megaplayboy Posted June 22, 2011 Report Share Posted June 22, 2011 Re: CHAR: Martian Manhunter I can totally relate to a guy who can walk up walls, dodge machine gun fire, throw cadillacs around, who possesses a supernatural ability to detect danger, and built his own highly-advanced adhesive-resin polymer webbing while still a freshman in high school, who fights street crime and struggles to get by, despite his graduate degree and years of experience as a professional photojournalist. But I draw the line at someone who can lift aircraft carriers, fly into space, and survive a nuke. I mean, come on, totally unbelievable. /snark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enforcer84 Posted June 22, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 22, 2011 Re: CHAR: Martian Manhunter I can pretty much wring 1000 pts out of almost any major hero from any company. It's part of my charm. DC's heroes are less believable because no attempt is made to make their powers make sense, their motivations are suspect, and their villains are poorly designed and editorially mandated to survive even though they shouldn't, and that's why Marvel's heroes are totally unbelievable. Wait... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
megaplayboy Posted June 22, 2011 Report Share Posted June 22, 2011 Re: CHAR: Martian Manhunter In the "old days" of pre-4th Hero either George Macdonald or Steve Peterson commented that most comic book superheroes would be around 4-500 points(this in a period when the average starting Champs PC was 2-300 points). If you factor in point inflation, most would now probably clock in at 600+ points. I could easily see a Spidey writeup where he has a 50 STR and 40-45 DEX(the last wiki/comicvine article I read said his reflexes are 40 times faster than the finest human athletes), SPD 9 or 10, an entangle strong enough to take any low-rated brick completely out of a fight, a bucketload of skills and contacts, a small gadget pool and even a martial art reflecting his "unique fighting style"(and his ability to hurt people like Sandman and Rhino). Spidey could easily hit four digits in cost, and even 14-16 Damage classes in power, and still be completely faithful to the way he's portrayed in the comic book. There's no such thing as wrong opinions on what's "fun" or "believable", of course, I just don't have a problem with comic book superheroes happening to be really powerful. That's part of the appeal of the genre, imo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enforcer84 Posted June 22, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 22, 2011 Re: CHAR: Martian Manhunter yeah, I have no problem with superpowers. I tend to get more annoyed with writing inconsistencies. Oh and as a gamer and someone who writes these guys up - poorly defined powers. Guys like Captain America, Spiderman, or Booster Gold are pretty easy to write up. Even Superman and Martain Manhunter. Yes I use a lot of VPP's but the basics (strong, fast, smart, tough - easy) Green Lanterns, Flashes, Cables, Dr Stranges, and Black Queens are more difficult (or easier I suppose, as they're just VPP's) and less satisfying. Rant: And to be totally fair the writing thing isn't really the fault of the writers and companies beyond the financial necessity to keep the characters around for eternity. There's only so many new stories you can tell with 60 year old characters never allowed go get older than 30ish before you start repeating or deleting. And the rebooting/retconning/reimaging doesn't help me because I still remember the other stuff. Honestly, if they rebooted Spiderman and had him a natural born super orphaned due to his parent's abandoning their freak son and was taken in by a kindly old woman who taught him the inherent goodness of man and he fights crime in her name that would be one thing. It wouldn't be the Spiderman I know and be different enough that I might be interested. But I don't need 50 retellings of his origin for new fans. I'm not a new fan. So rebooting the tale and starting over, I have 0% interest in. End Rant. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
megaplayboy Posted June 22, 2011 Report Share Posted June 22, 2011 Re: CHAR: Martian Manhunter Just one more aside--I find X-Man(Nate Grey) to be a more engaging/interesting character than Cable ever is/was. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheQuestionMan Posted June 22, 2011 Report Share Posted June 22, 2011 Re: CHAR: Martian Manhunter Great work as usual Enforcer84! I only have one criticism... Not frequent enough... you spoiled us with the HERO a Day Thread. QM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
megaplayboy Posted June 22, 2011 Report Share Posted June 22, 2011 Re: CHAR: Martian Manhunter If I had a special request, it'd probably be for a Vision writeup next. An Annihilators writeup would be awesome, but since you're not reading current stuff, I won't hold my breath. