In Avengers: The Initiative comic book, one of the new recruits is a kid who's invulnerable.

He's a good kid, enthusiastic and excited to be training with other superheroes.

But he has no powers beyond invulnerability. He's overweight, and not particularly strong, bright, or fast.

After a few weeks of trying all sorts of things to see if he can fit in, find a hero role, they send him home.

Just because he can't be hurt dosen't mean he was useful.


-karma

Actually, just had this joke during a discussion about the upcoming Campaign, where I was describing how "Lone Star" was no longer as racist as it once was.

"See, we now have a Troll doing more than Janitorial work! We have one on the SWAT team! His codename is Shield!"

"Because you put him up front and let him absorb bullets like a shield."

"... Uh, no. No. Because he has a Shield, you know, a Badge. Yeah."

I did address the troll grappler being the only real counter to the troll body whore. Its right up there, and I mentioned that its a poor move as it supports the 'uncontrollable giant troll problem' more then anything.
And its kinda lame to throw that kine heavy stuff up against your PCs without good reason. Muscle Augmentation or Replacement 4 are both availability 20 items. If I am going to throw something that heavy it is certainly not going to be wasted on such an obvious beat stick.

ArkonC, what exactly are you asking me to do?
Find you a way to make a troll with a maxed out body from chargen?
And do it without... spells, drugs, or adept powers? What?
I am under the assumption that Bone Density Augmentation would add it's rating for the purposes of overcoming grapple tests. Then again I am the kind of asshole that remembers that kind of thing when a character hits deep water as well.

So I suppose if you cut out all of the options listed above (And I am not understanding why these options are for some reason no longer options) and ask me to increase your Body attribute for the purposes of a grapple I can only cry your pardon. But I don't see how this really proves, supports, or helps any kind of argument unless of course you play in some strange drug free magic-less campaign.

Now, if for some reason you could lift your embargo on magic, drugs, and adept powers I could easily accomplish and exceed the little benchmark we set.

If I wanted to make an uber tank troll I would do it with magic. The possession tradition with mutation spirits being the premiere method of boosting a single stat beyond all comprehension, after of course you boost it a few points with the enhanced body spell (I know, I know, it would be like a force 12 spell, but after you take all those combat drugs you are not going to be worrying about stun damage for a while ). Under that template I could easily crank out a 'natural' body of 30.

Samba asked for suggestions on how to challenge the damage-absorbing troll. I gave a suggestion. I made no claims as to the realism or logic of the suggestion. It's just one possible way to do it by the rules.



Bone density augmentation does not help in subdual combat. See SR4, page 338:



This cyberware only increases your Body for purposes of damage resistance tests. It also helps you deal better unarmed combat damage. That's it.

I'm asking you to not ask for proof after cutting my proof out of your quote...

All right, you said a maxed out body of 15-16...
The reason I exclude adept powers is simple, adepts are a very small minority...
Why did I leave spells out? See statement right above this one...
Why did I exclude pumping drugs all the time? Drugs are bad, and while some characters use them sometimes, no one uses them all the time since burnout costs essence...

Now, instead of cutting out my proof, and the asking for proof, why didn't you just say there was no way to reach bod 15-16?

So having sturdier bones makes you harder to grapple?
Explain?

I excluded them because they are only available to a small minority or are character ruining...

It's not an embargo...

All right, while you're at it, prove this one too... 30? Seeing as how the highest augmented maximum possible is 18...

So to restate, I give my proof, you cut it out and then ask for my proof... That sort of rubbed me the wrong way...
You made it sound like 15-16 body was easy to get, which, unless you counter my proof, I will keep assuming it isn't...

What, those superheroes who rejected him are crazy! Having one invulnerable team member is always useful because you can use that fellow to draw fire. Just give the kid a rifle and put him on point. You could also assign him as a bodyguard for the most vulnerable team member; his job is to dive in front of attacks directed at the most vulnerable team member. Anything that results in less attacks directed at the vulnerable members of your team is helpful.

The addition of a possessing or inhabiting spirit's force to the host's stats is not an augmentation. It is considered a racial bonus. In other words, if a character is possessed then his maximum augmented stat is (racemax + force)*1.5.

It should be noted, however, that the Mutation power is limited to toxics, which are far too ill-defined to be used as anything but a Threat without serious house-ruling.



