Thursday, August 18, 2022

Atomattack, Post-Apocalyptic Time Traveller

Today's supervillain means well, sort of, but he's been trying to do the right thing the wrong way for far too long.  Maybe your heroes can talk him down - or maybe they'll burn in atomic fire for daring to interfere with his mission.

Atomattack  (that's ah-tom-ah-tak, stress on the "tak" - he tends to irradiate people who say it wrong)

Atomattack claims to come from an alternate timeline running slightly ahead of our own, one where a massive nuclear war was fought in the 2030s.  Most of humanity perished in hours, and the few survivors spent their remaining resources (including their lives) completing the dimensional travel research that had been nearing completion on the eve of the war.  Most of them simply wished to flee their poisoned, dying world, but a few hoped to spare other Earths their fate by preventing parallel events that had led to the Last War from coming to pass.  

The latter group volunteered wholesale to be among the first test subjects of the non-space transit engines.  They were equipped with "eternal-function" survival suits using the best available technology.  Their gear included experimental rad-enhancers that would provide nearly infinite power for the transit drives, and to generate a trans-dimensional signal beacon for the other survivors to follow once a scout found a safe worldline to evacuate too.

2022, Prime Earth.  Atomattack found himself on an world that was clearly on the same path as his own world had been, and mere years from the start of the Last War.  The number of parallel events that had already occurred was terrifying, and what few minor divergences existed were surely too small to matter.  There was no choice in his mind - this timeline was no safe harbor for his people as things stood.  But he could change that, perhaps.  Atomattack knew where and when the critical events were, and he could at least attempt to derail them by destroying key players in the disaster to come.  Nothing could be allowed to stand in his way.  If he failed and the Last War did follow him here, he would leave the burning husk of this planet behind and seek another timeline to save.  He'd done it before, so many times.  He was bound to succeed eventually.     

Description: Massive, extremely heavily built power suit made of lusterless gray metal.  Helmet is a featureless fixed dome.  Enormous back-mounted rad-enhancer glowing with blue radiation.  Gauntlet fingers and knuckles have rad-emitter apertures built in, which have the same radioactive glow when charging to attack.

The man inside is pale, sickly looking and physically unimpressive, but his eyes gleam with fanaticism.  If he has a name he doesn't use it.

Gender: Male            Age: 45             Height: 5'11" (7'0" in suit)          Eyes: Gray

Hair: Bald                      Skin: Pallid                  Build: Average (Hulking in suit)

Approach: Dampening

Archetype: Formidable (Weakness: Anything that inhibits his rad-enhancer suit)

Health:  50 + (5 x H)

Powers: Nuclear d10, Flight d8, Power Suit d8                             

Qualities: Conviction d10, Atomic War Survivor d8, Close Combat d8, Ranged Combat d8

Status: No Weakness Penalties - d12 / Both Penalties and Bonuses - d8 / Only Weakness Penalties - d4

Abilities:

Engage Rad-Enhancer (A) Boost using Power Suit.  Use your Max die.  That bonus is persistent and exclusive.  Then Attack with your Mid die.

Ignore Your Limits (R) Ignore all penalties on you for your action this turn.  Take irreducible damage equal to the total of those penalties.

Nuclear Strike (A) Hinder using Nuclear.  Use your Max die.  This penalty is persistent and exclusive.  As long as that penalty is on the target, reduce their highest power die of your choice by one die size.  Attack using your Mid die.

Terrifying Certainty (A) Attack using Conviction.  Use your Max die.  Hinder each opponent that can see or hear the target of your Attack using your Min die.

Upgrades & Masteries (optional):

Power Dampening Field (I) +10 Health.  While the scene is in the green zone, all heroes' powers of d8 or higher are reduced by one die size.  In the Yellow zone all of the heroes powers of d10 or higher are reduced by one additional step (two die sizes total).  In the Red zone, all heroes' power dice are treated as d4.  Heroes can remove this upgrade with three overcome successes.  If a hero takes a minor twist while taking these Overcomes, they lose access to a power until this upgrade is removed.

Master of Annihilation (I) If you can cause massive collateral damage without regard for casualties, automatically succeed at an Overcome in a situation where a show of overwhelming force would help.

Tactics

He prefers to open with Engage Rad-Enhancer to try to offset Hinders and improve his overall performance, and he'll use it as needed to scrub off persistent Hinders.  He'll spread Nuclear Strike attacks around to apply the debuff to as many heroes as he can, alternating with Terrifying Certainty (monologuing about his mission, and the fact that the world is going to burn in a few years) to spread out penalties over everyone who can see the target.  When the heroes inevitably cripple his status die with suitable penalties he'll try to bull through using Ignore Your Limits.

His weakness is anything that could reasonably mess with the atomic energy source on his back.  Those penalties could be generated with a lot of different qualities and powers, so be lenient with players who can describe something plausible - or just fun.

He's probably a more interesting villain for the players to fight with his upgrade, but leaving him a basic moderate scene element still works.  He's not above working with other supers, although many of them (particularly the more money-oriented) may find his fanaticism about stopping the end of the world intolerable.


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