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Interesting powers...

Started by Gremlin, February 02, 2009, 07:07:22 PM

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Gremlin

Hey all, I'm plugging away at a campaign, and I'm a little stuck on a couple of characters. First off, I have a character named Sensory, whose abilities all relate to his incredibly enhanced senses and ability to hijack the senses of others. I've made him incredibly acrobatic, with a three direct attacks--blind, vertigo, and stun. But I can't think of what else to do with him.

I also have a hornet hero named Stingman. He's got the classic bug abilities--flight, wall-crawling, exoskeleton, mildly enhanced strength, etc. But I'm not sure what else to give him. His stingers serve both a melee and ranged capacity, and he's got the ability to throw bees that panic and poison you, but I need more to fill out all his power slots.

tommyboy

Although I personally tend to make characters which use all available slots, plenty of Mods I've played don't do this. And I've been quite happy playing a well designed well rounded character even if they only have 4,3, or sometimes only 2 powers.
The alternative route is to have two versions of the same power, one for everyday use, and another, much more expensive to both buy and use version which does twice or more the damage, alternate animations optional. IE, Punch= 10 damage, Haymaker= 30 damage. Or go the same route but one is area effect or has a radius and the other doesn't.

Gremlin

I've been doing the two versions one, and playing with the characters is kind of boring. It's not that I'm trying to fill up the slots, just come up with interesting ways to apply their powersets. I don't need to use every slot if I can't, although I'd like to for completeness' sake.

tommyboy

Yes, it's quite hard to make the same power interesting twice. But it can be done, and should challenge the player to decide ie fast low-power low-damage, or slow, area high damage etc. It won't work for every power, but can make for some interesting extensions.

For your guys, Sensory could maybe have a sensory focus where he senses weakness in a foe?
And Stingman could have the pheremone bees release when attacked so if he takes damage, a small swarm of bees appear to attack the attacker?

danhagen

I also have a hornet hero named Stingman. He's got the classic bug abilities--flight, wall-crawling, exoskeleton, mildly enhanced strength, etc. But I'm not sure what else to give him. His stingers serve both a melee and ranged capacity, and he's got the ability to throw bees that panic and poison you, but I need more to fill out all his power slots.
---

Check out the vast, insect-related abilities of the original Jack Kirby-created Fly -- super burrowing, firefly glare, etc.
Veritas et probitas super omnia.

UnkoMan

Quote from: Gremlin on February 02, 2009, 07:07:22 PM
Hey all, I'm plugging away at a campaign, and I'm a little stuck on a couple of characters. First off, I have a character named Sensory, whose abilities all relate to his incredibly enhanced senses and ability to hijack the senses of others. I've made him incredibly acrobatic, with a three direct attacks--blind, vertigo, and stun. But I can't think of what else to do with him.

This is where FFX attributes like danger sense comes in. Also there's coordinator, I think. It gives your teammates an advantage when you are awake (in this case extra dodge) and the enemies a disadvantage. I could be mixing up two things here, as there's another similar attribute.

He doesn't change other people's senses, right? He can just see through somebody's eyes or taste through their tongue? Hmm... that is tough.

A lot of characters I make up happen to be fairly "pulpish." Basically they are just guys who fight, with maybe a small power or two, or are quite acrobatic. It makes for boring hero files. I often find myself stretching what they can do to be more useful in FF. For example, I have a guy who happens to conveniently have mist follow him around, and he's quite good at hiding in it or in shadows or what have you. I gave him an invisibility power.

Gremlin

Quote from: UnkoMan on February 04, 2009, 10:51:05 PM
Quote from: Gremlin on February 02, 2009, 07:07:22 PM
Hey all, I'm plugging away at a campaign, and I'm a little stuck on a couple of characters. First off, I have a character named Sensory, whose abilities all relate to his incredibly enhanced senses and ability to hijack the senses of others. I've made him incredibly acrobatic, with a three direct attacks--blind, vertigo, and stun. But I can't think of what else to do with him.

This is where FFX attributes like danger sense comes in. Also there's coordinator, I think. It gives your teammates an advantage when you are awake (in this case extra dodge) and the enemies a disadvantage. I could be mixing up two things here, as there's another similar attribute.

