The Iron Five — Villain Sheets

Better memory than I have. Was fairly confident about Iron Legacy but I’d never have narrowed it down to Parse killing Spite.

1984 was my freshman year in college, though. Started a hiatus in reading comics that lasted a few years before I came back around 1988. If I’d been living in a fictional universe I’d probably have been reading Wraith and Parse, not so much Legacy or Freedom Five.

Yep, you guessed it, @Chief_Lackey_Rich and @Samantha_The_Demoncat! Those two universe numbers are in fact references to those years. And the remaining three universes’ designations also reference the years in which events in Sentinel Comics occurred.

Universe 84 was referencing 1984, but it wasn’t referencing Parse’s killing of Spite. It was referencing Spite’s killing of Eduardo Lopez and Sarah Scott. But the two events did happen in the same year, so it is a moot point, I suppose.

However, 1984 was said to be the year in which both of those events occurred in in the Multiverse Recap episode (which is what I’m using as my source, because we don’t have The History of Sentinel Comics book yet), but WalkingTarget helpfully points out in his transcript of that episode, that in Editor’s Note #50, we are told that both of those events happen in the ‘90s instead, so we don’t have a reliable year anymore. But I still used the old year, because that’s all I had.

None of the Iron Five are Bullies, and as for their Abilities, well, you’ll just have to wait and see. No spoilers!

And now, here is our third member, the grief-stricken warden — Omni-Bunker!


Omni-Bunker
Alias: Lieutenant Tyler Vance of Universe 76
Approach: Creator
Archetype: Titan

Health: 45 + (:h: × 5)

Powers
Gadgets :d8:
Lightning Calculator :d6:
Omni-Cannon :d8:
Robotics :d10:

Qualities
Conviction :d8:
Insight :d8:
Ranged Combat :d8:
Survivor’s Guilt :d8:
Technology :d10:

Status: Titan’s Challenge
Unchallenged :d12:
[ ] [ ] Expose the Power Core :d10:
[ ] Attack the Power Core :d8:

Abilities

  • Drone Fabrication Unit (A): Use Robotics to create a number of Omni-Bunker Drone minions equal to the value of your Max die. The starting die size for those minions is the same as the size of your Min die.
  • :attack: :hinder: Imprison the Dissidents (A): Attack using Gadgets and use your Max die. The target can either be Hindered equal to your Max+Mid+Min dice, or be unable to take any other actions other than using an Overcome to attempt to escape.
  • :boost: Initiate Upgrade Procedure (A): Boost one of your minions using Gadgets and use your Max die. If it is your only minion, also Boost yourself using your Mid die. If not, Boost each of your other minions using your Min die.
  • Reactive Defense Subsystem (R): When a hero takes a minor twist in the Titan’s challenge, in addition to the chosen twist, also roll your status die and deal that much damage to that hero.
  • :attack: :hinder: Sweeping Omni-Beam (A): Attack using Omni-Cannon against multiple targets. Hinder those targets with your Min die.
  • (U) Adaptive Defensive Subroutine (I): You cannot be damaged by anyone except yourself until your defense shield is destroyed. The defense shield has 40 Health, or can be deactivated with three Overcome successes. If a hero takes a minor twist working on the shield, you can make an Attack as a reaction by rolling your single Omni-Cannon die.
  • (U) Emergency Self-Repair (A): Overcome using Lightning Calculator. Use your Max die. On a success, remove one success from the deactivating challenge. Alternatively, instead of an Overcome, use the Max die to Recover that much of the defense shield’s Health. This ability cannot be used if the defense shield has been completely removed.
  • :overcome: (M) Master of Conquest (I): As long as you are in command of your own forces, automatically succeed at an Overcome involving seizing an area or capturing civilians.

