Favorite Backstory?

[MJStark]

I can't get the hang of making a balanced character in the custom option so I've been going with backstories.

My favorite so far is the Found Alien Artifact story. Gives you between 400-600 across the board (including that all important magical ability!), gives you 4 powerfull energy attacks, a forcefield, a low level internal energy source, master of energy attacks and space flight. A few hero points need spending on cunning, reasoning and a 0 energy attack (I chose a magic based regular stun attack (Enchanted Black-Jack )) and you are good to go. It's worth using later hero points to continue up-ing your reasoning and make your 0 energy attack more powerfull. And befriending some heroes to go on patrol with that have higher reasoning than you is your main priority for those trickier villians.

Already on Vol#3 of Cactus Man (3 guesses which User pic I chose ), as a level 5 character I took down Night Cap all on my own

[praguepride]

That's a really good starting spread.

I chose Back from the Dead and am actually disappointed with the results.

400's in physical stats, 250's for mental, 0 magic.

Very basic starting attacks, and the all-important attributes are just Regenerative Powers (not the useful early on) and Supernatural Control (which is only useful if you set up in a supernatural heavy area).

It's really challenging to start out with as you have to desperately ramp up reasoning if you want any hope at puzzles/unmasking, you need to ramp up your cunning if you ever want to find anyone, and the attributes really dont' do much.

It's definitely one of the harder backstories.

[EuchreJack]

I'm having fun with my Fallen God backstory. Elvis is back baby!

Admittedly, his energy-based attack is downright useless in most situations: It has slightly more damage, slightly more accuracy, but costs twice as much as the fireball! Unless facing a foe weak to energy, it's not worth using.

I added two regular attacks, a stun mental distance attack called "Cause Headache" and a mystical medium weapon distance attack called "Mystical Guitar".

I started as level 5 Prominent, and wiped the floor with any grouping of foes. With a starting reasoning of 200, my true nemesis was plots!

After getting up to level 6 Well Known, I suddenly found myself against gangs of foes above my level. Unfortunately, the gangs of foes were attacking a defenseless superhero, or build a machine to mind control the world. It did not go well, losing several friends to these attacks.

I'm a little afraid to go patrolling by myself at this point, to be honest...but it's still fun!

Honestly, I think the hardest part about backstory mode is knowing what level to set your starting popularity. It would be nice to have a suggested maximum starting popularity.

[Blake Trask]

I actually tend to start my backstories as Unknown heroes. For some reason it just seems appropriate to me, but then, I like building from the ground up. Depends on what backstory you use I guess, one or two of them (Possessed by Animal Spirit I think is one, Alien Artifact another) give you very high stats, so I'd possibly start higher with those.

[1PWfan]

Blast from the Past is a fun one, but the stat line is vaguely rubbish- even playing on easy and ploughing as many points as possible into your stats you don't get anything particularly decent. The Mutant ones are pretty cool, though, as you get a lot of variety out of them.

[Ockbald]

I've found great success with "Born a mutant"

[EuchreJack]

I actually didn't know that "Born a Mutant" actually had multiple possible starting backgrounds until I read it here, as I always seems to get the psionic option.

Any other backgrounds with multiple versions?

I already know that the elemental avatar option has multiple versions (different elements).

[Blake Trask]

Possessed by Animal Spirit, Found Alien Artifact and Mutated by Accident. (at the least)

[bigredmer]

How do you select the different sub-back-stories? It looks like it's just random. If I want to play a fire elemental type, do I have to keep restarting the creation process until I get it?

[Blake Trask]

It's random.

[EuchreJack]

Originally Posted by Blake Trask

Possessed by Animal Spirit, Found Alien Artifact and Mutated by Accident. (at the least)

Wow, I was hoping there was something more to Found Alien Artifact than Green Lantern Ring (which is all that I've gotten so far).