Omegavolt, A Self-Defeating Dynamo

A specialist villain today, this one quite deliberately built to be a fearsome threat but prone to overloading himself so badly he practically defeats himself with self-inflicted damage.  If your heroes can hold out long enough he becomes a pushover to finish off, but he hits mighty hard until then.

Omegavolt

Ramon DaSilva was an unremarkable lab assistant in the OmegaCorp High-Energy Testing Facility until the accident that left him supercharged.  Possibly unhinged by the incident, or perhaps just greedy and amoral, he was quick to adopt the villainous persona of Omegavolt and go on a spree of robberies until confronted by a team of heroes who tricked him into overloading himself.  He's proven to be difficult to contain long-term, and has repeatedly broken out of prison to repeat his crimes, often with more tactically-minded allies.

As Omegavolt he displays remarkably potent control over electricity, which he can also leverage to create stunning blasts of thunder or propel himself through the sky by "riding" lightning bolts.  He's surprisingly vulnerable to the same kind of energies, although he can (and usually will) simply power his way through such hindrances with a costly display of his own might.  His impulsive personality and hot temper are even more of a drawback, and many of his defeats have effectively been self-inflicted.  

Description: Muscular man of Hispanic descent, wearing a matte-black bodysuit with only his hands and head exposed.  His costume is covered in metallic cabling that helps him direct his powers, and he sports a short black half-cape with an omega symbol on it.  Has a powerful baritone voice and likes to use it to deride anyone who gets on his bad side.    

Gender: Male     Age: 27     Height: 5'11"     Eyes: Brown, Full of Sparks

Hair: Black     Skin: Dark Hispanic Tone, Crawling With Lightning     Build: Burly

Approach:  Overpowered

Archetype:  Formidable (Weakness: Electrical or Sonic penalties, including his own)

Health:  60 + (5 x H)

Powers: Electricity d12, Flight d10, Sonic d10

Qualities: Arrogant Powerhouse d8, Imposing d8, Science d6

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

Abilities:

Beyond All Hindrances (R) Ignore all penalties on you for your action.  Take irreducible damage equal to the total of those penalties.

Crashing Thunder (A) Attack multiple targets using Sonic.  Use your Max die.  Hinder each target using your Mid die.

There Is Nothing Beyond My Power! (A) Take any basic action using your Max die.

UNLIMITED POWER! (A) Attack using Electricity.  Use your Max + Mid + Min dice.  Hinder yourself using your Max die.  Take damage equal to your Mid + Min dice.

Upgrades & Masteries (optional):

Quality Upgrade (I) +20 Health.  Increase all Quality dice sizes except Arrogant Powerhouse by one (max d12).

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

Omegavolt is tremendously powerful, but he's held back by his own overconfidence, impatience and lack of restraint.  He always intends to fight intelligently, taking some time Boost himself with There Is Nothing Beyond My Power! and then softening up multiple foes with repeated uses of Crashing Thunder before finishing them off one by one but that never happens.  Someone will Attack him, put a penalty on him, or just make him angry by being disrespectful (possibly by not bothering to Attack or Hinder him) and BAM!, he'll immediately use Beyond All Hindrances and UNLIMITED POWER! to teach them a lesson, and then continue to use his reaction over and over rather than letting his accumulating penalties bleed off naturally.  This results in a death spiral of mounting damage exacerbated by his own hardest-hitting ability.

He just doesn't have the self-control to play smart, and will wind up draining himself to the point of collapse far quicker than he ought to.  Doesn't mean he won't take a hero or three down with him, but he does tend to underperform for his Approach/Archetype combination.

Omegavolt's upgrade isn't much help (it won't improve Arrogant Powerhouse any, which he uses for most offensive abilities) either, although the added Health might buy him another round or two in action.  His mastery reflects his hot-headedness, and rarely gets used for anything really productive unless his allies can get him to stick to some kind of plan.

Trivia

For unknown reasons, Ramon deeply objects to being called "Sparky" and tends to fly off the handle if taunted with that nickname,  This has led to several "incidents" with fellow supervillains.

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Crosstown Hammer, Street Level Vigilante Hero

This is an attempt at a low-powered "street vigilante" style hero, as well as a chance to mark the godawful lousy Struggling background off my bingo card.  He suffers from some truly dire die pools that really hold back otherwise decent abilities.  If a teammate hands him a decent persistent bonus early on on it would make a big difference in his performance, but he can't do it himself.

Crosstown Hammer

Lou Crupp was an unassuming taxi driver until the night he was robbed and beaten senseless for the seventh time.  While he was unconscious a Presence came to him and declared that he would be granted the power to fight back against the city's criminals and bring justice to the streets.  Being unconscious and badly concussed, he only dimly recalled the incident when he woke up in the local ER, and he kept his mouth shut to the authorities about what was probably a hallucination anyway.

It wasn't.  The night after he got out of the hospital he was awakened by horrible visions of a brutal crime, and the certain knowledge that he could stop that crime from happening if he acted now.  Slipping out of his basement apartment into the night he found himself stopping an assault with unexpected ease, casually bludgeoning a half-dozen drunken thugs with his bare hands and walking away with nothing but a few bruises.  Even got a sincere thank you from the young couple he'd saved from God knows what - and with the voice whispering in his head, maybe there was a god involved.

So now Lou is a superpowered taxi driver that takes some nights off to fight crime as the mysterious vigilante Crosstown Hammer.  He didn't ask for this, but it's a lot better than getting robbed for an eighth time.   

Description: Short, thick-set man of Southern European ancestry with oddly forgettable features, usually dressed in cheap civilian clothing and a local team's baseball cap.  When engaging in vigilante heroics he dons a domino mask that he bought from a theatrical supply store, which inexplicably makes him nigh-unrecognizable even to close associates.  He doesn't really have friends any more.  Speaks with a gruff voice in whatever accent is native to [campaign city]. 

Gender: Male     Age: 37    Height: 5'7"     Eyes: Brown      

Hair: Brown, Thinning     Skin: Swarthy Caucasian     Build: Burly

Background: Struggling     Power Source: Higher Power     Archetype: Shadow

Personality: Fast Talker     Health (G/Y/R):  30/22/11

Powers: Agility d8, Invisibility d8, Precognition d8, Vitality d6

Qualities: Stealth d10, Criminal Underworld Info d8, Finesse d8, Haunted Vigilante d8, Banter d6, Fitness d6

Status: Green (30-23) - d6 / Yellow (22-13) - d8 / Red (11-1) - d10

Abilities

Green

Ambush (A) Attack using Stealth.  Remove one physical mod, Hinder a target using your Min die, or maneuver to a new location in your environment.

Blur of Motion (A) Attack using Agility.  Use your Min die to Defend yourself against all Attacks until the start of your next turn.

Driven (I) At the start of your turn, remove any -1 penalties on you.

Principle of the Everyman (A) Overcome when using a bonus from another hero.  Use your Max die.  You and your allies each gain a Hero Point.  Minor twist: Which hero did you just make look good at the expense of yourself?  Major twist: How are you utterly, totally out of your league?  RP: When needed you can make yourself just another face in the crowd.

Principle of Stealth (A) Overcome to infiltrate somewhere or avoid detection.  Use your Max die.  You and your allies each gain a Hero Point.  Minor twist: What evidence of your presence did you leave behind?  Major twist: What just happened to identify you as an obvious threat?  RP: You always know the most efficient method to enter or leave a location.

Yellow

Elusive (R) When you would take damage, Defend against it by rolling your single Stealth die.

Foresight (A) Attack using Precognition.  Boost all nearby heroes taking Attack or Overcome actions using your Min die until the start of your next turn. 