Omni-Bunker
”My fault . . . All my fault! If only I could have stopped it! But I couldn’t . . . and now Maia — and the others — are dead!
— Tyler Vance
Alias: Lieutenant Tyler Vance of Universe 76
Gender: Male
Age: 20s
Height: 5’8”
Eyes: Green
Hair: Brown
Skin: White
Build: Athletic
Costume/Equipment: Tyler Vance most commonly wears street clothes. The Omni-Bunker mecha-machine is a thirty-foot-tall amalgamation of Bunker suit tech and Omnitron tech. It consists of a quadrupedal lower body and a humanoid upper-torso.
Approach: Creator
Archetype: Titan

Biography
In Universe 1, the Freedom Five and Omnitron-X defeated the robotic menace of a rampaging Omnitron-I with no casualties. But in Universe 76, although Omnitron-X did defeat its villainous predecessor, the battle was not without losses. Legacy, Absolute Zero, and the Wraith were slain during the course of the conflict. Wracked with survivor’s guilt, Tyler Vance urged Tachyon to help him build something to stop anything like that from happening again. The two remaining members of the FF, along with Tachyon’s sidekick Unity, integrated the Omnitron tech from the recent battle into the Bunker Suit. Donning the newly-upgraded, massive armor, Lieutenant Vance used its drone-production capabilities to police Megalopolis, preemptively quashing any insurrection. Bunker’s former allies attempted to stand up to him, but were imprisoned by him for their “betrayal.”

Capabilities and Motivations
The Omni-Bunker mech has drone fabrication abilities on par with those of the original Omnitron iteration. Additionally, the Bunker suit’s Omni-Cannon has been heavily upgraded with Omnitron tech, increasing its electro-flux particle-generation dramatically. The Omni-Bunker machine also contains a mobile containment chamber, for Vance to put any rebellious dissenters in.

Upgrades
Like its predecessors, the Omni-Bunker suit has the ability to re-modify it’s defensive plating to become immune to practically any attack.


Editor’s Notes:
Omni-Bunker’s 45 base Health is the second highest of the team, with only Iron Legacy’s 55 being higher. (I’m mentioning this here because I forgot to do it during IL’s post.) I, personally, like that an utterly desperate superhuman is harder to take down than a huge robot, and it also fits with Iron Legacy being the team leader, as well as its most powerful and dangerous member.

I’d like to note that his Lightning Calculator :d6: Quality is also possessed by regular Bunker in the Core Rulebook. (Well, for him, it’s a :d8:, but you know what I mean.) I find this notable because I think that most people assume that Tyler Vance is just some soldier in a big suit, but he’s actually a really smart guy, and using the Bunker suit ain’t as easy as it looks, folks.

For the longest of times, I couldn’t decide which Villainous Masteries to give to Omni-Bunker and Iron Legacy. I knew I wanted them to be Masters of Enforced Order and Conquest, but I couldn’t decide who should get what. As you can now see, I eventually settled on Iron Legacy being a Master of Enforced Order and Omni-Bunker being a Master of Conquest.

Bonus points go to anyone who can guess what the above quote is a homage to.

Next Up: Dr. Meredith Stinson — TachAeon!


[Edit: In Omni-Bunker’s biography, Cosmic Omnitron has been replaced by Omnitron-I. To see why, see this post.]

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I do believe 1976 is Cosmic Omnitron. Knew that one off the top of my head, whereas I had to check my notes (also, iirc the issue where Sara & Edurardo die appears on one of the Spite cards in his RCR update, but I very well could be wrong.)

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It’s Rook City Renegades #6 according to “Collateral Damage” from Enhanced Edition. That could’ve before the Timeline Project, though.

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All Sentinels of the Multiverse cards that predate Definitive Edition also predate the Timeline Project. While OblivAeon shipped after they’d done it (fulfillment started in late July 2018, just before Gen Con that year), the files had gone to the printer at latest early the prior December. The timeline didn’t start to get sorted out until closer to early-January 2018.

They used the issue attributions on the cards as their general guideposts when doing the timeline project, so a lot of it is still roughly accurate, but you can’t rely on any pre-DE card attributions being right.

