The Book of Absorbing Man

[Hahma]

Originally Posted by A3n

What about removing size absorb & adding it to power absorb like this:

Do we really need the -4 for tricky?

Cheers

The problem with that A3n is that Absorbing Man would only get an attack of 6 from Hulk when he should be able to get more than that. Also, if he Power Absorbs a Manhole Cover his height would become 1.

Since I made the change to add a Super Strength prerequisite of a figure for him to Power Absorb, I doubt there will be any figures with SS and have the Tricky personality, so I can remove that. The reason it was there in the first place is that because Absorbing Man has such incredible power (he tried to absorb the essence of Asgard and challenged Odin), the character usually gets beaten by being tricked or fooled into absorbing something weak and vulnerable.

I'll update the first post with changes so far.

[Griffin]

Actually, for the SA, I think that new ogre or whatever he is from DnD has a flail swing power that can damage ALL figure in proximity, and I think that would be great for the clumsy dimwitted A-Man who seems to end up being fooled or hurting himself or team.

[A3n]

Originally Posted by Hahma

The problem with that A3n is that Absorbing Man would only get an attack of 6 from Hulk when he should be able to get more than that. Also, if he Power Absorbs a Manhole Cover his height would become 1.

Since I made the change to add a Super Strength prerequisite of a figure for him to Power Absorb, I doubt there will be any figures with SS and have the Tricky personality, so I can remove that. The reason it was there in the first place is that because Absorbing Man has such incredible power (he tried to absorb the essence of Asgard and challenged Odin), the character usually gets beaten by being tricked or fooled into absorbing something weak and vulnerable.

I'll update the first post with changes so far.

He would take what he need from the stats, thats why I said "and or". My intent was that he could pick & choose which ones to take & use.

Cheers

Cheers

[Hahma]

Originally Posted by Griffin

Actually, for the SA, I think that new ogre or whatever he is from DnD has a flail swing power that can damage ALL figure in proximity, and I think that would be great for the clumsy dimwitted A-Man who seems to end up being fooled or hurting himself or team.

You mean something like this:

BALL AND CHAIN HURRICANE
After moving and before attacking with Absorbing Man, you must roll the 20-sided die. If you roll a 1-10, he may attack normally. If you roll an 11 or higher, instead of attacking normally, he must attack each figure adjacent to him, if possible. Roll each attack separately.

So without a special attack now, you'd have to successfully Power Absorb something and never let him get adjacent to you're own figures after moving, for him to have a chance of being worth anything. Of course he'd have to successfully Power Absorb rather than fail and take a wound and lose a turn on a 1-4 or get no boost or penalty on a 5-10 and end up with an attack of 2 that would really mess him up if he were adjacent to Cap or Huntress as his weak attack would surely end up with Counter Strike wounds. With so much in favor of him failing, I don't think I'd ever want to draft him because he'd seem to have more of a chance of sucking bad than being much good. How do we account for him being able to get the strength of steel from his ball and chain that should be automatic if he's not going to have a special attack?

Should we just go with something like this to make it easier with him having a normal attack of 6 ?

ABSORBING MAN

(Carl Creel)

LIFE 6
MOVE 5
RANGE 1
ATTACK 6
DEFENSE 6
COST 220

BALL AND CHAIN HURRICANE
After moving and before attacking with Absorbing Man, you must roll the 20-sided die. If you roll a 1-10, he may attack normally. If you roll an 11 or higher, instead of attacking normally, he must attack each figure adjacent to him, if possible. Roll each attack separately.

SIZE ABSORB

If Absorbing Man is adjacent to any obstacle such as ruins that has a height greater than his, Absorbing Man's height and size are considered the same height and size of the obstacle he's adjacent to with the greatest height. Absorbing Man’s size can never be altered by a special power or Glyph.

SUPER STRENGTH

Something like this:

ABSORBING MAN

(Carl Creel)

LIFE 6
MOVE 5
RANGE 1
ATTACK 2
DEFENSE 6
COST 220


BALL AND CHAIN HURRICANE
After moving and before attacking with Absorbing Man, you must roll the 20-sided die. If you roll a 1-10, he may attack normally. If you roll an 11 or higher, instead of attacking normally, he must attack each figure adjacent to him, if possible. Roll each attack separately

POWER ABSORB
Before moving, Absorbing Man may attempt to Power Absorb. Choose a Destructible Object, an object such as ruins or an adjacent Unique Hero with the Super Strength Special Power, and roll the 20-sided die. Add 8 to the roll if Absorbing Man attempts to Power Absorb a Destructible Object, an obstacle or a friendly figure.
• If you roll 1-4, Absorbing Man receives a wound and his turn immediately ends.
• If you roll a 5-12, nothing happens.
• If you roll a 13 or higher, for the remainder of this round or until Absorbing Man successfully Power Absorbs again this round, Absorbing Man's Height, and or Attack is equal to that of the chosen figure, object or obstacle.

Super Strength

Or something like this:

ABSORBING MAN

(Carl Creel)

LIFE 6
MOVE 5
RANGE 1
ATTACK 2
DEFENSE 6
COST 250

BALL AND CHAIN SWING SPECIAL ATTACK
Range 1. Attack 4.
Any figure adjacent to Absorbing Man is affected by Ball And Chain Special Attack. Roll 4 attack dice once for all affected figures. Each figure rolls defense separately.

