Val CHA Cost Roll Notes 18 STR 8 13- Lift 303.1 kg; 3 1/2d6 HTH Damage [2] 23 DEX 39 14- OCV: 8/DCV: 8 23 CON 26 14- 10 BODY 0 11- 18 INT 8 13- PER Roll 13- 14 EGO 8 12- ECV: 5 15 PRE 5 12- PRE Attack: 3d6 12 COM 1 11- 4/29 PD 0 Total: 4/29 PD (0/25 rPD) 5/25 ED 0 Total: 5/25 ED (0/20 rED) 5 SPD 17 Phases: 3, 5, 8, 10, 12 9 REC 0 46 END 0 31 STUN 0 Total Characteristics Cost: 112 Movement: Running: 11"/22" Leaping: 3"/6" Swimming: 2"/4" Cost Powers & Skills 14 Sonic Powers: Elemental Control, 56-point powers, all slots OAF (flute; -1) 46 1) EB 8d6, NND (defense is [unknown]; +1), Area Of Effect (17" Cone; +1); OAF (flute; -1), END 12 22 2) Hearing Group Flash 12d6, Area Of Effect (8" Cone; +1); OAF (flute; -1), END 7 46 3) Mind Control 12d6 (Human class of minds), Area Of Effect (13" Cone; +1); OAF (flute; -1), END 12 46 4) Suppress 8d6, all sonic powers simultaneously (+2); OAF (flute; -1), END 12 14 5) FF (25 PD/20 ED), Reduced Endurance (1/2 END; +1/4); OAF (flute; -1), END 2 15 Endurance Reserve (250 END, 5 REC); OAF (flute; -1) 10 Running +5" (11" total), END 1 10 Luck 2d6 Talents 3 Perfect Pitch Skills 3 Electronics 13- 9 Inventor 16- 7 KS: Classical Music 17- 1 Language: Danish (basic conversation) 1 Language: English (basic conversation) 1 Language: French (basic conversation) 0 Language: German (idiomatic; literate) 3 Lipreading 13- 6 PS: Flutist 17- 5 SS: Sonics 15- 3 Systems Operation 13- Total Powers & Skill Cost: 265 Total Cost: 377 200+ Disadvantages 0 Hunted: Eurostar 8- (Mo Pow, Watching) 25 Hunted: German Goverment 11- (Mo Pow, NCI, Capture) 25 Hunted: UNTIL 11- (Mo Pow, NCI, Capture) 15 Psychological Limitation: Hates Rock Music (Common, Strong) 10 Psychological Limitation: Hates To Be Compared To The Pied Piper (Uncommon, Strong) 20 Psychological Limitation: Paranoid (Common, Total) 5 Reputation: Kidnapper, 8- 15 Social Limitation: Public ID (Frequently, Major) 62 Experience Points 377 Total Disadvantage Points
Designer's Notes:
1) Piper paid 4 points for his 14 EGO, This was corrected to 8.
2) Rebuilt Piper's Sonic Powers Elemental Control. Slot one's defense listing is correct—on the original character sheet there's no defense listed for the NND, either on the character sheet or in the text. All the write-up says is "Sonic Attack," which is real helpful. I also folded the Force Field into the Elemental Control, as it is (I presume) some sort of sonic defensive shield, has the same OAF Limitation as the other powers, and is fed by the same Endurance Reserve as everything else. I know why is was originally left out, all the other powers are 120 Active Points, while the Force Field is 54. Yes, it's less expensive to leave it out, but that smacks of poor character design and of metagaming. See the Assessment for more on the flute.
3) By basing Piper's KS, PS, and SS skills off of a characteristic (in this case INT, DEX, and INT), the price of each dropped a point (except for the PS, which dropped two).
4) Fixed the point values for all Disadvantages. The errata sheet states that Piper should not have the Normal Characteristic Disadvantage, so I removed it.
Yes, they really listed "Hates Rock Music" as a Psychological Limitation. I hope Piper never meets Argent Anarky. Piper also had a Psychological Limitation of "Misunderstood and Strange." I took this out because I didn't feel it was a limitation. Okay, to be constantly misunderstood is a limitation, but they don't exactly tell me what sort of limitation it is. The text clarifies this limitation, or, actually gives us another one, which is something akin to a mild form of schizophrenia. Basically, Piper's emotional responses aren't what one would expect based on the situation. Since I was debugging just the write-up, and trying to not let the text influence my adjustments, I simply dropped the limitation entirely, feeling it fell under the "illogical" rule on debugging the characters.
5) The original version of Piper cost 377 points. He still costs 377, which I find amazing.
6) Assessment: Piper is another one of those European Enemies characters who logically doesn't add up. He's basically a normal human with a sonic weapon in the form of a flute. Okay, so far so good, technological marvels such as that are common in comics. The illogic, at least in my opinion, is in his stats. No where do we find justification for his 18 STR, 23 DEX, 23 CON, 5 SPD, and so on. What makes him so physically fit? At least Hood has the excuse of being an expert hunter and archer to backup his Characteristics. Piper's not a mutant, or a super serum test subject, or much of anything else, he's just a former classical flutist who's done time in a German prison for murder.
The flute itself gives me headaches. I presume he has to play it in order for it to work, but here's the problem—the write-up doesn't reflect that. As written, it's perfectly valid, if Piper has his OAF flute in his hand, then he has access to his Elemental Control. At no time are the SFX taken into consideration with regards to limitations.
If you really want to debug Piper, one would need to make each slot "Area Of Effect (Radius)," and "No Range," and add "Incantations (Throughout)." The Incantations represent the fact Piper needs to play the flute constantly to keep each power going.
Note the Piper also has a Public Identity. Once again I question the logic behind this disadvantage.
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