[Writeups.org] [3E] El Jaguar, Ma Mayhem, Old West guns

[Ghostwise]

I kind of hate to bring this up again, but in looking at Battlestar and Pistolera and Thundarr, I continue to be dissatisfied with the "skilled equipment use" writeups. I still wonder if some custom Advantage-based method isn't the way to go.

Snipping for brevity (the original post is the last one on page 25 using the default layout). Main points :

- for this sort of "little rubber duck power", we are keeping an eye on points efficiency, because it's something that'd be useful for player characters

- in this regard, you may remember that the alternative we have to keep in mind is just to, say, slap a Multiattack on Pistolera's gats. This is very cheap and mostly does the job - but it creates a magical pair of pistols that anybody can pick to go all Chow-Yun Fat, and means that our girl can't do rapid-fire with guns procured from opponents when she runs dry. This is bad, but not so bad as to justify people having to take something significantly more expensive (see point 1).

- note how you end up with a rubber duck power worth 7 points instead of 3. Which is chiefly the product of not being able to roll the cost of the guns into Equipment. Combined with point 2, that suggests that we'd like to stick with Equipment.

- an important remark you make is about Battlestar not missing his shield half the time. The Limited is also intended to reflect that fact that disarming the character takes away a lot of bonuses. Which means that it should reflect the difficulty in depriving the character of equipment, which means that using Removable or Easily Removable as per your suggestion strikes me as the correct approach for this case.

- keeping the gear and the extra bonus separate creates a lot of nuance with little effort. With the Equipment/Device + rubber duck power we can have Battlestar pick a trash can lid in a pinch and derive surprising effectiveness out of it (but clearly not as much as with his shield), and have Mockingbird pick Cap's shield and get some mileage out of it (but only a fraction of what Cap can do). We can have Pistolera pick a pair of magnums and not get any rapid-fire bonus because she can't rapid-fire magnums, or pick a pair of derringers and squeeze a lot of efficiency out of those because she places her shots very well (in game terms, three Ranks of damage for Equipment that does 4 or 2 Ranks of Damage).

So I think we can have an hybrid solution involving
- little rubber duck powers that use Removable or Easily Removable rather than Limited as the basic Flaw. This takes care of Battlestar since there's no reason I can see now for his Shieldsman bonuses to be priced differently than the bonuses from the Device. The Device is Noticeable, but the Shieldsman can be used with improvised equipment in a pinch so heh, it's a wash.

- an aggressive use of Limited if there are further constraints - for instance the necessity of having two fans rather than one (as with Lotus) or of having two working , loaded semi-automatic handguns (as with Pistolera). This is something that would normally be a Quirk, but as per point 1 we're trying to keep costs competitive so PCs can consider the more detailed option without feeling ripped off. In this approach, the aggressive use of Limited needs to be noted in the usage notes.

With this approach :

Rapid fire ● 2 points (Easily Removable) ● Descriptor: Skill
Ranged Damage 3, Multiattack, Limited 1 (Only when wielding two useable, loaded, semi-auto or double action handguns) ● Damage descriptor as per handguns (usually Ballistic)


Equipment remains equipment, it reflects that's its easier to deprive her of one or both guns that to deprive Battlestar of his shield, cost is competitive against "screw it, I'll just use machine pistols", no corner cases I can think of.

[Ghostwise]

I'm pretty comfortable with this just being Favored Environment, which neatly addresses both the offensive and defenses aspects.

The current version (in the file over at the Yahoo! Group) is purely defensive (OV + Dodge-like). IIRC there was a version that substituted for DEX but was dumped - characters who want AV just buy Accuracy or a limited Martial Artist. Tying disparate scores together for no strong reason = bad.

My inclination is to use the Expertise approach, with the main categories being Streetwise (criminal, underworld, supervillain types Connections), Current Events (government, law enforcement, or superhero connections) and Business (corporations, research institutes, policy figures, charities). Benefit is good for Rich Friend/Family, and works equally well for Rich Friend with Psychic Link and Globablly Scanning Telepathic Super-Computer. ... Applicable mainly to characters with a High-level connection to such a character.

