segerge

Well, crap! Working....

Tonight's project was a combat-based analysis of my design for Speedball, originally presented two weeks ago. The Hero Designer file attached to this post contains my optimizations to his design based on this analysis. The most important changes to the initial design were to 1. Make his Super-Running and 'Speedster Tricks' multipower the same size since they shared a Unified Power 2. Adding LS; Extreme Heat to the suit given him by SavCo in anticipation of him eventually being able to run at supersonic speeds 3. Boosting REC and STUN to make him last a little longer on combat

Which I used to have back in the day. 4th edition, if memory serves.

Yeah, he's an idealist.

Revisions to Torque since he has some attention now... A little bit of a power boost, plus some explanation of why he thinks the way he does. Torque.hdc

Never had the privilege. Confession time here: I spent more time working up a believable background for Speedball than with Torque. I'm now going to have to remedy that and flesh him out more...

My second character is Torque: Works for SavCo in the Metro City campaign as a mid-level project manager in secret identity. He built his suit to amplify his latent mutant powers of telekinesis. As Torque, Edward is a vocal and prominent mutant rights advocate. He believes that mutants should use their powers to protect modern civilization from those who would wish to destroy it. Torque.hdc

My first character is Speedball: Marco Salerno was the original Speedball around San Jose and the Silicon Valley, running a firm that made advanced high-tech machine tools after he retired as an independent superhero. His nephew Steve was a junior sysadmin just out of college, hired by his uncle after graduating from Stanford in Software Engineering. Supervillains from Marco's past finally discovered the original Speedball's secret identity and attacked MarcoTech one afternoon. They succeeded in inflicting mortal damage on Marco, which resulted in him transferring his speed-based powers to his nephew as he was dying from his wounds. In spite of not comprehending what his uncle gave him while he was dying, Steve defeated the supervillains. As the attack was taking place, representatives from SavCo were present negotiating the purchase of equipment in which they were interested. The lead representative was their CEO, Wayne 'Huntsman' Savage. He observed the transfer of speed force energy from uncle to nephew during the battle, and what happened afterwards. The next night, Wayne called Steve and offered SavCo's support to his potential superheroic career. This support included a protective suit which offered some protection from both attacks and atmospheric friction. Speedball.hdc

Great. Now I've got that in my head for the rest of the night...

Grandmastergm, did you build Colonel Blinky under 6ed rules? Because he's missing OCV/DCV/OECV/DECV stats...

For the minigun, I would have gone for 2d6+1 Penetratingx2, Autofire (10 Shot), +1 Stun Multiplier, Beam, OIF. That's an automatic 2 BODY and 8 DEF per shot that hits minimum, and it should still fit within that multipower.

Well, the minigun as drawn would be a 3-shot autofire RKA and there are at least 2 different types of missile attacks. The eyestalks should give him 360-degree vision on sight group, and I'd probably throw in a couple of levels in both ranged combat and offsetting range modifiers because of them.

Been here a while; lurk more than I post. How did you come up with your 'handle' (forum name)? Last name + first initial + middle initial. What was the first tabletop RPG you played? Original D&D What was the first tabletop RPG you GMed? Traveller What are you currently playing/GMing? Champions, especially when I have to game battles that I write for TASK FORCE stories. When did you start to play Hero? May 1982, between the end of my sophomore year at college and reporting to USAF field training. I

In "Malva Awakens" I was going for entertainment value in the story.

Got it in one

PS: Musician would fit that (and match his collegiate background as a singer/pianist) but run into the same problem with lack of combat utility. Arguably, his KS: Science Fiction/Fantasy would also meet the "lack of combat utility" criteria, except that he actually used it to come up with his Kzinti Challenge of Firewing in "Malva Awakens"

I came around to this point of view late last year getting TASK FORCE characters ready for their Hall of Champions sourcebooks. Starforce in particular was carrying three music-related professional skills (Piano playing, Piano tuning, and Singing) that while used in various stories and fit with his background were never used in combat*. Based on that realization, I removed them from his character sheet. * The closest he came to combat usage of these was "Operation Phoenix" when he wanted to see if Doctor Destroyer's piano was in tune rather than join in storming Destruga's Master Mile, and in the climactic battle of "The Island of Shadow Destroyer" when he realized the entity claiming to be Doctor Destroyer -- unlike the original -- was completely tone-deaf.

I had given a lot of thought for years on how Dr. Destroyer would be finally defeated when I originally plotted out the TASK FORCE timeline. Rather than attempt to summarize the story "Leap Day" it would be better to link to the information article on the equipment and tactics which went into the final climax of that story. Though it was written when the characters were in 6th Edition, it pretty much works the same way in 5th Edition as well. Takofanes was temporarily driven out of our plane of existence west of Danville, IN in 1987 ("Heart of Darkness") between the actions of an old AT&T microwave relay tower hot-wired by Starforce into a giant anti-zombie maser, the US Army, and superhumans from across America. Mechanon... the battle with him that I enjoyed writing the most was in the story "Mechanon, Inc." He got defeated by our heroes when he made the mistake of rebuilding himself on the fly into a Humongous Mecha form. All I will say about how it ended is that the Square/Cube law can be such a bitch, sometimes. If that isn't enough, the final battle of "The Island of Shadow Destroyer" featured our heroes, Shadow Destroyer, Mechanon, AND Takofanes in a four-way Mexican Standoff, finally resolved when TASK FORCE succeeded in sabotaging the reconstructed Mandragalore.

Haven't posted it there. If you can't wait, I can make the HDC files available to you on request. Be warned that I based my rebuild on the Mark VIII Sentinels in X-Men/Marvel that required a Human pilot. They also share some of my other quirks in building characters/vehicles.

The 4th Ed supplement "The Mutant File" also had a stat block for the Minuteman Mark VII. It was in their chapter on GENOCIDE. I have upgraded that design for 5th Ed with the intent of using it in a plotted TASK FORCE story set in early 1996.

I sort of agree with this. In a campaign set in today's world, Computer Programming skill for simple day-to-day usage is overkill and unnecessary. However, if for some odd reason, your campaign is set in the 1980's when computer usage was nowhere near as ubiquitous as it is today, I would insist that you take some amount of Computer Programming if you want to do anything with a computer.

That's actually an interesting concept, sort of like how you can emulate a fire team of agents as a four-shot autofire...

I used that phrase in the TASK FORCE story "What Happens in Vegas..."

To add a little additional context to the Presence attack from "The Lady In the Lake", Starforce had a base PRE of 30. He added +3d6 for incredibly violent action (critical hit on the GENOCIDE Rook), +1d6 for exhibiting his powers, +1d6 for good soliloquy ("If you start running now, I'll let you all live."), and -1d6 for being in combat. He rolled a 40 on 10d6. The dismounted Pawns were all running before the rest of TASK FORCE teleported in behind the remaining Rooks and Knight.

I would at least give them +10 PRE only to resist Presence Attacks (-1 limitation). If necessary, alter that limitation so that it applies to resisting Presence Attacks not from their Master (-3/4 limitation)