Unfortunate Character Choices Returns! - The Ruler of Crime

I thought I was out of worthy candidates for this special honor - but I'm not! Picking up some older Champions material that I had never read has revealed another Unfortunate, and I'm calling him a Top 3 candidate. I give you the Ruler of Crime:

I really laughed out loud when I saw this near the back of Enemies: The International File. Wow, that is just terrible. I don't think Superfriends stooped that low. With that costume and that name the only crime this guy is qualified to commit is stealing Hostess Fruit Pies. I'm glad they left him mouthless as it makes quite a bit more menacing - until you see the numbers down his side.

Wait, I found another possible home for him:

"Hold it right there Crime Ruler! It looks like your plan has come up short!"
(I can play this game all day)

I was thinking that surely he was some kind of gimmick growth/shrinking guy with a humorous background. Oh no, we can't do that - he has a completely serious backstory as a genius child prodigy who sidekicks for a villain named the Sniper and then takes over for his Aryan scientist father as a criminal mastermind in Brazil. What are his powers? Let's take a look.

Now this book came out in 1988 so we see the soon-to-be-very-familiar 4th edition style statblock. His first two powers are "Shrinking Gas grenades" and those next two are from his "Tape Measure belt" which generates a protective forcefield and will shock anyone who touches him. He also has flash defense, UV vision, and life support from his costume. So he's spent over 100 points already on gadgets that have nothing to do with his actual powers!

Then we get to Elemental Control - Detection Abilities. Sure.

• Detect and analyze distances - seriously? Mechanically how often is this going to be useful? The game doesn't restrict measurements during the game anyway? Has anyone had this arise as a challenge in any super RPG session? "Oh, if only we knew how far away that guy is." Realistically I know that we had laser rangefinders in 1988 so is this really a superpower? 
• Detect and analyze trajectory? Again, when does this come up? How does it help?
• Detect and analyze size and weight? OK if Indy has this at the beginning of Raiders then it's a less action-packed opening sequence but is that really a 20-point super power? 

Aren't all of these really more of a talent like "Bump of Direction" - note: BoD is 3 points in the BBB. I know everything wasn't quite integrated yet but going by the visual design it was clearly being worked on. To continue:

• Telescopic Vision - fine, but it can still be replaced by binoculars or a scope
• Danger Sense - At last, a useful power. It's explained in the text as some kind of minor telepathy springing from his super-brain. I'm not sure I'd allow it in an EC when it's conceptually different from his "uncanny ability to know the exact distance between any two objects" but we're on pretty shaky ground already with this guy.

Combat: He's supposed to be a behind-the-scenes mastermind but he has a force field and a damage aura so I think he's fair game. What if some rival copied his famous tape-measure belt and touched HIM? We would have a 6d6 energy attack vs. 16 points of ED. That's going to average out to 21 Stun and 6 Body. With 35 Stun and an 18 Con he could actually take that for awhile with no ill effects

Say he gets hit by the generic 12d6 Energy Blast - that's 42 Stun and 12 Body. That's going to let 26 Stun through, stunning him (Con 18 remember) and the second hit is going to floor him even if he gets a Recovery in there. So he's not particularly tough, and with a OCV/DCV of 6 his Speed of 5 is best used to run away. At least he doesn't have any x2 Body or Stun disadvantages.

He does have a pile of disads though: Arrogant, Overconfident, Ruthless, sees others as disposable, addicted to drugs, dependent on drugs - wow, that is an excuse for any kind of bad behavior the DM wants to engage in. He's also hunted by four different agencies, which seems like a fairly significant problem.

So we have a puntastic name and a ridiculous concept topped off with a weakly themed set of powers - what's not to like? Well, there's also a disconnect with the background. He is described as not being an action-seeking guy preferring to let his soldiers do the work but his powers are all dependent on direct action! The only thing useful out of combat is maybe his Forgery skill and his 28 Int! Even his tertiary abilities seem to be direct action-focused: Disguise, Security Systems, and a 30 point Gun Pool! Shouldn't he have minions or agents of some kind in their little ruler-themed uniforms? Maybe some kind of distance-distortion gun - mechanically an entangle that takes no damage from attacks? Maybe a flash attack themed as a cloud of numbers clouding one's vision? Some kind of telescoping ruler that is a monofilament blade? "I have discovered Measurement Zero! - Now taste it's edge!" I mean if you're going to crack open the can of goofy, then let's go all the way! Where is his nemesis hero Mister Metric? Come on!

