Marvel Knights Mutants and Masterminds 2e Recruitment
Recruiting for adventures in the grey underbelly of a Marvel Universe
Character Creation: Mutants and Masterminds 2nd Edition. Power Level 8, 120 power points. All books are allowed. I’m not going to put any special limits on character creation, but the feel of the campaign is meant to be fairly simple. That isn’t to say you can’t have a character with a variety of powers, but I’m not looking for builds with 4 different containers.
Campaign Style: We will begin with and focus on street level threats. We aren’t saving the world, or even necessarily the city. We are saving a neighborhood, a block, a little girl. We are taking out the trash. That isn’t to say we won’t be involved in international plots, but we won’t be jetting off to space or traveling through time.
Setting: Our own version of the Marvel Universe. And because it is Marvel, we’ll be knocking around in a very fictional New York. I’ll be relying heavily on all manner of street level supplements from different games that I’ve collected over the years.
Continuity: We are not going to be bound by current or past Marvel continuity. In much the same way that the MCU and the Ultimate universe used what they found appealing and discarded the rest, we will use whatever is beneficial for our storytelling.
Looking for 6-8 players. Recruitment will take as along as it takes. Sometimes it is tricky to get characters built in this system.
GMST: As touched on in the interest thread, am mulling a pitch concerning a Skrull who is living in NYC. Have a number of directions/notions for why he's there - background w/ FF, Secret Invasion or even a sleeper agent whose been awoken early by an event/situation or individual.
Not sure if such a concept fits in spirit with the "street level" feel you're aiming for - wouldn't be a Super Skrull rather a rank and filer (perhaps with a little gift or two) whose become attached to the people he lives amongst.
Wanted to sound you out on this "Everyman" Skrull/hero before I consider starting the build...
Plan B would be a pitch based around concept of a house spirit/goblin: Kobold or Hob. Would be a character who discovers a cache of Goblin Tech and uses it to fight crime/protect the neighbourhood (hence the house spirit inspiration). Essentially a watered down/benign Green Goblin/Hobgoblin or some such.
Cheers
BD
I'm good with the idea of an agent level Skrull who isn't aligned with his people for some reason (or is but we don't know it). Given that he would have Morph as an innate power, he probably wouldn't stick out too much. I'm not sure exactly how powerful a baseline Skrull is. That Morph is going to take up a lot of points.
So you nixed the powered armor and gadgeteer ideas, which is fine =), I'll think up something else, maybe a mutant with only a couple of powers and trouble controlling them. Or I'll go more Marvel Knights and try to make something a bit more on the gritty and street side of things.
Wait, I didn't mean to nix them. I'm good with either power armor or a gadgeteer. A gritty gadgeteer or lower level power armor is great with me.
Sorry for the confusion.
Here's my concept, Brickhouse.
Will have to work on the crunch as I originally had him as 3E
Background: Osteogenesis imperfecta, commonly known as Brittle Bone disease, was the diagnosis the doctors gave Tony's mother. Tony was five years old and this was after the sixth time he'd been brought in to the ER with broken bones in as many months. After the second time, the police had been called and Tony had been placed in a foster home for a week. After Tony had bumped into the coffee table and had to be brought back to the ER, the police and social workers were no longer involved. The smallest bump or fall, and his bones would break. At that point, his mother began what would become a lifelong pattern of protecting her son. Anytime they would leave the house, Tony would be in a wheelchair. He couldn't play with other kids because it would result in several broken bones and a lot of pain for Tony. Unable to act and play like a normal kid, Tony dove into books and computers. He would read for days on end, and when he wasn't reading or studying, he was on the computer.With his mother being a research Astrophysicist, Tony did have every chance otherwise; the best schools, the best doctors, just nothing seemed to help with his physical or mental health. Growing frustrated with this, his mother looked into every option she could. Finally, finding a possibility in a project she was working on involving crystals and dimensional energies.
When it was discovered exposing the crystals to specific frequencies of sound, caused it to vibrate and emit energy particles that had a strange side effect of increasing the density of objects struck by the particles. Seeing an opportunity, his mother arranged for exposing Tony to the particles. Amazingly, after the exposure, Tony’s bones and muscles grew stronger and Tony gained a bit more confidence in everything he did.
Hook: Unknown to Tony or his mother, the research she used to strengthen his bones is sponsored by a criminal organization with it's own plans for the research should they have proof she succeeded.
