Impervious TOU 3, Immovable 2, Super-Strength 2, Mass x6 [weighs about 900 lbs] Device 4 (Ring of Hades) (Hard to Lose) (PFs: Indestructible, Restricted [unliving]) [18 pp] -Enhanced Feat 4 (Quick Change [2], Ultimate Save [Toughness]) [3] -Flight 1 (10 MPH) (PF: Move-By Action) [3] -Impervious TOU 7 [7] -Strike 5 (PFs: Extended Reach, Mighty) [7] Immunity 50 (Fortitude Saves, Magical Effects; Flaw: Limited [half effect for magical effect immunity]) [40 pp] Protection 12 [12 pp] Regeneration 6 (+0 Recovery Bonus, Resurrection 1/week) (PFs: Persistent, Regrowth) [8 pp] costs abilities -4 + combat 20 + saves 9 + skills 10/40 + feats 6 + powers 101 = 150 pts ----------- Design Notes: Here's a build for Galatea, a character based on Greek mythology. My idea is this: on Pygmalion's death of old age, Galatea roamed all of Greece, looking for a way to gain mortality and join her lover in the afterlife. After years of wandering and adventuring, she finally fell in with Hades. He couldn't change her condition, or so he said, but he could let her join Pygmalion in the Elysian Fields while still 'living' in her body of living marble. And she did, and was happy for a while, but she wasn't a living soul and could never fully appreciate the eternal bliss of the Fields. She left Pygmalion to his bliss, and roamed the Underworld. Sensing her dissatisfaction, Hades came to her again and told her how terrible it was the gods had made her neither alive or dead, denied eternal peace with her lover thanks to Aphrodite's whims. Perhaps she could help him gain more power on Olympus, so that one day he could have the power of Zeus? And so she did, becoming his vassal and a captain in his armies, and warred against the other Olympians, battling the tyrannical gods whose whims could make and break mortal lives with a thought. When the gods retreated, she went with them, and settled in the Underworld as Hades' knight and warrior; battling the fiends below, children of the Christian god, who sought to take Hades' realm away from him, even as she battled on the slopes of Olympus against the other gods. As the centuries went by, she visited Pygmalion less and less, all the while promising herself that one day they might yet be together again. Finally, some decades ago, when Hades came to Earth, she came with him as a captain in his armies, only to see how much Hades had changed in his eons below, or worse, how much and how often she'd been lying to her: his ambitions to overthrow Zeus were simple greed, his war with Daedalus, simple pettiness. Rejecting her old alliances, she stole a ring from Hades' throne and escaped his service, becoming a roaming warrior and hero in the modern era. She still hates the Olympians for their petty cruelty, but has expanded her focus to all the pagan gods: no more will men and women be subject to the tyranny of others. She knows Pygmalion is safe in his bliss, where even the gods can't touch him, and she's glad of that. She's not the woman who loved him anymore. Of her old contemporaries: she remembers Medea's cruel laughter ages ago when she begged for the sorceress's help in becoming human, and the curse she placed on her that it took years to lift. That Medea hasn't changed, she has no surprise. She and Daedalus are become new allies these days, both glad to have someone around who remembers the old days. As for she and Taurus, the Great Bull knows her old and has fought before her in more than one battle. He actually feels bad for what's necessary. He will make sure that her death is as painless and swift as he can arrange. For her own part, should Galatea encounter Taurus in battle, she will smile a grim acknowledgement to her old ally and fight him to the death. She doesn't understand Talos at all, and was more than a little freaked out when he made a robot with her name. Doesn't he understand the problem was always with the gods, never with men? OK, so this is an animate marble statue wearing a necromantic power ring from the finger of Hades himself. She can lift about three tons thanks to her Density. She's not at war against _religion_, just the petty gods and wicked men who would play with men's lives like wanton boys play with flies. She's a magic robot _from Hell_, and is pretty badass with her massive tradeoffs: I figure she all-out power-attacks every time with her Hades-forged ax, trusting that her massive TOU and Impervious will let her shrug off almost any attack. It and her razored scourge are considered part of the ring's effect, so she can't lose her weapons or armor while wearing the ring. She's absolutely murder versus your typical evil sorceror who may not think to throw things at her telekinetically, her divinely empowered body giving her a tremendous resistance to mortal magic. She's pretty tough, her big weakness being a lack of ranged attack, but other than that she's quite thoroughly badass. If you don't like her as a hero, she makes a damn fine captain in the armies of Hades: a nigh-invincible warrior who can be defeated but who will never ever quit.
