Superheroes of The Trust OOC Thread (Accepting Alts)

[DM_Matt]

Notes (I still reserve the right to have further issues with certain powers) :

Unless you lack vital organs, I'd think you would not be immune to crits. If you do not need rest of food or air, if you still should come up with some biological needs for your race. Presumably you get your sustenance from somewhere, though you could have a way that does not require needs, such as some kind of internal power source. You can take drawbacks for alternative needs if appropriate. In your latest build, it is not listed as a power, but you still have that many ranks in immunity. Did you mean to delete it? (EDIT: I see that you have lowered the cost, but it still says immunity 9. It should be 7)

Ablative force fields are really bad, since they weaken your ability to hit your caps.


Your regeneration requires a device, so it should be part of the device. you get less of a discount that way, but you have to do it like that. Also, I do not like major resurrection like you have. It is very powerful -- illogically so -- at times, but also not as good as you think, since in MM what you really need to worry about is disables, unconscious and dying conditions, and to a lesser extent the staggered condition, rather than death. It is odd that you could come back from death almost immediately, but if gravely injured, you do not recover any faster than usual. Perhaps just put Res 1 in your ring.

I do not allow Area Explosion, but I do allow area burst. Explosion has a wider area but requires precise mapping of targets, and we dont use a battle grid.

Vampiric is not heroic. I would prefer you not have it. Also, secondary effect is very powerful. Can you justify it? Perhaps you should just take fewer ranks of device and have a smaller array rather than piling on extras so much.

You should buy some more base attack and base defense. Relying overly much on accurate like you do is cheesy. You should have SOME ability to use other weapons, fight unarmed, grapple, etc, and have some actual base defense. Note also that you will lose your dodge bonus quite a bit without sense motive to counter feints and notice to counter sneakery. In general, you should probably have like 3 or 4 base in each at a minimum for a character like this, maybe a couple in focus, and then a little bit of accurate.

You might consider lowering some of your stats. MM is effects-based, so unless extreme generalized innate ability is that important, it is more efficient to (Other than Con), buy more things directly. Most ability scores are only made close to cost-efficient by skills, but you are going no-skills.

Since your strike power is at your cap, your strength only works for grappling and lifting. You might want less of a strength score and some points of super-strength, in which you get 5 points of strength for lifting for each 2pp.

You probably should buy some more skills by the way. At minimum, you should have some notice, and you probably should have some social interaction skills.

Selective area healing is simply too powerful an ability. Only healing on one at a time please.

Defensively, be sure to meet your caps.

You are not using any trade-offs. I would think though that you would probably be shifted slightly towards toughness and away from defense.

Upping your impervious from 5 to 6 gets you to the standard level required to be basically bulletproof. (you'd need a little bit more for a true immunity to conventional ballistic weapons though)

Suggested Build (Just a quick set of ideas)

 

[Fangor the Fierce]

Notes (I still reserve the right to have further issues with certain powers) :

Unless you lack vital organs, I'd think you would not be immune to crits. If you do not need rest of food or air, if you still should come up with some biological needs for your race. Presumably you get your sustenance from somewhere, though you could have a way that does not require needs, such as some kind of internal power source. You can take drawbacks for alternative needs if appropriate. In your latest build, it is not listed as a power, but you still have that many ranks in immunity. Did you mean to delete it? (EDIT: I see that you have lowered the cost, but it still says immunity 9. It should be 7)

Yes, Immunity was be edited to reflect the removal of immune to crits, but I forgot the rank associated with it. Also, for sustenance, perhaps that could be part of the device. As long as he wears his ring, then he will gain this Immunity. I will see what I can work with this part of the concept, as I know what you are talking about. Access to cosmic energy would suffice, but again, I will see how I can work it into his concept.

Ablative force fields are really bad, since they weaken your ability to hit your caps.

Yes, they are, but I wanted him to have some sort of drawback/flaw with his powers. But, that was before I edited all the changes. Removing Ablative can be done, but I think it was initially done to save points...

Your regeneration requires a device, so it should be part of the device. you get less of a discount that way, but you have to do it like that. Also, I do not like major resurrection like you have. It is very powerful -- illogically so -- at times, but also not as good as you think, since in MM what you really need to worry about is disables, unconscious and dying conditions, and to a lesser extent the staggered condition, rather than death. It is odd that you could come back from death almost immediately, but if gravely injured, you do not recover any faster than usual. Perhaps just put Res 1 in your ring.

Yeah, I wondered about this one. Resurrection was a tough sell, but I can edit this one easily. I will move the Res into the Ring, and go from there.

