Bengal

It's been a few months since I've posted anything since I got involved in another RPG for a while (I won't say it's name, but it's initials are AD&D). Since Doctor Octopus (ranked #2 in my list of villains with bad haircuts, right behind Hitler) is busting up onto the big screen with Spidey this summer, I took a crack at designing him on 350 points with a 75-point power cap. I was stumped! I know his powers won't be as strong as his "real" powers (but it's all imaginary stories, isn't it?) are, but what say I solicit some ideas as to how to build his arms? Stretching, extra chars and armor on the arms only? An automaton? a vehicle, even? At some points in the past, Doc Ock has mentally controlled his arms at a distance of 900 miles (although that might have been written out of continuity in the last 20 years), making me think they are an automaton. But what say you all? ta

Re: Help me build a power megascale swinging.

Re: Need Name For Telekinetic Villain Migraine.

Re: What super hero concepts would you like to see more of? Gadgeteers that are not munchkinny. 300-pointy heroes (or less) in a 350-limit game. Heroes who rely on skills and bravery... well, noncombat skills. Heroes who have no "main attack" poiwer, or a limited one- those who wouold rather support the other heroes or clear out the innocent bystanders. Am I biased? Heck yes, but I'm the guy who is usually wearing a fish bowl on my head at superhero cocktail parties. (Marvel fans know what I mean by that.)

Re: Who let the Id out? This would be a Mental Transform... probably Major

Re: Attacks v.s. Foci What GM would have a problem with this? Maybe a GM who used a preponderance of foci-focused (fnar) bad guys, but in that case, it's just a limitation that's worth a little less. On the other hand, if you're making this PC to be a "silver bullet" against a fairly unstoppable bad guy, then the Gm might have issues with it on account of his own sour grapes. Make sure you understand why it's going to be a problem for him to bring this power construct in, and then see if you can't reorganize the power construct to get around any problems the two of you come upon without gutting the power entirely. For me, a focus-destroying power is a total must for a superspeedster character- call it "rapid disassembly" for instance. If there's a bomb on a tiumer set to go off inside a building, do you really want your speedster to have to take 30 seconds to use his Demolitions skill to disarm it, when he could just move faster than the electrical impulses inside the device and just pull it apart before it knows to go off? Similarly, one of my PCs carry "freeze capsules" like Nighthawk has, and these are excellent for putting a focus... ahem... on ice.

Re: Cross-gender roleplaying I like to take Jack Nicholson's advice from As Good As it Gets.

Re: What superhero character concepts are you tired of seeing? Speedbricks. Boring. If I see any more str40-dex26-spd6 guys with 18 rPD I'm gonna puke. Also, any "hero" whose main attack is a KA. Wikkid heroic, kid.

Re: Can you suggest some powers for these images? Yep, super-boobulation.

Re: a VPP for bricks. what Jim said. My last campaign's brick was 50 str with a naked advantage multipower on it in order to do a lot of things, such as AoE: Hex (super-swat), 0 End, AP, and things of this nature, as well as holing his breath (super-stong lungs) a couple of different kinds of leaping, major transform: coal into diamond; minor transform: write messages into hard surfaces with his fingers; Missile deflection (bounce bullets off of his rock-hard chest), and things of this nature. The whole MP was about 75 points. Left plenty of room for skill levels and all kinds of stuff. I think he started as a 330-point character (350 max for this campaign), and didn't put too many extra points into fighting abilities as he went along. He was as effective, and moreso, than some 75-point bricks I have seen.

Re: You never had a character with ____ Powers? Aha! the pure shrinker! I played a "superhero" stuck at 6" tall for a while. No powers other than his miniature grappling hook and "perching" (a plot device power I used to he could sit atop another hero's shoulder during battle). He wasn't a superhero, he just wore a superhero costume and adventured with the team. Only a couple of occasions was he of any use, but I always had fun.

Re: Dream Teams - Champions Style Wow, I had not ever considered a Champions dream team. Maybe because we've always had one munchkiny or feeble or boring or dsruptive or overpowered or just annoying character in the group? Our favorite stories are the ones where half the team has been captured (or whatever, since their players didn't show up that session) and the other half had to overcome even greater-than-normal odds to triumph. Our teams have also been plagued by the most bizarre cast of villains ever, including Meester Easter (master of hide and seek) the Brass Monkey, Baron Ames von Orskel (Dr Doom minus magic), communist bears, disco-dancing metrosexuals with vertigo powers, mutant fungus, grey goo, our own evil twins, NPC team members gone horribly bad, local newscasters, the dastardly duo of Payne Glass and Captain Quicksand, the Spheremaster, Eartha Quake, random Marvel and DC bad guys, the DC Sniper ("dammit, why don't any of us have Mind Scan?")- not the real world one, but rather a version of Scourge that killed good guys... More VIPER, DEMON, GENOCIDE, and CLOWNs than you can shake a stick at, and an all-new and improved version of Plant-Man. So maybe if we had a truly interesting rogue's gallery? But what cha gonna do.

Re: I Need an Arkham Asylum Clone Hemlock Manor, or Pennyroyal Manor. Nice sounding names that are really poisons.

