Re: Show me the PCHere's a detective/martial-artist character I recently submitted for a PBeM. Had he been submitted to something other than an JL/Avengers-style game, points would have gone into a base, and his Contacts would have been fleshed out. I don't recall how long it's been since I've had more than 350 points to work with; there were times during the build where I was stumped trying to spend those extra points within the concept.
Springheel Jack(Click to toggle display)
Character created with Hero Designer, version 2.39
Val
Char
Cost
15
STR
5
29
DEX
57
18
CON
16
16
BODY
12
23
INT
13
16
EGO
12
25
PRE
15
4
COM
-3
10/18
PD
7
10/18
ED
6
6
SPD
21
10
REC
6
42
END
3
40
STUN
7
10"
RUN
0
2"
SWIM
0
10"
LEAP
0
Characteristics Cost: 177 Cost
Power
END
11
Cane: Multipower, 22-point reserve, (22 Active Points); all slots OAF (-1)
1u
1) Flash Cane: Sight Group Flash 4d6 (20 Active Points); OAF (-1), 6 Charges (-3/4)
[6]
1u
2) Hand-To-Hand Attack +4d6 (20 Active Points); OAF (-1), Hand-To-Hand Attack (-1/2)
2
1u
3) Sight Group Images 1" radius, Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (15 Active Points); Only To Create Light (-1), OAF (-1), No Range (-1/2)
0
1u
4) Missile Deflection (Bullets & Shrapnel), Adjacent Hex (+1/2) (22 Active Points); OAF (-1), Cannot deflect heavy missiles Power loses about a fourth of its effectiveness (-1/4)
0
16
Armored Costume: Armor (8 PD/8 ED) (24 Active Points); OIF (-1/2)
0
9
Glider Cape: Gliding 13" (13 Active Points); OIF (-1/2)
0
12
Powerful Legs: Leaping +7" (10" forward, 5" upward) (Accurate)
1
2
Hot Blooded: Life Support (Safe in Intense Heat)
0
15
Disciplined Mind: Mental Defense (18 points total)
0
8
Powerful Legs: Running +4" (10" total)
1
Powers Cost: 77 Cost
Martial Arts Maneuver
Savate
4
1) Parade (Block): 1/2 Phase, +2 OCV, +2 DCV, Block, Abort
4
2) Coup de pied bas (Low kick): 1/2 Phase, +0 OCV, +2 DCV, 8d6 Strike
5
3) Coup de pied fouette (Round kick): 1/2 Phase, -2 OCV, +1 DCV, 10d6 Strike
4
4) Crochet (Hook): 1/2 Phase, +2 OCV, +0 DCV, 8d6 Strike
4
5) Disarm: 1/2 Phase, -1 OCV, +1 DCV, Disarm; 40 STR to Disarm
5
6) Direct (Jab): 1/2 Phase, +1 OCV, +3 DCV, 6d6 Strike
3
7) Coup de Pied Bas Déséquilibre (Legsweep): 1/2 Phase, +2 OCV, -1 DCV, 7d6 Strike, Target Falls
2
8) Weapon Element: Blades, Clubs [Notes: Only the Crochet, Disarm and Direct maneuvers work with the weapons allowed for Savate.]
