Critique this! Synth PL 10...

[Supercape]

Ok, I am going to get my silver reward December (unless by some miracle I get it this November), so in preperation for this, I would appreciate some critique of following! I know its a bit premature, but would like some feedback a month in advance so I can get a polished submission in.

Its basically a superstrong grapply tank character with a bit of shape shifting thrown in. Crunch comments appreciated. Also, thoughts on personality / background etc too. Its largely worked out in my head although I suspect like many things personality only really tunes itself once in play.

Anyway:

Player Name: Supercape

Character Name: Synth

Power Level: 10 (150/150PP)

Trade-Offs: None

Unspent Power Points: 0

Progress To Bronze Status: 0/30

In Brief: Synthetic socialist shapeshifter.

Alternate Identity: Various

Identity: Secret

Birthplace: Sweden

Occupation: Odd jobs

Affiliations: None

Family: None

Description:

Age: 1 (DoB: Created 18th August 2010)

Apparent Age: 25

Gender: Female (broadly speaking)

Ethnicity: Caucasian (broadly speaking)

Height: 5’9†(normally)

Weight: 65 Kgs (normally)

Eyes: Blue (often)

Hair: Blonde (often)

Synth can take a variety of forms, but her normal “resting†form is that of a Caucasian woman with Scandinavian / Aryan features. She has an exceptional physique and appearance, both in terms of athleticism and attractiveness. On careful inspection that very “perfection†gives her away (see complication below)

Power Descriptions:

Synth’s are all biological in nature, and relate to her ability to rapidly grow (or shrink) new, designer, cells as she wishes.

History:

Synth was “born†on august 18th 2010, in that the first customised cell was made on this date at a secret research facility in north Sweden. The small team, led by Dr. Ingvar Nyberg, were researching stem cell technology, cybernetics, and artificial biomolecules – the SCAB project. Unbeknownst to the leading researchers there, it had been funded, and was subtly directed, by SHADOW, a way of researching how to produce the perfect “Aaryanâ€.

Fortunately it managed to operate largely independently initially – under Dr Nyberg’s team they managed to create Synth (based partly on some DNA and technology from Superior and the Utopians, although the connection to Synth is now convoluted at best). In one year “she†(her chromosome pattern is only vaguely human, but it is XX, loosely speaking) grew up to adult as a rapidly maturing, designer organism.

With such success, the SCAB project was overtaken by SHADOW in full force, keen to collect on their investment. Dr. Nyberg managed to arrange for Synth’s escape when SHADOW arrived, and destroyed all research. He apparently died in the process.

With no identity, birth certificate, or any other legal identity, and largely ignorant of the world, Synth made her way across to America to land in Freedom City, hoping there to evade SHADOW and to learn more about the world. Having heard of the “super’s†in that city, she felt it was the best place to fit in and explore the world.

Personality & Motivation:

Synth is a completely moral and honest person. In a very concrete way. Her brain is wired up so she cannot tell a lie, and she has developed into a person who believes deeply (and perhaps in a way is programmed too) in equality, fairness, and liberty for all sentient beings.

However she is still young and developing – whilst far from stupid, she is somewhat ignorant about the world, and her passionate idealism is not tempered with realism.

Synth is also just odd – she has not got life experiences to draw on, and her brain configuration is only partly human. She is not cold, distant, or unemotional, but rather her emotions are tied in deeply to her logic. She can thus appear blunt, inappropriate, or peculiar at times, although rarely uncaring – she cares quite deeply. If one takes the view that she is “half biological†then her purely biological drives / responses are not so driven by her endocrine system but more by the developed (and still emotional) part of her brain.

She has various motivations – none of which dominate the other. She is a caring, fair person always out do a good deed for the common good or safety of people – and this can make her quite political and radical (she disapproves of wealth inequality of western societies, for instance), so she has a political agenda too. She is of course motivated to maintain her own safety, so dislikes undue attention and will not want to settle down or become famous – she is a drifter. Being young she is naturally curious and wants to explore the world – artistically, scientifically, and personally. Finally, she does harbour some resentment towards SHADOW, although she only vaguely understood Dr. Nyberg hurried explanation during her escape.

Powers & Tactics:

Synth’s powers all derive from her being a customised, designed, synthetic organism. She has basic cellular and biochemical structures (including a form of DNA) but these are all modulated by silicon-based molecules that work in harmony with carbon-ones, making her neither totally organic or android (although she is more organic in nature). Her cells are highly adaptable and customisable, all having stem properties, and communicating by a bio-electrical field.