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Close, but not quite. 1976 was the original Omnitron-I event. Cosmnitron-II debuted in 1984.

So, this creates a bit of a problem. In Omni-Bunker’s above biography, I wrote that the Cosmic Omnitron battle was his universe’s point of divergence, but I gave that universe the year of the original Omnitron event. Thinking back, I can’t actually remember why I originally decided to have Omni-Bunker’s timeline split during the Cosmnitron event. And I want my universe numbers and their divergence points to match, so I’ve decided to retcon Omni-Bunker’s biography so that his timeline diverged during the Omnitron-I battle. I chose this option (instead of retconning his universe’s designation) mainly because the original Omnitron event is more iconic and important to Sentinel Comics than the Cosmnitron fight.

Now, concerning Spite: Spite’s DE Critical Event — which is shown in this update — shows that the Abomination of Desolation miniseries was published in 1994. The Multiverse Recap episode says that Eduardo and Sarah were murdered during the run of Abomination, so I’m then going to assume that they were killed in 1994, rather than 1984, as was originally said in that episode. So, this prompts another retcon: I’m changing the Death-Wraith’s reality’s name to Universe 94.

And now, the speediest member of the Iron Five — TachAeon!


TachAeon
Alias: Doctor Meredith Stinson of Universe 70
Approach: Mastermind
Archetype: Legion

Health: 15 + (:h: × 5)

Powers
Cosmic :d12:
Inventions :d8:
Speed :d10:

Qualities
Deep Space Knowledge :d8:
Finesse :d8:
Fitness :d8:
Power-Mad :d8:
Science :d10:
Technology :d8:

Status: Number of Minions
9+ minions :d4:
5-8 minions :d6:
3-4 minions :d8:
1-2 minions :d10:
0 minions :d12:

Abilities

  • Dangerous Construction (A): Roll your single status die. Deal yourself that much irreducible damage. Create that many :d6: TachAeon Construct minions.
  • Mindless Constructs (I): Whenever multiple TachAeon Construct minions all take the same action against the same target, you must roll all of their dice at the same time and use the lowest rolling die amongst them for each minion’s result on that action.
  • :recover: Returned Sanity (A): Remove any number of TachAeon Construct minions. Roll their dice and Recover that much Health.
  • Unlimited Power (R): Take 1 irreducible damage to reroll your dice pool on your turn or the dice pool of a hero Attacking or Hindering you.
  • :boost: Whispers of OblivAeon (A): Boost yourself using Deep Space Knowledge and use your Max die. Either make that bonus persistent and exclusive, or Boost yourself again using your Min+Mid dice.
  • (U) Energize (A): Choose one group of your minions in the scene. Upgrade all their dice one size (maximum :d12:). (When using this upgrade, TachAeon has 5 additional Health.)
  • :overcome: (M) Master of Mad Science (I): As long as you have access to materials, you can automatically succeed when Overcoming a challenge by using scientific principles and inventions.

TachAeon
“If only there were more of me . . . I could save us! I could protect us all! I just need more . . .”
— Meredith Stinson
Alias: Doctor Meredith Stinson of Universe 70
Gender: Female
Age: 30s
Height: 6’0”
Eyes: Golden, glowing
Hair: Strawberry Blonde
Skin: White
Build: Lithe
Costume/Equipment: Red form-fitting outfit with golden star design on torso, gold-tinted HUD goggles, and high-tech running shoes. Left hand permanently encased in a coating of Oblivion Shard crystal.
Approach: Mastermind
Archetype: Legion

