The More I Kill, The Stronger I Get!

[BoloOfEarth]

After watching NBC's Heroes and thinking of how a character's power might (but most likely does not) work, I decided to create a psycho killer for my players to face off against. Hopefully, some of you might have ideas or thoughts that I can use to make the character really rock.

 

The character is basically a brick, but his schtick is that he absorbs the mind/soul/life essence of anybody that dies in his presence. (I may require physical contact at time of death, but I'm not certain.) When he absorbs somebody, his physical power increases, kinda reverse-exponentially. After his first victim, his STR went from 10 to 15. Two more victims, and he was up to 20 STR. Four more brought him to 25 STR. He currently has over 64 victims, giving him a 45 STR. If he manages to kill a superhuman, he could potentially have a sizable jump in power.

 

His CON, END, and STUN are similarly increased. To help with the psycho-killer motif, I think he'll also have Healing to BODY (1d6 each Turn) and STUN (1-2d6 each Phase), all 0 END Persistent.

 

Obviously, this guy won't be the most stable person mentally. Though he typically is the dominant personality, it's possible for one of his victims to take temporary control (through an Accidental Change).

 

I decided to give him a 15-point VPP of skills, based on the sets of skills/knowledge that each of his victims had when they died. When he institutes such a direct "link" to a victim, a ghostly image of that victim appears in his presence. He doesn't control this image, however (I'll bet $20 that when this happens, one of my players will say "I see dead people".) The heroes can interact with the pseudo-ghost and could potentially get useful information from it, if they think of it.

 

Anything else anybody here can suggest would be greatly appreciated.

[clsage]

Re: The More I Kill, The Stronger I Get!

 

After watching NBC's Heroes and thinking of how a character's power might (but most likely does not) work, I decided to create a psycho killer for my players to face off against. Hopefully, some of you might have ideas or thoughts that I can use to make the character really rock.

 

The character is basically a brick, but his schtick is that he absorbs the mind/soul/life essence of anybody that dies in his presence. (I may require physical contact at time of death, but I'm not certain.) When he absorbs somebody, his physical power increases, kinda reverse-exponentially. After his first victim, his STR went from 10 to 15. Two more victims, and he was up to 20 STR. Four more brought him to 25 STR. He currently has over 64 victims, giving him a 45 STR. If he manages to kill a superhuman, he could potentially have a sizable jump in power.

 

His CON, END, and STUN are similarly increased. To help with the psycho-killer motif, I think he'll also have Healing to BODY (1d6 each Turn) and STUN (1-2d6 each Phase), all 0 END Persistent.

 

Obviously, this guy won't be the most stable person mentally. Though he typically is the dominant personality, it's possible for one of his victims to take temporary control (through an Accidental Change).

 

I decided to give him a 15-point VPP of skills, based on the sets of skills/knowledge that each of his victims had when they died. When he institutes such a direct "link" to a victim, a ghostly image of that victim appears in his presence. He doesn't control this image, however (I'll bet $20 that when this happens, one of my players will say "I see dead people".) The heroes can interact with the pseudo-ghost and could potentially get useful information from it, if they think of it.

 

Anything else anybody here can suggest would be greatly appreciated.

 

Hmmm...All I have is the thought that there was a thread somewhere on the

forums awhile back about creating a character based on the Jet Li movie

"The One" which has a character gaining strength, etc by killing off various

alternate universe versions of himself.

 

So far my initial search in the forums has come up empty...Perhaps that thread

didn't get 'transferred' when the message board format changed awhile back.

I'll keep looking but thought I'd share the heads up too...If you can find the

thread I seem to recall it had a power build for permanent transfer of characteristics.

 

 

-Carl-

[matrix3]

Re: The More I Kill, The Stronger I Get!

 

That's a neat idea. Are you going to stat out the power, or hand wave it?

[mattingly]

Re: The More I Kill, The Stronger I Get!

 

I did a similar villain that actually stole superhuman body parts and "attached" them to himself.

 

I wrote him up for the Clobberin' Times Online #4 at http://www.forteuniverse.com/cto/images/CTO4Piecekeeper.pdf

[Tonio]

Re: The More I Kill, The Stronger I Get!

 

Just have him gain more XP than usual from encounters, but only award him XP when he kills. Then have him decide to spend the XP only on STR, CON, etc.

[Balabanto]

Re: The More I Kill, The Stronger I Get!

 

Your adventure after this should probably be EXTREMELY silly. If you want my take on Super Powered Serial Killer Shtick, I'll give you the one that I used in a private message. It's really too gruesome to put on the public boards.

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: The More I Kill, The Stronger I Get!

 

Your adventure after this should probably be EXTREMELY silly.

 

Agreed. I try to balance dark stuff like this with a few lighter adventures.

 

If you want my take on Super Powered Serial Killer Shtick, I'll give you the one that I used in a private message. It's really too gruesome to put on the public boards.

 

Sure, feel free to PM me the story.

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: The More I Kill, The Stronger I Get!

 

Hmmm...All I have is the thought that there was a thread somewhere on the forums awhile back about creating a character based on the Jet Li movie "The One" which has a character gaining strength, etc by killing off various alternate universe versions of himself.

-Carl-

 

Ah, I never saw that movie, but I knew about it. I'll search for the thread, I'm sure it's out there somewhere.

[Flames]

Re: The More I Kill, The Stronger I Get!

 

I think for something like this, you'd just have this massive reserve point pool that he gets to access only under those limited circumstances. It's not really something that has to be written up all that carefully, since he's an NPC.

 

After all, if there's one thing that will get under the players' skin, it's villains that are playing by their own rules, mwah ha ha ha ha!

[gmurie]

Re: The More I Kill, The Stronger I Get!

