Whiplash [PL10]

[Derin]

I hope I got this right...

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Player Name: Derin

Character Name: Whiplash

Power Level: 10 [150/150pp]

Trade-Offs: +2 Attack / -2 Damage, +2 Defense / -2 Toughness

Unspent Power Points: 0

Progress To Bronze Status: 0/30

In Brief: Whiplash is a reformed cat burglar channelling her skills to defend the innocent.

Alternate Identity: Helen Crey

Identity: Secret

Birthplace: New York City, New York

Occupation: Cleaner

Affiliations: None

Family: Annabelle Crey (daughter), Jennifer Renford (sister), David Renford (nephew)

Description:

Age: 29 (DoB: 14 September 1982)

Gender: Female

Ethnicity: Caucasian

Height: 5’10’’

Weight: 143lbs

Eyes: Hazel

Hair: Brown

Helen’s features are often vaguely described. Her skin tone could be a pale brown or a tanned white, and her eyes are that peculiar hazel that can look anything from green to brown in different light. She wears her brown hair clipped short but stylish. Helen has no tattoos or piercings. She dresses sharply but inexpensively, in clothing that flatters her form but is usually out of fashion, since most of it is bought second-hand.

As Whiplash, her hair is safely hidden under her mask, with a slightly longer grey wig attached. Whiplash wears a skintight outfit and breakaway cape of dark blue-greens and greys designed to blend in with the street night. Her pocketed belt contains most of the tools of her trade, including her distinctive electrified whip.

Power Descriptions:

Whiplash doesn’t have any supernatural abilities. She relies on the same skills and incredible dexterity that made her criminal career, with the addition of some weapons training.

History:

Helen had a fairly normal childhood. Her natural coordination and dexterity were honed by gymnastics training as a child, a skill that never left her, augmented by karate and judo training. Helen was never very serious about her martial arts, but she was a highly competitive gymnast. As she grew up, her parents encouraged her to compete in more prestigious competitions, but the combination of financial difficulties and her height meant that she would never have a serious shot at a real gymnastics career. Becoming pregnant at age 19 sank any gymnastics ambitions for good.

She chose another career instead.

Helen turned her trained body to less lawful stunts and became a master cat burglar. She combined forces with information-gatherers and became a cat-for-hire, taking over the dangerous job of actual infiltration. Over the next five years, her reputation grew among a certain type of New York criminal. There were several close calls, but she never seemed to get caught.

She was working with a new partner in a two-person break-in of a wealthy man’s home when her partner, Gary Fortwright, crossed the line. While she broke the safe alarm, he went exploring the house, and found their mark’s six-year-old daughter in bed asleep. The girl woke and screamed, and Helen realised that Gary’s motivation was revenge for some slight from their mark rather than greed when she ran in on him trying to strangle the child. They hadn’t woken their client, and Helen wanted to abort the mission, but Gary wanted to kidnap the girl. Helen refused to leave him alone with her, and they were both still arguing when their mark’s unexpectedly well-trained security guards burst in.

Helen testified against Gary, but refused to give up her employer or any of her other contacts. Being found defending the girl worked in her favour, and she went to prison for only two years. Her daughter, Annabelle, was sent to live with her aunt in Freedom City, to a stable home far away from any of Gary Fortwright’s friends who might want revenge. Helen befriended her cellmate, a woman with a strong martial arts background, and sought her help to perfect her hand-to-hand combat skills. With constant sparring and the occasional prison brawl as practise, Helen turned her natural dexterity into a weapon.

Annabelle was the initial cause of Helen’s reform. Helen saw how hard it was on her daughter to have a mother in jail. Her daughter had been Helen’s primary consideration since she was born, and she vowed to set a better example for her. Once released, she went clean, cutting off her old ties. Better to struggle to provide for them than to risk the law on her back once more. Annabelle had felt betrayed when her mother’s criminal activities had come to light, and Helen wouldn’t fail her daughter again.

