Newbie again - 250 point character

Hi group:

Thanks for your valuable pointers thusfar.

Insight like the 13 & 18 thing really helps!

Here's the deal: I don't want to compromise on the fantasy character
I've created - that is, I can envision this character really appearing
in 4 color. If I could draw, I'd do it myself.
However --- realizing that my construct requires at least 400 points
to build, I plan to start with a plain old human then figure out what
order the skills, perks and powers should phase in...

So...


Oversimplifying -

Start: Soldier Spy Thief
Must have the 10 point "Connections" to explain his working in deep
cover. Plan to use this during game play as a tool to allow the GM to
set our team on missions. Planning on 10 point "wealthy" as if he has
been doing this kind of work, he will have come across lots of things
like drug money and such. This could also tie in to the "working for
the government" thing, but I want the character to not be an obedient
little puppy...
I've decided to make the character pretty competent with firearms, but
I'm leaning towards making him a badass with a blade. Sure, you get
less range, but they are much quieter and don't run out of ammo.
Maybe I can get a Hattori Hanso sniper rifle? <g>


Plot thickening:

Decided that the character wasn't tricked into trying on the harness,
but was actually undercover trying to steal it, probably for the
government, but that doesn't really matter at this point. The
character plans to slip it on then cover it with his coat, but doesn't
realize that he activates it somehow. Maybe he gets into a brawl
while trying to get away and the start sequence gets entered. I don't
know...

After learning what the thing does 'as is', we can develop
plotlines...

Quest for / finding / figuring out how to use the rest of the alien's
hardware. Thinking perhaps the ship itself is not on the planet...
the alien just "beamed down" with his powered armor, energy weapons,
flight pack and whatever else. This would mean that if we needed to
leave the planet for some adventure, we could feasibly use a
spacecraft... GM's discretion, of course. Then... again at GM's
discretion, if we get into a little too much trouble, the ship's AI
could decide to take some action (under GM's control) like a giant
energy blast from space, or by beaming us from one place to another.

(I don't know precicely what the GM has planned, but this could be a
tool for driving adventuring to where it needs to be --- ok, you
finished tying up the villan, then === hey === what's happening... and
you are beamed to the start point of where the GM wants you.
Its just a thought.


Need to figure out how such a badass alien bounty hunter got himself
dead. Thinking the obvious choice would be that his prey set some
kind of a trap for him. Maybe a psychic energy reflector of some sort
so that the being's favored attack fried his own brain. I want to make
the "bad" alien look similar to something common, so the character can
play it up. If it was lizard like, then the character can have a
newfound phobia or hatred of snakes. Maybe rodents or spiders or
whatever. Then --- when we close in on the "bad" alien, it would use
the same trap, but the character wouldn't have the psi attack
developed yet, and a plain old knife might do the trick. Just a
thought. You know... the alien has complete impregnability for energy
and psychic attacks, but never thought of something as primitive as a
pointy stick.


I want to develop the character's information gathering capabilities
first, as our group has sometimes had difficulty picking a direction
and going off adventuring... so if the character can interface with
computers, remember everything he sees and perhaps read minds, then
the game will wind up progressing with less dead time where everyone
is waiting for an adventure to come along.

I also want to get on the harnesses' life-support capacity, as I'm
hoping I can use it like a D&D Healing spell. I figure if I'm letting
the others do the heavy lifting until I further develop this
character, at least he can be the medic. In fact, maybe he was a
medic in special forces or seals or whatever. Haven't figured out his
actual military history. Hell, I don't even know which government he
works for at this point.

A side-effect of the healing capability --- If the harness does
healing through nano technology, then perhaps some kind of psychic
communication becomes available. I was thinking that this might be an
endurance thing... that is, if you dispense nano thingeys to heal and
leave them alone, they do their job then get expelled. If you get
nanothingeys into a carrier and keep them there, then maybe you can
telepathically communicate for the time you expend that energy (plus a
little time for the nanothingeys to die off and get expelled).


I'm thinking there should be a few modules that attach to the harness
that provide certain functions -- for instance a 'universal
translator' module would make sense.

