Enantiodromos

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Okay, I took the time to take an individual screenshot of the description of each and every power, then cut and paste them all into one easily viewable format.

So does this help you with an answer?

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What is your deal? I already told you, I'd have to go find out what the powers do then find somebody to show me the animations. I've never seen ninja powers in action, and there's a LOT of guesswork involved with going from description to actual mechanical power effect. I mean, sorry, but I just don't know the set.

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Does this help any?

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Well, having never seen that before, yes, the names allow me to take slightly more educated guesses, but really, I'd have to go find out what the powers do then find somebody to show me the animations. As I said in my guide, it's a question of power effect, animation, and fudge factors that are more or less understood by convention, in the game.

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The natural concept is keyed, as I've said repeatedly, to what we, the players, can identify with and imagine doing. You and I will never in our lifetimes walk into a health food store and buy a jetpack or teleporter module, and the absence of ordinary pedestrians ever appearing to use such gadgets argues rather strongly that they're both still guarded and exotic technologies.

[/ QUOTE ]Why in the world would[n't] Pedestrian's have access to the same things a registered Hero does?

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(If my interpretation of your first sentence is mistaken, I'll need you to explain what you meant. Otherwise 1) I said they don't appear to, not that they 'wouldn't,' but the answer to that question is: because it's an exotic, guarded technology, even in the CoH setting. 2) I'm not sure, from your response, that you got the point. So, more bluntly: there's no such thing as a registered hero, and no such thing as a teleportation device, and if maneuverable, sustained flight jetpacks exist at all, they are an exotic, guarded technology, much like nuclear warheads (which definitely exist). Which is why, as I said, you and I will never go buy them in a healthfood store. And if this somehow sounds irrelevant to you, please, reread my post abovequoted and the entire thread as many times as it takes to get why it IS essential to what we're discussing, before you make further remarks about what natural origins or guarded-tech secret espionage groups have access to.

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Damned out of your own mouth, then. ... should be embarassed at having let their weird insecurity goad them into making wildly false reports about what I've said.

[/ QUOTE ]So, you're telling me that you didn't intend it that way, fine...

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No, I'm saying you should be embarassed to be caught making such a wildly false report about what I've said. Whether it 'came across' to you that way, it canNOT be attributed to what I said. The perception arises solely out GROSS errors you made or worse-- for which you're responsible. Asserting that it's anything to do with what I said is blatantly dishonest in addition to (in this case) insulting and disruptive.

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You came across as saying that taking Teleportation weakens the character's concepts (In your guide), then later you even said so out of your own mouth that a certain example was weakened

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That's not the remark under discussion. This is what you said:

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Well, I just can't sit well with a guide that tells others their concept is "weak" because they explain why they have a "Powered Travel". [emphasis mine]

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The guide never comments negatively on any character concept. It does not examine character concepts generally, so obviously could not possibly have anything to say about whether a given character concept was weak. I've repeatedly pointed out the distinction between saying "Concept X is weak," and "Power Y is a poor fit to, and weakens, a natural concept charcter." Everywhere there are good character concepts that are not natural concept characters.

Suppose I said, "having a body wreathed in searing flame weakens a the concept of natural concept character." It is PATENTLY OBVIOUS that I have NOT said the Human Torch is a weak concept. I have not said that such flame powers weaken character concepts. NOT said that an alien born to a race of fire-dwellers is a weak concept. NOT said a guy in a setting where off-the-shelf technology includes super-high-temperature hazmat suits rigged with a network of flame-gouting tubes, is a bad character concept.

In fact, considering that I give careful attention, in the guide, to the necessity of give-and-take with the coherence vs utility of powers in natural concept characters, it's farfetched even to suppose that I've suggested he is not, or is a weak, natural concept character in a setting where such is NOT off-the-shelf technology.

The only reason somebody would turn around and complain that I've "said their character concept is weak because they have wreathed-in-searing-flame powers," is that they want to start a fight about something I definitely didn't say or come close to saying.

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You skip mentioning the Fighting Pool completely?

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Yeah, that's an oversight like some of the other pool powers. It's too bad fitness is mediocre-to-gimp, all four powers are great additions to this kind of character.

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I think what others are getting upset about is that they see this as less a guideline to a concept, and more as a commentary on the proper way they should define their characters. You can see how this misunderstanding can make people feel a little touchy.

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Heh. I don't think it would make much sense if I asked them to apologise to themselves in addition to me.

