Monday, October 23, 2017

MP - Kammer, Intercrime Subcommander

Background and Origin: Kammer is an experienced mercenary. He keeps his identity secret, but it is known he was evicted from the army of one of the Arab nations. While doing duty in central Africa, he was badly injured and spent a week nursing his injuries by an odd smelling stream, surviving by sheer force of will. Shortly thereafter, he returned to his unit possessed of superhuman strength. He decided that he could make even more money as a mercenary supervillain, and took on his new life as Kammer.

Shortly after arriving in Europe, he committed to a long term contract with the Italian branch of Intercrime. This takes him all over the world, but especially throughout the United States where he acts as a trouble-shooter.

Normally, he acts against Asian gangs and police targets, but he has tangled with other supers on numerous occasions.

Kammer is often assigned to lead a squad of Powered Infantry, especially when facing powered opposition.

Combat Tactics:  Take cover and overwhelm the target with force.  He demands his team concentrate fire on single targets to eliminate hostiles quickly.

Appearance:  5'10", muscular, dark skin, bald, brown eyes.

Powers:  Kammer is a trained and seasoned military operator and mercenary fighter. He is a skilled squad leader, and operations man.  He has superhuman strength, able to lift/press approximately 1500 lbs under optimal conditions.

Notes:  Kammer originally appeared in They Might Be Characters Vol. 5.

Kammer - Mighty Protectors

Strength    20     (Carrying Capacity 768 lbs., Basic HTH d8+1)
Endurance     15     (Save 11, Heal 2.2)
Agility         16     (Save 11)
Intelligence     12     (Save 11)
Cool         14     (Save 11, Initiative d6)

Hit Points         17
Power             63
Physical Defense     3
Mental Defense      3
Move             17
Inventing Points     6
Wealth         d8+1
Luck             10-
Weight            200 lbs.
Total Cost         BCs + Powers - Weaknesses = Total

Powers

Armor: Kinetic 2, Energy 1, Biochemical 1, Entropy 2, Psychic 2 (12.5), PR=1 per round, Modifiers: Increased PR (-2.5) (10 CP)
Experience Levels: Attack +3, Defense +2, Skills +2 (20 CP)
Heightened Attack: Damage +1 all attacks (2.5 CP)
Heightened Initiative: Init +1 (2.5 CP)
Knowledge: Squad Tactics specialization +3, Urban Stealth specialization +3 (5 CP)
Wealth: d8+1 Wealth roll (7.5 CP)
Willpower: B) Pain Resistance (10 CP)
Willpower: C) Self-Control, can Push up to +4 (at PR=4) (10 CP)


Languages: (18 CP)
Native: Italian
Fluent: English (3)
Accented: Korean, Mandarin Chinese (4)
Broken: Arabic, Spanish, French, German, Russian, Dutch, Japanese (7)
Literacy: All Native, Fluent and Accented (4)

Gear

Armored Costume: Adaptation: High Temperatures, Low Temperatures, Armor: Kinetic 1, Energy 2, Biochemical 1, Entropy 2, Modifiers:  Multifunction Gear (15 CP)

Bulletproof Vest: Armor: Kinetic 6, Energy 2, Biochemical 2, Entropy 2, Modifiers: Gear, Partial Coverage (Light) (5 CP)

Combat Knife: Special Weapon: Attack +0, Damage +1d6 Sharp Kinetic (5 CP)

automatic rifle with 2 extra clips and targeting sight,

automatic pistol with 2 extra clips,

headset radio (3 mile range, 3 encrypted channels, plus police band and CB),

fragmentation grenades (3),

smoke grenades (2)


Weaknesses

TBD (-15 CP)
Nemesis: TBD (-10 CP)


Combat Summary:

Initiative: d6+1 (avg 4.5)
Unarmed: Attack 16-, Damage d8+2 (avg 6.5)
Knife: Attack

