Chat about anything else!

But I also need it for my powers of Running, Jumping and Swimming.  Do I need Gadgetry, Science and Scholar in order for her to be a bio-chemist that created the pills?  Not really looking for her to be a general scientist type, just a specific bio-chemist type scientist.  Maybe just a subset of one?  Or just Scholar: Bio-Chemistry?  That would save some points there.

Strangely enough, what set me off on the path of creating this character was I had a thought while trying to drop to sleep of "What if the Haunt actually died and actually came back as a real Haunt?".  I knew he would have invisibility, intangibility, aura of fear and flight - basic ghostly powers, but then stumbled across the Power Reserve while looking through DC Version 3 and thought ... Ah HAH!

Now I need to go back to trying to build a true ghostly Haunt ... The Haunter!    

Haunterer?

With regards gadgetry and Scientist it's too expensive and needs high skill (or it does as written anyway) for it to be of use in day to day game time. You'd be fine with Scholar: Bio-Chemistry and Genius, allowing you to create something beyond the current day level of technology.

Very similar to the character you've knocked out...



Except for the power reserve of course, putting her a number of leagues higher than Hourman.

BTW, Dave E (Steeplejack) said he'd be able to read but not post (somewhere anyway, it's been a couple of days) till early next week, hence I haven't moved Haunt and Steeplejack on. I will also post Frostbite/Lionhearts next issue hopefully in the next day or so (for Dave if you're reading).

I was using Hourman and Booster Gold as models for her power set.  Forgotten how hard it is to make a beginning character.  didn't realize just how much we have leveled over the decade.    

I like the Power Reserve set as it means sometimes she can be really strong instead of just lifting a couple of tons, sometimes she can be really tough to absorb that damage when she needs to. Sometimes she can be really Dexie. Or can put the power into her legs and run fast or jump far and swim fast. Or divide up her powers and be just better than she currently is. So she can be tougher, stronger and more Dexterous than usual at the same time but not overly so. Got into the GM book and found out that land vehicles have a run speed, most of them, of 7 APs, so that's where I was figure levels for her. Could probably lower her power reserve to 4 or 5 to start and add more with HP earned.

A beginning hauntly Haunt looks like this:

Dex 3  Str 3 Body 3
Int  3  Will 3  Mind 3
Infl  8  Aura  9  Spirit  9
** Mystic Linked powers
* all powers linked

Flight ** 9
Dispersal ** 9
Invisible **  9
Invulnerable ** 9
Magic Blast * 9

Wanted Sealed systems Mystic Linked and Linked too but that costs another 63 pts.  So without it the total comes to about 577 pts.  450 starting points, 45 background points for 495 points.  Need 82 points of disads and such.  And if I get a few more than needed, probably need to raise Body.  Took Invulnerable even though I do not quite get how the power works as it seems to only come into play when you go to Zero Body or lower and then you get a chance to recover a bit of Body.  So that would mimic having his ghostly body "destroyed" and then him coming back to "life" again.

Had about 5 more powers I wanted to get as well including Life Sense so I could sink into the floor or go through the walls and know where my foe was so I could do a surprise attack on him.  But not to be.  This is a very young and weak ghostly Haunt as is.  

Got no problems waiting for Dave E.  Give me more time to play around with character ideas.  

Invulnerable is a nonsense power. Named wrong for a start. It should have a pick from a column list of stuff you are invulnerable to and give Factor Costs appropriately. For instance:

Fire FC 15 each AP ignores 2 RAPs of Damage
Cold FC 14 each AP ignores 2 RAPs of Damage
Etc.

In Marvel they have 'Class 1000 resistance to' and insert thing, like Fire/Heat/Flame for the various Cosmic types.

Instead Invulnerable keeps the character alive when they should have died but is otherwise more or less useless. Since 1st Edition (what, 1985?) I can count on Zero fingers how useful it would have been in a campaign, and I used to GM (sometimes play) DC Heroes constantly. It was our 'go to' having kicked out Marvel, BECMI D&D, AD&D, Warhammer, MERP and everything else we played at the time, and Invulnerable would never have been useful.

