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Snatchl wrote:Anyone else find these Superman characters annoying?

How to kill them: well, besides drowning, I thought about smoke inhalation by trapping them in a burning building.

Any other ideas?

Use a powerful spellcaster. or Magic Weapon characters. Maybe a mystically bestowed...

Or, just drop a Nightlord on 'em

Killing them is not as much fun as annoying them. If he's a not flying guy,
do stuff that effect him like anti-gravity. Then he just floats around unable
to do anything. An adventure should not be catered around trying to
kill the invulnerable guy. Make the adventure that you want and match witts with the player not his character.

Drowning, throwing out an airlock, starvation (by immobilization, burying under a mountain, etc), etc.

If you want to apply science, shoot him in the face with liquid nitrogen or other super-cooled substance that will freeze the air. It won't do damage, but as he breathes it in it'll freeze the mucous lining the lungs causing him to suffocate.

But throwing them out the airlock of a spaceship is easiest if they can't fly.

The problem with killing any invulnerable character is, of course, what other powers they have.

off the top of my head real quick
1. drowning
2. SN PS beat down
3. ionized Particle beam bars in a super human contanment cell at a S.E.C.R.E.T. Base
4.more weight than they can move on their chest
5.vacuum
6.Bio-ghost
7.shoving cement blowing hose down ones throat
8.and my all time fave use against my invulnerable guy an enchanted chain saw.
I could keep going.....
Just rember invulnerable in this game isn't. Well unless you stack powers or use Hyper density
If you want to make a real invulnerable guy use invlnerable to melee attacks, invulnerable high speed attacks and invulnerable to energy. The first two do not limit to non-magic attack so they work better than the major invulnerable. Give it the mutation does not need air to breath, and bingo.

Don't forget the Negate Superpowers ability...if I'm remembering the name right.

And of course there's non-lethal ways to deal with invulnerable characters. Set 'em in concrete. Tie/chain 'em up (not as hard to do as you'd think, especially if someone hawt is involved). Let a psychic with mind control powers PWN him. Throw an invulnerable villian at him, and go rob some banks while the two of them are wrasslin'. Drop him in the middle of the Sahara without any food or water. Hold friends and loved ones hostage.

A lot depends on the characters. Any supernatural threat will carve an invulnerable guy up like butter. What does the level one players?
CES

gadrin wrote:don't use super powers...

have 4 unknown crooks pull up in unmarked cars outside a bank where the PC is. each wears a windbreaker with POLICE or FBI or whatever in big block letters on the back. they've got a couple of cooler sized boxes with handles marked "demolition equipment"

they "recognize" the super-hero, ask for his help. bomb threat inside the bank, can he help ? there's a briefcase inside the manager's office, go in and get it. fly it to the river and drop it in. press conference in the parking lot afterwards.

the crooks have called in the bomb threat just before arriving. the manager always carries a briefcase with him to work.

the pc goes in and clears out the bank and grabs the briefcase, the crooks go in and rob the place, and emerge with the cash inside the "demolition equipment" they have. they leave, drive a few blocks switch cars.

the real police show up...then the hero...

Wouldn't work. There's a zillion ways it could potentially go wrong, not least of which is the way it relies on the real authorities not to notice a humungous "bomb scare" happening right on the main street. It's a great way to frame a superhero in a saturday morning cartoon, but not so great if you're running a campaign that's striving for a plausible setting (well, plausible apart from the occasional caped crusader).

15th level Mirror Mage spell..Castle of Oblivion (Nightbane WB3...pg.75)

*Trapped Until Mirror is broken*

-Note Normal save vs magic unless...unconscious then none

Wouldn't work. There's a zillion ways it could potentially go wrong, not least of which is the way it relies on the real authorities not to notice a humungous "bomb scare" happening right on the main street. It's

It could work.
The authorities wouldn't "notice" a single car with some guys in it without good reason.
There isn't a real bomb threat, the bad guys just claim there is one.

I heard a forum poster somewhere say (paraphrasing) "Some people define game balance as a 50% chance of victory in an empty white room."

There are other ways to balance the game that trying to beat your way past the invulnerability.

You could have a villain use mind control on the invulnerable dude, and have him attack his buddies.

