Dragonsong Posted December 4, 2011 Posted December 4, 2011 Special thanks to Raveled, Derin, KnightDisciple, and Airon for making this character possible. [floatr][/floatr] Player Name: Dragonsong Character Name: Defiant Power Level: 10 (150/155PP) Trade-Offs: +2 Attack / -2 Damage Unspent Power Points: 5 Progress To Bronze Status: 5/30 In Brief: Battle-hardened rebel from the Terminus, out to defend his new home. Alternate Identity: Trent Andrew Venfield Identity: Public Birthplace: Coldriver, Administrative District 11, Shyne Occupation: Presently None Affiliations: Presently None Family: Adam Venfield (Father), Anna Venfield (Mother) Description: Age: 28 (DoB: April 22, 1983) Apparent Age: 28 Gender: Male Ethnicity: Caucasian Height: 5'10" Weight: 180 lbs Eyes: Blue Hair: Brown Trent Venfield looks very tired for someone so young. Rather handsome but unkempt, with smooth, well-proportioned features being overtaken by rough stubble and deep bags under his soft blue eyes, he stands dowel-straight and still manages to look heavy-laden. Premature lines furrow his forehead , and his cheeks are gaunt. Short, messy chestnut hair frames his face, sticking up at odd angles at the back and reaching down toward his eyes. Yet his posture is tense at all times, coiled tight and ready to spring, and his gaze is iron, unbowed and unconquered. Trent's Biosuit hides his weariness, leaving only the imposing visage of Defiant. The flexible nano-plates that form the armored exterior cling closely to his muscular frame, and the soft glow of his dark ochre faceplate, featureless and yet vigilant, makes him seem somehow beyond human. Astride a battered hoverboard, with a heavily modified Omegadrone stave in hand, he is swift and forceful, the very avatar of a people's will to survive against the odds. Power Descriptions: The most obvious of Defiant's powers are those of his Biosuit, a dark-steel-colored body glove of nano-plating and refractive fibers with deep ochre showing through at the joints and on the faceplate. When its stealth systems are active, however, there is nothing to see at all; light bends around the suit, while sound and smell are entirely absorbed by it. Miniature thrusters line the arms and legs, an integrated parachute of sorts to save the wearer from falling to his death. Defiant also carries what was once an Omegadrone's staff, though his modifications to the device since it fell into his hands have been extensive. Small compartments along the blasting end house an electrified shock prod and a carbon foam projector; the former delivers a stunning jolt to whomever the staff strikes, while the latter entraps a target within layers of expanding, rapidly-drying and hardening foam. Finally, Defiant moves astride a battered, often-repaired hoverboard, a racing device in its day and now a weapon against evil. History: In the far future of the twenty-sixth century, mankind reached out to colonize the stars in a great Confederation of Planets. Possessing incredible technology, including the secret of traveling far beyond the speed of light to reach distant solar systems, the people of the little blue planet launched a great age of space exploration to rival any effort the species had previously undertaken. National identity faded away, replaced by a human unity undreamt of in the divided societies of the past. Truly long-distance travel, however, remained incredibly risky, and that lent it the allure of danger that ever calls to bold hearts. Such was the case with the colonization of Shyne, a glimmering orb on the far side of the galactic disk from Earth. To conquer it would be an amazing symbol of humanity's power to adapt and overcome, a friendly challenge to allies and a bold statement to foes. And so a colonial expedition was organized and launched toward that far-off world. Yet the alien Grue Unity, ever an enemy of any society that refused to bow to them, would not allow this challenge to succeed. Rather than interdict the colony fleet with their own warships, which would bring down terrible retribution upon them, they sent a team of elite infiltrators to sabotage the faster-than-light travel systems of the human vessels. In this mission they were successful, escaping undetected moments before the ships launched. And as the ships prepared to enter hyperspace, they vanished. As humanity mourned what appeared to be a horrible accident, claiming the lives of tens of thousands, the colony ships