The Blue Demon

[Bob Schroeck]

If you can "improve" it with things not in 3E at the time it was created, by all means do so.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Mark Skarr]

Just how scary do you want the Blue Demon?

One of the issues we face with the Blue Demon is the issue of scale.

The core scales, from Supers are I, D, C and M.  Each one is, basically, a ten-fold increase to the previous one.  For our IST game, I had my own scale.  I called it I2, but just calling it IST-scale might work. 

I-Scale supers are capped at 15d for innate attacks and DR 50 (amongst other things).  A DR 60, 50 HP creature that regens 1 HP/sec is going to massacre I-scale supers.  They have to roll above average, damage to just hurt it, giving it ample time to heal between attacks.  Rocket attacks, however, would make short work of him.  On the other hand 26d attacks, with wounding modifiers, will, as I said before, massacre I-Scale supers.  If we aim for I-Scale, I’ll probably drop his damage to closer to their damage cap.  After all, he’ll average 41 points through the toughest I-Scale super, and, with wounding modifiers, he could kill an average-ST/HP super in a single blow.

But, a D-Scale super, with attacks capped at 150d and 500 DR would make mince-meat out of the Blue Demon.

My “IST”-scale was capped at 30d for innate attacks and DR 100.  And I mandated a minimum ITR of /3.  An average hit would get 45 points through its DR and make the mighty monster flinch.  However, if the Blue Demon has ITR of /10, an average hit from a 30d attack will do 4 points of damage to it.  Enough to peeve the thing off, but it will take a lot more hits to bring it down.  Its 26d attacks would be, functionally, as effective as the Super’s attacks.  It would be a difficult, annoying, fight for my IST Los Angeles team, but, they would be able to successfully defeat it.  Without casualties, unless DarthViper3k critically fails more rolls . . . but, since he's in Idaho now, that isn't likely to happen.
With a Dodge of 10 (arguably, with it's PD from 3e, it would have a Dodge of 13!), it has a 50% chance to avoid any attack it can see coming.  Against I-Scale supers, that could make the battle unwinnable.  Against IST-scale supers, it would make it longer and harder.

[Last Free Human]

I would agree with Bob that maybe there are some things in 4e that could make it even scarier, especially with the advent of GURPS Horror. I'll need to dig through Horror, but off the top of my head Terror would not be out of place; maybe some armor-piercing enhancements for those claws. I've always imagined the Blue Demon as a force of nature more than anything, the equivalent of the Hulk for inflicting damage (only without the benefit of turning into mild-mannered Bruce Banner at the end of the fight).

I would suggest adding in some supernatural elements geared towards making him scarier, something to truly be feared by even the "hardest" Supers.

In the notes I have for my campaign I've added a bunch of non-canon stuff; a couple of nasty follow-up effects to the claws, Dark Vision, lifebane, enhanced senses, Warp to places where there is folk what need victimizing, there is something in Horror if I recall correctly that makes attempting to read its mind pretty unpleasant for any telepath unlucky enough to try. Again, my goal was to make it crap your pants scary for my players. Think megascale survival horror for Supers.

Just my $0.02. I'll try and go through my pdf of Horror and my BD notes tomorrow to see if anything else jumps out at me to suggest.

Cheers,

M
Michael R. Smith (lastfreehuman@gmail.com)
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[Mark Skarr]

I don't think that Terror is necessary. I gave it Appearance (Horrific). True that doesn't cause fright checks, but, it's appearance would only cause a fright check once, and Terror would cause it hourly.
I could see Dark Vision, and some enhanced senses. Seriously, it's got a Perception of 9. I'd give it a 12, at least.
If you want to ensure that it kills characters in single swipe, then some AP would be added, but, 26d cut/imp attacks are pretty lethal to begin with. I didn't see anything in Horror. But, a version of Terror (only for people who read its mind, -50%) would probably be effective.
ETA:  Derp.  Another calculation error from earlier: It doesn't regenerate 1 hp/second.  It regenerates 5 hp/second!
ETA2:  I decided against giving it any sort of "read your mind" attack and just gave it Resistance (Immunity) to those powers.

[Last Free Human]

Horrifying Window, GURPS Horror 4e, p. 12 was what I was thinking of. Admittedly this is actually an Affliction. Again, YMMV when it comes to designing the Blue Demon. It has always been more of a physical presence than anything. For enhanced senses I would consider for my build of it See Invisible, possibly some flavor of Detect (Souls, Living Beings, etc.). Other ideas that had occurred to me were Obscure (Precognition) to prevent psychics and mystics from accurately predicting where it would strike next and the aforementioned Lifebane. For my money, I would give a level of AP just because sometimes you want a nightmarish powerhouse that is just an ugly bag of overkill.

