I thought he was grade 9 as well; regardless – it was a close fight, one-on-one but with the backup of 10 grade 6+ people ready for a fight, as you say, it should be easy.
I am just glad we got to show our initiative during the fight in several different ways.
I’m glad folks seem to have enjoyed the scene. Here are my thoughts about why I wrote it the way I did…spoiler brackets follow!
Yes, I wanted the heroes to get an early win, because I think it pushes the Dozen into a more desperate mode story-wise, which to me makes them scarier. They “only” have 12 members, and so each loss of a member hits pretty hard. This also lets me give the remaining members more scenes. Remember, we haven’t met the newest member yet, the Manipulator’s replacement, so really the Dozen still has 11 members, but Downfall doesn’t know that. Anyway, yes the odds were against Dr. Shock this time, but there were fatalities, which will be discussed in the next update.
Quick question re: the most “extreme” decision in the new material: (taking a cheap shot on a helpless, soon-to-be-dead villain)
Did/would anyone’s MC actually do this? If Downfall’s “power” path requires this level of ruthlessness (and more), would anyone’s MC willingly go down that path in search of Grade-9 level power?
I’ve always said I won’t let the MC become a “villain,” but I’m open to letting them become a very ruthless and morally compromised hero.
*Also curious if the MCs who did the above also killed the Wyvern?
No;
I would have bet donuts to dollars that Downfall would not want to have us taking that shot, so to speak, because of the circumstances and witnesses involved and present. I totally see her concluding the event the way she did, because she had “cause” and had an excuse to exercise that level of ruthlessness…
I’ve always seen her as being as ruthless as possible within the bounds of the “hero’s social pact” she is now a pillar of.
I would pursue ruthlessness in the manner I lay out above … and yes I tried to kill Wvyern, but I can’t remember if I succeeded or not.
I’m also positive that we could break through to Grade-level 10… somehow 
I did, I don’t care about the feelings of a murderer. My MC is not going to betray his friends, but doing bad things to bad people? Count me in.
No, because my MC thought it could hinder his hero career.
But my character would totally do this to Wyvern:
Yes, I would. My MC is a Self and Retribution guy.
@Eiwynn, you really want that grade-10 power, don’t you? But, but, that would make you…a god!
@Urban, I don’t know what that is, but I watched all 2 minutes of it and I liked it. And if you managed to distract/barely hurt Dr. Shock with your first attack, and then you took your cheap shot, you’ve already earned 2 points toward the Grade 9 ending.
The only reason my MC did not kill the Wyvern is that Speck has my personal info on file, and after the whole torturing a criminal with crook thing went south fast, legally, he didn’t want to deal with that again. That said, my MC will do whatever, inside or outside hero code, is required to ensure the safety of those he’s loyal to, especially after failing Origami. The best way my MC sees to ensure their safety is to remove threats permanently, but he doesn’t necessarily want to show his darker side to his friends unless he has to. Other than Crook, he sees Crook as the other hero on the team who works in the shadows doing the darker “dirty” work, so that the others can stay innocent.
Just thought I’d poit out, Thor is a god, and he doesn’t seem anymore powerful than Dr. Shock. Actually Dr. Shock has super speed so he might be even more powerful.
@No_This_Is_Patrick, @Yadzuki0. I’d like to point out that I said “seem” and “might”. The point I think I was working towards with that before I went to bed was that grade 9 zeniths are already powerful enough to be considered minor deities or little “g” god’s, so a grade 10 would be more like a titan than a god.
Oh, and welcome to the community Yadzuki0
Need to read up Thor more bud.
@Eric_Moser
Oh yeah, I totally did, at first I did it just to disable him so we could capture him, but I obviously did not suspect that Downfall would actually murder him… I mean, good for her I guess, I didn’t have anything against him dying, seeing as he’s killed hundreds, but whatever. I’m definitely going for that Zenith Grade 9.
No, I didn’t, because I believe that a villain should pay for their crimes, and death is just an easy way for them to avoid the suffering of justice. Again, if a villain dies because I committed an oops, id be okay with it, but otherwise, I’d capture them. I’d only kill them if there was no other option.
And how many points my MC would need to become a Grade 9?
Depends on the playthroughs, of course, but some of my MCs have killed the wyvern. However the reason I didn’t go for the cheap shot in any of my playthroughs for this section had to do with my MC not knowing if they would need to conserve that power for later. If there were an option to take a cheap shot without using power, my more ruthless MCs would take it.
Yup – which is why I think Downfall would have expected us NOT to use power to take the cheap shot.
I did it and did the same to Wyvern. Personally I fuond appealling the chance to play as antihero Punisher style (sociopath hero).
Two advices:
As other readers said, using your power reserve to a cheap shot seems a waste of power reserve
Try to not write ruthless as sadistic: while I’ve not problem to play ruthless and/or brutal I somehow find play sadistic disturbing
well, you can be right, but on 1 vs 1 combat, i believe Dr.Shock can’t keep up with thor as dr.shock reflex is just bad because of his power speed exceed his own mind processing, this proven to be fatal xD
People commenting about using your power reserve to make the cheap shot obviously have a point, but I am trying to make it so that you ALWAYS have to make trade-offs. To progress toward a goal, I plan to make it so that you need to pass a stat check, or sacrifice something like ouch, or money, or power, or a relationship. I can’t make it easy.
And @Urban, I have no idea so far, other than to say I have to balance the four potential climax choices, so this is like an expanded version of how I handled things in Zip!. But as you can see, I am keeping track. Thus far Grade-9 has 2 potential points available, Recruit Help has 1 potential point available, and the other two have none, but at least one of the other potential end goals will be introduced in the next update. I need to introduce them all by the end of Issue 9, and make sure potential points are balanced, and then I can give you choices in Issues 10 and 11 where you have to pick which end goal to pursue.
CALL FOR YOUR “END OF CCH2” CHARACTERS
I am borrowing an idea from @JimD (so credits to Jim) of adding some premade characters to a menu at the start of the demo.
This serves two purposes:
It saves you time by allowing you to skip the questionnaire, which I’m sure gets old after doing it more than once or twice, AND if I pick your character to input, it obviously lets you play as a direct continuation from the actual game.
It helps me because I can see at a very early stage if I’m miscalculated some of the potential stat ranges, as it gives me specific data instead of me rounding or estimating everything.
I am going to limit it to 4 total characters for now, with no one person submitting more than one character, and I want one of each New Archetype (Stench, Zenith, Tactician). If you want to submit one of your characters, comment below with your New Archetype, and later today I’ll post the data you’ll need to supply me from your end-of-Part 2 stats screen. Please, only volunteer if you can submit your character data this afternoon/tonight.
Or, you can be like @Urban and just go ahead and give me everything I could possibly need right now! Okay, we have a Tactician.
I appreciate your help on this!
(And yes, the questionnaire will stay to allow for maximum flexibility in creating potential characters. And yes, if everyone finds this helpful, I can always do another call out for more characters)
My character:
@Eric_Moser
This isn’t a request, just a question. It feels like Rain is getting far more time in the spotlight, and in my opinion is far more likeable than I remember her, are you adding her as an RO?
The Bri-ish side a me is a wee bi- saddened by at, bu- the American side never planned to leave Stoic anyways.
Side note, never understood the member cap on our team, especially if another name other than “Specktacular Seven” was chosen. Even with that though, the “Big 10” conference has 13 colleges in it, so definitely not legally binding.
I can’t see adding any more ROs, but yes I’m trying to sprinkle Rain and Shine into the mix a bit more, as I like the brother/sister teasing and I enjoy including way too much 
slang.
But will they earn membership into the Specktacular Seven? What if Stunner wants his spot back, and what if Stoic decides she wants to keep her spot too, even de-powered?
brainstorms a scene where Stunner and de-powered Stoic square off against Rain and Shine for the last two team slots, but nothing as simple as a fight, something more…elegant.
