The Most Unusual or Interesting Build You've Seen

[Vigil]

Hey Ganag,

 

Fresh off my Nemesis Kid posting I got to thinking about interesting, unusual or particularly challening or perplexing builds that I've seen.

 

Nemesis Kid was certainly one of them but I'v eseen and built many others.

 

Maybe my favorite is one of The Infinites cornerstone characters, Nirvana. She's an alien from beyond reality or creation as lesser creatures know it and her race predates any such concepts. As such, she is not bound by fate and can sidestep reality and destiny when she needs to. That power was built as a suite of powers beginning with 18d6 Luck, inherent. However, her most interesting power was a Minor Transform (Non-Stunned to Stunned), NND (defense is 4d6+ Luck or Unluck or being "non fated") triggered by her Enraged Psych Limit with OIF (object of opportunity) limit. Essentially, she gets mad, grabs whatever's near at hand and beans her target with it, stunning them. It's great and not overbalancing.

 

That's one of my faves. Which are yours?

 

Vigil

[Guest lucky]

Re: The Most Unusual or Interesting Build You've Seen

 

However' date=' her most interesting power was a Minor Transform (Non-Stunned to Stunned), NND (defense is 4d6+ Luck or Unluck or being "non fated") triggered by her Enraged Psych Limit with OIF (object of opportunity) limit. Essentially, she gets mad, grabs whatever's near at hand and beans her target with it, stunning them. It's great and not overbalancing.[/quote']

Oh my stars and garters. Not overbalancing? Wow.

[Vigil]

Re: The Most Unusual or Interesting Build You've Seen

 

LOL.

 

Actually I don't see it as overbalancing. If you consider that "stunned" is not an uncommon state in combat (or even out of combat for a lot of people I know) and the effects of stunned aren't all that deliterious or far reaching I think a minor transform as stated is perfectly reasonable.

 

Essentially, this power is a take on the old film convention of the angered heroine throwing a pot, a plate or what have you and bouncing it off the antagonsit's noggin and temporarily dazing him. They did that a lot in "Bewitched", I think it was, and maybe even "I Dream of Geanie". It's kinda pratfall thing.

 

Maybe you had to be there, lol.

 

Vigil

[Fox1]

Re: The Most Unusual or Interesting Build You've Seen

 

LOL.

Essentially, this power is a take on the old film convention of the angered heroine throwing a pot, a plate or what have you and bouncing it off the antagonsit's noggin and temporarily dazing him. They did that a lot in "Bewitched", I think it was, and maybe even "I Dream of Geanie". It's kinda pratfall thing.

 

Maybe you had to be there, lol.

 

Vigil

 

Not a bad concept.

 

I'd likely throw a charges-1 limit on the power to represent the fact that such heroines typically didn't manage that trick more than once per fight.

 

 

Not sure I'd do it with a transform, a EB with the limit of "To Stun only, does no damage" would be better I think unless I wanted the character to be able to stun even a brick with the attack. Worth a -1 1/2 limit I think. Would have to be enough dice to stun the types of targets I wanted it to affect.

[Vigil]

Re: The Most Unusual or Interesting Build You've Seen

 

That's an interesting alternative.

 

I constructed it as a transform specifically to enable it to stun even tough birck types. I love the image of a pushy, demanding, self absorbed, Paris Hilton-esque alien princess throwing a hissy fit and levelling bricks with lipstck cases. The absurdity appeals to me.

 

The other element is that she recovers from her "enraged" once she stuns someone. I think it really aptly describes superhuman hissy fits.

 

Vigil

[austenandrews]

Re: The Most Unusual or Interesting Build You've Seen

 

I agree, I'd go with the "Only To Stun" NND. You'd get twice the dice and only have to overcome 1xCON instead of 2xBODY. Of course you'd lose the cumulative part.

 

I once ran a game with a challenging PC. The PC was "inspired by" the old show Remington Steele (this was a looong time ago). She had various invisible psychic powers and a DNPC named "Winchester Colt." The gag was that he thought he was doing all these cool things and the PC used her powers to make it look that way. The powers were relatively straightforward but the premise was challenging for a GM.

[Theron]

Re: The Most Unusual or Interesting Build You've Seen

 

I don't know if it counts as interesting. It's unusual in that three players at our table, with about sixty years combined Champions playing between us couldn't come up with an efficient way to create her.

