5th edition character help. 350pt Powered Armor

[Doc Democracy]

15 hours ago, Strand said:

You got me thinking about this. My original idea for the character was Armored with TK outside of the armor. It would be like giving Professor Xavier powered armor. (I always thought one Plot Bullet would kill most comic book mutants)

 

I always like to hyperfocus on a core schtick with superheroes.  It does give them vulnerabilities but you should consider how you play due to those than seeking to patch all the weaknesses. (That depends on the style of game you play on though, if a GM is ruthless about exploiting weaknesses, you will indeed try to be wholly defended).

 

I like this thought you have about an armoured Professor X. I did not pick up on that vibe, or even the Great and Powerful Turtle from the Wild Cards books, from the character sheet.  Tonight, I will take your campaign style guide (14D6 attacks, 25-30pt defences, CV 9, SPD 5) and see what I come up with. 

 

Doc

[Doc Democracy]

Hmm.  Definitely we'll out of practice at this!!  I am sure I was once able to make ECs and multipliers dance to my tune....

 

Anyway, I followed the theme and may have come up with a character that your GM might balk at but should be competitive in the game you were talking about.

 

Forgive the lack of fancy character sheet, I did it all pen on paper while watching a TV documentary about the Troubles.  Recommended on iPlayer "Once upon a time in Northern Ireland".

 

Anyway, I spent 20 points on CON, 3 on DEX, 3 on INT, 20 on EGO, 8 on REC and 15 on STUN.  I then remembered this was still 5th edition and CON is king.  So I upped the CON to a 60 point spend, saved the 8 on REC, 10 of the STUN spend and sold back 20 points of END.  2 points more but now with END 40 rather than 20 and much less easy to STUN.

 

I then toyed with a variety of different structures.  I came down on having some core abilities, STR 15 telekinesis, 3D6 Energy Blast, 5" Flight, 5PD/ED Force Field.  The TK and EB have Alternate Combat Value (they apply versus ECV rather than DCV (a sixth edition advantage, but you could try selling it to your GM). The EC powers can only be used with the smaller "native" powers and so I have taken Linked on the smaller powers for a 1/4 limitation.  I have judged this a disadvantage because the larger powers are 0 END while the native powers cost END.

 

Then we have the powersuit, that focuses and amplifies his telekinesis. I finally settled on a 40 point EC - all powers have at least IIF foci (+1/4)

Power 1 - +45 STR telekinesis.  0 END, ACV. (IIF - gloves)

Power 2 - +9D6 EB. 0 END, ACV, indirect. (IIF - lenses, beam, lockout on TK)

Power 3 - +52" Flight. 0 END. (OIF - flight harness, no NCM)

Power 4 - +27 PD/ED Force Field. 0 END. (OIF - powersuit, always on)

Power 5 - 54 PD Force Field. 0 END. (OIF - powersuit, only for move through)

Power 6 - +8 SPD (IIF - head-mesh)

Power 7 - 14PD, 8ED Force Wall. 0 END. (OIF - powersuit, no range)

 

I kept your skill set as on the character sheet except the Combat skill, I replaced that with +10 to move through.

 

I also kept the slots on the HUD.

 

Now I figure that coming out to 321 points compared to the 332 of your original.  There is room for manoeuvre. You might use it to buy some additional DCV.

 

I need to say that I would not accept this character in my game, it breaches too many of my game's red lines.

 

The key place it does that is the +8 SPD.  It gives the character 10 SPD and us supposed to represent him acting at "the speed of thought", the suit feeding his power back through him.  I find higher SPD characters overly powerful, with careful play hey gain back STUN  and END really fast and they can pile on lots of damage due to the potential.

 

You would need to play this guy carefully, he moves fast and often.  Standing still, he would raise his Force Wall which protects from any one decent hit in a single phase. His EB has mental power style range, so keeping his distance gives him an advantage, opponents need to move or take range modifiers, he should be easy to hit but possibly difficult to damage.

 

He can move through for big damage.  The Flight is 62", which gives upto +20D6 damage but at upto -12 OCV. A decent attack when an opponent is unsighted or stunned and the additional forcefield mitigates the move through damage he might take.

 

This not a polished character but I think better reflects the idea of a telekinetic in a suit.

 

Doc

[Strand]

I think I can agree with the speed. the High speed is for speedsters.  If I wanted something like that speed demon thing I could take Lightning reflexes as a power.

 

The flight seems excessive to me. I would lower it to 25 with x4 noncom. 

 

I think you've been watching too much TV

The 27PD/ED is wrong. You need persistent with Always On.  Armor should do the same thing and the Effect of having force field that turns on only when you rush someone would look good instead of layered force fields.

 

I like this idea.....

 

.....but I also like the old one that is armor only with the weak guy inside, sort of like Tony Stark. Take away his armor and he's a normal guy. 

There simply is no way to give the character a tiny TK that can only spin a quarter so I just say that is just a Schtick. So this tiny power is magnified when he puts on the armor. I know you don't like the guy that is useless outside the armor, but there it is.

 

 

 

 

[Doc Democracy]

I would argue with a high SPD stat being for speedster.  He does not use a high SPD stat for anything beyond attacking really. And he has none of the speedy things a speedster might otherwise gave.

 

The flight is to provide him with the ability to move around the battlefield and allow him to utilise that high SPD to regain END and STUN, hiding, taking a recovery and getting back to the fight.  It also allows him to keep other people at a distance,  it us not supposed to be a way of getting around but he does a reasonable 80 mph or so.

 

The flight is also so high to allow him to use it as a weapon -

 

You do not need persistent with always on.  Persistent means that it stays on even when unconscious and persistent requires 0 END.  In this scenario, if he is conscious, he has it on and if he dies not consciously reduce his SPD then is using 10 END a turn, barely balancing that REC of 10.  It also makes a secret ID essentially impossible.

