John Harcourt, "Rescuer"

[hakootoko]

First draft of 240+60cp

[Papa Bear]

I think you have to add the Everyman skill template for it to do that right in HD. I went with the straight up Everyman skills from the book so as to not mess with the template. The TF did show as 0 points though (The PS was 2)

[hakootoko]

Somewhere I must have fixed that TF cost, and then forgotten to adjust for it. I removed 1cp of Mental Defense to pay for it. Back down to 300 (+2 for the PS).

Added a paragraph at the end of post number 2 saying where he lives and what he owns.

[Papa Bear]

Sweet

[Papa Bear]

Remember the first Thor movie? The town Thor ended up in where he fought the Destroyer? That's pretty much how I envision Auberdeen. Its kind of "yokel" compared to the rest of Sovereign City. Many families have lived there for 200 years and considering its rural roots, its stayed about the same. The college was built on old farmland whose family had all but died out and was purchased cheep (hence the 'sprawling campus'). You brought up a good point about an 'art center' in Sovereign City and even better that it would be around the community college. Sovereign University isn't much of an art school and a big, pretentious school like it is likely wouldn't have a good art program. Thus CCSC can fill that 'need' and at much more affordable tuition. CCSC is just across the river from West Sovereign where a lot of the students tend to live... except for the strip, like pretty much all college towns have with hip businesses of the time (coffee shops, retro clothing, health food delis and the like). Your apartment complex is probably near the strip which would fit the description you gave of it very, very well.

Because of the small town feel of Auberdeen, there's not as much crime as other districts, not because it is better policed but because of the population all 'knowing each other'. It has the lowest population density of the various city districts and homeowners generally enjoy 1 to 3/4 acre parcels. Crime on the strip is probably the worst in Auberdeen and so it has a higher police presence just because there rest of the district isn't generally as dangerous.

That said, because of the large parcels of land and the low crime rates, several gangs and other unsavory individuals have purchased homes where they cook meth. Because the neighbors are likely to rat you out (that whole small town/everyone knows everyone vibe), those who do this often have strict rules for their people to 'fit in' so they don't draw attention to their illegal operations which generally run smoothly. Often they pose as college kids, several living in the same house to help explain cars coming and going all the time (to deliver product).

West Sovereign isn't too bad an area and runs the gamut of the middle classes but a little north in Drayden Flats, yikes. Your boy will have his work cut out for him. It might as well be called the Ganglands. The only 'good thing' about Drayden Flats is that the Freeway 8 loop goes through it. Its sad because Drayden Flats was a good community up until 50 or so years ago. A lot of honest, hard working but poor people lived there because it was inexpensive. With the exception of the 8, there has been very little renovations and while there are a lot of small shops 'on every corner' (not really, but a lot of corner stores), they are mostly all liquor stores and gas stations. A lot of innocent, poor, elderly people live in their homes now 50 to 80 years, sometimes handed down from their parents and these people are too poor to move and live scared.

[hakootoko]

I picture John as chasing disasters rather than gang violence. A fire, a building collapse, a flood; something people need rescuing from. But his powers also lend themselves to finding missing people, like kidnap victims, and that's sometimes what the members of the governing class are interested in from him.

So Drayden Flats might be outside his zone, unless there are a lot of deathstrap slum properties there. The rundown student housing deathtraps are usually enough to keep him busy.

[Papa Bear]

Copy that. Yeah, there's a few serious fire hazards in Drayden Flats because of the slum lords (though they do have a decent case that their properties are way undervalued because of the terrible crime in the area) but yeah, I think John hears about an emergency/disaster situation going on in the city and rushes off to see what aid he might give. I like that. Being fairly close to the 8 helps him get places too. Its a very well designed freeway for SC.

[hakootoko]

Could I ask you to rename this thread? Apparently only GMs can do that.

[Papa Bear]

absolutely... what do you want the name to be?

[hakootoko]

John Harcourt, "Rescuer"

[Papa Bear]

So, we've dickered around about your toon for a bit and I like him. He doesn't really have much in the way of investigative skills... but then, he doesn't really need them because of his power set. He'll be a heavy hitter because of those mind powers (believe it or not) without too much 'glass' in the cannon.