Go All Out (A) Attack multiple targets using Agility.  Hinder each target damaged by this Attack using your Min die.  Hinder yourself using your Max die.

Red

Can't Stop Now (A) Hinder yourself using Vitality.  Use your Min die.  Recover Health equal to your Max + Mid dice.

Just Making Me Angry (I) At the start of your turn, change any penalty into a bonus.

Remember Our Arrangement (A) Select a minion.  That minion is now entirely under your control and acts at the start of your turn.  You may release control at any time, and also lose control if you are defeated.  At the end of the scene, that minion is defeated.

Out

Superstitious Nonsense (A) Hinder a minion or lieutenant by rolling your single Stealth die and increase the value of the resulting penalty by -1.

Tactics

In Green, Crosstown Hammer usually relies on Blur of Motion for a little bit of damage reduction it will produce (usually only 1-2 points per instance, but it adds up).  Ambush has some very useful riders options though, and if an ally has a big physical penalty or he needs mobility it may be the better choice.  Going to stand somewhere you can't be Attacked at all is the best defense.  If he needs bigger damage to crack a lieutenant save he may have to resort to a risky basic Attack for Max damage to start the death spiral.  Despite some solid principles his lousy die pools make Overcomes difficult, although Driven may help if he winds up being Hindered by twists from them - or from risky actions.

Once he reaches Yellow he gets a solid defensive reaction from Elusive and his dreadful status die improves, making Overcomes slightly more feasible.  Foresight offers mediocre damage output coupled with a team-wide Boost, but it's almost always going to be a meager +1 bonus so not outstanding except for helping fuel someone else's Charged-Up Blast or Principle of the Everyman or similar ability.  Go All Out is Crosstown Hammer's best ability by far, dealing good damage for a multi-target attack and following it up with small penalties on the survivors - at the cost of a bigger penalty on him.  His bad dice pools actually help a bit here, since he'll rarely exceed a -2 self-penalty and he might well wind up in Red the next turn, letting him turn it into a bonus.

His Red zone abilities are designed to invert troublesome penalties (like from Go All Out) with Just Making Me Angry and some comeback ability in the form of Can't Stop Now, which you can probably pool your Stealth with as you slip away to lick your wounds, and your penalty may very well just fall off thanks to Driven.  It honestly may not be worth healing up right away if your enemies aren't focusing on you, since Go All Out is a lot better in Red than Yellow and your reaction might be enough to keep you on your feet.  You could also use the time to grab minions to serve you with Remember Our Arrangement, but odds are you'll pull that one forward with a twist to use it in Yellow on a nice, fresh blackmail victim.  If your GM is feeling generous (and they ought to, with this wretched build) the twists you generate might even create more minions to use the ability on.

Your Out ability is weird and very narrow, but it may be the nastiest thing you ever manage to do to a powerful lieutenant.

No matter you do, this hero is always going to be feeling their bad die spread.  Be wary of playing him without a taste for being the underdog.

A lot of people have experimented with fixes for Struggling (which is generally seen as very sub-par as Backgrounds go).  The most interesting one I've seen in action is to add text to the background so that when you later choose your Personality, your Yellow zone status die gets bumped up by one die step, eg from d8 to d10 or d6 to d8.  A d10 in Yellow would be unique and go a long way toward balancing out the lack of d10 powers and qualities from Struggling, but I haven't seen it at the table enough to be sure it doesn't go too far, or that it might have some broken combo (maybe with the Impulsive Personality?), but it might be worth trying out at your table if you have a Struggling character who's underperforming too badly.

Design Notes

Conceptually, Lou's powers are all subtle to the point where it's hard to be sure they even exist.  There are times when he's not sure if he's just getting really lucky and the voices and visions are actually the result of serious head trauma.  His Agility feels like time is out of joint somehow, the Invisibility is tied to the way people just seem to get distracted and fail to notice him sometimes, his Precognition always shows him awful things that haven't happened yet instead of anything nice like tomorrow's lottery numbers, and his Vitality might just be cumulative nerve damage from previous beatings coupled with how accustomed he is to long nights behind a wheel.

That said, there's definitely something driving him and rewarding him with power.  No matter how inattentive a crook might be, it doesn't explain how Lou doesn't ever leave fingerprints or other evidence behind, or how that stupid domino mask perfectly conceals his civilian identity.  He just can't bring himself to really believe it.

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Phade, Reformed Star Smuggler

A new character for a "cosmic heroes" play-by-post game that's starting up.  She's intended to fill some gaps in her team by adding some extreme stealthy mobility, criminal connections, starship crew skills, and a talent for convincing people to do what she wants them to, mostly used to get folks to believe what she's telling them.  Her abilities aren't particularly amazing although her die pools can be quite good, so she's expecting to spend more time than usual doing creative Overcomes exploiting her powers and qualities.

Phade  (civilian identity Melbourne "Mel" DuQuesne)

Last survivor of the notorious smuggler's ship Prophet Of Profit, Mel was empowered by the FTL accident that destroyed the vessel and slew her crewmates. Adopting the supranym Phade, she built on her previous experience to make a reputation for herself as a super-powered expert in the "covert transport" field, able to deliver or extract a cargo to or from almost any location. While she refused to deal in the "livestock trade" (sapient or not) almost anything else was fair game, from unstable paracausal substances to illegal memetic code to stolen alien artifacts. This went on for almost a decade until she ran afoul of cosmic hero who synchronized his own precognitive powers with hers and forced her to confront the future her current path would lead to.

Shaken, Phade disappeared for a time, returning recently to resume her activities with a twist. She was now an ethical smuggler, only accepting jobs that would help redeem her past misdeeds. Helping refugees reach a safe haven? Rescuing the unjustly imprisoned from durance vile? Smuggling weaponry to heroic resistance fighters defending their world from invasion? All right up her alley now. She might even directly oppose some of her old rivals, especially slavers and those who are too quick to resort to violence instead of stealth and cunning, the hallmarks of any good smuggler. Phade has also found that working with more...definite do-gooders can be helpful, since she sometimes has trouble convincing various authorities of her new-found good intentions and having someone to vouch for her never hurts with those types.     

Description: When she's visible and in costume, a solidly-built human female in a form-fitting, full-coverage pale gray shipsuit, topped off with a matching ovoid helmet with three sleek fins and a blue faceplate.  The outfit serves as a lightweight environment suit that can serve as an under-layer for use with heavier EVA gear if needed.  Out of costume she keeps her shipsuit gloves on at all times and favors sturdy overalls with plenty of pockets and sleeveless tees bearing various scifi band logos, exposing her programmable tattoos.  Shipside she wears traditional grip-shoes, dirtside she prefers badass combat boots that she'll teleport right out of if she needs to move quietly.  Knowledgeable observers will notice telltale signs that she's been on anagathics for years (if not decades) and is older than she looks.  Has a deep contralto voice and can't carry a tune in a bucket, not that it stops her from trying.

Most of the time she's either translucent or completely invisible, although thankfully she lapses into full opacity when unconscious, including natural sleep. 

Gender: Female     Age: Sixty-something (looks thirty)     Height: 5'2"       Eyes: Blue

Hair: Blonde, Buzz-cut     Skin: Pale, Elaborate "Smart" Tattoos     Build: Sturdy

Background: Former Villain     Power Source: Supernatural     Archetype: Transporter

Personality: Fast Talking     Health (G/Y/R):  28/21/10

Powers: Invisibility d10, Teleportation d10, Intangibility d8, Precognition d8, Signature Vehicle (Grav Bike) d6

Qualities: Criminal Underworld Info d10, Persuasion d10, Stealth d10, Technology d8, Veteran Star Smuggler d8

Status: Green (28-22) - d6 / Yellow (21-11) - d8 / Red (10-1) - d12 

Abilities:

Green

Principle of the Gearhead (A) Overcome a technological challenge.  Use your Max die.  You and your allies each gain a Hero Point.  Minor twist: What device just shorted out?  Major twist: What machine just went terribly off the rails?  RP: You always know the general state of repair and function of an item of technology, regardless of complexity or origin.