 

That second Force Field is the one that does the move through thing.  🙂

 

Of course, nearly all of that was distorted to fit it all into the 40 point EC....

 

It would probably not cost much different to pack the native powers into the EC, leaving him nothing but a high CON, high EGO normal.  You could put the CON and EGO into adrenal enhancers, that he triggers in Combat and take a limitation on those to save points.  I was suffering from too high cheesy levels already though, so left them native.

 

Doc

[Strand]

I DID ask for a character concept built around armor and this is that. Truthfully I never would have thought to put it all into an EC. Normally I would have done like the Mysterio character and split the powers between Multipower and EC. But this gives me ideas where to go with a character.

 

 

[Strand]

On 6/4/2023 at 6:40 PM, Doc Democracy said:

Power 6 - +8 SPD (IIF - head-mesh)

I have tried to create your suggested character in Hero Designer and it doesn't work and I think perhaps you are using 6th edition rules in mind even though EC doesn't exist in in 6th.

Our GM will never use 6th 

I tried to forage ahead without the ACV stuff in the ECV 

Even though you say I don't need Persistent with a 0END Force Field, I would have to turn off the AI to make that happen. 

But then I come upon the +8 speed and once again I have a road block. Unless you have GM approval, you can't have something in the EC that doesn't use END. 

So unless I once again turn off the AI, that is out.

 

I think the other issue with the character idea is that it is very over powered. (20d6 move through!)

I think you might think my group is over powered and thus create a character that fits. But if I showed the above character to my GM he would toss it back and say to tone it down.  He is all too familiar with Power Gamers. Though you may not have created that, it sure seems that way for a character just starting out with a 20d6 move through. It totally unbalances the group. 

(there isn't a group and there isn't a game for this character as this is is just a just for kicks sort of character, but still)

 

If you feel like having another go at that character great. If not that's great too. 

Thanks for helping me out on this.   Like I said before just using an EC for the majority of the powers wasn't on my mind.

 

[Doc Democracy]

The SPD thing is easy, you give it cost END and buy Reduced END, 0 END.  It means you have less SPD and it costs less, not a terrible thing. Down to +6SPD.

 

The ACV is indeed a 6th Edition thing but Hero Designer can accommodate a custom advantage.

 

The move through is the big thing, you said 14D6 was fine, and did not give me any caps to use.  If you were to use the whole 20D6 damage, your OCV, would be 4 below campaign average.  Quite a massive hit, 7 or less to hit on average.  To get back to campaign average you would have to bring it down to 16D6.

 

I didn't say your campaign was overpowering, I said it had higher levels of power than my campaign, and many others I have come across at these point levels.  It is also why questions like this need a clear outline of those campaign guidelines, unlike (for example) D&D, we can't just say it is a 6th level campaign.

 

I might have another go.

 

 

[Strand]

I guess for damage wise, a 350pt game 14d6 was the maximum. I remember when we played 4th edition and the characters were above 350 then the dice of damage went above 14.

The current game has a wide variety of characters. The GM's wife is new to the game (the chief reason for the game in the first place as we have not played Champions in a long time). She has a Leopard sized dragon that she can ride. It can breath ice attacks. I think it maxes out at 14d6, but it gets enraged when she gets knocked out. So the Dragon actually killed a normal with knock back after the initial attack hitting a wall.

Another character is based off of a shape shifter from Teen Titans. He can turn into certain Animals but he has density increase and as far as I know he has no armor for any of them, relying on the density increase. 

The Martial Arts Character has almost no armor, but a very high OCV, DCV. He can see into the near future. He uses special Martial Arts weapons for tripping and such. His problem is the the player likes his Tablet video games but we are used to him hanging back.

the last (other than me) is a character with NO powers what so ever. The game is based in the 70's, so his character is based on the 70's TV show "The Fall Guy". He is a Stunt Man. He has various Vehicles and I guess he spent all his points on Vehicles and no actual powers. When a real fight comes, he has to hang back. Maybe he will punch someone, but that's it.

 

 

That's just an idea of what the group is.

No one is consistently doing a lot of damage, but given a lucky roll, and I suppose most can do it.  I think we need to give our Stunt Man a gun of some sort.

 

I think I was hoping the Mysterio character was the guideline for what I wanted. It had the power level, the defense and other things. Unfortunately, people saw it as something to discuss which wasn't the intent.

 

 

 

 

[Doc Democracy]

I wasa putting things into HD and discovered lots of places where I have adopted 6th edition thinking.  So I was wrong in some places.  Flight would be only 26", and so the move through would ony be 11D6, I was tragically mixing up the 1pt/m and 2pt/" and delivering massively out of proportion damage.  😞 

 

I also played with putting everything into a bigger EC but that meant either having +10 SPD, cost END to activate, or simply giving him SPD 5 - which feels a bit more boring.  🙂

 

If he is to be less gonzo, then he needs something funky that emphasises the weed in a powersuit, and fills a gap other characters could not occupy.

 

I am waiting for inspiration to strike.

[Strand]

I know you want that Monster damage character, with that monster speed, but if it came to playing the character, I would not end up playing such a character. Everyone in our group is 5 speed. I put the fun into the character with the Backstory like he speaks in 3rd person or the like. I am quite happy with Mysterio. This is why I was trying to get Powered Armor type character with the same sort of powers, Speed, OCV/DCV, Body, Stun, etc. Since it wasn't working I wondered if there was something I was missing. 

 

Now if I have to tone it down to the lower end of what a 350 point character should be, so be it. At least then I know that Powered Armor can't be like my other character.