Help with sub-optimising a megapower character

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Erk
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Help with sub-optimising a megapower character

Unread post by Erk »

I'm making a mega hero for Rifts. It's been close to twenty years since I played this game system, and I have got to admit, designing power characters is sort of addictive. Luckily I have a great GM who is masterful at combining high and low power characters, so I'm having a good time making an absolutely ridiculous mega hero to play alongside our cosmo knight, demigod, dragon... rogue scientist, ley line walker, and shifter. I would never have predicted a game with a power skew like this would go so well.

The problem I have is that I am actually a bit too powerful in the boring ways. I don't want to have +30 to dodge and +20 to autododge, I want to be able to survive stuff well enough to go on, and then support my party members in and out of combat. However, it seems like to have the speed in terms of attacks per melee to do what I want, I also wind up with insane bonuses.

Human (superhuman) vagabond, level 5
Power source: Special (story based. What you see is what you get for powers)
3 major, 2 minor, +1 from OCC.
Starting attributes: IQ15, ME21, MA22, PS13, PP11, PE15, PB12, Spd9.

Tremendous strength
Power specialisation: CFF
Power amplification: 3 minor powers
(achilles heels: extremely deadly plutonium [not as uncommon as you'd think], and an insanity related to backstory)
---
Slow Motion Control
Create Force Fields (Mega specialisation for double effect)
Divine Healing
---
Extraordinary Speed (Double)
Extraordinary PP (Double)
Flying Force Disk (Double)

Final attributes: IQ 15, ME 21, MA 28, PS 39, PP 26, PE 23, PB 18, Spd 892 (heh), MDC 404.

Here are the things I want
-out of combat utility, stuff we can use to solve the crazy and complex puzzles our GM presents us with
-enough survivability to not die going toe-to-toe with the kind of ridiculous stuff we face
-The ability to protect my squishy friends from said ridiculous stuff
-A 'theme'. Right now the theme is time manipulation - my force fields are made by slowing the passage of time in an area, and I heal by altering time flow in tissues. I could have another theme as long as the goal of being a strong support character is kept.
-Some ability to do damage is cool, but I do run around with a rather large naruni plasma machinegun, so it's not strictly necessary.

The character herself has a sort of combo Buffy the Vampire Slayer / Angelic Heroine vibe going on. Friendly, approachable, and in her previous incarnation an almost indestructible machine god. She's been transferred from her old robot body into a superpowered meat body created by the cosmic forge. Long story.

I am debating changing out Divine Healing for Portals, Force Manipulation, or Dimensional Room. I haven't tested a lot of these powers out in-game; can those who have played more speak to the utility of what I have chosen versus some of the other powers? If you were in my shoes, what would you do?
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NMI
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Re: Help with sub-optimising a megapower character

Unread post by NMI »

Extraordinary Speed (Double)
Extraordinary PP (Double)
Flying Force Disk (Double)


If you dont want +30 this and +20 that, you could uhm, NOT double EO Speed and P.P. Just a thought there.
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Glistam
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Re: Help with sub-optimising a megapower character

Unread post by Glistam »

In the high-powered game I played in recently we instituted a "soft cap" for combat bonuses of +10. What this means is that if your character has a +22 to dodge, they could only apply a +10 to the roll. But, it's only a "soft cap," which means your character still technically has a +22. So if something affects them and drops the bonus -5 to only a +17, you'd still have a +10 on dodge rolls.

Otherwise, the only thing I can think of is to chose powers that give you attacks per melee but not insane bonuses. Multitasking is one such power that comes to mind.
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kiralon: "...the best way to kill an old one is to crash a moon into it."

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Erk
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Re: Help with sub-optimising a megapower character

Unread post by Erk »

I have also been breaking it down and realising that a lot of my problems come from the side effect of taking Power Amplification and doubling all my minors. If I go with

Slow Motion Control
2x CFF
One other
---
Ext PP
Flying Force Disk
One other

where one of the 'other's is either sonic speed or ext speed, then I get a much more appropriate set of bonuses and I have another power free. I decided against divine healing, after sleeping on it it's just not the direction I want to go.

