The Vanguard! Lionheart

Lionheart merits his own character sheet thread seeing as he's been with the Vanguard for a while now (since the nazis won the war in the future and he went back in time with the Vanguard to help save the future/stop Saladin)



As usual, if it takes too long to load, shows up too big, any of that stuff, holler!

There has been quite a lot of tweaking and house ruling to cover the evolution of this character. It started out as mine many moons ago in the Exec game but has been run (and should be considered owned by) by Dave E for a long time now. This is Lionhearts 'evolution' form. It came about from melding with his greatest enemy so is effectively two characters in one. It's a class 4 metahuman character (the Vanguard start out as Class 3, but with the Dark power they dwarf even Class 5s. Current 1940s Vanguard are class 2, Lore Knights are class 3, for comparison). Whilst the Vanguard will eventually get more and more powerful and surpass anything in the game (maybe... we haven't met the devourer yet!) for now Lionheart is the most powerful superhuman in the World War II era of planet Earths history. It makes him target number one for the Nazis mysterious allies from the future, the ones who kicked off all this time changing mess!



When Golden Lion is being used, use the previously posted stats for Lionheart, whilst Golden Lion has 3 frames, no PSI powers and the same stats, with damage coming from Lionheart himself. If he goes down, Golden Lion disappears as well. When not using Golden Lion, the stats are as above. Bigger, faster, stronger, meaner, more versatile and out and out more powerful, Lionheart has evolved into the ultimate super soldier, and his former masters in the PSI corps would like nothing more than to clone him to create an army of warriors like him!

Lionhearts new(?) look in this current campaign, reflecting the military status and clothing of the time.



Sj

Watch this space. I'll be tidying up the character with a new rewrite and layout as the rules are a bit all over the shop with what Lionheart can and can't do. He's a class 4 super on the upper range. He might lose some abilities, but his tweaks will more than make up for it (they need to if he's to stand side by side with the other Vanguardians). If I get chance I will cook up 'Vanguard' system stats too, for comparison.

Ok looks fine, I was going to say using the Simulacrum looks to 'use up' a lot of powers, but I guess I can see how having too of me is more powerful. Although in truth I don't think its a balance issue and doesn't need to be depowered quiet as much. Having said that now he is effectively 'on his own' without Saladin, I can see why story wise this might be the case. So I'll accept it, but I guess I'll be less likely to use the other me, since it depowers me so much more - however we shall see.

Anyway looks fine, I look forward to the new improved character sheet/write up soon.

Sj

Hyper Kinesis

This is a special power created for the Lionheart character. It was done to break free of the limits of the existing (street level) Golden Heroes mechanics for a character with a long history (started off in the Exec game then made the switch over to here) who has been through several evolutions. It was balanced by taking away a number of Lionhearts pre-existing abilities. He can be more powerful than before, but he has to balance which abilities to use and at what power level to use them at. In addition a number of the abilities are harmful for Lionheart to use, and so for every power he has gained, a weakness has been added in some way. The benefits outweigh the weaknesses though the player should remain on his toes - being caught in a situation with the wrong power might be harmful to Lionhearts' health!

It works by the player (Dave E) allocating points from a pool of 15 into various powers and abilities. Once spent, those powers remain in that power slot until cancelled. It takes 1 actions to allocate powers but no time to cancel powers and take the points back into the pool.

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The ultimate expression of psychic/telekinetic ability, available only to characters with 18 ego or more, and PSI powers of grade 4 or more (which Lionheart had). The user can affect a greater range of distance and weight with telekinesis, manipulate their own body and bio electrical energies, and 'boost' their abilities by mental power alone amongst other abilities.

The power (at grade 1) grants 15 energy points. The character can divide those points up as they see fit (for 1 action to reassign points) so Lionheart could have:

15 points in flight and nothing else
3 points in Flight, Force Field, Strength and Speed, with 3 left over.

Or any other combination.

A grade 1 power costs 1 point. Grade 2 costs 3 points. Grade 3 costs 6 points and grade 4 10 points. Grade 5 costs all 15 points.

