Red Monika - Valdorian Age Thief and Swordswoman

[Steve]

I was inspired to create a character using the Chainmail Bikini Effects, so here is Red Monika (image from the comic Battle Chasers) written up as a Valdorian Age NPC.

 

 

[b]Red Monika - Monika the Thief[/b]

[b][u]VAL[/u]   [u]CHA[/u]   [u]Cost[/u]   [u]Total[/u]   [u]Roll[/u]      [u]Notes[/u][/b]
13    STR     5     13      12-      HTH Damage 2 1/2d6  END [3]
18    DEX    30     18      13-      OCV 6 DCV 6
15    CON    14     15      12-
12    BODY    8     12      11-
13    INT     5     13      12-      PER Roll 12-
8     EGO     0     8       11-      ECV: 3
15    PRE     7     15      12-      PRE Attack: 3d6
20    COM     6     20      13-
5     PD      2     5/8              5/8 PD (0/3 rPD)
3     ED      0     3/6              3/6 ED (0/3 rED)
4     SPD    12     4                Phases:  3, 6, 9, 12
6     REC     0     6
30    END     0     30
30    STUN    3     30
7     RUN     0     7"               END [2]
2     SWIM    0     2"               END [1]
3     LEAP    0     3"               3" forward, 1 1/2" upward

[b]CHA Cost: 92[/b]

[b][u]Cost[/u]   [u]POWERS[/u][/b]
22     [b][i]Eye Candy[/i][/b]: (Total: 105 Active Cost, 22 Real Cost) Mind Control 8d6, Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (60 Active Points); Can't Pay END To Prevent Breakout Roll Deterioration (-1/2), Extra Time (Full Phase, -1/2), Effect Ends Immediately If Anyone Directly Threatens Target (-1/2), Limited Normal Range 3" (-1/2), Not When Wearing Heavy Armor (-1/2), Does Not Provide Mental Awareness (-1/4), Cannot Achieve EGO +30 Results (-1/4), Only Works On Persons Of Appropriate Sexual Orientation (-1/4), Requires A Seduction Roll  (Active Point penalty to Skill Roll is -1 per 20 Active Points; -1/4) (Real Cost: 13) [b]plus[/b] Mind Control 6d6, Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (45 Active Points); Same Limitations As Above (-3 1/4), Only To Achieve +20 "Target Cannot Detect Mind Control" Modifier (-1/2) (Real Cost: 9) - END=0
2      [b][i]Fast On Her Feet[/i][/b]: Running +1" (7" total) - END=1
7      [b][i]Feminine Wiles[/i][/b]: +3 with PRE-Based Skills (15 Active Points); Not When Wearing Heavy Armor (-1/2), Only Works On Persons Of Appropriate Sexual Orientation (-1/4), Requires A COM Roll  (No Active Point penalty to Skill Roll; -1/4) - END=
6      [b][i]Hot And Violent[/i][/b]: +2 with HTH Combat (10 Active Points); Not When Wearing Heavy Armor (-1/2), Only Works On Persons Of Appropriate Sexual Orientation (-1/4) - END=
8      [b][i]My Face Is Up Here[/i][/b]: (Total: 21 Active Cost, 8 Real Cost) Armor (3 PD/3 ED), Hardened (+1/4) (11 Active Points); Luck-Based (-1/2), Not When Wearing Heavy Armor (-1/2), Nonpersistent (-1/4), Only Works On Persons Of Appropriate Sexual Orientation (-1/4) (Real Cost: 4) [b]plus[/b] +2 with DCV (10 Active Points); Not When Wearing Heavy Armor (-1/2), Linked (Armor; -1/2), Only Works On Persons Of Appropriate Sexual Orientation (-1/4) (Real Cost: 4) - END=0
10     [b][i]Thief's Luck[/i][/b]: Luck 2d6 - END=0

[b]POWERS Cost: 55[/b]

[b][u]Cost[/u]   [u]MARTIAL ARTS[/u][/b]
      Sword Martial Arts
4      1)  Counterstrike:  1/2 Phase, +2 OCV, +2 DCV, Weapon +2 DC Strike, Must Follow Block
4      2)  Disarm:  1/2 Phase, -1 OCV, +1 DCV, Disarm; 23 STR to Disarm roll
5      3)  Lunge:  1/2 Phase, +1 OCV, -2 DCV, Weapon +4 DC Strike
4      4)  Parry:  1/2 Phase, +2 OCV, +2 DCV, Block, Abort