were well underway. The sabotage had not acted as intended; instead they had caused the vessels to travel through time as well as space, and when they arrived on Shyne it was in the Earth year 1900. Their triumphant messages of success could not be detected by the Earthlings' primitive communications systems, nor were any additional supplies coming. The people of Shyne felt abandoned. Despite the sudden isolation, Shyne thrived. Though their later discovery of the hyperdrive sabotage, which they lacked the resources to fix, confined them to the planet, they made the best of their situation. Gleaming cities rose into the sky, surrounded by and filled with plants and animals imported from Earth. A population of fifty thousand became a million and then still more over the years that followed. All was well. And then, in 1982, it all went wrong. Few of Shyne's inhabitants had ever really understood the hyperdrives that had brought them to the planet; they were incredibly complex devices, powered by unique elements and brimming with quantum particles for which the 21st century had no name. To fix them was one thing, an effort attempted from time to time without success. But to reverse-engineer them was quite another, and when a team of scientists attempted to recreate the drive they triggered a dimensional instability that pulled them into the Terminus. In a way, Shyne was lucky; Omega did not need to raid the world, for it was now in his domain. Instead he could occupy it, bleed it dry over the years, and then discard it as dust when its potential was exhausted. Though Shyne's defense forces fought valiantly, they were unaccustomed to war, for the planet had existed peacefully since its founding. The entire world fell within a week, its population forced into internment camps as its resources were stripped away. Trent Venfield never knew the utopian Shyne of the past. Born in 1983 to parents who had managed to avoid capture by the Omegadrones, his childhood was a whirling blur of fleeing from one cave or burned-out building to the next. His mother Anna had been an engineer before the planet's fall, and put that expertise toward building devices to conceal their presence from the occupiers. Trent became an assistant in this process from a young age, taking solace in the certainty of machines. Yet all around him it was the certainty of machines that was transforming Shyne into a barren hell. Nature preserves were consumed, their flora and fauna alike stripped down to their base elements for processing. Cities and mountains were crushed and stripped of useful metals, leaving only jagged mounds of broken rock and concrete. The only structures left untouched were the high-walled internment camps and the vast, blade-sleek Omegadrone factories they fed into. As he grew older, Trent went from helping with his mother's projects to building some of his own. He rescued usable bits of technology from piles of salvage whenever he could, tinkering with the components of computers and guns alike. At the age of fourteen he built his own set of tools, so sleek that his mother was always asking to borrow them. At the age of seventeen he refurbished a racing hoverboard, replacing all of the internal components in a process that took him several months. Two years later, the Venfields and the families they were traveling with cut it too close. While searching for increasingly scarce packaged food from before the planet's fall they were discovered by an Omegadrone patrol; in their panicked flight more than half of their number was either blasted down or dragged back to the internment camps. Among the casualties was Trent's mother. Angry and devastated, Trent left the group he had traveled with all his life, including his father, behind. It was time to do more than just run, he decided; it was time to hit back. He spent a year wandering, gathering up other survivors who wanted to do something more than just survive and repairing the weapons of the ill-fated planetary defense force. He was wise enough to know that he needed to start small: pick off a few sentries here and there, gather strength, gain experience before going further. Some of his group left in the first year of its formation, frustrated by seeing his promises of revenge limited by caution. It was from the first Omegadrone he ever destroyed that Trent took the staff that would become his signature weapon. He tinkered with it constantly, both to make it visually