[Supers] GURPS Unofficial Handbook to the Marvel Universe, Reboot Edition

[Phantasm]

Updated Bucky with her current stats. These updates plus the standard Reflex armor used in superhero uniforms should help keep her alive longer, one of the biggest complaints from when I first posted her almost 8 years ago. (Has it be so long?)

[Phantasm]

BATROC'S BRIGADE

Batroc's Brigade is named after its founder, the costumed mercenary Georges Batroc (see Batroc, Georges). Unlike other similar organizations, none of the members of Batroc's Brigade possess superhuman abilities, although many of them rely on advanced technology.

Batroc hired his first Brigade in a mission to steal Captain America's shield for an undisclosed client who wished to study and possibly duplicate the metal (see Captain America). For this, he hired Boomerang, Machete, and Zaran (see individual entries). This group was successful in their mission, although Captain America later re-acquired the shield from their client, who turned out to be Sin, daughter of the Red Skull, Captain America's greatest WWII adversary (see Sin).

Batroc hired his second Brigade, this time consisting of Porcupine and the Swordsman, when he was hired to face off against the X-Man known as Angel during a social event so his clients could steal a valuable heirloom (see Angel; Porcupine; Swordsman; X-Men). Following this, Batroc dismissed Porcupine in disgust for having violated Batroc's operating code, but told Swordsman he'd be in touch.

Batroc later hired Boomerang, Machete, Zaran, and Matador to organize a raid on Stark Industries' Dallas, Texas, plant while Captain America was visiting (see Matador; Stark Industries).

The most recent version of Batroc's Brigade consisted of Batroc, Boomerang, Zaran, and Swordsman to assist Captain America in taking down the Taskmaster (see Taskmaster).

No doubt the Brigade will be seen together in future endeavors.

Membership Roster
Batroc, Georges – Founder and leader of the Brigade; it wouldn't be Batroc's Brigade without him at the helm.
Boomerang – Boomerang has proven to be one of Batroc's primary allies, being one of the longest-running Brigade members.
Machete – Machete has proven to be one of Batroc's primary allies, being one of the longest-running Brigade members.
Zaran, Maximilian – Zaran has proven to be one of Batroc's primary allies, being one of the longest-running Brigade members.
Porcupine – Hired for a mission involving engaging Angel of the X-Men for a client. Dismissed following the mission for breaking Batroc's code.
Swordsman – Hired for a mission involving engaging Angel of the X-Men for a client, Swordsman was defeated by Angel's girlfriend, Candy Southern. Despite this, he has been kept on retainer by Batroc.
Matador – Hired on a provisional basis, Matador has only occasionally been seen with the Brigade.

[Phantasm]

Updated Captain America's bio page and his stat sheet.

I'm looking forward to comments on this updated build.

[Infornific]

Originally Posted by tbrock1031

Updated Captain America's bio page and his stat sheet.

I'm looking forward to comments on this updated build.

Well hopefully these are helpful comments.

1. Given that this is a Captain America who was never frozen, he's going to be a lot more experienced than the original model. IQ should be higher, if only to reflect accumulated wisdom and knowledge. Ditto for DX - 15 sounds like it reflects just the serum, not decades of experience.

2. He should be equally adept at TLs 6, 7 and 8. Perhaps give him an unusual background to reflect this?

3. Possibly add some disadvantages reflecting alienation? He's seen all his old friends age and die and he is increasingly culturally distant from the world. Incidentally, it would be over 70, not 60 years since he got the super soldier serum. Also, did he get married and/or have kids in all that time?

4. Not that important, but I'd consider giving him style familiarity for Combat Wrestling, Sambo, Krav Maga and other modern military hand to hand systems.

5. I'd give him a Perk letting Elbow Strike default from Boxing rather than buying it from Karate. It makes sense and would give a higher effective skill. It would cost effective to do the same for Kicking, though more of a stretch conceptually.

6. Also, I think comic book Cap can "press" 1200 lbs, not that you're bound by that.

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by Infornific

Well hopefully these are helpful comments.

They are! Some of this stuff I hadn't considered, to be honest.

Originally Posted by Infornific

1. Given that this is a Captain America who was never frozen, he's going to be a lot more experienced than the original model. IQ should be higher, if only to reflect accumulated wisdom and knowledge. Ditto for DX - 15 sounds like it reflects just the serum, not decades of experience.

Hmm... I don't want to put his stats too much higher, to be honest, but you're right about IQ possibly being higher than 11. 12 seem about right? I don't want to give him an IQ higher than that, due to him not really being a "super-brain" like some of my IQ 13+ chars. (although I haven't actually touched on any true "super-brains" yet... MODOK is the first in my queue).

Originally Posted by Infornific

2. He should be equally adept at TLs 6, 7 and 8. Perhaps give him an unusual background to reflect this?

To be honest, I treat half of his Extended Lifespan cost as a UB covering those. (Same with Unaging; half that cost is being adept at the lower technologies, able to use TL-dependent skills from any of the relevant TLs without penalty.)

Originally Posted by Infornific

3. Possibly add some disadvantages reflecting alienation? He's seen all his old friends age and die and he is increasingly culturally distant from the world. Incidentally, it would be over 70, not 60 years since he got the super soldier serum. Also, did he get married and/or have kids in all that time?