Biography
In Universe 1, an Oblivion Shard crashed near Huntingdon, England. But in Universe 70, that same shard crashed near the city of Megalopolis. It was recovered by the heroic Freedom Five, who placed it in secure containment. Tachyon, scientific genius, studied the crystal’s strange emanations, and found that interacting with it would result in unpredictable, and likely destructive, consequences. So the team simply left it in secure storage. Meredith Stinson, though, was tempted by the prospect of studying the strange object, and performed minor experiments on it in secret. Years later, Earth was invaded by Grand Warlord Voss’s gene-bound armada. With Legacy incapacitated and the heroes of Earth seemingly overrun, a desperate Dr. Stinson quickly constructed a device to channel the shard’s power, and used it against the alien horde. It created energy construct-duplicates of her, which successfully drove the invaders away. But while doing so, the device fused itself permanently with Meredith. The shard-device also created an energy-storm which ravaged the area, and was slowly growing. After the battle, Dr. Stinson continued to experiment with the shard and the storm. The other members of the FF, however, urged her to stop her experiments before they caused more destruction. But she refused, and so was forced to take them out of the equation, for science.

Capabilities and Motivations
TachAeon is just as fast and just as much of a scientific genius as Universe 1 Dr. Stinson. Additionally, this Tachyon wields the phenomenal cosmic power of an Oblivion Shard, which forms a flexible crystalline casing over her left hand. When the shard fused with Dr. Stinson, her mind was flooded with interstellar knowledge. She can use the shard’s power to, among other uses, create glowing, golden duplicates of herself out of pure Singular energy. However, doing so comes with both physical and mental costs. With great power comes great insanity.

Upgrades
TachAeon can, when she needs to, pour extra energy into a group of constructs she has created, making them more durable and powerful.


Editor’s Notes:
TachAeon has the lowest health out of all the Iron Five, with only 15 base health. But she’ll likely make up for that with all the minions she generates.

Speaking of her health, I would imagine that it would bounce up and down like a yo-yo during a fight. Between Dangerous Construction and Returned Sanity, TachAeon can damage herself to create minions, then destroy those minions to heal herself. For each 1 damage she deals herself, she creates 1 :d6: minion. Then she can destroy those minions, roll their dice, and Recover that much health, which would be an average of 3.5 health per minion.

Of course, this is all assuming that the Heroes don’t at all Attack any of those minions between the time that TachAeon creates them and when she destroys them to Recover. She can use Energize to offset that, but :d6: minions are still very fragile, so it seems likely to me that Returned Sanity will only give Tachyon back an amount of health roughy equal to the amount that she expended to create a batch of constructs.

Unrelatedly, TachAeon only has one Ability that actually requires her to build and roll a die pool — Whispers of OblivAeon. All of her other Abilities either don’t require any rolls (Unlimited Power, Energize) or involve rolling something other than a standard die pool (Dangerous Construction, Returned Sanity).

Next Up: Ryan Frost — Zero!

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Even so, she can still get a lot of mileage out her bonuses, and might suffer from penalties. Dangerous Construction’s sole die can still have mods applied to it, although she’d have to be careful about overdoing the mods she channels into it or she could KO herself from the irreducible damage it produces. Returned Sanity’s dice could be modified too - they’re all effect dice in the action - but the potential number of them should makes mods less relevant.

Whispers is one of the better Boost actions in the game, especially if you can find the time to repeat it two or three times and get a +4 P&E mod and multiple temporary ones. With enough Boosts even taking basic actions to throw a big Attack could be worthwhile.

Probably going to need a minion assigned to Defend her since she lacks a strong defensive reaction of her own. She’s still very vulnerable to getting beaten down if the players realize how fragile she is, but if they take time off from minion control to do that and then fall short she’ll just heal it all and wind up ahead of the game with some minions still in play.

Interesting build, I haven’t tried that particular approach/archetype combo yet.

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1970 is Captain Cosmic & Infinitor, also off the top of my head, but I made sure to check my notes.

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What’s your reasoning behind this? I can’t seem to find anything in the rules to support it. As far as I can determine, the rules simply say that mods apply only to effect dice. And they say that effect dice are Powers, Qualities, and Status dice. So, I suppose that Dangerous Construction’s single Status die could actually be modified. It’s not much different in that respect from a reaction that tells you to roll a single Power, Quality, or Status die (except, of course, the obvious fact that it is an action rather than a reaction). Returned Sanity, though, I’m still skeptical of.