Kammer - Villains and Vigilantes

Strength 24 (Carrying Capacity 1532 lbs., Basic HTH 1d10)
Endurance 15 (Heal 1.6)
Intelligence 12 (Detect Hidden 10%, Detect Danger 14%, Damage +0)
Agility 16 (Accuracy +2, Damage +1)
Charisma 14 (Reaction +/-1)
Level 6

Hit Points 25
Power 67
Move 55" ground
Hit Modifier 6.336
Weight 100 lbs.
Basic Hits 4
Inventing Points 2.2

Heightened Strength A: +15


Willpower: Type A.  All uses are PR=1 per use, or per turn.  Power Stunts: 

  • Battle Stance, +3 “to hit,” +1 Damage Unarmed HTH, 
  • Precision Aim, +2 “to hit,” +2 Damage with ranged attacks using modern military firearms and energy weapons. 
Training: +2 “to hit” with unarmed HTH, +2 “to hit” with automatic pistols



Equipment: Medium body armor, combat knife, automatic rifle with 2 extra clips and targeting sight, automatic pistol with 2 extra clips, headset radio (3 mile range, 3 encrypted channels, plus police band and CB), fragmentation grenades (3), smoke grenades (2)


Kammer - Marvel Superheroes Advanced Set

Fighting     Remarkable
Agility     Excellent
Strength     Remarkable
Endurance     Excellent
Reason     Good
Intuition     Excellent
Psyche     Remarkable

Health     100
Karma     60
Resources     Remarkable
Popularity     -5

Powers
Armored Costume: Typical protection from physical and Force, Excellent protection from Heat, Fire and Radiation, Good material strength.


Talents
Guns
Martial Arts A
Military


Contacts
Intercrime
Weapon Smugglers
Other Mercenaries

Boilerplate

Notes:  Artist unknown.  Character by P. Rogers, January, 1999.

Document Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2017 by Patric L. Rogers. All rights reserved.  Portions Copyright others; no attempt is made to infringe upon their rights.

Villains and Vigilantes, Living Legends and the Monkey House Games logo are trademarks owned by Monkey House Games, ©2010 Monkey House Games. All rights reserved. Made in the U.S.A.

Mighty Protectors and the Monkey House Games logo are trademarks owned by Monkey House Games, ©2017 Monkey House Games. All rights reserved. Made in the U.S.A.

Unofficial Living Legends Companion written by Patric L. Rogers, Copyright © 2010-2017 by Monkey House Games. All rights reserved.

Sourcebooks Marvel Superheroes Advanced Set (TSR, 1986), Realms of Magic (Kim Eastland, TSR, 1986), The Ultimate Powers Book  (David E. Martin, TSR, 1987), 4C System (Michael Hammes, Philip Reed, 2007).


Friday, October 20, 2017

MP - Morning Dragon

Background and Origin: Morning Dragon was the guy in Marine Corp basic training who was always smiling no matter what the drill sergeant said, did or ordered him to do.

He gained his powers during Marine training. They had a special program designed to push the limits of how long a person could hold his breath underwater before passing out. No one died during the program, but the third time through, Dragon decided he was going to last longer than anyone else. When he finally stopped breathing, it wasn’t because he passed out, instead it was because his latent powers had activated and he no longer needed to breath.

Combat Tactics: His first action is almost always to evade just because it annoys his opponents. He never takes anything personally, and never worries about his personal safety (being virtually immune to harm). He has been training intensively in Wu Shu kung fu since he was eight years old.

Personality Traits: He is very much a morning person (he can’t sleep past 5 AM) and likes to antagonize adversaries in very subtle ways.

Appearance: Morning Dragon is from Southern California and a racial mix of European, Korean and Mexican. He has short black hair and dark brown eyes. He is 5'9" tall and weighs 140 lbs.

Powers: He has superhuman resilience, environmental independence, military experience, and lifelong kung fu training.

Notes: Model Daniel Dae Kim. Character by P. Rogers, January, 1999.


