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Post by Angelous Vita on Feb 8, 2011 10:06:05 GMT -5
Ok so you've decided what you want your superhero to be able to do. Now the question is, "How do I make him?" Well, good news. It's not too difficult. In this thread I will build a sample character but before I do, I'll tell you how it works. To quote an awesome show, I'm gunna tell you what I'm going to say, say it with examples then to finish, I'll tell you what I told you. First off, your Game Master or GM will give you a certain number of stones to work with. With those stones, you choose certain abilities that you want and you purchase them. Yep, just like everything else in life, these abilities aren't free. Good news though, there is a way that you can get more stones. However, I think I will start making my example character for you so I don't loose you.
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Post by Angelous Vita on Feb 8, 2011 11:08:21 GMT -5
Alright, in this example, I am going to make a 40 + 10. SO from that I know that I have 40 white stones automatically and I can choose to have 10 extra white stones from challenges. There are two different types of stones: red and white. Put 3 red stones together and you have a white stone. This is a recurring theme throughout the game I promise you will see it again. So back to making a character. The first thing that you want to focus on is the ability scores. Your abilities are -Intelligence -Strength - Agility -Speed -Durability. Intelligence: Basically this measures how smart your character is on a scale of 1 to 10. 1 is considered below normal, 5 is a genius and 10...well 10 is immeasurable. So normal would be about a 2. You use your intelligence to solve problems, operate devices and machinery and general smart stuff. You can also use it as an included ability bonus for actions like technology, inventing and gambling. Strength: Basically...how strong you are. Honestly all the abilities use a scale of 1 to 10. With strength, 1 is considered normal, 5 is considered superhuman and 10...well once again, 10 is incalculable. Use this to pick things up, carry them, throw them, etc. You can use this as an ability bonus in things like close combat. Agility: This is how fast your reflexes are. 1 is considered normal, 5 is considered superhuman and 10 is incalculable. This ability can be used for just about anything that doesn't have an action like basketball, playing a musical instrument. It can also be used as an ability bonus for things like close combat, thieving acrobatics etc. Speed: This is how fast your character runs. You can use this for running, moving quickly or.......well you get the idea. At a speed of 7 or more your character can run up walls, at 10 you can make tornadoes! 1 is considered normal, 5 is superhuman and 10 is considered Quicksilver fast. Yep that's right he has a speed classification named after him. The last ability is Durability. In my opinion, this is the most important cause it determines what your life and energy is. This will tell you how many white stones of health you have and how many red stones of energy it will get you. For every white stone of health you have you get 3 red stones of energy (See there's that 3 to 1 concept again ) 1 is considered normal, 5 is super human and 10 is immeasurable. Alright, now that I have discussed those, I need to take a break. Next post, costs of these abilities. Stay tuned!
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Post by Angelous Vita on Feb 8, 2011 17:26:26 GMT -5
Alright, in the last post we covered the abilities, now let's talk about their costs. All of the abilities except for durability are Cost Level = Ability level in the following chart. level 1 : 1 red stone 2 : 2 red stones 3 : 1 White stones 4 : 2 White stones 5 : 3 White stones 6 : 4 White stones 7 : 6 White stones 8 : 9 White stones 9 : 12 White stones 10 : 15 White stones Anything above 10 you just add 5 more stones to the previous level. So, for my example character, let's work out my abilities. For her intelligence, let's make her a little more intelligent then the norm, 3. That's gunna cost me one white. For Strength, Agility and Speed, we'll go with peak human and make those a three as well. They are all 1 white so we are now up to a total of 4 white stones. Now for the cost of Durability, it's a little bit different. Since it determines your health, energy and energy regeneration rate, it costs 3 times what the other abilities do. In other words it's cost level = ability level + 3. So if you wanted a durability of say, 5, you would actually pay for it like it was an 8. This cost would come out to 9 white stones. My example character is going to have a 4 in durability. So the cost for that is 6 white stones. Now that makes my health 4 white stones. To get your energy count, you just multiply your durability by 3. So to get my energy 4 x 3 = 12 red stones of energy. (3 for 1...told you that was recurring ) At this point, when I spend energy, I will get it back at a rate of 4 a panel since I get 1 red back for each white stone of health I have. So to sum that little part up Durability of 4 makes: 4 white stones of health 12 red stones of energy and 4 red stones/panel regeneration rate. So far, my character looks like this: Intelligence 3 (1W) Strength 3 (1W) Agility 3 (1W) Speed 3 (1W) Durability 4 (6W) So I have spent 10 of my 40 stones on my abilities leaving me with, that's right, 30 stones to split between actions, modifiers and possibly equipment. Having a three year old in the house makes it a little difficult to sit and post these back to back so I need to take a small break. Stay tuned! Next we talk about the different actions!
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Post by Angelous Vita on Feb 8, 2011 22:02:14 GMT -5
Alrighty...So now that we have our basic abilities, we now get to work with the super fun part of the creation process...Actions aka super powers.