He's currently a freelance journalist, known for several articles specifically about street life and events in the campaign's neighborhood..
Thoughts?
So you nixed the powered armor and gadgeteer ideas, which is fine =), I'll think up something else, maybe a mutant with only a couple of powers and trouble controlling them. Or I'll go more Marvel Knights and try to make something a bit more on the gritty and street side of things.
Totally fine with your tech based ideas from the other thread.
Here's my concept, Brickhouse.
Will have to work on the crunch as I originally had him as 3E
...
Background: Osteogenesis imperfecta, commonly known as Brittle Bone disease, was the diagnosis the doctors gave Tony's mother. Tony was five years old and this was after the sixth time he'd been brought in to the ER with broken bones in as many months. After the second time, the police had been called and Tony had been placed in a foster home for a week. After Tony had bumped into the coffee table and had to be brought back to the ER, the police and social workers were no longer involved. The smallest bump or fall, and his bones would break. At that point, his mother began what would become a lifelong pattern of protecting her son. Anytime they would leave the house, Tony would be in a wheelchair. He couldn't play with other kids because it would result in several broken bones and a lot of pain for Tony. Unable to act and play like a normal kid, Tony dove into books and computers. He would read for days on end, and when he wasn't reading or studying, he was on the computer.With his mother being a research Astrophysicist, Tony did have every chance otherwise; the best schools, the best doctors, just nothing seemed to help with his physical or mental health. Growing frustrated with this, his mother looked into every option she could. Finally, finding a possibility in a project she was working on involving crystals and dimensional energies.
When it was discovered exposing the crystals to specific frequencies of sound, caused it to vibrate and emit energy particles that had a strange side effect of increasing the density of objects struck by the particles. Seeing an opportunity, his mother arranged for exposing Tony to the particles. Amazingly, after the exposure, Tony’s bones and muscles grew stronger and Tony gained a bit more confidence in everything he did.
Hook: Unknown to Tony or his mother, the research she used to strengthen his bones is sponsored by a
Intriguing. Sounds like a good excuse for a kidnapping.
Oh, okay. I was just going off the bit about containers in the Character Creation area since device-based characters would have containers.
My first idea was a character I made on another site but didn't get to play very long, a smart kid, but not super-smart, a tech-savant, in somewhat powered armor:
Codename: Knack
Real Name: Adalwolf Mallory Bertram (goes by "Mal")
His grandparents were from Germany, originally, but they fled as the Nazi party began to take power there, fearing the worst. They came to America before there was too much problem with Germanic people immigrating. Aqilberto, began going by the name Bert. His mother, Wilhemina, started going by just Mina. The family settled in New York City, where his father got work where he could find it. They started a family and a life, full of back-breaking labor and barely making ends meet as it was.
Bert's son Peter was able to do a bit better than his father. He was good at mechanics and a quick learner. He met and later married a wonderful and kind woman named Yvonne. They were very surprised when Adalwolf was conceived and born since they had not been trying to have children at the time (they had already had a son and a daughter previously - Conrad and Heidi). They were happy, however, and gave their love to him just as they did their other 2 children.
Mal inherited his father's penchant for tinkering, but was never very good in school or learning. He didn't like school, sitting there all day, reading and listening to adults drone on. He wanted to be outside, playing and laughing - or better yet working on his ideas. Mal didn't know how or why he put things together or how they worked, he just know he liked doing it. He'd sneak parts from his father's small garage lab and make little toys to play with, gadgets to turn off the shower (usually when someone was in it), that sort of thing.
He eventually began to settle down a bit, and started learning the hows and whys of things. He found that he could read something one time and remember it. He could see something on the television or read it in a book and quote it perfectly. It helped accelerate his education, of course, and he graduated from high school and then college early. His father expected him to become some kind of great businessman and inventor. Well, he was half-right.
Mal had always liked superheroes and flying. So he was also trying to make some kind of flying machine, though it was most often a gliding or crashing machine in the end. He finally built a thing that looked like a large bulky surfboard that did that trick. He couldn't explain it himself, but he was told later that it was an anti-gravity generator, and he got it even a bit smaller over time.
Once he had that (after 3 straight days of mostly just flying around on it), he started putting together other things to help him with crime-fighting, much to the chagrin (and yelling) of his parents. But if he was going to do it, they wanted to make sure he did it right (since they knew they couldn't feasibly stop him short of physical restraints), so they supported him as best they could, even enrolled him in self-defense class.