 

The way I did it was this:

 

For each characteristic I bought it up to the campaign limit with the limitation, can only go as high as the highest value of any person that [condition X].

 

In this case you might say, only as high as the highest value of anyone he's killed in the last year. Or for a more light game replace killed with "incapacitated", though it'd still be a bit grim. Him pounding on someone until they're at -50STUN or more.

 

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Then a Cosmic VPP with the same limitation. Can only have exact replications of powers of people he's killed.

 

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For absolute rules accuracy you'd have to add "Detect Powers and Characteristics" and make a condition of getting the characteristics and powers also a successful use of the Detect.

 

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NOTE: The way I'd do it is "incapacitated" so players don't immediately associate the bad guy with Sylar and kill him out of hand. Start him off as a normal and have him hunting down progressively more powerful people. First a bunch of VIPER agents get the snot kicked out of them, and who would care? Then some minor and annoying super like Bulldozer gets it. Better still would be to have this enemy follow the characters around, and have him "help" in the middle of some conflict and then run away.

 

OK, so some stranger just pounded on Ogre with a sledgehammer. Cool! He didn't get back up in the middle of the fight!

 

Then as the Absorbalof gets more fully juiced up he starts going after the PCs...

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: The More I Kill, The Stronger I Get!

 

That's a neat idea. Are you going to stat out the power' date=' or hand wave it?[/quote']

 

Just have him gain more XP than usual from encounters' date=' but only award him XP when he kills. Then have him decide to spend the XP only on STR, CON, etc. [/quote']

 

I was going to hand-wave it. It may be more a concept thing than anything else, since I'm not sure whether or not he'll be a recurring character.

 

If he does show up again, then he won't be able to spend XP on STR, CON, etc. until he gets enough kills, or manages to kill a super. Rather than worry the points to death, I'll just figure a super-level victim would allow an immediate XP disbursement for +5 STR, +5 CON, etc.

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: The More I Kill, The Stronger I Get!

 

Funny thing is, I wasn't modeling after Sylar. I was imagining if Nikki got stronger by "absorbing" power first from her sister Jessica when she died, then DL when he died. (I know, that's most likely NOT how it works, just an idea I had.) So it's not a direct transfer of any actual Powers (like Desolid), but more like this guy gets a STR/CON/etc. boost based on the Total Points the victim had.

 

But I can see how it might be interpreted as being a Sylar-type. I wasn't clear enough in my initial post.

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: The More I Kill, The Stronger I Get!

 

Or for a more light game replace killed with "incapacitated"' date=' though it'd still be a bit grim. Him pounding on someone until they're at -50STUN or more. [/quote']

 

Y'know, "incapacitated" isn't a bad idea, especially given some of the PC heroes' powers, though I'm thinking of it in a different way than you intended.

 

Imagine if this guy doesn't literally kill the victims; he damages their bodies to the point where they *would* die, but he takes their soul/life essence before it can go anywhere.

 

One hero, Sentinel, regularly uses radiation to heal people. She can't bring them back from death, but she could bring a horribly-damaged body back up to snuff, though it would still be an empty shell. Now they just need to find a way to remove the souls from the Soulsponge (a working name at this point) and return them to their rightful bodies.

 

Another hero is named Styx, after the river that encircles Hades, the Greek Underworld. (Isn't that convenient?) He has regeneration powers. With a little boost from their gadgeteer teammate Synergy, or their magical friend Rubicon, perhaps Styx could be a conduit.

 

For the Soulsponge's older victims, nothing much the heroes can do except set their souls free, since their bodies can't take the souls back. But if he just got through "killing" a few dozen people, the heroes could feasibly bring 'em back alive.

[TheQuestionMan]

Re: The More I Kill, The Stronger I Get!

 

I did a similar villain that actually stole superhuman body parts and "attached" them to himself.

 

I wrote him up for the Clobberin' Times Online #4 at http://www.forteuniverse.com/cto/images/CTO4Piecekeeper.pdf

 

Wish I could give experience points in real life.

 

 

You will have to settle for REP, Thanks mattling.

 

 

QM

[Alibear]

Re: The More I Kill, The Stronger I Get!

 

Why not buy some wealth with your xp's and then send me some of that wealth. Problem solved.

[Comic]

Re: The More I Kill, The Stronger I Get!

 

Just get the GM to let you play a d20 character in your Champions campaign. I'm sure they won't mind, since you're the GM.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: The More I Kill, The Stronger I Get!

 

Well, Ill say that Im against this idea in principle, but mechanically there are a few ways to do it.

 

The easiest and most obvious is to simply refactor the character to set their abilities to the next level when appropriate, which is in your rights as the GM.

 

The next approach is to design the character in their MAX potential state, buying the extra stats as powers, and then limit the powers accordingly with "only up to" type restraints, so that the character isn't really powering up when they off people, they are instead overcoming limitations.

 

Another approach is a Transfer that fades extremely slowly, like 5 / Millennia, limited to only work on people as they die. Put it on a Trigger to get the timing "automatic". Put some of the Transfer into the Transfer itself, so that the max capacity slowly goes up. This could actually be the character's only real power, with a lot of points dumped into it.

 

The Threshold Scale framework on my website would work very well for this; just buy the FADE rate down to "effectively never". As the GM you can of course allow it.

[pinecone]

Re: The More I Kill, The Stronger I Get!

 

I used something like this a Long time ago that I had based on a really bad movie...He gained "power" from killing, but only one certain way (breaking necks) He was a martial brick...started out as a MA bruiser, and got "bricky" over time. The players were really creeped out when they discovered the source of his powers. I beleive I just "handwaved " the mechanism...it's just a creepy origon story afterall. If you must build it, buy him up to "Big boss" level and limit down till he kills the required number of victoms....