I suppose Rich Friend could be considered as a Benefit (money) with a Check Required Flaw. It's not exotic, making the roll to get the money can be fun and it models the exact situation.

About Connections suggesting Expertise, I was thinking of something more specific and closer to the selected "category" for the DCH entry. Simply :

Connection (Street) --> Expertise (Streetwise)
Connection (Underworld) --> Expertise (Organised crime)
Connection (Mercenary scene) --> Expertise (Mercenary lore)
Connection (Business) --> Expertise (Business management)
Connection (a police dept.) --> Expertise (Law enforcement)

It probably models the character and doesn't lack definition like Current Events does.

I think not using Fearless, but simply taking Will at the upper end, or +1 if there is only one Will score in a range, is also valid.

When Iron Nerves is used it's to up defences against a particular attacks ; characters with high mental defences don't get Iron Nerves, they get high MIN and/or SPI.

[Ghostwise]

Okay, Killer Shrike. Comments :

- "Armor skin" sounds confusing as a way to describe body armour

- "Military driver training" - why not just have Limited 2 Vehicles skill ?

- Note how the Lightning is Diminishing in the DCH version, which means that in practice he'll rarely hit people with 9 APs of juice at any significant range. It's an important limitation to his ranged firepower.

- I wouldn't describe him as a pushover by any mean - he's a very solid PL11 fighter with balanced offence, defence and mobility but little breadth and a glaring vulnerability on the Will front. He would probably maul a PL9 or some PL 10 fighters, which is exactly what happened when he fought Moon Knight.

- An important part of Killer Shrike is his lamentable Hero Points total - and even then he spends them like an idiot. Hence the DCH writeup is built on the idea that he's a formidable fighter on paper and has genuine skills and good tech, but he just can't build up on that because he's not cool enough. Which results in stats where he can beat up people weaker than he is somewhat reliably - unless they spend a lot of HPs, in which case he'll probably out-gumptioned - but will just collapse when faced with a powerful fighter. I'm not too sure how to model that in M&M.

(HP totals are one important stat on writeups.org).

[Ghostwise]

The writeups.org server is running smooth as butter today, I may have accidentally fixed the memory allocation issue yesterday... fingers crossed.

Spider-Man fixes done, though it reminds me that I've probably forgotten several Permanent in super-power descriptions. I've added that to the next sweep.

Shouldn't the Movement (Swinging) be relocated from the Spider-Agility to the Web-Shooters ?

[Ghostwise]

In the current style, that corresponds to Limited 2 (Limited to Penetrating) --- uh, Ghostwise? That item needs to be renamed, Penetrating Damage already means something else! Maybe Edged? Sharp Impact?

Ah, crap.

Finding a term that evokes slashing, impaling, bullets, arrows, etc. ain't exactly easy with Penetrating taken. Only thing that I can think of is "Sharp", yeah. At least it contrasts with its sibling, "Blunt".

Anybody got a better idea ?

[Ghostwise]

As a random note, I have yet to address the impact of Insight on mental defences, which were mentioned by Pawsplay - for now ranks of Insight and ranks of Will are treated as if Insight had zero impact.

[MisterO]

- "Armor skin" sounds confusing as a way to describe body armour

- "Military driver training" - why not just have Limited 2 Vehicles skill ?

That was an artifact from using Hero Lab to make sure I had the points right, did the same thing for Marianne. I will change it over to regular skills.

- Note how the Lightning is Diminishing in the DCH version, which means that in practice he'll rarely hit people with 9 APs of juice at any significant range. It's an important limitation to his ranged firepower.

I was kind of using the Electrocutioner writeup to inform this one which also has Diminished Range 3 on it. I thought that was how to interpret Diminishing on Lightning. So he should have a Limitation imposed on his Lightning then?

