Gaining a new powerset

[MidnightBlue]

Hello, I'm the player in question, registered for this.

Welcome aboard Pyrrhus!


Now...don't take anything negative from my following questions, I'm just trying to get a feel for why you made the choices you made...


...but my first question is, do you think Herc is the character you really want to play?

If you felt he was lacking in diversity instead of just being a combat monkey, maybe you should start shopping around for your next datafile after you all get done with an event or your Watcher decides it's a good time.

There are a LOT of great characters out there that are good at a lot of things. Beast is a good swiss army knife as is Spider-Man (my favorite) and Black Panther...and really a LOT of other characters. There are a ton of datafiles that are geared to more than just combat. If Herc is too much meat-and-potatoes for your taste, you probably want to avoid Wolverine also.

It just sounds like you might enjoy a more well-rounded character instead of trying to make Herc that guy. Cause from what I've read in the comics...he's pretty much just a bruiser.

But if you want to tweak Herc, I'm the last guy to tell you it shouldn't happen. If your Watcher and fellow players are happy with it, go for it.

[Cam]

You know who I would recommend? WONDER MAN. He's as strong as Hercules, and he flies. Plus, Hollywood stunt man and actor! Everybody needs a little more wonder in their life.

Cheers,
Cam

[Pyrrhus]

That's actually something I forgot to mention.

I'm not going to be playing Herc forever. I really do enjoy playing him, he's fun, and frankly he's the character that got me back into comics. It's just that I've got oodles of xp (50), the Civil war hasn't started yet, and nothing to really spend it on. So I suggested using it to add/increase powertraits. I do agree with you to a degree, and I might drop the idea. But the problem isn't so much that Herc is just a combat character, and more that I've got a ton of XP and all my RPing experience is telling me to spend it, and his limited scope seems like the first thing to take care of.

Currently, the character I'm looking to play next (post civil war is the current plan, given that Herc has some stuff to do WWH and on) would be a character with more specialties and less/weaker powers. Specifically, the Punisher, Moon Knight, or Stark himself.

As for Wonderman... the only time I ever read anything with him in it was his Incredible Hercules appearance, in which he got the crud beaten out of him by Ares.

[Gorion1928]

To explain what he means above for future stuff, I am kind of interested in the idea of playing through the SHRA story to conclusion. Which means multiple event arcs, unless they do so amazingly in the Civil War as to get it repealed. As it is I'm just looking at later events and musing on how to turn them into homebrew for games, but nothing too deeply until we're near the end of Rocket's Red Glare. I am actually looking forward to trying to tackle the Secret Invasion and Dark Reign from a Watcher perspective, but those are far away. The Civil War is now.

[MidnightBlue]

It's just that I've got oodles of xp (50), the Civil war hasn't started yet, and nothing to really spend it on. So I suggested using it to add/increase powertraits. I do agree with you to a degree, and I might drop the idea. But the problem isn't so much that Herc is just a combat character, and more that I've got a ton of XP and all my RPing experience is telling me to spend it, and his limited scope seems like the first thing to take care of.

Now that is a different issue altogether.

A pile of XP burning a hole in your pocket and looking for some impulse shopping ideas.

Yeah...I can see where you'd start looking to shore up your character's shortcomings while you spend down your pile.

Maybe you and your Watcher need to discuss some cool "unlockable" ideas to include in the game sessions? Something that you could spend your XP on that would be really cool for the Act or however long, but would then fade into the background as the story progressed.

That might be a solution that would work a bit more for everyone at your table.

Just an idea for you guys.

[Gorion1928]

Maybe you and your Watcher need to discuss some cool "unlockable" ideas to include in the game sessions? Something that you could spend your XP on that would be really cool for the Act or however long, but would then fade into the background as the story progressed.

That might be a solution that would work a bit more for everyone at your table.

Just an idea for you guys.

I'm actually working on more faction unlockables than what we got, plus some new ones based on changes I've made. Asgard is reappeared sooner, since I took some clues from the Thor 'What if?' and mixed it in with The Hammer Falls, so they're a group. One character is an X-Man, so working on that. Give these guys some useful goodies for their hard earned exp. His stockpile is from the Breakout event, which I ran as a prelude to this.

[Dunlaing]

His stockpile is from the Breakout event, which I ran as a prelude to this.

I wouldn't do anything about it now, but this is a deviation from the rules as written. You're supposed to start each Event wih a brand new Datafile and no xp. I know a lot of people don't like that rule, but I think with MHRP, the Datafile getting reset is a good thing as it keeps characters from diverging from the comics too much and it encourages spending your xp on Unlockables and temporary stuff.

[Pyrrhus]

The GM (who is doing a one-on-one thing right now, hence me posting rather than he) apparently just folded Breakout into Civil War due to the latter's short length. I don't think Breakout is really long enough to matter much anyway, of the xp I've got only 10 or so came from it.

[Gorion1928]

The GM (who is doing a one-on-one thing right now, hence me posting rather than he) apparently just folded Breakout into Civil War due to the latter's short length. I don't think Breakout is really long enough to matter much anyway, of the xp I've got only 10 or so came from it.

Yeah, this. Breakout is amazingly short, so I spun the 'bungling' of the Raft by Jessica Drew into part of the initial SHRA prompting. Hercules has just gained exp at a ludicrous rate these last five or six weeks. Got his once an act 10 exp event on one of his milestones on Monday when he soloed the Titanium man and so on. Each event I intend for them to either change characters or reset their character to a sort of new baseline if they had radical changes during the event. Kind of feeling things out here my first time running this.

[Spatula]

I agree with MB that, from reading this post, it doesn't really sound like you want to play a one-note character like Herc.

OOC: Hercules is extremely strong, but only superhumanly durable. This puts me at a disadvantage towards other Godlike heroes,

There's a handful of other godlike heroes that have superhuman durability. And plenty that have less than Godlike strength and the same or worse durability. So I'm not sure why Herc should be special in this regard. Look at poor Luke Cage!

I guess this gets into the "why does so-and-so have Invulnerability and this-other-guy doesn't?" question. Invulnerability is SO GOOD and also so binary - either you have the ability to never take any physical stress, or you don't. At least healing costs an action.

You mention spending a PP to shift stress to another type, which isn't something I've messed around with very much, but now that I think about it, it's a good tactic. Until you have to deal with the recovery scene, it's almost as good as Invulnerable. And Herc at least has an easy, built-in reason for using it - getting angry from being hurt.