Hmm... kids and grandkids for Cap. I hadn't considered that, to be honest. I want to say that he avoided it after a time, but ... hey, maybe he and Peggy actually hooked up after the war. ;) (Also, I wrote the bio back in ... '07? '08? Almost a decade has passed since it was written... damn.)

What disads did you have in mind for his feelings of alienation? It's a good idea, one that fits the character. The new Bucky could be helping him break out of the alienation funk he'd been in for the last few decades.

Originally Posted by Infornific

4. Not that important, but I'd consider giving him style familiarity for Combat Wrestling, Sambo, Krav Maga and other modern military hand to hand systems.

I'm not so sure he kept up to date on his military hand to hand styles, to be honest. I had him traveling all over for a time (maybe after he and Peggy split?), so maybe Sambo and Krav Maga would have been learned. Maybe.

Originally Posted by Infornific

5. I'd give him a Perk letting Elbow Strike default from Boxing rather than buying it from Karate. It makes sense and would give a higher effective skill. It would cost effective to do the same for Kicking, though more of a stretch conceptually.

Hmm... I have him traveling the East after he lost his position, learning eastern martial arts, so that's why I gave him points in Karate and related stuff.

Originally Posted by Infornific

6. Also, I think comic book Cap can "press" 1200 lbs, not that you're bound by that.

Hmm... his '85 OHOTMUDE entry states 800 lbs bench-press for Cap. There's several others in that series that press half a ton that are considered stronger (though not as experienced). Maybe he got stronger in the comics after the later bouts of serum troubles?

[aesir23]

Originally Posted by Infornific

5. I'd give him a Perk letting Elbow Strike default from Boxing rather than buying it from Karate. It makes sense and would give a higher effective skill. It would cost effective to do the same for Kicking, though more of a stretch conceptually.

I'd go the other way entirely: just give him Karate and not Boxing. It doesn't make sense to spend points on two unarmed striking skills.

In my own campaigns I allow characters to spend 2 points to convert Boxing into Karate if they learn kicking. It makes sense that Cap would do this. There's no particular reason to make Cap a punching specialist anyway--at least not from the comics I've read.

This is the approach I took with Batman and Black Canary in my own Super Hero thread (although I'm leaving boxing on Wildcat for the obvious reasons.)

If you want to give him all the advantages of Boxing, give him another perk: Rule Exemption: Karate unaffected by Encumbrance.

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by aesir23

I'd go the other way entirely: just give him Karate and not Boxing. It doesn't make sense to spend points on two unarmed striking skills.

In my own campaigns I allow characters to spend 2 points to convert Boxing into Karate if they learn kicking. It makes sense that Cap would do this. There's no particular reason to make Cap a punching specialist anyway--at least not from the comics I've read.

This is the approach I took with Batman and Black Canary in my own Super Hero thread (although I'm leaving boxing on Wildcat for the obvious reasons.)

If you want to give him all the advantages of Boxing, give him another perk: Rule Exemption: Karate unaffected by Encumbrance.

The main reason I gave him Boxing was historical: he'd have learned it in boot camp and by getting beat up in alleys; bare-knuckle boxing was still fairly big in the '30s. I had him picking up Karate later while traveling the world. (I'm also trying to keep the characters as close to RAW as possible, which calls for a minimum of house rules.)

Boxing also permits Retreats, which Brawling and Karate do not. I like having options. ;) Cap's strong enough that he's fighting mostly unencumbered anyway, even in a full kit.

[aesir23]

Originally Posted by tbrock1031

Boxing also permits Retreats, which Brawling and Karate do not. I like having options. ;)

What do you mean? Karate has the same Retreating Parry bonus as Boxing and fencing weapons, so long as you're unencumbered.

The only advantages Boxing has over Karate is that it doesn't take penalties for encumbrance, and it's Average instead of Hard.

[Culture20]

Regarding Cap and children: a recent story arc (Dimension Z) has left Rogers with an adopted adult son (Ian Zola).

[chandley]

Originally Posted by tbrock1031

Updated Captain America's bio page and his stat sheet.

I'm looking forward to comments on this updated build.

As a vote for rolling up some of his unarmed combat skills, Id like to note that this build is almost painfully unoptimized. I know that isnt going to be super high priority for you, but he has 9 DX based skills at 8 pts +. That is damn near 2 points of DX per level. He has 7 IQ based skills at 8+ and 2 at 4...

So, you could quite easily drop those 7 IQ skills by 1 level and bump IQ to 12 and even save some points. And I would say drop Boxing (but keep the style familiarity) and crank Karate up to Boxing's effective level. Or, possibly even better, just give him Fist!, which could save you from having to enumerate all those techniques as well. Cap is a great fit for Fist! in my opinion, given you have him spending _112_ points on unarmed combat skills. That is Attribute+7 on a wild card skill, and would serve to distinguish his decades of experience and overall well rounded combat from more focused opponents like Batroc. That would also prevent players who play Cap from being so tempted to lower his skills by 3 or 4 levels and buying 3 or 4 points of DX. Putting those points in a Wildcard skill keeps em out of DX basically, which might best serve your goal of keeping his stats from being insane.

Other than the massive skill overlap/temptation to point optimize his DX and IQ both, the build looks good. Skilled enough to really wade in to groups of foes and take em out.