Heroes Unlimited Play By Post?

[Atifexe]

You only really have to choose between the two initially; later on, you can get the other if you feel so inclined. =)

Would you want both the customized grip and the training bonus/penalty, or just the customized grip?

[Prospero101]

I think the former. It expresses his affinity for his signature weapons as opposed to purely customization and training. It's like a samurai with his sword.

And since I have to choose, I'll go with the Physical Prowess one. I feel he'll be quick enough on the uptake that he doesn't need to see in all directions.

[Omnicrat]

I think I would want to play a Super genius who's primary goal is to "save the world," which would probably often come up as "stop X" but would include "invent renewable resources" and "unlimited food supply".

That's just one idea, though, wouldn't be hard to make some more.

[My pseudonym is Ix]

Well, let's start off with the obvious and also potentially super-OP: mind reader. Don't mind if it's not to the extent of 'oh wait he's totally going to do X next', just enough to essentially be superlatively good at reading people. Possibly combined with some minor stealth ability if I haven't overdone already.
Beyond that, there's an idea I've had for a while called Pinball (working title)- essentially the ability is a reworked version of the ability to reflect incoming kinetic energy from the Marvel Universe, with the caveat this time being that this kinetic 'reflection' manifests itself in bodily motion. So being punched in the face won't actually do me any harm, my body will just absorb all of the kinetic energy and either go flying across the room or otherwise redirect.
Then there's a concept hero I thought of a while ago with entirely vibration-based powers; attacking by grabbing hold of the skull and vibrating the head so that the brain within is nicely sozzled, breaking glass through resonance, that sort of thing. Possibly Artemis Fowl-style vibration based invisibility too at higher levels, if we're willing to take the 'superhero physics' angle of scientific realism.
Short-range teleporting could also be fun (although I may abuse it heinously, I have lots of fun ideas concerning it), or anything electro/fire based... man, I had way too much free time over the summer.
Soo...yeah. That's my initial set of ideas. Feel free to apply nos to all of them, I can think of more

[Atifexe]

To Omnicrat:
Super genius, hmm? Definitely doable, though I don't know how combat effective such a character would wind up being without turning to super inventions and the like. There is a minor power named Extraordinary Intelligence that could apply for this purpose, and Multitasking could be useful too. Ex IQ grants significant skill bonuses, some minor combat bonuses (for recognizing and reacting to telegraphed actions), and the ability to select two skills you can exempt from the normal skill cap. Multitasking, meanwhile, allows you to focus each hemisphere of your brain on different tasks. provided both take place in your normal field of vision - so you could tweak an invention while holding a normal conversation, solder a circuit while reading an instruction manual, or even fire a gun while reading a computer screen (though hand to hand combat is considered too disruptive to perform while focusing on something else simultaneously). Does that sound like it could work?

To Ix:
Mind readers are not inherently overpowered, if only because targets get a chance to save and there are various ways to either gain bonuses or become impervious to mental intrusion. That said, if you're just looking for reading people, the power Living Anatomy grants the ability to gauge emotion, honesty, rough estimate of degree of injury, fatigue level, and whether the person is tensing for an attack. It also grants First Aid at 80% proficiency, gives a 10% bonus to any other known medical skills, and has several combat-related bonuses. Not reading minds, but definitely reading people.

For Pinball, there is a power called Super Bouncing that allows you to bounce off of hard surfaces, make your way up buildings by bouncing back and forth between adjacent structures, and can move really really fast by bouncing forward. The rules don't explicitly include the ability to bounce away from attacks, but if combined with the power Impact Resistance, I'd say bouncing away is completely logical. Impact Resistance basically provides a 20-point shield against physical attacks that refreshes at the start of every combat round, and even if the resistance is depleted, further physical attacks only deal half damage.

A fun possibility to combine with the bouncing might be the power Immovability. Activated with a thought, Immovability does exactly what it says on the tin, allowing the character to anchor themselves such that only a supernaturally strong opponent can move them, and even then they'll have drastic difficulty. I feel like switching between bouncing erratically and unpredictably latching onto surfaces would render the character very difficult to deal with.

Vibration might be more difficult to pull off, though if you include sound as vibration, there are more possibilities. You won't be able to liquefy peoples' brains by vibrating their skulls, but you will be able to create directed sonic booms or ultrasonic vibrations to damage things.

Teleportation is almost exclusively a major-level power, with the few minor powers that could be considered teleportation related being things like Doorways, which can open portals in walls that aren't too thick. This could be a good future goal for a character.

[Prospero101]

To Ix:
Mind readers are not inherently overpowered, if only because targets get a chance to save and there are various ways to either gain bonuses or become impervious to mental intrusion. That said, if you're just looking for reading people, the power Living Anatomy grants the ability to gauge emotion, honesty, rough estimate of degree of injury, fatigue level, and whether the person is tensing for an attack. It also grants First Aid at 80% proficiency, gives a 10% bonus to any other known medical skills, and has several combat-related bonuses. Not reading minds, but definitely reading people.

Sorry, I'm just reminded of the first cutscene in Psychonauts where the Coach tries to read Raz's mind and he's like "Can't...get...in!" Then Raz goes "My name..." Coach: "Starts with a D!" "...is Razputin."