Her basic form is strong, robust, fast, and extremely agile. Her nervous system is particularly well designed, with almost instantaneous silicon-based electrical transmission. This means her body and mind work efficiently and at great speed and co-ordination, allowing her to perform tasks much quicker than normal humans. Her body is also sensitive to vibrations and has improved olfactory abilities. The mutable nature of her body allows her to take various different (male and female) forms by growing into a new shape – although she will retain her slightly inhuman look (as detailed under complication) on close inspection.

However, the most dynamic ability she has is to grow new body parts (detailed below).

In combat, Synth will use blows and grapples to subdue opponents. Being somewhat of a pacifist, she would probably prefer to restrain people if viable. To this end, she will often use her shape shift ability to grow extra arms and to elongate her limbs. This also helps with her mobility. If she needs to attack at range she would probably maximally elongate her limbs and fight that way.

Her attacks are very fluid and fast, as she has exceptional co-ordination and agility.

Synth may occasionally use her morph ability for subtlety or surprise, although it is not extremely effective (she retains that somewhat “flawless†look).

---

Complications:

Not quite human: Synth is midway between a biological and an artificial life form, neither one nor the other. Medical care is highly likely to fail (or at best be of limited value) on her. On close examination, her external appearance is slightly odd: her skin is flawless, homogenous, hairless and even slightly waxy quality. Internally, she is only very loosely “humanâ€.

Honest: Synth’s brain is wired up so she cannot directly tell a falsehood. She is able to hold her tounge, or selectively tell only some truths (which could be deceptive), but she can make no statement that is deliberately a lie

Stuck by acid: Aside from her vulnerability to acid, any part of her body that is hit by acid is unable to shape shift, and is stuck in that form until it heals (or a certain period of time passes representing the acid neutralising).

Ugly duckling: Whilst Synth, in normal form, has a flawless physical beauty, her shapeshifted forms may limit this, or even turn into something that is frankly repulsive.

Struggling: Synth needs little money (she only needs to eat and drink half normal human food consumption at most, and is highly resistant to the elements). This is fortunate, as she has little. She works odd jobs, so she always has some loose change, enough to buy the basics of food, clothes, and sometimes rent, but that’s it.

No (legal) Idenity: Synth has no legal papers, country of residence, passport, birth certificate, or the like. And she would like to keep it that way.

Ignorant: Due to her sheltered, short upbringing, and “odd†brain, Synth is clueless about much general knowledge such as social customs and society. She is going to completely fail at most knowledge [current events, popular culture, streetwise] rolls, even if they are simple.

Socialist idealism: Whether due to her upbringing or her brain, Synth holds an ideal of (democratic) social equality. She finds capitalism, materialism, and inequality horrible. Whilst she supports western ideas of democracy, liberty, and freedom, she would support communist ideals of equality and fairness (of wealth distribution) too. This can make her “anti-establishment†– but not anarchistic.

Abilities: 4 + 20 + 16 + 2 + 2 + 2 = 46PP

Strength: 14/30 (+2/+10)

Dexterity: 30 (+10)

Constitution: 26/30 (+8/+10)

Intelligence: 12 (+1)

Wisdom: 12 (+1)

Charisma: 12 (+1)

Combat: 8 + 12 = 20PP

Initiative: +10

Attack: +4 Base, +10 Melee

Grapple: +20

Defense: +10 (+6 Base, +4 Dodge Focus), +3 Flat-Footed

Knockback: -5

Saving Throws: 0 + 0 + 3 = 3PP

Toughness: +8/+10 (+8/+10 Con)

Fortitude: +8/+10 (+8/+10 Con)

Reflex: +10 (+10 Dex)

Will: +4 (+1 Wis, +3)

Skills: 16R = 4PP

Diplomacy 4 (+5)

Knowledge (life sciences) 4 (+5)

Languages 4 (English, French, German, Russian, Swedish [native])

Notice 4 (+5)

Feats: 14PP

Ambidexterity

Attack Focus (melee) 6

Attractive 2

Dodge Focus 4

Powers: 20 + 2 + 16 + 3 + 4 + 1 + 16 + 3 = 65PP

Enhanced Trait 20 (Strength +16, Constitution +4) [20PP] “Cellular enhancementâ€

Immunity 2 (Critical Hits) [2PP]

Immunity 32 (Aging, Disease, Fortitude Saves; Flaws: Limited to half effect ) [16PP]

Quickness 3(x2 Physical tasks, +10 Mental tasks; Flaws: Limited to mental tasks for 2 ranks; Feats: Jack of All Trades) [3PP] Improved brain / nervous system.

