The RPG character Battle Thread!

@vrakmul: It would be neat to see more of the older players return and stay, that's for sure. I wouldn't object to other stuff taking off but no other storyline has yet to hold the interest of the player base for an extended period. It will be interesting to see what happens as we go forward.

@cassius_knightfall: Haha, right? You have two feats going for you right off the bat.

@_drake: I thought Nobody was?

@strigidae_23: Also just fought and wasnt entirely losing to Lebeau.

@strigidae_23: I think the issue is that it's fallen into a constant loop of "attack D.C" that's started to make people are getting tired of it.

I do have a plan to have characters at every possible level of play to ensnare the vine in my tentacles and violate it like a Japanese schoolgirl drag everyone to stories of my liking.

Hence the 144 character initiative.

@cassius_knightfall: There you go lol, three feats.

@strigidae_23: Will think of a team. Gotta pick Cass for these reasons now.

@vrakmul: Are they? I'm not sure about that part. People generally seem pretty happy about the Mutant/Human stuff on a practical level. When big M/H events break out everyone likes them. [Which can't be said for all other events.]

Making one hundred and forty four characters?

@cassius_knightfall: Awesome, I look forward to it!

Check the "do you want to RPG" thread.

And yes, one hundred forty four. I spent my year long absence making character concepts on google docs.

Everything ties back to Vrakmul some way or another basically.

I did some thinking and realized that Vrakmul is the core of my work. And thus I built on him and all the lives his manipulations would touch.

@strigidae_23: Incredible stuff. Reminds me of the unique battle threads people like myself K4tz and Luna used to make.

@strigidae_23: Fantastic setup, very intriguing... the "no gear" thing makes things really tricky with this, as some characters aren't exactly top-tier without the equipment of their choice. Like, I know Kurt is good even without his bow, but considering he can't even be given one I don't think I'd waste the points on him. Similarly, without her customized gear, Mania's just an out-of-shape girl (though War Killer's suit may be a nice combo for her). I'm going to give this some thought and get back to it in a few hours, see if I can make a decent team.

@vrakmul: I've read it. When I compare those comments, and others in other threads, to the sixty two IC posts Pandemonium alone has its clear the scales are still heavy on the side of M/H. As long as the number of posts in M/H events dwarfs non-M/H events and as long as the majority of main event level characters are M/H themed the storyline will stick around. Basically, like all stories, it will endure as long as people are having fun ~_^

Whew, that's a lot of characters.

@strigidae_23: Real street level. He is as good ad Spidey. Maybe better.

@strigidae_23: Ack, missed the comment about Kurt's bow, hah, nevermind on that specific bit.

My team members are -- Connoisseur and Kurt with a single equipment purchase -- The single point, vest, grenade, radio, firearm and melee weapon.

The reasons I have outlined it goes as following.

• Connoisseur is one of, if not the, greatest combatant on the list, he is able to combat any of the people listed with pure hand to hand, and his sonar hearing, healing abilities, and general aptitude for combat make him a deadly to any of these teams winning. I don't think any team would win without a premier martial artist, and Connoisseur is one of them. He is not only a good combatant but has a good combat IQ, and will be a very valuable asset.

My second pick would be.

• Kurt - Likewise, Kurt is a specialized martial artist, in my own view, would be capable of holding his own physically against Lucian for a while, even win, depending on the scenario, but that's not why I chose him. Kieren is the martial artist here, no, Kurt is the second on my list because of his construct abilities. Effectively he gets free weaponry, a mild healing factor, experience, and has fought against the odds many times. He also has a metal arm which is made of Trion and that arm (although not on my bio, but stated in canon on a lot of occasions) would change the course of the battle. Technically it can fire repulsion units as it's s Stark-tech arm, but for the battle and LL probably not knowing that, I'm discounting that ability. The arm gifts Kurt an extra 25 tons worth of force, and is made of trion meaning it's an active shield against gunfire, and can even be electrified, so blocking punches with the arm, grappling, etc. Is a very hard thing to do. Kurt's an asset here because of his infinite ammo with his bow, he can make grenades, whatever he needs he would be able to make via thought alone. No other character apart from PsyKnight can do that, and Kurt is much much more skilled than most of the people on that list. So, Connoisseur and Kurt, one has the perfect aptitude for physical combat, and the other brings his free weaponry, and exotic game changing abilities.

