trying to build Spawn

[eternal_sage]

i know that most people here are not going to be Spawn fans, and thats cool. however, since his powers are so... weird, i need a little help modeling them in HERO.

 

oh, and i'm trying to build him back in the day, nothing past issue 75 (or whatever issue he makes the deal with Greenworld in, if thats not it. i can never remember crap like that).

 

for those of you not familar with Spawn and/or his powers, he is filled with Nercroplasm (actually made of it, but whatever) which lets him basically do anything he desires, from blast energy to make himself extremely dense, even teleport and fly. the drawback is he only has a limited amount of Nercoplasmic energy (it started at 9:9:9:9, and it counts down for each useage of power, but its never obvious how much is require for any given act, and what the places actually mean). when it hits 0:0:0:0 he "dies" and goes back to Hell, stripped of his free will and forced to fight alongside Hell's armies.

 

obviously, its a VPP. thats obvious. now, what would the other things be? charges? a linked END reserve with 0 REC? something else i haven't thought of?

 

btw this is for a character who is Spawn like, in that he has a certain power source and a limited amount of it, and nearly unlimited uses, but has nothing to do with Heaven/Hell, and is actually a little more like Green Lantern. anyway. i appriciate any help you guys can give!

[clsage]

Re: trying to build Spawn

 

 

for those of you not familar with Spawn and/or his powers, he is filled with Nercroplasm (actually made of it, but whatever) which lets him basically do anything he desires, from blast energy to make himself extremely dense, even teleport and fly. the drawback is he only has a limited amount of Nercoplasmic energy (it started at 9:9:9:9, and it counts down for each useage of power, but its never obvious how much is require for any given act, and what the places actually mean). when it hits 0:0:0:0 he "dies" and goes back to Hell, stripped of his free will and forced to fight alongside Hell's armies.

 

obviously, its a VPP. thats obvious. now, what would the other things be? charges? a linked END reserve with 0 REC? something else i haven't thought of?

 

Hmmm...My initial thought is "VPP with non-recoverable charges".

But the idea of END reserve/0 REC might just be a bit "cleaner",

since it would save you having to define how many charges each

power might actually use (eg; it would potentially take more

charges to whip up battleship than to fabricate a bicycle, etc).

Yeah, I think I'd try the END reserve version....

 

-Carl-

[braincraft]

Re: trying to build Spawn

 

That's more of a story issue than a build issue, especially since he's got such a huge account and I'm pretty sure he goes back to hell when he's dry.

 

Just give him a disad that he's liable to eventually run out of juice, since it's not really likely to come up in regular play. Even if you plan a huge, epic year-spanning campaign where that's the point, why go through all that trouble for something that will come up once, ever?

 

Build him normally, and count his unpleasant destiny as a disad.

[Sketchpad]

Re: trying to build Spawn

 

I've gotta agree with Braincraft here ... I would make a Custom Disad or Phys Lim and maybe throw some rules together that clocks the energy. Maybe something like (AP/10) - Total for every use of the abilities.

 

Physical Limitation: Borrowed Time [(AP/10) - 9999]; At 0, character returns to Hell.

(Com, Total) 40pts.

 

The hero shouldn't be allowed to buy it off cheap, and should have to have it tied to an in-story element. Of course, YMMV

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: trying to build Spawn

 

I've gotta agree with Braincraft here ... I would make a Custom Disad or Phys Lim and maybe throw some rules together that clocks the energy. Maybe something like (AP/10) - Total for every use of the abilities.

 

Physical Limitation: Borrowed Time [(AP/10) - 9999]; At 0, character returns to Hell.

(Com, Total) 40pts.

 

The hero shouldn't be allowed to buy it off cheap, and should have to have it tied to an in-story element. Of course, YMMV

 

too many points for too little in game effect. Free disad that. In terms of how often it actually disadvantages the character, it's not Common...it's uber-UNcommon.

 

If Spawn already has a "Subject to Hell's Orders" Social Lim, I'd see this as a way of upping the severity of the Social Lim.

 

Tho I'd probably allow it to be modeled as a End Reserve that doesn't have a natural REC, with Side Effects or a Susceptibility to reaching 0 in the reserve, either of which X-D moves him back to Hell.

Probably would give him a chance in play to occasionally recover Necroplasm from story related sources, like somehow absorbing another Hellspawn's supply.

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

Re: trying to build Spawn

 

too many points for too little in game effect. Free disad that...

In other words, exactly like the comic book

 

Ok, here's my stab at it:

All powers are bought with a Side Effect: Cumulative Transform to permanent hellbound state. For the uncertainty element, it's only 1d6 of effect, and the character gets to use 3 points of Power Defense against it. The GM keeps track of how much has accumulated in secret.