Alternatively, if one wanted to get that big bonus real fast, TachAeon could make a squad of minion, then have some or all of those minions Boost her before she uses Whispers of ObilvAeon.

She has Unlimited Power, which lets her reroll an Attacker’s dice pool. Or do you consider that to not be strong? I really haven’t had enough experience with this system to judge so myself.

I usually write the current health of villains down on index cards that I put on the table for the players to see, so the fragility of villains is often open information. Of course, that’s not taking into account abilities.

Yes, that is a nice interaction, isn’t it?

Why, thank you.

Correct! And your prize is another villain sheet!

And now, here is the fifth and final member of the Iron Five — the bitter Zero!


Zero
Alias: Ryan Frost of Universe 58
Approach: Focused
Archetype: Loner

Health: 25 + (:h: × 5)

Powers
Cold :d12:
Vitality :d8:

Qualities
Cold-Hearted :d8:
Criminal Underworld Info :d8:
Ranged Combat :d10:

Status: Other Villains
0 other villains :d10:
1-2 other villains :d8:
3+ other villains :d6:

Abilities

  • :attack: :recover: Bitter Freeze (A): Attack using Cold and use your Max die. Recover Health equal to your Mid+Min dice.
  • :attack: Blizzard Blast (A): Attack one target using Cold. Use your Max die. That target cannot Defend or use reactions against this Attack. Attack multiple other nearby targets using your Min die.
  • :defend: :boost: Clinically Dead (R): Defend against an Attack against only you by rolling your single Vitality die. Boost yourself by the damage reduced.
  • :hinder: :recover: Ice-Storm (A): Hinder multiple targets using Cold. Recover Health equal to the number of targets Hindered this way.
  • :recover: :boost: Man of Ice (R): When Attacked with Cold, recover that amount of Health instead of taking damage. When Hindered with Cold, Boost yourself instead.
  • (U) Sub-Zero Wastes (I): While the scene is in the Green zone, all heroes’ power dice at or above :d8: are reduced one size. In the Yellow zone, all heroes’ power dice at or above :d10: are reduced two die sizes. In the Red zone, all heroes’ power dice are treated as if they are :d4:. Heroes may remove this ability with three Overcome successes. If a hero takes a minor twist, the hero must lose access to a power entirely until this ability is removed. (When using this upgrade, Zero has 10 additional Health.)
  • :overcome: (M) Master of Annihilation (A): If you can cause massive collateral damage without regard for casualties, automatically succeed at an Overcome where a show of overwhelming force can solve the problem.

Zero
“Too cold? Welcome to my life.”
— Ryan Frost
Alias: Ryan Frost of Universe 58
Gender: Male
Age: 40s
Height: 5’7’
Eyes: White
Hair: Ice
Skin: Blueish White
Build: Slight
Costume/Equipment: Covered in a coating of ice and snow.
Approach: Focused
Archetype: Loner

Biography
In Universe 1, the ice man Ryan Frost was revived by Tachyon and later persuaded to join the Freedom Five. But in Universe 58, Ryan Frost was reawakened by scientists working at the Barzakh Wing of the Pike Industrial complex. The Chairman quickly put the frozen elemental to work for his criminal empire by threatening to withhold the cryo-chamber and suit that Frost needed to live. But during one job with the Organization, Ryan and the thugs he was working with were ambushed and defeated by heroic Legacy and the Wraith. Frost was recovered from the fight and brought to a hastily-constructed cryo-chamber built by Tachyon. He was given an offer by the Freedom Five: either fight crime to pay off his cryo-suit, or spend the rest of his (likely infinite) days in a cryo-chamber. Ryan Frost was fed up with others trying to profit from his unique abilities and condition. He snapped, and attacked the heroes. He unleashed the full might of his elemental power, and plunged the Eastern Seaboard into an eternal winter.

