Last Heroes

Game Master Matt Adams 259

I haven't seen a Mutants and Masterminds game here for a while and would love to get involved in one! Here's my entry for Magick, resident witch and aspiring young hero.

absolutely interested. gonna have to think on it a bit though. do we need to know anything about the setting? will you be cribbing heavily from any known sources or is the setting custom? public sentiment towards metahumans? nature of magic? or are we more are less free?

This is a custom setting. I’m going to be pulling from player backstory to populate it a bit at the start. The public generally treats metahumans the same as humans. Superheroes are trusted and the loss of so many has frightened many citizens. Magic is pretty rare even among the superhumans, but it can come from nearly any source.

First up, Ninja Monkey. The only thing that’s tripped me up on your character sheet, is the powers. We disagree on some of the math and I want to get it sorted out before that game starts.
-Movement at 6 points: 6 for 3 ranks
-Leaping at 2 points: 3 for 3 ranks - 1 for check required
-Damage at 8 points: 4 for 4 ranks, 4 for Multiattack
-Affliction at 7 points: 1 for 1 rank, 1 for Extra Condition, 1 for Insidious, 2 for Progressive, 1 for Reversible, 1 for Subtle
-Teleport at 7 points: 4 for 2 ranks, 2 for Accurate, 2 for Subtle, -1 for check required
-Shrinking at 5 points: 8 for 4 ranks, 1 for innate, -4 for permanent
1 point for the feet as hands quirk
By my math, that adds up to 36 points. You have 27 listed for your powers.

If you accidentally counted the 2points/rank powers as 1points/rank, that could explain the discrepancy. (Movement, shrinking and teleport)

If you want a suggestion, I might drop the affliction power for now since it’s got a 50/50 chance of working at best, and usually less. The other two points could come from maybe one of the less used ability scores or lose 4 skill ranks, but I get how that might not be appealing for a character dependent on skills.

Other than that, I like the implementation of his ninja arts with stealthy teleportation, chi attacks, and wall running.

Although I am a little concerned about the monkey’s ability to communicate with the others. How do you plan to overcome that?

Telepathy? Sign langauge?

I figured I would wait and see if I made it into the game and what other characters we had. I'd like for him to stay a monkey and not just talk, but sign language, a mental link, a translator box, or some of the team mates just have a feature that lets them understand him.

In any case, I think it is an easy enough problem to find a solution to, even if we just go all the way and say he was experimented on and can talk.

-Movement at 6 points: 6 for 3 ranks
-Leaping at 2 points: 3 for 3 ranks - 1 for check required
-Damage at 8 points: 4 for 4 ranks, 4 for Multiattack
-Affliction at 7 points: 1 for 1 rank, 1 for Extra Condition, 1 for Insidious, 2 for Progressive, 1 for Reversible, 1 for Subtle
-Teleport at 7 points: 4 for 2 ranks, 2 for Accurate, 2 for Subtle, -1 for check required
-Shrinking at 5 points: 8 for 4 ranks, 1 for innate, -4 for permanent
1 point for the feet as hands quirk
By my math, that adds up to 36 points. You have 27 listed for your powers.

I didn't notice that the format didn't carry over from HeroLab.

Monkey Movement is an array (7 points total, 6 for the Movement and 1 for the alternate Wire-Fu)
*Movement: Movement 3 (Safe Fall, Wall-crawling 2: full speed)
*Wire-Fu: Leaping 3 (Leap 60 feet at 16 miles/hour; Check Required: DC 10 - Acrobatics)

Ninja Tricks Is another array (10 points total)
*Chi Strike: Strength-based Damage 4 (DC 19; Multiattack)
*Dim Mak: Progressive Affliction 1 (1st degree: Fatigued, Impaired, 2nd degree: Disabled, Exhausted, 3rd degree: Incapacitated, Resisted by: Fortitude, DC 11; Extra Condition, Insidious, Progressive, Reversible, Subtle: subtle)
*Ninjas go where others cannot: Teleport 2 (120 feet in a move action, carrying 50 lbs.; Accurate, Subtle 2: undetectable; Check Required: DC 10 - stealth)

Shrinking: Shrinking 4 (-1 STR, -2 Intimidate, +4 Stealth, +2 active defenses, -1 size rank; Innate; Permanent) (9 points)

Use Feet as Hands: Feature 1

That makes sense. Thank you for the breakdown.

