Acinonyx (PL 11 NPC Villian, Tier 1)

[Cubist]

Player Name: Cubist / tier 1 NPC villain

Character Name: Acinonyx

Power Level: 11 (165/165PP)

Trade-Offs: -3 Attack / +3 Damage, -3 Defense / +3 Toughness

Unspent PP: 0

In Brief: The Eobard "Reverse-Flash" Thawne to Jubatus' Barry "Flash" Allen

Alternate Identity: Susan Marie Donnermutter

Identity: Secret

Birthplace: Scranton, PA

Occupation: Self-appointed 'hero' and 'crusader'

Affiliations: None

Family:

Age: ??? (DoB: Month [Optionally, Day & Month], Year)

Apparent Age: Young adult (who can tell how old a cheetah is, from their looks?)

Gender: Female

Ethnicity: Cheetah (formerly Caucasian)

Height: 5'11" (standing bipedally)

Weight: 127 lbs

Eyes: Green

Hair: Fur w/ typical cheetah markings -- sandy-yellow w/ black spots all over, with white on the torso's front side

Description: Acinonyx is a female cheetah. As it happens, cheetahs have very little sexual dimorphism, so most humans are unlikely to realize that she is female. Compared to Jubatus, she's maybe an inch or two shorter than him, and has 10-20 pounds more body mass (most of it muscle). She is equally comfortable with bipedal or quadrupedal posture. Her forepaws are somewhat more clumsy than Jube's.

Power Descriptions: Acinonyx is more-or-less a cheetah on steroids. In physical terms, Acinonyx is a lot tougher & more powerful than Jube. Her STR is higher than his; she's got a better Toughness save; her claws do more damage; and so on. She does not have Jube's Timeshift power. Acinonyx has enthusiastically embraced her inhuman nature, and as a result, she can be extremely terrifying when she wants to be—which is a rather large percentage of the time.

History: Everyone wears masks, figuratively speaking. Case in point: Susan Marie Donnermutter, normal secretary by day, and Animal Rights activist (read, 'terrorist') by night and on weekends. Susan was always careful to keep her two lives separated, until the day when a virus reduced her laptop to an odd-shaped brick… and she hired a troubleshooter named Jay Xavier to recover her data and get the machine up and running. Xavier was an animal himself, so of course it wouldn't hurt if he discovered any evidence of her Animal Rights-related activities while restoring her files, right? How could a hunting cat possibly object to anything that would improve the lot of the world's non-human inhabitants?

Alas for Susan, this particular hunting cat did not share her views regarding the proper relationship between humans and animals. Worse, when Xavier discovered documentary proof of Susan's lawbreaking career, he turned all of this evidence over to the FBI.

With the help of the other members of her 'activist' cell, Susan managed to avoid being captured. She was furious at Xavier for his unprovoked betrayal—or at least, that's how she saw it—and she wanted revenge. But how? What could Susan Marie Donnermutter possibly do to a super-fast predator like Xavier? The obvious answer was, she couldn't do anything to him, not as long as she was a puny, worthless human.

Well, there were ways to change one's species. Susan hadn't looked into the matter, because while she didn't particularly like being human, up to now she'd always felt that her human life was too useful to The Cause for her to give up on it.

Of course, 'up to now' was before her Animal Rights activities were exposed to public view… Since she was going to have to construct a new life from the ground up anyway, why shouldn't she abandon her old species along with her old job, old bank account, old everything else? So she made certain inquiries, and before long she met a person who assured her that yes, he could completely remake her body, from the nucleotides up. Susan didn't know, or care, that this person worked for the Labyrinth; all she did care about was getting the power to do unto Xavier what he'd already done unto her. Before long, Susan Marie Donnermutter had ceased to exist, replaced by the feline engine of fury called Acinonyx.

Personality & Motivation: The erstwhile Susan Marie Donnermutter doesn't miss her human form. She thinks humans are weak and ugly and smell bad, but even if humans are an inferior species, it's not right to abuse them. You don't kick puppies, right? She's careful not to inflict collateral damage on animals, but at the same time, she's distinctly less concerned about humans. She doesn't actively seek to harm innocents; rather, she just doesn't really care if a hairless ape is 'caught in the blast radius', and is quite likely to apply the can't-make-an-omelette-without-breaking-eggs rationalization in such cases.

Acinonyx is driven by vengeance. She wants to make Jubatus suffer; if she can't kill him, injuring him or ruining his reputation are acceptible alternatives. She'll keep on attacking him until she thinks he's paid the price for what he did to her.