Capabilities and Motivations
Zero possesses the same thermokinetic abilities as Universe 1 Ryan Frost. The main difference between their capabilities, however, is that Zero does not wear a cryo-suit to protect himself from the outside world, and — perhaps more importantly — protect the world from him. Because of this, he is always surrounded by an intense aura of cold, and his ability to project that cold is greatly increased.

Upgrades
The sub-zero temperatures that perpetually surround Zero are very debilitating to those that near him. The intense cold makes it difficult for any hero to take action against him.


Editor’s Notes:
For Zero’s :d8: Power, I had to decide between Vitality and Absorption. I eventually settled on Vitality (as you can see) because A) Absorption didn’t really bring anything new to the table, and B) I wanted a way to emphasize that Ryan Frost is, essentially, already dead.

For Zero’s Upgrade, I knew that I wanted it to represent the aura of cold that he is constantly emitting. So I knew that I wanted it to be one of Brainwashing Zone, Power Dampening Field, or Calming Aura. But which one? I fairly quickly eliminated Brainwashing Zone on the grounds that cold does not really inhibit one’s skills. (And the turning-an-incapacitated-hero-into-a-minion bit didn’t fit.)

So, then I chose Calming Aura. But after thinking about it a bit more, it didn’t seem quite right. Locking heroes in the green zone didn’t really feel like immobilizing cold to me. So then I switched his Upgrade to Power Dampening Field, which feels more accurate. That’s what I’ve kept it as. What do all you think?

Oh, also, in case anyone was scratching their head trying to figure out why I gave Zero Criminal Underworld Info, it’s because of his forced employment by the Organization.


Closing

Well, there they are. Villain sheets for the five members of the villainous Iron Five. I hope you’ve enjoyed them. As I said in my opening post, In the incredibly unlikely case that anyone would actually like to use any of these in an issue, you are free to do so. And, of course, I’m still open to answer any questions, and I’d love to hear your comments or feedback.

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1958 is AZ’s first appearance.

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Look at the definition of effect die on page 21. “The effect die is the die that produces the result. This is the Mid die unless you have an ability or there is an effect in play that says otherwise.” It’s kind of unfortunate that they used the singular “die” there, since they go on to mention that you could have multiple effect dice like Max+Min, but I think it’s pretty clear that when an ability tells you to use some die or combination of dice to determine an effect, that die or dice are effect dice.

There are some weirdo abilities that do things like discarding a mod to Defend with the value of that mod, and there I’m not clear if you could apply another mod to that value. It’s not a die as such, but it is filling in for an effect die, so ??? The RAI there eludes me, but RAW is probably “can’t modify that effect” to me. Can’t say I’ve ever seen it come up in play myself.

Boosting is one of the best things minions can do IME, although Mindless Constructs makes it really likely that each given minion will only add a +1 bonus instead of having a decent chance to produce a +2 bonus like non-legion d6 minions would have. Still works, just not quite as efficient.

Not a huge fan of the “take 1 irreducible damage, reroll a dice pool” tricks personally, although they’re useful insurance against rolling fluke results. Unless the Attacker rolled really well Unlimited Power has a fair chance of not changing things much, or worse, watching the reroll produce a better result (well, worse for TachAeon, better for the hero). Might be more effective against Hinders, where seeing a 12+ come up makes rerolling almost always a good idea, and even 8+ isn’t bad odds of the reroll dropping the effect die to 7 or less. For stopping damage, rolling a single die (even a d8) to Defend is probably going to be more reliable in the end.

Those reroll abilities would be amazing if you got to choose which dice to reroll so you could leave a decent die in place while fishing for better, but that’d probably be too strong. Presumably they discovered that during playtesting at some point and that’s why they are what they are.

I usually let the players know health zones, but some of the folks who’ve run for me do it your way. Don’t think I’ve seen anyone keep health status entirely secret. I mostly stick to zones because I’ve noticed exact numbers lead to a bit of slowdown while the players debate about how to most efficiently achieve a KO.

