Archer

I understand why he has so much training. That makes sense, and isn't a problem. Where power comes in is that because he has so much training, he's very good with weapons. Out of his power allotment, that's a fair chunk of change. The how is not as relevant as the what, if that makes sense. There are characters that are OP, but are still fun to have around. If they self identify as being non combatant, I overlook their power and allow them. Being a combatant generally means you won't attack or fight anyone, but I think permitting duels and training is fine. I have two classes of non combatants. The first is ones who run away when attacked. They defend themselves by blocking shots, but retreat quickly. That's a true non combatant. The second is the class I think Astiel would be in. When attacked, they will defend themselves by fighting back in the moment. With these ones, I place the restriction on them that you can't RP them doing stuff that makes people want to fight them. If you walk into a bank and demand money, even though you technically haven't attacked anyone, they still have good reason to attack you. That's not fair for them. So you'll need to keep your intelligence missions unobtrusive. It's always hard to decide where the line is when it comes to encouraging fights. Is promoting hemalurgy provocative? Smuggling secrets? Trading inssults? It's easiest if the character remains out of the spot light most of the time, so people can't feel threatened by them. I leave a lot of the nuances up to the RPer, with the understanding that if there's a complaint, we'll talk about it and maybe revisit the character. But if you think you play him as a non combatant of some kind, I'll give them a bye for being OP. I second all the questions people have asked so far. I believe the Epic (Curveball?) who had the unlimited bullets power could only do it with handguns, which limited his range. This guy isn't restricted by that. With the right gun, he could snipe people from miles away. That's really powerful if he can't miss. I'd also like to see the character developed more. Including non-Epic weaknesses and any other skills or specialties he has would be good.

I'm going to put him under your name for now, but he becomes a different type of character, I'll look into it again.

Knowing the weakness would be good @Ark1002. This seems like a good time to ask you, Voidus, to take a gander at the other Epic characters we've got: @MacThorstenson's Mackc, @Blessing of Potency's Melody, and @Lord Meeker's Idos are the ones I don't believe I've run by you yet. All can be found on the list. Whenever you get the chance, could you please take a look at them and say if they're OP or not, and/or make any suggestions you think need to be made?

I'm sorry, I completely misunderstood your question. The sixth heightening is 3,500 breaths.