Missile Deflection vs. all attacks, self only, OAF Ruler-fan, 10 points
(This really isn't that hard once you embrace the madness)

So there he is in all of his glory, the Ruler of Crime, likely the least-scary 597 point villain in all of Champions lore. I'll be keeping my eyes open for more like him as I read through some classic Champions material, but I don't know if I can top this one.

Unfortunate Characters Special Edition: Agents!

Given the fun we all had with the SAT agent on Friday I decided to take a look at some of the other agents from the early days of the game.

Note to those unfamiliar with Champions: "Agents" are normals who are part of an organization that is usually involved with Supers in some capacity.

First up: Terror Inc., a South American organization run by the super-villain Professor Muerte from Enemies II

Mechanics: I'm not going to get into game stats here but what you see there is pretty standard for an agent - some armor, some HTH training, and a gun, all with characteristics within the normal human range.

Style: Compared to SAT this is downright understated. Make the skull insignia, boots, gloves, and belt white or silver with the rest of it black and you have a kind of Punisher junior look. That's simple and classy enough that it might still work today. I have to say this is one of the better looking uniforms out there. The mustache is a little too Magnum PI but that's easily fixed.

Next up is Project Genocide, the early Champions Universe's anti-mutant organization from Enemies:

Mechanics - similar and similarly not the focus of this post

Style: Now we're getting somewhere. First up, the helmet! With goggles! Then we get into multicolored tights (judging by that pattern), a belt, and a jagged "G" on the chest - much better! The description doesn't make any mention of color so we could go in any direction - maybe black and yellow? I think these look fairly dated now but a lot of it is the helmet - redesign that and give the tights a heavier, body armor type look and it might still work.

Third, we have the classic Viper agent:

This is a heavy weapons agent but it's a little hard to see the actual uniform with the side view. Let's look at the Viper Nest Leader:

Oh yeah, now we can see it! Those dark areas are green while the light areas are yellow. It has all the classic super-uniform touches: helmet, visor/goggles, pointy over-vest thing, utility belt, insignia... sigh... it's like coming home again. That V on the helmet is red by the way. I'm not sure about the snake. I'm pretty sure the basic Viper color scheme has remained the same through 5th edition and probably into 6th. Fifth went with a more militaristic uniform and a faceless mirrored helmet design, but it was still green. This one still looks like a 60's or 70's depiction to me though.

Finally, the grand finale (for today): UNTIL, circa 1982:

Yeah! Bubble Helmet FTW! OK looking more closely it's not actually a bubble helmet but the way it is drawn it looks almost like one. Vest! Combat harness! Thigh holsters & sheaths! I'm not sure about color but I would guess blue for the dark and white for the... white. He looks like a 50's or 60's "Space Patrolman" more than a comic book agent but I still like it in a weirdly retro way. It's my favorite among these as far as conveying "this is a comic book".

That's about all of the agents I could find in my early Champions stuff. However, inspired by Dr. Rotwang! tomorrow's theme is "color" and it should be fun.

SAT Follow Up

If you didn't see the comments on the SAT Agent then take a look at this.


I think I have a new theme for this week...

Honorable Mention for the Unfortunates: SAT Agents

Not a full-on superhero or villain but I felt they deserved to be included:

 

  

  In this case I'm not concerned with stats or powers or disads but with costume...just look at it. Assuming the head and pants are blue, the torso might be red and the gloves and boots white. That's pretty colorful. The agents of Special American Tactics may be less concerned with camouflage than 40K Space Marines!

Part of me thinks there's some awesome here (are those boots actually striped?) but mostly it looks like way too much costume for an agent. It is impressive though.

Anyway, that's all for now.

Unfortunate Character Choices - Blowtorch

From Enemies 1982:

It's Blowtorch, an evil supervillain! With a flamethrower! What's his story? He's a pyromaniac! Who buys a flamethrower (maybe from illegal weapons dealer Emil Nelson) and starts committing crimes! That's it! No really - that's it for his backstory.  Nothing too terribly exciting there but it works. Costume-wise we're in for tights, goggles, and a flamethrower. Sounds about right.Not sure what that symbol is, but OK.

Stats: Look everything is a 20 or less! Finally a normal guy that is normal!

Powers: His Flamethrower is built as a multipower like Lazer's gun but it has 3 settings - Oh look: Autofire, an RKA, and an area effect attack - where have we heard that before? Nicely done. He also has some Armor, Martial Arts, Find Weakness, and some skills. There's really not much to complain about here. I always thought of a flamethrower as the perfect example of an "area effect - line" power but that's just me. Later versions of the game would also have more complete rules for setting things on fire but this is fine for now.

Disads: Pyro, likes to watch fires, hunted, hunted, secret ID - those are all fine. 1d6 from Fire Extinguishers is a little strange but at least it's thematic.

