Taliesin's 3E Builds: Moonstone, Binary, Rulk, Wasp, Shang

[Jaysin1414]

Welcome back. Glad to hear your child is strong and healthy. Personally, nothing changed my life for the better than becoming a husband and father...it's a heck of a ride. Enjoy the precious moments.

I also have a "M&M-lite" that I was using a while back to ease new players into the game and which I've had a little time to refine, so look for that.

Very much looking forward to this. I ran my first ever M&M 3e games this past weekend (a Superboy scenario from the quickstart, and a Batman one-shot against the Talons) and all went well, but anything that would help both me and new players ease into the game would be greatly appreciated.

Yay! A Tally sighting! And glad to hear that Tal-El is going well. Totally agree with Jaysin1414, being Father Thorpacolypse is the best thing I have ever done. Time goes fast though, so enjoy the time of being a PL15 to him while it lasts. In about 10 years, you'll be a PL5 and your Int score will be about -2 as far as he's concerned.

If you used my Talons, Jaysin1414, I hoped they worked well for you.

Your Talons worked great! Batman was presented with quite the puzzle to figure out...and lots of fun was had.

Truth be told, I had always been really intimidated by the idea of running M&M because I thought it'd be hard to run. Quite the contrary, it ran great...very intuitive and easy to understand. My friend, who's never played before, caught on really quickly and we had a great couple of game sessions. My unease with building characters is still there...it seems so daunting...but the game itself, using existing characters (including your Talons) couldn't have gone smoother. Thanks!

Hopefully Taliesin can point out a few ways to make the game even easier to pitch to new players with the M&M Lite he mentioned, because I'd love to present M&M3e to my main game group and run a nice, long campaign.

[Warpath]

Well, in the mode of your continuing Marvel builds, there are a few mainstains that have not been done yet (and one, considering the recent release of Lady Shiva, I would like to see), but list I see is: Black Widow, Kingpin, Mandarin, Shang Chi (guess why), Winter Soldier and Wonderman. I know it's not popular opinion nowadays given Iron Fist's popularity/power creep, but Shang Chi is really the martial artist supreme in the Marvel Universe. Not only is Shang Chi modelled after the MAN for martail arts, the immortal Bruce Lee, BUT, I believe he defeated Iron Fist in Deadly Hands of Kung Fu 29. Soooo, let's give a little credit where it's due.

[Taliesin]

Well, in the mode of your continuing Marvel builds, there are a few mainstains that have not been done yet (and one, considering the recent release of Lady Shiva, I would like to see), but list I see is: Black Widow, Kingpin, Mandarin, Shang Chi (guess why), Winter Soldier and Wonderman. I know it's not popular opinion nowadays given Iron Fist's popularity/power creep, but Shang Chi is really the martial artist supreme in the Marvel Universe. Not only is Shang Chi modelled after the MAN for martail arts, the immortal Bruce Lee, BUT, I believe he defeated Iron Fist in Deadly Hands of Kung Fu 29. Soooo, let's give a little credit where it's due.

First, I'll come right out and say that I wrote Lady Shiva for H&V2. So I wanted to comment on this mini-controversy, but wanted to see what Jon's take was before doing so.

As you may know, I only joined the team after H&V1 was already written, which included some martial artists such as Bronze Tiger and Karate Kid. Jon and/or Steve set the PLs for the characters as guidelines, which freelancers were free to change. Although I may have disagreed with some of the benchmarking decisions, I figured that many of those decisions were already made and at least for the sake of overall consistency, made by one or two people.

If you want my take on the relative power levels of various characters, you can check out my 2E thread, although there I benchmarked by attack bonus and not by PL (more on that later). But my approach even in this thread was to build characters compatible and balanced against the official builds in DCAHH and H&V1/2, rather than to reinvent the wheel, as it were. So the power levels were not what I would have placed those characters had I been starting from scratch but based on what I perceived them to be relative to the existing DC builds.

This may have been a bit naive, but it seemed like a good idea at the time for the primary reason that it would make my builds usable alongside the DC builds with a minimum of fuss. However, what happens in the very case that you bring up? How do I place Shang Chi relative to Shiva's PL14? (Though I see Shang Chi more as Richard Dragon's equal, but the point remains.)