Morph 2 (+10 to disguise, any humanoid form; Extras: Duration (continuous); Drawbacks: Action (move action to morph), Limited (can only morph body/flesh, not clothes ) [4PP]

Feature 1 (Polychromatic, as free action can change colour of skin, eyes, hair ) [1PP]

Variable Power 2 (Extras: Duration (continuous); Flaws: Limited (only human tissue / DNA based) ) [16PP] "Tissue growth"

Supersenses 3 (Scent, Tremorsense) [3PP]

Drawbacks: (-0) + (-0) = -1PP

Vulnerability (Acid, Frequency: Uncommon, Intensity: Minor [+1]) [-1PP]

DC Block

ATTACK       RANGE        SAVE                      EFFECT

Unarmed      Touch        DC 25 Toughness (Staged)  Damage (Physical)

Totals: Abilities (46) + Combat (20) + Saving Throws (3) + Skills (4) + Feats (13) + Powers (65) - Drawbacks (-1) = 150/150 Power Points

Notes

Polychromatic feature:

Synth is able, as a free action, to change the colour of her hair, skin, and eyes. This is not limited to human tones, but can be green, pink, etc. She is still entirely recognisable in whatever form she takes – although perhaps it might provide momentary distraction.

This feature is largely for show. She could, by selectively altering pigment, form tattoo’s or even writing on her body using it. It might provide some limited mechanical benefits e.g:

+2 to Stealth rolls in relatively monochromatic environments (desert, jungle, concrete) etc. +5 in totally monochromatic ones (outer space, arctic, etc.)

+2 to toughness rolls versus lasers if she turns to the identical colour of the laser (increased reflectivity)

Variable Power (Shapeshift)

Synth’s variable power involves growing (or occasionally shrinking) new body parts based on human DNA: including splitting these off from her own body (and retaining control over the part as a hive mind). It is therefore somewhat limited.

The growth takes a move action – although truly massive changes may take longer as a complication.

Any human tissue can be grown. Normally (although necessarily) this tissue would take a similar form to the shape it takes in a human.

A non-exclusive list is given below. Note that some of these powers may be mutually exclusive, and many would invoke the “ugly duckling†complication.

Additional Limbs

Anatomic Separation

Concealment [Olfactory] (Eliminating sweat and other scent producing glands]

Enhanced (or indeed reduced) Strength, Constitution, or Fortitude saves.

Elongation

Feats: Attractive (Physical alteration, pheromone secretion), Endurance (improved and enlarged cardiovascular and respiratory systems), Rage (adrenal gland enlargement).

Growth

Leaping and/or Speed (Coiled, elongated and springed leg muscles and bones, and additional legs) – similar, rank limited to no more than 3 each maximum (x10 is the most that could be justified).

Shrinking

Skills: Climb (More powerful, extra jointed digits), Escape Artist (Additional, or hyperflexible joints), Perform [sing] (multiple, fine-tuned vocal chords), Sleight of Hand (elongated, slender, prehensile digits), (Stealth (Silent Fatty pads on feet), Swimming (Webbed hands and feet, buoyant air sacs)

Strike (Bony projections, teeth, Enlarged club like hands)

Supermovement: Sure-Footed (Enlarged, prehensile feet)

Supersenses: 1 Rank of Extended Smell and Hearing (Enlarged nose and ears), Radius Vision (eyes on the back of her head), Low light vision (enlarged eyes), Microscopic Vision 1 (Super-refractory eyes).

In addition, there is also a wide variety of effects that are best simulated as limited features, caused by Synth growing or shrinking internal organs. These might include:

Super-stomach: Growing extra stomach’s and/or producing extra acid, so she can eat almost any food spoiled food stuff, or gain +4 bonus against any digested poison.

Body Sac: An internal cavity she can store things in.

Super sweat (or other secretion): Profuse sweating allows +4 on all environmental checks against heat, and some escape checks due to lubrication.

Fatty: An extra thick layer of body fat provides +4 on all environmental checks against cold

Detox: Extra liver tissue allows rapid metabolism of toxins, including alcohol, +4 on fortitude checks to shake off the effects of drugs and poisons (including alcohol).

Other: 1 PP could be spent, for instance, for growing a mouth, ear or a nose on the end of a fully extended limb to speak, listen, or smell at that location with no penalty

Example shape shift configurations

“Grappling stanceâ€

Additional Limbs 3 (4 Extra ArmsExtras: Duration (continuous)) [6 PP]

Elongation 4 (50 feet) [4 PP]

(Giving a +7 Bonus to Grapples if using all limbs on one target)

[Dr Archeville]

... you've made a 'Ganger!