Mechanics? He has an 8d6 Eb which will average 28 Stun and 8 Body. He has total ED of 14 which means 14 Stun get through, leaving him with 11, so once again a second shot takes him down. He's close to Stunning himself there too with a slightly better roll. The RKA is worse as he only has 8 points of resistant ED. If he hits himself with that one he's going down in one shot, possibly for good. A punch from Ogre, our other measuring stick, would average 42 Stun and 12 Body. He can stop 15 which lets 27 through and renders him Stunned and Unconscious - not good.

So he's a guy with a flamethrower who has weak defenses. What do we do with him? We look him up in the 1989 4E version of the game and find:

Well at least it doesn't say "Blowtorch" on the chest. It does have more of a fire theme so that's better.

Stats?

He has been changed up somewhat. His stats are still normal human though - good.

Powers? His Flamethrower still only has 3 options and they are the same but the damage numbers have been rebalanced to fit the 4E costs. His defenses are actually weaker and he can stll take himself out in 2 shots. Besides that he is nearly unchanged from the older version.

Disads are similar except for the Stun damage when his armor is "breached" - it's a kevlar suit. It doesn't appear to be sealed. Do they mean whenever it's penetrated by damage? That could hurt considering how low his defenses are already. It's not 2XStun but when you only have 17pts of defense throwing 2 more d6's in there could tip the balance. Plus, what is he, a reverse Mr. Freeze? It doesn't make a ton of sense but there it is.

He also makes the cut for 5th Edition:

Again it doesn't look much like a comic book but it's ok by itself.

I don't have any more backstory ideas for him - he's a guy with a flamethrower. He's more of a GI Joe character than a traditional superhero. How do we make him appealing though? Add him to the team.

A team made up of Bulldozer, Sledge/Piledriver, Lazer, and Blowtorch could actually be kind of cool. You have a tank, a HTH striker, a ranged striker, and a ranged AOE guy. With the team concept in mind while tweaking them mechanically you could reinforce their strengths considerably and mitigate some weaknesses. Blowtorch could focus more on some AOE attacks (line, cone) to solidify his niche while keeping his Martial Arts moves to be able to assist in melee. Until he gets punched.

So there we go - a set of lamer villains that could be bonded together into something greater. Better, at least. Blowtorch is the last for the moment but I will be looking for others.

Unfortunate Character Choices - Lazer

From 1982's "Enemies" supplement, it's Lazer!

So let's continue with Origin first: He's a greedy guy who got some military training, went private, then got taken over by the mob so he became a super criminal. Okey-dokey. That's kind of plain but I can work with it. He's not an alien or a mutant or a robot - he's just a guy with a gun. His costume isn't too super either, but if you assume that those gray parts (and his shades) are chrome then he looks a little cool at least.

Stats: 26 Dex, 23 Con, and a Spd of 6? He's supposed to be a normal guy! Normal human max is 20 - what special training or experience or super-serum did he run across? I'm not a hardliner on this most of the time but I expect at least some mention how a contraband weapons dealer achieved a 26 Dex. Oh well.

Powers: A 2-slot multipower covers the "Lazer" with an EB and an RKA. That's pretty lame. The guy's inspiration and schtick is based on this and it only does two things? Well at least we know why he's named "Lazer", which is more than some characters have. He has 30 points of armor tied to an activation roll, always a bad idea. He has some lack of weakness and some flash defense! Yay for villains with some unconventional defenses! That said an activation roll on a lack of weakness is pretty comical. he can also fly, see in the dark, and has a few combat levels. Three levels with "Jetpack"? Really?

Disads: (going out of order here) 20 points of Greedy! That does fit the background. Hatred of the Mob, Hunted by the Mob, and Hunted by the FBI - well those all fit the background too. Secret ID is fine though we know nothing about what he does when he's not being a super-mercenary. We'll call that "flexibility for the GM". Double Stun from Mental attacks - that's dangerous but Mental attacks are pretty dangerous anyway and with no special defenses against them he might as well get some points out of it. Double Stun from Surprise Attacks - OK this one is questionable. Anyone could make a surprise attack against him, even a normal with say, a sniper rifle. You can't really take precautions against something as vague as Surprise Attacks the way you could an element or origin-based attack. Combining that with an activation roll on your defenses is a recipe for a one-shot takedown. He does get 20 points for it, but it's a bad idea in my experience.

I'm not sure what the fascination was in these early days with taking two Vulnerabilities on a character. Quite a bit of the game revolves around combat so making a character that much weaker against certain kinds of attacks is a questionable decision already but if it fits thematically then that's great, like say an iceman type character taking extra damage from fire or something similar. Many of these characters though seem to have Vunerabilities  chosen almost at random simply to cover the point cost. How, or better yet why is Lazer twice as weak against surprise attacks as a normal man? We don't know.

