Building a character - Asking for help from the Hivemind

[Daniel Stoker]

So I'm running a game for first time Palladium Books and Heroes Unlimited players. They've done other systems before but never Palladium before so I'm helping them work out details and how to put together a character, so I'm going with them telling me the concept for what they want to play, then finding ways to make it happen.

Well my one player is just frazzled by all the powers and combos and just can't make a decision, but she's looking at playing a non-transforming Supes style character who is super strong, fast, can fly, and durable. We're going with max 5 minors or the 1 Major 3 minor but clearly don't have to go with all those powers, I just want to have options for this first game. She wants to stay looking human so the various APS and Matter Expulsion powers are right out but there are a bunch of ways to put this together and I plan on offering her some choices, but figured I'd tap into the hivemind here to see how others might build such a character.

Set 1: 5 Minors
Hardened Skin
Superhuman Strength
Flight: Wingless
Extraordinary Physical Prowess
Force Strike


Daniel Stoker

[Regularguy]

You could do worse than Extraordinary Mental Affinity, Space Native, Wingless Flight, and Invulnerability (for superhuman feats of strength).

[Kraynic]

Might want to ask what she means by "durable".

If she is thinking of armored skin that will affect most incoming attacks, then the Hardened Skin would fit well.

Extraordinary P.E. would be good if she is just thinking about a character that doesn't have any special defenses, but can take a lot of punishment. There is the advantage of higher save bonuses if those will come up much in your game as well.

If she is thinking of a slugger who can shrug off incoming punches (and similar type forces), but be vulnerable to non-kinetic damage, then maybe she might consider Impact Resistance.

When she says fast, does she mean quickness or speed? Might want to swap the Extraordinary P.P. for Extraordinary Spd.


I'm not that well versed on the powers, so maybe others will have other suggestions.

[Regularguy]

I'm helping them work out details and how to put together a character, so I'm going with them telling me the concept for what they want to play, then finding ways to make it happen.

Well my one player is just frazzled by all the powers and combos and just can't make a decision, but she's looking at playing a non-transforming Supes style character who is super strong, fast, can fly, and durable.

What are the other players going with?

[Daniel Stoker]

One of the players is going for a Speedster of some sort, probably sonic speed with some random powers to simulate time manipulation so he can run faster, the other is looking at Natural Genius or maybe build something like that through Eugenics.

[Regularguy]

Gotcha. (I’d wondered if Mimic could cover all the bases.)

[Daniel Stoker]

Based on her concept I'd have to say not really.


Daniel Stoker

[Glistam]

So I'm running a game for first time Palladium Books and Heroes Unlimited players. They've done other systems before but never Palladium before so I'm helping them work out details and how to put together a character, so I'm going with them telling me the concept for what they want to play, then finding ways to make it happen.

Well my one player is just frazzled by all the powers and combos and just can't make a decision, but she's looking at playing a non-transforming Supes style character who is super strong, fast, can fly, and durable. We're going with max 5 minors or the 1 Major 3 minor but clearly don't have to go with all those powers, I just want to have options for this first game. She wants to stay looking human so the various APS and Matter Expulsion powers are right out but there are a bunch of ways to put this together and I plan on offering her some choices, but figured I'd tap into the hivemind here to see how others might build such a character.

Set 1: 5 Minors
Hardened Skin
Superhuman Strength
Flight: Wingless
Extraordinary Physical Prowess
Force Strike


Daniel Stoker

You mentioned in another post that you'll have a speedster, so I'd move away from anything that gives them Autododge - let that be the speedster's thing. Not a lot of options to increase speed without also getting autododge though, but there's more than just superpowers. Here's my thoughts:

Massive Damage Capacity (or Increased Durability and Impact Resistance)
Flight: Wingless (or Flight: Space if you want to send them to space and give them a surprise)
Superhuman Strength
The supersoldier enhancement of "Attempted to Increase Physical Speed"

I tried to shy away from the "obvious" invulnerability for increased toughness, and depending on how high or low powered this game is there's a couple options to choose from. Here's another series of options too that I think I like a little more:

Sonic Flight
Increased Durability or Hardened Skin
Superhuman Strength
The alien physiological modification of High Gravity