He doesn't change other people's senses, right? He can just see through somebody's eyes or taste through their tongue? Hmm... that is tough.

A lot of characters I make up happen to be fairly "pulpish." Basically they are just guys who fight, with maybe a small power or two, or are quite acrobatic. It makes for boring hero files. I often find myself stretching what they can do to be more useful in FF. For example, I have a guy who happens to conveniently have mist follow him around, and he's quite good at hiding in it or in shadows or what have you. I gave him an invisibility power.

Coordinator is a good idea--whenever he's around, his allies have enhanced senses and thus fight better. Nice.

He actually can alter other peoples' senses, so he can shut down their eyes or ears or whatever. I don't know how sophisticated to make this, though--if he can hijack your sight and make you see specific hallucinations, I mean. I want to steer clear of loading him with traditional psychic powers because I have an emotional telepath on the team.

Stretching powersets is exactly what I'm looking for here. Heh.

Lunarman

#7
I like characters with less powers. Look at the FF campaign, at the start Minuteman has 3-4 powers, and only 3 you can use. I think it really helps it terms of setting the character out. It depends on how long your mod is going to be, but if it's long then obviously their powers should develop.

What I typically do is create a base character-one and the copy the character and have a go at extending their powers.

So, your two:

Well, the Sensory is obviously a bit of a 'crowd-control' character, so I'd go all out in terms of powers that cause status effects.

You've got single target direct attacks, but an area attack would be cool. Perhaps a low magnitude quick cast time mental blank attack with a large radius, that attempts to shut down  all the senses of enemies in the area, but it doesn't always work.
Given that he gets better as he drains sensory power you should give him Hatemonger, but configured so when enemies around him are blinded-mental blanked-vertigoed (if you can't do all three, then pick the one most of his powers relate to) he gets faster, or stronger. Also, it'd be cool to have him drain his teammates of their senses (some clever ffx swapping would be required no doubt) for a short while in exchange for him becoming very powerful. Gaining, tracker, lots of strength and agility.
Finally, give him a high hit change, quick cast time but low damage melee attack (or rather, medium damage with barely any strength) which in normal combat won't do much, but when he's powered by hatemonger it'll suddenly jump to being very good, which will represent his heightened awareness of 'striking critically' and knowing everything about his surroundings so as to maximize his power. He could also have a passive defense, or even an active one that makes him hard to hit (using pass-through) to represent the fact that he has very powerful awareness.

And Stingman, he sounds very cool too, a ton better than Ant! I'd say you've got to cover a few things here, give him a single  target statis ranged attack with a quick cast time, a low magnitude and free/low cost. This is his standard bee stinger. Give him two melee attacks, one fairly ordinary, free two-strike piercing (has he got stingers on his hands, like Wolvies claws?) attack, with low magnitude (and he should have strength 5-6 I feel). Also, a 'stinging storm' melee attack, either with a frontal radius, or a lot of contacts which has high stun. All of his attacks should have low stun at least, and the swap out stun for acid burn using FFX.

Back to his ranged attacks: I'd say he warrants an area attack, where he does another insect (but not wasp related move) such as sonic screech (that ant has) or a loud buzz that does vertigo or very-low knockback. That hornet swarm attack you spoke of is probably a chain projectile with a small area, right? That's cool.  To finish him off I'd give him a high energy cost, very high damage acid-burn attack with quite a long cast time. It could either be ranged or melee, but if ranged I'd make it slow and homing. This represents him putting a lot of effort into making a very toxic poison with which to smite an enemy.

Anyway, that's my brainstorm, I hope it's useful to you. If not impossible to read :s

UnkoMan

Umm... wow.

Yeah, those sound like awesome characters now.

Gremlin

#9
Quote from: Lunarman on February 06, 2009, 08:30:42 AM
I like characters with less powers. Look at the FF campaign, at the start Minuteman has 3-4 powers, and only 3 you can use. I think it really helps it terms of setting the character out. It depends on how long your mod is going to be, but if it's long then obviously their powers should develop.

What I typically do is create a base character-one and the copy the character and have a go at extending their powers.

