Broblawsky

I gotta disagree with you there. Dr D has, pretty much flat-out, the overall most advanced technology on Earth. Teleios has better biotech and Mechanon has better robotics, but Destroyer is more advanced in all other field than either of them - in a straight-out fight between Destroyer's armies and our armies it would basically be a match of quantity vs quality - the problem is, the difference in firepower between an M-1 Abrams and a Black Talon (even upgraded) is not so great as to make up for the difference of numbers. Also remember that Destroyer's forces, for all their power, could still be taken by, say, tac-nukes - which, given Destroyer's history, would probably be acceptable. I would say this tactic is, in fact, more likely to be used by Istvatha V'Han than Destroyer. V'Han wouldn't care that much about the individual countries; the difference is, getting a beach-head on Earth for a coupla months would let V'Han summon perhaps millions of D-Soldiers and various spacecraft and armor units - something which could easily overwhelm mankind.

Once again, Polaris, I have to note: if Dr. Destroyer could actually deter the major military powers of the world, then he damn well doesn't need to raise the price of industrial diamonds in order to conquer mankind.

>As is the idea that you could have a huge group of >fanatically loyal terrorists without any sort of guiding >ideology. Actually, I always assumed that Destroyer used the same mind-control techniques that subverted Gigaton (and failed to work on Menton and Mentalla) to maintain control of his troops. That particular weapon is, in fact, probably Destroyer's most powerful of all the technologies we know he has to date - a subtle, highly effective brainwashing technique could be used to maintain control of any populations Destroyer was able to conquer, which would render an organized resistance impossible. I suspect that whatever Destroyer's ultimate plan is, it probably makes use of that technology.

I gotta agree with OddHat. Menton and Teleios are not only two of the most powerful villians on the planet besides Destroyer, their powers are complementary (Menton has mind-power and Teleios has man-power) and they plan and fight intelligently. More importantly, their goals aren't mutually exclusive: Teleios just wants to use mankind as a research subject, and Menton probably wouldn't be bother by that idea. If they were to team up, they'd be pretty much unstoppable; heck, the two of them could take Destroyer even if he was in the picture. That being said, Takofanes could wipe out Mankind by yawning, without even shifting his entire VPP - he could probably do it in under 60 CP.

I think you guys may be forgetting something. Destroyer is nothing like Saddam Hussein. He's Osama Bin Laden, only a thousand times worse; I don't know what the civilian death toll of the Battle of Detroit was, but it must have been something huge. Think about it! Do you seriously think that we wouldn't simply try our damned-est to wipe out any country that proved to be willing to host Destroyer, via any means necessary? Even if it meant retaliation on a massive scale? Seriously, any country stupid enough to host Destroyer and willing submit to hs rule - publicly, no less! - would be wiped out by a coalition of pretty much every other country in the world. Destroyer isn't just a threat to the status quo, he's a terrorist mass-murderer with no equal in our world. Destroyer's organization must be far more feared than Al Qaeda, and look how far we'll go to remove threats like that! Not only is this hugely OOC for Destroyer, but any megalomaniacal supervillian like him - including the Warlord (don't forget, he tried to frickin' conquer VIETNAM) - would be pretty much wiped from the face of the earth the second they tried anything like this, via nuclear means if necessary.

Alternatively, you could have an Absorption feed an Aid power which can increase several different powers; thus, when you're hit by an attack, your absorpion goes off, increases your Aid, and allows you to use Aid to increase whatever powers you might want to increase. This has the problem, however, of requiring you to spend a half-phase action activating your reserve, but I think it works better than the previous suggestions.

You could put Restrainable and OIF on the Slavishly Devoted Advantage. That would reduce it to a +1/2 advantage, which seems about right to me.

