Killer Shrike

One of my players wants to play Jon Wrath, Agent of PRIMUS in our upcoming Champions campaign.

He's got a good concept (parody Nick Fury, essentially, give or take a few differences), but the problem is after we statted hime up, even cutting corners he's at least 100 points over 350 (and thats without the de rigeur Hovercar which turned out to be just out of the question).

The Perks alone totalled up at over 30 points (including of course, Liscence to Kill, more for the ability to say "I'm an internationally renowned secret agent, and I've got a liscence to kill!" in a gravelly voice than anything else).

Also, he wanted the characters superhuman capacity to be based on a 'super-soldier serum'. Of course, PRIMUS's super-soldier serum is Cyberline. So, I made him a 'Silver Avenger' as thats what somebody on Cyberline who is not the Golden Avenger is classified as generally, from what I could determine in the source material, but being an (internationally famous) top-secret operative who made his name in the Jungles of 'Nam leading his unit the Growling Recondos on media-covered 'top secret' missions to daring victory after daring victory (as a mere Sgt, no less, because thats how the military works in comic-land apparantly) before leaving military service to enter the Intelligence community, he goes by his own name rather than his official rank of 'Silver Avenger'.

After numerous skills including Vietnamese and French {nobody speaks English in the Bush} from his 5 Nam tours {he was in country before, during, and after of course}, Martial Arts (more than 500 logged hours of Close Combat Training, skippy), a Cyberline Enhancement set of powers (+15 STR +10 DEX +1 SPD +5 BOD +5 CON, some Combat Luck and a few CSVs {hyped up reflexes}, IIRC), and of course the PRIMUS Agent Test Equipment Inventory VPP (No control over when and how powers change {the lab just gives him new stuff and collects the old}, limited circumstance change, Act 14- Burnout or Equivalent all slots, OIF or equivalent all slots) for all those neat Operatives-only spy toys he comes out a little point heavy.

The problem is, at 450 points he really isnt any more effective than the 350 point characters in the group. 100 or so of those points are buried in background flavor, miscellaneous skills, and pure schtick. All told, he labors under far more significant disadvantages than other PCs (if he pisses off PRIMUS then no more Cyberline treatments, no more Gadget Pool, no more Perks--he's left a competent normal).

I've run into this problem before on other characters, but it seems like in a supers campaign, the skill guy or any character with a significant number of background and flavor oriented abilities seem to come up lacking against focused power based characters. Power Suits help to defray this because of the points return, but outside of that it can be difficult to achieve a same-pointed character that isnt the weak sister of the group once the fists start flying.

I "solved" the "problem" by floating the player the extra hundred on the understanding that 1) his XP will be deficited until if/when the other PCs catch up (not likely to happen anytime soon, thats for sure), 2) I had him take an extra 50 points of Disadvantages beyond the limit to help defray the cost, 3) I will use and abuse him for plot hooks and story elements above and beyond whats nornal for a single PC, 4) there will be circumstances where his Cyberline treatments (I put them on a weekly dependence, lose access to Cyberline powers without) and/or Gadgets will be unavailable due to circumstances beyond his control, and 5) if the character proves to be too much, he'll either suffer a 'radiation accident' of some sort to repoint him, or be retired as a PC.

Just as an aside, I dont have a problem with PCs being at different power levels, although I do prefer to have everyone at least at a certain effectiveness in the context of the campaign; Id rather see a player have a character thats TOO powerful and then as the GM put restraints in place or kybosh the character than to see a character that is too weak and leaves its player feeling left out of the fun because his character is too frail.

Ill post stats for the guy later tonight when I am at home, but Im curious how other people would have handled it.

Also, could some helpful soul point me at relevant PRIMUS info, particularly as it pertains to Cyberline? I have all of the new material and have read the PRIMUS section in Champions Universe. I also have a fair amount of old Champions material, and I looked up the Silver Avenger in ALLIES (who didnt impress me), but since I never ran the old Champions Universe, prefering home-brews and other genres, Im not familiar with the full back story of PRIMUS.

Thanx

The SLEEPER

Heh. Croyd has always been one of my favorite character concepts. I kept reading the Wildcards series well past the point I actually liked it anymore, in the hopes that Croyd would show up at some point.