[b]MARTIAL ARTS Cost: 17[/b]

[b][u]Cost[/u]   [u]SKILLS[/u][/b]
10     +2 with HTH Combat
3      Acting 12-
3      Breakfall 13-
3      Bribery 12-
3      Climbing 13-
3      Concealment 12-
4      Gambling (Card Games, Dice Games) 12-
1      Language:  Gibberish Pidgin (basic conversation)
2      Language:  Lowtown Cant (fluent conversation)
3      Lockpicking 13-
3      Persuasion 12-
2      Navigation (Urban) 12-
3      Riding 13-
3      Seduction 12-
3      Shadowing 12-
3      Sleight Of Hand 13-
3      Stealth 13-
3      Streetwise 12-
2      Survival (Urban) 12-
3      Sword Tricks 13-
3      Trading 12-
6      WF:  Common Melee Weapons, Garrote, Off Hand, Sling, Thrown Knives, Axes, and Darts
3      Traveler
1      1)  AK: Overhead Road (2 Active Points) 11-
1      2)  AK: Underfoot Path (2 Active Points) 11-
1      3)  CK: Elweir (2 Active Points) 11-
1      4)  CK: Gibberish (2 Active Points) 11-
1      5)  CK: Lowtown (2 Active Points) 11-
1      6)  CK: The Canals (2 Active Points) 11-

[b]SKILLS Cost: 81[/b]


[b][u]Cost[/u]   [u]TALENTS[/u][/b]
5      Combat Luck (3 PD/3 ED)

[b]TALENTS Cost: 5[/b]
[b][u]Value[/u]  [u]DISADVANTAGES[/u][/b]
10     Distinctive Features:  Beautiful Redhead (Easily Concealed; Always Noticed and Causes Major Reaction; Detectable By Commonly-Used Senses)
15     Psychological Limitation:  Must Prove Herself Better Than Men Around Her (Common, Strong)
10     Psychological Limitation:  Greedy (Common, Moderate)
10     Reputation:  Notorious Thief, 11-
5      Rivalry:  Professional (Other Thieves; Rival is As Powerful; Seek to Outdo, Embarrass, or Humiliate Rival; Rival Aware of Rivalry)
10     Social Limitation:  Known Criminal (Frequently, Minor)
15     Social Limitation:  Woman In A Man's World (Very Frequently, Minor)

[b]DISADVANTAGES Points: 75[/b]

Base Pts: 75
Exp Required: 100
Total Exp Available: 100
Exp Unspent: 0
Total Character Cost: 250

 

 

She uses a new effect which occurred to me tonight, the Feminine Wiles Power. It is written up like this:

 

Feminine Wiles: +3 with Interaction Skills (15 Active Points); Not When Wearing Heavy Armor (-1/2), Only Works On Persons Of Appropriate Sexual Orientation (-1/4); Requires a COM-Roll (-1/4). Total Cost: 7 Points.

[Super Squirrel]

Re: Red Monika - Valdorian Age Thief and Swordswoman

 

Nice character. I have a couple of comments though.

 

Eye Candy gives me a headache and I wouldn't allow it. My biggest problem is that the power is built as and 8d6 Mind Control with a 6d6 Mind Control with an extra limit to achieve high enough of the effect chart. That should be either a 14d6 with no limitation or a 14d6 with Must reach Ego +20 stage.

 

Characteristic based rolls are supposed to be done as Activation Rolls. All of your COM Roll powers should be -3/4 limitations as a result.

 

I would also question the value of Distinctive Features: Beautiful Redhead.

[AliceTheOwl]

Re: Red Monika - Valdorian Age Thief and Swordswoman

 

I dunno, hon. That's how much it's worth in YOUR game.

 

(Vivian has the exact same disad. Same number of points.)

[Super Squirrel]

Re: Red Monika - Valdorian Age Thief and Swordswoman

 

My concern is that she already has Social Limitation: Woman in a Man's World. I'd probably allow it but it seems to come under the Social Limitation too.

[mikesama]

Re: Red Monika - Valdorian Age Thief and Swordswoman

 

ACtually I'd allow the DF if for the simple fact that every time she would try to lay low there would be drunks hitting on her, men asking her if she wants to getr a drink. Also as a thief there the problem that even if they don't see her face the DF would kick in about that very hot red headed thief that was seen running from the scene of a robery

[Steve]

Re: Red Monika - Valdorian Age Thief and Swordswoman

 

Nice character. I have a couple of comments though.