Principle of Stealth (A) Overcome to infiltrate somewhere or avoid detection.  Use your Max die.  You and your allies each gain a Hero Point.  Minor twist: What evidence of your presence did you leave behind?  Major twist: What just happened to identify you as an obvious threat?  RP: You always know the most efficient method to enter or leave a location.

Teleport Cascade (A) Attack multiple targets using Teleportation.  Use your Min die against each.

Unseen Assailant (A) Attack using Invisibility.  Use your Min die to Defend against all Attacks against you until your next turn.

Yellow

Defensive Displacement (R) When a nearby ally would take damage, Defend that ally by rolling your single status die, then move them elsewhere in the same scene.

Displacement Shock (A) Attack using Teleportation.  Either Hinder your target with your Min die, or move them somewhere else in the scene.

Phade Away (A) Boost yourself using Invisibility.  Use your Max die.  That bonus is persistent and exclusive.

Red

Cool Under Pressure (I) When you use an ability action, you may also perform any one basic action using your Mid die.

Unseen and Untouchable (A) Defend against all Attacks against you until the beginning of you next turn using Invisibility.  Use your Max + Mid dice.

Out

Negotiating A Betrayal (A) Hinder a minion or lieutenant by rolling your single Persuasion die, and increase the value of that penalty by 1.

Tactics

Phade is held back some in Green by her weak status die, which makes even Principled Overcomes pretty risky and Teleport Cascade likely to just downgrade minions rather than KO them.  Her low-risk option is to just use Unseen Assailant (which will at least provide some omni-defense plus moderate damage) but there's a good argument for taking a minor twist immediately to use Phade Away one zone early.  Establishing a persistent bonus to make things easier from then on is probably worth the twist.  Even +2 shifts the odds on Overcomes enormously and makes her various Min die effects more reliable.

If she hasn't used it already, Phade Away is the first priority once she's in Yellow, and repeating it if/when the bonus is scrubbed off is almost as important.  She also gets access to her Defensive Displacement Reaction, which is going to wind up doing a lot of work over time keeping her allies safe and improving their positioning.  Displacement Shock is her Reaction's offensive variant, letting her deal some damage and forcibly move enemies around, or just Hinder them instead.  Unseen Assailant is likely to remain her go-to ability most turns, though.

In Red she shifts to using the combination of Unseen and Untouchable and Cool Under Pressure as a more versatile, much stronger form of Unseen Assailant, and gains a huge status die that makes everything she does work better.  If she doesn't need a massive omni-defend she can still combo the extra basic action from Cool Under Pressure with her other abilities, letting her accomplish a lot more with her turns.  If the situation really calls for maximum damage no matter the cost, she could make her free basic action risky by taking a minor twist, which would let he use her Max die - no small matter with what's likely to be a d10, d10, d12 die pool.  Same goes for basic Overcomes where she can't get a Principle into play.

Once she goes Out, she surrenders and concentrates on trying to convince a likely enemy to turn traitor to assist her escape by using Negotiating A Betrayal.

Design Notes

Phade is a rather defensive combat build overall, and I suspect her "Red zone moments of glory" will revolve more around evading ludicrous amounts of damage while completing some vital challenge at the last moment than putting the finishing blow on an enemy.  That said, she's a long way from invincible.  It's pretty easy to hit her so hard she goes straight from medium-low Health in Yellow to Out without getting a turn in Red to put up her final defenses.  The rare villains with with Attacks that ignore Defend actions are also a dire threat, and spoil her ability to Defend her allies as well.

Conceptually, I envision her various powers and qualities working like this:

Invisibility d10:  This one of her core powers along with Teleportation, and seems to be somehow connected it.  It renders her transparent to a wide part of the EM spectrum (far beyond human visual ranges) and is so fast and effortless it's essential reflexive to activate, which occasionally ties in to her Precognition power in a narrative sense.  She actually has a tendency to drift into translucency when sufficiently distracted, and when "working" she usually remains somewhat blurred and hard to see to help protect her identity.  The power is very strong but has some serious limitations, such as being largely negated by certain sensory powers and technology, including fairly basic echolocation.  It also doesn't "stretch" well, so she can't render other people invisible or conceal objects of any great size.  If she can hold something in one hand or tuck it in a pocket (which her usual clothing and costume are well equipped with - women's fashions are much less absurd In Space) her power can cover it, but she can't handle bags full of swag, a rucksack full of treasures, or an unconscious ally's body.  She also definitely cannot turn her signature grav bike invisible.

Invisibility obviously pools mostly with Stealth, but might work its way into some odd Overcomes.  Pooling it with Criminal Underworld info or Persuasion to trick someone into believing she's a haunting spirit could happen, and it might be used with Technology to spoof visual sensors into thinking they're malfunctioning.     

Teleportation d10:  This is Phade's other defining power, and is tied to Invisibility to such a degree that careful video analysis (or super-speed senses) will reveal that she disappears visually a few microsecond before she physically displaces herself during a jump.  Short teleports (within the bounds of most action scenes) are fast and require little effort, as well as being quite stealthy, producing little disturbance at either end of a jump.  Achieving longer ranges or penetrating anti-teleportation barriers requires much more time and effort and would call for an Overcome.  Her maximum range can reach to and from low orbit on most worlds, but she needs to be personally familiar with her destination to even try that.

The power is moderately "stretchy" as well, which allows her to carry other people or similarly-sized objects with her if she starts in contact with them, which requires at least her movement (limiting her other action options) and possibly a proper Overcome depending on the situation.  By pushing herself she can even momentarily extend her jump field to move others at a distance or against their will, as seen in some of her Yellow abilities.  She can also extend the field slightly beyond its normal limits to use as a weapon, causing damage by getting close to a target and ripping it up with the spatial distortions at the fringe of the field, which is normally what's happening when she's making Attacks (although sometimes she'll just punch or kick someone instead if they look "soft" enough).  Many uses of Teleportation may require Overcomes to represent the stress caused to her (and possibly to her passengers), but her actual abilities are generally reliable and function just as written.

Teleportation often pools with Stealth, either for offensive "sneak attack" actions or to determine the best routes to avoid security measures and other hazards, which is also supported by Principle of Stealth (go figure).  Might also see use with Technology to analyze, overload or slip past teleport barriers, and Veteran Star Smuggler or Criminal Underworld Info during heists or smuggling operations (all in  a good cause, of course).  Conceptually, she'll always be manifesting some degree of Invisibility while jumping around, so she's got a reputation in some circles as the spooky ghost lady that appears out of nowhere without warning.

Intangibility d8:  An extreme manifestation of her Teleportation, this power lets her "stutter" in and out of normal space-time so rapidly she can pass through normal matter and many energy fields as though they weren't there.  It's a difficult trick and she hasn't practiced it much (hence the smaller die and lack of abilities keyed to it) but occasionally comes in handy.  Using it is glaringly obvious to anyone or anything that's able to detect discontinuities in the fabric of reality, and might interfere with dimensional seals, wards, and gateways or some types of FTL drives.  She also can't "stretch" the power to carry anything bigger than what she could hold in one hand, and she's generally leery about trying to manipulate solid objects while she's partway through a wall or something.