These are the same people who cut off part of a girl's arm because she panicked when they put her in a room with a guy who had the power to become anyone's worst fear without the slightet bit of preparation or warning.

I'm hoping we get those houserules set so that when my Wiccan goes toxic I can still play it

So you're just making the general point that they're an unreasonable group of superheroes? Because if the point is that they're basically mean that wouldn't affect the logic behind using an invulnerable fat kid to draw fire from the rest of the team. Unless what they really wanted to do as their long term goal was to tempt the kid with the promise of companionship and belonging only to snatch it all away and send him home at the last minute.

Makes for a great super-villain years later(A-La that guy from" The Impossibles" )

No, the point is that they're stupid incredibly and have unreasonably high standards.

To clarify, there was a number of teenage recruits observing this live-fire exercise from a point on the exercise field directly behind the girl's opponent , the girl having an absurdly powerful alien energy cannon on her arm. When the fear guy becomes her worst fear, she panic-fires without even looking at him, and misses. Given where the other recruits were standing a missed shot had no where to go but into them and vaporized a large chunk of the recruit's head, which anyone who knows anything about live fire training would know is a likely result of putting observers in the field of fire. Now, despite the fact that anyone would panic in that situation and the fact that her weapon is so absurdly powerful that she can take out anything that isn't totally invulnerable with a single shot, they send her home but not before cutting the cannon off of her arm.
They try to graft the arm cannon to other people, but the results are always disastrous. Rather than bringing back the only person who can actually use the weapon they decide that it is a good idea to graft it to a clone of the dead guy (created to cover up his death). The grafting process drives the clone insane, which wasn't unexpected given the other test subjects, and this leads him to brutally murder several people in an attempt to get revenge for the original's death.

Which can all be summed up with "It's Marvel, lately, so everyone's a fucking moron."

The problem with Butterball is that he's invlunerable, and physically out of shape.

He's not going to dive in front of fire. He's too clumsy, and aside from that he's just not fast enough because he's a 250+ pound fatass who'd only start to lose weight if they put him on a starvation diet for two or three years. He just wouldn't keep up in a fight. Or getting to the fight.

But when villains attack the group, one of them tries to use him as a hostage. The heroes see this, smile, and blast the shit out of them. Butterball is unscathed. The villain is not.

They tell him he has a great future in SAR or some sort of hostile environmental survival. But he's not going to be a hero. Which is kind of weird when you look at the epilogue of last issue with Cloud 9 doing ... SAR. But, eh.

Anyway, it ends with him happy as a clam that he even got to go. It's not a bad situation.

Oh, and the bad stuff involving Armory and Trauma and MVP was Gyrich's fault, and he was fired at the end of last issue.

At the very least you could make him wear straps and give him as a "human shield" to some superhero who has superstrength but doesn't necessarily have invulnerability.

Awesome.
For the 'Proof' part, I never asked you for proof. I saw an emotion pointing a stick at a chalk board and thought 'That one looks nice'. Don't get all hurt, man, when it comes down to it nothing I or anything anyone else says matters as your own opinion shapes your reality. The world cannot define you in any lesser terms then you accept yourself.

I suppose that should involve an apology on my part somewhere, as my offense was unintentional.

My 15-16 quote came from a casual glance at racial Maximums and my knowledge of making broken characters. 15 or 16 seemed like safe ground. As for magic/adept powers/drugs to be rare or character ruining... Who do you play with, man? Shadow runners are rare too, but every character playing plays one of those guys.

And drugs character ruining? Not with the friendly neighbor hood shaman helping you out with those lovely detox spells to cope with the after effects, right before they kick in
K-10 seems to be the only character killer I've seen. But boy do you go down swinging...

