JackValhalla

A genius gadgeteer I've designed has a "reverse engineering" knack. Transform, personal focus to universal focus. Potentially one of the most broken powers I've ever designed.

The proof of a master tactician is whether they win or not. If beating up a dozen henchmen ends in victory, the tactic was brilliant. If a vertical pincer maneuver with half-envelopment ends in victory, the tactic was brilliant. We've got a mechanistic view of what is a narrative function: what the combat looks like in the mind's eye is never truly equated to what is going on with the dice rolls and character sheets. If Captain America knows that his opponent is going to flinch left to regain his footing and will be well set up for a ringing right-side roundhouse, it's because Cap is just that dang good. But in the RPG, we simulate that with CSLs. If a character's skills and talents that they use to win the fight are defined under the special effect of tactical mastery, that's what they are.

If we're looking at that broader definition of tactical mastery, as zslane suggested, I would look at some very odd builds for this. The purpose is to give the player more access to information to make their combat decisions, right? So you'd start using sensory powers that give the player access to information that normally players or characters don't have. Probably for a good reason. Things like a discriminatory detect for STUN and END so you'd know which enemies were hurt, how much, and how close they are to knockout. Or a discriminatory detect for defense powers, or something else that would be only questionably permissible and certainly munchkinlicious. Alternately, a IPE Mind Control to have enemies maneuver themselves in disadvantageous ways, similar to the way that certain versions of D&D had warlords that could shift the enemy's position. I'd really look at things like Find Weakness, Danger Sense, Combat Sense, CSLs, Fast Draw, Combat Luck. But the most effective way to turn a given character into a master of combat tactics is to keep a cheat sheet of combat maneuvers so you can see the options and modifiers at a glance at all times, with a note at the top to hold your action if at all possible. There is no substitute for using the right combat maneuver at the right time.

Just a little bit of telekinesis, ten strength, fifteen, whatever, is enough to take most non-flyers out of commission entirely. A big bad bruiser that can pulverize you can be shut down just by picking them up off the ground and holding them in place. And then there's flash. Man, whoever said that the best defense is a good offense, was talking about flash. Pop someone with this and they're helpless and harmless and no danger to you. But my favorite is Duplication. Man I love that power, it's good for everything. And with Ranged Recombination, it's an awesome defensive power. If you're in trouble, you run away and you guard your own exit at the same time.

Either a Duplicatin with no recombination, 5E has multiple examples of exactly this, or a kludge of related powers. Consider buying extra SPD with limitation "cannot be used for movement", to represent a character that can direct attacks separately or each head can use their joint powers. Or, PSLs for Sweep to accomplish the same thing.

Telekinesis only to grab and squeeze will be cheaper and simpler and more thematic than trying to combine an Entangle with a constriction attack. But for area denial you need either Trigger or Change Environment. My preference for this spell would be an Area Effect Telekinesis, only to Grab/Squeeze -1, Must be in contact with ground -1/2, Trigger (someone enters target area) +1/4. Depending on conditions I'd probably give it Continuing Charges.

I tend to go Kitchen-Sink style play. VIPER as an autonomous organization, but also doing a lot of contract work with villains, and also providing one-stop-shopping fencing and logistics for villains who don't have their own contacts or connections. I don't use most of the other published agencies. But then, I also use drug cartels, Sicilian and Russian mobs, and a good number of villains who set themselves up as local crime lords of various types. I ue a balanced approach that keeps my options open.

Trigger in a VPP really is gross. More than one of my "Take down Doctor Destroyer on 350 points" builds use that trick. Lot of good suggestions in this thread, let me add one more: As GM, maintain a fiat for the Extra Time limitation. The player doesn't determine how much time it takes, you do. This makes downtime a scarce resource that needs to be frugally dispensed. You relax or restrict this limitation to strike whatever balance you feel is appropriate to the campaign.