Mechanical fun: Can he take a shot from his own gun?  A 12d6 Eb averages 42 Stun and 12 Body. He has an ED of 7, plus a possible 15 more if he makes his 14 or less roll roll for his suit.  If so he takes 21 Stun and has 8 left, which means a second shot (even a below average shot) puts him down and unconscious. If he blows his defense roll then he takes 35 Stun and 5 Body which stuns him, knocks him out, and causes some injury. The RKA gets even uglier as he has at best 15 points of defense, and to do that he has to make his 14 or less Armor roll, and even if he does it's an Armor Piercing attack which halves defenses - great. An AP Killing Attack, everyone's favorite. If he doesn't make the roll, then he is probably unconscious and likely dead (he has 12 Body, the RKA averages 12 Body, and with zero Resistant Defenses on a missed roll he takes it all). Even if he makes it, he's taking Stun damage comparable to the EB scenario above and some Body damage too. He's definitely more about offense than defense. A punch from Ogre does similar damage as with 60 Str he's doing 12d6 as well, so we can expect similar results. Lazer does have a DCV of 9 which is fairly high among this level of villainy so he might be able to dodge some attacks. If he doesn't though he's in bad shape. If it's a surprise attack, it's all over in one shot - stunned and knocked out.

 All in all this is a pretty mundane badguy. He's a guy with a gun, and it's not even a particularly interesting gun at that, having only 2 settings - Hurt and Kill. Surely he's been left behind as the game has advanced, right?

Nope.

Here's Lazer from the 1989 Champions 4E Supplement "Classic Enemies"

 Quick boys and girls - how do we know that's Lazer? Because it says so on his chest! Ouch! I thought that was lame back then and it hasn't gotten any better today! His jetpack is now cleverly designed to be wider than his body and his laser is now a pistol that is tethered to his belt. Maybe he has a powerpack there ala Traveller or Star Frontiers. Regardless, that is a terrible costume. He looks like he's sponsored by the Lazer Corporation, not that that is his name. Please, symbols or letters but not whole words for our chest decorations - it's a problem that you can help solve, super-players.

 Surely 7 years after his first appearance someone has realized how weak he is mechanically and made some changes to his stats and powers, right? RIGHT?

NO!

Mechanically he the same, with a few points shifted here or there. I think that 2d6 Stun from Surprise Attacks is a typo, as Vulnerability works the same way in 4E that it did in 2E. So his gun is still boring and his defenses are still subject to a roll. Oh look he's traded 1 level with jetpack (again - ???) for some Streetwise skill. Awesome. Could we not have added at least a Flash attack to his multipower? The slots are 4 points! How about an area effect attack, or maybe Autofire or maybe even a NND Stun beam setting? In fact how about a Cone effect NND attack for a wide-angle Stun setting? Heck, once you're allowing AP RKA's then the gloves are off anyway so let's get creative here! It's pretty disappointing that there are no significant changes to this character.

Guess what? He even makes it into "Conquerors, Killers, and Crooks", the first enemies book for 5th Edition hero! I'm not going to print the stats here as it is far more recent, but he does end up changed quite a bit mechanically with options for both a rifle and a pistol. Here's a picture:

 I don't really like the soft-pencilled art style for a comic book game - oddly enough I prefer comic-style art for a comic book superhero game - but he looks significantly more badass here, someone that might actually be a little intimidating to encounter.

So  what do we do with Lazer? Well, I have a little backstory:

The 82 Lazer is the original one from the 60's and has that original backstory. He has a son who founds a small company in the 70's, gets rich, and becomes the 90's Lazer pictured above doing good deeds while sporting the company logo. As the "laser boom" fades, the company gets into trouble in the 90's and by the 2000's the grandson of the original laser is making some questionable deals and working with shady elements to stay afloat. He uses the latest version of the equipment, pictured above, which is not identified with the company, for mercenary jobs and maybe even to commit crimes. This gives the different versions a nice little arc to add to the background of a campaign and would let a GM use older heroes as a source of information if the PC's started researching laser-armed supers.

Beyond that, Lazer needs to be on a team.  Probably my proposed team of Bulldozer and Piledriver/Sledge. The Big L would provide a nice ranged punch (single-target) and some aircover.

He could be a nice rival for a tech-based hero, but considering in the original background he didn't invent the tech, he just stole it, that might not be worth pursuing. Although if you go with my backstory above he might have a scientist-guy working at his company to make improvements to the suit, leading to your tech player's assumption that the criminal knows all about techie stuff, but instead getting a "huh" or a "yeah" when asked about it during encounters.

