Costumed Vigilante Template

[studer]

Costumed Vigilante
A costumed vigilante is a person with extraordinary powers that chooses to fight crime as a costumed secret identity. This covers character concepts like Black Panther, Luke Cage, Doc Savage, Daredevil, Moon Knight but not really folks like Superman or the Hulk. Characters like Batman, the Punisher, or the heroes of the pulps would be Pure Mortals, not Costumed Vigilantes. A Costumed Vigilante must have something that makes them above and beyond normal humanity. Perhaps the character is an alien, a being from some out of the way place in the Nevernever, or augmented by magic or super-science. This is a lot like the Emissary of Power template, but without a superior pulling the strings.

Musts: Costumed Vigilantes must have the Secret Identity trouble. The bad guys want revenge and the authorities probably want them for questioning at the very least. The character must also have at least -1 Refresh in Powers, selected from the ones available under Options.

Options: A Costumed Vigilante must take at least -1 Refresh and no more than -6 Refresh from the list below. No other Powers may be taken.

Aquatic [-1], Claws [-1], Cloak of Shadows [-1], Spider Walk [-1], Supernatural Sense [-1], Wings [-1], Wizard's Constitution [-1]*, 
Breath Weapon [-2], Inhuman Recovery [-1]†, Inhuman Speed [-2], Inhuman Strength [-2], Inhuman Toughness [-2]†
Gaseous Form [-3],
Supernatural Recovery [-4]†, Supernatural Speed [-4], Supernatural Strength [-4], Supernatural Toughness [-4]†
Item of Power [-Varies]
*Cost changed to [-1] or everybody would take it. Useful for making certain long-lived Gaelic swordsmen...
†Need not take a catch.

Don't neglect Stunts!

Important Skills: combat and/or investigative skills are usually appropriate.

Minimum Refresh Cost: -1

From the Casefiles: None yet, but plausible.

[ways and means]

I really wouldn't limit any power for a costumed vigilante and given batman has no powers I wouldn't make the -1 refresh of powers necessary either.

[Lavecki121]

He stated above that Batman and heroes of means dont count, nor do superpowered ones. Which seems odd to me. You are limiting the idea of the costumed vigilate to a small amount of heroes. Taking out the ones on either end of the spectrum. I would allow it to include all of these people

[Belial666]

Do note that it isn't possible to build Luke Cage with this template. First, the guy is tough enough to ignore most man-portable weaponry. That's Mythic Toughness with a further +2 armor to ignore grenades and antimateriel rifles even if the attacker gets a good hit. Secondly, the guy is superhumanly strong - he can lift and throw cars easily. That's supernatural strength (plus 4-5 ranks in Might, too). That's 10 refresh of powers, assuming a rare/unusual catch.

Similarly Spiderman can lift 10 tons and throw cars - Supernatural Strength. He is extremely agile and highly mobile - Supernatural Speed. He can take at least a couple of hits from the Rhino/Lizard/other superhumanly strong opponents thus Supernatural Toughness with a catch of Electricity. He has his spider-sense so Senses 1 and he can make prodigious leaps and climb up most surfaces unassisted thus a 1-refresh power called Spiderwalk that does that. That's 11 refresh of powers.



Superman and The Hulk are way below that. Mythic Strength and weapon 4 fists for attack, Mythic Toughness and Physical Immunity: 8 extra stress and 4 extra armor, Inhuman Speed. For superman, Senses 3, "breath weapon", Greater Flight (to fly as fast as airplanes) minimum. For the Hulk, Mythic Recovery, regeneration.
That's 28-30 refresh of powers for these powerful heroes. More, for the stunts they could have.

[studer]

Howdy! Thanks for the feedback.

Batman/Punisher type heroes are just Pure Mortals built for stealth, fighting, and investigation. More powerful heroes are out of the scope of most DFRPG games. I personally would allow Mythic <ability here> as a GM, but I haven't run the game yet, so I didn't want to open the floodgates too far. If the Costumed Vigilante can take *any* power and doesn't have a superior to answer to, why would anybody take Emissary of Power? Not having run the game, I don't really know why there needs to be templates beyond Pure Mortal (refresh +2, can't buy powers) and More Than Human (refresh -0, can buy Powers), but there seems to be a game balance mechanic at play, so I put some "reasonable" limits to try and sell it to the GM who runs a game up here.  The idea is to allow characters that have better than human abilities, but don't throw the power level of the game out-of-whack. If the campaign is of that power level, the GM can adjust what's allowed.

I'm not sure about the -6 limit on powers, that can easily be modified up or down based on the GM's preference and comfort level.