That may be the best ability name ever. :slight_smile:

Makes sense to me. The real tragedy of his situation is that without Creativity (or maybe Banter, or even Cool Under Pressure) this version of Ryan probably isn’t a very good beat poet. :slight_smile:

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I suppose that your reasoning is pretty solid.

I’m almost certain that you can only apply mods to dice, not static numbers like that.

But what about abilities like Untouchable (Shadow Archetype, page #74) or Heroic Interruption (Mobility Red Ability, page #108) that just tell you to “roll a :d4:” or some other non-Power, non-Quality, non-Status die? Can that die be modified?

Oh yeah, I forgot about Mindless Constructs. Well, still, ≈5 minions making a +1 bonus each still adds up to +5, which is pretty good.

Yeah, I can definitely see what you mean.

When I used to GM another RPG (Dungeons & Dragons), I basically kept enemies’ health secret. If players asked about it, I’d say vague things like “It has less than half its maximum health” or “He looks very wounded,” but sometimes I actually gave them pretty accurate percentages. I think next time I might try adopting SCRPG’s Green-Yellow-Red zones.

Thanks. Yeah, I really like that one too. : )

True, I suppose. I’d imagine that, what with being treated like a superpowered asset rather than a human being, he’s not in much of a mood for poetry. Then again, maybe that anguish is the perfect inspiration for poetry. I could see him using Cold-Hearted :d8: for that, however. He channels his suffering into poetry.

Also, I don’t think regular Absolute Zero has any Power that could work well with a poetry roll.

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For the former I think so, by the same “it’s an effect die” reasoning. It’s using a weird predefined single-die pool, but the die is still clearly thr effect.

Heroic Interruption I don’t think so but I can’t point at a rule that says so. There is a die, but it’s more of a cost to using the reaction than the effect of it, which is shunting an entire Attack (including any riders like a “Hinder that target as well”) to any target you like, much like Reactive Field’s static damage reflection (which I think we can agree is unmodifiable). Both of those are unusual abilities that don’t really use a die to determine their effect, although i could see room for argument with HI.

It’s also already a really strong reaction and if you could somehow arrange to lower the d6 you pay for it (which is a lot in Red) it probably breaks something.

Also and tangentially, unless I’m missing it I don’t think the rules ever formally define what “irreducible” means. We probably all understand the intent, but I’m darned if I can find it spelled out anywhere.

Sure, I just meant in SCRPG. This game’s pretty transparent about player information compared to most. Even D&D eventually started officially giving players health status hints with stuff like 4e’s “Bloodied” (ie half HP) status.

Well, having a single d4 in your pool usually only hurts if you’re looking at the Min die. I suppose I might let him get his d10 Intuition for it to represent having a gut feel for what his audience might like. Judging by how thoroughly he trounced Wager Master’s test that one time he must be pretty good at improv poetry. :slight_smile:

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Yep, I’m almost certain that irreducible is never defined. It’s just one of those cases where a word just uses its standard English definition, and doesn’t have a special rule definition. Irreducible damage simply cannot be reduced in any way.

What I take that to mean is that it ignores Defend actions and abilities like Damage Reduction (page #62), but not damage immunity or prevention, as granted by abilities such as Full Defensive (page #109).

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I usually try to look at the intent over phrasing, which is kind of variable. If an ability, action or effect says “reduce damage” it’s clearly not going to work on irreducible damage. You also have Immunity (pg. 57), which just says you take no damage from a give energy/element type, or Techno-Absorb (pg. 64) where you Recover health instead of taking damage. Improved Immunity (pg. 106) is similar- “ignore” rather than “reduce” damage. Those are all probably supposed to work on irreducible damage and don’t use the word “reduce” at all.

