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View Full Version : Building Alex Mercer (or hey, you can put morphing on your fists!)



Binks
2010-06-03, 01:44 PM
While reading through the 'rules alone logic exploits' thread I noticed someone mention you could put some absurd enhancements on a necklace of natural attacks to get them on your unarmed attacks. This, naturally, got me and my friend chatting and we ended up going through the MiC looking for amusing enhancements. Came across Morphing and I thought 'what would a character who could turn their unarmed attacks into other weapons look like'. The immediate response was, of course, Alex Mercer (http://prototype.wikia.com/wiki/Alex_Mercer) from Prototype.

Might be minor spoilers below, just fair warning.

So here's a thought experiment, how would you build Mercer?

Species-wise he needs to be able to change shape to disguise as someone else. Possible options I've seen would be Doppleganger (which fits nicely, especially the detect thoughts and bluff bonus but suffers from a large LA) or Changeling (no bluff bonus unfortunately, which hurts a bit, but no LA either).

Stats-wise he's probably pumping Str, Dex and Con (not necessarily in that order) while dumping most of the mentals, he's not super intelligent, wise, or charismatic (except when disguised and using bluff). I'd personally say he's using Str > Con > Dex > Wis > Int > Cha but then he needs some way to buff his bluff when he's disguised...

Here's the list of things he really needs to be able to do:

Proficient with his 5 main weapons:
Claws (of some kind...does morphing let you shift your weapon to a natural claw attack? if so then this would be covered already)
Hammerfist (heavy mace? warhammer? greatclub?* not sure on this one.)
Blade (axe or sword probably)
Whipfist (whip obviously)
Musclemass (less a weapon than a power, looks a lot like hulking hurler to me)

So he needs at least martial weapon proficiency (for blade/hammerfist). Ideally proficiency with whips and some kind of damage bonus with natural attacks (for claws).

He's got a lot of hp, so ideally a decent hit die. Skills aren't that important, aside from jump/climb/bluff/disguise he doesn't have much in the way of out of combat skills, and ideally we'd want to get the bluff/disguise from species/feats since his cha is going to be so low.

He needs to be able to replicate his defensive powers, shield and armor. Shield could conceivably be done by simply using the morphing necklace to convert one hand('s unarmed weapon) into a weapon and the other into a shield (depending on how lenient the rules are being read, but bending a rule or two for a character like this is fine IMHO).

Armor's a bit harder...need a simple way to don/create/morph a set of armor onto you, probably mythril full-plate from what it can do (though that's just a guess). Anyone know of an easy way to do this?

'Absorb' people, somehow, to gain health/knowledge/disguises (the last can just be RP). Perhaps another enhancement to his weapons (vampiric or something, though the thought stealing might be hard to replicate without going doppleganger)

So we need a class or other way to get good BaB progression, a good hit die, proficiency with martial and ideally exotic(whip) weapons (though we can just grab a feat for that I suppose), ideally some bonus to natural attacks, car throwing (hulking hurler?) high speed (boots of striding/springing?), regen, darkvision (or some other special vision type, since he can see normally, infrared, and 'infected vision'), ridiculous climb/jump and some kind of gliding among other things.

Something from ToB might work for the base levels (for the spiderwalk stance which negates the need to worry about climb) but I'm not sure what a good progression would be, probably want some hulking hurler later if possible.

So that's what I've come up with so far. Anyone got any ideas of how to pull off all that by, say, level 15-20 or so? Just a thought experiment for some fun.

*What size category are your unarmed attacks? One handed?. If nothing else we can just tack on sizing to the necklace so any weapon goes. That costs him his standard/swift to change weapons, which fits the game nicely (you generally have to be at a distance to swap weapons since it takes a small amount of time, but you can move while doing it).

Revlid
2010-06-03, 02:14 PM
Low Int? Mercer was a super-geneticist before the incident, and is described in his Bio as "frighteningly intelligent". I'd say it's cripplingly low Wis that's his problem.

Greenish
2010-06-03, 02:16 PM
Changeling warshaper? Totemist levels?

SlyGuyMcFly
2010-06-03, 02:17 PM
Mmmm... Strait Psychic Warrior seems to cover almost all the bases.

