Superheroes of The Trust OOC Thread (Accepting Alts)

James Heard said:
Is hitting your caps such a necessary thing though? I mean, if that's the case then why call them caps? It seems to me that they'd just be the first thing you'd buy and then trade off as needed, which seems a pretty silly way to do things?

Still, if we're going with the notion that Spirit's 14 impervious toughness means she's somehow a weak combatant I'd rather scavenge points from that since it's so useless in actual play rather than pull points from things that are thematically appropriate and/or cheap enough to make me wonder about the wisdom of revision?

Yes, hitting or coming close to caps is generally necessary (and expected- note that the 2e archetypes all hit their caps or come close to it) unless you have other powers that specifically make up for not hitting caps.

It isn't that 14 Impervious Toughness means she's weak. It's that 14 Impervious Toughness plus +0 to Defense means that she's weak (particularly because Power Attack is so common). If you want to scavenge points, 14 Toughness (not Impervious) and +7 base defense would probably make her an all-around stronger character (but she'd be much more vulnerable to minions). On the other hand, you're a Paragon-type: if anyone should have Impervious Toughness it should be you.
 

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Elric said:
Yes, hitting or coming close to caps is generally necessary (and expected- note that the 2e archetypes all hit their caps or come close to it) unless you have other powers that specifically make up for not hitting caps.

It isn't that 14 Impervious Toughness means she's weak. It's that 14 Impervious Toughness plus +0 to Defense means that she's weak (particularly because Power Attack is so common). If you want to scavenge points, 14 Toughness (not Impervious) and +7 base defense would probably make her an all-around stronger character (but she'd be much more vulnerable to minions). On the other hand, you're a Paragon-type: if anyone should have Impervious Toughness it should be you.

I might do that then, and ditch the Immunity to electricity and some points from her Fort save to knock her all the way to +10 Defense. She's to Paragons like Martian Manhunter* is to Superman - she's got similar powers to some degree, but she's got a heck of a spin.


*Without being green. Green's my favorite color, but I think once you go Green in comics you're setting yourself up to partner with dudes with bows and power rings.
 

James Heard said:
I might do that then, and ditch the Immunity to electricity and some points from her Fort save to knock her all the way to +10 Defense.

You currently have +14 Toughness, though, so you can't get above +8 to Defense. Note that if you didn't have Impervious then Immunity to electricity would be more valuable than it is right now. You could also compromise at something like Half damage from Electricity for 2.5 pp.
 

Hmm. And here I am wondering how Shooting Star will stack up with a defense shift (which can lead to glass ninja problems, as Elric mentions), lowish base damage and no Power Attack (she can't hurt Spirit and similarly impervious characters even when using Extra Effort for +2 damage).

I'll readily admit that she could be incredibly dangerous in good conditions. The ability to do high speed flying move bys (forcing most opponents to use Readied actions to attack), then launch indirect attacks from cover (negating most readies) and finally, have triggered powers waiting when they attempt to storm her supposed position (then stir and repeat) might be able to confound some teams if things go according to her plan. All she has to forfeit the chance to protect innocents, injured allies, etc - her best strategy for winning is generally the worst for superheroing

Generally, a character's combat caps are what determine their effective PL. With zero dodging ability, pretty much anything can hit Spirit - she operately at an effectively weaker overall defense. Of course, with pretty good saves and 14 Impervious Toughness, getting hit is not generally that bad, normally. But her defense is so low that even people throwing everything into Power Attack will still hit, and that greatly reduces the effectiveness of her impervious toughness.

However, it's not going to be the end of the world if you have 10 defense. It might take new opponents a bit to figure out exactly how big a target she is and thus what their Power Attacks should be (and they might not have it, which reduces their ability to take advantage). You can change up your defenses with Concealment or Insubstancial as a counter to full Power Attacks. You could use Morph to pretent to have another character's defenses. If she takes a bad hit, Spirit can suck on a power line to restore herself. I get the impression she hasn't been Spirit long - that she just developed the powers and fought the assassin (not sure if that's what you meant). It might come as a total surprise to Jessica that she actually can be hurt, that dodging might be helpful.

Given her defensive options, high impervious, and decent saves, Spirit can probably avoid incapacitation about as well as other characters despite a low defense score. Just remember to use those defensive options to throw off your attackers - those points in APs could easily be Luck or Dodge Focus if you don't use them regularly (in that respect, Shooting Star's corrosion cone is probably a waste, but I think it helps establish the dangerousness of her powers).
 