Mal designed and built a few more gadgets, only some of which were to help him with fighting crime. To him, none were as fun or important as the hoverboard, but necessary nonetheless. Armor to protect himself...and later he learned the hard way to seal the armor and have it sustain him so he couldn't be gassed again. After watching a television show called Space Gate, he saw a character who carried around an oddly-named weapon that was both a staff and could fire blasts of energy. Mal worked feverishly for several months to make his own version of that, and a working staff weapon at that.
Things were starting to come together for him finally. Though he felt just as much like an outsider as he always had, at least he didn't have to care so much. He knew that he was helping others so that helped ease the pain of loneliness.
I know I am in your DC game, and that might preclude me from this one, but how would you feel about a more or less mister immortal character that really is just an average human who just cant stay dead? Maybe a magically cursed human that can't be let in to heaven or hell so they continuously try to make up for the sins of their past. Only way to heal wounds is to spend months in traction or end his life so he pops back to normal.
If you wouldn't mind someone who only played M&M 2e a couple times over a decade ago, I'd be interested! (And will definitely read up on it over the next week!)
** spoiler omitted **
** spoiler omitted **
I'm good with Knack. That is a good level of tech for the feel.
Havocprince and Ken, feel free to submit. System familiarity isn't all that important, and I don't mind if you are in another of my games. I will say that this whole thing was kicked off by Critzible, so he is pretty much in. Otherwise I'll try to take as many as I can.
Whee! I'm definitely interested, and if you're still cool with me drafting up a Dottie for this world I will do so. She is a purely MCU character so should I base her background largely on that, or get creative for this build/make sure it's closer to 616? ETA: I mean, I understand you're basically doing YOUR Marvel universe. I'm just trying to figure out if I should just stick to canon as closely as possible or veer off as I like--I'll have to fill in stuff for her background and whatnot anyway.
And I've realized what I really need to know is: since Dottie's tied to Peggy Carter's world, is Peggy former founding director of SHIELD as she is in MCU or just a major character in the organization's past?
And just to be clear: this is present day, yes? I presume so, just being sure.
Hmm... My glitchy teleporter character may be a bit complex if you want to keep it simple. I'll think about it and see what my must comes up with.
I think I may have scared people a little much with the container comment. Containers are fine. A werewolf character or something who uses a container. I'm just not looking for overly versatile optimized builds. Just build what you want and we'll talk.
I always find it useful to look through builds on the old atomic think tank boards. You can google Mutants and Masterminds Moon Knight Build or Batman Build and find lots of good examples.
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Some of my things need GM approval, so there'll be a note on those in the character outline.
Isaac was a young man in a capitalist country. His family owned a small business in North Dakota, but they couldn't afford to send him to college. His father demanded he go into the army to uphold their prideful last name of Balding. So that's what he did.
He didn't have much skills to speak of, but he got really lucky in his tests and passed basic training. They sent him far over seas and into the sand and mountains of Iraq, where his job was to drive a really crappy truck over IED's. And if he didn't, someone behind him might...so he gritted his teeth and bore every car rattling explosion.
Serving a few tours of duties as "the guy who detonates IEDS", either by car or by hand, Isaac returned home to the US. Taking residence in the big city of New York, he decided to stay away from his family because he felt as if he was shaken and a coward for wanting to live a civilian's life while others were fighting. He had no place in a prideful, strong family.
The VA finally approved his benefits years later after his return. It was difficult to find a job, as he didn't have any work experience or work-related skills. He winged it for the most part, but that only got him so far and the pay he received from work went to the demands of the VA. Essentially, he was financially screwed and that thought dawned on him everyday.
So he decided to live on the VA checks alone, which fueled an addiction to alcohol and gambling in hopes that one of the two would move his position to something better. He had frequent black outs and often woke up as an animal. In time, he could control this shifting that was likely brought upon his will to leave all his human worries behind.
In the current days, he helps the other homeless people find food as man's best friend, a raggedy, unclean mutt. But damn it all if he didn't want to help him as much as he could!
Codename: Booze Hound
Moral Philosophy: Good
Group Allegiance: All homeless
Origin: Mutant
Motivation: Acceptance
10 strength
14 dex
14 Con
10 Wis
10 Intelligence
6 Charisma
4 point cost.