This power is most often pooled with Stealth for intrusion-based Overcomes, but might also be used with Technology or Veteran Star Smuggler for sabotage or repairs.  Using it for pickpocket and sleight of hand tricks will probably involve a default d4 unless she's recently gotten some training time with a more talented associate she knows through Criminal Underworld Info.  That kind of crime just isn't her gig.  

Precognition d8:  Phade's version of Precognition is pretty limited despite a decent die size, and operates largely outside of her conscious control.  The power is closely connected to the paracausal effects of teleportation, which is essentially a short-range FTL jump.  It mainly lets her know subconsciously what the conditions will be like at a possible destination just before she teleports, justifying how she makes blind teleports while avoiding "transporter accidents" when doing so.  I could have taken Remote Viewing to do much the same thing, but Precognition seemed more interesting for the GM to hang "prophetic dream" story hooks off of - and honestly, she did not need to be able to reliably see distant locations to make her even more ridiculous at espionage and intrusion tasks.  She definitely cannot just willingly see the future whenever she wants, and is shockingly bad at Zener card tests.

Precognition might be pooled with Persuasion (where she unconsciously avoids saying the wrong thing by peeping into the timescape for a moment), Criminal Underworld Info or Veteran Star Smuggler (to "have a bad feeling about this" when in danger of sudden betrayal or ambushes), or Technology (for the classic "do I cut the red wire or the blue wire?" trope), but mostly it's just kind of narratively running in the background as she uses Teleportation. .

Signature Vehicle (Grav Bike) d6:  Grav bikes and similar personal vehicles are commonplace among small ship crews, where they serve as more convenient groundside transportation than ship's shuttle or the vessel itself.  Smugglers and raiders are particularly enamored of them, often customizing them with weapons and enhanced controls and engines.  Phade doesn't own one of those hotrods.  She usually keeps an older, often battered bike around, but she doesn't get much practical use out of it since her natural mobility powers are far more impressive.  Her current ride is a Model 222M "Skyhog" two-seater, an outdated design made by the CalTex Lifter Corporation.  By biker enthusiast standards it's underpowered, a little clumsy, and not very fast, but it is quite reliable, has a good semi-AI autopilot and some history buffs regard it as a classic.  When she does bring her Skyhog along on a job, she usually parks it in a safe (or at least concealed) location or sets it to unobtrusively orbit the area while mingling with other aerial traffic, then teleports into action.  Despite this cautious approach, I expect her bike will be getting trashed/stolen and replaced repeatedly over time.

Uses for this thing in an action scene are kind of limited, but it could be pooled with several of her qualities to help establish a reputation as badass smuggler, outworld raider, or grav bike enthusiast with slightly dated tastes.  Or at least as someone who is not a notorious super-powered ex-criminal with amazing teleportation powers, because why would they be riding that stodgy old clunker?  She also finds tinkering with the thing is a good way to relieve stress, which would be pooled with Technology if she actually to roll for it.  And yes, she still owns a digibook copy of "Cosmo-Zen & the Art of Grav Bike Maintenance" that she read in college.

Criminal Underworld Info d10:  This represents Phade's background as a former villain and all the contacts she made in her older, less altruistic days.  It's most effective with things related to smuggling, but she can usually find someone who can point in the right direction to find specialists other "services" like murder for hire, white-collar crime, illegal memetic manipulations and mercenary super-thuggery.  She's made a lot of contacts over the years, no doubt aided by her super-powers (which put her in a whole new league).

One legacy of her activities can be found in the expensive set of "smart tattoos" that cover her arms and some other parts of her body.  Aside from purely aesthetic displays, these can be programmed to show a variety of recognition symbols, vouchsafes, secret codes and allied gang affiliations.  She's probably even got some that can "prove" she's an undercover law enforcement agent.

Persuasion d10:  Phade has a (mostly) natural talent for talking people into things they might not otherwise do, which came in handy during her villainous career and is more useful for convincing people that those days are behind her.  Her approach is quite flexible, ranging from subtle threats and implied (or actual) blackmail to "simple" (albeit strangely convoluted) logic to exploiting her fast-talking personality to confuse the issue until people agree to her requests.

It's worth noting that she's not particularly good at resisting the same kind of social manipulation, and it was a persuasive hero that got her to turn to the side of justice in the first place.  Keeping her away from silver-tongued criminals who might tempt her to backslide might be a good idea. 

Stealth d10:  This is really the core quality of Phade's character, and sees a lot of use.  Aside from the obvious general utility for sneaking around, it also serves as her main fighting style whether she's invisibly sucker punching chumps or suddenly teleporting in to rip battledroids apart with the fringes of her jump field.  One of her Principles is directly connected to this quality, and its roleplaying effects make her even better at getting in and out of places she isn't welcome.

Narratively, she also manages to maintain some divide between her "super-work" identity and her "plain old space hauler" persona.  It's not too difficult to chase down connections between the two, but finding hard evidence and incontrovertible proof isn't easy. 

Technology d8:  This is where her engineering skills come from, and represents a mix of formal and on-the-job training.  She actually has a real college degree in computer security as well, which she used to grossly misuse for criminal purposes.  Those days are over, of course, but the same skill set still helps her cover her tracks and keep people from digging into her past.

Her grav bike repair hobby is probably the most innocent use she has for this quality.

Veteran Star Smuggler d8:  This is her custom roleplaying quality, and describes her life's focus (at least in her pre-hero days) succinctly.  It includes the skills needed to operate a small starship or serve as crew on a larger one and roughly emulates Deep Space Knowledge with a bias toward unstable or crime-ridden regions of space, details of border patrols and customs services, and where other smugglers are likely to be working.  She can pass as a legitimate spacer with it, but may not be entirely convincing in the role over the long term.

Just having this quality will mark her out for unwanted attention from some authorities and rivals, although they may fail to identify exactly who they're dealing with is she's trying to conceal her identity.

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Doctor Demiurge, An Experiment In Character Building

So today's post is an experiment in building a character for a new player in a play by post game that's starting up.  They had a concept for a character but wanted some help translating it into game mechanics, which I volunteered to take a stab at.  This is my initial attempt and will no doubt change some as I get feedback.

The initial brief I'm working off of went like this:

Elevator pitch: DOCTOR DEMIURGE, the SCIENTO-MYSTICAL MASTER of RAYS and EMANATIONS, a sort de-sadismified Stardust the Super-Wizard as written by 70's Jack Kirby and scripted by 90's Alan Moore. Some possible powers, if these things fit:
-Contacts scientific/occult luminaries throughout history for advice (or, you know, imagines them and has some kind of knowledge-gaining power)
-makes a doorway to an otherdimensional Secret Lab Space Trophy Room Hideout Thing, that maybe contains cool stuff or maybe is just safe and impressive
-Shoots rays to do comic booky things, probably less blast and more delude, create illusory duplicates, transmogrify, confuse, induce psychedelia, create Jack Kirby photocollage effects, et cetera
-Flies through space and has life support and all that stuff I assume everybody in this campaign can do

Then we got a little more fleshing out:

**
DOCTOR DEMIURGE! Strange visitor of the CONCEPTUAL PLANES, this SUPERSCIENCE BODHISATTVA emerges from his private micro-cosmos to fight crime with the power of RAYS and DIVINE EMANATIONS! His COMPLETE MASTERY of the fundamental forces of physics and the siddhis of spiritual perfection alike makes him a stern foe of injustice indeed, while his membership in the ultradimensional ASHRAM OF SCIENTO-THAUMATURGY gives him access to the advice of such luminaries as SAPPHO, ZHUANGZI, CORNELIUS AGRIPPA, and GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER! Disguised as mild-mannered wastrel DAX DEXTER, he gads about until DOCTOR DEMIURGE is needed once again!
**

In game terms, I think what I'm aiming at is mostly sort of a buffer and debuffer. I don't know how knowledge-gaining powers work in this game, but I'd rather he not personally be the universal jack of all trades; rather, I'd like him to aim at *telling other people how to do stuff*, because that's less boring, and because it plays into the comic-booky archetype of the gabby would-be guru hero (who is typically just the self-insert of some white dude who did too many drugs, let's be real). So I think the "Access to the knowledge of ancient luminaries on every possible subject" is mostly supposed to be about that.