 

Eye Candy gives me a headache and I wouldn't allow it. My biggest problem is that the power is built as and 8d6 Mind Control with a 6d6 Mind Control with an extra limit to achieve high enough of the effect chart. That should be either a 14d6 with no limitation or a 14d6 with Must reach Ego +20 stage.

 

Characteristic based rolls are supposed to be done as Activation Rolls. All of your COM Roll powers should be -3/4 limitations as a result.

 

I would also question the value of Distinctive Features: Beautiful Redhead.

 

Well, the Eye Candy ability is built pretty much like Steve Long built the Dark Champions ability Cinematic Flirting on page 141 of that book. It could also be built more like the Sexy Distraction ability from page 295 of Pulp Hero. That was a 10d6 Mind Control ability. I pretty much mixed limitations and build structures from those two abilities. The extra 6d6 is just used to roll 20 or more, otherwise the target realizes he's being played. It allows Monika to distract a guard who catches her, or something like that. I was imagining her standing there looking pretty and sexy while her partners snuck past a bunch of guards.

 

As far as the characteristic roll is concerned, again I simply followed the example from page 271 of Pulp Hero and its Can Take A Punch ability. That one used a Constitution roll at -1/4 (assuming a 12- or 13-).

 

I'm suprised at your comment on her Distinctive Features. Look at the picture, man!

[GothKidSamurai]

Re: Red Monika - Valdorian Age Thief and Swordswoman

 

 

I also don't get "Hot and Violent". Why is she better at attacking males? Somehow being attractive makes her a death machine versus guys?

 

 

Made a super attractive scantily clad female has an advantage in distraction over her male opponents?

[Steve]

Re: Red Monika - Valdorian Age Thief and Swordswoman

 

I would NEVER allow Eye Candy in a fantasy game. It basically assumes that anyone who meets someone they find attrative is pretty much instantly reduced to a gibbering idiot with no common sense at all. I find the notion to be patently absurd and would piss me off to no end if i was in a game that allowed it. It is way too absolute, leaving no control at all in the hands of any character but this one. Not every straight male reacts the same way to a pretty woman, but with mind control, a targetted character does what she wants him to do, how she wants him to do it.

 

Why not just a massive PRE bonus for a seductive PRE attack?

 

I also don't get "Hot and Violent". Why is she better at attacking males? Somehow being attractive makes her a death machine versus guys?

 

Well, the abilities I wrote up were taken from a D20 supplement called Chainmail Bikini, and I simply translated the described effects into the closest Hero System equivalents I could think of. As far as Eye Candy goes, it is simply a sort of Super-Seduction effect. There are similar abilities in Dark Champions and Pulp Hero. Yes, it could be written up as extra dice of PRE effect, but PRE attacks also take cause the target to do things they wouldn't normally do so how is that much different from a Mind Control effect?

 

I was just having some fun with the rules.

[Steve]

Re: Red Monika - Valdorian Age Thief and Swordswoman

 

Made a super attractive scantily clad female has an advantage in distraction over her male opponents?

 

That's pretty much the whole idea for several of the abilities.

 

I've attached the Hero Designer files I used to make her, including my Valdorian Age template that I posted on the boards back when the book first came out. It's basically just starting everything at 8s rather than 10s.

[keithcurtis]

Re: Red Monika - Valdorian Age Thief and Swordswoman

 

I think she deserves the DF, given her illustration. But I think a better one might be DF: Impossible, Gravity-Defying Anatomy.

 

Keith "Felt Red Monika distracted from the Battle Chasers story" Curtis

[Curufea]

Re: Red Monika - Valdorian Age Thief and Swordswoman

 

How about OAF: LTAI?

"Lighter Than Air Implants"

[Enforcer84]

Re: Red Monika - Valdorian Age Thief and Swordswoman

 

I think she deserves the DF, given her illustration. But I think a better one might be DF: Impossible, Gravity-Defying Anatomy.

 

Keith "Felt Red Monika distracted from the Battle Chasers story" Curtis

There was a story? I can't recall seeing as how we got 12 pages of story every two years.

I had such high hopes for that too.

[Enforcer84]

Re: Red Monika - Valdorian Age Thief and Swordswoman

 

I would NEVER allow Eye Candy in a fantasy game. It basically assumes that anyone who meets someone they find attrative is pretty much instantly reduced to a gibbering idiot with no common sense at all. I find the notion to be patently absurd and would piss me off to no end if i was in a game that allowed it. It is way too absolute, leaving no control at all in the hands of any character but this one. Not every straight male reacts the same way to a pretty woman, but with mind control, a targetted character does what she wants him to do, how she wants him to do it.

