What's the most munchkin character you can build?

[Bosh]

I always liked the WotC Char-Op boards, not so much for character building but for being able to help me learn what to spot as a GM. So, in that light I'm going to try to abuse some rules a bit to try to make an overpowered character.

I give you: Bobo the Monkey Man!
The son of a wild fae flying monkey, Bobo strikes fear into the hearts of all evil doers!

Powers:
Inhuman Recovery -2
Feeding Dependency (massive quantities of bananas, affects inhuman recovery only) +1

Monkey Blade
It's a big sword +2 discount cost.
Exceptional blade (+1 weapons when using the sword) -1
Inhuman Strength -2 The monkey blade makes Bobo strong!

Beast Change (can turn into a flying monkey) -1
Wings -1
Inhuman Speed -2 (flying monkeys are fast!)
Human form +2 (in human form, Bobo is neither fast nor does he have wings. Whenever Bobo is hurt he involuntarily changes into his flying monkey form)

Supernatural Toughness -4
The Catch (cold iron and the like +3)

That’s a total of 5 refresh spent.

That means at just Feet in the Water level he’s a freaking killing machine.

Skills would be very very focused on mental abilities in human form and very very focused on physical abilities in flying monkey form.

Put some appropriate aspects on him and he should be able to walk over most Feet in the Water threats with big clumpy feet.

[Deadmanwalking]

Eh, he's not really that overpowered.

The Item of Power can be easily lost, and with it goes all his offensive power (which, while nice, is far from unstoppable), and his Supernatural Toughness doesn't help a bit against swords, knives, wrenches and most other Weapon attacks. Nor the attacks of anyone who knows what he is and preps for it.

And due to the way his monkey-form works he's going to start off every battle wounded at least a bit.

Now, he's still scary, but all his weaknesses except Feeding Dependency are legitimately bad.


What I'd watch out for in terms of overpowered characters is spellcasters. Particularly those with just Evocation or Sponsored Magic and all their skills focused on it plus a few levels of Refinement. Those can get nasty really cheap and fast.

Beast Change is another big thing to watch out for, though. Particularly if not combined with Human Form. The ability to switch between two sets of stats is awesome. By the same token, True Shapeshifting just shouldn't be allowed. That thing is really broken for PCs.

Feeding Dependency on a single 2 Refresh ability is another thing to watch out for, particularly if the character has high Discipline anyway, since it'll almost never come up.

Mimic Power is also something to watch out for if abused, though if used as intended it's not too bad.

Taking the Human Form drawback, and then a relatively normal looking 'powered' form and never leaving it is another possibility to be watched out for.

Allowing anyone to take Mythic abilities is kinda risky, thus so is someone with 8 or more points invested in Modular Abilities.


Now, all of these can be justified, and even result in cool characters but watch out for characters who sombine several of them, or have them for no good reason.

[Moriden]

Here is one that should definitely never be approved.

Item of Power     total cost -1
Staff of Death   +2 for being a walking stick sized staff. , Feeding dependency +1 , must use fire to "consume" living flesh
Evocation -3   +1 Power Fire from base specialization.
2 focus item slots are used on the staff itself for +2 to Offensive fire power
Refinement -1         +2 focus item slots[ for another +2 offensive fire power], +1 Control Fire, +1 Power Fire

Wizards constitution -0
Lawbreaker First -2       


Physical immunity Always active, immunity to "Weapons"Adjusted cost -1 total cost -8
Stacked catch:  Not a Weapon +2, Easy to come by +2, Can be researched +1                           [+5]
 The Catch: Obsidian +2, Can be researched +1 applies to all "toughness" powers.              [+3]
        
"Combat Form"  Adjusted cost -1  [-4 +1, +2=-1]
+2 human form, +1 left over from stacked catch applied to to recovery [+3], -4 Supernatural recovery
Human form +2 
(Whenever xxx is attacked he involuntarily changes and gains Supernatural recovery)+1 base, +1 involuntary,
  Supernatural  recovery -4 
             


4 Great        [2]  Discipline, Lore   
3 Good        [2]   Conviction, Alertness     
2 Fair          [2]   Endurance, Athletics
1 Average    [2]   Presence, Weaponry

total Refresh -5 so hes made at feet in the water level, with 6 refresh available and 20 skill points.

Summary

So hes completely immune to "weapons", that makes him invulnerable to bullets, swords and pretty much 99% of the weapons hes going to encounter,when  he dose actually take damage he "involuntarily" switches into his "combat form" which is his normal self but with... oh lets say swirly tattoos and black eyes. With his staff he gets an affective conviction of 7 [3+3+1] , and control role of 7 [4+1+2 from lawbreaker]

Here is his three rotes.
Fire Blast Weapon 7 attack against one person base 7 to hit
Reign of fire.  Weapon 5 attack against an entire zone base 7 to hit.
I am the Fire! Create a "Zone border" around yourself so that Reign of fire. can effectively target everyone but yourself.  3 shifts for persistence. and the last 3 for the aspect "wall of fire"

So he can casually inflict 10ish [14 minus a great defense score]  levels of stress to one target, or with a round or two of prep. 5+ target successes to everyone that's not him. and is immune to most weapons, and heals just about everything else super fast.



Edited to reduce confusion, and represent the discussions below.