Similarly, his reality-bending powers -- the "rays and emanations" -- are intended as debuffs, transformations, and alterations. I don't know if he has a direct attack; maybe he summons thoughtform duplicates of himself, who then punch things? 

Okay, I can work with that.  The campaign is a futuristic four-color cosmic setting with strong influences from Kirby and Starlin, and Doc here fits in nicely already.  After some fiddling around, I settled on the following as a first draft.  Blue text indicates something that could be changed or decisions to be made, which I'll deal with below.

EDIT:  The player who'll be using Doctor Demiurge has decided to go with this largely unchanged, and I've gone through and modified the post to show the changes and final decisions, which are now in Red text.  The ability names all went unaltered, so I'm leaving them as-is. 

                                                                                                                                               

Background: Interstellar     Power Source: Mystical     Archetype: Reality Shaper

Personality: Inquisitive     Health (G/Y/R):  30/22/11

Powers: Cosmic d10, Inventions d10, Postcognition d8, Transmutation d6

Qualities: Magical Lore d12, Science d10, Conviction ("Evil must be defeated; evil stems from ignorance; as above, so below. Therefore, I must pursue personal and universal understanding.") d8, SUPERSCIENCE BODHISATTVA d8, Otherworldly Mythos d8, Technology d6

Status: Green (30-23) d6 / Yellow (22-12) d8 / Red (11-1) d10

Abilities:

Green

Principle of the Cosmos (A) Overcome a challenge involving Cosmic energies.  Use your Max die.  You and your allies each gain a Hero Point.  Minor twist: What other energy/element is currently causing your powers to go on the fritz?  Major twist: What source of energy/element is currently dampening all your powers?  RP: You have an affinity for Cosmic energies and easily interact with them.

Principle of the Lab (A) Overcome a challenge while while in a familiar workplace or when you have amble research time.  Use your Max die.  You and your allies gain each gain a Hero Point.  Minor twist: What did you make a detour to observe and sample for future experiments?  Major twist: Something's gone very wrong in the lab, what was it?  RP: You have nearly unlimited access to a dedicated research area and are at home working there.

Science Wizardry (A) Attack using Inventions.  Move the target anywhere nearby in the scene.  If the target goes next in the turn order, you decide who takes the next turn after them.

Strange Rays (A) Hinder using Cosmic.  That penalty is persistent and exclusive.

Yellow

Access the Ashram of Sciento-Thaumaturgy (A) Overcome an environmental challenge using Postcognition.  Use your Max die.  Then, either remove any penalty from the scene or Boost using your Mid die.

Karmic Unwinding (R) When a nearby enemy would create a mod, you may remove it immediately.

Weird Emanations (A) Boost or Hinder using Cosmic.  Apply that mod to multiple nearby targets.

Red

Pick any three.  He wound up taking Eerie Beams, Micro-Cosmic Arsenal, and Techno-Magical Arsenal which should make for some nice Red zone options and also provide tempting possibilities for taking a twist to use one or more of them early in the Yellow zone.  The remaining abilities in blue text are the choices he turned down.

Atavistic Possession (A) Select a minion.  That minion is now entirely under your control and acts at the start of your turn.  If you are incapacitated you lose control of that minion.  You may also choose to release control of that minion at any time.  At the end of the scene, that minion is defeated.

Cosmic Justice (I) At the start of your turn, turn any penalty into a bonus.

Eerie Beams (A) Remove a bonus on a target.  Then, Hinder that target using Magical Lore.  Use your Max die.  That penalty is persistent and exclusive.

Fearsome Conviction (A) Overcome using Conviction.  Use your Max + Min dice.  Hinder all nearby opponents using your Mid die.

Guidance From the Ashram (A) Boost another hero using Postcognition.  If that hero has already acted this round, use your Max die and that hero loses Health equal to your Min die.  That hero acts next in the turn order.

Micro-Cosmic Arsenal (A) Attack multiple targets using Inventions.  Use your Max + Min dice.  If you roll doubles, either take damage equal to your Mid die or take a minor twist.

Techno-Magical Supremacy (A) Boost yourself using Inventions.  Use your Max die.  That bonus is persistent and exclusive.  Then, Attack using your Mid die plus that bonus.

Out

Assistance From Beyond (A) Choose an ally.  Until your next turn, that ally may reroll one of their dice by using a Reaction.

                                                                                                                                                  

So, why these choices?  I started with the desired super-power effects (which are pretty unusual in game terms), then looked for abilities to key them to that had mechanical effects to fit them narratively.

The "consult with sages of the past" thing seemed like a reasonable interpretation of what Postcognition can do.  Rather than just using the more common "object reading" method, Doc instead reaches across time and space to call upon expert advice. That's reflected in part by his slew of Information qualities (he's got lot of them by any standard, and they're conceptually amped up by getting advice from his sagacious peers), and more directly with his Karmic Unwinding and Access the Ashram of Sciento-Thaumaturgy abilities.  If you take them, the Red abilities Atavistic Possession and Guidance From the Ashram (and possibly Cosmic Justice) also conceptually involve entities from the past getting involved in one way or another.

The micro-cosmos/pocket dimension/lab and trophy room sounds far out, but the nature of the character actually makes it pretty easy to just define as a nice big Inventions die.  The space itself, its contents and access to it are all products of Doc's blended science-wizardry, and he can carry around a few toys from his stash to do things like Science Wizardry and (if you take them) access it for Micro-Cosmic Arsenal or Techno-Magical Supremacy in a crisis.  His Principle of the Lab is also hung off of the concept, of course.  The one thing I'd do to reign it in a bit would be to make accessing the space a little to slow or complicated to just use it as a hidey-hole during an action scene, thereby avoiding the D&D Rope Trick/Exodus Knife nonsense.  Might be a cool narrative touch to have Doc fade away into his micro-cosmos if he gets KOd though, resting his battered body and spirit while continuing to provide Assistance From Beyond.

As for his multi-function but mostly non-damaging beams and rays and emanations, I've bundled all of those with Cosmic, which lets you play with the fundamental forces of the universe - very fitting for a Reality Shaper archetype.  They tie in to a multiple abilities including Principle of the Cosmos and Strange Rays and Weird Emanations and the optional Red Eerie Beams ability.  The various mods and overcomes associated with Cosmic should leave plenty of opportunities to describe wildly varied effects.

Being able to casually ignore the rigors of space most of the time (twists are always a possible complication) is part of the campaign theme, but he's got multiple ways to justify being able to survive anyway as well as do a little flying around.  You could take actual Flight as his undecided d6 power, but Inventions could include something to emulate the it (an anti-grav harness, jet boots, belt thrusters, etc.), Cosmic can manipulate gravity, Magical Lore can help create a flying spell, and anyone enlightened enough to be a SUPERSCIENCE BODHISATTVA d8 can probably free themselves of Earthly shackles, right?

