Your favorite character type

[Dominique]

Just out of curiosity, what's your favorite type of character to play? And why?

[pinecone]

My three fav's are Super speedsters and Shapeshifters, followed very closely by Martial bricks...

I like oddball, and I really like flexable, multirole characters. And I just plain like the special effects...

[DusterBoy]

Bricks with elements from other archetypes, speedster, energy projector, etc. Even if they don't have martial arts per se, they're all good in a scrap. I like physically tough characters.

Although speedsters and energy projectors can be fun to play, I'd still build them with good normal defenses.

Sorcerer is another favourite.

[Asperion]

I have always had a fondness for the classic speedster. While they are not the strongest, toughest, able to project power blasts, mind swipe, or anything else that is more appropriate to other more combat-capable archatypes, they do have the advantage that they are (when well-made) nigh impossible to hit, able to travel at great speeds that boggle the minds of others (making great scouts). Although they do have several powerful attack options (such as the extremely effective move through).

[Kal'El Wayne]

I love 'do everything' types. Not as good at any one thing as a specialised hero, but with the ability to try anything. So, a gadgeteer with a lab full of other gadgets, or a Power Suit type with modular attachments, or a mage with a magic pool, or even a 'mystic gadgeteer' who uses alchemy. And possibly my favourite of these is a kind of Doc Savage type. Some skill in a bunch of different things, decent stats, and a small amount of ritual magic and a bunch of weak gadgets.

OR

The Spirit style, hero who comes back from the dead. I often use this with another kind of hero, but I love the idea that, while he's just as easy to kill as anyone else, he keeps coming back. He or she is like the 'Freddy Kreuger' or 'Jason' or 'Chucky' of the superhero world. Terrifies the supervillains and lets me play this character as often as I want, even if he does get 'killed'.

[steamteck]

I like melee fighters over ranged fighters. I really like either immortal or experienced heroes with lots of combat levels and skills. Bricks and martial artists or something in between is good with a little unexpected trick or two on the side.

[Mr. R]

Ranged attacker, ie the blaster. Seems most of the time I was in groups that loved bricks and HTH types so I fell into this role. Keep it simple with fly, ff, eb.

With experience I would expand upon the powers to diversify. In CoH terms a defender.

[The Rose]

I've always been a fan of Speedy characters and Martial artists. After that wide type, I tend to go for support staff: Medical (healers, Doctors, etc) & knowledge (Techies, Historians, etc) oriented ones.

La Rose.

[Naanomi]

In any game system I play I love healer/buffer type support characters... dunno why, I just do.

Outside of that, I love playing hyper specialists... forget generalist 'do anything' types, Id rather do one thing better than anyone else (even if that one thing is something oddball and less than useful).

[TheQuestionMan]

TheQuestionMan's Top Five Character Types
1. Bricks
2. Martial Artists
3. Energy Projectors
4. Weapon Specialists
5. Gadgeteers


Everything else is for fun


QM

[sinanju]

I like Flying Bricks. I love the idea of being able to fly--and a brick requires a minimum of special rules. You have high defenses, do lots of damage...and that's about it.

If it's not a Flying Brick, I'm most likely to be playing someone with a very elaborate multi-power or VPP so they're insanely flexible. It's one extreme or the other for me most of the time.

[Shadow Hawk]

Variety. I like martial artists with a ranged attack, powered armor types with low brick strength and built in blasters. I also like characters that don't match stereotypes: A brick with a force field. A blaster with a 40 Strength. A martial artist who doesn't actually have any martial arts. A humanoid robot who transforms into lawn furniture.

For the record, "Shadow-Hawk" in his current incarnation has invisibility, flight, a 30STR, martial arts, and a OIF arm blaster.

[BNakagawa]

I like characters with limitations.

Sometimes they have no ranged attacks. Sometimes they have no enhanced senses. Sometimes they have limited mobility.

If you play in a largish group, it's important for a character to be more narrowly defined, to leave room for other characters to shine.

[Tasha]

Mechanic/Engineer, oh you mean Archetype...

I like playing Bricks, though usually with some other archetype added in for fun.

so the list
Brick
Energy Projector
Martial Artist
Egoist

actually I like playing quirky characters. In combat they fit one archetype or the other. Out of combat, I like the weird ones. ie like the Telekinetic/Cyberkinetic Black house cat.

Tasha

[CrosshairCollie]

I prefer Mentalists, but most GMs cringe if they hear me say I want to play one as I'm evidently scary with them. I tend to fall back on Energy Projectors after that.

[bubba smith]

Variety. I like martial artists with a ranged attack, powered armor types with low brick strength and built in blasters. I also like characters that don't match stereotypes: A brick with a force field. A blaster with a 40 Strength. A martial artist who doesn't actually have any martial arts. .
the only martial arts hero without martial arts i know of is the #1super-guy HONG KONG PHOOEY
my favorite character would be martial artist ss wee that includes a boxer/wrestler hero

[DusterBoy]

My psyker PCs would be tricky, with very subtle and very scary powers, like being able to scramble someone's motor cortex or disrupt their heartbeat. Being able to affect someone's visual cortex so they physically can't see you is as good as mind control.