Mechanically he could use more options, mainly dropping the activation roll on the armor and giving the gun some more tricks like a stun or area effect option as mentioned above.

So that's Lazer, the sub-par super who was just begging for a makeover. Tomorrow: a similarly themed badguy who will also be joining our team.

Unfortunate Character Choices - Piledriver

Tonight's Guest:

Let's be different tonight and start with the origin. Alright he's a normal guy that was a victim of Viper experimentation - simple and direct and that's fine. That costume is pretty dull though. I think he needs a ballcap to make it work. Or he needs to be more armored-looking with some obvious protection covering his arms and legs and torso all together. More mechanical, less "tights".

Looking at his stats, well, apparently having a jackhammer attached to your body raises your Dex and Con to maximum normal human because he's ended up with a 20 in each.His Str is up to a 25 which I will chalk up to working out a lot...assuming you can lift weights with only one hand. His Presence is up to a 20 as well which is pretty high for an otherwise "normal" guy but we can let that go.

Powers: Well the main thing here is the pile-drivin' hand which gives him a 13d6 punch. That's pretty good. It also gives him some tunnelling (appropriate) and climbing...somehow? I suppose he can chisel footholds out of the side of a building with his hand?

He also has a fairly tough costume that adds to his PD/ED some of the time and that gives him "Full Knife Resistance" which I believe is just Damage Resistance and that means it protects him against killing attacks as well. Security Systems skill, Running, and a combat level round out the list.

So can he take his own punch? Oh no - no no no. If he was to be mind-controlled and forced to ... hammer ...  himself (just move along wiseacres) he's going to hit for an average of 46 points of Stun and 13 Body. His normal defenses reduce this to 33 Stun and then he has a slightly better than 50-50 chance of reducing that to 23 Stun. So even if he makes his activation roll, he's still Stunned (23 Stun vs. a 20 Con) and reduced to 12 points of Stun. That means the second time he hits himself he is out cold, regardless of the defense roll, as it will likely exceed his Con and take his Stun down to 0. He's very much an eggshell armed with a ... jackhammer.

Disads include "No Left Hand" (very true), Hunted by Viper (I would change this to "Hunting Viper" myself but that came along a little later in he game), Hunted by Police (makes sense - he is a criminal), Unusual Looks (yeah), and Public Identity (alright). There's nothing outrageous here. He's only a 160 point character so these limitations cover everything and fit the concept.

How would I improve him? The game developed in many ways after this book was published. Raise him to 200 points and I might give him armor piercing or penetrating on his hammer-hand to make him more of a threat. An extra Stun multiplier might work too. If you want to get fancy then maybe a no-range Drain vs. Armor to represent him chiseling away at a target's defenses. Extra knockback could be fun too. His OCV/DCV and Spd are very low too so I would try to improve those as well. His defenses are pretty low but maybe that's part of his charm - he can't take much of a punch but you can't afford to let him get close either or he will hurt you. I suspect he would work best as part of a team where someone (like Bulldozer?) could serve as the brick or tank while Piledriver rushes in, hammer chattering, to deliver a knockout punch as a scrapper or striker.

So there he is. Not terrible, just kind of dull both in background and in powers. He just screams to be part of a team and that's where I would go with him. Put him together with Bulldozer as the tank, Piledriver as the HTH DPS guy (for you MMORPG'ers out there), maybe add in Sledge as...well whatever he's actually good at... and the next two characters (coming Wednesday and Thursday) for a ranged element and you have a nice mix if abilities with a "hardware" kind of theme that isn't a total ripoff of Marvel's Wrecking Crew. Maybe the team starts out with Sledge as its heavy hitter then replaces him with Piledriver, who is both mechanically and thematically a better implementation of the concept, leaving Sledge to go it alone. Could be a lot of fun in a campaign that deals with the low end of the super-criminal.

Unfortunate Character Choices - Poinsettia

Starting the week off right with a girl in a tight outfit:

Hmmm. Alright, I might have promised too much up there. The boob window is a nice touch though.

Anyway, let's talk super-villainess "Poinsettia" from the 1982 Champions Supplement "Enemies". Powers-wise she clearly has some kind of force or energy control as her multipower lets her shoot it, armor herself in it, and fly with it. Somehow the type of energy is never mentioned, which seems like a pretty serious oversight. She has Danger Sense and is good at sneaking around and breaking into things, that's fine. Her highest normal stat is... Con? With Str and Pre of 15 she's not going to be making many attacks with those, but her End and Stun are pretty good and Spd 6 is fairly high.

