Mastermind Power Set suggestion!

[Poutine]

Hello!

 

I think it would be fun if you let us be hero (or villain) team masterminds!

 

Similar to a "Nick Fury" character, the hero team mastermind has assembled great heroes into a team, provides them with training opportunities to hone their skills, and leads them into battles!

 

A powered individual in her own rights, the hero team mastermind has a sharp mind and the psychic powers to back it up! 

Her frontline fighters are 3 blaster types who charge into battle with energy, electricity, and radiation powers

To shore up the team, a hero mastermind can call on two sentinels in power armor, one with energy blasts, the other with dark energy

The last member she can call on is a brawler with kinetic melee.

Upgrades will teach them stronger attacks in their line.

 

It would take some balancing out, obviously not giving out a fully kitted blaster, but something on par with the robots and with the variety of attack types like the demon summoning line. I think this power set would be robust and a lot of fun, especially if you let us coordinate the costumes somehow, maybe as a power customization, could be traditional spandex heroes, power rangers types, maybe alternate costumes for villains. 

Anyhow, that's my suggestion! Thanks for the fun game!

[biostem]

13 hours ago, Poutine said:

I think it would be fun if you let us be hero (or villain) team masterminds!

Some sort of generic "super team" would make for a great MM primary.  That being said, I wouldn't arrange it quite the same way you did, but the idea itself still has merit.  Frankly, I think it would be difficult to come up with some sort of general appearance that would satisfy most players, (though I suppose it could also be a great testbed for some more customization options)...

Edited Saturday at 03:08 PM by biostem

[Rudra]

*sigh* I'm going to get crucified for this....

 

Isn't that the point of super groups? They wear the same uniforms (or variants of a theme), they work together, and each team from the super group is led by a team leader with less experienced or lower level members tagging along with the more experienced or higher level members to learn (training opportunities to hone their skills).

 

More MM primaries is something I support, and a primary that delves into different approaches like the Demon Summoning set does is definitely a workable idea. However, to me, you are proposing a super group. I guess, what I am saying, is the idea needs some more workshopping to differentiate it from super groups in the game.

[biostem]

9 hours ago, Rudra said:

Isn't that the point of super groups? They wear the same uniforms (or variants of a theme), they work together, and each team from the super group is led by a team leader with less experienced or lower level members tagging along with the more experienced or higher level members to learn (training opportunities to hone their skills).

The same could be said for most of the other MM primaries;  "Why couldn't you just have a military themed SG instead of soldiers?  Why couldn't you just have a ninja or thug themed SG instead of those primaries?"  A subgroup or detachment of a larger organization, under the auspices of a single leader/sub-commander, is pretty common in comics, too...

Edited Saturday at 03:33 PM by biostem

[Rudra]

1 hour ago, biostem said:

The same could be said for most of the other MM primaries;  "Why couldn't you just have a military themed SG instead of soldiers?  Why couldn't you just have a ninja or thug themed SG instead of those primaries?"  A subgroup or detachment of a larger organization, under the auspices of a single leader/sub-commander, is pretty common in comics, too...

You absolutely can have a ninja-themed super group, a military-themed super group, demon-themed super group, and so on. The difference is a super group is a group of individuals that work together towards a goal, breaking up into teams as necessary or even having single members respond to things. This typically includes lesser experienced members that get training from the group and are led on missions by more experienced members of the group to accomplish the task at hand and hone their skills. Super groups are often marked by shared uniforms, shared or similar powers, and/or other means to include combinations of options that makes them readily identifiable to the masses.

 

A mastermind leads a group of underlings or henchmen. There is no peer or near-peer status. There is no sidekick status. There is no "follow me and I will train you so that you can get better". It is a master-follower arrangement. (Yes, a player can play a supportive MM that looks after his/her/their/its underlings and tries to cultivate them, but at the end of the day, that MM still has underlings that get commanded to do whatever the MM wants, even just die for no reason other than the MM said to.) The OP is presenting a super group, where the player character is mentoring other members of the group on various missions. Again, yes, a player can very much so play their MMs that way if desired, but the MM AT is a leader commanding dedicated subordinates that will even throw their lives away when the MM says to in order to accomplish the MM's goals. A mastermind's organization can also have shared uniforms, shared or similar powers, and/or other means to include combinations of options that makes them readily identifiable to the masses if the mastermind desires an identifiable public presence. Unlike super groups though, the members of the mastermind's group are subordinates bound by some means to carry out the mastermind's will, whatever that will may be.

 

On top of that, I am unaware of any super groups having super groups in them. Affiliated super groups they work with such as in game coalitions, yes, but not super groups where the leader of another super group is a member and all the other members of that leader's super group are flunkies that get ignored by the super group. "Hey, welcome to Epsilon Kappa. Here is your uniform, don't touch anything, and wait in the Disposable Flunkies room until your leader gets you to die for us." isn't exactly a super group thing. (They did something similar in the Harley Quinn series, but that series was a parody of the genre, and not something you would see in a heroic SG that has MMs in it.)

 

So again, the idea needs some workshopping to differentiate it from a super group. Not that the idea itself is a bad idea, but that as presented, the idea is a super group rather than underlings obeying their master. How to define/label/present the set that isn't a super group? I don't know. At least not at this time. However, the presentation should very much be of a mastermind and that mastermind's dedicated followers, not a super group.

[MTeague]

I solo much more than I team, so I am sympathetic to the idea.  I do think @Biostem is correct, though. 

 

12 hours ago, biostem said:

Frankly, I think it would be difficult to come up with some sort of general appearance that would satisfy most players, (though I suppose it could also be a great testbed for some more customization options)...