For Reluctant Succubus, the only thing I noticed is you spent a little too much on defenses.
Dodge starts at 3. 4 points brings it to 7.
Fortitude starts at 5. No points.
Parry starts at 5. 2 points brings it to 7.
Toughness starts at 5. No points.
Will starts at 2. 3 points brings it to 5.
That’s 9 points in defenses not 8.

Backstop looks good.

I put ranks in the communication power to try and mitigate the monkey's inability to talk.

The concept needs a little tweaking. With no ability to speak and a -4 INT he cannot really help the party outside of combat. He is essentially as intelligent as an infant.

Siphon only spent 23 ranks on skills. They have one more rank to allocate.

It seems the intent behind your powers is that you can only copy the abilities of someone that is currently under the affect of your affliction. I suppose I could see that being worth the limited trait. The updated sheet looks good from what I can tell.

Brisk looks good.

For Emerald Kometa, what is speed of thought? I’m not seeing it on the site.

Siphon only spent 23 ranks on skills. They have one more rank to allocate.

It seems the intent behind your powers is that you can only copy the abilities of someone that is currently under the affect of your affliction. I suppose I could see that being worth the limited trait. The updated sheet looks good from what I can tell.

Brisk looks good.

For Emerald Kometa, what is speed of thought? I’m not seeing it on the site.

Being unexperienced, I saw it on Hero Lab as an advantage I could take. Allows for Int modifier for Initiative

On further research, it seems to have come from a supplement that I've never seen called Threat Report, but apparently it wasn't catalogued correctly on Hero Lab and shows up as core. Let me hunt it down, and I'll get back to you. If what you described is accurate, it shouldn't be a problem.

I'll do a double check, typing on my phone.

For Reluctant Succubus, the only thing I noticed is you spent a little too much on defenses.

Dodge starts at 3. 4 points brings it to 7.
Fortitude starts at 5. No points.
Parry starts at 5. 2 points brings it to 7.
Toughness starts at 5. No points.
Will starts at 2. 3 points brings it to 5.
That’s 9 points in defenses not 8.

Sorry, must have made a mistake. I’ll drop Will back down to 4.

I’ll write up a full character background a bit later on.

The concept needs a little tweaking. With no ability to speak and a -4 INT he cannot really help the party outside of combat. He is essentially as intelligent as an infant.

‘

I can move some ability points around to make his Int -2 if the group that is chosen wants that. -4 came from the monkey at the back of the DC Heroes and Villains book. -2 is Solomon Grundy/Bizarro level of intelligence, and maybe that would be more appropriate.

Intelligence is basically a skill penalty to expertise and technology. He definitely isn’t going to be any good at those, but I can shave points off of presence or something to bring him up to -2.

As for being useful, he is not at all written or designed to be useful. The design makes terrible sense for optimization. He is high Parry/Dodge and low Toughness, high to hit and low damage. None of these are strong choices. I could probably ditch the Dim Mak and give him an area attack representing bouncing around hitting multiple targets, which could help with minions. But ultimately he is a monkey who knows ninjutsu. He isn’t there to make anyone’s life easier. If that doesn’t sound fun, he may not be the best choice.

Personally, I'm fine with the low intelligence. We have other people to cover the technology and expertise skills. I'm guessing he also wouldn't be able to read or write even if he could speak. Maybe it'll come up. Maybe it won't. We also have a player willing to spend their points to mitigate the communication issue. It should be fine.

In the meantime, let's try to not have any friction between players before the game even starts. I'm not accusing anyone of that, but this is the internet and things can happen unintentionally.

I am still going through the rest of the characters. Expect posts tomorrow and thursday.

Excellent point. I was just trying to be helpful but I can see how someone else could take my commentary as being critical. The Ninja Monkey is a fun idea and should play out as an interesting character. :)

Siphon only spent 23 ranks on skills. They have one more rank to allocate.

It seems the intent behind your powers is that you can only copy the abilities of someone that is currently under the affect of your affliction. I suppose I could see that being worth the limited trait. The updated sheet looks good from what I can tell.

Thanks, I'll give myself another skill rank.

