Kind of like Paradigm, Enkidu has a set character arch. His powers were an accidental side-effect of treatments meant to deal with a congenital illness. His father died, leaving him unable to afford treatment, so he became a villain mainly to steal the money and equipment to continue researching a cure. The V'sori banned genetic manipulation, leaving him slowly dying and unable to act until they were gone. Now that they are dealt with, his priority is going to be finding a cure so he doesn't die.
The idea of a Guardians of the Galaxy style team is a good one, but I don't know that it makes sense for Enkidu.
Enkidu shifts back into a human sized shape, first assuming the form of his namesake beast-man, but then after a moments thought, shifting down to his actual form. He's a sallow looking, underweight teenager, and looks both tired and ill. He looks from the body of the Overmind to the team, and to Monos.
"I'm presuming their will a pardon forthcoming for resistance members for our past actions. It is a chance to start over. Sire, I saw what had become of the city. I think I'd be better served on earth. There is a lot of rebuilding to be done, and in the power vacuum, a lot of forces will try to seize control. And I need to get better. I feel like if I continue on much longer, it will be too late; I don't know how much more my body can handle."
"I kind of like the idea of being a hero, and maybe I will be, eventually, but first I gotta make sure I survive long enough to make that choice."
I kind feel like the game has reached its natural conclusion. I like the group, and I'd definitely be up to continue running something together, but I think I'd rather start up something new, while sticking with the Super's milieu. We could even start up a new game in the exact same world. New, young heroes or old retired ones, starting out heroing to deal with rogue V'Sori drones, criminal groups, corrupt governments, super villains returning to their old tricks, or new ones using abandoned V'sori tech, and so forth. Being the megalomaniac he is, Paradigm could even end up being our BBEG.
GM_ZenFox42 wrote:
... and Enkidu, *please* don't put any more points into Shapeshift ;).
No plans to. As I've mentioned before, I think the Shapeshift power being out of sync with the power-levels of other abilities was an accidental side-effect of trying to ban and limit certain powers at the outset. I think the game is pretty heavily play tested, and the character creation rules are designed to maintain balance. As soon as you mess with that balance, you inevitably start finding things you didn't think of, loopholes, and new accidently created exploits you couldn't have predicted without extensive play-testing; in essence, creating the exact problem you were trying to avoid. I would strongly suggest more of a hands-off approach with character generation if we end up starting a new crew.
Notice that you can always just spend a benny to automatically recover from shaken. The rules on Shaken were updated in case you forgot as well; pass the roll and you can act as normal, fail and you miss a turn, but are no longer considered shaken afterwards.
I think that episode of TNG is where I first heard the story when I was a kid. I went and looked up the nest of the story soon after. My daughter loves mythology too, and I have a graphic novel version of the Epic that has been sitting in my Amazon wishlist for her for a long while as well.
I had a character named Jalaad in a campaign once too...
Yes, the Beast man. Why do you think I chose it? Enkidu's common form (public persona) is usually that of a beast man (bear stats but in hairy wild man shape).
I like the Epic of Gilgamesh (I did a minor in classics in uni), and the name seemed like it suited.
Enkidu is supposed to be a nerdy kid who spent most of his youth in hospital beds, often just reading, so an unstoppable Wildman would have appealed to him.
When I had the roll, I had the same thought, this is a ridiculous number of Aces, I hope it doesn't one shot the villain. Having it just kill him due to random chance would be extremely anticlimactic, so I am fine with whatever solution.
One option would be to make it the suit that gets destroyed, not the occupant, kind of like the Robot vs. Power Armour difference in Rifts. In Rifts, this kind of roll would kill a guy in power Armour, but only destroy the robot a guy was piloting. So you could just have him climb out of the wrecked suit, give him some more impressive in-person powers that perhaps originally planned, and then start phase II of the fight.
Finally having a chamber big enough to maneuver, and an opponent big enough to hit, Enkidu unleashes his biggest, nastiest form ever. His shape takes on the likeness of something like a six-legged predatory cat, but huge, some 25 feet long and 10 feet tall. Along its back it is covered with spines and quills, something like a porcupine. He moves around to the left, trying to keep the line of fire open for his range based companions.
If he gets the raise, the form usually gets an automatic grapple; with the bear form and others, you previously ruled this should be a free chance to grapple, and not an automatic success, so here is his strength roll: Grapple:1d12 + 3 ⇒ (11) + 3 = 141d6 + 3 ⇒ (5) + 3 = 8
How big is this face/brain? Is it just big compared to an average head/brain, or is this the stereotypical giant alien brain, the size of an SUV or bigger?
Enkidu shifts back into his more typical beastman shape, and hunters down. He looks lost in thought for a while.
"I don't give a shot about the V'sori. I just want earth back."
He looks at the standing form of the Outsider for a while.
