WIP - Escort -- for review and comment

[Comic]

Jim Adams aka Escort

 

Val.Char.Cost.Base.Price.Roll. Notes [END]

 60 STR . 50 . 10 .  1  . 21-. 12d6, Lift 100 Tons [4]*

 23 DEX . 39 . 10 .  3  . 14-. 8 OCV/DCV

 33 CON . 46 . 10 .  2  . 16-.

 21 BODY. 22 . 10 .  2  . 

 23 INT . 13 . 10 .  1  . 14-. PER 14-

 23 EGO . 26 . 10 .  2  . 14-. 8 ECV

 25 PRE . 15 . 10 .  1  . 14-. 5d6 PRE Attack

 22 COM .  6 . 10 . 1/2 . 13-.

 30 .PD . 18 . 12 .  1  .    . 30(12r) PD(rPD)

 25 .ED . 18 .  7 .  1  .    . 25(12r) ED(rED)

  5 SPD . 17 .  3.3 10  .    . Phases: 12, 3, 5, 8, 10

 19 REC .  0 . 19 .  2  .

 66 END .  0 . 66 . 1/2 .

 68 STUN.  0 . 68 .  1  .

270 Total Characteristics

 

Skills

  - Acting Everyman 8-

  - AK: Campaign City Everyman 8-

  - Climbing Everyman 8-

  2 Combat Skill Level 5 pt HTH Level with OAF (-1) Cables

  - Concealment Everyman 8-

  - Conversation 8-

  - LS: English Everyman 4pts w/Literacy

  3 Lockpicking 14-

  - PS: Reformed Thief 11-

  3 Security Systems 14-

  3 Shadowing 14-

  3 Sleight of Hand 14-

  3 Stealth 14-

  - TF: Small Motorized Ground Vehicles Everyman

 

Perks

  3 Agency Membership

  1 Wealth - Well Off

 

Powers

  3 Bare Advantage 'Wrist Magnets' 1/2 END on 30 STR 7 AP OAF Cables (-1) [-]

 12 Damage Resistance 'Cybermesh' 12 rPD/rED 12 AP [-]

  5 Flash Defense 'Cyberoptics' Sight 5 AP [-]

  3 Healing 1d6 'Nanites' 3x END (-1) OAF Cables (-1) [3]

  3 Knockback Resistance 'Magnetic Dampers' 3" 6 AP OAF Cables (-1) [-]

  2 Leaping 'Ankle Magnets' +5" x2 Ncbt 5 AP OAF Cables (-1) [1]

 26 Life Support 'Cybermesh' Immune Age 5 AP; Need Only Eat, Sleep 1/Week 2 AP; Safe Environments Cold, Heat, Pressure, Radiation, Vacuum 9 AP; Self Contained Breathing 10 AP [-]

  5 Power Defense 'Cybermesh' 5 AP [-]

 

 80 Total Skills, Perks, Talents & Powers

 

350 Total Cost

 

Disadvantages

200 Bonus

  5 Distinctive Feature: Cyborg (Concealable/major effort, Noticed & Recognized, Detectable by Large Group/Simple Tests)

 10 Hunted: Police (As Powerful, NCI, PC Easy to Find, Watching Only, Infrequently)

 20 Mystery A

 20 Mystery B

 10 Physical Limitation: Medically Impervious Skin (Infrequently, Fully)

 20 Psychological Limitation: Protective of Innocents (Common, Total)

 20 Psychological Limitation: Loyal to who show kindness (Common, Total)

 10 Psychological Limitation: Puts fellow combatants ahead of himself (Common, Mild)

 10 Reputation (Escort only) Berserker, 11-

 15 Secret Identity: Jim Adams, student & consultant

 10 Social: Subject to Probation Rules (Major, 8-)

350 Total Bonus + Disadvantages

 

Background

 

Jim Adams was a thief. Good thieves, his family had never been captured or even suspected by the police in their long career. Smart thieves, they only ever stole from the sort of people who would never report the loss. Jim knew how to follow criminals to their lairs unseen, sneak past guards and alarms, lift keys and passcards and defeat complex locks. For the Adams' class of burglar there was no street presence, only dealing through exclusive contacts to fence goods and get supplies and intel.