[KnightDisciple]

Crunch looks solid, though I'm not a total number-cruncher.

I am having trouble parsing the various powers in your notes, though. Maybe make the power name underlined, to delineate them more easily?

Is the "limited to human tissue" thing more to say she can't spontaneously grow an exoskeleton, or wings, or claws? I mean, it's not typical for humans to sprout 4 extra arms. I guess I'm just trying to grasp what your overall "thematic limits" are shooting for.

Are you sure it's good that you're portraying her as both "Ignorant" and as a "Socialist Idealist"? I mean, my opinions of that topic aside, the character sheet seems to be harping that particular note pretty hard, that' she's a socialist and likes "fairness" and such.

One wonders how she'd react to a.)the fact that Sweden still has nobility, including a king, even if they're basically ceremonial, and b.) to her fellow Swedish character, Baron Magnus Vilhelm Katastrof.

Definitely an interesting idea though, especially the whole "semi-artificial human" angle.

[Paragon]

If you want her to be able to create a pigment with her skin that imitates a tattoo of writing you will probably need the precise extra. Otherwise it might be too complex for her skin to create such fine detail. Other then that I don't notice anything that jumps out at me.

[Supercape]

Thanks very much for everybody's suggestions above. Bearing above in mind I am going to try to make this character richly "human" rather than a Spock, so am going to think a little more about "cover" and backstory.

I am also debating what sex to make Synth, if any. Thoughts on that - and perhaps a gender-neutral name for her cover (I was going to name her Cynthia - as in "Synth" but I wonder if a gender-neutral name would be better).

[N/A]

The episode of nuWho DokA linked up there was a great example of what I love about Stephen Moffat's writing. Monster-of-the-week eps are nothing new in sci-fi, but I can't remember the last time I saw one that seemed to be a distraction from the ongoing metaplot at first, only to wind up being a crucial Wham Episode at the end. :shock: But I digress.

It's been almost 20 years since I've seen a reference in science fiction to the fact that silicon is the element most similar to carbon, the building block of all life as we know it. Awesome.

Other PCs here have proved before that a solid powerhouse or energy controller archetype with a little bit of Shapeshift for added utility and mobility is a very, very strong concept and a lot of fun to play.

Shapeshift has an additional clause beyond its Variable Power skeleton which states that every rank of Shapeshift gives you a free rank of Morph for the purpose of mimicking whatever form you're shifted into. So the separate Feature and Morph effects are superfluous.

I would seriously consider buying the Action on the Shapeshift power up to Free. VPs lose a lot of their utility when you have to waste a round reconfiguring them.

For the crit immunity, I would suggest going with Unreliable instead of Limited (1/2). For the same price, I would take the 50% chance to suffer no additional damage from a crit over suffering +3 instead of +5.

You're short-changing yourself on the Quickness. Quickness 1, for both physical and mental tasks, would cost 1PP. An additional 2 ranks would normally cost 2PP, but with the -1 flaw for being Limited to mental tasks, the cost drops to 1PP. So the total cost is 2PP, not 3PP.

Why is her DEX completely "natural," while her STR and CON are both partially Enhanced?

[Supercape]

Shapeshift has an additional clause beyond its Variable Power skeleton which states that every rank of Shapeshift gives you a free rank of Morph for the purpose of mimicking whatever form you're shifted into. So the separate Feature and Morph effects are superfluous.

I for one have always felt deeply uncomfortable with this, and the posts on ATT indicate that is the source of much debate...The free rank of morph seems out of keeping with the variable power rules.

To be honest, I would far rather just keep this separate for my own piece of mind and consider it a variable power - some of the effects (like internal physiological changes) don't even involve a change in outwards appearance.

The whole shape shift / free morph just sits very ill with me. If other people want to use it thats fine, but I'm just going to steer clear of it. That being the case, I should probably call it a variable power rather than shape shift.

I would seriously consider buying the Action on the Shapeshift power up to Free. VPs lose a lot of their utility when you have to waste a round reconfiguring them.

From an optimisation point of view yes. But I think Synth is efficient enough to function as is and it makes more sense and fun to have it as a move action. I'm not entirely sure where "wasting a round" comes from? still leaves a standard action upon reconfiguration (not perfect, but not wasting a round completely). Conceptually I think Synth would need some time to "grow" new stuff.

For the crit immunity, I would suggest going with Unreliable instead of Limited (1/2). For the same price, I would take the 50% chance to suffer no additional damage from a crit over suffering +3 instead of +5.