A busy alleyway. One hour ago. Mace watched his son amble along the path on his bright red tricycle. The boy hit a bump and briefly wobbled before correcting his course. For reasons he did not fully understand, Mace felt a rush of emotions. His eyes were transfixed on the scene, which was good. If he had decided to focus too hard on the background of the vignette he would have found the supporting details were fuzzy. The child turned back towards Mace, giving him a better look at his face. He almost laughed as he searched the boy’s features, looking for some resemblance to latch onto. There was none. The memory laid bare the lie in excruciating detail, remarkably so. Mace had not been expecting to receive such a clear vision. With a growing sense of dread, Mace watched the youngster begin to move his lips. He knew what was coming. “Dad! Hey Dad! Can-” Mace stopped tapping the coppermind. He blinked, and his vision re-focused to show him the elderly man standing in front of him. A table of polished brown bands sat between them. “Did you get what you came for?” the man asked politely. Mace nodded distractedly. He was never sure what he wanted when he visited the man’s stall in the marketplace, so he always left with mixed feelings about the experience. He had friends who swore by Soothing parlors, but those seemed even more artificial to him. At least when he rented copperminds his emotions were genuine. He placed some coins on the table and thanked the gentlemen for his time. Then he reached behind his left ear and unclipped one of his own copperminds. “It’s got a couple of musicals in it. Mostly from bad dates I went on. I think there’s an Earth movie on there too. The tenth sequel to that one about angry people speeding." He passed it over and the man palmed it quickly. He would send it away to be unsealed or keep it to sell to any copper ferrings that came by. Mace did not care. The sounds of battle had been steadily increasing in volume and intensity during the time he had been reminiscing. The fight those sounds advertised was the reason he had come to the Alleycity. Without another word, Mace stepped confidently into a side-passageway he knew would take him where he wanted to go. It was time for him to kill again. ***** Near the worldspike. Seconds before the barrier is due to drop. Inexplicably, Mace fell upwards, propelled out of a circular sewer entrance. He could tell some sort of teleportation had been involved since his stomach felt queasy. As he tried to re-orient himself, a trio of energy blasts smashed into his torso. He heard his ribs snap, followed by his spine. He tasted blood, which was never a good sign. Fortunately, almost immediately, he felt his body repair itself. He’d been ready for this kind of thing to happen when he stepped into the battlefield. As his goldminds quickly began draining, he switched to compounding the one he had swallowed earlier. That made him feel even better. He realized that he had slid across the ground at some point, leaving a lengthy skid mark in the ground. He could see the back of Fred, who was standing close to where he had been hit. Nearby, some people were fighting each other. There also seemed to be a concerning amount of dead bodies without obvious signs of injury. As he began struggling to breathe, he realized why. Guess I’ll be burning cadmium too then, he thought, popping his only metalmind of that kind he had into his mouth. As he sat there, an aggrieve looking warrior charged in his direction. Mace instinctively tapped speed, getting to his feet and off to the side of the woman in a second. He stuck out his foot, tripping her, then slammed his hand down on her skull. He was about to follow the hit up with a flurry of punches when he felt his reserve dry up. Cursing, he ran her through with a hastily grown aether spike instead. In the time it took him to do that, another three assailants, also female, had approached him. They were armed with knives, short glass ones, the kind used by hazekillers on a budget. “Can’t we talk about this first?” Mace asked, stalling for time. But he only got as far as making an aether gauntlet when the ladies began advancing. He had to admit that they did a good job of it. They made a quickly shrinking equilateral triangle, keeping him surrounded. Unfortunately for them, Mace was not planning on running away. He lashed out at the tallest one. They had obviously trained for that scenario because she raised her weapons defensively while the others lashed out with theirs. As their blades sliced the back of his legs, Mace grabbed the hand of his target and squeezed. Increasing his weight and strength, he then swung her by the arm off her feet and into the person on his left. The two of them tumbled at an awkward angle to the street and did not get back up again. Mace’s eyes teared up as he felt something cut into the small of his back and twist. “Ma’am,” Mace said, clenching his teeth, “Kindly remove-” He jammed his elbow backwards, catching her off-guard. He then spun to face her. She punched him in the nose. He blocked the next punch with his armored hand, using the opportunity to simultaneously pull the knife out of his back. With interest, he noted that the one he held was not glass like the others. It appeared to be made of crystal. Confirming his suspicions, the woman used the momentary lull to pull a large sword from the bag on her back. It too was made of crystal. “You better not have killed them,” she growled, then sliced downward with the blade, aiming to cleave him down the middle. Mace jerked his head to the side, catching it on his shoulder. It cut deeper than he had thought it would. “No,” he said as he pinched the blade with his hands, holding it still despite her attempts to out-muscle him and wrest it from his grasp. “No. They’re not dead.” He suddenly pushed the blade forward, knocking the woman off-balance. He flicked his hands, moving the sword so the hilt caught her in the jaw. He lumbered towards his attacker, grabbing her by the neck and raising her into the air, with the dramatic flair of a classical evil villain. “I hate killing when I don’t know why I’m doing it. So they will live. But you... you I have a reason to harm.” He probed the back of her neck until he found what he was looking for. The woman’s struggles became increasingly frantic as she realized what he was about to do. For the first time, Mace saw fear in her eyes as she squirmed, scratching at his arm and flailing her legs. With resolve, he met her gaze. Slowly, he began to tap his index finger on her fleshstone. His beats fell harder and harder each time. Fueled by magical strength and natural adrenaline, it only took a moment for the crystal to begin to yield. Just a hairline crack at first, but after another hit the break doubled in size. Then Mace drew a Tia card from his pocket and slammed it into her chest. The woman disappeared. When he turned around, he noted with satisfaction that the assailants he had dropped earlier had wisely decided to run away. “Anyone else?” he shouted, startling an assassin who had been trying to sneak up on him. “And is there anyone here from TUBA? I’m having trouble deciding who to punch.”

I'd put it at 190ish, but hopefully it will remain in the mystical realm of irrelevancy. Fifth Heightening is OP. It shouldn't come as a surprise that all of the other tiers above it are as well. Reminder for everyone, please get your Era Three characters or transfer requests from list to list in as soon as possible. I'd prefer to have some time to look at them before the Era begins, rather than leave you in characterless limbo.