My original idea was for her to keep the powers for a day or two -- really for the length the plot demands, since Siphon was created in a much more rules-lite system. But your statement makes me think it's going to be much shorter than that.

GM, what are your thoughts on the duration of her Mimic ability? I'd like for there to be a chance she could still contribute in a fight against robot drones and other stuff she can't drain using previously stolen powers, because otherwise she'd be pretty useless.

(Or in the alternative, the limitation of not affecting robots or people in power armor being enough to lower the price enough to pay for an extension of the duration of Mimic.)

@ST: With Ninja deriving from the Japanese words nin, meaning “endurance” or “stealth,” and sha, meaning “a person". Saru being "monkey" in Japanese so would your guy be Ninjaru or some such?

Just spitballing ideas on your cool concept chief :)

Oh and found this Ninja-Monkey artwork by kostya-pingwin that is perfect inspiration!

Meanwhile I have no idea what I am doing XD

Personally, I'm fine with the low intelligence. We have other people to cover the technology and expertise skills. I'm guessing he also wouldn't be able to read or write even if he could speak. Maybe it'll come up. Maybe it won't. We also have a player willing to spend their points to mitigate the communication issue. It should be fine.

In the meantime, let's try to not have any friction between players before the game even starts. I'm not accusing anyone of that, but this is the internet and things can happen unintentionally.

I am still going through the rest of the characters. Expect posts tomorrow and thursday.

Sorry, I was being prickly.

@ST: With Ninja deriving from the Japanese words nin, meaning “endurance” or “stealth,” and sha, meaning “a person". Saru being "monkey" in Japanese so would your guy be Ninjaru or some such?

Just spitballing ideas on your cool concept chief :)

Oh and found this Ninja-Monkey artwork by kostya-pingwin that is perfect inspiration!

Cool idea. I imagine other people will get to call him something, so that could make a good one.

Meanwhile I have no idea what I am doing XD

I'm sure several of us would be willing to help you out. Just let us know what you need.

Matt Adams 259 wrote:

Siphon only spent 23 ranks on skills. They have one more rank to allocate.

It seems the intent behind your powers is that you can only copy the abilities of someone that is currently under the affect of your affliction. I suppose I could see that being worth the limited trait. The updated sheet looks good from what I can tell.

Brisk looks good.

For Emerald Kometa, what is speed of thought? I’m not seeing it on the site.

Being unexperienced, I saw it on Hero Lab as an advantage I could take. Allows for Int modifier for Initiative

I have looked almost everywhere for it, downloaded just about all of the sourcebooks, which is awesome, but I still couldn't find it.

Then I went into HeroLab and turned off all of the supplements to try to isolate it, but it was still there; in spite of not being able to find it in the CORE or the Deluxe Hero's Handbook.

It must have come from somewhere though ...

BlackoCatto wrote:

Meanwhile I have no idea what I am doing XD

I'm sure several of us would be willing to help you out. Just let us know what you need.

Honestly, I want to see if this all works as an energy being that shoot fire radiation beams and flies around.

BlackoCatto wrote:

Matt Adams 259 wrote:

Siphon only spent 23 ranks on skills. They have one more rank to allocate.

It seems the intent behind your powers is that you can only copy the abilities of someone that is currently under the affect of your affliction. I suppose I could see that being worth the limited trait. The updated sheet looks good from what I can tell.

Brisk looks good.

For Emerald Kometa, what is speed of thought? I’m not seeing it on the site.

Being unexperienced, I saw it on Hero Lab as an advantage I could take. Allows for Int modifier for Initiative

I have looked almost everywhere for it, downloaded just about all of the sourcebooks, which is awesome, but I still couldn't find it.

Then I went into HeroLab and turned off all of the supplements to try to isolate it, but it was still there; in spite of not being able to find it in the CORE or the Deluxe Hero's Handbook.

It must have come from somewhere though ...

At this point I don't know either. I might have to just remove it for now.

GM SuperTumbler wrote:

BlackoCatto wrote:

Meanwhile I have no idea what I am doing XD

I'm sure several of us would be willing to help you out. Just let us know what you need.

Honestly, I want to see if this all works as an energy being that shoot fire radiation beams and flies around.