Silly power, and a waste, in my humble opinion. Hero Points with last ditch defence and desperation recovery (for 1HP) do the job. Saying that, I'm of a mind to write a home brew ground up re-write of DC Heroes when I find a spare life. We already have enough house rules to distance from the stuff as written (ditched the table, use D12s, Skills add dice in a 'make your own luck' type thing and remove the reliance/expenditure/who has the biggest pile wins of Hero Points which is a sore point with me), I just need a) the motivation and b) time along with c) the ability to get past the first chapter. *sigh*

OK For Lionheart's adventure here is my first draft of Miss Vickie Valiant aka Miss V aka Miss Victory as she used all 3 names when she first started out.  Please double check my point totals and make suggestions.  Pts are probably wrong since you want to increase skill costs.

ORIGIN:  Viktoriya Volkov, was a bio-chemist in Russia who was forced to work on a top secret Russian Super-Soldier Program that resulted in the deaths of many "volunteers".  She wanted out and kept working on a formula to give her the power to flee the country.  She eventually came up with a two-step program to give herself superhuman powers and it would only work for her as it was coded only for her DNA.  The first part was a bio-cocktail that permanently, seemingly, increased all her attributes to around human maximum and gave her skin armor.  The second part was the Vita Pill, as she called it, that allowed her to access energies in her body to increase her physical abilities as she willed but only for 1 hour.  
Using this power, she fled the country and made it to the USA which she promptly fell in love with.  A short time later, she met Dr. Clark Wylde, an old school adventurer of the Doc Savage vein.  He helped her set up her new Identity as Dr. Veronica Chase the Bio-Chemist.  She took on the persona of Miss Vickie Valiant aka Miss V aka Miss Victory as a way to repay her newly adopted country and to help breakdown Clark's reluctance in marrying her as he said his career would leave her vulnerable to his enemies if it ever became known that they were married.  And they were married just before the attack on London and the coming of the Advent.
She maintains her own residence and hidden lab/HQ away from him.  She is set up as a private contracting Bio-Chemist, most of the time working for one of her husband's philanthropic research facilities, which allows her much free time for superheroing.

Miss Vickie Valiant aka Miss V aka Miss Victory

DEX: 10 STR: 6 BODY: 6
INT: 8 WILL: 8 MIND: 8
INFL: 8 AURA: 6     SPIRIT: 7
252 132 144  = 528 pts

POWERS
*JUMPING:8  10 BASE [-1 RESTRICTION] 10 PTS
*RUNNING:8  10 BASE [-1 RESTRICTION]  10 PTS
*SWIMMING:8  5 BASE [-1 RESTRICTION]  10PTS
*POWER RESERVE: 23 [FOR RUNNING, JUMPING SWIMMING, DEX, STR AND BODY]:150+15 BASE COST [-1 RESTRICTION] 810 PTS
*SEALED SYSTEMS:8  5 BASE COST [-1 RESTRICTION] 50PTS  
SKIN ARMOR:6 50 BASE Cost 30 PTS
1165 pts

SKILLS
ACROBATICS:  3 15+14=29
MARTIAL ARTS:  7 25+48=73
MEDICINE: 3 5+12=17
SCIENTIST:   4 10+15=25
VEHICLES:   3 5+10=15
*CHARISMA:8 20 BASE COST [-1 RESTRICTION] 50PTS
229 pts
1922 total points

*RESTRICTION – COMES FROM VITA PILL THAT LASTS ONE HOUR.  usually carries a dozen pills on her hidden on her person and costume.

