The Pretender
Near the beginning of the campaign, I approached one of my friends, Sam, about joining. Unfortunately, Sam couldn't decide on a character and the setting wasn't to his liking. One of the characters Sam thought about was a take off of the character from the TV series "The Pretender." Sam argued that such a character would have to be 400 points or more to reflect his abilities in the show.
Recently, I had cause to think about this character concept again. Rather than creating the character with a huge amount of points, I think there's a way to do the same concept with a much lower point total.
First of all, let's start with IQ 17 [100 points]. For the purposes of this exercise, we'll leave the other attributes at 10.
For Advantages, Language Talent 2 [4 points], Mathematical Ability [10 points], and Unusual Background [10 points]. This brings the total to 124 points. In a TV/cinematic setting, go with Eidetic Memory as well.
I haven't seen the show enough to sort out the character's Disadvantages, but let's go with a Sense of Duty [-10 points] since TV characters are always helping out strangers in need, and an Enemy (medium group, 9 or less) [-20 points]. Give the character the typical five Quirks and this brings the total to 89 points.
Now we move on to skills. With an IQ 17, 1/2-point in any skill gives a fairly good level. Easy skills are at 16, Average at 15, Hard at 14, and Very Hard at 13. Not bad skill levels. But there's a way to make this character even better. Many skills have an IQ default, and with IQ 17, this character defaults at a good level.
There's more than a few Animal and Artistic skills that default to IQ-5 (skill-12) or IQ-6 (skill-11). Combat skills default to DX, so there's not much there. Many Craft skills default to IQ as well. For Languages, there's no defaults, but with Language Talent 2, the character would get skill-17 in most languages with a 1/2-point investment. Most of the remaining skills, except for Vehicle skills,
have IQ defaults with a few exceptions for Hard, Very Hard, and some specialty skills. By spending 1/2-point on 22 skills (mainly those with no IQ defaults), The Pretender could be copied with little effort and only 100 points.
So there you are, a 100-point mental uber-munchkin. Any GM who would allow such a player in his campaign deserves whatever he gets.
Recently, I had cause to think about this character concept again. Rather than creating the character with a huge amount of points, I think there's a way to do the same concept with a much lower point total.
First of all, let's start with IQ 17 [100 points]. For the purposes of this exercise, we'll leave the other attributes at 10.
For Advantages, Language Talent 2 [4 points], Mathematical Ability [10 points], and Unusual Background [10 points]. This brings the total to 124 points. In a TV/cinematic setting, go with Eidetic Memory as well.
I haven't seen the show enough to sort out the character's Disadvantages, but let's go with a Sense of Duty [-10 points] since TV characters are always helping out strangers in need, and an Enemy (medium group, 9 or less) [-20 points]. Give the character the typical five Quirks and this brings the total to 89 points.
Now we move on to skills. With an IQ 17, 1/2-point in any skill gives a fairly good level. Easy skills are at 16, Average at 15, Hard at 14, and Very Hard at 13. Not bad skill levels. But there's a way to make this character even better. Many skills have an IQ default, and with IQ 17, this character defaults at a good level.
There's more than a few Animal and Artistic skills that default to IQ-5 (skill-12) or IQ-6 (skill-11). Combat skills default to DX, so there's not much there. Many Craft skills default to IQ as well. For Languages, there's no defaults, but with Language Talent 2, the character would get skill-17 in most languages with a 1/2-point investment. Most of the remaining skills, except for Vehicle skills,
have IQ defaults with a few exceptions for Hard, Very Hard, and some specialty skills. By spending 1/2-point on 22 skills (mainly those with no IQ defaults), The Pretender could be copied with little effort and only 100 points.
So there you are, a 100-point mental uber-munchkin. Any GM who would allow such a player in his campaign deserves whatever he gets.
