Super Mahou Wars Alpha

R-9 Pilot

Edgeknight
Original poster
FOLKLORE MEMBER
Invitation Status
Posting Speed
  1. One post per day
  2. 1-3 posts per week
  3. One post per week
Writing Levels
  1. Beginner
  2. Elementary
  3. Intermediate
  4. Adept
  5. Adaptable
Preferred Character Gender
  1. Female
  2. Futanari
  3. Primarily Prefer Female
Genres
Scifi, anime, mecha, magical girl, superhero, cyberpunk, yuri
  • Years ago, there was a war. Spaceships started disappearing at the edge of known territory. A few eventually managed to send cut off distress signals, and eventually, some returned, at least partially intact. All stories spoke of horror and madness, brought by a monstrous enemy which offered no quarter and refused all attempts at communication. Somehow, though, this enemy was still given a name: Bydo. As the war progressed, the fronts were pushed back considerably, humanity’s forces losing ground at every turn. The Bydo, a bizarre conglomeration of machine and organic life, implacably advanced, consuming and subverting almost everything in their path.

    The key to their defeat, however, was simple. Magic was extremely effective against them, as as more magically-inclined troops and weapons made it to the front lines, the tides of battle quickly turned. The long, difficult battles are over and mankind has earned its peace.

    When one man’s ambitions resurrect an evil thought destroyed, will you be able to stop it?

    Lyonesse
    Magic and technology have advanced side by side and intertwined, to the point that the two are often quite literally indistinguishable. The general level of magitechnology is fairly advanced, often leaning towards scifi standards, more than anything. Spacecraft are commonplace, although space travel is less so. Primarily, getting around is managed strictly, although if one is free to travel, one can get to several planets.

    The characters will belong to the Lyonesse Civil Enforcement branch. While it is in many ways military, the overall focus is more on peacekeeping, and working on any major cases or events of a magical nature. General organization is in small squads. Lyonesse itself is also the central planet of humanity’s little empire, and seat of the government. Civil Enforcement is something of a starting point for mages, giving them a broad look at just about everything before they choose an area they’d like to focus on. It is, strangely enough, the branch with the greatest concentration of dedicated maes at any given time, and often thus called upon to deal with a variety of incidents in which mages’ skills are most needed, which may mean cooperating with the more conventional military branches.

    On Magic:
    There are three primary magical styles, described below. Characters are encouraged to focus on a specific style, although there is some overlap between them. It's certainly fine to have a few tricks that might seem like they'd belong elsewhere, as suits your personal approach to magic, but anyone trying to do all the things and know all the magics would be spreading themselves extremely thin, compared to a more focused character.

    Kahr-Ithaca: Focused primarily on ranged combat and striking foes from afar. The newest style by far, it developed from ideas that it's better to strike an enemy before they can get close to you, rather than mix it up in melee entirely. It is now very widely practiced, and often what is popularly associated with mages due to an accessible and codified nature of its spells. Those who truly favor the old ways may find it a bit utilitarian or inelegant at times, however. Characters who provide good examples of this school of magic are Nanoha Takamachi and Chris Yukine.

    Sephira Knights: Focused on close combat, dueling, and magically-enhanced physical strikes. Includes some personal buffs of various sorts. The front-line fighter to the Khar-Ithaca’s long-ranged blaster. Originated from those who fought to defend support casters or support casters of a martial bent who chose to focus their magic upon themselves, rather than a group of allies. This style has a long and storied history, steeped in Romance and knightly tradition, and continues to be both popular and effective. Good examples of characters who would follow this style include Signum, most Precure, and Hibiki Tachibana.

    Sil’Idunn: Focuses less on direct combat strength and more on supporting allies. Generally has area of effect spells that can buff allies or inconvenience enemies, healing, and so-on, but little in the way of direct damage. Damaging effects are probably battlefield control area of effect things with some sort of rider. Considered by many to be the oldest style of magic, from which the later popular schools originated. Sil'Idunn practice often involves the use of hymns or chants to produce magical effects which last as long as they are performed. Examples of characters who would use this style include any reyvateil in Ar tonelico, and Shamal.

    Generally speaking, any mage will know some form of flight spell, and possibly other movement techniques such as teleportation, walking or standing on air, and so on. Most modern mages use some form of device to channel their magic, whether that be a traditional staff or some sort of weapon is generally up to them and their particular style. All mages manifest a special, magically-armored vestments to protect themselves (and if they didn’t this would hardly be magical girl anything). Such magical outfits, commonly called barrier jackets, are easily as strong as more conventional forms of armor, and project a defensive magical field around their wearers.

  • This game will be using the 3rd edition Mutants and Masterminds rules (SRD available here). If you happen to be familiar with them, great! If not, don't worry too much, I'll do my best to explain them thoroughly, although it may not be all at once.