 

The character, Oracle, was for our no maximum points Silver Age game. On the surface, she was pretty simple, a normal human who could channel the powers of three ancient Greek goddesses (Athena, Artemis, and Aphrodite). So a multi-form was called for. Except, the way the player envisioned her, she could change pretty freely between all three goddess forms, and none of them had the same Speed (or much else in common stats-wise). She was a neat concept, but just a train-wreck to try and run.

[Vigil]

Re: The Most Unusual or Interesting Build You've Seen

 

She does sound like a bit of a disaster. My idea, beyond the problematic Multiform or possibly some sort of Duplication would be to give her at "total, overall, SPD score" which she could divide freely among the three forms and just use shapeshift and some differentiated powers to discriminate the forms. That way she can "shift" between them as a zero phase action and still not miss a beat.

[austenandrews]

Re: The Most Unusual or Interesting Build You've Seen

 

Or force her to take SPDs that mesh well together, like 4 & 8. Pretty limiting, though.

[nexus]

Re: The Most Unusual or Interesting Build You've Seen

 

LOL.

 

Actually I don't see it as overbalancing. If you consider that "stunned" is not an uncommon state in combat (or even out of combat for a lot of people I know) and the effects of stunned aren't all that deliterious or far reaching I think a minor transform as stated is perfectly reasonable.

 

Essentially, this power is a take on the old film convention of the angered heroine throwing a pot, a plate or what have you and bouncing it off the antagonsit's noggin and temporarily dazing him. They did that a lot in "Bewitched", I think it was, and maybe even "I Dream of Geanie". It's kinda pratfall thing.

 

Maybe you had to be there, lol.

 

Vigil

 

Seems pretty bad if she was on a team. Stunned in a group fight is typically shortly followed by "Unconsious" as everyone turns and fires on the sitting duck.

 

Half DCV

Lose your action until next phase

All non persistent powers shut off

[Vigil]

Re: The Most Unusual or Interesting Build You've Seen

 

As a GM, she can be abit frustrating at times but she's avery personality centred character with an excellent player who understand not overplaying her "not fated" abilties. In the hands of a power gamer or rules lawyer she'd be a walking nightmare but she's played for effect within the scope of her personality. Just imagine if Paris Hilton could step outside the rules of destiny and you have the archetype. So, rather than bean the bad guy and move in to pound him to paste, she'll usually become distracted by something else and lose interest. It's atough balance but that's what RPGs are about.

 

When I first started out as a GM (way too many years ago) one of our players, Hamish had a charcter named Silver Streak. He was abit of a Superman analogue...a brick with high movement cpabilities. I'd built the storyline they were playing for a couple of months and finally the moment for the grand, dramatic entrance of the main baddie happened. So, Polarion makes his entrance, does his PRE attack. When he recovers from the attack SS decides to push his move through and try to clobber Polarion. He pushes his 70 STR and his 20" Running. Now, I'd worked it out so that most likely it would take a concerted effort on the part of the team and a protracted battle to beat Polarion. Anyway, SS pushes his abilities and does he move through...and rolls a 3, an automatic max damage critical. He steams over Polarion doing the max on 24d6 and, basically, turns the epic villain into paste.

 

After that, there's the awkward silence as you try to figure out where to go from there.

 

Vigil

[nexus]

Re: The Most Unusual or Interesting Build You've Seen

 

Hehehehe. The thought of Paris Hilton with Super Powers chills me to my soul....

[Vigil]

Re: The Most Unusual or Interesting Build You've Seen

 

It's true. be afraid. be very afraid. Fortunately her attention span never seems to encompass more than few phases before she loses interest and abandons her team mates.

[Theron]

Re: The Most Unusual or Interesting Build You've Seen

 

Or force her to take SPDs that mesh well together' date=' like 4 & 8. Pretty limiting, though.[/quote']

 

Yeah, it didn't help that the way we conceived the three "avatars" pretty much demanded a wide range of speed to differentiate them completely. Athena was a medium brick with martial arts, find weakness, and lots of tactics, Artemis was a high-speed ranged specialist with a special transform attack (man to stag), and Athena a low speed low defenses Mentalist.

 

Ultimately, the GM gave her a magical Radiation Accident, consolidated her powers, gave her a bunch of new ones and declared that she'd been possessed by an avatar of Eris. This rather heavy-handed move was just one of the impending signs of the doom of the campaign. Still, three years is a pretty good run however you cut it.

