Rate My Build (Heroes)

Prior to the release of the Core Rulebook PDF, MindWanderer made a thread detailing their analysis of the different Backgrounds, Power Sources, Archetypes, and Personalities in the Sentinels Comics RPG. With the Core Rulebook PDF being released, and MindWanderer soon to be updating his thread to reflect the changes from it, now seems a good time to start this thread.
Simply put, this is thread for people to give their thoughts on a hero build that you include in your post. There's no official rating system for everyone to use ATM.

Here's a build that I'd like thoughts on:

Scabbard
- Background: Retired Hero
- Power Source: Supernatural
- Archetype: Shadow
- Personality: Nurturing
- Powers:
-- Absorption d12, Shapeshifting d6, Transmutation d6, Intuition d10, Agility d6
- Qualities:
-- History d10
-- Otherworldly Mythos d10
-- Stealth d10
-- Fitness d10
-- Survivor Of World's End d8
- Abilities
-- Green: 31-24 Health
--- Presence Concealment(Sabotage) (A): Attack using Stealth. Remove a physical bonus or penalty, Hinder a target using your Min die, or move to a new location elsewhere in the scene.
--- Grit Your Teeth(Untouchable) (R): When you would take damage, you may roll a d4 while in the Green zone, d6 while in the Yellow zone, or a d8 while in the Red zone. Reduce the amount of damage you take by the value you rolled. Attack another target using that rolls
--- Principle Of The Nomad
--- Principle Of The Tactician
-- Yellow: 23-12 Health
--- Survivor's Arsenal(Personal Uppgrade) (A): Boost using Absorption. Use your Max die. That bonus is persistent and exclusive.
--- Artificial Reinforcement(Area Healing) (A): Boost another hero using Transmutation. You and other nearby heroes Recover health equal to your Min die.
--- Eye Of The Mind(Overcome From The Shadows) (A): Attack or Overcome using Intuition. Boost yourself using your Min die.
-- Red: 11-1 Health
--- I'm Gonna Feel This Later...(Push Your Limits) (I): You have no limits on the number of reactions you can take. Whenever you use a Reaction beyond the first each turn, either take 1 irreducible damage or take a minor twist.
--- Get Down!(Reactive Defense) (R): When an enemy Attacks, you may become the target of that Attack and Defend by rolling your single Fitness die.
--- Protection Beyond World's End(Empowerment) (R): Whenever you are dealt damage, roll your single Absorption die as a Defend against the Attack and a Boost for yourself.
-- Out: Boost an ally by rolling your single History die.

Scabbard was a hero once before, though under a different name, and he's not in amazing shape. Overuse of his powers when he was younger has dulled his senses, particularly his vision. Now he sticks to covert action, sealing off weapons and depending on his intuition to keep up with rapidly changing situations. It was a long time ago that the world he came from ended; He'll show up to keep his new one from the same fate.

Character I built and posted on the Realm of Discord server:  Verhexen

After the loss of his right hand in battle, mercenary poet Gottlieb (Gotz) von Berlichingen made a deal that forever changed his life.  The unknown being was surely a demon of some sort, but it offered not only a new hand, but also prowess in battle, virtual immortality, and a suit of battle armor forged in the heart of Hell itself.

What the demon neglected to tell Gottlieb was that he could never look upon the sun again.  He could venture out in daylight, but only while clad in the arcane armor borne from his right hand.  Beyond sunset, Gottlieb could return to his 'human' form, but never again could he walk the streets as merely a man. 

Over the centuries, Gottlieb has realized the folly of his ways and has shaped his curse into a hammer against all manner of occult evils.  Taking the name Verhexen, he has girded himself with the raiment of the infernal to bring justice to those very forces.

Verhexen strikes me as a solid character for dealing with groups of foes. In a one v one fight, he can go toe to toe with most foes and build himself up enough to take them down. If he's going up against a group of foes, he can wade in and break down foes over time, with moments to build himself up and/or heal. With a team to take one a single foe, he'll be able to make the single foe focus on him (barring allies catching attention). Against multiple foes, he'll have to worry less about a barrage of attacks than his teammates; Damage reduction get's way better with more foes throwing around power.

I like both characters. Scabbard seems like a survivor with his powers. I thinks its great when the character build really fits the description and you did a great job of that.

Verhexen looks fun. He seems like a real up front fighter. The power of all those green abilities means you will always have options and can "keep moving forward."

I love that the Verhexen character holds so much more narrative than pure mechanics! We need more of that!

Seriously, I find it quite interesting to see what people make of the various mechanical modules of hero creation, in that other thread.

But this! I really enjoyed reading that short backstory, and it sparks so much imagination.

So I vote, let's make this a backstory-focused thread, with the underlying mechanics as a mere addendum just like you did.

Go ahead in a new thread if you’d like. This thread can remain more mechanically focused, although I won’t say that backstory has no place here. It can help give meaning to the choice of abilities.

I have a request: for abilities, either use or include the original names and not just the personalized names.  Same goes for renamed Powers such as Signature Weapon.  Renamed abilities are great for flavor but obfuscate mechanical discussion.

Done.

Scabbard: So, basically a tank/support hero?

In Green he tries to draw aggro and reduce the damage a little, remove mods, and hinder a little bit.  A one-trick pony but it's a decent trick.

In Yellow he gives himself a fat persistent boost and then does mass heals (bound to a d6, but for Min die with a bonus it doesn't matter much).  His other Yellow ability isn't great, especially when you have a really similar Green already, but it does boost himself and let him power up those heals even more.

Reactive Defense and Empowerment... interesting combo.  You can use Reactive Defense even when you're attacked, but technically you can use both, since one triggers on someone being attacked and the other triggers on taking damage.  Then presumably you use that boost to heal everyone out the nose (and pay for all those reactions you're taking).

He could be a highly valuable member of a team... as long as other members are focused on actually winning.  Remember that everyone going "out" is only one failure condition; the other is the scene tracker running out.  With this hero on the team, the chances of people getting knocked out go way down, but his offensive power is basically nil and even his Principles aren't the most reliably useful.  I'd be hesitant to use this character unless I knew that there was at least one other hero on the team to pick up my slack.

That's fair. Reactive Defense and Empowerment can't stack their Defend actions, but they do stack with Untouchable, since it doesn't actually Defend. It gives him a bit more offense if things are going poorly, but even then he's definitely better at helping his allies survive a fight. Plus, his persistent self boost makes all of those reactions even more potent.
I'll admit to some bias in regards to Sabotage. It really shines when the enemy decides to slap big hinders on the entire party, or big boosts on themselves that he can interact with it.

Oh, I never noticed that two Defends don't stack.  You do get the better of the two, which is something, but there might be better choices than Empowerment.

Remember that one mass Hinder creates multiple individual penalties, so Sabotage will only clear it from one target.

Ok, I'll throw out a build for a hero I had a lot of fun coming up with, so I introduce to you:

Slayer

Background: Tragic

Power Source: Training

Archetype: Armored

Personality: Stoic

Powers: Strength D10, Bag of Holding (Signature Weapon) D10, Agility D6, Vitality D10

Qualities: Creativity D10, Conviction D8, Imposing D8, Close Combat D8, Ranged Combat D8, He Who Fights Monsters D8

Green: 35 - 27 Health, D6

Weathered Armor (Armored) - Inherent, Reduce any physical or energy damage you take by 1 while you are in the Green Zone, 2 while in the Yellow Zone, and 3 while in the Red Zone. 

Violent Vengeance (Dual Offense) - Action, Attack using Strength. Attack a second target using your Min die.

Now We Slay The Monsters (Unstoppable Charge) - Action, Attack using Imposing. Ignore all penalties on this Attack, ignore any Defend actions, and it cannot be affected by Reactions.

Potion of Healing (Repair) - Action, Attack using Bag of Holding. Recover Health equal to your Min die.

Principle of the Zealot - Action, Overcome a situation that tests your faith and use your Max die. You and each of your allies gain a Hero Point.

Principle of the Powerless - Action, Use your knowledge of the limitations of super powers in an Overcome Action and use your Max die. You and each of your allies gain a Hero Point.

Yellow: 26 - 13 Health, D8

Imagination Is A Weapon (Always Be Prepared) - Action, Boost yourself using Bag of Holding. That bonus is persistent and exclusive. Then, Attack using your Min die. You may use the bonus you just created on that Attack.

Reckless Assault (Reactive Field) - Reaction, When you are Attacked by a nearby enemy, the Attacker also takes an equal amount of damage.

Red: 12 - 1 Health, D10

Slayer's Retribution (Inspiring Totem) - Inherent, When you use an Ability Action, you may also perform any one Basic Action using your Mid die on the same roll.

Fighting Dirty (Endurance Fighting) - Inherent, Whenever you Attack a target with an Action, also Hinder that target with your Min die.

This Will Not Stand! (Considered Planning) - Boost using Conviction and Use your Max die. Defend against all Attacks against you using your Mid die until your next turn. Note your Min die - As a Reaction, until your next turn, you may Hinder an Attacker using that die.

Out: Defend an Ally by rolling your single Conviction die.

A hero from another reality where Earth never really advanced past the Medieval Age and monsters and magic were commonplace, Slayer lost his family when he was young due to horde of monsters annihalating his entire village. The sole survivor of the massacre, Slayer vowed vengeance against any monsters that crossed his path, and systematically became a folk hero due his exploits in slaying the creatures that threatened society across the world. When OblivAeon struck, he wandered through one of the mist gates and became stranded in our reality, but he has made peace with this, seeing that even in this world there are still those in need of his particular skills. Most heroes don't know exactly what to make of this knight in bloody armor, and Slayer even muses that the more he fights monsters the closer he is to becoming one, but one thing is certain to all who meet him: No matter what the world throws at him, he will continue to stand and fight to protect humanity from the evils that threaten their safety.

First impression: Slayer is very solid. He will always have something to do in a scene, and he doesn't really peak to any notable degree.
In the Green Zone, Slayer can engage one or two opponents without worry about his own safety. Either they can't react to him, will be assaulted on two fronts, or he'll be recovering health to slow down their own attacks. Combined with Weathered Armor, he can easily be the frontline fighter of a team.
In the Yellow Zone, Slayer pumps himself up and hits someone along the way, and then can return to his Green Zone strategies. With the addition of Reckless Assault, he'll be able to make anyone who messes him up notably regret their decision. Solid for a frontline fighter.
In the Red Zone, Slayer adds in This Will Not Stand as a way to give himself a surge of power without dropping his guard, while Slayer's Retribution and Fighting Dirty ensure that he never has to stop his offensive, and his offensive will always have some effect.

Overall? Slayer seems like a great frontline fighter, and he'll definitely be hard for opponents to stop. Someone will go down on the way of taking him out, more likely multiple someones.

In terms of a team setting, Slayer would want a teammate who can deal with more than two targets at once in some way, or someone who can slow down the opposition. Otherwise, he seems pretty self-reliant, and would rarely be unwelcome.

Salamander

Academic__________Mystical___________________Flyer____________________Decisive

Fire D10 _____________________________________________Self Discipline D12
Flight D10 ____________________________________________ History D10
Awareness D8 _________________________________________ Acrobatics D8
Swimming D8 _____________________________________ Big man on campus D8
_________________________________________________________Leadership D8

Principle of great power _________________________________ Principle of mastery

Green D8
Aerial bombardment [fire] _________________ rename fusillade
Strike and swoop [flight] _____________________ rename attack pattern delta

Yellow D8
Mystic Redirection [Fire] ____________________ rename fire shield
Sever link [Flight] ____________________rename obstacle courser used retcon to change power used
Aerial surveillance [Leadership] ________________________ rename tactical overview

Red D8
Powerful strike [Fire] __________________________rename flame blast
Untouchable moment [Flight] ____________________________rename afterburners

Out
Boost an ally by rolling your single Fire die

Arron Thomas Zimmerman high school swim team captain, A+ student, overachiever, friend to everyone in his school has bonded with the “Promethean Flame” a benevolent being of sentient plasma. At Freedom Academy he no longer feels pressured to be the best or set an example for everyone else and can happily be a face in the crowd of young superheroes, still giving 110% but not far ahead of his peers. A recurring background character in Daybreak comics. < if a GM would let me start with a collected trade it would be Daybreak present: Salamander, a comic reprinting all the scenes he was in form 20 issues of his parent comic>
Tv Tropes- Playing with fire - Flying fire power - Wreathed in flames - Fiery stoic - Big man on campus

Most ranged attacks would use Self Discipline quality, my 2 Principals should explain why for people who are a little skeptical
I had to retcon Sever Link because superior mobility is his primary trait
Big man on campus would cover any school centered athletic/academic/social interaction not covered by existing qualities
Out Ability shows the small cosmic entity inside of him can act independently in a emergency

Slayer:

Armored and Training is a tough combination to work with.  Armored is one of my least favorite archetypes, with no really great abilities, but you probably want Dual Offense to deal with minions (and it synergizes well with Endurance Fighting).

I'm also not the biggest fan of Considered Planning in this build--you took a Red ability that enhances your attacks, and then another Red ability that isn't an attack.  You don't have any repeatable Yellow Action abilities, so you're stuck spamming your mediocre Green abilities for most of the scene.  You're durable but you can't protect the team or win fights.  Consider instead taking Paragon Feat (to pass Overcomes and help your more offensive allies) or Finishing Blow (which is a sweet combo with Inspiring Totem and Endurance Fighting).

Salamander: 

Modification Wave is probably Mystical's best ability--mass mods are extremely powerful and this one can Boost or Hinder without having to pick one in advance.  I'm guessing you skipped it because you took Aerial Surveillance, but they each have their uses.  With Principle of Great Power, Sever Link isn't really necessary.  Mystic Redirection is good but a bit risky since you're not all that tanky; Barrel Roll might be a good choice to help with this.  (Strike and Swoop is okay but I don't see you using it often.)  I personally think Aerial Surveillance is so good that I always take it in Green, but Flyer has lots of good abilities, so it's a tough choice.

As for Red abilities, Powerful Strike is simple but highly effective.  Untouchable Movement is niche and I'm not the biggest fan of niche Red abilities since you only get a couple of chances to use them per scene, but it looks like you chose it mostly for thematic reasons.

At a first glance, I don't get a strong impression of what Salamander does.
In the Green Zone, Salamander can ping down multiple targets or harass a single target. Multi-targeting in the Green Zone is pretty good, so that's a major plus. Attack Pattern Delta is consistent, and it's better than a basic Attack.
In the Yellow Zone, Salamander's options open up into a support role. Obstacle Courser is a great ability if there's environment challenges, and although I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around it using Flight, I'm sure there's something there. Flame Shield feels risky without another way to reduce the damage, especially since Defends don't stack. Tactical Overview is a cool ability, and it gives Salamander an alternate way to help take down one big target.
In the Red Zone, Salamander turns what he can do to it's max. Flame Blast will bring down the pain without any external help, and Afterburners gives him a way to set up.

Overall, Salamander feels kind of just there. It feels like he'll fall into repeating the same action over and over, which just isn't that fun, or he'll hit something that he can't immediately deal with.

In a team setting? Salamander get's considerably better. His ability to enhance allies ensures that the scene will progress, and while his Green Zone might not be as interesting, he'll be able to manipulate the battlefield to a reasonable degree. He'll be welcome on most teams, I would think.

I'll offer some insight into why I chose the Red Zone abilities I did for Slayer, and that is all Action Economy.

Inspiring Totem is a straight up bonus action on any of my Ability Actions, and since the only things in my kit that aren't Ability Actions are Armored, Reactive Field, Inspiring Totem and Endurance Fighting, it means any time I Attack, I'm triggering an extra action. This allows me to attempt Overcomes, Boost allies, Hinder enemies, add Defends or just hit the guy a second time with an Attack.

Endurance Fighting adds a small Hinder whenever I Attack an enemy. While this Hinder is usually going to be a -1 since it uses the Min die, since every Ability Action I have other than Considered Planning has an Attack tied to it already, now all my Ability Actions have a Hinder Action as well.

With just these two together, my "mediocre" Green abilities become a lot stronger, with Dual Offense gaining up to SIX actions available to it (Mid Attack, Min Hinder, Min Attack, Min Hinder, Bonus Mid Attack, Bonus Min Hinder), but even Repair and Unstoppable Charge get a bare minimum of 3 Actions on them and still have their small Heal and unblockable traits available to them.

But then we get Considered Planning, the black sheep of this whole build from a basic glance. But remember, this is an Ability Action as well, so the sheer usage of this ability gives me an extra action. So I get a Max Boost, I Defend against ALL Attacks aimed at me, and I have a new Reaction for a small Hinder. By itself, this is two actions with a third one on standby for me to throw out to help an ally if needed (Since it only specifies Attacker, not who is being Attacked). But with Totem, now I can get an additional action, and if that action is an Attack, then Endurance Fighting gives me another, giving me Four Actions on my turn while leaving me a Fifth to throw on an enemy turn. But then the strategy comes full circle when you use the ability a second time, since you choose which effect die a Boost is applied to, you can dump the Persistent Boost from his Yellow Zone and the Max Boost from the previous use of this ability onto his Mid die, so the Defend can block most sources of Damage and your Bonus Action is even stronger now. AND THIS CYCLE IS SELF-SUSTAINING! As long as another abilty isn't used, he can continually keep up a strong Defend while also throwing out decent basic actions based on the situation, and if I do use a different abilty, that ability is still going to be boosted by Considered Planning and be even stronger. And factor this in: A generic Mid Boost will probably average to about +2, and a generic Max Boost will probably average to about +3. So I could reasonably add +5 to any of my die with this ability. An average Mid roll is usually 4-6, so lets take the lower end with a 4 and run this math quickly. My Defend Action gains 9 DR (4 on the die and +5 bonus), and with Armored I now have 12 DR, meaning outside of a Villain rolling a Max Attack on a D12 and having a Boost to bump it over 12, or the enemy having the ability to pierce Defend actions or ignore my Armored ability, I'm invincible. And then I get a bonus basic action with this buffed up Mid die. If I Attack, I hit for 9 Damage. If I Boost or Hinder, the mod is +/- 3. If I Overcome, I get a complete Success. If I choose to do another Defend, maybe trying to shield an ally, that Defend is another 9 DR against a singular attack. Also, since these are basic actions, I can also make them Risky Actions for even more effects (like say, drawing Aggro from the BBEG I just decked in the face) at the cost of taking a Minor Twist, which can just be negated by a Collection.

So, while not the most team-centric of set-ups, it does contribute a valuable addition to the team in the form of a hard to stop juggernaut that can accomplish his objectives no matter the cost. While Paragon Feat would allow me more team-play options and Finishing Blow is solid in a combo with Endurance Fighting and Inspiring Totem, Considered Planning allows me to be even more flexible in my choices while allowing my teammates to not need to worry about setting me up. By sheer nature of his capabilities in the Red Zone, smarter Villains are more likely to try and gang up on him to hinder him enough to make him vulnerable (after all, he's just one guy in a set of olden armor who is just too angry to die), and if they're ganging up on him, they aren't ganging up on his squishier allies, who could then in turn focus on picking off foes or winning the scene by dealing with Overcome challenges. This isn't a "I want all the glory" build, this is a "I support the team by being consistent in what I can do regardless of circumstances" build. 

Sure, it’s a good combo (and I mentioned as much). Not as good as any attack that hits three or more targets or uses larger dice, but good. I happen to have a character in a game right now that does the same thing… but with any number of targets, with the mid die, plus a self-heal with Max.

Okay, so you’ve created a character who’s really hard to kill (unless the enemy has a “can’t be affected by Defend or Reactions” attack). But so what? If this is the move you’re spamming in Red, your allies will be dropping like flies around you and you aren’t helping them win. At best you can tank and then take some other basic action. Smarter villains won’t try to gang up on you, they’ll go for your squishy allies, who are very likely more dangerous. (Smart enemies will also use minions or incidental effects to whittle down your persistent bonus, too.)

Here’s a different perspective on that. A smart villain will go for other squishy or equally dangerous allies, or use minions and the environment to whittle down the persistent bonus. On the other hand, the rest of team doesn’t have to worry about Slayer going down, allowing them to focus on supporting each other.

And, pardon me if I’m misconstruing the idea bullfroggy95, but I don’t believe that a hero will always use action abilities from their worst unlocked zone. Just because Slayer has access to it, doesn’t mean that he’ll use every turn.

Here’s my reasoning: Assuming an issue is correctly balanced for the number of players, the most important question is, “Does my character being here make the issue easier or harder?”

As an extreme example, let’s say you have a hero who does literally nothing other than keep themselves alive. That hero’s mere presence is then a hindrance to the team, since their presence means more minions, tougher villains, and more checkboxes in the challenges, and they aren’t helping. Even if the GM distributes attackers exactly evenly, rather than (smartly) ignoring that hero, the other heroes still have to do more killing and more Overcoming to complete a scene. Obviously Slayer is doing more than that, but is he doing enough more? I’m not sure. Is he doing so much more that casual players will look at him and say, “Wow, I’m sure glad he’s here to help?” I really don’t think so.

And I generally assume that when someone talks about self-sustaining cycles, they intend to spam the abilities involved.