Maybe a RADAR / SONAR module. The idea being the dead alien was
investigated before our hero got involved. Maybe the dead alien was
on a epic battle of a planetary scale before he got waxed, so his
stuff might be anywhere.

Modules to provide light, heat, cold, etc... might be 'nifty' but
might not do a whole lot for game play. Still, I have to be happy
with the character.

Also, I am thinking that some sort of gauntlet apparatus would make
sense. This could be both the focus for some kind of energy device as
well as a "swiss army knife" of tools and perhaps a data panel of
somesort. I'm wrestling with the data panel concept as the rest of
the thing is psychic interface, but I figured that the data panel
might have been for some other purpose, but the AI is trying to use it
to communicate with.



End:

DNA-Rewriting Human/Alient AI symbiote



The harness provides both energy and psi tools. I understand that per
the rules it doesn't matter if it is a psi shield or an energy shield,
but I think the end character should have some things tied to
endurance of one sort and some things of the other. Might also be
able to do only certain combinations at one time.

Thinking that character might be able to use energy to 'hover' but
requires either a jet-pack or psy ability to 'fly'. The thinking on
this was that if I were designing a fantasy tool to go off and visit /
conquer alien worlds, gravity might be a big deal --- so the harness
would do at least gravity-compensating to allow the user to walk
normally on various planets.

I was thinking about making the alien actually some kind of
law-enforcement / bounty hunter character. Then take a psych
disadvantage based on a deep seated hatred the AI has for some nasty
alien species. This opens the scenario for missions to find and
destroy any of these alien interlopers on Earth.

This would also explain how the harness counteracts poisons and
biological invaders, but it will take time to learn the psysiology of
the new host before this works.

I was thinking about having some features controllable and others not
--- for instance, the harness might have "air bag" like systems ---
you don't even need to know they exist and couldn't make them work on
your command. Needs development, but I was thinking the thing might
have almost spiderman-like tendril-shoot capability, but not for
locomotion. It would just grapple if the character is falling, or
desperately trying to reach a weapon or a switch or whatever.

One of the modules to attach should be a point-to-point transporter
(teleporter). This might be the key to getting back on the ship and
obtaining whatever else is up there. Maybe returning to the ship and
interfacing is an enabler for the 'big' transformation into the
next-level character --- kinda like when Spawn was sent to hell.

The big kicker would be that there is a sickbay with full regeneration
capabilities... so if you get a limb lopped off during an adventure,
you could feasibly grow it back after you get back to the ship.

(The ship might choose to "beam up" adventurers as they are about to
die for first aid purposes, but that depends on the GM)



Basically, the character would start out as a grunt and wind up as a
mentalist. I just need to find a viable way to transition him, and
how best to spend my points.

My plan for the moment is to do the best soldier spy character I can
for 80 to 100 points, then pick some of the 'gotta have' features of
the AI (photographic memory, cat-like claws and climbing spurs)
spending maybe 60 points. Start game play with a 150 point character
holding 100 points in reserve to drive change in whatever direction
the character needs in order to be viable in the game.


I did find out from the GM that:
Planet is Earth
Time is now
We agreed that even if I never play the game, I've had so much fun
creating this character (not including the part about assigning
points) that it was worth it.
We also agreed that it is silly to spend $40 on the software just to
make one character.




SO...

Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. I will post something
when I have it typed up.
It doesn't matter to me if the character has a power that he can't use
or doesn't know about yet... I will have more fun knowing more about
that direction, and the GM might have the character do some things
that he otherwise can't. For instance, if Psi powers have not
developed at all yet, the character might inadvertantly 'psychic
agony' someone while in battle. Hopefully it will be a bad guy.
I think the GM is going to play it such that powers you can't control
don't cost points. I mean, if you _could_ fly but don't know how...
like the Spiderman movie when Parker is trying to make the
web-shooters shoot...

That has been a pet peeve of mine... if they give him internal
biological web shooters, they should not be located on his wrists.
However, Spiderman might not sell so well if he is always hanging from
his butt.