urbwar's builds (Revised Cosmic characters 10-7-11)

[urbwar]

Kev,

that looks awesome. The character image came out better than when I inserted it into my sheet; did you take the image from the art thread, and use that?

I'll definitely be emailing you for that xls file. Just gotta saw wow.

[kevperrine]

Kev,

that looks awesome. The character image came out better than when I inserted it into my sheet; did you take the image from the art thread, and use that?

I'll definitely be emailing you for that xls file. Just gotta saw wow.

Cool.
Yeah... I used the image from the art thread. Always use the best image you can find.

I also changed out the sheet (up-thread) to show the newest version. You can see the "HERO PTS/DICE" section now. It reads "-7" on Hero Pts. because in the AMZ BASH! BUILDER there is a tab to set the Campaign Scale. Whatever you put that number at, the builder then takes the Character Point build cost, subtracts it and give you either the Hero Points (a positive number) or Setback Pts. (as a negative number). Hence the -7 number, since the Campaign scale was default set when I printed the sheet for you.

I'll send you the Excel file to your email.
enjoy.
-kev-

[urbwar]

Actually, I hadn't noticed. Is there a way to leave that blank? I don't assign any HP/HD until I have all the stuff written up. I don't follow a campaign level with a one shot, and just give everyone the same amount for the one session

[kevperrine]

Actually, I hadn't noticed. Is there a way to leave that blank? I don't assign any HP/HD until I have all the stuff written up. I don't follow a campaign level with a one shot, and just give everyone the same amount for the one session

Short answer... No.
Other than going to the "Campaign" tab and listing in the same total as your Character build point value in the "Campaign Scale" cell...


heheh.... There's A LOT in the AMZ BASH! BUILDER, you should explore it more. The version (#4.00) I sent you has updated tabs that walk a player through BASH! steps of character creation, tab-by-tab. I'm trying to start including hints and tips.

Please let me know what might be added (or changed or removed) to make it more intuitive and easy to use. I'm so familiar, sometimes it's hard not to know what doesn't make sense.

As for the campaign level and one-shots.
I've adopted the idea that BASH! suggests for giving out Hero Points/Dice and taken it to an "Issue" level. The overall "Campaign Scale" may be 28 pts (World Class Scale), but today's ISSUE, might only be 23 pts. I base this off the threats and challenges in the Issue. That way each Issue the "Scale" is different, so the players know what sorta challenge of the Issue they're in for and they'll get new/different Hero Points each time to use.

So when Galactus comes for THIS story-arc it might go like this:

Issue #1: "Doomed" - Dr. Doom's minions are up to something on the north pole. When the heroes investigate they battle Doom-bot and also learn that Doom is preparing for the coming of something BIG. At issue climax they encounter a herald of Galactus who is surveys the Earth!
[Issue Scale = 25 pts.]

Issue #2: "Heralded" - The inspection of the Earth is both confusing and a fast chase as the herald's surveying beings strange minor disasters, that the heroes must stop. At the Issue climax they must face and stop or learn from the herald of what's coming!
[Issue Scale = 32 pts.]

Issue #3: "World-Ship" - After dealing with the herald (through violence or alliance?!?) the heroes learn a much bigger threat is coming. In this issue they must find a way to the moon's orbit where the World-Ship is looming. Investigating the ship to find a way to repel or stop the coming of it's master!
[Issue Scale = 28 pts]

Issue #4: "Cometh" - Discovering what they may on the World-Ship, battling Galactus' "cat" aboard... The heroes finally encounter the coming of Galactus. Arriving on the World-Ship, he begins to launch his feeding mechanisms on Earth. How will they stop the Devourer of Worlds??!!
[Issue Scale = 40 pts!]





That's my reasoning.
It works quite well for separate issues.
I would also note that by giving everyone the SAME Hero Points for any issue... you're sorta cheating the lower point valued characters out of their benefit that BASH! does very very well.

I tested that with BASHMAN's online game several months ago, getting to play the "Patriotic Shield Hero" alongside a Green Lantern type and an IronMan type. If I'd not gotten those extra 8-10 Hero Points... my character wouldn't have been anywhere near as effective (and fun) to play alongside the big guns.
Of course.... this isn't a problem if all the PC-Heroes are built on the SAME point value. But in my opinion (and experience with playing/Narrating) the differing in point value and the HPs you get for it during play is one of the single most FUN parts of the BASH! rules (and a very cool balancing mechanism).

-kev-

[urbwar]

Short answer... No.
Other than going to the "Campaign" tab and listing in the same total as your Character build point value in the "Campaign Scale" cell...

In that case, I'm going to stick with the old sheet then. If I have to edit it like that, I consider it a flaw, not a feature. I prefer it not to list those things, since they will fluctuate during games.

As for the rest: That's best left for another thread, since this thread is specifically for character builds. I'll just say that I do it my own way, and it has worked well for the last 2 games I ran, so I don't worry about it. If I find I shortchanged them, I just give them more during the game, no fuss.