Helen moved to Freedom City to raise Annabelle. That way, Annabelle wouldn’t have to move again, they were far from any criminal elements that might bear resentment and the local criminals had bigger things to worry about than some ex-burglar they’d never heard of. She hadn’t betrayed any of her contacts except the child-attacking Gary, so her split from the criminal world at large was as amicable as such things can be. Her old friends quietly changed any codes and hideouts she knew about and stopped contacting her.

She took a job as a cleaner in an office building, and lived peacefully for a couple of years. One day, she was going to pick Annabelle up from a birthday party when their household alarm went off. She reached the house too late to catch the thieves, who had made off with the television and a few other objects of moderate value, but she noticed how they’d got in; they’d broken Annabelle’s bedroom window.

At that moment, the vague concept of ‘some psycho I knew once’ coalesced into a real threat. If Annabelle had been home at the time, they could’ve hurt her. They could’ve hurt her as a witness, or for fun, or because they were too stoned or crazy to know better. Crime wasn’t all harmlessly shifting currency around; people could get hurt. People got hurt every day. Back in her old life, nobody would’ve made it through her window. Helen had protected herself. Since becoming a law-abiding citizen, she’d left that to the police and the heroes; she’d assumed that people who weren’t ‘in the game’ were ‘safe’. But the world didn’t work like that. Annabelle could’ve been killed. Somewhere else in the city, people probably were, that very night.

Helen put together her costume and equipment based on the talents she’d spent years honing. Training never really left, and while it took some work to get her body back in fighting condition, she managed it. Now, Whiplash prowls the street at night in defence of the innocent.

Personality & Motivation:

Whiplash is unassuming but confident in her skills. While she has a general interest in upholding the law in general, her main drive is protecting people, particularly the innocent bystanders and civilians who never wanted to be involved in crime or violence. She believes that even nonviolent crimes like her own past enable the dangerous ones and risk innocent lives, and thus cannot be tolerated.

Powers & Tactics:

Whiplash is an acrobat at heart. She tails her targets with stealth and often uses entry points into areas that most people would dismiss as inaccessible. She has no experience with ranged weapons (in fact, she doesn’t carry a gun because she thinks it would be dangerous – she can’t use it properly, so why make an opponent panic and shoot her?), and instead relies on hand-to-hand combat and her whip and stun gun to distract or defeat enemies.

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Complications:

Secret identity: Whiplash can’t afford to be found out. Her previous acquaintances (barring those close to Gary Fortwright) have left her alone because she obeyed the code and didn’t betray any of their secrets to the police. If they find out she’s “changed sidesâ€, that could change.

Child: Helen has a ten-year-old daughter. Fighting crime sometimes has to take a back seat to helping with homework, and if anybody did discover Whiplash’s identity, Annabelle would become a walking weak point. Helen has started teaching her self defence for this reason.

Old enemy: Helen moved to Freedom City partly because it was inconveniently out-of-the-way for any of Gary Fortwright’s friends looking for revenge. There are any number of circumstances that could change that.

Criminal record: As well as being generally detrimental to her career prospects and social life, Helen’s past makes maintaining her cover doubly difficult. Helen hanging about a building, looking through security or criminal records, or even disappearing for long periods of time can look very suspicious to anyone who knows her past. Her sister already believes she’s gone back to stealing.

Abilities: 6 + 16 + 8 + 4 = 34PP

Strength: 16 (+3)

Dexterity: 26 (+8)

Constitution: 18 (+4)

Intelligence: 10 (+0)

Wisdom: 14 (+2)

Charisma: 10 (+0)

Combat: 8 + 8 = 16PP

Initiative: +8

Attack: +12 Melee (+4 base, +8 melee attack focus), +4 Ranged

Grapple: +15

Defense: +12 (+4 Base, +8 Dodge Focus), +2 Flat-Footed

Knockback: -4

Saving Throws: 6 + 7 + 5 = 18PP

Toughness: +8 (+4 Con, +4 [Defensive roll 2])

Fortitude: +10 (+4 Con, +6)

Reflex: +15 (+8 Dex, +7)

Will: +7 (+2 Wis, +5)

Skills: 104R = 26PP

Acrobatics (Skill Mastery) 15 (+23)

Climb 10 (Skill Mastery) (+13)