Lightning: Ranged Damage 9, Limitation loses 1 rank of Damage every range increment.

- I wouldn't describe him as a pushover by any mean - he's a very solid PL11 fighter with balanced offence, defence and mobility but little breadth and a glaring vulnerability on the Will front. He would probably maul a PL9 or some PL 10 fighters, which is exactly what happened when he fought Moon Knight.

I'm was kind of trying to interpret the commentary from the original writeup to the conversion. That and I think I've been reading too many of Jabroniville's "jobber" writeups. He tends to emphasize a character's suckiness.

- An important part of Killer Shrike is his lamentable Hero Points total - and even then he spends them like an idiot. Hence the DCH writeup is built on the idea that he's a formidable fighter on paper and has genuine skills and good tech, but he just can't build up on that because he's not cool enough. Which results in stats where he can beat up people weaker than he is somewhat reliably - unless they spend a lot of HPs, in which case he'll probably out-gumptioned - but will just collapse when faced with a powerful fighter. I'm not too sure how to model that in M&M.

(HP totals are one important stat on writeups.org).

I understand that HPs are important but it's difficult to switch the way HPs work in DCH to the way they work in M&M3e.

For his low HP score I could concive of Killer Shrike having some of his Fighting or Combat Advantages having Fades on them. That way he can be a monster in the early rounds but then loses steam later on.

[Ghostwise]

For Colossus, Marianne and the Thing, don't forget to add an Uncapped version of the scores. There's an example of this in the Thundra writeups, and the charts are near the end of OMACS II (before the comments).

[Goldar]

Thanks Ghostwise, for that fine write-up on Ultima!

You included my 2 favorite pics of her, especially the first one of the fight!

I know she is an obscure villainess, but she did take on Jen She-Hulkie and that is something. Maybe some day she will return stronger than ever....

[pawsplay]

I kind of hate to bring this up again, but in looking at Battlestar and Pistolera and Thundarr, I continue to be dissatisfied with the "skilled equipment use" writeups. I still wonder if some custom Advantage-based method isn't the way to go.

Snipping for brevity (the original post is the last one on page 25 using the default layout). Main points :

- for this sort of "little rubber duck power", we are keeping an eye on points efficiency, because it's something that'd be useful for player characters

- in this regard, you may remember that the alternative we have to keep in mind is just to, say, slap a Multiattack on Pistolera's gats. This is very cheap and mostly does the job - but it creates a magical pair of pistols that anybody can pick to go all Chow-Yun Fat, and means that our girl can't do rapid-fire with guns procured from opponents when she runs dry. This is bad, but not so bad as to justify people having to take something significantly more expensive (see point 1).

- note how you end up with a rubber duck power worth 7 points instead of 3. Which is chiefly the product of not being able to roll the cost of the guns into Equipment. Combined with point 2, that suggests that we'd like to stick with Equipment.

- an important remark you make is about Battlestar not missing his shield half the time. The Limited is also intended to reflect that fact that disarming the character takes away a lot of bonuses. Which means that it should reflect the difficulty in depriving the character of equipment, which means that using Removable or Easily Removable as per your suggestion strikes me as the correct approach for this case.

- keeping the gear and the extra bonus separate creates a lot of nuance with little effort. With the Equipment/Device + rubber duck power we can have Battlestar pick a trash can lid in a pinch and derive surprising effectiveness out of it (but clearly not as much as with his shield), and have Mockingbird pick Cap's shield and get some mileage out of it (but only a fraction of what Cap can do). We can have Pistolera pick a pair of magnums and not get any rapid-fire bonus because she can't rapid-fire magnums, or pick a pair of derringers and squeeze a lot of efficiency out of those because she places her shots very well (in game terms, three Ranks of damage for Equipment that does 4 or 2 Ranks of Damage).

