Character Creation: Silver Age Sentinels

The Game: Silver Age Sentinels
The publisher: Guardians of Order, now sadly defunct.
Degree of familiarity: More than you'd think. I ran a monthly chronicle that just never went where I wanted it to go, but had some interesting characters. I wrote a story for their fiction anthology, and I was actually going to write a large chunk of the second ed core book, before the company folded.
Books required: Just the core. 

OK, I mentioned earlier that I had an idea for a mystical superhero, but I didn't want to do it with Heroes Unlimited because the system is annoyingly random. The hero I made happened to have a mystic origin, but that's not what I'm talking about. So the decision now is: Do I do some magic-y here, or do I save it for Mutants and Masterminds or Marvel Superheroes? Hmm. Just a sec.

Well, first, a little background. SAS is a Tri-Stat game, meaning that it's a point-buy character creation system and a kind of wonky game engine; I remember making some adjustments to combat, in particular, so that you could actually hit something. But the game book itself is fantastic. It's honestly the best treatment of superhero games I've read from a GM/player perspective (and that's no diss to M&M or Marvel, but damn, this is good stuff). Plus it's gorgeous. And very much a four-color kind of deal.

You can build any character you can think of, even the big blue Boy Scout, if you start with enough points. I think I shall make a 150-point character, same base as the game I ran. Now I just need a concept, and I'm a little dry right now. I don't want something horror-related, angsty, or jumpy/flippy, since I've done a bunch of those. This is going to be tough.

OK. My character is an altered human in the classical, silver-age sense of it. He was given powers by a freak accident, and since radiation is out of vogue, I'll go with biochemistry. Greg West was a research assistant at Empire University, working on biomedical experiments. The idea was prosthesis that could feel, and could be wired into the nervous system. Greg's mentor had a fixation on increasing the voltage, forcing the body to adapt, grab the signal and control it, but there was a problem with tissue damage. Greg helped come up with this nifty serum that basically made the human body resistant to powerful electrical jolts on a cellular level - it still conducted and manipulated electricity (since you kind of have to if you want to send signals along the nervous system), but didn't suffer any damage from it.

Greg, in the classic superhero blunder-that-turns-out-to-be-awesome, tried that shit on himself. It worked perfectly. He could withstand jolts of electricity that would fry any normal human. Problem was, Greg didn't have any limbs he needed replaced, so they hooked up a false hand into his nervous system through the nerves in his arm and tried to trick his body into accepting it. That worked, too. Success! Everyone go home.

Except... (always complications, yeah?). Even once the wires were detached, Greg could still control the hand. And the computer near it. And the electronic locks. And the doors. And the iPod in his pocket. Greg's nervous system was so sensitive to electronics that he can manipulate them without touching them, as long as they can see enough of the device to know where to focus. The more sophisticated the device, the more trouble he has with it (which is why villains in battle armor are still going to be problematic). Greg wanted to keep these powers to himself, but the data from the experiment was too obvious. So Greg made his identity public when he started fighting crime. (Hey, that's what you do with superpowers, right?)

Personality-wise, Greg's...a little off. He's a cheerful, happy guy, but he's fiercely loyal to his friends, and he runs a little hot. He's got a weird sense of humor and he's uncomfortable with tense situations, so he tries to act the clown to keep things light. It doesn't always work. But all of this plays perfectly into his hyperkinetic alter-ego, the Gremlin!

Right. Now, numbers.

Stats. Only three: Body, Mind, Soul. They go from 1 to 20, where 1 is infant and 20 is, like, Galactus or something. I want decent stats across the board, but Mind is definitely Gremlin's strong point.

Body: 8
Mind: 15
Soul: 12

Yike, that's 70 of my points right there.

Attributes. Otherwise known as powers. Let's see what we got.

Armour: I want Gremlin to be functionally immune to electricity. That's Optimized Armour, which provides double the bonus. It's 3 points/level. I'll take level 4, which sets me back 12 points, but also means I ignore 80 points of electrical damage.

Computer Scanning: Duh. Gremlin can read the data in computers with a glance. It's 2 points/level, and with level 4 Gremlin can scan any computer within 100 meters. Sounds good.

Divine Relationship: You're silly if you don't take this. Anyway, Gremlin's just one of those annoyingly lucky guys. I'll buy 4 levels, allowing me 4 re-rolls per session.

Heightened Senses: Gremlin can detect electrical currents. That's just 1 point.

Organizational Ties: Empire University has my back. I figure the University exerts Moderate power in the setting, if the game's set in Empire City, so that'll set me back 8 points for level 4.

