Board Thread:Off Topic/@comment-26397825-20180301023156/@comment-26397825-20180315023912

Doing yours first so I don't forget it, Piscean.

First up is PisceanWaterbender with March DeIdes

1. Basic Info - 9 points

The name’s a bit stretchy for my tastes, since there’s a lot of steps between ‘March DeIdes’ and either red or green as a colour association.

2. Appearance - 29 points

He looks good, wearing pretty average clothes but in a way that makes sense and isn’t just plain and boring ‘tshirt and jeans’ or ‘button up and pants’. Where is the grappling hook launcher located though? Is it like a gun and he wears it in a holster on his leg, or is it attached to his arm and he uses it similar to Link with his Hookshots?

3. Characteristics - 18 points

Ah, you know what? Retroactive +1 point for the name because it has backstory meaning for being stretchy with a colour. I am okay with names not meaning colours so long as there is a decent backstory reason.

Personally I am not a fan of overly abusive backstories, but I feel like you’ve at least set this up enough to let it go. I know the reasoning behind his father being an abusive drunk at least, unlike many backstories who throw it in there for no reason other than ‘because they can’.

You say he has severe burns around his eyes which makes it hard to see, and yet he was still taught to fire and use a gun. Wouldn’t it make more sense to train him as a front line fighter, similar to Fox? Relying on someone who struggles to see through their scars to accurately shoot at distance is asking for trouble and friendly fire.

Honestly, it’s a pretty solid backstory despite that, and it works nicely. I think that you could have left it with large burn scars over one side of the face which don’t impede his vision, which would have made the gun training make more sense since he wouldn’t be a possible liability in a ranged fight. As it is, it just feels like a very specific scar designed to make his life harder but in the end it didn’t affect anything.

The personality lets you down, however, as it just sort of rambles about how he’s self conscious about his natural appearance and doesn’t let anyone see it. It says nothing about his sense of humour, what kind of angry he is, how he deals with stress, if he’s the type to talk to lots of people or avoid large crowds.

I’m also uncertain as to why he dislikes his original tribesmen. There was nothing in his backstory that I could see which would imply this was a thing, as they did a pretty good job of removing him from an abusive household and training him up, and seemed to have no issues with him leaving the bandit tribe to go off and do his own thing.

4. Trivia - 3 points

As I said in the previous section, I wish you’d touched upon his difference of views with his tribe in his backstory instead of leaving it to here, as it sort of came out of nowhere. And how does he feel about the train robbers he joined, and the men who cobbled together a medical kit to save him after he got shot?

5. Weapon - 14 points

The weapon name is honestly slightly awkward to say out loud, and I feel like you went with it for alliterative reasons more than anything else. Otherwise it’s a very simple, practical weapon that suits a bandit/train robber.

6. Semblance - 12 points

The lack of ability to change his scars makes it hard for me to believe he’d honestly be able to blend in anywhere with this semblance; they are a very defining feature. And usually when flirting with a girl for information she likes to see your eyes which means he can’t just hide behind a pair of aviators and be done with it. Flirting with sunnies on is for quick-going-nowhere-cos-I’m-leaving-in-two-minutes flirting.

Basically, my issue with it is based on the application he uses it for, not the semblance itself. As a side note, it also reminds me a bit of my Chameleon semblance.

7. Combat Info - 2 points

Once again we come back to the fact that he has scars which you noted make it harder for him to see; he wouldn’t really do well at range, where sight is basically your modus operandi. You have to be able to see the enemy to aim at them, and my impression is that he has to squint very hard to see things properly. I'm comparing it to me without my glasses, which is 'vague shape of person over there'.

Is there a reason for his aura taking so long to recover? That’s never mentioned anywhere else, so it sort of comes out of the left field.

8. Civilian Life - A little bit of detail on the type of charges he lays on jobs is nice, since he doesn’t have a day job. But yeah, I don’t think it’s enough to gain an extra point.

Total: 88 points

A good start. If he were in a series, he's be a good starter/early villian. Like Zabuza to Naruto.