Well, it so happens that I hedged in my build of Shiva--remove her powers and she comes in right around PL12--ever so slightly superior to Batman offensively and his better defensively by one PL--which is probably closer to my vision of Shiva. I probably would have placed Karate Kid at PL13, incidentally, and have built him differently, but he was already written, so that was water under the bridge. But in a way, I got to do that with my builds of Iron Fist and Karnak.

As for benchmarking, I mentioned way back when DCA came out why characters, particularly martial artists, should be built to PL rather than to attack bonus, and it's a matter of tangibles. Relative strength and damage is pretty easy to compare in the source material. Overall fighting ability is reasonably comparable too--the better fighter generally wins. However, this latter point is more correlated with PL than with attack bonus. Added to the issue are tradeoff feats like Power Attack that allow you to shift around what your bonus is with any given attack, and it's really PL that's more stable and comparable. That's why I understand and fully agree with building Batman to PL (though I might have put him at PL11) rather than benchmarking his attack bonus. If you need to benchmark a trait for Batman to reflect his fighting prowess, then use the Fighting ability, even if the result of that gets hidden under Close Combat/Close Attack.

[Warpath]

Okay, I get it. You had to build based on a collaborative environment and match what had gone before (the pervious editions already written) to how the character should perform relative to those characters in terms of thier comic appearances (ie, Shiva has been the supreme martial artist in the DC Universe for about two decades). And I caught the "weak link" in Shiva that allows a fairly perceptive lad...like ohhh, the world's greatest detective, to actually match her or beat her (which he has done twice by the by..though one those times she was controlled by Grood). As for Richard Dragon and Shang Chi, I agree they should be equals, as I see them akin to Chuck Norris and Bruce Lee respectively. But, that said, relative to the others, I would have put him at PL 12...he fought Bats to a standstill in the Brave and the Bold. So, are we saying you'd build Shang Chi as a PL 12 martial artist with ability to challenge Lady Shiva...to keep the builds interactive?

[Thorpacolypse]

I thought I sensed some Tally flavor in Shiva...

I said it before and I'm sure I'll say it again that while I didn't agree with some of the PLs (Shiva included, but not as much as the Marvels ) I certainly understand working in a collaborative building mindset had to be challenging and variance in philosophies was bound to occur. And you can NEVER, EVER suit everyone with ANYTHING. It's just impossible. There's people out there that don't like bacon. BACON! That's insanity!!!

Be that as it may, I, too, would like to see your take on Shang-Chi. For my personal setting, I made him top dog, even over Shiva and Iron Fist, but again, that's just personal flavor.

[Taliesin]

Actually, you just reminded me that I never revealed the list of characters I worked on for H&V2; I think I was pretty busy when it was released and never got a chance to talk about it.

Off the top of my head, I wrote up: Lady Shiva, Lobo, Mister Terrific, Multiplex, Parasite, Shining Knight, Starfire, Ultra Boy, and Weather Wizard. I did the builds but not the write ups for a few Bat-villains (Mad Hatter, Man-Bat, Mister Freeze, Penguin, Poison Ivy, and Scarecrow), the Seven Soldiers of Victory, and Starro. I might have missed a couple, and hopefully did not mistakenly assume credit for a build (if so, please correct me). Most of those were written two years ago, and alas, unlike my forum builds, I cannot keep tinkering with them once submitted.

I haven't really had much time to work on other stuff. I do manage to crank out a build for Watchguard every once in a while, but it's nothing like the batch of 40-something characters I built in a couple of weeks for the primary sourcebook. The other things I've mentioned a few posts up need to get put in a coherent format, which I hope to do soon. It might almost be relaxing to do a build or two. Shang-Chi sounds like a good start...

[Warpath]

Jeopardy! music playing until Taliesin's postings...but mainly to keep him on the "front page" so to speak. I also hope they cover most of the New Gods in the the 4th book covering the DC worlds. I especially hope they cover the master assassin Kanto. I loved using him as a foil for my players in the old DC Heroes game. I also loved using Glorious Godfry, Amazing Grace and the Furies (especially the Furies).

