Not sure... looking for inspiration?

[Ultimo]

So... I've agonizing a bit over a character, and thought I'd see if anyone had any ideas that might inspire me.  It's going to be tough, because the issue is largely one of concept.

The character is called The Black Ghost.  He's based on a character from my youth when I made comics.  The idea is, he's kind of an ultimate power bad guy.  Really, I shouldn't be trying to play him at all, he's not going to be nearly as powerful as he ought to be.  He claims to be Satan himself, though it's never confirmed one way or the other.  The idea is that he's almost omnipotent, but rarely gets directly involved in things, preferring to manipulate events and people.

 

He presents as a vaguely humanoid column of smoke and shadow, with great long horns coming from where the head would be, and baleful glowing red eyes.  He is surrounded by shadow and smoke all the time.  In game, I made him using the Spectrum pieces in black, and then gave him the Smoky aura and path aura, in black.  Of course, he has no glowing eyes, since the aura is used for smoke.

 

My first thought was to make him a Sentinel, Dark Blast and Dark Armour (which DOES give him access to red eyes via Soul Noir)... but I feel like he should be less... direct?  I thought about making him a Dominator or Controller, but then that takes away the Dark Armour, and makes him overly squishy.  I thought about trying him as a Tanker, but he's too punchy, and too much in the middle of the action.  I thought about making him as a Warshade, but that didn't quite feel right either.  I'm just having trouble deciding how to make the character in a way I find satisfying.

 

So, here I am.  I know it's a hard thing to suggest something that will work for my concept of the character, when you're not as familiar with the concept, but going from what I've put down here... what do you think?  Any ideas?

[Without_Pause]

The most indirect AT you will get will be a MM. Demon/dark seems like a no brainer. 

[BrandX]

2 hours ago, Without_Pause said:

The most indirect AT you will get will be a MM. Demon/dark seems like a no brainer. 

 

^This right here.  It was my first thought with the description given.

 

Now, if you can't get behind playing a Mastermind, I might suggest...

 

Dark/Time Troller.  That may just help you with your squishy feeling (Time Manipulation is nice on the defense and -ToHit side of things).

 

Fire/Dark Troller.  Not as much defense but more -ToHit and you get the glowy eyes from Fade.

 

 

[UltraAlt]

6 hours ago, Ultimo said:

but rarely gets directly involved in things, preferring to manipulate events and people.

 

Definitely seems like they should have confuse.

[Ridiculous Girl]

8 hours ago, Ultimo said:

He presents as a vaguely humanoid column of smoke and shadow, with great long horns coming from where the head would be, and baleful glowing red eyes.  He is surrounded by shadow and smoke all the time.  In game, I made him using the Spectrum pieces in black, and then gave him the Smoky aura and path aura, in black.  Of course, he has no glowing eyes, since the aura is used for smoke.

 

i have a dom alt named Evil Stepmother, she went mind control/psionic assault with psionic mastery (for world of confusion) and taking presence pool, for provoke, invoke panic, and intimidate. fully leaning into the concept of spreading fear, panic and confusion.

 

for a character meant to be hiding in the shadows, i would make a costume that is all full spectrum black, with the banished pantheon spirit of death aura, all black, and the black clouds running aura. this will leave you with mostly a silhouette in a dark cloud. horns can be added, though alternately you could a use head detail 1, with something like death googles and the eyes a bright colour.

 

the problem is with certain concepts compromises need to be made to get as close as possible. so either the horns or the glowing eyes, in this case.

 

this is what i quickly whipped up...

 

 

[Thraxen]

Demons force field made total black. Can bubble demons and sir back. Use repel and force shot or whatever it’s called if something gets too close. About to die? PFF. Time it right he should never die. 

[tidge]

On 9/6/2024 at 9:14 PM, Ultimo said:

The character is called The Black Ghost.  He's based on a character from my youth when I made comics.  The idea is, he's kind of an ultimate power bad guy.  Really, I shouldn't be trying to play him at all, he's not going to be nearly as powerful as he ought to be.  He claims to be Satan himself, though it's never confirmed one way or the other. 

 

Narrator: He was not, in fact, Satan himself.

 

On 9/6/2024 at 9:14 PM, Ultimo said:

He presents as a vaguely humanoid column of smoke and shadow, with great long horns coming from where the head would be, and baleful glowing red eyes.  He is surrounded by shadow and smoke all the time.  In game, I made him using the Spectrum pieces in black, and then gave him the Smoky aura and path aura, in black.  Of course, he has no glowing eyes, since the aura is used for smoke.

 

If you choose a Dark Armor set, the toggles will end up giving a character something like a 'smokey cloud' effect (and hide the character too).

 

The powers in CoX won't duplicate what you describe as the modus operandi, I definitely would NOT pick Mastermind as the AT, because Masterminds are pretty obvious in a way that doesn't sound like your description.. the henchmen don't strike me as "manipulation".