    A lot of the heavy rules crunch is in character creation, and I will do everything I can to ease that burden and help people make the characters they want to play. Characters will be Power Level 8 (with 120 points to spend to create their character) at the start and may grow in power during play. I am not sure yet how much this will be, though. To give an example of character ability, at power level 8, a character could easily wield more firepower than a rocket launcher and expect to survive similar punishment. With effort, they could probably level buildings or destroy large monsters.

    The actual game play rules are fairly straightforward. When one has to roll a check, or otherwise roll a die, it's a single d20, plus usually whatever skill or other modifier adds to your roll, and you need to beat a static target number. For example, a skill check would be 1d20+your rating in the skill, and attacking someone would be 1d20+your attack bonus (which may, itself, be a skill). A defense "save" would be 1d20+that defense, and so-on.

    Combat
    Because this is generally a big deal, it gets its own section.
    An attack check is 1d20+attack bonus versus the target's defense class (relevant defense+10, as a static value). Perception range attacks do not have an attack check, and neither do area effects.

    When you're hit by a damaging effect (or other effect) you need to make a save against it. Toughness saves are used agaisnt damage, and are 1d20+Toughness versus 15+damage ranks (for a rank 8 damage effect, the Toughness save DC is 23. I'll be sure to post the relevant save DCs along with the attack itself, and encourage everyone to do the same, to streamline things). The DC for other effects (Afflictions, etc) is 10+power rank, and the save used will be specified by the power in question.

    Area attacks offer a Dodge check to avoid some of their effect. Anyone caught in the area rolls 1d20+Dodge versus 10+the attack's rank. If they succeed, they must only save against half the effect's ranks. If they fail, they're subject to the full effect. (For example: a rank 8 area attack has a Dodge save Dc of 18, and characters would save against either 4 or 8 ranks of the effect, depending on whether they pass or fail their dodge save.)

    Critical hits: If you roll a natural 20, you get a critical hit. You automatically hit, and if the check result is still higher than the target's defense, special things happen. Generally, you can increase the difficulty to resist the attack's effects by +5.

    Critical misses: If you roll a natural 1, you automatically miss. I will also generally offer your a hero point in return for something going further wrong.

    The above critical rules only apply to attacks. You cannot critically succeed or fail a skill check, save, or any other d20 roll, although the results of a natural 1 or 20 will still likely be spectacularly good or bad. I will, however, still offer hero points on natural 1s to interject some new and unusual complication.

    Taking Damage
    So you failed your Toughness save?

    If you failed by less than 5, you take a Bruise, which causes you to take a -1 penalty on later toughness saves. Characters can have multiple bruises and they all stack.

    If you failed by 5 or more, you are Dazed until the start of your next turn, and suffer a bruise.

    If you fail by 10 or more, you are Staggered and suffer a bruise. You remain Staggered until you have recovered somehow. If you fail a second check by 10 or more, you are incapacitated.

    If you fail by 15 or more, you are incapacitated.

    So, basically, the more you get hurt for a little bit, the more likely you'll suffer a more severe consequence. I actually like this system quite a lot, because it handles the sort of cinematic feel one tends to see in anime, cape comics, and so-on quite well.

  • Characters are PL 8 with 120 PP to spend.
    A few things on creating characters:
    1. No stacking point discounts to try to really stretch out what you can get. 3rd edition generally quashes most of it, but it does need to be said. Devices and alternate powers are generally OK, however.
    2. No "variable" powers. Such broad abilities may be expensive, but they're also a bit too free. I'd prefer characters to have a more narrow set of abilities overall.
    3. Abilities which summon minions or otherwise create multiple characters under your control are forbidden. If you want to fluff your other stuff as summoning or using minions, however, I will allow it.
    4. In general, the aim of M&M is not to make the best or most broken character, but to best represent the character you want to play. If you're making your own character, consider someone you'd want to see a show or comic about, not just about being the strongest.
    5. Generally speaking, you may describe your abilities however you'd like, because the underlying rules will take care of balance. If you wanna shoot black holes or 10K degree plasma, be my guest, but don't expect it to do anything it isn't statted up to do. In other words, over the top descriptions are great, I probably won't even say it's OP and you need to tone it down, because we've got other ways to measure how powerful something is.
    6. You may create one power which goes above the usual power level limits, up to at least PL+2 (so, from 8 to 10, for this), as a Finisher-style attack. This would be your Starlight Breaker or similar big, flashy, but costly effect. Using it will leave your character fatigued afterward, and possibly worse, depending on how powerful you want it to be.
    7. Hero Points are a big deal. Everyone starts with one. If you've spent all your hero points, you'll get one back at the start of any major "mission" so you have at least one to play with in any big situation. Get more by taking complications and letting me use them to inconvenience you with them. Alternatively, I'll give you a hero point just about any time I feel you've done something interesting to earn one, or as a bribe to take particular negative consequences or otherwise play along with certain things. You can generally spend hero points to be more awesome, and do things like reroll a roll with a bonus, remove fatigue, or otherwise do some nice things. I'll try to hand these out like candy.

