Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Cthulhu]

There's an interesting one.   Not to say you should change it, it works fine, but technically due to the conflux you could actually be the real Julius Caesar, pulled in from another timeline.  There are quite a few historical and future figures floating around.  A clone is fine too.

Now for some worldbuilding, and a few more questions you can add to your starting concepts:

Metahumans and the Law

American government is still recovering from the Conflux.  Most of the original Capitol was destroyed and a large number of important personnel killed.  The former President, Richard McDonald, gained tremendous power in the Conflux; once things had settled down he resigned, claiming superhuman rulers would lead to tyranny, and became Paragon, the leader of the Guardians.

The current government is based in Nexus, the new capital of the united states, and in the few years of relative peace a number of laws have been passed to try to control and categorize the metahuman situation.

• Metahuman: (1) Any autonomous entity with capabilities beyond those of normal humans, as determined by the Metahuman Relations Council, and/or (2) any autonomous entity of extraterrestrial or extradimensional origins, as determined by the Metahuman Relations Council.
• Babyface: A metahuman who can pass as mundane, used pejoratively by those who can't pass.
• Freak: A metahuman who can't pass, obviously extraterrestrial or too heavily mutated to look human.  Originally a slur, now co-opted by freaks as a badge of honor.

All metahumans are required to register with the MHRC.  Unregistered metahumans are subject to fines and court-ordered registration but it's easy for a "babyface" to just not show his power level in public and avoid having to register.  A grassroots movement called the Freak Coalition is pushing for more aggressive pursuit of unregistered metahumans, claiming the current situation discriminates against obvious metahumans.  Aggravated metahumanity, using powers to commit crimes, is a felony on top of the basic charges, and carries serious penalties if you're unregistered.
 
It's not all surveillance and dystopia though.  Registered metahumans can apply to join the Guardians and are legally permitted to engage in independent vigilantism, with limited liability for damage caused while fighting crime (this could change in a heartbeat if a metahuman fucks something up very badly).  The Guardians also have posse comitatus rights and can temporarily recruit metahumans in emergency situations.  While you're legally obligated to comply there's currently no penalty for saying no, thanks to complaints by mundane aliens worried they'll be forced to fight superhumans with no powers.  Unregistered metahumans have a grace period to register without penalty if they're outed like this.

Registration is a matter of filing an appointment with the MHRC and demonstrating your capabilities to judges, who will decide if they constitute metahumanity.  Registration means getting an ID card and number and having your identity and powers listed on a government computer. 

Metahumanity is still flimsy and ill-defined.  Anyone can try to register and it's 100% the judge's call on whether or not you're metahuman.  Paragon can fly faster than sound and punch through ten inches of steel.  Ironsides, another founding member, is an engineering grad student who woke up on December 22 with the plans for an armored battlesuit engraved in his mind, then built said battlesuit and used it to fight.  He has no powers on his own but he could attack a mugger with a baseball bat in his boxers and it would be considered legal metahuman vigilantism under the current laws.

There's an app for that!  Last year the Guardians released Justice, an app for metahuman crimefighting.  The Guardians' supercomputer crawls social media, 911 calls, and police radio, and populates a map of the city with current threats.  Registered metahumans can log into the app and track crimes across the city to better facilitate crimefighting.


At the moment this all works fine, with a few kinks, but the system hasn't really been put to the test.  The chaos of the Conflux is over and the bad guys haven't really gotten it together yet.  There are no metahuman criminal organizations on record, no giant public disasters by vigilantes, no global threats to contend with.  It's hard to say how things will hold up under pressure.

Given all that shit, I have a few more questions you can add to your profile to better flesh out your character and give me an idea of their place in the world:

1.  Are you registered?  Why/Why not?
2.  Are you in the Guardians, or have you applied? Why?

This third question is more to get an idea of your character as a "superhero."  We're getting more unconventional picks than I expected, which is fine, but I'd like to get a better idea of what you want to do with your character.

3.  Robot attack!  A secret coalition of mad engineers have built micro-fabricators around the city which are currently pumping out killbots to terrorize the citizens of Nexus.  How does your character help?  Try to be as specific as you can, tell me how your character uses their unique powers to contribute.

[~Neri]

1: Unlikely unless someone went out of their way to get them registered. A cat isn't gonna go out of its way to file paperwork.
2: Probably not barring someone going out of their way to recruit him. Give a cat food and it'll follow you around and demand more.
3: Ki would likely observe. It would defend itself as needed however it wouldn't have any particular motivation to retaliate unless the bots accosted one of his food and attention sources. If he did theoretically retaliate, one could expect a corrosive blob of material with the mind of a cat burrowing into the offending killbot. He probably would have difficulty parsing the fact that the bots are coming from somewhere and would not likely seek out the fabricator.

