Author Topic: Child of War  (Read 1360 times)

Offline Belial666

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Child of War
« on: May 03, 2011, 12:58:40 AM »
ALICE HEILWIG HARRISSON



High Concept: The Red Queen Trouble: Have Sword; Will Stab
Other Aspects: The Family Trade in War, The Bigger They Are The Harder They Fall, The War God's Own, Deimos and Phobos; sibling bonding
Stress and Consequences: Physical OOOO(OOOO) armor 2,  Social OOO  Mental OOOO Refresh Level and Fate Points: 10, adjusted to 1

Born to a family of Irish arms dealers in the late 1980s, Alice Heilwig Harrisson lived an eventful early life. Growing up in the midst of illegal arms trade, deals with faeries and major acts of terrorism made her resentful of the family trade. She focused more into athletics, healthy living and the study of history - which soon evolved into study of medieval history, which soon evolved into practice with medieval weaponry. Winning several fencing competitions at a young age, she focused in her sports and friends and away from family meetings. It was not until the giants came that her life drastically changed. Mixing arms trafficking with supernatural deals is unwise at best; the competition made a deal with a pair of giants to break down the Harrisson house with the entire family inside. Waking up at the dead of night as the building shook and seeing a massive face at the second-floor window, Alice grabbed her fencing sword and lunged. Somehow she maintained perfect balance despite the shaking floor, executed a masterful jump through the window completely unharmed, and buried her sword in the giant's single eye up to the hilt. The other giant - a cyclops, actually - was eventually brought down by the family's contingent of machinegun-equipped guards but though the family survived, the house was lost. Financially reeling from the damages, a few members of the family were cornered and captured by mortal authorities. Alice didn't much care; that night she'd survived her first real battle and taken her first life. Her supernatural talents with the blade fully awakened after that and a week later, she was visited by an emmisary of her father - her real father, Ares, greek god of War. All of eighteen, the young swordswoman spent much of her resources relocating to America, away from mortal authorities and her family's supernatural enemies both in order to find her own way in life. Over the seas she met her two older brothers Deimos and Phobos in a Mettallica concert; they took her in for a couple of weeks as they spread the terrorist scare that fueled the War on Terror and taught her a few tricks with the blade the modern world had not seen for a couple millennia, before disappearing without trace as soon as the War was put on hold. Alice lives in San Francisco ever since.

At only an inch over five feet and a pound under a full hundred, Alice is small by most standards. Curvy, athletic and with striking red hair and amber eyes, she is no-one's idea of a mighty warrior. Naturally, she agrees with that assessment; she would pick lightning-fast, nimble, skilled and smart over mighty any day. While a bit stronger than a human her size would be, Alice's real ability is agility; she is at the very upper limit of human manual dexterity, reaction time and reflexes, a skill she has honed to a great extent in swordsmanship of all types. While an exceptional human could attain such levels of skill after decades of training, she seems to acquire such traits naturally. In addition, she is a supernatural embodiment of War, being able to both sense violence and better cause it, as well as resist violence done upon her. Due to her name, temperament, complexion and her onetime stunt of decapitating a black court vampire in a single blow, those that know her gave her the nickame "The Red Queen".


Powers and Stunts:

[-1] True Aim: for melee bladed weapons
[+0] Inhuman Consitution
[+0] Echoes of Violence: Alice can sense when physical violence will happen ahead of time, to the point of sensing near-future wars. Warning people of her premonitions or trying to avert said violence seems to have no effect or even propagate it. Not that the Red Queen would ever try to stop violence; she loves it far too much. (similar to cassandra's tears)
[-4] Supernatural Toughness
[+3] The Catch: poison
[-1] Olympian Guardian (as per sacred guardian)
[-1] Off-hand weapon training
[-1] Way of the Sword: +1 to attacks with european swords and daggers
[-1] Dance of Death: when employing only melee combat (melee weapons, fists) unarmored and unencumbered, +2 to dodge defense
[-1] Strike and Move  (as per shoot and move stunt - but for melee weapons)
[-1] Quick Draw
[-1] The tell: Alice can read the intentions of opponents from the slightest twitch and act as they decide to act but before they've acted; she may use Alertness as an "ambush" trapping. Unlike an actual ambush, she may not set up the scene or apply aspects in advance.

Skills:

Superb: Weapons, Athletics
Great: Discipline, Alertness
Good: Endurance, Conviction
Fair: Presence, Fists, Might
Average: Rapport, Survival, Scholarship, Resources, Contacts
« Last Edit: May 03, 2011, 07:32:36 AM by Belial666 »

Offline Silverblaze

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Re: Child of War
« Reply #1 on: May 03, 2011, 02:38:57 AM »
This character is pretty amazing. I really like it... but it brings up a question.