[TheQuestionMan]

Re: trying to build Spawn

 

Spawn - Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spawn_%28comics%29

 

Spawn - Comicvine

http://www.comicvine.com/spawn/3381/

 

Revenants - Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenant_%28fiction%29

 

Immortals -

 

 

??? -

 

 

Cheers

 

 

QM

[TheQuestionMan]

Re: trying to build Spawn

 

Superhuman Strength - STR 30 to 50

Superhuman Speed - SPD 5 or 6

Superhuman Durability - BODY 20 to 30, with extra from Immortality and Armor 12rDEF

Superhuman Endurance - CON 20 to 30

Immortality - Life Support, Healing (Regeneration), etc...

Flight - Glider Cape?

Magical Abilities - Variable Power Pool ("Mystic/Demonic" Power)

Teleportation - Magical Abilities

Shape-Shifting - Magical Abilities

Resurrection - Immortality

Empathy - Magical Abilities

Wears living symbiotic costume capable of evolving - Magical Abilities (Multipowers)

 

 

Cheers

 

QM

[eternal_sage]

Re: trying to build Spawn

 

hmmm. the lim may work well, although he will have far fewer charges/resources to use. i was thinking that i may make it around a 1,000 (as opposed to 10,000) simply because then it would have a viable in game meaning. it doesn't take long to go through 1000 END (keep track sometime. my players will breeze through 50-100 in a combat heavy session).

 

its kinda funny actually. with the numbers that McFarlane started him off at, Spawn still had tons left by issue 150ish, when he was finally "drained" down to zero artificially to make the whole thing meaningful. i especially enjoyed the early issues though, where he is trying very hard not to use his powers unless he has to, because he fears going back. i thought it added a little something extra to the normal superhero schtick, with actually having to conserve your energies and all.

 

anyway, i'm glad to see that it wasn't just my lack of HERO-fu that was giving me trouble on this. again, the character this is for is not actually Spawn, but he basically has Spawn's powers in a more superhero type of setting. he has an item that gives him nigh unlimited powers, with the drawback of it is an exhaustable resource. keep up the good ideas, they're getting me thinking.

[braincraft]

Re: trying to build Spawn

 

I'm assuming that either

 

a) Exhausting his power battery will make him virtually useless, which effectively takes him out of the game, or at least the parts that are fun and full of asskicking, which is pointless, or

 

He'll have some sort of out once he goes dry that will allow him to continue to have superpowers, in which case it's not much of a disad and it's all kind of pointless.

 

Either way, the notion doesn't work especially well in a game with narrative weight, which is why I suggested a narratively-enforced mechanic.

[eternal_sage]

Re: trying to build Spawn

 

i agree, to a point. however, the player in question is (unfortunately) more of a roll player, less of a role-player. therefore i cannot count on him to rp the need to conserve his powers. and the idea is the need to pace oneself. use his natural abilities (int, skills and training, etc) to get the job done, falling back on powers when he has no choice (sort of like Cable and his TK... back in the early days when it was potent but his control sucked as opposed to...whatever the deal is now).

 

he is very much like Spawn in that he has some potent human training before hand (martial artist, with DCs). basically not having powers puts him at 75% of everyone else, while his powers full out puts him at 125% of everyone. conservation makes him roughly even, and adds some neat bits to the character. hopefully this will be his big rp experience which will bring him over to the RP side for good. yea right.

 

basically, if i or my wife were playing the character, the disad would be enough. unfortunately it will take a bit more for this player.

[assault]

Re: trying to build Spawn

 

basically' date=' if i or my wife were playing the character, the disad would be enough. unfortunately it will take a bit more for this player.[/quote']

 

Unfortunately, this says "don't let this player play this character".

 

On a bad day, it says "don't play with this player", but that's too harsh. The thought of playing with a rollplayer playing a cr*ppy Iron Age character is truly horrible, though.

[SuperPheemy]

Re: trying to build Spawn

 

Before hauling out the Cosmic VPP, take a look at what Spawn does in the comics.

Use those powers to create a much simpler to manage Multipower.

Find those elements that he uses All the Time (you know, the chains, the undead toughness, gliding/flying etc...) and break those out into powers all of their own.

 

Remember that Disads and Limitations are only worth points if they come up in play with regularity. Having the Physical Disad "Dies permanently at the end of the week" while tragic, isn't worth any points. It doesn't hinder the character, it simply makes the character unplayable after Saturday. That's what I see the countdown timer doing. At some point it reaches Zero and Spawn gets pulled back into Hell for Eternity. End of Story. Worth no points.

 

However, as people have mentioned, being Doomed to Hell is fertile ground for disads and limitations. Spawn has Social Lims and Hunteds all over the place. He's got a whole plethora of Psych Lims, and a few DNPCs that are in constant Danger.

 

Spawn from the comics is a real high point superhero. Probably closing in on 700 points or more when you combine the Necroplasm abilities, his skills as a professional Mercenary/Assassin, and all of the guns he keeps around.