Award XP by the book. It's incredibly easy to unbalance a game by awarding more XP. BUT the game has allowances for adding Perks to existing characters without spending XP. You should see their faces light up when you tell them to add a Favor or Contact onto their character sheets. They can see concrete results of gameplay and cooperation and sportsmanship when they get to add new entries on the character sheet. As for encouraging teamwork between them, that's a favorite subject of mine. Match them up against a weaker team that has all taken the Teamwork skill. Have them coordinate attacks, watch each other's backs, hold actions to act simultaneously, juggle Knockback to set up your players for a takedown, stuff like that. Show the players how it's done, defeat them soundly, then give them time to lick their wounds and figure out what happened. Idealy they'll realize what the deciding factor was and they'll start using the same tactics themselves, not because they're such great people but because it works. After a while they'll start doing it for the right reasons as well.

Sounds like a variation of a Grab, more than an XDT UAA. I'd take PSL to sweep grab, only to fully immobilize prey, maybe Extra Limbs (only to Grab multiple prey creatures -1). The tricky bit is that the rules stipulate that you cannot Grab a creature significantly larger than the Grabber, so so we need levels of Growth just to circumvent that restriction. For prey 100 times your size, that's seven levels of Growth with some really heavy Limitations. Or, depending on SFX you may prefer a 0 END Suppress Growth to bring the enemy down to your size. This whole package should wind up being cheaper than the XDT UAA or the AOE Entangle options, and because it's built closer to the intent of the special effect, there's less room for "reinterpretation" on the fly.

I understood that all forms of Multiform had the same base points (in Standard Superheroic, 200, for example). And that if you built a Multiform to have, say, 900 points in it (this comes from a RL event, but I swear it wasn't me), then the character needs to take 700 pts in Disadvantages. As for "free forms" that OP discussed, I'm learning about this myself. I'm currently designing a villain character who has 32 forms, instant change, and it... well, it's got a lot of potential for abuse. Also, this character is winding up being a lot more trouble than she's worth, 32 separate character sheets are a lot to design, and a lot to keep track of. Accidental Change mitigates some of the abuse by taking control of the change away from the player, but in the end it's really down to the GM to shut this sort of thing down. That's part of what scares me about GMing a game... I've got min-max instincts, and poor impulse control. If I'm GM, there's nobody to overrule me but Steve. (Thanks Steve, for overruling some of my ideas in the past)

I'd prefer pure telepathy/mental powers. Telekinesis has its time and place, but most mentalist characters have enough to do without trying to double up as blasters or bricks. Defending mentalists is not hard. If the mentalist has mind scan and mind link, leave them back at the team base, they'll be perfectly useful from anywhere on the planet. Or, maybe they can astral project or turn their body into psionic energy, desolidification is an excellent defense, especially since mental powers don't need "works while desolid". Is you base a space station? Put your mentalist in geosynchronous orbit with a telescope, make the most of that "Line of Sight" range. A purely telepathic character can even use one of the most insidious defenses: dressing in street clothes and mingling with the bystanders, though that works best against villains that are unlikely to endanger innocents. For characters whose defenses come from telepathic misdirection, either invisibility BOECV or Missile Deflect BOECV. For stats, I often prefer mentalist characters to be almost "everymen". Baseline STR, DEX, even INT. It's a valuable RP opportunity, and not many characters can pull it off without being crippled by it.

Penalty Skill Levels with Sweep. That lets you offset the CV penalties outright, you can attack multiple times per phase. Also, thematically appropriate, since what you're doing is a maneuver that is available to everyone else, but is intrinsically easier for your multiple-armed combatant. Also, it's cheap, and really effective.

Flipping through the combat guide, I found a martial art maneuver called Charge that I'd never noticed before. STR +2d6+v/5 damage. I don't see this maneuver in any of my other materials, and it was not clarified further in the combat guide. So, from what I've got available, it looks like this maneuver does more damage than a move-by, includes a full move, does not feature any damage to the attacking character, and has no OCV penalties. I have to be missing something, because it is so vastly superior to Move-By and Move-Through as I see it. Could someone tell me what I'm missing? As always, apologies if this has been answered before. Thank you for your time.

Re: Are there ANY good plant/wood powers names? Two I've got on tap: Hunter Green and Pistil. Both work best for plant-theme characters with ranged attacks from foci... admittedly a small niche.