Avenger Assembled Posted July 13, 2011 Author Posted July 13, 2011 Opal II "I'm in trouble now."-Pink PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 24 pp STR 14 (+2) DEX 18 (+4) CON 14 (+2) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 28 pp ATK: +6 (+12 ranged) DEF: +12 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +8 Grapple: +20 Saves: 14 pp TOU: +8 (+2 Con, +6 Protection) FORT: +6 (+2 Con, +4) REF: +8 (+4 Dex, +4) WILL: +8 (+2 Wis, +6) Skills: 52 r=13 pp Acrobatics 11 (+15) Bluff 8 (+10) Concentration 5 (+7) Disable Device 10 (+10) Notice 4 (+6) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Stealth 6 (+10) Feats: 18 pp Acrobatic Bluff All-Out Attack Attack Focus: Ranged 6 Challenge (Fast Acrobatic Bluff) Dodge Focus 4 Evasion Improved Initiative Move-By Action Power Attack Uncanny Dodge (mental) Powers: 50 pp Enhanced Feats 3 (Environmental Adaptation [underwater], Quick Change 2) [3] Flight 3 (50 MPH) [6] Immunity 9 (Life Support) [9] Protection 6 [6] Telekinesis 8 (Heavy Load: 3 tons) (Extra: Damaging) (PFs: Precise [2]) [26] costs abilities 24 + combat 28 + saves 14 + skills 14/56 + feats 18 + powers 50 = 150 pts ------ Design Notes: Here’s a build for an Opal legacy; Opal being the Golden Age Star Sapphire expy of the Freedom City setting. Karen Farrell’s addiction to cocaine cost her her college scholarship, her relationship with her family, and most of her self-respect. A court-ordered rehab program got her off drugs, but her criminal record and lack of education kept her from working all but the most menial jobs. She hated that life, she hated almost as much as she hated her lingering desire to have some more cocaine. When Scrounge, aka Eugene Jergens, broke into the private storage facility whose floors she was mopping, she didn’t just point him to the storage locker full of seized mad science gear left over from the 1970s: she asked if she could join him. Flattered at the idea of having a sidekick, he agreed, and the two became partners, then on-again off-again lovers, for several long, very enjoyable months. Then the crisis came: their break-in at an abandoned Liberty League storage facility triggered an explosion amid long-neglected super-gear. Scrouge escaped unhurt; Karen, closer to the blast, was hospitalized with fragments of steel, wood, and other things embedded in her flesh. (Eugene made sure she got safely to the hospital on his own, then scarpered: while not a monster, he’s no hero!) Karen awoke in the hospital to find the doctors had managed to take out most of the debris lodged in her body, but not the shimmering purple jewel that had lodged itself just under the skin of her forehead. Still injured, she was in the middle of spinning a fantastic story about how she’d been injured when suddenly the Crime League attacked to kidnap her. When she fought back, she found herself with new strength and power: she blasted Wildcard through the wall and threw a car at Orion, and held them both off until Captain Thunder arrived. Acclaimed as a hero, she decided she liked the feeling, and confessed her secret to the commander of the Freedom League. It turned out the jewel lodged in her body was a fragment of the Eye of Argon, the mystic Atlantean jewel that had corrupted and empowered the Golden Age super-crook Opal. But while the first Opal had been a goody-two-shoes corrupted by power, her successor was a former addict who knew what it was like to control her appetites and impulses. Sentenced to community service for her crimes, Karen has just completed her service with Project Freedom and hopes to have a clean record from now on. She makes it a point to avoid any police reports about her former boyfriend. Okay, so the idea here was to make a fast, acrobatic blaster with some thief skills: I think I succeeded pretty well. Damaging Telekinesis is a very handy power if you can afford it; she’s got the precision to do very fine tasks with her TK as well as some solid damage with it: her high Bluff and Acrobatic Bluff makes it very easy for her to catch bad guys flat-footed and lay them out. If you have damaging TK, you really never need any kind of regular ranged damage. You can fluff it as energy constructs if you want her to be a little Green Lanterny. She’s a former bad guy, but luckily her shiny new costume will help keep that a complication for her rather than a more serious complication for her. I threw in the Underwater stuff as a nod to the Eye of Argon’s origins: perhaps she decides to do some undersea adventures alongside Atlanteans! OTOH, she might get one in her rogue’s gallery, since surely someone down there will be bigoted enough to want their artifact out of the hands of a surface-dweller, heroic or otherwise. She works just fine as an antagonist too, if you want to say she’s used the jewel to carry out bigger and better crimes, she makes a sly, lovely jewel thief who’s not nearly as groundbound as her more feline sisters.
