Bloodstone

Re: THE BOOK OF THE EMPRESS -- What Do *You* Want To See? V'han's influence vastly exceeds her personal power, so to make her really scary, I'd like to see some minions that are mind numbingly powerful. An important part of their writeups would be details on how she manages to inspire loyalty or otherwise control these beings, many of whom will be much more powerful than her in a physical confrontation. For example, the last time I saw her used effectively she was introduced face to face with the PC's with 12 "Herald of Galactus" class characters in tow. When I say in tow, I refer to the fact they were on leashes. Picture beings with the power cosmic, each one able to personally blow up planets and reshape galaxies, being toted around like some sort of lap dog fashion accessories. Mind you, the team had already fought one of these pets and nearly lost several sessions prior. The only reason they had "won" having been that V'han had tightened the leash and pulled her minion back out of Earth's dimension. As the story went, he was only supposed to be a scout. He was apparently punished harshly for failing his mission and having been discovered by the PC's. The fact that this Silver Surfer-esque being looked utterly cowed in her presence lent to the atmosphere quite well. V'ahn was showing up to congratulate the PC's on their competence, offer them jobs and intimidate them into not interfering with her plans... It was a casual show of force on her part and immediately set the tone of the next story arc. She wouldn't have been anywhere near as effective without those "loyal" minions by her side...

Re: Confused a bit on mental attacks, do people know? By default, Mental Powers are detectable by the target. Once you start messing with someones head, they know somethings going on. However, any mentalist can make the powers undetectable by the target if they can achieve a result of EGO+20.

Re: Casual STR and Grab

Re: Invincible You know, I've been posting on this thread so much, I think I may just end up doing a writeup of Invincible and/or Omni-man. I wound up rereading several issues over the weekend anyhow...

Re: Invincible Extended Breathing probably isn't quite right there, since they don't generally seem to suffer the ill effects of holding their breath. Might be better to build it as Self Contained Breathing with 1 Recoverable charges lasting X amount of time. Only Oliver and Mark had problems where they needed to catch their breath the first few times they were in space, but they are the youngest and most inexperienced Viltrumites we have ever seen. They both learned to deal with it quickly. Also, Viltrumites measure their life spans in centuries, if not millennia. Nolan is at least 1000 years old. I believe he made reference to it one time while talking to Debbie, but even without that comment he's revealed many of his achievements for the empire were hundreds of years in the past. In fact, Thaedus remembers the Viltrum from it's golden age. He was there before the Viltrumites became a war like people, he survived the Scourge Virus, created the Coalition of Planets and, while he generally looks like an elderly human somewhere between 70-110, he clearly shows no signs of weakness for his advanced years.

Re: Invincible Viltrumites don't tend to dodge anything, even when thy know it's going to hurt. They get slugged by other bricks that lesser mortal speedsters would run circles around. Rather typical Superman style of fighting. So, while they are demonstrably capable of a fair variety of Speedster Stunts, they don't normally exhibit the feats of super human reflexes that we most associate with pure speedsters. It might be best to reflect this fact with some Nonpersistat/Cost END super speed abilities (+DEX, +SPD, +CV, etc) and let the rest boil down to Power Skill/MP/VPP tricks.

Re: Invincible

Re: Invincible He might actually be tougher than some adult Viltrumites, but it seems he's not quite as strong as them yet. Or at least he doesn't use his strength in quite as refined/deadly ways. So it's hard to judge. Nolan told Mark he had to constantly push himself if he wanted to get stronger and faster, advice Mark has taken to heart with noticeable results. It's alluded to that he's very likely going to surpass other Viltrumites. If not soon, then maybe in the next hundred years or so. He's come a very long way in a relatively short amount though. Given the Viltrumite culture of eugenics, I'm fully expecting Anissa (or maybe Thula) will end up trying to seduce him. But at this point, all the surviving Viltrumites except Nolan and Thragg are probably at least a little scared of him, considering the things he's done. The mention of one such deed halted an entire battle, as the Viltrumites were in stunned disbelief.

Re: "Neat" Pictures Several video games at this point Way back in 2007 it was THE standard by which high end graphical performance on a PC was judged.

Re: Eccentric but plausible ways a character could be rich? http://www.bogolight.com/

Re: Invincible doh! Sorry

Re: Invincible Oliver's are supposed to have his own purple skin grown over them, so probably a bit less cool looking than Conquest's whammer.

Re: Invincible

Re: Invincible

Re: Invincible One could also argue that they have Flight with the Variable Advantage set to Useable as Tunneling to go through the planet. However, he still has to have the defenses to fly through a planets molten core essentially unscathed. This is oughly equivalent to flying through the Sun's photosphere, so that would require a minimum of 35 ED, Hardened.