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! When the One-Trick Ponies reached Earth, one of them in particular was ticked to find that the apes had already mocked his power. Everywhere Corral runs, the earth reacts, shooting up walls of solid stone behind him. And the monkey-men keep comparing him to the light-bikes from Tron. In combat, this lets him protect his teammates, cut off enemy escape, control the flow of battle, and make good the One-Trick Ponies' getaway plans. Also, it helps pin the monkeys in place for Mister Dread's fear aura, which is always a bonus. (rejected ideas include Trigger, who can set off explosions in his vicinity, and the Invisible Pink Unicorn, with a prosthetic horn and the ability to turn invisible and pink at the same time. Free to a good home!)

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! "I dunno what the big deal is, they done me a real favor. Look, I never got no respect, no matter how hard I tried. I would tell everyone how great I was, and how tough I was, and at the end of the day, I was always a laughingstock. Then I got this image consultant, right, said he'd done this kinda work before. So, now I'm not Bulldozer anymore. Got my tattoos removed an' ev'rything. I'm taking elocution classes now, but the instructor says it'll take a long time to see real progress. Least I can pronounce 'elocution' now. And, yeah, I'm supposed to stop hittin' on ladies during jobs, and stop callin' people wimp or egghead. My PR guy says that looks real bad. I gotta think about my image now. "Like the new look? Don't be fooled. I'm still Dozer-strong under these fancy threads. But the threads themselves? Dig it, feel this material. Looks like Italian wool, feels like steel wool, amiright? Actually, it's got this stuff called na-no-tubes in it. Means its bulletproof, just like me. Not because I need the protection, but just so I'll look as good after the fight as before. Just like the tie, the shirt, everything. Looks sharp, right? Hang on, I gotta put on the fedora for the full effect. How about it, eh? And, I got these neat knuckle-dusters. Titanium-iron alloy, strong as all hell. I hit as hard as Ironside now, even Ogre. Sure, I miss feeling some wimp's ribs break under my knuckles, but it's part of my new image. It's all about Kneecapper now."

Re: Create a Hero Theme Team! Alright, let's see how this goes.... You remember the Ettesil invasion last year? No? Or how about those three meteors that destroyed the earth in May? No, not that either? That's because they didn't happen. That's because of the Near-Earth Orbit, a team of five heroes who patrol space near our lovely little blue planet. Their original goal was to keep Dr. Destroyer from building any more orbital death cannon space stations, but most often they serve as the first line of defense against alien invaders and other threats from space. Sure, there's other space-based hero groups, but it seems like they're always galivanting off to save planets full of alien princesses, or attacking galactic threats in some other cluster. But, between the Moon and the Earth, there is always these five brave, patient souls who make sure extinction does not fall out of the skies.

Re: Create a Hero Theme Team! The United States has plenty of "flag heroes", but it is too proud of most of them to send them to join an international group. Most of them, but not all. The Standard has caused more trouble domestically than they like, and so now she is a member of the UNSC's new hero group. A mind-reading martial artist, she is a skilled infiltrator and scout, as well as a flashy, dynamic combatant, and blends her attacks with those of her teammates in a seamless display of teamwork. However, her upbeat unflappable personality can grate on the nerves after a while. She constantly encourages all people to better themselves in all ways, and she is a constant source of pep-talks, cheerleading, and encouraging slogans. She tells everyone that his name comes not only from the fact that a flag is also called a standard, but also that it reminds her to raise her own standards every day. She is virtuous, incorruptible, generous, and forgiving, and that is exactly what got her in trouble back home. She believes that public officials should be paragons of humanity, and she would immediately expose any wrongdoing in any elected official. The authorities offloaded her for their own sakes, but she could not care less, she is thrilled to be representing her nation on the global stage. She occasionally has to resist taking on a protective or patronizing role with non-Americans. (by the way, for team name I propose United Nations Intervention Taskforce. I like acronyms)

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! New team, new theme! Sometimes, we don't get the name we want. Maybe the press gave you a bad rap when they first reported you, or maybe you had a freudian slip when you were giving your name. Sometimes, nicknames stick with you, like it or not. Is this you? Are you being mocked during battles, belittled during team meetings? Is your superhero identity a source of guilty snickers and double-entendre? We know how it is, people can be juvenile. Come join the Rough Sects, where you can be among villains who share your troubles. We are looking for six new members at this time, all with names and powersets that are ... unintentionally suggestive, or overly prone to sexual innuendo. If your name gets groans, giggles, or giggities, put in your application now!