Plotlines this character is likely to be involved with: Stealing advanced biotechnology; testing the stolen biotech on innocent human victims; kidnapping life-sciences specialists. Robberies (jewel thefts, banks heists, etc etc) to pay for stuff she can't or won't steal. Hiring herself out as 'muscle' to anyone who can pay her high fees. 'Improving' the lives of animals by any means necessary, up to and including Animal Rights-focused acts of terrorism. Being mistaken for Jubatus while doing any of the above.

Powers & Tactics: While Jubatus is about control and precision, Acinonyx is about raw, brute power. She does not use gadgets/tools if she can help it; she sees Jube's reliance on technology as a character flaw, and yet another indication that Jube is not worthy of his furry form. She isn't particularly persuasive, so in order to get other people to do as she wishes, she generally ends up relying on fear and intimidation.

---

Complications:

Dark secret: Acinonyx has abandoned her former, human, identity, but since she feels her radical change in species/appearance/etc is enough protection for her 'dark secret', she has not made any effort to obscure her history. If anyone actually went to the trouble of researching Acinonyx's human past, she would do anything necessary—up to and including murder—in order to keep that secret from being revealed.

Waiting for the other shoe to drop: The Labyrinth is not noted for its charity. Acinonyx owes them, and may the good Lord protect her when the Labyrinth decides it's time to collect on this debt.

Abilities: 8 + 12 + 4 + 2 + 2 + 8 = 36PP

Strength: 18 (+4) / with Rage: 22 (+6)

Dexterity: 22 (+6)

Constitution: 14 (+2)

Intelligence: 12 (+1)

Wisdom: 12 (+1)

Charisma: 18 (+4)

Combat: 16 + 16 = 32PP

Initiative: +10 (+6 DEX, +4 Improved Initiative)

Attack: +8

Grapple: +12 (+8 Melee, +4 STR)

Defense: +8 (+8 Base, +0 Dodge Focus), +4 Flat-Footed / with Rage: +6

Knockback: -3

Saving Throws: 7 + 3 + 8 = 18PP

Toughness: +12 (+2 Con, +8 [Protection], +2 Defensive Roll)

Fortitude: +9 (+2 Con, +7) / with Rage: +11

Reflex: +9 (+6 Dex, +3)

Will: +0 (+1 Wis, +8) / with Rage: +2

Skills: 76R = 19PP

Acrobatics 4 (+10)

Climb 8 (+12)

Handle Animal 5 (+6)

Intimidate 16 (+20)

Notice 12 (+13)

Search 4 (+5)

Sense Motive 11 (+12)

Stealth 4 (+10)

Survival 6 (+7)

Swim 6 (+10)

Feats: 26PP

All-out Attack

Ambidexterity

Animal Empathy

Blind-Fight

Contacts / Ecoterrorism network(s)

Distract/Intimidate

Elusive Target

Fast Overrun

Fearless

Fearsome Presence 5

Hide in Plain Sight

Improved Critical 2 / Crit on 18-20

Improved Sunder

Instant Up

Move-by Action

Power Attack

Rage / +4 STR, +2 FORT save, +2 WILL save, -2 Defense for 5 rounds, followed by 5 rounds of Fatigue

Startle

Takedown Attack 2

Uncanny Dodge (Hearing)

Equipment: 0PP

None

Powers: 8 + 4 + 6 + 12 + 4 = 34PP

Protection 8 [8PP]

Speed 4 100 MPH/880 fps (Hunting sprint) [4PP]

Strike 5 (Feats: Mighty) (Claws) [5+1 PP]

Super-Movement 6 (Slow Fall, Sure-footed 4, Trackless) [12PP]

Super-Senses 4 (Low-light vision, Scent, Tracking (scent), Ultra Hearing) [4PP]

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

DC Block:

ATTACK      RANGE     SAVE                        EFFECT

Strike      Touch     DC23 Toughness              Damage (physical)

Abilities (36) + Combat (32) + Saving Throws (18) + Skills (19) + Feats (26) + Powers (34) - Drawbacks (0) = 165/165 Power Points

[Avenger Assembled]

Are you still looking at this character, Cubist?

[Cubist]

Yes, I am. If you're wondering why I haven't done any editing/tweaking on the character sheet in the OP, it's because I figure that sheet is as good as it's gonna get in the absence of feedback/commentary from people who know what they're doing, and I've been awaiting that feedback/commentary.