Avenger Assembled Posted July 14, 2011 Author Posted July 14, 2011 Crowsbane "Maybe I'm brainless, maybe I'm wise..." -Wicked PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 16 pp STR 20 (+5) DEX 16 (+3) CON n/a (-) INT 12 (+1) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 20 pp ATK: +4 (+6 Ranged, +10 Crows) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +7 Grapple: +11 Saves: 11 pp TOU +10 (+6 Protection, +4 Ring) FORT n/a REF +8 (+3 Dex, +5) WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 40 r=10 pp Bluff 8 (+10) Disguise 0 (+2/+37) Intimidate 4 (+6) Knowledge: Arcane Lore 4 (+5) Notice 8 (+10) Perform (Dance) 4 (+6) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 13 pp All-Out Attack Attack Focus: Ranged 2 Dodge Focus 4 Evasion Improved Initiative Move-By Action Power Attack Precise Shot Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 84 pp Device 9 (Crowsbane Ring) (PFs: Restricted 2) [38 pp] -Blast 10 (PFs: Accurate 2, Variable Descriptor 2 [any magic]) [24+1=25] -AP: Morph 7 (any humanoid) (Extra: Continuous) (PFs: Covers Scent, Precise, Second Chance [Disguise]) -Impervious TOU 9 [9] -Flight 1 (10 MPH) [2] -Protection 4 (PF: Subtle) [5] -Buys Off Vulnerability [4] Immunity 32 (Critical Hits, Fortitude saves) [32 pp] Protection 6 [6 pp] Regeneration 6 (Recovery Bonus +0 [5], Resurrection 1/week) (PFs: Persistent, Regrowth) [8 pp] Drawbacks: -4 pp Vulnerable (Fire) (Common, Major) (4 pp) costs abilities 16 + combat 20 + saves 11 + skills 10/40 + feats 13 + powers 84 -drawbacks 4= 150 pts -------------- Design Notes: In the wake of their escape to the Kingdom of Ix, Elphaba and Fiyero were left with a pretty thorny problem. What to do now that Fiyero had been transformed into a man of straw? Luckily, she had access to magical artifacts besides the Grimmie that she'd seen fall into Glinda's hands, so Elphaba bestowed upon her lover the magical ring of Crowsbane: empowering him to once again assume the guise of a mortal man. But there was trouble in Ix just as there'd been trouble in Oz; clockwork men on the loose with dire intentions for Munckin and man alike, patchwork girls stealing priceless jewels, and Fiyero knew he couldn't rest easy. While Elphaba took to the skies as a cunningly-disguised new witch in town, Fiyero used his magic ring to become Crowsbane! Now Oz has two new superheroes located just along its borders, heroes who keep safe a world that would fear and hate them if only they knew who they truly were. Okay, it's the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz (from the Wicked musical continuity, not the novels or the Garland movie) as a superhero with a power ring. I had to downplay some of the abilities we see in the Garland movie a bit, he could use some more Regeneration (with Plant Matter as a Source) and more Anatomic Separation for that. Beyond the specifics, though, I think you'll find this is a convincing version of an animate man made of straw as a superhero: he's got no inner parts, he's vulnerable to fire, but at the same time he doesn't age. His power ring lets him fly, blast people with golden yellow magic (I figure he primarily uses energy constructs like the crows you see him surrounded with above), disguise himself as a human being (though not at the same time as his blasts) and makes him tough enough to fight opponents at his PL. (It also makes him fireproof, all the better!) He's reasonably dexterous, though he could probably use more points if you want him to dance around like the late Ray Bolger. He's surprisingly charismatic for a man made of straw, though like his musical inspiration he's not much for straight-talking when there's sneaking and scheming (in a nice way) to do. If you don't want to make this Oz's native superhero, I could easily see this build as your garden-variety scarecrow with a power ring: Perhaps a magic artifact animated a once-mindless construct to fight bad guys? (You could sell it in a meta-sense as a Golden Age comic book company trying to cash in on the popularity of both the Wizard of Oz and National's Green Lantern). Or perhaps it's a mortal man cast into a straw-stuffed body, looking to gain his humanity again!