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I wonder how "Natural Concept" would apply to someone like Capt. Kirk from the original Star Trek. I kind of doubt he could build a transporter from scratch

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As far as I can tell, transporters are off the shelf tech in that setting. Could be wrong. The relevance of natural concept characters in science fiction settings where people are often born with unfamiliar powers, and often weild incomprehensibly advanced technology, is obviously reduced. But. ::shrug:: He does, for that setting, evoke many of the traits of the natural concept pretty well, despite transporter use.

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Family history or Mentoring.

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Yeah, good call. Perumations of training and inheritence like you mention are great components of backstory. I really only scratched the surface of great ideas out there.



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Well, I just can't sit well with a guide that tells others their concept is "weak" because they explain why they have a "Powered Travel".

It may not have been Enantiodromos intention to come across that way, but I'll be damned if it didn't. I wasn't the first to post my objection to it either.

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Damned out of your own mouth, then. ::shrug:: If a thousand people come to the thread and say that I said they built thier characters wrong, or their concepts are weak, or whatever, it'll mean only that a thousand people should be embarassed at having let their weird insecurity goad them into making wildly false reports about what I've said.


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How do you feel about the /Ninjitsu secondary for Stalkers in terms of how appropriate it is for Natural villains?

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I'd have to read it more closely. I go the impression it referenced strongly magical abilities attributed to folkloric/cinematic ninjas, so, I dunno.



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Thus, the very gameplay contradicts the description.

Since you DON'T remember the Superior Human origin, it isn't correct to say that, at least in your memory, CoH once had an Origin pertaining to it. The Natural Origin, whatever the description, has always included the possibility of other concepts besides the ordinary human. That's all I'm saying.

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Your 'evidence' about the concept behind the previous origin is the vagaries of game mechanics. Mine is a direct description of what was conceptually intended. The first is negligable weighed against the second. A direct answer to the question: what was natural origin, trumps inference like yours.

You surely realize this is not the subject of this guide.

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I am not undermining your guide, I am merely adding on a commentary about the Natural Origin, in response to some of the replies that have dealt with the ORIGIN, and not the CONCEPT. Consider it an afterthought, an Appendix, if you will.
It is not my intention to attack your suggestions or invalidate them in any way. If you wish to percieve my posts as an attack, I am sorry, but I assure you that's not the case.

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The guide explicitly is there to clarify a concept that is contrastive with the origin, so obviously rattling on with strong definitions of the origin is not just silly, it's malicious, even if not an 'attack.' Please quit trying to undermine my guide?


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However, in PRACTICE of playing a natural concept character to level 32, I can tell you that after a while, no travel powers gets frustrating. Really frustrating. So the question becomes not "does this Power fit my concept", but "am I so wedded to my concept that I cannot allow myself to come up with an explanation that I can make fit it".

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I swift/hurdle/sprinted my first toon to 50. It's not nearly as bad as people make it out to be. I was only occasionally last to arrive in missions even in the 30s and 40s in PuGs, and you quickly come to realize that way that, in cases where people have an issue with it, it's more likely because they're just a pain, not because you're actually posing any problem for the team.

But "the question" does not become that at all. Because this is not a guide to "what's frustrating." If that subject interests you, I'm sure a "Guide to miscellaneous build considerations to make play comfortable," would be well received.

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Who's to say what's "off the shelf"? What if I can walk into Image, Inc. and buy a jetpack? What if I can buy a personal teleporter?

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Know where the nearest hardware, sporting goods, martial arts, outdoor surival, and electronics stores are? There you go. The natural concept is keyed, as I've said repeatedly, to what we, the players can identify with and imagine doing. You and I will never in our lifetimes walk into a health food store and buy a jetpack or teleporter module, and the absence of ordinary pedestrians ever appearing to use such gadgets argues rather strongly that they're both still guarded and exotic technologies.

Stop for a second and figure out whether you're contemplating the natural concept, or contemplating ways you can explain somebody having a given power (hint: you're doing the latter, not the former). "Bitten by radioactive spider," "Exposed to gamma radiation," and "descended from Gods," are all explanations. We're not talking about whether there's a compelling explanation that can be voiced for any given power. We're talking about a conceptual category.

...I have an idea, at the risk of sounding irritable. You all can go on talking about "all the cool ways to explain powers" and "What the origins mean," in your own guides. Howabout that? In fact, judging from people's willingness to invent the topic wholesale where it obviously doesn't belong, I bet there'd be a large audience for a guide on "Why your character concept sux."