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enforcer84 Posted June 22, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 22, 2011 Re: CHAR: Martian Manhunter Great work as usual Enforcer84! I only have one criticism... Not frequent enough... you spoiled us with the HERO a Day Thread. QM Well, I'm considering updating them all to 6e...and I've done so for abut 20 - 30...but I'd like to do more with my original characters, build their histories a bit more. Some of them have like 1 paragraph backgrounds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enforcer84 Posted June 22, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 22, 2011 Re: CHAR: Martian Manhunter If I had a special request, it'd probably be for a Vision writeup next. An Annihilators writeup would be awesome, but since you're not reading current stuff, I won't hold my breath. I do frequent comic vine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lapsedgamer Posted June 22, 2011 Report Share Posted June 22, 2011 Re: CHAR: Martian Manhunter I can totally relate to a guy who can walk up walls, dodge machine gun fire, throw cadillacs around, who possesses a supernatural ability to detect danger, and built his own highly-advanced adhesive-resin polymer webbing while still a freshman in high school, who fights street crime and struggles to get by, despite his graduate degree and years of experience as a professional photojournalist. But I draw the line at someone who can lift aircraft carriers, fly into space, and survive a nuke. I mean, come on, totally unbelievable. /snark That wasn't my point at all. I was saying that basically everyone in the classic JLA was a god, except for Batman and Green Arrow. This made it hard to think that they would be threatened. Anyway, Golden Age made the point far better than I did. I can pretty much wring 1000 pts out of almost any major hero from any company. It's part of my charm. DC's heroes are less believable because no attempt is made to make their powers make sense, their motivations are suspect, and their villains are poorly designed and editorially mandated to survive even though they shouldn't, and that's why Marvel's heroes are totally unbelievable. Wait... Don't worry. You do superior work. I would would have repped you, but I can't right now because I just repped your Mary Mavel write-up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phoenix240 Posted June 22, 2011 Report Share Posted June 22, 2011 Re: CHAR: Martian Manhunter Every time I look at one of Enforcer's DC write-ups' date=' I am impressed at how accurate they are. He does great work. At the same time, I am also appalled at at how accurate they are. This type of thing points out my big problem with DC Comics over the years. The characters are all too damn powerful. I could never that into a lot of them because they were just so overwhelmingly overpowered. Superman is already like the Swiss Army knife of superpowers, and then you have MM. MM can do basically everything that Supes can with all these extra abilities just tacked on.[/quote'] I can understand. I tend to enjoy characters at a lower power level particularly in rpgs. DC's character to tend to "average" more potent than Marvel's Sentry is almost too powerful for the Marvel U (and has to be psych gimped into near uselessness) but seems fairly "typical" for DC (not an average power but nothing out of place) though DC has its "low end" too. Enforcer's write ups are really impressive though. You can tell they're labors of love. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest steamteck Posted June 23, 2011 Report Share Posted June 23, 2011 Re: CHAR: Martian Manhunter That wasn't my point at all. I was saying that basically everyone in the classic JLA was a god, except for Batman and Green Arrow. This made it hard to think that they would be threatened. Anyway, Golden Age made the point far better than I did. . That's why I loved the Animated Justice League universe so much. It powered them down to a perfect level for me. Conventional weapons could give even Superman a problem. They're my favorite incarnations of the DC characters. Power level is no barrier to being threatened though. At the upper levels you just can't use anything conventional. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hyper-Man Posted June 23, 2011 Report Share Posted June 23, 2011 Re: CHAR: Martian Manhunter That's why I loved the Animated Justice League universe so much. It powered them down to a perfect level for me. Conventional weapons could give even Superman a problem. They're my favorite incarnations of the DC characters. Power level is no barrier to being threatened though. At the upper levels you just can't use anything conventional. Agreed. That's why the Animated DCU is the biggest (but not only) influence on my JLA 350 (5e) and stalled 400 point (6e) projects. I don't try to model everything the characters have been shown to do in the comics. I just want get a reasonable starting point. Re: Enforcer84's take on characters, I really like them as idealized future versions of the characters with little to no regard paid to point efficiency (and in some ways is GREAT). I don't agree on some of his "how to do this" decisions but his builds are consistent with one another which in the end is that really matters. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest steamteck Posted June 23, 2011 Report Share Posted June 23, 2011 Re: CHAR: Martian Manhunter I find Enforcer84's builds and ideas very inspirational. His Olympians are very influentual in my multiverse campaign although I had to downpower them a lot! The PCs just love having Athena and Hera on thier contacts list on their phones and jump at any requests from them.( the best was from Hera " I ussually ask Athena to take care of this sort of thing but..). One even has Ares' personal number. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enforcer84 Posted June 23, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 23, 2011 Re: CHAR: Martian Manhunter ...I should really finish Zeus.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoldenAge Posted June 23, 2011 Report Share Posted June 23, 2011 Re: CHAR: Martian Manhunter ...I should really finish Zeus.... Yes, please!!! :thumbup: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest steamteck Posted June 24, 2011 Report Share Posted June 24, 2011 Re: CHAR: Martian Manhunter ...I should really finish Zeus.... Yes, Pretty please.:thumbup::thumbup: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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