Continuing from the other day, here's the second of my three PCs in Mike mid/late 80's V&V game and more old fogey reminiscing
In my memory we must have started this sooner than 1987 since I graduated in 1989, but it couldn't have been earlier than the September 1986 publication date of this comic, since this was the visual inspiration:
Which means for my memories to jibe I had to have played some summers in college (which I know I did) but also that we played a metric ton of games when I was in High School. It's hard to imagine now, especially with my old man schedule and watching my kids struggle to get in game time, but we prioritized gaming so much back in the day.
In any event, Mike was the one who had Opponents Unlimited, Super Crooks and Criminals, and Most Wanted Vol 3 as source material, which means we had to deal with V.I.L.E. and B.A.D., as well as a lot of Nazi adjacent villains; who thought we would be dealing with those 50 years in the future? I mean really?
Mike was a firm believer in what would now be seen as OSR style play - actions had repercussions. Nothing was easy. Mistakes lived with you. Victories were seldom 100%. The monsters want to win. The earth elemental steps on your head to make sure. OK, not that in a supers environment but you get the idea. As a result of some frustrations of how Legerdemain with his classic good guy attitude was unable to score heavy victories against V.I.L.E. (who were very organized and national in Mike's game), I brought in a different character with a different attitude. Plus I really wanted to play with the Armor rules in V&V, which are a great translation of the power from the comics.
I've been torn on this but I'm going to present Impact as I originally played him with notes as to how I would do the design now.
Impact (Adam Kuriakin)
Side: Good Experience level: 7
Affect/Gimmick: Thug turned anti-hero out of vengeance against his former employer. He's a but of a loose cannon on a road to redemption. The visual image for the character was the armor on this cover of Creatures on the Loose, a book title so 1970's that it came with its own bell bottoms and giant lapels.
Surprisingly, it's Adolph Hitler in the armor; Also surprisingly, the armor changes color inside the issue.
Status: Wanted by both V.I.L.E. and the police, Impact is a hero in that he is a villain who targets and disrupts other villains. He funds his activities by raising V.I.L.E. and other villain organization bases for the cash and technology he needs to keep his armor running.
Powers: 4
- Mutant Power Device: This reflexes booster partially imbedded in his forearm increases his agility by x1.5 for initiative purposes only. (round down, currently 24) 1 charge/round, 14 charges. (These days I would make this a Bionics so it's fully embedded and have it alter his initiative interval from a 15 down to 10; he wouldn't go first but a 5+ would have him act on 21, 11, and 1, rather than a 7+ for 31, 16 and 1)
- Armor B (Device) 100 ADR, with 3 inset powers
- Heightened Strength +20
- Heightened Senses: Telescopic vision (range penalties are 1/10th normal), Sensory Protection (-4 to be hit by sonic powers or flash attacks), Heuristic Analytics Suite (+20% detections) (why didn't I just triple his detects? gets to the same place...)
- Screamer Missiles: the spikes on his armband, he carries 6 at a time, range is Ax15 (240"), HTH +4 to hit, 1d8 damage but Sonic Carrier (1d12) damage, 3" radius explosion.
- Energy Field Harness (Force Field device modified to mirror Flame Powers + Absorption Device): This torso mounted harness allows him to manipulate kinetic energy for several effects. It has 32 charges total for all uses. Assume a 15 in all basic characteristics
- Energy Field: one action to create brightly glowing energy field around body; this is needed to use other powers.
- Energy Blast (as force field): 2d8 damage, 30" range, 1 charge/shot
- Flight: Move at 45 MPH. 1 charge/3 hours of flight.
- Invention: Acceleration device lets him kick up to 900 mph. Doing so requires he be in his armor for the heuristic analytics and uses 1 charge per hour from his reflex booster.
- Personal Force Field: 1 charge per 8 points of damage repulsed or 4 points that penetrate; this can be considered automatically started with the energy field creation if he chooses to do so, but continued uses requires actions as Force Field
- Absorption: One action and one charge to convert damage blocked by field to Carrying Capacity (25 lbs. per point) or charges for the energy field harness (1/point done, charges past 32 are lost) (Yes, this means that if he has a saved action and takes a 16 damage hit he can either get +400 lbs carry or (+16-1 for absorption -2 for the force field charge) +13 charges; I felt that was worth the nerfing the carrying capacity baseline on Absorption)
- Reduced Charisma: -6 , Max Charisma = 9 (the original character didn't have this, but given how I now understand the Charisma modification roles; given his near constant stealing of the enemies gear and money his charisma will never be high, but this does mean he gets bonuses with non-V.I.L.E. Evil characters)
Background/Origin: Adam was a street thug pulled in as a baseline recruit for V.I.L.E., and he was picked by Sir Lemur as a test subject. Given Lemur's mind control powers it's not like consent was required, and when Adam woke with a bio-mechanical implant in his arm. The biological boost of the reflex booster burned the sedatives out of his system faster than expected and Adam was able to bludgeon the V.I.L.E. medical technicians unconscious and make an escape, stealing several experimental devices on the way out.
This character was really fun to play in the dark hero mold, very different from what Legerdemain was like. And I made good progress in his goals, including beating Prodictor Kapella, stripping off his suit and burying it in a collapsed mine when I couldn't destroy it. Lots of fun stuff.
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