Wanna know how to get 30 body? I'll tell you how. Start out with 10, as that seems to be the popular number lately. Do a line of Nitro. Fuck yeah that shit burns so GOOD! Cast yourself a force 11 Improved Body spell (Fetished and tailored to only be self effective to minimize drain) spend a point of edge and get an easy 6 sucesses. Have a spirit assist in the casting if you are really lame or unlucky. So we got to body 16 (Racial max) pretty easily. Take yourself a dose of Psyche so you can concentrate on it better, cut the -2 in half to a -1 penalty for sustaining the spell. Do another line of Nitro FUCK YEAH I can't get ENOUGH of this shit!!!! Munch down some Red Mescaline and maybe have a drink of water. Then you walk your happy ass down to the store and buy a copy of Street Magic. Take it home, read it, come to the realization that your tradition is, and always was the possessive sort. Summon yourself up a force 8 Mutation spirit. Praise it in all it's glory and wonder. Suggested lines: "My life for you.", "Shemhamphorasch!!", all that good stuff. Then have it possess you, and mutate your body to greater heights with 'Mutagen' for an additional 8 points to divide however you like among your physical stats, but we will stick with body for the sake of this argument. This would bring us up to the grand total of Body 32, but I cheated and used a point of edge on the initial spell. If you were smart and purchased certain qualities that endear mutation spirits to you he (it) might actually do most of what you want him to while he is in your body and you are astrally projecting, along for the ride, pretty much just sustaining all the spells you have cast on yourself and screaming orders at your pimped out meat.

And I know Mutation Spirits fall under Toxic, but they are really just about self improvement. Other then their game breaking abilities, I could make a fair to awesome argument on why they are more stable then any rat or coyote shaman.

Whats that? Cap stops at 27 for force 8 spirits? Damn!!
Mrrrr... Genetic Infusions and Qualities could make it 30.

And on the bright side I guess you can dump the other points into Strength or Agility or Prehensile Fang Penis or whatever else you wanted...

you've watched waayy too much hentai . .

Or get him to bulk up and be a club/throwing weapon for a superstrong character... Train him in EOD. Run him through the Mutation Machine a few times...

Naw, man. Some stuff you only need to see once.

Yeah, tell me about it.

My first anime experience was going to see Legend of the Overfiend. A bunch of us were sitting around one night, trying to to decide what to do and one guy says, "Hey, there's this anime movie playing at a local theater that's going to be closing soon. What to go check it out?"
"What's anime," I asked.
"Japanese cartoons. They're pretty awesome," he replied.
"Oh, cool," I said.

...Some things you can't un-see.

-paws

bwahahahaahahaaaaa!
he got you to watch what many consider to be the tubgirl of anime *g*
and as an anime-virgin no less . . that's one hell of a rick-roll buddy ^^

I'm remembering this one invulnerable character from the comic series, Rising Stars, the guy was invulnerable but not strong. Being invulnerable due to some sort of force shield over his skin which also meant he can't feel anything. His only pleasure was food/taste. In the end, he couldn't be a football player, his attempts at commercials/acting didn't pan out, etc. In the end, he gets killed by someone overpowering him, tying him up and sticking a bag over his head, killing him.

Hmmm... the EOD/meat shield angle, I like it.

Yeah... great. I got overfiend rolled. Wheeeeeeee!

Its really okay though because I paid him back at every opportunity for the next few years. Like the time I was having a party and switched the real wine he was drinking for the non-alcoholic stuff we'd bought for the underage folks. I wanted to see if he'd play up getting drunk... which he did. Calling him out on that was fun.

Despite my initial trauma, I did become a fan of anime after watching some good stuff.

-paws

sadly, or maybe thankfully, most of the best stuff do not get translated. and what gets translated is all to often butchered to hell...

Sympathetic detonation. If one won't work, a bag o' explosives might make him cringe.

heh, true. just pile on the kilos

I don't know if this was mentioned in the dead thread, but having run my share of brick trolls, the answer is always narcoject or neurostun. The gas grenade option takes care of those pesky invisible invincible trolls with no muss or fuss!! One physical adept corpcop with astral perception and an Ares Supersquirt 3 with neurostun loaded would fix his wagon. But why stop there? Forgetting about water elementals (engulf him, please), why not load something FUN into the squirt, like a Zen/Bliss combo. While the Bricktroll is tripping BALLS, the corpcops can use him as a target dummy for stick and shock rounds (or the real thing), or write something offensive on his forehead with permanent marker.

If the location is inside, then yes, gas still works just fine. Of course, full auto with a minigun on wide will also make him feel pretty normal as well.

close only counts in horse shoes and hand grenades *yuck,hyuck*

And Thermonuclear Weapons, as the Chicago Containment Zone pointed out.

Oh... Wait, no it didn't.