Craft (electronic) 5 (+4)

Disable device (Skill Mastery) 15 (+15)

Drive 1 (+9)

Escape Artist 13 (+15)

Notice 14 (+16)

Search 14 (+16)

Sleight of Hand 2 (+10)

Stealth 15 (Skill Mastery) (+22)

Feats: 39PP

Acrobatic Bluff

Attack focus (melee) 8

Defensive roll 2

Dodge focus 8

Eidetic memory

Equipment 6 (30EP)

Evasion 2

Hide in plain sight

Improved critical (whip) 2

Improvise tools

Jack-of-all-trades

Move-by action

Power Attack

Quick change

Skill Mastery

Uncanny dodge (sound)

Weapon bind

Utility belt [18EP]

Stun gun [14]

Grappling hook (Super-Movement 2 (Wall Climb, Swinging), speed 1 [5EP]

Smoke grenades (Obscure visual senses 2, [feats]) [5EP]

Lock release gun [1]

Binoculars [1]

Motorcycle (Alarm 2, secret compartment 1) [12 EP]

Powers: 12 + 4 + 1 = 17PP

Device (Whip, 20PP, easy to lose) [12PP]

Whip attacks array, Feat: alternate power

• Base power:Snare 8 (Power feats: Extended Reach 2, Reversible Extras: constricting,Flaws: range 1 [19PP]
  alternate power:Strike 5 (Power Feats: Extended Reach 2, Improved Disarm, Improved Trip, Mighty, Extras: Penetrating 8)[18PP]

Device (Echolocation goggles, 5PP, hard to lose) [4PP]

Super-senses: sonar, acute, radius[5PP]

Leaping 1 (training) [1PP]

DC Block

 

ATTACK     RANGE     SAVE                        EFFECT

Unarmed    Touch     DC18 Toughness (Staged)     Damage (Physical)

Whip       Ranged    DC18 Reflex (Staged)        Damage (Physical)

                     DC23 Toughness (Staged)     Damage (Physical)

Stun gun   Touch     DC17 Fortitude (Staged)     Dazed/stunned/unconscious

Totals: Abilities (34) + Combat (16) + Saving Throws (18) + Skills (26) + Feats (39) + Powers (17) - Drawbacks (0) = 150/150 Power Points

[Airon]

Hi!

you messed up a bit the formatting in the powers section.

The AP goes inside the device, not outside. It is a feat for the powers the device gives you, not a feat for the device itself.

The device costs 9 pp, and it should read something like this:

Device 3 (whip; 15 pp of powers; easy to lose) [9 pp]

Whip attacks array (PF: alternate power)

BP: Snare

AP: Strike

The base DC for saves other than Toughness is 10, not 15. So the DC for her Snare is 17, not 22.

Also, I don't get it, where does the Drain Strength come from?

her saving throws (Toughness aside) are unbelievably high. Seriously, those are the ST of a PL 15 character. Most characters have ST that average out between PL -2 and PL -1, so in this case 8 or 9. Hers average out at 13.6!

I don't think that's frowned upon, but it is a bit wasteful: you can take easily away 8 or 10 points and use them elsewhere, and still have amazing saves.

You may want to look into the Acrobatic bluff feat and the Skill mastery feat, those seem like good fit to the character.

also, but this is just a consideration of personal taste: a costumed adventurer needs a grapple-gun! :mrgreen:

or some other kind of super-movement, or a rank of Speed and Leap (with the Training descriptor, of course)... just something to make her move faster than the average bystander. The motorcycle is cool, but what about a struggle on the rooftops? :lol:

[Derin]

I completely forgot to remove the drain strength... sorry.

Made some adjustments. She has acrobatics to leap, run and drop great distances, but how would I construct a grappling hook?

[Ari]

Equipment, with the power of Super-Movement 3 (Slow Fall, Swinging, Wall Climb) or whatever you like.

[Raveled]

You could also built it as a Device, if you have the points.

Device 1 (5PP, Easy to Lose) [3PP]

Super-Movement 2 (Slow-Fall, Swinging) [4PP]

Speed 1 (10 MPH [1PP]