 

Why not just a massive PRE bonus for a seductive PRE attack?

 

I also don't get "Hot and Violent". Why is she better at attacking males? Somehow being attractive makes her a death machine versus guys?

He's not trying to pass muster. He's just using a well known "Hawt" character to have fun with the rules in the Chainmail Bikini Thread.

 

No harm no foul.

[Steve]

Re: Red Monika - Valdorian Age Thief and Swordswoman

 

Also' date=' PRE attacks are less effective against the same target over time. Mind Control is not. I don't care how hot a woman is, eventually you are going to get used to way she looks, and the overall impact will diminish.[/quote']

 

*Shrug* Well, as I said in previous posts, I used examples from Pulp Hero (pg 295 - Sexy Distraction) and Dark Champions (pg 141 - Cinematic Flirting) to get ideas how to construct the Eye Candy ability. It's book legal even if you don't care for it, but I should have added one more Limitation to it: "Pay attention only to me, ignore other non-threatening activity going on around you" for an additional -1, which makes sense on later reflection. That's a Limitation lifted from the Sexy Distraction ability from Pulp Hero.

[keithcurtis]

Re: Red Monika - Valdorian Age Thief and Swordswoman

 

Good job, Steve. Fun character build!

 

Keith ":)" Curtis

[nexus]

Re: Red Monika - Valdorian Age Thief and Swordswoman

 

Fun build. It seems to accomplish the spirit of such a character in that source material. As I read it the power(s) are not intended to a realistic portrayals of seduction and social manipulation using physical appeal. Its a cinematically exxagerated version thats supposed to be over the top. I wouldn't allow it either...in a low fantasy or gritty game. In a pulpy over the top or tongue in cheek game? Sure.

[AlHazred]

Re: Red Monika - Valdorian Age Thief and Swordswoman

 

Good job, Steve! Fun build!

 

However, I would never allow that in any of my games. And therefore, no one else should, either. Ever.

 

 

 

 

[Super Squirrel]

Re: Red Monika - Valdorian Age Thief and Swordswoman

 

I'll probably end up using her as an NPC in one of my games.

[Steve]

Re: Red Monika - Valdorian Age Thief and Swordswoman

 

Based on comments received in this and my other thread, I came up with this variant form of Eye Candy.

 

Eye Candy (PRE-based variant): +60 PRE (60 Active Points); Offensive Use Only (-1/2), Only For Making Friendly PRE Attacks (-1/2), Extra Time (Full Phase; -1/2), Effect Ends Immediately If Anyone Directly Threatens Target (-1/2), Limited Normal Range (3"; -1/2), Not When Wearing Heavy Armor (-1/2), Only Works On Persons Of Appropriate Sexual Orientation (-1/4), Requires A Seduction Roll (-1 per 20 points; -1/4). Total Cost: 13 Points.

 

The way Monika's build works now (pardon the pun) is that to make Eye Candy work at maximum effectiveness requires her to use Feminine Wiles (a 13- roll), then Eye Candy (a 10- roll; 12- base roll +3 for Feminine Wiles and -5 for Active Points), then she still has to make an EGO-based attack with only a 3 ECV (likely an 11- to hit).

 

With this variant, she just has to make two rolls: Feminine Wiles (a 13- roll), then Eye Candy (a 12- roll; 12- base roll +3 for Feminine Wiles and -3 for Active Points). The remaining 9 points freed up could be put to levels offsetting Conditional modifiers for PRE-based Skills. My thought was that she could be dirty and/or cut up and still look sexy.

[keithcurtis]

Re: Red Monika - Valdorian Age Thief and Swordswoman

 

Actually, how much does RM actually use any of these powers? The few bits I've read, most people seem oblivious to her over-the-top anatomy.

 

Keith Couldn't. resist. pun." Curtis

[Steve]

Re: Red Monika - Valdorian Age Thief and Swordswoman

 

Oh, aside from borrowing the name and her picture, I didn't really try to make her like her Battle Chasers version. The character was used as an inspiration for a redheaded thief, but it is not meant to be a faithful recreation.

[nexus]

Re: Red Monika - Valdorian Age Thief and Swordswoman

 

The new version reads allot like a more powerful version of the "Distracting Costume" power from the Champions Sourcebook.