distinct and thus avoid friendly fire and to add versatility the original design lacked. Using this new weapon, one which the Omegadrones did not expect to face, he grew bolder; the group began to ambush full patrols on occasion, bringing down several in their entirety. But there were always casualties, no matter how well they prepared. Placed in the unenviable position of giving orders that would almost certainly result in deaths, Trent seemed to age far more rapidly than his years would indicate. Somewhere deep in his heart he knew he was fighting a war he couldn't possibly win; his numbers dwindled daily, and were finite to begin with, while his foes had no such limitations. Every drone destroyed was replaced by another, converted from the unwilling body of an innocent neighbor or relative. Yet he refused to lie down and take it, whether or not victory was possible. The young man's darkest hour came when he was twenty-four. Having led his fellow rebels for half a decade, he became confident in his ability to command, perhaps too much so. Wanting to even the scales of the war, he planned an assault on one of the smaller internment camps; this would not only reduce the enemy's capacity to manufacture Omegadrones but also gain him a large group of new recruits. Arming his ragtag band as best as possible, he set a distraction on the far side of the planet and attacked. The results were horrific; the automated defenses were more than sufficient to hold off the rebels, who never even reached the walls. Trent himself was badly wounded and spent six months in hiding as he gradually recovered; many of his followers fared far worse. Of the survivors, only a few stayed with him, their belief shaken by the utter failure of the attack. Yet Trent, once recovered from his injuries, still refused to give up. The only way to avoid his crippling guilt was to keep pushing forward, and so he did. At the end of his time in hiding, he discovered an amazing opportunity: with most of Shyne's resources completely stripped away, the Omegadrones were moving one of the immense colony ships down from orbit to be disassembled. Moving swiftly and silently, he and his remaining band salvaged the vessel's main computer. Though much of the data was corrupted, Trent was able to recover schematics for a number of devices that had been developed on distant Earth, among them a nano-weave Biosuit. It took nearly two years of raiding and salvaging, nipping at the heels of Omega's efforts with little result, to gather the components required for the suit, especially with the intensive modifications that Trent had made to the design. But when he finally assembled it, he immediately knew that it was more than just a protective device; it would become a symbol. When he donned it Trent Venfield faded away, and in his place stood Defiant, tyranny's foe. The remaining rebels flocked to Defiant's banner as word of his victories against the patrols spread. Trent made no secret of who he was, but with time even the survivors of his failed internment camp assault came to accept him once again as success mounted on success. For the first time, the rebels of Shyne truly became an irritation. Patrols increased, only to be picked off one by one. Strip mining efforts were sabotaged, the machines blown apart and the metals they had collected stolen. But Shyne was still being consumed, and after nearly thirty years the process was almost complete. The final strip mining runs would leave the planet little more than dust, and the last of the population was scheduled to be herded into the factories. Trent knew that all would soon be lost, but Defiant gave no thought to such things. He planned a new, bold move to slow the process, just as he had before, but this time he was wiser. He would not assault the camp; that was expected. He would destroy the factory. The rebels spent nearly a year building the Oblivion Bomb, a device designed to simply disintegrate everything in its vicinity. This would be placed in the center of the planet's largest Omegadrone factory; Omega could see how he liked seeing things that belonged to him reduced to nothingness. The factory, less guarded than the adjacent camp, was infiltrated and the bomb placed and armed. Then, suddenly, a vast force of Omegadrones surrounded the facility with Defiant and his strike team still inside. They had been sold out by one of their own, terrified of his seemingly inevitable death, who