So, your two:

Well, the Sensory is obviously a bit of a 'crowd-control' character, so I'd go all out in terms of powers that cause status effects.

You've got single target direct attacks, but an area attack would be cool. Perhaps a low magnitude quick cast time mental blank attack with a large radius, that attempts to shut down  all the senses of enemies in the area, but it doesn't always work.
Given that he gets better as he drains sensory power you should give him Hatemonger, but configured so when enemies around him are blinded-mental blanked-vertigoed (if you can't do all three, then pick the one most of his powers relate to) he gets faster, or stronger. Also, it'd be cool to have him drain his teammates of their senses (some clever ffx swapping would be required no doubt) for a short while in exchange for him becoming very powerful. Gaining, tracker, lots of strength and agility.
Finally, give him a high hit change, quick cast time but low damage melee attack (or rather, medium damage with barely any strength) which in normal combat won't do much, but when he's powered by hatemonger it'll suddenly jump to being very good, which will represent his heightened awareness of 'striking critically' and knowing everything about his surroundings so as to maximize his power. He could also have a passive defense, or even an active one that makes him hard to hit (using pass-through) to represent the fact that he has very powerful awareness.

And Stingman, he sounds very cool too, a ton better than Ant! I'd say you've got to cover a few things here, give him a single  target statis ranged attack with a quick cast time, a low magnitude and free/low cost. This is his standard bee stinger. Give him two melee attacks, one fairly ordinary, free two-strike piercing (has he got stingers on his hands, like Wolvies claws?) attack, with low magnitude (and he should have strength 5-6 I feel). Also, a 'stinging storm' melee attack, either with a frontal radius, or a lot of contacts which has high stun. All of his attacks should have low stun at least, and the swap out stun for acid burn using FFX.

Back to his ranged attacks: I'd say he warrants an area attack, where he does another insect (but not wasp related move) such as sonic screech (that ant has) or a loud buzz that does vertigo or very-low knockback. That hornet swarm attack you spoke of is probably a chain projectile with a small area, right? That's cool.  To finish him off I'd give him a high energy cost, very high damage acid-burn attack with quite a long cast time. It could either be ranged or melee, but if ranged I'd make it slow and homing. This represents him putting a lot of effort into making a very toxic poison with which to smite an enemy.

Anyway, that's my brainstorm, I hope it's useful to you. If not impossible to read :s


Lunarman, I am now in love with you and will stalk you until I get bored and/or you die.

Yeah, this mod is designed to be kinda long, and so the characters have a lot of room for growth. I'm going to make it so everybody gets a big XP bonus whenever anyone is booted off the show to make up for the diminished group.

I hadn't thought of him as a crowd control, or getting better as he drains sensory power, but that's an interesting angle to take. I'll probably boost his agility and give him cosmic awareness when he's around blind people to simulate his increased senses.

I like that take on Stingman...what if he can mix up the toxins in his stingers? That way he can do that stasis attack and acid burn. Different poisons will do that. Maybe even a direct acid attack, too. Yes, he does have stinger-claws: check out the character design thread here or Stingman's design (apparently dibsed by Billdamn) here

Quote from: UnkoMan on February 06, 2009, 04:52:51 PM
Umm... wow.

Yeah, those sound like awesome characters now.

I didn't even know they could BE that cool, and I made them! Haha.

BentonGrey

Hey Grem, sorry I didn't see this earlier, although it definitely looks like you aren't hurting for ideas thanks to these guys' contributions.  Excellent stuff.  I actually really like Tommy's suggestion that when Stingman takes damage bees come out and attack (Defense Mechanism, I think).  I definitely think that you should give the Sensory a Genetic Damage attack, and maybe the FFX attribute.....errr....Powerscan.  That will allow you to get a quick readout on an enemy's abilities. 
God Bless
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Gremlin

#11
Okay guys--how about interesting things to do with a speedster? I kind of want to have two speedsters, one faster but more boring because all he can do is run and punch, and one that is a little slower but can use them in more interesting ways. I have now a static buildup melee, a friction buildup area, a wind tunnel cone, an active defense where she moves her hands so fast she blocks every attack--like a superspeed kung-fu block thing...what else sounds cool?

