Valiant Views: X-O Manowar
4 months ago
– Sat, Feb 17, 2024 at 09:10:45 AM
Hey there, Heroes!
You may have noticed that we updated the free Valiant Adventures Quickstart yesterday! The Quickstart adventure now includes all six of these preview characters, as well as an alternate introduction to the story so you can use them instead of our original pregen characters, if you'd prefer.
While the Valiant Adventures Quickstart gives you a feel for what it is like to play a tabletop RPG set in the Valiant Universe, due to space limits it doesn’t provide character creation info or a deeper look at some of the signature Valiant characters. In this preview, we look at Valiant’s armored powerhouse, X-O Manowar!
Aric of Dacia was a Visigoth warrior, abducted by the alien Vine, who led a slave revolt and bonded with the sacred Armor Shanhara, a Vine relic. So it’s no surprise that Aric is above-average in his physical Abilities and has formidable Fighting, having mastered most forms of close combat in his time.
His Powers are all tied up in the Shanhara armor, granting him Enhanced Strength and Toughness. The armor is Impervious to low-Rank attacks, including most common earthly weapons like guns. It takes a heavy weapon to even scratch X-O, as Earth’s armed forces learned. Even then, the armor helps Aric recover from lethal damage in minutes. X-O can fly at high speeds and even cross interstellar distances outside of an atmosphere, plus Shanhara grants him a suite of sensors and the ability to understand earthly and alien languages alike.
While Aric can be deprived of his armor, when he takes it off, Shanhara is bonded to him and comes at his call, if possible. It takes great effort to separate X-O from his armor, as many foes have learned.
X-O doesn’t have a lot of skills: Aric was and is a warrior first and foremost, relying on his Fighting more than anything else. He has knowledge of History and Military tactics and operations, he’s athletic, perceptive, and intimidating, and not much else. He has learned some leadership skills, reflected in his Advantages, but still falls back on mostly untrained Presence Checks when it comes to social skills beyond threatening people.
Speaking of Advantages, no surprise that most of the Manowar’s are combat-related. His Counterattack makes it potentially dangerous for a foe to face him in close combat (if you come for the king, you’d best not miss!), the same with his Opportunity Attack. Takedown and Menacing Attack are an effective combo to take out minions and cow the rest with an Overwhelm reaction. His Tactical Advance Advantage makes X-O dangerous as the leader of a force, since his success can allow them to move more quickly to attack their foes at his command.
Shanhara’s occasional comments and advice tend to be limited to X-O’s Senses Powers and spending a Hero Point for Insight, in which case the GM might use Shanhara as a means to offer the Manowar suggestions. Aric’s Complications note that he is a man of honor, but one from an archaic time long past, still trying to do what he sees as good with the tremendous power he has been given.
Steve Kenson
Valiant Views: Shadowman
4 months ago
– Fri, Feb 16, 2024 at 09:01:35 AM
Hey there, Heroes!
Just one more left in our series of Valiant Views. Here's Steve with a look at Shadowman!
While the Valiant Adventures Quickstart gives you a feel for what it is like to play a tabletop RPG set in the Valiant Universe, due to space limits it doesn’t provide character creation info or a deeper look at some of the signature Valiant characters. In this preview, we look at Valiant’s mystical defender of the Deadside, Shadowman.
Along with Doctor Mirage, Shadowman is our other mystical character, perhaps the one most central to the Valiant Universe’s mystic upheavals. Overall, Shadowman’s Abilities are impressive, but largely because Jack Boniface is bonded with the Shadow Loa: giving him a list of Enhanced Abilites included in those Ranks. The Shadow Loa also makes Shadowman tougher, faster to heal, and essentially unkillable except through mystic means.
Shadowman’s other powers involve his Shadow Scythe, his signature weapon, which is effective against spirits and other creatures of the Deadside and a weapon he can swing in an arc to Multiattack. He also has a considerable Necromancy Array, particularly his power to summon darkness, travel to and from the Deadside, and to Command the Dead and the creatures of the Deadside when necessary. Extra Effort for some power stunts can add other Necromatic Effects to Shadowman’s Array temporarily, but he tends to rely on his physical prowess more than those powers anyway.