Obstacles

Two hundred troops would be easily defeated by Connoisseur alone. His healing factor would be more than enough to help him through even the most grueling bombardment of orthodox gunmen. -- I don't even think they'd hit him, he's that fast. Adding Kurt just makes this a stomp for the duo, Kurt could conjure up a machine gun and shield himself, and just fire upon all of them from behind of a trench whilst his ally tears people apart. They win, it takes a while, but they win. Kurt would also be able to construct a trion arrow, due to his arm being attached his body has grown so accustomed to trion, he can manifest it like Green Lantern can manifested adamantium. He could just fire an explosive flechette bombardment which spews around in all directions -- That would kill nigh anybody on Lucian's squad. If Kurt is not allowed to manifest Trion, he could just do the same thing with Adamantium, or some other sharp, strong metal.

I think Kurt and Connoisseur would fight Lucian and Longshot. Lucian would probably engage Con as would Con, physically, the two would fight and after a while, Connoisseur would win, due to his advanced physiology, senses, and just skill. Impero has stated that Connoisseur is his greatest martial artist (I think) and Gambler said Lucian is not Charles level, so I assume Lucian would lose.

But this leaves Kurt to fight Longshot, Longshot may win, due to experience, possibly superior skill, but I don't know him enough. Kurt would stand his ground long enough via his constructs, own skill, and healing factor for Connoisseur to deal with Lucian and come help. Longshot won't defeat both opponents, and he goes down.

The Mercenary.....He is tough. I chose Connoisseur for a particular reason, and that reason, was this fight. Merc and Con have fought before and fought each other to a stalemate, with the addition of Kurt, I don't see Mercenary winning. Albeit, Con is unarmed compared to his other bout, in which he had all of his weaponry, but Kurt and his constructs add a game changer to the fight. I see Kurt being murdered in this round but Connoisseur overall taking the majority and winning.

Then Clara Mass gets slaughtered.

@strigidae_23:

I'd choose Ronin soloing with Warkiller armor, Amaranth's blade, two fragmented grenades, and a Beretta A400 Shotgun (a rapid fire shotgun)(Don't need the rest considering it's a one man team and I'm using the warkiller armor. Unless the radio picks up on enemy frequencies)

With the help of the warkiller armor Ronin should be able to get past the troops and obstacles with no problem thanks to his ninjutsu training. Getting passed Lucian and Longshot will be a bit harder, but should be possible especially with the grenades to Ronin's disposal for distraction purposes. The only real problem would be going up against Merc one on one. I think with the element of surprise, the warkiller armor, the armand sword, and a rapid fire shotgun Ronin should be able to go up against Merc's insane healing factor and at least KO him. (I've never read anything of Merc's, I just know he's talked about frequently and read his bio)

Sorry if this is bad, I've never taken part in one of these before :D

@_drake: Ah hah, I gotcha.

@joygirl: Thank you :-) However Kurt, and all the other construct/TK characters can create RL-level gear with their construct powers. So Kurt basically comes with free gear for the entire team, as does PsyKnight.

I tried to factor ability/gear changes due to the rules into the cost, as well as feats.

@kendrick_kenyon: Thank you :-)

@strigidae_23: The thing is, once I kill off Vrakmul (and I plan on making him die permanently via multiple levels of deader than dead, kill his body, destroy his soul, vanquish the essence of his evil, lock his timestream, slay his shade, obliterate his psyche, annihilate the crucible of his existence, and so on) at the very tail end of a very long saga of role plays and events, I'm not entirely sure what to do once he's gone.

But that's years ahead by my estimate.

@strigidae_23: There!

@pyrogram: Well thought out and a fun read!

@vrakmul: You can just come play Mutant/Human with the rest of us then hehee.

@dwronin: That was awesome! Haha, I wondered if anyone would gear their character out to the max and try and solo lol. 'Twas really fun.

@strigidae_23: Think I am going to do that with Drake. I mean, healing wouldn't stop him from being knocked out. And I need to write martial arts to practice.

Cassius and the Outlaws

Cassius Knightfall +3

Redhead + 3

Kurt +4

PsyKnight + 4

• Kevlar vest, two fragmentation grenades, radio, one firearm of choice and one melee weapon of choice for the entire team- + 1

Looks like a pretty strong team to me. As said above Cassius has broken into whitehouse twice as well the Knightfall Musuem in the past so he has expereince of the location and the mission fits his character as he has no love for the president or his potential foe LeBeau. Redhead and PsyKnight have heightened sences and beyond peak human stats allow them to be very verstaile and deadily members to the team. Both are prefectly able to fight and stratergise comfotably on their own without any imput from Cassius. Kurt having been trained by pretty much all the knightfalls is well versed in various forms of comabt and has the abilty to use his ring to sheild the team and create unexpected attacks which the rest can captailze on.