Morning Dragon originally appeared in They Might be Characters Vol. 1.


daniel-dae-kim.ch.070517.jpg


Morning Dragon - Mighty Protectors

Strength 13 (Carrying Capacity 156 lbs., Basic HTH d6)
Endurance 13 (Save 11, Heal 1.6)
Agility 18 (Save 12)
Intelligence 14 (Save 11)
Cool 12 (Save 11, Initiative d6)

Hit Points 18
Power 68
Physical Defense 2
Mental Defense 1
Move 15
Inventing Points 7
Wealth d6
Luck 10-
Weight 140 lbs.
Total Cost 70 + 160 - 20 = 210

Powers

Adaptation: Asphyxiation, High Temperatures, Low Temperatures, Radiation, Disease, Low Pressure (35 CP)
Armor: Kinetic 5, Energy 3, Biochemical 5, Entropy 5, Modifiers: Unobvious (+5) (40 CP)
Durability: Hit Points +5 (5 CP)
Energy: Power +10 (5 CP)
Experience Levels: Attack +1, Defense +2, Skills +2 (15 CP)
Invulnerability: Kinetic, Energy (40 CP)
Natural Weaponry: Attack +3, Damage +6 Blunt Kinetic (22.5 CP)
Wealth: d6 Wealth roll (2.5 CP)


Weaknesses

Compulsion: Can't sleep past 5 AM (-5 CP)
Nemesis: He has made enemies (-10 CP)
Personal Problem: May be called for Marine Corp duty (-5 CP)


Combat Summary:

Initiative: d6 (avg 3.5)
Unarmed: Attack 18-, Damage d6+6 (avg 9.5)

Comment: This character is one of the reasons I initially looked into converting VnV Adaptation to MP.


Morning Dragon - Villains and Vigilantes

S 14, E 13, I 14, A 18, C 13, 140 lbs., level 4


Basic Hits 4, Carry Cap. 283 lbs., Basic HTH 1d6, Hit Modifiers (1.2)(1.4)(1.1)(1.9) = 3.5112, Hit Points 11, Power 59, Move 45" ground, Healing Rate 0.9, Damage Modifier +2, Accuracy +3


Adaptation: PR = 1 per hour or per use as a defense.


Invulnerability: +24. Morning Dragon has steel hard skin enhanced by his mystic training. The combination enables him to withstand enormous punishment.


Natural Weaponry: +3/+6. Lifelong martial arts training makes him acrobatic and agile. He is poetry in deadly motion.


Combat Summary:

Initiative: 18+1d10 (avg 23.5)
Unarmed: HTH +6 “to hit,”  Damage d6+6 (avg 9.5)


Morning Dragon - Living Legends

PHYS 11/d6 (CON 16/d8)
REFL 16/d8
DEFT 11/d6
INTL 11/d6,
COOL 11/d6
VITL 11/d6


Skills

Skills: 3 @ +1 level (2) (+5) [4 CP]
Scholar: (INTL/S), Chinese philosophy, +2 levels (5), d8 effect [3 CP]
Unarmed: (DEFT/G), punch, d8+1 effect, grapple, d6+1 effect, kick d6 effect
Weapon: (DEFT/G), rifle, d8 effect


Powers

Adaptation:  Asphyxiation (3), plus all Physical (+9) [10 CP]
Armor:  9 vs. All Physical and Mystical (72) [72 CP]
Combat Maneuvers:  +1 level Escape (3), Hold, Parry, Strike, Stun, Throw with Unarmed [punch, grapple].  Five maneuvers (+8), two skills (+3), Escape (-1), Parry (+1).  [13 CP]
Natural Weaponry: +1 (4) [4 CP]
Skill Bonus: +1 (3) Unarmed [punch, grapple] (+3) [4 CP]


Morning Dragon - Marvel Superheroes Advanced Set

Fighting Remarkable
Agility Excellent
Strength Good
Endurance Good
Reason Good
Intuition Good
Psyche Good


Health 70
Karma 30
Resources Good
Popularity 0


Powers

Armored Costume: Typical protection from physical and Force, Excellent protection from Heat, Fire and Radiation, Good material strength.