[CourtFool]

Re: The Most Unusual or Interesting Build You've Seen

 

Except' date=' the way the player envisioned her, she could change pretty freely between all three goddess forms, and none of them had the same Speed (or much else in common stats-wise).[/quote']

 

I would have allowed her to use the VPP Advantage 'Powers Can Be Changed As A Zero Phase Action' at either +½ or +1. With unlimited points I do not think it would have been too unbalancing.

 

You could also have done Duplication with a limitation that the duplicates can not be active at the same time.

 

Shape Shift with all characteristics, perks, powers and skills linked to a particular form?

[nexus]

Re: The Most Unusual or Interesting Build You've Seen

 

It's true. be afraid. be very afraid. Fortunately her attention span never seems to encompass more than few phases before she loses interest and abandons her team mates.

 

LOL

 

Sounds cool and yeah, I see what your saying. Somethings can be balanced in the hands of a certain character or player type and abusive for another. Its worked for you and your players. That's all that's really important.

 

So, to actually answer the querstion posed. The oddest build I can think of off hand was Karma. A character who's power was his phenomonal Luck. Except he didn't even have 1 die of the Luck ability. He many many powers with that as sfx. Among these:

 

Dmg Reduction

Telepathy (I can guess what your thinking)

Precognition (Lucky guess)

Martial arts manuver (lucky strikes)

Summon, Friendly Being (there is always a cop when you need one)

Wealth (One the lottery, four times. All his scratch off tickets are winner, happens to find money)

Transform (various luck based effects, such as locked to open :"Just happend to guess the combination).

Find weakness (Lucky strike 2)

etc.

 

It was a pretty powerful character but what made him interesting where his disadvantages. You'd think someone with that degree of luck would be vastly overconfident. He was just the opposite. He "knew" that some day his luck was going to fail him. That both scared and intrigued him since he also worried about his actual worth. His powers cast a allot of doubt on practically any accomplishment he had. Did he actually succeed or was just it just Not so Dumb Luck? Did he have any real skills at all? Another thing that concerned Karma a great deal (and was in part his motivation for being a Hero) was that his Luck was solely focused on him. Basically, sometimes he felt he caused misfotune, however slight, to others when it happened. Even those lottiery winnings meant the odds were inevitably skewed in his favor the instant he brought a ticket. Was that "fair"? If he found a wallet with 100 dollars in it, it meant someone had to lose it. Did they lose it and his powers allowed him to find it or did his powers "make" them lose it? That sort of thing. Using his powers for good helped him make up for that in some sense. Causility was a big concern for this guy.

[Haerandir]

Re: The Most Unusual or Interesting Build You've Seen

 

I, too, had a Luck-based character in a campaign I was running, which was one of the more original builds I've seen. He was "Lucky, the Little Black Cat". Essentially, he was the proverbial "black cat which crosses your path", inflicting bad luck. So, he was an apparently ordinary black house cat who hung out with the rest of the super team, and everywhere he went, horrible misfortune befell their foes.

 

His primary attack power was, IIRC, an 11d6 EB with Variable Special Effects, Indirect and Invisible Power Effects, which simulated something in the environment falling on or otherwise injuring the target (pianos falling from 6th story balconies were a specialty, as were broken power lines). He had Shrinking, Always On (This was a 4th ed. game, so it'd be built differently now), a force field based on things interfering with people trying to hurt him (probably would just use Combat Luck these days), and so forth. I think he also had a Transform to give permanent Unluck to people who really irritated him.

 

In addition to the Unluck powers, he had a few other abilities that kept him from being a total plot device. I believe he could communicate telepathically, so he was actually a member of the party. He was actually much stronger and tougher than a normal cat, so he wouldn't just fold up if someone got a lucky hit on him. And he was extremely sneaky, too, which made him a good scout. The explanation for all that was that he was actually a minor feline trickster-deity of some sort.

 

That campaign also included two Superman homages, who actually turned out to be very different characters. Superman just has too many powers. Essentially, one of them went the iconic route, and was a pretty straightforward flying brick with a few brick tricks and some eyebeams. The other was built around using all of the 'oft-forgotten' Superman powers (super-speed, etc.)

