Midoria (My Hero Academia) character build?

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I have a player that wants to build Midoria (aka Deku) from the anime My Hero Academia. How would you build a character that is full power (10) in Movement & Might (Attribute Substitution 2), but is Level 1 in everything else and takes damage from using his power?

This is what I’ve come it with (but I’d like to hear what ways you would make it work):

I tell him to choose which Power Level (0-10) he wants to use his power at. Then I have him make a Will roll to see if he succeeds at limiting himself to that Power Level, or if he overpowers - and by what amount. I am using the Heroic CR of 20 and scaling the amount of overshoot by how far below the CR he is. Then he rolls the PL that I tell him. After calculating the damage (if any) to his target, we compare his attack or jump (Teleport) roll to his Toughness. If it is above his toughness, he also takes damage - but not the full amount. He takes a fraction of that damage based on his Fortitude score. I’m using the calculation (1/(Fortitude+1))*Damage to determine the amount of damage he takes. So, at Fortitude 1, he would take 1/2 of the damage. At Fortitude 2, he would take 1/3rd of the damage. And so on. (I’m considering changing it to (1/Fortitude)*Damage to make it hurt more.)

The problem I’m having with this is that he also takes actions without activating his power. So, we have his Movement > Might set at 5. This creates a situation where he does an unpowered punch at PL5 and takes no damage, but does a powered punch at PL3 and does take damage for a less damaging punch. I’m not sure how to fix this.

I’m really interested in seeing if the community can come up with a better way to do this, especially if it can do it without my houserule calculation, using only the unmodified rules.

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I don’t think you need to do any of this, especially the allowing of access to attribute score of 10. Midoria didn’t start out with any powers at all and had to undergo strict training by all might, at that point he was very impressive with all he collected on the beach, and that was without the power of one-for-all.

Characters need to progress, they might be building up to be like Midoria, who progresses within the anime.

I could give more advice, but you’ve left us in a huge vacuum, so we don’t have context or information.

  • What is your setting
  • What are the character levels
  • Are the other players getting access to attribute 10 craziness

The drawbacks to using his power is very simple, Flaws, that’s what they are there for. It’s up to the player to choose to activate the flaw (which they can get awarded a legend point 1x a session [more if the GM allows of course]). Flaws can be created by the GM & Player together as they make sense.

For Uncoordinated, when my player activated it, they ended up falling down a simply climb down that wouldn’t normally require a roll. I did environmental damage as Lethal Damage in this case. You could do something simple like that for the character, that when they activate the flaw, they take d4/d6/d8/d10/2d6, etc of lethal damage.

I’m sure @SamWilby can speak more on the subject of Super Hero games too, as he has run a few, but I don’t actually know if you are running one right now. You could just be doing a fantasy game and the character concept is one like Midoria (who later is able to control his powers and not take damage to his body btw, which breaks the idea more by allowing higher than they should attribute scores).

But in games, I scale the power of the players relative to other things. So in Setting A, a score of 5 is pretty good, but in Setting B, a score of 5 is able to shake the earth, and break down skyscrapers b/c that is the feel of that setting and what the players are capable of.

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@Great_Moustache has it right; the key here is relative power levels. I’ve played a post-apocalypse game where a Might of 9 would make you just able to lift a girder with a huge amount of effort, and a supers game where an NPC capable of throwing cars has a Might of 7. It’s far simpler to just recalibrate your expectations than try and do something horrendously complicated and hard to balance with the rules.

To capture the specific power you want, I’d suggest looking at the Battle Trance tree of feats, especially Reckless Attack. Fatigue represents damage to the body better than non-lethal HP damage (which heals in 10 minutes keep in mind) and you could treat the two rolls from a normal attack and a reckless attack as the same “hit”, to represent the use of the power to increase the damage dealt. If you start at level 3 (my recommendation for supers games) then you can get a decently fleshed out build in this manner that the player can fully grow into as they level up.

It’s not perfect, but you shouldn’t really be aiming for a total recreation because they’re in different media and what’s fun and entertaining is different when it’s a character you’re in control of. Build a character inspired by Deku rather than building Deku, and your player will enjoy it more.

A final word of warning about building characters from fiction (especially supers and especially especially protagonists) is that they generally don’t have the same growth as tabletop RPG characters do, they tend to grow in sudden bursts. Don’t expect your character to feel exactly like the one from the show/book/film because they simply can’t without an author who controls both them and the world around them. Like I said above, take inspiration but don’t try and mimic exactly.

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Thank you for your replies.

I had already concluded that he can’t use this character in the current game, as it is a fantasy setting, no one else would have access to “attribute 10 craziness”, and he would be vastly overpowered compared to the other Level 1 characters. (Or, I might nerf [aka un-super] the character to match everyone else.) Your responses confirmed my decision.

I’ll probably have to start up a supers game in addition to the current game.

I like both of your suggestions, especially the Lethal Damage and Fatigued. (I was considering my above mess to inflict Lethal Damage.) I will likely create 2 example characters (probably at Level 3) to see which one he prefers and more closely matches his character concept.

Thanks again!

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