You write 'em, I'd love to read 'em. Once you all have it out of your systems, maybe I'll feel like publishing the guide I'm working on to science accident concept characters.

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However, I've noticed that despite that excellent beginning, you still seem to be insisting that even though you are CALLING it something different, this is still the RIGHT definition of "Natural", and everything else is wrong. "The devs found a loophole", you seem to be saying, "and I accept that, but this is what they really MEANT."

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That's an interesting theory about my thought process, but let me give you the real one:

There is a cool thing in the comics genre. The natural concept character. It preexists CoH. CoH once explicitly had an origin pertaining to it. It now does not. This switcheroo has obfuscated the cool thing in question, both for its longtime fans playing in CoH, and for people who might otherwise otherwise have learned to appreciate it.

So, I tried to write a guide about it.

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"Superior Human" was the name of the "non-super" Origin back when Origins determined your powers, and I'm quite sure that's what you are referring to.

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Nope. I've never heard of this. When the game went to the shelf, the manual that came with it had an origin that represented the natural concept as I define it here, explicitly was tied to ordinary human limitations. I have quoted it in this thread once already.

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If your definition of Natural is the definition of Natural, the Concept, then it's not right for Natural, the Origin.

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Which is why I don't deal with the origin these days except in my efforts to present a cool idea it's currently obfuscating. I have a peacebringer, I know which symbol he usues, and I've read the current description of natural.

You clearly don't give a whit about the natural concept charcter (though you "appreciate" that its distinct), because you're posting at length about the natural origin, helping to obfuscate the thing I'm trying to clarify. The natural origin, as you admit you know, is not at all the subject of this guide. Please quit trying to undermine my guide?

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true Faith as it were is another fine example of how a character can still be natural in origin.

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::sigh:: Yes. It is. As I said earlier, so are some of the borderline mystical abilities of martial artists. It's very cool. But: 1) I'm not talking about the natural origin. 2) Talking about the natural origin is silly, because it can mean just about anything-- you obviously didn't/don't need it to come up with a cool concept like the above. 3) Your concept is cool because it's enigmatic-- ambiguous yet intuitively appealing and carrying a vivifying series of expectations. What to call such a character? A faith concept character, obviously. What origin to use? Natural or Magic, probably, but really, who cares? Is it a natural concept character? No, it's a faith concept character-- which thanks to being pretty original, is probably cooler than natural concept characters, and maybe you should write a guide. Like I was trying to do.

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Enantiodromos's objection is that in order to be able to Teleport, you have to understand how teleportation works, and thus build a device to let you do that.

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No, enantiodromos gave paralell descriptions of power suits and 'port gadgets to try and show the distinction by size-of-gadget was shallow. He has repeatedly explained the fact that strong natural concept characters, unlike some other kinds of character concepts, are *defined* by not having superhuman powers, and so are critically sensitive to dilution with exotic science powers like teleportation and suits-powered-by-energy-creating-circuits.

And BTW, I also have a different view of the commonality of teleportation in Paragon. As you yourself said, people don't pop to the store for a gallon of milk-- indeed there's no reason to believe anybody's ever teleporting except in extremely rare emergencies (BTW, much like the frequency with which an archer can draw another five arrows to shoot, the frequency of life-saving trips to the hospital, in-game, is understood to be way exaggerated.)

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all you have to understand is how the INTERFACE to the Medical Teleporters work. So you can reprogram them to send you where you want. Just like you don't have to understand exactly how internal combustion works to drive a car.

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You wouldn't have to be a nuclear physicist to understand how to use a tactical nuclear device, either, or in all probability know anything except how to pull a trigger, to operate a rikti plasma rifle. But they're still exotic science.

Off-the-shelf (and possibly modified though not by superscientists) technology is what's proper to natural concept characters. Teleportation isn't.

What? Cuppa is leaving? Naaaw. Seriously? Man. My face feels funny.

...

::CRY!::

....

Oh gah. Oh crap. Where did I put my PMs? Ugh, I don't feel too well.

....

...Maybe I should have been a better poster. Maybe if I'd just.... I dunno. Cuppa woulda stayed.

...

What the hell? Who got rid of cuppa! ZOMG. You people suck!

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I keep playing this game. But. Um. It's just not the same.

...

I don't think I can go beyond stage 6.

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Iron Man's "powers" come from his suit fully... To have a single "Power" come from a device doesn't dilute Natural Concept character's in a game such as CoX. ... He has only one power outside of his Natural Concept, which is something you can not compare Iron Man to.