This leaves me in a strange place for trying to decide my other power. I'm leaning towards taking sonic speed and finding another minor, but I can't find too many minors that have the kind of interesting out-of-combat party assistance abilities I want, except perhaps healing touch. On the other hand, as I think we're all aware, ext speed is only very slightly inferior to sonic speed, and then I'm trying to decide what cool major ability I could take that fits the theme.
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NMI
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Re: Help with sub-optimising a megapower character

Unread post by NMI »

Erk wrote:I have also been breaking it down and realising that a lot of my problems come from the side effect of taking Power Amplification and doubling all my minors. If I go with

Slow Motion Control
2x CFF
One other
---
Ext PP
Flying Force Disk
One other

where one of the 'other's is either sonic speed or ext speed, then I get a much more appropriate set of bonuses and I have another power free. I decided against divine healing, after sleeping on it it's just not the direction I want to go.

This leaves me in a strange place for trying to decide my other power. I'm leaning towards taking sonic speed and finding another minor, but I can't find too many minors that have the kind of interesting out-of-combat party assistance abilities I want, except perhaps healing touch. On the other hand, as I think we're all aware, ext speed is only very slightly inferior to sonic speed, and then I'm trying to decide what cool major ability I could take that fits the theme.


I dont think there is much to help with this build as it seems to be all about getting the most bang for your buck.
"Mega-Specialization - Create Force Field" ie: Taking the power twice. With your P.E. and level, you are looking at 7500+ SDC Force field capability. [+50% from being a Mega-Hero]
+Slow Motion Control [with its insane bonuses]
+Potentially Sonic Speed [and its insane bonuses]

+ EO PP
+Flying Force Disk
+ 1 other minor

This is a way over the top build. Mind you, it's your game and if the GM allow's then my opinion means nada, but the source of your frustration of this build should be obvious.

Does a Vagabond mutant in Rifts REALLY get 3 Major abilities AND 3 minors?. Not to mention, with Mega-Specialization, you are effectively getting a 4th Major.

Here is my thought for this build.

Create Force Field
Slow-Motion Control [descriptive use of power being that you are using small force fields/kinetics to slow a persons momentum]
+1 kinetic based power. Perhaps Force Aura as this could be described as an amped up Force Field Body Armor OR
Create Force Constructs

minors:
EO PP or Lightning Reflexes
Targeting = Apply the bonus attack/strike to your Force Bolts and Ranged weapons made with Create Force Constructs.
Flying Force Disks - Dont need to have EO Speed or Sonic Speed -- you can fly. If you want the "look" of running, just "fly" with FFD really close to the ground - "surfboard? skateboard?"

As a Mega-Hero --
Your Force Field SDC pool is increased by +50%
The damage of your powers [for those that do damage] get increased by +50%
The range of your powers increased by +50%.
I suppose one wanted to abuse the definition of "Range", you could apply the +50% range to powers to the "range of your flight speed with FF Disks... as your speed ranges from 1mph to whatever".

Just food for thought.
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Erk
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Re: Help with sub-optimising a megapower character

Unread post by Erk »

I wrote my initial post quite tired, and I think my point is kinda getting lost in background noise. Basically, let's boil down my question to "what other powers have you guys found useful as a wide ranging toolkit with lots of applications, particularly for buffing allies or for solving out-of-combat problems?"

(also, NMI: I think you're overdoing the mega. From what I see it's just personal SDC and range that get increased by 50%, not damage or force field effects)
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NMI
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Re: Help with sub-optimising a megapower character

Unread post by NMI »

Erk wrote:(also, NMI: I think you're overdoing the mega. From what I see it's just personal SDC and range that get increased by 50%, not damage or force field effects)


Looks like I am right and wrong....

Quote: Mega Hero, HU2 Corebook, page 180, last paragraph:

Increase the total S.D.C. by 50%: Include S.D.C. from super powers when making this adjustment. i.e. Mega-Characters with Invulnerability get an extra 240 S.D.C. points from that power. And though it doesn't specify it, I would include the SDC from Create Force Fields, etc..

Keep in mind, even without this 50% boost, you are would be tossing around upwards of 5000+SDC/MDC based on your PE state and level.

page 181, 2nd paragraph
Increase Range 50%:This includes the range of vision, hearing, and other senses, as well as energy blasts and the range of most other abilities - not applicable to magic spells or psionics.

The word "range" could be defined very broadly.... Range as in distance - how far something can be affected? How far a blast of light goes? Etc.. or it can be taken to include the range of damage that blast does... ie: The energy blast has a range of damage from 4-24 points.