Well it is EXACTLY the same concept I had, so I am letting you have it because it's excellent, and I will try to submit something else.

I did ready a really fantastic Reddit on a PL5 Paragon Archetype ... maybe that :)

Rigel Kentaurus wrote:

BlackoCatto wrote:

Matt Adams 259 wrote:

Siphon only spent 23 ranks on skills. They have one more rank to allocate.

It seems the intent behind your powers is that you can only copy the abilities of someone that is currently under the affect of your affliction. I suppose I could see that being worth the limited trait. The updated sheet looks good from what I can tell.

Brisk looks good.

For Emerald Kometa, what is speed of thought? I’m not seeing it on the site.

Being unexperienced, I saw it on Hero Lab as an advantage I could take. Allows for Int modifier for Initiative

I have looked almost everywhere for it, downloaded just about all of the sourcebooks, which is awesome, but I still couldn't find it.

Then I went into HeroLab and turned off all of the supplements to try to isolate it, but it was still there; in spite of not being able to find it in the CORE or the Deluxe Hero's Handbook.

It must have come from somewhere though ...

At this point I don't know either. I might have to just remove it for now.

It appears/referenced repeatedly in Threat Report and Rogue's Gallery villain supplements. Green Ronin canon.

BlackoCatto wrote:

GM SuperTumbler wrote:

BlackoCatto wrote:

Meanwhile I have no idea what I am doing XD

I'm sure several of us would be willing to help you out. Just let us know what you need.

Honestly, I want to see if this all works as an energy being that shoot fire radiation beams and flies around.

Well it is EXACTLY the same concept I had, so I am letting you have it because it's excellent, and I will try to submit something else.

I did ready a really fantastic Reddit on a PL5 Paragon Archetype ... maybe that :)

You should both run with it - 2 entities from the same source, like you've split the atom. Maybe a PL10+ hero whose been sundered in Doomsday into two parts?

Like Superman Red and Superman Blue. But not stupid.

Sounds like a cool idea

i want to have the power to swap the positions of two things. other than that i want to be a regular everyday normal guy (probably college athlete that was just doing sports to pay for college) who never planned to use his power for anything. he has a strong sense of justice though, so he now feels obligated to try and step up with all the heroes gone.

e.g. Trafalgar Law using "Shambles" (One Piece) or Aoi Todo's innate technique (Jujutsu Kaisen) but without the clapping.

Did anyone have any feedback for me about Dr. Medicine? I'm not entirely sure I did it right, as there were some complicated fiddly bits to the powers section. Or just thoughts in general, I like hearing from people!

--

Also that split hero thing sounds really cool

I’m going over Dr Medicine now. I’ll get back to you today.

Siphon-depending on what the rest of the party is doing, you could always have access to their powers, so at least you won’t be totally useless against robots. Or even find a technician to drain and learn to disable them that way.

I do get your point about wanting your powers to last more than a couple of minutes though. I have a solution though. In the theme of tying it to the affliction power, how about the duration is set based on how many degrees of affliction she causes. 1st degree would give her 8 minutes of access to a given power (time rank = power rank); 2nd degree would give access for 8 hours (time rank = power rank x2); 3rd degree would give semipermanent access. Power rank x3 would be time rank 24 or 3 years. However, I found an interesting bit in the variable power that says sustained powers are lost when they are no longer maintained. So I figure she would lose access to any powers she has absorbed when knocked unconscious or goes to sleep. Essentially something in her biology triggers a reset during REM sleep. Also, she can only absorb one power set at a time so she can lose powers that way too.

Dr Medicine-I gather that this is your first time, so let’s talk about your powers.
First up, I don’t think that (must be ordered) is a good use of limited because talking is a free action in the game. Essentially, the rest of the party has to pay the price for your points. But the cost is nothing in this case. The only time I see this coming up is if the party gets split. Even then, the group will be big enough that you’ll still have one or two people with you. And if you are the last one standing, you essentially have no combat ability to protect the unconscious members. I think we need to drop limited and do some rebuilding.
Second, I don’t think variable is used correctly here. Variable is supposed to be hard to define. See Siphon by Stalwart. You seem to have given it a pretty good list of effects and would be best built as an array. Which is two or more powers that can only be used one at a time. The cost of an array is the cost of the most expensive power plus 1 point for each additional power “mode”.
Third, you tied the healing, enhancement, and protection abilities to the Weaken power. That is worth the limited advantage. I just wanted to make sure that you knew that the Concentration Extra power took a standard action to take effect and it might be difficult to keep the buffs up.