If you aren't worried about the autododge thing but still don't want to overlap the speedster too much while leaning into the superman trope, there's something like this:

Sonic Flight
Extraordinary Physical Prowess
Superhuman Strength
Impact Resistance

There's some other ways to mix and match this, but it's a broad power set. If they wanted to focus on durability over strength (and be a bit of a tank) then I like this:

Invulnerability (with its built-in Superhuman Strength)
Physical Perfection
Flight: Wingless
The alien physiological modification of High Gravity

At the end of the day though, you can't go wrong with the classics:
Invulnerability
Extraordinary Physical Speed or Physical Prowess
Flight: Wingless
Superhuman Strength

[Daniel Stoker]

Thank you Glistam, that helps a lot.


Daniel Stoker

[drewkitty ~..~]

I had a few ideas about how to answer this: one set from just one of the three main super powers books (Core-PU1-PU2) and then using all three and creating one set a a support and another as combat.

1a core 5m (their like thoughts were running through my head with this one)
-Heightened sense of touch
-Healing factor
-Super vision: x-ray vision
-manipulate kinetic energy
-power channeling

1b core 1M&3m (was thinking this person looked like a nekomimi, humans with cat ears and a cat tail)
M: immortality
-Heightened sense of hearing
-Exception PB
-Exceptional PP

2a PU1 5m
-energy Expulsion: energy aura
-criminal intuition
-color manipulation
-doorway
-Instant Wardrobe
2b PU1 1M&3m
M-Liquéfaction
-Sleep Dust
-Personal FF (maybe modified so it can make a FF that looks like clothes. or use mine: search for 'Create FC clothing' )
-Shadow Shaping

3a PU3 5m (I don't know why I was thinking bodyguard with this one)
-Energy Ex.: Heat
-Energy Fists
-Fireworks
-Dwarfing
-Immune to high speed kinetic attacks.
3b PU3 1M&3m
M: APS:Void
-space native
-Line Transit
-Focused Touch

4a All/support 5m
-fireworks
-Energy Expulsion: Shadow bolt
-Healing power
-sensory Orb
-Beast Master
4b all/suport 1M&3m
M: Item Reduction
-bookworm
-Life sense
-Resin

5a all/combat 5m
-Energy Expulsion: Particle Beam
-Healing Factor
-Energy Fists
-Personal FF
-Lighting Reflexes
5b all/combat 1M&3m
M:Material Expulsion: Metal
-Heightened sense of awareness
-Healing factor
-Energy Expulsion: Particle Beam

[Daniel Stoker]

Thank you too Drew.


Daniel Stoker

[Regularguy]

So I'm running a game for first time Palladium Books and Heroes Unlimited players. They've done other systems before but never Palladium before so I'm helping them work out details and how to put together a character, so I'm going with them telling me the concept for what they want to play, then finding ways to make it happen.

Well my one player is just frazzled by all the powers and combos and just can't make a decision, but she's looking at playing a non-transforming Supes style character who is super strong, fast, can fly, and durable. We're going with max 5 minors or the 1 Major 3 minor

Out of curiosity: which power category? Because an Enchanted Weapon could put superstrength and flightspeed and forcefield protection on tap, but not in the arrangement you seem to have in mind...

[Daniel Stoker]

Right now she was looking at Mutant, Alien, or Experiment. She doesn't like magic heroes that much and didn't want a 'Shazam' or Magic Weapon type.


Daniel Stoker

[Regularguy]

Right now she was looking at Mutant, Alien, or Experiment.

Heh. For a variant on an idea I’ve wanted to try for a while: start with a husky Mutant, using the broad-shouldered characteristic for superhuman strength, plus, say, extraordinary speed and wingless flight — and you can play around with that, maybe as an artificial lifeform from a high-gravity world or whatever — so long as the character gets more than a hundred extra points of SDC on top of all the combat-training durability you can factor in; also, maybe add body armor, but for someone who can get a lot more out of it than most people could?

The point is, that’s a flyer who’s strong and fast and, a lot of the time, isn’t actually in danger when someone like you or me would be; but someone who could still be in danger, that could still happen.

So maybe add Danger Sense and something like Pause Temporal Flow or Gateways; you’d get someone who, sure, can do a super job of dishing it out and taking it, but who gets warned to disappear way the heck away when that’s not going to be enough...