WEALTH 12 PTS
ADVANTAGES
Attractive 15 pts
Confined HQ, secret lab in home – 10 pts
Scholar – Bio-Chemistry – 10 pts

DRAWBACKS:  {95 pts}
Secret ID (-10 pts)
Married (-25 pts) - Dr. Clark Wylde, a Doc Savage-type Adventurer
Irrational Attraction Serious - Stand up and Salute Adopted Nation's Flag and/or when Adopted Nation's Anthem is playing. (-25 pts)
Voluntary Exile from Russia (-10 pts)
Dark Secret - Helped with Russia covert Super-Soldier Program that resulted in the deaths of numerous volunteers/prisoners (-25 pts)

For Frostbite's adventure I've come up with this so far. I'm still working on origin and name for him. Suggestion for a name would be appreciated. Costume is based off of a very obscure 60s character for a minor comic book company who was called Magicman.

Currently, I am thinking along the lines of he was a soldier in Vietnam in the late 60s/early 70s and his squad was ambushed while on deep patrol and he wound up separated from any of his teammates, assuming any survived, and was on the run with the VC chasing him. He runs upon an old rundown strange looking temple in the jungle and went inside to hide. Hiding behind a statue, he found a hidden switch that opened up the back of the statue and he went inside it. That transported him ... elsewhere ... and he met a couple of mystical types who decided he might have what it took to become a new Warrior for the Light. He went through decades of training and travel to broaden his horizons, not aging a bit while doing this, until they felt he was ready to "return to Earth" and begin the fight. That travel also exposed him to the finer things in life as his master weren't ascetics. And that is pretty much as far as I have gone origin-wise. May change it after thinking over it for a day or so but input welcomed.


DEX: 6 STR: 6 BODY: 6
INT: 5 WILL: 6 MIND:5
INFL:9 AURA: 13 SPIRIT: 9
154 240 132 = 526

POWERS:
AIR CONTROL 10 20+144+10MYSTIC LINK=174
MAGIC BLAST 9 20+36=56
MAGIC SHIELD 6 10+30=40
MAGIC SENSE 8 5+10=15
285

Skills
Occultist 4 20+18=38 Subskills - ID object & Occult knowledge only
MILITARY SCIENCE MINUS ELECTRONIC COUNTER MEASURES 2 10+6=16
54

ADVANTAGES
CONNOISSEUR 5 PTS
INSTA-CHANGE 5 PTS
OMNI-CONNECTION 25 PTS
35
900 TOTAL

MOTIVATION – RESPONSIBILITY OF POWER

DRAWBACKS
SECRET ID
MINOR IRRATIONAL ATTRACTION – TO THE FINER THINGS
UNCERTAINTY

ORIGIN:

At 29 Strength Miss V is probably too powerful (can't remember what I specified but I think 25 was about right) but I'll run it through the character creator and do the skills as well.

Djinni (or whatever his name is) looks ok (costs to be confirmed) but wouldn't he be about 70 years old? Also getting to Birmingham in the West Midlands of England from Vietnam is an eyebrow raiser. How'd he get there? Otherwise his power levels look ok.

Like I say will run it through the character creator and see how we get on. I know you're pretty much bang on with costs generally so it's just the extra FC +5 to each skill that might change things some.

Wasn't planning on putting all the points Miss V gets into Strength; Body is kind of important too if she is going to take a hit and Dex would help with actually hitting somebody too.

And unknown heromageguy didn't age because of ... magic. And his mentors dropped him off where they thought he would do some good.

Not totally wedded to that origin idea as I said. Lot of mages' origins all come down to "received training in Tibet or the East" and not much more than that.

Then we have the Lady of the Lake gave you powers - which I think was the original origin to Marvel's Captain Britain character. Or the Dr. Strange origin which is actually just a variation of "received training in the ..." school of magic. Dr. Fate's parents with child along uncovered a tomb to the wizard Nabu who awoke, killing Kent's parents with a trap and raises Kent Nelson for ten years teaching him his magic - that was the original origin.

Have the wonky idea of the hero surfing through the Internet one weekend, bored out of his mind, and finding a website that will teach "Those who are truly able skills and things beyond normal imagization" and clicks on it for a laugh and it, for him, turns out to be true.

Another idea is he is an aide to fine arts/antique dealer, learning the trade, after getting out of the army, and opens a book of magic that actually taught him spells. Which explain his connoisseur advantage and his military science skill.

