Making a Low-Power Brick

[Broblawsky]

This saturday is probably going to be my first Champions game, a Low-Powered Superhero Game (150+100 Disadvantages) and in order to make my life as simple a possible, I've decided to make a brick-type character - super-strength, high resistant PD and ED, moderate other defenses. The problem is, I haven't been able to do this without resorting to supreme cheese (like taking Characteristics in an Elemental Control) or running out of points well before I got going properly. I was hoping that some people on the forum could help me make a low-powered brick - proof versus bricks and normals with clubs, but nonetheless with well-rounded, broad defense and offense. Any tips would be helpful.

[RadeFox]

Quick Brick- Add your own *POW-ZAH*

Take a little straight strength, 30 or so

Buy some Density Increase, 2 or 3 lvls

Buy up your PD and ED a bit too.

Have good CON, BOD, and STUN.

Buy some Armor and Resistant for your base PD and ED, make it hardened!

Buy double knockback on your STR! This ones fun!

Buy at least one STR trick, some kind of other power your STR allows you to do, Tunneling though walls, SPD Suppress from your stunning blows, or something like that.

 

GO knock some bad guys into last week, so they can spend until now looking forward to you kicking their arse again!

 

Spend the rest fleshing out, maybe some levels in HtH, a few extra special moves from the martial arts wouldn't hurt, either.

 

Save at least a few for your 'real life' skills.

[Arthur]

Hard to imagine having a problem. Bricks are so cost-efficient I usually don't even take the full Disad load. In a 100+150 game, my bricks are often around 220-240 total points.

 

Perhaps you could post your character so far here so we can look it over.

[Tom McCarthy]

You can be quite impressive with the following base set of abilities:

 

STR 50

DEX 23

CON 28

SPD 5

25 PD

25 ED

15, 15 Damage Resistance

+9" running

+2 levels with hand to hand

 

You should be able to crank out very high damage on move throughs.

[JmOz]

Put the points from running into leaping with accurate instead (and boost it up to 10"), it is cheaper and plays to your, excuse the term, your strengths

[Pattern Ghost]

OR ... buy some Running AND Accurize your Leaping.

 

Bricks are fun.

[Talon]

In addition to posting your character, post what the campaign norms are for things like DCs, SPD, and defenses.

[Pattern Ghost]

Here's a real basic brick on 250, should be a pretty good brawler:

 

50 STR

20 DEX

25 CON

12 BDY

13 INT

11 EGO

20 PRE

12 COM

25 PD

25 ED

4 SPD

15 REC

50 END

50 STN

 

Char Total: 165

 

15 Damage Resistance 15PD/15ED

20 50% Damage Reduction to PD (non-resistant)

18 +9" Running (15" Total/30" non-combat)

5 Accurate Leaping

 

10 +2 Levels with Hand to Hand Combat

6 +2 Levels with Punch, Haymaker, and Move Through

11 Background/Misc. Skills

 

85 Powers/Skills

 

Of course, you can tweak this. Like buying some MA maneuvers instead of the HTH levels (Charge would be good) and applying the 3pt levels to the MA moves. Or limiting the Damage Reduction to get some pts back. Can go higher on STR, buy some speciaized defenses, etc.

 

Not too tough to get a good brick on 250.

[RadeFox]

I'd still try to find some points for a STR trick of some kind. It helps give your brick something special apart from the other bricks. There a lot powers you can build using your STR as the FX base for the effect. Trust me, you'll get more pleasure from pulling one of them out on a villian, and having them go "Oh CRAP!!", then just using Move by, again, on the bad guy.

[Insaniac99]

why not buy the naked power advantage: Variable advantage for up to X STR.

 

you start out with a +1/2 advantage, this only lets you use 1/4 advantages, but as you get experiance you boost it to 1/2, 1, 2 and so on...

[Fireg0lem]

Feel free to copy this writeup, both the guy requesting help and anyone who wants to pinch a quick but effecient brick.

 

Cost Characteristic Value

55 Strength 65

-6 Dexterity 8

26 Constitution 23

2 Body 11

-2 Intelligence 8

-4 Ego 8

6 Presence 8/25*

-1 Comeliness 8

8 PD 21 (total 41)

16 ED 21 (total 41)

0 Recovery 18

0 Endurance 46

0 Stun 56

22 Speed 4

*17 points of Presence bought with Only To Cause/Protect Against Physical Intimidation and Threats (-1)

 

Powers

37: Really Tough 13 PD/ 12 ED Armor

15: Armored Costume: 7 PD/ 8 ED Armor, Hardened, OIF, Visible.**

3: Stubborn Mental Defense 5

5: Tough Power Defense 5

3: Ray-Bans Flash Defense (sight) 6 OIF Visible

15: Maximum Power: +5 Strength and Variable Advantage (applied to full 70 Strength): Choose one from (x1.5 Knockback, Armor Piercing, Area of Effect: Conic Explosion, or Affects Desolid), 4 Charges (-1) Costs 1/2 Endurance (-1/4), (9 End total. Note that Charges makes a power cost no Endurance, and this instead costs half what it normally would without that), Extra Time (Full Phase) (-1/2), Character Must Be Angry or Desperate (-1/4), Requires Skill Roll (Power Skill: Brick Tricks, normally with a -7 due to a 75 AP power) (-1/2), Visible (all uses of this are accompanied by Smash, Pow, and Bam sounds along with clouds of debris) (-1/4).

