Need Help...

[nerd3pt5]

as the thread topic implies, i need help concerning my first char... How do i create a "familliar" for my char and not have my char become horribly broken at the same time? Im a little aprehensive about giving away too many details, as it will spoil my concept, but if I could get one or two people who can help me with this, it would be very appricated

[Ricochet]

A familiar? Like the magical animal kind of familiar? You might want to check the first book, it's under Witchcraft. The rules aren't to clear on familiars though, but there is an example.
That's the only way I know of to get a familiar in MURPG. If you don't want Witchcraft, (or magic at all) you might be in trouble. I hope this is what you're looking for.

[dorkknight23]

Okay, two ways to go about this:
1) Use stones and build basically a "second character." Like, for example, say you'd want a little pet dragon like Lockheed. Lockheed costs 45 stones to purchase, and, his abilities, actions, and modifiers add up to (gasp) 45 white stones. So, just build what you want your familiar to be like. Say, for example, you want a Raven. Something like:
RAVEN FAMILIAR Abilities: Int 2 Str 1 Agi 3 Spd 1 Dur 2; Actions: Close Combat 1 Flight 1, Hunting/Tracking 2; Enhanced Vision 3 (Telescopic) Beak (+2) weapon modifier

[total costs 9 white]

Just as a random example.

And just describe his actions like you describe any other character.

2) Witchcraft does describe "familiars, fetishes, etc." Not sure how to specifically suit this to what you need.

DK

[Ricochet]

The example of Witchcraft mentions a familiar. A cat named Alexander, I think. So yeah, I'd pretty much guess a free familiar comes with Witchcraft.

[Beacon]

Personally I’m of the opinion that most pets should be created with character creation stones* or purchased with cash (though that isn’t really an option with superpowered animals**). Having said that, I could see where certain powers (like witchcraft, Mastery of Wildlife, animal training, ect) would allow you to conjure/create or summon/call your action number’s worth of stones in animals. The books may not be very clear as to what it means for Pym or Lang to summon X stones of insects but personally I interpret that to be any insects that can be made with X white creation stones.

Now I have this sudden urge to make a Black Cat familiar. Maybe I’ll take a stab at that tomorrow. Honestly I’ve already given it a little thought but I want to smooth out the details a bit. Since this is a magical cat its starting to get expensive fast and I’ll probably have to dip into character creation or challenge stones just because the witchcraft action number’s worth of free stones isn’t going to be anywhere near enough to pay for the bad luck (like I said, I want to play up the magic aspect of the familiar).

*Which is how I’d handle sidekicks too…not that sidekicks are that likely to come up in the Marvel setting but it might make for an interesting campaign if you’re playing two characters with a total of forty stones instead of one forty stone character.

**If the Monty Python have taught me anything it’s that it’s hard enough to find a live parrot at a pet shop. A parrot with powers is out of the question.

[nerd3pt5]

but... i LIKE parrots with super powers! well... if nothing else, i'll try to create it using dorkknight's first option... ill tinker around with it and see what i can get by splitting up points. Im just apprehensive that it might make my super hero too much of a "soft squishy meat shield", but im digging my own hole, so i can only blame myself
Oh, thanks for the advice. I'll post again when i have the rough draft of the CAD and need myself a GM who can keep a secret and wont metagame too badly

[Ricochet]

Yeah, I'd say summoning would be a good example too. I think that if you would ask your GM to use summoning with the limitation of only being able to summon a familiar, he'd probably say yes.

And about sidekicks: I once made a 40 stone sidekick, but nobody wanted to be the hero.

[Beacon]

Okay, I worked it out and there’s no way that just getting free AN stones would cover a cat familiar. Even the rather weak Maguire from the Spider-Man fan-book costs a whopping eleven white and one red to create and he doesn’t even come with the powers I’d want to give a feline familiar (as well as some standard cat attributes that I found missing*).

*For more on my thoughts regarding Maguire/cats see Vic Sage’s “Write-ups for animals” thread. The thread is probably going to come in handy in creating familiars in general.

Edit: Now that I look closer I suppose its really just eleven stones. Hunting / Tracking would be a level cheaper for an actual cat.

nerd3pt5 said:

but... i LIKE parrots with super powers!

After I figure out my black cat then maybe I’ll get to work on a “sleeping Norwegian blue”

ricochet said:

Yeah, I'd say summoning would be a good example too. I think that if you would ask your GM to use summoning with the limitation of only being able to summon a familiar, he'd probably say yes.

