@MelonHead Why did you hide your Arena stats?? You were on top!
A few factors, mostly I became disillusioned with the ranking system because there were no appropriate checks and balances in place, it was inconsistent, and therefore meaningless.
Appearance: Short brown hair cut messily with a knife sits around a rounded face of Saxon origin. His eyes are a piercing light blue, and his brow is cut from a scar that prevents hair growth in a small area. His skin is lightly tanned, but otherwise white and course looking as if used to wear. Though his build is relatively athletic, both arms are exceptionally wiry and well-muscled, the right ever so slightly more so than the left.
Availability: 12pm to 12am GMT, unexpected events non-withstanding.
Equipment: Thomas enters the field in a gambeson created from the hide of a demon he slew in one of his many forays into hell. The gambeson covers his upper torso completely, surprisingly light and supple it offers extreme fire resistance to his entire person and a slight resistance to harmful magic and psionic powers, particularly electricity, as the demon's hide is highly resistant. The hide of a demon is unsurprisingly tough, completely bulletproof to low calibre firearms and highly stab resistant. This also includes gloves of the same nature.
Kettle Helmet (and face mask): Thomas wears a Kettle Helmet made of dark steel of a demonic origin, with a face piece that covers everything except for a wide slit for his eyes. The metal is resistant to firearms, slashing and bludgeoning.
Hide Breeches: Thomas used the remaining scraps of hide from the demonic beast he slew to create some nifty trousers, they offer some of the resistances of his gambeson, to a lesser degree.
Leather Boots: Thomas wears boots made from rhino hide, just for variety.
Hunting Quiver: Thomas uses a quiver on his back which mysteriously holds onto the thirty arrows he carries with him until he says otherwise. The quiver was given to him by the Devil when he was chosen as a huntsman, and it protects the arrows inside from wear and tear as well as outright being damaged.
Leather Scabbard: Strapped to his left hip.
Weapons: An Italian Yew warbow as tall as its user. The wood seems worn with age but has not bent, along its back are several runes etched in an infernal language. The runes protect the bow from all but the most extreme damage, the string itself is made from the guts of a demon and is similarly impervious to harm. Its draw weight is 500 pounds.
Arming Sword: 90cm in length, 75cm blade length, double edge, dark steel.
Physical Capabilities:
Strength: 2 tonnes max lifting capacity.
Endurance: Near limitless
Durability: Far beyond human capabilities, the stress his body can withstand is almost ten times that of any ordinary human, more comparable to trying to pierce the hide or break the bone of a rhino. The demonic mark on his right hand pulses periodically, countering psionic attacks on his mind, poison and disease in his body, and similar assaults, though not completely.
Agility: The capacity to react at speeds beyond human comprehension, Thomas can make significant movements in fractions of a millisecond, and his reaction speed peaks at 0.005 of a second. He seems to perceive things in slow motion at will.
Speed: The ability to reach a land speed of eighty mph at a flat sprint while maintaining almost full range of movement and the ability to stop at a dime, 0 – 80 mph in two seconds of acceleration.
Senses: Thomas can perceive anything physically possible for his eyes to focus on, comparable to the seemingly telescopic vision of an eagle, yet he shifts between this enhanced vision and a wide 180 degrees’ peripheral vision at will. His hearing is also particularly acute, as sensitive as a hound’s and with the capacity to separate the sounds he hears and isolate them. His other senses are normal, albeit with the capacity to turn off his pain sensors at will.
Cursed Capabilities:
Thomas Kent was an English archer destined to be slain at the battle of Crecy in the early years of the hundred years’ war. However, the Devil relished the slaughter and decided to spare him, for a price. He was to instead serve the Devil in sowing the seeds of chaos and misfortune across Europe, bringing plague and death to hundreds if not thousands in his time. Furthermore, the Devil contracted him to hunt down good-doers and evil-doers alike and drag them down to hell, and was given some infernal gifts to serve this purpose.
The Gift of Infernal Sight: Thomas’ main ability stems from his exceptional eyes, potent enough in life, they now offer up a multitude of abilities beyond his capacity to see near anything in front of him.
- The Infernal Sight allows Thomas to track enemies through thick cover, unless they employ a particularly powerful form of magical concealment in which case he must first mark them. This works through smoke, rock, stone and most other forms of protection.
- The Infernal Sight protects Thomas’ eyes from attack, a burning aura surrounding them destroys agents that attempt to enter his eyes and they are nearly immune to magical interference, any attempt to manipulate his sight leads to harsh ramifications as the attacker is blocked out by a hideous visage of the Devil himself.