Likelyhood of getting around Longshot and Lebeau, 50/50 as Lebeau has heightened sight but Redhead and Psy also have these sences and could indentify threats for Kurt and Cass. With Cassius speciality being guerilla tactics he could make the odds slidly side in their favour providing the team communicate affectively. Should they fight Cass has alread fought LeBeau so knows his strenghts to some degree. However Longshot is a dangerous unknown and is experinced in laying traps and utalising his bow in unique and clever ways. If the team can get LeBeau and Longshot sepperated and take one Them on in teams of one Vamp and one human each they could get the job done.

If the team make it to Merc they have a chance. Though Cass will most likely get dropped.

@strigidae_23: I initially was going to choose Xenon and Connoisseur but realized with the limitations, Xenon's not as valuable, apart from being very smart, he'd need weapons to fight effectively. And Connoisseur costs so much so that left an unarmed Connoisseur and Xenon against eveybody xD

This would be two years in the future at the very earliest. More likely three.

I plan very long term.

Given how different the vine of 2011 was from the vine of 2014 and the vine of 2008 was from the vine of 2011, I'm not sure any of the current fads are going to remain.

@strigidae_23: It would be great wouldn't it? I imagined a story where Ronin psyche changed back to the Umbra Soldier and he was sent by one of the presidents enemies to take her out. There would be no leaving the white house after that though xD

@cassius_knightfall: Fun team! Glad to see someone picking Redhead and PsyKnight.

@_drake: Sounds cool :-)

@strigidae_23: They were obvious choices for me as they have the extra strong sences which would help alot for infiltration. As well as their own combat prowess.

@dwronin: That would be a pretty fun story lol. And again, great character build I enjoyed reading all that. I do wish I had added in a bow and trick arrows but I'll have to take a stab at that next time. This one was long enough lol.

@vrakmul: The Vine really has changed a lot, that's for sure. It will be interesting to see what the future holds.

@pyrogram: Truth about Xenon. I originally was going to make him a ten pointer until I looked through his bio and realized the rules were going to take away his TK/TP and equipment lol.

@strigidae_23: Besides, DP's personality gives me a whole new psyche to dive in, exploit and write. Can't go around joking like that, it must have a reason. And I am working on that =)

@strigidae_23: Haha yeah, I was re-writing Xenon's bio a while ago and realize how strong he has become. But this battle turned him into just another strong martial artist. LOL It's really effective limitations, so props on that.

@strigidae_23: Thank you! And I'll definitely be looking forward to it. This is such a fun segment :D

Slightly annoyed i couldnt fit Grifter into my team.

@_drake: I have to say congratulations on sticking with Luke for so long. You've built a lot of canon with him.

@cassius_knightfall: Good all-rounders. Plenty of strengths in many different areas.

@strigidae_23: Does mean limited to standard +1 gear. But thats pretty much Cass's standard stuff. Wondering now how many points Soverign Son, Dark Huntress, Risky, Longhshot or Cain would have been.

@cassius_knightfall: Three points for Cain. I would have added him but I don't think he has a bio and there aren't that many people who are familiar with him in this day and age.

Dark Huntress would have been six points under this ruleset. [Assuming you mean late Prime Cass.]

Risky I don't know enough about to be honest. If she has a bio, and someone could link me, I could take a look and formulate an opinion.

Under this ruleset, which would have deprived him of his trick arrows and limited him to a regular bow I'd say Longshot would have been worth six points.

@strigidae_23: Thanks. He gets boring sometimes, but I always find a way to bring him back. Venom is just cool, so it will probs stay that way.

Another char I won't ditch too soon is this one. If you have any spare time, you should read my interaction with Warsman at Gothic. (Beast Hidden Within Mist and Drake). It got my weak vibe for this char really strengthened.

@strigidae_23: How many points would Ivana be? And someone like Quintus?

@strigidae_23: Risky for you. Only reason i said Huntress, Risky and Soverign son is they where Shadow squad members for COP's they would of been a good team shout for this. But overpriced by the looks of it dont think i could get the bunch for 15.