Sensory Block: Gremlin can knock out most communication and other electrical detection. It's 1 point per sense I block, so let's list 'em: electric current detection, homing weapons, magnetic field detection, radar, sonar, ultrasonic hearing. That's six. I'll also dump 5 points into an Area Power Modifier Value, allowing me to shut down these senses within a 1 km radius.

Special Attack: I figure Gremlin's usual mode of attack it to make the machines around a person go crazy, but he can also release the stored-up electricity in his body for a good zap. Special Attack is 4/level, and you put levels into damage and into special wonky things. And then there are restrictions. Oi. OK, let's do this. The attack is touch-only; Gremlin has to touch (but not strike) his foe to make it work. It does some damage, but mostly it fries your brain, making you unable to walk or think straight. And I think there's always the danger that it's going to go haywire and electrocute people around him. So: We'll buy level 3 for damage (60 points, respectable), Drain Body and Drain Mind (both are reduced by 3 when you're hit), Penetrating (huh-huh) for 3, so it goes through 60 points of Armour, Stun (it can't kill). But, for the downside, we'll take Backblast (affects everyone around me, but at lesser damage), Limited Shots x3 (I can only use it once, and then it takes several minutes to recharge), Melee, Slow (I need a turn to charge up). In total: 12 points.

Special Movement: Wall-crawling. Gremlin can stick to walls using static electricity. Costs me 2, and is well worth it.

Telekinesis: OK, there's no "control machines" power per se. I could use Dynamic Powers, but that's such a pain in the arse in play. I think, instead, I shall modify the hell out of Telekinesis to represent Gremlin's control of machines. TK works by weight, and this definitely falls under the "more limited" form, so it's 2 points/level. At level 6, I can manipulate 100,000 kg of material, or about 110 tons in real measurements. 110 tons is probably quite enough to control any electronics in my immediate area. Sets me back 12 points. But I ain't done here.

I need Range and Area as PMVs. That allows me to control all the machines in a given area, and to do it in an area not centered on my own body. So. Gremlin can affect any machine within 100 meters (PMV 2), and in an area of 1 km (PMV 5).

And, I'll take a Restriction on my TK. It only works on machinery, and I can't force the machines to do something they aren't physically capable of doing. Put another way, I can't make a truck fly. I reckon that drops my cost to 1/level. In total, then, I pay 13 for this power.

Skills: Let's do Skills first. Skills cost different amounts based on how useful they are, and I've got 30 points right now. And, I get a free Specialty in all of them.

Biological Sciences 2 (8 points) - Physiology
City Knowledge 2 (6 points) - EU
Computers 4 (16 points) - Hacking
Electronics 4 (16 points) - Sensors
Mechanics 2 (8 points) - Automotive
Medical 2 (6 points) - Neurology
Physical Sciences 4 (20 points) - Physics
Unarmed Attack 3 (21 points) - Strikes
Unarmed Defense 3 (21 points) - Strikes

Total for Skills: 122. A little higher than 30. But all is not lost! I'll take 10 levels of the Highly Skilled Attributes, which nets me 100 more Skill points. And since I'm 8 over, I'll take Power Usage 1 (Telekinesis).

Drawbacks. OK, I'm presently at 151 points, which is a whopping 1 point over. I always do this, but I like weaknesses, so odds are I'll take a few and wind up having to adjust my points.

Well, I'll take Detectable (Telekinesis). When he commands machines, Gremlin's eyes glow and spark and you can hear the static crackling in the air around him. That's 1 point back. I'll also take Backlash. If I blow my Special Attack roll by 3 or more, I suffer the effects myself (the damage, the stun, the Stat Drain, etc.).

That gives me 2 more points to play with. I'll buy up Body by one more point, giving me 9.

OK. Now Derived Traits. My Attack Combat Value is the average of my stats, or 12. My Defense Combat Value is two less than that (10). My Health is my Body + Soul x 5, or 105. Not bad.

And, some background notes. Mostly I did this above. I picture Gremlin's costume as green with black trim, and an open mask that lets him show off his crazy smile, but with lenses over his eyes that project static, so he's got eyes like a dead TV. He laughs, capers and giggles during fights, tells bad jokes, and runs villains over with cars while they're busy monologing.

As far as his comic history, he first appeared in Slipstream #102. At first, he was a nuisance to that speedster hero (who shows up in the core, BTW), but when the Iron Duke sent his machines against the city, Gremlin, laughing like a lunatic all the while, met them with a small army of cars, trucks and other gadgets he "borrowed." Slipstream managed to crack open one of the Duke's robots, and Gremlin gleefully took control of it, using its command codes to shut down the others. Gremlin asked to join the Guard, but the amount of property damage he caused made them leery. Slipstream, however, likes the weirdo, and so Gremlin at least got to accept the city's thanks alongside the big guys.