Except... That's an argument by reduction to absurdity. You're focusing on the scenario where Slayer uses nothing but This Will Not Stand the moment he hits the Red Zone. There are plenty of scenarios that aren't "Slayer is making his last stand and shouting his defiance repeatedly at a foe." Aka, reducing your analysis of the character to the scenario where Slayer is in the Red Zone and using his one Red Zone action ability is deliberately misrepresenting him in any situation but the most absurd one, and since that absurd one isn't completely optimal, he's a bad character.

I'm not saying he's bad.  I'm saying that the "self-sustaining cycle" of Defending yourself out the ears with your action and doing very little else isn't a productive plan.  It's an interesting combo on paper, but in practice I don't think there's a good reason to have it.  There are other ways to make hard-to-kill heroes (like Scabbard, above) who can also do other things well, like heal/defend their allies, or go on the offensive, at the same time.  Therefore I don't see a compelling reason to take that power over another one that will advance the scene toward a win state, or fend off a loss state, in some way.

Fair enough. I think we've beaten that particular horse to death.

Cat, you nailed it in one with the point of not using it every turn as well, because while "Too Angry To Die" is one way to use it, one of the other biggest uses of Considered Planning is in the name, planning my next move based on what the team does. I already showed how absurd it can get with Inspiring Totem, but lets show an example of the usefulness of using Considered Planning in a team setting:

We have a scene where we have a couple of BBEG's doing their thing, there is a challenge that is needs to be resolved of an Overcome or two, and all Heroes are up and active. We know that the challenge in need of an Overcome or two is a risk if it isn't handled within the next couple of turns, but we can't ignore the BBEG's as well, and we aren't sure what escalating the scene with Twists is gonna do.

So we use Considered Planning, making sure to use the Persistent Boost we reasonably should have made earlier in the scene, and lets assume for sake of the argument we hit that Mid die average of a +2 Bonus. Let's say we roll Bag of Holding's D10, Conviction's D8, and my Red Status's D10. My Max Die will most likely roll a +2 or +3 Mod as a bonus (Unless I roll poorly, but we are all subject to Lady Luck's whims), and my Mid die will probably average around 4-6, but lets say I toss my +2 Bonus on this roll, giving me a 6-8 Mid die. Now, let's make my bonus basic action a Boost as well, giving me a second +2 or +3 Mod. I now have somewhere around 9 DR, so my team can reasonably leave me to my devices and I don't need to worry about most threats, because if something knocked me down it was swinging for the fences or could straight up get past my armor, thus allowing their Boosts and Heals to be tossed to those who need them so they don't meet the same fate.

At this point, I watch the state of the battle and plan the next move I'll make come my turn. If my allies clear the Overcome challenges, then I can use Dual Offense and dump all my bonuses on the Mid die to hit hard, or dump two of them on Mid and one on Min to make the Hinders more tangible. But what if they wail on the villains and leave the challenge alone? Well, I have two Principles that can be leveraged creatively (Maybe someone tried something using their powers earlier to solve the problem but I'm going to use some weird strategy that relies on something other than superpowers, or maybe the problem calls to question whether I'm the right person for this job but I'll do it anyways because I believe this to be a test of my faith in my capabilities to complete my mission), and even if I can't use one of those ability actions, I can still tack on a free Overcome with any of my attacks or onto another Considered Planning, and if I dump all those Bonuses on my Mid die, I can almost 100% assure the Overcome is won without escalating things further (The only way to fail is to roll a 1 on two of my dice and have a total Bonus below +7, have enough Hinders on me that the bonus is rendered moot, or roll my Mid die in such a way that even adding my bonuses doesn't get me past 8 (Example would be rolling a 2 and only having +5 in bonuses)), or if I do have to take a Twist to succeed, it'll probably be a Minor one and the escalation will be much smaller. So by spending a turn in set-up, I can potentially clear 2 Overcome challenges and advance our win condition without forcing someone to spend their turn supporting me and instead allowing them to support a heavy hitter or someone who is dealing with a different problem.

Now, by dropping my guard to do these potential actions, the villains should rightfully target me, I just left myself wide open after executing my plan, and while my Armored ability reduces damage, BBEG's like using BIG BAD EVIL DICE to hit like trucks. But there in lies the beauty of the game, I still have teammates who can act as well. Maybe someone tosses some extra heals my way, or someone uses a Reaction to help me not die before my next turn, or the other big guy comes in and just throttles the bad guy so hard his predecessors feel it. By using Considered Planning, I got off my Big Darn Hero moment and let the others also have their chance to shine, and even if I go down, I go down feeling like I did something cool.

The spammed use of Considered Planning is only more valuable in a situation where Slayer is isolated from the team or he needs additional time for set-up. Maybe I just fell down a trap door and now I'm surrounded by the entire horde of mooks and brutes Baron Blade was planning on ambushing us with and my team is none the wiser. My team is gonna need time to get there, and I need to not die in the process, so we play tactically here and turtle until the team arrives, then switch tactics once I'm sure I'm not about to be run over by 20 guys in Blue and Green spandex. Or maybe I wanna unload some big boi bonuses but my previous roll was complete and utter garbage so I spend a second turn in the defensive state to try and churn up something better.

The major point here is that while spamming it may be a "waste of a turn", there are ways of using it that make the self-sustaining nature of it valuable, as I'm not making my teammates stop what they're doing to assist me. If my bonuses are utter trash, I don't need my teammates to spend their turns giving me a stronger bonus rather than buffing the guy about to unleash a Charged Up Blast on BBEG #1, I can just cycle for a better roll on my next turn (Obviously if this is the last turn I'll roll with what I got, but then again EVERYONE should be doing this since this is our last chance). If I feel like I'm about roll poorly on my Big Darn Hero roll, I don't need somone to give me a reroll with their reaction since I can just dump three Boosts on it to make whatever I roll somewhat decent. 

But I digress, key point of all this is I can do something by myself in 2 turns that would take a group of 3 heroes 3 turns between the 3 of them to do (Hero A Boosts Hero B and Hero C, who both Overcome) by using Considered Planning to grant myself some Boosts before another ability action (Like my Principles), and not lose my flexibility in the situation (If Heroes A, B and C spend their round doing this, I can use my next turn to hit Enemy A, B and C with an Attack and a Hinder instead, or maybe I hit Enemy A and B with an Attack and Hinder while passing a Boost to Hero A, or maybe I hit Enemy B with an unblockable Attack, then a Second Attack and now they have 2 Hinders on them). Furthermore, while it would take me 2 rounds to get those 2 turns and they can complete their 3 turns in one round, they also gave up the possibility of getting in 3 Attack Actions against enemies that round (Which my flexibility would at least allow me to make up for to some degree on my next turn), and considering how there are some REALLY good Attack Actions available across a large variety of Power Sources and Archetypes, missing out on all that extra Damage could be game-losing as well. I will concede though that if viewed from the "I'm in the Yellow Zone and I have Collections so I can use Red Abilities early" viewpoint it is pretty lackluster, but it still has a use since it could be used to make a stronger persistent bonus for more potential snowballing.

I built a relatively similar hero, actually. Very different purpose, but similar implementation in some ways.

Salt-Steel
- Background: Exile
- Power Source: Higher Power
- Archetype: Psychic
- Personality: Decisive
- Powers:
-- Water(Weather) d8, Iron(Metal) d8, Salt(Stone) d8, Precognition d8, Deduction d8
- Qualities:
-- Science d10, Insight d8, Investigation d10, Salt-Steel Exorcist d8
- Abilities
-- Green: 27-21 Health, d8
--- Forge-Fae's Blessing(Resilience) (I): At the start of your turn, remove any -1 penalties from yourself
--- Strike While It's Hot(Psychic Insight) (R): After rolling during your turn, you may take 1 damage to reroll your entire dice pool.
--- Glimpse Of Possibility(Psychic Assault) (A): Attack using Precognition. Hinder the target using your Min die.
--- Principle Of The Zealot
--- Principle Of Exorcism
-- Yellow: 20-11 Health, d8
--- Salt Of The Earth(Dangerous Explosion) (A): Attack multiple targets using Salt. Use your Mid die. Hinder all targets damaged by this ability with your Min die. Hinder yourself with your Max die.
--- Part The Sea(Embolden) (A): Attack using Water, and Boost all nearby heroes taking Attack or Hinder actions using your Min die until your next turn.
--- Exorcist's Aid(Precognitive Alteration) (R): After an ally rolls dice to take an action for their turn but before using the result, Boost that ally's roll using your single Precognition die.
--- Exorcist's Analysis(Psychic Analysis) (A): Boost yourself using Investigation. Either use your Max die, or use your Mid die and make it persistent.
-- Red: 10-1 Health, d8
--- Exorcist's Discipline(Inspiring Totem) (I): When you use an ability action, you may also perform any one basic action using your Mid die on the same roll.
--- Salt-Steel Sacrament(Lead By Example) (A): Make a basic action using Science. Use your Max die. All other heroes who take the same basic action on their turn against the same target receive a Boost from your Mid+Min dice.
-- Out: Boost an ally by rolling your single History die.

Salt-Steel was discovered as a child, stolen at birth by Fae and raised working at the forge to work with metals that were too dangerous for them to work themselves, particularly cold iron. When a group of exorcists broke up the camp that she was raised in, she was brought back to human society. With no parents or records presenting themselves, she was taken in as a ward of the church. Her powers of manipulating water, salt, and iron came from rigorous training, and while she is no longer affiliated with the church, she efficacy as an exorcist is undeniable. Yet, rumors would tell you that her powers are enhanced by a deal with a higher power, and rarest of all one would hear the truth.
After all, what sane women would sell her soul to the collective will of mankind?

Okay, so here's one that's been frustrating me for a bit.  
I wanted to do a take on a reformed villain, in the vein of Marvel's Serpent Society.  However, I really couldn't find a good archetype/power-source combination that gave the sort of things I was looking for:  a little bit of agility, a little bit of speed, a bit of DR (from scales or the like), and a venomous spit attack.  In the end, I ended up with a whole bunch of d8s...

But, nevertheless, below is Lady Toxic (Amy Krait), once a known infiltrator and thief, but now purportedly reformed and aiding a set of heroes against her former comrades.  I'd be interesting in hearing some feedback on her...

First read through, noticing a few things. Serpent Dance, Sink Fangs, Venomous Drain, and Coiled to Strike are each using Powers/Qualities from outside of their normal options. Is that intentional?

I’m not following here…elaborate?

Serpent Dance (renamed from Throw Minion) normally uses a Power, and it's currently using a Quality.

Normally, when a character gets a Red Zone Ability, it has to use a power or quality from the category it's taken from. From looking at her Sheet, Sink Fangs would normally be using Venom Spit, Take Down would normally be using Wall-Crawling, and... Wait, does she have a Mental Quality that I'm not seeing?

I see the issue with Throw Minion currently; that's an easy change to move it over to Agility (which actually nets me a better die).

The text in Step 5 says "You must have a die assigned to a power or quality in a category to use with an ability from that category."  It doesn't necessarily say that you have to use that power/quality with that ability; just that you have to have a power or quality in that category to take a red ability in that grouping. (p. 106 for reference).  Maybe I'm misreading, but I took it as, "If you possess a quality/power that's relevant, it unlocks this group to pick from."

As I'm reading it, I could take Charged-Up Blast (Sink Fangs) because I have Sigature Weapon as a power.  However, there's nothing saying I *have* to use Signature Weapon to trigger that power.  Same goes for Take-Down (Venomous Drain). 

I think you got me, though, with Considered Planning (Coiled to Strike).  Intuition is an Intellectual Power, not a Mental Quality, so I wouldn't be able to pull from that table.  Stupid synonyms...  Swap that one for Endurance Fighting.

It's easy to miss, but it's the second paragraph:
"Some Red abilities also specify that they can only be used with a specific power or quality instead of any from within that category"

I read that as well; and, in fact, there are Red abilities that have a power or quality already assigned to them. Sacrificial Ram is one of those; it requires you to use Signature Vehicle, as opposed to any of the other Hallmark powers.

At any rate, the two Red powers that I picked are still both valid, even if they need their power or quality switched (which, in the end, is pretty much going to be a d8, unless I’m using Agility or Criminal Underworld).

Thoughts on the actual build, then?

Um... The link broke. I'd closed it at one point. From what I recall though, she seems quite able to engage foes and force foes to fight on their terms. By the end of a fight, she'll most likely be able to tear whatever target is hit by Sink Fangs, and Venomous Drain will serve as an excellent backup option for locking down a target for teammates to strike down if she can't herself.

I just re-uploaded it, which probably broke the link.  I went ahead and fixed it up above, but I'll link it again *here* for ease.

On the plus side, it occured to me that she's heavy on hinders.  I didn't walk into this character picturing her as a debuffer, but it definitely fits the character I had hoped to build.  That, at least, was successful...

Alright, aside from weirdness with powers/qualities in abilities, my first thought: Lady Toxic seems excellent at disrupting a plan.

In the Green Zone, she's able to engage a foe while keeping her own guard up, or disrupt their bolsters or hinders, or just move somewhere problematic. That level of versatility means that she'll rarely run out of options. Combined with Slippery letting her slip out of penalties automatically over time, she'll be able to make what she does happen effectively.

In the Yellow Zone, her options expand a bit more. Giving herself a small boost while Attacking or making a minor foe she targets attack someone else are good for escalating or building up for confronting more dangerous threats.

In the Red Zone, she's able to finish a single target effectively. Sink Fangs has the potential to be devastating, while Venomous Drain is able to make sure that her target isn't going to be able to respond effectively. Weakening Strikes is a good general ability, and it has excellent flavor in this case.

Overall? Lady Toxic will be able to make sure that a single target is miserable, but might have difficulty dealing with multiple targets at once.

My reading is that “to use with” means that you have to both have that die and use it with the ability. The Step by Step instructions back this up: “Choose two red abilities. Pick from the list that corresponds with the category of the power or quality that you will use for this ability.”

Salt-Steel: A solid generalist.  No earth-shaking combos unless you have several teammates who use basic actions in Red (Inspiring Totem, Lead By Example, Overload), but no glaring weaknesses either.

Lady Toxic: I'm amused that, while normally "poison" characters are debilitators, Lady Toxic is all about defending and removing debuffs, and getting enemies to hurt each other... until she gets into Red.  Then she's all about the debuffs.  As a villain-turned-hero, it makes a lot of sense--it's a lot like Harpy's Arcane/Bird dichotomy.

I'm not sure where Charged-Up Blast fits into this build, though.  It's a nice heavy hit even without a lot of Boosts, but Lady Toxic only has one ability (in Yellow) that gives her a boost, and it's a small one (and also, not a great ability, though Diversion isn't a good choice here either).  Finishing Blow might be more effective and more thematic.  Discern Weakness also stands out to me, thematically.

This is also my read on the rules.

If not already obvious, that's also my read on them. I have plenty more characters to throw in this thread for people to give thoughts on, if no one else has a thing to be rated ATM.

The most important conversions I've done are the 4 PCs from our present Champions game.  Maybe I'll put them up here for some evaluation so I don't hand the players lame characters!

That sounds like a great idea!

OK.  Here's the 1st one!

RUMBLE

Unremarkable/Experimentation/Flyer/Cheerful

Health 26

Principles: Ambition, Double Agent

Flight d10, Sonic d8, Speed d8, Invisibility d6

Creativity d10, Close Combat d8, Technology d8, Ranged Combat d8, Social Influencer d8

GREEN

Engineered Sound Blasts (Aerial Bombardment) Creativity

Sound and Fury (Strike and Swoop) Flight

I’m Kind of Awesome (Unflagging) Inherent

YELLOW

Speed of Sound (Personal Upgrade) Flight

Creative Thinker (Aerial Surveillance) Creativity

Rumble Field (Misdirection) Sonic

RED

Ultrasonic Stun Bolt (Powerful Strike) Sonic

Manipulate Sonic Energy (Change Self) Inherent

OUT – Creativity

Jose Hernandez is a Zero, the equivalent of a “mutant” in my setting.  Zeroes are born with their powers because their grandparents and great-grandparents submitted to a government project.  He formally worked as a sound engineer for the city of Miami.  When Aura was putting together a new super team, he decided to use his sound control powers for the greater good.  More recently, he made two significant decisions: he decided to go public with his identity, and he decided to also create a new villainous secret identity as Vex to infiltrate the mercenary supervillain community in Florida.

First Thoughts on Rumble: He's got more than a few tricks up his sleeve.

In the Green Zone, Rumble can lay down some damage to up to three targets. While it's not the best damage, he'll be more than capable of cleaning up or at least cutting a couple of minions down to a more managable size. If there's only one target, then he'll be irritating to pin down and could potentially kite a foe off of his allies while they set something up. He can definitely lead the charge into a dangerous situation.

In the Yellow Zone, Rumble can take a turn off to really pump himself up, or to pump all of his allies for a turn. Rumble Field gives him a tool to deal with attacks while he does so, provided there's a minion to redirect damage into. That combination gives Rumble an astounding amount of utility, and further gives him a sense of leading the charge. If a situation has reached this point, he can still lead without disengaging from the action.

In the Red Zone, Rumble turns up what he can do to eleven. If he needs to focus on a particular power, he's able to do so with ease. If a particular target needs to be eliminated right then and there? He can blast it down himself or at least make a large dent in it. No flashy combos, but a solid option in most combat scenarios.

Overall? Yeah, Rumble definitely has options for most situations. About the only things he doesn't specialize in are Overcomes and Hinders, but he has enough offense and support abilities to let his allies focus on those avenues when needed. The flavor is also excellent.

Rumble doesn't have anything specific going for him, but he's a solid companion to have along.  In Green he's a solid skirmisher, able to whittle down 3 minions at a time or face-tank a group of threats.  In Yellow he shifts more to support, boosting himself and then boosting and defending his allies.  In Red... actually I'm not sure.  He can dish out one big hit with Powerful Strike, but Change Self just lets at most get himself a d10 in Invisibility, which he doesn't really need.  It's cool for flavor, I guess, but it doesn't serve any practical mechanical purpose.  I'm also not sure just from looking at it where the Retcon is.

Thanks for the comments.  I think 3 out of 4 of these characters used their Retcons on Principles.  I realize this is not an efficient way to build, but I wanted to make them "official" by the rules for starting characters.  Change Self allows him to increase his Powerful Strike or get a better die for some Overcomes.

I'll get another one up tonight or tomorrow.

Here's the 2nd one.

BARRACUDA

Tragic/Experimentation/Armored/Fast Talking

Health 36

Principles: Equality, Strength

Awareness d10, Strength d10, Leaping d8, Vitality d8, Swimming d6

Banter d10, Close Combat d8, Persuasion d8, Criminal Underground Info d6, Meridean Super Soldier d8

GREEN

Predator Senses (Overpower) Inherent

Scaled Body (Armored) Inherent

Spec Ops Training (Unstoppable Charge) Close Combat

Unstoppable Charge (Living Bulwark) Vitality (Yes, I gave a custom name that matches an Ability name, but to a different Ability)

Overconfident Fighter (Repair) Strength

YELLOW

Predator Reflexes (Personal Upgrade) Awareness

Throwing Thugs Around (Throw Minion) Strength

RED

Inhuman Strength (Paragon Feat) Strength

Expert Grappler (Endurance Fighting) Inherent

OUT – Banter

Zale Bouras is a Meridean, the equivalent of an “Atlantean” in the setting.  A member of the military for his people, he volunteered for the Predator Project, an attempt to create super soldiers.  The project was a success, but not in the way intended: Zale gained the ability to transform into an 8’ tall scaled monster.  Horrified by what he had become, he fled his family and his people and ended up as a homeless person in Miami.  Destina found him and took him in.  His time among the homeless enlightened him to the injustices of society.  When Destina decided to become a hero, Zale decided to join her and use his accident for good.  His transformation not only gives him great strength and an armored body, but also heightened senses, which all work will with his military training.

(I realize this concept was ripe for the Divided Archetype, but as I wrote elsewhere, I hate that Archetype for often being a liability without a benefit.  Since he can transform more or less instantaneously, it’s actually more of a benefit than someone who has to change into a costume.)

I'll toss another one in the hopper here:  

Thomas Yasuda was no stranger to death.  As a mortician, the days following the OblivAeon event were beyond busy for him.  A lucky few were those who didn't have some relative, some friend, some loved one who had fallen in the chaos that had devastated the world.  Nevertheless, Thomas did his best to console those in their time of grief, to provide some modicum of compassion in a bleak-seeming world.  But when the bodies of the dead began to speak back to him, Thomas began to question his sanity.

That night, as the sun set, a figure knocked at Thomas' apartment door.  Standing across the threshold was a middle-aged man whose eyes spoke decades, if not centuries, of weariness.  "Thomas," the figure said, "You have done much for the living.  You have done more to honor the dead."  Before Thomas could reply, the man thrust a rod into Thomas' hand, "The gateway between the living and the dead needs a steward, a Gatekeeper.  Ease their passing, honor their sacrifices, spare those whose times have not yet come."  With that, the man disintegrated; the weight of all his years dissipating into so much ash and dust.

Since that day, Thomas has become more than man.  He will not age.  He will not die, outside of some strange circumstance or violence.  He will live until he passes on the burden and enters the beyond himself.  And in those long years, his duties will be many.