The bee attack thing is kinda cool, but a little odd--it seems to much like he gets damaged and the bees are in his body or something. Which is kinda cool, but works much better for a monster or villain. Acid blood would work well, though.

Lunarman

Speedsters, I find, are one of the hardest characters to design. Because, their power is very situation when used or when taken on it's own, it's pretty sucky.

So, you're going for two:

Firstly you've gotta come up with some way to differentiate the two, majorly. Are they a tag team, like man-o-war and sea urchin? Or are they more like rivals, similar powers but Speedress users hers in a variety of ways and thinks more because her actual top speed is less, and the guy is more of a fast-brawler.

For the guy I'd go with physical moves all round, so the bullet charge, a sonic punch (with a long cast time and high knockback), a flurry of punches, possibly metabolic speed. If you made it so all his attacks cost at least low energy (or trace if you modify the dat file) then he could be a burst character. So he runs in, let's loose some really powerful punches, but then he's drained and needs support. I'd give him one exciting move though. If they're a tag team give him a mental state cleansing move or something, I don't know your plans for his background story, but something related to that. E.g. if eh was an army officer, then rally the troops. If he was an electrician then a small high-stun electric attack.

That brings me onto a big speedster point. They are essentially just very-fast ordinary people. It's always more interesting, I feel, to have them (if they're the fast running type, not the clever speed tricks type) use bits of their last job along with their powers. For example, in my never-to-be-released mod Flash Lass was a nurse before she was a speedster, and therefore her two skill trees revolve around healing powers and speedster powers. Her speed abilities are active defenses, punches and a high KB vortex. Her nurse abilities are rally, cerebral balance, creating med packs.

Ok, the lady. Speedsters could potentially do a lot of stuff with their powers, but the difficult part is saying when her power stops being fast-moving and becomes something more powerful.

Your initial ideas sound good, I'll try and expand on them: Instead of a wind cone (like a whirlwind) you should go for a more 'sonic boom' style route. So an almost invisible cone that's really fast with a short cast time and low knockback, stun and crushing damage. A dodge passive defense, a blocking one like you said. Possibly she could have a speed draining move, that makes her faster (you could design a whole character round this).

Sorry, that's all I can think of for now, I hope that helps.  :s


Gremlin

#13
Quote from: Lunarman on February 07, 2009, 06:36:59 PM
Speedsters, I find, are one of the hardest characters to design. Because, their power is very situation when used or when taken on it's own, it's pretty sucky.

So, you're going for two:

Firstly you've gotta come up with some way to differentiate the two, majorly. Are they a tag team, like man-o-war and sea urchin? Or are they more like rivals, similar powers but Speedress users hers in a variety of ways and thinks more because her actual top speed is less, and the guy is more of a fast-brawler.

Definitely rivals. The basis is, like I said, a reality show, and you don't need two speedsters. They go into the casting knowing for certain that if they aren't both leaving, one of them sure is, and they're constantly trying to outdo each other. Speedstress is slower, but that's why she adapts and develops more interesting abilities, so she can be more versatile. The guy is a jerk who just assumes he's going to get it because he's faster.

While I'm here: I'm still trying to fill out my roster. I need a total of 16 contestants, along with the three judges that I think I'll be able to do myself. As it stands I have:

-Sensory
-Stingman
-Speedstress
-Freezer Burn (temperature control powers; I'll looking at Dr. Mike's Thermite for inspiration)
-Graviton (gravity powers)
-Velocity (our super-speedster jerk)
-Empath (telepathic abilities but no words or language, which'll be more of a plot thing than a powers thing)
-Sol (being made of light; phase through attacks, ridiculously fast flight, living laser, etc. Could be ridiculously powerful, actually.)
-The Mystery (ability to blend into and manipulate shadows; not sure specifics on her)
-Ashensoul (fire powers and...something. He's this irritating emo kid with powers that have nothing at all to do with his temperament.)
-Lynx (cat person, slightly strong but hideously agile)
-Alloy (giant dude made of metal)
-Circuit Breaker (electrical powers, learns to tag-team with Alloy)
-Jean Poole (power-manipulating abilities)

I need two more! Help a brother out! If I get more than two...well, there's always the audition videos. Haha.