[Avenger Assembled]

Beyond the notational errors in how her powers are written and such:

The character's background is a pretty heavy concern for all of us, Cubist. This type of character in comics is generally an environmental activist or animal rights fanatic, not a member of an internet fandom subculture. We try and downplay that sort of thing on the site in general, and especially in this particular area.

"Animal rights fanatic gets animal powers and goes about unleashing the beast within people" is good. "Furry fangirl gets powers and turns people into anthros" is more of a concern. You see where we're coming from this?

[Cubist]

Fair enough. I thought the backstory I came up with is a reasonable one for an "anti-Jubatus" villain, but since it's a sticking point, how about this instead:

The woman who would be Acinonyx is an animal rights zealot who has committed a number of questionable acts in her crusade. One day her computer goes all BSOD, so she hires a freelance troubleshooter, Jay Xavier, to make it better. While working on her machine, Jay finds evidence of some of her illegal actions... so he turns her in to the police. The woman blows her stack over this "betrayal", as she calls it, and swears vengeance upon Jay. Woman exploits her 'underground' connections, 'upgrades' herself to a cheetah, and is ready to embark on a new career as a supervillain.

If this is okay, I'll rework the backstory on the character sheet post. If not, well, I can come up with something else.

[Cubist]

The "Mark II backstory" has been incorporated into the character sheet.

[Avenger Assembled]

Cubist,

Catching up here. If you fix up the notation (saves, powers, etc) to make it match the sheets elsewhere on the site (take a look at Dok's sample builds for the best examples), and make it clear that this character is a comic book supervillain; in grossest terms a Barbara Minerva rather than a character from anthro fiction, we can start moving towards an approval.

[Avenger Assembled]

Cubist, if you don't want me to archive your sheet, tell _me_ to unarchive it, kay?

You still need to go ahead and get the sheet in standard format; losing the extra 1 pps off the feats and the like. Uncanny Dodge needs a sense type, and I'd like you to put her Raging stats on the sheet for ease of reference. We do limit Improved Crit to 2 ranks. You don't need to give her Diehard, NPCs have that too.

[Cubist]

Okay, I've made the desired changes on the character sheet, plus one more…

The [x PP] notes on the Feats: Gone.

Uncanny Dodge: Now specified as belonging to the 'Hearing' sense type—her Ultrasonic Hearing, in specific.

Rage: Modifications to abilities & saves now noted explicitly under Feats, and explicitly listed under Abilities and Saves.

Diehard: Is toast, which reduced the Feats budget by 1 PP.

Improved Crit: Two of the four ranks in this feat have evaporated, and will not be missed. The 2 PP that were thereby freed up will be put to good use.

Since the edits on the Feats list gave me 3 PP to play with, I used 'em to boost the Toughness save up to +12. She's a PL 11 character whose Trade-offs include -3 Defense / +3 Toughness, so this should be okay.

[Avenger Assembled]

All right, I've got no issues with what I see here ATM.

APPROVED

[trollthumper]

Okay, your Toughness is written out as +2 from CON, +5 from Protection, +2 from Defensive Roll, and... +3. Where does that +3 come from? Judging by the point spread for Saving Throws, it was bought up directly... which isn't allowed. Toughness is bestowed by CON, Protection, or Force Field. So, I'd recommend stripping out those three points and putting them into boosting Protection from 5 to 8.

As the character's a radical animal rights activist, wouldn't it make sense for her to have ranks in Knowledge (current events) or Contacts to represent an awareness of the issues/an ecoterrorist network she might be plugged into? Maybe some ranks of Knowledge (life sciences) too?

Critical Strike, as a Feat, means that your character can do critical damage to a specific type of enemy (bought up by Favored Opponent) that would normally be immune to critical hits (like, say, robots). So I'd recommend either striking it or buying up Favored Opponent.

[Cubist]

Trollthumper, you leave me no choice but to incorporate your eminently reasonable comments into the character sheet…

As per TT, the 3 'naked' points of Toughness save have been poured into boosting Protection up to 8.

Also as per TT, the Critical Strike feat is toast, and the point which was thus freed-up has been invested in Contacts (i.e., ecoterrorism network).

As per me noticing an embarrassing typo, the "+111" for the character's Rage-enhanced Fortitude save has been corrected to its true value of +11.

Hmm. I went over the brute arithmetic, and it looks like I've got one unspent point of her 165-pt budget. I've spent that point on the Blind-Fight feat, but if I messed up on the re-check, I will of course remove Blind-Fight and be happy.

[trollthumper]

APPROVED