Natural d20 Press's supers book (Sample Characters)

[RangerWickett]

Still waiting for stats on Iron Man. And how would 4CtF cover things like the Hulkbuster armor? Would you need to stat out two sets of super powers for two different suits of the Iron Man armor?

The rules for gadgets allow you to swap your gadgets with a little bit of time. So if you have a missile launcher, and you'd rather have a tractor beam, take some time, and through buying and selling, or construction, or prayer, or whatever, you'll end up with the new gadget. Stark would probably have the Gadgeteer prestige class, which gives you great benefits for customizing, combining, and repairing your gadgets.

The main thing to keep in mind is that the rules are there to balance gameplay and keep things moving and fun for everyone. If you have 10 different suits of Iron Man armor back home, it probably won't affect balance in the middle of a fight. Much the same way that a wizard has tons of spells available in his spellbooks, the balancing factor is mostly in how few he can cast at any one time. So the modularity of gadgets is one of the aspects built into the rules.

At any given time, Iron Man might have 120 Hero Points worth of gadgets, and he'd probably have a few standards, like Heightened Defenses (armor), Enhanced Vision (darkvision), Super Strength, and Invulnerability. Then the rest of the gadgets he has at a time really depends on what mood Tony's in. If he knows he has to fight the Hulk tomorrow, he'll be able to set up his suit with the gadgets for Hulk-fighting. I'll admit, though, that I'm not quite sure what the Hulkbuster armor is.

If you look at the sample gadgeteer in the book (Cog, kind of a steam-age villainous Tony Stark), you'll see that he only has 3 consistent powers. The rest all depend on what gadgets he brings with him, or what he can make in a rush. Now, this kinda goes against the standard conception of levels in d20. Obviously, there's no Gadgeteer Bureau that says "When you level up, you can bring two more gadgets with you at a time." Rather, the rules are there to help GMs balance their games, and sometimes they require the GM and player to understand that, for the sake of balance, the PC isn't allowed to have a ultra death ray and a teleportation cannon, even if he has both of them back at his lair.

So, as long as Tony Stark's player isn't trying to be a munchkin, he'll only bring along one suit of armor at a time, and won't try to add too many weapons onto his armor until he levels up.

 

[Morrus]

However I don't personally think that Supes should have a +30 BAb. Supes is fast and strong but I'd actually rate his 'fighting ability' and in fact his AC to be quite low (Supes doesn't need AC he has maxed out DR)

I agree. That's exactly why I made the early decision to keep regular classes (i.e. fighting ability, magical ability etc. etc.) completely separate from the superpowers. Without a load of fighter levels too, Superman will never be a good fighter (although his strength and speed do offset his lack of skill quite considerably!)

 

[drowdude]

Werd up!

Just got 4CTF!

I must say that upon my initial inspection the book appears to rock. But I will reserve final judgement after I am able to print it out and spend some time with it making characters



As far as superman goes, he *really* shouldnt be all that extraordinary when it comes to actual fighting skillz. I think this even came up in an Wizard top 10 of the most powerful superheroes... the top 2 were...

3. Supeman, the MAN of Steel
2. Thor, GOD of Thunder
1. Silver Surfer, Weilder of the Power Cosmic

They attributed Thor's victory over Supes to his *VAST* combat skill, honed over thousands of years. Then of course Surfer rules all

Let's see you break down the Silver Surfer, that would be a highly entertaining example

 

[kingpaul]

Re: Werd up!

Let's see you break down the Silver Surfer, that would be a highly entertaining example

Yikes! That would be a challenge methinks.

 

[333 Dave]

The Hulkbuster armor is the version of the armor Tony uses when he knows he's going to go up against the Hulk or a similar brute. Its bigger, slower, more protective and more powerful. I'm not sure if it can even fly, I've never seen him fly in the Hulkbuster armor.... but anyhow, yeah, he has bunches of different specialty suits, like an underwater one (though his regular suit can go under water, the specialty one is really good at it) a space suit, the hulkbuster armor, and others. The cartoon (which was kinda goofy) had a huge room with what looked like hundreds of different ironman suits for different occasions.

What about the remote control Iron Man robot Tony has? It has slower response time (because Tony's not right there and has to controll it remotely), but Tony himself is free from danger. Not that he doesn't get himself in a lot of trouble anyway...

 

[Psychotic Dreamer]

Plus he keeps all of his older ones around also.

 

[RangerWickett]

For Silver Surfer you don't need our book. You need Deities and Demigods. Really, even Thor and Supes are kinda pushing the boundary. We didn't have the Epic Level Handbook while writing this (and couldn't have used it if we had), so we just had to kinda guess at whether a 50th level Fighter is balanced against a 50th level Hero. To cover everything the surfer can do, though . . . yeah, let's not start that.

But as for combat experience, a 50th level Supes would still have a +25 base attack bonus from level alone. He's heroic, and he's high-level, so the force of RPG narrative makes him good at fighting. But not as good as, say, Thor, who might be a 20th/20th/10th Fighter/Hero/Barbarian.

For Iron Man, I see a few ways you could handle his extra suits being remote controllable. It depends on whether he can also fight while the other suit does it too, or if he has to devote most of his attention to the remote control. If both can fight, you could just stat up the extra suit as an all-Hero Cohort. If only one can fight, . . . we don't really have a power to let you fight at a distance like that. As long as the character doesn't do it too often, it shouldn't really be a problem, and you could just let him control the suit from a distance without having to acquire a separate power. I mean, if the suit is destroyed, he's not able to keep helping the party, so he's as good as dead. If you're not the type of GM who likes to kill his PCs too often, then it shouldn't affect balance. Although, the other PCs might call him a coward.

But if you just want him to have different suits, then yeah, all he really needs is to use his Hero Points to acquire gadgets, which he can switch around as he wishes, as long as he has a few hours to tinker.

 

[Morrus]

If only one can fight, . . . we don't really have a power to let you fight at a distance like that.

Clairtangent weapons. After all, effect-wise, what's the difference? In melee combat he's using some clairtangent metal bludgeoning weapons, for example.

That may be a clumsy way to do it, though.