While most pass easily from the living world into the great beyond, some spirits of the dead do not rest easy.  Where great tragedy would unduly cut life short, where the ghosts of the past would harm the living future, and where villians defile the rest of the long-departed, The Gatekeeper stands ready.

-----------------------

In somewhat-related news, I was honestly *astounded* at how much more powerful Gatekeeper feels, compared to Lady Toxin.  Both in terms of number of qualities/powers and in the die-size of those powers, Gatekeeper overwhelms her at pretty much every turn.  About the only thing that Toxin has going for her over Gatekeeper is her number of Green abilities.  For whatever reason, Gatekeeper only ended up with 2 (plus the Principle abilities, but everyone gets those).  I'm not sure exactly how that happened, but wow, it seems like there's quite a bit of disparity here...

Also, your readings have actually convinced me, regarding the Red abilities.  Even if there seems to be some vagueness in language (one last editing pass, perhaps?), I think what you've collectively said makes more sense to the intent.  Gatekeeper, as such, was built in that image.

BARRACUDA:

First impression: Barracuda is a brawler, getting up close and personal to a foe of his choice.

In the Green Zone, Barracuda has a multitude of options for beating down a single foe. He can make sure that a hit goes through with Spec Ops Training, or use Unstoppable Charge to block off a foe from striking an ally. Or, if neither of the above are needed, he can maintain pressure and patch himself up as an Overconfident Fighter. Predator Senses is powerful, but very risky. If he's on a team with someone who reliably creates +4 bonuses, then that could add up to a lot of damage on him.
In the Yellow Zone, Barracuda can amp himself up (careful of rolling a 12+), or just add in the option to throw one guy at another guy for a bit of area of effect. A solid addition to his options, and a natural extension for a bruiser with great strength.
In the Red Zone, Barracuda opens up the option to leverage his strength to it's fullest, addressing a challenge and bolstering his allies for their actions in the process! If he remains on the offensive instead, then he'll be able to slow down whoever he's fighting to some degree as an Expert Grappler.

Overall? Barracuda is great at powering through to slow down a single large foe, but he'll suffer trouble against multiple foes. While his Scaled Body will help reduce the damage he's taking, he'll suffer a bit from being unable to hit more than two at once.

In terms of a team setting, Barracuda is a solid bruiser who go into most situations and come out having done something. He'll benefit from teammates who can throw down with multiple foes, or give him support without having to Boost him directly. Galvanize style effects remove the threat of him accidentally exploding from a helping hand.

GATEKEEPER:

First Impression: Gatekeeper is able to pick one thing each time he acts, and make sure that thing happens.

In the Green Zone, Gatekeeper is able to engage one target and slow them down to some degree, or to majorly slow down one target and possibly attack someone. Both are solid options in their own right for a relatively low stakes situation.
In the Yellow Zone, Gatekeeper expands his horizons. Spirit Surge affecting multiple targets is extremely potent, making him able to support allies when not attacking. Shadow Summons grants him the ability to move allies around to advantageous positions in response to attack, and Snuff The Candle is extremely efficient for valid targets.
In the Red Zone, Gatekeeper feels like he's pressing the limits of what he can do. Call The Dead is exceptional, as whatever the minions it makes are able to do will be able to happen repeatedly without extra set up. Banshee's Wail feel very much like a desperation move, and while it can burn down two targets effectively, Gatekeeper stands a fair chance of burning himself out using it. Doom Foretold is an interesting way to punish foes for going after him or an ally, but using it does lock him out of Shadow Summons for that round. Careful consideration should be given to that.

Overall? Gatekeeper will be pretty good at whatever he decides to do on his turn, but he's not going to be the strongest at any of it. He feels like a commander or advisor, standing back and letting allies rush in to handle the heavy combat while he manipulates the situation for them.

In a team setting, Gatekeeper will work well alongside most heroes. He'll certainly want to be in a team that has at least one heavy hitter who can maintain offensive pressure while Gatekeeper does his work.

“One” last editing pass? You’re generous! I’m about 3/4 a full read through the whole book again and it needs a lot more editing. I’m honestly surprised at how unpolished it was for a company that’s not just one guy working from home (ya know - like you and me! :P)

As the old saying goes, “The opposite of perfect is ‘done’.” There are always going to be some measure of typos, layout issues, and whatnot in any published work, but, you’re right…there are quite a few in the released PDF. Hopefully the delay in printing will make sure that the best possible version hits print.

But I’ll be honest, I’m not hunting for errors at this point. If GtG wants to hire me as an editor, I’ll gladly give it the fine-toothed comb I give to any of my editing clients. But, I’ve gotten the impression they’re full up on freelancers…

Thanks for the observations on Barracuda.  He is definitely intended to be a traditional front-line brick.  Thanks especially for the observations about Predator Sense.  My fluff for that was that he can tune his super-senses into a situation, but he risks getting too much sensory input and being stunned.  I didn't think it was a real risk for him, but you point out that it might be.  I think that's actually pretty cool rather than being a flaw.  He should work with Rumble, who is better at multiple foes.

Here's my 3rd hero (of 4), the team leader.

AURA

Law Enforcement/Genetic/Blaster/Natural Leader

Health 30

Principles: Detective, Hero

Hard Light Force (Radiant) d10, Hard Light Finesse (Telekinesis) d10, Flight d8, Presence d6

Conviction d10, Criminal Underworld Info d8, Ranged Combat d8, Investigation d8, Beautiful Icon d8

GREEN

Team Tactics (Rally) Conviction

Battlefield Control (Danger Zone) Flight

Hard Hitting Hard Light (Exploit Vulnerability) Radiant

YELLOW

Smashing Light Construct (Area Assault) Telekinesis

Intuitive Force Walls (Danger Sense) Presence

Moving the Pieces (Imbue with Element) Telekinesis

Pushing the Limits (Heedless Blast) Radiant

RED

Force Wall (Impenetrable Defense) Telekinesis

Aerobatics (Calculated Dodge) Response

OUT – Conviction

Lucia Navarro is also a Zero, but when her powers manifested in early adolescence, they rapidly threatened to go destructively out of control.  She was thus subject to further experimentation to stabilize her abilities.  She was part of Miami’s previous superteam, the Protectors, but circumstances drove that team apart.  She took it upon herself to form a new team, La Guardia, and became a team leader.  Her powers enable her to create bright golden hard light constructs, like a Green Lantern, but only in simple geometric shapes.  In her day job, she works as a lawyer in the District Attorney’s office. 

A couple comments about this build: despite both Aura and Rumble being Zeroes, I built one as Experimentation and one as Genetic.  Arguably, they should be the other way around, as Aura was experimented on and Rumble was born with his abilities (his grandparents were the “Experimentation”).  However, I went the way I did because of what powers they offered.  I think this is a strength of the system.  I made her hard light constructs out of two powers to increase her flexibility in Ability choices.  Her powers aren’t at all “radiant” other than being glow-y, but I chose to re-skin that power rather than create a “new” power.  I think this is another strength – the ease with which you can do things like this without breaking anything.  Finally, “Beautiful Icon” is presently a placeholder Quality.  Aura’s player wants her to be a symbol of heroism for the city and she wants her to be hot.  So that’s what I came up with.  I welcome any other suggestions based on this thin background I’ve provided.

Gatekeeper: Strong but limited.  In Green he can only Attack and Hinder, or Hinder and Attack--good choices but limited ones.  A mass Boost/Hinder in Yellow is an amazing support move, he has great ally defense, and he can outright erase a d6 or d6 Minion (although he can't do much to Lieutenants and Villains).  Summoned Allies is always OP, and I like the flavor here, but I'm not sure about the other two choices.  You have no way of using Aware Response and Reach Through the Veil on the same attack, so you have to pick one (although Aware Response is easier to trigger).  Eruption damages yourself; it's a great choice if you can heal self-damage, but you can't, so I'm not sure why you'd pick this over Powerful Strike for offense, or any of the other great support abilities you have access to.

Barracuda: I'm concerned about his fighting ability.  Like any other Armored character, he has lots of Green options to attack with Mid and do another thing.  He can hit two targets in Yellow, but only if one is a Minion.  In Red his attacks hinder a little bit, and he can Overcome and support allies, but in a big fight where there's basically just a big bad to pummel (Lieutenant(s) or VIllain(s)) he's just making Mid attacks against a single target.  He's durable but I see the scene tracker running out on him frequently.

Aura: I'm confused.  Why do you have two abilities that attack multiple targets with your Min die?  Area Assault does nothing for you since you already have Danger Zone.  Then you have Heedless Blast but nothing to heal or mitigate damage to yourself until you're in Red (and see below).  I also don't see Exploit Vulnerability doing you a lot of good--it's only helpful if you attacked or hindered one target on round 1 and then use Exploit Vulnerabilty on that same target on round 2.  After (or possibly during) round 2, Imbue with Element is strictly better, so at most you'll get one use out of Exploit Vulnerability--and none at all if you didn't attack or hinder in round 1, or that target goes down, or the scene tracker advances before your second turn.  As for your Red abilities, I've not held back about how useless I think Red "I'm not doing anything helpful but you can't hurt me either" abilities are, and forcing an enemy damage reroll at the cost of 1 HP can help, but it's unreliable.  I think there are better choices.

AURA

First impression: Aura is able to hit large groups of foes with ease.

In the Green Zone, Aura is able to rejuvenate allies while striking at a single foe, or use her Flight to strike down multiple foes simoutaneously. Green Zone area of effect isn't easy to come by, making Battlefield Control pretty good, but I have some misgivings much like MindWanderer. More on that later. Hard Hitting Hard Light is excellent for beating down on a single target, but it doesn't seem to fit the rest of her green zone kit.
In the Yellow Zone, Aura gets a sizable increase in single target firepower with Moving The Pieces with the possibility of setting up an ally in the process, as well as a neat bit of insurance against surprise attack with Intuitive Force Walls. Smahing Light Construct and Reckless Blast are where I have some misgivings, mechanically. They both make sense with what you've said, but Smashing Light Construct is going to be essentially the same as Battlefield Control for dice results, and it's almost always going to do less damage than Reckless Blast. If I had to recommend getting rid of one, I'd say Battlefield Control or Smashing Light Construct, leaning towards Smashing Light Construct.
In the Red Zone, Aura's abilities kind of work against one another. Aerobatics is extremely risky, and I speak from rolling dice for villains, because rerolling a villain dice pool is likely to balance out the reduction on one effect die with an increase on another effect die. Force Wall is a logical use of her powers, but if she has Aerobatics, it's extremely niche. It's best use would be a narrative taunt on a foe, to try and buy time for another hero. While I don't think that's the worst thing, it doesn't feel like it really connects with the rest of her kit that well.

Overall? Aura has a lot of different ways to hit multiple targets, and otherwise feels kind of like she's trying to do a bunch of different things at once.

In terms of a team setting, Aura can definitely serve to blasting down multiple foes at once. As far as single targets go, she has good options, but they feel somewhat disjointed from the rest of what she does. It could make for difficult narrative choices to use a strong single target attack when there are multiple targets running around.

--

As for her Roleplay Quality, maybe Radiant Idol? Even if her powers are hard light, people will connect her with the idea of the light they give off. And if she's meant to be an icon for heroism in the city, that could be construed as being an idol. Just a thought.

Thanks for the useful comments, especially on Aura.  Three brief things in my "defense."  First, I am not interested in fully maximized characters.  Based on actual play evidence I've read, this game may be particularly susceptible to breakage with fully maximized PCs.  While I appreciate them, I sometimes perceive MindWanderer's observations as failures of an optimization test.  Second, they were designed as a team.  If one of them has a liability as a solo act, I'm OK with that.  Third, and most importantly to me, since these are converted characters, not brand new ones, my primary design consideration was to enable them to do the things they could do in Champions in SCRPG.  If a player asked, "Where is my X power?" I wanted to be able to have an answer.  

This was the case with Aura.  Now that I've looked her over again in light of your comments (also, fun fact: she is the first one that catDreaming and MindWanderer borh agreed that she had issues), I see that she's a little lopsided: not much variety in Green and nothing to bring to the party in Red.  I will look her over and re-submit a new version, along with the 4th character.  Thanks.

Also, catDreaming, thanks for "Radiant Idol."  I will write that down as another idea to present to the player.

No problem with the Roleplaying Quality, it came to mind when reading the backstory. As for the 'where's my X ability' aspect, that's understandable. Converting characters from one system to another can be extremely messy, and it doesn't always work out in optimal ways. An optimal character in one system can become merely average in another, or even severely underpowered.

It is interesting that both MindWanderer and I agreed that there were issues, since we seem to have very different perspectives.

Not ready to post the 4th character, but here is my re-do of Aura.  Changes are highlighted.

AURA

Law Enforcement/Genetic/Blaster/Natural Leader

Health 30

Principles: Detective, Hero

Hard Light Force (Radiant) d10, Hard Light Finesse (Telekinesis) d10, Flight d8, Presence d6

Conviction d10, Criminal Underworld Info d8, Ranged Combat d8, Investigation d8, Beautiful Icon d8

GREEN

Team Tactics (Rally) Conviction

Battlefield Control (Danger Zone) Flight

Hard Hitting Hard Light (Exploit Vulnerability) Radiant

YELLOW

Force Construct Positioning (Adaptive) Telekinesis

Intuitive Force Walls (Danger Sense) Presence

Moving the Pieces (Imbue with Element) Telekinesis

Pushing the Limits (Heedless Blast) Radiant

RED

Force Wall (Impenetrable Defense) Telekinesis

Full Force Force Smash (Charged-Up Blast) Radiant

OUT – Conviction

Force Construct Positioning gives her a bonus and some recovery and she uses her constructs to put her into a safe place.  Full Force Force Smash can use that bonus as she takes the constructs that she used to move herself to safety and smashes them onto an opponent.

Better? :)

AURA

(Second) First impression: Aura is a flexible blaster, able to burn down foes in singleton or groups with relative ease.

In the Green Zone, Aura is able to rejuvenate allies while striking at a single foe with Team Tactics, or use her Flight to strike down multiple foes simoutaneously with Battlefield Control. Battlefield Control is excellent being green zone AOE without the risk of hurting yourself or an ally in the process. Hard Hitting Hard Light is a good way to press the advantage on a foe who’s already taken some damage, especially if her teammates aren’t in their yellow or red health zones yet.

In the Yellow Zone, Aura get’s a series of upgrades on what she already does. Force Construct Positioning is a decent way to boost herself up for a big attack on her next turn, with some self healing on the side or removing a persistent penalty without overcomes or rolling high on boosts, giving her some resiliency. Intuitive Force Walls let her focus on the task at hand, reducing the odds of her getting ambushed by a hostile force or an environment target. Moving The Pieces allows Aura to focus on a single target, and with some planning can also give an ally a helping hand on their next action. Reckless Blast can wipe out a bunch of foes at once with a little support or preparation, and Force Construct Positioning gives Aura a straightforward way to recover from it if she’s burned out too much.

In the Red Zone, Aura’s getting desperate. With a boost from Force Construct Positioning or an ally, she can absolutely annihilate a target with Full Force Force Smash. Or, if she needs to get rid of a penalty alongside weathering powerful attacks for a round, Force Wall ensures that she’ll be able to emerge still combat capable. 

Overall? Aura is a powerful blaster who can confront most forms of foes with relative ease. I’m not convinced that Force Wall is the optimal choice of move for her in the Red Zone, but there’s definitely worse options to have there.

In terms of a team setting, Aura can definitely serve to blasting down foes regardless of numbers. She’ll want to watch her health if it comes to unleashing Reckless Blast more than once in a scene though; That’s the kind of thing that tends to grab the attention of evil-doers who don’t like interrupted plans.

Last one!

DESTINA

Dynasty/Genetic/Close Quarters Combatant/Distant

Health 28

Principles: History, Veteran

Deduction d10, Agility d8, Colada (Signature Weapon) d8, Vitality d8

History d12, Close Combat d10, Acrobatics d8, Technology d8, Genetically-Perfect Genius d8

GREEN

Advice Out of Time (Growth) History

Hapkido Master (Defensive Strike) Close Combat

Expert Swordplay (Offensive Strike) Signature Weapon

Quick Thinking (Flexible Stance) Deduction

YELLOW

Two Steps Ahead (Adaptive) Deduction

Excellent Constitution (Danger Sense) Vitality

Crafty Fighter (Precise Strike) Acrobatics

RED

Great Under Pressure (Reliable Aptitude) Deduction

Past Lives (Specialized Info) History

Dalianis Rodriguez del Castillo has an unusual background.  The only child of brilliant geneticists, her parents modified her in utero to be genetically “perfect.”  She is a super-genius, but also trained extensively in martial arts.  Her family line is also magically blessed; Dali can visit and possess any of her ancestors or past lives (she’s not really sure which term is accurate) and her future selves can possess her.  Her family line traces back to El Cid.  Her sword Colada was his short sword.  When Aura started recruiting a new team, Destina sought her out to join. 

Destina was originally generated using the MSH Ultimate Powers book.  If you’re familiar with that supplement, her weird background makes a lot more sense.  She’s essentially a martial artist, but I wanted to give her abilities that also took into account her genius, her genetics, her past lives, and her magic sword. 

I decided that a few heroes on their own weren't good enough; it's time to make a mystic-themed team...

Verhexen first, then The Gatekeeper, and now:

---------

Janelle Downing knew she was on the verge of a breakthrough.  Finishing her post-doctoral studies in mathematics at Overbrook University, her work on fifth-dimensional mapping of irrational constants was derided by nearly all of the mathematics faculty, but none could deny her raw talent and mastery of mathematical principles.  Proofs and theorems that took others hours or days, Janelle could calculate in mere minutes, with naught but a pad of paper and a click of her seemingly omnipresent lead pencil.

Her goal, however?  Not just a publication in some journal, not just a footnote in a high-school textbook; Janelle's goal was nothing short of universal truth.  And, one late latte-fueled night, she found it.  In that moment, her mind was opened to new vistas of possibility, hardly even theorized much less realized.  Taking up the name Axia, she delves deeper and deeper into sacred geometries, irrational mathematics, and multi-dimensional calculi, seeking the Universal Truths.

DESTINA

First impression: Destina is a duelist, able to engage one foe effectively and control the flow of battle in her own favor.

In the Green Zone, Destina is able to draw on her past lives for a lasting benefit with Advice Out Of Time, and can leverage that to bash down a foe with Expert Swordplay or maintain her defenses with Hapkido Expert. Quick Thinking is an interesting ability, since it allows her to take two basic actions with the same effect die. However, unlike the Wild Card version, Flexible Stance allows you to use the same basic action twice! This gives Destina an extreme amount of versatility, and makes excellent use of a narratively appropriate benefit from Advice Out Of Time (and I might have a character who uses Flexible Stance in a similar way).
In the Yellow Zone, Destina adds some utility to her fighting style. Two Steps Ahead allows her to rebound from persistent penalties and possibly set up for a future turn in the process, while Excellent Constitution gives her the ability to stay on her foes against ambush or a situation spiraling out of control. Finally, Crafty Fighter allows her to make sure that whatever she able to land a blow on whatever she attacks; Whether it does damage is another question entirely.
In the Red Zone, Great Under Pressure gives Destina added reliability in her actions, and Past Lives ensures that if she knows how to confront a challenge, it will cease being a problem. Seriously, Max+Min overcomes are beautiful things.

Overall? Destina is able to adapt to a changing battlefield with ease, and can fill in any number of roles without too much difficulty. However, she will have difficulty truly excelling at a chosen role prior to the Red Zone.

In terms of a team setting, Destina's at her best when she has the freedom to choose what she's doing in the moment. 

AXIA

First impression: Axia is an apt controller, able to manipulate the battlefield in her favor.

In the Green Zone, Axia is able to do a bit of everything. With Higher Mathematics to give herself a lasting advantage and Exponential Downfall to inflict a last disadvantage on a single foe, Axia will be able to make sure whatever she does counts. Carry The One is a sneaky way to manipulate how the flow of action goes, and has the potential to disrupt the flow of a villain's well coordinated plan.
In the Yellow Zone, Axia expands her options to her allies and multiple foes. Fractal Assault gives a potent, albeit painful, way to strike multiple foes at once. Dimensional Remainders ensures that Axia can maintain momentum if she takes down a minion, while Check Your Work gives another way to help an ally out with whatever task they are pursuing. She'll need to be careful with her health if Fractal Assault and Check Your Work show up often, as both have drain on her own health each use.
In the Red Zone, Axia is able to completely shut down massive built up attacks or weaken hordes of amplified minions with Zero Sum. Balanced Equation offers the ability to weaken a target (minion, lieutenant, villain with a defensive reaction), and Prime Factorial gives Axia a way to hurt that irritating villain who just won't drop their guard.

Overall? Axia is a versatile and powerful battlefield control specialist. She excels at controlling the effectiveness of a single target at once, and while she can deal with multiple targets at once, she does run the risk of burning herself out.

In terms of a team setting, Axia will want allies who can take to the front lines of a fight and deal with multiple targets to reduce Axia's need to burn her own health in a blaze of glory.