[studer]

-6 allows combinations like:
Inhuman Strength, Inhuman Speed, Inhuman Toughness (or lose one for Inhuman Recovery)

Supernautral <ability>, Inhuman <ability>

Claws, Supernatural Sense, Inhuman Toughness, Inhuman Recovery

Spider Walk, Supernatural Speed

Supernatural Strength with the Mighty Thews Stunt makes for a character that can lift and throw quite a bit. Don't forget applying Aspects like Good Leverage, High Adrenalin (saving your spouse/kid/parent), etc. With a Superb Might character, supernatural strength, mighty thews, and the right personal and situational aspects firing, a character could get ~+13-15 for lifting, taking a character beyond Legendary and allowing them to lift and throw a car. Like with most games, you can't get everything you want, but you can usually make a character that's really good at the one thing ya just gotta have.

[studer]

To further clarify why a Batman/Punisher/Casey Jones type would not want to take the Costumed Vigilante template, they would get 2 less refresh for noting. Pure Mortal definitely benefits them more.

[Lavecki121]

You could always make that a destinction. "vigilante's who dont take powers get +2 refresh"

Additionally I dont think that there should be a restriction on the amount of refresh they can spend. If you want to say that they can only have up to 6 refresh in power originally and that the rest have to be discoverd at certain plot points, that could be something that would work. Generally heroes of that type dont know all their powers innitially anyway.

[Tedronai]

That depends on what you mean by 'initially'.
A game that starts with players having 10 refresh of powers might have a veteran 'low-powered' superhero who has discovered all 9 refresh of his potential power, or it might have a novice 'high-powered' superhero who has discovered only 9 of his potential, say, 30 refresh of potential power.  Another game might start at 40 refresh just for the lulz and feature that same 'high-powered' superhero at his peak, with all of his supernatural powers and a handful of stunts to boot.

[studer]

Lavecki121:
But what would a character with no powers gain from taking the Costumed Vigilante template? A Pure Mortal could still take the Secret Identity trouble, wear a spandex bodysuit, mask, and cape. Good point about gaining new powers at milestones.

Tedronai:
That would be up to the GM to establish an appropriate power level. The -6 refresh in power can be adjusted up or down per GM preference, and should not limit purchase of future powers at milestones.

[Sanctaphrax]

Wizard's Constitution [-1]*, 

...

*Cost changed to [-1] or everybody would take it.

Not a good idea. Wizard's Constitution doesn't do anything that's worth Refresh.

Anyone whose concept fits it ought to get it free. Anyone whose concept doesn't fit it has no real reason to take it.

[studer]

I get that it's not an over powered trait, but it's too easy to work into the backstory of any superhuman.

"When I was bathed in the radiation from the Eye of Plotdevice, my body's aging process slowed down and my healing process sped up."

"When I was injected with the Uberdood Solution..."

"As an alien from the planet Freeblezortz..."

"When I was trained in the mystic arts of Kheyso at a remote monastery in Nepal..."

It fits a lot of "more than human" backgrounds and at the price of 0 is a freebie a lot of people would be tempted to add it on. Since it's appropriate to a lot of superheroic backgrounds, I wanted it to be an option, but since there are plenty of superheroes who don't have it, there has to be some way of only having those who really need it to get it. It's completely up to any GM who allows this template, though. Keep it free, charge for it, or disallow it at your pleasure.

Look at it this way. Can you think of a non-Quixotic reason a Wizard wouldn't take Wizardly Constitution? Admittedly, it's a part of their Concept, but it is not essential to the concept of a character who's More Than Human but doesn't fall into one of the other Templates.

[Llayne]

Costumed Vigilante is a pretty broad template. A) They dress up in a shnazzy outfit. B) They fight crime without the sanction of the law.

In and of itself it could cover powered or non-powered individuals. I usually see it broken down by Superhero and Costumed Non-Super.

I wouldn't have Batman be a 'pure mortal' under the DFRPG rules, his gadgets are too powerful to NOT be based on some sort of power. Some sort of Craft/Resources variant of enchantment I'd imagine. I suppose IoP or Modular abilities could also work.

Is everybody going to be some sort of hero in this game, or just one of the players?

[sinker]

Sancta's right about wizard's constitution. It does almost literally nothing in most games, so the question isn't really why wouldn't anyone take it, it's why would they?

[Sanctaphrax]

You seem to be under the impression that having Wizard's Constitution is better than not having it.

It's not. Wizard's Constitution costs nothing because it has no value.

I play without templates. I have Wizard's Constitution cost 0. People choose not to take it, and their characters are not made less powerful by the choice.

I mean, theoretically it could matter sometime if you actually couldn't come up with an excuse for physical consequence recovery. But I've never actually seen that happen, or heard of it happening. So that's strictly a theoretical possibility in my books.