With that in mind I just had to figure out a suitable background and personality.  An Interstellar background was a good fit, and in a cosmic setting probably implies you're well-travelled or at least not from local space originally rather than being a run-of-the-mill spacefarer, who are nothing special in this game.  Personality came down to asking what level of stress Doc would perform best in, and since he's best under pressure something with a 6/8/10 status die array seemed best.  Could have gone with something even more extreme with one of the 6/6/12, or you could ditch one of your Red abilities for a 6/8/12 array and 32 max Health, but I think it's fine as-is.  Technically Doc is using the "Inquisitive" personality, but that's just a frame for a status array and Out ability (which is a really unusual one, there's nothing else in the game that lets you selectively choose and reroll just one die in a pool).  You can and should rename it you want.  I rather like "Enlightened" as a substitute.

There are a few decisions that still need to made, but none of them will directly alter any other element of the character.  There's an undecided d6 power still to be taken,which could be anything from the Mystical power source.  It's rather broad list of options (four whole power categories plus five single ones) but a d6 isn't going to be very impactful in general.  The biggest exception to that would be to take a Self-Control power (maybe Intangibility or Invisibility, but there's weirder stuff like Shape-Changing or Part Detachment),which won't be very potent with just a d6 but would let you take the Red Major Regeneration ability off the category's list.  It's common way to try to fix durability issues, but doesn't feel super-thematic.  Myself, I'd probably go with Transmutation so you can (slowly, in small amounts) change one type of inorganic substance into another.  Space alchemy seems like a better conceptual fit, and it would give you another menu of Red abilities to look at (Materials, in that case).  The player wound up going with Transmutation.  Guess I sold the concept well.

Speaking of which, there are three Red abilities (one of which is using the retcon "tweak" option) to choose from.  Doc only has access to a fairly limited set of category choices (just five or six to consider, depending on where you put that floating d6 power, and there are a total of  thirteen categories total) but that's still leaves plenty of options, far more than you can take.  

I've listed seven of the more interesting and effective ones above, but if that still isn't enough there are at least twice as many more.  Pick any three.  Which you want is up to you (there are none that rely on combos), although I would recommend grabbing at least one of the two keyed to Inventions (conceptually, hastily yanking situationally useful weapons and gear out of your micro-cosmic HQ in a crisis), and taking both would not hurt any.  Micro-Cosmic Arsenal is a godawful powerful mass attack, and even a support character benefits from access to some serious Red damage output, especially if you wind up last man standing.  Techno-Magical Supremacy is your only good option for establishing a strong persistent bonus on yourself, and might be a reasonable choice to use early (ie in Yellow) by accepting a minor twist.

All the other blue text stuff are placeholder names that can be changed to anything you like.  Tried to flavor them to fit the PC, but that sort of thing is really subjective and using your own names may make it easier to recall what abilities do in play.  SUPERSCIENCE BODHISATTVA d8 is your custom roleplaying quality, and no matter what it winds up being called you'll need to work with the GM to decide what it actually does for you.  Unlike some characters it's not going to need to serve as a crutch for combat abilities - yours are conceptually meant to be bundled with Magical Lore or Science (depending on what power they're keyed to) in most situations. 

     

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Musing On Gameplay: Using Villain Teams

The question came up on one of the forums I frequent on how to use an entire team of villains during play, which isn't all that well covered by the normal action scene design rules due to your limited budget of scene elements.  The following are examples of how I've approached the subject:

• The easiest approach if you just want to do a big brawl between two teams would be to downgrade some or even all of the villains to lieutenant stats, building them so their traits loosely reflect their normal full-villain abilities.  For a moderate scene with H=4 you could take two pairs of d10 lieutenants as two moderate scene elements, a full villain (the team leader or heavyweight) as a moderate element (or difficult, if upgraded), and then use your fourth element for a moderate environment, or perhaps split the slot into an easy environment (ie somewhat hero-friendly) and an easy d8 lieutenant (the team chump or toady).  You could also shuffle things around to squeeze in some initial challenges or minions, but this might be complex enough as-is.
• You could also do the trope where the heroes encounter smaller groups of full villains (say 2-3 at a time) who are focused on doing the set-up work for their team's grand scheme, with them fleeing as soon as their goal is accomplished, possibly leaving a prisoner behind to be interrogated.  Repeat that two-three times with minor variations and montage and/or social scenes between, then (probably next session) have a grand finale where the heroes confront all the remaining villains.  You can turn the difficulty dial up or down as needed, adding minions, challenges or even a heretofore unseen villain to the villain side if needed or using a more hero-friendly environment and/or NPC allies if the heroes are are outnumbered by the remaining villains.  You really don't need to be precise about counting the scene elements here, and you could just grant bonuses or penalties for impromptu tweaks based on earlier scenes, eg a villain who just barely escaped defeat by a specific hero might suffer a penalty the first time they act directly against them, or the heroes might have a team pool of bonuses earned from social scenes interrogating defeated villains.
• The flip side of that trope is to have both teams confront one another early on in an unbalanced scene where the heroes are at a disadvantage, letting the dice fall where they may.  If the PCs lose or time-out, they're defeated and wake up in captivity with a free zone heal or two each, and then play out a montage scene to free themselves.  Any heroes who weren't defeated (presumably through some Overcome that involved escaping the fight and then stealthily following the villains) will, of course, find the prisoners just in time to help.  From there they can gather info, sabotage the villain lair, and/or ambush unprepared villains before the inevitable big rematch as the remaining baddies are trying to execute their scheme.  This is a classic comic arc, but don't use it if you aren't 100% sure your players will buy into it.  A lot roleplayers absolutely hate losing a fight no matter what despite Sentinels making it a largely painless experience.  OTOH, if they are 100% into it, you could just shorten or even skip the initial big fight and just start with waking up captive as you collaboratively narrate their off-page defeat.  Any group like that deserves a few bonuses for playing along with style.
• Another way to use a lot of villains in the same scene is to either drip-feed them into the scene slowly, eg of six villains, maybe only a couple start in play, then two more show up with some flunkies when the scene tracker goes to Yellow, and then the last two when it hits Red or when some arbitrary number of villains are defeated.  You can also play around with mutually-hostile villains who act against one another when they see an opening and aren't being pressed by the PCs.  Be careful with this though, there's nothing players hate as much as watching NPCs roll dice against one another.  Sometimes a bit of GM fiat is fine - but let a PC land the finishing blow.

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Pentad, Five Heroes In One

Long, sprawling writeup for my only Modular archetype hero, who's effectively five different people, four of them very alien.  Be an interesting roleplaying challenge, anyway.  

Pentad

Aaron Acosta never wanted to be a superhero.  He was perfectly content as a grad student with his eyes on a professorship in some university history department down the road.  Unfortunately for his plans, he was also the only suitable person on Earth the night a gestalt of four alien mentalities arrived from the future in search of a psychically-compatible local guide.  The disembodied groupmind explained that they were representatives of a near-Utopian coalition of sophonts, sent back to identify and prevent critical points in the timeline to ensure humanity would survive to join their culture rather than becoming extinct in the 21st century.  Aaron might still have refused to help if he'd fully understood the costs, but the alien minds managed to convince him that the future of humanity was at stake.

He agreed to join the gestalt and form the five-in-one superhero Pentad.  In the process, his physical body was converted into metamorphic psychoplasm, and while he can still adopt his apparently-human form he's effectively time-sharing both body and mind with four hyper-advanced extraterrestrials from over a thousand years in the future.  Each of them can "tag in" and reform their own original bodies at will, exploiting their specific strengths while covering for their weaknesses.