[Taliesin]

I'm rolling house rules in phases before releasing "M&M-lite," which builds upon some of the simplifications in the house rules.

House Rules #1: Ranks and Measures

The Ranks & Measures table in the Hero’s Handbook seems to suffer from a bit of an identity crisis. In theory, the table works on two major principles: that the measures approximately double every rank and that each rank represents a range of measures. I feel there are some issues regarding each one—not game-breaking by any stretch, but issues that can and should be easily resolved.

The intervals in the Ranks & Measures do approximately double, but there appear to be several odd intervals, possibly to adhere to measurement conventions from d20--specifically 6 seconds and 30 feet. Reconciling these measures with the very useful benchmark measures of 1 hour and 1 mile created some odd multipliers at certain ranks (for instance, going from 12 seconds to 30 seconds, from 6 feet to 15 feet, from 1,800 feet to ½ mile) that could easily be resolved by abandoning the 6 seconds and 30 feet benchmarks.

Distance and Range of Measures
The values on the table are also meant to represent the maximum measure for that rank, and each rank represents a range of values between its corresponding value and the value one rank lower. The oddity of 6 feet becomes apparent again as the default size rank of -2 represents 3-6 feet, meaning that anyone over 6 feet tall is size rank -1. The Size and Mass Power Profile amends size rank -2 to a range of 3-8 feet without directly correcting the table. A direct halving of 15 feet to 7.5 or 8 feet would have avoided this issue, and in a way, it was implicitly done by the statement in the Power Profile. Such a change would place an average human height squarely in the middle of the 4 and 8 feet ranks and keep most heroes in the same size rank.

Time and Doubling
Ten doublings approximate a thousandfold increase—this is pretty useful for metric units and for units that do not otherwise jump in unusual intervals (distance is fine once you reach miles). Six doublings approximate a sixtyfold increase—this is particularly useful for time, with its conversions of sixty seconds to the minute and sixty minutes to the hour. This also means that to really take advantage of the ease with which doubling fits into the time ranks, we need to start at one second and replace the 6 second rank with either 4 or 8 seconds. For the record, DC Heroes used 4 seconds per phase.

Size and Rank
Most human traits begin at zero ranks with the exceptions of size and mass, which default to -2 and 2 ranks respectively. Mass does scale three times as fast rank-wise as size, and we can probably include most of the adult human population between mass ranks 0 and 2. Size was placed at -2 ranks so that distance rank 0 equated to the default human speed.

Optionally, normal size could be set to rank 0, with default reach equal to size (or size -1), a move action allowing you to move your size +1 distance, two move actions to move size +2. This takes into account the shortening of time rank 0 from 6 to 4 seconds and the ten ranks (instead of nine) from one round to one hour.

Either method would require some deviation from tidy rank 0s across the board for normal characters. However, starting rank 0 distance at 8 feet has the benefit of making throwing distances more realistic. With rank 0 set to 30 feet, you could throw objects that you can barely lift a distance of 30 feet, which is a little far; setting rank 0 to one’s default size or reach means that you would instead set such an object down within the range of your reach, which makes a little more sense.

Humanocentric Distance
We actually haven’t removed the 30 feet benchmark but instead altered the 6 feet measure to 8 feet. This places the human average height somewhere in the middle of the 4 to 8 feet range; the middle of that range isn’t 6 feet but actually 4 times the square root of 2, or about 5 feet, 8 inches—closer to the median human height if you include both genders. A strict doubling from 30 feet would not yield a 1 mile benchmark but keeps a lot of the familiar intermediate ranks. Using 1.5 and 3 miles before doubling from thereon out isn’t terribly cumbersome, but the higher values would be unfamiliar to those using a 1 mile starting point.

The old DC Heroes progression actually starts from 10 feet at AP (or rank) 0, and yields 1 mile at rank 9 and 2 miles at rank 10. This sets the typical hero in the 5-10 feet range, which is a lot less humanocentric, but expected given the wide range of values produced by doubling. I personally find the measures progressing from 10 feet much easier to use.