Some other Wildcard-derived favorite concepts are Golden Boy, Mackie Messer, Carnifex, Mr. Nobody, and of course the Turtle, off the top of my head.

Within the confines of normal character creation rules, a VPP would work best IMO. No Choice How or When (-1) and a bigger Between Adventures (-3/4, takes weeks or months). These days, I would prolly use the random generator in Champions to at least get a running start each go around if I were the GM, in the past I would have used Dave Mattingly's random generator.

Ive always thought of doing his Sleep bit as a END pool which drives all of his powers, with 2 Recoveries limited differently. The 1st Recovery would be his 'awake' Recovery; it would be small, would take Personal Recovery, and would be limited to Must Ingest Amphetamines (treat similar to the must plug into a wall socket disadvantage). The 2nd Recovery would be his 'asleep' Recovery, and of course would be limited to only work while he is comatose; further it would also be fairly small.

Then, to make it all work, his Disadvantages would pick up the slack. 1st off, he would have a Susceptibility to having his END Pool at 0, which would cause him to take STUN when his END pool ran out, eventually passing out; obviously the disadvantage needs to exceed his personal Recovery to be effective. Then he would have a PhysLim: Cannot wake up until VPP is changed.

So basically, the bigger the powers, the longer he'll stay asleep and the more END those powers will burn when he wakes up. The GM, of course, should limit powers bought down to 0 END in the VPP when he builds the power set, but on the other hand Croyd stayed awake for longer stretches on occasion so maybe some forms are just more efficient and dont tire him out as fast.

The GM needs to be a little bit lenient and allow maybe 25 -50 points of 'morphable' Physical and Distinctive Feature disadvantages relevant to each form, which of course the GM gets to set with each form.

Fortunately, Croyd certainly doesnt lack for other disadvantages, including a Dependency on amphetamines, Enraged while on amps, certainly a bad Reputation ("if its Croyd leave him alone"; Typhoid Croyd; etc), and prolly some Unluck (Croyd seems to get the short end of the stick often). I would rather treat his fear of drawing a Black Queen as a Psychological Limiation: Fear of going to sleep (VC, Strong or Common, Total depending on how you look at it) than as an actual possible outcome, as I dont see Croyd ever actually morphing into anything other than an ace or joker-ace.

Outside of his 'Sleeper' power suite, I would also give him Life Support: Longevity (he's been around along time, and doesnt seem to actually age -- or at least not at the same speed as everyone else), some Power Defense and Mental Defense (he seems pretty resistant to other folks powers regardless of form), and of course some extra strength, maybe around 30 (it seems like all of his forms have some degree of enhanced STR -- any further extra strength relevant to a form would come out of the VPP for that form).

Just some ideas......

But why would you want to?

Chaos Nation: Does he actually get bigger/denser when he absorbs people, or does he absorb them in the comic book no effect -> mass sense?

When he absorbs them, are they themselves helpless?

Can the target resist getting absorbed?

Once absorbed, can a target bust loose of thier own accord?

Can Chaos Nation release people still living, or is he like a roach motel, only spitting them out when they are dead? In other words, would it be most appropriate to just KILL the target outright when he 'absorbs' them rather than fuss with them?

Could Chaos Nation treat his damage delegation ability as an ablative Armor instead, or as an appropriate Limitation applied to a large Damage Reduction ?

Will post more after above has been answered......

Heres a pic I found to use for the character. The character concept is vaguely similar to the Black Queen, Selena from the Hellfire club (inspired by the 'Hellfire' schtick of Talisman no doubt), and this pic seems to capture the hard hearted sluttiness of the character.

Hey all, I wanted a powerful mystic antagonist as a Tier 2 NPC (not world-threatening, but formidable). I ended up lifting Talisman and adapting her by tacking on a couple of hundred points of extra powers.

I renamed the character and her background is different to fit my storyline. I intend to use her as a sometimes-ally sometimes enemy Loki type character. Ultimately selfserving, but possibly helpful when it suits her ends.

I wanted her to have more odd-ball and story driving powers so I tacked on a few 'allows-for-plausible-story-hooks' powers more than combat ability. I also wanted her to be an independent player to be reckoned with, so I upped her INT and EGO a tad to reflect her stature as a mover and shaker.

