Cogito -- the World's Smartest Man

[Michael Hopcroft]

I want to build, as a 350-point superhero, Cogito -- the World;'s Smartest Man. His abilties would all be built around having a truly forimidable intellect. In raw thinking power, he would be slightly better than the greatest geniuses of the age -- say about 5 higher INT than Reed Richards.

 

The thing is, though, that he wouldn;t have powers. he'd fight crime with his knowledge, his skills and his intuition. he wouldn;t have to worry about money because those of his inventions he feels the world is ready for provides enoughroyalties from the patents to support him very comfortably, supplemented by royalties from the books he writes.

 

As for skills, the question would be "what DOESN'T he know how to do?" If it's physically possible for a human to do something unaided, he can do it. In combat, he porbably uses a smattering of martial arts manuvers (aikido would be good for him) and a small gadget pool to reflect the occasional non-lethal weapon.

 

One thing he wouldn;t have is mental powers, except possibly a Mind Shield 9to reflect the fact that he thinks so fast and energetically that psis just can't grasp the processes).

[BoneDaddy]

We can build a few special effects around "smarter than you." A superhuman dodge/missile deflection based on his keen ability to understand where you were most likely to shoot at him. Perhaps his nearly inuitive ability to be in the right place at the right time could be bought as luck. He could have a VPP gadget pool that should cover just about any situation with the ten perfect tools. Defense maneuver, combat sense, danger sense, combat luck, clairsentience, and find weakness. Has potential.

[Guest Champsguy]

Re: Cogito -- the World's Smartest Man

 

Originally posted by Michael Hopcroft

I want to build, as a 350-point superhero, Cogito -- the World;'s Smartest Man. His abilties would all be built around having a truly forimidable intellect. In raw thinking power, he would be slightly better than the greatest geniuses of the age -- say about 5 higher INT than Reed Richards.

 

Well, I wanna build Superman on 350 points too, but it ain't gonna happen.

 

Let's see. You want to be 5 points higher than anybody else. Well, Telios is the smartest person (so far) in the CU. We can argue about Reed Richards' Int all day, but Telios has a 50. That means you need a 55.

 

The thing is, though, that he wouldn;t have powers. he'd fight crime with his knowledge, his skills and his intuition. he wouldn;t have to worry about money because those of his inventions he feels the world is ready for provides enoughroyalties from the patents to support him very comfortably, supplemented by royalties from the books he writes.

 

Okay, no "powers". That doesn't mean that you still don't want Powers (capital letter, as in the Powers in the book). Find Weakness is a Power, and that can be explained through you having detailed knowledge on all types of anatomy. An Invisible Energy Blast is a Power, represented by you moving two steps to the left, so that the thug who is charging you will change direction ever so slightly. Of course, with your superior intellect, you've determined the exact wrong time for him to change direction, resulting in his putting too much weight on his left leg, causing it to fracture.

 

As far as money goes, you've got two choices. #1, you could give him 15 points of wealth. #2, you don't have to give him any points in wealth. He has enough to comfortably support himself, but has never bothered to amass great amounts of cash. Your choice.

 

As for skills, the question would be "what DOESN'T he know how to do?" If it's physically possible for a human to do something unaided, he can do it. In combat, he porbably uses a smattering of martial arts manuvers (aikido would be good for him) and a small gadget pool to reflect the occasional non-lethal weapon.

 

We'll just give him a gi-normous cosmic VPP. Let's say 70 points. It'll represent skills, gadgets, and your supergenious all wrapped into one. You could use Clairsentience with Precognition because you've accurately predicted what is going to happen in the future. You could whip out a 14D6 EB, OAF, because you knew beforehand that you were going to be in a fight in that alleyway, and had the foresight to leave yourself a gun (carefully disguised, of course, as a trashcan lid so that nobody would take it). Thus, you don't have to have "change only in lab". You could have Postcognition that worked because he had carefully examined the clues at the site. "Hmm... based on the scuff marks on the floor, the open container of milk, and the small amount of clay on the doorstep (a rare clay, which only comes from the corner of 5th street and Main in the warehouse district of Atlas City), I know exactly what happened!"

 

One thing he wouldn;t have is mental powers, except possibly a Mind Shield 9to reflect the fact that he thinks so fast and energetically that psis just can't grasp the processes).

 

Oh, sure he can have Mental Powers. He's got 14D6 Telepathy, requires Incantations, because it's "super-interrogation". He makes a few simple, seemingly random comments, and then watches the crook for non-verbal signals. "Dog. Ferrari. Mom's spaghetti. Your boss... Okay everyone, this crook has just told me everything I need to know. The butler did it!!!" He uses his 14D6 Mind Scan. "A dirty rat like Sneaky Harry would be hiding down by the pier!" He uses his 14D6 Mind Control on the thug. It's super-persuasion and reverse psychology. He'll trick the thug into doing exactly what he wants. "You know, whatever you do, you certainly don't want to lead us to your hideout!!!"

[misterdeath]

Go with what Champsguy said. Mind Scan, Telepathy, Postcog and precognition. Find Weakness. Combat Luck. Luck. If you want to save points, then make the powers RSR: Deduction.

 

You also might want to Mentiac in the UNTIL book. He's supposed to be a smart guy, and he's got "intelligence based" powers too.

 

D

[TheEmerged]

Don't rule out powers just because of the name. You can justify a great many powers by saying he was smart enough to prepare, or that he can benefit from his knowledge.

 

The following are schticks from an NPC in my campaign world named Mensa (secret identity Noah Tall), with INT 100. Mensa is based my "Class 3" template, meaning he has around 750 points.

 

1> Know Where to Shoot: +8 Penalty Skill Levels, vs Hit Location Penalty (I use the HitLoc chart even in superheroic campaigns). Basically he can hit you whereever he wants to hit you because he knows where to shoot.

 

2> Know When to Shoot, part 1: +20 Penalty Skill Levels, vs Range Penalty. Pretty self explanatory.

 

3> Know When to Shoot, part 2: +10 OCV (5 point levels), only to counteract DCV bonuses for things like small size, cover, or "blur" effects (-1/2).

 

4> Brilliant, Just Plain: 8 Overall skill levels. Pair this with the skill enhancers and you can have a boatload of skills at 11- that you can realy use at 19- -- and they happen to double as a fairly effective martial art

 

5> Know What To Do: +50 STR, no figured (-1/2), requires skill roll appropriate to action (-1/4). You might also want to add Extra Time limitation, I left it off for him because it's supposed to be automatic. This allows him the ability to do remarkable feats by "knowing just what to do", if he makes the appropriate skill roll by -5. For example he could use this to escape from an entangle by making a Contortionist roll.

 

6> Who Built This Piece of Caca? 20d6 Dispel versus Technological, especially broad SFX (+1/2), No Range (-1/2), requires appropriate skill roll (-1/4). It's amazing what this power can do and how often it's appropriate.