The powers to choose from are:

• Hyper Strength
  The character can boost their strength score by +20 for grade 1 and +12 for each additional grade. His damage dividers do NOT increase but his push back, damage bonus and lifting ability does.
  
  
• Hyper Speed
  The character boosts his speed, and can split frames as Speed allows. However, his DC (Defence Class) drops by 2 points (in other words, improves) per grade. It can even become a negative figure, making it much harder to strike him in combat! His dodge modifier is +2 per grade of Hyper Speed (slightly worse for grade 1 but better as higher grades increase). The characters' base speed is increased by the characters' ego score in m/frame and allowing the character to accelerate up to a higher maximum speed. Every additional grade is double of the previous ones acceleration rate and top speed. With a quick bit of calculation, that means Lionhearts speed (maximum at each grade) becomes: Grade 1 (accelerate at 24m/ frame up to 104m/frame), Grade 2 (48m/frame up to 208m/frame), Grade 3 (96m/ frame up to 416m/frame), Grade 4 (192m/frame up to 832m/frame), Grade 5 (384m/frame up to 1664m/frame). Grade 2 breaks the sound barrier (185m/frame), so Grade 5 would be mach 8. This presents other problems (mainly that if he runs into anything, he disintegrates!) Lionheart can use the speed to enhance his hand to hand damage by punching hundreds of times per second. Multiply the damage inflicted by the +1 per 2 grades of hyper speed, but he suffers a quarter of any damage he inflicts to his hands (with no dividers). It's a two edged sword, but with a potential to cause huge amounts of damage!
  
  
• Hyper Field (Force Field)
  
  Using telekinetic energy Lionheart can form a protective field around himself. Every grade reduces HTK first then any remainder reduces Htc of a value equal to his Ego. At grade 1, he can attack through his field. At higher grades it becomes non porous giving him an hour of air in a perfect 1" bubble around his body and protecting him from the elements. With grade 2 or higher he can survive in vacuum. At the cost of 2 Hyperkinesis points he can make his force field into a dome protecting as Grade 1 at up to 5m height and 10m diameter and thus can protect others. The cost for grade 2 is 6 points, grade 3 is 12 points.
  
  
• Hyper Flight
  
  Lionheart can use this to fly. At grade 1 he accelerates at Ego x2m (so 36m/frame) speed per frame up to 185m/frame (mach 1). At grade 2 he accelerates at double that rate (72m/frame up to 370m/frame), Grade 3 doubles again (144m/frame up to 740m/frame), Grade 4 again (288m/frame up to 1480m/frame) whilst Grade 5 he accelerates at 576m/frame with no upper limit. At that speed it would be difficult to react to objects. He can easily achieve escape velocity with just a few rounds at that speed and if able to protect himself from vacuum/breathe could use Grade 5 to (eventually) achieve inter-solar system flight (I'd have to work it out. It takes a while to get up to speed but certainly hundreds of thousands of miles in an hour). Hitting something at high speed doesn't bear thinking about, but as a guide it would inflict damage of 1 per 2m/frame speed to both him and the object he strikes (reduced by dividers). It would be painful. *Pfff!* In a red mist kind of way.
  
  
• Hyper PSI powers (each has only 1 grade so to have all powers active costs 4 points or buy each power for 1 point each)
  
  These are mostly unchanged, save for effect:
  