    Complications are little story or roleplay things which can inconvenience your character. Like, maybe you have a rival, family obligations, or a crippling fear of fire. Generally speaking, you'll want a few of these, because any time a complication could inconvenience you somehow, and you let it do so, you get a hero point. Generally, this will be in the form of "I'll give you a hero point if....blah blah complication-related bad thing."

    Drawbacks, on the other hand, are disadvantages with mechanical consequences. These give you a couple more PP to play with overall, but can't simply be ignored, because they actually affect die rolls or otherwise limit you in game-mechanics ways, rather than simply roleplay or story ones.

    Power Modifiers: Powers have a lot of ways you can modify them. They can have extras which increase the cost per rank and can do things like change the range over which the power works (from, say, a melee attack to a ranged attack) or make an effect target everything in a certain area, or otherwise broadly change how the power works. There are also flaws, which decrease the power's cost per rank, and apply some sort of general negative effect. Some modifiers add or subtract a flat amount from the entire cost of the power as well. Generally, it's through power modifiers that you can make things work exactly the way you want them to. It's also the trickiest business.

  • This will likely get pretty long, so bear with me.

    Appearance: Art is fine. Written descriptions are also fine. Please just put any images right at the top.
    Name:
    Age:


    Personality: I'm going to go ahead and leave this optional. It's something you should think about, but you shouldn't need to just spell it out, since it's what you're roleplaying.
    Personal history: Your character comes from somewhere. So, give a couple paragraphs on where they're from and what they've done so far. Also anything unusual about them.

    Magic: A description of your character's magical abilities, in general terms. Again, anything unusual in particular (elemental conversion affinities, etc.) should be noted here.

    If you'd like to grab some theme songs for your character, feel free to do so. I'll probably bring music around for various boss encounters, when they happen.

    M&M Character Sheet
    This is the big one. If I can figure out a prettier format using tables, or someone else does, it will probably replace this. Feel free to put this in its own tab or a spoiler, to save some space. Characters are Power Level 8 and have 120 points to spend.

    Attributes: Pretty much all attributes also add to some skills. All attributes start at 0 and cost 2 points per level you increase them. You also gain 2 points per level you decrease them below zero.
    Strength: Determines your character's physical strength, and tends to improve their damage in melee.
    Agility: Grace, speed, and physical coordination. Adds to initiative and dodge defense
    Fighting: How good you are at melee combat. Adds to melee attack and parry defense.
    Awareness: Your base ability to get a clue. Wisdom by another name. Adds to Will defense.
    Stamina: Toughness and endurance. Adds to Toughness and Fortitude defenses.
    Dexterity: Hand-eye coordination and fine manipulation tasks. Adds to Ranged attack.
    Intellect: How smart you are. Mostly improves skills.
    Presence: Force of personality. Improves social skills and so-on.

    Defenses: Defenses cost 1 point per level to increase, past their bases from attributes. Toughness CANNOT be bought in this manner, but can be increased through powers.
    Dodge: Defense versus ranged and area attacks
    Parry: Defense agaisnt melee attacks
    Fortitude: Defense against disease, poison, and things which affect the body.
    Will: Defense against mental attacks.
    Toughness: The equivalent of HP in other systems. How resistant you are to being injured by attacks which hit you.

    Skills: Skills cost 1 point per 2 skill ranks/levels.
    I'm not going to list them all, but this is where a character's skills would go.

    Advantages: Each one costs 1 point.
    Feats. List them and give a sentence to describe what they do.

    Powers: Costs depend on the base power/effect and any modifiers, so I can't give a quick and easy rundown for these, sorry.

    The big section. This is where all the fun stuff goes, because this is pretty much all your magic and other superhuman abilities. You ca give the base powers fancy names, but please also say their actual base power, name, and what they do rules-wise. Also, describe them however you'd like, of course.
 
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Still interesingly interested.
 
#simpledicesystem

I like M&M anyways.
 
Hero Lab is glorious. I've actually paid for it, and it's what I'd be using to help hash out characters. The demo version doesn't let you save your work, but it's still an incredibly useful tool.

That said, I shall fill this post with some template powers and so-on, for quick reference. ANOTHER WALL OF TEXT BEGINS! ...No, I'm not terrible at formatting posts. not at all. This will probably get some edits to well, have more actual power templates ready for use, rather than quick descriptions.

