Nite Raven

Working on an idea for an entry level hero, 500 HP, now called Nite Raven.  Originally, he was the boy sidekick of the hero team, Star-Nite and Dusty, the Stellar Boy.  They are sort of a Batman/Robin duo but with a Starman motif with superpowers for Star-Nite and barely there superpowers for Dusty, the Stellar Boy.  

Now, he's turned 18, gone off to college and decided its time for Dusty to retire and become his own hero, Nite Raven.

Very low level powers due to exposure to a device his older half-brother, Star-Nite, came up with allowing him to become Dusty the Stellar Boy, plus gadgets.  I've never used gadgets in this game as the rules confuse me.  so I am trying out the idea.

So many skills, advantages and gadgets to get that I'm having problems getting him below 1000 HP down to 500 HP.

He will have his Nite Raven suit which will be his starting gadget. I have no idea how to cost it out.

here's the odds and ends I've started working with. Obviously some things are going to have to be dropped or changed but it is my starting wish list:
Nite Raven

Dex 5 Str 5 Body 5   =76
int 5 will 5 mind 5   =76
infl 5 aura 5 spirit 5   =76
total 228

cling bc 10 fc 2
gliding bc 5 fc 2
glue bc 15 fc 4
jumping bc 10 fc 2
running bc 10 fc 2
sealed systems bc 5 fc 6
swimming bc 5 fc 2
systemic antidote bc 5 fc 5
analytic smell bc 10 fc 4
directional hearing bc 5 fc 3
extended hearing bc 5 fc 1
iron will bc 5 fc 3
microscopics vision bc 5 fc 1
mind blank bc 5 fc 5
mind over matter bc 15 fc 1
radar sense bc 5 fc 1
recall bc 5 fc 1
superhearing bc 5 fc 1
telescopic vision bc 5 fc 1
thermal vision bc 5 fc 1
truesight bc 5 fc 3
ultravision bc 10 fc 1
lvl 0 = 155

SKILLS
ACROBATICS bc 15 fc 7
charisma bc 20 fc 6
detective bc 10 fc 7
gadgetry bc 25 fc 8
matrial arts bc 25 fc 6
medicine bc 5 fc 6
scientist bc 10 fc 5
thief bc 10 fc 8
vehicles bc5 fc 5
lvl 0 = 55

ADVANTAGES
area know 20
high connection 15
Gadget varies
Genius 25
intensive training 20
iron nerves 20
lightning reflexes 20
rich family 15
scholar 10 each
sharp eye 15
lvl 0 = 160+
total 712 plus, more for gadgets for zero levels in everything.

Using the obscure Quality comics character Raven's outfit as costume idea. Elongating the tail feathers in the first pic so it goes down nearly to the ground.

The wings allow him to glide, not fly.  His arms hold onto the wings when he glides but are free the rest of the time.  I also would add a tail to the costume so when looking up at him gliding he has a raven tail feathers and could be mistaken for a giant raven in dim light or night time.  Hence his name Nite Raven, Nite not night because of homage to his mentor/older half-brother.




The headdress of the costume would not be opened like this but closed, which would also help disguise his voice.

His wings and tail would be black and his bodysuit would be blue/black. Or vice versa, not sure which would look better.

The powers of his Nite Raven suit would consist of:
cling bc 10 fc 2
gliding bc 5 fc 2
jumping bc 10 fc 2
running bc 10 fc 2
sealed systems bc 5 fc 6
swimming bc 5 fc 2
systemic antidote bc 5 fc 5
analytic smell bc 10 fc 4
directional hearing bc 5 fc 3
extended hearing bc 5 fc 1
microscopics vision bc 5 fc 1
radar sense bc 5 fc 1
superhearing bc 5 fc 1
telescopic vision bc 5 fc 1
thermal vision bc 5 fc 1
truesight bc 5 fc 3
ultravision bc 10 fc 1
armor ?  Might handle small caliber bullets but not much else. 1-3 pts maybe to start with?