How many stunts are allowed to stack before things get rediculous?

I know this character does not have all of these.  The question still stands.

True Aim
Weapon Focus
Way of the sword
Swing for the fences
Lunge
Weapon Specialization
Riposte
Duelist
Target Rich Environment for swords
Killer Blow for swords
Sacred Guardian (in some fashion)
Quick draw
Iaijutsu
Magic Item master (bonus weapon skill with enchanted items or IoP)
Familiar Weapon (+ 1 skill with a weapon you made yourself)
Chosen Prey or Foe +2 stress to that type of foe
off hand weapon training

we have +11 weapon skill and + 7-13 or so stress also (who needs wizards?)
fairly sure these could be applied to fist or gun characters

I'm sure there is more

They almost make having supernatual powers pointless (strength anyhow)

but...

give these to somethign with a strength bonus and it is truly insane

I also feel a stunt that completely removes the benefit to initiative from Speed may be a bit too powerful for a stunt.


I think stunts and true mortals should be on par with supernturals but if one keeps adding stunts that do the same thing to a character...it gets crazy (especially with homebrew)

Thus I ask should there be a limit or is this just a situation of games being different from one another?
« Last Edit: May 03, 2011, 02:42:00 AM by Silverblaze »

Offline Belial666

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Re: Child of War
« Reply #2 on: May 03, 2011, 03:02:38 AM »
A power and a stunt stack. Two stunts giving the same type of bonus do not. Also, she intentionally does not have Items of Power or strength powers, or even 2 stunts giving bonuses to the same skill, even though she'd greatly benefit.


As for the "Tell", there are two ways to consider it. First, that it moves the initiative trapping to another skill or adds a new initiative trapping for the character so the bonuses to the standard initiative trapping Speed powers give are no longer relevant. Secondly, that "I go first vs everyone without speed powers" is about 1/5 of what speed powers do and it would only be a strong 1-refresh power effect for Mythic Speed. "I don't go after everyone with speed powers" is a lot more limited in scope.

Offline ways and means

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Re: Child of War
« Reply #3 on: May 03, 2011, 03:20:26 AM »
I think 'the Tell' is a bit too strong, it gives a minimum bonus of +4 and the stunt limit is at +2 unless in really exceptional case, also note "not going after everyone with speed powers" will mean going before everyone without speed powers in most situations because of comparative ordering (if someone has supernatural speed and and alertness 3 you will go ahead of him but he will still go ahead of the pure mortal with alertness 5) and dance of death also seems very strong as well I know a stunt can give a +2 to a single trapping in a specific situation the "un-armoured and unencumbered" limitation is very weak when you already have natural amour and so gives no real limitations (unless you assume your natural armour means that you  are never un-armoured and will never get access to the dodge bonus from this stunt).
« Last Edit: May 03, 2011, 03:23:02 AM by ways and means »
Every night has its day.
Even forever must come to an end....
I think.

Offline Belial666

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Re: Child of War
« Reply #4 on: May 03, 2011, 07:44:57 AM »
OK, found a way to make "The Tell" work within stunt limitations; it is now a stunt that moves the ambush trapping to Alertness, with limits. Since ambushed enemies don't get to act in the first exchange at all, initiative doesn't matter if she has better alertness.  ;D

Also fixed the "Dance of Death".

Offline Belial666

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Re: Child of War
« Reply #5 on: May 03, 2011, 02:42:27 PM »
This is her powerset if instead of inhuman levels of skill we go for supernatural power;

Quote
Powers:

[-1] True Aim: for melee bladed weapons
[+0] Inhuman Consitution
[+0] Echoes of Violence: Alice can sense when physical violence will happen ahead of time, to the point of sensing near-future wars. Warning people of her premonitions or trying to avert said violence seems to have no effect or even propagate it. Not that the Red Queen would ever try to stop violence; she loves it far too much. (similar to cassandra's tears)
[-4] Supernatural Toughness
[+3] The Catch: poison
[-4] Supernatural Speed
[-1] Olympian Guardian (as per sacred guardian)
[-1] Off-hand weapon training
[-1] Way of the Sword: +1 to attacks with european swords and daggers

As you can see, the bonuses of supernatural speed more or less correspond to the last four stunts. This version of Alice is physically faster when she runs all out, has an overall agility bonus but she's slower to draw her blades (i.e. takes an attack penalty to do it as supplemental) and while she has an initiative advantage over pure mortals, she can no longer surprise supernaturals and attack them first.
I think the supernatural speed version is better overall but the extremely skilled one would be better in a duel.