  • Name: Saya Koizumi
    Attributes
    STR AGL FGT AWE STA DEX INT PRE
    0 3 2 3 2 3 1 2
    32 PP
    Defense Bonus Class
    Dodge +8 18
    Parry +8 18
    Fortitude +6 --
    Tougness +8 --
    Will +8 --
    20 PP
    Skill Name Ranks Total Bonus
    Close Combat (tentacles) 4 +6
    Expertise: Shinto 5 +6
    Insight 4 +7
    Intimidation 8 +10
    Perception 6 +9
    Persuasion 6 +8
    Ranged Combat: Miskaton 5 +8
    19 PP
    Advantages
      • Luck 1 - Saya may reroll one die roll as if spending a hero point. Resets when hero points refresh after an adventure.
      • Quick Draw - Saya can ready a weapon (like her device) as a free action.
        Takedown 2 - If Saya incapacitates a Minion with an attack, she can attack another minion with the same attack, and keep doing this until she doesn't incapacitate a minion or there are no more minions
    .
    4 PP

    Powers
    Barrier Jacket
    (Protection 6): +6 to Toughness saves. 6PP
    Detect Magic (Senses 2): Ranged detection of magic. 2PP
    Flight (Flight 2) - Flight speed 8 mi/hr or 120 ft/round 4 PP
    Tentacles (Extra Limbs 2) - They're totally just ribbons, I swear! Gain the Improved Grab Advantage, also, 2 extra limbs. 2PP
    Tentacle Whip (Damage 8) - Attack with tentacles. Has a ten foot reach, and can make disarm and trip attempts without penalty. DC 23 toughness save. 12 PP

    Intelligent Device: Miskaton (Easily-removable array, can be taken away with a successful Disarm.) - Saya's personal intelligent device, taking the form of a strange staff pulsing with eldritch power and with some sort of creepy tentacle motif.

    • Azatoth Breaker (Selective Line Area damage 10): Special Finisher attack which requires Extra Effort to use. Hits everything within a 5 foot by 60 foot line in front of Saya. DC 20 Reflex save for half damage. Damage DC 25(20 on reflex save). 30PP+3PP alternate powers

    • Atlach-Nacha (Snare, ranged cumulative affliction 8): Summons spectral webbing to bind a target in place. The target makes a DC 18 Dodge check. Failure renders the target hindered and vulnerable. Failure by 5 or more renders the target helpless and immobilized. The snare can be broken on subsequent turns by either damage (including strength, or from unaffected allies) or a Sleight of Hand skill check to slip free. 24 PP

    • Crimson Shot (Ranged Damage 8, Homing) - A red energy sphere which will home in on enemies. Ranged Damage DC 23. The Homing modifier means the attack will make a check to hit the target a second time on the round following a miss. 17 PP

    • Depthless Strike (Ranged Damage 8, Ricochet 4) - An energy wave which travels along surfaces. It can "bounce" around corners, and attack enemies on the other side of cover, etc. Damage DC 23. 20 PP

    19 PP

    Total spent on powers: 45 PP


  • General M&M Notes
    Power Level limits certain things. Generally, a character's attack bonus and effect rank cannot add up to more than double the power level. (And trade-offs are best limited to no more than half the overall power level). So, the "balanced" approach would be +8 attack (accuracy), 8 damage ranks. But you could lower your attack if you want to hit harder, or lower your damage if you want to be more accurate. Toughness and Dodge/Parry are similarly linked by a trade-off, as are Fortitude and Will. There's an overall limit on skills and so-on, which is I think PL+5, as the maximum bonus you can get.

    I suggest everyone have descriptors on their powers. Generally, I'll assume most powers have the Magic descriptor by default, but you can add more for specific elements or similar things. They may not matter much, but who knows, maybe you'll encounter enemies particularly weak to or resistant to certain things.

    Nanoha-Style Magical Girl Template Things

    Everyone should probably have Flight or a similar movement power.
    Flight costs 2 points per rank, and 1 rank allows you to fly at about twice the speed you'd be able to run. 5 ranks is about highway speed of most cars, and 8 ranks breaks the sound barrier.

    Damage - Everyone is likely to have some way to hurt people.
    Damage effects generally cost 1 point per rank, if they are melee range, and 2 points if they are ranged attacks. Area adds another point per rank to either cost, but well, it can now be an area effect (which has its own caveats.) Damage can be strength-based (like a melee weapon, or similar) or not, at no cost. Strength-based damage adds to your strength ranks to determine its overall effect, but you can't use it when you can't exert your strength. O the other hand, damage that's independent of strength works the same any time, if you're using a laser sword or some kinda magical beam.

    You'll probably want a few variations on this, possibly as alternate powers of each other.

    Affliction - The debuff power. It can apply all manner of nasty effects to other people. It's usually resisted by whatever defense you think is most appropriate, but you can't change it after buying the power. Depending on how badly one fails their resistance check, the effect can be worse. Costs 1 point/level for melee range, 2/level for ranged. Add another point if you want multiple applications to stack into the later, nastier effects. One can also do interesting things like make afflictions which only last for a round before falling off, among other things. Use this if you want to snare, paralyze, confuse, stun, other otherwise mess with enemies.

    Healing - Does exactly what it sounds, and heals damage. Costs 2 points per rank, but you need to touch someone. Another point per rank and you can do it at range, as is a recurrent theme.

    Protection - Adds to your Toughness. Costs 1 point per rank. This is how you get your barrier jacket going.