Anyway, unless there's a tweak you want to make, I'm 'officially' approving this toon.

[hakootoko]

I'm addicted to tweaking PCs right up until the deadline, but not today. The process of having to save in the character program, export, and paste has kept me under control ^_^

I'm going to assume that Superion knowing Rescuer exists doesn't cost anything. I'm not planning to call on him for help in any way. It's just that every time Superion fights someone like Volcano there's a ton of fires to put out, so Rescuer shows up to not fight the villain.

[Papa Bear]

Oh yeah, Superior knows Rescuer. He may have had some contact with each hero in SC, but he probably has a 'contact' of sorts for free... One of the perks of the way Rescuer operates.

[hakootoko]

So what I have as "See Mind" on the character sheet is as follows:

Mental Awareness (p62, Sense Group: Mental, Sense Modifiers: Sense, Sense Type: Passive, Sense Range: LoS, 5cp) perceives mental powers and mental power users. It's cost is "Detect, a class of things" for 5cp. I first expand that to "a large class of things: mental powers and minds" for +5cp. Then I add Discriminatory +5cp, Increased Arc of Perception: 360 degrees +5cp, Targeting +10cp, Fully Penetrative (Exception: Teak) +10cp.

Line of Sight (p44) says: "Powers allow an attacker to affect any target he can perceive clearly with an unaided Targeting Sense, without suffering the Range Modifier. If there’s some question whether or not the attacker can perceive a target “clearly,” the GM may require a successful PER Roll, impose a Range Modifier, or some similar reasonable effect." It would be a bit much to never have a penalty and see through anything, so perhaps we could apply a range penalty for every obstruction after the first? Then looking through two walls would be at a lower perception skill.

 

[Papa Bear]

OK, I see it now... I wasn't considering the LoS/unlimited range of the 'sense' when it was fully penatrative.

However, you've gone a long way to end up back at zero.

First, I calculate the cost of the power at

4 hours ago, hakootoko said:

Mental Awareness (p62, Sense Group: Mental, Sense Modifiers: Sense, Sense Type: Passive, Sense Range: LoS, 5cp) perceives mental powers and mental power users. It's cost is "Detect, a class of things" for 5cp. I first expand that to "a large class of things: mental powers and minds" for +5cp. Then I add Discriminatory +5cp, Increased Arc of Perception: 360 degrees +5cp, Targeting +10cp, Fully Penetrative (Exception: Teak) +10cp.

Detect; large class (10cp)

Mental Awareness (5cp)

Discriminatory (5cp)

Increased Arc of Perception (5cp)

Targeting (10cp)

Fully penatrative (10cp)

Which is 45 points

With the Mind Scan in the Multipower, that's +5 which is 50 of just having it be Mind Scan at 10d6

Now, I am thinking you've done this as the alien artifact 'sense' so you don't have to 'activate' the power as you would with Mind Scan (though makign the perception check is still a half phase action), since it is a sense. And honestly, this build seems to be better than Mind Scan because you don't have to make the roll to achieve various things except the way it is written there is no direction or distance... so you know the minds are out there and can even attack a specific mind and pick out one mind from another, but you don't really know the where. That comes in Mind Scan, which uses END (only when trying to find the mind, once you 'lock on' you don't need END to see the mind unless it breaks free of your lock.

This is tricky because you achieve the same thing at the save value (though I think you listed it at 40 points instead of 45)... you can use the Mind Scan to 'find' someone and effectively gain a 'lock on' as long as you make your Perception roll, which I would deem necessary only when the mind is 'mixed in' with other minds in a sort of 'muddy the waters' kind of way (like losing someone in a crowd of people). In a way, you have 'the best of both worlds' though the difference between 'both' seem rather... pointless... well, 'point' is probably wrong as the point total comes out the same. But I like the idea of the build in the 'its the alien artifact's sense'. My initial thought is to just pull the mind scan out of the Multipower so you can use (keep it active) while using your MPs. But again, the alien artifact's senses thing.

 

Well, I don't think we have to change anything... but I did notice that you +5 OMCV only applies to Mind Scan. You don't get that bonus with Mental Blast or Telepathy. Is that what you wanted?

Edited April 26 by Papa Bear (see edit history)