Destinia:

I'm once again at a loss to understand what Destinia is supposed to do.  In Green she can give herself a persistent boost, and then Offensive Strike is probably going to be her bread-and-butter action.  Defend with Mid + an action with Min is one of the least useful ability types out there, and two actions with Min is rarely going to do anything useful.  I'd favor Dual Strike, Precise Strike, or Throw Minion over either of those.  In Yellow she has another one of my least favorite abilities (take a basic action and remove a penalty on yourself or recover with your Min), and it's a version even more restrictive than usual since it can only boost herself.  It'll be valuable if she picks up a -3 or -4 persistent penalty, but that's only going to happen so many times.  Danger Sense is okay but also may or may not see frequent use.  Meanwhile the "multiple targets" ability, which are great, especially on heroes who boost themselves, wasn't taken.  So once again we have a hero who'll spend most of their time in Yellow using Green abilities--and Destinia doesn't have a lot of great Green abilities either,  Then once in Red, you have Specialized Info, which is pretty great, but then Reliable Aptitude, which can't be used with Specialized info and will therefore be used with... again, mostly just Green abilities, and not even all of them.  This is a hero who starts off with a lot of options, if not great ones, but falls behind at lower Status, especially with her Distant personality.

Axia:

Persistent boosts and persistent penalties are a great way to start off an encounter, and controlling positioning and turn order can be unexpectedly valuable.  Then in Yellow you have a mass attack, albeit one that comes with self-damage (though not usually too much of it--and the more you take, the more valuable the action was anyway).  You'll be taking out lots of minions, so boosting yourself when that happens will be helpful.  Unfortunately, Reality Shaper comes with only Reactions, which will conflict with Absorb Essence; not sure Helpful Analysis is the best choice here given that you're already taking self-damage, and this one can be pricey.  Unerring Strike is a great offensive ability, and Purification can be a handy get-out-of-jail-free ability, though I'm not sold on Ultimatum--a single-target -4 Hinder and a self-only ~+2 boost is pretty weak for a Red.  Unfortunately you don't have much available to you in the way of defense or healing, or I'd recommend that to make up for your self-damage.  I'd probably take Inspiring Totem to add a Defend or maybe a Hinder (but then I always try to take Inspiring Totem!). Give Time or Reliable Aptitude would be thematically appropriate.

Slight correction on Ultimatum MindWanderer, it can boost Axia or another hero.

Ah, so it is.  I wonder why it specifies a target at all.  Doesn't change my feelings about it much, though.

It probably specifies a target because the Boost action can normally target anyone, even a foe. Ultimatum inspiring a foe to action just doesn't make much sense to me.
Although, speaking of characters with Flexible Stance, here's the character I built a while back who uses it to consistent and pretty impressive effect.

The Black Swordsman
- Background: Unremarkable
- Power Source: Training
- Archetype: Close Quarters Combatant
- Personality: Apathetic
- Powers:
-- Agility d10, Strength d8, Vitality d6, Speed d8
- Qualities:
-- Alertness d10, Insight d8, Close Combat d10, Acrobatics d8, Fitness d8, Alter Ego d8
- Abilities
-- Green: 32-25 Health
--- <Vertical>(Defensive Strike) (A): Defend using Close Combat. Then, Attack using your Min die
---  <Skill Connect>(Flexible Stance) (A): Take any two basic actions using Agility, each using your Min die
---  <Vorpal Thrust>(Precise Strike) (A): Attack using Alertness. Ignore all penalties on this Attack, ignore any Defend actions, and it cannot be affected by reactions.
--- Principle Of Detachment
--- Principle Of The Everyman
-- Yellow: 24-12 Health
--- Twin Sword Stance(Always Be Prepared) (A): Boost using Agility. That bonus is persistent and exclusive. Then, Attack using your Min die. You may use the bonus you just created on that Attack.
--- Artificial Reinforcement(Area Healing) (A): Boost another hero using Transmutation. You and other nearby heroes Recover health equal to your Min die.
--- <End Revolver>(Reactive Field) (R): When you are attacked by a nearby enemy, the attacker also takes an equal amount of damage.
--- <Horizontal Square>(Offensive Strike) (A): Attack using Strength. Use your Max die.
-- Red: 11-1 Health
--- Phantom Wound(Endurance Fighting) (I): Whenever you Attack a target with an action, also Hinder that target with your Min die.
--- Faster-Faster-Faster(Inspiring totem) (I): When you use an ability action, you may also perform any one basic action using your Mid die on the same roll.
--- <Starburst Stream>(Finishing Blow) (R): Attack using Close Combat. Use your Max die. Remove any number of penalties from the target. Add your Min die to the the Attack each time you remove a penalty

In a corner of the Multiverse where technology went in a slightly different direction, there was a certain incident where thousands of people were trapped in a virtual reality game, unable to log out on the threat of death until the game was beaten. After two long years however, the players escaped the game and returned to every day life as best they could. When Oblivaeon came to all realities though, the people of that world were surprised to see the supposed avatar of the player who had beaten that game fighting against a Scion alongside other heroes. With minimal vocalization other than frustrated wordless shouts, the avatar contributed as best it could against the horrors assaulting their world.
When the fighting concluded, the avatar was nowhere to be seen, and it was conclusively proven that the original player had been somewhere else at the time of the fighting. People are left to wonder where will this enigma wearing a past heroes face appear next, and whose side it will be on when it does.

As you might have figured, I went ahead and built out a full eldritch-themed team:  The Armitage Society

In addition to Verhexen, Gatekeeper, and Axia, we also have:

• Heiress--the last genetic heir of dreamwalker Randolph Carter and wielder of the The Silver Key
• Ward--a globe-hopping adventureress/archaeologist and expert on doomsday prophecies
• Gallowglass--the inheritor of Cuchullain's spear, Gae Bulg, which infuses him with power
• Rocky--a living grotesque, brought to sentience by an unknown sorcerer.

If you'd like, oh optimizers of the board, to take a look at the rest and, perhaps, give some thoughts on how they look working as a team, I'd certainly appreciate it.

And, for what it's worth, anyone is free to use The Armitage Society for their own home games.  I built them specifically with one-shot, convention games in mind, so that they'd be easy to sit down, understand from the outset, and have their own unique 'schtick'.  In my estimation, the two most similar are Axia and Gatekeeper, but they each have their own feel for things (esoteric mathematics and necromancy, appropriately).

I like the concepts, PlatinumWarlock! I'll take a closer look at them.

As for my team, I'm going to wait until they actually hit the table before I tweak them any further.  I have limited experience, but I think they're going to do just fine.  

First, I love the general theming of The Armitage Society. The unknown eldritch forces waiting in the shadows, or hovering just out of understanding of the world as we know it, is a concept that always grabs my attention. In lieu of doing individual breakdowns of the remaining four members, I'm just going to run over all 7 in terms of working as a team.

VERHEXEN: Verhexen fills the bruiser role on the team, able to wade into the fight and break down whatever foes present themselves. The rest of the team will be able to mostly leave him to his own devices, although I doubt he'll ever turn down the offer of a Boost action from an ally; Some monsters just need more than one man to fell them.

GATEKEEPER: Gatekeeper is very much a command and control hero for the team, providing his allies on-site assistance while being able to remove weak targets to save the rest of the team time. He'll probably want another team member to handle large single targets or swarms of foes, but that's fine; Death comes to everyone in the end.

AXIA: Axia seems to fill a saboteur role on the team, taking actions that might seem to have no immediate benefit. However, when the villain's are ready to put their plan in motion, vital parts will be missing or crippled. Or, simply not there at all. Axia will simply have to find the desired equation of the villains; Once she has it, any errors present will be brought into the harsh light of logic.

HEIRESS: Heiress definitely fills a sniper role on the team, able to strike at a foe from cover or in ways that mislead and disrupt their operations. As a fight goes on, villains will find that the strikes from the Silver Key are able to find them regardless of how they defend themself or hide. Heiress will always be able to find the villain in the end; It is in dreams that they will be put to the test.

WARD: Ward fills a sort of dungeons and dragons bard role on the team. With her range of options, Ward is able to locate the back entrance and clear it out of opposition as she goes, leaving it available for her allies as an entry point or escape route. At the same time, her expertise ensures that they'll be able to deal with the various debilitating effects of dealing with eldritch forces. No intelligent foe will let Ward escape their notice; She will always have a way to change things up.

Gallowglass (an editorial note): I only really know about Cu Chulain and Gae Bulg from the Fate series of works by Kinoku Nasu, so it was interesting to see them mentioned here. I feel like you understand them much better than I do, and Gallowglass shows that.

GALLOWGLASS: Gallowglass will the bruiser role on the team much like Verhexen, but he approaches it from a different angle. Where Verhexen digs in his heels and refuses to die, Gallowglass welcomes the approach of death with devastating blows. With his strikes increasing in power against a foe who attempts to prevent him from fighting at full strength, he'll be able to tear asunder foes who get in his way. The Wild Hunt is coming, indeed.

ROCKY: Rocky functions easily as the team's shock trooper, flying in out of nowhere and making his presence known. With his resistance to physical damage and flight capabilities, the less eldritch inclined among the team's foes will be hard pressed keep him from becoming a thorn in their side. Add in his observational skills, and even his time spent observing foes will prove a boon to his team. A stone sentinel is a powerful guardian; Sentience makes Rocky a force to be reckoned with.

As a team, they are pretty well balanced. I'm going to assume a 4 hero team for this (although 2-6 is apparently the nominal range) and go from there. No team member strikes me as more powerful than the others, or as making another pointless. Verhexen, Gallowglass, and Rocky all at first glance are capable bruisers, but each approaches it differently. Verhexen has the durability to go toe to toe with a powerful foe, while Gallowglass will be tearing foes asunder with Gae Bulg and his physical might. Rocky is more mobile than either of the other two, and can swiftly relocate to where he's needed.

Ward is definitely a bit roundabout on first glance, and she might require a bit of thought when played. With no green zone attacks, a first time player might assume that she can't attack until the yellow or red zones. In a lot of ways, how she plays will depend on who else from the team is present. Her kit is versatile enough to make that a viable option.

Overall though, The Armitage Society get's good marks from me. No obvious weaknesses, no overwhelming strengths that make members less useful than one another, and reasonable amounts of redundancy with some careful play makes them a solid team in my book.

WIthout going into depth on each of the new members, The Armitage Society strikes me as a team that doesn't necessarily work together very well.  They have a few abilities that defend each other, but they don't have a lot of support, especially mass boosts/hinders.  Several of them sacrifice health and none of them have any healing, and none of them have heavy-duty defense.  They have some good Overcome abilities in Red, but not a lot of heavy-hitting offense, so I see boss battles being a weak point for them.  Some of them can handle waves of minions, but only with good strategy.  None of them are bad, per se, but this is one case where the whole really is equal to the sum of its parts.

How do we account for the interesting differences catDreaming and MindWanderer have to the exact same characters? :)

And what would it take for MindWanderer to unequivocally like a build? :D

MindWanderer and I have different critique styles, and I am of the opinion that's a good thing.

What would it take for MindWanderer to unequivocally like a build? *shrug*

To go to bat for my team a bit here, there are only 6 (of 20) power sources and 4 of 20 archetypes that provide a non-conditional Recover as part of a green or yellow action (i.e. doesn't require you to be hit by a certain energy type or shift zones or such).  That's not a lot of option for healing/recovery.

Gallowglass certainly has the most in the way of healing, as he gets it from both his Relic power source and his Physical Powerhouse archetype.  But, pretty much every other character has some way of mitigating incoming damage while still contributing to the fight: Verhexen and Rocky both have damage reduction; Ward has a number of defensive options in red, especially considering she could take a free defend every round with Inspiring Totem; Gatekeeper has Reach Through Veil, which gives another ally an out of turn defend every round in yellow.

Admittedly, Axia and Heiress are more glass cannon-y, but I also look at it this way:  a Hinder action is, by nature, a targeted Defend action.  You lose the global flexibility of "I take less damage on the next thing that hits me" in favor of "the next time it tries to hit me or do anything else, I'll take less damage". Yes, it's a bigger liability in minion heavy fights, but several heroes (Rocky, Gatekeeper, Heiress) have attacks that reliably neutralize minions. 

As for low damage output, I just don't quite see it. Provided that theycan get one bonus from a teammate (like Gatekeeper,  Ward, or Rocky, who can give them out like candy) Gallowglass and Heiress are throwing Charged Up Blast every round, with a free Hinder on Gallowglass, while Heiress gets to start on the damage earlier with Exploding Ammo in yellow. While nominally defensive, Verhexen even gets in on the party with Reactive Strike, Field of Hazards, and Combustion.  

What am I missing?

True, there aren't many abilities that heal other heroes, but there's also plenty of abilities that heal yourself, or defend yourself, or defend others, and if you have heroes who burn themselves out, especially with abilities they're likely to want to use often, then you really want some sort of mitigation that applies to those heroes.

Charged-Up Blast is strong, if you can be assured of having boosts all the time, and I don't see them being handed out "like candy" by anyone here.  Ward can hand out a single boost as an Action, although she could use Inspiring Totem for another if she really needed to.  Rocky has Aerial Surveillance--and now that I think of it, I have no idea how that interacts with Charged-Up Blast--but then he isn't using his own offensive Red ability, Take Down.  Gatekeeper's Mass Modification is the only move I see handing out lots of bonuses frequently, and in Red that'll only be after she's spent a round or two using Summon Allies.

Exploding Ammo only works on environmental targets, and the environment typically isn't introducing Villains, and rarely Lieutenants.  Verhexen is actually the most offensive of all in Red, although he has to be careful not to burn himself out (the GM would have to decide whether his reflavored Power Armor deals Infernal damage).

Oh, I think that’s easy, especially looking at this most recent example.

catDreaming looks at the theme, then digs into the mechanics of each of them. (The first sentence shows that pretty clearly, I think.) MindWanderer has always been very focused on the mechanics, the “crunch” of the game. (That’s my perception, anyway!

This is actually why I don’t participate in these discussions. There’s nothing wrong with them at all! Don’t get me wrong! I just don’t look at a character and want to optimize or rate it. I create my characters with a specific theme and go from there. (I’ll even put in completely non-optimized aspects purely because it’s appropriate to the character.) It’s just a different way to approach character builds.

And I love that folks here are willing to participate in the discussion without saying anyone else is “wrong”.

I’ll really concede that actions that provide a Defend are fairly common, but the numbers I cited above regarding Recover are accurate. Healing self or others is not common by any stretch, and most reliable way it seems to regain health is either between scenes or hoping an enemy attacks you with an element that you’re attuned to.

Regarding throwing down Boosts:
Heiress has two abilities that grant a Boost (1 green, 1 yellow)
Ward has 3 (1 green, 1 yellow, 1 red)
Verhexen has 1 (yellow)
Axia has 2 (1 yellow, 1 red)
Rocky has 2 (1 yellow which attracts all heroes, 1 red)
Gallowglass has 1 (yellow), and can turn a penalty to a bonus if he attacks the one who inflicted it.
Gatekeeper has 1 (yellow, but affects all nearby allies)

I mean, if Heiress and Gallowglass can’t get 1 bonus per turn to burn for Charged Up Blast, there’s some serious lack of teamwork going on.

Well, there are a couple of ways to think of "teamwork." One is, "Can I do a thing that helps my partner do a thing they want to do?" Another is, "Can I do what I want to do, and thereby help my partner do what they want to do?"  When it comes to feeding Charged-Up Blast, they can do the former, no problem, but the latter not so much.  In Red, Rocky can only boost himself, Axia would have to forego her own offense, and Ward's ability is only useful if the subject has already gone that turn (which can be arranged, but comes at the cost of options).

That said, if I can be a more catDreaming-ish for a sec, maybe that's more desirable.  Maybe the team dynamic you want is that the members have to make an effort to help each other out.  Thematically, that's fine.  From a sheer output optimization perspective it's not as great, though.

That’s a fair distinction to make, and is appreciated.
After the 2nd or 3rd Hero, I really tried to design them to complement one another, in the “You set 'em up, I’ll knock 'em down” mindset.
I’m also of a mind that a given hero isn’t Always going to want to use their Red abilities, just because they are/the scene is in Red. If the option to use something in Green or Yellow is more useful in the situation, that’s a better option, even if it’s not mechanically the strongest possible option.

True, but Red abilities are designed to be the most powerful abilities available.  Once a character has been made, a Red ability isn't always going to be the best one to use at any given time--or, necessarily, ever.  But the more use you can get out of your Reds, generally speaking, the more of an impact you'll have.

The point on Ward's Red Boost ability fits into my point of Ward requiring a bit more thought than the others to play at first glance. She can be picked up for casual play just fine, but to really make the most impact with her requires coordinating with the rest of the team. Inspiring Totem and Give Time are powerful abilities, but they both require a bit of forethought and situational awareness to get the most impact out of.

I have really enjoyed seeing Catdreaming and Mind rate these builds so I used Beeromancer's Google sheet to make a character I had rolled up months ago.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QP7hIMRVdmyiMLpVXK5o__sZwwQUaxlJ/view?usp=sharing

No one knows where Son of Poy comes from but he harassed heroes for a while. After OblivAeon came though, something changed. It almost feels like he now has recovered his(her?) mind. His actions are now in the defense of all life instead of the attacks that were directed at people who had encroached on the natural world.

Son of Poy's pretty good.  In Green, he has the always-handy Max Attack, and if that's not appropriate he can Hinder for Max and maybe Attack as well.  And you wisely bound Banish to a smaller die, to increase the odds of rolling doubles.  In Yellow, Field of Energy is amazing, of course, and when it's not, Costly Strength is.  Cursed Resolve is...meh, but it does have uses.  In Red... looks like you gave up on outdoing what you were already doing in Yellow and made it so that you can be rolling as many d12's as possible, and have a bit of defense.  That's not the worst move, considering your Yellow and Green Abilities are pretty strong.

For a serious build, I nearly always go with the third Red ability over the larger Red die.  Given that this is a bit of a meme, though, I think what I'd really do differently is go with Academic, Interstellar, or Created as the Background, just so I could be rolling 3d12 all the time in Red (and trying for 13's!).  Also you have three Element/Energy Powers, which will limit your problem-solving options a fair bit; I'd take an Athletic Power at least to score some extra HP. (And if you gave up on the meme, Push Your Limits + Defensive Deflection is quite strong.)

Also it doesn't look like you quite finished.  You're missing your personal Quality, you never chose a Power for Powerful Blast, and your Out ability references a Quality you don't have.

I don't feel confident giving a proper answer, since the sheet definitely doesn't look finished me. That could be an error in whatever program was used to fill it out, but I'd prefer to see all of the parts before giving my analysis.

----

SON OF POY

First impression: Son Of Poy is overflowing with power

In the Green Zone, Son Of Poy begins with Mixed Blessing, emphasizing the extremes that he can reach. Darken The Doors is an extremely solid way to slow down a single foe, and is somewhat resilient against the negative effects of Mixed Blessing; Max dice and doubles are rarely 1s. Toxic Sludge will torment whatever foe it strikes.
In the Yellow Zone, Son Of Poy expands his abilities to catch multiple targets once. Infernal Blessing gives his allies a massive boost, which is practically guranteed to a +3 or +4, while only slowing him down momentarily. Toxic Waste gives Son Of Poy the ability to charge himself up for a future turn, and either regenerate some health or remove a penalty. The ability to remove a persistent penalty in pretty strong. Toxic Cloak will allow Son Of Poy to deal with multiple targets at close range simoutaneously; Mid die AOE is very strong, especially without downside.
In the Red Zone, Dark Forces ensures that Son Of Poy will always be able to use a power of his choosing at it's greatest potential. Defensive Deflection gives him some resilience, making sure that he'll be able to last through to the end of the red zone without going down.

Overall? Son Of Poy feels like he is bleeding power with all of his abilities, and he will never be out of combat options in a fight. I'd say that he actually might have difficulty picking out which option to use in a given situation, because multiple of them could be useful.

In terms of a team setting, Son Of Poy will appreciate allies who can fill in the gaps in his abilities. Without verging too much into the soft mechanics of a narrative, Son Of Poy might have difficulty finding a power to use for any particular situation. 

I apologize, I completely forgot about the Personal Quality and the toxic sludge I renamed, knowing what power I was using, but didn't type it in. As far as the out ability, I was making multiple characters yesterday and I happened to get Fast-Talking back to back so I forgot to change it.

With the sheet now appearing finished, I will give my analysis later today.

Just when you thought I was done...I went ahead and put together another team.

Introducing:  Ladies' Night.  A septet of heroines capable of taking on any villainous force, come what may!

• Poniard--A former Olympic fencer and expert swordswoman, turned vigilante detective
• Lady Evergreen--an environmental activist  and greenhouse owner capable of manipulating plants of all sort
• Rebuild--a streetwise technology savant with two powerful cybernetic arms
• Golden Grizzly--A former US Army Tank Commander imbued with cosmic power
• Backbend--Once a darling acrobat and dancer, she can now stretch into impossible forms
• Omen--an amnesiac telepath with a hidden history as a living weapon of war
• Exodus--The survivor of a Cthulhoid apocalypse, she wields forbidden magic and pieced-together rituals

As with The Armitage Society, feel free to use these in your home games or as convention pre-gens.  Just please give proper attribution.

I promise, once the Villain sheets are up and online, I'll start statting up some (not ALL!) of the Villains of the Day.  I'll even take requests.  