12
9) +3 HTH Damage Class(es)
Martial Arts Cost: 43 Cost
Skill
56
+7 with all non-combat Skills
3
I Can Tell By the Look In Your Eyes: Analyze: Target's Self-Confidence 14-
3
Acrobatics 15-
3
Athletic Skill: Soccer 14-
3
Breakfall 15-
4
CK: London 15-
3
CK: Paris 14-
5
Cramming
3
Climbing 15-
3
Concealment 14-
3
Electronics 14-
0
Criminology (Custom Adder) 16- [Notes: Global Guardians & Street Detective Package]
3
Cryptography 14-
0
Deduction (Custom Adder) 16- [Notes: Global Guardians & Street Detective Packages]
Everyman Skills (Cost: 0 Points)
0
1) AK: Great Britain (Custom Adder) 11-
0
2) Acting 8-
0
3) Computer Programming 8-
0
4) Conversation 8-
0
5) Deduction 8-
0
6) PS: Vigilante 11-
0
7) TF: Custom Adder, Small Motorized Ground Vehicles
Global Guardians Package
3
1) Criminology 14-
3
2) Deduction 14-
5
3) Fringe Benefit: International Police Powers
3
4) KS: Known Superhuman Criminals 14-
3
5) Paramedics 14-
8
6) Team Base Donation
28
7) Team Communicator
-20
8) Hunted by Tarot 8 or less
-20
9) Monitored by All of the World's News Agencies 11 or less
-10
10) Social Limitation: Celebrity
3
High Society 14-
3
Linguist
0
1) Native: Language: English (idiomatic) (4 Active Points)
3
2) Language: French (idiomatic) (4 Active Points)
1
3) Language: Hindustani (fluent conversation) (2 Active Points)
1
4) Language: Vietnamese (fluent conversation) (2 Active Points)
3
Persuasion 14-
3
Scholar
2
1) KS: Crime Pattern Analysis (3 Active Points) 14-
2
2) KS: Crime Scene Procedures (3 Active Points) 14-
2
3) KS: Crime Syndicates Worldwide (3 Active Points) 14-
2
4) KS: Savate (3 Active Points) 14-
2
5) KS: Tobaccos (3 Active Points) 14-
3
Scientist
2
1) SS: Ballistics - Energy Weapons 14- (3 Active Points)
2
2) SS: Ballistics - Projectile Weapons 14- (3 Active Points)
2
3) SS: Chemistry 14- (3 Active Points)
2
4) SS: Criminal Psychology 14- (3 Active Points)
2
5) SS: Toxicology 14- (3 Active Points)
3
Sleight Of Hand 15-
Street Detective Package (Cost: 6 Points)
3
1) Bugging 14-
3
2) Criminology 14-
3
3) Deduction 14-
3
4) Disguise 14-
3
5) Forensic Medicine 14-
3
6) Interrogation 14-
3
7) Knowledge Skill: London Criminal Underground 13-
3
8) Lockpicking 15-
3
9) Security Systems 14-
3
10) Shadowing 14-
3
11) Stealth 15-
3
12) Streetwise 14-
-15
13) Monitored by Local Law Enforcement 14 or less
-15
14) Social Limitation: Not Completely Trusted by the Public or the Police
3
Tactics 14-
3
WF: Common Missile Weapons, Blades, Clubs, Unarmed Combat
Skills Cost: 150 Cost
Perk
1
Gold Band - Expert Savateur: Fringe Benefit: Black Belt
2
Reputation: Ruthless vigilante (Criminals) 11-, +2/+2d6
-7
Savate Package Bonus (Custom Adder)
3
Well-Connected
4
1) Scotland Yard Detective: Contact (Contact has access to major institutions, Contact has useful Skills or resources, Good relationship with Contact) (5 Active Points) 11-
4
2) Contact (Contact has access to major institutions, Contact has useful Skills or resources, Good relationship with Contact) (5 Active Points) 11-
4
3) Contact (Contact has significant Contacts of his own, Contact has useful Skills or resources, Very Good relationship with Contact) (5 Active Points) 8-
1
4) Contact (Contact has useful Skills or resources) (2 Active Points) 8-
2
5) Contact (Good relationship with Contact) (3 Active Points) 11-
Perks Cost: 14 Cost
Talent
3
Environmental Movement (no penalties on narrow surfaces)
3
Ambidexterity (-2 Off Hand penalty)
3
Absolute Time Sense
3
Lightsleep
6
Resistance (6 points)
5
Lightning Reflexes: +3 DEX to act first with All Actions
16
Combat Sense 15-
Talents Cost: 39 Val
Disadvantages
15
Distinctive Features: Horribly Scarred/Always Masked (Concealable; Always Noticed and Causes Major Reaction; Detectable By Commonly-Used Senses)
20
Hunted: Simon Bar Sinister & Penny Dreadful 8- (Mo Pow, PC has a Public ID or is otherwise very easy to find, Harshly Punish)
20
Hunted: Various Organized Crime Groups 8- (Mo Pow, PC has a Public ID or is otherwise very easy to find, Harshly Punish)
15
Psychological Limitation: Cannot Stand By & Let Evil Occur (Common, Strong)
20
Psychological Limitation: Code vs Killing (Common, Total)
10
Distinctive Features: Overwhelming Aura of Self-Confidence (Concealable; Noticed and Recognizable; Detectable By Commonly-Used Senses)
1
Quirk: Always dresses in stylish, usually Victorian, clothing
1
Quirk: Collects pipes & cigars
1
Quirk: Exceedingly Polite
1
Quirk: Keeps his own Black Museum
1
Quirk: Uses Stealth unconsciously
15
Social Limitation: Public Identity (Frequently, Major)
10
Vulnerability: 2 x BODY Cold-based attacks (Uncommon)
10
Vulnerability: 2 x STUN Cold-based attacks (Uncommon)
10
Vulnerability: Flame-based attacks (Common)
Disadvantage Points: 150 Base Points: 350 Experience Required: 0 Total Experience Available: 0 Experience Unspent: 0 Total Character Cost: 500