Also, in a superhero game, there are usually other objectives than just "Survive." In the old dungeon crawl days, that was often the only goal, but not anymore. If you are trying to rescue the kitten from the building before the bomb goes off, you aren't in danger, but if you aren't fast enough to get out of the building or at least the blast radius in time, you will have Feline Flambé on your hands.

Being invulnerable will protect your own hide, but not much else. You can survive C-4 going off in your mouth, but you can still fail at everything else in the game.

take away his oxagen and boom hes dead

Snatchl wrote:I'm not speaking strictly as a GM, but as a player campaigning against another payer, with the cheesiest of cheesy powers, circa 1992. I honestly haven't played in a while, but the Palladium system is so cool, I had to register.

So this is player vs player? Do you know what other powers the Invulnerable character has? Give us more to work with or consider.

LostOne wrote:Don't forget the Negate Superpowers ability...if I'm remembering the name right.

But if you use that on them, then you're not killing an invulnerable character.
You're killing a character who used to be invulnerable.

Killer Cyborg wrote:

LostOne wrote:Don't forget the Negate Superpowers ability...if I'm remembering the name right.

But if you use that on them, then you're not killing an invulnerable character.
You're killing a character who used to be invulnerable.

Well, dead is dead. If you kill them, they will no longer be able to become invulnerable. Death is permanent, power negation isn't.

Victor Lazlo owes me $5 wrote:

drewkitty ~..~ wrote: You Water board him.

Nice. Make them roll vs. insanity every round LOL

Actully the thought was...'Deprive him of air.' not 'drive him even crazyer'.

i've often thought that it would be a great challenge to play a character that has *all* invulnerability type powers and nothing else, simply because he'd be thrown into situations that no one else would go into without actually having anything other than his wits to get through the situation.

create Force fields...
one head sized force bubble = dead invulnerable

Astral Pantheon wrote:15th level Mirror Mage spell..Castle of Oblivion (Nightbane WB3...pg.75)

*Trapped Until Mirror is broken*

-Note Normal save vs magic unless...unconscious then none

Really? No save if unconsious?

Couldn't you just poison their cream of wheat and call it a day?

znbrtn wrote:i've often thought that it would be a great challenge to play a character that has *all* invulnerability type powers and nothing else, simply because he'd be thrown into situations that no one else would go into without actually having anything other than his wits to get through the situation.

Had a player do that. Made the character as invulnerable as he possibly could (including not needing to eat/breath). He finally got rid of the character after the character got buried under rubble and ultra-heavy objects for the umpteenth time. He had to keep waiting for demolitions to clear away the rubble so he could escape, in the case of big disasters it might mean months of being buried in rubble. He really needed to figure out a way to add in intangibility or supernatural strength so he wouldn't be so helpless.

He was actually trapped in the twin towers when they collapsed in our game (pre 9/11). They fell over more like dominos though, very messy.

IIRC he decided to become a fireman and retired from the superhero biz.

I tend to agree with some of the guys. Getting under their skin and anoying them over and over is the best.

"I just thought of a new major power for my character! It's called 'Nothing bad can ever happen to me, ever!' It's Invulnerability, but it extends to my friends, and my stuff and pretty much everyone except for people I don't like and don't like me! And it works against magic and mind powers and insults and heartbreak and stuff!
Oh, and my character lives in a mansion! With lots of chicks! And they all dig me and don't get jealous or anything! And he has a red sports car! And it has a flamethrower that fires chocolate one-hundred-dollar bills!"



Okay, I am being snarky. But we've all met people like this.

Petite Elfgirl wrote:I agree with Rallan and Zenvis, they don't have to necessarily kill the invulnerable character (especially if it's a player character), though there are plenty of ways to kill them, too. APS: Ice (blocking the head in a cube of ice), dropping them down a mine/elevator shaft (won't kill them, but it will slow them down big time if they can't fly), and possibly reentring into the atmosphere and that most powerful attack from APS Fire (both can possibly hurt or kill the character, GM's call). But I've always liked the annoyance/ignorant part, too. The character might be invulnerable, but how about allies?