Yeah this is my second time building a M&M character. You make a really good point about the concentration thing, and I think that if I remove that extra, it will cancel out the (must be ordered) limitation?

In regards to why I didn't build it as an array and instead used variable was that it became very expensive to be able to offer a variety of physical stat buffs AND the protection. I'll see if I can hash it out though, and find the points somewhere.

Other than those things, am I in order?

Sounds like a cool idea

It actually really does sound cool: like there was a super-collider accident; one ends up coherent Protons, the other ends up coherent Electrons. Like the OPPOSITE of Firestorm: they aren't merged at the outset, but could possibly figure out how to merge into a greater atomic hero later.

I was actually designing around Monica Rambeau as Photon, so this is a pretty cool shift. The portrayal in WandaVision was actually pretty excellent.

Yea, it is an interesting idea.

Yeah this is my second time building a M&M character. You make a really good point about the concentration thing, and I think that if I remove that extra, it will cancel out the (must be ordered) limitation?

In regards to why I didn't build it as an array and instead used variable was that it became very expensive to be able to offer a variety of physical stat buffs AND the protection. I'll see if I can hash it out though, and find the points somewhere.

Other than those things, am I in order?

I need to know what traits you were trying to enhance. I also noticed that you didn’t have the power ranks listed. I was assuming rank 5 for Weaken based on the DC, but not sure about the others.

There also might be conflict between your concept and the system. For example, very few characters could take advantage of the Enhanced Traits and Protection because of power level limits. The system assumes most characters will be built pretty close to the limits. Unfortunately being enhanced by another player does not allow them to bypass those limits. From what I can tell, no one could even benefit from the extra protection unless their defenses are hindered in some way.

As an afterthought, is it intended for your robot to be affected by mental effects and poisons and stuff?

Ah see, I didn't know that you couldn't go beyond PL with the aid of another character. That puts a big damper on things. If that's the case, I'll probably withdraw the good(?) Doctor, and submit something else, if that's alright with you.

Thank you for the feedback!

Here's the WIP profile of Black Dow's pitch. Malleable quickly became Candy Grrl whose the daughter of a "minor" league villain - The Confectionist. His synthesised sweets and candies allowed him to alter the physical, emotional or cerebral conditions of targets who consumed them.

The Confectionist saw his experiments on his daughter as his chef-d'oeuvre. She did not share his vision, nor appreciate the stolen childhood and "gift" of a freakish psychology and duly rebelled...

Based on your initial thoughts Adam - was mulling making Candy Grrl a simulacrum created by The Confectionist - possibly to replace his lost daughter, or possibly as a defacto daughter he never had? (Depends if we go tragic villain or creepy madman... - was leaning toward the latter lol)

Would tweak her powers and complications to reflect, but am curious to know what folk think? Or is she better as a subject of her warped father's experimentation?

I think that's right...

There are times that you don't actually choose to be the Paris, but your last name is still Hilton, right?. So what do you do, text your father and say "you're too busy" to be the face of his billion dollar publicity stunt? Yeah no, it doesn't work that way ...

(and when it all goes to hell, at least you got powers out of it)

Rigel Kent, for your consideration.

Ah see, I didn't know that you couldn't go beyond PL with the aid of another character. That puts a big damper on things. If that's the case, I'll probably withdraw the good(?) Doctor, and submit something else, if that's alright with you.

Thank you for the feedback!

You can absolutely submit something better suited to the system if you choose.

Doctor Night-does blending affect only your hearing concealment or both hearing and sight? Other than that it looks good.

Magick-You ended up spending 10 points on skill ranks not 5. Also, I keep coming up with 18 points for the healing part of the array not 16. Everything else is fine.

Candy Grrl wrote:

Here's the WIP profile of Black Dow's pitch. Malleable quickly became Candy Grrl whose the daughter of a "minor" league villain - The Confectionist. His synthesised sweets and candies allowed him to alter the physical, emotional or cerebral conditions of targets who consumed them.