Refluff Claws of the Beast and Call Weaponry as morphing your arms.

You can pop Claws of the Vampire to get draining attacks, Vigor for extra HP.

Inertial Armour and Thicken Skin can represent the defensive morphs.

Oh and the Up The Walls feat for climbing.

You get Martial proficencies and bonus feats for the EWP.

Cons:
- You'd need high WIS to pull it off.
- Limited PP mean you can't do it all day
- You sorta need a few buffs rounds

Pro:
- You can do it all by level 10ish, and most of it by 4th or so.

Where's one of those 'Psionics: Refluff as needed' motivational posters when you need one?

There are no doubt better ways. Totemist might work better.

Wings of Peace
2010-06-03, 02:57 PM
Seconding Changeling Warshaper


Low Int? Mercer was a super-geneticist before the incident, and is described in his Bio as "frighteningly intelligent". I'd say it's cripplingly low Wis that's his problem.

Personally I'd say it's looking like a meth addict that was his problem.

Siosilvar
2010-06-03, 03:13 PM
Continuing along the Psychic Warrior theme, here's a list of psionic powers (note, I have not played Prototype, so... take it as you will) that could be useful.

Level 1
Claws of the Beast
Hammer (X rounds of touch attacks for a flat 1d8 damage)
Dissipating Touch (Xd6 damage with a touch attack)
Call Weaponry
Inertial Armor aka Psionic Mage Armor
Force Screen aka Psionic Shield
Thicken Skin (which is nice because it's the only enhancement bonus straight to AC that I know of)
Vigor for more HP than your d8 hit die will give you

Level 2
Animal Affinity will give you +4 to any stat
Strength of my Enemy does what it says
Feat Leech

Level 3
Claws of the Vampire

Tome
2010-06-03, 03:38 PM
If you're going to use Psionics taking Ardent instead of Psywar, customising your Mantles via ACF and then dipping a full BAB class might work better.

Dusk Eclipse
2010-06-03, 03:39 PM
I think there is a hombrew specially made for this... black light warper or something like that.

shadow_archmagi
2010-06-03, 05:33 PM
Greater Doppelganger's Consume Identity allows you to eat people and absorb all their abilities.

Dunno how you'd get that on a human though. Hmm.. some sort of magic item?

Binks
2010-06-03, 06:13 PM
Low Int? Mercer was a super-geneticist before the incident, and is described in his Bio as "frighteningly intelligent". I'd say it's cripplingly low Wis that's his problem.

To be honest I said low int as in a 11-12 or so, he just doesn't act very intelligent in the game IMHO. And the semi-build I was working with already had some MAD from needing great STR, good dex and good con, not a lot left for int there, and given his thought process in the game I didn't see any reason to give him great int. It's like how Gordon Freeman is supposedly a super good physicist but you never see any of it and he doesn't do anything besides throwing levers and plugging stuff in. Sure you can stat him out with most of his points in Int, but then making him able to do everything he can do is hard, and that int is never going to be used if he acts the same as he does in the game.


Mmmm... Strait Psychic Warrior seems to cover almost all the bases.

That might work, but the limited PP kind of hurts a bit. Hmm, maybe one of the various 'steal pp' powers would be usable, make it so he absorbs people for their power points to fuel his powers instead of just health, that would work fairly well probably.


Continuing along the Psychic Warrior theme, here's a list of psionic powers (note, I have not played Prototype, so... take it as you will) that could be useful.

Yeah, all of those would work fairly well (dissipating touch not so much). Man if there was some way to make feat leech permanent it would fit so very well (one of the things you can do in prototype is steal soldier's abilities to use their weapons/vehicles/call in artillery, all of which seems pretty feat like to me).


Greater Doppelganger's Consume Identity allows you to eat people and absorb all their abilities.

Dunno how you'd get that on a human though. Hmm.. some sort of magic item?

That is absolutely perfect. Alright, getting that on the build somehow is one of my goals now...just got to find the greater doppelganger's stats in one of the books (I found a little 'here's what it can do' thing with a quick search, no page reference unfortunately).

Alright, so aside from figuring out a rule legal way to get that Consume Identity power it looks like psionic warrior might be the way to go. Do any PrCs jump out as perfect or would you say Psionic Warrior straight?

