Bounty Hunters of the Apocalypse second arc: The March of Mephisto

Okay then, so what could I use to give Gunslinger bullet time and magic sapping? Because that's basically what those two abilities amount to.

Well then it's not exactly overpowered. When you say it can kill a bear, I'm willing to bet a lot of standard civilian rifles can also down a bear quite easily. Gunslinger mostly just uses a pistol for sneaking it into places. His coat, no matter how big the firearm, is not small than the gun.

edited 22nd May '14 6:10:50 PM by gameknight102xx

All I meant was that .44 magnums are not "weak" by any meaning of the word. Saying that a character who could wield two at once, effectively aiming both and not breaking both of his wrists, is the weakest of the characters is not a good bar to be setting. That is an overpowered as fuck bar.

Bullet time? Nothing, really. You could base abilities around adrenaline, since that's pretty much one of the things adrenaline actually does. If you left out the basically gaining super strength and speed temporarily part, I might even be able to live with it.

Magic sapping, now that you're making me think about it, wouldn't really exist in the setting. Closest would be a set up ritual circle to get rid of another active ritual circle, but not as a literal "dispel" ability like DnD. Defensively you could outfit yourself with magical items that somewhat nullify magic, but that would never be a 100% defense.

edited 22nd May '14 6:30:43 PM by FirockFinion

Wait, also, you're having him bring sidearms so he can hide them in his coat?

You do know a pat down would still find that, right?

edited 22nd May '14 6:35:00 PM by FirockFinion

His Q doesn't give super strength, and it speeds up his reloading and moving as far as "I can do this with a lot more precision because everything's gone Matrix."

He's manipulating time, not his own body. So he can aim a lot better, because he can line up his shot. He can reload better, because he can simply just pop it open and slam it in without needing to worry about botching it. He can dodge better because he can see the attack coming better. But when everything is in slo-mo, that includes his own body.

I'll have to think about his E. It's not quite dispel from Dn D. It's akin to the Spy's sapper: where he "hacks" the spell and then deactivates it. It's not a "one spell fits all" variety. Maybe I could just replace it with a disguise spell.

He has his coat, yes, but his gun has several parts. He's not below storing them in his boots, his gloves, or even his helmet.

edited 22nd May '14 6:58:05 PM by gameknight102xx

That doesn't make it better. That makes it worse.

Like I said, time based abilities would be both extremely overpowered and not fit the setting well.

Why would it not fit the setting? Those are literally the only 4 abilities he can use.

edited 22nd May '14 7:44:07 PM by gameknight102xx

"Why would it not fit the setting?"

Because you would have lost already.

Consistency in the setting is why I also once shot down a person's recommendation that angels use a "nuke it from orbit" strategy, since they and demons are on par and that would mean demons have that ability too.

Any magic you guys have access to, the demons have access to better versions of. So if I give your character the ability to manipulate time around himself, that means the demons would not only be able to do that too, but do it better.

This also means, looking at his now edited sheet, that his new R is pretty unacceptable. (As well as being pretty blatantly overpowered.)

"Those are literally the only 4 abilities he can use."

In case you haven't caught on already, the number of abilities has nothing to do with that point. However, since you bring it up, let me point out part of the opening post for you:

Currently Gunslinger's justification for being in the coven does not work. (Even if it did, I still wouldn't let him have those kinds of powers.) So he does not have the proper special circumstances to know four spells; he could know one.

edited 22nd May '14 7:57:01 PM by FirockFinion

Hey, wait a minute, QWER? Is this a Dota 2 character?

That reminds me, hey, Firock, would an undead based off of Pudge work?

@Troy: -google searches-

A dude who looks like that would have been shot on sight to death by accident, even if he was friendly. Someone would have taken one look and been like "OH SHIT!" and filled him full of lead.

So no, not really.

Is he talking about that idea as a player character or as a monster type? We have choppers and slashers, who sort of fill that "zombies with knives" role.

edited 22nd May '14 8:16:33 PM by nman

Oh, if he meant as a monster, that's basically what the typical large abominations are.

I was thinking monsters. Think he's too bland?

There, edited his spells. Think I'm gonna overhaul his backstory.

EDIT: And done.

edited 22nd May '14 9:28:06 PM by gameknight102xx

I meant actually use adrenaline for the bullet time instead of magic, but I suppose that works.

Or at least, that would if his reason for having that magic would. I can't explain fully because of spoilers, but the method by which he gets magic in his back story wouldn't work. I can say where it fails though: "He infiltrated the facility himself... He lived there for a time, while his son still thought that he was stuck in America. He extracted all the knowledge he could from the coven... Taken by surprise by one of their own members-"

Sneaking in would be difficult, but possible. Tricking them into thinking he was actually one of them would have just plain been impossible. Suffice to say there's a very straightforward way for them to check, that there's no reason they would not use, that's impossible for any non-Coven Human to pass.

Otherwise, the spells themselves are fine, though I'd have to review and think over their costs specifically later.

Alright.

How many times do they use their loyalty-verifier or whatever on a single member? Is it a daily thing?

As soon as this "new guy" asked to be shown how to do a certain spell, the reaction would be, "wait, you are one of us, right?" followed by the test.

Unless you meant he actually tries to join them upfront with the intention to betray them later on? "This guy's planning to betray us later." -spells and/or bullets to the face- There's a reason the NCC has never successfully infiltrated the Coven.

edited 22nd May '14 10:22:33 PM by FirockFinion

But once they've used the spell, and if a newcomer passed, do they ever use it again on him?

I didn't say it was a spell, I said it was a test; I can't get more specific than that because even trying to word it in the simplest, least-spoilery way I could, it would still imply too much.

I also said it's impossible for non-Coven Humans to pass it, and I meant that.

EDIT: Or wait, you mean on the joining upfront thing? Well sure they wouldn't use it again, but there's no way it would have failed in the first place.

edited 22nd May '14 10:34:30 PM by FirockFinion

Okay, thank you.

edited 22nd May '14 10:34:41 PM by gameknight102xx

I think I can see where you were going with this; he pretends to be a newcomer that already passed? Again, wouldn't work. He'd get as far as needing to be shown how to do a spell, (Because he would have to be taught how to do them directly in order for him to be that good at it.) and it would become obvious to them that they would need to check and see if he was actually a Coven member or not. And again, that would be impossible for him to pass.

In the best case scenario I can think of, he does end up tricking them into thinking he really, truthfully is the newcomer he's impersonating, but they'd kick him out because the "newcomer" obviously should never have been recruited in the first place.

And given it's the rogue Coven guys we're talking about, I imagine "kicking out" in this case gets replaced by "using him as one of our Human test subjects".

edited 22nd May '14 10:41:29 PM by FirockFinion

Alright. I already changed my post, but ignore it.

Why would they check again? Is that something you can't tell me?

edited 22nd May '14 10:48:23 PM by gameknight102xx

Yes, that's the part I can't tell you.

It has to do with how the Coven are so good at magic while all other Humans are terrible at it.

Would it help if he already knew a single spell? Or does that not matter?

The test isn't as simple as "can they do magic?", so not really. That would get him closer to the best case scenario I mentioned above, but that's about it.

edited 22nd May '14 11:21:10 PM by FirockFinion