    Weaken - The other debuff power. Straight-up reduces attributes rather than applies bad status effects.

    It costs 2 points to telepathically communicate with someone else over about a 1-mile distance, and 3 for a much longer range. They'd need to pay the same cost and have the same power to actually reply, though.
 
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I'd use Hero Lab, but it won't fucking install on my PC. :I
 

"Nothing personnel, kid."
Name: Merringo “Merry” Saljinon
Age: 15

Personality: Merringo is a weirdo full of contradictions. She hates large gatherings and social events, but her magic is inherently designed to work well in a group. She despises loquacious individuals, but gets flustered by direct requests or questions. She’s a cynical, sarcastic, cold brat, but her favorite songs all revolve around the theme of love and working hard and that positive, fluffy crap. And even though she paints herself as a badass teenager who doesn’t care about laws or mercy, Merringo is rather hesitant to confront criminals or figures of authority.

Personal history: Essentially, the Saljinon family is full of badasses that look like they came out of seinen manga or M-rated American movies. The third child of Bahsherc ‘Lunatic Mode’ Saljinon and Ashaw ‘Heavy Metal’ Melvane, Merringo was, at birth, surrounded with colorful, larger-than-life magic users who were famous enough that they had their own Wikipedia articles. Her older brother, Canzect ‘God Hand’ Saljinon, was a prodigious disaster relief specialist, travelling from planet to planet to deal with the consequences of natural disasters, while her older sister, Jelza ‘The Unstoppable’ Saljinon, distinguished herself as a top-tier magical girl when she destroyed the fortress of a demon king with her fists alone. Needless to say, being surrounded by all these hotblooded protagonist-esque people had a profound impact on Merringo’s life.

As a child, she was a happy, beloved, obedient little sister, preferring to play with dolls and sing along to peppy tunes from musicals such as ‘The Adventures of Zwei Wing’ and ‘Magic School Musical’. Her parents had a surprisingly hands-off way of parenting, and Merringo was allowed to learn pretty much whatever she wanted. Her magical potential was good, her musical sense was good, and soon, she realized that it’d be so cool if she could fight while singing! Following that realization, Merringo Saljinon, with the support of her parents and their numerous connections, starting making her own magical system! One that involved singing spells!

With that bit of fame in her pocket, the magical world began to notice Merringo, praising her as the next great addition to the Saljinon lineage. And inevitably the comparisons happened. She began to act in line with those comparisons, because it made other people happy, acting like a badass, give-no-shits rebel vigilante thing.

She needed to become like Rambo or Batman or whatever.

Funky things happened during the next three years of her life, and when Merringo entered Civil Enforcement as a new recruit, it could be said that she was a mess of personality traits.

Magic: Merringo Saljinon uses her own magical system, which revolves around aurally creating magical circles via singing, instead of visually creating them. Influenced by the Sil’Idunn and Sephira magic styles, the concept could be summed up as a front-liner mage that utilizes area-of-effect spells to support the vanguard, with an alternate version of the same spell that has more offensive purposes. In a way, it could be said to be similar to the ‘continuous incantation’ spells of Kahr-Ithaca, which is used for constant manipulation of elements, but Merringo really doesn’t care about similarities. All she wants to do is sing magically and fight!

To facilitate the usage of multiple spells, Merringo uses a special Device that takes the appearance of a microphone. This microphone can continuously play a maximum of three different songs simultaneously, though she can only use the offensive variation of one of them at a time.

Also, she never bothered to name it, and whenever anyone asks, her typical response is 'None of your business'.



Numerical Hell

Attributes
Strength: -1
Agility: 6
Fighting: 4
Awareness: 0
Stamina: 4
Dexterity: -1
Intellect: 3
Presence: 8

Defenses
Dodge: 6 + 3
Parry: 4 + 2
Fortitude: 4 + 2
Will: 0
Toughness: 4

Skills
Expertise – Performance: 8 + 10
Acrobatics: 6 + 6
Insight: 0 + 6
Expertise – Magic: 3 + 7
Ranged Combat – Voice: -1 + 9


Advantages
Very Attractive: 2
Connected: 1
Leadership: 1
Teamwork: 1
Ritualist: 1
Fascinate: 1


Complications:
Motivation - Responsibility: Merringo doesn't actually specifically want to work in Civil Enforcement, but, well...she sorta has to, because pretty much everyone else in her family is like that.

Fame: Though not nearly as famous as the rest of her family, Merringo is very, very aware that the media is watching her, waiting for either her triumph or failure as a member of the Saljinon household.

Power Loss: Merringo's magic style revolves heavily around her ability to sing, or, more generally, her voice. Take that away, and she can't cast any spells outside of flying. Also, she'd be very sad if that happened.