[ITWastrel]

Standard F.I.S.H.

Invulnerability
Superhuman Strength
Wingless Flight
Energy Expulsion: Energy

Though I rather like this version:

Arismal. A species identical to humans in both appearance and culture, they speak a language near identical to English, and almost all of them have superpowers. See Aliens Unlimited, Pg100.

Mega-Munchkin Arismal best rolls F.I.S.H.

Invulnurability
Sonic Flight
Superhuman Strength
EE: Energy
Extraordinary Speed
Supervision: Acute Sight
Super Wind Blast

Bonus Munchkin: Add Mega-Hero
+50% SDC
Supernatural PS
Mega-hero power: Tremendous PS.
Mega-hero Weakness, I dunno. maybe magic?

Note that this build also gets you enhanced vision (Sonic Flight), hearing (Racial), Night-vision (Racial), and light sensitivity(Racial).
Also included free of charge, one exploded homeworld. Rockets loaded with babies optional.

[drewkitty ~..~]

And I thought I stepped up by giving multiple power sets....

[Regularguy]

she's looking at playing a non-transforming Supes style character who is super strong, fast, can fly, and durable. We're going with max 5 minors or the 1 Major 3 minor but clearly don't have to go with all those powers, I just want to have options for this first game. She wants to stay looking human so the various APS and Matter Expulsion powers are right out

How about honoring both of her choices by ignoring both of her choices?

Let’s say the character is an alien with a rocky or crystalline ‘mineral’ appearance (boosting strength and SDC, and providing an AR), and let’s also say that the character has ‘shapechanger’ (for transforming into a human-looking guise). So if they just “stay looking human” from Day One, maybe while using ‘wingless flight’ to zip around, they could spend the entire campaign acting like “a non-transforming” character...

...but the ace up the sleeve is, shapechanging is on tap just in case, and you could even improve on that: helping the impersonation skills along with Vocalization and Linguistics, or with Extraordinary Intelligence and Extraordinary Mental Affinity, or whatever; or you could further improve on mineral durability, pairing Impact Resistance with Energy Resistance, or maybe pairing Increased Durability with reversed Underwater Abilities as an aquatic-world alien; or you could double down on the ‘rock’ theme by taking Doorway and Earth Empowerment, or you could go off in some other direction entirely (for example, combining Shadow Stepping and Shadow Meld if you want a stealthy teleportationist).

[Regularguy]

she's looking at playing a non-transforming Supes style character who is super strong, fast, can fly, and durable. We're going with max 5 minors or the 1 Major 3 minor

You could cover that with Gem Powers, which can provide superstrength and flightspeed and invulnerability; the only problem is affording plenty of gems, and one solution could be using a gem for Empathic Transfer (which can make a potential, ah, donor “believe everything the psionic tells him” as long as the suggestions aren’t life-threatening, and which may work anyway) or Hypnotic Suggestion (which lists “trust me” as a textbook example, but which costs much less).

But if you want to avoid blackmail, then how about using minor powers to earn money honestly? So you could, for example, use Living Anatomy (which can gauge someone’s temperature and heart rate and injuries and diseases and so on, including both blood pressure and poisons or drugs in the bloodstream) before using Healing Power (which can heal injuries and cure diseases and nullify poisons or drugs) — and, in between, maybe use something like Vocalization or Extraordinary Mental Affinity so folks will agree to pay a fair price in exchange (if, that is, you can’t already put deals together by using Living Anatomy to determine whether somebody is lying or telling the truth).

Then again, you could just pull off a big-heist getaway with Line Transit after invisibly making your way in with Dispersal, or whatever; the point is, one way or another, you’d acquire money and use it to acquire gems and use them to shrug off bullets and lift great weights and fly around at high speeds...

[Regularguy]

who is super strong, fast, can fly, and durable

For a bulletproof Space Native, you could get superstrength via the ‘broad-shouldered’ characteristic, plus speed via the Wingless Flight power, plus limitless durability against high-speed collisions via the Immune To High Speed Kinetic Attacks power.

And then you could add Superluminal Flight.