I imagine that most have seen Spider-Man (the original); do you remember how to get to someone who is invulnerable? Though the heart! They may be invisible, invulnerable and super fast but their friends and family may not be and that’s their vulnerability. You want to get to those super beings? Go after those that they care about.
Now most villains you may think will not care but how many villains do you know who are diabolic? In my campaigns there are not that many, most are miscreant or aberrant and finding out why they do what they do just adds to the story and makes a vulnerable part in the invulnerable armor.

The Beast wrote:

Astral Pantheon wrote:15th level Mirror Mage spell..Castle of Oblivion (Nightbane WB3...pg.75)

*Trapped Until Mirror is broken*

-Note Normal save vs magic unless...unconscious then none

Really? No save if unconsious?

Yes really, None if unconsious....a great spell

Zenvis wrote:I imagine that most have seen Spider-Man (the original); do you remember how to get to someone who is invulnerable? Though the heart! They may be invisible, invulnerable and super fast but their friends and family may not be and that’s their vulnerability. You want to get to those super beings? Go after those that they care about.
Now most villains you may think will not care but how many villains do you know who are diabolic? In my campaigns there are not that many, most are miscreant or aberrant and finding out why they do what they do just adds to the story and makes a vulnerable part in the invulnerable armor.

Which is a valid point (I'm not going to look but I think maybe it was previously mentioned).

However, what if the player playing this character is one of those people who writes their character history so there are no friends/family to abuse?

You know the type:
Joe grew up an orphan after his parents were brutally killed in a freak accident involving a tilt-a-whirl and an exploding fish factory. They were riding the tilt-a-whirl when the nearby factory exploded and his parents were impaled by frozen halibut. His only sister was murdered by her drug-addict boyfriend in one of his drunken rages. Soon after he turned 18 and found himself on his own in the world, the orphanage he had previously been living in collapsed due to a catastrophic termite infestation, there were no survivors. Everyone he had ever known or cared about was dead. As such he grew up alone, hardened, emotionally stunted, living on the streets and not owing nothing to nobody. No friends, no possessions, living meal to meal from dumpsters and huddling over subway air vents for warmth. Then one day he gets hit on the head by a mystical meteor that looked vaguely like blue ice from an airplane and he's invulnerable.

I'm sure there are better ways to write a history so the GM can't screw with your heart-strings...

Maybe the guy has amnesia, doesn't remember anything more than 24 hours ago. Discovers he's invulnerable when he gets hit by a bus. But doesn't know how he got amnesia if he's indestructible.

But, he wouldn't remember any friends or family and might be suspicious of anyone claiming they are his friend/family, reasoning that he must have lost his memory due to some kind of mental superpower an enemy had.

Get a spell caster and have him/her cast Float in Air on him. There is no
save or weight limit. He is effetively a children's helium balloon. Leave him
be while he floats around yelling at you .

Astral Pantheon wrote:

The Beast wrote:

Astral Pantheon wrote:15th level Mirror Mage spell..Castle of Oblivion (Nightbane WB3...pg.75)

*Trapped Until Mirror is broken*

-Note Normal save vs magic unless...unconscious then none

Really? No save if unconsious?

Yes really, None if unconsious....a great spell

Yeah, saw that a couple days ago when I looked up the spell.

Dim Mak and/or negative chi attacks work as well.

LostOne wrote:

Zenvis wrote:I imagine that most have seen Spider-Man (the original); do you remember how to get to someone who is invulnerable? Though the heart! They may be invisible, invulnerable and super fast but their friends and family may not be and that’s their vulnerability. You want to get to those super beings? Go after those that they care about.
Now most villains you may think will not care but how many villains do you know who are diabolic? In my campaigns there are not that many, most are miscreant or aberrant and finding out why they do what they do just adds to the story and makes a vulnerable part in the invulnerable armor.

Which is a valid point (I'm not going to look but I think maybe it was previously mentioned).

However, what if the player playing this character is one of those people who writes their character history so there are no friends/family to abuse?

You know the type:
Joe grew up an orphan after his parents were brutally killed in a freak accident involving a tilt-a-whirl and an exploding fish factory. They were riding the tilt-a-whirl when the nearby factory exploded and his parents were impaled by frozen halibut. His only sister was murdered by her drug-addict boyfriend in one of his drunken rages. Soon after he turned 18 and found himself on his own in the world, the orphanage he had previously been living in collapsed due to a catastrophic termite infestation, there were no survivors. Everyone he had ever known or cared about was dead. As such he grew up alone, hardened, emotionally stunted, living on the streets and not owing nothing to nobody. No friends, no possessions, living meal to meal from dumpsters and huddling over subway air vents for warmth. Then one day he gets hit on the head by a mystical meteor that looked vaguely like blue ice from an airplane and he's invulnerable.