  1) Telekinesis can project whatever Lionhearts strength score is, reduced by 1 point per metre between him and the target object. He could grapple a target at 20m range with -20 to his strength vs the strength score of the target, for example. Strangely, whatever is lifted telekinetically is held in a field, and will not collapse under its own weight. The problem with that is fine control is lessened until Lionheart relearns how to control his new telekinetic strength. Because he only has 15 Hyper-K points to spend, 1 point on this would leave his maximum strength grade of 4 (a strength of 70) which he can project with telekinesis, so at 20m he would have 50 strength.
  2) PSI blast no longer relies on energy points as per normal PSI powers. He can blast per action and whilst the effect is painful to him (it costs 1d10 htc or htk - his choice per damage multiplier) there is effectively not much in the way of a limit. To attack with his PSI blast he makes a check of ego (18) +2d10 vs targets ego +2d10 +1 per 2m of range (no upper limit). Damage is the difference between the two scores, multiplied by a damage multiplied. Each damage multiplier costs 1d10 htc or htk from Lionheart, starting at x1 (so it costs him 1d10 htk or htc to use the power. x5 would cost 5d10). There's no maximum range and the maximum multiplier relies on how much health Lionheart is prepared to lose (in d10s). Damage inflicted is whatever health type (htk or htc) Lionheart himself lost. He could (with a poor roll) lose more than he inflicts with this against a strong willed foe...
  3) Telepathy allows Lionheart to send and receive thoughts with a willing recipient over distance. Non willing recipients requires an ego vs ego check. It costs 1d10 health (htc or htk, players choice) to project thoughts to line of sight range. It costs a further 1d10 to project within 1 mile regardless of whether he can see target (if he knows roughly where the target is. He is effectively shouting someones' name, though only the target and other psychics can hear it). Another d10 extends the range to 10 miles, and another to 100miles. Each extra d10 health Lionheart pays multiplies the range by 10 and he can maintain the contact for as long as he wants. He can also see through a willing targets senses by sending his own body into a trance (ego check to use on unwilling) and cannot perform physical actions whilst doing this.
  4) Telempathy allows Lionheart to sense emotions and influence them. Range is line of sight. The emotion range is : Love==Loyal==Friendly==Neutral==Angry==Hostile==Berserk. To move a target along the scale costs 1d10 health per slot move (htk or htc players choice) and an ego vs ego check. e.g. to make a neutral person love him is 3 steps and costs 3d10 health. The effect lasts for the number of rounds that his ego check score exceeded the targets. e.g. he charms a female guard and gets a result of 30 whereas hers is only 14. For 16 rounds she falls in love with him. When it wears off, she might not be too happy... This usually doesn't work on PCs (no one likes having their character controlled!)

When the player (Dave E) allocates Hyper-K points it should be like:

6 pts Strength grd 3
6 pts flight grd 3
1 point each on Telekinesis, PSI Blast and Hyper Field (18htk), all grade 1
Remaining points 0/15

And the abilities will stay like that until changed.

Background:
Sent from the future to track down the renegade PSI Corps operative known as Saladin, much has happened to Richard King! Time changed, and his history with the Executive superhero group vanished, with Lionheart becoming a key figure in the fight against the Nazis who won world war II! He went back in time with the heroes known as the Vanguard and finally stopped Saladin, only to find that Saladin had been set up to take a fall by Damon Trowers, head of the PSI Corps training program in the future Lionheart came from. Trowers and Claude Bentham , a genius with genetics and computers, came back in time to help the Nazis win world war II and set up the thousand year reich, with themselves at the head! Lionheart became embroiled in the battle against his former bosses, and in the process, Saladin, now an uneasy ally, appeared to die. Instead Saladin, one of the 1st generation of PSI corps, joined mind to mind with Lionheart, one of the 2nd generation, and together they became the ultimate evolution of PSI Corps agent, and the most powerful single (Non Dark Power) metahuman on Earth! Saladin wanted it all though, and took over Kings mind! Eventually the two were separated but things had changed forever. Lionheart lost many of his abilities but his mind was expanded far beyond its original remit and his new powers made up for his loss! What became of Saladin is unresolved at this time - he was reborn into a new clone body grown using an Alien (Skrall) spacecraft with the help of a cloned PSI agent, Guillotine. Lionheart is the only metahuman thus far who can stand alongside the Vanguardians as a near equal, but even his power pales when faced with their dark might! His own goals are to set time straight and bring Trowers, Bentham, and whoever else he discovers behind the time change plot to justice! He is... LIONHEART!

(That's his background in case your microscope is on the blink)