Hero Feature: CC Dodger
CC Dodger is one of our favorite flagship heroes here at BudStuff Games. She’s become a staple for our demos. The character started out as an older male with a baseball themed superpower. Once we got this piece from our illustrator, Max Bare, we decided this was going to be the new CC Dodger.
Her backstory is somewhat mystical. That skull you see in her bat is actually the soul of her grandfather, Biff! She uses the Terrifying Charge superpower under the Agility archetype and uses her possessed bat to frighten her foes while dealing massive amounts of damage.
She is spunky, competitive, and dangerous. CC’s skill with her bat is unrivaled and she quickly landed herself a spot in our lore as a legend of Center City.
We’ve set all of our demo characters at level three. Level one is front loaded with a lot of choices. This is where you’ll choose your hero’s main abilities as well as build their origin story, which will affect your starting stats and equipment. Then as you level up, more powers and improvements are added.
This post will walk you through what I chose at each level to round out the hero I envisioned and highlight the synergy between some of her abilities.
CC Dodger
Level 1
Superpower - Terrifying Charge
This superpower attack allows CC Dodger to rush at an opponent and strike hard. Since superpowers always hit, the damage done triggers a chance for CC to frighten her target. This is particularly awesome because the condition “Scared” is devastating in combat.
Innate Ability - Action Hero
Each superpower archetype comes with innate abilities that players can choose from. You get to add more innate abilities or upgrade your current abilities at future levels. For level 1, I chose Action Hero. This allows CC Dodger to gain 1 additional Action Point once per day. She is an agility-based hero so this makes sense and allows her to possibly get an extra devastating weapon attack in.
Talents
I wanted to make CC a pretty balanced hero but approached this build with a fun experiment during our playtesting phases. What does someone that is incredibly agile but also intelligent look like in We Can Be Heroes? You can use either Finesse or Observation to determine your initiative (when you go in combat order) and Observation is used fairly often during roleplay. I was able to get extra points into both by taking advantage of bonuses from the Origin and Hero Trait.
Origin - Magic/Arcane
CC Dodger is built with the Magic/Arcane Origin. Her grandfather worked in a museum as a curator and received an old bat from an infamous 1920’s baseball player that went missing. Turns out the bat was possessed by old Foul Ball Frankie and him and the grandpa switched places. She found the bat and was able to harness the mystical abilities of the bat with the help of her grandfather’s entrapped soul.
A hero’s Origin grants a Boon and a Bane. A Boon is a bonus (+3) to a talent modifier while a Bane is a deficit (-2). Each Origin has a few options to pick from for the Boon and Bane.
Choosing Observation as her Boon when selecting her Origin has turned out to be a solid choice. I chose Resilience as her Bane as another test on our system. Resilience determines your Defensive Threshold (DT) so I wanted to see what a hero with low starting DT looks like. It isn’t as bad as one would think if you pair it with someone that can attack from a distance.
Hero Trait - Kid Hero
CC Dodger has some very serious stuff to deal with now that she’s a superhero! But she’s still a kid at heart. Her backstory goes into how she was one of the first real superheroes in Center City once they started showing up. So in the current lore she’s a bit older but people still remember her fondly as the kid that cleaned up the city.
Hero Traits determine equipment and talents that you have expertise in. She gets some bonuses to melee and long range weapons along with the persuasion, finesse, and observation talents.
Starting equipment is also determined by the Hero Trait you chose. CC starts off with one weapon, one set of armor, and one gadget–a nice balanced approach to starting equipment that lets me select some fun options. Obviously, a baseball bat is the most important thing for this character. I also selected some standard armor for a bonus to DT (helps with that low Resilience).
Mentor - Grandpa Biff
CC’s loving grandfather was her mentor. He taught her how to be a hero before she ever needed to be. I set him as the Martyr mentor type since his corporeal form was sacrificed to the bat, ultimately granting CC her abilities.
Each mentor gives you a Conviction and a Doubt. CC hates seeing people she cares about get hurt and this grants her a competitive edge. Her conviction gives her advantage on her next weapon attack if a teammate or civilian is reduced to 0 HP. Her doubt leaves her one step closer to becoming a martyr herself; if an enemy scores a critical hit on her, she takes an extra 1d4 damage.
Personal Life and Personal Space
I chose to give CC a city apartment as her personal space which grants her +1 General Popularity when patrolling the city streets.
Level 2
Auxiliary Power - High Heat
At level two you get to choose your first Auxiliary Power. I chose High Heat and thought that she likely keeps some baseballs on her at all times. This ability lets you make a ranged attack with an object other than a weapon, doing an additional 1d6 force damage on a successful hit. I like to imagine she’s just lobbing up balls to herself and ripping line drives into her enemies.
Level 3
Secondary Power - Weapons Expert
At level three your hero gains a Secondary Power. You only get one of these, so choose carefully. This power levels up over time and can be quite powerful.
I chose Weapons Expert for CC Dodger. She is powerful because of her bat and that thing should be able to do some serious damage.
Equipment Improvement
By level 3, you’ll likely have enough Public Merit to score new equipment or improve your current equipment. For CC's equipment improvement, I selected her bat again because this thing needs to be insane. The Extended Range improvement combined with her Weapons Expert Secondary Power enables the bat to shine, dealing extra damage from a greater distance away. I usually flavor this as her grandfather's soul reaching out from the bat to exact justice upon CC's enemies.
We have CC Dodger, other pre-made demo characters, and more available on our resources page. Feel free to check them out or download a copy to use in your own games!