Can she take a shot from her own powers? A 10d6 EB will average 35 Stun and 10 Body, which is reduced to 25 Stun by her ED, leaving her with 26. One good roll on the damage and her own EB will take her out in 2 shots! Good thing she has that 30 point force field, except that it's in a multipower with the EB and they can't both be at full strength at the same time. A 5d6 Eb would average half of the numbers above and be easily absorbed by a 15 point Force Field, so she can make it work! At full strength that's a pretty good FF, able to stop a punch from Ogre (12d6) on average with little to no damage to her, though it does mean she's making no real offensive moves. She's fairly versatile over a multi-round combat if she can choose the right moments to lower her defenses and take a shot. It still seems very risky to me though.

Now the fun stuff...let's look at disads: unluck, sure, could happen to anyone... double stun from blunt objects - Whoa, wait a sec. Would an armored fist count as a "blunt object"? If not, how about a telephone pole? Riiip, Ogre swings, KAPOW! She takes 80 Stun (if you let him use his full strength) on average, enough to stun her in one shot and leaving her reeling with 2 Stun remaining! One slightly above average roll and she's down in one shot! From blunt objects! Wow that is a serious vulnerability! What else could she have ... OMG IT"S DOUBLE STUN FROM KILLING ATTACKS TOO! THANK GOODNESS WOLVERINE CLONES ARE SO RARE - WAIT! Lordy lordy this is a compromised mechanical build! Double damage from blunt AND sharp attacks! Does she have weak bones or hemophilia or something?

Let's move on. "Loyalty to Germany" - is that really a 20 point disad? That special 30's and 40' kind of Germany, maybe, but just "Germany"? Seems kinda high. What else goes for 20 points...hmmm here's one..."believes Hitler is still alive" - that seems like a significantly greater disadvantage than "Loyalty to Germany". One comes across as patriotic, the other comes across as delusional, and even in a comic book game there's a difference there.

OK, "vicious" that's fine... hunted by UNTIL, some other Agents, and a Hero group all at 11 or less... that's a pretty serious band of pursuers for one lone bad girl. Secret Identity makes sense given her background. Then a 35 point Villain Bonus... really? She's the daughter of a nazi scientist who was trying to breed the Aryan ideal after fleeing to South America and we ran out of ideas for disads with 35 points left? Maybe her aged mother is a dependent NPC? Maybe she has an irrational hatred of Americans or British or Russians or even  Italians or something? Maybe she's susceptible to moonlight or something? Or maybe, just maybe, we could have something to connect her to her NAME!

Yes that's right, the engineered flower of super-powered Aryan womanhood is named after a plant native to Mexico! Why? Your guess is as good as mine because there's nothing in her powers or disads or background to indicate why! They were once thought to be poisonous but she has no poison powers. She grew up in Argentina, not Mexico, which are on opposite ends of a continent. She has no plant or pollen related powers of any kind. Heck, maybe she discovered her vulnerability to blunt objects when a flowerpot fell on her head, that's my best guess.

How would I fix her? Raise her comeliness and presence to around 30 each, dropping Dex or Con a bit to afford it. Leave the background unchanged, give her blonde hair, blue eyes, a cape, and put the traditional national socialist symbol on her chest and call her "Swastika". No it isn't subtle. It's not supposed to be. I'd leave the boob window too.

Anyway, that's Pointsetia - Her origin is very comic-traditional, her powers are fairly common in comics, her weaknesses are comically bad, and her schtick is inexplicable.

Unfortunate Character Choices - Bulldozer

Welcome back to another round of analyzing some of the "lesser" stars of published RPG characters. Today's contestant is from "Enemies II" published in 1982 for Champions, then in what was technically 2nd edition, although editions 1 through 5 are pretty much interchangeable.

"Bulldozer" - I like it. The name implies strength, toughness, possibly some kind of overrun attack, and maybe some kind of mechanical element like a battlesuit. Most of those are not present in this character.

Technical issues - Well, he's really strong as 50 Str is about par for a Brick in this edition of the game. Con of 24 and Body of 15 is OK. His powers though...

• One level of Density Increase? Just one? Losing 1" of knockback is really nothing to get excited about. Then to buy it to 0 End Cost to keep it always on is just...strange.
• Damage Resistance vs. all Killing Attacks is good. That's about as much as you could get in this edition. However, is this a side effect from his radiation exposure? Density Increase gives 3 points of fully resistant PD & ED for each level taken, so a few more levels of DI would give him higher defenses against everything AND they would be fully resistant AND they would fit the character concept better.
• +3" of Running - why?
• Double Stun from females in HTH? Oh boy here's another double-stun character whose best defense is a 20! There's nothing in the description that indicates why this should be the case, other than him being a construction worker from Jersey. Seems a little severe for a "Cultural Package" limitation.
• Fear of Spiders? Kind of random, but OK, and Hunted by Police is fine.

