Superheroes of The Trust OOC Thread (Accepting Alts)

[James Heard]

What editing needs to be done for Spirit?

 

[DM_Matt]

What editing needs to be done for Spirit?

Well, for now, proceed to posting in the IC thread, but you should change:

1. The singularity attack. Aura only works on sustained duration abilities, so that means you will have to add another +2pp/rank to use it with corrosion (to make corrosion sustained).

2. The Morph set. I don't get it. Especially Weapon Bind.

 

[James Heard]

1. Gotcha, didn't catch that.

2. Spirit is more or less a person who has been turned into a funky sort of android now. She's a complex biological machine without a consistent biology, if that makes any sort of sense - she's "all spirit" because the substance is can change a lot.

She's able to morph because she can alter that substance. It's subtle because if she's given means to check her own baseline (like advanced genetic testing equipment or something) she could even change the morph to register DNA. As is, she can use her subtle morph to make the wrong DNA for Jessica Lane map out for forensics. (This use of subtle with morph is something I got from peeking around Atomic Think Tank from Steve Kenson).

Of course, the ability to change her appearance also allows her to change the color of her skin to blend in with her surroundings (Concealment -1 Blending); and since her form is more fluid than normal in those cases it allows her to do some nifty tricks for jumping out of the way of things that human bodies normally simply can't manage (like leaping away in a line of pearly fluid or just letting her body ripple like a fluid with a shockwave - it's not something she looks forward to but it's instinctive - Enhanced Evasion 2) and seep through cracks and between bars (Insubstantial 1 and think the Terminator 2). As for Weapon Bind? She just lets someone dumb enough to attack her with a sword or club or whatever "in" to her form and keeps them there. The Enhanced Strength was just because otherwise she'd be really weak in the form with no damage bonus at all (all of her heaps of mighty fists are an AP).

Anyways, the morph set is weird, but it's really the difference set of powers that distinguishes her from all the other "strong, fast, & can fly" heroes.

 

[Lobo Lurker]

Unfortunately, it is presently closed to new character submissions. Sorry about that.

Okay. Thanks anyway. You might want to change your recruiting tag on this thread though, as you're no longer recruiting.

 

[Elric]

James- Your defense should be 10, not 8. Still, 10 Defense is going to be a huge liability against strong enemies. Really consider finding the points for at least 5 points of Base Defense Bonus.

 

[James Heard]

Hmm, I've been trimming from my saves for points. How low can your saves go before they're a liability in a M&M game - and I kind of thought for "strong enemies" we'd be going with your character as the go-to guy. You've got more combat options and are more tightly focused on combat anyways, right?

 

[Elric]

Hmm, I've been trimming from my saves for points. How low can your saves go before they're a liability in a M&M game - and I kind of thought for "strong enemies" we'd be going with your character as the go-to guy. You've got more combat options and are more tightly focused on combat anyways, right?

I don't think your saves are too low. For exotic saves, I'd say that anything less than a PL-4 average will probably feel noticeably weak (of course, if your Defense is 10 this is going to be greatly exascerbated). Given your exceedingly low defense, though, your exotic saves shouldn't go much lower. You could probably shave a point off of Fort and Will.

Personally, I'd ditch Immunity to Electricity - with 14 Impervious Toughness an Electrical attack has to be awfully strong before it can hurt you and you have Absorbtion against electricity if you need it. That's 5 pp. Dropping a rank from Flight (your sprint speed is 10000 mph at the moment) will give you 2 more pp, but the APs there will get weaker. You could drop Space Travel (since you can always take it with a power stunt)- that's 8 pp, enough for +4 Base Defense. At that point at least you can stop quacking when you enter combat

Also, I don't think Johnny Nitro is going to be the strongest character in the group in combat- he wasn't in the last game I played him in. If anything, particularly high Str enemies present a particular challenge to Nitro as they will usually beat him at grapple checks. He'll be effective even there, though. Overall, I think Shooting Star (Victim) will be the most effective character in combat.

 

[James Heard]

I don't think your saves are too low. For exotic saves, I'd say that anything less than a PL-4 average will probably feel noticeably weak (of course, if your Defense is 10 this is going to be greatly exascerbated). Given your exceedingly low defense, though, your exotic saves shouldn't go much lower. You could probably shave a point off of Fort and Will.

But that's what we're talking about anyways - tradeoffs. I mean, I could up my defense and lower my saves but at what point does that make for a good tradeoff? I've already made a lot of tradeoffs to up the Toughness save to what I thought originally would be a pretty extreme level. So, how high would her Toughness have to be to justify the expense she's already spent, because right now it sounds like you're saying that all that Toughness is a wasted expense right now. Rather than devote points to something that she hasn't spent any points in already, how high should Spirit's toughness score be before she isn't "quaking in her boots" when entering combat?

Also, I don't think Johnny Nitro is going to be the strongest character in the group in combat- he wasn't in the last game I played him in. If anything, particularly high Str enemies present a particular challenge to Nitro as they will usually beat him at grapple checks. He'll be effective even there, though. Overall, I think Shooting Star (Victim) will be the most effective character in combat.

Maybe so, but it still begs the question of "if we've got two other more powerful combat characters, at what level does Spirit have to be for party balance?" If two other members of the party are going to be the go-to guys, then what's the point of statting Spirit out to be more of a combatant than she already is? Would it be better to shave off 6 or 8 points and just trade them off to give Spirit a 17 or 18 Impervious Toughness? If she's in real danger of getting her pockets rocked off, she can go Insubstantial already.

 

[Elric]

But that's what we're talking about anyways - tradeoffs. I mean, I could up my defense and lower my saves but at what point does that make for a good tradeoff? I've already made a lot of tradeoffs to up the Toughness save to what I thought originally would be a pretty extreme level. So, how high would her Toughness have to be to justify the expense she's already spent, because right now it sounds like you're saying that all that Toughness is a wasted expense right now. Rather than devote points to something that she hasn't spent any points in already, how high should Spirit's toughness score be before she isn't "quaking in her boots" when entering combat?

Very perceptive! Indeed, it is generally more useful to be an "unbalanced defender" against a balanced attacker, although doing so will give you some Achilles heels (particularly for a character with high Defense/low Toughness- that's why high tradeoffs in favor of Defensere are rare).

I am pretty sure that Matt said he'd have to approve of tradeoffs past +5/-5. There's a reason for this- particularly on Defensive PL where too high of a tradeoff can be unbalancing. So don't plan on getting 18 Impervious Toughness- or 18 Toughness, for that matter. Given that you won't be able to have such high Impervious Toughness as to be invulnerable, getting Defense to fill your defensive caps is a good bet.

 

[James Heard]

Very perceptive! Indeed, it is generally more useful to be an "unbalanced defender" against a balanced attacker, although doing so will give you some Achilles heels (particularly for a character with high Defense/low Toughness- that's why high tradeoffs in favor of Defensere are rare).

I am pretty sure that Matt said he'd have to approve of tradeoffs past +5/-5. There's a reason for this- particularly on Defensive PL where too high of a tradeoff can be unbalancing. So don't plan on getting 18 Impervious Toughness- or 18 Toughness, for that matter. Given that you won't be able to have such high Impervious Toughness as to be invulnerable, getting Defense to fill your defensive caps is a good bet.

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?