I do not allow Area Explosion, but I do allow area burst. Explosion has a wider area but requires precise mapping of targets, and we dont use a battle grid.

Removing the Explosion, Area Burst would work. I would still have to remove Secondary Effect, from notes below. Would Selective be available to keep with the Area Burst Blast 11? I wouldn't want to blow up a teammate or innocent bystander...

Vampiric is not heroic. I would prefer you not have it. Also, secondary effect is very powerful. Can you justify it? Perhaps you should just take fewer ranks of device and have a smaller array rather than piling on extras so much.

Vampiric was simply fluff for the fact that his original concept did NOT have a melee attack. He was a ranged backup fighter, and defensive support character. It was a last ditch effort strike, for when he found himself in trouble, and needed to heal himself (as original concept had Heal Others Only flaw) as well as attack. It will be removed, and Secondary would also be removed. The reason he added that was to be able to use a melee attack one round, and heal someone or aid someone else in the next round, but still cause some damage to the enemy.

You should buy some more base attack and base defense. Relying overly much on accurate like you do is cheesy. You should have SOME ability to use other weapons, fight unarmed, grapple, etc, and have some actual base defense. Note also that you will lose your dodge bonus quite a bit without sense motive to counter feints and notice to counter sneakery. In general, you should probably have like 3 or 4 base in each at a minimum for a character like this, maybe a couple in focus, and then a little bit of accurate.

Cheesy? LOL, yeah, I can definitely see that! But, as you can tell, this was my first ever M&M character creation. With your thoughts on Sense Motive, base defense and such, it helps me understand where the real meat of the character should come from as well. It's what I needed to know.

You might consider lowering some of your stats. MM is effects-based, so unless extreme generalized innate ability is that important, it is more efficient to (Other than Con), buy more things directly. Most ability scores are only made close to cost-efficient by skills, but you are going no-skills.

Is this in regards to Str, Dex, Int, Wis and Cha? If so, I can shuffle some numbers. That would leave some points for attack and defense. I will look to see what can be done.

Since your strike power is at your cap, your strength only works for grappling and lifting. You might want less of a strength score and some points of super-strength, in which you get 5 points of strength for lifting for each 2pp.

Never really thought of Super-Strength, but with the lowering of stats, then it would be good to go that route. Especially with Strike maxed at limit.

You probably should buy some more skills by the way. At minimum, you should have some notice, and you probably should have some social interaction skills.

Notice, Diplomacy and Sense Motive are my top choices now. I am not sure on DC's that are normal for these skills, so I will read up on them and go from there. I don't want to put ranks in something that I will fail anyways.

Selective area healing is simply too powerful an ability. Only healing on one at a time please.

Ok, how about removing Area extra, along with Selective. I would like to add Ranged, so that I can heal at a distance, when needed. That would limit it to one healing at a time, but with option for ranged healing. Is the Action extra to be able to heal as standard action acceptable?

Defensively, be sure to meet your caps.

Will do! Although, with your next point, perhaps that trade off would work with a Defense lowered and Toughness max increased?

You are not using any trade-offs. I would think though that you would probably be shifted slightly towards toughness and away from defense.

Notes above...

Upping your impervious from 5 to 6 gets you to the standard level required to be basically bulletproof. (you'd need a little bit more for a true immunity to conventional ballistic weapons though)

Suggested Build (Just a quick set of ideas)

Upping Impervious on what? The Force Field? or Deflect (if it's possible)?

Questions -

Is the Drawback acceptable, or should it be removed?
Does the Create Objects and Animate Objects work well for you?
I will be reworking this character tomorrow, as there is plenty to do. Is there a time frame you wanted this guy done and ready?

 

[Victim]

You know, the last few posts seem pretty dang stupid. A bunch of people standing around in a hallway being filled with napalm, arguing with each other.

 

[DM_Matt]

Yes, Immunity was be edited to reflect the removal of immune to crits, but I forgot the rank associated with it. Also, for sustenance, perhaps that could be part of the device. As long as he wears his ring, then he will gain this Immunity. I will see what I can work with this part of the concept, as I know what you are talking about. Access to cosmic energy would suffice, but again, I will see how I can work it into his concept.

ok.

Yes, they are, but I wanted him to have some sort of drawback/flaw with his powers. But, that was before I edited all the changes. Removing Ablative can be done, but I think it was initially done to save points...

You should do it. I don't think I've ever seen a hero with Ablative. Its just too big a liability.

Yeah, I wondered about this one. Resurrection was a tough sell, but I can edit this one easily. I will move the Res into the Ring, and go from there.