The selection of actions ranges from telepathy to genetic engineering and is only limited by your imagination. Not all of the actions are mutations or super powers. Some of them are things like ninja, black-ops, technology or combat...things that can be trained. Costs can range from cost=action number to cost=action number + 7 levels. It would take *way* too much time and space to list all of the actions here. Your best bet, if you don't know all the actions but have a good idea where you wanna go with your character, is to talk to your gm. When buying actions, you get them at an action number which basically equals how many stones you can put into doing that action.
For my character, I have chosen 5 actions: Close Combat, Ranged Combat, Acrobatics, Social Skills and Phase Shift.
Acrobatics is pretty much like what a trained acrobat can do. It comes with the option to combine your agility with it to get a better chance at whatever you are trying to do with it. It's a cost=action number, and I got it at a 4 for my character which came out to a cost of 2 white stones.
Close combat, definitely what it sounds like. Your ability to fight in close quarters. This comes with a free ability bonus (choice of acrobatics or strength) OR weapon modifier to put towards your efforts. This is a cost=action number so getting it at a 5 cost me 3 white.
Ranged combat...pretty much the same as above only ranged. It come with a free weapon modifier. At cost=action number, it cost me 1 white stone to get it at a 3.
Phase Shift, the ability to walk through walls and other solid objects. Possibly my favorite action ever. By itself, this action is cost=action number + 2 levels. Some actions, ok most actions, have other options you can add that raise the cost of the action. I chose to add phase attack which adds 3 more levels to the total cost so now my cost is cost level=action number + 5 levels and now I can attack with this actions (super worth it!) So to get it at a 4 it cost me 12 white stones.
Social skills, is an action that *must* be on cad (or character action display, character sheet, so forth and so on) because it shows your ability to interact with people around you. It's a cost level=action number so to get it at a 3 it cost me 1 white.
Alright so, as my character stands, this is how we look:
Abilities: (10 white)
Intelligence 3 (1W) Strength 3 (1W) Agility 3 (1W) Speed 3 (1W) Durability 4 (6W)
Actions: (19 white)
Acrobatics 4 (2) -agility bonus
Combat, Close 5 (3) -strength bonus -specialty types of close combat (up to action number of specialties)
Combat, Ranged 3 (1) -weapon bonus
Phase Shift 4 (12) -phase attack
Social Skills 3 (1) -specialties (up to action number of specialties)
So we have the abilities and actions done. Hell, we're almost done, we only have modifiers, equipment and challenges to talk about then we're done. So stay tuned, cause next we are headed to the wonderful world of modifiers!
EDIT: Something I forgot to mention the first time around...There is a limit to how many actions you can have. 9 is the magic number here, you can have fewer but no more
DOUBLE EDIT: I also forgot to mention that there are different advantages and disadvantages that you can add to your actions. These will change the amount that your action costs.
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Post by Angelous Vita on Feb 10, 2011 18:06:13 GMT -5
Alright so onto the wonderful world of modifiers.
The cool thing about modifiers is that they give you free[/b] stones to put toward a specified action. For instance, if you have a character that is a 'ranged fighter' and uses guns a lot, it would be in your best interest to buy targeting. This modifier allows you to put up to your modifier number of free stones into your attack. So if you had a ranged combat of say, 4 then added your pistol to it (which is +2 stones from the general pool, again free stones) then add your targeting of say 3 you have a 9 stone attack that you only spent 4 stones from your energy with the other 5 coming from the general pool. Pretty cool huh?
Like actions, there is a long list of modifiers that range from adamantium skeletons to healing factors to reflexive dodge and other defensive modifiers. There are actually 3 different categories of modifiers defensive, offensive and supportive.
Defensive, well those are things like reflexive dodge and toughness which add to defense when in combat. You don't have to put stones into keeping them active because they are always on. So if your team gets hit with a surprise attack, you already have some defense on your side.
Offensive modifiers are things like targeting or claws that add to your ability to fight. Free stones in combat are an awesome thing.
Supportive modifiers are things like photographic memory, prescience and enhanced vision. They don't keep damage from occurring and they don't really add to the damage you can do in combat but that doesn't mean that they aren't useful. Like actions, if you don't have the books, it's best to talk to your gm about where you're trying to take your character and have them help you with the different modifiers.
Now for my sample character, I only chose 3 modifiers: Accelerated healing factor, prescience, and reflexive dodge.
Accelerated healing factor, the cool thing about healing factors is that they allow you to recover health and energy quicker. Accelerated is the second step in healing factors and allow you to recover a white stone of health every other round. All healing factors allow you to recover energy at a rate of 3 red stones for every 2 white you have. If you have an odd number, like for instance 3 you would heal 4 red stones of energy per round. Healing factors are expensive though. Accelerated costs your durability number + 4 levels. So since my character's durability is a 4, I would pay for this at a level 8 which is 9 white stones.
Prescience, very handy in combat. You get to hear what the enemy is doing and, if you choose, change your combat actions. There is also a cheaper version of this called limited prescience but that only allows you to change one option. Prescience costs 6 white stones.
Reflexive Dodge, this is one of those defensive modifiers that helps block against damage. This modifier costs level = modifier number + 3 levels. so at a 3 it costs 4 white stones.