Broosk the Ganikan is a semi-reptilian being from a species that's engineered all aggression out of their society in exchange for tremendous mental stability, and provides the Pentad with a bottomless well of determination as well as telekinetic might.  Crovak the Yasoon is a representative of a physically and psionically imposing species that serve as interstellar peacekeepers in their time, and helps defend the Pentad and their allies from assault by mentally dampening aggression.  Drail the Ysindri is a descendent of a geneered slave species created to be the ultimate planners, innovators and problem solvers, and brings those talents to the Pentad along with their unfortunate lack of survival instincts, which were deliberately excised by their creators to increase their dependence upon others despite their genius.  "Eternal Sorrow" is the closest translation for the Pentad's rask, a species of naturally-sessile sophonts more akin to Terran trees than anything, and unfortunately burdened with a genetic legacy of instinctive territoriality that they still struggle to overcome.  Rask are the coalition's defenders, one of the few member species who are adept at physical violence when pressed.  "Sorrow" only manifests in extreme situations, and invariably regrets its actions afterward.

Description: (Human) A very run-of-the-mill example of homo sapiens with no outstanding features physical features.  In action, those features are fully concealed in a suit of sleek blue power armor with white accents and a yellow star-in-a-pentagon logo on its chest.  Usually doesn't stick around for long if a fight breaks out anyone, shifting into one of his four alien personas to let them handle it.  Mostly seen when the Pentad needs to talk with temporal locals, both mundane and empowered.  He's got a nice baritone voice and is comfortable with public speaking, although he can be a bit pedantic at times.  

(Ganikan) An exceptionally attractive specimen of a 31st century native of Ganik VII, which is to say a slender, twin-tailed, man-sized pseudo-lizard covered in fine turquoise scales.  Wears a snug torso-hugging singlet in the same color scheme as the human's power armor, although this outfit is carefully tailored to display their glorious physique and coloration.  Lacks anything akin to vocal chords, communicating entirely by pleasant, mellow-toned telepathy.

(Yasoon) A hulking, 6'5" humanoid figure that looks like a hybrid of macrocephalic gorilla and tiger, covered in a coat of short red-and-black striped fur, wearing a pair of snug shorts and a tank top with the usual Pentad colors and logo.  They pride themselves on their "primitive vocal communication" skills and prefer to demonstrate them rather than using telepathy, speaking with a voice that sounds remarkably like James Earl Jones.

(Ysindri) Thin, gray-skinned, six-armed figure only 5' tall, with an elongated oversized head that resembles am Easter Island moai.  Wears only a headband, which displays the blue-and-white Pentad colors and golden yellow star-in-a-pentagon symbol.  Moves languidly, as though underwater, and communicates only via a deep, echoing telepathic voice.

(Rask) Resembles an orange-and-black-banded sea anemone, albeit one that's eight feet tall and constantly shifting the length and shape of its many tendrils, manifesting alarming natural weaponry and more incomprehensible appendages from moment to moment.  Holds itself rigidly anchored in place (even in mid-air) with formidable telekinetic powers, which it also employs to levitate loose objects and debris as shields and weapons.  Wears a single "armband" in Pentad colors as a uniform of sorts.  Even its telepathy is alien, communicating more in emotions (most often rage and regret) than words.

Gender: Male (Often uses We by accident)     Age: 22    Height: 5'10"     

Eyes: Brown     Hair: Dark Brown     Skin: Swarthy     Build: Average

Background: Unremarkable     Power Source: Alien     Archetype: Modular (Form-Changer)

Personality: Apathetic     Health (G/Y/R):  32/24/11

Powers: Telekinesis d10, Flight d8, Power Suit d8, Shapeshifting d8, Telepathy d8

Qualities: Self-Discipline d10, Alien Mental Fusion d8, History d8, Persuasion d8

Status: Green (32-25) - d6 / Yellow (24-12) - d8 / Red (11-1) - d10

Abilities and Modes

Green

Ganikan Persona (Green Mode) - No Attack or Hinder actions, Powers: Telekinesis d12, Telepathy d10, Flight d8, Shapeshifting d8, TK Reinforcement (A) Boost yourself using Telekinesis.  Create two bonuses, one using your Max die, the other using your Mid die.  Both bonuses are persistent and exclusive.

Human Persona (Default Mode) - No action restrictions, Powers: Telekinesis d10, Flight d8, Power Suit d8, Shapeshifting d8, Telepathy d8, no unique ability.

Persona Exchange (A) Boost yourself using Self-Discipline.  Then change to any available mode.

Principle of the Future (A) Overcome a challenge using your knowledge of possible futures.  Use your Max die.  You and your allies each gain a Hero Point.  Minor twist: What unintended ripple did your actions cause?  Major twist: What ripple effect now threatens the future as you know it?  RP: You have alien memories of things yet to come.

Principle of Mental Fusion (A) Overcome in a situation that benefits from a completely new perspective.  Use your Max die.  You and your allies each gain a Hero Point.  Minor twist: What perspective ended up being the wrong one for this situation?  Major twist: What inner conflict has thrown you completely off?  RP: You have four alien mentalities occupying your mind.  As a result you can look at a situation from many different angles, most of them decidedly nonhuman.

Yellow

Yasoon Persona (Yellow Mode) - No Hinder or Overcome actions, Powers: Telepathy d12, Telekinesis d10, Flight d6, Shapeshifting d6, Aggression Dampeners (A) Use Telepathy to Defend yourself and all nearby allies against each Attack until the beginning of your next turn.

Ysindri Persona (Yellow Mode) - No Attack or Defend actions, Powers: Telekinesis d12, Telepathy d10, Flight d8, Shapeshifting d8, Psionic Manipulation (A) Hinder or use one of your principles to Overcome using Telekinesis.  Use your Max + Min dice.

Network Telepathy (A) Boost all nearby allies using Telepathy.  Use your Max + Mid dice.  Hinder yourself using your Min die.

Swift Persona Exchange (A) Destroy one bonus on you.  Change to any available mode and then take an action in the new mode.

Versatile Psionics (A) Attack, Boost, Defend or Hinder using Telekinesis.  You and all nearby heroes in the Yellow or Red zone Recover Health equal to your Min die.

Red

Rask Persona (Red Mode) - No Boost actions, immobile, Powers: Telekinesis d10, Shapeshifting d10, Telepathy d8, Regrettable Necessity (I) Whenever you take a basic Attack action, either Attack one target using your Max + Min dice, or Attack two different targets using your Max die on one and your Mid die on the other.

Emergency Persona Exchange (R) When you are Attacked, you may change to any available mode.  If you do, take a minor twist or extra damage equal to the Min die on the Attack.

Pentad Coordination (A) Choose three basic actions.  Use Shapeshifting in your pool and take one of those actions using your Max die, a second one with your Mid die, and a the third action with your Min die.

Reactive Psychoplasm (R) When you would be dealt damage, you may roll your single Shapeshifting die to Defend against that damage and as an Attack on a nearby target other than the source of the damage.

Time Compression (A) When you use an ability action, you may also perform any one basic action using your Mid die.

Out

Temporal Ripple (A) Remove any mod of your choice from the scene.

Tactics

In Green, use Persona Exchange to Boost yourself and shift to your Ganikan Persona, then use TK Reinforcement to generate a pair of persistent and exclusive bonuses unless there' a truly desperate need to do something else.  Other than doing Principled Overcomes you don't have many choices beyond basic actions at this stage.

In Yellow, your options open up a lot.  You could remain a Ganikan and start handing out big team-wide bonuses with Network Telepathy, ignoring the self-Hinder since that mode can't take Hinder actions.  You could also do the same trick with Swift Persona Exchange, trading a bonus to shift to your Yasoon Persona and act immediately.  Yasoon is even better at Network Telepathy and has access to Aggression Dampeners if you want global defenses instead of bonuses.  If there are Challenges piling up shifting to the Ysindri Persona will let you clean those up efficiently with Psionic Manipulation, which can also offer big single-target Hinders at need.  All of your modes can make good use of Versatile Psionics for some healing and a variety of other minor effects, using a persistent bonus to improve performance each time.