Gonna sleep on it tonight and see what I come up with.

Some questions about Miss Vita pill...

Do the pills work on anyone else?

When she takes a pill can she use Power Reserve to change stats whenever required or are they 'set' at the point of taking the pill? I think the second would be more interesting in a 'Dial H for hero' style thing where they dial and become a new hero. She could pop a pill and be smarter, or stronger, or decent overall, or faster, or different powers (for instance buy a whole range of different powers at zero APs and use power reserve to bring them up to 1+ APs and thus able to use them)



As for Captain Britain, his origin is a mess. Initially it sort of made sense. Merlin made him choose between the sword of might and amulet of might, and he transformed into a costume with enhanced stats and a pole to vault with. Yeah, at first he was crap, in other words. Then the quarterstaff change into a star sceptre with flight and a force field. Then the sceptre changed into an amplifier costume. Then that got shredded and the power was innate so long as he stayed near the British Isles. Then he was king of otherworld then I gave up trying to make sense of it as his sister (who was a far more popular character as Psylocke of the X men) became the current Captain Britain and I lost interest because it's a mess. Comics are rubbish these days.

ALSO: Rumours are that AT&T who own Warner Bros who own DC are going to wind up the comics division. CLLICKY

Supposedly even being bought out by Marvel. That could be absolutely awful or a fresh lease of life. Can't see it myself. Warner bros is sat on a number of Billion Dollar movies waiting to happen (usually with the word Batman involved) and they won't sell them to the House of Mouse I would have thought. But heck, what do I know. An amalgamated Marvel/DC universe would be the best reboot for an ailing comics industry that reboots or runs tedious events for months at a time in a desperate cash grab/need to attract readers.

I personally am burned out on Marvel movies and the whole car flipping running a lot mask falling off who needs a secret identity ruin decades of legacy character development change costumes to sell new versions of toys/games/toilet rolls/socks formula. What the world needs is a new sci fi epic that isn't sucky like Star Wars ended up being.

Miss V is the only one who can use the vita pills to their full affect, they are linked specifically to her DNA. Though if she ever has kids they probably could get some use out of it or other close members of her family.

The pills only affect Dex, Str, Body, Running, Jumping and Swimming. Round by round, if I read the power right, she determines where among those six abilities she will put her energy and how much into each up to the max points she has. We can always add another small limitation to her power pool that she cannot put all her points into one ability only, that way not going over the 20 or 23 max level you have set, whatever that level is. That might give enough points back to cover the now increased costs of skills and maybe a few points left over.

Sealed Systems and Charisma skill are activated by the pills but are at set levels that have nothing to do with the Power Pool. When not under the pills influence, she doesn't have the Charisma skill, just the Attractive advantage nor the sealed systems.

So when she has taken the vita pill she is not only Attractive but Charismatic too. Pretty much every super-heroine in comics is Attractive which makes it a redundant skill for them, unless they are designed to be scarred and ugly characters, which is very rare. So with the pill she is probably much like Wonder Woman in force of personality and looks. Without the pill just the looks but not the force of personality.

The Skin Armor and the human maxed out physical stats was due to the first part of her formula. Prior to that, she had pretty much normal fit though not overly athletic human stats. The vita pills are the second part of the formula that gives her all her other abilities.

And lets not even go on about Pyslocke, a nice British girl who is now Asian because of ... mind/soul transference?

Yeah I gave up on Marvel back when they had the Civil War. Watched most of the movies, not Captain Marvel or the last really bad Fantastic Four movies, and enjoyed them but not the comics.

Take a look. I actually based this on 1800HP with a multiplier of x4 for advantages and weaknesses so you come in under budget and thinking that is the way to go (so similar NPCs or new players in this ballpark will have 1800 instead of 2000HP). Suggest any tweaks/alterations and if you really must have those extra 200HP etc...



Costs in brackets.

other than Power Reserve is for physical stats and movement powers, not sure if that was the same in your version, it looks quite doable and nice. So we have a character and her outfit and her origin. Ready when you are.