So I think we can have an hybrid solution involving
- little rubber duck powers that use Removable or Easily Removable rather than Limited as the basic Flaw. This takes care of Battlestar since there's no reason I can see now for his Shieldsman bonuses to be priced differently than the bonuses from the Device. The Device is Noticeable, but the Shieldsman can be used with improvised equipment in a pinch so heh, it's a wash.

- an aggressive use of Limited if there are further constraints - for instance the necessity of having two fans rather than one (as with Lotus) or of having two working , loaded semi-automatic handguns (as with Pistolera). This is something that would normally be a Quirk, but as per point 1 we're trying to keep costs competitive so PCs can consider the more detailed option without feeling ripped off. In this approach, the aggressive use of Limited needs to be noted in the usage notes.

With this approach :

Rapid fire ● 2 points (Easily Removable) ● Descriptor: Skill
Ranged Damage 3, Multiattack, Limited 1 (Only when wielding two useable, loaded, semi-auto or double action handguns) ● Damage descriptor as per handguns (usually Ballistic)


Equipment remains equipment, it reflects that's its easier to deprive her of one or both guns that to deprive Battlestar of his shield, cost is competitive against "screw it, I'll just use machine pistols", no corner cases I can think of.

I think we agree on Battlestar, then. As for Pistolera, my thinking, which may not have been clear at all, was that she would not pay for the pistols as Equipment. Buying damage twice for the same item just strikes me as a flawed design, and I've come to regard slapping Limited 2 onto the skilled power as sweeping that issue under the rug. Sure, when the points get low enough, who cares? So, the thing that makes Pistolera different from Battlestar is simply that her skilled power replacing an Equipment effect that already does damage. My idea was that we would slap a Descriptor, Equipment Use (twin light pistols), on her Power, to let everyone know that the underlying weapon is just a pair of twin light pistols. However, her use of them represents a bona-fide Power, with all the duties and privileges she is entitled to thereby. It's simply a midpoint between "these are magic pistols anyone can use" and "this is a Device that you would need to use Technology to squeeze any use out of if you're not Character ABC," with the side issue that part of the Effect is skill-based. Summary: as I rewrote Pistolera's pistoleering, the idea was that she could still use any two pistols that meet the right Descriptors, including Equipment or the special effects of someone else's similar power, but that their underlying Equipment-ness was being subsumed.

Current version:
Equipment 2 , gets you one light pistol (Ranged Damage 3, Feature: one extra pistol)
Rapid fire ● 3 points ● Descriptor: Skill
Ranged Damage 3, Multiattack, Limited 2 (Only when wielding two useable, loaded handguns) ● Damage descriptor as per handguns (usually Ballistic)

Proposed version:
Rapid fire ● 9 points ● Easily Removeable (-2 points) ● Descriptor: Skill, Equipment Use (twin light pistols)
Ranged Damage 3, Multiattack ● Damage descriptor: Ballistic

Which means she would pay 7 points instead of 5. She also gets exactly the same benefits as someone with a magic gun. It also means that the second version has a cute use of Descriptors, as opposed to two special cases not found in the Hero's Handbook (extra pistol, a variety of Limited not use in official writeups). She can also perform power stunts with her guns.

If, perchance, I were to stat up a character this way with a special use of nonstandard Equipment, I'd just asterisk the Equipment Use descriptor, and lower down describe what the device does on its own.

[pawsplay]

The current version (in the file over at the Yahoo! Group) is purely defensive (OV + Dodge-like). IIRC there was a version that substituted for DEX but was dumped - characters who want AV just buy Accuracy or a limited Martial Artist. Tying disparate scores together for no strong reason = bad.

Even better. So, my suggestion would be Favored Environment (in the air) plus maybe Acrobatics (Limited - aerial), and in cases of large numeric discrepancies, Enhanced Dodge and Parry, Limited (while flying).

I suppose Rich Friend could be considered as a Benefit (money) with a Check Required Flaw. It's not exotic, making the roll to get the money can be fun and it models the exact situation.