had given their location in exchange for freedom; the promise, of course, had not been kept, for Omega and his servants care little for bargains or fairness. The Omegadrones swarmed into the factory's halls, determined to disarm the bomb, while the rebels fought them off as best they could, hoping both to escape and to ensure that the mission had not been wasted. In the end, the struggles of each doomed the other. The Oblivion Bomb did not explode so much as simply pulse, sending out an energy wave that left nothing and no one standing where the factory had once been save a vast, empty hole. Defiant only hoped that the rebels would find a new leader to continue the fight, that somehow Shyne might be saved, or at least escaped. He felt nothing. And then he opened his eyes and found himself lying on his back on a world of blue skies, the aches of his body telling him that he was still alive. For at the center of the Oblivion Bomb, powering it, had been the malfunctioning hyperdrive that brought humankind to Shyne. Personality & Motivation: Trent isn't a genius, but he is smart, smart enough to know that he had no chance on Shyne. Yet he put aside that knowledge because it didn't accomplish anything. For years he deceived himself, let himself think that he was making a difference; he knew he only had one shot at life, and he made the simple decision spend it doing something worthwhile whether he could succeed or not. His determination was infectious partially because it was so unusual, and it became his legendary mask as much as his armor, hiding his faults and doubts. It stands to reason, then, that Trent's presence on Earth leaves him very confused. He has no one to lead and no all-important mission. Most of all, he has discovered that the lifting of the grim certainty of going down fighting has left him without a clear path or purpose. He is a hero partly because he knows it is right, partly because he wants to defend a world that's so much better than his home it's incomparable, and partly because he has no idea what he would do with himself otherwise. As someone who had to grow up fast and then lead without showing hesitation, fear, or doubt, Trent is finding it strange to be in a place where he can genuinely feel emotion. Nothing is expected of him; he can live his life however he chooses. But he only knows one way to live, and one way to go about living that way. His relationships have been about allies rather than friends, a choice made to help him lead without bias. It will be a long time before he overcomes this way of thinking, if indeed he ever does. Powers & Tactics: Defiant is a skillful fighter both up close and at range, with a number of methods of incapacitating foes at his disposal. His staff is usually his only weapon, but between it and the protection afforded by his suit he can hold his own in a direct battle. His hoverboard lends him mobility, allowing him to catch fleeing foes, negotiate difficult terrain, and fire from a position of advantage. His suit's stealth systems allow him to scout an area before moving in as well as to ambush his enemies. In short, Defiant is equipped for a wide range of situations. Complications: Health Issues: Trent's years on Shyne were not kind to him; though he's quite physically fit, an unpleasant combination of old injuries and stress-related complications has prematurely aged him in body as well as mind. Since he doesn't know what else to do but be a hero, the situation is unlikely to improve. Illegal Alien: Trent makes no secret of his name or origin (though he doesn't publicize it, either), but that doesn't change the fact that he has no legal status, job, property, or education. He is technically a dimensional refugee who never actually went through border control. Terminus Refugee: Though the escape of a single rebel from a world that will soon cease to exist matters little to Omega, twenty-eight years of hell matter immensely to Trent. Though generally level-headed and unemotional to the point of being frustrating, Terminus-related phenomena make him uncomfortable at best. "You Don't Know How Good You've Got It": Earth is a big step up from Shyne, to put things very mildly, and Trent is absolutely determined to make sure that it doesn't suffer the same fate his home did. Usually this manifests as a cold anger toward the criminals who drag down the planet for everyone else. In case of external invaders, however, he gets a whole lot