Hero Name: Prof. Wynde Secret ID: Oliver Smith Wealth: Pretty good actually, thank you very much.

ORIGIN: After Oliver did a stint in the Army, he went to work for John Mannering, a wealthy globetrotting antiques/art dealer. He assists Mr. Mannering as needed as an aide, including some bodyguard work, and is in the process of becoming an antiques appraiser under Mannering's tutelage. Mannering's Antiques has three stores in the U.S. [New York, Houston, Hollywood], two in England, one in France, Germany, Italy, Holland and Israel.

This exposure has turned him into a connoisseur of the finer things in life and has given him numerous connections to all sorts of people of both high and low repute.

One day, they received a package containing a supposed Nuremberg egg, a 16th Century clock-watch, and Mannering had Oliver try his hand at appraising it and making sure it worked properly. Working late into the night, Oliver carefully opened up the Nuremberg egg to get a look at its inner workings. He was fascinated by the intricate gears and the inner scroll-work that appeared so different than the outer scroll-work.

What he didn't know was that a spell had been placed inside the clock-watch that placed a subconscious command in his brain. That command was that on his next day off, he would surf the Internet and click on a certain sketchy seeming link. His day off came and he did as commanded not knowing he was doing it under compulsion. It led to a "mystically" looking website that included a questionnaire, "What kind of Wizard are You?". Following the compulsion, he answered the questionnaire honsetly. Meanwhile, through the Internet, his "heart" was being examined magically. With the completion of the questionnaire, he was told he was primarily a wind wizard. Furthermore, if he wanted to know more, to go to a certain pub that day while wearing a solid colored tie so he could be recognized and he would be allowed to join "their august company".

He did so, under the declining magical compulsion and natural curiosity. There he met two people who told him that they were part of the Order of Preservers [OOP] and if he was interested in joining that he could actually be taught magic. He was about to refuse when the news came on about the attack on London. Horrified by what he was seeing and how so many good heroes were dying to save the country, he changed his mind and asked to join.

During his free time, he studied and practiced the magicks that they taught him and just about a year's time, he graduated and was made an OOPS Mage [Order of Preservers, Secondary Mage], the lowest level that allows the members to take on the job of a super-hero mage. He decided on the name Prof. Wynde as his hero name, and though still not quite sure of himself, has been an active hero for the past month or so.


DEX: 6 STR: 6 BODY: 6
INT: 5 WILL: 6 MIND:5
INFL:9 AURA: 13 SPIRIT: 9
154 240 132 = 526

POWERS:
AIR CONTROL 10 20+144+10MYSTIC LINK=174
MAGIC BLAST 9 20+36=56
MAGIC SHIELD 6 10+30=40
MAGIC SENSE 8 5+10=15
285

Skills
Occultist 4 20+18=38 Subskills - ID object & Occult knowledge only
MILITARY SCIENCE MINUS ELECTRONIC COUNTER MEASURES 2 10+6=16
54

ADVANTAGES
CONNOISSEUR 5 PTS
INSTA-CHANGE 5 PTS
OMNI-CONNECTION 25 PTS
35
900 TOTAL

MOTIVATION – RESPONSIBILITY OF POWER

DRAWBACKS
SECRET ID
MINOR IRRATIONAL ATTRACTION – TO THE FINER THINGS
UNCERTAINTY

I'll have a look at the other character over the weekend. A funeral combined with work did for me over the last couple of days so playing catch up.

Hope it wasn't a close family or friend funeral. And yeah ... work.

Funeral was friend of a friends son. I was asked to go along by the friend.. on motorbike. The weather helped (in between raining it started to sleet and snow) and said friend hardly had any of the right gear for going out in the cold so I ended up lending most of mine. Brrrr.

Anyway, it was a chaotic shambles with people turning up to wheelie down the road and make loads of noise. We were respectful, sensible and paid our respects before going in the opposite direction.