 Let's give him the test: An average 10d6 punch is going to do 10 Body and 35 Stun. His PD will stop the Body and allow 15 Stun through. Con of 24 means he's not Stunned and Stun of 47 means he can take 3 or 4 of these punches before he drops - not too bad. His OCV, Spd, and End are on the low end but not crippling.  However, if he gets punched by a girl it gets very ugly. He still stops the Body, but the Stun goes to 70 on average. That means he stops 20 points and then 50 goes through, knocking him unconscious in one shot! I think I would change that "Fear of Spiders" to "Fear of Female Bricks".

Technically, the only redeeming thing here is his point cost. Look at that - he's only built on 166 points! That's about half of what most serious Supervillains were built on in this book, so maybe there's a reason he's kind of weak. Build-wise I would spend my points differently, but as long as he's not fighting a girl he's not terrible.

The worst part of this character isn't so much the powers or the background - it's the costume. Look at that! The only thing that makes him distinctive is that it says "B-U-L-L-D-O-Z-E-R" down the side of his arm! How lame is that? It's like a soccer jersey or some showy brand, not a super-suit! Of course, given the outccry over the lameness of this guy's look, they would surely fix it in the next edition's rogue's gallery 7 years later, right?

So how would I fix this guy? I kind of like the supered-up construction worker but I think Marvel's Wrecking Crew did it better than this. I see three good options:

1. Go all mechanical and make him a bulldozer that was infected by some kind of nanotech, maybe alien nanotech. Make it look like Bumblebee from the Transformers live action movies only a 'dozer instead of Camaro and you could have some fun with it.
2. Go with the Altered Human Construction Worker idea but say he can generate a plane of force in front of him when he moves, kind of like the Juggernaut but make it visible and vaguely dozer-blade shaped  with some kind of boost to his melee damage  - maybe a damage shield and a force field or force wall effect.. I'd also let him wear a hardhat too and this might be a salvageable character. In Hero terms I'd give him some levels with Move Through and let him plow into people.  
3. Put him in a battlesuit and give a big flat piece of metal on each forearm that he uses to block attacks and slap people around. Paint it yellow and give it some Tunneling and he at least looks the part of a disgruntled 'dozer driver who rebuilt his machine into something more.

Super-names tend to be fairly literal in the sense of "what they do or look like" not literal in the "name running down one arm" sense so it would be nice to have some visual bulldozery element here.

Anyway, that's enough for now.

Oh wait.

You'd think that 13 years later and the NEXT next edition of the game and it's attendant enemies book they would have dropped this guy or come up with a better look. I'll let you be the judge of 5th Edition Bulldozer:

Unfortunate Character Choices - Sledge

This week: another supervillain from 1982's "Enemies" supplement for Champions. The awesome concept making this villain worthy of a place in a supervillain supplement? He, uh, lost a hand and replaced it with a sledgehammer. Yep, that's it.

Now I kind of like the idea of the hammer-handed-hero (or villain) but everything about this one from the illustration to the mechanics is lame. Technical issues:

• You have a hammer for a hand. What does that do for you in-game?  According to this it adds 2d6 to your Strength damage. With a 50 Str he already punches for 10d6, so the hammer takes it to 12d6, and that's it - no enhanced knockback, no armor-piercing, no extra Stun multiplier, no area effect slam or shockwave - it's just a rather weak damage bump. Wow.
• Speaking of that 50 Str, where does that come from? He can lift 25 tons - he didn't get that from an NFL workout program, I don't care what kind of drugs he was on! Was it part of the experiment that took his hand? It doesn't say. Having a 50 Str is a far more important and life-changing ability than having a hammer for a hand, yet we don't learn a thing about it in the paragraph of description that we get here. 
• Does replacing your right hand with a block of metal have any downside? Not according to the stat sheet. It offers no physical limitation (the most obvious disad) but it does generate a 15-point psych limit of being sensitive to insults about it.   
• His other disads are just random - double Stun from sonics, explosions, vibration, and radiation attacks? Why? How are those things related? A pair of Hunteds, OK. Then, of course, Secret Identity - Really? How exactly? He's a big bad dude missing his right hand and he somehow maintains a secret ID? Being generous, we can assume the hammer unscrews or something but what if it didn't? Does he work as a pirate mascot of some kind? This is just really not well thought-out.

