The Book of Red Lantern (Dex-Starr)

[Arkham]

I’d be fine with 9 life, 3 defense, and doing it for every 2 wounds, leaving it uncapped(giving him one more potential attack). Can always drop his base attack to 1 if needed to compensate, so he’s doing 4 attacks of 3 at -2 at his best on the verge of death, if he has all his markers.

[Arkham]

Ok, made the following changes:
-Personality to Vicious
-Life from 4 to 9
-Move from 5 to 6
-Range from 1 to 2
-Defense from 6 to 2
-Cat Scratch Fever is now a Special Attack
-Cat Scratch Fever has an additional wound clause instead of defense reduction, to avoid feeling too similar to how Yellows function, and to stay more in line with the autos the Reds have.
-Cat Scratch Fever is now granted an additional attack per 2 wound markers rather than 1 to scale with the higher life.

Overall, went with a lot of 2’s for memory sake and I think he’ll have a nice flurry of swipes feel to him. Also makes for a somewhat parallel to Ch’p, and offers a special attacker for the Reds.

I propose a vote to move to Initial Playtesting.

[Karat]

Yea

[johnny139]

I'm going to come in here pretty strongly against 9 Life... we've done it for a few cat people, but other than the original Catwoman (which long predates me) it's always been justified in-universe. Dex-Starr isn't any more durable or long-lived or what have you than any other Red Lantern.

Other than that, I'm mostly good with him. Is "SAVVEE MASSTERRR" a direct quote? If so, we probably want some quotation marks and want to be sure the, uhh, extra consonants all line up.

[IAmBatman]

9 Life and 2 Defense shouldn't make him any more durable than other Red Lanterns. It's just a different way of stacking the survivability stats that includes a few thematic nod and continuation of an established aesthetic.

Yea for testing from me.

[tcglkn]

Liking how this one is going. Agree with quotes on "Save Master" probably.

Yea

[Arkham]

Originally Posted by johnny139

I'm going to come in here pretty strongly against 9 Life... we've done it for a few cat people, but other than the original Catwoman (which long predates me) it's always been justified in-universe. Dex-Starr isn't any more durable or long-lived or what have you than any other Red Lantern.

Other than that, I'm mostly good with him. Is "SAVVEE MASSTERRR" a direct quote? If so, we probably want some quotation marks and want to be sure the, uhh, extra consonants all line up.

The majority seem in favor of the high life low defense approach we've used on Catman, Catwoman (I), and Teekl. With all of our Red Lantern designs, we've had them have extra life to represent how their rings act as their hearts, so it's not incredibly out there to take this approach.

If it's not something you want, I'm either going to need you to sway the majority, or just go with it, because I'm not really hard set either way.

[japes]

Originally Posted by Arkham

The majority seem in favor of the high life low defense approach we've used on Catman, Catwoman (I), and Teekl. With all of our Red Lantern designs, we've had them have extra life to represent how their rings act as their hearts, so it's not incredibly out there to take this approach.

If it's not something you want, I'm either going to need you to sway the majority, or just go with it, because I'm not really hard set either way.

I don't love the 9 lives but I also don't have the energy to fight this one as it's not something I hate just something I'd prefer not.

[johnny139]

Okay, here's my argument. First off, here's our prior cats, with justification for having 9 Life:

Catman - Has a magical cape that lets him come back to life 9 times
Teekl - Is a magical cat with regenerative and healing abilities
Wildcat - Has the ability to return from the dead 9 times (and general "slow aging" powers)

Our one cat design that doesn't have 9 Life:

Catwoman (II) - Has 4 Life, because she's a normal, well-trained human

And our one cat design that has an unjustified 9 Life:

Catwoman (I) - Because it was cute, and it was literally one of the first 10 C3G designs

Now, for comparison, our other Red Lanterns:

Atrocitus - 6 Life
Bleez - 6 Life
Mera - 6 Life
Supergirl - 7 Life

The Red Lanterns tend to have a lot of life, because they don't have blood, they have rage plasma, and as a rule they've very much "take a lickin', keep on tickin'" types of characters. I agree it's cute to have cats have 9 Life, but when we've already done it multiple times, it's diminishing returns - it's not justifiable on aesthetic novelty alone. So we have to think, in the context of the Red Lanterns, a giant army of space warriors, does it make sense for the tiny cat to have more Life than any of them? Does it make sense for him to be longer lived, take more autowounds, and generally be more of a "no defense, take all the damage to my face" than Atrocitus the Giant Evil Space Guy? I don't really htink so.

[MrNobody]

I’m in the same boat as Japes; don’t feel strongly against it, I just think it subtracts more from the design than it adds.

[Arkham]

Makes sense to me.

[IAmBatman]

I see it as aesthetic consistency rather than aesthetic novelty, but I'm not highly invested in either direction.