[B]"But I don't like the idea of being at someone else's mercy either. If anything happened to our protection, what would stop them from just coming back? I'm tired. Very tired. I kind of like the idea of dealing a blow back at them, though I'm concerned about what happens if we fail; does earth still get the protection?"
He directs the last question towards the Outsider.
He has Ambidexterity and Two Fisted as part of his own core Edges, so he can use them in every form. That is why he always uses two claw attacks with no MAP, and has since nearly the beginning of the campaign. In this particular form, if he scores a raise on one of those melee attacks, he gets a bonus attack, but that is just for his Raptor shape.
I see in the last post I made 2 claw attacks, but I labeled both "Claw 1" because I Copy/Pasted the attacks, but forgot to change the label on the second one to "Claw 2." Sorry if that caused any confusion. I'll try to be more careful in the future.
Special Ability: If the raptor gets a raise on its Fighting roll, it leaps into the air and kicks the target with it's massive hooked claws. It gets an additional free attack against the target at +2 to hit and damage.
I actually kind of doubt even an 11 will be a raise, given how high their parry seems to be, but I included the rolls just in case.
Enkidu shifts his shape down to something smaller, both to make himself a smaller target, but to make hitting his opponents easier. The real focus of course is to use a form that includes more rapid healing in order to regenerate that old would. As a result, he takes on the shape of a troll, right out of Lord of the Rings.
Yes, as he has from the outset of the game. He increases the creature's Vigor by a die, and adds 2 toughness and 4 armour to the base stats of the creature he is changing into.
For instance, the Dragonnel has a Vigor d12, and a Toughness of 17(3). When Enkidu takes the shape, in increases by 6(4) to 23(7) (Since Vigor 12+1 rounds down and works out the same as d12, or it would be 7(4). I had it entered as 22(7) for some reason; I must have messed up the math when entering it (now fixed). That is one of the reasons I did all the entries on my Profile, as they are not the same as the stats in the book, as his powers also increase his Strength, Fighting skill, Parry, and Ratn.
Essentially, he has enough control over his shapeshifting that he changes into an optimized version of a creature, with heavier muscle, thicker skin, bigger teeth and claws, and more predatory instincts.
Ok, not sure how that is relevant. Dragon is Size 8, which is bigger than I can shift into, and I don't usually bother with creatures with lots of supernatural abilities, as I can't replicate those. But if I were able to take that shape, my Toughness in Dragon shape would be 27(8), due to my other abilities. As far as I can see, there is nothing in the rules that suggests Toughness caps at any point.
If I made a pure Tank type character like the Thing or Colossus, I could easily have Armour 6, Super Vigor d12, and Toughness 6, and still have plenty of points for offensive abilities That only uses about 15 points of the 36 point budget. This example would have Toughness 26(12). If I maxed out defenses (in SWEX), and made a semi-invulnerable character that carried a gun for offense, he could have Armour 12/Toughness 12, Super-Stat 6/Vigor d12+3; for a Toughness 46(24). In SWADE Armour and Toughness count towards the same power limit, but he could still do Max in those plus Super Vigor 6 (and manage a d12+6), for a toughness of 23(0) to 35(24). Force Field 10 could reduce any damage coming in by another 10 before comparing it to his toughness.
The Giant Monster entry in the Powers Companion (SWEX) has a Toughness of 35(10), Asmodeus 33(16), Supernova 19(12), Panzer 19(8), The Crab 19(12). SWADE has Blackhole 20(12), the Celestial Horror 32, Goliath 31(10), Gravel 33(16), Surtr 28(10), and Thugee 33(20).
This is Enkidu's highest Toughness form. He's big, makes a good target, but is tough. He'll attract more shots, but the idea is that he's hopefully tough enough to weather them. An arbitrary cap seems out of the blue, and makes little sense.
Just wanted to check in and ask what the purpose was in artificially capping Enkidu's toughness? Seems like the form he has doesn't have much it can do except be tough and resist being injured. So why artificially drop that toughness by just a few points?
Enkidu - initially I was going to just ask a simple question : how long is your tail OR what size Burst template does your Sweep attack cover, but then I looked at your PC stats, and now I have other questions. It's marked as being "core", but I can't find it in the SWD or SWADE core rules. I did some Googling, and found references to it only being maybe 10 feet long nose-to-tailtip, so it's way smaller than a dragon, which has only 20 Toughness in both SWD and SWADE, so why the 22 for you? In any case, assuming that your tail is half your length, that only reaches foes adjacent to you, so...
P.S. - if/when you attack with claws or teeth, we'll have to decide on a mutually agreeable amount of damage dice.
Apologies, it is not core, it is from Zadmar's. I probably copy/pasted the entry and forgot to change that part of the heading. Here is the link. A Dragonel is 20ft long. Enkidu's stats are a touch above typical due to enhanced stats and armour. Basically, he shifts into above average, 'Prime' examples of creatures.
