Most interesting character ideas you've seen from others?

[Supreme Serpent]

Talk about other people's cool characters, not your own.

 

What character ideas have you run across as a GM or as a fellow player that made you think "cool!" or "neat idea!"?

 

For example, in a (short-lived) game I ran before, someone brought in a Batman-type guy. So, far, pretty basic. But the premise was that he did have a superpower - duplication. But it was not boughtas a power, just as a justification for other things. Only one would suit up at any given time, but it allowed for one guy to be out crimefighting while another maintained the 'Secred ID' (which got much reduced points for), another maintained the equipment/vehicles, another did research/detective work, etc.

[Egyptoid]

Re: Most interesting character ideas you've seen from others?

 

MAGIC MICHAEL

 

Michael wanted to be the sorceror supreme one day.

his father was a french paladin for the catholic church,

and of course disapproved of his use of his talents.

 

After puberty, 3 female voices started talking to him in his head.

each of them taught him ways of magic.

 

the first voice, kindly and wise, taught him how to channel, like a theurgist.

 

the second voice, savvy and helpful. taught him the old essence magic,

with spells and incantations that tapped other dimensions.

 

the third voice was harsh, cruel, and just barely feminine, and she

reached into his mind painfully, teaching him psionics the hard way.

 

Usually they spoke while he slept, and usually not at the same time.

So sometimes he was seen as a bit crazy.

 

Anyways, he was the team wizard, and the player ran him well,

roleplayed well. the only thing I didnt like about the character

was that he had the stage magic secret ID like Zatanna.

[Doc Samson]

Re: Most interesting character ideas you've seen from others?

 

One of my creepier players had a character that had to die to activate his powers. All his powers (except Healing/ Regeneration/ Resurrection) were bought through an END Reserve that only recovered while he was dead. He essentially refueled his powers with the negative energies and hellfire of the afterlife, and then escaped (this was the sfx, in game terms the REC was set high enough so the Reserve would be full before he Resurrected). Though it was very dramatic in the beginning, his deaths eventually became a source of comic relief. I still think it ranks as one of the most interesting characters I have seen.

[The Weapon]

Re: Most interesting character ideas you've seen from others?

 

One of my creepier players had a character that had to die to activate his powers. All his powers (except Healing/ Regeneration/ Resurrection) were bought through an END Reserve that only recovered while he was dead. He essentially refueled his powers with the negative energies and hellfire of the afterlife' date=' and then escaped (this was the sfx, in game terms the REC was set high enough so the Reserve would be full before he Resurrected). Though it was very dramatic in the beginning, his deaths eventually became a source of comic relief. I still think it ranks as one of the most interesting characters I have seen.[/quote']

 

Bet it was rough on new team members.

"Hey could you hand me that high voltage line? I need to recharge my powers."

"Sure what do I plug it into?"

"Just throw it in the bathtub."

[Certified]

Re: Most interesting character ideas you've seen from others?

 

Djancaz-Bru: In the last face to face Hero game we had a friend of mind played an archer who's mutant ability was to "get luckier" the worse the odds were. This translated into multiple CSLs compensating for almost any situation, attacks that suffered no Range Penalties, Luck and a very frustrated GM. The character's powers were ever changing trying to find a balance between always getting every CSL bonus in almost every fight and getting nothing. TO his credit the player went along with this with almost no complaints. As he wasn't a power gamer he just wanted his "Luck power" to work without overshadowing the rest of the players.

[BobGreenwade]

Re: Most interesting character ideas you've seen from others?

 

One of the most brilliantly-conceived humorous superheroes I've ever seen at the table was as follows.

 

He started out as a brilliant scientist who developed a formula for super-strength. The formula's effect was only temporary, and had the unfortunate side effect that, while the recipient had incredible strength, it also suppressed his intelligence. In short, while the scientist had 60 INT and 6 STR in his civilian ID, when he was super it was the other way around.