As for energy projectors, I would go for zero-point energy or electro-magnetism, giving a very broad suite of powers. With ZPE you can justify telekinesis and teleportation, via quantum effects.

PCs who can bounce and slam because they're made of rubber are atractive to, because of their unpredictable attack vectors.

And of course, you can jutify anything via sorcery.

[Dominique]

I prefer Mentalists, but most GMs cringe if they hear me say I want to play one as I'm evidently scary with them. I tend to fall back on Energy Projectors after that.

Any particular reason why they frown on you playing a mentalist?

[CrosshairCollie]

Any particular reason why they frown on you playing a mentalist?

I'm trying to recall the exact quote last said to me about it, but it amounted to 'you're too damned imaginative and clever'. I basically gave the DM headaches with Mind Control and Mental Illusions (powers the DM advised me against taking because they were 'useless', ironically).

I think the straw that broke the camel's back was the time we were fighting Terror Inc, and we were all fully aware of Giganto's crush on Scorpia. A teammate threw a gas bomb at Scorpia and she started coughing (in addition to taking damage), so I threw a Mind Control on Giganto: "The love of your life is choking to death! She'll die if you don't give her the Heimlich!" One 80 STR Heimlich later, Scorpia was unconscious.

[Ockham's Spoon]

Themed martial artists with a coherent set of powers (often a low level elemental control), especially flexible powers like telekinesis, teleport, and stretching. I am also a big fan of time manipulators (not time travellers necessarily) which can be many character types, but most for me they make good speedster martial artists.

[Hyper-Man]

The most recent character I've made.
:doi:

[CourtFool]

Mystics because I love jack-of-all-trades type characters, but…


If you play in a largish group, it's important for a character to be more narrowly defined, to leave room for other characters to shine.

…this is always a concern. It helps to know what others are going to play, so I can leave those gaps in my character's abilities.

[Sidume]

I really don't have a favorite type. Every character I play will be a bit odd, but something very different from the last character I played. Lately (meaning last several years) I've been doing a lot of support characters, but that tends to be because the other players in the group tend to gloss over such things. I could be playing the elephant-sized bear with the personality of Eeyore one game, the insecure teen power mimic the next game, the 50+ yr old psychic broad, or the Don Juan wannabee B&E specialist.

That's one of the things that I really enjoy about the hero system. You don't have to be pidgeon holed into playing a particular role in a campaign. There are some players that only play variations on a certain theme (One guy I played with was so predictable we started calling all his characters Ninja-of-the-week). That would bore me to tears. If I didn't mind being stuck with the same thing I'll play a video game insted of trying to get people to coordinate their busy schedules to play a face-to-face game.

[IndianaJoe3]

Just out of curiosity, what's your favorite type of character to play? And why?

I play a lot of guys in powered armor. I think it's mostly because I understand their origin.

[Bloodstone]

Bricks and Speedsters are tied for first place in my mind. This is not surprising, since my favorite comic book characters are Nightcrawler, the Flash, Wonder Woman and the Hulk.

However, I'll play just about anything. My last two characters were a Weapon Master/Gadgeteer and a Martial Artist/Metamorph.

[Nagisawa Takumi]

I got three I like. Power Armour pilots, pure martial artists (Which I include weapon(s) masters in) and 'one man armies/super detectives', a la Robin, Batman and the like, which are a combination of Martial Arts, Gadgets and all out intelligence.

[Lord Mhoram]

I like Martial Artists, notably ones with a MP or Pool for special martial arts moves. I also just like martial arts - almost every character I play has a set of MA moves even if ranges (Smokeater had a ranged set, and Sift my super-mage has a standard HtH type MA, and a ranged package defined as extra magical control).

If you want to move out from there, I like to play a character can that do a little something in every situation - Martial Artists with pools who can do Ch'i healing or other tricks (Black Cat), super-mages with pools or Multipowers with a lot of slots (Ballistic, Sift) or other oddball characters with a tricks MP or Pool (Terminal Velocity a speedster, or Meeb the shape shifter).

I don't necessarily want them the best at any one thing (although 'Cat is) - but I do usually want them to be the most versatile.

[Zed-F]

For superheroes, I usually like to pick a couple different archetypes and mix 'em together. A light/fast brick with a magic pool, gadget pool, or some other set of tricks up his/her sleeve (doesn't have to be a VPP) is a classic character build for me.

For characters other than superheroes, I tend to go with something a little more straightforward, 'cause I simply won't typically have the points for a really diverse power set. That said, I always like to have a variety of options, so I'll usually try to work something in, whether it's a handful of martial arts moves or some sort of small power framework.

[jye42]

Bricks nothing says justice like a lamp pole up a criminals.... 13

[The Doctor]

Powered Armor characters. I was a huge iron man fan growing up so there is something special about a man with a metal mask!

[DocSamson]

Bricks and Brick/ Metamorph hybrids.
I am not sure why, I have just always favored brick/ tank type character almost to the exclusion of all others.

[Mostlyjoe]

Fast/Light Bricks, Toolkit Energy Projectors, Xmancer (Tech, Time, Whatever)

A lot.