- The Infernal Sight allows Thomas to discern the nature of an attack launched out in the open and learn it's tells upon repeat uses, giving him a few milliseconds of extra warning.
- Finally, the Infernal Sight allows Thomas to track miniscule movements in an opponent’s body to seemingly ‘predict’ where they plan to move, the serpentine manoeuvre is completely useless before the Infernal Sight.
The Gift of the Infernal Mark: Pressed onto Thomas’ right hand, the mark allows the archer to access infernal powers in his weapons, and to magically mark an opponent for tracking and slaying.
- Infernal Marking allows Thomas to cast a fast-moving barrage (800 mps) of magical fragments from his bow that can be blocked by cover but which permeate the air and stick to his target. Once stuck, the fragments allow Thomas the unerring ability to sense his enemy wherever they may go.
- The Infernal Mark can affect any arrow Thomas chooses, causing it to glow with a faint reddish aura. The arrow moves at half the ordinary speed, but while in flight, the arrow will head unerringly towards a target that has been Infernally Marked, any single arrow will make one stark change in trajectory mid-flight to either dart around a counter-measure and return to its original trajectory or hit a dodging target.
- The Infernal Mark is used to access demonic powers and wildly transform his weapons, predominantly his arming sword and the arrows he fires from his warbow.
- Finally, the infernal mark allows Thomas to create an infernal arrow in his right hand, he can do this three times a fight, the infernal arrow can be used as a lethal stabbing implement which causes extreme burning wounds and causes the very flesh to melt where it hits, or it can be fired from the bow, where they cause a twenty-foot explosion of sticky hellfire akin to napalm in temperature and nature.
The Gift of the Devil’s Wind: The Devil’s Wind is a mobility aid that Thomas uses to traverse the field of battlefield and manoeuvre quickly. It has three main components.
- The Devil’s Wind can be used for short but incredibly quick ‘air dashes’ in any direction up to three times a fight. Akin to teleportation, Thomas will flash and re-appear in a space up to ten feet from where he started facing whatever direction he wishes, he covers the distance at a speed of 2000mph.
- The Devil’s Wind can be used for a sudden ethereal sprint towards any arrow Thomas has already fired, he traverses the ground at three hundred miles per hour with a high resistance to magic and damage while moving as he takes on an ethereal form. He can use this ability to move clean through obstructions, but not people.
- The Devil’s Wind can be used in the form of a sudden backwards jump upon firing the Warbow, which causes Thomas to leap backwards in a similar fashion to his air dash. This has no cap, but it can only be used when firing the bow, and only to move backwards, or backwards at a diagonal, up to ten feet.
Weapon Transformations
Arming Sword: Upon drawing his sword in his right hand, the mark glows and the weapon undergoes a horrifying transformation. Taking on a black steel appearance which constantly drips sizzling blood. Its general size and shape stay the same, but in this form the demonic taint permeating the weapon grows so strong as to be near overwhelming to those sensitive to it. The Weapon constantly drips tainted blood from its length, when swung, this blood sprays out in the same arc as the cut, spraying over anything in front of it and burning with an almost acidic quality that is difficult to resist or do anything about once it touches the body. The blood is known to quickly corrode armour and tear away at the very spirit, weakening those afflicted. Thomas is immune to its effects. The Arming Sword in its demonic form takes on an unholy sharpness and durability so that it can be used to reliably thrust through solid steel or brick up to a thickness of ten inches. The dark taint surrounding the blade wears away slowly at any magical defence the opponent may have. The Dark Sword’s demonic taint makes it resistant to magical interference, it’s difficult to physically move the weapon with powers or technology without Thomas’ permission as it wishes to stick to his hand.
Warbow: Thomas’ bow takes on a wizened and dark visage in his hand, the wood stained seemingly with blood. It becomes near impervious to damage, and the string grooves on either end of the weapon point outward with vicious bone-like protrusions that can turn the weapon into an improvised spiked staff in a pinch, as the bone delights in slicing through metal and flesh. The runes running along the length of the weapon make it deadly to the touch, trying to hold onto the staff will cause an opponent to rapidly wither and age as the point in contact burns from acidic blood. The draw weight is 500 pounds, making it far more difficult to nock than any bow in living history. Arrows propelled by this bow launch at nearly 1700 meters per second at full draw, half that at half draw and so on. The special trait of the bow is its ability to ‘power up’ before a particularly powerful shot, by nocking an arrow the turn before and priming, the bow can store energy and subsequently double its shot speed and energy output for each subsequent turn before unleashing a devastating shot, by doing this, the arrow can seemingly blow clean through cover like an armour piercing round.