Elric said:
You currently have +14 Toughness, though, so you can't get above +8 to Defense. Note that if you didn't have Impervious then Immunity to electricity would be more valuable than it is right now. You could also compromise at something like Half damage from Electricity for 2.5 pp.

OK, here's what I think I'm doing then:
I drop 4 feats: The Blast specialization, Connected, Skill Mastery, and Interpose. Those all might be fun options, but technically I suppose she can do without them.

Drop 7 points in saves. That's knocking her Fortitude down to her Con mod and messing with her Will save, but I suppose it can't be helped.

Dropped the Immunity to Electricity for 5 points.

Add 8 points of Defense, keep the Impervious Toughness.

Her final saves are +10/+6/+6, which gives her two low saves but nothing so low as to be lower than anyone else's low saves.
 
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James Heard said:
OK, here's what I think I'm doing then:
I drop 4 feats: The Blast specialization, Takedown attack, Skill Mastery, and Interpose. Those all might be fun options, but technically I suppose she can do without them.

Drop 7 points in saves. That's knocking her Fortitude down to her Con mod and messing with her Will save, but I suppose it can't be helped.

Dropped the Immunity to Electricity for 5 points.

Add 8 points of Defense, keep the Impervious Toughness.

Her final saves are +10/+6/+6, which gives her two low saves but nothing so low as to be lower than anyone else's low saves.

if you want, you can buy some of your defense as dodge bonus to reduce slightly what you lose, especially Takedown Attack and/or Interpose. Also, get rid of Connected. It works off your Diplomacy check, and you don't have any ranks in Diplomacy.
 

James Heard said:
OK, here's what I think I'm doing then:
I drop 4 feats: The Blast specialization, Connected, Skill Mastery, and Interpose. Those all might be fun options, but technically I suppose she can do without them.

Don't drop Interpose when you have 14 points of Impervious Toughness! Also, don't drop your Will save to +6 if you can help it- +8 would be much better.

Matt has the right idea about how to shave points further- buy 5-6 points of base Defense and 2-3 ranks of Dodge Focus for 13-14 pp (in fact, it's generally better to buy more Dodge Focus and less base defense but your character is easy to feint and few character concepts call for all Dodge Focus and no base Defense).


Edit:
Victim- Your main orbs power will be somewhat situational because you don't have Power Attack which means you're going to be less effective against Toughness-shifted (or Impervious) characters, but it's very nasty against anyone without a Toughness shift (especially combined with your character's good feints).

Also, your Selective Area Dazzle power is probably going to be really good even though it doesn't end fights on its own. Due to the size of the group, we're presumably going to fight a number of non-minions at once. Unless Matt gives our enemies a whole lot of Evasion and/or Blindsight (it's Matt- this is definitely possible), you're going to have a decent chance to blind each of our enemies every round. That sets them up nicely for all of the characters with Power Attack and helps negate their attacks as well.
 
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Elric said:
Victim- Your main orbs power will be somewhat situational because you don't have Power Attack which means you're going to be less effective against Toughness-shifted (or Impervious) characters, but it's very nasty against anyone without a Toughness shift (especially combined with your character's good feints).

Also, your Selective Area Dazzle power is probably going to be really good even though it doesn't end fights on its own. Due to the size of the group, we're presumably going to fight a number of non-minions at once. Unless Matt gives our enemies a whole lot of Evasion and/or Blindsight (it's Matt- this is definitely possible), you're going to have a decent chance to blind each of our enemies every round. That sets them up nicely for all of the characters with Power Attack and helps negate their attacks as well.

Yep. I figured blinding, trick, and Redirect would be her best weapons against really tough/immune people. Few things are funnier than getting bad guys to hit each other. :)
 

And dont' forget, we're not fighting in a vacumn here. Support characters like mine are specifically designed to nab foes that are deucedly hard to nab with raw firepower... Not to defeat, but lock them down, paralyze, snare, etc...so they become easier targets and maximize you heavy hitter's ability to whale on them. Not to mention helping to save innocent folks from nastiness with a quick created object and so on...thus requiring less holding back from y'all.

Just grist for the mill.

I'm back, by the way.

Hoping we can get started soon!
 


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