POWER ABSORB
Before moving, Absorbing Man may attempt to Power Absorb. Choose a Destructible Object, an object such as ruins or an adjacent Unique Hero with the Super Strength Special Power, and roll the 20-sided die. Add 8 to the roll if Absorbing Man attempts to Power Absorb a Destructible Object, an obstacle or a friendly figure.
• If you roll 1-4, Absorbing Man receives a wound and his turn immediately ends.
• If you roll a 5-12, nothing happens.
• If you roll a 13 or higher, for the remainder of this round or until Absorbing Man successfully Power Absorbs again this round, Absorbing Man's Height, and or Attack is equal to that of the chosen figure, object or obstacle.

Super Strength

Quote from A3n:

He would take what he need from the stats, thats why I said "and or". My intent was that he could pick & choose which ones to take & use.

I had to give him a normal defense of 6 to get rid of the original Ball and Chain power that others didn't like. So he can only absorb attack and height. Your suggestion is an easier approach and gets rid of a bunch of text. The only negative I guess is that it weakens his offensive potential.

[IAmBatman]

I'm highly in favor of the Ball and Chain just being a special attack of 5 that hits all adjacent figures. I think to make it anything else is overthinking it.
For the record, I think Loki will be Tricky and have Super Strength, but he might be the only one.
Here's what I'd like to see for Power Absorb (and I'd like to drop the height thing all together, if we can ... maybe just absorb size, as it's less confusing).

POWER ABSORB
Before moving, Absorbing Man may attempt to Power Absorb. Choose a Destructible Object or an adjacent Unique Hero with the Super Strength Special Power, and roll the 20-sided die. Add 8 to the roll if Absorbing Man attempts to Power Absorb a Destructible Object or a friendly figure.
• If you roll 1-6, Absorbing Man receives a wound and his turn immediately ends.
• If you roll a 7 or higher, for the remainder of this round or until Absorbing Man successfully Power Absorbs again this round, Absorbing Man's Size and Attack is equal to that of the chosen figure, object or obstacle.

Let's cut out Ruins - not enough obstacles out there to bother with, and they don't have printed sizes, heights (they have them, but they're not printed), or defenses. We can eventually make a Destructible Object for the Ruin to cover this.
I don't think we need a "nothing happens" phase. Either he gets screwed by it, or it works - why bother having an in-between? The penalty of 6 makes it fairly high risk, but the reward is more consistent. Besides, absorbing is what he does. I don't think it should be as hard as a 13 for him to do it.

[Hahma]

I made suggested change to first post.

[IAmBatman]

Looks good! How does everyone else feel about it?
So, just to clarify, right now if Hulk is fully enraged and Absorbing Man absorbs him, then Absorbing Man gets that fully enraged attack number in place of his own, right?

[Hahma]

Originally Posted by IAmBatman

Looks good! How does everyone else feel about it?
So, just to clarify, right now if Hulk is fully enraged and Absorbing Man absorbs him, then Absorbing Man gets that fully enraged attack number in place of his own, right?

Well I don't know about that for Hulk, that's why I went in a different direction in my original version presented here because I believe I tried that way back when to go this route with attack based absorb, but either you or Griff mentioned "what about other boosts?" Like if he absorbed a figure with height, do you get the +1 for that since that is what his attack would be? or +1 attack glyph or adjacent to Cap etc. etc. That's why now I was kind of like, well.. this version gives him even less reason to ever Absorb unless it's to get a 7 or 8 attack from someone because why risk taking a wound and losing a turn just to get an attack value of 6 off of Hulk, WW, Thanos etc. He'd only get a 4 from Silver Surfer and 3 or 4 from GLs so he'd never want to Power Absorb from them. So basically, I'd keep my nice safe Special Attack of 5 and use that unless I can Absorb from a teammate. But I wouldn't risk Power Absorb from opponent's figures unless they had an attack of 7 or 8 and AM had either no wounds or 5 wounds and out of desparation.

He won't be able to get anything from DO's until we do some really huge ones with a size worth Absorbing.

But this seems the direction people wanted so I'll probably knock his price down a bit too as right now, I'd take Hawkgirl, Hawkman and Cap over Absorbing Man.

[IAmBatman]

OK, well I think we should highly consider going back to the his attack + the defense number version then. The Super Strength thing took care of the theme break very well there, in my opinion. Also, the current wording is just confusing. It doesn't say attack number, so I assume from reading it that I get an identical attack to Hulk, or whomever, which would include any advantages (but, yes, height advantage would make that confusing).
I'd rather just say he adds the Defense Number or even Attack Number to his own. If people don't like that, I honestly don't see why not ...

[Hahma]

We'll have to see what the masses say before I go back and change anything again. Everyone wants something different than what was originally posted so when they all decide what they want, I'll make the changes.

[IAmBatman]

Might be a good time for a poll or two. It's usually the best way to clear things like this up.
I notice (see Poison Ivy) that people aren't always as against our really cool ideas as we can initially think they are.

[Griffin]

SA

SS qualifier

and the Defense boost

Please