The Book of Scorpion (Carmilla Black)

[Lazy Orang]

Originally Posted by Yodaking

Every time I've ever wanted to give someone who is extremely durable, tough, or resilient more than 5 life I've been told that is wrong and that anything over 4 life is reserved for very special cases.

I know people have, and I'll be honest - it's generally BS. Nick Fury has 5 Life. Punisher has 5 Life. Black Widow has 5 Life. Shang-Chi has 5 Life. Elektra and Ozymandias have 5 Life. Someone needs to be at least somewhat exceptional in some way to get 5 Life, but it's hardly as rare as some people sometimes make it out to be.

[Yodaking]

I agree, Punisher is one I always look at and think if he gets 5 life that so should ........ but I'm constantly over ruled. In retrospect I think giving him 5 life was a mistake, his Assault Rifle power everyone is always so concerned about would be a little less scary if he died after 4 life like everyone else. I can see Nick Fury having 5 life due to his leadership role in team building, that does not bother me at all, but I never understood why Black Widow ended up with 5 life either. There doesn't seem to be much interest in acknowledging past mistakes were made and should be corrected though, I've brought it up multiple times before to no avail. All I can do is try to prevent future mistakes from being made because new designers want to use our past, uncorrected mistakes as justification for making more mistakes which then leads to more mistakes being made based on those designs. I'm not saying she can't be super durable, just fine another way to represent that other than giving a teenager 5 life when so many more worthy designs (IMO) have been given 4 life.

ENHANCED DURABILITY
Scorpion is not affected by Gas Glyphs. When an Scorpion is attacked by a normal or special attack and receives 2 or more wounds, reduce the number of wounds inflicted by 1.

So attacked and hit for 1W, no effect. Attacked and hit for 2W and you only place 1W marker on her card. Attacked and hit for 3W and you only place 2W markers on her card. Gives her the extra life you want her to have without just giving her an extra life.

[Lazy Orang]

Originally Posted by Yodaking

I agree, Punisher is one I always look at and think if he gets 5 life that so should ........ but I'm constantly over ruled. In retrospect I think giving him 5 life was a mistake, his Assault Rifle power everyone is always so concerned about would be a little less scary if he died after 4 life like everyone else. I can see Nick Fury having 5 life due to his leadership role in team building, that does not bother me at all, but I never understood why Black Widow ended up with 5 life either. There doesn't seem to be much interest in acknowledging past mistakes were made and should be corrected though, I've brought it up multiple times before to no avail. All I can do is try to prevent future mistakes from being made because new designers want to use our past, uncorrected mistakes as justification for making more mistakes which then leads to more mistakes being made based on those designs. I'm not saying she can't be super durable, just fine another way to represent that other than giving a teenager 5 life when so many more worthy designs (IMO) have been given 4 life.

I don't consider it a mistake - I consider it a degree of acceptable variation so that you can have humans of above-average hardiness. I just get frustrated when people come up saying that it's a rule for Humans to have 4 Life when it's never been and never should be a rule - it's a guideline, only.
(Also, Enhanced Durability is an existing power....)

[Yodaking]

Give it a new name then if Ronin likes it. I was really just trying to show a way the durability/immunity aspect of her character can be achieved without increasing the life total. Maybe since auto wounds are often toxin related, let her ignore the first W received from a special power or attack? If that it too strong and makes her immune to low attack figure, add a d20 roll to it. Roll a 11+ to ignore one wound each time she is wounded.

ENHANCED IMMUNITY
Each time Scorpion receives 1 or more wounds, before placing those wounds on this card roll the twenty sided die. On a roll of 11 or higher, place 1 fewer wound when placing those wounds.

That gives her a 50/50 chance of being immune to lots of 1W special powers, effects, or attacks.

[Lazy Orang]

Originally Posted by Yodaking

Give it a new name then if Ronin likes it. I was really just trying to show a way the durability/immunity aspect of her character can be achieved without increasing the life total. Maybe since auto wounds are often toxin related, let her ignore the first W received from a special power or attack? If that it too strong and makes her immune to low attack figure, add a d20 roll to it. Roll a 11+ to ignore one wound each time she is wounded.

ENHANCED IMMUNITY
Each time Scorpion receives 1 or more wounds, before placing those wounds on this card roll the twenty sided die. On a roll of 11 or higher, place 1 fewer wound when placing those wounds.

That gives her a 50/50 chance of being immune to lots of 1W special powers, effects, or attacks.

That I actually do like.