I notice the creature doesn't have a tail attack listed, but does have sweep, so presumably the sweep is intended to be performed with tooth or claw. Sweep is not a knockdown attack, but more of a cleaving through maneuver, swiping a huge claw (or greatsword) through a swath of enemies. As such, his normal attack damage is what would normally apply.
Just rechecked the Sweep Edge and saw I was correct about the damage determination (except I'm supposed to roll against each foe hit separately), but I forgot that there is both a Sweep and an Improved sweep. The Dragonnel form gives him the Sweep edge, but not the improved version, so the attack should be at -2, which I didn't apply, so I'll at the penalty here.
*Edit: Dammit, are these guys Medium sized? Went to update the entry with the correct link and noticed he's Large, and suffers a -2 vs. Medium or smaller. If so, that's another -2 on the attack. This shape may not be as helpful as I was hoping... except maybe as a tough target for them to concentrate on. So I guess I'm keeping 'em busy while my pals wipe them out or I get a lucky attack roll.
Sorry, work suddenly slammed me for the last week, I didn't have time to make long posts until now...
Everyone gets 3 more Bennies because these guys are so tough...
Enkidu, I'm assuming that your Parry and Toughness in your tag line is for the new form, I compared it to the results of the last attack and both numbers are bigger than before.
Flare, in your tag line could you please change your Parry to 10 to reflect the Uncanny Reflexes, and add "RATN=8", thanks!
Yes that is right; the values for the prior attacks were accurate at that time, but I usually try to keep them current with the form he is in at the present time in the game. His Toughness is higher in this form.
Enkidu signals to Doxis that she is going to have to fly on her own, and then shifts into the shape of a Dragonel; a large dragon like creature, that while it doesn't breath fire, certainly looks the part and has massive muscles and thickly armoured scales.
He swoops down at the enemy troops, and landing ahead of them, sweeps his massive tail through the crowd.
I was scolling back as I couldn't remember Doxis' name, but then in the same post I noticed a reference to her flying! And here I thought I couldn't go down as I had to carry her! I'll have to look up some creature options and get stuck in.
I have a powerful dislike of mass combat in this system (and I'm not too fond of the dramatic task rules either). They might work better in a live game, but online, there is zero tension or way to get invested. Feels like basing the outcome on a coin toss. So with that in mind, I'd rather just toss all the dice for all the baddies, or replace them with tougher guys.
Yeah, unfortunately bonuses from the same Power don't stack. So your RATN is also 6.
That's fair.
"What's our plan up here? I have no range capacity in this form. I can try to draw fire while you pick them off, or if one of you holds the pixie, I can dive into them and shift to something heavily armoured..."
Enkidu shifts back into a giant hawk, and waits for any ally that cannot fly on their own to secure themselves in a riding position. Once that is done, he launches up in the air, trying to get out of easy range of the attackers.
Enkidu lands on the ground near his comrades, shifting back into his man-shape.
"Are we staying to fight? Flare can fly, and I can probably carry the two of you as a giant hawk or a gryphon. If we do stay, any particular strategy we want to employ? We don't exactly have the numbers for a shield wall here. Professor, could you manage an earthwork of some sort? A ditch and a hill can make a big difference if they come up at us. If we could find a natural choke point, that might help as well."
He shifts quickly to an eagle in order to get a better look at the approaching hoard, then back in order to describe it to the group.
Is Champion still in the air, and if so, what's the altitude? I'd like to change shape into something stronger, but I'm limited if I need to maintain a flying form.
Bennies, I was down to 1, got the bonus 2, used one, leaving me with 2 at present.
Sorry, I went to go look up a rule and then got distracted and forgot.
I think Snatch is supposed to be automatic. It would probably not be hard for him to break my grapple, but I believe if he hits with a raise, he adds the grappled condition as bonus. He gets something similar with Bear, but in that case it actually goes right past "grappled" to "pinned."
Of course, as GM, you can change the rules, but as written it looks intended to be included in the successful strike due to the raise.
I did it that way purely because I had already typed out the attacks and damage, and just rerolled the low attack value. I didn't even notice the damage had aced... when I rerolled the attack value was high enough to get a raise, so I added it, still not noticing the damage roll had aced. Not sure how I missed that.
I rerolled the attack and not the damage as you had responded in a previous post that a damage reroll was a separate Benny cost from the attack roll, so I left the damage roll as it was.
As for the grab, it is not mutually exclusive with damage, just a side benefit of raising on a hit. His bear form actually has the same bonus, just labeled as a bear hug.
Not having any ranged attacks, and knowing that he is far too vulnerable in his hybrid form to try using his fledgling magic, Enkidu shifts instantly into the shape of a giant hawk, and comes hurtling out of the illusion, slamming into the approaching hero with the force of a small car.
Snatch: If the Giant Hawk gets a raise on it's Fighting roll when Swooping against a target man-sized or smaller, it snatches up the victim and flies off with it, most likely to feed its young.
Enkidu's Strength in this shape is d12+1, for when Champion inevitably tries to break the grapple.
