3E Time of Crisis OOC

[kenmadragon]

After doing some research, I found that time of vengeance happens after the events in crisis. So maybe you could run vengeance righ after crisis?

[Arthur Eld]

Perhaps. If people are interested, of course. But I try not to get ahead of myself like that.

[Mr.Sandman]

I will put in my vote for Crisis. Probably submit my original Sandman updated for 3E.

[hero4hire]

I vote for Crisis and then use Vengeance as a follow-up.

After doing some research, I found that time of vengeance happens after the events in crisis. So maybe you could run vengeance righ after crisis?

Great minds...

[kenmadragon]

In my defense, I posted before I read the previous posts...

[hero4hire]

In my defense, I posted before I read the previous posts...

No worries!

[baixiwei]

I am still debating whether or not to build my magical iPhone as Removable or not ... if I do, I'd probably devote the extra points to maybe a spiritual minion and a HQ in some mystical virtual world ... thoughts?

Mister Miracle
Real name: Paul Talsin
PL 10, 150 points



How does a young computational linguist become a superhero, you ask? Well, it all started when this guy in anthropology - John Fast - roped me into building a corpus of spells. That's right - a database of mumbo-jumbo from every superstitious dead culture that had the written word. He was looking for cross-culture lexical or syntactic similarities, or something. Whatever gets you funded, buddy. I'd have fun learning some dead languages while I was at it.

So one time I left the computer on to crunch data overnight. In the morning, the room was spic and span, old pizza boxes thrown away, floor swept, books shelved. Looked at my computer to see if my program finished, and no, it had gotten stuck on this one file for some reason, kept churning out the same block of text over and over. On a whim I checked what it was. Lo and behold, it was a spell to summon a "helpful spirit" and - here's the kicker - it had to be repeated a thousand times to work! Do you get it? My computer had CAST THE SPELL!

That was just the beginning. On a closer look at these manuscripts we'd been collecting, almost all involved some onerous procedure like having a thousand people chant something in unison or whatever. No wonder people gave up on magic - who has the patience for that crap? Answer: a computer does. A computer could do that in milliseconds. We had five or six working spell programs going within half a year, and not long after, I'd converted them all to mobile iPhone apps. We were all ready to make a killing on the market - the return of magic, available in the iTunes store for $10.

Well, that idea lasted until John had the bright idea of trying one of the darker summoning rituals. It required blood sacrifice - turned out that simulated sacrifice in a virtual world worked just as well - and I walked in on him negotiating with a goddamn demon. That was the end of our partnership, needless to say. Heated words were exchanged, magical energies invoked, buildings burned down, crap kicked out of yours truly ... well, I had the know-how, but victory wasn't in the cards - John had a demon. Rematch definitely on, someday, not soon.

Going back to school made no sense at that point. The stuff I could do with my little iPhone put me on par with the world's greatest. After what happened with John, I could never risk going public with the tech we'd invented, but maybe I could do some good with it on my own. And putting on a mask was what all the cool whiz kids were doing at this point. Doing an IPO and making a few billion bucks was so two years ago. Thus was born Mister Miracle, master of magic, bane of the wicked! Yeah, I read too many comics as a kid. Didn't we all?

Abilities

Strength 0, Stamina 0, Agility 0, Dexterity 0, Fighting 0, Intellect 4, Awareness 4, Presence 0

Powers

iPhone

• Features 2: cellphone, computer

Arcane Apps (33 points + 5 APs = 38 points)

• "Angry Ghosts": Move Object 11, Perception (+1)
• "God Mode": Create Object 10, Continuous (+1), Innate, Precise, Subtle
• "Credulity": Illusion 10, visual and auditory @3/rank, Precise
• "Fungible": Transform 5 (25 lbs), Anything to anything @5/rank, Continuous (+1), Reach 3 (15 feet)
• "Power Word": Nullify 11, Broad - magic (+1), Simultaneous (+1)
• "Kristaleyes": Remote Sensing 9 (vision, 2 miles) and Senses 15 (Precognition, Postcognition, Vision counters all concealment and illusion)

"Backdoor"

• Teleport 5 (900 feet), accurate (+1), turnabout, increased mass 3 (400 lbs)

"Aegis"

• Protection 12
• Enhanced Traits 24 (dodge 8, parry 8, fortitude 8)

Advantages

Ranged attack 9, Languages 5 (Akkadian, Ancient Egyptian, Ancient Greek, Arabic, Chinese, Farsi, French, German, Hebrew, Latin, Old English, Old Norse, Russian, Sanskrit, Sumerian, Tibetan), Ritualist*

* Ritualist uses Technology instead of Expertise: Magic.

Skills

Expertise (linguistics) 8 (12), Insight 6 (10), Investigation 4 (8), Perception 6 (10), Technology 8 (12)

Offense

Initiative +0
Area damage with Create Object: ~, DC21 Dodge and Toughness
Trapping with Create Object: +9, DC21 Dodge
Objects thrown / wielded with Move Object: +9, DC26 Toughness
Nullify: +9, DC21
Transform: +0, DC15

Defense

Dodge 8, Parry 8, Toughness 12, Fortitude 8, Will 12

Points

Abilities 16 + Powers 95 + Advantages 15 + Skills 16 + Defenses 8 = 150 points

Complications

Motivation: use power for good. Paul became a hero because he had the ability, and felt that with ability comes responsibility. Pretty much the same reason Bill Gates devoted his $$$ to charity.