I'm really trying to only have 1-3 points in each of these powers, most of those powers obviously coming from his headdress, probably just one point in each power.  The idea, since he is a street level hero, is to be tough enough to take on a couple of thieves or gang members but not much else.  After a few adventures until his belt and some HP earned, then he can upgrade them and become tough enough to fight Grade C & D level Batman-type villains, like Calendar Man, Kite-Man, Cat-Man [before they decided his suit gave him supernatural powers] - just costumed villains with a theme and a couple of henchmen.  After a lot more HP, he can start taking on A-list type Batman villains and even low super-powered types as well.  And after ten years or so of playing him, he would be taking on mid to high range superfoes.  I'm looking at this in the long run and hoping we are still playing in 10 years.    

He also has a small assortment of gadgets, his Nite Eggs, again very weak and almost or totally useless, probably at 1 point level, until he gets more HP but needs to start with them because it costs so much to get them after the adventures start.  Things like his Glue Egg, his Smoke Egg, his Sleep Gas Egg, his Flare Egg, and maybe one or two more.  Or do the gadget rules allow them to be developed later at a lower cost than normal?  Again, don't understand the rules.

And yeah, male ravens don't lay eggs.  He will just tell folks Mrs. Nite Raven "lays" them for him.      

He, like his brother, is an inventive genius.  And while not as rich as his brother since he is basically living on a stipend his rich father gives him and the extra money his half-brother Star-Nite gives him so he can develop and make his own gadgets, he is still a rich boy.

I'm also toying with the idea that he has 1 point of each of those powers on his own, part of the stellar energy device his brother came up with to give himself powers.  Dusty only got a small dose of the devise because:
A. He found his brother's lair and toyed around with the device not knowing what it did
B.  Got such a small dose of stellar energy, luckily, that it didn't turn him into a mutated monster.
C. His power should grow over time as he exits puberty and gains a complete "adult" body.

So, as usual, the main hero has lots of powers and the sidekick has either very weak versions of the powers or just some fighting skills.  I went with the very weak version with fighting skills idea.  His weak versions of powers don't totally match up with his brother's.  His brother's are more like the golden age Starman's Gravity Rod, except that they are actual powers not derived from a gimmick - Flare, Heat, Light, Gravity Control, vision powers and about Spider-Man level physical stats.

Star-Nite's outfit would be a combination of Starboy's from the LSH when they were older and the Starman cape, cowl with fin [love fins on cowls!] but add a mask and a somewhat larger star on the field of stars that his outfit is made to look like.  So a combo of these two outfits.

Star-Nite might be a mid-level hero, maybe higher but not one of the major heroes.  He and Dusty operated out of a large city in Britain that wasn't London and that wasn't attacked by monsters a year ago.  They would have died if they had been there.

Dusty, the Stellar Boy would look like Starboy's first outfit but made into a short pants version with mask added.  Also short Robin-like cape instead of long one.  Any wonder he changed his outfit and name when he decided to go solo?      

SKILLS

Maybe starting around lvl 2-3 in the following skills? that ought to be good enough to handle street crime in the beginning. The other skills would be lvl 1, probably.

His martial arts would be his main attack at the beginning and maybe his primary attack his whole career with his gadgets just helping out, like Batman.


ACROBATICS bc 15 fc 7
detective bc 10 fc 7
gadgetry bc 25 fc 8
martial arts bc 25 fc 6
scientist bc 10 fc 5
thief bc 10 fc 8
vehicles bc5 fc 5

Not sure how high to make scientist and gadgetry but high enough he can make these low level gadgets. We could always say Star-Nite helped out with the building of the Nite Raven supersuit so maybe he wouldn't need high scores at the start in those.

Thinking about buying him a motorcycle to get around in, hence his vehicle skills, plus Star-nite, like Batman, eventually acquired a number of vehicles, like the Star Boat, the Star Rocket, the Star Cycle with sidecar for Dusty to ride in - just like in the 60s Batman TV show. Star-Nite might not have flight as a power or might not have started with it and got it later or built flight and gliding into his costume. Not really sure and it is background info only, if he doesn't appear much in the adventures.

Advantages - probably can't get them all.

area know 20 - London? Or the city he originally operated out of. Not sure which city his adventures would happen in but would prefer he left his hometown to go away to college. Or have two AEs, one for his hometown and one for his new hometown.
high connection 15 - Star-Nite
Gadget varies
Genius 25
rich family 15

scholar 10 each - detective and thief, something else maybe

From years of being a kid sidekick and learning from Star-Nite. Again, may not be able to afford all of these or any of these.
sharp eye 15
intensive training 20
iron nerves 20
lightning reflexes 20

So if anyone gets bored and wants to help out with trying to make a 500 HP character with this, please do so and lets see what we can do.

