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NOTE: Due to the content of this character sheet, spoilers for the Fate franchise follow.

One of the charms of Marvel Heroic Roleplaying is its way of dealing with varying power levels. Its leveling of the playing field translates decently enough to other settings and character; not every story has evenly matched characters, making it otherwise hard to fit them into a RPG. A game can evolve into a massive crossover with various characters from all sorts of media and yet keep its balance.

It’s also tremendously fun to write up datafiles for non-Marvel characters.

Under the cut is a MHRP character datafile for Saber from the Fate franchise, part of Type-Moon‘s Nasuverse. I’ve based her on the version of the character that appears in the Fate storyline in Fate/Stay Night. Her stats should be compatible with normal MHRP parties if your Watcher allows fan-built characters from other media sources and her backstory makes her easy to dump into a party of heroes. I’ve always enjoyed the Matter of Britain from a storytelling perspective and while the idea of a female King Arthur is really silly, it also tickles me.

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The Infinity Gauntlet

The Infinity Gauntlet

The culmination of the Infinity Gems posts is finally here!  Behold the ultimate power of the Infinity Gauntlet!

The Infinity Gauntlet, when used to its full potential, makes its wielder a nigh unstoppable reality shaping god. There are only two known beings with powers greater than the Infinity Gauntlet, the Living Tribunal and the One Above All… and yet, for better or worse, I present to you a power set for the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Game that you could provide to a savvy player who’s collected and controlled the ultimate power of the Infinity Gems.

Further Reading: Infinity Gems on Wikipedia, Infinity Gauntlet on Marvel Database

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The Infinity Gems are a set of near-infinitely powerful artifacts in the Marvel universe.  The red Power Gem gives access to all the power in the universe that ever has, or ever will exist. In addition to the increased toughness that comes with wielding the power gem, its user can also duplicate almost any physical superpower. The Power Gem can boost the effects of the other Infinity Gems, and provide unlimited power to any machine that uses it as a power source.

The Mad Titan Thanos was able to take the Power Gem from the the Champion of the Universe, but its power has since been used by Drax the Destroyer, Thor, She-Hulk and Namor.

The power set provided below will allow you to use the Soul Gem in your Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game.

The Six Infinity GemsFurther Reading: Infinity Gems on WikipediaInfinity Gems on Marvel DatabasePower Gem on Marvel Database
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The Infinity Gems are a set of near-infinitely powerful artifacts in the Marvel universe.  The orange Time Gem makes its master near total control of the past, present and future. Its user can travel through time, stop and start time on a whim, accelerate or stop aging, and trap others in infinite time loops. In conjunction with the other gems, it can allow a person to exist at all points in time simultaneously!

One of the earliest owners of the Time Gem was an Elder of the Universe known as the Gardiner, but it has since been in the hands of Gamora, Namor, Thor and Captain America.

The power set provided below will allow you to use the Time Gem in your Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game.

The Six Infinity GemsFurther Reading: Infinity Gems on WikipediaInfinity Gems on Marvel DatabaseTime Gem on Marvel Database
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The Infinity Gems are a set of near-infinitely powerful artifacts in the Marvel universe.  The yellow Reality Gem grants its user the power to alter cosmological constants and bend the laws of physics to their whim. The Reality Gem can grant wishes, and create new dimensions.

The Reality Gem was stolen from the Collector, an Elder of the Universe, by Thanos the Mad Titan.  Since then it has passed through the hands of both Black Bolt and Mr. Fantastic, among others.

The power set provided below will allow you to use the Reality Gem in your Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game.The Six Infinity Gems

Further Reading: Infinity Gems on WikipediaInfinity Gems on Marvel DatabaseReality Gem on Marvel Database
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The Infinity Gems are a set of near-infinitely powerful artifacts in the Marvel universe.  The green Soul Gem grants its user unparalleled power over the souls of others, but at a price. While the Soul Gem can attack souls with karmic blasts, pierce to their core with the cold light of truth, and trap souls within the pocket universe known as Soul-World, the Soul Gem is a sentient being with a hunger for souls.

The Mad Titan Thanos stole the Soul Gem from the In-Betweener, an Elder of the Universe, and since then it has been used by both Adam Warlock and Doctor Strange, among others.

The power set provided below will allow you to use the Soul Gem in your Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game.

The Six Infinity Gems

Further Reading: Infinity Gems on WikipediaInfinity Gems on Marvel DatabaseSoul Gem on Marvel Database
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My gaming group recently played through the beginning of the new Annihilation event book. I wanted to change up the character I was playing and, having both read Nextwave and received 50 State Initiative recently, decided on Tabitha Smith. A snarky, impulsive young hero who could be translated to space easily enough. Seemed like the perfect answer to me.

Her Datafile, however, is an exercise in “Marvel Heroic Roleplaying in Miniature”. She has a one power set with one power and a tiny amount of specialties at Expert. Tabitha’s Datafile is not completely unique in the system. There are a handful of characters with a similar build; Cyclops, Amadeus Cho and Elixir are also limited to one dice in a single power set. All of their Datafiles look uncomfortably empty compared to the majority of Datafiles in the system. It’s almost like they’re designed to be overlooked by players.