Good. And as I said, you should probably provide slow res. Resurrection in combat is over the top and weird. I get the ring bringing you back, but dying should still be a major liability.

Removing the Explosion, Area Burst would work. I would still have to remove Secondary Effect, from notes below. Would Selective be available to keep with the Area Burst Blast 11? I wouldn't want to blow up a teammate or innocent bystander...

Selective still can be applied. The difference between explosion and burst is that explosion is 10 feet per rank and the damage decreases in concentric circles, while burst is 5 feet per rank and has uniform damage. Thus, I disallow explosion so I do not still need to track precise positioning.

Vampiric was simply fluff for the fact that his original concept did NOT have a melee attack. He was a ranged backup fighter, and defensive support character. It was a last ditch effort strike, for when he found himself in trouble, and needed to heal himself (as original concept had Heal Others Only flaw) as well as attack. It will be removed, and Secondary would also be removed. The reason he added that was to be able to use a melee attack one round, and heal someone or aid someone else in the next round, but still cause some damage to the enemy.

Those are reasons why those are powerful abilities, but not reasons that your character should have them. Its tempting for a first character though. If you want to buff up your attacks, I suggest the much more balanced Autofire, if you really must.

Cheesy? LOL, yeah, I can definitely see that! But, as you can tell, this was my first ever M&M character creation. With your thoughts on Sense Motive, base defense and such, it helps me understand where the real meat of the character should come from as well. It's what I needed to know.

cool.

Is this in regards to Str, Dex, Int, Wis and Cha? If so, I can shuffle some numbers. That would leave some points for attack and defense. I will look to see what can be done.

Never really thought of Super-Strength, but with the lowering of stats, then it would be good to go that route. Especially with Strike maxed at limit.

Yes. Note however that just as not buying bab and base defense is probably worth it, it is frowned upon as cheesy by convention, so is overly lowballing your stats. Making a D&D character is more of a science, while making a good M&M character is more of an art.

As it stands, though, your stats are quite high, so you can afford to lose some (and probably to up Con, as your concept certainly can justify it)

Notice, Diplomacy and Sense Motive are my top choices now. I am not sure on DC's that are normal for these skills, so I will read up on them and go from there. I don't want to put ranks in something that I will fail anyways.

Look at the other characters' sheets in the RG thread, or look at the benchmarks in the book. If you can spare the points, it could be nice to have a few more skills even.

Ok, how about removing Area extra, along with Selective. I would like to add Ranged, so that I can heal at a distance, when needed. That would limit it to one healing at a time, but with option for ranged healing. Is the Action extra to be able to heal as standard action acceptable?

I'll probably be OK with standard action, no range. I'm kind of strict on restricting healing.

Will do! Although, with your next point, perhaps that trade off would work with a Defense lowered and Toughness max increased?

Yes. You can do that in part by adding to Con.

Upping Impervious on what? The Force Field? or Deflect (if it's possible)?

the force field. You cannot have impervious deflect. Note also that deflect and your attacks cannot be used together because they are part of the same array and you can only switch once per round. (Well, technically, you can use one every round and the other every other round, but I am not sure if I will allow that particular rules abuse).

Questions -

Is the Drawback acceptable, or should it be removed?
Does the Create Objects and Animate Objects work well for you?
I will be reworking this character tomorrow, as there is plenty to do. Is there a time frame you wanted this guy done and ready?

[/QUOTE]

If you mean the drawback on the ring, it is acceptable. We have a little time, since it will take the PCs a bit to finish at their current location. I'd like your guy's joining the trust to have occurred off screen to get you with them as soon as possible, so I'd like you to come up with how he came to work for them and why he is being transferred to their unit. That also means you should probably read up on the game thread. I will have to look at the create and animate objects again later. I do not have time at the moment.


Also, to other players: Continue to feel free to comment on his build if you have ideas or concerns. Elric, you haven't said anything yet, so since you are quite good at these things, your feedback would be much appreciated.

 

[Victim]

I'd like to point out that you don't really need a melee attack. You could just as easily fire off your area blast at point blank range as use a dedicated melee attack.

Some characters can make use of high all around stats; however, Shield Guardian (I'd change the name a bit, since it's the name of a DnD golem and somewhat redundant. Guardian sounds good) doesn't seem to one of them. Since pretty much all the skills you seem to want are WIS and CHA, and you don't need STR for combat, most of the stats aren't doing you much good.

You might want to think about altering the exact values of your saves. With the concentration and such, it sounds like you might want a higher Will than some others.

