Icons Earth: The Heroes

[Steve]

These are the four PC heroes of the Icons campaign. I'll be posting their starting versions for now. Please feel free to comment.

[Steve]

Re: Icons Earth: The Heroes

 

Here are their Hero Design files.

[Steve]

Re: Icons Earth: The Heroes

 

Since the players are new to Hero, I did the number cunching with input from them as to what they wanted their characters to be able to do. I don't think I did anything horribly illegal in their construction.

 

Any feedback on improving them will be appreciated.

[torchwolf]

Re: Icons Earth: The Heroes

 

All of these characters are of course total wimps in normal form - but that's the point, as I understand it.

I particularly liked extensive use of Proficiencies and minor Talents in the writeups, very nice details.

 

Reading the character sheets for players might be easier if you edited the OIAID Limitation text fields in some places, to distinguish more clearly which abilities added to the Icon form, or to the normal form. No big deal, and it's not hard to figure out, but Murphy tells me it _could_ slow down the game when quickly looking up something on the sheet.

 

Gatekeeper:

 

• "Mystic Lightning" will do max damage and STUN equal to a 12 DC normal attack, but much more often (about 1% of the time, twice as often as a natural 3 attack roll). You're probably aware of this, just mentioning it since it can definitely KO opponents more often than expected (just like the KA discussions here usually bring up).
  
• "Magesense" might benefit from Discriminatory given that he has Analyze Magic.
  
• "Nearly Ageless" might receive a greater Limitation bonus depending on how much of his time he will spend in respective identity (if about equal time, the ability is effectively halved in effect to prolong his life, the primary purpose of the ability, even if it provides a special defense). Still, up to the GM, since aging is rarely an issue in a superheroic campaign.
  

 

Golden Dragon:

 

• Not much to comment on, except that his linguistic ability is more efficient than Gatekeeper, so that might steal some thunder unless the players are fine with it.
  

 

Panzer:

 

• I think the Cramming Skill would be really useful for this character, maybe reduce Flight speed or something at the start (for later upgrade), but that of course depends on how useful Skills will be in the campaign and how interested the player would be in using such a thing. To a lesser degree this might apply to Golden Dragon as well. Also, given Gatekeeper's and Golden Dragon's linguistic abilitíes, it might be cool for Panzer to pick up an unusual language temporarily just to have hard-to-decipher communication with them available, if not to assist in deciphering strange, ancient documents.
  
• "Heard Every Line" Talent would be almost mandatory if Supernal is playing in the same campaign.
  

 

Supernal:

 

• I can't really see that the Always On Limitation for "Charm the Ladies" is worth -1/2, other than the character getting a bit blasé with the ease.
  
• "Black Book" ability: it technically can't be used to summon specific people which might not make sense over the long run (as the player would get to know some NPCs better, he might prefer calling those). If I were the player I'd might ask where everyone in the book lived to figure out which ones to call first. For those reasons I'd do it as an Organization Contact instead ("Women In The City (World)" with Very Useful Abilities and Very Good Relationship, allowing for one step up or down in those categories for select individuals), and add Well Connected and a few permanent Contacts with points left over.
  
• I really spent way too many words on "Black Book" above, since you're the GM and can adjudicate the effects. The current writeup is clever, defines exactly the resources the player can expect, and should work fine - how it works out in play depends mostly on how well the player 'gets' the part that is up to the GM.
  

 

Cannot comment on the Followers, of course.

 

Well that's just my long-winded fraction's worth of a Euro (FWIW next week?)

[Steve]

Re: Icons Earth: The Heroes

 

Thank you for the comments. They are vey much appreciated.

 

Luckily, the Icon Form OIHID Limitation has not caused any difficulties so far, but the players have loaded all of their experience into buying it off as quickly as possible. As of current XP totals for the more experienced versions, it is roughly 1/4 paid off. A few points here and there have gone to other things, but mainly they go to getting rid of it.

 

The players of Gatekeeper and Golden Dragon have not had any difficulties on the language front, and I tried to help the players have something interesting they can do non-combat.

 

Panzer and Supernal have been the easiest to develop so far.

 

Panzer has kind of a Spider-Man relationship with the press due to some destructive things she's done in tactical situations, and the AI in her suit has been amusing to play. People don't even know it's a woman in the armor because it looks very male in design, and the voice is modulated to sound male. I didn't write that into the suit construction since it's more of a special effect.

 

Supernal is a kind of cross between Kal-El and the womanizing ways and wealth of Tony Stark. He doesn't form close relationships with women after the loss of his true love in a drunken driving accident. He is heroing to make up for that. I have been devloping a small group of women that he dates and uses the summon with. I like the idea of a Contact Group of women he knows, and I may change the summon write-up to include specific people.