[Ronin]

There really aren't any precedents being broken here. All kinds of enhanced humans in C3G have 5+ Life. Bullseye doesn't have 4 Life and an adamantium skeleton special power, he's just got 5 Life. The members of the 'extended lifespan' crowd (Kraven, Black Widow, Helmut Zemo, and Nick Fury, to name a few) don't have 4 Life and a 'hey, I've been enhanced to slightly above normal human levels of longevity and athleticism' special power, they've just got 5-6 Life. It's the most straightforward and simplest way of representing increased durability.

There are plenty of teenagers with 4 base life. Jubilee, both Tim Drakes, and Crimson Dynamo all spring to mind, and none of them are known for exceptional constitution.

Giving her 5 Life is perfectly consistent with how we've portrayed this kind of thing before. Pseudo-Jason Voorhees power (which, to its credit, does look like a fun power) is not.

[Viegon]

Just curious, is she tough in a "somehow survives a lot of punches" kind of way, or in a "is genetically modified to be tougher than a human" kind of way. If it's the former, I lean towards 4 life; if it's the latter, 5 life seems to make sense.

Originally Posted by Yodaking

As for her stinger attack, it sounds more like a straight d20 roll special power to me. Just drop the whole rolling of attack dice and up her basic attack to 3. Then she has a basic attack that can be boosted as an attack option, or the d20 roll as an attack option.

I like the current version quite a bit actually, I thought it was a fresh twist on some pretty well tread mechanics.

[Ronin]

She's genetically engineered to survive chemical, biological, and radioactive attacks, and is immune to poisons.

If there were some handy keyword-type immunities I could give her that would relate that, I would do 4 Life & (not affected by poison), but there's not really any keyword to give her or mechanic that lets me do the (not affected by poison) bit in a clean way, so I settled for above-average life.

[TrollBrute]

I'm one of the biggest opponents on 5-Life Humans (for consistency and power creep reasons), and I'm fine with 5 Life here. If she's modified to be tougher, 5 fits. Like the rest of the design too, but I'll give it a closer look when I get a better chance.

[Tornado]

Originally Posted by Ronin

She's genetically engineered to survive chemical, biological, and radioactive attacks, and is immune to poisons.

If there were some handy keyword-type immunities I could give her that would relate that, I would do 4 Life & (not affected by poison), but there's not really any keyword to give her or mechanic that lets me do the (not affected by poison) bit in a clean way, so I settled for above-average life.

I have a design with the same issue. The extra Life is about the best you can do. I do like the Gas Glyph immunity, totally stealing that.

[Yodaking]

Originally Posted by Ronin

She's genetically engineered to survive chemical, biological, and radioactive attacks, and is immune to poisons.

If there were some handy keyword-type immunities I could give her that would relate that, I would do 4 Life & (not affected by poison), but there's not really any keyword to give her or mechanic that lets me do the (not affected by poison) bit in a clean way, so I settled for above-average life.

This is a situation where I wish we did have a 'keyword' system but that ship sailed long ago. Of all the different ways someone can take a wound in this game; chemical, biological, radioactive attacks, & poison are a pretty small slice. Bullets, blades, fists (ie. physical damage), lasers, explosives, concussive blasts, fire, electricity, water, and similar weapons or powers are much more prevalent. So your argument boils down to, she is engineered to be really tough vs. maybe 20-30 or the 700 cards in C3G so lets give her 1-2 extra life. That is what I am having a problem with but I guess my earlier solutions don't really change anything as the power ideas suggested still make her immune/tough vs. all 700 cards when she should really only be immune/tough vs. 30.

I guess as long as she is still coming in under 150 points I can live with the 5 life. If testing shows she is better than 150, life is the first thing than needs to be cut though. I have a hard enough time seeing her as an Agent that is as good or better than Hawkeye (150) and Bobby (130). I'd prefer to see her hit the 140 spot rather than 150 you said you were going for. I feel like Deadshot (150) shouldn't really feel pushed by her if they were to fight one on one either.

[Ronin]

I'm willing to turn that dial if she's coming in high. I don't really care about how she compares to Deadshot because there are a lot of oddities when you stack up the Marvel vs DC power scales, but bringing up the other Marvel Agents is fair. Even if Scorpion's points end up coming in a little higher than Bobbi's, Bobbi has a lot going for her and would kick the crap out of Scorpion in a fight. So I don't see it as a straight "Scorpion > Mockingbird" situation. Just a premium on auto-wounds, and Nick Fury being able to strategically drop Scorpion in place.

Also, I'm pretty happy with the write-up for the most part (though I think I will drop the -2 to enemy d20 rolls bit), and if she tests a little low I'm probably going to just let her cost drop.