 

After taking the formula for the first time, this newly super-strong and super-dumb individual decided that he should go out and become a superhero. So he went to a local costume shop to get a superhero costume. The only thing they had in stock was a big pink bunny costume.

 

However, the name he chose had no connection to the costume (at least, not in his mind). It had to do with what he did with villains when he caught up with them.

 

His superhero name: Thumper.

 

'Nuff said.

[bubba smith]

Re: Most interesting character ideas you've seen from others?

 

one Of The Most Brilliantly-conceived Humorous Superheroes I've Ever Seen At The Table Was As Follows.

 

He Started Out As A Brilliant Scientist Who Developed A Formula For Super-strength. The Formula's Effect Was Only Temporary, And Had The Unfortunate Side Effect That, While The Recipient Had Incredible Strength, It Also Suppressed His Intelligence. In Short, While The Scientist Had 60 Int And 6 Str In His Civilian Id, When He Was Super It Was The Other Way Around.

 

After Taking The Formula For The First Time, This Newly Super-strong And Super-dumb Individual Decided That He Should Go Out And Become A Superhero. So He Went To A Local Costume Shop To Get A Superhero Costume. The Only Thing They Had In Stock Was A Big Pink Bunny Costume.

 

However, The Name He Chose Had No Connection To The Costume (at Least, Not In His Mind). It Had To Do With What He Did With Villains When He Caught Up With Them.

 

His Superhero Name: Thumper.

 

'nuff Said.

Lol

[zaras]

Re: Most interesting character ideas you've seen from others?

 

Poltergeist

 

Generic aprentice to a supermage botches a spell and casts his soul out of his body, permanently.

 

Always on Desolidification and invisibility.

 

He could animate almost anything with his life force but it had to form a vaguely humanoid shape and no single component of this surrogate body could be more than a 5 Kg in weight. Bought as a VPP, only for duplicates, no duplicates more than 1000 points- with the duplicates having characteristics defined by what they were made of. The character had clinging with 'affects physical world' only for the purpose of sticking to his creations.

 

Amongst other things the character at one time or another was comprised of stuffed toys, bee swarms, paperclips and office clutter and once when i hadnt thought ahead, several dozen hand grenades. The guy had a great grasp of the rules and wasnt a powergamer so things worked nicely, handgrenade manikin excepted.

[Enforcer84]

Re: Most interesting character ideas you've seen from others?

 

My brother made some of the strangest, funniest characters ever. HE began playing with us when he was like 10 or something. Anyway one of his characters was Mr. Wilbur, basically, Mr. Wilbur was a humanoid feline with mental powers and psychic claws. I think he predated Psylocke but I can't remember for sure. At any rate Mr. Wilbur was originally a normal kitten and was experimented on by Malachite when the 4th ed Mastervillain was a youngster. He was supposedly destroyed after the initial transformation, but the kitten/child had enough instinct and intellect to escape. He was found by a former CIA agent who helped raise him (he aged rapidly, achieving physical maturity in four years) Mr Wilbur was a CIA agent (his first name was Daniel, he took it from his adoptive father).

He ended up being a psychic/martial artist/light brick. Very interesting. Always wore suits.

[Vulcan]

Re: Most interesting character ideas you've seen from others?

 

We had a player who could usually be counted on to make a 300 point snotling. But every so often he surprised us, as was the case with...

 

Outreach - a Brick with quite a bit of Stretching.

 

He couldn't play the character very well, but the concept was interesting.

[Vulcan]

Re: Most interesting character ideas you've seen from others?

 

Another good one (this time from a competent character) was a power-armor-type...

 

Red Cross, with a prototype medical/firefighting set of armor. He even had a defibrilator built into the armor - which he occasionally used as a taser!

 

We gave him so much trouble about actually having bought a high-powered fire extinguisher in his armor... until we had to face Feurmacher from Eurostar...