Avenger Assembled Posted July 15, 2011 Author Posted July 15, 2011 Juche "A man of courage is also full of faith. "-Cicero PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 30 pp STR 20 (+5) DEX 20 (+5) CON 20 (+5) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 12 (+1) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+15 melee) DEF: +13 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +9 Grapple: +20 Saves: 9 pp TOU +7 (+5 Con, +2 Protection) FORT +7 (+5 Con, +2) REF +7 (+5 Dex, +2) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 40 r=10 pp Diplomacy 9 (+10) Knowledge (Life Sciences) 5 (+5) Medicine 8 (+10) Languages 2 (Chinese, English) (Base: Korean) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 19 pp Attack Focus: Melee 7, Dodge Focus 5, Fearless, Interpose, Power Attack, Stunning Attack, Takedown Attack, Ultimate Save (Will), Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 50 pp Immunity 6 (aging, disease, poison, starvation and thirst, suffocation) [6 pp] Juche Array [21+2=23 pp] Emotion Control 10 (PF: Subtle) AP: Healing 5 (Extras: Action [standard], Total) (PF: Stabilize) AP: Teleport 6 (600 ft/20 miles) (Extra: Accurate) (PFs: Easy, Progression [250 lbs], Turnabout) 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] Protection 2 [2 pp] Regeneration 1 (Resurrection 1/week) [1 pp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] costs abilities 30 + combat 32 + saves 9 + skills 10/40 + feats 19 + powers 50 = 150 pts ------------ Design Notes: Pak Chul used to be a patriot. The only child of a high-ranking general in the army of the DPRK, aka North Korea, Chul grew up in relative luxury and raised on the same propaganda as his fellows. All that was good in North Korea came from the Leader, all that was bad came from the imperialists to the South and particularly the evil Americans. Like many a North Korean schoolboy, he dreamed of one day reuniting the Koreas under the leadership of Comrade Kim. He joined the Army to accomplish that goal, earning an assignment to the hospital corps thanks to his hard work and dedication. What he saw in the military began to make him uneasy: it soon became clear that his own luxurious upbringing had been a product of his father's corruption and powerful business ties that had allowed so many goods from China and elsewhere to flow through his son's hands. But Pak said nothing; he was a patriot, he was a young officer, and he certainly had no wish to bring his family into jeopardy! He was just 22 when his powers manifested during the Mass Games in the most spectacular way possible: the moment where the young officer rushed off the stage during a martial arts demonstration to tend to the elderly dignitary who'd just suffered a massive heart attack, his hands glowing with power as he brought the man back to life, became one of the few unscripted moments in North Korean television history. A lesser man might have died for that, for taking the glory away from Comrade Kim, but General Chul's son was well-placed to take advantage of the Great Leader's generosity. He said all the right things at the right time, that he'd gained his powers through strict reliance on the North Korean philosophy of juche, that he owed it all to the leadership of Comrade Kim, and that it was his greatest wish to use his abilities in the service of the workers and peasants of the Democratic Republic of North Korea! So Pak became Juche, the living embodiment of the North Korean revolution, the blue colors that were a necessary display of his powers becoming a symbol of the national unity of the people of Korea. (Well, of the northern part, anyway). He was given a huge apartment in Pyongyang, his own headquarters and personal staff, and all the luxuries and lovely women that any young man could dream of. And he even enjoyed that, for a while. But his powers have taken him all over the countryside healing the sick and the old, at least the powerful sick and old, and slowly he has begun to realize the monster he serves and the poverty of the nation where he lives. He has teleported across the border a few times to China and South Korea, and the hard reality of life outside his homeland (i.e., that it is so much better than how his own people live) has begun to tell on him. But what can he do? The proud young warrior has seen enough human suffering into an older, wiser man: he is no fighter to take on a head of state and an army of soldiers, and the violence that a revolution will bring horrifies him. But he has seen so many suffering already, and he knows