+8 attack, +8 defense
16+16 point cost. 36 points spent.
Complications
Addiction: Booze and Gambling
Reputation: Homeless
Phobia: Nearby Explosions
Limited Shapeshift (animals); extras (free action): 8 points per rank. Max rank. 64 points.
Luck Control: Spend points on others' behalfs. 3 points
67 points spent. 103 point total spent.
Feats:
Beginner's Luck
Improvised Tools
Luck, Rank 4
Ultimate Effort: (Ultimate Save and Ultimate Skill)This requires GM approval
Seize Initiative
Evasion, Rank 2
Move-By Action
Power Attack
Stunning Attack
14 points spent. 117 total.
Skills: Disable Device +8
Knowledge: Streetwise +4
3 points spent. 120 total.
I think a guy with a gun for a head is a little sillier than I'm looking for.
I would like to dot for a character that has teleportation powers, but can only teleport himself by swapping places with an inanimate object in his desired location. Also, he would have only short-range teleportation.
Short idea on his background is that he is a reformed art thief, who would mainly steal sculptures, but occasionally paintings or the like as well, if he had a vehicle nearby that had something with roughly the same weight.
I did talk about an idea I had for a previous game but it might be a bit more suitable at slightly higher level but I got an idea for a character that I can scale to almost any power level. Going pretty four colour on this one!
The Crimson Cornet Charles Clark, a member of the Crimson Corps (think Captain American/Britain meets the Green Lantern Corps) an inter dimensional group who send it's members to worlds to help out in hopes that some day those Earths might have closer bonds. Their agents are sent to worlds where they have no doppleganger so people can't target their families etc.
Unfortunately for Charlie he's been sent to a Marvel Universe so things are stranger and a bit grimmer than average dimension. He's going to have to deal with little bits of confusion like why people aren't using the metric system as well as more confusing elements depending on how grand in scope things get like mutants, inhumans, kree, skrull etc. In his home universe there is no Gallactus so the interplanetary stage is a bit different.
Powers wise he's going to have gadgets and be an inventor, jet pack, ray gun pistols etc... all very vintage space age inspired. Crimson Cornet's (and Crimson Lieutenants/Captains/etc) are expected to be able to fend for themselves on assignment and given technology to help them set up their base etc. He'll be "growing" a base with this, think the Tok'ra base being grown with crystals.
Before I go off an do a whole thing I felt I should check with the GM if this is something that could work, it'll be a little goofy at points but thats mostly due to contrast he'll be serious enough when needed.
Here's my submission of Dottie. Abandoned the MCU and wrote up a background for her of what I think she might be like in a more 616-ish or Ultimates universe (though obviously keeping in key beats from her MCU history/characterization).
Any suggestions/tweaks/comments on build welcome.
Okay, I'm building Batman. No, that that Batman. This is a guy with sonar and a sonic scream and a secondhand agent-level supersuit (~3 ranks in a couple powers). Since that other guy doesn't exist in this universe, it makes sense for him to use the name.
Ok, I have been working at this character for a bit and I think I have actually come up with something workable... I'm going to build an eternal hobo. A homeless man who died in a back alley because he just happened to see a murder in progress and now seeks vengeance against all criminals.
Working on a build for him right now.
Con 18 Other Stats 10
Nothing given to attacks or defenses
Luck 4
Regeneration 8
Resurrection 4
Bonus 4
Persistent
Regrowth
Limited (Must die)
Healing 8
Persistent
Regrowth
Resurrection (Progression 3)
Total
Empathic
Immunity 1
Age
Nemesis 7 (Will only be used against major super villains so if you have a massively powerful enemy you should have a power suite ready for me.)
Nauseate 8
Selective
Area
Cloud
Duration 3
Permanent
Magicarp, the hammer hands guy feel most appropriate to me. They could even provide a measure of defense, acting as a shield of sorts.
Vrog, I could go for something like the teleporter.
Kevin, that feels very cosmic and 4 color to me. Why is this guy limiting himself to drug dealers and organized crime figures?
Batman, I like the power level and power set.
Havoc, is his main super power other than regeneration that he smells bad? But he can control it?
Dottie, the only thing I might add is maybe Wall Crawling. Not in the spiderman sense, but just as sort of a super parkour kind of thing. Dottie does some stunts that might go beyond climb 10 even on Agent Carter.