[Falar]

Physical immunity -8 total immunity Metal.  total cost -1
Stacked catch:  Not Metal +2, Easy to come by +2, Can be researched +1,
 Catch Obsidian +2, Can be researched +1

Obsidian is already Not Metal. That would be like having a Catch of True Emotions and also True Love and expecting to get paid for both of them. Stacked Catches work for Physical Immunity and another form of Toughness, not both on Physical Immunity. At least, that's how I'm reading Physical Immunity's trapping.

In fact, it looks like you took almost exactly what was in Physical Immunity, but neglected to apply the Obsidian Catch to a Supernatural Toughness or something like that.

[luminos]

What Falar said.  The stacked catch doesn't let you apply two different catch bonuses to physical immunity.  It just lets you stack the bonus from your immunity catch with the bonuses from your regular toughness powers catch, which if you don't have any other toughness powers, you don't get a bonus for the regular catch.

[Moriden]

I was going to say the fact it doesn't make any sense was one of the reasons hes a "munchkin, but i reread the stacking rules and while there kinda vague i simply came up with a better idea. change his immunity to "weapons" and leave the obsidian catch as is. ill go and edit the initial post to reflect this.

which if you don't have any other toughness powers,

he has a recovery power and the catch affects that. just like it dose toughness

[Deadmanwalking]

Still doesn't work. Look at the example on p. 187. This is literally the exact same situation as there.

The cost of Immunity to Metal or Immunity to Weapons is thus -3.

[luminos]

Or look at any of the character sheets that involve the stacked catch.

[Moriden]

Okay i personally think that for that example recovery powers should be/are interchangeable with toughness powers but if you want to interpret so that there not that's fine. we simply change his supernatural recovery to inhuman recover and pick up inhuman toughness, then the points work as i originally indicated.

[Deadmanwalking]

Okay i personally think that for that example recovery powers should be/are interchangeable with toughness powers but if you want to interpret so that there not that's fine. we simply change his supernatural recovery to inhuman recover and pick up inhuman toughness, then the points work as i originally indicated.

Umm...no they don't. His Immunity to Weapons only gets one catch, and is thus a -3 Power. Adjusting his other powers and their Catch doesn't effect this in the least.

[luminos]

That's not what we are saying.  The recovery's are toughness powers.  What we are saying is you don't get twice the discount from the catch by also pairing it with the stacked catch.  Look at the example on YS 187.  Look at Wellington's character sheet in the Nevermore section.  Look at the ogre template in OW.  All of these show how the rebate for stacked catch works.

[Moriden]

Umm...no they don't. His Immunity to Weapons only gets one catch, and is thus a -3 Power. Adjusting his other powers and their Catch doesn't effect this in the least.

it is a stacked catch as per the page you quoted, he is immune to all non obsidian weapons, so its +8  to his toughness powers. 5 for the non weapons , and 3 for the obsidian getting through. with out stacking the obsidian part on it m hed be immune to obsidian arrows and knives as well.

[Moriden]

its not twice the benefit, he has a total of +8 from his stacked cacth to aply to all his thoughness powers.

he also has +3 from his cheasy human form that affects his recovey/toughness.

so recovery/toughness is -4 +3 from human form  for -1
Invulnerability is -8 +8 for -1

For example, let’s say a fire demon has
Supernatural Toughness with the Catch that
he’s vulnerable to cold. Normally, this would
give him a refresh rebate of +3: +2 because
cold is easy to come by, and +1 because
research would normally uncover it.
In addition, he has physical immunity
to damage from any kind of fire. The Catch
is that it only applies to attacks with fire.
Normally, this would give a rebate of +5:
+2 for protecting against only one specific
thing, +2 because “not fire” is easy to come
by, and +1 because research would normally
uncover it.
Because you can stack these two refresh
benefits, the demon gets a total of +8
toward his Toughness powers, so his total
refresh cost is only –4 (–4 for Supernatural
Toughness, –8 for Physical Immunity, +8 for
the stacked benefit).

[Falar]

All weapons would also be ruled too broad, I think. Unless you're talking about all weapons that fall under the Weapons skill, in which case it would be great. If it's all weapons, then that's just a dumb amount of munchkinning and it'd get smacked ten ways to Sunday.

As it is, you're using a Stacked Catch on the same power. You can't do that. You have the Stacked Catch that only applies to Physical Immunity, which would get you +2 Not Weapons, +2 Easily Found (I hit you with a chair), +1 Research required. You can't then take a regular catch on the same power for what you had. You get the regular catch on some other power. Otherwise you have two things you're weak to for the same power - +2 Not Weapons and +2 Obsidian, in which case you would only take the higher of the two because it's the same Catch, not a different one.

[Deadmanwalking]

it is a stacked catch as per the page you quoted, he is immune to all non obsidian weapons, so its +8  to his toughness powers. 5 for the non weapons , and 3 for the obsidian getting through. with out stacking the obsidian part on it m hed be immune to obsidian arrows and knives as well.

Hmm. I think perhaps there's a miscommunication here: The normal Catch (Obsidian in this case) applies to all Toughness powers (including Physical Immunity), and you get the rebate once. You may apply a second Catch (Non-Weapons in this case) which also applies to Physical Immunity, and the cost breaks of these two stack. Hence Stacked Catch. You do not get to take the same Catch again and get it's rebate twice, becuse any non-stacked Catch you have already applies to Physical Immunity.