 

Jim is alone in the world since his last theft, the one where VIPER vaporized his partners -- his family -- before his very eyes. The Adams family target had latched onto Jim the moment he opened the lab vault, as if it were alive, like some face hugging parasite, lifting and immobilizing him. His father and mother were carrying Jim away from the lab, even while he buzzed and glowed and distressingly floated while growing a foot taller between them, his twin siblings on point ahead of them, when VIPER raiders showed up, apparently after the same prize and determined not to be beat. 

 

The barrage of VIPER blasters had two immediate effects: first, they incinerated every shred of humanity in their line of fire, thieves and lab workers alike; second, the energy influx boosted the medical nanomesh in Jim to overdrive level, permanently binding it to him and sparking a self-powering cascade of changes and execution of subroutines that had never been meant for human function, but for the illegal self-repairing maglev drone delivery system meant to carry illegal experimental medical nanite generators to target patients in the field.

 

Not knowing his own strength, his own higher brain functions impaired by the power of the VIPER weapons, in the first flush of transformation and grief, boosted Jim robotically returned the violence VIPER had done with equal effect, albeit with less murderous efficiency. In the end, only E.S.C.O.R.T. remained, witness to the horrible massacre. It sickened him, on top of the loss of his family, the memory of what his hands had done, when his humanity had been rebuilt by the nanites from its baser level. No one should have such power for evil, Jim resolved.

 

Jim, now expanded mentally to a new level of inner humanity by the nanoboosters, has left crime behind. He misses his family, and regrets the violence his subsconscious mind visited on their murderers. Jim has stepped up to the obligations of his superpowers, making a secret deal with the authorities to be on call should they need him, accepting probation for five years in exchange for a pact his past crimes will be wiped from his record and excused forever. 

 

Jim also accepted a cover story, a false reputation laid about him, to make himself more useful to the government as a tool of shock and awe. After all, it's not entirely untrue. Escort had gone berserk that one time. Jim has kept evidence, however, that the berserk reputation is being manufactured on purpose by the government, should he ever need to clear his name of that.

 

Presently, Jim is a student who works part time as a 'consultant'; his classmates think, given his impossibly good looks that means something like 'model' or 'escort'.

 

Powers and Tactics

 

Jim can tap into the might of his stolen cybernetic power using cable-fed cyberattachments to boost his movements electromagnetically, to vault with ease over 30 feet high at over 30 mph or keep his footing, and of course to make it easier to hit people and such. Since the theft, Jim's been submicroscopically transformed, so much so that his body and mind overflow with power and potential, flesh as durable as steel, muscles strong enough to tear steel, and brain raised to higher functioning. On a touch, Jim can even heal injuries with an effort, channeling the power through the cables to the small medical nanogenerators in his wrist boosters.

 

Jim's general combat tactics involve stealth and hand-to-hand, putting himself in the center of melees, leaping about easily while drawing fire from opponents and shielding innocents. Jim is a peaceful person, who tries to avoid injuring others, knowing what his power can do.

 

Appearance

 

Jim is a very tall young man of about twenty with remarkably perfect features, short blond hair and pale violet eyes. He has no tattoos, piercings, scars, moles, fingerprints or identifying marks, or facial hair. Looming six and a half feet tall and a shade over two hundred pounds, he'd ripple with muscularity if you saw him with his shirt off, which he takes pains to avoid.

 

Escort wears indigo motorcycle leathers and a black bandana mask covering the top half of his face and top of his head. Black cables run from a hub on his back along his arms and legs to circular discs strapped to his wrists and ankles. Escort moves with superhuman fluidity, electromagnetically boosted.

[Comic]

I was trying to capture the notion of a quadcopter as Brick with this character, someone with a story that would evoke a 'radiation accident' with a mutated quad rotor drone.

 

I think I've gotten most of the way there, but I'm not sure I've hit the mark.

 

Any help?

[freakboy6117]

im a little confused by the Cables are these jack plugs that can be yanked out in combat? if they are not easily disabled they should not be an obvious accessible focus. the description is a little vague too im picturing a guy attached to a  hover drone by cables and the drone supplies the power to run his cyber mesh is that correct?

[Comic]

im a little confused by the Cables are these jack plugs that can be yanked out in combat? if they are not easily disabled they should not be an obvious accessible focus. the description is a little vague too im picturing a guy attached to a  hover drone by cables and the drone supplies the power to run his cyber mesh is that correct?

 

The cables are meant to be much like Bane's, or similar power/feeder cords.