Re: Invincible Well, I'd say it's not likely to be repeated by Mark ever. When he destroyed Viltrium, he had help from two other very powerful Viltrumites (Thaedus and Omni-man, the former now dead). Space Racer also shot the planet with his gun. The beam from the gun can seemingly blast shoot through anything, so it's like a hand held Death Star really. It wouldn't have been powerful enough to destroy the plant on it's own, but it could have shot a hole through it I gather. However, I believe Thragg threatened to do the same thing to Earth in retribution. I'm trying to remember... he certainly threatened earth, but can't recall the exact wording of the threat. But he would have also been able to call upon the help of other Viltrumites to get that job done, so not sure if he would have done it single handed either. Though as I think about it, I seem to recall Nolan saying something that alluded to the fact that Viltrumites have destroyed plants that way before.... hmm... would need to reread some issues to be sure...

Re: Invincible That jobber had no chance and he knew it. It would be like Stilt-Man trying to take on the Silver Surfer. After the Invincible War everyone on Earth basically knows how incredibly powerful Mark Grayson's are At this point, Mark has a very odd mix of positive and negative Reputation. Plenty of people think he's the savior of earth (few know just how true that is) while others definitely hate and fear him. He may have a rather high PRE, at least as it relates to fear. He almost never backs down no matter how massive the threat. But he's not a smooth talker or a particularly inspirational leader. That sorta thing can work, but it needs to be expanded a bit. It's not just Viltrumites that can hurt each other after all. Battle Beast, Alan the Alien and Tech Jacket have all hurt or killed Viltrumites. Heck, in the most recent issue Dinosarus punched Mark hard enough that he was spitting blood. Space Racer's gun is probably an AVAD, so probably not worth counting that one. There was also that alien race that Nolan wrote about in his books... name escapes me at the moment...

Re: Invincible Well, we are talking about rather powerful supers, so high AP powers are kinda par for the course... Omni-man/Nolan killed all of the original Guardians of the Globe effortlessly, and each of them was an analogue to an existing super: Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Flash, Green Lantern and Martial Manhunter. Only the retired Black Sampson and the regenerating Immortal (something of a Wolverine analogue) ultimately survived. So lets not kid ourselves here: one of Image's Superman clones took out their whole JLA single handed. It usually takes just one Viltrumite to enslave whole worlds and less than a dozen of them are able to fight against a resistance that comprises hundreds of aliens races with technology far more advanced than anything on Earth. A teenage half-Viltrumite (remember, they get progressively stronger and tougher with age) just got hit with a blast that arguably had more than 5 times the destructive power of the bomb we dropped on Nagasaki and he walked away pretty much fine. So Viltrumites are supposed to be crazy scary powerful within the context of their universe. Not sure if you actually want to simulate that sort of thing in the game or if you want somethign a bit more toned down. Then again, looking at Free Sprite, the OP already has characters in the world that can throw around 30+ dice of damage, so this may not be too potent after all Now, I don't have all the issues in front of me so this is all rough estimates from memory. If I were doing this, I'd probably review the recent issues of the Viltrumite War arc to nail down some more specifics, as that's where you really see them all cut loose on each other. So, off the top of my head: Irresistible Force: 13d6 HKA (or maybe 4d6+1 HKA, AVAD, Does Body) That should do the trick. 195 AP either way, so it just comes down to how many dice you want to roll. Can fiddle around with various degrees of AP and Penetrating as well, obviously. Mind you, the above is assuming Mark only has a STR of 75. That lets him bench press over 400 Tons, which I believe we have actually seen him do at one point (was trying to find the exact issue the other night, but saw that number bandied about while goggling something else). However, that would have been early on in his career and he's gotten stronger since then so you could possibly use less dice of HKA. That many dice is also assuming you build typical Viltrumites with around 40rPD and 20 BODY (like Free Spirit). This also doesn't factor in things like Haymakers or the rather messy Move Throughs Viltrumites use either, which given their high meters of Flight could allow you to further reduce the dice involved. But frankly, only Grand Regent Thragg has consistently demonstrated the sort of ridiculous power that lets him kill other Viltrumites with almost casual ease. He's the genetic pinnacle of the Viltrumite race, raised since birth to be the greatest warrior amongst them with hundreds (thousands?) of years of combat experience. With lesser members of the race, it's a bit different. It's usually quite a throw down when Viltrumites fight each other or foes of comparable toughness. Omni-man and Conquest seem to both be towards the higher end of the power scale and could just about one hit kill nearly anything on Earth. But super aliens like Alan, Battle Beast or other Viltumites gave them at least some pause (bloody though those battles may have been). If I recall, even when Enraged Omni-man only managed to cripple one of the Viltrumites that was trying to kill him, Mark and Oliver. That would have been a kill shot against any lesser foe for sure though. As I said, Viltrumites are insanely tough and have a knack for not dying (or at least resurrecting). But I'm sure some of Earth's other tough bricks, like Brit, Savage Dragon and Bulletproof would still give them more challenge than the original Guardians of the Globe did... If this was a campaign starting from the ground up, I might approach things very differently. In that case, you might alter the way that the various character's defenses are built to allow more body to leak through on lower dice attacks. There's a ton of ways to get that effect, but not sure if this is worth doing to retrofit a new menace in...