I edited my analysis of Son Of Poy into a previous comment I made. Considering that I have a long shift tommorow, there might be a day or two of delay before I can look at each member of Ladies' Night properly.

Edit 1: Oh boy, finally getting back to this. Alright, let's start with:

PONIARD

First impression: Poniard is, much like her former olympic sport would indicate, a duelist.

In the Green Zone, Poniard opens up with an array of options. Fleche ensures that she will be able to deal damage to most foes, while Prise De Fer gives her a way to knock aside a single strike while continuing the offensive. Pret Allez is basically the definition of mechanical flexibility (barring certain Red Zone abilities), and being tied to Alertness gives it plenty of narrative flexibility. 
In the Yellow Zone, Poniard sticks with her metaphorical guns. Remise gives her even more durability than Pret Allez, as well as providing bonuses to make her actions count. Redouble will lay down the hurt on a single target with ease, and maybe even patch up Poniard a bit. Coupe Pass gives her a limited degree of multiple target interaction, although Pret Allez is likely more reliable in terms of hitting two targets at once.
In the Red Zone, Poniard pushes herself to stay in the fight. In Quarta is a powerful defense for her, enabling Remise to be triggered in response to every single attack on her, with a health or twist cost if multiple attacks comes at her in the same turn (minion groups, certain villain abilities, etc). Botta Segrete gives Poniard a sizable bonus for her offenses to hit harder, and possibly to make her Remise more effective; That's on the narrative of what the bonus is. Finally, Corps a Corps weakens foes she engages with. With multiple Attacks from Redouble or Pret Allez, she'll be able to pin down one or two targets quite effectively. Important note though; The Hinders will not be applied until the entire Ability in question is finished resolving.

Overall? Poniard can close with a single target and maintain her superiority while whittling down them down. If I was going to point out a weakness though, Poniard has a lot of trouble dealing with penalties on her, and really with multiple targets. Pret Allez and Coupe Pass help slightly with the latter, but suffer a lot from the former.

In terms of a team setting, Poniard wants allies who can handle mulitple foes at once, remove penalties via boosting or other means, or arguably both. Poniard isn't the party member who can operate equally well against all manner of dangers; She's the party member who pays off in spades from solid teamwork and planning.

Edit 2: 

LADY EVERYGREEN

First impression: Lady Evergreen is a capable blaster.

In the Green Zone, Lady Evergreen begins with solid offensive options. Lash Of Thorns enables her to blast a target apart, while Grasping Vines allows her to pin down that same target with some possible damage. Hemlock allows her to strike a multitude of targets at once, a potent tool in the green zone.
In the Yellow Zone, Lady Evergreen expands for some utility options. Living Kudzu gives a flexible minion, while Cycle Of Life incentivizes her hunting down minions. Botanical Sacrifice is a straightforward way to execute a mid strength minion, and can also hit a second target at the same time.
In the Red Zone, Lady Evergreen puts down roots. Earth Arisen locks down a potentially massive number of targets, possibly taking them down in the process. Redwood Hart allows her to negate incoming damage, at the cost of taking a penalty instead. That is a very strong defense, especially combined with Tide Of Green giving her a chance to slow down for a turn and prepare for a big action on her next.

Overall? Lady Evergreen will be a potent force in most combat situations. She has mobility options to get from place to place on a chaotic battlefield, and will have no trouble taking down large targets. Redwood Hart will require some careful use though; Large penalties can still be crippling.

In terms of a team setting, Lady Evergreen brings heavy firepower to whatever team she is on. She'll benefit from teammates who can provide Boosts like anyone else, but especially so in the Red Zone should Redwood Hart see heavy use. She'll also benefit from teammates who can deal with opposing bonuses and remove penalties reliably. Both are often underlooked utility options in my experience.

I made a hero based off the Time-Crazed Prisoner from The Block: Link.

Rate away!

You need to get a sharable link.

Okay, try this one.

I'll provide my rating later today, or tommorow. I'll just edit it into this post.

Thanks, that will be appreciated.

Not mechanical in any way, but maybe revise the power names so that they're not just "Insane x" or "Y of Insanity"?

There are so many evocative words and phrases that you could use for a character rooted in madness:  psychosis, neurosis, derangement, lunacy, mania, and more. 

And, for that matter, archaic processes that fit the comic book idiom of an asylum (even if they don't fit any modern representation of mental health).  A red ability renamed Mass Lobotomy certainly packs more punch than a more generic name. 

Plus, it helps differentiate your power sets.  It'll be less confusing for you and your fellow players when you move further away from XXXXX of Madness. 

Well heck, I sure didn't do a rating of Mad Seer yet.
Woops. Will have to come after sleep. Curse unexpectedly tiring work.

No rush. A delayed rating is better than a hasty one.

MAD SEER

First impression: Mad Seer is a generalist, able to function reasonably effectively in most scenarios.

In the Green Zone, Mad Seer opens up aggresively. Insane Assault allows them to probe a target's mind telepathically, while Precognitive Coordination gives them an effective way to empower all of their allies for a turn cycle. Psychic Alertness is situational, but when it trigger's, it could be the difference between dropping a zone and staying where you curently are.
In the Yellow Zone, Mad Seer doubles down on aggression. Aura Of Insanity allows them to engage multiple targets at the cost of some health, and Enjoy The Descent Into Insanity allows them to grow stronger still from taking out a minion while doing so, at the cost of locking out Psychic Alertness for that round. Precognitive Alteration is a potent reaction, allowing them to either convert a boost on themself into a boost for an ally, or get rid of a penalty on themself before their own turn comes back around again. Also, just generally useful for bumping a roll that last bit over to achieve a threshold. Finally, Telepathic Whammy is a brutal attack, full stop. If the target survives (which is somewhat unlikely), Mad Seer knows that they'll be hindered for the rest of the fight, unless villainous shenanigans arise.
In the Red Zone, Mad Seer trips down on the aggression. Reliable Insanity ensures that Mad Seer will have a minimum level of effectiveness, while Unstoppable Insanity tears into a single foe while tearing through defenses like a 1000 degree knife through butter. I think I missed the meme, but whatever.

Overall? Mad Seer is a force of destruction against foes who cannot deal with high damage output or persistent hinders, which is admittedly many foes. However, they will often want to weigh the benefits of using each of their three reactions carefully to make sure they get the most bang for their buck out of whichever one they use.

In terms of a team setting, Mad Seer will likely be trying to deal with the biggest foe, or take down others that could otherwise interfere with their teammates.

--

Now, I do have some thoughts on the names and Rp Quality.
- While I always love renaming abilities to serve their flavor needs, I do feel like the names for Mad Seer's abilities feel disconnected. That could be just me missing some pattern.
- Second, Insanity as the Rp Quality. I always encourage players in the Sentinels RPG games that I run to make their Rp Quality describe something fundamental about their characters that their powers/qualities don't portray immediately. However, I also encourage those Rp Qualities to mean something, to have enough concreteness that they can't just be used for any roll in mind. I'd recommend trying to make Insanity more descriptive.

--

Sorry about the massive delay on finally getting this rating out. 

Uh… I honestly was not aware that there was a meme that had anything to do with this character.

At first I hesitated to give a character so many reactions, but then I thought: “Characters only (usually) use one action per round, but most characters still have lots of actions. Why should reactions be any different?”

-Well… I renamed some of them insanity-themed because he’s, well, insane. And others I just kept psychic-themed from the psychic archetype.
-Hmm, maybe I could do something like “Dangerous Insanity” or “Infectious Insanity”? When I first came up with this character, I wanted his main mode of attack to be “He uses his telepathy to open his foes mind to the insanity within his own, making his foe become incapacitated by being overwhelmed with madness”. For that to work, I needed some kind of Insanity Die. I was thinking of renaming “Creativity” “Insanity”, but I thought the RP quality would be better.

Maybe for the ability names, try to figure out what the insanity comes across as telepathically. Is it the screaming of children? The dread of staring into the endless abyss? The cacophonous sounds of a thousand wind chimes in a tornado with an accompaniment of wolves howling while alien geometries warp and twist around you, hiding something that your brain refuses to give proper shape or form to?
Similarly, maybe try to make Insanity more specific. You could make an allusion to what caused the insanity in the first place for Mad Seer, or maybe how the insanity affects them as a person. There’s plenty of room to expand there.

Just off the top of my head:

Psychotic Assault (for Insane Assault)

A Glimpse of Sanity (for Precog Coordination)

Behind Paranoid Eyes (for Psychic Alertness)

----

Neurotic Nightmare (for Telepathic Whammy)

Lunatic Fringe (for Enjoy the Descent...)

Manic Awareness (for Precog Alteration)

"We're All Mad Here" (for Aura of Insanity)

-----

Truth Behind the Chaos (for Reliable Insanity)

The Last Nerve (for Unstoppable Insanity)

I mean, that took me all of 8 minutes.  

Also, re: Reactions--I think the reason they're not as valuable as actual Actions stems from the fact that you can't necessarily tell when you're going to trigger them.  You 'might' be able to trigger that ability that boosts you, if you take out a minion, but if you do, you're giving up the possibility of using a reaction that boosts an ally or defends against an oncoming attack.  Plus, Reactions typically only use a single die, which makes them much swingier than Actions (which typically use the standard 3-die pool).  Yes that might incur a higher positive result occasionally, but you'll also get a lot of occasions where you get a 1-point Defend, which doesn't do much good.  

I'm no expert at optimization, but I've found that 2 Reactions seem to be a sweet spot, particularly if they do two different functions (a Boost and a Defend, or an Attack and a Recover, for example).  Having one open at Green and another open at Yellow, too, seems to be a good balance as well.

Hi all, 

I've been working on a character that would be deliberately rich on flavour, even if that meant somewhat disregarding combat 'effectiveness'.

The result is... Tesseract!

I went for a late-fourties labrat who invented a way of bending spacetime slightly, finding himself capable of quantum effects - that is, a real-life Schroedinger's Cat.
Narratively, his existence would spread over a few seconds into past and future, and into multiple possible paths of action before actually converging into one route again. (If you have trouble picturing the "not exactly here, and not precisely now" idea, remember the first Matrix Movie, with the agent dodging bullets: Moving into multiple directions simultaneously).
Outsiders might mistake it for speed, when it is in fact methodical try-and-error shortly before everybody else arrives.

Awkward moments of brain vs. brawn dialogue are definitely on the menu :)
"- And no, this glowy thing from that Avengers poppycock is just a basic cube! A proper tesseract is the same geometric principle but folded into a fourth dimension, integrating its spatial definition with a temporal aspect! People never get this right! Let me draw a quick sketch for you... - "

I found it not befitting to give him more power as GYRO progresses, so I ventured to increase his versatility instead - after all, this man is multitasking incarnate. So as things get more dire, he will not do things more strongly - but he will do quite a bit more of them.

Starting the game with an "Origin" collection seemed cheating without at least making up enough of that collection so that it might actually have happened. Since I had a little space on the sheet, I went and named all six issues of that collection, in a way that I hope would - if not actually telling the story - allude to some events that make for a nice and believable origin story.

You might find the approach a little unusual, but I'd love to hear your thoughts about it anyway!
Do you think he can pull his weight in a team? 

And, what I'd love to hear most:
Aside from game mechanics, does the overall design spark your imagination, so that you can picture what the character would be like? Does it all sound like stories to be told?

Many thanks!

Well, before I make any of my usual comments, I have a possibly dumb question: How did you embed the PDF?

Will Edit in usual comments here.

Edit: Ah, I somehow never saw the attachments option before when posting. Silly me.

Edit 2:

TESSERACT

First impression: Tesseract is an apt supporter.

In the Green Zone, Tesseract starts with boosting himself or any ally with the possibility of also dealing some minor damage with Probability Insight, while Uncertainty Absorber allows for some fine adjustment of outcomes.
In the Yellow Zone, Tesseract expands on his existing options. Custom Timezone can power up a bunch of allies at once, or weaken a bunch of foes all at once. Causality Override gives Tesseract the ability to enact larger scale effects on an ally than Uncertainty Absorber, at the cost of a bit of health. Recharing Cosmic Buffers is neat, but heavily situational.
In the Red Zone, Tesseract focuses on expanding his ability to act. Auxiliary Iteration giving a bonus basic action allows him to make maximume effect out of his Mid die, Manifest Hypotheticals gives a burst of actions (should the minions survive), and then there's Schrodinger's Dance. Schrondinger's Dance allows Tesseract to interact multiple ways in one turn, with a great deal of potency. 

Overall? Tesseract will be able to empower himself or allies quite effectively, and later back it up with extra actions or action focused minions. 

In terms of a team setting, Tesseract will be most effective boosting or hindering allies until the Red Zone, at which point they'll be rather effective at any given task.

Hit me, I'm ready for it :)

... So, apparently my brain decided that forgetting about this thread was a thing.

In all honesty, I didn't have power the past few days. So give me a few minutes.

No worries, and thanks for the evaluation!

If I may ask, what do you think about the flavour bits?  Does it all come together as a consistent persona, and does it make for good narrative possibilities?

It fits together. Doesn't really inspire any thoughts immediately, but there's possibilities in there somewhere.

:D

Thanks.

I built this character on something of a whim to see if something could mechanically work, and having now coded some simulations around them, I think that they work well. However, I'd like a second (or further) opinion, so here we go.

Erd Rumant was discovered standing on a plateau by construction workers when building homes for a new town, by way of multiple jackhammers breaking against a cocoon of hyper-condensed material around him. When excavated, and given a medical examination, he was quietly transferred to Freedom Plaza after it became evident that super powered individuals were better suited to dealing with his almost elemental stubborness. With his clothing transmuted so many times that it functions as a power suit, and his ability to make himself and others resistant to change, Erd Rumant has taken the name of Mantle.

Woe be to criminals who break themselves against him.

Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/17iqByTAxtAlmOjChCB8B-eRdz5FY_2R3/view?usp=sharing

Edit: Forgot to mention which abilities were which.
Scarred Flesh Drips With Blight = Punishment
Deep Sinews Pulse With Life = Self-Improvement
Unyielding Bone Pierces = Living Arsenal
Stubborn Solidity = Magical Shield
Scarred And Rigid Tissue = Relic Drain
Strength Protrudes From Broken Gears = Something For Everyone
Attention Shifts Like Sand In Wind = Pushing The Limits
Endurance Of Desolation = Like The Wind
Times Turns Pain To Power = Impossible Knowledge

I don't have a lot of comments but I am super impressed by that Red zone. Change attacks into hinders which automatically become a bonus on your turn. That's beautiful. I will say that he would be best in a battle with hindering baddies but that's probably obvious. Your hero is a great frontliner after a round but it would obviously be better if you had a few teammates able to drop bonuses.

Following up on that, that's part of why I chose to give him Self-Improvement/Deep Sinews Pulse With Life. It turns on his bonus-based abilities without external assistance, at the cost of a turn to use it.

The Red Zone is definitely when Mantle is at his most potent. With careful targeting, He can make full power attacks on one foe without taking any actual penalties on the attack, or even hit multiple foes with minimal penalties involved. Scarred And Rigid Tissue, while niche, also gives some ability to regenerate health loss should he reach critical levels.

catDreaming good to see my print to PDF is not the only one that exaggerates l

My print to PDF only really freaks out when I open the PDFs in a text editor to change the tab names, because I hate all of them saying the original file name, and then repopen them. And even then, it's easily legible.

Felt like throwing a character up here, and it’s not just because I’ve gained an appreciation for the Physical Powerhouse over time. Okay, mostly because the Physical Powerhouse archetype has grown on me.

Bunker Buster

Alias: Mark

Background: Adventurer

Power Source: Tech Upgrades

Archetype: Physical Powerhouse

Personality: Jovial

Powers: d8 Momentum, d8 Lightning Calculator, d8 Clockwork Implants (Power Suit), d8 Strength

Qualities: d10 Finesse, d8 Fitness, d10 Leadership, d8 Acrobatics, d8 Gears Of Obstruction

Green: 30-23, d6

• This Is How We Do It (A): Boost using Lightning Calculator, assigning your Min, Mid, and Max dice to 3 different bonuses, one of which must be given to an enemy.
  
  – Indiscriminate Fabrication
  
• I Can Take It! (I): Reduce any physical or energy damage you take by 1 while you are in the Green zone, 2 while in the Yellow zone, and 3 while in the Red zone.
  
• Interlocking Gears (A): Attack using Leadership. The target of that Attack must take an Attack action against you as its next turn, if possible.
  
  – Frontline Fighting
  
• Principle Of Strength
  
• Principle Of Clockwork
  
  Yellow: 22-12, d8
  
• Clockwork Outburst (A): Attack multiple targets using Clockwork Implants, using your Min die against each.
  
  – Energy Burst
  
• Kinetic Empowerment ®: When Attacked, treat the amount of damage you take as a Boost action for yourself.
  
  – Tactical Analysis
  
• Follow Through ®: When you eliminate a minion with an Attack using Finesse, Recover Health equal to your Min die.
  
  Red: 11-1, d10
  
• Enduring Might (I): You have no limit on amount of Reactions you can take. Each time you use a Reaction after the first one each turn, take 1 irreducible damage or take a minor twist.
  
  – Push Your Limits
  
• Bring It On! ®: When you are Attacked and dealt damage, you may Attack the source of that damage by rolling your single Strength die, plus the amount of damage you take.
  
  – Reactive Strike
  
• Stance Breaker (I): Whenever you Attack a target with an action, also Hinder that target with your Min die
  
  – Endurance Fighting
  
  Out: Defend an ally by rolling your single Leadership die.

Mark was always that stereotypical friendly jock. Big guy, nice to be around, and sometimes gave hints that he acted a bit dumber than he actually was. When an accident on an archeological expedition ended with ancient clockwork technology merged to his muscular, skeletal, and nervous system, Mark just took it in stride. Stronger, a bit faster, and with the ability to store kinetic energy and release it from his implants, he took the new name Bunker-Buster.

With a booming voice and keen mind, and a bit more finesse than in his youth, Bunker-Buster is ready to protect the innocent.



Edit: Added the original ability name for Interlocking Gears, and changed name of green zone inherent. I hadn’t noticed that it was still called Bring It On.

I love that background story, and how it ties things nicely together! BUNKER BUSTER is a character I can picture, and instantly think of possible situations he might be in. All while "ancient egypt cyborg" as a concept is unique enough to warrant more exploration. Well done!

(On a related note, that would be my only - and quite late - gripe with the aforementioned MANTLE, where the Relic+Cyborg combo seems a bit of a stretch, in the narrative dimension. Still impressive as an experiment on rule mechanics though, can't deny that.)
 

Edit: I notice you have two abilities both named 'Bring it on'. Since they don't really build on each other, I'd suggest re-naming one.

I wanted to re-post a character here.  My players are now 2 issues into their 2nd collection without questioning their character sheets (that I made for them) once, so at the end of the 1st collection, I gave them a more liberal opportunity to modify their characters than the book “allows.”

For 2 of the 4, it only required changing 2 Abilities each (instead of 1), and 1 changed a Principle.  Another character had died and come back to life, so I gave him wide latitude to re-make his character, but in the end he didn’t change a lot.

The final guy, who is my player who usually just shows up to roll dice and not much else, opened up at the end of last session about what he wanted to see for his character.  It would require a substantial re-do of the character without a corresponding story reason for it, but I was OK with it if it meant he felt more connection to the character and story.

This is what I came up with.  He’s good at one thing.  I still welcome analysis on the results.

BARRACUDA RE-DUX

Tragic – Nature – Armored – Fast Talking

Principle of Equality

Principle of Strength

Awareness 10, Leaping 10, Strength 10, Vitality 8, Swimming 6

Banter 10, Close Combat 8, Persuasion 8, Meridian Super-Soldier 8

GREEN

Natural Weapon (Strength) (Finishes Fights Fast)

Armored (I) (Armored Scales)

Dual Offense (Awareness) (Combat Awareness)

Living Bulwark (Vitality) (Powerful Charge)

Repair (Strength) (Overconfident Fighter)

YELLOW

Predator’s Eye (Strength) (Wild Haymakers)

Wild Strength (R) (Trash Talking Thrashing)

RED

Reactive Strike (Strength) (Spec Ops Reflexes)

Unerring Strike (Awareness) (Tactical Predator Senses)

Take Down (Leaping) (Leaping Smash)

Thanks for the comments!

BARRACUDA RE-DUX

First Impression: Barracuda Re-Dux is a brawler, getting up and beating down one foe.

In the Green Zone, Barracuda opens up swinging. Finishes Fights Fast is the most potent Attack, while Combat Awareness, Powerful Charge, and Overconfident Fighter give a range of different utility effects. Armored Scales and Overconfident Fighter is a mini-combo; Reducing incoming damage only to heal it back off can almost neutralize the threat posed by most minions or Lieutenants.

In the Yellow Zone, Barracuda doubles down on the offense. Wild Haymaker’s will deal damage to almost anything, although it’s worth noting the risk from it; Giving a foe an advantage can be dangerous without good teamwork. Trash Talking Thrashing gives him an incentive to hunt down minions; Wild Haymkers being a near instant skill on a single minion at a time can be a very reliable way to empower himself for a big punch somewhere else.