[somemildmanneredidiot]

Will edit it into my app but below are my answers. I'm aware of devices though I think I'll start with some moderate tech based debuff devices and the like. What edition are we running anyway? And is "Limited to Technology Based Devices for Power Sources" a valid mechanical flaw?

Spoiler: This ended up being longer than I thought could be the tagline of my life (click to show/hide)

1. Barbara is indeed registered, though it happened post reputation so it was a glanced over formality rather than a sincere test.
2. Guardian Membership is indeed a thing, initially for the financial benefits. The Recruitment may or may not have been one of the first examples that lead to the formal deputizing laws.
3. First, we strike a Deal with the Forces Nefarious to Identify what the hell is going on.

ring...ring...ring "Hey Bob, there are some robots going on a rampage around town, mind getting me some intel on the locations and details of their origins? Thanks babe, standard payment will be wired through, see you at poker night."

Next, we Commune with our Team Members to Direct them to where they are needed, as well as a suggestion of a battle plan that will limit civilian damages while allowing us to capture the culprits.

Text To Strike Team:
The Powers That Be have Revealed to me the Domains that produce these Dastardly Automations as well as where their Bemused Masters lurk. [attached files w/ general strategy for dealing with the problems]

Finally, we approach the villians from an angle where they are distracted by the superpowered individuals and use the nonlethal methods of choice as advices by the F.N..

video of The Boisterous Barbara deploying advanced flashbangs and using electrolasers to isolate and taz the distracted engineers before going over to their security system and securing their footage

[Cthulhu]

3e.  I'll think about that one.

[RazielReaver]

1. Caesar has registered himself for the purpose of going public, but only listing precognition as his ability, reading minds would be useful in spotting betrayers and looking into the motives of others. Furthermore, he would be distrusted if revealing his other power.
2. With the goal of becoming a public figure, he has joined the Guardians, with the scope of  using the organization's leverage to make things right, as he believes.
3. Caesar would go into the streets, and crush the robots, hoping that he'd be able to salvage some bits that would point toward the likely suspects. He would also look into who would have the necessary resources to accomplish such a feat as raising an army of killbots. He would then proceed by contacting the military and requesting a bombing strike on their lair, if possible. Otherwise he will proceed with his team inside and attempt to crush the threat with their own abilities.

[Cthulhu]

Will edit it into my app but below are my answers. I'm aware of devices though I think I'll start with some moderate tech based debuff devices and the like. What edition are we running anyway? And is "Limited to Technology Based Devices for Power Sources" a valid mechanical flaw?

Spoiler: This ended up being longer than I thought could be the tagline of my life (click to show/hide)

1. Barbara is indeed registered, though it happened post reputation so it was a glanced over formality rather than a sincere test.
2. Guardian Membership is indeed a thing, initially for the financial benefits. The Recruitment may or may not have been one of the first examples that lead to the formal deputizing laws.
3. First, we strike a Deal with the Forces Nefarious to Identify what the hell is going on.

ring...ring...ring "Hey Bob, there are some robots going on a rampage around town, mind getting me some intel on the locations and details of their origins? Thanks babe, standard payment will be wired through, see you at poker night."

Next, we Commune with our Team Members to Direct them to where they are needed, as well as a suggestion of a battle plan that will limit civilian damages while allowing us to capture the culprits.

Text To Strike Team:
The Powers That Be have Revealed to me the Domains that produce these Dastardly Automations as well as where their Bemused Masters lurk. [attached files w/ general strategy for dealing with the problems]

Finally, we approach the villians from an angle where they are distracted by the superpowered individuals and use the nonlethal methods of choice as advices by the F.N..

video of The Boisterous Barbara deploying advanced flashbangs and using electrolasers to isolate and taz the distracted engineers before going over to their security system and securing their footage

Alright, you've convinced me.  I wasn't entirely on-board with a person only pretending to have powers but that sounds good and the character lines up pretty perfectly with what I had planned early on.

So this limitation, are you running that as a character complication or will you be implementing it as some kind of points-lowering modifier?

Complication is fine, I can see it working pretty well.  If she's literally a magic null than she might have some limited potential to disrupt nearby magical effects.  That would work fine as a complication.

Which reminds me, actually.  Being a game based on the D20 open license, all the info you need to create a character is available online.  If you'd like to take a crack at making your guy feel free, it would help us out a lot in the first session if you've got something at least partly put together and you have a good idea of how the powers and such work.  IT looks like at least one of you already knows the rules which is nice.

[The Ensorceler]

I'm interested, If you're still taking people. It took me a while to come up with an idea I liked, but I do have one now. I'll have the 3x3 done tomorrow.

[Cthulhu]

I'll probably take five people. I  have one friend from outside B12 that wants to play, and possibly 2, so I'll take three or four people from bay12.

[somemildmanneredidiot]

Alright, you've convinced me.  I wasn't entirely on-board with a person only pretending to have powers but that sounds good and the character lines up pretty perfectly with what I had planned early on.