The Animated Objects aren't using their full allotment of points. On the other hand, Constructs typically don't sell back WIS.

 

[Shayuri]

You know, if the ring generates objects that you then animate, you could get similar mileage with the Summon power.

 

[Fangor the Fierce]

You know, if the ring generates objects that you then animate, you could get similar mileage with the Summon power.

Yes, and I will be looking up the difference between Summon and Animate. I think the real reason I went this way was due to the fact that I would be using Create Invisible Objects to put up defensive walls, mazes, encasing cubes, etc. I then thought about animating objects, and it would be pretty cool to animate an invisible Cosmic Object, and let it wreck havoc on the scene.

Yet, with summon, I can effectively call in a single minion. I don't know... what's the consensus with the DM in regards to Summon minions? I don't really know what type of minion I would like to summon. With Animate Objects, I could animate them, set them to set off traps and scatter them around the place, and not have to worry about healing them back up. Minions suffer from damage and the fact that it takes time to heal them. Although, I can heal them to a certain extent...

 

[Elric]

Yes, and I will be looking up the difference between Summon and Animate. I think the real reason I went this way was due to the fact that I would be using Create Invisible Objects to put up defensive walls, mazes, encasing cubes, etc. I then thought about animating objects, and it would be pretty cool to animate an invisible Cosmic Object, and let it wreck havoc on the scene.

If you are using the Create Objects power and you switch to another power in an array, the created objects do not disappear when you switch (http://www.atomicthinktank.com/viewtopic.php?t=12032).

However, this is an exception to the general rule on Continuous powers in arrays. In particular, if you switch away from Animate your animated objects will no longer be animated. So if your character wants to use Animate Objects to attack in combat, you'll need to forgo using the other powers in your array, which means Animate Objects might not be the best power to plan on using in combat (also, coming up with detailed combat stats for animated objects on the fly is a pain).

The way around this is something like the Independent and Total Fade modifiers from Ultimate Power. But then you can effectively animate objects every round of the combat and that's likely to be both too powerful and too hard to keep track of.

 

[Fangor the Fierce]

If you are using the Create Objects power and you switch to another power in an array, the created objects do not disappear when you switch (http://www.atomicthinktank.com/viewtopic.php?t=12032).

I took the Continuous extra, so they will not disappear, so true, they will not disappear.

However, this is an exception to the general rule on Continuous powers in arrays. In particular, if you switch away from Animate your animated objects will no longer be animated. So if your character wants to use Animate Objects to attack in combat, you'll need to forgo using the other powers in your array, which means Animate Objects might not be the best power to plan on using in combat (also, coming up with detailed combat stats for animated objects on the fly is a pain).

I thought that taking Continuous would also fix this, as the animated objects would be on a set command, such as "Walk up those stairs..." But, if not, then you are right, they would simply stop, and be un-animated again...

The way around this is something like the Independent and Total Fade modifiers from Ultimate Power. But then you can effectively animate objects every round of the combat and that's likely to be both too powerful and too hard to keep track of.

Nah, I wasn't intending on abusing that power. Hence the reason the Progression was removed, so that I won't have hordes of animated trap triggers running around, letting us know what traps are where, and what each one does...

But, from all the headaches, it would seem that Summon Minion would be my best option, should I want to go with the ability to summon some help. Although, it would be a set minion, something to aid him. Something we could use in the non combative parts of the game to our advantage.

Problem is, if I put Summon Minion as an Alternate power in the Ring, and I summoned the minion, would it in essence bypass the fact that using another power would make the summoned minion disappear? Or would the minion stay until I released him/her/it?

 

[Elric]

But, from all the headaches, it would seem that Summon Minion would be my best option, should I want to go with the ability to summon some help. Although, it would be a set minion, something to aid him. Something we could use in the non combative parts of the game to our advantage.

Problem is, if I put Summon Minion as an Alternate power in the Ring, and I summoned the minion, would it in essence bypass the fact that using another power would make the summoned minion disappear? Or would the minion stay until I released him/her/it?

Same problem. It disappears when you switch powers in the array.

But if you only had 1 minion, then since once the minion is KOd/destroyed you can't re-summon it until it has time to heal and it's under the minion rules, using Independent and Total Fade doesn't seem abusive. In general, though, my personal preference is to keep minions and animated objects to a minimum for aesthetic reasons because it's cooler to be doing things yourself than animating objects to do them for you (same reason I never liked the polymorph into a hag/giant tactics in D&D- you should fight as yourself, not as a giant for the higher Str value).