Conveniently, @Voidus is both an expert in judging Epics and spotting anime references, so if he doesn't mind, I'm going to drag him over here to give his opinion. For me, part of what I'd consider would be what the magical abilities of the mythical creatures are. Depending on your source, some magical animals have very varied skill-sets. I've seen interpretations of unicorns that can heal, fly, talk and even use telepathy. Depending on which version of a creature you choose, you could become OP. I don't think that will be a problem, but it's something to consider.

Epicalyx!

Looks good. I like the gemstones on the jacket idea. I'll add it. Thank you! I'm glad you like it. When giving your character items in the RP, my guideline is to consider a) how common an item is. The more common an item is, the easier time you should have acquiring it. If it's unique or very rare (eg. atium) consider asking. b.) how powerful it is. The less an item does to increase your character's power, the more acceptable it is. If it increases their power level (eg. anything on the list) consider asking, either by updating your PM or in a group discussion. I believe we agreed to have people ask before upgrading power levels. But before you get to that point, you should be putting an appropriate amount of RPing into 'finding' or 'making' the object. The rarer/more powerful, the more RPing it should take. Grand bows are what I'd consider an easy to acquire object. Warriors lenses grant magical abilities (making them powerful), so that makes them rarer. I'm not sure how I'd treat them, probably err on the side of caution and ask anyway. But remember, the point of the RP isn't t collect points. It's to have fun. I'd encourage you to not let stuff like this bog you down in your pursuit to have a good time and write good stories. Regulate yourself. Got a new lens? Work in a counter-balance, like losing another lens. That's how I'd do it. The bios aren't meant to be restrictive of good gameplay.

If you want, I can send mine over. I've been meaning to kill them off anyway.

Yes, but weaknesses can apply to either. When I scored that bio in the quote, I assumed people could tell which was which. Restrictions on movements are tricky to score if they're vague. I like specifics. So if you go with that, I encourage you to set explicit boundaries. And remember, there's an important difference between being non-combatant and having limited freedom of movement. The former gets a bye, the latter just counts as a weakness. The Index (see the second post in this thread) bases skill's power level on years of experience. So that would give them a lower score, especially as their long range weapons score would drop dramatically. They'd still get a bunch for having both hand to hand and melee weapons skill (but I'd cut down the latter by at least half since it's only with the staff). @erbiL ohcnaG I like Xena's bio, except for this part: I feel it goes beyond the limits of genetic modifications and is more of a Talent. Did you make any changes to Vesuvius, or is the version I've already got on the list up to date? If it's not, it's no problem to swap it out.

I wasn't sure what to do about Tars. The idea was for him to be a powerful villain character, right? I feel it might be better to stick him in his own special section of the list since he's being used differently than the average person's character, but I wanted to check with you about how you want to RP him. Unfortunately, Astiel is OP for Era Three. They power of their investiture and skills is not sufficiently decreased by the weaknesses. The character's much more powerful than the average character in this era. Silphio is a little bit OP too in my opinion. I did a really quick scoring and it came out over. What put him over was the amount of skills. If you could, I'd like you to revisit both of these. They're good characters, but more powerful than I'd like for E3.

Agreed. I've added him. Cool character idea.

That's fine. Even with high estimates, he's not OP. I really like that weakness. It's awesome.

There's no rush @BitBitio. Thursday's my self-imposed deadline to get these done. EDIT: @BitBitio (sorry for the ping again) I understand that you'll want to try to maintain the integrity of the character as much as possible in E3, keeping him similar to to what he was like in E2. One thing I'd like to draw your attention to as a possible strategy for lowering his score without messing too many things up is some sort of code of honour. King T did that for his character, and it seemed to work. I'm still wary about the amount of investiture, since the weaknesses on them is up to interpretation. How much the effect him all comes down to how you RP them. (I suppose that's true for all characters actually, but with others it's more black in white. A non-misting can't burn a metal, period vs you having to decide the effect of it burning.) I still recommend going with a non-combatant since it's the easiest solution, but there are ways to make Kane work.