 

Skills

3 Power Skill: Brick Tricks 22-

15 Combat Skill Levels +3 With All Hand-to-Hand Combat

12 Combat Skill Levels +5 With All Hand-to-Hand Combat, OCV Only (-1)

6 Combat Skill Levels +2 With Punch, Grab, and Large Thrown Objects of Opportunity

14 Background/Other Skills, to taste of the player.

 

**OIF Visible means that not only can anyone tell immediately that he has armor, but they can also tell that the armored costume provides armor. By the rules 0 END powers like armor are naturally invisible. IIF Visible would mean something like an amulet that turned his skin into stone, so that anyone could see he was protected but not be able to tell that the amulet was the source. OIF but without Visible would be something that either obviously did something, such as glowing force bracelets, but that it was not clear what it did, or that was not detectable as armor until someone hit him, at which point they would see that it was the source, say a force field generator that only flared up when it was hit.

 

A few design notes. First, this character has a low Dexterity and a lot of combat skill levels. He is supposed to be a normal man except for his super-strength, but he's spent enough time fighting crime to be good at beating people's faces in. If you want, you can lose some CSLs for more DEX, but IMHO the typical comic book brick is better represented this way. He can nail people pretty well, but has to rely on his thick skin to not get hurt.

 

This character also has a smidgen of funny-defense, like Hardened rPD/rED, Flash Defense, Power Defense, and Mental Defense, not enough to negate funky type attacks, but enough to not make him funky-attack bait. This is in genre, as big guys tend to shrug off funny ray guns fast, and ray-bans look cool.

 

This character's main weakness is to someone with NND/AVLD attacks, or to someone able to keep thier distance (that's what flying guys are for...to pick the bricks up .

 

Maximum Power is this guy's little brick-schtick. I envision it as him glowing as he expends some of the cosmic energy that gives him his super strength, or calls on the spirit of the radioactive Snickers bar he ate, or whatever, and either: 1) cross-body super slap that sends his target flying, 2) Hits someone so hard it goes right through thier armor, 3) claps his hands and creates a shockwave, or 4) uses the whatchamacallit energy to punch so hard that he can scatter gas/liquid/ghostly or whatnot villains. The way it works in short is that four times per day, instead of just using his 65 strength, he can use a 70 and one of the advantages, but he has to use 9 end and abide by all the disadvantages. He also has to make his Brick Tricks roll.

 

The Presence is bought a bit screwy. For normal interaction, he has an 8 (normal joe), if someone tries to scare him, or he tries to scare someone, with physical threats, he has a 25. In other words, he's not very persuasive, but his biceps sure are .

 

Lastly, I wrote this guy up as having a fairly tough armored costume to enhance his defense. He's hardly vulnerable without it (34/33), but with it he is really tough (41/41, and some of it hardened). So he can go out in civilian ID and not be helpless, but he's got a bit extra in his armored costume.

 

There's also 14 CP left for background skills, or stuff you want to have like KS skills, Navigation, Banana Peeling or whatever. This could also be used to buy up stuff like INT, EGO, normal PRE, or COM.

[Guest Keneton]

Practical Advice!

 

Start with good charactersitics. Buy lost of Str, Con, and above average Body.

 

Buy your running up for a good half move.

Buy some Lack, Power Defense, KB Resistance, Resitant Defense, and a little LS for Extreme temps and Pressure.

 

At lt lest some HTH Levels or Martial Arts, preferably both.

 

Save the brick tricks stuff for later after you have built the guy up. A good foundation is best.

 

DONT SKIMP ON CON

Never buy more than +3 Stun. If his Stun is too low buy Con or Body.

[Broblawsky]

Frankly, the problem isn't the basic brick powers - it's the funky defenses that get expensive. The campaign is going to have a lot of opponents like vampires, evil spirits, so forth and so on, so I can expect to face tons of presence attacks, drains, mind control....in order to be an effective character 24/7, I have to have defences versus all of the 7 major categories of attack: physical, energy, mental, power, sense-affecting, presence, and NND (immunity: poison and self-contained breathig should be fine for that - I don't expect anything much more exotic than poisons and similar stuff).

