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Dr Strange Build


iamlibertarian

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There's none there.

 

I think this might be a case of "define what you want the character to be capable of doing, and write it up yourself."

 

The first bit of that involves selecting the source material you intend to use. Or, if you are just trying to build a generic "Doctor Strange", selecting the power level you want to build him at.

 

You can approximate the movie version on fairly modest point totals. I wouldn't bother trying to represent the Dark Dimension stuff.

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Most points into a VPP spell pool, Flight bought through OIF cloak, some fixed effects through the OIF Eye of Agamotto. Base with some installed powers (i.e. the OAF Bulky Orb of Agamotto and Book of the Vishanti).  Probably build the astral projection Duplication/Multiform/Desolid outside the VPP since it appears to have different limitations (no gestures or incantations for a start). Various contacts among gods and mystical types. Rank perk: Sorcerer Supreme (10 points).

 

Characteristics to allow him to do well in a super fight, primarily enough speed and DEX to run an active defense (he does a lot of blocking). OCV over DCV. For the most part he's drawing power from external sources, so either reduced or zero end powers or an END battery over personal END and high REC IMHO. High EGO MOCV, MDCV and INT, naturally. Even with his crippled hands (if that's in play) he has the precision of a neurosurgeon, so high DEX with an appropriate physical complication is right.

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There's a difference between modelling Doctor Strange specifically and building a character who more or less does the same things. The latter is generally more useful in an actual game, while the former is mostly an exercise in character engineering. It helps to know which you are doing.

 

An approach I've experimented with for magically oriented characters is to build them as what I call 'Astral Luchadores'. My original inspiration was the Silver Age version of the Spectre.

 

By this I mean characters who do most of their business on the 'Astral Plane', surrounded by world-shattering Cosmic awesomeness. However, since everything operates at an awesome level of awesomeness, the relative effect of everything is mechanically indistinguishable from standard characters. Sure, you're theoretically throwing 12 million dice rather than just 12, but your opponent's defenses are comparably insane.

 

On the material plane, they are pretty standard. They can toast normals. Against non-mystical supers they're nothing special, although they can have weird attacks.

 

The movie version of Doctor Strange approximates this. A lot of what the wizards there do is basically martial arts in weird environments.

 

So you build them appropriately, and add a multipower or VPP with a bunch of weird abilities, possibly focused.

 

Season to taste.

 

 

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Off topic but since the Build was capitalized I thought this was about a character named Doctor Strange Build, so I was curious.

 

(He's the one they call Dr Strangebuild, he's the one that's going to make you feel alright, he's the one they call Dr Strangebuild, he's gonna be your Frankenstein... /motley crue)

 

 

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I've got one that's somewhere around 2000 points, maybe even higher.  I don't know that it would be very useful to you.  The build is heavily influenced by the writeups of other characters I've done (i.e., he needs to be more powerful than this other guy, and since this other guy has XYZ, Dr Strange must have more than that...).  So the reasons for some of the decisions may not be apparent without looking through my entire Marvel character directory.

 

Creatively, there's nothing particularly unusual about the build.  He's just got a lot of stuff.  Really good stats, a page full of skills, lots of mystic contacts and other perks, and then a ton of powers.  I'm not the biggest Dr Strange fan, so I just copied from the Marvel Super Heroes game and converted it to Hero, then rounded him out and made sure that he didn't have any gaping holes.  I'm positive I've missed things that a true fan of the series would catch.

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One thing that I've fooled around with doing, but haven't incorporated in the build yet, is an unusual way of dealing with Recoverable Charges.  Maybe you can get some use out of it.

 

Have your baseline level of power for the character, whatever that might be for the campaign.  If it's a 12D6 game, then 12D6 is fine.  But to really get the "Sorcerer Supreme" aspect, give him some extra juice that is on a Recoverable Charge, only in specific circumstances.  The idea is that your wizard can really whip out the big guns when he needs to, but he usually doesn't unless it's really necessary.  It's expected that sometimes Doctor Magus can wave his hands and defeat an entire team of supervillains.  That's how you know he's really powerful.  But you don't want him doing that sort of thing all the time -- it's quite anticlimactic and he'll steal everyone else's thunder.  Not many people want to play in the "Doctor Magus and the five losers he hangs out with" game.  So to prevent him from whipping out that ginormous level of power all the time, it's on Charges.  He can basically do it once, unless the recovery conditions are right.

 

The recovery conditions?  He's got to be in a high magic environment, or a cosmic style, end of the world type scenario.

