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Commander Shepard

“If I flee, I might trip over the dozen krogan I killed to get here. I think I'll take my chances.”

Series: Mass Effect

Role: Sponsor

Overview:

Sponsor Benefits:

Rather than making you choose between Shepard’s classes, this version of Shepard will offer distinct benefits for each role: each role gets four options and may pick one to use in any given round. These are chosen and included in analysis, so pick wisely and adapt to the situation.

The various offerings are as follows:

Brawn:

Shepard’s Brawn tools come from the Soldier and Infiltrator trees and provide options ranging from tactical utility to raw stat boosts.

Adrenaline Rush: Applied like a patch to the side of the neck, the Adrenaline Rush boost provides up to ten seconds of extremely heightened speed, allowing the user to easily perceive FTE movement as if in slow motion and letting them think in the heightened timeframe, leading to extremely fast reactions and precise marksmanship (after all, you have plenty of time to aim). Shepard can send up to three Adrenaline Rush patches per round.

Disruptor Ammo: A simple universal chip that latches onto any firearm, the Disruptor Ammo boost empowers the gun it’s applied to, sheathing the rounds fired in electricity. It has the effect you’d imagine- Disruptor Ammo is great for short-circuiting technology, overloading robots, disrupting shields, and applying a taser-like effect to biological targets for a few seconds per “application”. If applied to a simple melee weapon instead (sword, bat, etc), it sheathes the “business end” in electricity strong enough to apply a similar effect. Taser sword!

Fortification: Applied with a simple necklace/wristband, the Fortification tool is actually a thin sheet of glowing ferrofluid that hovers just over the surface of the skin. On contact the fluid hardens in stages, absorbing and redirecting the shock with no harm to the wearer. Fortification lasts until broken, which typically happens after receiving about 100 tons of force (two hits from a 50 tonner, five hits from a 20 tonner, etc), and cannot be regained once broken. Fortification also only protects against physical force- it’s not an effective defense against fire, electricity, poisons, and so on.

Tactical Cloak: Delivered as a small module attached anywhere on the user’s body, the Tactical Cloak tool provides a brief moment of invisibility, allowing for surprise attacks and clever ambushes. The cloak isn’t perfect- a soft ripple will persist that perceptive opponents can spot whenever the user is moving- but it’s still an effective escape tool while it lasts. The cloak is fragile, however, and can only persist for about ten seconds, breaking early if the wearer does any particularly aggressive actions (if they attack, basically). Fortunately, it can be used three times before it stops working for the rest of the round.

Mystic:

Pulled from the Adept and Vanguard classes, Shepard’s Mystic tools use biotics to either protect the Mystic or control the battlefield.

Biotic Barrier: Attached like a clip to the user’s belt, the barrier is activated simply by pressing the button on the front. Similarly to Fortification, Barrier creates a shield that withstands up to 500 tons of force, as well as resisting the worst of any heat/electric/pressure damage for a short time. Sounds incredible, right? Resisting that much force makes the barrier more or less impregnable. Unfortunately, all that power means the duration is abysmal- the barrier only lasts for five seconds after activation, and once used, it can’t be used again. Use your window of protection wisely!

Cluster Grenade: Similar to an ordinary grenade, Cluster Grenades are activated and then lobbed in a direction… and that’s where the similarities end. Rather than doing any damage, the grenades generate a sudden pulse of biotic energy that lifts everything not nailed down about ten feet in the air, suspending it there for about ten seconds. Anyone suspended by the grenades can still try to attack, but without flight or a way to negate the field… it’ll be difficult. Three packs of grenades can be dropped on each round.

Singularity: Appearing like a small satchel, the Singularity generator is placed (or thrown, probably) and activated from afar, triggering a mass effect field that warps space inward on a point three feet above the satchel. The singularity that forms isn’t strong enough to crush things into oblivion, but its pull is strong enough to drag humanoid objects towards it from up to ten yards away in all directions, along with anything else that weighs about as much and hasn’t been nailed down. Anything caught in the singularity is left there until it vanishes about fifteen seconds after it’s been created.

Stasis: Looking like a small joy buzzer, the Stasis module… probably shouldn’t be worn on your person. Five seconds after pressing the button, the Stasis module creates a brief but immensely powerful mass effect field around anything it’s touching, locking it down completely for a full ten seconds. Anyone caught within the field will be able to see what’s going on but will be totally incapable of movement until it ends. That said, the Stasis field doesn’t let anything in or out, and anything caught in Stasis is effectively invulnerable until it ends.

Arsenal:

Using skills from the Engineer and Sentinel classes, these tools focus on protecting the Arsenal and augmenting their toolkit with more variety.

Cryo Blast: Fired like a small-dart from a wrist-mounted launcher, the Cryo Blast cartridge is effectively a snowstorm in a canister the size of a dime. On detonation, the cartridge flash-freezes anything in the immediate vicinity, covering everything within five feet of the detonation in a layer of ice. It slows movement dramatically for a moment and can freeze weaker foes (ie mooks) solid, but the ice doesn’t last long after exposure to the atmosphere, and fades after a few seconds.

Sabotage: Unleash your inner watchdog! If your Arsenal doesn’t have tech capabilities already, this tool comes in a small wrist-mounted doohickey simple enough that your character can run it easily. By activating it, the user can sabotage technology in just about all of its forms- it can hack AI to temporarily fight for you (on the off-chance you encounter some), it can short out or turn off machines, it can hack just about anything in the environment that’s hackable for your benefit, and it can overheat weapons and cause rounds to explode inside guns. ...Look, I know that doesn’t make sense with weapons from our time, but it’s a part of the skill, okay? Sabotage can be used five times per round, and can’t be used on the same object twice.

Sentry Turret: Who doesn’t want a killer robot as a best buddy? Delivered in a small grenade-like capsule, throwing the turret against any hard surface will activate it, leaving it to hover in place and gun down any hostile it encounters with firepower equal to a modern mounted machinegun. The turret is able to detect between friend and foe (and mook) easily and can move just enough to avoid encroaching threats, though it can’t move more than a foot away from where it was activated. The turret makes its own ammo so it never runs dry, but it can’t take too much damage before being destroyed- two or three solid hits from anyone in this tier will be enough to take it down.

Tech Armor: Like the other roles, Shepard has a protective skill for this one. However, Tech Armor is more of a keep-away than a help-me-not-die skill- it doesn’t shield damage well, but it also doesn’t go down easily either. Rather than directly absorbing damage, Tech Armor acts as a cushion that reduces the damage taken by about 50%, enough to drop Spiderman’s punches down closer to Batman tier. It can break with extended beatings (or at the wearer’s command), but that’s where the neato second feature comes in- when broken, the Tech Armor emits a powerful pulse that knocks back everything nearby to a distance of about ten feet, enough to create a bit of breathing room to beat a hasty retreat. After all, once it’s broken, Tech Armor can’t come back.

Wildcards may choose one option from any of the three roles, but can’t pick one that another member of the team has already chosen.

Research: Link respect threads, Character Of The Week posts, and wikis here. It’s also helpful to specify research material, for instance listing the series the character comes from and how to get it, as well as saying stuff like “the character only shows up from issues 23 to 37” or “you only need to watch the first three episodes” where relevant. If you need to make a mini-RT for a character without one, here’s where you’d do it.

Changes: If you need to nerf or buff the character with anything or make any mechanical changes to abilities, specify them here. Otherwise, “None” is fine.

Prompt: Workin on it

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