Powers:
Air Stepping
Unlike most, Merringo actually goes out of her way to act as if she’s walking on air. Of course, this stylistic preference is just to hide the fact that she’s not a very good flyer.
Flight 1 (2)
Total Cost: 2

You Can Do It!
An area-of-effect ‘song’ that Merringo can freely alter in order to buff herself and her allies strength, stamina, and agility by varying amounts, ‘You Can Do It!’ was the first spell she ever made. She simply blames her low amount of spells on the fact that song-writing is hard. Even though it’s a song without any words in it yet. Such a shame, eh?

The offensive variation of this spell is ‘Listen to My Song!’, a ranged, sound-based attack that is performed by Merringo shouting at whomever she’s hitting with it, generally with the microphone in front of her mouth as well…though that doesn’t actually affect the damage of the spell.

The lesson you should take away from this, kiddos, is that spells are hard to make. Sometimes, Merringo wishes that she could have just piggybacked onto Sil’Idunn-style magic.

Dynamic Array (1 + 2 + 2)
AOE Buff Everybody Enhanced Trait: STR Rank 4 (2 + 1 + 1 points/rank = 16)
AOE Buff Everybody Enhanced Trait: STA
AOE Buff Everybody Enhanced Trait: AGI

Alternate Effect (1)
Ranged Rank 8

Total Cost: 22

Love-Hate Masquerade
Merringo’s second area-of-effect spellsong, ‘Love-Hate Masquerade’ affects all allies within its range, creating a mirror reflection where they are. While this is a very simple illusion at best, she believes that its super useful for Sephira Knights, the main beneficiaries of her spells, because, please, how are you going to block an attack if you’re blocking the wrong way? Oh, right, you don’t! Wahahahahahahaha!

Such a shame that her singing is a dead giveaway as to what sort of illusion is going to pop up, eh?

‘Dancing in the Sunlight’ is the offensive variation of this, in which Merringo flashes them. Not flashing as in suddenly stripping and causing the enemy’s noses to bleed, of course, but flashing as in magically generating tons of shining sparkles, in order to disorientate and, hopefully, blind them. She doesn’t really want to do this, because that’d mean they can’t see her sick dance moves…but at least they can still hear her song!

Active Illusion Rank 4 (2 + 1 + 1 points/rank = 16)
Visual Senses, AOE, Independent

Alternate Effect (1)
Dazzle Rank 8

Total Cost: 17
 
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I'll look into joining this soon. I'm not familiar with the system, but how complicated can d20 based things be?
 
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Name:Unteroffizier Katrina Kassner
Age:23


Personality: Strong willed, very much a leader, a trainer, and a protector. That would be the short description. She's quick to anger, and will usually lapse between English and German. So at times she can be hard to understand, as she's screaming at you in a different language. She has a fairly thick accent, but she's still very understandable. Especially when she's holding you by the collar, forcing you to look her in eye, as she chews your ass out, for something minuscule. She prides herself in perfectly cared for attire, and uniforms, and will usually get after if you, if you're working for her, and have something out of place. She's very much a woman of intimidation.
However you might say, she has a suppressed "Cute side" While rare, you can occasionally catch her obsessing over soft fluffy things, more upbeat music, and lighter colors, especially pink. Which for her, is quite a shatter in reality, from her usually gray, black, red, and white attire.
Personal history: Katrina comes from a long of, German heritage (Or whatever the world's closest counterpart would be me), dedicated to military, police, and even at times mercenary service. The whole is very tough, resilient, and while not very smart, tend to like holding positions of power. They have always fought with unmatched ferocity, and combat prowess. Katrina, is no exception to that rule with the Kassners, she certainly has a complex for kicking the newbies into shape.
Katrina is a NCO at the Civil Enforcement branch. She's long since been pulled off the front lines oddly enough, despite being so young. There was good reason for it, but most of the top tier officers, won't even consider divulging it. Since, she's never even been provided a chance to move up in rank, so she just focuses on being the best drill sergeant, and training officer she can be. However recently, she's been looking for something to do. She can't stand the new recruits anymore, all of them to her, are young, stuck up, unusable troops. Call it her Heritage, and hatred for anything less than perfect, but, she's almost flat out refused to train the new batch. Which has been leading her more and more, toward going back to what she loved, which was serving on the front line. Or at least somewhere that isn't just a training wing.


Magic:She is a true Sephira Knight, in terms of her magic. She focuses on keeping with melee range when using her abilities, seeing no reason to fight from any farther than melee range. She certainly believes she must protect those who fight at range, feeling they need the protection.
Her abilities focus on making herself hit harder, fight stronger, and at times even deal with multiple foes. However her spells are usually cast from at longest range, 20-25 feet away.
(I'll work on this later, as I'm not sure what to really put down other than that.)


M&M Character Sheet
This is the big one. If I can figure out a prettier format using tables, or someone else does, it will probably replace this. Feel free to put this in its own tab or a spoiler, to save some space. Characters are Power Level 8 and have 12 points left to spend.