so many more suffer yet. So he heals the sick and comforts the afflicted, hoping that perhaps this time, he can heal the guilt in his own soul for the greater sickness in his country he cannot cure. OK, here's my attempt at a Blue Lantern type, under the theory that his powers are aimed at making things better for others. Even bystanders will likely make their recovery checks when he uses his healing on them: after all, he'll just spend an HP on their behalf to make it work! His powers keep him healthy and strong even as he does the same for others, letting him continue to tirelessly work to make the world better for his fellow man. I figure he's probably a mutant given his descriptors and fairly broad powers, but I could just as easily see him as somehow magically or divinely empowered. (He doesn't believe in either of the latter two, though!) Heck, maybe his handlers are right for once and he really _did_ get his powers through North Korean Stalinist philosophy! Too bad that experiment really doesn't work for others. He makes a fine tragic antagonist for an international supers game, or possibly a player character if you assume he has successfully made an escape from his handlers! His biggest worry in a Freedom City game is likely to be Dr. Sin, who no doubt has his own plans for North Korea and has no plans to see any troublesome super intervene.
Avenger Assembled Posted July 15, 2011 Author Posted July 15, 2011 Aliens: Cuckoos Once among the most terrifying races in the cosmos, the Cuckoos are almost all gone now. Their homeworld is so much irradiated ash, their colonies either destroyed or in the hands of vengeful local inhabitants who have done their best to blot the memory of their ancient conquerors from history. But once, in an age when humans were first learning to smith iron, the Cuckoos were the terror that kept Lor generals and the Meta-Mind's sages awake at night. From their homeworld, a single planet orbiting a lonely yellow dwarf (which was itself orbiting a larger blue star) just outside the accretion disk of the great black hole Cygnus X-1 some 6000 light years from Earth, the Cuckoos in the space of a few centuries began a wave of conquest that saw a dozen worlds fall beneath their heel. And they did it all with twenty ships. They needed no more. The story began thousands of years ago. When they learned the truth about the universe, that the Eye of God, which so many generations had grown up revering, was simply a terrible source of cosmic destruction that would in a few millennia pull their planet to so many fragments, the high priests of the Cuckoo conceived a dangerous plot. Though their proximity to Cygnus had kept them from advancing space travel, they had mastered other sciences as well: biological sciences so they could survive beneath the punishing X-rays of the Eye and its supergiant blue companion, subspace sciences that had given them the power to study a galaxy to which they were all but invisible, and the sciences of the mind and body. They would build teaching machines and body-sculpting machines and miniaturize them, placing them in small rockets that would slip through even an advanced world's defenses, and then fire them through the accretion disk of the eye into the X-ray jets that would carry them throughout the galaxy. From there, the plan was simple: the rockets would seek out the radio traffic of inhabited worlds and crashland in some remote area, where the sensors inside would begin their work: they would shape the cargo aboard: an unhatched Cuckoo child, and shape it in the likeness of the planet's inhabitants but far their superior: stronger, faster, and better than them in every way, and with the innate knowledge of social cues that would make them beloved wherever they went. From there, cunning signals would lure a local to the crash site where they would adopt this impossibly adorable infant, taking advantage of the ancient nurturing instinct subverted by alien powers. And when the child was old enough and their brains able to hold the knowledge, perhaps after they'd had children of their own with the locals, they would seek the ship out and be informed of their true purpose: as conquerors, as rulers, as saviors of their people. Once they had subdued that planet, perhaps with the aid of their children, they would build the great machines that would allow the Cuckoo teleporters to reach them and move colonists there in their tens of thousands. And so they succeeded, again and again, Cuckoos worshipped as gods made flesh on some worlds or feared as conquerors