Now that Savage Worlds Adventure Edition is out in full-force, I'm gonna start pushing out some more character builds—back to the basics, right?
And, of course, it's a supers character: so let's get to it.
Name: SST Laboratories Siege Automaton E54, "Bastion"
Race: Omnic
Rank: Seasoned (4 Advances)
Power Level: Street Fighter with Super Karma (35 PP)
Attributes: Agility d6; Smarts d4; Spirit d8; Strength d8; Vigor d10
Pace 6; Parry 4; Toughness 12 (4)
Hindrances: Cannot Speak, Clueless, Loyal, Outsider (Minor), Pacifist (Major)
Edges: Brawler, Common Bond, Fast Healer, The Best There Is (ranged attack)
Skills: Athletics d6, Common Knowledge d4, Electronics d4, Fighting d4, Notice d8, Persuasion d4, Shooting d10, Stealth d4
Super Powers:
- Armor +4 (2): Advance polymer casing.
- Construct (8): +2 to recover from being Shaken; doesn't breathe; immune to disease and poison; ignores one level of Wound penalties.
- Doesn't Eat (1): Nearly-infinite power source.
- Interface (2): Close-range access tool.
- Regeneration (8): Level 5, rolls to heal every round. Limitation (–2, action to use). (Self-repair protocols.)
Modes (Switchable)
- Attack, Ranged (14): Range 24/48/96, Damage 2d8, RoF 3, AP 2, Lethal. Limitation (–1, 35 rounds per reload), Switchable. (Recon Mode SMG.)
with
- Attack, Ranged (10): Range 12/24/48, Damage 2d8, RoF 5, AP 2, Heavy Weapon, Lethal. Limitation (–2, cannot move), Limitation (–2, constantly Vulnerable), Limitation (–1, 300 rounds per reload), Limitation (–1, Min RoF 3). (Sentry Mode Gatling Cannon.)
with
- Attack, Ranged (10): Range 12/24/48, Damage 3d10, RoF 1, AP 10, MBT, Heavy Weapon, Lethal. Limitation (–2, 10 rounds per mission), Limitation (–1, MBT always on), Limitation (–1, takes a level of Fatigue every 5 consecutive rounds in Tank Mode). (Tank Mode Cannon.)
I've actually been brainstorming this particular build for a good long while. Bastion is a super cool character with a really interesting setup: tons of combat potential, but an unwillingness to actually use any of that power. It's actually a character concept I've always wanted to play.
So, how did I figure what he should actually have? Well, Regeneration is a pretty direct translation of his self-repair ability, and Fast Healer helps to reinforce that—even a heavily damaged, 3 Wound Bastion would only need to make an unmodified Vigor roll to heal himself. His Brawler is mostly due to his robotic structure—solid metal hits hard, and I definitely didn't have enough Power Points to give Bastion a melee attack power.
What held me up on completing this build for a long time is how to manage his weapons. I could not for the life of me figure out how to balance Bastion's mobile recon mode with his high RoF sentry mode, and why a Bastion wouldn't want to constantly use his tank mode. However, this is where Adventure Edition comes to the rescue: the Limitations on the sentry mode cannon are numerous, as Bastion can't move and is always Vulnerable—appropriate, since he's a pretty large target—and his cannon has a minimum Rate of Fire of 3, just like the core rules minigun. I also increased the recon gun's range slightly since the weapon is more accurate than the gatling cannon. With all of that in place, as well as a Limitation due to the need to occasionally Reload his weapons allows his two main modes to both be viable choices (appropriate, since ammo expenditure is pretty ).
His tank mode suffers a few similar limitations. The damage is only 3d10 instead of 4d10 (the actual damage of most World War II tank cannons), but has a low ammo count and suffers the same limitation as the new Berserk Edge: every 5 rounds in the mode, Bastion takes a level of Fatigue. Between that and his ammo limitation, Bastions will generally stay in one of their other modes.
Note that I use a slightly different, more balanced cost for ranged attacks. The damage dice increase to d8 by changing the cost of the power from 2/Level to 3/Level, and the damage dice increase to d10 for an additional 1 PP (up-front, not per-level). So a 2d8 attack is 3 points and a 3d10 attack is 7 points.
So, one good question might be why Bastion's weapons are powers instead of gear. This was primarily done to allow for the Switchable Modifier—so, Bastions actually have to completely switch "modes" to use the right weapons.
The last major point is to ask why Bastion is only a Street Fighter, 30 PP hero. The cheeky answer is that all the Overwatch heroes are only 30 PP heroes, but obviously that's not a clear answer since the obvious follow-up is "well why are Overwatch heroes all only 30 PP heroes." That's a fair question, since on the surface, the setting almost sounds like a Four Color-style supers game, but if you actually look at what these characters' powers are, it becomes a bit more clear. You've got:
- An accurate cowboy with a .357 magnum revolver.
- A kind-of-cyborg with shurikens and a "magic" sword.
- A speedster (who might actually be a teleporter) that is slow enough to need a motorcycle to keep up with normal vehicles.
- A pretty smart boi who is also a gorilla.
- A good sniper with a grappling hook.
- A huge guy with a really strong gauntlet punch. And that's it.
And so on—a few actual powers with a lot of fairly mundane gear. Even the most powerful of any of these, Doomfist's gauntlet, can be easily modeled at 15 Power Points, and there's nobody who's in the strength ballpark of above 10 tons (achievable with only 10 PP, some points in natural Strength, and the Brawny Edge)—Doomfist with the gauntlet is able to throw a car and no other character we've seen on the Overwatch roster matches him in that department. Even Mercy's incredible healing abilities can be handled with The Best There Is (healing) and 15 points. So... Street Fighter is actually the best Power Level to model most of the Overwatch cast.
And that's my Bastion build! Hopefully over this summer you'll start to see a lot more posts here for character builds and design stuff (and hopefully on the Savage MCU sister blog as well).
—Donavon