Now if this guy is a hero then proding in his mind and touching his nightmares will get him right where you want him. Even the Batman has those times of weakness.

Mind Wipe superpsionic ability. This is all I am saying.

Vaccums of space (Or just lack of air)

Supernatural strength (or weapons)

Gravity powers

Stasis powers

Any kind of matter/incasing power (except if possess SNPS as well)

Powers that remove or disable powers
(Multiple selves/negate super powers + weapon is my fave)

Mind control/Possesion

and those are just powers.....

let's not forget their are other ways to mess with them, like if they have bullets bouncing off of them are hitting bystanders-vital objects to missions-if a secret Identity then should have been killed but their power saved their butt and revealed them to the world-if no Secret ID then their loved ones get hurt, kidnapped, killed etc. Invunerable character players tend to think nothing can hurt their character, it's our jobs as GM's to make them see the difference between Invunerable and Invincible.

I was playing a Golem in a game not too long ago, they are just about as invunerable when you add in their combo regen/Resurrect power. In the case of Golems you have no family,you have no Secret Id, you do not breath,Your soul is forever tethered to a gem...and yet...The GM found many ways to mess with me, I even pointed a few out. Iron, so very much not friendly with magnetics, the weight issue had me breaking the floors and making buildings unsafe everywhere, the shear size made it hard to go anywhere, even before factoring in weight. You don't pass for human, so interaction is null and invunerability doesn't help you attack anyone, sure you can jump off a building get shot and not flinch, but how useful is that when you team just got shot in the head, or their is a hostage? You end up taking the role as bait more often then not.

That's my Two cents.

Sorry about this, but I had a whole slew of ideas that would fit into this category.

Masive amounts of incendiaries and casustic chemicals, deployed around the chraracter wherever he goes. He will survive the flames and burns, but everyone around him DIES. Even the most hardened of heroes will flinch at the massive amounts of collateral damage he unwittingly inflicts upon the general populace.

X-Ray Vision and Super-Telekinesis, grab their organs and squeeze. Or pinch off arteries in their brains, grab organs and twist/pull, might not actually kill the guy, but I bet it would hurt like the di ckens.

CEF: Water, pull his blood out of his body, can't be a hero if he's all dehydrated and mumy-esque. Alternatively, force an obscene amount of water into his guts, too much and his stomache will either rupture or crush his organs/inhibit his ability to breath properly.

Chemical compounds sprayed into his face, that once inahaled will bind to his lung walls, preventing oxygen from being absorbed into his body.

Orbital bombardment, like in Justice Leage TAS, build a giant rail-gun in orbit, and pound that guy to the center of the planet.

Or like in the 2007 Transformers movie, chain him up and drop him into the deepest, darkest part of the ocean, even if he's SNPS, he'd have a hard time swimming out of there...

Blackmail, the old do this or people die scam. Make him stay away from certain parts of town (especially good if your hideout isnt in it and he has buddies he can call in), alternitivley to only go to one area. If he thinks that a school will be bombed or a hospital visted by nerve-gas, he would probably agree to anything.

Mystically Bestowed charcter with Multiple Beings and lots of magic spells.

Weight Manipulation and SNPS, make him weightless and give a good, solid upercut. Watch him go soaring off into space.

Magic Weapon to the eyes, then chop him into intty-bitty peices while he flails around in pain...

A whole butt-load of supernatural monsters rifted right into the middle of a robbery he's breaking up. Can you say 'hero-burgers'?

Find a planet with a sun about to go nova, arange to have the hero tossed through a rift to that planet.

Drop a few dozen nuclear warheads on him.

Knock him out, and put him on a ship bound to a black hole.

Habe somebody with Multiple Beings, Invisibility, and Bio-Manipulation pound the guy with bad things until he croaks or goes bonkers.

Hire another Invulnerable guy to be your ambulatory meat shield.