angrier. Abilities: 6 + 8 + 4 + 6 + 4 + 4 = 32PP Strength: 16 (+3) Dexterity: 18 (+4) Constitution: 14 (+2) Intelligence: 16 (+3) Wisdom: 14 (+2) Charisma: 14 (+2) Combat: 24 + 12 = 36PP Initiative: +8 Attack: +12 Grapple: +15 Defense: +10 (+6 Base, +4 Dodge Focus), +3 Flat-Footed Knockback: -5 Saving Throws: 6 + 6 + 8 = 20PP Toughness: +10 (+2 Con, +4 Mimetic Stealth Biosuit, +4 Defensive Roll) Fortitude: +8 (+2 Con, +6) Reflex: +10 (+4 Dex, +6) Will: +10 (+2 Wis, +8) Skills: 72R = 18PP Craft: Electronic 12 (+15) Computers 12 (+15) Concentration 8 (+10) Diplomacy 8 (+10) Disable Device 12 (+15) Knowledge: Technology 12 (+15) Notice 8 (+10) Feats: 13PP Defensive Roll 2 Dodge Focus 4 Equipment 1 Evasion 2 Fearless Improved Initiative Inventor Uncanny Dodge (Hearing) Masterwork Electronic Tools (1 EP) Masterwork Disable Device Tools (1 EP) Masterwork Laptop Computer (1 EP) Mini-Tracer (1 EP) Night Vision Goggles (1 EP) Powers: 12 + 3 + 16 = 31PP Device 4 (Blast-Staff; Flaws: Easy to Lose (3pp per rank)) [12PP] Base Power:Blast 8 (Staff Bolt (Energy); Feats: Alternate Power 2, Improved Range, Precise) [20PP] Alternate Power: Strike 5 (Staff Bash (Physical); Extras: Linked (+0) to Stun; Feats: Mighty) {6PP} Linked Power: Stun 6 (Shock Prod (Energy); Extras: Linked (+0) to Strike) {12PP} Alternate Power: Snare 7 (Carbon Foam Projector (Physical); Feats: Improved Range, Precise, Reversible, Split Attack) {18PP} Device 1 (Hoverboard; Flaws: Easy to Lose (3pp per rank)) [3PP] Flight 5 (Hoverboard; Flaws: Platform (-1); Speed: 250 mph) [5PP] Device 4 (Mimetic Stealth Biosuit; Extras: Hard to Lose (4pp per rank)) [16PP] Immunity 9 (Bio-Regulator; Provides Life Support) [9PP] Super-Movement 1 (Gravitic Stabilizers; Provide Slow Fall) [2PP] Protection 4 (Flexible Nano-Plating) [4PP] Concealment 8 (Mimetic Stealth System; Flaws: Blending (-1), Passive (-1); Feats: Close Range; Concealment from All Visual Senses, All Auditory Senses, and All Olfactory Senses) [5PP] Drawbacks: (-0) + (-0) = -0PP DC Block ATTACK RANGE SAVE EFFECT Unarmed Touch DC18 Toughness (Staged) Damage (Physical) Staff Blast Ranged DC23 Toughness (Staged) Damage (Energy) Staff Bash Touch DC23 Toughness (Staged) Damage (Physical) Shock Prod Touch DC16 Fortitude Stun Carbon Foam Projector Ranged DC17 Reflex Snare Totals: Abilities (32) + Combat (36) + Saving Throws (20) + Skills (18) + Feats (13) + Powers (31) - Drawbacks (0) = 150/155 Power Points
Supercape Posted December 8, 2011 Posted December 8, 2011 Looking good in general. Points: 1. Equipment. Generally accepted that if you have skills in a craft, you get the toolkit for free, and in any case this site has a fairly liberal view of what equipment you can get for free. A Commlink for instance might be considered free as would a cellphone, unless "souped up". Masterwork tools however would require EP, but in this case, you need to specify which tools are masterwork... So, you might spend your points: Masterwork Electronic Tools (1 EP) Masterwork Disable Device Tools (1 EP) Masterwork Laptop Computer (1 EP) Nightvision Goggles (1 EP) +1 EP on something else...e.g. binoculars. 2. Attack bonus As both Melee and Ranged bonus is +12, you could just leave this as "Attack: +12" without further annotation. 3. Shock Staff This looks odd to me. The two alternate powers need to be 18PP, not 20PP, as they are alternate powers of a base 18 PP power (Blast 8). You should notate the blast power as the base power. 4. Mimetic Stealth Biosuit Looks very cool! I presume you are buying concealment to all visual / auditory / olfactory senses? (at a cost of 1/2 PP per Rank given two flaws...)? You should notate this as concealment 8 and that it affects all of those senses.
Dragonsong Posted December 8, 2011 Author Posted December 8, 2011 Thanks! I'm glad you like the biosuit. I think I've corrected the problems now. Sorry about the blast staff mishap; I'd assumed that the Alternate Power feat included its own point cost as part of the available points to purchase the alternate power, but that actually doesn't make much sense now that I think about it. Wishful thinking, I suppose. I've updated that as well as the DC block, and cleared up the formatting errors you pointed out (sorry about that!), so hopefully everything is all set! Cheers, Dragonsong
Supercape Posted December 9, 2011 Posted December 9, 2011 Okay I think this all looks good to me! :approved:
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