Psychic Vampire might be nice, though you don't get the PP you drain...Power Leech would be perfectly fitting (beat them unconscious, then drain them of their PP to refuel yourself, then consume them to get their thoughts/identity...it's perfect!) but it's not a warrior power...hmm

I don't know, I just love the idea of using Morphing/Sizing to get the weapons rather than using psionics, especially since it costs nothing to swap back and forth and if there's a difference in damage it's in favor of the necklace, just seems to be a bit better to me.

EDIT: Man...I just keep finding great non-psychic warrior powers for this concept. Would a wilder (better BaB than a psion) be a good class to use for him? Just looking at the powers a psion/wilder can use that a warrior can't:
Assimilate is almost as good as the Greater Doppleganger's SP and fits perfectly (particularly the 'you need to weaken them before you can capture them' aspect). Assimilate + Changeling species would be a +20 disguise for anyone you assimilate right? That would easily let him overcome his low cha to look like someone else for a while.
Aura sight could be infected vision nicely (also psion/wilder)
Overland Flight, psionic would be a nice way to handle his gliding skill, though a bit more powerful.
Power Leech would give him a means of recharging off powerful enemies once they were defeated (though they need at least 25PP left to even, on average, pay for leech itself. KOing an opponent and leeching more than 7PP would let him pay for Assimilate cheaply...)

You probably lose a bunch of good powers too, and a better BaB, but Assimilate is just too tasty to pass up IMHO. The problem is that it's a 9th level power, so not available until level 18 of wilder, and wilder has meh BaB and lacks the proficiencies. Hmm...Wilder 18/Hulking Hurler 2 (using a permanency'd enlarge person to qualify for hurler)? The BaB isn't that great (+16) and he'd only know 10 powers (Force Screen/Vigor for the level 1s, 1 level 2, 1 level 3, 1 level 4, True Seeing, psionic, Overland Flight, psionic, Iron Body, psionic, Assimilate) but the class features are at least marginally related and Assimilate is just too perfect to pass up. Really he either needs Assimilate (ideal), the greater doppleganger SP or something similar to be Alex Mercer, even more than the morphing hands. Interesting...

Sindri
2010-06-04, 01:58 AM
Low Int? Mercer was a super-geneticist before the incident, and is described in his Bio as "frighteningly intelligent". I'd say it's cripplingly low Wis that's his problem.

Spoiler'd for those of you who haven't finished the game but actually care about it:
The Alex Mercer that does the shapeshifting and that you play as during the game isn't the same Alex Mercer that was a genius geneticist. You play through the game as a sentient virus who thinks that it's Alex because that was the first person it absorbed, and thus that's where a few memories came from and who you look like. The original Mercer would be an Expert with Int 18+, but the Mercer you play as never does anything particularly intelligent, and thus would get average or low mental stats.

Alleine
2010-06-04, 03:27 AM
Just for reference you can find the greater doppleganger in Monsters Of Faerun. Technically 3.0 but it did get a 3.5 update so it should be legit.

Glimbur
2010-06-04, 11:29 AM
I think there is a hombrew specially made for this... black light warper or something like that.

You are correct. Here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=121333) it is.

Meta
2010-06-04, 01:08 PM
The blacklight virus learns anything that someone it absorbs knows. That's why Alex by the end of the game is the world's best tank/helicopter driver, weapons master, and definitely the world's most brilliant scientist. And when absorbing abnormal entities he gains further morphs. In a setting like Points of Light DnD he would be absolutely unstoppable, as he should have the Int and Wis stats of whoever he absorbs as he now knows what they did in life. And im going to keep using the pronoun because it's easy even though the virus would be genederless i suppose. Furthermore, he should probably be able to morph traits from different species he absorbs, which would be an amazingly fun character concept to play but so overpowered.

Jyrnn
2010-06-04, 03:36 PM
An alternative to the Changeling Warshaper might be a Zern Warshaper.

Zern are from the MM IV and can alter self at will much like Changelings but have a number of unique racial abilities, a few of which mirror Alex Mercer's combat transformations. The rest of the Prototype abilities could be attained with psionics as others before me have mentioned.

Edit: The monster race was Zern, not Xern. My apologies