 

But we never stopped giving him trouble about paying points for the flashers mounted on the armor's shoulders (think 'Ingram' from PATLABOR).

[Querysphinx]

Re: Most interesting character ideas you've seen from others?

 

I had a friend who played a professional sidekick to other heroes. His name was (IIRC) Manuel Jose Rodrigues. He had a 15 point perk: ALWAYS has a flashlight, a 50ft rope, a pocketknife, water bottle and compass. Drop him naked in the middle of the desert and there he was with his equipment.

[zaras]

Re: Most interesting character ideas you've seen from others?

 

I had a friend who played a professional sidekick to other heroes. His name was (IIRC) Manuel Jose Rodrigues. He had a 15 point perk: ALWAYS has a flashlight' date=' a 50ft rope, a pocketknife, water bottle and compass. Drop him naked in the middle of the desert and there he was with his equipment.[/quote']

 

...i wont ask how he hides such acoutrements on his person.

[bubba smith]

Re: Most interesting character ideas you've seen from others?

 

i Had A Friend Who Played A Professional Sidekick To Other Heroes. His Name Was (iirc) Manuel Jose Rodrigues. He Had A 15 Point Perk: Always Has A Flashlight' date=' A 50ft Rope, A Pocketknife, Water Bottle And Compass. Drop Him Naked In The Middle Of The Desert And There He Was With His Equipment.[/quote']

Maybe Manuel Would've Made A Good Low Powered Hero On His Own Merit

[Arkham]

Re: Most interesting character ideas you've seen from others?

 

I've had some very creative players...

 

One player had the ghost of an Amish farmer named Farmer Dead with pretty much all the expected ghost powers.

Someone else played an american super-spy with cybernetic eyes. He had N-ray and enough range modifiers to read the serial numbers on satellites. To go with it he had infrared 'lasers' invisible to normal sight that he shot from his eyes, with enough extra range ( and no range modifier ) to edit those self-same serial numbers.

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: Most interesting character ideas you've seen from others?

 

Didn't see the character in action, but I liked the concept enough that I stole... er, adapted it for my game.

 

In 4th edition there was a Foxbat sourcebook that included a martial artist, Harmonious Fist. IIRC, this character had no actual Martial Arts skill but instead had a Multipower with various powers that simulated the effects of various MA moves. I didn't really like the character as built, but needed someone to fill a slot in the Foxbat Five (my creation) so I used him as-is for a while.

 

Then I went to GenCon and was talking to a GM of a game I played in. He described *his* Harmonious Fist, who would mime various MA actions, typically against himself. And his actual target (usually a ways distant from Fist) would act out those actions -- so the hero was effectively beating himself up, at Harmonious Fist's direction. I thought this was such a neat idea, and fit the character's name *perfectly*, that I had to change mine to fit that.

 

I just wish I'd gotten the GM's name so I could properly attribute it.

[NestorDRod]

Re: Most interesting character ideas you've seen from others?

 

In one superhero campaign I was in where the PCs were a federal superhero group, one of the players was new to the game and asked the GM to come up with something for him. The GM gave him an investigator with no super powers of his own. For some reason, though, he had two "ghosts" that accompanied him and that only he could see.

 

The things was, we were never able to ascertain whether the ghosts were truly supernatural in origin, or if they were unconscious expressions of the guy's psyche, or what. He didn't control them, per se, although they would do things if he asked and could always be counted on protecting him.

 

In the game, the GM and I would partner off and provide dialogue for them, which was the source of many a funny scene.

 

The thing was, one of them looked like a Napoleonic-era soldier, armed with a cavalry saber (even though he was dressed as an infantryman), and the other was dressed like an Old West gunslinger, wielding two Colt Walker revolvers.

 

I've always wanted to steal the concept and use the character in a game, but it would only work with a GM that could give them the right feel.

[Guest Major Tom]

Re: Most interesting character ideas you've seen from others?