in others, singleton demigods or the slayers of a planet's existing defenders already, until billions lay beneath the heel of their beautiful conquerors from space. Until finally they landed in the Wolf 359 system on a planet populated by Grue Arcane, whose magics and protean nature made them warier than others: they found ship and craft both, and a magical scan revealed a grim threat to the rest of the galaxy. Though the Arcane have little love for other creatures, solid or otherwise, a galaxy under the heel of the Cuckoos could hardly serve their interests. So they came as a great body to the Cygnus system, magically warping their way through the space waves, and there via doughty magics now lost to time, they redirected the expulsion jets of the black hole against the Cuckoo homeworld. Their cities, their people, all that they were, burned to ash in a matter of minutes. Satisfied with their work, the Arcane left the system intact as a warning to the fate of all who dared defy them. Cut off from their homeworld, the various Cuckoo leaders were eventually overthrown by their former slaves, many such revolts aided by ships of the Lor Republic who had only just begun to enter that part of the Galaxy. They died in their numbers, convinced ever of their own goodness, save for a solitary few who had successfully intermarried with and become part of the worlds they had once come to rule. And the Cuckoos seemed to disappear from the galaxy, save as a grim warning in the pages of history. But the story wasn't over yet. Not all Cuckoo colonies fell: some simply closed their systems and hunkered down, waiting for a day of liberation that might never come. The Arcane destroyed the Cuckoo homeworld, but never sought them out: A great many ships launched by the Cuckoo were never heard from again: some perished in the cosmic spaceways, but others continue to drift at low superliminal velocities, waiting for a radio signal from a passing planet to lure them in and begin the cycle all over again. ---- Cuckoo PCs Cuckoo PCs are fast, strong, and powerful, and generally intelligent and charismatic in the bargain. They are almost entirely indistinguishable from humans (and the humans that made up the area where their rocket crashed, at that) save for the deepest scans. Heroic Cuckoos are those who likely were not exposed to the adult 'instructions' aboard their craft: perhaps they simply never sought it out, or perhaps the rocket itself was damaged in the initial crash-landing. They may not even be aware of their alien heritage at all, though a detailed scan by galactic sensors in particular will likely clue them in. While there are perhaps no more than 10,000 Cuckoos alive in the Milky Way today, and those all scattered throughout the stars, should anything bring them together (like the discovery of a Cuckoo infiltrator alive and well on a Class-M world), they would be a formidable threat indeed. Suggested Cuckoo 1 Suggested Cuckoo 2
Avenger Assembled Posted July 16, 2011 Author Posted July 16, 2011 Mystic Ally “Say, you!†PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 12 pp STR 10 (+0) DEX 14 (+2) CON 14 (+2) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Genie Magic) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +2 Grapple: +6/+20 w/TK Saves: 15 pp TOU +10 (+2 Con, +8 Protection) FORT +7 (+2 Con, +5) REF +7 (+2 Dex, +5) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 10 pp=40 r Diplomacy 10 (+10) Gather Information 8 (+8) Languages 2 (Arabic, Ancient Egyptian) (Base: English) Knowledge: Arcane Lore 10 (+10) Knowledge: History 5 (+5) Knowledge: Pop Culture 5 (+5) Knowledge: Theology and Philosophy 10 (+10) Notice 5 (+7/+17) Sense Motive 5 (+7/+17) Feats: 10 pp Fearless Luck 3 Move-By Action Precise Shot Power Attack Ultimate Save (Will) Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Well-Informed Powers: 78 pp Container 13 (Extra: Continuous) (Genie) [78 pp] Enhanced Skills 40 (Knowledge: Arcane Lore 10, Knowledge: Theology and Philosophy 10, Notice 10, Sense Motive 10) [10] Flight 2 (25 MPH) [4] Immunity 9 (Life Support) [9] Magic Array [24+6=30] Blast 10 (PFs: Accurate 2, Improved Crit 2) 'fireballs' AP: Create Object 7 (Extra: Continuous) (PFs: Innate, Precise, Subtle) 'something from nothing' AP: Damage 10 (Extra: Targeted Area [shapeable]) (PFs: Accurate 2, Reverse Progression on Area 2) 'lightning bolts' AP: ESP 6 (20 miles) (visual and auditory) (PFs: Rapidx5 (100k), Subtle) 'searching the city' AP: Move Object 10 (Heavy Load: 12 tons) (PFs: Accurate 2, Precise, Split Attack) 