Re: The Random Silver Age Character Generator Up

Re: Help: Sniper Syndrome Even though the guy is roleplaying after a fashion, I thin kit's okay to restrict his XP flow. If he needs two points for another PSL, give him the two points, and give everyone else three... for a new skill or whatever. This guy strieks me as the kind of fellow who has never read a superhero story. Lend him a short run of your favoite team or solo book as homework, so he can see that sometimes, people get knocked out, powers can be unreliable, and teamwork can win the day much more effectively than a certain megablast.

Re: You never had a character with ____ Powers? I tend to play characters without powers, period- skilled or high-tech normals. When they do have powers, they're kind of marginal ones. I like the flawed heroes. Not for the angst quality, just to see how far I can push the system. If you've got Ulti-Man, then you are pretty sure you can handle most everything that comes at you. If you're playing Color Kid or Aquaman, you've got to tread much more lightly. Even an accomplished martial artist/detective isn't going to be able to blow holes in walls or bounce bullets off his chest, unless he figures out how to do it cleverly.

Re: Pacifist Fu I usually add some minor defensive powers to my Martial artists to keep them from getting creamed in one shot, should they be surprised, asleep, or whatever: +2 DCV (costs END is optional) and 25% rPD DR. for 25 points, they get defenses that don't seem much like defenses, that can simulate things like rolling with a punch or blocking the brunt of an attack. I imagine a lot of the pure fighters in the Marvel Universe, like Cap and Daredevil, carry around a small number of these types of non-powers.

Re: Density Decrease If you tie in an increase in DEX (due to having to move less of your mass around), it becomes fairly useful. When I got the BBB years ago, I was curious as to why there was nothing between normal density and desolid, so I put in a meta-power called Density Decrease. I can't for the life of my remember how it worked since nobody ever took it.

I mean, we're talking about a naked Japanese schoolgirl, not a superhero. Gahhh.... I told myself not to get sucked in, and I did anyway.

Guys... this has absolutely nothing to do with superheroes.

All men have that though.

Haha... bwa hahaha... hahahah! hahahahahaha! haha! heh... oh my goodness. LOL. heh.

We're talking about superheroes though- he can have loads of theoretical knowledge, and perhaps even practical knowledge, through super-science-ey things... RNA dumps, conciousness transfers, internal cybernetic hard-drives, whatever. Since he was a created being, anything is possible. A good idea is to give him somewhere in the neighborhood of 10-60 points of noncombat skills (for a 400-pointer), even if you intend him to be a combat monster, which he apparently is. Consider an Overall Skill Level (10 points) to represent a broad competency. I think that while 75 END is fine, I think you'd do just as well with 45-50 STUN as you will with 60. Your 30 CON will keep you from bein CON Stunned too often, and if you play your combats well, you won't have to worry about being out for the count too many times with all your defense. Your attacks really should be the highest ones in your campaign if 400 points is a normal starting value. I would also go with putting the punch attack in your MP, making it 0 END, and lowering the DCs so your Active Point total (what it costs without any limitations outside of a framework) is about the same as your other main attacks. You may consider pulling either the Armor Piercing or the Penetrating... you're talking about an 18 DC (I think) attack that's going to cost you 9 END to throw. I'd expect that by the time you have closed to within hand attack range of your opponents, you'll probably be down considerably on END and (considering how much of a threat you may pose) STUN and BODY too. In fact, just putting a naked advantage into your MP making your strength AP and 0 End (total cost: 40 points, 16 DC) might be a better way to go, especially since you're more likely going to be fighting a target with resistant defenses, such as a brick or a force-field-wielding mentallist. Or so it seems in my games. My final critique is that making him "slightly radioactive" when his powers are used is probably not worth a -1/2 limitation. If he made things burst into flames or gave his friends cancer slowly but surely, that would be worth it. At most, it's a distinguishing feature plus a -1/4 limitation for giving himself cancer slowly- despite the immunity from outside carcinogens. Really though this should be a distinguishing feature, or a minor Visible: to radiation-detection equipment and characters (-1/4) rather than a Side Effects if I'm reading it the way you intended it. Past that, I'm thrilled with the character. Really. Lots of interesting power ideas, stats are not crazy-high, the background is sweet (I'm a sucker for Nazi origins and the silver age in general), and I'd probably let this character concept into my group as the resident brick/powerhouse, provided we didn't have other cosmic-energy-powered characters or another brick/blaster already.

If you are looking to maximize your character's effectiveness in combat, Dodge wins- Flying Dodge even better. But Block is the choice I make more often since it fits the flavor of many of my heroes and villains better. Thematically, it's the difference between shrugging off your opponent's attack, and running away like a little girl.

I GMed a "Mystery-Men" one-shot, where the players created characters of a similar power level and character conception to those in Bob Burden's work. It was hilarious, and fun, and the players wanted more. Then we graduated, and that was pretty much that. oh well! There's definitely some undiscovered country there. On a more relevant note, most of the characters I create are intentionally weak, humorous, or somehow flawed vis-a-vis pure crimefighting ability. I still play them straight and use my head, and usually teammates can cover for my weaknesses. It also keeps me as a player from hogging the spotlight, since there are simply fewer opportunities for me to do so. Even so, a good concept that sdoesn't rely on brute force (or even much flexibility) can provide for a rich RP and combat experience.