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! Sometimes, life takes a different direction than you expected. Jerry Oatman was going to be a world-class supervillain, using his ability to take any form to rob any place, take anything, and never worry about the law. Even superheroes were no worry to The Amazing Multiplex, since he could simply recover from any damage and escape from any captivity! What he neglected to realize was that not all heroes will beat a villain up and throw him in jail, or try to kill them. Some heroes are devious. One such was called The Negator, and that hero responded to the call when Multiplex tried to rob a museum. Spotting the hero, Multiplex touched a nearby fossil and took on a form based on it, turning into a humanoid stegosaurus! But Negator was not impressed, and with a wave of his hand, permanently depowered Multiplex. With no shapeshifting, multiforming or power mimicry, the villain who thought to take on the world was now stuck in one measly shape. Whipspike, as he now called himself, is tall and strongly built, with large leaf-shaped plates running down his back and several long, needle-like spikes on the end of his long, flexible tail. Most who look at him think him a lumbering brute, but they are often caught off-guard by his snakelike speed and long reach. Virtually impervious to harm from the back, he is fond of wading into the middle of a fight and lashing around in all directions. He now steals to survive, since he can never go back to a human life, but he fights for pure vicious fun. He blames superheroes, all of them, for his condition, and he takes it out on them whenever he can.

Re: Create a Hero Theme Team! For anyone that wants to hire a private army, you could always just hire Private Army. His military records show him constantly in trouble after leaving basic training. Though he was in a nice, quiet quartermaster's unit in garrison, he still continued to antagonize. Eavesdropping, gossip-mongering, challenging authority, avoiding duty, and numerous small infractions. Finally, the last straw: an experimental shipment for the research agency turned up missing. A quick investigation conclusively proved that the troublemaker had attempted to steal it, and had accidentally destroyed it. Booted from the Army, he soon manifested powers, and joined up with the Malefactors. His ability to duplicate himself an infinite number of times, along with his natural skill with firearms, makes him ideal for a number of functions. That's the official record, anyway. Private Brett Amy was a top-notch soldier assigned to a company of lazy, corrupt gold-brickers. He reported his fellow soldiers to the company commander, and found that the commander was the worst of the lot. After his attempted whistle-blowing, his good record was tarnished, and nobody in the chain of command would listen as he tried to file reports about the cut corners, safety violations, embezzlement, and theft. For years he suffered as the only goood soldier in the unit, constantly harassed and persecuted. Eventually, he found out that the others were planning a big score. To preserve the shipment, he snuck in at night and tried to move the canister from its spot to another shelf, hidden behind some boxes. But it was too heavy to handle by himself, and he wound up dropping it all over himself. He didn't get a good look, but he would later describe it as "liquid algebra". Now, he can multiply himself three times over, and they can each multiply, ad infinitum. However, he does not know this. For some reason, he can no longer do any degree of math, not even counting accurately. As a member of the Malefactors, he is an ideal spy. It is impossible to keep track of all of him, and he is a natural snoop and eavesdropper. He can move information in and out of nearly anywhere, and many a grand scheme was foiled by a mysterious tip-off. In a fight, he is limited to normal firearms, but with armor-piercing bullets and find weakness, a lot is possible. Also, he is great for taking hostages, driving getaway vehicles, and hundreds of other tasks. All at the same time.

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! Upright II was a legacy hero, using his father's armor to do some good in the world. The original Upright was a member of ACT, the American Clean Team; designed by the federal government during the late sixties as a way to lure America's youth away from the subversive protest movements. ACT was about "traditional" values, and was supposed to evoke sentiments of nostalgia, homesickness, and comfortable familiarity. In practice, it meant that there were six goofy heroes running around with costumes and powers and codenames branded after household appliances, all of them trying to convince hippies that they should try to capture the American Dream with the picket fences and the 2.5 children in a suburb with a nosy neighbor and a friendly milkman. Upright II is terribly embarrassed about his father's politics and image, but when the old man retired, he stepped up to help out. Even though the American Clean Team broke up when Spin Cycle died and Gasrange was institutionalized, he kept the name as a symbol. Symbols, however, don't mean a thing when your armor has no psionic defenses. One supervillain with a mean streak took Upright's brain and twisted it like taffy, and now the young man is happily villainous, robbing banks and taking hostages while he still cheerfully chants out his father's old slogans and other upbeat, positive catchphrases. He appears to be completely oblivious to the fact that he is breaking the law, and nobody has yet managed to shake him out of his reverie. And, whatever villain it was that programmed him was REALLY good at his job, his mind is now virtually impermeable. His armor looks like cheap plastic and chrome, but it actually gives him top-notch protection. Though it's bulky and retro, the powerset in it has been regularly upgraded as time goes by. His main abilities in a fight are his flight, heightened strength, electrifying grasp, and his "air sweep", an area-effect technique that draws in anything not nailed down and hold it to him. Clustering up his opponents like that is a great set-up for his teammates' powers, and sometimes he uses his air sweep while he's airborne, so as to pull an entire hero team, or police blockade, or any other inconvenience, thirty feet into the air, then drop them all at once. Usually in a safe place like a body of water or a pile of mattresses, but not always.