I toyed with that but it seemed messy to me, another roll (I like to keep em to a minimum). I am wondering if the simplest thing to do would just be to give complete immunity. The other option I was thinking was Immunity to "Improved Critical Feats" only. I'll have another think.

Again, I'm not going to quibble about the tiny loss of optimisation moving from 50% chance of +0 compared to always reduced to +3.

You're short-changing yourself on the Quickness. Quickness 1, for both physical and mental tasks, would cost 1PP. An additional 2 ranks would normally cost 2PP, but with the -1 flaw for being Limited to mental tasks, the cost drops to 1PP. So the total cost is 2PP, not 3PP.

Yes, excellent catch. Must have had a brain fart.

Why is her DEX completely "natural," while her STR and CON are both partially Enhanced?

Its difficult to answer, although I suppose her silicon based nervous system is more hard wired than the stem cells it controls.

In addition, the above configuration is designed to think about Growth as a possible future AP. Also the 20PP of enhanced is a nice round number to stunt off (like a nauseate power by infecting a living organism with some of her cells for instance).

Still need a gender neutral name!

[Cubist]

I suppose I can see why some people might have a problem with giving free ranks in Morph to someone with Shapeshift, but seeing as how Shapeshift is basically a superset of Morph, I can't see it's anything more than a matter of taste, really.

Side-note on silicon: It's true that silicon is chemically similar to carbon in various ways -- that being why they're in the same column on the periodic table -- but at the same time, those two elements have some differing qualities which are relevant to the question of What Element You Can Build Life Around. Now, the molecules of life need to have some degree of stability, but not too much, because "too much stability" gets you to crystals and suchlike, and life is a lot more flexible/mobile/versatile than crystals. Carbon seems to hit the 'sweet spot' between too much stability and not enough; silicon, contrariwise, seems to be firmly on the side of 'too much stability', at least under standard Earth-surface conditions. This suggests that maybe silicon-based life might arise naturally on a planet which is significantly hotter than Earth, since increasing heat = reduction in molecular stability. I suspect Terry Pratchett has had similar thoughts...

[N/A]

Cube:

Supercape's issue with the Morph-clause of the "Shapeshift" power from the book is a legitimate one: It's a free bonus effect. You get something for nothing. You could build a power identical to "Shapeshift," from the ground up, which would cost the same, and yet wouldn't get that disguise bonus. It's a Kenson Kludge, one of his "power creation is an art not a science" moments.

Also, to be honest, when I said "it's been almost 20 years," that's because the last time I saw someone play around with the silicon/carbon similarity was a first-season (?) monster-of-the-week episode of The X-Files.

'Cape:

Replacing Limited with Unreliable for the crit Immunity was as much about cleanliness and simplicity as optimization. But if you're that adverse to extra die rolls, then I would recommend just buying the 2PP crit Immunity. There are few concepts better suited to it than a regenerating shapeshifter.

With default Move-Action Shapeshift, you're only spending half a round to reconfigure the variable pool, yes. But I think you'll find that being able to reconfigure once every round while still having your full compliment of actions will make a HUGE difference in what (and how much) you can accomplish. I think other players who have toyed with VPs will back me up on that. But if you're not sold on it, then go ahead and take the Move-Action version out for a spin first.

For your main stunting pool, you probably want a little more than 2PP/PL. A couple of extra points would mean getting a power feat or two on whatever you stunt, while still being able to stunt a version of it at PL. So, for example, if you stunted a Blast, you could stunt a rank 10 Blast and still have a couple of points left over to add stuff like Accurate, Improved Crit, or Precise. My recommendation would be to make some of the DEX Enhanced, and link it with the Enhanced Strength. That makes conceptual and mechanical sense, and gives you a BIG pool of points to stunt off of (which could theoretically stack with a Shapeshift allocation). I would keep Enhanced CON as a stand-alone power. You don't ever want to cash in your defenses, even temporarily. But you could easily wind up stunting something that makes your STR and DEX a non-issue for a round, with the fluff being that you're temporarily re-allocating your techno-organic muscle mass toward other applications. Heck, if you stunt something that doesn't require all of the points you've spent on Enhanced STR+DEX, your stunt could even include some Enhanced STR+DEX, effectively "buying it back."

[Supercape]

Made a few slight alterations: Critical hit immunity now full. Jack of All trades feat added to her Quickness (its a fast adaptable brain!), lost acrobatic skill and acrobatic feat.

A few minor tidies with formating.

Looks ready to go, still need a name for alter ego!