Code: Select all

Rank      Time           Distance
-5        1/8 second     3 inches
-4        1/4 second     6 inches
-3        1/2 second     1 feet
-2        1 second       2 feet
-1        2 seconds      4 feet
0         4 seconds      8 feet
1         8 seconds      15 feet
2         15 seconds     30 feet
3         30 seconds     60 feet
4         1 minute       120 feet
5         2 minutes      250 feet
6         4 minutes      500 feet
7         8 minutes      1,000 feet
8         15 minutes     2,000 feet
9         30 minutes     4,000 feet
10        1 hour         1.5 miles
11        2 hours        3 miles
12        4 hours        6 miles
13        8 hours        12 miles
14        16 hours       25 miles
15        1.5 days       50 miles
16        3 days         100 miles
17        1 week         200 miles
18        2 weeks        400 miles
19        1 month        800 miles
20        2 months       1,500 miles
21        4 months       3,000 miles
22        8 months       6,000 miles
23        1.5 years      12,000 miles
24        3 years        25,000 miles
25        6 years        50,000 miles
26        12 years       100,000 miles
27        25 years       200,000 miles
28        50 years       400,000 miles
29        100 years      800,000 miles
30        200 years      1.5 million miles


Updated 7/27/2012

[Warpath]

Will Shang Chi be kicking our way anytime soon?

[Taliesin]

How about now?

Sorry, things came up and I'm still easing back into things.

[Taliesin]

Shang-Chi
PL12

Abilities
Strength 4, Stamina 4, Agility 7, Dexterity 7, Fighting 16, Intellect 3, Awareness 7, Presence 3

Powers
Chi: Array (10 points)

Meditation: Immunity 30 (Will effects), Concentration Duration, Limited to Half Effect • 10 points
• Deflection: Immunity 5 (Thrown Weapons), Concentration Duration, Reflect, Redirect • 1 point

Life Sense: Senses 3 (Ranged, Radius Detect Life--mental) • 3 points

Advantages
Agile Feint, Assessment, Close Attack 4, Defensive Roll 4, Evasion, Improved Initiative, Languages 2 (Cantonese, Mandarin; base: English), Move-By Action, Power Attack, Ranged Attack 7, Takedown 2, Trance, Uncanny Dodge

Skills
Acrobatics 6 (+13), Athletics 8 (+12), Expertise: Theology and Philosophy 8 (+11), Insight 8 (+15), Investigation 6 (+9), Perception 8 (+15), Stealth 8 (+15), Treatment 6 (+9)

Offense
Initiative +11
Unarmed +20, Close, Damage 4

Defense
Dodge 16, Parry 16
Toughness 8 / 4*, Fortitude 9, Will 13
*Without Defensive Roll bonus.

Power Points
Abilities 102 + Powers 14 + Advantages 27 + Skills 29 + Defenses 20 = Total 192

Complications
Enemy: Shang-Chi pursues and is pursued by the criminal empire of his father, Zheng Zu (Fu Manchu).
Rival: Cat is Shang-Chi’s rival and equal in martial arts.

Real Name: Shang-Chi

Design Notes:

Shang-Chi is basically the standard against which all Marvel Comics martial artists are compared. There were a few minor design changes from his 2E incarnation. I have been folding Chi-based ability boosts into the abilities rather than unnecessarily complicate matters with a separate power. Thus, Shang-Chi’s peak human abilities are a combination of training, natural talent, and exercising chi.

Shang-Chi’s main schtick stems from the espionage/noir genre in which he operates--he’s quick enough to dodge bullets (evidenced by his otherworldly Dodge) and can even pluck weapons out of the air and send them back at his opponents. The Meditation on Shang-Chi’s array is a super-charged version of Trance, helping Shang-Chi to overcome various ongoing Will-based effects so long as he can take the action to meditate.

[CelticREI]

I like how ye did the Deflection. Might wrap that into a build or two of mine using various Immunities toward specific weapon/damage types, using the Concentration duration is awesome too ^_^

[Saltcrow]

omgomgomgzomg a new Taliesin-brand build!

[Warpath]

*said in James Earl Jones voice* Impressive.....MOST, impressive.

[Warpath]

I know it's an odd request, especially given all the other characters I mentioned in my last post that i really want you to do...but, could you give me your iconic take on one of my favorite screen characters, James Bond (que his theme music)

Thanks