So lately I'm really excited about a recent Mutants & Masterminds supplement called "Warriors & Warlocks". It's a fairly brilliant guide to repurposing M&M for fantasy campaigns, specifically in the style of those old sword and sorcery comics you don't really see anymore. While, for the most part, you could already do all this with M&M (I've always said it's a generic system masquerading as a superhero game), Warriors & Warlocks offers lots of great suggestions and a few actual rules tweaks.
Anyway, inspired largely by fellow M&M fan Greywulf, I am driven to create characters just for kicks, and then post them here to justify the time spent.
My first W&W character is a semi-corrupted sorcerer antihero I'm calling Khal Konos. All his magic is ritual-based, but he's pretty good at that since he's a friggin genius and also a master of arcane lore. His magic won't help him when bandits ambush him in the night, but if he's got a chance to plan ahead--especially since he's also got the Master Plan feat--he should be pretty terrifyingly effective.
He packs a falchion that he's pretty good with, but he mostly does his fighting with the Doom Hand, a taloned glove-thing made out of leather, bone, and volcanic glass. It projects a big, three-dimensional shadow hand that Khal can use to whittle away at his foes' life force (that is, their Constitution) from a short distance away. He also wears a suit of asymmetrical, scavenged-looking studded leather, but he's better at avoiding attacks than withstanding them.
Finally, his eyes have been changed, enhanced, and made kind of disturbing lookin by some magical ritual. He can now see and read magical auras, as well as being able to see in the dark. Unfortunately, his eyes are solid black and the skin around them is weirdly scarred, so he normally wears a fierce terracotta mask over the top half of his face. Inevitably, though, either the mask or the eyes are going to make people suspicious and hostile from time to time, which I figure counts as a complication for purposes of picking up Hero Points.
Man, I'd love to play this character in an actual game. The possibilities that come with the Ritualist feat are huge, so much so that I don't think you even really need any more magic system than that. Not for a sword and sorcery setting, anyway.
Khal Konos
Power Level
Power Level: 6
Power Points: 90
Max Attack: 4
Max Defense: 8
Max Save DC: 8
Max Toughness: 4
Abilities
STR: 12 (+1)
DEX: 10 (+0)
CON: 14 (+2)
INT: 20 (+5)
WIS: 12 (+1)
CHA: 12 (+1)
Combat
Attack 0 (Melee 4, Ranged 0)
Defense 8 (4 flat-footed)
Initiative 0
Saves
Toughness 4
Fortitude 5
Reflex 3
Will 5
Skills
Bluff 4 (+5)
Climb 0 (+1)
Concentration 8 (+9)
Diplomacy 6 (+7)
Disable Device 4 (+9)
Disguise 0 (+1)
Escape Artist 0 (+0)
Gather Info 0 (+1)
Handle Animal 0 (+1)
Intimidate 0 (+1)
Investigate 4 (+9)
Knowledge: Arcane Lore 10 (+15)
Knowledge: History 6 (+11)
Knowledge: Tactics 4 (+9)
Medicine 4 (+5)
Notice 4 (+5)
Ride 6 (+6)
Search 6 (+11)
Sense Motive 6 (+7)
Stealth 4 (+4)
Survival 4 (+5)
Swim 0 (+1)
Languages
Common (or whatever), some ancient tongue
Feats
Attack Focus, Melee (4)
Fearless
Master Plan
Ritualist
Second Chance (vs. mind control effects)
Trance
Powers
Super-Senses (detect magic, ranged, accurate, acute)
Super-Senses (vision counters darkness)
Device, hard to lose: Doom Hand (Drain Constitution +8, slow fade 1, extended reach 1)
Equipment
studded leather armor (Protection +2)
falchion (Damage +4, mighty, improved critical 2)
Complications
creepy damned eyes
Summary
Abilities 20 + Skills 20 (80 ranks) + Feats 9 + Powers 15 + Combat 16 + Saves 10 – Drawbacks 0 = 90 / 90
Monday, April 20, 2009
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3 comments:
I once tried to do a S&S campaign based very loosely on Thundaar/Blackstar/Thundercats in the 80s based on Villains and Vigilantes (first edition I think).
You need to pick a game and set up a campaign already. If you choose a schedule I can work with I'll go through the trouble of signing up for Skype. I bet you'll have no lack of players.
Oh, man, I know. You're totally right. It's making that damned decision that's the hard part, of course. I'm leaning towards this M&M-based sword and sorcery thing at the moment, but I kinda think the "right" system to use for a Skype game would be Spirit of the Century. Maybe I can figure out some kind of short one-to-three session thing I can do with SotC just to get some people into the whole idea.
By the way, I love the sound of that V&V campaign. Actually, another one of my neglected ideas is something that'd steal elements from all sorts of 1980s cartoon properties, like G.I. Joe and Transformers and such. Man, I should write that up sometime...
Yeah, I've got a disease.
That's one seriously excellent character there!
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