Crikey you have been busy!

I'll take a look. The 5/5/5 suggests a 450HP starting character but all those skills suggest Intensive training would be a good thing indeed. However IT also keeps the character strictly in the street level category as the costs are crazy to get higher than 8 APs.

My gut says this is a 900HP character as a minimum. Unpowered characters in the DC Heroes game are expensive because of the skills. Skills as written in the game are pretty hopeless (to my mind) and not that useful if you save costs by linking them (what's the point of substituting Skills APs for the link attribute when they are the same? At best all it does is remove a -2CS unskilled penalty. Expensive and of not much use, hence why I changed the way skills work.)

The gadget is easy enough. The costume can hold all of those which divides costs by half. If it was something that could be taken away in combat (trick shot or otherwise) it drops costs to 1/4 if I recall correctly (it's been decades since I read the gadget rules, and they are hopeless at making a fork if I recall.).

Worked on 900Hp (x2 multiplier) base.



The suit is the biggest cost (328) and skills are at 2 because a) cheaper and b) FOR THE TIME BEING they give two dice to roll extra. That will change when I sit down to scratch my head and figure out what they should really cost. I was putting a +5FC on everything skilled but it needs more costing up on that as some skills are very weak and unused for the most part other than to take up character sheet space while acrobatics/martial arts get used by everyone all the time. Gadgetry we haven't used in the 6 years or so we have run this game (using DC Rules) I don't think, or if so, maybe once or twice.

Haven't added wealth, didn't bother with Intensive training because linking skills gets really expensive when it's time to improve because you need to improve the whole lot. If you have four Dex skills and boost Dex by 1 point that's Dex plus four skills you need HP for, as I'm sure you know.

Other Advantages (scholar, high level connection) I didn't add as this is more of a 'year one' type character. I would expect him to have Mistrust (50x2HP) and get hunted by the cops and pay that off, much like Batman had in his first year. That would sort out the minus costs and give HP for Wealth.

The problem for a 900HP character is that with AV5/EV5/RV8 he's strictly street level fodder (against guys with 2-4) and low level villains (probably 300-450HP. Easy enough to one shot Superman with a 450HP character in this game and Magic Blast so it's not a stretch to come up with a challenge.). I'd envision him as a beginning Captain Britain level character. He was a reasonable fighter, 4APs strength, had a telescopic pole to vault with and insta change plus some Acrobatics prowess. Honestly he was hopeless and got pummelled by ordinary goons, guys with robot birds and all sorts of other F Grade losers in his earliest issues. That was part of the charm. He didn't spring fully formed and got battered along the way before his upgrades (first to a star sceptre which ramped power up considerably, then to an amplifier costume then to a hulking Hercules/Wonder Man/Thor type strength level and a standard flying brick, losing any goodwill and charm I'd had for him over the years).

With regards the suit you are familiar with Power Reserve and it seems logical that he has to assign power from the suit to each ability as/when. The suit has a reliability of zero. It just works. Costs can be chopped further by making a reliability score higher meaning a roll of that number or lower when using that ability has it conked out until repaired in the workshop. Add +1 to every Reliability Number as we use D12s.

With a multiplier of x2 advantages are doubled too as you can see... can't make an omelette without breaking eggs etc...

Yeah, I couldn't sleep and had the idea in the back of my head for awhile now so thought I would put my thoughts down.

I think we have stumbled across the biggest problem with the DC rules, skilled characters are harder to make than powered characters. If it wasn't so expensive to get new skills, gadgets or powers later in the game, it wouldn't be so big a problem. It's why I tried to make him with 0 levels in skills and gadgets so it would be cheaper to grow in the long run and why I tried to make him street level to start. Your Captain Britain example is what I was going for. He should be able to handle 2, maybe 3, street level run of the mill not in great shape punks but nothing tougher until he gets much more HP to raise all his gadgets and stuff

And he is meant to be just a street level character that has the potential after years of play of being an effective high level character.

There was something in the gadget rules about being able to buy actual gadgets that exist in the real world instead of buying with HP which is supposed to make it cheaper. That also meant you had to be rich to buy them. It's why I've avoided gadgets all this time. Confusing rules to me.