Body Resistance:  Incredible


Life Support:  Shift-Z


Talents

Martial Arts A, C, E
Military


Contacts

In the police department and military

Boilerplate

Document Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2017 by Patric L. Rogers. All rights reserved.  Portions Copyright others; no attempt is made to infringe upon their rights.

Villains and Vigilantes, Living Legends and the Monkey House Games logo are trademarks owned by Monkey House Games, ©2010 Monkey House Games. All rights reserved. Made in the U.S.A.

Unofficial Living Legends Companion written by Patric L. Rogers, Copyright © 2010-2017 by Monkey House Games. All rights reserved.

Mighty Protectors and the Monkey House Games logo are trademarks owned by Monkey House Games, ©2017 Monkey House Games. All rights reserved. Made in the U.S.A.

Sourcebooks Marvel Superheroes Advanced Set (TSR, 1986), Realms of Magic (Kim Eastland, TSR, 1986), The Ultimate Powers Book  (David E. Martin, TSR, 1987), 4C System (Michael Hammes, Philip Reed, 2007).

Wednesday, October 18, 2017

MP - They Might Be Characters

Back around 1997 to 1999 I created the five volumes of They Might Be Characters  - stubs of sourcebooks of villains, loosely inspired by the compilations published for VnV by FGU, and for Champions by Hero Games.  The five books are still available on my website.

Back around 1997 to 1999, I had just launched by website - www.patric.net - and was having fun publishing content. I was very active with the forums on WebRPG, also.  Jeff Dee had just released Advanced VnV on his website. I got hooked up with some online groups, and we did VnV-based PBEM gaming.

Mighty Protectors 1e dropped in 2017, and I've been nostalgic for my old work on TMBC - I'd always meant to finish it up, but never seemed to get around to it.  Converting the characters to MP is a great exercise in working with conversations and the MP rules, and it's fun to revisit the old gang.








Some other interesting "fun facts":
  • The books were originally written using WordPerfect, and converted to PDF using Adobe Acrobat.  On patric.net, you see two versions of each book - "pix" and "no pix" - back in 2000, there were still a lot of people using dial-up modems (that's less than 1/10th Megabit to you young 'uns), so having a "no pix" version was standard practice;
  • A few years ago, I jumped thru some huge hoops to convert them to RTF, then to OpenOffice ODS format, just so I would have the actual text available, if I ever wanted to revise them.  The images mostly got lost (big surprise, right?);
  • Today, I'm just copying and pasting from the PDF to gdocs, where I do the scratch work, then paste again into Blogger.  My, my, but copy-paste has come such a long way in just a few years. 

Monday, October 16, 2017

MP - converting VnV Willpower

VnV is iconic for its open-ended powers and everything-as-a-defense combat table.

Willpower is another one of those weird powers that rarely has a direct analogue in other game systems.

MP is no different, although at least it does show up, unlike Living Legends :)

Here is my tske on converting the VnV "Willpower A" to MP:

Armor: Kinetic 2, Energy 1, Biochemical 1, Entropy 2, Psychic 2 (12.5), PR=1 per round, Modifiers: Increased PR (-2.5) (10 CP)
Willpower: B) Pain Resistance (10 CP)
Willpower: C) Self-Control, can Push up to +4 (at PR=4) (10 CP)

Yes, that's a 30 CP power bundle, but I find that happens a lot in the conversion process - that "simple" powers are still very expensive, q.v. Adaption (VnV).

One option is Willpower: A) Fortitude, instead of Armor, but the PR cost is huge compared to the overall damage shaving.  I suppose it depends in the power level of the game. Low damage games (e.g. average 10 or 11 points) might benefit more from Armor than being able to shift an extra 4 or 5 points to Power. The thing with Fortitude is that the character is still soaking the damage; it's just the kind that recovers in minutes instead of days.

The PR cost on Armor is optional, to save -2.5 CP, but fits the theme of the VnV power.


(image from an old Image comic, around 1997, I think)