The second character I made today is Lodestone, based on a character from the adventure "Sins of the Past" for ICONS. He has a magical staff that gives him control over magnetism, and allows him to fly.

dsumner wrote on Dec 5^th, 2010 at 3:48pm:


The group will be 6 (1 for each Destroyer), but I plan on making 8 characters for the players to choose from.

I made the sheet by using the form fill-able sheet I found on one of the yahoo groups. I used a program that lets me save the data. I then printed out the sheet, scanned it, and used Comic Life to insert the image file, then exported it to jpg. I wish I could export the pdf to an image file right off the bat, so I wouldn't need to print it twice.

Some of the other characters I will be working up will be:
1) Lady America, a flying, super strong patriotic heroine
2) Nighthawk, a batman type
3) Snow Witch, who has ice powers

polarboy wrote on Dec 6^th, 2010 at 2:03am:


I was a big fan of Nighthawk (and The Defenders, who I always liked better than The Avengers). However, that was coincidental to my choice for the name. Since I'm using art that was done by Dan Houser, I'm creating characters around the images/names I liked. There were 2 Batman types that Dan had done, and the one for Nighthawk just looked better to me 

Majestic,

Thanks for the feedback! I've made some adjustments to the characters all ready (Polar Boy caught a mistake I made with a HP mod for one of them), but have yet to update with the new sheets (I found a program online that lets me convert the pdf right to jpeg, so the sheets don't look crooked from my scanning attempts).

I forgot about the base chance to hit; I think I will keep it the way I have it though. I suspect people would get confused if they roll what is listed, but miss because of the defense mods. I think just letting them roll, and letting them know if they succeed, will work better (seeing a I don't know who is playing, and what, if any, experience they have playing V&V previously). If they all knew the game, your way would be perfect.

I started plotting out powers for a few of the other characters (Lady America, Frostwitch and Max Plastic), so I hope to have these up by the end of the week.

And yeah, I thought it amusing to make Ferret Andrew. It's one of his characters (along with Lady A and Max Plastic), so I thought the homage was warranted

One thing I'm noticing is that some of the Destroyers (like Behemoth and Ratman) don't have any defensive powers. Behemoth has a lot of HP, but Ratman doesn't. Should be interesting to see how that plays out

Gerry wrote on Dec 8^th, 2010 at 9:08pm:


Ratman's plenty tough, though.  He too has lots of HP, and can be very formidable if he chooses to evade.  Note too that he can prove to be one of the deadliest of the Destroyers, if he whips enough PCs into submission with his Paralysis Ray tail!   

Oh I realize that Ratman can be the worst of the group, and that after Behemoth, he has the second largest amount of HP. I just thought it interesting that the two potentially most powerful members of the team were the ones who didn't have any special defenses at all.

What did you guys think of Max Plastic? I was considering giving him a small amount of Invulnerability, with the limitation that it's only vs physical attacks.

Gerry wrote on Dec 6^th, 2010 at 2:18am:


I am curious as to which image you are referring to since I commissioned one of the "Batman" types that Dan did, which was Nightowl.

Zenith Comics wrote on Dec 9^th, 2010 at 10:26pm:


It's not the image of Nightowl (which I do have a copy of). Dan also did one called Nighthawk for someone else (either as a commission or for one of the Wave packs). I figured 3 of your characters was more than enough to use for the team 

Ok,

I revised Max Plastic, giving him 10 pts of Invulnerability. Thanks to Majestic for the suggestion.

Up next is the powerhouse of The Vigil, Lady America. Again, she is based on one of AslanC's characters (seems like half this team is going to be!). She has a lot of different powers, but they mostly affect her stats. She's not on Behemoth's level, but has better chances of hitting him due to her higher agility and expertise.

The other female member of The Vigil, Frostwitch is young, and still much of a rookie. still, she has access to great power:

You might want to go back and recheck your numbers. Especially on Lady A. Think you might have shorted her CC and HtH just a wee bit (ok a lot really). Also I think that flight should be 1,800 mph (not inches per turn)

PS: I notice a couple characters with 9 powers? no weaknesses?

These guys (and gals) do indeed look awesome.  I especially like Lady America (it's a cool moniker and even her identity, Amanda Rogers, is a sweet name!)

I didn't notice it at first, but Ranger's right that you WAY shorted her.  You take one tenth of the character's Strength (it's easy with her, so 1/10th of 60 is 6) and you cube that.  So 6 x 6 x 6 = 216.  Then you add 1/10 of her Endurance (which is 30, so +3 more).  So 216 + 3 = 219.  Then you multiply that total by half her weight.  Her weight is 120 lbs., so that means you multiply it by 60.  219 x 60 = 13,140 lbs.

So she's solidly in the 2d10 category (much higher than the 540, which only got her 1d8)!

Thanks for sharing these with us; they all look like a lot of fun!

Weaknesses can be fun, too, rather than debilitating.  So instead of something that paralyzes them in the middle of a fight, you can add something like Phobia: Fear of spiders, or Vulnerability: Takes triple damage from flame or heat attacks (knowing that none of the Destroyers will be exploiting this weakness).  They can simply add character, nuance, and personality to the PCs, which makes them in turn a little more fun to play.  And they answer the question of "how did they get so many powers?" to some players (who know the system or supers RPGs in general, as they can understand that they get a little bit more when balanced with a weakness).

Another piece of advice I've picked up from others (and which has worked well in my Con games).  This is really only for Con one-shots too: give the PCs connections with each other.  This adds a lot of fun and dramatic excitement to the role-playing that happens.  It shouldn't be something that takes over the session, but if you can add some fun via it, it truly adds another dimension to the game.  For example, two of the PCs might have an intense rivalry (but a friendly one, like Legolas and Gimli in The Lord of the Rings).  Or one character might be the uncle or aunt of another (or a step brother or cousin or whatever).  Making them somewhat connected in this way can draw the characters towards each other, give them a reason to be united (especially with complete strangers) and gives them a commonality and unity that they might not otherwise have had.

Good luck with things; you're off to a great start with some really fun characters!   

They all look like a lot of fun to play, I posted the PDF fillable sheet to the yahoo group a long time ago. I didn't create the sheet itself just made it form fillable. I really like the free one on MHG's site though (the excel version prints out perfectly and does all the calculations for you), so I have stopped using it myself. There is also an excel sheet for calculating all of the combat to hit numbers on the yahoo group I have started using, you might take a look at that to simplify your prep for the game. It is even called Crisis at Crusader Citadel.xls and has all the villains pre-input into it. You can find it at http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/VandV/files/Excel%20Folder/

Looking forward to seeing the rest of your characters when you get them done.

Dude call her what you please .

I always avoid Rogers though, for obvious reasons

Gerry wrote on Dec 11^th, 2010 at 11:34am:


Gyro (Richard Wilkerson) is a flying blaster with force field.  In reality he is a Biokenetic, but that is when he realizes his full potential.

He was a fighter pilot who went down chasing a UFO over the Berring Straight.  He was found 5 days later by fishermen, 500 miles from where he went down and with tremendous power.

Also involved in the chase was a Soviet female MiG pilot who also got the same powers and comes back as Starbird.

The idea is that the aliens are seeding to create a sort of Nova Corps/Green Lantern Corps of biokinetics across the galaxy.

Alas the campaign never made it that far.

Hope this helps.

Ranger wrote on Dec 13^th, 2010 at 12:12am:


I'm very thankful too. Of course, now I remember one of the reasons I started to like Champions more than V&V (I know, I'm a heretic!). And now since I'm into much simpler rpg systems, it stands out even more. Of course, once you get past the math of character creation, it's not that complex of a game.