 

You know someone's going to want a frontline of 3 scrappers instead of 3 blasters.  Or a 2-summon of controllers or dominators. Or a 1-summon of an Energy Blast sentinel in an iron suit. Everyone is going to have their own idea of what the "generic super team" should look like. Unless they wanted to let us customize the summoned AT's, which frankly, would shock me, I think this is going to be a source of Even More Asks. 

 

Of course, if they Wanted to do truly full customization, I wouldn't say no. I'd just have to pick my jaw up off the floor, first. 

[biostem]

Avengers East Coast/West Coast are subgroups under the broader "Avengers" group.  Batman and the various iterations of Robin, Batgirl, Batwoman, etc all fall under the auspices of "The Bat-Family".  The various villains of "The Legion of Doom" frequently have their own henchmen, often sporting themed outfits for their boss.  Even the Autobots have "The Wreckers" subfaction, and the Decepticons have "The Seekers".  Heck, our own characters can join Vanguard or pledge ourselves to one of Arachnos' patrons...

[Rudra]

9 minutes ago, biostem said:

Avengers East Coast/West Coast are subgroups under the broader "Avengers" group.  Batman and the various iterations of Robin, Batgirl, Batwoman, etc all fall under the auspices of "The Bat-Family".  The various villains of "The Legion of Doom" frequently have their own henchmen, often sporting themed outfits for their boss.  Even the Autobots have "The Wreckers" subfaction, and the Decepticons have "The Seekers".  Heck, our own characters can join Vanguard or pledge ourselves to one of Arachnos' patrons...

Avengers East Coast/West Coast, like Titans East and Titans West, are a single super group. Like you said, part of the broader Avengers or Teen Titans groups. They are not separate super groups operating under another super group. They are a single super group operating in different geographical regions for extended periods of time, and have local team names for ease of identification.

 

Edit: Just like the X-Men for a while had two dedicated teams with their own comic series. They didn't suddenly have two X-Men super groups, they had one, but multiple teams operating under different assigned team names for tracking and comic runs.

 

Edit again: I should have addressed the rest of your post. Sorry. The "Bat Family" both is and is not a super group. And even at that, they aren't subordinate super groups in a super group, they are individuals that work together. So I don't understand your use of that reference. The Legion of Doom mostly utilizes the Legion's members. Any henchmen current Legion members may have may be called in if needed, but still aren't having a super group subordinate as a member to another super group. It is still the super group accessing a mastermind's resources. The Wreckers from the Autobots are not a separate super group that operates under the Autobot banner, they are a team that almost always works with each other to get their mission done. The Seekers from the Decepticons are not a separate super group operating under the Decepticon super group. They are the nameless 'cons that fill the Decepticon ranks.

 

Edited Saturday at 05:54 PM by Rudra

[biostem]

2 minutes ago, MTeague said:

You know someone's going to want a frontline of 3 scrappers instead of 3 blasters.

Indeed!  I think the closest we have currently would be an illusion/dark controller - you have 3 from PA, the phantasm, "fluffy", then you can take a PPP for yet another pet, plus the 2 from the Lore Incarnate, and with careful picks and the phantom mirror option for PA, get pretty close.  Still, it's not a full MM...

[MsSmart]

I tend to disagree with the suggestion, despite of being appealing. When I look at the various MM choices; they are all thematic and the creatures/beings summoned by the MM that are in fact minions which could be ruthlessly sacrificed . This observation would invalidate an MM hero team, since the heroes would not willingly accept to be treated as minions and be sacrificed at a whim.

 

As Rudra said, just team with other players for the effect. I have heard many an MM saying that they consider other players as their pets in a humorous manner...

 

Only a thought

[biostem]

2 hours ago, MsSmart said:

the heroes would not willingly accept to be treated as minions and be sacrificed at a whim

Then call them "meta-humans" or "super-powered individuals".  The name doesn't matter - what matters is that we have no generic "super-powered minions" MM primary set.  If a MM can be a hero, and if they have no issue sending wave after wave of soldiers, thugs, or ninja, then I see no reason why they couldn't be some generic "people with energy, ice, fire, elec, or any other such powers"...

[Rudra]

1 hour ago, biostem said:

3 hours ago, MsSmart said:

the heroes would not willingly accept to be treated as minions and be sacrificed at a whim

Then call them "meta-humans" or "super-powered individuals".  The name doesn't matter - what matters is that we have no generic "super-powered minions" MM primary set.  If a MM can be a hero, and if they have no issue sending wave after wave of soldiers, thugs, or ninja, then I see no reason why they couldn't be some generic "people with energy, ice, fire, elec, or any other such powers"...

*head desk*

*head desk*

*head desk*

 

That's what I have been trying to tell you. That we need to figure that part out. (Edit: Which can also be part of justifying that specific configuration of super-powered beings being what is always summoned.)

 

Edited Saturday at 10:13 PM by Rudra

[biostem]

5 minutes ago, Rudra said:

*head desk*

*head desk*

*head desk*

 

Let me quote myself...

16 hours ago, biostem said:

Some sort of generic "super team" would make for a great MM primary.

 

Now stop tilting at windmills of your own imagining...

[Rudra]

13 minutes ago, biostem said:

 

Let me quote myself...

 

Now stop tilting at windmills of your own imagining...

I'm going to ignore this comment, but say thanks for your preceding one. It gave me an idea.

 

Meta-Troopers

T1: Mental Blast

T2: Deploy Assault Team

T3: Telekinetic Blast

T4: Upgrade Troops

T5: Psionic Darts

T6: Deploy Shocktroops

T7: Psychic Storm (Edit: PBAoE psionic debuffs)

T8: Deploy Heavy

T9: Enhance Troops

 

Edited Saturday at 10:29 PM by Rudra