 

I think a Dark/Dark Dominator is probably the closest, if perma-Dom is achieved. The primary offers decent controls (including a confuse) plus pets that are shadowy, and the secondary has 'spooky' looking attacks. The main drawback (for the stated concept) is that Dominators make a LOT of direct attacks.

 

Having seen some of the OP's build philosophy, I think a Dark/Dark Controller would probably be better suited for them, simply because the Controller gets the Dark Servant pet (plus Haunts, plus Umbra Beat) and won't have to build towards perma-Dom. Dark/Dark Controllers can end up being very tough and ought to be easier to build. Controller damage comes along with the controls (obviously) but Dark/Dark can end up with four pets from just the primary/secondary.

 

 

[Ultimo]

tidge has hit it kind of on the head... that is, a demonic character claiming to be something PROBABLY isn't.

 

As for the rest, I did think about the Mastermind as a class, but none of the pets struck me as being quite in character, and as you said, he's not really manipulating his pets to do things for him...  Of course, a confuse power is also a bit forceful in that regard... but it works.

As I already have a Dark/Dark Controller, I might switch it up and make him a Dark/Dark Dominator.  Right now, he's a Dark/Dark Sentinel.  Anyhoo, I'll play with it for a bit and see what comes of it.  Thanks for the input, everyone.

[Ultimo]

Just for the sake of amusement, and so people could see an old OLD picture of the character, I dug up an old Champions character sheet for the character.  Ah, the good old days.

 

 

[UltraAlt]

1 hour ago, Ultimo said:

 

Honestly, I knee jerked and gave you a "thanks" because it was a Champions character sheet, but then I started looking it over and I was just "confused".

 

That's a lot of points!

 

I never played in a Champions game any character with anywhere near that number of points!

 

"villain bonus"?

worth 975 points of disads for that alone?

 

 

 

Edited September 12 by UltraAlt

[lemming]

19 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

 

Honestly, I knee jerked and gave you a "thanks" because it was a Champions character sheet, but then I started looking it over and I was just "confused".

 

That's a lot of points!

 

I never played in a Champions game any character with anywhere near that number of points!

 

"villain bonus"?

worth 975 points of disads for that alone?

Most likely a villain the PCs faced.  Fairly reasonable build to go against a PC team.  3rd edition?   (Couple other NPC only bits in there, like FW in an EC I think)

[lemming]

My own Little Black Cloud who is a storm/dark sentinel.

 

There are other auras you can add, either via tailor, but for more stacking, you can go the prismatic aether route.

[Ultimo]

11 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

 

Honestly, I knee jerked and gave you a "thanks" because it was a Champions character sheet, but then I started looking it over and I was just "confused".

 

That's a lot of points!

 

I never played in a Champions game any character with anywhere near that number of points!

 

"villain bonus"?

worth 975 points of disads for that alone?

 

 

 

Ya, it's a lot of points.  My version of an Arch-Villain, most of the characters I made for the heroes to fight against were a bit less extreme than this.  Heroes started with 250 points, and a cap of 60 active points in any given power, so he's only a bit more powerful than that, power by power, with lots of Stun and Body, and plenty of defense.  The "Villain Bonus" was something I saw them use in most of the Villains books.  I suppose it represents their experience, or ruthlessness, or something.  Really, it's just a number to let you make the villain in any way you like.

[UltraAlt]

14 hours ago, Ultimo said:

Ya, it's a lot of points.  My version of an Arch-Villain, most of the characters I made for the heroes to fight against were a bit less extreme than this.  Heroes started with 250 points, and a cap of 60 active points in any given power, so he's only a bit more powerful than that

 

Yeah, looks like a lot changed from when I was paying Champions.

[Dark Current]

Does Illusion Control work for the concept? Ill / Dark / Dark dominator or controller.

[Ultimo]

1 hour ago, Dark Current said:

Does Illusion Control work for the concept? Ill / Dark / Dark dominator or controller.

I thought about that... but Phantom Army is kind of the only really good power in the set, and it just doesn't quite look right either as copies of the Ghost himself, nor as generic characters.

 

So far, the best combo still seems to be the Dark Blast/Dark Armour Sentinel.  He lacks the controls, and his powers are rather more direct than I would normally want, but overall it still "feels" better.

[Ultimo]

21 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

 

Yeah, looks like a lot changed from when I was paying Champions.

I'm not sure which edition that comes from, I'd have to dig out the old rulebooks.  Also, there were undoubtedly some house rules in effect, and some liberties taken with designing the villains.

[Troo]

On 9/6/2024 at 6:14 PM, Ultimo said:

So... I've agonizing a bit over a character, and thought I'd see if anyone had any ideas that might inspire me.  It's going to be tough, because the issue is largely one of concept.

 

Might I suggest: