Jab's Builds!

[Varedasite Kogasumi]

Hy Jab. I hope you aren't angry - because of the request.
I want to asking: (you) how much playing with Baldurs Gate I and II?
In your opinion: This is best or Icewind Dale, Pillars of Eternity?

[Jabroniville]

WHIPLASH II (Leeann Foreman)
Created By: Erik Larsen, Joe Rubinstein & Terry Kavanah
First Appearance: Marvel Comics Presents #49 (May 1990)
Role: D-League Villain, Weapon User
Group Affiliations: The Femme Fatales, The Band of Baddies
PL 8 (88)
STRENGTH 2 STAMINA 3 AGILITY 3
FIGHTING 8 DEXTERITY 4
INTELLIGENCE 1 AWARENESS 1 PRESENCE 1

Skills:
Acrobatics 4 (+7)
Athletics 4 (+6)
Close Combat (Whip) 1 (+9)
Deception 3 (+4)
Expertise (Criminal) 3 (+4)
Intimidation 4 (+5)
Stealth 2 (+5)
Technology 3 (+4)

Advantages:
Accurate Attack, All-Out Attack, Improved Critical (Whip), Improved Disarm, Improved Trip, Ranged Attack 3

Powers:
"Adamantium-Coiled Whip Gauntlets on Costume" (Flaws: Removable) [10]
Strength-Damage +4 (Feats: Reach 4, Improved Critical, Split) (10)
Protection 2 (2)
-- (12 points)

Offense:
Unarmed +8 (+2 Damage, DC 17)
Whips +9 (+6 Damage, DC 21)
Initiative +3

Defenses:
Dodge +9 (DC 19), Parry +9 (DC 19), Toughness +3 (+5 Costume), Fortitude +5, Will +3

Complications:
Motivation (Greed)

Total: Abilities: 46 / Skills: 24--12 / Advantages: 8 / Powers: 10 / Defenses: 12 (88)

-Whiplash (with a name stolen from an Iron Man villain who was at that point still alive, but on the D-List) is the last member of the Femme Fatales (though she was initially seen in an earlier group, fighting Spider-Man & Wolverine as part of the Band of Baddies), and what a jobber SHE is. She's been in a few background scenes since The Superia Stratagem, but nothing of note- she's just some chick. Astonishingly, she actually uses ADAMANTIUM whips. SERIOUSLY, Adamantium was SO insanely common at this point in the Marvel Universe that even scrubs OTHER scrubs would be too embarrassed to hang around with were toting the stuff. She later teamed up with Orka, Shockwave & Killer Shrike (!?!- that is one WEIRD assemblage of losers!), but were defeated by the mid-2000s Heroes For Hire (so basically, Background Jobbers). And of course, comics being comics, she was soon ignored so that an actual Iron Man character could take on the "Whiplash" legacy.

-Whiplash II is just a Whiplash/Constrictor wannabe with a Whip-gimmick, but she's barely even PL 8 overall. PL 7.5 with the whips, and PL 7 defensively.

[Jabroniville]

Hy Jab. I hope you aren't angry - because of the request.
I want to asking: (you) how much playing with Baldurs Gate I and II?
In your opinion: This is best or Icewind Dale, Pillars of Eternity?

I've never played any of them. The only computer games I think I've ever played (beyond Number Munchers or Oregon Trail, I guess) are MMORPGs like City of Heroes and World of Warcraft. I don't even know what those other things are.

[Jabroniville]

Huh- apparently Rumplestiltskin from Once Upon a Time has the greatest Will Save of all time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2F7WOj4SXxk


Also, some of that epic swordfighting choreography that BatgirlIII loves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce63YK-PJzA (nice Swordfighting shoes, Regina). And the world's most convincing CGI, too.

I swear this is the only show where I combine Hate Watching with Love Watching with "Well, HALF the actors are among the best ones on television, so THAT's something". This show is inexplicable and completely nutty.

[Scots Dragon]

I've never played any of them. The only computer games I think I've ever played (beyond Number Munchers or Oregon Trail, I guess) are MMORPGs like City of Heroes and World of Warcraft. I don't even know what those other things are.

Icewind Dale is a Forgotten Realms game similar to Baldur's Gate and using the same engine, created by their sister-company of sorts, Black Isle. Rather than being story and narrative driven, the game was far more a conventional dungeon crawling hack-and-slash title, albeit still using the heavily strategic and complex system. The most notable difference is that rather than collecting party members who were established characters, you created your own six-person party from the get-go. It also had a sequel which was the last of the Infinity Engine games, and also the only one of the Infinity Engine games to be based off of D&D 3rd edition.

They look like this;


Pillars of Eternity is a more recent game developed by Obsidian Entertainment as a kind of nostalgia-based throwback to the Infinity Engine games, being a pretty high profile case of a game mostly funded through Kickstarter. Unlike the other related titles, it isn't directly based off of any specific Dungeons & Dragons setting, or even off of Dungeons & Dragons rules. It uses an entirely new ruleset and engine and takes place in a far more dark fantasy orientated setting. It's fairly okay, and has a lot of open-endedness and an emphasis on the storybook nature of Baldur's Gate type role-playing games that runs counter to more recent attempts to make role-playing games cinematic, which I appreciate as an avid reader of fantasy novels.

It looks like this;

[Jabroniville]

BLOODLUST (Beatta Dubiel)
Created By: Erik Larsen, Joe Rubinstein & Terry Kavanah
First Appearance: Marvel Comics Presents #48 (April 1990)
Role: D-League Villain, Claw Lady
Group Affiliations: The Femme Fatales, The Band of Baddies (seriously)
PL 8 (100)
STRENGTH 4 STAMINA 5 AGILITY 4
FIGHTING 8 DEXTERITY 2
INTELLIGENCE 0 AWARENESS 1 PRESENCE 0

Skills:
Acrobatics 4 (+8)
Athletics 4 (+8)
Deception 3 (+3)
Expertise (Criminal) 4 (+4)
Intimidation 8 (+8)
Perception 5 (+6)
Stealth 2 (+6)

Advantages:
All-Out Attack, Chokehold, Defensive Roll, Diehard, Fast Grab, Improved Critical (Claws), Improved Initiative, Power Attack, Precise Attack (Close/Concealment), Ranged Attack 2, Startle, Takedown

Powers:
"Fangs & Claws" Strength-Damage +3 (Feats: Split) [4]
Leaping 1 (15 feet) [1]
"Animal Senses" Senses 3 (Low-Light Vision, Acute & Extended Scent) [3]
"Healing Factor" Regeneration 4 [4]

Offense:
Unarmed +8 (+4 Damage, DC 19)
Claws +8 (+7 Damage, DC 22)
Initiative +8

Defenses:
Dodge +9 (DC 19), Parry +10 (DC 20), Toughness +5 (+6 D.Roll), Fortitude +8, Will +3

Complications:
Motivation (Greed)

Total: Abilities: 48 / Skills: 30--15 / Advantages: 13 / Powers: 12 / Defenses: 12 (100)

-The only thing keeping Bloodlust from being the absolute embodiment of the 1990s in comics is the fact that she isn't a hot chick wearing a car seatbelt as a costume. That and the fact that most of Marvel U.K. manages to occupy that classification. But seriously, she's a crazy, clawed, animal-sense-having crazy chick who goes all "STABBY STABBY STABBY!" She was created by Erik Larsen to confound Spider-Man & Wolverine during one of their yearly team-ups (back when Wolvie was only appearing in about FIFTEEN books a month, if you can believe that) in a one-shot, but she was re-used for a later "Femme Fatales" team-up. She was also in The Superia Stratagem, of course, but managed to appear after more than a DECADE away in a Marvel Knights Spider-Man issue, trying to buy the Venom Symbiote at an auction. Crazy stuff- she was confirmed de-powered after M-Day, however, and has never reappeared.

-Bloodlust represents perfectly what Wolverine, Lady Deathstrike & Sabretooth would all look like if they were relatively unskilled and were weaker in every possible way. She's strong as hell, and her Claws are very dangerous, but they still only do +7 damage without Power Attack, and she's not nearly as accurate as most Scrappers, requiring her to go All-Out a lot of the time as well. Some Healing Factor helps her out (Jeez, she's REALLY a Wolverine clone), but she's nothing more than a nuisance to someone on Logan's or Spidey's level.

[Goldar]

Nice Karnilla build.

She is indeed more knowledgeable and powerful than the Enchantress.

I think Karnilla is probably on Loki's level. Loki never seemed to include, beguile or attempt to use her the way he did Doc Strange, Enchantres and others. But he did covet her Norn Stones.

[greycrusader]

Y'know...looking at the "Femme Fatales/Band of Baddies (?!)", I realize that twenty odd years ago, John Byrne had a point: there should have been a moratorium on new characters at Marvel for awhile. I'm sure there were already four female villains who could have been slotted into their roles. Byrne's ideas was that characters could get new costumes, or change appearances, or altered powers, but that there was such a surplus of minor leaguers and jobbers that creating more was unnecessary. While Byrne has dished out a lot of bull in his time, I think he was right on this one.

All my best.

BTW: And yeah, I give Erik Larsen credit for doing inventive character designs-they're only GOOD about half the time (and only if he's actually trying) but at least he doesn't settle for boring.

[Batgirl III]

I've never played any of them. The only computer games I think I've ever played (beyond Number Munchers or Oregon Trail, I guess) are MMORPGs like City of Heroes and World of Warcraft. I don't even know what those other things are.

Planescape: Torment is probably the best D&D CRPG of this era... and a case could be made it is one of the best of any era.

Also, some of that epic swordfighting choreography that BatgirlIII loves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce63YK-PJzA (nice Swordfighting shoes, Regina). And the world's most convincing CGI, too.

Please tell me you were being sarcastic. I haven't seen swordplay so bad on teevee since Buffy fought Angelus at the end of BtVS's second season... At least this one was short, Buffy and Angelus' "flynning contest" lasted for nearly three minutes.

But did my eyes deceive me or did they replace Good Guy Woman's sword with a CGI one when she threw it at Bad Guy Dude?

[Blitz]

Planescape: Torment is probably the best D&D CRPG of this era... and a case could be made it is one of the best of any era.

Verdad.

Please tell me you were being sarcastic. I haven't seen swordplay so bad on teevee since Buffy fought Angelus at the end of BtVS's second season... At least this one was short, Buffy and Angelus' "flynning contest" lasted for nearly three minutes.

When I read his post, it smelled of sarcasm like my father reeks of cheap whiskey and Diet Pepsi. Knowing the series, I didn't bother to watch. The show has a handful of things to recommend it, but choreography...

Just like Buffy, in fact.

But did my eyes deceive me or did they replace Good Guy Woman's sword with a CGI one when she threw it at Bad Guy Dude?

Their effects are nearly as good as their choreography.

Now, if you'll excuse me, my house is sinking again, and I need to get back to manning the buckets. *sigh* Welcome home...