So, here she is; how does she look?

Incantrix

Player:

Total Character Cost: 624

Disadvantage Points: 95

Base Points: 200

Experience Required: 329

Total Experience Available: 330

Experience Unspent: 1

Hi Steve.

This recently came up: a player has a character with 6" of Stretching. That player thinks that they can use this Stretching to (among other things) "Stretch" 6" straight up and then, from this elevated height, jump or move at their normal speed.

I said no, it doesnt work like this because Stretching explicitly does not provide movement, and stretching 6" up duplicates some of the functionality of Leaping, Flight, or even Clinging (if used to basically step up onto the roof of a building or similar). It also duplicates some of the functionality of Growth, but thats not necessarily relevant.

I said he could reach up 6" to make a HtH attack or to grab ahold of something and then try to pull himself up with a Climbing check or something along those lines as an action, but that I thought it abusive to give him effectively 24" of free Leaping (halved for going up, and halved again to make it a 1/2 Move allowing a subsequent 1/2 Phase attack).

However, I just wanted to be sure that this is correct.

So, Question: can Stretching be used to gain elevation, and can a character elevated in such a manner then use other forms of movement such as Leap and Run from this elevated position?

Thanx!

I always prefered the little blue book over the BBB in 4th Edition, and I could find ANYTHING in that book in 2 seconds flat.

5th Edition is overall a superior product (I mean, its made out of QUESTIONITE for crying out loud; what other game company can make that claim?) but I cant find the inside covers of the book without a flashlight and a spare pair of hands. Its a damn big book PLUS some of the bits are oddly scattered.

Still and all though, you can have my FREd when you pry it from my cold dead fingers.

The main rulebooks notwithstanding, I unilaterally agree that all of the other supplements DOJ has put out are superior to all but the creme de la creme of all previous versions of Champions/HEROs put together.

LS: Intense Heat

I once had a player in 4th Ed who thought his LS vs Intense Heat completely protected him from a fireball attack.

Went something like

Me: '[Wizard NPC] launches a flaming burst of magical force at you; it hits; you take [lots of damage].'

Player: 'No worries dude; Ive got Life Support vs that $#!%. I dont take any damage.'

The player totally could not understand how game balance could never allow an ability that cost a few points to counter any attack of a broad special effect bought in 5 to 15 point increments per d6; or if he were correct why EVERYONE wouldnt buy that power, or why subsequently no one would buy any such attack.

Logic was not his strong suit.....

This is (1 reason) why I dont collect comix anymore

Originally posted by jeep_the_great

First of all lets get to the point of the matter. All cross-overs are subject to interpentation. So lets just have some fun here.

 

In the battle of the JLA vs. the Avengers, I Fell that it would go like this:

 

{...snip...}

 

All the remaining menbers talk it over and realize theat this whole battle must have been cause by none other than........

 

Loki and Lex Luther. So begins another cross-over as our favorite heroes go after a couple of villians.

Great stuff, and sadly, though humorous, also captures the spirit of every single superhero(s) encounter new superhero(s) battle ever. Cant damage that valuable money making intellectual property, afterall.

Cowboys and Indians

I shot you!

No your didnt, you missed!

My intergallactic ray-gun never misses!

Oh yeah, well my pan-cosmic forcefield deflects all blows!!!!

Etc etc etc

We are talking about fictional comic book characters. All comic book characters have a secret un-referenced attribute which is more important than all others. This attribute is "cool factor". Cool factor is a direct indicator of how well appreciated the character is by fans willing to shell out dollars to read completely contrived mini-stories about them.

Thus, in any real no-holds barred non-partisan 'fight' which would have to result in a clear winner and a clear loser (no Secret Wars bs here), the winners could be directly traced to which ever intellectual properties were expected to gross more in coming years, regardless of background, capabilities, or relative power levels.

Superman and Batman continue to be big grossers via liscencing to other media, so they'll survive; anything with Wolvie sells, so be sure he's gonna make it. Thor & Iron Man carry thier own books so they will survive. Professor X, Magneto by whatever name, and any other X-Man that is a) in the first movie and expected to be popular in the second movie will make it thru, etc. The lesser knowns are all Red-Shirts and will fall to better known/more profitable characters. Welcome to Intellectual Property land, where the bigger earners get all the bennys.