 

So let's give Doctor Magus a 120 point Multipower.  We're going to limitation on part of it (I think partially limited frameworks are still legal, even though Hero Designer won't let you do it).  The bottom 60 points might have gestures or incantations, but the "top" 60 points all have 1 Charge, Recoverable.  That's a -1 1/4 in addition to whatever other limitations it has.  So most of the time, the good doctor just uses his normal, campaign appropriate attacks.  But... when Dorkmammu invades from the Dork Dimension, the level of mystic energy is so high that he can recover it anytime he wants.  Zap Dorkmammu with your 24D6 Energy Blast, and check to see if you're in an end of the world scenario.  Yep?  Okay, then the charge recovers and you can use it again!

 

I've also experimented with using Summon as a way to get really high level spells.  You'd basically be summoning a character that had just Dex and Speed and one big power, and maybe enough defenses so that people couldn't "disrupt" the spell by blasting it.  This can be abusive, however, because you just need the "spell" to stay alive long enough to go off once.  Summoning a fireball spell is cheap when it's a 30D6 attack with a -2 limitation for 1 charge, and then another -2 "dies when used" limitation.  So this part is definitely a GM approval needed route to take.

 

I'd allow a character like that, with the understanding that you'll be a bit less effective than your normal superhero counterparts, but in certain situations you'll be overwhelmingly powerful.  And you'll get to have those grand magical duels, and you'll get to teleport cities to other dimensions and things like that, but it's probably a once-per-story-arc kind of thing.

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On ‎6‎/‎11‎/‎2017 at 11:13 AM, assault said:

 

By this I mean characters who do most of their business on the 'Astral Plane', surrounded by world-shattering Cosmic awesomeness. However, since everything operates at an awesome level of awesomeness, the relative effect of everything is mechanically indistinguishable from standard characters. Sure, you're theoretically throwing 12 million dice rather than just 12, but your opponent's defenses are comparably insane.

 

 

IIRC there was some discussion of this idea in 4e Mystic Masters.

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14 hours ago, massey said:

I've got one that's somewhere around 2000 points, maybe even higher.  I don't know that it would be very useful to you.  The build is heavily influenced by the writeups of other characters I've done (i.e., he needs to be more powerful than this other guy, and since this other guy has XYZ, Dr Strange must have more than that...).  So the reasons for some of the decisions may not be apparent without looking through my entire Marvel character directory.

 

 

Still, I would LOVE to see it! And does it use a VPP? And if so, does the VPP include some of the powers within the VPP?

Thanks!

DC :)

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13 hours ago, massey said:

I'd allow a character like that, with the understanding that you'll be a bit less effective than your normal superhero counterparts, but in certain situations you'll be overwhelmingly powerful.  And you'll get to have those grand magical duels, and you'll get to teleport cities to other dimensions and things like that, but it's probably a once-per-story-arc kind of thing.

 

I am thinking of a more supportive (to the team) character anyway, but I love this for the ability to have that, "I can do one big thing to save the group When the group just doesn't have what is needed," spell/power. 

Beyond that, I am trying to create a 'can do just about anything, but at lower power levels than the other characters have their special abilities set at,' along with taking extra time to change the powers in a VPP, taking extra time to research what my character needs to accomplish for the team (pre-approved VPP powers only). In other words, let the other characters use their specialness whenever possible, and fill in the gaps but at lower levels with more time involved.

In Fantasy games, I have always prefered to play a Cleric or Druid (supportive with good RP capacity) than a tank or a power wizard.

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I did a build for Dr. Strange back during the Defenders limited series by Matt Fraction, when he'd stepped down from being Sorcerer Supreme and didn't have access to his signature artifacts or the extra power he'd inherited from his predecessor (i.e., might make for a somewhat playable character rather than a plot device). Sadly a computer crash wiped it out, but I'll check and see if I have a printed copy around somewhere that I can key back in.

 

I think Dr. Yin Wu is probably a good general guideline for what Strange's character sheet would look like as far as spellcasting ability and martial arts training would go.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 11/6/2017 at 9:00 AM, DasBroot said:

Off topic but since the Build was capitalized I thought this was about a character named Doctor Strange Build, so I was curious.

 

(He's the one they call Dr Strangebuild, he's the one that's going to make you feel alright, he's the one they call Dr Strangebuild, he's gonna be your Frankenstein... /motley crue)

 

 

After they added the Doctor Orpheus-esque beard (the Mystic Pack, I think) to City of Heroes, I made Doctor Strangebeard. His build was Radiation Emission/Radiation Blast. 

My legs are bionic

My spells are atomic

My worries are gone

I love the bomb

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