The Confectionist saw his experiments on his daughter as his chef-d'oeuvre. She did not share his vision, nor appreciate the stolen childhood and "gift" of a freakish psychology and duly rebelled...

Based on your initial thoughts Adam Matt - was mulling making Candy Grrl a simulacrum created by The Confectionist - possibly to replace his lost daughter, or possibly as a defacto daughter he never had? (Depends if we go tragic villain or creepy madman... - was leaning toward the latter lol)

Would tweak her powers and complications to reflect, but am curious to know what folk think? Or is she better as a subject of her warped father's experimentation?

@Matt Adams 259: Apologies typo'd your name as Adam above! :S Fixed now!

@Matt Adams 259 - For Doctor Night, the concealment will work for Normal Vision (Rank 2) and Normal Hearing (Rank 1). They both have the Blending Flaw so -1 cost per rank for a total cost of 3 points.

The intention was for the character to be able to navigate perfectly well without his sense of sight. Is accurate normal hearing adequate for this or should he pick up ultra-hearing as well to sense walls and other objects? I do not see any options for sonar (active or passive) in the rules but I do see how they stated out dolphins and whales (with accurate hearing and ultra-hearing). I can find the point needed in the vision group perhaps downgrading his dark vision to low-light vision or removing his extended normal vision.

So Rigel a Kent where at the same lab potentially. Funding backer and scientist.

So Rigel a Kent where at the same lab potentially. Funding backer and scientist.

and again, a little like Firestorm, that would be the perfect disparity: the "face" of the project and the "brains" of the project both got knocked on their asses (kinda like Carol Danvers too) ... and end up with powers

Rigel has to struggle to be heroic, and not selfish (or apathetic), where I imagine his scientist friend has to struggle to engage and be more public facing

Their prior knowledge of each other could be anything too: they could have been friends since high school, they could have met during other press junkets, or they could have met because of the accident

Doctor Night-I had to go over the concealment power again. I forgot that visual senses cost double ranks. Your sheet looks fine otherwise. It’ll do what you want it to.

Emerald Kometa-For immunity, you need to define the power descriptor you are immune to. I’m assuming radiation. Immune to all damage would be closer to a Toughness immunity. Which is too expensive for this power level. Radiation Forms is also pretty vague. Do you mean radiation environmental effects or radiation based powers? Overall, immune to crits (2), radiation damage (5), radiation environmental effects (1), entrapment (5). You can’t really reflect environmental effects or critical hits, so the reflection only applies against the radiation damage and entrapment powers. That’s an extra 10 points. Or just 5 if you only want to reflect the radiation damage. That comes to 18 or 23 points of immunity.

So ignoring the advantage I can’t find, and making my best guess for how your immunity works, I come up with 26pp in abilities, 4pp in advantages, 3pp in skills, 46pp in powers, and 2 points in defenses. That comes out to 81 points. You have 9 left to spend. Not sure what hero lab is doing. If you could post a breakdown of the point allocations that would be appreciated.

And since your unfamiliar with the system, I can give you some quick tips. You want your to hit and damage for an individual attack to add up to 12. Right now, you have a melee attack of 0 to hit and 1 damage and a ranged attack of 7 to hit and 3 damage. That’s not going to be threatening to really any adversary. You also want your defense pairs to add up to 12. The defense pairs are Dodge/Toughness, Parry/Toughness, and Fort/Will. Your defenses are absolute weak sauce. Insubstantial makes up for that some, but if an enemy comes at you with an energy or mental attack, you’re a sitting duck. I would drop the melee damage power, it’ll cost too much to make it useful. Instead, bring your ranged damage up to 5 for 4 points. Also increase some of your defenses. It’ll be easier to buy Protection than to increase your . Increasing your dodge and parry separately. Increasing Stamina would also increase Fort and Toughness.

Candy Grrl-The sheet looks good.

I think I only have Tyler Davidson and Proton to go over. If I’ve missed anyone let me know. Here is the list of characters I’ve seen.
Ninja Monkey-done
Reluctant Succubus-done
Backstop-done
Siphon-done
Brisk-done
Emerald Kometa-in progress
Doctor Night-done
Candy Grrl-done
Magick-done
Tyler Davidson-
Proton-