AEON Session 0

 So my Monday gaming group finally started a new campaign, our last "Official" campaign was quite awhile back, we went on hiatus as one of the players had real life stuff keeping him busy. So for the past several months we been doing various one shots or limited series.

Since were back to a campaign I figured time to blog about it. This was a short session, ending early and just setting things up. Its a fairly high power Supers campaign, about 1650 points.

This is my first "supers" campaign in 4e, did a couple in 3e, so be good to see how some things work in practice vs. theorycrafting.

Threshold is a spatial manipulator, an exotic power set I haven't done in GURPS or Champions. Concept is he can alter the distance and orientation of things, even subatomic particles. Has three power sets of alternative abilities, is a genius at IQ17, normal noncinematic martial arts Karate DX+2, Judo, etc. The supers template is kinda mutant gene giving Fit, base stats +1, Longevity, Rapid Heali8ng, etc.

Sensory/Defensive Power Set

Warp Vision: Penetrating Vision + Telescopic Vision lets him see far and through walls, up to 5 foot thick.

Microvision 6 with Ranged lets him see things up to 10y as if using a tunneling microscope. Handy for finding clues or such.

Void Shield is DR 5 forcefield that he can use to protect himself or others if they are close enough and has Reflection on it so can bounce part of the damage back to an attacker.

Each of these is an alternate so can only use one at time, eventually hope to buy a few levels of Microscopic Vision as part of Warp Vision for examining the inside of things, say people.

He also has Enhanced Dodge 3, special effect is messing with distance and direction to confuse attackers or cause an attack to just miss.

Offensive/Control Power Set

This is the big one!

Obliteration Beam is 15d6 Corrosion attack with different modes. It can be a narrow cone, long range beam, or a jet that comes out of his hands (like a flame thrower). This is a quite deadly attack as it dissolves armor and has enough raw damage to destroy a car. Special effect is breaking the atomic or molecular bonds of things, a disintegration beam.

Compaction is a Binding 25 attack that condenses air or other matter to trap people. Its a strong Binding, though not the strongest on the team and can use one of Constriction (squeezing people), Engulfing (Keeping them from moving at all, including talking), or Suffocation (Do I need to explain that one?).  This is him reducing the space between molecules so turning air solid. It has cancelable so he can reverse it at any time and is strong enough to trap most non bricks.

A nice non lethal alternative!

Singularity is a character-point powered ability, meaning its his rarely used show-off move. Its a 10d crushing persistent attack linked to a complicated TK build that pulls things in with a maximum ST 110 (Super Effort) that gets stronger the closer to the center they are.

Spatiokinesis is Control 10 with Persistent, Extended Duration*3, and Ranged. This lets him do weird stuff but typical game effects are +-10 to die rolls, primarily range modifiers.

All these are alternatives of each other, significantly lowering the total cost but he can only do one at a time.

Utility/Movement Power Set

Close the Gap is Stretching 3 with enough Reduced Time that it is instant. This lets him shorten the distance between say his hand and his target so he can punch up to 3y distance. But he can also use it to look over an obstacle or around a corner, grab a nearby object or ledge, or even cross a narrow gap.

Kinda cool ability.

Create Wormhole is your classic Warp, with Tunneling, Reliable 10, etc.  With it he can get anywhere in the world pretty quickly. It does not have Blind yet so he has to be able to see (cameras work) where he is going or have actually visited it already. He can teleport 10 yards instantly at no penalty but farther away he needs to take a bit of time to concentrate. This leaves a portal for a few seconds so others can step through, handy for getting the team around. We have a hacker who can help him find a nearby camera to look through so can get most anywhere in the world very quickly.

I'll want to add Blind (so he doesn't need a camera) and Selectivity (so he can not make a tunnel) as well as more weight carried. Warp is a high cost power so these are not on the short list though!

Space Folding is Enhanced Move (Ground) with Second-Nature so he can quickly move around the combat field or travel in a "7 league boots" fashion (24 mph). He is not running fast, just stepping from one spot to another, like a short range teleport. High on my list to buy this up and as its an alternative ability to Create Wormhole I can increase the distance pretty cheaply (about 10 points/level) up to level 4 at which point he could shadow a car by just appearing on the sidewalk ahead of it as it travels.

Up is Down is Clinging with Attraction allowing him to walk on walls as if they were the ground. Special effect here is him changing the orientation so that a wall IS actually the ground.

Summary

So there we have Threshold, a powerful space manipulator who has good sensory powers and movement with a powerful attack. Not based off any comics I can think of just ran with an idea I have wanted to build for a long time. I like characters who are versatile, good at finding things out, and have high utility. This guy happens to be also good in combat, at least offensively and if he's careful decent defenses - especially against ranged attacks. He is rather vulnerable to close combat and area attacks.

I look forward to playing him, one of my more interesting builds. The GM rebuilt Singularity and tweaked some of his powers but he is still mostly mine and I feel connected.

Oh, the GM loves wildcard skills! So he has 4, Cosmologist! ( I wrote up but the GM  is tweaking), Medic!, Scientist!, and Spatial Manipulation! (A power skill). Not sure what Scientist does yet but my guy can probably handle any scientific or medical need the group has. He also has plenty of normal skills and that high IQ makes him very good, even with defaults.

Our group has a Nyx a darkness based thief that can also Warp, turn into shadows, darkness bindings, FP drain, etc. Whisper a super soldier, and Stainless Steel Rat a technopath thief. Were kind of like the Suicide Squad or Thunderbolts, a bunch of supervillains sent by the govt but without the skull bombs. Threshold and Whisper are not criminals and part of the program for our own reasons.