In the Red Zone, Barracuda sticks with what he does best. Spec Ops Reflexes further rewards him for staying in the thick of the fight, while Tactical Predator Senses ensures that his strikes will land without interference. Leaping Smash is a solid attack, and while not his most potent (That honor goes to Wild Haymakers and Tactical Predator Senses), it does put a solid restriction on whatever target get’s hit with it.

Overall, Barracuda Re-Dux is an effective single target beater.

In terms of a team setting, Barracuda still appreciates allies who can hand out Boosts or deal with multiple foes at once.  While Armored Scales will help mitigate attacks from multiple foes, there’s still a distinct possibility of him just getting buried underneath them.

Thanks, catDreaming!

Got an idea for this character, and after turning it over a couple of times, finally got it to where it is now.

Thataway

Alias: Tabel Larius

Background: Criminal

Power Source: Experimentation

Archetype: Shadow

Personality: Impulsive

Powers: d8 Momentum, d8 Wall Crawling, d8 Leaping, d8 Speed

Qualities: d12 Acrobatics, d8 Finesse, d8 Stealth, d8 Fitness, d8 Free Fallin'

Green: 28-22, d6
- It's All Down To Me (I): Whenever you are Boosted, increase that bonus by +1. Then, if that bonus is +5 or higher, take damage equal to that bonus and remove it.
- Up The Walls (A): Attack using Acrobatics. Remove one physical bonus or penalty, Hinder a target using your Min die, or maneuver to a new location in your environment.
-- Sabotage
- Stepping Stones (R): When you would be dealt damage, roll a d4 while in the Green zone, d6 while in the Yellow, or d8 while in Red. Reduce the damage you take by the value rolled. Attack another target with that roll.
-- Untouchable
- Principle Of Speed
- Principle Of Great Power
Yellow: 21-11, d6
- Leap Of Faith (A): Boost yourself using Leaping and use your Max die. That bonus is persistent and exclusive.
-- Personal Upgrade
- Contact Dispersal (R): When a nearby hero in the Yellow or Red zone would take damage, Defend against that damage by rolling your single Momentum die, then redirect any remaining damage to a nearby minion of your choice.
-- Misdirection
- Can't Stop Me Now (A): Attack or Overcome using Speed. Boost yourself using your Min die.
-- Overcome From The Shadows
Red: 10-1, d8
- Terminal Velocity (I): You have no limit on amount of Reactions you can take. Each time you use a Reaction after the first one each turn, take 1 irreducible damage or take a minor twist.
-- Push Your Limits
- It's Not The Fall (A): Attack using Acrobatics. Use your Max die. Remove any number of penalties from the target. Add your Min die to the Attack each time you remove a penalty.
-- Finishing Blow
Out: The hero who acts directly after you may lose 1 health after rolling to reroll their entire dice pool.

Tabel never had a chance to be a kid. Taken at birth by some shady organization she never learned the name of, raised in a simulated city as part of an experiment on some subject she never learned, she learned quickly how to take what she needed to get by. And when someone showed up in town with a drug could supposedly stop time for everyone but you? Well, the researchers certainly didn't expect one resident to steal all of the first shipment in and inject it unrefined directly into her bloodstream.

Turns out time being stopped for everyone but you was an understatement. Tabel could move as if time was stopped for her, and was completely blind while doing so. She literally moved faster than she could think. And that was before she realized that she could 'fall' in any direction she wanted, controlling which direction was her down. Shipment after shipment went in to try and continue the experiment, until one day the experiment was abandoned. Not because it ran out of funding, but because some neon blue blur erupted from the back of a truck that had gotten it's shipment stolen once again, taking out several scientists as it ricocheted madly through the facility until it just happened to go flying out a door into a populated city, vanishing into the night.

Thataway still doesn't know what that lab was for, who was funding the city they were raised in, or what the drug they'd subsisted on for god knows how long was. But they do know one thing: It's all downhill from here.

----

Thataway ended up as a merger of two concepts, one a speedster who literally moved faster than she thought, and one someone who could 'fall' in any direction they wanted. The two just fit together, and then we get Thataway. I'm not sure if their actually good in any mechanical sense.
Oh, and I did make the switch from 'she' to 'they' on purpose. Thataway might or might not be properly human anymore.

So I rolled up one of my more iconic City of Heroes characters as a Sentinels RPG character. But I feel like I missed a step, as the power vs qualities vs abilities mix seems a bit off. But it might be my imagination.

High concept: Shadow controller/jumper that uses twin swords when things get too close. Wears a blindfold due to sensitivity to light, but can sense light and shadow around her.

Onyx Oracle

Background: Academic

Power Source: mystical

Archetype: Transporter

Personality: inquisitive

Principles: Stealth, Defender.

Powers: Teleportation d10, Awareness d8, telekinesis d10, strength d8, agility d8

Qualities: history d12, self-discipline d8, close combat d10, insight d8, magical lore d10, Shadowy Paladin (custom) d8

Abilities:

Green:

Displacement Assault (use teleportation)

run down (use telekinesis)

principle of stealth

principle of defender

Yellow:

modification wave

mystic redirect

hit and run

Red:

Field of Hazards

Aware Response

So in general, she is supossed to bounce around the combat zone, using tendrils of shadow to restrain foes or help friends. This is represented by the TK, so it's always using tendrils of shadow. The teleportation is jumping through shadows, so failure is likely to be represented by light sources preventing her form entering or leaving.

This may change after I finish reading MindWanderer's character thread.

I'm back with another hero to be rated.

This one is a small, quick Plant Spirit from Spirit Islan- er, I mean the Nexus of the Void. ; )

I think you made a typo in your hero name; shouldn't it read "Kudzu"?

Haha no. Kudzu is known for being an invasive species, which really has nothing to do with my concept. Also, I doubt Sentinel Comics would use it, since it is already taken by their Shear Force property's K.U.D.Z.U.

So, first character I've tried to create in SCRPG.  And of course I can't get my mind off a concept I've had for a while, which isn't simple I guess.

Hopefully I'm reading the rules close enough to get this right.  I did take a liberty suggested in another thread, and swap in a Yellow from another Power Source to better model the character's abilities.  In Green, she's creating drones, Boosting an ally, or using Robotics (for the general drone swarm) or the EMG along with Technology and Status for basic Attacks.  Flight isn't there for the d6 so much as for the actual mobility it provides. 

Tek

Vash was decanted into the control caste, intended to use the arcanotech crystals that power all of her people's technology.  Sadly, she's a glitch, a genetic failure, unable to touch the crystals without setting off an unstable, often violent reaction.  Her penchant for tinkering with inferior mechanical devices was humored for a time, as long as she stayed out of the way -- until she started experimenting with using the crystals to power her "crude robotic friends".  Forced to flee a "recycling order" in the middle of the chaos caused by one of her "little mishaps", she ended up on Earth with a stash of crystals. 

On Earth, her "inferior mechanical devices" and "crude little robots" are mysterious alien technology, and her array of arcanotech drones are a potent force.  She can use the crystals for many of their myriad intended functions, so long as she can create a device to channel their power to the desired effect.  Good thing, since she could be here for a very very long time -- and while she still has a hard time thinking like these humans, at least she can be useful here.

Alias - Vash Zhekot (Sophia Smith)
Gender - Female
Eyes - Red (Green)
Hair -- Iridescent Black Feathers (Black)
Skin -- Blue (Caucasian)
Height -- 5'10"
Build -- Wiry
Costume -- Mid-length black coat lined with pockets, grey utility trousers and shirt, goggles, big arcanotech gauntlets.  Disguise projector allows her to pass for human (most people aren't looking for a alien in line at the coffee shop, which is good, because she loves dirty chai...)

Background -- Interstellar
Power Source -- Alien
Archetype -- Minion-Maker
Personality -- Stalwart (more for the mechanical effects, honestly)

Principle of the Gearhead -- You always know the general state of repair or function of an item of technology, whether it's a simple toaster or an alien orbital defense system.
Principle of the Immortal -- You do not age and will not be affected by mundane ailments. 

Powers:
Robotics (d10)
Vitality (d8)
Energy Manipulator Gauntlets / EMGs (Signature Weapon - d8)
Gravitic Impellor Harness (Flight - d6)
- Inventions (d8)

Qualities:
Technology (d12)
Alien Polymath (d8)
Self-Disciple (d6)
- Deep Space Knowledge (d8) {Wondering if this has too much overlap with the Special "Alien Polymath" or not...}
- Science (d8)

Abilities -- Green:
Create Arcanotech Drone (Make Minion) -- Create a Minion using ROBOTICS.
Arcane Infusion (Power Up) -- Boost another hero or one of your Minions using SIGNATURE WEAPON.  Either use your Max Die, or your Min Die and make the Bonus persistent. 
Principle of the Gearhead -- Overcome a technological challenge and use your Max Die.  You and each of your allies gain a Hero Point.
Principle of Immortality -- Overcome a situation involving your physical condition and use your Max Die.  You and each of your allies gain a Hero Point. 

Abilities -- Yellow:
Multipurpose Drone Swarm (Empower and Repair) -- Boost, Hinder, Defend, or Attack using ROBOTICS.  You and all nearby heroes in the Yellow or Red zone Recover Health = Min Die.
Field Upgrades (Upgrade Minion) -- Boost one of your Minions using ROBOTICS.  You may also upgrade that Minion to your Max Die size, replacing its Minion form. 
Energy Intercept (A Plan For Everything) -- When you are attacked, first roll your single SIGNATURE WEAPON die. Defend yourself with that roll. Then, Boost yourself using that roll.  {Can be switched to HALT! if one wants straight Constructed Method}

Abilities -- Red:
Thinking Sideways (Considered Planning) -- Boost using TECHNOLOGY and use your Max Die.  Defend against all attacks using your Mid Die until your next turn.  Option to Hinder as a Reaction with Min Die.
Alien Metabolism (Major Regeneration) -- Hinder yourself using VITALITY, use Min Die.  Recover Health = Max+Mid Dice.

Ability -- Out:
Emergency Protocols -- Defend an Ally by rolling ROBOTICS  (d10)

* See pages 87-88 for Minion Maker rules -- Technology (d12) gives Tek access to all 12 options on the Minion Forms table.

For Fjur's submission, I will likely be able to rate it on thursday.

For KJ_Max's submission, I'm uncertain of when I'll be able to rate it. I will make an initial note that you didn't swap abilities between Archetypes; You swapped them between Power Sources. Specifically, you swapped Halt from Alien for A Plan For Everything from Genius. This distinction can be important, and I'm inclined to say that your build would function mostly the same if you just used Halt instead (at a quick glance).

Otherwise, when I get around to rating builds, I'll either edit them into this post or post them fresh here.

I corrected the swap detail, that paragraph was the last bit I typed. 

Halt only functions at close range and doesn't have the element that simulates absorbing part of the incoming energy.

@kj_max

As a GM, I'd probably frown upon your swap, and at least ask you for some sort of tradeoff to balance for it.

Basically, you dropped one ability that was readily at your disposal for another that does the same, but at broader range and plus an extra effect... narratively fitting or not, that seems a quite obvious move to wedge out more power :)

On the other hand, I love the backstory you're telling there! Very cool, imaginative, and really gives a good idea of how your Hero ticks.

I agree with der andere Jan. If I were your GM, I would encourage you not to swap things around.

Also, I know some of us are thinking it, so I'll just say it: Tek seems a bit like Unity, but from SPACE. ; )

It's been a while since I've played the card game, so I don't think I'd come across Unity.

The idea for Tek (still not sold on the name) goes back to a weekend several years ago when I watched Dispicable Me, The Increadibles, Megamind, and about a dozen episodes of Invader Zim, because the winter weather was so bad I didn't go out for three days and I was out of things to do. 

On the balance question, I put some thoughts on the character creation thread where the subject had already come up.

Where as to me, it seems a lot of posters here get locked into Guided Method (The book does 90% of the work for you) or Constructed Method (the book does 40% of the work for you), that they just ignore the Third Method (You have a concept? You build it!). In my limited free time, I've been trying to update the Cauldron heroes to SC:RPG, and lemme tell you, you can't do a bunch of them without using the Third Method. Sometimes the Constructed Method just doesn't work for what you want to build. 

" Where as to me, it seems a lot of posters here get locked into Guided Method (The book does 90% of the work for you) or Constructed Method (the book does 40% of the work for you), that they just ignore the Third Method (You have a concept? You build it!). In my limited free time, I've been trying to update the Cauldron heroes to SC:RPG, and lemme tell you, you can't do a bunch of them without using the Third Method. Sometimes the Constructed Method just doesn't work for what you want to build."

That's been my impression too so far.

Because I've usually come up with the character concept / personality before I even start character generation, I've almost exclusively used the third method of just building it. :-) It's really a fun exercise in posibilities, and has always resulted in me rethinking aspects of the character that make them (to me) more interesting! 

EDIT: I was wrong -- I use the second method and never the third. :-\ 

You can do whatever you want to do, no one is going to stop you. Some of us may want to fully realise our character concept, without heeding constricting rules; and some of us may want to follow those rules, because they help maintain a balanced play experience. No one way is better than the other (although I do personally prefer one way other the other, as you can see above : P).

(Also, if we want to continue this discussion, I suggest someone start a new thread. This thread is for rating hero builds, not discussing levels of rule-following. ; ))

So I got the book yesterday and decided to try out character creation. I had a character in mind and tried to choose abilities that would support her power set, so I am well aware she’s nowhere near optimized, but I still felt like sharing:

Smokescreen

Alias: Alexa Stanford

Gender: female

Age: 22

Height: 1.65 m

Eyes: brown

Hair: black

Skin: caucasian

Build: slim

Costume: When Alexa “suits up”, her whole body gets covered in a thick, sooty-black skin. With her movements, cracks form in the skin that immediately meld together again. thick smoke is constantly billowing from those cracks. Her eyes in this form glow like red embers

Backstory: Alexa was possessed by a spirit at the age of fifteen. Under the control of that spirit, she went on a destructive rampage until stopped by a group of villains. The spirit was exorcised from her body, but a tiny part of it remains. That part is no longer strong enough to take control outright, but it is a constant battle of will for Alexa to maintain power over her own body. The more she taps into the spirit’s power of controlling smoke and heat, the harder that battle becomes.

Feeling the spirit grow in power within her, Alexa has decided that she should use that power to make up for her previous misdeeds for as long as she can. And if she is with other heroes, at least someone will be near to take her down when the spirit finally wrests back control.

Background: Former Villain

Power Source: Supernatural

Archetype: Armored

Personality: Distant

Principle of Whispers: You hear a voice in your head that no one else hears. The voice tells you things which might be true or false, but the voice certainly seems to know a lot.

Principle of the Indestructible: You ignore damage from unpowered close-combat weapons and attacks such as clubs and non-powered fists, or basic ranged attacks such as slings and arrows.

Powers:

Fire: 8

Strength: 8

Duplication: 10

Agility: 10

Awareness: 10

Qualities:

Otherworldly Mythos: 10

Imposing: 8

Acrobatics: 6

Close Combat: 10

Possessed: 8

Abilities - Green

Sootskin (Armored): Reduce any physical or energy damage you take by 1 while you are in the Green Zone, 2 while in the Yellow zone, and 3 while in the Red zone

Mirrored Strike (Dual Offense): Attack using Duplication. Attack a second target with your Min die.

Smoke Ring (Living Bulwark): Attack using Fire. Defend another target with your Min die.

Strike from Concealment (Unstoppable Charge): Attack using Agility. ignore all penalties on this Attack, ignore any Defend actions, and it cannot be affected by Reactions.

Principle of Whispers: Overcome against a challenge that involves information you have no real way of knowing and use your Max die. You and each ally gain a hero point

Principle of the Indestructible: Overcome in a situation where you charge headlong into danger and use your Max die. You and each ally gain a hero point

Abilities - Yellow

Billowing Cloud (Mass Modification): Boost or Hinder using Fire and apply that to multiple close targets

Smoke and Mirrors (Reach through Veil): When a nearby ally would take damage, Defend that ally by rolling your single status die and move them elsewhere in the same scene.

Abilities - Red

Where there’s Smoke, there’s Fire (Powerful Strike): Attack using Fire. Use your Max + Mid dice

Funnel the Strike (Reactive Defense): When an opponent Attacks, you may become the target of that attack and Defend by rolling your single Close Combat die.

Reveal the Thing Inside (Ultimatum): Hinder using Imposing. Use your Max and Min die. Boost yourself or an ally with your Mid die.

Smoke Shield (Impenetrable Defense): Defend using Duplication with your Max + Mid die against all attacks against you until your next turn

Army of Spirits (Summoned Allies): Use Duplication to create a number of d6 Minions equal to your Mid die. Choose the one same basic action that they each perform. The all act at the start of your turn.

Abilities - Out

Boost an ally by rolling your single red Status die

Comments

Armored really isn’t a very good Archetype, but most of the other choices I rolled didn’t work with the concept at all. It does have the added advantage of turning the skin from a purely cosmetic thing into a valuable part of the character. It also made Indestructible an easy choice for the second Principle.

Fire here is more representative of creating and controlling hot smoke than actual fire for this character.

Before starting chargen, I had envisioned the character more as someone hangs out in the backlines and uses smoke to conceal allies (Defend) or choke and blind enemies (Hinder). The way the dice and abilities fell, she’s more of a front-line tank now, but still does some of that. The duplication power also gave me the idea to have her create duplicates of herself out of smoke, which is more interesting than just formless clouds.

Status dice are 10/8/6 which is not ideal, but it fits very well story-wise. It represents how Alexa has to concentrate more on keeping control of the thing inside her the longer the battle goes.

Red abilites especially were chosen more for flavor than for optimization. If I really wanted to optimize. I’d probably have gone with Eruption + Improved Immunity, both using Fire, for the obvious combo potential.

Smokescreen seems to have well-rounded Powers and Qualities. 

Inherent damage reduction, Green d10 attack that can't be defended against, multi-boost, and an ability to yank an ally out of trouble -- that's a nice set even without the others.  

Only thing that might be missing is a movement ability, but that's a 50/50 thing on the published characters so I'm not sure how important the system considers a movement power or ability.

Vines And Leaves Skitter And Grow

First Impression: Vines (as it will be referred to from here on out), is a wide area controller. 

In the Green Zone, Vines begins with two solid battlefield control options. Grasping Vines allows them to lock down one or two targets quite effectively with precision, while Vine Assault allows them to erode away the health and immediate effectiveness of a wide range of foes (hopefully not catching allies in the process). Speedy Shrub gives a way to reposition safely, offering offense with some limited defense stapled on. 
In the Yellow Zone, Vines pulls out some new tricks. Independent Vine has it sprout a hefty friend to fight alongside it. Risky Lash allows Vines to pour on the offense across multiple targets, at the risk of some self damage. Growing too fast can leave it low on nutrients after all. This is balanced by Natural Absorption, where Vines metabolizes the poor mooks that it fells in it's overgrowth across the battlefield.
In the Red Zone, Vines stick with it's guns. Inescapable Vines means that the targets of it's offense will always be restrained, while Overwhelming Foliage let's it stop as many foes or threats as it wants in their tracks at the drop of a hat. 

Overall, Vines is a very solid wide area controller. I have solid mental images of what it's doing in an action scene. It's main weakness is dealing with single targets, but more on that below.

In terms of a team setting, Vines really wants allies who are adept at handling solo, dangerous targets. It's best option for dealing with them on it's own is Overwhelming Foliage, which is very potent, but lacks consistency beyond tying them up in place for someone else to beat on.

------

TEK

I'm going to add some extra text to this one, since I'm finding some difficulty expressing how I feel about the comments made by @KJ_Max about the creation system.

Interstellar granted the Technology d12 and Self Discipline d6.

Alien granted the Robotics d10, Vitality d8, and EMG d8, and raised either the Vitality or EMG die to a d8.

Minion Maker... Ah, here we go. I'm not going to write a rating on Tek, because there was a major creation mistake here. Tek only distributed one of their d8s from Alien in this step, and it's to a power that's not on the list given in Minion Maker. They should have assigned one or more of their three d8s from Alien to a power listed in the Minion-Maker archetype, and then assigned any remaining d8s to qualities listed in the Minion-Maker archetype. Once this is fixed, I will either edit in a proper analysis or make one in a new post.

KJ-Max, I would recommend not building a Minion-Maker as your first character, regardless. They are more complex than most of the archetypes present.

------

Smokescreen

First Impression: Smokescreen is a solid up in your face tank.

In the Green Zone, Smokescreen brings on the pain. Strike From Concealment gives them an unblockable attack, while Mirrored Strike allows them to handle two foes to some degree. Smoke Ring is an interesting battlefield control trick, as it can incline enemies to target her instead of whoever she's defending. Sootskin rounds it out with some solid DR, covering both physical and energy damage.
In the Yellow Zone, Smokescreen diversifies their kit. Billowing Cloud gives their allies a chance to set up or locks out set up foes from their full effectiveness momentarily, while Smoke and Mirrors can get an ally out of dodge when hit with an attack. Both are useful tricks to have, and fit well with the theme she's got so far.
In the Red Zone, Smokescreen seems to lose focus. Where There's Smoke, There's Fire is potent offense. Smoke Shield allows them to turtle up for a round, but I'm not the hugest fan of it thematically. I'm not sure whether it's the name, or the actual ability text, but it doesn't seem to fit in very well. Same goes for Army Of Spirits, to a degree. It makes some sense with her backstory, but I'm not able to really picture what she'd be doing to lead into using it.