Alright so, as my character stands, this is how we look:
Abilities: (10 white)
Intelligence 3 (1W) Strength 3 (1W) Agility 3 (1W) Speed 3 (1W) Durability 4 (6W)
Actions: (19 white)
Acrobatics 4 (2W) -agility bonus
Combat, Close 5 (3W) -strength bonus -specialty types of close combat (up to action number of specialties)
Combat, Ranged 3 (1W) -weapon bonus
Phase Shift 4 (12W) -phase attack
Social Skills 3 (1W) -specialties (up to action number of specialties)
Modifiers: (19 white)
Accelerated Healing Factor (9W)
Prescience (6W)
Reflexive Dodge 3 (4W)
So our character now has abilities, actions and modifiers. Up next: equipment. Stay tuned.
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Post by Angelous Vita on Feb 12, 2011 2:33:22 GMT -5
Ok...onto equipment. This is probably going to be the shortest post in this section.
When it comes to getting equipment at character generation, there are two ways to do it. You can either spend stones toward it or trade stones in for money to buy your equipment. Usually your GM will tell you which he or she wants you to do. Usually when getting items your GM may have certain rules you have to follow to buy these items. This area is very touchy from GM to GM so it's a little hard to discuss this in a general form. My best advice can only be to talk to your GM about buying equipment.
I did not get any equipment for my character, so she still looks the same. Next up: Challenges! AKA free character creation stones!
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Post by Angelous Vita on Feb 15, 2011 19:22:27 GMT -5
Alrighty, so far we have covered abilities, actions, modifiers and equipment. The only thing left to cover is challenges.
Challenges are what really gives your character flavor. There isn't a super hero out there that doesn't have some kind of flaw. Spiderman has conflicting interests between being a super hero and living a normal life, Nightcrawler is blue and has fur and a tail. Professor X is wheelchair bound. Challenges give your character something fun to play out. While you can take as many challenges as you want to, you have to take at least one. The coolest thing about challenges though is that they give you extra stones toward making your character. Now unlike actions and modifiers, there isn't an almost endless list of challenges. If you can think of it, it probably falls under one of the following.
Being a mutant 3 stones Looking non-human 2-4 stones Minor disability 1-3 stones Special vulnerabilities 1-5 stones Loosing a sense 4-5 stones Being restricted in movement 4-5 stones Psychological; per symptom 1-3 stones Can't or won't drive/ride in a car; fly 1 stone Won't (or can't) go certain places 2 stones won't break the law 2 stones power dangerous to self 1-3 stones Major psychological restriction 3-5 stones Power is painful to use 1 stone Chronic disease or condition 1-3 stones Character needs "attachment" to stay alive, use power etc 1-5 stones Compulsion to stick up for the underdog 1-5 stones Haunted past 1-3 stones Deadly enemies 1-5 stones/enemy Conflicting interests 1-5 stones Guilty conscience 1-2 stones Prying friends, relatives, associates 1-2 stones Blames 'society' and others for his situation 1 stone Vulnerable loved ones who don't know that the character is a super hero or villian 1-4 stones Disliked and shunned by peers 1-2 stones Scared of opposite sex 1 stone Extreme vanity 1-2 stones Half faerie blood 4 stones Elemental sensitivity 1-3 stones Extreme elemental sensitivity 4-5 stones Weak immune system 1 stone/stone of health affected Techno-organic virus 10 stones Legacy virus 10 stones
Some of these challenges have specific drawbacks to them. For instance, the half-faerie blood challenges gives you an iron sensitivity. So you get 2x damage when attacked with it. Just make sure all of your challenges are acceptable to the GM. Other then that, have fun and go nuts.
With my sample character, I took 3 challenges.
Being a mutant, deadly enemy and elemental sensitivity. Her deadly enemy is S.H.I.E.L.D. due to her accidentally killing an agent and her elemental sensitivity is toward sonics since she has enhanced hearing. So this is how Jessie looks.
Abilities: (10 white)
Intelligence 3 (1W) Strength 3 (1W) Agility 3 (1W) Speed 3 (1W) Durability 4 (6W)
Actions: (19 white)
Acrobatics 4 (2W) -agility bonus
Combat, Close 5 (3W) -strength bonus -specialty types of close combat (up to action number of specialties)
Combat, Ranged 3 (1W) -weapon bonus
Phase Shift 4 (12W) -phase attack
Social Skills 3 (1W) -specialties (up to action number of specialties)
Modifiers: (19 white)
Accelerated Healing Factor (9W)
Prescience (6W)
Reflexive Dodge 3 (4W)
Total: 48 stones
Challenges (+8 stones)
Being a mutant +3 stones
Deadly enemies +4 stones (She accidentally killed an agent while in high school using her phase attack. S.H.I.E.L.D. is now hunting her to figure out how she did it.)
Elemental sensitivity +1 stone (She has enhanced hearing so sound hurts her ears really badly.)
48 stones from abilities, actions and modifiers - 8 stones from challenges = a 40 stone character.
So there you have it. How to build a 40 stone character and truthfully, you can build any character with any stone count now since you know the basic outline. Have fun and we'll see you in the games.
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