Height: 1.86 m
Hair: None
Weight: 103.00 kg
Eyes: Blue
Appearance: Jack Dunstan is a very fit man in his early 40s with piercing ice blue eyes. His burns have left most of his upper body, including his scalp and face, a mass of scar tissue, with the exception of his right shoulder and some of the lower right side of his face. Because of this, he wears a mask that drapes over his entire head and shoulders, fastening inside his other clothing, leaving only his eyes showing. Jack is rarely “out-of-costumeâ€; the only time you’ll catch him out of his usual neo-Victorian ensemble (tailcoat, waistcoat, trousers, cravat, dress boots, gloves, top hat, cloak and cane) is either during purely athletic workouts or when more formal wear, such as a tuxedo, is called for.
Personality: As far as Jack Dunstan is concerned, he became a new man on the night he was attacked and disfigured. Where the old Jack was always looking to be the center of attention, the new Jack prefers to retreat to the shadows until his help is needed. The old Jack was just this side of amoral – mad, bad, and dangerous to know; the new Jack is takes care to be polite to everyone, even his opponents (at first, anyway), and has a highly-developed sense of morality, and an appreciation of the attendant complications of a moral philosophy. The old was charismatic, but shallow; the new quiet, but possessed of an inner strength that one can’t help but notice it. The old was self-centered, using the trappings of super-hero only for what they could get him; the new considers the majority of his life a waste, and has worked as hard as he can to make up for those wasted years. (Contrary to popular rumor, Jack is no longer bothered by the sight of his own face. He remains masked simply because he knows that his appearance disturbs others.)
Unlike other avengers of the night, Jack does not actively discourage younger crimefighters, or treat London as “his†town. He understands both the urgent need to fight evil, and the limitations of a lone man facing down an entire city’s worth of crime. However, he also understands the risks of the vigilante life, and will spell them out to would-be dark knights even as he helps them try to survive their time in the business.
Quote:"Good evening, gentlemen. We can do this the usual way, or the easy way."
Background: Jack Dunstan always seemed to land on his feet. Even when his plans of being a world-class footballer were ended by the revelation that his metagene was likely the cause of his outstanding sports performance in public school, Dunstan still came out on top. His powers, a combination of pyrokinesis and heightened physical abilities, manifested shortly thereafter, and with his good looks and charisma, he became a media darling almost overnight. He was bright, bold, brash, a hit with the ladies, and always good for a quote; he was Jumping Jack Flash, baby, and life was a gas.
While nominally a crimefighter, Jack gained a reputation for causing more trouble than he solved. He could be found in clubs more often than he could be found on patrol, and grabbed the front pages of both Supers & Meta's and Britain’s many tabloids by sending a series of rude gestures and the sight of his bare behind towards Buckingham Palace one brisk October morning in 1979. (No one, including Jack, seems to remember what prompted the display. The Royal Family was spending the weekend at Windsor Castle.)
Over time, Jack found himself surrounded by a group of hangers-on who professed to be his friends, who were willing to provide him with, drinks, drugs, places to stay, all in exchange for his company and the chance to be close to a ‘superhero’. And shortly after his escapades in front of the Royal Palace, Jack found out just how few friends he had.
To this day, no one knows who attacked Jack, where, or even how. Police called to investigate a fire burning in an East End alleyway the eve of Guy Fawkes Day found the smoldering body of Jumping Jack Flash; apparently the hero, drunk or high (or both), had been waylaid at some other location, severely beaten, and then dumped in the alley. His assailants then doused him with a flammable liquid and set him alight; unconscious, his powers did nothing to help him, and he suffered third degree burns over almost a third of his body, including his shoulders, neck, and most of his head and face. His injuries would have killed a normal man; the damage, however, was impossible to reconstruct – Jack would remain horribly scarred for the rest of his life. In addition, his pyrokinetic powers had vanished (testing would later reveal that he still possessed the potential to use those abilities, and that the trauma of the fire had instilled a psychosomatic block that Jack has yet to overcome).