I'll take a look at this momentarily, but while you're on I'd like to ask, do you still plan on using these characters? If so, I recommend revisiting them. There's going to be some OPness issues. Additionally, if you want, you can designate Kane as a non-combatant, giving him permission to be over-powered. The obvious drawbacks to that though is you can't use him to fight anyone.

I thinking more about total amount, not just in the room, but upon reflection, that practical limitation is enough to go by. He could swap out all seven and have a whole new set of info, but if he's like Leeds, he'll have some he likes to keep around at all times, lessening his ability. If you do want to add some other power, I'd have to make a tough call about whether that makes him OP. I'm a little too tired to decide that at the moment, I apologize. The link to the Index is in my signature under my post, or here. And here is the link to the first draft of it (now out dated), which might help contextualize what it is and why it was made.

As always, notes in are in the spoiler box. To prevent power creep, I'd like you to have some idea of a cut off number for when they start becoming more of a burden than a bonus, and maybe include that in the bio. Additionally, if any have any particular skills of use (ones listed on the index especially), I think those are worth noting. But given its weakness when compared to other powers, this one's pretty easy to approve. I just want an idea of if he's at Leeds' level, or lower, or higher.

Awesome, King T. It was close enough that I wasn't going to mention it, but this is even better. I'll add it.

Gak! You're got exhibits too! Well then, permit me to present another of my own. According to a transcript of the above conversation (which was provided for myself by the court's liebrarian, but we didn't have enough copies to share) Mr. Cat actually called the chicken 'stoopid'. Behold, Exhibit E: In the foreword of book four, Alcatraz writes, We can extrapolate from that sentence that the definition of 'stoopid' is 'one who is Alcatraz Smedry and has a Talent for breaking things'. That's just basic context analysis. Given the term's lack of use elsewhere, we can assume that it is the only available definition. The adverbs merely indicate how similar one is to an Alcatraz. In this case, they are very similar. Nearly identical, in fact. It's common knowledge that Alcatraz in an unreliable narrator. He keeps trying to convince readers that he is not much of a hero. It's obvious he's lying, to cover up his cold-hearted psychopathic nature. Every time he says he has feelings or emotions, he is spouting falsehoods! Him, and all who are like him, including the chicken in question, have no ability to feel things. They're all non-sentient. The chicken was merely acting randomly in the scene shown above, with no conscious direction. Spren, on the other hand, are acutely aware of their surroundings. You'd never see them just fluttering about aimlessly, disconnected from the world. If they acted like that, they'd be no better than the wind. No, spren are thinking, capable beings. They can turn themselves into shardblades on command, or shardaxes, or shardpikes, or anything with the word 'shard' in front of it. That makes them indestructible by Alcatraz.

Thingy (TUBA version):

Exhibit A: I present to you this security footage from Roshar of the chicken in question. As you can see, the cat clearly denounces the chicken as being non-sentient. Given Mr. Cat's extensive experience with poultry, his testimony should be considered indisputable.

Bah! With that kind of attitude, you'll never become a popsicle.

I think since I had the post open at the time, it didn't stick. Can you try it again?

Just because you're so confident, I'm going to offer an opposing viewpoint. (Although I'll admit my initial reaction was along the same lines as your hypothesis.) In chapter 21 of The Knights of Crystallia, Alcatraz successfully breaks a sword. Shardblades are, for our purposes, just big ol' swords wielded by people with big ol' suits of armor. But wait, there's more. In chapter one of the first book, Alcatraz states, The chicken in question lost all of its feathers and would only eat cat food from then on. This would seem to imply that a living spren, in the form of a shardblade, could still be broken. If Alcatraz can break swords and creatures, what's stopping him from breaking both at the same time? I'm very glad you asked that question. I propose that spren, being sentient beings, are less likely to be broken by the young Smedry spawn. Have we ever seen him break something that could think before? That would be the precedent I'd demand be exhibited before any of you could even hope to convince me your hero could snap such a majestic weapon! I'd suggest he has mental blocks in place to stop him from doing such a thing, like how people can't bring themselves to chew off their own fingers. (Don't believe me? Try it.) *drags a table over to the middle of the stage* *dramatically flips the aforementioned table* Ha! I can see I have stupefied you all with my incredible logic. Disprove that.