 

While they're shielded enough to avoid being fragile, their connections can be yanked out by any standard disarm vs. OAF. Depending on which cables are pulled, different powers may be lost.  Yank a cable on the legs, and the leaping and knockback resistance go. Cut a line on the arms, and the HTH skill level, partial END cost reduction and healing are impaired. Target the main unit on the back and all of the OAF powers go down.

 

The idea is that the electricity and/or nanite flow needed for the various powers is supplied through the cables (the four former quad maglev units) from the former central unit of the quadcopter, mounted on Escort's back like a backpack.

 

Escort's been merged with the self-repairing experimental military support drone by the medical nanites imbedded in his body, so is a man-machine hybrid. Too heavy to truly hover with the drone's propulsion, its inertial guidance at least boosts Escort's movements a small amount. Escort's 'design' was happenstance, circuits overloaded with power and automated healing routines run amok, so he's fortunate that when he fused with these parts they were actually removable, and didn't -- for example -- fuse through his face or randomly on his limbs asymmetrically.

 

And when he wants to pass for human in his secret ID, Jim Adams pulls out the cables and pockets the drone components.

 

Escort is meant to be a starting hero, with room to improve. I also wanted his reliance on the foci to be minimal. Losing them all only costs him a CSL and a bit of mobility, plus the healing.

[Comic]

Picture something a little less overstuffed than Bane; Batman's physique with a more elegant, streamline backpack with only four feeder lines. A backpack with a strangely organic look, as it has become partly alive, a symbiote of nanotechnical origin.

[freakboy6117]

ok that makes more sense.

 

one thing i might suggest as a way to make the "back pack" simpler, would be to make it a straight endurance reserve with the amount of recovery based on the number of cables connected.

that way all of his abilities would be available but he would tire easily with all the cables in place he would be able to use all of his powers to there full you could also buy some of his stats with costs end so when he activates the support unit he is able to enhance his strength con dex etc but when it is disconnected he can prioritise the abilities he needs.

 

I would also suggest making the healing regeneration unless you intended for him to be able to heal others. 

 

I know that you didn't want the loss of the drone to be too debilitating but it seems like it should be a fairly key part of the his story otherwise why bother as it stands its not significant enough for an enemy to devote time to targeting it and not debilitating enough to make it essential he use them so it won't  make for an interesting plot point.

 

one final thought i would probably allow Only in alternate identity for the drone parts as activating them will ruin any attempt at a secret identity unlike his other powers

[freakboy6117]

One other thing i can't help picturing with this build is the drone being autonomous  like a flying jelly fish its  power cables hanging down. with escort being able to send it ahead as a scout with them symbiotically linked so he is seeing what it sees. giving it the ability to hack doors or subdue guards with its prehensile power cables while escort sneaks into places. then when he needs to get out the big guns it wraps around him and they become a powerhouse

[Comic]

One other thing i can't help picturing with this build is the drone being autonomous  like a flying jelly fish its  power cables hanging down. with escort being able to send it ahead as a scout with them symbiotically linked so he is seeing what it sees. giving it the ability to hack doors or subdue guards with its prehensile power cables while escort sneaks into places. then when he needs to get out the big guns it wraps around him and they become a powerhouse

 

All good ideas.

 

It might be a bit unfair to opponents, to have these obvious, accessible cables and for all their effort and risk to disconnect them they're still left facing a Brick, but that's on them for targeting foci. As the powers are small, the focus DEF and BODY is low, so the rules balance that pretty well.

 

I very much like being able to 'Summon' or 'Duplicate' the drone, but I think that will wait for Escort after he's spent some XP on Inventor and related skills, since the design team behind the E.S.C.O.R.T. are all dead and their records destroyed, and it's not like Escort's exactly developed more innate trust of the sort of people who could reprogram what is now an integrated part of himself.

 

I also foresee him gaining Maglev Flight, eventually, perhaps as a Multipower slot with the Healing and Superleap, so Escort will become a sort of human quadlev.

[freakboy6117]

i see your point that him only losing end and rec would be unfair to opponents but as it stands there is almost no effect to disabling the drone.

 

he gets no weaker while he would use  bit more end and has to make a a slightly higher skill  roll but it hardly slows him down and the healing doesn't seem like something he would use that often during combat due to the high end cost..

 

you could consider buying the drone as a follower then you can get more with the 5 point doubling rule.

[Comic]

The drone as follower is awesome. I love it. 

 

While I still want the man-machine hybrid for theme and flavor, I'll definitely evolve a set of drone followers, and perhaps even mind control over machines. Nice!