Jack has Undead as a Favored Foe Advantage, giving him an additional edge. He has some Combat Advantages, notably Menacing Attack, which lets him Intimidate after felling a foe, especially useful against groups of minions. He also has Leadership, more in the area of helping allies like the Abettors to shake off Conditions, and Fallen Inspiration, which lets him do the same even when he’s taken out of a fight!
His Skills rely fairly heavily on Intimidation and Occult, although his Expertise in History (he started out as a museum curator in New Orleans) comes in handy sometimes. It’s notable that Shadowman is a more effective close combatant, with slightly lower Defense against ranged attacks and no real ranged attacks of his own, unless he does a power stunt or throws something. He prefers to get right up into the fight whenever possible.
Shadowman’s Responsibility Complication is often at-odds with his Isolated Complication: He wants to do good and help others, but at the same time feels like he has to go it alone, making it hard for people to help him, as Alyssa and the other Abettors and his sometime allies will attest.
Steve Kenson
Valiant Views: Ninjak
4 months ago
– Thu, Feb 15, 2024 at 09:37:28 AM
Hey there, Heroes!
We've got some even more news coming soon regarding these preview characters and the Quickstart! Stay tuned!
But for now, we've got Valiant's signature ninja coming in fast. Who's up for a little Ninjak?
Take it away, Steve!
While the Valiant Adventures Quickstart gives you a feel for what it is like to play a tabletop RPG set in the Valiant Universe, due to space limits it doesn’t provide character creation info or a deeper look at some of the signature Valiant characters. In this preview, we look at Valiant’s ultimate secret agent and super-spy, Ninjak.
Ninjak is a prime example of a “normal human” who, well, isn’t in that some of his abilities (Agility, Dexterity, and Intellect) are above the “normal human” limit that hovers around Rank 6 and his Fighting Ability is truly superhuman at 14, but then Ninjak is one of the best all-around combatants in the Valiant Universe. He relies on that high Attack Bonus because his Damage output is relatively low for his Power Level, meaning Ninjak is going to Power Attack when he can against lower Defense targets (if he’s not using his Gadgets Advantage to simply plant a bomb on them…).
Ninjak’s “powers” are all Devices, particularly built into his uniform. In particular, his Enhanced Armor Mode is a good example of Power Level trade-offs: It exchanges upping his Toughness (Protection) at a reduction in his Dodge and Parry, keeping his Power Level the same, but recognizing situations where Ninjak needs greater Toughness while still maintaining quite high Defense Class against attacks.
He has a formidable set of Equipment, including a variety of weapons, all cutting-edge tech, but not so advanced they count as Devices.
Ninjak was the true test for the layout of the Advantages section! He has a lot of them. Notable is his Gadgets Advantage, a new one in Valiant Adventures that lets him come up with his signature “I have a device for that” move in the comics. He’s naturally got the Assessment, Connected, and Well-Informed Advantages for intelligence gathering, along with a lot of Combat Advantages reflecting his training, cunning, and skill. Of note are new Valiant Adventures Advantages like Exploit Momentum, Opportunity Attack, Riposte, Sleeper Hold, and Split Attack. The first three make use of the addition of a once per Turn Reaction option, letting Ninjak respond to things his opponents are doing. The other two are a revision of the old Chokehold Advantage and an Advantage version of the Split Effect Modifier, allowing him to make two smaller attacks in place of a larger one.
Ninjak is also a Skill monster, adding to his already formidable Abilities in all of the ninja- and espionage-related Skills. In particular, his Skill Mastery in Stealth lets Ninjak routinely disappear and conceal himself under most circumstances unless dealing with an opponent with Senses Effects that allow them to detect him (as X-O Manowar did in their initial encounters).
Steve Kenson
Final Week, New Social Goals
5 months ago
– Wed, Feb 14, 2024 at 03:31:26 PM
Hello Heroes!
We are into the final week of the Valiant Adventures RPG crowdfunder, so it’s time to superpower this Kickstarter. To that end, we have created a new set of social goals for the campaign. These are keyed off social media shares and the total number of backers. You help us spread the word and your pledge gets better. Win, win! Here are the new goals:
If we hit 450 Reward Tier Backers*, dust jackets for both the Valiant Adventures Hero’s Handbook and Worlds of Valiant will unlock at $50,000. You will get to vote on the design of each dust jacket, choosing one of three designs for each book.