Some men might have become bitter, or suicidal, or turned to a life of villainy. For Jack, however, the experience seemed to affect a sea change upon him. The young man immersed himself in studies neglected even before leaving public school, and, upon his release from hospital, journeyed to France to study savate, a martial art he thought would work well with his remaining enhanced abilities.
After three years in Paris, Jack had gathered a storehouse of knowledge and crafted a persona and some basic equipment to begin crime fighting in earnest. He returned to London, quickly disappearing into the city and operating from a series of abandoned buildings. In the early years, Jack supported himself both through confiscating a portion of money and equipment from the criminals he helped defeat, and through the continued goodwill of immigrant shopkeepers, a class of people he found to be unprotected in the early years of the Thatcher government. The driven, determined young hero conducted a crusade against the London underworld as Springheel Jack (based around the legendary Victorian-era London phantom of the same name), first battling gangsters of all stripes, and later coming into conflict with odder foes, like the vampiric Ravens of the Tower, Albert the Clockwork Man, the Monster Maker and his Werewolves of London, “Saucy Jack†MacHeath, and, most famously, the villainous duo of Simon Bar-Sinister and Penny Dreadful. He’s served as something of a mentor to more than one English crimefighter, and has been through two sidekicks/partners in his two decades of crimefighting. (Both have since retired – The Churchwarden to study for Anglican priesthood, and the burly, bearded, sword-wielding Lamorak to, of all things, become a florist.)
The quiet, constantly masked, mysterious vigilante with the piercing blue eyes quickly became a constant focus for rumors, both in the underworld and the tabloid press. The rumors ranged from such topics as to who actually caused Jack’s disfigurement, whether Springheel Jack was actually the same hero that had been Jumping Jack Flash, whether the hero was even disfigured at all, whether he and Penny Dreadful were an “itemâ€, etc.
The most persistent rumor by far has concerned Jack’s record as a crime fighter – there were those who said he had left a trail of dead and broken men during his battles through the London underworld; that he was an assassin for the police, a rival crime family - perhaps the Royal Family; even that he was an organization of masked viglantes, rather than just one man. Of course, a small amount of research on the matter would have shown the absurdity of such notions, but the rumors continued. The legend of the mysterious and ruthless Springheel Jack, either as joke or in deadly earnest, went with criminals and the tabloids to prison and throughout Europe, where Jack became something of a Boogeyman amongst the criminal set. Jack, for his part, did nothing to quash the rumors, simply viewing them as another tool in his fight against the underworld.
It’s been two decades since Jack was reborn in fire. His continuing work against the evil that men do has made him one of the world’s greatest detectives, and his mutant physiology means that he won’t be stopping any time soon. Friends, foes, colleagues, and lovers have passed through his life and gone, sometimes with the normal passage of life, sometimes with violence and pain. Still, he has few regrets, and most of them go back to the man he was, and why it took the death of that man to become the man he is. And as ever, the day slips into night, the shadows call, and his battle continues…
Powers/Tactics: While Jack once had a number of pyrokinetic powers at his disposal, he now relies on his heightened physical abilities and over two decades of intense martial arts and investigative training in his role as scourge of London's underworld. He also makes use of a few gadgets developed over the years – his armor, originally bulkier, was first replaced by material taken from criminals during his career, then his equipment was overhauled by a rich benefactor in the early 90s; the jeweled knob that provides his Flash power was also added to his savateur’s cane by a friendly camera shop owner who served as something as an assistant to Jack several years ago.
While Jack has been blocked from the use of his pyrokinetic abilities (save for his immunity from extreme heat), the potential for their use is still locked within his genes, which means he suffers the attendant penalties for them, taking extra damage from cold-based attacks. As well, the same psychosomatic block that keeps Jack from using his flame powers also causes Jack to take extra damage from fire-based attacks.
Re: Villians & Vigilantes (aka Living Legends) "to HERO Adaptations & Conversions* You can find a link to my V&V "Universe" Timeline at the Emporium, but I made up a little fact sheet of the Crusader's hometown of Center City for a possible campaign once upon a time.