Frame him for a bunch of murders/crimes. Might not kill him, but will make his life miserable.

If your creative, and a bit of a heartless son-of-a-pitch, you can inflict lots of death and pain on these types of guys.

A lot of the suggestions in this thread don't actually work, or only work under the most permissive of GM's (or used by the most vindictive). For most of them, the GM might as well tell the player that their character dies because the GM hates them, and if that's the case, it's the GM's own fault for allowing the character in the first place.

If I were in the situation where the GM let a player have an invulnerable character and then had a star go nova, or have them thrown into a black hole, or be effectively killed by a no-save spell in their sleep just to get that specific character, I'd start looking for a new GM.

Also, by default everyone with the invulnerability power automatically has their strength as supernatural - at least according to the power description.

A lot of my replies have been in jest and fun, but some people have a problem keeping players in check when powers used by their characters are too powerful, which goes back to the issue of regulating what poiwers are allowed and setting qualifiers and limitations when creating characters. I don't hand out Intangibility and Invulnerability like they are snack candy and a playeer will generally have to justify their use of the powers in the game before allowing to create such a character. The same applies to Mega-Heroes, which are for the most part limited to those actually rolling one up as part of the Immortal category.

I thought the thread was about a player's character trying to kill off another player's invulnerable character.

With that said, I try not to kill off my player's characters...unless they do something fantastically stupid without thinking. But I also always warn them during character creation that I have the right to veto something now or in the future should it become a big problem for me, and that veto may come in a manner of a violent and horrible death. But usually I just take them aside and ask them nicely and we work out a way to pull that character and insert a new one, that way the player isn't kept out of the game rolling up a new character.

The way our GM handled it was that we could have any book-legal power or ability, so long as we understood that he had the obligation to test our ingenuity and creativeness. But then again, we were essentially a bunch of power-gamers, running heavy on powers and guns and armor and other gear, so it's not like he was picking on a bunch of kittens.

Some of those things I listed? Actually used on a few of my groups so called 'invulnerable' beings. One of the guys made the mistake of boasting, within the GM's earshot, on how his character was "too tough to die." He found out quite the opposite very quickly, as he was sliced to bite sized peices by a magic weapon (not the end of the world as he had regenerative powers, but it sure knokced the cockiness out of him!). Another had the 'weightless uppercut' done on him, though our flier was able to intercept him before he went out of the atmosphere. All things carry a risk, and if you want a meat shield, better be forewarned that there are always carnivores out there, and they are always hungry...

That being said, it really is up to the GM ultimatley. If he's okay with the power, and the players accept the risks they will be facing, let the blood flow.

Charz wrote:The problem isn't the power itself... its what the power creates. Instead of "how to kill an invulnerable character" it should be about "how to create a fun game while not being a cheese monkey". In every HU Game I have ever played with an Invulnerable character a few key issues kept popping up.

That's just a lack of innovation on the GMs part.

macksting wrote:Pity. I actually enjoyed working out the capabilities of an Invulnerable character in a space-based environment; he was aware certain aspects of orbital life could kill him, but got opportunity to enjoy the benefits of the power at the same time. Wish the game could have continued.

A player of mine learned that the hard way. He knew it was a space game while making his character, but he never even thought about needing to breathe until the first time they needed to do some external repair work on the ship then he realized, an invulnerable character in space is only as survivable as his space suit is durable (he made some really bad rolls, ended up skipping along the hull of the ship until something sharp snagged his suit and punctured it, he barely made it to an airlock before blacking out). Really he wouldn't have been able to make it back at all, but I don't like killing players for a random dose of bad luck in a situation that shouldn't normally be life threatening.

macksting wrote:Besides, an invulnerable character should have a little more resistance to space than average; sure, they can't hold their breath very well, but their lungs are unlikely to burst if they try.

Depends on how the GM rules. I've seen GMs say that invulnerable characters can still get the bends (decompression sickness) in space which I've thankfully never experienced, but I hear is pure agony. In which case they still need a fully environmental space suit, the bends can kill you.

I've also seen GMs rule that all an invulnerable character needs to function in space is an airtank and something that fits over the mouth tight enough to keep air from leaking out.