I like the idea of kid sidekick grows up and goes off on his own. I like the costume idea. But I guess him being a Robin-type who has become a Nightwing-type character isn't really possible for a beginning 500 pt character. I haven't costed the Jason Todd/Robin from the Background Roster Book but at a glance that 13 year old sidekick is way above 500 HP, primarily due to his stats.

Even if we dropped some of the skills from the suit, it wouldn't seem to work. Glue, Mind over Matter, Iron Will, Mind Blank and Recall could be dropped.

The other powers basically duplicate equipment that exists in the real world - directional mics, night vision goggles, bomb sniffing equipment, etc. That's what I was trying to set up. Hadn't thought about Power Reserve but that makes more sense, powering up what he needs when he needs it rather than on all the time. Though we could drop it down to a 3 or 4 reserve instead of 8. He can build it higher later.

Glue would be separate power, basically glue bombs, his Raven Eggs I mentioned. Flash Eggs, Smoke Eggs, Tear Gas Eggs, Sleep Gas Eggs. All at level 0 and useless until later in the game when they get built up

Also had the idea of him having barely there superpowers and the suit augmented them. So he would have power level of 1 in Glide, Jumping, Running, Swimming, and the various supersenses listed in the suit. Or is it maybe possible to buy them at level 0 and build up from there in the game?

Would have to drop most of the Advantages and only keep:

high connection - Star-Nite
Gadget varies
Genius
rich family

So yeah, I was trying to build him with lots of 0 level powers, skills and gadgets and then surviving taking on street punks to becoming a highly effective hero years later. Your Captain Britain example.

Taking all those changes into account, how much would we have to chop up to make him a 500 HP character? Also drop all skills except martial arts to 1.

Probably need to drop most skills except M Arts and Acrobatics, probably Thief as well. 5 across the board when he's street level is probably extravagant too. Some kind of weapon might help with that (nunchuks etc)

You can buy stuff at zero and boost later. Very expensive but one way of doing it with a kind of 'placeholder'.

Some of the stuff you mention are omni gadgets. Figure out what you want to do, assign APs and use for a one off then buy more between adventures.



Rejigged. Weaker across the board but low stats are easier to boost up to 8APs during play then get more expensive.

I would drop Area Knowledge after thinking about it as he is moving to the big city to go to college and wouldn't know the area that well.

Also also, would you have to buy the BC of a power twice if you wanted it both as a superpower and as a gadget that adds to your superpower?  So except for Body and Sealed Systems from the suit, he would have all those other powers at lvl 0 with potential future growth.

It really is hard to make a well rounded skilled character in the game system, ain't it?  Well, starting with only 500 HP it is.  Even at 0 lvls it is too costly.  You cold buy the stats at the recommended levels for heroes [which is 3-5 for most of them], get the advantages you need for your background and maybe have enough points to buy 2-3 points of martial arts and not much else.

Maybe rework the costs of Advantages and Skills?  Combat oriented ones might cost more and non-combat oriented ones would be cheaper?  Or non-combat oriented ones could be bought at regular price later in the game and not the 5xs cost they are now?

Guess Nite Raven goes into my bin of characters that don't quite work out, like The Invisible Fist.  

Invisible Fist is martial arts hero whose arms turn invisible so he gets extra bonuses to attack and defend since you can't see where they are.  Also has many of the standard ninja/martial artist powers seen in anime and martial arts movies like Clinging, Running, Jumping, creating smoke so you don't see them jump away, etc.+

Then there was Kamehameha!  The martial artist with low level superspeed and an energy attack of some kind.  Now I might be able to make him at 500 pts.  Yeah, thanks to Covid, I have actually watched the entire run of Dragonball, the original series and have just started watching the follow up show Dragonball Z.  

Skills are expensive and as written nowhere near worth it. Intensive training and linking was the way round that but rules as written (RAW) linked skills don't do much.

A way round it might be to imbue a gadget (artefact) that can be taken away in combat like a medallion. The gadget would have attributes that substitute for the users own in a dial H for hero style. Start with a base of 2 across the board for a standard (can be anyone) character and build the gadget (can be taken away in combat) for about 370HP or thereabouts. Then at the end of the adventure the medallion somehow gets loft, left behind, the chain breaks loose etc and it reappears in a new place where its power is needed most, A team style...