So let's see what kind of thought went into attacks and defenses. A 12d6 hammer-slap against himself would  do an average of 12 Body and 42 Stun. His PD of 25 (another unexplained ability) will stop the Body and let through 17 Stun. With a Con of 28 he's not going to Stun himself and with 53 Stun he can take 3 punches before he's in trouble. That's not terrible. In Champions a 50 Str is a typical starting point for a "Brick" character so he's alright there. He's in serious trouble though if he gets attacked by a Sonic or Radiation blaster though - ED of 15 and 2X Stun means that a 12d6 EB would inflict 54 Stun (Average 42 Stun, 27 get through his energy defense which is then doubled) knocking him unconscious in one shot. That's pretty weak for a Brick type character. I've noticed a lot of this in older Champions write-ups - there are way too many 2X Stun vulnerabilities tossed around, especially on characters with low defenses.

So yes, I think this is a rather weak character though not as ridiculous as some (Frizbe). How could we make it better?

1. Better illustration
2. Make the hammer matter. Give it a shock effect, maybe a 3d6 NND Stun attack. Make it armor-piercing vs. power armor suits and let him be a nemesis for your battlesuit player . Give him extra knockback from a wallop. Anything to make him a more memorable and more effective villain. 
3. Give him a little bit more background. Many of the baddies in this book are tied to Viper or some evil organization - tie him to those and make him an enemy of them so you can set up an enemy-of-my-enemy situation with the PC's. 

For Atomic City I would probably recast him as a  cyborg and replace his whole arm with an obvious chromed replacement and something like a thunderhammer from Warhammer 40K The pro-athlete burnout/accident victim who seeks alternative means of power could work just fine as a superhero or villain. It just needs more than this guy got in 1982.

Unfortunate Character Choices - Frizbe

This week: a supervillain from 1982's "Enemies" supplement for Champions

 

Is an albino super-villain a bad concept? Not necessarily. Is basing his or her powers on thrown discs a bad idea? Not necessarily. An albino frisbee champion who fights by throwing frisbees at people? Hmmmmm. We're playing a supers game and this is worthy of being  included in a book of enemies? This is pretty bad. The problems run deeper than mere concept though...

Some technical details:

• 10d6 "Energy"? I get the one that does 10d6 physical (BONK!), but where does the energy option come in? Shock discs? Could we get some kind of special effects here - electricity? Radiation? Something to explain this?
• 10 inches of Flight? She doesn't have any other innate powers. Oh wait, it's OAF Flying Discs, just like her attacks - WAIT! WHAT? HOW? Does she spin around the thing clinging to it and acting like a blind albino helicopter blade? How would this work?
• Double Stun from Heat attacks? Why?
• 1d6 from full sunlight - That's a pretty severe case of albinism if she's taking damage from it per phase. Under the Champions rules at the time a phase is one second. So she's taking 1d6 stun damage per second of sunlight exposure. With 25 Stun she's unconscious in at most 25 seconds of sunlight, probably more like 6-8 seconds and then she starts taking Body. With 10 Body she will be dead in at most 20 seconds.So what we have here is a character that is dead with less than a minute of exposure to sunlight. She's not just an albino - she's a vampire!
• Secret Identity? She's an albino African-American female that's a west coast frisbee champion in her normal identity and fights with discs in her villain ID and she has a secret identity? 15 points for that? Suddenly Clark Kent and the glasses doesn't seem so far-fetched.

Now it's time for a little something I call "Can they beat themselves?" Say Frizbe tosses one of her discs at our hero Captain Reflective who uses his Theoronium shield to bounce the disc back at her. What happens? Well with a 10d6 attack she's going to do an average of 35 Stun and 10 Body. Taking off her 12 points of defense to PD and ED she's going to take 27 Stun and 0 Body, stunning her (and leaving her with 8 Stun) but putting her at no risk of dying. On a slightly above-average roll, or a second hit from herself (or anything else) she is out cold. That's a pretty strong case of a tilt to the offensive side and not very impressive.

I was wondering if maybe she was kind of a Tron-inspired thing but since the book was published in 1982 and Tron was released in July 1982 I'm guessing no. Also, having seen Tron, the first thing to add to this character would probably be some level of Missile Deflection which she conspicuously lacks.

So we have a fragile villainess who can only come out at night, has one ranged attack (two flavors) and no melee capability at all, really. Questionable concept, weak powers, boring powers - yeah, this is awesome. I know everyone can't be Firewing or Ankylosaur or Black Paladin, but sheesh - were they even trying here? there were only 36 villains in the book and this was one of them.



Anyway, that's the first of a probable series of occasional posts looking at less-than-awesome characters. I hope y'all enjoyed it.