Re: Invincible Well, considering her Regen, "killing" her may end up being temporary anyhow.

Re: Invincible True, but they also have less powers to deal with. They're much more focused. However, I don't think there was any mention of how many points phoenix240 was looking to build Invincible on... Well, I wasn't really touching on his complications too much. Mark has a strong need to protect the innocent and is one of the sworn protectors of earth. Total first responder to any big crisis, like alien invasions. Even though he's no longer directly affiliated with any of the big teams, he's worked with all of them and they call him in when they need an extra heavy hitter. He started off with a CvK, thought he killed someone by accident, kept trying not to kill no matter what. It kinda blew up in his face, so he went through a period where he thought he had to kill super villains in order to save lives. He's since changed his ways. He felt pretty awful guilt over it, so he may qualify for a moderate CvK currently. He's generally averse to killing and sometimes solves problems without throwing a single punch. But he also has an Enraged. He killed the Viltrumite Conquest, a beast of a man that nearly murdered him, his little brother, his father and the woman he loved. He does have a few characters that would qualify as DNPC's, such as his mom. His girlfriend, Atom Eve, is pretty powerful so she's probably not worth any points. A true love psych complication is probably more appropriate for them. He has a secret ID (though a lot of his inner circle know it) and several Hunteds (a moderate sized rogues gallery and he's watched by the GDA) So yeah, plenty of complications. Eh, comes down to how you build them. Supes might save a bunch of points with limitations, but he has so may more powers (dozens of super senses, Heat Vision, Super Breath, Cold Breath) and a ton more established speed and strength stunts that he uses all the time. Mark could easily end up a much more efficient on the same amount of points because he's considerably less versatile. Though in general, I think Supes is currently faster and possibly stronger. He's tougher in general, but Mark would deal with certain threats better. Huh? Complications tend to make for interesting plot hooks, but they aren't "required" to be a hero. Though as I pointed out, Mark DOES have complications. Same with Limitations: makes things interesting and saves points, but plenty of characters out there don't have any. It's not like Mark has infinite power or anything. He's been put in plenty of situations where all the strength and speed in the world just wasn't enough... Probably a good topic for another thread

Re: Invincible Not really. The Empyreans are more like Marvel's Eternals, a genetically altered race of humans that has been on earth for thousands of years. Like the Eternals, each Empyrean has his own unique powers and abilities. Of course, Apex is pretty classic flying Brick, so he's close to a Viltrumite. But that's something of a coincidence really Viltrumites all have the same powers, which seem to grow with age and good genetics. They are an advanced alien race that just happens to look human. Overall, they are a bit more like warmonger Kryptoninas hellbent on conquest. As I said, they don't have all the same powers as Kryptonians, but they also lack all the weaknesses... so they're pretty damn scary.

Re: Invincible The former is probably just the special effect of Life Support: Reduced Eating. The latter is pure handwavium in most of the games I've played in. And probably worth no more than a Perk in any of the other games. After all, most D&D races and creatures have that same power

Re: Invincible NP, though I was mid edit when you posted that

Re: Invincible The basic run down, based on the last 80 issues: No super senses, no energy attacks, no need to absorb sunlight, no common weaknesses, no OIAID type stuff. Like I said, pretty straight forward. It's all a matter of "how powerful do I want to make him?" and then making sure the appropriate opponents are strong enough to be a credible threat.

Re: Invincible There's a "handbook of the marvel universe" type comic out there for Invincible. Actually, i think it may have been 2 issues, but can't remember. I've got it tucked away somewhere... as I recall, Mark's official stats are WAY under what he's been shown to be capable of. As these things go, he's not that complicated of a build, especially when compared to someone like Superman or Captain Marvel. Pretty limited list of skills and a very straightforward power set that has matured with time. Some interesting contacts and reputation though...