In Red, you have the option to use your Yasoon or even Human Personas for Attacks through Pentad Coordination amplified with Time Compression, but you're more likely to shift to your Rask Persona (possibly via Emergency Persona Exchange if you can't afford a twist to feed into the Yellow Swift version) to get as much mileage out of a frenzy of basic Attacks as you can.

The Rask can use the Pentad Coordination/Time Compression combo with its own Regrettable Necessity to take two basic actions (like, say, Defend and Hinder) with Max and Mid, then assign the Min die to a basic Attack which transforms into either a Max + Min hit on one target or splits to hit two targets, one with Max, one with Mid.  And then Time Compression lets you do another basic Attack, which also gets transformed by Regrettable Necessity.  If anything's left to damage you after all that, Reactive Psychoplasm will block 1d10 (plus bonuses) of it and deal even more damage.

Pentad doesn't do much damage outside of Red, but when their back is to the wall they become a wrecking machine.  An immobile wrecking machine, but if you need range to reach foes you can still land a fair bit of damage Attacking with Versatile Psionics and Time Compression rather than the more efficient Pentad Coordination - and that one will even heal the team while you're at it.

When Out, Pentad reverts to their human form, and gains the unique ability to remove any one bonus or penalty they like each turn using Temporal Ripple.            

Design Notes

Ye gods, Modular is a ridiculous archetype.  Pentad has 15 abilities to work with - 4 Green, 5 Yellow, and 5 Red and an Out.  Some of them have extremely specific uses (there's three ways to change modes alone) but they're all very good at doing what they do, and it's a lot to take in.  That's made worse by the fact that all the modes have action restrictions, something that's obviously intended to balance out absurdly strong (but narrow) abilities tied to them but really just adds to the complexity.

This is the first and last modular hero I'm doing, and I can safely say I despise the archetype. It's just needless complex and fiddly while having questionable balance at best.  Moreover, if you're using the Guided method for character creation you will almost certainly never be able to actually play one.  The only way to get there is from the Relic or Supernatural power sources rolling tens on both their d10s.  The irony of Power Suit being unable to randomly lead into a Modular character is considerable, given that this archetype almost certainly exists solely because Bunker has "modes" in the card game and they just had to shoehorn the idea in somehow.

That said, the Pentad is a mechanically effective build, augmenting itself in Green, offering extremely strong and varied team support in Yellow, and absurd damage output and dice efficiency in Red if the rask persona has to manifest.  

Conceptually, their Shapeshifting power reflects the fact that the Pentad is made out of psychoplasm that could theoretically look like anything, but most of the time it's just going to be used to change personas.  Aaron might occasionally use it to disguise himself as someone else when he's not manifesting his Power Suit (which is also made of psychoplasm), but with the alien forms there's not much point in looking like a different ganakin, yasoon, etc. when they're the only examples of their species on Earth anyway.  Aaron's Power Suit is pretty bare bones (the usual protection, life support, conventional comms, etc.) and mostly exists to make him feel safer while playing hero.  He's not as unconcerned about getting injured as the alien personas, all of who understand that their bodies are just psychoplasm and any injuries are temporary.  Flight reflects the degree of fine control over using TK to maneuver, while the actual Telekinesis die is for manipulating other things in the environment (or anchor yourself, for the rask).

The Pentad's apathetic personality is mostly due to Aaron who'd still just as soon not be doing this, but since the aliens do most of the actual hero work he can  occasionally work up some proper enthusiasm.  Also, it checks another box on my bingo card of unused personalities, just as modular and unremarkable did in their categories.     

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Gruj, Kidnapper For Hire

Another super-thug, but this one's a bit of specialist for when a villain wants a hero captured relatively intact.  He's surprisingly tough to beat one-on-one, and with a little support even teams may have trouble stopping him from making off with his target.  His employer usually provides transport to retrieve Gruj and his victim when the job's done, although he's pretty fast and hard to stop if he has to lug an unconscious hero off by himself. 

Gruj

The brutish lout known as Gruj is a well-known mercenary super-thug, most often employed to confront a troublesome hero, beat them senseless and then abduct them for their current employer.  He's pretty good at that kind of work, with a fine sense of how much damage a target can take without lasting harm.  While he's not squeamish about crippling or killing people either, Gruj doesn't do so deliberately and won't take assassination work.  If questioned about his stance on the subject, he'll just grunt and snarl that killing makes more trouble that it's worth in the long run.

Gruj's origins are a mystery, but his questionably-human physiology suggests some explanations.  He might be some kind of geneered human-animal hybrid like Karkinos, the Mighty Bullfrog, or Florida Man, or something less explicable like the Three Bears.  He doesn't work long-term for villains or on any established teams, and what he does on his time off is mostly unknown.  The notable exception is the occasional pub crawl with the similarly cryptic villain BG Gruff.  Gruj has also made a couple of appearances at gaming conventions in the past, entering cosplay contests as a "Proper Old-School Orc" with foam weaponry and armor.           

Description: A hulking humanoid figure with mottled bluish-green skin and rather porcine features - you could almost call that a snout if you aren't afraid of a beating.  Usually barefoot (are those pig's feet?) and dressed in nothing but dirty gray coveralls and a a soiled baseball cap with a shamrock on it.  Smells about as bad as he looks, and speaking mostly in grunts and curses.  Tends to laugh a lot while delivering a beatdown.

Gender: Male     Age: 24     Height: 6'2"     Eyes: Muddy Brown

Hair: None, Cranial Scars     Skin: Sickly Bluish-Green     Build: Apelike

Approach: Bully                  Archetype: Indomitable

Health:  45 + (5 x H)

Powers: Momentum d10, Speed d8, Strength d8

Qualities: Close Combat d10, Fitness d8, Vindictive Super-Thug d8                                     

Status: Always d8

Abilities:

Brutalize (A) Attack one target using Strength.  Use your Max die.  Until the start of your next turn, use your Mid die to Defend against all Attacks from that target.

Manhandle (A) Attack one target using Momentum.  Either Hinder that target using your Max die, or Defend yourself using your Min die and you and the target end up elsewhere in the scene.

Pig-Headed (I) Reduce all damage dealt to you by 2.

Soak It Up (R) Defend by rolling your single status die.  If that Defend reduces the damage to zero,  Boost yourself using the amount of damage prevented.

Upgrades & Masteries (optional):

Power Upgrade (I) +20 Health.  Increase all Power dice sizes by one (max d12).

Master of Superiority (I) As long as you are manifesting an effect related to a power you have at d12, automatically succeed at an Overcome involving usage of those powers.

Tactics

Gruj has all the subtlety of a wrecking ball when it comes to a fight.  He'll single out one designated target and use Brutalize on them repeatedly until they're knocked out, then either carry them off as a prisoner or start on a new foe.  Attempts to intervene will largely be shrugged off by Durable and judicious use of Soak It Up.  If sufficiently harassed (usually with Hinders or high-damage attacks) by other heroes attempting to intervene, he uses Manhandle to drag his victim off to someplace more private, crashing through obstacles at speed before resuming the one-on-one beating.  While he could theoretically play bodyguard using his reaction, Gruj only does so when explicitly ordered to - and even then only when someone's keeping a close eye on him to ensure he doesn't "forget" in the heat of action.

He rarely has an upgrade unless working for a very powerful mastermind villain who can augment him to greater power levels, usually in order to take multiple heroes prisoner at once.

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