Because he's not all that powerful. This worlds a bit more scummy than he's expected so he's starting with the basic. It's about doing good, not toppling intergalactic dictators, though if we topple an intergalactic dictator that's the kind of thing that might get a promotion. Super powers are way more common on this world than he was expecting so getting a few allies and the lay of the land is a good idea, maybe in a few years he can grow more ambitious.
Dotting for interest.
I can rework it to a crime fighting inventor but it'd lose a lot of flavour.
Humm Paizo seems to have eaten my post :(
Ok well have to do again.
Panic here Dotting and making PC again.
I will be building a John Constantine like Hero, very old Irish witch/warlock like PC who uses magic. Has fey blood so linked to
the wee folks lands. That kind of thing, may use Luck or magic
not 100% yet. Magic seems more fun. Grim dark outlook on life.
Fighting the good fight to keep the darkness at bay.
I will be using this ALT Saxton Quinn
Looks like this, when he is in magic mode
My idea is his magic is very ritualistic, sometimes taking hours or even mouths to do, magic objects etc. Just like John Constantine etc so the power level match's. He will be just about human but for a high will and QI.
That makes some sense to me, Kevin.
Dottie, the only thing I might add is maybe Wall Crawling. Not in the spiderman sense, but just as sort of a super parkour kind of thing. Dottie does some stunts that might go beyond climb 10 even on Agent Carter.
Unless I am misunderstanding the rules... as her build stands, with Skill Mastery in Acrobatics, she can take 10 on that skill pretty much at any time; with an Acrobatics of +15, this nets an auto-result of 25, which allows her to automatically
- Move through a space occupied by an object or foe- Balance on a 2 inch wide surface that is either slippery or uneven
- increase her normal jumping distance by 10 feet
- Reduce the distance of a fall by 20 feet (meaning if she falls two or fewer stories, she takes no damage and lands on her feet)
- Resist a trip attempt that does not exceed 25
- Kip up as a free action
In other words, a lot of the super-movement abilities are already accomplished by this. I could lower her Acrobatics and then give her some Super-Movement, but I feel like things are more flexible this way. I could be wrong though.
The only thing this doesn't FULLY reflect, necessarily--and this depends upon interpretation--is, say, the crazy stunt she did on the show where she jumped down about a 7 story stairwell and landed--but what she was doing there was falling about 10 feet, catching herself, then falling another 10 etc. The slow way of doing this would be doing Acrobatics checks to see if she keeps catching herself before she drops again. The quick way would be to give her Slow Fall limited to being near surfaces. An earlier build of her had this, but I needed the skill points more.
Wall-crawling specifically--I don't recall her crawling along walls and the like on the show (though I get what you're saying about parkour). (Natasha has hidden on the ceiling a few times, which is partially thanks to the way her gloves and kneepads are surfaced, allowing her to help cling to the wall). A lot of whacky tumbling and leaping and, again, the stairwell drop, but that's all Acrobatics not Climb. That said she should certainly be good at climbing and I could potentially swap out Bluff for Climb in her list of skills she has Skill Mastery of.
My dilemma is having enough points for skills--even as it is she should probably be more skilled than I've built her. And I'll probably tweak her skills again before we're through.
Perhaps I'd save points by lowering Climb and Acrobatics and throwing them into Super-Movement instead, but I'm not sure if she'll lose flexibility and if the math pans out. Maybe it does.
Your continued thoughts--as are the thoughts of anyone else here--are welcome.
Okay, I'll get my character posted in the next couple of days.
Have a little more class than that, he constantly emits a feeling of unease as he is not of this world. Necromantic type waves of sickness.
Knack is completed.
Also, finding good modern-day pics are hard, lol.
Dang. Dottie's character sheet looks so much cleaner than mine. I may have to clean mine up at some point. =(
GM Panic here
Ok here is the core of Saxton Quinn [The walker]
Bound to the King of the Fey in Ireland some 2000 years ago,
he lives out of hotel rooms and keeps his head down.
My Idea is a kind of American gods PC, he knows of the grater game
but keeps out of it after some bad times in the past.
Still working how his magic works, I want it to fade, so the more powerful the thing he seeks to do the faster it fades. It also takes time for him to set up magic, which I like the idea of. He does not really like this new high tech world, but is learning to deal with it.
Ah but is he a leprechaun brawler in search of his lucky coin? Lol