This lead to me considering what place is there in the system for these characters, both in a narrative and gameplay sense, and what’s the best way to get the most out of the characters. It’s easy to write these off as sets for people new to the system since not much thought needs to be put into building a dice pool. On further reflection, they aren’t quite beginner or advanced Datafiles but need to be approached with a slightly different mindset.

I’ll be looking specifically at Tabitha Smith’s Datafile, but many of these ideas apply to the rest of this peculiar group with some adjustments for varying SFXs and limits.

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The Infinity Gems are a set of near-infinitely powerful artifacts in the Marvel universe.  The blue Mind Gem grants its user incredible psionic power, reinforcing any existing psychic abilities they may possess.  Its wielder can to pour through the thoughts and dreams of of others, and form mental bonds that transcend any distance.  In conjunction with the other gems, it can allow access to every mind in the universe at the same time!

The Elder of the Universe known as the Grandmaster was one of the earliest owners of the Mind Gem, since then it has passed through the hands of Moondragon, Professor X, Ms. Marvel and Beast.

The power set provided below will allow you to use the Mind Gem in your Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game.

The Six Infinity GemsFurther Reading: Infinity Gems on WikipediaInfinity Gems on Marvel DatabaseMind Gem on Marvel Database

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The Infinity Gems are a set of near-infinitely powerful artifacts in the Marvel universe.  The purple Space Gem grants its user the powers to travel through and warp space to their whims.  It can alter the space between objects, especially when this contradicts the laws of physics.  In conjunction with the other gems, it can allow a person to exist in all places at once!

One of the earliest owners of the Space Gem was an Elder of the Universe known as the Runner, but it has since been in the hands of Thanos, Pip the Troll (who kept it between his toes), and Iron Man.

The power set provided below will allow you to use the Space Gem in your Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game.

The Six Infinity Gems

Further Reading: Infinity Gems on WikipediaInfinity Gems on Marvel DatabaseSpace Gem on Marvel Database

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There was an interesting topic of discussion over on Margaret Weis’ forums regarding the designer’s decision not to include a trait to represent Intelligence in Marvel Heroic Roleplaying.

To quote Cam Banks, the Design Lead for MHRP, on why Intellect was not included in the game:

I admit to being biased toward the physical in creating power traits.

Almost every power trait is a physical expression of powers, and if not physical, it’s a psychic or magical or energy-based kind of thing. There’s no super powered charisma, either, although there is Mind Control. I went for power traits that covered expressions or effects, and in almost every case Intelligence falls outside of that. Using Senses [for Amadeus Cho’s QUANTUM PROBABILITY AWARENESS power set] may seem like a cheap dodge, but it wasn’t – it’s a way to represent the expression of that kind of hyper-intelligence, much as Strength or Stamina are expressions of a powerful musculature or endocrine system…

He continues later on in the thread:

…I do want to underscore that I don’t consider Senses to be the universal power trait for super smarts. We didn’t give it to Reed, we gave it to Amadeus Cho. I believe it definitely belongs in a Hyper-Intelligence Power Set, but then I believe we should be talking about Power Sets anyway, not power traits. The game wasn’t designed to be about the power traits as standalone elements.

You can do a lot to represent certain uses of intelligence with the Senses power, or the Mimic power with a limit built around technology. Check out Forge in Civil War: X-men, or Amadeus Cho in Civil War: Young Avengers / Runaways for great examples of that.  There is a special place in my heart for the sort of raw brainpower intelligence that an Intellect trait might represent, and in my MHRP games, it would feel totally appropriate.

Luckily for me, Margaret Weis forums user Doc Hydrogen, who also writes for the blog overgeeked came up with a write up for an Intellect power trait that I think is spot on.

Intellect

Intellect may be used in action or reaction dice pools.

Intellect covers reasoning ability and learning. A character with a high Intellect rank tends to be knowledgeable and well-educated.

Enhanced Intellect d8 represents two to three times the normal human intelligence, meaning you’re highly gifted or one of the smartest people in a nation.

Superhuman Intellect d10 indicates as much as ten times the intelligence of a normal human, meaning you’re one of the smartest people in the world or clearly beyond the normal range of human intelligence.

Godlike Intellect d12 indicates your intelligence surpasses even the smartest people in history, possibly bordering on the cosmic.

This is a common superpower, representing everything from mutation-enhanced intelligence to natural born smarts. As with many power traits, it’s often assumed to just work if there’s nothing challenging the hero, or if using Intellect is part of the description of an action (like figuring out the proper trajectory for a flight to take to minimize flight time).

Just as some other traits (Strength, Stamina, Reflexes) represent the raw ability but not necessarily the knowledge to use it, Intellect represents sheer brainpower while Specialties such as Cosmic, Medical, Science, and Tech represent the actual education, knowledge, and contacts represented by diligently studying those subjects.

So, how would I use these new intellect powers for good?  Below I present to you my datafile for Mr. Fantastic / Reed Richards, circa Fantastic Four #570 when he joins the Council of Reeds.

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