It may not even have Check Required. You have the friend, you then go see them and use whatever wiles you have to get what you want. Perhaps the request is so obviously beneficial no check is required at all. The first pass says Benefit (Rich Friend), which I think is beautifully simple for a Benefit. Why overthink an intentionally simple game construct?

About Connections suggesting Expertise, I was thinking of something more specific and closer to the selected "category" for the DCH entry. Simply :

Connection (Street) --> Expertise (Streetwise)
Connection (Underworld) --> Expertise (Organised crime)
Connection (Mercenary scene) --> Expertise (Mercenary lore)
Connection (Business) --> Expertise (Business management)
Connection (a police dept.) --> Expertise (Law enforcement)

It probably models the character and doesn't lack definition like Current Events does.

Ok, yeah. But connections with superhero or supervillain groups should still be Current Events. Which I think means something along the lines of knowing who the President of Ubeki-beki-beki-stan-stan is, plus whatever heroes or villains are currently incarcerated, missing, and/or currently dead.

When Iron Nerves is used it's to up defences against a particular attacks ; characters with high mental defences don't get Iron Nerves, they get high MIN and/or SPI.

True. My thinking was that if it were going to be generic-ed away, to be as generous as possible. In my view, all alternatives to Fearless need to cost 1 point or less to make any sense. PC building aside, it needs to be consistent. Revisited options:

- Second Chance (resist fear/intimidation)
- Enhanced Insight 4, Limited 2 (resist Intimidation only)
- Enhanced Will 3, Limited 3 (resist fear/intimidation)
- Immunity (Fear), Limited to Half Effect
- Somewhere between 0.5 and 1 point of Will in initial estimates.

Looking at, say, Colossus, it's hard to which should necessarily apply. Second Chance is probably the most basic option. Enhanced Will is probably the way to go for characters who seem to function outside their weight class in this regard, but aren't quite a Green Lantern/The Man Without Fear/a Jedi master. Enhanced Insight probably fits street-level face characters.

Immunity (Fear), Limited (half effect) is still a funny little thing. It strangely doesn't have a clear effect on Intimidation, it slaps on a Limited with clearly no effect on final cost, and so forth. It isn't clear to me who or what it would be for. It might fit for Colossus? Characters who stare down demons and Gods, but can still be spooked by a guy in a bat-suit or a fear gas grenade.

Note that if we do an "iconic Batman," in addition to adjusted attack values and tweaks to his skills, he probably deserves Second Chance (fear/intimidation). Something way above his Will is going to wear him down, but in the normal course of things, he just doesn't fail those checks.

[pawsplay]

For Colossus, Marianne and the Thing, don't forget to add an Uncapped version of the scores. There's an example of this in the Thundra writeups, and the charts are near the end of OMACS II (before the comments).

I didn't even think about it, but you're right, modern Colossus does bump up against those values. I'm letting the Thing ferment a bit before I do the other Thing writeups; I will certainly brew up an uncapped version of this one in the meantime.

[Ghostwise]

Thanks Ghostwise, for that fine write-up on Ultima!

You included my 2 favorite pics of her, especially the first one of the fight!

I know she is an obscure villainess, but she did take on Jen She-Hulkie and that is something. Maybe some day she will return stronger than ever....

Since I took months to get this done I'll try to throw in a Pink Pearl entry, we're reworking some Alpha Flight material lately.

[Goldar]

Since I took months to get this done I'll try to throw in a Pink Pearl entry, we're reworking some Alpha Flight material lately.

Oh, cool!

Thanks so much!

I really look forward to it!

[MisterO]

I was fiddling around with some potential builds (Penance/Speedball and Captain Mar-Vell) and I was wondering: If a character has one Area Effect attack (say Burst Area Damage 13) and a regular "targeted" attack (Ranged Damage 10, Ranged Combat +10) should both be considered for the Averaged PL or should just the higher of the two be used?