Well honestly I meant “summoning” in terms of calling an animal from the wilderness rather than “Summoning” in terms of the actual action. I’ll admit that Summoning is one of the magical actions that I don’t really “get”. Some magical actions are really open to interpretation (sorcery) and some are limited enough to be easily defined (magical travel). Summoning is just the wrong combination of both; it seems to have very specific but yet poorly defined rules.

And about sidekicks: I once made a 40 stone sidekick, but nobody wanted to be the hero.

I meant more in the sense of two twenty stone partners or a trio with two thirteen stone heroes and a fourteen stone leader or a twenty-five stone hero with a fifteen stone sidekick or something like that. Granted a lot of GMs wouldn’t want the headache of someone running multiple characters simultaneously (I could see frequent arguments coming up just over LoE being awarded on a per-player basis or a per-character basis) but, as I said, it still might make for an interesting adventure if you’re playing with the right people.

[Neros]

[NOTE, its VERY early in the morning... But hey, im still responsible for my own actions ] How about a modifier for having a sidekick/familiar? MN# = Number of white creation stones the GM will have to create him/her/it.

The player tells the GM what powers, background, personality he/she wants the Sidekick/familiar to have. The GM then throws the numbers together.
This offcourse means he controls the sidekick/familiar, and maybe thats not what you want...

[Ricochet]

That would work... for anything up to MN=7. Anything above that would get MORE expensive. So it's okay if you want a 7 stone sidekick, except that you don't want a 7 stone sidekick.

Get back to bed Neros.

[pgholland]

I think Neros' idea could work but it needs refinement so how about this;

Animal Companion/ Familiar/ Sidekick:

Cost Level= Modifier Number (Maybe +1 Level)

You have a sidekick, animal companion or familiar. You buy the modifier your GM creates the companion from your description of them. For every 1 point of modifier number your sidekick/ familiar/ animal companion gets 2 white stones to spend on abilities, actions and modifiers. It's abilities cost half (like Powered Armour add up their total cost then divide by 2 and round up). If you want your familiar or Sidekick to have 'super-powers' add 1 to the cost level.

[Ricochet]

Well, yeah. I guess you could pull out Powered Armor as an example. Here's another one:
A henchman costs about 10000 dollar a year. Just look at your GM real nice and ask him.

Just so you know, I don't really like modifiers that have cost levels that are based on nothing. My advice is to always base your houserules on existing rules.

[pgholland]

Problem is theres nothing to base it on, the summonin grules are nothing if not confusing and ill-defined and the only examples we have are Redwing and Lockheed- Lockheed is obviously far too powerful to come under the auspice of a henchman or familiar. And you could just as easily build yourself a robot as a piece of equipment out of your stones, so the modifier makes sense- you can only ever gain up to about 20 stones, and that would build up to maybe a tiger or elephant (from the Avenger's issue, though i've not sat down and checked through it). Animals and familiars etc. aren't really that useful- take buying DK's raven 9 stones, thats a quarter of your stones for something thats not really any better than a standard human and yet it's costing you perhaps your power. With the modifier i outlined you could build that with a MN of 5 (with 1 stone left over) for only 3 or 4 stones, which would encourage people to do it. Of course you could just buy basic animals, they aren't that expensive anyway, but the 'free' stones you get from the modifier aren't that many, if you want 20 white on your familiar you are spending 15-20 (maybe even 25 if you want it as a base +1 plus 'super' abilities) this modifier encourages you to be more of a Falcon than a Lockjaw, Lockheed style character- you have an animal that is indicative of you, but not insanely powerful.

[Neros]

How about

Companion
Cost Level= Modifier Number -1

Description
You have a sidekick, animal companion or familiar. The companion however is normal, and dosent have any super powers or greater abilities than a normal version of that race (unless options are bought).

You buy the modifier and your GM creates the companion from your description of them. For every 1 point of modifier number your sidekick/ familiar/ animal companion gets 2 white stones to spend on abilities, actions and modifiers. The cost for Abilities for the sidekick/familiar is half cost rounded up.

Options
* The companion has super powers and greater abilities +2
* Additional companions +2 per companion (all of them has their own "pool" of stones equal to MN#)

Rules for modifier
* Build a sidekick/familiar/companion worth MN# of white stones +1 stone per MN#.
* GM controls the actions of this character, but when giving him/her the description of it, be as prescise as possible, or the GM will start improvisng.
* If the companion is killed, they are gone for good... Unless the GM decides something els.

I can trie and give a exampel later, but thats all for know.

[Ricochet]

I'd still say that for a familiar you could just use witchcraft, and you'd get some animal from the GM, at his discretion.

For a sidekick, some additional options:
- Take the standard henchman, (I checked, he really stinks) and add whatever you like, by paying for the additional costs with stones.
- Find an orphan, and ask him to be your protege. GM might say no.