Attributes: Pretty much all attributes also add to some skills. All attributes start at 0 and cost 2 points per level you increase them. You also gain 2 points per level you decrease them below zero.
Strength: 5
Agility:
5
Fighting: 5
Awareness: 3
Stamina: 6
Dexterity:
2
Intellect: 3
Presence: 7

Defenses: Defenses cost 1 point per level to increase, past their bases from attributes. Toughness CANNOT be bought in this manner, but can be increased through powers.
Dodge: 4
Parry: 6
Fortitude: 3
Will: 3
Toughness: 8

Skills: Skills cost 1 point per 2 skill ranks/levels.
Flight(3)
Expertise(Close Fighting): 4 ranks


Advantages: Each one costs 1 point.
Rage Rank 2:Increase STR by +3, gain +2 to fortitude and will saves. -6 on defense checks. Rage lasts 5 rounds. After the rage, the character will become fatigued, and take a -2 to all rolls for the next 10 rounds.
Fearless:Immune to fear effects
Diehard:Automatically stabilize when dying


Powers:
Shotgun Blast:
Pretty self explanatory in what it does. Effectively she calls upon her magic, to raised up a large amount of beams, and flings them forward, striking anything within a 20ft 'V' Shape in front of her. It has a maximum range of 20ft also. The closer she is, the more accurate it is, and the more it damages. However it will not hit as many foes. From longer range, it does less damage, and hits more opponents.
Most damage while within 10ft of the targets.
Half of it's effective damage to trade off with range, while with n 20ft of the targets.
Will not hit if used beyond 20 ft. However it will give off a rather loud 'bang'!
Demoralizing Shout:Lace words with magic, to make enemies fearful, and weaker in combat
Hammer of Wrath: While within at least 10ft of an enemy, she can materialize a large hammer, and have it slam down on an opponent. To either hurt them quite a bit, or even stun them.​
 
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Name: Emir Acorsan
Age: 17

Appearance: About 5'9 or so, and on the thinner side of builds.

Personality: Emir has been described as bluntly honest and straightforward, but perceptive enough to not make a complete ass of himself. While he isn't the best at dealing with emotionally charged situations, he's generally capable of reading them and backing away before he makes things worse. Solving them is something he generally leaves up to others though.

Really, in general, sitting back to think on a problem or issue isn't Emir's thing. He's much more seize the opportunity, take the risk, and we going to do this now. While being part of the LCE has basically forced him to reign himself in, he's still a bit impulsive when given the ability to act freely.

Personal history: Nothing of particular note here. His family doesn't really have a colorful past and is rather ordinary. Many generations of hardworking folk with the occasional member that became a combat mage, but nowhere prolific enough for the family to earn itself a name. Emir is one of the rare Acorsan members to pursue such a career, partially thanks to his early awakening to magic.

Namely, when he was a young child Emir vanished from before his parents' very eyes in the comfort of their home. It's not known exactly what might have caused such an event to occur, but the magical authorities were called in. It took a while to find someone with the capabilities to actually retrieve the displaced child, but when Emir was brought back it was without any harm.

He was automatically placed under watch just in case and an offer to teach him was extended. His parents naturally accepted and Emir was slowly eased into the world of magic and, given his instinctive ability to teleport, its more combat oriented applications. Surprisingly, his parents didn't object, but one had dreamed of such a job and the other had a father who served. Emir himself didn't take to it all that easily, but his performance was passable.

And while he never became a genius of any sort, Erim has attained a proficiency as a mage that can't be denied. He's a capable front-liner who's gotten a bit of mission experience, though his attitude is somewhat of a concern.

Magic: Less of a Sephira Knight and more of a brawling powerhouse, Emir's magic involves bolstering and enhancing his body far beyond its normal capabilities. He makes do with a magical armament, Ils'fang, that's called to his side alongside his Knight's Garb or if need be, his bare hands.

If there's one thing that makes him stand out, it'd be his ability to perceive and traverse dimensions. Occasionally he puts the ability to use in order to slip to entrenched targets, but he tries to not make it a habit. There hasn't been all that much research into the field, and he's wary of any consequences that might result from constant use.

Complications
Motivation - Responsibility: He does feel indebted and grateful to those that taught him and naturally wants to follow in their footsteps. Wanting to put what they taught him to good use and all that.
Motivation - Thrills: Emir naturally drifted towards combat, so it's not really a surprise that's part of the reason he's a member of the LCE. It's one of the few jobs where he can go close-quarters against targets while staying on the right side of the law.
Reputation (Violent): Despite his appearance, Emir has established himself to be a fairly rough Enforcer in a short time. He loves a good fight and is willing to take the option if given a choice, though he isn't quite blinded by the desire.
Relationship - Family: He's got a healthy relationship with his parents, but they all worry about each other. Them about his position, and Emir about someone taking advantage of them; they aren't legendary mages in their own right after all.
Feminine Appearance: While not particularly bothered by it, Emir is certainly passable as a female given the right clothes. Even in regular clothing, most people would likely be uncertain until he speaks.