 

In one superhero campaign I was in where the PCs were a federal superhero group, one of the players was new to the game and asked the GM to come up with something for him. The GM gave him an investigator with no super powers of his own. For some reason, though, he had two "ghosts" that accompanied him and that only he could see.

 

The things was, we were never able to ascertain whether the ghosts were truly supernatural in origin, or if they were unconscious expressions of the guy's psyche, or what. He didn't control them, per se, although they would do things if he asked and could always be counted on protecting him.

 

In the game, the GM and I would partner off and provide dialogue for them, which was the source of many a funny scene.

 

The thing was, one of them looked like a Napoleonic-era soldier, armed with a cavalry saber (even though he was dressed as an infantryman), and the other was dressed like an Old West gunslinger, wielding two Colt Walker revolvers.

 

I've always wanted to steal the concept and use the character in a game, but it would only work with a GM that could give them the right feel.

 

 

I don't suppose that the character's name was "Agent Topper" by any chance,

was it?

 

 

Major Tom

[Guest Major Tom]

Re: Most interesting character ideas you've seen from others?

 

Another good one (this time from a competent character) was a power-armor-type...

 

Red Cross, with a prototype medical/firefighting set of armor. He even had a defibrilator built into the armor - which he occasionally used as a taser!

 

We gave him so much trouble about actually having bought a high-powered fire extinguisher in his armor... until we had to face Feurmacher from Eurostar...

 

But we never stopped giving him trouble about paying points for the flashers mounted on the armor's shoulders (think 'Ingram' from PATLABOR).

 

 

He probably wouldn't have had to put up with it if he'd bought a Flash Attack for

the armor that would come from the shoulder-mounted lights.

 

Those are just my thoughts on the idea, though. I do find the concept of a

"medical battlesuit" interesting, however. It almost sounds like something the

G.I. Joe writers would have come up with.

 

 

Major Tom

[NestorDRod]

Re: Most interesting character ideas you've seen from others?

 

I don't suppose that the character's name was "Agent Topper" by any chance,

was it?

 

 

Major Tom

 

Hah. No, but the joke was used at least once in the game. Of course, only three of us got it.

[Querysphinx]

Re: Most interesting character ideas you've seen from others?

 

He probably wouldn't have had to put up with it if he'd bought a Flash Attack for

the armor that would come from the shoulder-mounted lights.

 

More like DEX suppression or maybe darkness defined as can't look at it or past it. Police lights are designed to be disorienting.

[Guest Major Tom]

Re: Most interesting character ideas you've seen from others?

 

Hah. No' date=' but the joke was used at least once in the game. Of course, only three of us got it. [/quote']

 

 

That's one of the problems with the younger generations. Most of their

members suffer from cultural deprivation to some extent, so they wind

up with no knowledge of the classics.

 

 

Major Tom

[Pattern Ghost]

Re: Most interesting character ideas you've seen from others?

 

You know, I've been trying to think of an example for this thread for several days now.

 

I'm forced to admit I've played with some unimaginative gamers.

 

Then again, you can have good times without breaking the mold too much, I guess.

[Drhoz]

Re: Most interesting character ideas you've seen from others?

 

Played a thermal dettonator sales-gibbon once.

 

And played opposite an evil psychic puffball fungus.

 

But then the groups I played with were proud of their reputation for breaking GMs. Hell, Team Demolition broke ME more than once.

[Vulcan]

Re: Most interesting character ideas you've seen from others?

 

He probably wouldn't have had to put up with it if he'd bought a Flash Attack for

the armor that would come from the shoulder-mounted lights.

 

Those are just my thoughts on the idea, though. I do find the concept of a

"medical battlesuit" interesting, however. It almost sounds like something the

G.I. Joe writers would have come up with.

 

 

Major Tom

 

Yeah, but then he would be flashing the entire party...

 

NOT THAT WAY, YOU PERVERTS!!!