So we've got me, Ix, and Omnicrat so far...how many were you after, Atifexe? Is JackSlack in or did he just drop by to comment?

[Atifexe]

I'm aiming for four to five players. JackSlack appears to have just been dropping by to comment, and DoktorNik expressed an interest as well. He hasn't been back to start discussing character ideas, though.

[Prospero101]

Well, I hope we don't wait too long for that fourth. Character ideas get me all hot under the collar.

[Atifexe]

Did you want to expound on your background a bit? Where they're from, what kind of education they have, any interesting personality traits?

You could also roll your stats, if you'd like - 3d6, and if the total result is 16, 17, or 18, roll another d6 and add that to the total. If the extra die result is 6, you can roll one more. The eight attributes are IQ, ME, MA, PS, PP, PE, PB, and Spd. Given your background and combat style, if your PP is less than 15, increase it to 15. Then, due to your power selections, you get an extra 2d4 added to your PP and an extra 5d4 added to your Spd.

Stat Explanations - Click to Expand

• IQ is self explanatory. Multiply by 10 to get equivalent real-world IQ value.
• ME is Mental Endurance. It represents your strength of will.
• MA is Mental Affinity, and is a measure of your charisma.
• PS is Physical Strength - very useful for facepunching.
• PP is Physical Prowess, and represents agility.
• PE is Physical Endurance, and determines resistance to harm.
• PB is Physical Beauty. Attractive characters can charm people with their looks.
• Spd is, well, Speed. This attribute determines how far you can run in a given time period.

[Prospero101]

Sure. Backgrounds are always fun. So my character is a Yakuza hitman, born in Kobe and adopted into the Yamaguchi family as a teenager. He doesn't actually know he has superhuman abilities. As far as he knows, it comes from his fastidious skill and training.

He's a quiet type, mostly, but can be charismatic and charming when he likes. He has a rather dry wit that he's learned not many people in his home country appreciate.

As far as physical appearance goes, he's a thin, fit Japanese man in his late twenties. He usually wears a black suit with a red tie. Under his suit you will discover that most of his body is covered in tattoos. Basically, if you can't see part of his body when he's wearing his suit and jacket, it's got tattoos on it. He's missing the little finger on his left hand, the product of an error he committed in youth that he doesn't care to discuss.

He's not an EVIL man, but given what he does for a living, it's probably accurate to call him something of a sociopath.

Now, a question before I roll my stats. Is this done D&D style, where I roll a series of numbers and can then assign them to each stat as I see fit?

[Atifexe]

I usually roll them sequentially, which is why I mentioned the free boost to 15 for your PP. You can do the pool of rolls method if you'd like, and if you do, you'll have to live with what you roll. Does that seem fair?

[Prospero101]

Nah, I'm perfectly fine rolling them sequentially. I was just wondering what terms we were operating under, since everyone seems to do it differently.

IQ - 110

Mental Endurance - 3d6=12

Mental Affinity - 3d6=7 (Probably also not happy with that...I don't know what's good and bad, but I'm pretty sure these dice are trying to kill me.)

Physical Strength - 3d6=8

Physical Prowess - 23 (My initial roll was 3d6=9 but you said if it was lower than 15, I raise it to 15, then get another 2d4. 2d4=8 Holy crap, I am one fast motherfucker. So my PP comes out to 23. Seems wildly out of the park compared to my other stats, but there's transhumanism for ya.)

Physical Endurance - 3d6=11

Physical Beauty - 20 3d6=17 + 1d6=3 (I'm so pretty, oh so pretty!)

Speed - 21 3d6=12 + 5d4=9 (Zoom, zoom, zoom!)

So, aside from the mental handicap, I'm pretty satisfied. I don't really like playing unintelligent characters though. Just a pet peeve of mine. I certainly don't have to be GOOD at everything, but could do with a higher IQ than 70.

[Atifexe]

So based on your PP stat, you get +4 on rolls to strike, parry, or dodge. Based on your Speed stat, you're capable of running the 105 meters in 15 seconds. Based on your physical beauty, you can attempt to charm or impress someone with a 50% base chance of success.

The average roll on 3d6 is around 11. If you'd like to boost your IQ to that, I'm fine with that.It's more important for people to play characters they're comfortable with than to adhere to precisely what was written.

[Prospero101]

I'll do that, thanks. That was actually pretty neat. I can start to see how the whole thing ties together.

[Atifexe]

There's still a matter of your character's education, which determines the skills that are available to you. Was your character raised on crime, or were you inducted after going to school for some years? Other than your skill with guns, is there anything you see your character being particularly proficient in?

[Prospero101]

He was adopted as an infant into the family of a prominent yakuza lieutenant after he was orphaned by the big 1995 earthquake. They put him through school and made him get a college education (a Bachelor's in Business) before they let him join the organization.

My character is a hitman. So he's proficient with things that that entails. Stealth, lying, things like hand-to-hand combat, demolitions, garrote wires, infiltration, things that let him do his job. He's fairly specialized. He can't, say, hack computers or anything advanced and technical. He knows firearms especially well. He could dismantle his signature guns blindfolded.