 

So here's pretty much what I was thinking:

STR 50 (20 base, 30 bought in IIF: Cybernetics, Restrainable -1/4) 30 CP

DEX 15 15 CP

CON 25 (15 base, 10 bought with Cybernetics limitations as above) 23 CP

BODY 25 (15 base, 10 bought with Cybernetics limitations as above) 23 CP

INT 10 0 CP

EGO 20 20 CP

PRE 10 0 CP

COM 10 0 CP

 

PD 30 (10 base, 20 bought with Cybernetics) 13 CP

ED 30 (5 base, 25 bought with Cybernetics) 16 CP

SPD 4 15 CP

REC 15

END 50

STUN 63

 

TOTAL CHARACTERISTICS COST: 155 CP

 

Powers:

15 Hardened (+1/4) for PD & ED

16 Damage Resistance for 25 PD/ED (Cybernetics Limitations)

10 +25 PRE Presence Defense (Cybernetics Limitations)

6 Mental Defense 10 pts. (Cybernetics Limitations)

6 Power Defense 10 pts. (Cybernetics Limitations)

13 Multipower: Brick Tricks 20-CP reserve (Requires Skill Roll: Brick Tricks -1/2)

Various Multipower Slots Include 1.5x Knockback on STR, Flick of Unconsciousness, AP STR, so forth and so on - probably no more than 6 points worth of slots tho.

 

so, so far.... 72 + 155: 227 CP. 23 CP isn't a lot for serious skills, but maybe it's enough. The real problem, that makes me uncomfortable so far, is my lack of life support and extra senses - but given how few points I have, I'll have to survive.

[Tom McCarthy]

Everyone should have an achilles heel. Leave yourself open to at least two exotic attack types.

[Pattern Ghost]

I agree with Tom. You don't need to cover all of the bases on defense. A good brick should be able to take a hit. A high REC is extremely useful.

 

As for skills, I wouldn't worry too much in a 250 pt. game. I''d pick a profession, or area of knowledge, and drop maybe 10-20 pts in non-combat skills.

 

Anyhoo... on to your character:

 

Cybernetics limitation: That's probably a GM approval type of thing. In a Buffyverse type of game, with Initiative type cyborgs running around, and plenty of opponents who can rip up your cybernetics or have the know-how to otherwise screw with them, I can see that.

 

DEX seems a bit low even for a brick at 15. A bit higher would be good, but then again a lot depends on the general DEX spread of the campaign. Of course, if you're a Brick you don't care about going first anyway, which only leaves DEX skills. If you have more than one or two DEX skills, I'd consider buying up.

 

BODY of 25... expensive in a 250 pt game, and with high defenses, not really necessary. Could probably save pts. here.

 

EGO of 20. Having the team brick mind controlled would really suck, so a good ego is nice. But you'd get more milage out of MD. Say you dropped the Ego to 15 and added +10 more MD, giving you a total of 20 MD (ignoring the limis for the additional MD). That'd give you a better chance of resisting a mental power like Mind Control. The higher ECV is useful against Ego Attacks, but unless you have 8 pt. combat levels (not so cost effective on a 250 pt budget) that can apply to ECV, you're probably going to still be hit by a good mentalist (who probably has levels with Ego combat and a hgh EGO).

 

You might want to check your math on the Defenses. I'm thinking that you have to harden your damage resistance. Then again, with the limitations, maybe you did.

 

I like the cyborg concept. If it inspires you to come up with a cool background, then run with it. If it's just a way to shave pts. to get more exotic defenses, then I'd reconsider. This isn't to say that working from the mechanics/powers first isn't a valid approach, as sometimes you just don't have an idea for the bg stuff, and you find inspiration while going through the process. What I'm saying is just to make sure the character ends up being someone you want to play, even if it means dropping some of the items you want.

[talisman]

While still maintaining the concept of your character as a brick, I've found that you can make him/her a boxer or pro wrestler, and take a martial art. The increases that the manuevers can give on things like ocv and dcv allow you to take a lower dex and still hit people, while the increased damage is great too. Taking a martial dodge allows you to actually not be hit rather than absorbing damage. By calling it boxing or wrestling, you still don't "step on the toes" of the martial artist (especially if you don't have a high dex).

[Broblawsky]

The Cybernetics thing isn't just a way to shave points off of the total cost - it's actually pretty much the only origin I could figure out with the limited info our GM has given us thus far on the background of the campaign, which is a sort of weird mystical post-apocalyptic supers game; I could have taken a mystical origin, but one of the other players is doing a drain\suppress\dispel monkey, and since the f\x they will target will almost certainly be mystical, I don't want to risk getting targeted if he throws down an area power. Incidentally, however, I've decided that using IIF and Restrainable is a bit point-monkey-ish and redundant, so instead I'm using Minor Side Effects (Vulnerability to Electricity and so forth and so on) which make a bit more sense for a cyborg character. This actually saves me more points, though, so I've raised my DEX to 20 and I still have a few more points to put into skills; the lowering EGO\raising MD thing is probably a good idea, though. As far as brick tricks go, I'm using stuff like 1.5x knockback, suppress END\SPD (for stunning blows), and Flick of Unconsciousness (from the USPDB).

 

Thanks to everyone who helped me with this character, especially whoever first suggested increasing knockback for STR.

[Pattern Ghost]

Cyborgs are cool b/c they suggest a lot of Disads easily, and coming up with 150 pts of Disads is one thing I hate. Obvious ones like vuln. to electricity, susceptable to magnetics, etc, and less obvious ones like susceptability to heat (overheating), problems with the extra mass and density, etc. Sounds like a cool setting idea.