SFX

Ditto the Special Effects orientation. Sections per common comic book SFX, each containing properly advantaged/limited and composite power constructs to mechanically handle that SFX in a straitforward way, with a flavor text blurb, a description of the SFX, and if necessary a blurb to cover any 'hand waving' used to simulate the effect. Each Section could also have 2 Power Framework (MPP, EC) examples combining a playable assortment selected from the powers list, just referencing the full write up. A single para at the very begining of the book could point out how to use a VPP in conjunction with the listed powers as a note for the newbies, with a Yield symbol and a page reference back to FRED.

Heh...glad to see some people _do_ still remember the Ultimate Powers Book.

I originally got the UPB in what, 1990 or so? Earlier? Whenever it came out. Somebody boosted my copy of it, and Ive been looking for a replacement ever since. I got a copy of the web version about a year ago or so, and it was a happy day. The web version also contains the errata & additions from 2 Dragon Magazine articles.

MSHA with the UPB was a fun fun fun game, and was the gateway game that brought me into Champions/HERO System as a matter of fact. Something along those lines would be very solid for the Until product.

It is a very cool resource and a neat thing to just read on occasion and, as I stated in my previous post on this subject, I personally think that HEROs could do far worse than to adapt some of the organizational precepts of the UPB.

However, while Im sure Steve is aware of the book Im also fairly sure that he doesnt want to intimate any undue influence from any book or Intellectual Property published/owned by another game company. I've noticed that he seems to be fairly circumspect about not mentioning other companies products directly in general, which is probably a very intelligent move on his part for a variety of reasons.

With that in mind, I find it unlikely that Steve would contact David E Martin and bring him in to work on a HEROs book out of the blue, but it would be a very cool turn of events if he did

Super Powers Database

Hidey ho. Glad to see the new boards up and running....

Ok, as to what I would like to see in the product in question:

Does anyone remember the Ultimate Powers Book? The supplement for the old Marvel Superheroes Advanced game (the FASERIP version, not the SAGA version -- you kids and your damn card games )?

Well, I do.

The power write ups themselves were kind of arbitrary, but I always thought it took a decent tack as far as organization and breadth of scope.

Perhaps something similar to that, grouping powers by special effect.

As far as layout goes, in the interests of furthering the 'database' schtick, perhaps each individual power could be organized into a data-card format, including the name of a character exhibiting each particular power (ie, the superhuman who has that particular power whom UNTIL observed/analyzed).

Also, anyone remember the old Street Samurai Catalog? For old 1st edition Shadowrun? Some of the 'merchandise' presented in that book had tagline comments by various 'street samurai' giving thier opinion of the usefulness/quality of the item, and occasionally anecdotal testimonials/razing.

Perhaps something along those lines would be cool, with some super powers having 'field notes' entered by observing UNTIL agents, scientists, and what not commenting 'in character' on the power construct.

I think the most important thing for this product however is, as others have mentioned above, to make sure it can serve as an abstraction layer for players/potential players that dont want to get into the crunchy bits of the system.

In this vein, I think its important to ensure that advancement is covered as well, so that if a player picks "Hyper-speed Punch" at X pts for Y base effect, translated into English

Hyper-speed Punch/Kick: You are able to launch a flurry of blows at high speed. Strike an opponent in close combat up to 5 times for STR + XD6 damage.

Cost: Z points

Effect: (HA xd6, Autofire x5)

Advancement:

Precision Timing As control improves you are able to strike with greater precision, hitting opponents in less protected areas and pressure points. Opponents only apply half of thier defenses vs your attacks unless their armor is unusually sturdy.

Cost: Z+A points

Effect: (HA xd6, Autofire x5, AP)

Punishing Blows As control improves you are able to strike with greater force, using velocity as a weapon. You now strike opponents in close combat up to 5 times for STR + XXD6 damage.

Cost: Z+A+B points

Effect: (HA xxd6, Autofire x5, AP)

etc etc etc

In other words, give systems-lite types a nice little predefined progression path for thier preconstructed powers.

Anyhoo, just some ideas.