Quirk: push the boundaries. Paul is a good guy, but what really excites him is the thought that he's doing something incredibly cool with technology that no one else has thought of. Any opportunity to do more of the same would be tempting, even if patently unwise.

Enemy: John Fast, Paul's erstwhile colleague, and the demon he summoned are both at large in the world and are sworn enemies of Paul.

Power Loss: Paul needs to charge his iPhone every couple of days or it will run out of juice, depriving him of all of his powers. He usually is smart enough to carry a spare battery, but sometimes forgets.

[Zen_Gypsy]

So my inspiration for the North Guard submission died when I was unable to come up with a comprehensive background that I liked, so I withdrew him. While reading through some Freedom City stuff, I came across some alien stuff that looked kind of cool and incorporated that ...

Updated my submission entirely ... as always lemme know what you think. And yes, until it gets selected in one way or another I will keep using the name Utopian, because I love it

And so I present ... Kaldor Thrayce ... Legacy ...

[Walking Dad]

Aren't Utopians a specific Atlantean off-shot society in the Freedom verse? I could see some possible misunderstandings with the characters hero name.

[Zen_Gypsy]

Aren't Utopians a specific Atlantean off-shot society in the Freedom verse? I could see some possible misunderstandings with the characters hero name.

Boo! My favorite hero name! Plus the punks would probably call copyright, or want royalties if I was selected! Guess I'll be thinking about a hero name at work today instead of actually, well, working!

[FuzzyBoots]

Aren't Utopians a specific Atlantean off-shot society in the Freedom verse? I could see some possible misunderstandings with the characters hero name.

Boo! My favorite hero name! Plus the punks would probably call copyright, or want royalties if I was selected! Guess I'll be thinking about a hero name at work today instead of actually, well, working!

^_^ Of course, that could be half the fun...

I'm not planning on doing any 3E, so I'm out on the joining on this one, but as someone who's run one and a half games of Time of Crisis and has played in about as many, it's not a short module. There's at least two fights in each of the dimensions, so that comes out to at least ten pitched battles against foes who are at or beyond your power levels. And that's not including the bits in between. Not necessarily dissuading you, but just noting that it takes time to work through all of that, particularly if you keep the "6 member team" recommended.

[Zen_Gypsy]

A touch of Divas Mal's Legacy manifesto, a touch of an old video game I loved, Advent Rising, and voila!

And still have time to get to work!

[Arthur Eld]

Alright, so Time of Crisis it is!
I'm going to start looking more carefully at submitted characters now. All those without backgrounds should work on getting something up soon.

[Arthur Eld]

@levinwurth: I'm not sure you need Ricochet on a Perception ranged power. Part of Ricochet's value is in ignoring cover and things like that because, for example, if a defender is behind a chest-high wall and in front of an even higher wall, you can bounce your attack off the second wall and hit them in the back, so they have no cover between them and the attack.

With a Perception ranged attack, especially one based on perfect aim, that seems redundant.

Granted others (mostly Taliesin for his Bullseye build, with Fletch seems very similar to mechanically) have done it this way, but I don't see how its necessary.

@Omega Girl: Everything looks pretty good. As for a name-how about Rescue?

@kenmadragon: I don't see how you have a +8 to hit with Crescent's blast. He has only one rank of Dexterity and no ranks of Ranged Combat or Ranged Attack. Also, your variable is needlessly complicated. Why not just figure out a bunch of AEs you want to have, and use them? With how much your Variable costs, you can have 15 (!) AEs and still save a point. The other problem with the variable is that it basically gets rid of your need to power-stunt and gives you access to an infinite number of Alternate Effects costing 24 points. That's essentially Variable 5 when you're buying it as Variable 2 (and really only need to do it as Variable 1, which woudl be even more points-grubby).

Its not a bad character by any means, I just have some problems with the mechanics involved.

@Hero4hire: Paragon seems a little 'blah' for a character, plus kind of OP. In a team of superheroes, there should be more niche characters and less swiss army knife types. With his variable, Paragon can get a +17 bonus in almost any skill. That's 3 ranks shy of the PL cap-for basically every skill. That's a bit much.

@baixiwei:I like the idea, but I think there should be some kind of spark of magic to John and Paul. So that not any Joe Schmoe could do what they do. Paul might really need his iPhone as a mystic focus and maybe coudl one day overcome that, maybe not, but he should have some smidgen of inherent magical talent as well.

[Ysariel]

I'm thinking of a villain who's going about her dastardly business when a cosmic bomb goes off. Just before her dimension bites it, she uses her time manipulation ability to catapult her a few hours into the past, giving her a chance to warn the world. She'll join the PCs on the side of the angels since she figures they're the best chance of saving the multiverse, and along the way grow into a bonda fide hero.

Is that OK? I promise no PvP, angsty lonerism, disruptive behavior etc.