[Vigil]

Re: The Most Unusual or Interesting Build You've Seen

 

Nirvana, my Paris Hilton type, is luck based also, onsofar as Luck is what best relflects the ability to side step destiny. I guess maybe the entire conception of luck based caharcters lends itself to weirdo builds.

 

I really like both the charcters decsribed above (Lucky and Karma). I think they're both great examples of really smart, well thought out charcters where the powers sync with the special efects and the personality. That's damn rare. Most characters tend to be piles of points with excuses for disads. so kudos on great and original builds.

 

It's interesting that you mention your Superman clones, Haerandir. In our current campaign we have 3 major superclones and a few minor ones. I guess it's almost by default that the conception has become so classic. Our major clones are:

 

Paragon from Futura. he's based on the original, Golden Age (Earth 2) Superman conception where Superman ggained his powers on Earth because Krypton was a much higher g world. So, on Earth he has tons of Superleap as well as the high STR etc and gravity manipulation powers (like High G/Low G eyebeams).

 

Harrow from MV4. Harrow's a fanatic who had avision of a perfect, purified race and who's taken it on himself to test world for their worthiness to survive. Thus far none have passed the test. He's funky Superman type in that on MV4 he has certain super abilities like very high STR a huge Superleap, invulnerability and "cold breath" but he can only recharge his END Reserve by absorbing fragements of his version of "kryptonite", an extradimensional ore called "Bronzium". What the pCs don't realize is that, like the classic conception of the Crime Syndicate's Ultraman, on our campaign Earth, Harrow will gain additional abilities with every new exposure to bronzium while on Futura, bronzium is like green k and on Akkad (another of our campaign "earths", bronzium is like gold k. So ther's lots of cool variations iwthin the same charcter depending on which earth he's operating on.

 

Finally, there's Mr. Damocles of Earth. He's the main legbreaker for the world's greatest villain coalition, The Cartel. On his homeworld, he was a mob enforcer who was sent to shake down am eccentric but brillaint scientist who was preaching the end of the world Jomar K. Shortly after he bulled his way into the "K"s residence the end of the world that Jomar had been preaching began. Jomar pleaded with Damo Kles to allow him to evacuate his fam,ilyy. Instead Damo killed Jomar and Tara and threw their baby, Mana K out of the rocket to squall on the launchpad as he escaped their dying world. Eventually, damo Kles arrived on Earth where he quickly went back to his old legbreaking ways but with fabulous new powers which made him one of the most powerful bwings in existence. Eventually he was contacted by The Cartel and recruited as Rex Monday's right hand man and bodyguard. He's the classic bronze age Earth 1 super clone and the most starightforward power wise of the three. I'm sure the PCs will be amazed to see the spark fly when Harrow arrives on earth and tries to muscle into Mr. Damocles turf.

 

Anyhoo those are my main super clones. All three in my campaign are villains (although the PCs don't know that about Paragon, yet). I think it's just more interesting to make Superman a villain than a good guy.

 

Vigil

[Theron]

Re: The Most Unusual or Interesting Build You've Seen

 

I would have allowed her to use the VPP Advantage 'Powers Can Be Changed As A Zero Phase Action' at either +½ or +1. With unlimited points I do not think it would have been too unbalancing.

 

You could also have done Duplication with a limitation that the duplicates can not be active at the same time.

 

Shape Shift with all characteristics, perks, powers and skills linked to a particular form?

 

We played with all of the above. I guess the problem was that we (me, the GM, and our resident Rocket Scientist) couldn't find a way to build her in a way that didn't feel clunky and kludged together (the actual player, my wife, is a competent gamer, but has never been great at the nuances of Hero character creation, even though she comes up with really interesting character concepts).

[TheEmerged]

Re: The Most Unusual or Interesting Build You've Seen

 

Most Rule-Bending Concept That Actually Worked In Play. Had a player come to me wanting to run a one-off of a DC character named Damage. The short description is that he's a mid-strength, mid-speed brick that 'powers up' as the fight goes on, but if he gets too powered up he explodes.

 

I started this with an Aid to virtually everything (+2). I gave him an Explosive Energy Blast, and then gave him a physical limitation that he has to make an EGO roll, penalized in a "reverse RSR", to keep from blowing up that turn.

 

Then to bend things, I gave the initial Aid a "side effect" of aiding the explosion -- as such making it even larger and in turn making the EGO roll harder. I did the same with a second Physical Lim, added 5 additional active points every phase there were any points in the "Aid Pool". As such it continually got larger, and therefore more likely to go off even if he wasn't using the aid.