Fair, it's definitely not the most conventional of heros. If you have any other concerns feel free to let me know and I'll do my best to address them.

So this limitation, are you running that as a character complication or will you be implementing it as some kind of points-lowering modifier?

Little column A, little column B, depends on how you want to run the latter. I considered grabbing "Immunity to Magic/Arcane" as a sort of 'I can't do it, it can't hurt me', but that'll depends on how the points shake out.

she

As an aside, I haven't determined what gender Barb is and have settled on a stance of "The Supernatural Forces of the World care not for your Mortal Gender Binary." Thankfully singular they operates well here.

I'll have a mockup sheet linked/pasted soon.

[TheBiggerFish]

Apparently nevermind because apparently the Vehicle rules are somehow 'too complicated'.

[The Ensorceler]

Spoiler: Gabriel Caine (click to show/hide)

Backstory: The world of Archone was divided into Angels, with magical ability, and humans, with none. The Angels were very jealous of their power, and so Penny Caine was one of a very small number of half-breeds not confined to a monastery. Penny fought against the Angels for a long time, long enough to fall in love and have a son, but not long after that she fell in battle, her stronghold raided and destroyed. Her son, Gabriel Caine was taken and raised in a monastery, and given the usual enchanted brand to ensure he would never be trouble. He escaped to Earth quite by accident during the Conflux, but his brand tripped anyways, and the Angels always find the Marked.

Beliefs
   1. Never Let Your Guard Down. The Angels will find Earth eventually, and they will try to kill me. Can't make it too easy.
   2. This World Is Worth Fighting For. Earth is a really great place, compared to the stuffy old monastery.
   3. Fun While It Lasts. You might as well make the most of your time here. Indulge yourself a little, or a lot.

Goals:
   1. It Burns! Well... Smolders Unpleasantly. Get rid of the brand, it restricts my magic and provides a really nice beacon for the Angels to follow when they get here. And it hurts.
   2. Earth's Mightiest Hero(es). Build a public perception strong enough that Earth will rally to my side against any Angels that show up.
   3. Money Makes My World Go Round. Money is such a good idea. You get some, and people you've never met do stuff for you! So much easier than doing favors for people, and being nice, and ugh, like at the monastery. Maybe I can buy my way to safety, but a few perks along the way wouldn't hurt anyone. Right?

Extra questions:
1. Yes, Gabriel is registered. He's too flashy to stay out of the public eye, and can't risk making enemies out of the government.
2. No, but he is considering it. If they ever approach him he'll probably agree to join. He uses the app, though.
3. He's not part of a team, so he'd probably take to the streets and try to destroy killbots. I don't think he's got much logistics/intel punch on his own to track anything down.

I'm going for a heavily device focused character, with the devices being powered by demons bound into them through alchemical processes. How many points do we get to build characters with, since that isn't really determined by power level?

[TheBiggerFish]

It is, we get 180 to start with.

[Cthulhu]

Oh, that reminds me, I fucked up.  power level is 10, not 12.

150 points.

[TheBiggerFish]

....argh?

Ah well.

[Cthulhu]

I have an idea of what I want my character to be, but I'm not sure how to accomplish that mechanically or necessarily even fluffwise.  Actually, I take that back, I have an idea of how to accomplish it fluffwise.

I'm working on it, in other words.

I just have no idea of the scale, statswise, of stuff we're going to be working with, is the problem.

Well, I can at least try and mock up a sheet...

Spoiler: Statblock. (click to show/hide)

CP:190/starting 180
Attributes:
STR:
STA:
DEX:
AGI:
FTG:
AWN:
PRS: -5 (+10)

Abilities:

Spoiler: Fluff (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Bonus Questions (click to show/hide)

1.  Are you registered?  Why/Why not?
Yes, because otherwise she would be too late again couldn't help out as effectively.

2.  Are you in the Guardians, or have you applied? Why?
Yes.  Anna has applied.  (GM discretion on whether she's accepted or not yet, considering that she only turned up now.)  Same reasons.

3.  Robot attack!  A secret coalition of mad engineers have built micro-fabricators around the city which are currently pumping out killbots to terrorize the citizens of Nexus.  How does your character help?  Try to be as specific as you can, tell me how your character uses their unique powers to contribute.
...Robots?  OMNOMNOMNOM - and now we have robots!
...Fabricators?  OMNOMNOMNOM - and now we get to build more robots!
...People?  Generally, glared at, ignored, blocked, or...neutralized, if they attack and pose an actual threat.

*resumes flailing at sourcebooks*

Standing questions:
Hammerspace, how do?

You don't have the fluff listed so I dunno?

If you're pulling stuff out of nowhere Create and Summon would make the most sense, depending on what all yyou're pulling out.  If you're doing more complex devices then Variable would probably make the most sense, though I'm new at DMing M&M so I may put a moratorium on variable and those kinds of open-ended powers.