OK, I see a lot of people mention Tyrannon, and how much cooler he is than Istvatha V'Han - and since she's pretty cool imho, he must be one bad mutha, so to speak. All I know about him is that he's from an older edition book, has uber-cosmic-mystic powers, and conquers dimensions - sort of like the Dread Dormammu, in fact. I'd kind of like for anone who really knows anything about him to post it on this board - I'm sure you'd be doing noobs like me a great favor.

The Cybernetics thing isn't just a way to shave points off of the total cost - it's actually pretty much the only origin I could figure out with the limited info our GM has given us thus far on the background of the campaign, which is a sort of weird mystical post-apocalyptic supers game; I could have taken a mystical origin, but one of the other players is doing a drain\suppress\dispel monkey, and since the f\x they will target will almost certainly be mystical, I don't want to risk getting targeted if he throws down an area power. Incidentally, however, I've decided that using IIF and Restrainable is a bit point-monkey-ish and redundant, so instead I'm using Minor Side Effects (Vulnerability to Electricity and so forth and so on) which make a bit more sense for a cyborg character. This actually saves me more points, though, so I've raised my DEX to 20 and I still have a few more points to put into skills; the lowering EGO\raising MD thing is probably a good idea, though. As far as brick tricks go, I'm using stuff like 1.5x knockback, suppress END\SPD (for stunning blows), and Flick of Unconsciousness (from the USPDB). Thanks to everyone who helped me with this character, especially whoever first suggested increasing knockback for STR.

Frankly, the problem isn't the basic brick powers - it's the funky defenses that get expensive. The campaign is going to have a lot of opponents like vampires, evil spirits, so forth and so on, so I can expect to face tons of presence attacks, drains, mind control....in order to be an effective character 24/7, I have to have defences versus all of the 7 major categories of attack: physical, energy, mental, power, sense-affecting, presence, and NND (immunity: poison and self-contained breathig should be fine for that - I don't expect anything much more exotic than poisons and similar stuff). So here's pretty much what I was thinking: STR 50 (20 base, 30 bought in IIF: Cybernetics, Restrainable -1/4) 30 CP DEX 15 15 CP CON 25 (15 base, 10 bought with Cybernetics limitations as above) 23 CP BODY 25 (15 base, 10 bought with Cybernetics limitations as above) 23 CP INT 10 0 CP EGO 20 20 CP PRE 10 0 CP COM 10 0 CP PD 30 (10 base, 20 bought with Cybernetics) 13 CP ED 30 (5 base, 25 bought with Cybernetics) 16 CP SPD 4 15 CP REC 15 END 50 STUN 63 TOTAL CHARACTERISTICS COST: 155 CP Powers: 15 Hardened (+1/4) for PD & ED 16 Damage Resistance for 25 PD/ED (Cybernetics Limitations) 10 +25 PRE Presence Defense (Cybernetics Limitations) 6 Mental Defense 10 pts. (Cybernetics Limitations) 6 Power Defense 10 pts. (Cybernetics Limitations) 13 Multipower: Brick Tricks 20-CP reserve (Requires Skill Roll: Brick Tricks -1/2) Various Multipower Slots Include 1.5x Knockback on STR, Flick of Unconsciousness, AP STR, so forth and so on - probably no more than 6 points worth of slots tho. so, so far.... 72 + 155: 227 CP. 23 CP isn't a lot for serious skills, but maybe it's enough. The real problem, that makes me uncomfortable so far, is my lack of life support and extra senses - but given how few points I have, I'll have to survive.

This saturday is probably going to be my first Champions game, a Low-Powered Superhero Game (150+100 Disadvantages) and in order to make my life as simple a possible, I've decided to make a brick-type character - super-strength, high resistant PD and ED, moderate other defenses. The problem is, I haven't been able to do this without resorting to supreme cheese (like taking Characteristics in an Elemental Control) or running out of points well before I got going properly. I was hoping that some people on the forum could help me make a low-powered brick - proof versus bricks and normals with clubs, but nonetheless with well-rounded, broad defense and offense. Any tips would be helpful.