I'll see if I can coax life out of my copy of GCA long enough this weekend to write something up.

Cheers,

M
Michael R. Smith (lastfreehuman@gmail.com)
GURPS IST Aleph Wordpress (http://istaleph.wordpress.com/)
GURPS IST Aleph Twitter (http://twitter.com/IstAleph/)
Trek This! Wordpress (http://dthiller.wordpress.com/)
My Blog (http://lastfreehuman.wordpress.com/)

[Mark Skarr]

I wouldn't actually worry about GCA. As Bob said it'll never be a PC.

Once we have what Bob wants the basic point-level of the "generic" IST campaign to be, it'll be easy to set the scale and work from that to make a terrifying Blue Demon.

[Bob Schroeck]

Once we have what Bob wants the basic point-level of the "generic" IST campaign to be

For that I actually have to finally internalize 4E. I've had the books since they came out, read through them, and even began statting out Doug -- the notes are still stuck in my copy of the Player's book -- but I never consumed and memorized them whole the way I did 3rd.

I'll put figuring that out at the top of my priorities.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Mark Skarr]

I'm sorry that I keep making it harder on you. Really, I am.

[Shepherd]

Mark Skarr wrote:

---

ETA2:  I decided against giving it any sort of "read your mind" attack and just gave it Resistance (Immunity) to those powers.

The problem with making the Blue Demon outright immune to mental assaults is that it can leave a telepathically focused PC standing around twiddling their thumbs for the entire fight. It is better to offer PCs the chance to do something with the understanding that they're likely to fail than to outright say 'no, you can't.' If you do want to stick with Resistance (Immunity), perhaps you could add some sort of limitation: -?%, only kicks in 1d6 rounds after being subject to the effect. Thus a telepathic super can accomplish something against the Blue Demon, but keeps getting kicked out of its head over and over again. The fact that the thing can be confirmed to have a sentient mind will also play havoc with pacifists.
Also, instead of going with the suggestion regarding giving the Blue Demon all sorts of perceptual advantages, why not give it Detect (things attacking me). You'd probably want to add an enhancement making the Detect attempt reflexive so it doesn't have to keep pausing to activate the ability. Thus, it cannot see an invisible telepath until that telepath tried to mind control it, at which point, the Blue Demon adds a new target to its murder queue.
----------------------------------------------------

"Anyone can be a winner if their definition of victory is flexible enough." - The DM of the Rings XXXV

[Mark Skarr]

While I agree, in a general sense that Immunities aren't fun (run into this with my IST Game at one point and banned them, outright), there is the counterpoint: Not every character will be effective against every enemy.

Also, the Blue Demon, while sentient, is far from sapient. GURPS makes the distinction that many people and games don't. You have to have an IQ of 6+ to be sapient (Character, box, pg 23), and the Blue Demon only has an IQ 4. It isn't sapient. Sure, it can feel pain and has emotions (usually in the "RAWR! CRUSH! KILL! DESTROY! TORTURE!" area), but it isn't sapient. Making it sapient . . . would be bad.

If you didn't read the actual powers, I've only made it immune to three powers: Mind Control (you can't make it do something mentally), Mind Probe (you can't get information from its brain) and Mind Reading (you can't know what its thinking). I didn't make it immune to other mental, or mentally-defined powers. Its Will of 14 simply makes it, potentially, difficult for some Will-based powers to work on it, but it can still be affected. And, as MonkeyFist points out: "Mind Control is one of those powers that, if it works, makes the rest of the party irrelevant. Better to make one character powerless than all but one." Plus, if the Blue Demon could be mind controlled, it would just be a minor nuisance, and not a force of nature. So, psionics with psychic attacks and other abilities, will still be effective against it.

A dedicated mind controller would be in a lot of trouble against the Blue Demon. But, they'd be equally screwed against a robot or a zombie. The more narrow the character's focus, the less effective they will be, over all.

On the other hand, I do like the Detect (Things trying to hurt me, Reflexive). But, I think Dark Vision, or at least some night vision, wouldn't be out of place.

[Bob Schroeck]

Just read through the current version, with the new notes block. Very impressive. And scary.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Mark Skarr]

Decided to put him here, for discussion outside of the Aliens thread.
The Statbox version:The Blue Demon
[table]