The Early years (pre 2010) were rather chaotic and full of new ideas. Unfortunately it was ridiculously prone to Sturgeon's law. I know it's mean to say but most of it was absolute crap. The player turnover rate was immense and I remember constant new faces from that time period. We were also a rather meanspirited lot who outright insulted anyone seen as being subpar. 2007 was probably the most chaotic as there was no real concept of a shared universe at the time. 2008 stabilized a bit later onwards though. I'm not sure if I was around for 2009 but it wasn't a very memorable year.

The RPG scene could only really be said to have formed a sensible prime universe at about the 2010 point. Before then the canon was "whatever you want it to be", I mean, it was still to a large extent "whatever you want it to be", I mean, I think I at that point held all of the Earth besides America, Russia, France, Britain, and Israel (to be fair the Amero-centricism was so strong I don't think anyone noticed), but there was something resembling cohesiveness. We largely swept away the more transparent rip offs/carbon copies of Big 2 characters as old shames and the various alt reality RPGs (structured more like other forums' role plays) largely died out.

Could you believe that one of the first things everyone did ad nauseum was a metahuman prison break role play with no rhyme or reason as to how anyone got arrested? Civil War and the Green Lantern corps were also huge sources of endless do-overs and Marvel Zombies was also done quite a lot before the rise of an established Prime universe swept it away. The Civil Wars became rarer as it was harder to justify so many in a shared universe, but the GLcorps remained a huge thing. To be fair it's a rich mythos and probably DC's most original.

Mary Sue characters were an endemic problem for a while though (like, everyone Shawn the Devil made would be laughed at if it were presented in fanfiction), but I like to think we've grown past the wish fulfillment phase of role playing. The rise of Prime also meant the slow end of characters who were the definitive source of one thing or another (including as audacious as the *concept of evil itself*) as what was once acceptable for largely self contained role plays was no longer kosher for a shared universe, however loosely organized.

M/H is ultimately, just another in a long line of role playing fads.

I fully expect the number of star wars related things to f*cking explode when Episode 7 comes out though.

@pyrogram: Quintus I'm not sure would be allowed at all because he was so fast. Depowered Quintus would come in around seven points because he didn't depend on gear and had top tier MA skills, but not the physical stats of Con and the like. [I think his stats were from powers but I could be wrong; Gambler might have to drop in and let us know.]

Ivana I thought about including but I decided I couldn't possibly be objective about her. And I still can't so no idea ;-P

@strigidae_23: Interesting! Speed thing makes sense.

Ivana would have to be a 10. Her senses are just too great. 9 or 10, either or, there, that's the number :P Plus if she teamed with Kurt he could just give her a bow and arrow, and then she'd be freaking deadly again. I personally think Ivana would beat Connoisseur myself lol

@cassius_knightfall: Hrm, Risky would be expensive because she has a lot of stats and isn't dependent upon gear or TP/TK/Bending. Plus probability manipulation and teleportation. I'd put her at ten although I may not allow her at all because she might be a little too much for this challenge.

@strigidae_23: I thought as much so Shadow Squad would of been way way over budget. I will stick with my first go lol.

@vrakmul: Interesting! That's a lot of history.

I really don't feel like M/H is a fad. I think its a theme, which Prime never had. It also contains the possibility of motifs, which Prime never had. It also has a lot of versatility and openness. I think there are a lot of angles which have yet to be explored. We'll see what happens though.

Maybe! I thought there would be a return to Superman level stuff when the Superman movie came out. Turns out no, even though the movie was way better than I thought it would be.

@cassius_knightfall: Hehee, too much powah lol.

@pyrogram: Nine or ten sound reasonable to me, but again, I can't possible be unbiased!

@strigidae_23: I thought that riskys teleportation would massively break the challenge as she could just port around and cause chaos.

@cassius_knightfall: Yeah I was thinking she could just port past everyone but Merc, which would kinda defeat the point.

Prime was essentially something that was evolved rather than created. It evolved from the mess of the last decade as people started to move away from self contained role plays (the first hundred pages of the RPG section are choking in so many plotless battles your head would spin) into a true shared universe. There were no real rules governing it, no council getting together and talking it out, it just sort of happened.

I ultimately chalk that down to the lack of locations that cater to the high powered. I've had notorious difficulties with keeping Exemplaria and Canada afloat (maybe it's because I made them as a stealth insult to what I see as the silliest excesses of the vine) and Asgard lived and died with Amora, and I think I really need to go back and respond to Shadowswordmaster on Chiron.

Nordok I think has potential to build something around his stuff if he weren't absent so frequently.

@strigidae_23: Its my typical mindest to find a a possible loophole lol