Overall, Smokescreen is a very capable front line fighter. Damage reduction and utility offenses early on give her a direction that can rarely go wrong, although I'm still a bit confused by the Red Zone.

In terms of a team setting, Smokescreen really wants allies who can wear down multiple targets at once for her. While Mirrored Strike is a good start, and DR helps, Smokescreen might feel a bit helpless mechanically if she get's swarmed by minions in large numbers.

I think I probably got caught up in following the threads foward and back -- I'm not sure I assigned ANY of the three d8s.  The Flight comes from "retcon" and Alien Polymath is her "unique".  That would explain why it seemed like the example characters were getting so many more dice.

Going to rework some things. 

* Changes made, marked with a dash before the power/quality.

Oh -- thank you.

I will likely be able to rate it on thursday, now that the error has been rectified. Unless someone else posts between now and then, the analysis will be edited into this post.

Thank for rating Vines etc., catDreaming! (I have considered renaming it simply "Brambles." I do realise that most people don't have time to say a six-word name during battle, but I wanted to keep with the Spirit Island theme.)

I'm glad it came across so clearly as being a "wide area controller." I definitely wanted its schtick to be Hindering (and Attacking) multible targets.

On Vines/Brambles...  Is Natural Absorbtion as creepy as it sound?

Yep... I guess it is. I did not think through that ability when I assigned it. : P

Thanks for the evaluation of Smokescreen. I took a critical look at my red abilities and I see how they don't fit very well thematically. And when I took another look at the abilities in the book, I realised there is a whole page of red powers that work with qualities instead of powers that I had completely missed when building the character. Several of those powers fit Smokescreen's build much better, so I'll be rebuilding that part of the character.

Edit: I have chosen two new red abilities and updated Smokescreen's post. I do like the ability selection better now and I think she's keeping focus on her role as tanky front-line fighter/protector with these abilities.

With Tek and Smokescreen updated, now seems a good time to update analyses on them. First Smokescreen, since I only need to update the end of their analysis, then Tek, since I need to write one wholesale.

Smokescreen

First Impression: Smokescreen is a solid up in your face tank.

In the Green Zone, Smokescreen brings on the pain. Strike From Concealment gives them an unblockable attack, while Mirrored Strike allows them to handle two foes to some degree. Smoke Ring is an interesting battlefield control trick, as it can incline enemies to target her instead of whoever she's defending. Sootskin rounds it out with some solid DR, covering both physical and energy damage.
In the Yellow Zone, Smokescreen diversifies their kit. Billowing Cloud gives their allies a chance to set up or locks out set up foes from their full effectiveness momentarily, while Smoke and Mirrors can get an ally out of dodge when hit with an attack. Both are useful tricks to have, and fit well with the theme she's got so far.
In the Red Zone, Smokescreen doubles down on what they do well. Where There's Smoke, There's Fire gives a potent offensive option, Funnel The Strike, allows Smokescreen to force enemies to target her, and Reveal The Thing Inside is an excellent utility effect for slowing down one foe and preparing herself or an ally for further action.

Overall, Smokescreen is a very capable front line fighter. Damage reduction and utility offenses early on give her a direction that can rarely go wrong, and her options only expand in those directions further as the fighting get's more intense.

In terms of a team setting, Smokescreen really wants allies who can wear down multiple targets at once for her. While Mirrored Strike is a good start, and DR helps, Smokescreen might feel a bit helpless mechanically if she get's swarmed by minions in large numbers. Smokescreen does grow stronger in a team as well though, with Funnel The Strike allowing her to force an enemy to target her when they would target an ally.

------

Tek

First Impression: Tek is fundamentally based on their creation of minions.

In the Green Zone, Tek begins by... making minions. To break into mechanics for a moment, Tek's average minion created in the Green Zone using Robotics/Technology on Create Arcanotech Drone will be either a d6 or a d8, with a lean towards a d8. To support her minions (or her allies), Tek also has Arcane Infusion, one of only two Hero abilities in the game that can create persistent non-exclusive bonuses. An important note regarding minion creation: Only one bonus may be consumed to grant a minion an ability, and only one ability may be granted. 
In the Yellow Zone, Tek starts to lose a bit of cohesion. I'm having a bit of difficulty reconciling the name Multipurpose Drone Swarm with the effects of the ability, and I heavily disagree with the swap from Halt to A Plan For Everything. For the sake of coherency, I will be going into more detail on why I have such strong opinions on this below the team setting section of this analysis. Field Upgrades... Well, it exists. It does give the chosen minion a bonus which can be used for either trying to note get one-shotted by any attack that comes at it, or be used to amplify an action, or be used by Tek to grant an ability to another minion if one is created after this point. The average size increase granted by Field Upgrades will be either a d8 or d10, leaning towards a d10, so it's likely to keep the minion alive for another turn cycle. Important note, and so I bold this: Field Upgrades is not able to grant new minion abilities to it's target. 
In the Red Zone, Tek hunkers down for the long haul. Thinking Sideways is a potent defensive measure, and Alien Vitality can replenish large amounts of health in a pinch.

Overall, Tek can't do much without her minions. This is not to say that's always the case; It's just very much true for the Minion-Maker archetype as a whole.

In terms of a team setting, Tek wants allies who can draw attention away from the minions she is making. Without that, it's quite likely that her minions will be disposed of as low risk targets during a fight by minions or other side threats to whatever the main one is. Allies who can also generate boosts (that they consent to being consumed) will also boost her effectiveness.

Now, as for the swap of Halt for A Plan For Everything... I understand if it's meant to have Tek absorbing the energy of whatever she's intercepting. However, it doesn't fit with the rest of her thematic kit. Her gauntlets being used are listed as energy manipulators, but lacking the absorption power, it doesn't make a ton of sense that the energy used in the interception can be absorbed for a net gain to be discharged after a delay. Or that she can accurately use such powers in response to something from range. I could be very easily misunderstanding your intention though.
As for an argument as to why Halt can fulfill the same soft mechanics in combination with Field Upgrades or Multipurpose Drone Swarm, consider the following. If Tek is being attacked from long range, she can already have existing minions who can Attack go after that target, or can just have a Defend minion ready to Defend her each turn. If Tek is being attacked at close range, and can trigger halt, the energy being absorbed can be flavored as why her Multipurpose Drone Swarm is able to heal her allies, or can be channeled into whatever new form and/or bonus the minion targeted by Field Upgrades recieves.
If you are planning on using A Plan For Everything as a way to consistently generates bonuses for use in giving minions abilities, I also have some possibly bad news. Your average bonus made from A Plan For Everything is a 14/8, or more precisely a 1.75. You will get a +2 more often than a +1, but that is also contingent on Tek being attacked instead of her minions.Which, if she's at range, requires there to be a visible connection or reasoning to imply that taking her out should shut down the drones (interestingly, rules as written, minions remain active even if the hero creating them goes OUT).

Would you rather we ask questions about the feedback here, or take them to another thread to keep this one clean for the characters and comments?

Go ahead and ask the questions here.

A lot of Tek's build is based on her having more drones than just the Minions, there are lots of smaller drones deployed. 

Multipurpose Drone Swarm -- the idea is that it literally sends the broader non-minion swarm of drones to complete the primary task chosen, and deliver a healing jolt to her allies at the same time.  

Field Upgrades -- I may have misunderstood what it's capable of.  The text says "Boost one of your Minions using [power].  You may also upgrade that Minion to your Max Die size, replacing its Minion form", and because Minion Form is the header/title of the section where those the Archetype's minion abilities are listed... I thought it could grant or replace a minion ability at the time of use.

The EMGs and the related feedback on either Defensive Ability (Halt or APFE), and the lack of Absorbtion as a distinct Power on the character... now I'm wondering where along the line between the "fiction layer" description controlling what's possible and the "mechanics assigned" controlling what's possible we're supposed to be operating at.   The rules for Specialty Weapon say that doesn't have to be just a simple attack, it can have a broader or different explanation. If we wanted a more direct "mechannics defined" represenation of the EMGs, I could replace Signature Weapon and either Science or Deep Space Knowledge with Aborbsion (d8) and Telekineses (d8) {I think I could make that swap under the rules if I recall where the dice came from correctly}... IF Telekinesis could be used for ranged attack rolls as a direct kinetic energy impact at range. 

On the topic of minions sticking around after the character is OUT, that's good, because the "special effect" of the OUT ability I took to defend other characters relies on her drone swarm still being up and running autonomously. 

One other question -- do you think Deep Space Knowlege and Alien Polymath have too much overlap, such that one should be replaced, or would you consider them seperate enough?

I know you were probably addressing catDreaming, but I don't see why I can't share my thoughts as well. : )

Multipurpose Drone Swarm: I think it makes enough sense that the Robotics Power can still do things without having to make Minions first. Otherwise, anyone who ever wanted to use Robotics would have to be a Minion-Maker.

EMGs: I would be wary of straying too far into the territory of "I have this one Power, but it can do the effects of all these other powers!" Mainly because that would unbalance the system by, essentially, giving you free stuff. Example (that I saw somewhere else on these Forums, don't remember where): Bob the Electrifyer has the Electricity Power, and Bob's player claims that that means that Bob's body can be made of electricity, which the player then claims means Bob can fly, and have things pass through him. Thus, Bob's player has given Bob three powers (Electricity, Flight, Intangibility) for the price of one. I know your scenario isn't as extreme as that one, but still, I agree with catDreaming that if you want to absorb things, get Absorption. [Edit: In hindsight, I think I might have been a bit too pedantic in the above section. Sorry about that.]

(Sidenote: I think Telekinesis can definitely be "punching at range.")

Minions While Out: I think this one really just depends on your character concept. If a character has to maintain concentration on his/her/their/its Minions, then they should stop functioning when the character goes out. On the other extremity, if a character's Minions are semi-autonomous (as Tek's space drones are), then there's no reason for them to stop working, as it is allowed by the rules.

(Although you should still have your drones act like they're under a program.)

Qualities: I think it's fine to have both Deep Space Knowledge and Alien Polymath. The former tells us that Tek knows stuff about aliens and space, whereas the latter tells us that she knows some more general stuff because she is an alien.

A quick remark on the whole Halt/ApfE thing:

There is no need to hang yourself up on that absorption-to-counterreaction thing - if you simply keep narration and mechanics separate.

Meaning: Take Halt as an ability, so nobody will think of you as one to cheat for more power. Your drones can still absorb whatever energy comes your way. Narratively, have their charge level bar rise by a good few dots, let them whizz happily, and finish soaking up with a satisfactory 'pling-plang-plong' sound. Have them buzzing with overcharge energy, ready to unload your next turn, and describe their next action as extra shiny, with glittering effects all over. It's all fair game, you are fully entitled to tell whatever flavor story you can imagine.

Just don't expect any *mechanical* effect from it, is all. 

In more general terms:

SCRPG is a game where narrative has a lot of weight, so please don't see the chargen rules (few as they are) as a limitation. I'd even say it is the other way round:  You need to stick to the rules for a playable game, just like with any other system. BUT you have the extra freedom of flavoring the mechanics much more richly. Make extensive use of that freedom to maximise your gaming experience!

In a vague effort to distract the thread, have another character that I've made!

Retrospect

Alias: [Error]

Background: Tragic

Power Source: Mystical

Archetype: Close Quarters Combatant

Personality: Natural Leader

Powers: d10 Barrier Of Faith, d10 Postcognition, d6 Flight, d8 Speed

Qualities: d10 Conviction, d8 Close Combat, d10 Deep Space Knowledge, d10 Insight, d8 Ranged Combat, d8 The Shield Still Stands

Green: 32-25, d6
- Anchor The Formation (A): Defend using Barrier Of Faith. Attack using your Min die.
-- Defensive Strike
- Break Upon Me (A): Attack using Insight. Ignore all penalties on this Attack, ignore any Defend actions, and this Attack cannot be affected by reactions.
-- Precise Strike
- The Line Will Not Break (A): Take any two basic actions using Close Combat, each using your Min die.
-- Flexible Stance
- Principle Of The Defender
- Principle Of The Veteran
Yellow: 24-12, d8
- This Line Holds, Dead Or Alive! (A): Boost or Hinder using Postcognition, and apply that mod to multiple nearby targets.
-- Modification Wave
- No One Dies But Me (R): When another hero in the Yellow or Red Zone would take damage, you may redirect it to yourself and Defend against it by rolling your single Barrier Of Faith die.
-- Mystic Redirection
- The Burden I Bear (A): Attack using Postcognition. Use your Max die.
-- Offensive Strike
Red: 11-1, d10
- Until My Soul Burns Out (I): You have no limit on amount of Reactions you can take. Each time you use a Reaction after the first one each turn, take 1 irreducible damage or take a minor twist.
-- Push Your Limits
- Bear The Weight Of History's Convergence (A): Boost using Barrier Of Faith. Use your Max die. That bonus is Persistent and Exclusive. Then, Attack using your Mid die plus that bonus.
-- Ultimate Weaponry
- Over The Horizon (R): When an opponent Attacks, you may become the target of the Attack and Defend against it by rolling your single Red zone die.
-- Heroic Sacrifice
Out: Boost an ally by rolling your single The Shield Still Stands die.

Deep in the mountains lay a monastery, isolated from the outside world. What visitors came there left with less than they came, for the monastery had a very particular purpose: To guard and contain artifacts or relics that are not of this world. Sadly, the monastery was at one point assaulted by forces unknown, penetrating it's defenses both technological and magical with incredible ease. What remained of the monastery weeks later when an investigation by local authorities was conducted was a single boy with silver chains winding up one of his arms and something that could only be sensed by the absence of any sensory input from wherever it was, regardless of what examined it.
The boy was taken into protective custody, and following a short stay in a psych ward, was to be moved to a rehab facility. He wasn't in any medical danger; He would act to keep himself alive (eating, drinking, sleeping, etc), but otherwise displayed no real intention of his own. He would not respond to any vocal questioning, or to images that were shown to him. What was concerning was that, regardless of what else he did, the boy never let go of whatever was bound to him by the silver chains winding up one of his arms. However, the day before he was to be transferred. the boy simply walked out of the facility. No alarm was raised as he walked out; After all, as far as the security systems were concerned, this boy had never been in the facility whatsoever.

Poor kid.  Does he get any better before becoming the adult hero?  Is that invisible unthing some sort of mystic shield?

Green -- Defend-attack, multi-action.. and the attack that can't be defended against... ouch.
Yellow -- Mass Boost or Hinder, a teammate-defending reaction, and a big attack.
Red -- Your reaction-spam inherent (I've already picked up that you like this one :-)  ), a self-boosted haymaker, and another teammate-defender. 

Lots of action options including mult-actions, some big-hitting attacks, lots of options to boost or defend teammates. 

What's Barrier of Faith?  A rename?  A custom power?

Why two different teammate-defending reactions?  Because the Red variation can defend somene in Green?  Or something to do with the different wording between "would take damage" or "is attacked" that I'm not grasping?  Or is there a limit on using the same reaction more than once a turn with Push Your Limits? 

To answer the questions out of order...
Barrier Of Faith is his Signature Weaponry, and it is the thing that is connected to him via silver chains. It is shaped like a shield, and is often used as such.

There is a bit of a difference in the trigger wording, and it does matter. When an Action is done, it can be divided up into steps: Narrative, Declaration, Roll, and Resolution are how I think of them. What's important is a single trigger (i.e., a given ally being Attacked), can only have one Reaction triggered by it. And Defends don't stack, with only the largest being applied and used up against a given attack 
- Over The Horizon's trigger condition of 'When an opponent attacks', happens in response to Declaration, before dice are rolled. This makes it riskier to use, since the number of bonuses and which of three dice or combination thereof will be involved. It does have an upside in that it can Defend Retrospect, even if he was the original target of the Attack. It also has a weird thing where Retrospect can potentially redirect multiple hits of a full team AOE into himself, with the appropriate Defends to try and soak the hits, before the damage is actually known.
- No Dies But Me's trigger condition of 'When another hero in the Yellow or Red zone is dealt damage' hapens in response to Resolution, when the effects of an action are actually applied, and the dice results accounting for bonuses and penalties are known.

catDreaming, why do you like Pushing the Limits so much to include it in this many builds? My guess is that you realise that the 1 irreducible damage is always lower than the Reaction's effect, so you know it will be a net gain.

A bit of column A, a bit of column B.

I like Pushing The Limits moreso for the flavor it can put into hard mechanics. Scabbard, Bunker-Bunker, and Retrospect all fall into that category, where they in a comic would be constantly using their reactions. However, there is another reason.

Taking 1 irreducible damage for an extra reaction is only a good deal in my eyes *if* you can guranteee that you'll be able to get more than 1 of whatever the reaction provides. Whether it be through Boosts or built in bonuses, net zeroing should be avoided.

There's also the fact that Scabbard, Bunker-Buster, and Retrospect were built to work well together, and a lot of my builds don't actually have Pushing The Limits for one reason or another. The only builds that will always have Pushing The Limits (if they qualify for it) are Shadows with Untouchable and a way to get a Persistent bonus.

Another hero to come through the mist gates and ended up staying in Earth 1 when the gates slammed shut.
Not from a known disparation but instead an homage to other properties made by other companies. A back story told by biographies and setting synopsis on the backs of fake action figure packaging pictured in comic panels.

Project DNAesop human animal hybrids wearing various uniforms and identity costumes.

Take a man, a trained soldier- sample 1 and a timber wolf- sample A
Infuse the man with wolf genes turning him into subject 1-A
Infuse the wolf with human genes and memory scans of sample 1 making subject A-1
how dose the man wolf react to stimuli different than the wolf man? Nature vs Nurture and Instinct vs Training mixed with your unethical mad science.
then C.I.R.C.E the mad AI controlling the research facility released all the subjects into the wild. Now free they have formed various factions based on becoming human, mutating every human, waring with humanity, forming a separate hybrid community, forming an integrated society with humanity and other agendas

We still have the genes and memory scans of sample 1 so what happens when we implant the genetics and memories into a timid herbivore instead of an aggressive pack hunter?

Gun Bunny security chief for “The Underground”
Brown furred, brown eyed rabbit man in paramilitary fatigues with a custom long barrel firearm

Gun Bunny
lone wolf - military - genetic - marksman

Powers
Awareness D10
Signature Weapon D10
Gadgets D8
Speed D8

Qualities
Range Combat D10
Alertness D8
Fitness D8
Leadership D8
Underground Militia D8

Principal of self preservation
Principal of the veteran

		Green D8

-Quicker Shot- [A] Attack using Signature weapon. Ignore all penalties on this Attack, Ignore any Defend actions, and it cannot be affected by Reactions

-In My Cross Hares- [ A] Boost yourself using Ranged combat. Use your Max+Min dice. This bonus can only be used against one chosen target, and is persistent & exclusive against that target until it leaves the scene

-Order: Jump up!- [A] Attack using Leadership Other nearby heroes in the Yellow or Red zone Recover equal to your Min die

		Yellow D8

-Twitch- [R] When damaged by an environment target or a surprise Attack Defend by rolling your single Awareness die.

-Hare Trigger- [R] When a new target enters close range Attack that target by rolling your single Ranged combat die.

-Buck Shot- [A] Attack multiple targets using Signature Weapon using your Min die against each.

-Order: Hop to it!- [A] Attack using Leadership Create a Boost for another hero using your Max die.

		Red D8

-Still Going- [I] You have no limit on amount of Reactions you can take. Each time you use a Reaction after the first one each turn take 1 irreducible damage or take a minor twist

-Hip Shot- [A] After an opponent Attacks or Hinders you or a nearby ally, Attack the opponent by rolling your single Alertness die

-Black Rabbit of Inle- [A] Attack using Ranged Combat Use your Max die. Remove any number of penalties from the target Add your Min die to the Attack each time you remove a penalty.

Out   

Boost an ally by rolling your single leadership die.

I don't mean to be pedantic, but in the Sentinel Comics Multiverse, the different realities/timelines are labeled Universe [number], not Earth [number].

Gun Bunny: 

I love the renames on the Abilities. 

NIce example of implementing a very specific theme with the tools available in the default rules.

@ fjur i would argue that the (fictional) comic book history that is also the default setting of a table top RPG is the best place to be pedantic

@ KJ Max thank you

Second attempt at coverting a major City of Heroes alt into Sentinels. This one my dark/dark scrapper that got turned into a dark/dark brute after an encounter with a certain device in the Faultline zone.(Translation: made an evil alt of the character... that still reformed and became a hero, because the psy-chrono-whatever had limits.) Backstory is that a group of college students decided, in a burst of stupidity, decided to act out a summoning ritual as a class project. They all got elemental powers as spririts from those realms merged with them, and this lady got Shadow/Darkness.