So technically, it doesn't say "damage" but depending on how one interpreted it.... ;-)
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Dakchronos
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Re: Help with sub-optimising a megapower character

Unread post by Dakchronos »

NMI wrote:
Erk wrote:(also, NMI: I think you're overdoing the mega. From what I see it's just personal SDC and range that get increased by 50%, not damage or force field effects)


Looks like I am right and wrong....

Quote: Mega Hero, HU2 Corebook, page 180, last paragraph:

Increase the total S.D.C. by 50%: Include S.D.C. from super powers when making this adjustment. i.e. Mega-Characters with Invulnerability get an extra 240 S.D.C. points from that power. And though it doesn't specify it, I would include the SDC from Create Force Fields, etc..

Keep in mind, even without this 50% boost, you are would be tossing around upwards of 5000+SDC/MDC based on your PE state and level.

page 181, 2nd paragraph
Increase Range 50%:This includes the range of vision, hearing, and other senses, as well as energy blasts and the range of most other abilities - not applicable to magic spells or psionics.

The word "range" could be defined very broadly.... Range as in distance - how far something can be affected? How far a blast of light goes? Etc.. or it can be taken to include the range of damage that blast does... ie: The energy blast has a range of damage from 4-24 points.

So technically, it doesn't say "damage" but depending on how one interpreted it.... ;-)


The group I'm in generally took things literal. Keeping range along the lines of distance from Hero to Target. We id have it boost Area of Effect abilities though.
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Vincent Takeda
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Re: Help with sub-optimising a megapower character

Unread post by Vincent Takeda »

Our current group has a kinda wierd way of blending ludicrous power with reasonable stats... Our houserule is that nothing stacks... Every modifier anything gives you is based on your original stat rolls. The characters we've seen out of this are actually both handily versatile and mildly statted. Its really wierd, but I'm diggin it so far.
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Re: Help with sub-optimising a megapower character

Unread post by Erk »

I actually found a way around it by getting my GM to let me select certain powers from heroes of the megaverse as major abilities. This let me get the balance of ability scores I wanted, without the side effect of getting a ton of other bonuses stacking to obscene values.

Still trying to decide what to use as a utility power though. My character now looks like:
force fields (very utility)
super powerful (from HotM, this is a sort of super strength/regeneration/prowess combo that is a little less of each one, more like a few minors combined into one power)
???
uncanny acrobatics (from PU3.0, it has more utility functions than straight Extraordinary PP and doesn't stack on so many bonuses)
extraordinary spd
flying force disk

I've stacked enough in here that I can do all the things I want... run, jump, climb, carry my party around on a disk (they tend to blow up their vehicles a lot), protect my friends from falling debris (another common problem), and punch holes in heavy armour, but my bonuses are in the good-but-sane +10-15 range. And I still have a major to fill, probably with Weapon Melding but maybe with something more useful
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Re: Help with sub-optimising a megapower character

Unread post by Glistam »

If you're looking for helpful utility you could add Create Force Constructs.
Zerebus: "I like MDC. MDC is a hundred times better than SDC."

kiralon: "...the best way to kill an old one is to crash a moon into it."

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NMI
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Re: Help with sub-optimising a megapower character

Unread post by NMI »

Erk wrote:I actually found a way around it by getting my GM to let me select certain powers from heroes of the megaverse as major abilities. This let me get the balance of ability scores I wanted, without the side effect of getting a ton of other bonuses stacking to obscene values.

Still trying to decide what to use as a utility power though. My character now looks like:
force fields (very utility)
super powerful (from HotM, this is a sort of super strength/regeneration/prowess combo that is a little less of each one, more like a few minors combined into one power)
???
uncanny acrobatics (from PU3.0, it has more utility functions than straight Extraordinary PP and doesn't stack on so many bonuses)
extraordinary spd
flying force disk

I've stacked enough in here that I can do all the things I want... run, jump, climb, carry my party around on a disk (they tend to blow up their vehicles a lot), protect my friends from falling debris (another common problem), and punch holes in heavy armour, but my bonuses are in the good-but-sane +10-15 range. And I still have a major to fill, probably with Weapon Melding but maybe with something more useful
I dont recall a power called "Uncanny Acrobatics" in PU3. Do you mean "Heightened Sense of Balance" or something else?
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