[Glistam]

Thought occurred to me today: strength, speed, durability, and flight can be achieved as an Android too. That's a whole other angle which still stays true to their desire to not transform if they are built very human-like.

Whatever you choose, let us know after the game how the player enjoyed themselves!

[Daniel Stoker]

So the player and I are going over options this weekend and we'll go from there. The game itself probably won't start until at least June as we're waiting for a pause point in our current D&D game and we keep getting sidetracked.


Daniel Stoker

[Regularguy]

Two more combos I thought had some interesting possibilities: start off with an ambidextrous-characteristic alien who has Wingless Flight and Invulnerability, to be fast and strong and durable, plus

* Super Burrowing, for windmilling one’s fast-and-strong-and-durable limbs even through solid stone to carve out a base of operations for the superhero team after scanning the area with X-Ray Vision — and to spy from underneath on the base of operations used by assorted suspects, after tunneling below it — and so on, and so on.

-or-

* Lunar Strength: with the right physical skills, even under a new moon you could swiftly fly around when lifting superhuman-strength weights and being immune to various attacks while taking five actions per round; but a sliver brings it to six, and from one-quarter to three-quarters seven, usually with extra strength — but for three or four or five days every month it’s eight, with an even bigger boost to your strength, plus your Extraordinary Mental Affinity rockets up to the thirties or forties, to evoke a level of trust or intimidation that’s literally off the charts.

[Regularguy]

One more variant: Force Aura is a showy way of getting durability and superstrength for someone who maybe zips around with some kind of sparkly Energy Flight instead of Wingless Flight — and maybe throw in Vocalization to loudly boost the awe/horror factor with a booming voice; you’re all about being obvious, is the idea — which is why it would be so unexpected that you use the remaining power for superstealth, spying on people thanks to Bend Light’s blank spot, or Dispersal’s invisibility, or Shadow Meld’s, uh, shadows. (Plus, of course, sly impersonation tricks, and subtle hypnotic coaxing, and so on.)

[Regularguy]

...so, what’s she going with?

[drewkitty ~..~]

...so, what’s she going with?

Seconded.

[Kraynic]

My guess is something totally different that doesn't use any of the powers discussed here. After all, a player's job is to mess up the GM. Might as well start at the beginning.

[Daniel Stoker]

There's some other ways to mix and match this, but it's a broad power set. If they wanted to focus on durability over strength (and be a bit of a tank) then I like this:

Invulnerability (with its built-in Superhuman Strength)
Physical Perfection
Flight: Wingless
The alien physiological modification of High Gravity

We're going to be building the character some next weekend it seems and it looks like unless things change she's going with Glistam's suggestion here. She likes that it's pretty basic and gets her her flying brick and doesn't have a lot of little bits to have to worry about for her first HU character.


Daniel Stoker

[Stone Gargoyle]

There's some other ways to mix and match this, but it's a broad power set. If they wanted to focus on durability over strength (and be a bit of a tank) then I like this:

Invulnerability (with its built-in Superhuman Strength)
Physical Perfection
Flight: Wingless
The alien physiological modification of High Gravity

We're going to be building the character some next weekend it seems and it looks like unless things change she's going with Glistam's suggestion here. She likes that it's pretty basic and gets her her flying brick and doesn't have a lot of little bits to have to worry about for her first HU character.


Daniel Stoker

That's a pretty good power set for someone who is just starting out. She won't take damage from most stuff and will hold her own if played right.

[Daniel Stoker]

We'll see how well she does when caught between the Space Nazi's fighting the Magic Nazi's!


Daniel Stoker

[Stone Gargoyle]

We'll see how well she does when caught between the Space Nazi's fighting the Magic Nazi's!


Daniel Stoker

Okay, yeah. Magic. Maybe I spoke too soon.

[Regularguy]

We'll see how well she does when caught between the Space Nazi's fighting the Magic Nazi's!


Daniel Stoker

Okay, yeah. Magic. Maybe I spoke too soon.

It looks like she could still toss in an ace-up-the-sleeve minor power; since she’s already going with one power that increases Mental Affinity, adding it to Extraordinary Mental Affinity would mean that — whenever she can’t flying-brick her way through a situation — she can pretty much sleepwalk her way through interactions with people who (a) may or may not have magic on tap, but (b) almost can’t help but trust her.