Void Wraith

BG: Former Villain

PS: Mystic

Arch: Physical Powerhouse

Personality: Sarcastic

Principles: Whispers, Strength

Powers:

Infernal d10

Flight, awareness, strength, vitality d8

Qualities:

Magical Lore, Close Combat d10

Insight, otherwordly mythos, cursed ritualist d8

Powers:

Green: Galvanize (close combat), damage resistant

Yellow: modification wave (infernal), mystic redirection (flight), power strike (strength)

red: Erruption (infernal), major regeneration

Retcon: red die to d10.

("empowered brawlers" are a thing for me across games and settings... my D&D/pathfinder games usually found me playing paladins, magi, and monks)

Sea-Envy, I wholeheartedly agree!

Hey folks!

Just got my book and pdfs, and tried out making a character with the guided method, having no concept at all. I was pretty skeptical, but I ended up with something I liked, at least on a thematic level.

One thing I did a bit differently was saving my principles for right before retcon. I feel like with the guided method, it's really hard to choose a suitable principle only knowing your background. So I noted the requirements when a principle was mentioned, then before retcon chose both.

Anyways, here's a brief description of each, along with a link to a pdf for them! Again, bear in mind these were done with the guided method, so likely are sub-optimal builds.

Hibiscus: Kai Kamaka was an aspiting medical student who had just moved to Megalopolis U. On a trip back to his home in Hawaii, he discovered a nature spirit. Recognizing his grandmothers necklace, the spirit gave him powers in exchange for his pledge to protect nature and its inhabitants. Kai has since returned to Megalopolis, where he helps protect the Akash'Flora tree (not up to date on my sentinels lore, but this is still a thing, yeah?)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/15KeMHKqE-kAMY5TvzUCbncQdRZ6uZDH5/view?usp=sharing

The Roach:Somewhere in Nevada, a man accidently strolled into a nuclear test site at the wrong time. After the test, researchers were shocked to find a man with no memory, glowing black skin, and the ability to change his size at will. Thus, The Roach was born. The Roach has the memory of an insect, but is generally well meaning and wants to aid humanity. So, he's become a hero. Donning a silver helmet and lead armor, he does his best to defend Nevada and the rest of the southwest, though he has yet to ever form any lasting memories or connections.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oSx1iBlA4EjHU--fdtQGqLCQQIy1XXce/view?usp=sharing

Yes, Hatominx, Akash'Flora is still a thing. As far as I can tell, Hibiscus's backstory seems to work out fine.

I am thinking about changing the ability renames for Gun Bunny
Rally to Order: Buck up! instead of Order: Jump up!
Area assault to Pellet gun instead of Buck shot, but that would be a bit of toilet/barn yard humor and not sure how other players around the table would feel about mildly blue humor in my ability names

Walking upon the many paths and ways of the multiverse, no one is quite certain where or from when Passerby came, or even where they go. But this tireless traveler has chosen to be a hero, for better or worse. Perhaps their mysterious arrival at conflicts against villainy is mere coincedence, or ordained by forces beyond mere mortal comprehension. Passerby doesn't seem to mind, if they even know the answer; Their journey is simply unending.

Link to the sheet: ttps://drive.google.com/file/d/1-NuzBkhWrCKvch6dRxuXmM9RLdIRmfR0/view?usp=sharing

In an attempt to imitate your own rating style and format, catDreaming, I'll provide some thoughts on Passerby. I doubt mine will be near the quality of yours, however.

Passerby

First Impression: Passerby can easily Boost themself or others and Attack flexibly and potently.

In the Green Zone, Passerby is a jack of all trades. Split With The Crossroads allows them to do any two things at once, or any one thing twice. Past Twists And Turns either gives a powerful bonus that can be used to make SWTC's small effect die bigger (or be given to an ally), or Hinders an annoying enemy, all with the possibility of also getting a free basic Attack.

In the Yellow Zone, Passerby stops being so general, and starts Attacking multiple targets. Set A Slow And Steady Pace and A Long And Winding Way both Attack more than one target, but with some differences. SASASP can only Attack two targets, but its dice are higher and it also Boosts. ALAWW, on the other extremity, can Attack any number of targets (although there is a practical limit to how many things can be hit by an oar), but it uses a lower die and could potential hit an ally. Chart The Course Anew does not really do anything yet, see the next paragraph for it.

In the Red Zone, Passerby can deal quite a bit of damage. An Eternal Voyage is one of the hardest-hitting, single-target Attacks in the game. (And this is where Chart The Course Anew comes in: when AEV destroys any bonuses, CTCA deals some damage too.) All Paths In Parrallel feeds into EAV by Boosting Passerby when they get Attacked, and it Defends against those Attacks. And in traditional catDreaming style, Passerby can use Miles Before I Rest to "spam" Chart The Course Anew and APIP, both increasing EAV's potency.

Overall, Passerby starts being able to do almost anything moderately well, but starts attacking more and more viciously as the stakes increase.

Teammate-wise, Passerby could use the help of someone who starts out a bit stronger than them. They would also probably appreciate an ally who can let them reroll, to get Past Twists And Turns' Attack and avoid A Long And Winding Way's friendly fire.

Dumped on the steps of an abbey as an infant, Angela never truly knew her parents. She grew up in an environment of faith alongside her fellow acolytes, every day filled with fervent prayer that they be found worthy in the eyes of an uncaring world. Years passed, and with the others her age, the time would come for that worthiness to be tested. The Ritual Of Flame was a test of physical and mental endurance in equal measure, the journey through a chamber filled to the brim with divine flame. To persist through the devastating heat and shield themself and garments from ignition were the signs of worth.
Angela stood outside the chamber, the heat from within radiating through the door. A snow-white habit and sandals specifically prepared for the ceremony were her garments, even as the abbot and head sister silently retreated to await the outcome. With a final prayer, she ventured inwards.
Five minutes passed, after the door to the chamber slammed shut for all to hear.
Ten minutes beyond that, when those lacking in faith would be reduced to a burned corpse.
A final fifteen minutes passed after those ten, and the Abbot turned to being arranging funerary rights. The door out of the chamber opened with a burst of heat.
Half of a face smiled outwards at them, for the other half had been reduced to slag. Some form of shadowy oil dripped from the charred and fused skin, smoking even as it sizzled on the scorched habit. And as the Abbot stepped forward to congratulate her, Angela collapsed forward onto the stone floor.

There was no sound to be heard in the altar room as she prayed, dust motes dancing in the air lit by the morning sun. Eyes watched as the young woman rose from her knees, affixing a mask of red and gold over her face. Sparks burned in the air as she passed through a dust cloud, and was gone to help prepare the morning meal in the homeless shelter.
A pool of black oil welled before the altar where Uro had prayed, glistening in the morning sun as it slowly evaporated,

This is the fourth build of the Uro, and I'm still not sure if I've properly grasped what makes her tick. But she is an interesting character, and feels close enough to share an initial sheet for.

Link to Sheet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/16g-4MpFQMYSLhWUF5fM2Sdt_NpihQNSY/view?usp=sharing

A nice all-purpose setup for an allrounder type hero. Certainly an asset in any situation!

The only thing I can't quite figure out from the story, how does a Powered Suit, as something you dress up in, give you your Powers? I can see you engulfing yourself in fire, but that seems rather an effect than a source of power?

It's true that her Powered Suit makes the barest of appearances in the story. Uro's Powered Suit is usually only the mask she wears to conceal the scarring on her face. When she's engaging in active use of her powers, it manifests over her in parts to protect her from the flames that she creates, at least in part. It's hidden purpose is to help contain the weird shadowy oil represented by her Infernal die; In fact, the Suit is powered by combusting that oil.

TLDR: The suit isn't so much to grant her powers as to let her make use of them, and her powers are directly involved in making sure the suit can actually do that. And it is rarely manifested in it's entirety save for brief moments of full body combustion.

Hi all. Here is a build for an upcoming game set in Britain. Troy Townsend is a retired royal marine officer who now, under the guise of Commander Britain, leads Britain’s premiere super team, The Knight Watch, their HQ situated under the Tower of London.

Commander Britain

Alias: Troy Townsend
Health: 32
Background: Military
Power Source: Training
Archetype: Close Quarters Combatant
Personality: Decisive

Powers
Vitality d10
Strength d8
Hope & Glory (Signature Weapon) d8
Intuition d8

Qualities
Close Combat d10
Fitness d8
Ranged Combat d8
Leadership d8
Self-Discipline d10
Britain’s Finest d8

Principles
Principle of the Hero
Principle of the Veteran

Green Abilities
Offensive Strike (Close Combat)
Precise Strike (Intuition)
Defensive Strike (Close Combat)
Principle of the Hero
Principle of the Veteran

Yellow Abilities
Flowing Fight (Vitality)
Always be Prepared (Intuition)
Dual Strike (Hope & Glory)

Red Qualities
Finishing Blow (Close Combat)
Lead by Example (Close Combat)

image2150×2898 527 KB

So, before I do a proper analysis, I figure I should point out a few things on the sheet that need correcting. If you used the Third Method, feel free to ignore these notes and simply inform me. Then I will move onto a proper analysis.
First: Flowing Fight and Always Be Prepared say to assign them Powers, and have been assigned Qualities instead. While a single ability can be swapped using your Retcon, that is obviously not the case here.
Third: When you take a Red Zone Ability, you must assign to it a Power or Quality from the category that qualified you for it. Lead By Example comes from the Social Qualities Red Zone list, and as such needs to have a Social Quality assigned to it. While a retcon could be used to change it to Close Combat, your retcon is otherwise accounted for by simply have three Red Zone Abilities already.

Overall, the mistakes made are quite simple to fix, and are also understandable if you aren’t terribly experienced with the creation system yet. I am certain that once the discrepancies are fixed (or not, between you and GM), Commander Britain will be quite effective leading the charge!

Thanks for that! New to creating characters so I missed that. Lead by Example is great but less useful for social rolls, so I thought it worth using the Retcon to properly represent his command of the battlefield. Actually these will actually be npcs for the campaign I intend to run.

Once again, I will provide my thoughts on one of your heroes, @catDreaming, whether you like it or not! ; )

(If anyone is wondering why I’m only ever rating catDreaming’s stuff, it’s because he/she/they rates pretty much everything that anyone else posts in this thread, so I’m just returning the favour!)

Uro

First Impression: Uro can dish out more and more Attacks as the Scene progresses, but at the cost of her own well-being (which, seeing as she has more Health than Haka, shouldn’t be much of a problem).

In the Green Zone, Uro starts out defensively. Kneel In The Darkness is useful for stalling an enemy while also whittling down its Health. While The Flames Of Faith helps to protect her from any Energy-based Damage.
(Digression: However, TFOF 's effect differs depending on a rule interpretation; does Fire Damage count as Energy Damage? It is in the “Energy/Element” Power Category, and in Real Life™ Physics and Chemistry, fire is a chemical reaction that releases heat and light energy and is not an element. Ultimately, though, it’s up to the Player and the GM.)
Anywho, Burn In The Light is a fair Attack but (unless Fire counts as Energy) Uro might want to save it for later, seeing as it is essentialy the same net Damage as a Basic Attack, unless she desperately needs to Damage two targets.

In the Yellow Zone, Uro really starts to bring the heat. Pilot Light Corruption makes Uro a nice, big Bonus that lasts the whole battle (unless someone destroys it, of course). Stoke The Flames is what really brings Uro’s kit together, however. It lets her dish out as much Fire Damage as she takes, effectively cancelling out Ashes To Ashes’ (which is already quite a potent Attack) and Burn In The Light’s self-Damage. This is also where the Fire-Energy ruling come in; if Fire Damage does count as Energy Damage, then The Flames Of Faith reduces both Uro’s self-Damage and STF ’ Damage.

In the Red Zone, Uro uses her reactions to Attack (and Defend) even more. The Midnight Oil gives Uro multiple Reactions per round, but at a cost.* Sacrificial Prayer allows Uro to take a hit for one of her teammates, while also lessening its power. All Sparks Burn Out lets Uro retaliate against an opponent. Combining all three, Uro can redirect Attacks intended for her allies to herself, Defend against that Attack, and Attack the Attacker, perhaps multiple time per round!

Overall, Uro has moderate defensive capabilities, but really shines by attacking her enemies (and herself) multiple times in a round with holy fire.

Teammate-wise, Uro might appreciate someone who has better Green and Yellow Status Dice than herself. Additionally, an ally that can heal or Defend her could stop her from burning herself out too early.

*Let’s see, so this makes five. Five catDreaming heroes who Push The Limits. Well, no one can blame you for being inconsistent. : )

Some backstory to my backstory: I remember an old LP Ra question asking about the other old mythologies in Sentinel Comics which got me intrigued. Now I am from Sweden, and even if I like Shmarvel’s Thor it really butchered Norse Mythology, and as a religion teacher I felt it could’ve been done with more accuracy to the source material.

I recently started working on a Nordic Super Hero team, inspired by the existance of GLOBAL, but put that on hold since I want to collaborate with other people from the Nordic countries.

I also recently started playing Valheim, like so many others.

All this combine led me to start creating this elaborate world building of the Norse Mythology in SCRPG. Several days later and several pages of notes I figured I could make a modern hero out of it all (while continuing working on the world building, I have literally not been this inspired in years).

Sorry for the ramblings but let me present:

Baldr

Background:

Baldr, a mighty viking warrior from ages past.

After being the sole survivor after the fabled Ragnarök, defeating the wicked Sorceress Hel and her broken father Loki and ensuring the Jotunn would not rule the North for all time, Baldr found himself unable to die. Being brought back to life once already barred him from returning to the land of the dead.

Humbled by the events that wiped out his entire family, the Aesir, Baldr vowed to guide the surviving humans not as a mighty king, but as a careful guide from the shadows. A promise he kept for thousands of years.

Now in the age of superheroes, where people with fantastical powers openly fight back against the darkness of the world, Baldr decided to be passive no longer, carrying his father’s spear, Gungnir, and his faithful familiars, Huginn & Muninn, and Gere & Freke, he sets out to protect the world from the growing threats amassing against it.

Is that another Ragnarök he is sensing? Or something bigger…?

Sheet:

Note: precog is actually not allowed and I cheated by choosing two red abilities outside of his powers/qualities. The rest should be legit.

Wow, that’s some great art!

No offense, but this seems more like a poem/philosophical musings/eloquent nonsense to me than a backstory.

This is somewhat a rebuild of the last hero I posted, now with actual backstory. The theoretical infinite combo is still present on their sheet, but after discussion in the ‘Realm Of Discord’ GTG Discord Server, has simple ways to render it non-functional.

As a child, Caleb had never truly stood out in public. They learned to walk, read, write, do math, all of the things that one would expect of a child in school. It was in their room, asleep at night, that one would have cause to wonder. Not that they were believed; Children always have overactive imaginations. The dream of a lighthouse upon a cliff in a stormy night, recurring for years, was passed by for such a reason.
The mechanical tools, and small automata that would occasionally accompany Caleb discreetly from no particular source were what brought him to prominence. Though it was the rays of light, piercing and illuminating to the eye, that led others to name the new hero: Lightkeeper.

Lightkeeper, in the company of heroes, does not act lightly. After all, the lighthouse in their dreams that their powers seem to manifest from has never been identified. Who knows what horrors may wait in the darkness where it’s beacon does not shine?

Alright, so I might have partially hijacked the thread for a while now as places to put various heroes that I have been making without much backstory. So instead, here’s a group of five heroes who I made a while back, with backstory, and have rebuilt so that the powers and qualities they have actually match their mechanics. They are intended to work as a team, but are certainly effective in their roles regardless of what group they are in. Note that some of them have been posted earlier in this thread, albeit under different forms. Salt-Steel and Bunker-Buster are different mechanically, while Scabbard and Retrospect are different in regards to backstory.

Thashe Schiede was born in a realm that many might recognize as medieval europe, particularly Britain. Under rule of a King Arthur, the realm had thrived for many years. Though his family was not wealthy, Thashe was fortunate enough to begin training in the ways of Magecraft under the auspices of the village’s hedge mage. The kingdom’s dark times came with Mordred’s rebellion, only for a brighter still era of prosperity to begin as King Arthur had reclaimed the throne in earnest, empowering their subjects and maintaining the greatness of Camelot and surrounding lands with their intellect, in addition to their sword.
In the end though, it was the same people who would not heed the warnings of the Crown when the land turned fickle and blighted, corruption from distant lands encroaching and turning the peasantry upon their ruler. The shadows became sharpened knives, the heavenly light of the stars baleful lances, and the swords in the hands of the knights knives to sever the throats of those who would not follow the words of their King. In the end, even the stone walls of Camelot were lit ablaze by the corruption, and the World was erased from the annals of history.
Thashe Scheide was not ensconced in flame as he came to his senses in the World, tattered garments and journal the only things on him when the disaster had reached him. And yet, as he felt within, the weapons collected from the battlefields his former home remained absorbed. The Swords, the Knife, and the Lance formed a core, stabilizing what Magecraft he had mastered. Though this World was not his own, and he had much to learn of it, one thing was clear.
Scabbard had survived the End Of The World once. He would not permit such a fate to arrive upon this one he had found his way into.

Mark was always that stereotypical friendly jock. Big guy, nice to be around, and sometimes gave hints that he acted a bit dumber than he actually was. When an accident on an archeological expedition ended with ancient clockwork technology merged to his muscular, skeletal, and nervous system, Mark just took it in stride. Stronger, a bit faster, and with the ability to store kinetic energy and release it from his implants, he took the new name Bunker-Buster. With a booming voice and keen mind, and a bit more finesse than in his youth, Bunker-Buster is ready to protect the innocent.
In the years since then, Mark had learned the ways of the world, and what the limits of his own body are. While he hasn’t changed in what he can do, Bunker-Buster has turned his focus to the instruction and leading of others in the ways of heroics. After all, one gear on it’s own does not a system make.

Samantha was discovered as a child, stolen at birth by the Fair Folk and raised working at the forge with metals that were too dangerous for her ‘owners’ to work themselves. Particularly cold iron. When a group of exorcist’s broke up the camp she was raised in, she was brought back to human society as a ward of the church. In time, her powers would manifest in the form of manipulation of water, salt, and iron. Rumors would tell you that Salt-Steel had made a deal with a higher power, granting her a measure of precognition. But surely they can’t be right; No same woman can sell their soul to the collective will of mankind?
Over the years, Salt-Steel had tempered herself in service. Whether with blessed water, cold iron, consecrated salt, or her own mind, she has served as a way for people to move forward beyond the grip of the supernatural on their lives. Though her methods have grown more violent, it is attributable in part to her coming closer to her patron. Her personal tendency towards Sacrifice has manifested through it’s objective of Improvement Of Humanity. There is no fraction of her power that Salt-Steel will hold back, to improve the lives of those who suffer the blight of Villainy.

Deep in the mountains lay a monastery, isolated from the outside world. What visitors came there left with less than they came, for the monastery had a very particular purpose: To guard and contain artifacts or relics that are not of this world. Sadly, the monastery was at one point assaulted by forces unknown, penetrating it’s defenses both technological and magical with incredible ease. What remained of the monastery weeks later when an investigation by local authorities was conducted was a single boy with silver chains winding up one of his arms and something that could only be sensed by the absence of any sensory input from wherever it was, regardless of what examined it.
Barrier Of Faith would remain a presence in the boys life for years to come, the shield almost seeming to possess a life of it’s own with the manipulation of the chains binding it. When the destruction of boy only resulted in a bloody, battered husk of him emerging from the depths of the shield, Samuel returned to the world of the living. With his Postcognitive powers (and some life saving medical attention) keeping his body from degrading further, he took upon the mantle that the ‘puppet’ made by Barrier Of Faith for all those years had left him. Retrospect is a steadfast shield, and where people need defending, his guardianship will not cease until they are safe once more.

Sari Besch never especially enjoyed being alive. Her presence was unwanted, her personality leading her to more arguments than friendships, and her thrice cursed eyes that bled whenever opened allowed her no peace from observing the always lit world around her. So she had set out into the wilderness, living off the land, and fashioning various implements for herself. What magical talents she had blossomed in the untamed wilderness, and in time, she came to make certain items. Those who came to request her aid were more than willing to leave her alone, so she simply made what they needed. Even if the up and coming young hero from the town pestered her, surely his request wouldn’t be too daunting?
Days became weeks as she turned her talents upon the task, diving into the workings of even her own eyes and magic to create something that would satisfy this mere boy and his desire for aid. When it was done, he went on his way. For the first time in perhaps years, her gaze shifted of her own will to observe the town. Smoking craters, windshorn walls, and even ice encrusted destruction of villains were the result. Then came others from the town, desperate for ways to survive the hero. He was a tyrant now, they would say. Taking what he wanted without payment, the threat of retribution tying down any who would stand in his way. And so she returned, stepping through a portal, into his home. Her eyes bled as they opened, and when the dust settled, the house was left a crater that the citizenry recognize all too well. The hero’s own powers turned against him, and no sign of the bow.
Harrow’s powers lay in the disruption of things, twisting space and the flow of energy that she can perceive. Though some would tell you that she is but a vessel for an entity ancient beyond comprehension, spitefully gazing down from on high, all agree on one thing. This self proclaimed murderer acting in the role of a hero utilizes the same bow she killed to reclaim, and it’s name is not Ley Of The Land.

So, all of these five are heroes who come from very different backgrounds. People are free to make use of them as they wish. If nothing else, I hope that they inspire ideas of your own.