I'm just about caught up so will look at the characters and get you started with the new guy/gal. Had chance to tweak Miss Victory so this should be the final write up (unless you see something amiss):


(Miss Victory character sheet for future reference)

That looks good other than her Alter Ego's name is wrong. But no biggie there. Her alter ego is Dr. Veronica Chase but Vickie Valiant is one of the hero names she has gone by.

Righto, watch out for her appearance in LIONHEARTS adventure later on (it's 02.56 here and I need to hit the sack.).

Finished my afternoon shift stint, have one day off and on at 0200 for the rest of the week. I'm already eating humble pie as I promised a friend a few afternoon drinks in the local pub for a catch up tomorrow and I can't because of needing to be up at work for midnight. You guys might well remember when I drove Freight trains for a living and that was hard enough (12 hour shifts mostly nights) but this job (24 hr passenger service) flips between days and nights quite often in the same week. Makes getting any sleep... challenging, shall we say...

You guys might well remember when I drove Freight trains for a living and that was hard enough (12 hour shifts mostly nights) but this job (24 hr passenger service) flips between days and nights quite often in the same week. Makes getting any sleep... challenging, shall we say...


And I remember how happy you were to get this job because it would be so much easier on you.

Lol yeah, a definite case of 'be careful what you wish for'. Probably up to date by tomorrow. Have to hit sack shortly for a midnight alarm...

Don't forget, Professor Wynde is waiting ... breathlessly, to see if he passes mustard.
GAWD! I'm in such a mood today.

Yup will run Mr Wynde through the character creator later on. Had a bonkers day at work but home now and catching up over the course of the afternoon

Hmmm laundry took up too much time, sack time now. I did manage to run Prof Wynde through the character generator though...



A few points...

Aura 13 isn't doing anything. Sure it's his magic 'strength' but it doesn't do... anything really unless you link something to it.

Costs for skills were modified due to the +5FC to make skills more expensive (seeing as they are no longer useless) and advantages cost double for a 2 x 450HP character... but drawbacks are doubled too so it came out with 2HP left which I spent on Wealth.

I would suggest linking some of the powers, reducing aura to free up some points and maybe give a serious burnout to Magic Blast to drop FC to 1 to save more points. Or link it to the reduced aura so a) it's cheaper and b) you got more points for other stuff.

I'd suggest Aura to 10, link magic blast and shield as well as air control and maybe consider post and/or precognition as well as detective and possibly martial arts. He's superhuman strong but only a so so fist fighter. Maybe regeneration or some kind of gadget/totem to provide it, like a ring.

Or you can keep as is and boost the irrational attraction to give him points to buy wealth so he can actually afford the finer things instead of having to steal them cause he's skint all the time.

Well, I have Air Control mystic linked so that uses Aura instead of Int.  Magic Blast and Magic Shield uses Aura as well.  Magic Sense doesn't but that's no biggie.  Since I only had 900 or so points to make the character and limited to doing 10d max damage, he doesn't have everything just yet to make him a mighty magician.  Eventually going to Mystic Link Force Shield as well and get Air Animation one day.  Other powers and abilities are planned for the future if he ever gets used much after this adventure and those will also be MLed.

I sort of forgot about wealth.  Duh!  Need to get another drawback to cover that.

Let's add the Unluck Drawback to him giving me another 50 points to play with.  Raise his Wealth to 7 [16 points], which is about $150,000 a year in 1980s money.  Get Martial Arts at level 2 for future development, which is 25 base plus 10 for lvl 2, and that should leave me with 1 HP left to spend on something or keep for the start of the game.  Low level martial arts will also help fill out his previous military background.

How's that?

Mystic Link just changes the link attribute to Aura (from whatever it was) then you need to link to Aura to see any benefit (-2FC) The only downside is that linking to 13 Aura will be pretty expensive even with the FC reduction. I'll add the bits you add and fiddle with the Aura/links to show you what I mean.

Hmmm. After I change computers. This new one, while nice and laughing off games the other laptops chug at, is windows 10 and won't run an XP emulator like the old trusty/rusty laptop. Back in a minute or two...