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! An entomologist with a particular interest in apiology, Dr. Bryce Kosturakis was determined to find a way to communicate with his little buzzing friends. With help from a mathematician friend of his and a drinking buddy who was breaking new ground in communication theory, Bryce eventually got what he wanted, a way to talk to the bees as one of their own. But, one of their own meant just another drone, and his will was quickly subjugated by the consciousness of the hive. For a few years, he wandered the earth, carrying a cabinet-style hive on his back, breaking into flower shops or stealing sugar from grocery stores, until he figured out how to open the communication even further. When he opens his mouth, the only sound is a frantic droning buzz, like white noise or a flurry of bees, yet those in listening range can hear his words, and his intentions. And, he can overwhelm the will of another just as his own will was overwhelmed. Thus, the birth of Mindhive. Now a known villain, he has moved up to higher profile targets and more profitable scores. But, his mind is not a man's, and his goals are not human. He is using his earnings to collect bee colonies from all over the world, bringing them together in the largest hive ever constructed. Sugar is shipped in by the truckload, and some day this super-colony will break open its walls and true terror will be known. But, until then, he uses his powers of mind control, mental communication, confusion and will-sapping to rob whatever targets his little yellow-and-black friends choose. Recognizing that his powers were narrow in scope, he began searching about for others who could help him in his mission. Not humans, he could barely understand them at all. But some people had minds... closer to his. More animal, more instinct, less refined. He sought them out, to form the Human Zoo. None of them know about his hidden superhive, nor his long-term goals.

Re: Create a Hero Theme Team! Renard Chauvre-Souris was a good ol' Texas boy, drinking rye whiskey from morning to night and living off the proceeds of the family ranch, when he was visited by two native spirits of the land. The trickster spirit gave Renard power and told him to go raise hell, shake people up, and make the world a weirder place. The protector spirit gave him power and told him to help people, to save lives, and to do his part for society. Renard thanked Old Man Coyote and Brown Bat for their gifts, and went off to make a difference in a stagnant, corrupt world. In the big city, he suited up his mantle as the Guardian Trickster, and spent all day trying to find crime to foil. In the end, it was just much easier to mess with people than it was to save them. At the end of a week, he had accomplished very little as a hero, and had managed to annoy many people a great deal with his prankster powers. When he heard the alarms of a genuine bank robbery, he flew into action. Inside was a famous supervillain and his henchmen, too many for Renard to tackle alone. Thinking tactically, he hid in the back of their getaway vehicle to ambush them on the escape. The robbery went bad, and before the afternoon was over, the cops were shooting at Renard! (Apparently, wearing a costume nobody has seen before and coming out of the back of the Foxbatmobile makes the constabulary a bit nervous.) Running from the cops, Renard wound up back in the Foxbatmobile as Foxbat drove to safety. Over the next two days, the World's Greatest Supervillain nursed Renard back to health and helped him through the DT's. At the end, he had a new idol, and a new goal in life. Aspiring to someday join his hero as a full-time sidekick or (dare he dream it?) a partner, he started at the farm leagues, IF-HE-CAN's American branch, as Coyotebat. His powers include some flight and running, healing, a bag of tricks with hundreds of helpful little spells, and force walls. Tactically, he contributes to the team's battlefield mobility, using his flexible powerset to set opponents up for his teammates and protect their backs. As a member of the team, he contributes a whimsical spirit and a helpful hand.