[aylwin13]

Powered Armor characters. I was a huge iron man fan growing up so there is something special about a man with a metal mask!
No wonder you latched on to SCEPTRE, or even moreso to Paladin. You're gaming vicariously through my characters, as GM. :D

[aylwin13]

As for me, I like Boy Scouts; as in the Big Blue variety. The archetype really doesn't matter, it's the personality of the character that makes it for me. I prefer the honorable hero with a sense of responsibility. One who does the right thing, protect normals, etc. My characters are usually well-rounded as far as abilities go. Never the best at anything, but quite good at a lot of things.

[Dominique]

General question not directed at any specific response. Is there any particular power set you favor when building your favorite archetype?

[pinecone]

General question not directed at any specific response. Is there any particular power set you favor when building your favorite archetype?

For "Super Speedsters" I like the "time twister" Sfx.....

[DocMan]

My character concepts tend to vary a lot. But I have come back to some variant of the Martial Artist/Melee brawler type character more often than not. This is usually because a) I like characters who can't be disarmed without being de-armed, b) someone else already claimed the cool archetype that I wanted to play.

But I have done bricks, speedsters, mentalists, martial Artists, Bio-based power armor, and energy projectors.

Doc

[CrosshairCollie]

General question not directed at any specific response. Is there any particular power set you favor when building your favorite archetype?

I tend to be pretty flexible, but for my Energy Projectors, I try to pick special effects that lend themselves to more than just blowing stuff up. Flashes, Entangles, NNDs, that sort of thing.

[DJ Blackrock]

I tend to be pretty flexible, but for my Energy Projectors, I try to pick special effects that lend themselves to more than just blowing stuff up. Flashes, Entangles, NNDs, that sort of thing.


I've got a thing for energy projectors myself, and I agree with Collie that having more than "Blow stuff up" and "blow more stuff up" as powers is generally the right way to go.

While we're on the topic, I love ice manipulators. My pet GMPC is an ice manipulator. I've played several versions of them (brick, EP, even metamorph) in the past. Ironically, though I love City of Heroes, I could never get into the ice sets in that game. Go figure.

[Dominique]

I tend to be pretty flexible, but for my Energy Projectors, I try to pick special effects that lend themselves to more than just blowing stuff up. Flashes, Entangles, NNDs, that sort of thing.

I tend to agree. Plain "vanilla" EB, is pretty boring to me.

[CrosshairCollie]

I tend to agree. Plain "vanilla" EB, is pretty boring to me.

True, but I always make sure I have one of those, too. A little dull, but they can certainly be effective.

Thinking more on the topic, I also have a distinct tendency to play 'artificial' characters; robots, vat-grown organisms, that sort of thing. And yes, my favorite D&D race is the Warforged. I've had an idea percolating in the back of my mind as using a 'rubber golem' as a way to do stretching powers (something I've never done), but I can't come up with a reason for anybody to build such a thing.

At least, not a family-friendly one ...

[Bloodstone]

I tend to be pretty flexible, but for my Energy Projectors, I try to pick special effects that lend themselves to more than just blowing stuff up. Flashes, Entangles, NNDs, that sort of thing.

I think I'm at a loss for an Energy SFX that can't do more than blow stuff up. :think:

Myself, Fire/Heat and Ice/Cold are tied for 1st. Lots of options with both of those.

"EM Specturm" is a close second. So very versatile!

[CrosshairCollie]

I think I'm at a loss for an Energy SFX that can't do more than blow stuff up. :think:

I'm mostly thinking of characters like Cyclops and Havok, which I suppose is less a matter of FX as build/power limitations. Sometimes, the M.O. of your powers don't let you control it once you project it away from your body. For every solid-light-construct Green Lantern, there's a guy with a laser pistol. :)

[Naanomi]

I like *magic*... not 'Dr. Strange I can do anything the writers feel like I can do' magic, but a defined system. Magic often doesn't bring up the thoughts of 'realism' that other power sources might, so I am more free just to have fun with it.

[cranialspasm]

I dig melee or martial artists. There's something fulfilling describing a killing blow by blade or fist of fury.

[shadowmage87]

The character I'm currently building is a powered armor guy, sort of akin to how Iron Man is now. He got his Cyberpathy/Technomancy first, and used it to break into our campaign setting's equivalent of Tony Stark's house, and then proceeded to talk to the man through his security system. He convinced him to develop a nano-tech suit, and now he has the joy of being able to metamorph into his "powered armor." He also mysteriously has a REALLY high metabolism now.... It's just an awesome idea for me.

I hate playing character's that can't fly...I don't know why, but ever since my days playing DnD I couldn't stand to be the character anchored to the ground.

I also love telekinetics and EPs. My EPs tend to be sort of like nega-energy projectors. They don't use EBs, but Drains, and drop globes of darkness on people for fun.

[JmOz]

I tend to like highly trained normals, and agent smashers (Primary role on a team is to take care of henchmen and such...)

[Lucius]

I dig melee or martial artists. There's something fulfilling describing a killing blow by blade or fist of fury.

I'll keep that in mind

Lucius Alexander

The palindromedary is keeping its distance