Arrows: Any arrow Thomas touches with his right hand may transform into one of three different demonic variants. These arrows have an inherent resistance to outside interference brought about by their demonic taint, which roughly equates to a 50% magic resist.
Infernal Bodkin: Designed for armour piercing, this demonically wizened arrow has a long slender head made from a demonic steel that punches through all but the heaviest and most magically charged armour, it seems to hold its momentum in the shaft, so upon hitting a target it retains most of its energy and speed and unleashes it in a second ‘burst’ not unlike advanced explosive ordinance.
Infernal Broadhead: Designed to create a massive hole, the Infernal Broadhead has a wide cutting head and seeps demonic blood that burns through a target upon impact. The blood works like highly concentrated acid and will continue to pour around the head until the arrow is removed.
Infernal Shatter-head: A unique arrow, the shatter-head is designed for difficult to hit targets. At any point during its flight path Thomas may command it to shatter, causing a blast of metallic fragments and acidic demon blood in a front facing arc in front of the arrow and to either side of the head. The blast of shards is akin to being hit by buckshot.
Skills: Thomas is an advanced tactician, bowman, and swordsman. He understands stalking, stealth, and has a rudimentary understanding of most forms of technology as well, though he still sticks to the bow. He is also a gifted acrobat and climber, and can traverse difficult terrain with ease. His ability to fight without any weapons is less impressive, but he can utilise basic unarmed martial techniques well enough in a pinch.
Well, if nothing else, I've realised that I haven't participated in enough high tier combat to really be able to formulate an opinion on it, so with that in mind I'll enter if you'll have me. Honestly I have no idea if the character I've chosen is in the right power bracket, though.
Also I haven't judged those entrants yet and sign ups is from here to May 1st. Will you be signing up?
I know you haven't judged any entrants, though I think the type of entrants you get are somewhat indicative of the rules laid out, so you can certainly tell some things from entrees alone, I'm still waiting for the moderation to really form any real opinion.
I'll see how you moderate the characters entered, if they slide down to anything near the level of combat I'm comfortable playing at, sure, I'll join.
Since when or in what tournaments do certain character in Street Fighter get banned? I think you're kinda pulling stuff outta some place here. Games like SF, BB, GG, etc. never had to ban characters even if they were op. They might of been cheap yea but that's literally the first time I've ever heard of something like that. Gonna need a source on that.
'Games such as those' is the important part there, if the game is well designed or simplistic enough characters don't have to be banned because the creator's have done their job. If you add in more moving parts, like say, League of Legends, you suddenly need an internal banning system because some characters are outright broken. A better example is how many stages are banned in those sort of tournaments because they favour one player in particular or are too random to ascertain skill.
They don't have weight classes in Street Fighter, Quake, or even break dancing competitions. The most they will have is divisions for different tiered players because of skill gaps. The characters are being examined one at a time. Take this time to sign up to a Yu Gi Oh local tournament and ask for a weight class. They'd probably direct you to formats instead.
Street Fighter is a game designed, at least in part, with balance between all the characters in mind. In tournament play, many characters are often banned from games such as those because they are unbalanced, so I'm not sure I quite understand your point?
Yu-Gi-Oh is also plagued with balance issues, so in tournament play you see a number of cards outright banned, same logic applies, it's in the interest of creating a level playing field in a competitive environment.
I'm not going to question your logic before I've even seen how you intend to measure the character's entered, I'm just saying I'm not surprised that you've reeled in some whoppers, so to speak, so I'll leave this here.
<Snipped quote by MelonHead> If the bout is enjoyable to both parties, what matters if the scale is exactly equal? What does exact equality even mean in a fluid and subjective game like this one, hm?
Generally speaking tournament play is specifically designed to be competitive, so like modern combat sports, it has weight classes. You don't see true equality even in that 'unpowered' level of play, but you like to see characters that at least seem to stand in a similar class of power, so as to determine at least in part who is outright the better fighter, rather than the better character.
@MelonHead Are you basing that opinion on the rules or just the characters posted up thus far? Just out of curiosity.
The characters posted thus far, as I said, I'm interested to see if the host addresses the power levels I'm seeing here and how.
That being said, the rules could probably use tightening if people are entering such a wide range of different scaled characters, but not everyone can come up with air-tight power guides from the outset. Things usually have to be tweaked as they go.
Hmm, fire many times hotter than the sun, impressive.
I must say, my concerns about massive power creep have been well founded thus far, I'm interested to see where the bar on powers is set. So far this is looking like near godly combatants.
LeeRoy
Nytefall
Member