[kevperrine]

In that case, I'm going to stick with the old sheet then. If I have to edit it like that, I consider it a flaw, not a feature. I prefer it not to list those things, since they will fluctuate during games

hmmmm... maybe you're right. I've been play-testing what's best needed on a cool character sheet and what's NOT needed - or better said... what's in the way, taking up space.
For Example: I liked the "idea" of a damage track along the side of the character sheet (as you can see on some of my build sheets in the past couple weeks) but then during PLAY I found that I never used it. No one did. So... I removed it.

Same could be said for the Hero Point/Dice totals. You're right that they DO fluctuate quite a bit. I'll look to work it so it leaves them blank on the Character Sheet updates in the future.

play-testing the sheet and getting feedback on the usage helps a great deal.
-kev-

[urbwar]

Today is Recess, and the 1950's era Guardians will be set to face off against the machinations of Sovi-Ape and his minions, The Colony. The leader of The Colony, Queen Bee, isn't some throw away thug like most of the team. She's actually the Queen of an alien race that once attempted to conquer the Earth, only to be thwarted by Sky Marshall. Stranded on Earth, she still has dreams of conquest. So, she's slumming by working for Sovi-Ape, maybe even planning a double cross! She is...Queen Bee!



If using her as the main villain, I would say she normally qualifies for the Arch-Villain advantage, and if she has access to her people, would also have Henchmen (and possibly super vehicle to represent a spaceship at her disposal)

[urbwar]

Recess is upon us again this Saturday, so I decided to run Plague of Darkness again, as I wanted to revise most of the character write ups. I felt that most of the characters were not as powerful as they should have been, which I learned while running it the first time. I kept S'Lar the same, since the ION Fist's abilities are pretty specific (though, imho, they seem underpowered for a truly cosmic game, so I might do a revised version for cosmic level games down the road), but I've redone all the other ones. I wanted to do them in the BASH Builder, but the newest version was not so easy for me to comprehend. So, I went back to Comic Life, and just updated the old sheets I made with the program. Major Meteor & S'Lar were posted earlier in this thread, but now I've got all five to share with everyone.

S'Lar, ION Guardsman from S'avok II:



Major Meteor, 1950's Earth hero, now cosmic wanderer:



Star Blade, Cosmic Legionnaire, and commander of her Triad:


Centurion D'anar, hero of Denovia IV:


Pulsar 17, a genetically engineered being with energy manipulation powers:

[Solarblast]

Ok, I made some edits to American Ape, The Badge and Wonder Man. AA I just fixed the info on his soak bonus from his armor.

The Badge I went and gave him Mind 2. I also added a Daze attack to his shield multipower, and changed the boost for Sense Injustice to be used with the Daze attack. I also removed Sense Injustice, as I felt it was too vague, even though I liked the idea.

For Wonder Man, I modified his TK limitation to allow him to both catch and throw things with it. I lowered his armor by 1, and gave him an Armor Piercing Punch (touch only SA, with the Extra DM only vs armor). While he was originally designed to follow his only comic book appearance, I figured the extra power was warranted, given that he was the first rip off of Superman

After some debate, i decided to leave Scarlet Siren as is. As she has Boxing, it makes her physical soak 3, so leaving her Brawn at 1 was fine with me. I considered giving her appeal, but decided against it. It fits the concept, but I liked keeping her total rounded at 30. I did make her image on the sheet larger, so she views clearer.

While the images earlier in the thread are updated, here they are again for those too lazy to look back:









As always, if you catch any mistakes, please let me know. I'll be test driving these characters next Saturday, when I run my first ever game of BASH!

Now to get Sky Marshal II and Mr. Flexible written up!

Did you use Metacreator to make some of those characters? How did you get the sheets to look like this?

[urbwar]

Did you use Metacreator to make some of those characters? How did you get the sheets to look like this?

Nope. I bought Metacreator just to use with BASH, but honestly, I don't like it. I actually work faster using Comic Life, the program these sheets are made in. Some I did with Kev's Bash Builder excel program, but I found the later version to be lacking in ease of use. So I tend to still do writeups in text format first, then cut and past them into Comic Life. I wish Chris would make his sheet file available for use though, as I am sure I don't have all the boxes for the stats the same size

[MrJupiter]

I definately enjoy the layouts of your Comic Life character sheets the most. Many of them (S'Lar, Major Meteor, and Star Blade most notably) have the most incredible looking font style/graphics for their name. Did you use Photoshop or some vector-drawing program to create them?

[urbwar]

I definately enjoy the layouts of your Comic Life character sheets the most. Many of them (S'Lar, Major Meteor, and Star Blade most notably) have the most incredible looking font style/graphics for their name. Did you use Photoshop or some vector-drawing program to create them?

Mr Jupiter,

I use a site called Cool Text to make the logos for their names. You can download them as image files, so I make a logo for a character, save it as a file, then just paste it into the comic life sheet when I make the character. What's great is you can change the default font style for the logo, so you can do all kinds of variations. It's a great resource that I was lucky to find through a google search back when I was making up the Golden Age heroes

[MrJupiter]

I just tried it out - A M A Z I N G !!!

Thanks for sharing the website Urbwar.

[urbwar]

I just tried it out - A M A Z I N G !!!

Thanks for sharing the website Urbwar.

Glad you found it useful!