 

In theory, this looks abusive. In practice it worked because the Explosion was rarely his most dangerous attack; quite often it amounted to burning his phase to barely hurt his opponents.

 

Most Interesting -- And Most Likely to Get Me Killed If I Ever Use Him Again! Annoying Man began as a simple experiment: with merely averages scores (for the campaign) in DEX, STUN, and DEF, no Damage Reduction, the same active point limit, and no damage-dealing powers, how long could I keep a single character in a fight against the PC's?

 

The result was the first HERO fight I ever saw go into a second minute -- as well as the first HERO fight I ever saw go into a third minute. And I mean that as in more than 10 turns, or more than 120 segments...

 

He begins simply enough, with teleportation. Then add invisibility, so the PC's don't know if he teleported away or turned invisible. Then added Images, so the PC's don't know if that's him or an image that appeared in a different spot. Then added Desolidification, so just because your attack passed through him didn't mean it was an image. Then added Summoning, so just because something that looked like him appeared didn't mean it was an image...

 

And just to really screw with everyone, he had two seperate sets of images/summons/invisibility; one set that was visible to radar & sonar, one that wasn't. So just because it didn't appear on radar...

 

The players have threatened to kill me if he ever shows again. Even a passing mention of him in a campaign handout got them riled...

[Egyptoid]

Re: The Most Unusual or Interesting Build You've Seen

 

Here'show I GMed a girl who wanted to

play a power absorber quite like Rogue of the X-Men:

 

MIMIC by TOUCH POWER POOL

===========================

75 Variable Power Pool (60),only

change in given circ,no choice

how powers change,restricted

type of powers,Limited Power

(-1/2),Rule of "X" on

Time/Amount(+1/2)

 

POWER STEALING by TOUCH

==============================

144 6D6 Transfer,"Maximum to Fade

Rate: 5 years",20 Max Increase,

fade rate: per 5 minutes,vs SFX

(all powers),Always On(-1/2),

Limited Power(-1/2),No Conscious

Control(-2),Limited Power(-1/2),

Continuous(+1),Invisible Power

Effects(+1/2),0 END Persistent

(+1),Rule of "X" on Time/Amount

(+1/2), No Range 0

 

 

POWERS ALWAYS ON

=========================

|Physical Limitation,"powers 20

| always on - no intimacy",all

| the time,greatly

 

MIND SUSCEPTIBLE to VICTIM TOUCHED

==============================

|Psychological Limitation, 25

| "Variable One",very common, total

|Psychological Limitation, 25

| "Variable Two",very common, total

 

 

So, when she touched a bad guy, her 60 point pool

rearranged to simulate his 2-3 best powers, usually including

his best Stat. And she'd Transfer 6d6 more power points

of those same powers temporarily on top of that.

 

And her 2 psych disads (call it a disad with var. Sfx)

would emulate his two biggest problems.

 

For example she touches "Electro-Bandit" and she'd get 20+2d6 points

of E-Blast, and 20+2d6 points of END, and 20+2d6 points of Flight.

Also her 2 psychs become like his "Greedy" and "Maniac" until reset.

PLUS If she maintains the touch till her next segment, she gets 2d6 more

points each of the 3 powers.

 

The team magician learned how to conjured small harmless animals

like puppies and rabbits. Why? After the fight was over, he'd make

a bunny, and toss it to her: to reset her disads to "Herbivorous"

and "Gentle"

: )

[Vigil]

Re: The Most Unusual or Interesting Build You've Seen

 

It's an interesting take on a Rogue type and the problem solving for her Pysch Disads is pure Champs fromage. However, I'm curious as to what happens is she holds onto the bunny or puppy too long. Does she take on it's powers and personailty (including non sentient) permanently? That could be problematic. Or if he accidentally conjured a "killer bunny" a la The Holy Grail, that could be grim news indeed.

 

Beyond that I'd probably only modify the psych limits to Side Effects of the Transfer and downgrade the No Conscious Control to -1 since she can consciously "activate" the power by touching someone. At -2 she wouldn't even be able to do that. It would work randomly.

 

Other than those minor quibbles she's an interesting take on Rogue and quite similar to the one I did up way back in '82 or so before stuff like pools was part of Champs. Heck back then I even had charcters with "Piercing Points", lol.

 

 

Vigil