[Daniel Stoker]

Well it's not like she's powerless if there is a magic user, and their numbers are going to be a LOT more limited compared to the Space Nazi's, but it should be fun to see what happens.


Daniel Stoker

[drewkitty ~..~]

We'll see how well she does when caught between the Space Nazi's fighting the Magic Nazi's!


Daniel Stoker

Okay, yeah. Magic. Maybe I spoke too soon.

It looks like she could still toss in an ace-up-the-sleeve minor power; since she’s already going with one power that increases Mental Affinity, adding it to Extraordinary Mental Affinity would mean that — whenever she can’t flying-brick her way through a situation — she can pretty much sleepwalk her way through interactions with people who (a) may or may not have magic on tap, but (b) almost can’t help but trust her.

With ExMA she would be able to bull her way through a crowd and people would like her for it....(at the extreme end of the spectrum).

Or she might end up as the 'face man' of the group. handling interactions with the public.

[Regularguy]

With ExMA she would be able to bull her way through a crowd and people would like her for it....(at the extreme end of the spectrum).

Or she might end up as the 'face man' of the group. handling interactions with the public

Oh, sure, there’s tons of options if she feels like proactively putting in the work: getting a piece of information the police have been keeping out of the papers, and adding it to a piece of information the papers have been keeping out of the papers (because they can’t yet legally publish the story, but she promises to share various of her findings with them); or lining up rich investors (or underworld snitches) who can, in hopes of going favor-for-a-favor, help the superteam’s activities along; or visiting a movie studio that could sure use an invulnerable stuntwoman (and would, in short order, realize that a large enough dose of mental affinity and physical perfection means it’s in their best interests to give her the movie-star treatment); and so on.

But for someone who “likes that it's pretty basic and gets her her flying brick and doesn't have a lot of little bits to have to worry about for her first HU character”, it can also be a no-prep Plan B: just slam into stuff and rocket around until that doesn’t solve the problem, which is when you — just start talking at whoever is there, and see what happens?

[Glistam]

There's some other ways to mix and match this, but it's a broad power set. If they wanted to focus on durability over strength (and be a bit of a tank) then I like this:

Invulnerability (with its built-in Superhuman Strength)
Physical Perfection
Flight: Wingless
The alien physiological modification of High Gravity

We're going to be building the character some next weekend it seems and it looks like unless things change she's going with Glistam's suggestion here. She likes that it's pretty basic and gets her her flying brick and doesn't have a lot of little bits to have to worry about for her first HU character.

Daniel Stoker

I might be a bit biased here, but I think this is a pretty solid choice.

[Glistam]

I ran a short-lived Heroes Unlimited campaign for some new players a few years back, and I had them random-roll for much of character generation, though they were allowed to make some informed choices instead if they wanted. One player in particular ended up with a character much like the one you were looking for. Neiva, a flying, invilnerable tank. She had the character be the child of known superheroes, and "discovered" her powers in her mid-teens when, frustrated they hadn't been revealed yet, jumped off a tall building to force their discovery. Every character in that campaign was unique and interesting - sometimes I wish we had been able to continue it.

Super Heroes

[Daniel Stoker]

Thanks for sharing that Glistam, I may end up abusing one of your characters and making them part of the game as an NPC.

Daniel Stoker

[drewkitty ~..~]

I ran a short-lived Heroes Unlimited campaign for some new players a few years back, and I had them random-roll for much of character generation, though they were allowed to make some informed choices instead if they wanted. One player in particular ended up with a character much like the one you were looking for. Neiva, a flying, invilnerable tank. She had the character be the child of known superheroes, and "discovered" her powers in her mid-teens when, frustrated they hadn't been revealed yet, jumped off a tall building to force their discovery. Every character in that campaign was unique and interesting - sometimes I wish we had been able to continue it.

Super Heroes

I Can just see it...a group of heroes standing next to a building discussing if they should recruit another hero and all of a sudden they is a shriek and there is a girl shaped hole in the ground. then a girl suddenly flys out of the hole. then stops 10 feet in the air "Ooohh super hero's. Need another member?"

[Daniel Stoker]

That's one way for a party to meet.


Daniel Stoker