If we hit 550 Reward Tier Backers, all backers will get a free month of access to the new Atomic Think Tank on Mighty Networks, which we are getting ready to launch. We're building the Atomic Think Tank to be THE place to connect with the Green Ronin Publishing community, the team, and exclusive insider events and activities for your favorite Green Ronin Publishing titles! When this goal is unlocked, it means that every backer gets a VIP early-access subscription for one month, FREE! No credit card, no mess, just an all-access pass to secret playtests, Dev chats, exclusive member-only campaign tools and supplements, plus you get to hang out with heroes like you—a table of friends awaits, all we're missing is you!
If we hit 650 Reward Tier Backers, all backers will get free three months access to the Atomic Think Tank.
If you heroes help us with 200 Social Media Shares, the free 32-page adventure stretch goal will unlock at $60,000. Here are the links to share.
To the Kickstarter page: http://greenron.in/KickstartValiantAdventures
To the campaign video on YouTube: http://greenron.in/ValiantAdventures
Remember that in addition to the books themselves, we’re also offering great add-ons like Hero Point Tokens from Campaign Coins, a Valiant Adventures playmat, Condition Cards, Player and GM Journals, and more. In previous crowdfunders we’ve run, we might have done some of these as stretch goals, but we wanted all the coolness available from day 1 of the Kickstarter.
Thanks so much for your support. Let’s unlock some social goals!
Chris Pramas
Valiant Views: Faith
5 months ago
– Wed, Feb 14, 2024 at 10:18:35 AM
Hey there, Heroes!
We've got a couple more of these previews for you, but we also have some big news coming soon, so stay tuned!
Here's Steve Kenson again for today's Valiant Views.
While the Valiant Adventures Quickstart gives you a feel for what it is like to play a tabletop RPG set in the Valiant Universe, due to space limits it doesn’t provide character creation info or a deeper look at some of the signature Valiant characters. For some additional previews, we’re looking to do just that. This Valiant View is of the high-flyiong Faith.
Faith is our first psiot character, a definite archetype in Valiant Adventures. Psiots are people with the potential for psionic powers, harbingers of the next stage of humanity. However, at this stage, few psiots “activate” and gain powers on their own, and the process of trying to force an activation is both difficult and dangerous, often ending in the subject’s death. Faith Herbert was one of the lucky ones, and she knows it.
So, Faith’s Abilities are overall decent, but not a major element of her character. She’s smart, determined, and personable, and has learned to defend herself a bit, but all-in-all, nothing outside of the normal human range of Ability Ranks.
It’s Faith’s Powers that are the focus of her character sheet. Her psiot ability is a psychokinetic “Companion Field” that allows Faith to levitate herself and other people or things in proximity. She has since learned to extend her Companion Field to both move more distant objects and to create a kind of repulsion field to block or deflect attacks and other sources of harm. Those uses go into an Array, based on what Faith is focusing on at any given moment; her Force Field protects her, while her Shield is a wider and stronger form of protection, but largely immobile since it requires more concentration.
Of particular note is Faith’s Boundless Optimism, giving her a Bonus Die on Will Resistance Checks against certain Effects, a version of the Resistance Power that models Faith’s ability to overcome personal obstacles, along with her Advantages.
Speaking of which, Faith has some Advantages involving the use of her powers in combat, particularly Evasion, Improved Disarm, Interpose (useful for her Force Field and Shield), and Redirect. She has a Benefit for her Secret Identity for the occasions when it has come in handy, such as when Faith was accused of a crime, and related Advantages like Connected and Well-Informed for both her journalist connections and her knowing a lot of other heroes. Lastly, Faith has some interpersonal Advantages: Extraordinary Effort for her unflagging determination, Leadership representing her ability to help other people overcome obstacles, Luck for her ability to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, and a Second Chance Advantage that goes along with resisting attempts to manipulate her or get her to give up.
Faith’s Skills mostly involve her day-to-day training as a journalist and investigator, what she has learned as a hero in the field and, most of all, her boundless knowledge of pop culture and geek subjects, which the GM should find uses for in adventures much like Faith does in the comics. Her Complications mostly revolve around Faith being a good person who wants to do good and inspire other people to be better. She’s a true hero and ray of sunshine.