'whirlwinds' AP: Teleport 6 (600 ft/20 miles) (Extra: Accurate) (PFs: Change Velocity, Easy, Progression 3 [1000 lbs], Turnabout) 'mystic passage' AP: Transform 4 (50 lbs) (inanimate to inanimate) (Extra: Duration [Continuous]) (PFs: Extended Reach, Innate, Precise, Subtle) 'shaping the world' Protection 8 [8] 'empowerment' Shield 4 [4] 'interposing' cost abilities 12 + combat 24 + saves 15 + skills 10/40 + feats 10 + powers 78 = 150 pts ---- Design Notes: Here’s my take on the Mystic Ally archetype from Hero High, whose famous comic book examples are Johnny Thunder from the Golden Age and Jakeem Thunder from the present day. (I’m a big fan of this archetype, as you can see from how I play Edge). The idea is that this character, otherwise an ordinary person, can speak a magic word and summon a powerful genie! At his command, the genie can fly him around, blast his enemies, interpose for him in battle, search the city in a flash, or perform many other amazing magical feats. (Sure, he's undercaps with his Transform: it's not an in-combat power!) The genie is also smarter and more observant than he is, able to keep an eye out in bad situations or inform him on magical matters of which he is mostly ignorant. Rather than use the complicated Summon technique, I’ve just gone ahead and given the Ally a Continuous container accessible via a magic word: this lets him keep some abilities going even while sleeping or unconscious, but at a price: his genie doesn’t relate to our world very well and can’t veer from his orders, so if his master goes to sleep suddenly he’ll have some serious issues! He definitely needs his genie to meet his combat caps. While he’s not a bystander without him, he’s in pretty serious jeopardy without him. He’s got decent saves on his own, though, particularly his Will: perhaps that’s what he needs to be the master of a powerful genie! To play this character, you have to be willing to look a little goofy: flying around while being carried, issuing commands to your buddy to blast the bad guys, but that’s part and parcel of life in the comics! This character is generally defined with being not that worldly, but he’s Fearless and he’s got Ultimate Will, so he has a lion’s heart despite his lamb’s head. He’s got Luck maxed for his PL to reflect his flexibility, since his genie should be able to do just about anything if it occurs to him to do it. He’s very much an ordinary person, or at least not a super-person, in the middle of spectacular cosmic situations. The genie’s powers are a bit generic since his buddy isn’t that imaginative: you could tweak that however you want. A lot of genies we’ve met in the Freedom City universe have Luck Control, so if you think you can afford that, go right ahead! I’ve gone with the idea that this is just a college student or window washer with access to tremendous power, but you could tweak the skills a bit: perhaps this is a military officer who became custody of a lovely genie after a launch into space! He’s got OK Diplomacy so he’s a basically personable guy, but one natural way to make him all the more valuable to his team is to kick his Charisma way up and buy him lots of Inspire so he can be the cheerleader and good luck charm that his team deserves. This is a natural for a Golden Age campaign, but I think it works equally well in a Hero High setting these days. Or it could easily be a normal adult hero. You could save some points if you made the Container Sustained, perhaps with the idea that his genie buddy has to go back to his magical or fifth dimensional home when his friend isn’t conscious: that part’s a little tough, though! I went with not having access to his container as a complication, it’s sufficiently an impediment to him that he’d rather have an HP when he can’t use it than some points at character creation. If you don’t want that, though, another way to do it would be a variety of drawbacks, ranging from a Normal ID drawback to a smaller power loss drawback. Personally, I’d be more inclined to go with the first: I’m not a big fan of lots of uses of Power Loss, I think it has the potential to look ugly on the sheet and be a little too points-shaving. Some mechanical stuff would be to give a Limited Concealment so people are tempted to shoot the (effectively invincible) genie, but as it is all of his opponents are canny enough to blast Aladdin rather than the genie. So all in all, this is a good solid character that could fill a lot of niches in your campaign, whatever setting you happen to use. Don’t be afraid to improvise!
Recommended Posts