But then they do things like Cosmic Ray Absorption (pg. 68) where it specifically tells you to reduce damage to zero and Recover health instead. The ability is probably supposed to work identically to Techno-Absorb, but the different phrasing adds “reduce” and muddles the issue. Energy Immunity (pg. 77) and Energy Alignment (pg. 81) also use “reduce” in their text. Whether that’s a deliberate change and irreducible damage is supposed to cut through those abilities I don’t know - it could just as easily be someone not following the style manual (if there even was one).

If it mattered I’d probably let those abilities work against irreducible damage, but it’s never come up in play. The only cases of actual irreducible damage on heroic abilities I can think of are self-inflicted and don’t involve rolling a die pool that would let you shove in an energy/element power to give it a type.

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There’s Heedless Blast from the Blaster archetype. The odd thing about that one is that it seems obvious that you should combine that with Energy Immunity from the same archetype, but that doesn’t actually work since Energy Immunity requires you to reduce the damage. Best case interpretation, your health is only staying level.

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Oh yeah. How embarrassing, I’ve actually played a character with that ability in the past. That one’s an oddball for using the same die to hurt both enemies and the user, which has some negative synergy with mods. It does seem like it’s intended to be a combo with Energy Immunity and at my table I’d probably treat it as working that way (“reduce” turning into “ignore and heal instead”) but I’d want to playtest it a bit before making that a set in stone house rule. I’ve seen what happens when you do a heal-instead-of-harm combo with Relic’s Harvest Life Force ability and I’m not sure the game needs another one of those.

Heedless Blast would be amazing if bonuses applied to it healed you while simultaneously hurting multiple targets more, so it would be even more of a go-to ability than Havest Life Force.

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So, first I want to say that I love four of the five Iron Five; they’re thematic, interesting mechanically, and fit together into a mean team.

I am unclear as to why Frost is working with any of them, or any of them are working with Frost. The other four members of the team are, to one degree or another, all “I have done a terrible thing in order to theoretically protect and rule my world, and I will join forces with others who understand this to protect and rule every world”, but Frost is portrayed as openly antagonistic to both heroes and the world in general. Why doesn’t Iron Legacy see him as a threat, and why did he choose to join the team?

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Thanks! I’m glad that you think so.

Yeah, I know. Zero’s involvement seems somewhat forced.

What happened was this. When Iron Legacy decided that he wanted to make a team, obviously it had to have alternates of The Wraith, Bunker, Tachyon, and Absolute Zero, he thought. Why, exactly? Well, the obvious meta-reason is just theming/branding, but IL’s reason was never made very clear. Was it just nostalgia for the good ol’ times? Was it because he knew that the five of them worked so well together? Was it because he thought they would make the most powerful team? Was he just a little insane with grief, anger, and frustration at that point? It was probably a little bit of all of the above.

So, after recruiting TachAeon, the Death-Wraith, and Omni-Bunker, Iron Legacy needed his Absolute Zero alternate. So he looked around, and found the Ryan Frost of Universe 58. But this Ryan Frost wanted absolutely nothing to do with any so-called “heroes” or “villains.” He was sick of other people forcing him to do stuff for them. So, he obviously was not interested in joining Iron Legacy’s little group.

But then Iron Legacy said that Frost would be an equal on the team, and that he would be free to do basically whatever he wanted to. And now that this Ryan Frost had developed the power to project a cold aura around himself, and thus did not need a cryo-suit, the Iron Five had no way to force him to do anything. Plus, no one could force him to do things if he had such powerful allies.

And additionally, Iron Legacy told U-58 Ryan Frost that part of the IF’s mission was liberating any peoples who were under tyrannical rule and instead ruling them “benevolently” themselves. (Of course, that’s patently false. It’s true that the team wanted to dispose of any other rulers, but their rulership would be just as dictatorial.)

So, basically, those were all the reasons that U-88 Paul gave Frost for why he should join them. And of course, his natural charisma didn’t hurt either. So Ryan Frost did eventually, hesitantly agree to join the team.

Despite that, Zero was always wary of the other members, and was never as much a part of the team as the rest of them . . .

I hope that helps to answer you question, @FrivYeti.

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