[Omnicrat]

So, what should I do for stats? Also, all of that (including the class) seems fine for what I want (assuming I understand the class properly).

What should I roll for stats?

[Atifexe]

For most of your stats, Omnicrat, you'll follow the standard 3d6 with bonus rolls method. The exception is your IQ, of course - your powers mean that you have a starting IQ of 22, to which you'll add 1d6. Because we're using the exploding d6 method for other stats, we'll do that here, too - if you roll a 6, you can add another d6 to the total.

[Prospero101]

Wow, a 220 IQ? When you say super genius, you don't mess around.

For context, Albert Einstein had an IQ or 170.

[Omnicrat]

Now, how do I rolldice on this forum...
test
[roll]3d6[/roll]

[Omnicrat]

Saw how the other guy did it, hope this is okay.

IQ - 32

Mental Endurance - 8

Mental Affinity - 8

Physical Strength - 14

Physical Prowess - 13

Physical Endurance - 11

Physical Beauty - 11

Speed - 14

<a href="http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4695704/">1d6=6</a>
<a href="http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4695706/">1d6=4</a>
<a href="http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4695703/">3d6=8, 3d6=8, 3d6=14, 3d6=13, 3d6=11, 3d6=11, 3d6=14</a>

... Well. I seem to be the smartest person ever. Pretty middling in all the other stats, but that probably makes sense.

As to education, High would be mine. Top universities.

edit: Not really liking those low other mental stats, though... But I just got 32 in my main, so who am I to complain?

[Prospero101]

Hey Omnicrat, at the bottom of your results page you'll find a BBCode link. It happens that BBCode is exactly what this forum uses for formatting. All you have to do is copy that link and paste it into your reply, and your roll is linked like mine.

[My pseudonym is Ix]

OK, so from your description Pinball sounds like basically the funniest thing ever, so I think I'll go with that (not least because a party featuring 2/4 super genius and mind reader is just going to get bizarre). I'm thinking for the character origin (just to mix things up a bit): former Glaswegian street thug approximately 50kg, 5ft 8in and somewhat malnourished (which is actually a genuine problem in the wrong parts of Glasgow). Two stab wounds to the back, one around the liver and one just below the shoulder blade. Few small facial scars from near misses too. His story is the same as countless others; dodgy family situation meant school was never a priority or particularly successful venture, and ended up falling in with the dodgy crowd. Started roaming the streets at night, fighting both to buy booze and just for something to do. First knife aged 11, left school at 14, living on the streets by 15, either sleeping rough or crashing on the sofas of various gang members, when he could find a stable enough one to be a part of. The stab wounds were pretty much par for the course for this kind of lifestyle, but the faint scar around the right eye wasn't- that came after being caught alone by a similar band of troublemakers looking for a victim, whose leader tried to go for a kerb stomp, accidentally activated our hero's powers and ended up being catapulted halfway across the street. The experience left the young man, still in his teens, dazed and disorientated but alive, and he was only to ascertain that this whole business wasn't all a drunken dream when he fell down a friend's stairs the next morning and bounced off the ceiling several times.

How he got picked up by his current employer is another matter, but that's the character- although now aged a few years, he's still small, skinny, cocky and rather rough around the edges personality-wise. Not particularly well educated, but as street-smart and practical as they come, although he still carries with him a vague air of being perpetually dirty. Now he's learned to control his powers rather better, he also exudes an air of actually being able to back the swagger that his thuggish background left him with.

So... how do I adjust my rolls?

[Atifexe]

Well, first, are you wanting to go with Super Bouncing and Immovability to start, or Super Bouncing and Impact Resistance? Because most votes seem to have been in favor of the first campaign idea, I'd like to keep everyone at two powers to start, then have them pick up more as the game progresses.

That said, neither of those powers directly alter your stats, so we only really have to worry about the boost from Super Bouncing. In that case, roll your stats as normal, then apply a bonus of 4d6+12 to your speed attribute.

For all characters, Spd x5 is the distance in meters that you can run in 15 seconds. For your character, Ix, Spd x10 is the distance you can bounce along firm ground in 15 seconds, and Spd x15 is the distance you can bounce if you also have walls and/or ceilings within 20 feet that you can bounce along. Even if you roll nothing but ones for your Speed stat, you'll quite possibly be the fastest character in the party when bouncing down the road, and definitely will be in enclosed spaces.

[My pseudonym is Ix]

I think I'll go with Super Bouncing and Impact Resistance- seems like a more starting-y power set. Might move into Immovability later on. Here are my rolls (random.org don't fail me now...)

IQ = 70
Mental Endurance = 11
Mental Affinity = 14
Physical Strength = 8
Physical Prowess = 14
Physical Endurance = 8
Physical Beauty = 8
Speed = 28
[one check on that; when you said apply a bonus of 4d6+12, do you mean Spd = 4d6+12 or Spd=7d6+12? I went conservative and plumped for the former, let me know if I need to add 3d6]

...actually really happy with that, fits in almost perfectly with the character I've theorised. Bring on the campaign!