Either way the guy in my example was losing air, which was his biggest problem.

macksting wrote:Excellent point about the bends. One still might imagine, depending on how one runs it, that an Invulnerable character might be able to pressurize or depressurize safely as long as it happens in a controlled manner. Would you allow an invulnerable character to sink to the bottom of the ocean, albeit properly equipped with air and such?

Sure, sinking isn't the problem. It's decompression that is the problem.

Depending on the type of game I'm running at the time, I might not have the bends affect a character like this other than some discomfort and a lot of gas and belching as the body rids itself of excess air. Nothing like seeing the nearly indestructible superhero clearing a shopping mall with his explosive flatulence.

An invulnerable character blood vessel would not be harmed by the nitrogen bubble formed in his blood. And he wouldn't wouldn't suffer an embolism. So decomression would do nothing to him...
Explosive decompression
Misunderstandings of the meaning of the words are quite likely to be a fuelling factor for a persistent myth that humans would explode if exposed to the non-pressure of space. Accidents in space exploration research and high-altitude aviation have shown that while vacuum exposure causes swelling, human skin is tough enough to handle a drop of one atm. A sudden drop of eight atm as prove saddly in the Byford Dolphin accident had intensely fatal results.
So an invulnerable character would be immune to explosive decompression too.

Blight wrote:An invulnerable character blood vessel would not be harmed by the nitrogen bubble formed in his blood. And he wouldn't wouldn't suffer an embolism. So decomression would do nothing to him...

I was under the impression that bubbles in the blood would also cause a bloodflow problem as it collected in the chambers of the heart, etc.

Invulnerable characters don't get the bends. They'd die from lack of oxygen.

It should be mentioned that Invulnerable characters can also hold their breath much longer than normal people as well.

Talavar wrote:It should be mentioned that Invulnerable characters can also hold their breath much longer than normal people as well.

Yeah, but being able to hold your breath will do diddly squat if you've got a couple hundred tons of rubble on your chest. Watch CSI sometime, they mention positional asphxyia a few times (unable to breath due to the lungs being rendered incablable of inflating).
Of course, that only works if they don't have the 'doesn't need to breath' thingy. But SNPS won't help you if you have a building or five knocked down on top of you...

Talavar wrote:It should be mentioned that Invulnerable characters can also hold their breath much longer than normal people as well.

Then you simply keep 'em underwater much longer than you would normal people. To use the "Transformers 2007" example earlier, if you drop an invulnerable character (chained and weighted) over the side of a ship passing over a deep-sea canyon, then simply being able to hold their breath 'much longer than normal' doesn't really help all that much. Even assuming the invulnerable character has enough breath to free himself from the chains/weights and return to the surface, however, he still has a very serious problem: how is he going to get back to land? It's for sure the ship that dumped him off isn't going to stick around. Better hope he can swim a few hundred miles.

I said it before in another invulnerability thread, but I think this super ability is overrated as an 'unbalancing power.' There are too many ways you can neutralize an invulnerable character. Focusing on just killing one is unnecessarily limiting yourself as a GM.

This always make's me laugh this is role playing not who has the biggest gun/power/stick etc. any character can steal the show. and should be allowed to. at times making this power weaker and that one stronger. Is ok but seems to take the fun out of the game. personally i try to avoid making adventure specifically to stop one pc's character. I i have a few rule's there are select power's that can only be rolled if you having fun and letting charracter's make up cool P.C.'s just rule that if they want those power's or a chance at them they have to roll them. And just because pc's have invulnerability or intangibility or aps metal or..., doesnt mean the associational villain cant.
Have fun and just let the pc's get them selves killed or imprisoned. I had an player with aps metal and extraordinary speed kill by accident (actually he did it on purpose the reporter was asking him why he murdered the villain since. he obviously wasnt a threat and a few other annoying questions) on national tv. Get caught (played it out fairly tho didn't pull any punches secret doesnt play nice) and sentenced to life in prison. (he killed to secret soldier's in the battle, and the other pc's left right away.) he played a new character for quite a while till i let him have an opportunity to get out of prison (the other player's were 3 lvl's above him and a lot more balanced with him. So it worked out and was fair, you can kill villains and such but reporters live on tv...
Balance and such is what you make of it. His character made up for his npc killing ways and before the player left (moved in rl) was repentant and up to unprincipled in alignment.