Help with a supervillain design

[dsatow]

The supervillain is called Maggot and should be designed for a lower powered super game.  He's a mobster/gang leader in the same vein as the Penguin in Batman comics.

 

His super power is what has me stumped if I am doing it in the best way possible.  Please note that this villain is a little gross in power description.

 

Maggot looks like a giant maggot just under 1 foot in length.  He has the ability to enter a body through an orifice and make its way to the center of the body.  Once there, his body releases filia into the body and takes control.  Releasing the filia and taking control kills the host if it is not already dead.  Once control is established, Maggot can control the body as if it is his own.  His own body slows the decay of the meat suit slightly allowing the meat suit to function for 7-12 days (though this can be less if the Body takes damage in combat or the like).  Maggot can tell if a host is suitable or if it has taken too much damage to be of use through its own innate senses as long as its near a suitable host.  Once inside a meat suit, he can only tell the condition of his meat suit.  The Body maintains warmth though not at the 98.6F a normal body is at (more like about 78F).  Maggot does not have the mental skills of the meat suit but retains the physical aspects and possibly the ingrained reflexes.

 

The villain uses this power to assume the meat suits identity for 1-2 weeks, stealing all the net worth of the victim and then dumping the Body in the river.  While in control of the meat suit, Maggot looks,  sounds, and even smells like the target. 

 

I am thinking currently of using the following to simulate Maggots abilities:

• Multiform for the Body.  Each form is only usable for 7-12 days.
• Desol. not through solid objects to get into a victim.
• Damage shield that activates only when inside the body.
• A bite attack and life support need not eat with a minor limitation it hastens the meat suits destruction.
• A detect to detect the status of a body.
• Clinging.
• Slow regeneration.
• Maybe tunneling?

 

Something isn't sitting well with the design with me.  So any suggestions would be good.

[Tom Cowan]

another way would be shape shift, say

Shape Shift  (Smell/Taste, Touch and Hearing Groups), Cellular, Costs END Only To Change Shape (+1/4) (37 Active Points); Extra Time (1 Turn (Post-Segment 12), Only to Activate, -3/4), IIF Expendable (Easy to obtain new Focus; (a body); -1/4)

[Grailknight]

I would go with Shapeshift rather than Multiform unless each host body is going to have wildly differing Characteristics. 

No need for Desolid, just make the Shapeshift require a helpless victim or dead body.

[DasBroot]

Can Maggot be targeted separately while inside a host if someone were in some way able to detect him and affect him ? (penetrating sense and indirect on an attack, for example)

 

If the answer is 'yes' then neither shapeshift or multiform are truly appropriate - what you have is... a vehicle, basically (a 'meat suit', as it were).

 

The vehicle looking different every few weeks is pretty minor but could be handled by a 'shapechange' on the vehicle.  

 

Making it a separate entity like this bypasses the messiness of 'what happened the original body' of Maggot using Shapechange alone (multiform is better for that, though it still takes a bit of hand waving to 'become' something  separate  from yourself, destroying the separate thing in the process. Their wealth and resources are just justification for his own Wealth value.

 

I'd keep this sort of thing out of combat, though - the stunts you'd need to pull it off 'on camera' are exhaustive, as you listed.  You *could* go with Desolid to enter a body and then a penetrating killing attack to kill the living host before converting it ... but just like Shrinker and her Transdimentional attack  it's a death sentence unless you just happen to have just the right power set to counter it.  

 

[Ninja-Bear]

I would look into possession power. Instead of multipower have you looked into Duplication?

[dsatow]

Yeah, I thought about using it as a vehicle this morning after a couple of hours of sleep.  So, I am going to try building it that route.

 

Didn't think about shape shift nor possession.  I don't know about possession.  Possession just seems like mind control to me.  May try a build with shape shift if the vehicle idea doesn't work out.

 

[Doc Democracy]

This all really depends on how you see things working in-game.

 

you have some questions to answer, beyond being a great disguise, does the body provide protection?  If it has enhanced sense, does maggot gain the use of them?

 

In its most basic form, I see you as having a killing attack, a shapeshift (only to mimic the last person he has killed within the last 7-10 days).  I see maggot having a complication of no limbs (only when not mimicking).

 

you can layer on stuff that might be gained when 'inside', added defences, potentially additional STR, a VPP, to cover powers the body might have had.

 

There are other more complex ways to do it, I think that the vehicle idea is clever and possession gives you other potentials, such as mining the person's memories etc to enhance the mimic role.  Each has its strengths and drawbacks and it really depends on how you intend it to play in game.

 

Doc

[LoneWolf]

Another way to do it would be to use the focus limitation.  Reduce most of his physical characteristics and then buy them back to the level you want for the character with the limitation IIF body.  Buy any additional characteristics and powers you want the character to have with the IIF limitation.  Buy regeneration like you planed, and also purchase some extra defense without the focus limitation only to prevent death. You may need shapeshift to allow you to look like the new body.

 

Purchase any abilities the maggot form would have without the limitation.  Many of them would have a limitation not when in meat suit.