  • Attribute STR AGL FGT AWE STA DEX INT PRE
    Bonus 3 3 0 0 4 0 0 0
    Total 7 8 8 7 7 0 0 0
    Initiative: +8
  • Defense Dodge Parry Fortitude Toughness Will
    Score 8 8 7 8 7
  • Skill Name Acrobatics Athletics Close Combat Expertise (LCE Enforcer) Insight Perception Stealth
    Ranks 2 1 0 3 5 3 0
    Total Bonus +10 +8 +8 +3 +12 +10 +8
  • Agile Feint: Feint using Acrobatics skill or movement speed rank.
    Assessment: Use Insight vs. opponent's Deception to learn combat capabilities.
    Benefit, Ambidexterity: No off-hand circumstance penalty.
    Evasion (2): You have a +5 circumstance bonus to Dodge resistance checks to avoid area effects.
    Move-by Action: Move both before and after standard action as long up to normal movement distance.
    Power Attack: Trade up to 5 attack bonus for effect bonus.
    Uncanny Dodge: Not vulnerable when surprised or caught off-guard.
    • Ils'fang (Easily Removable Device)
      • Strike (Str-based Dmg 1) (DC23, Improved Crit 4, Takedown 2, Penetrating, Noticeable: Emits a blue glow.).
    • Emir's magical katana that's called to him alongside his Knight's Garb. It's a deadly weapon that's extremely durable thanks to its nature. Destroys any chance at stealth when in use given it's blue glow though.

    • Fighter's Instinct (Immunity 2) (Critical Hits; Innate)
    • Enough practice and skill has made it hard enough to land a blow against Emir, much less one that could be considered critical.

    • Knight’s Garb (Protection 1)
    • The mage's standard barrier jacket. Despite normally being a bad idea, in Emir's case it's safe to say that the Garb is about as durable as it appears. Which is to say, not very. Certainly does look rather nice though.

    • Inherent Recovery (Regeneration 10) (1 Toughness/Round, Persistant)
      • Fight Form Alt. (Enhanced STA. 4, STR. & AGI. 3)
    • Remarkably, Emir's magical reserves have been trained in such a manner that their natural flow throughout his body heightens its ability to recover considerably. By directing the energy to a more active purpose though, he can push his body' to limits that shadow an average humans.

    • Spacial Shift Dynamic (Teleport 0/7, Change Directions, Dimensional 3)
      • Flight Dynamic (Flight 9/9)
    • An almost instinctive ability to Emir, his earliest uncontrolled use of magic was to transport himself between dimensions. The exact nature of his spell is still unclear, but he has an inherent feel to it that he's able to simultaneously direct energy to grant flight and still make use of teleportation.

    • Pierce the Veils (Senses 0) (Dimensional 3, Noticeable: Eyes glow with usage, Activation: Activate with Move action..)
    • Originally something that was near constantly active, Emir's teachers quickly sought to teach their charge how to control it. Having his senses in other dimensions was not conductive to living life in their own after all. As is, Emir now consciously has to activate his "otherworldly" senses which is typically noticeable as his eyes begin to glow softly.
 
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So umm, I'ma just ask the obvious. Where are the majority of you coming up with some of what you are? Save for writing it up based on imagination. Is there somewhere to dig up the major mechanics, feats, etc?
 
So umm, I'ma just ask the obvious. Where are the majority of you coming up with some of what you are? Save for writing it up based on imagination. Is there somewhere to dig up the major mechanics, feats, etc?
The SRD link under the Running the Games tab in the OP is a good resource. The Herolab Demo I linked is also helpful. I also don't mind helping out to explain things.
 
Alright, I just downloaded the books. They aren't the 3e, however being as they are 2nd edition, I'd assume at least the feats are still valid for use, and the skills.
 
Alright, I just downloaded the books. They aren't the 3e, however being as they are 2nd edition, I'd assume at least the feats are still valid for use, and the skills.
Eh... there's apparently drastic changes between 2nd and 3rd from what's been discussed with the GM. Skills have been drastically slimmed down, etc. If you want to comb through the actual PDF of the 3rd edition, here's a link.
 
Well I'll have to ask the GM on that one. I took the feats of Rage, and Fearless. However based on the SRD, they don't exist in 3e. However I think they're relatively acceptable.
 
Well I'll have to ask the GM on that one. I took the feats of Rage, and Fearless. However based on the SRD, they don't exist in 3e. However I think they're relatively acceptable.
Yeah... I don't think a +6 boost is going to fly, even at the cost of -2 to what would now mean to be active defense rolls (Parry and Dodge, in 2e there was one defense stat instead). The +4 to Fort and Will checks alone would outweigh the loss in defense, and your character would essentially gain something worth 12PP for the cost of 2PP for 10 rounds.

Though, ain't a GM, so yeah.
What's herolab?
http://www.wolflair.com/index.php?context=hero_lab&page=mutants_=_masterminds

This thing.