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Iron man's suit is a single conceptual power, that does several things. Doing them requires some superscience hardware, personal skills, and technical expertise.

A teleport controlling gadget is a single conceptual power that can do several things (teleporting for movement, teleportation for defense & escape, teleporting people to safety, teleporting objects into people as an attack, teleporting foes into your clutches. And BTW, the TP pool is sure to provide at least 3 out of these 5 to toons in CoH who take it for movement.) Doing them requires some superscience hardware, personal skills, and technical expertise.

They're both exotic science powers. And either exotic science powers are good on natural concept charcters, or they aren't. They aren't. They weaken the natural concept character a lot. The comparison's a good one, and the only real difference is a question of frequency of use-- but teleportation doesn't have overshadow all other abilities to dilute a natural concept character-- in the same sense, a teaspoon of arsenic can poison a gallon of milk; it doesn't take a gallon of arsenic.

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If you had decided to use Infrequent, or Isolated, or Rare, or Uncommon (Or some other word like these), and describe -why- not everyone would have access to a single power/device outside of their concept (Refering to Teleport and Flight). I wouldn't have taken offense.

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I can't find the explanation of what you took offense at. At the risk of pointing out the obvious, allow me to observe a couple things. You cannot meaningfully take offense at criticism of anything except yourself. You are not a natural concept character, nor are you a natural origin character, nor any other character in any fiction. You are certainly not teleportation. Equally important to note, to say something doesn't work in a given context (even mistakenly, which I'm not) is not necessarily a criticism-- saying my honda doesn't work at the bottom of the river is not a criticism of my honda.

With that in mind, I'd still like to know if I've offended you.

And, I didn't mean isolated or rare. I mean, it doesn't work.

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I feel it should be clarified that is what it is for.

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It's already clear that the guide refers to natural concept characters, not natural origins. I make that distinction in the introduction, and build on that idea very carefully and explicitly start to finish. It's completely self-evident. I think you must have some other objection you want to make, but I suspect it's also wide of the subject of this guide.

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What you define as "useless for creative purposes" is totally useful to someone else

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No. I described, not defined, it that way because of the observable fact that it carries no objective meaning. Ink blots and nonsense syllables would be just as "totally useful."

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creativity is purely about... creation.

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I disagree quite strongly. Creativity in its salient sense is about creating something interesting and communicable. In your sense, I'm being 'creative' when I sling any five random letters together. ZZOMG. Most people expect more than that. In fact, I tend to think that clinging to meaninglessly broad terms *inhibits* creativity in pretty much everyone. Imagination has to find solid footing to start erecting its visions.

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Origin is *intentionally* broad and vague - the less well defined it is - the better.

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What can you possibly be hoping for out of less-clear terms, except misunderstanding? Inspiration can occasionally have roots in misunderstanding. But creativity requires, more than anything else, clarity.

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I'm just saying that, if you step on people's conceptual toes by trying to argue that we're playing natural in a manner not to your liking - you have to be prepared to take some flak for it. I dunno, maybe some of us are oversensative - but if we are, theres a reason for it; I've seen, in the last six months, many many posts of "There's no way you can be natural, no human could do that!"

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Since I definitely didn't say anything like that, I tend to wonder if you were deliberately misreading those other folks, too. You owe me and probably some of them an apology. And please don't bother objecting that that's "just how you read it." This idea that I: argued that you're playing natural in a manner not to my liking is a pure figment of your imagination.

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...you were dismissing the whole Natural Concept with Teleportation as "Nonviable".

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No.

Again, please try to see the difference between: "A natural concept character (like Manticore?) is not workable with the teleport power," and "Teleport is not a workable power with a natural concept (like Manticore?)."[1]

Yes, having teleport weakens Manticore conceptually (to the extent he's a natural concept character). But the question of what makes character concepts bad is way more complex, and not something I was interested in discussing.

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There is a precedent, i.e. Manticore, that shows it -is- a viable Natural Concept to take Teleportation.

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Even if Manticore was able to set any sort of meaningful precedent in the genre (he can't), whether teleportation belongs on a natural concept character has nothing to do with any isolated precedent-- it has to do with the definition of natural concept characters, which I've offered as carefully and integrally as I can. To argue that teleportation is good on natural concept characters, you'd have to argue with my definition. Manticore is not necessarily even an example, much less the defintion, of natural concept.

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I see nothing wrong with any Natural Concept character, to be given access to Friend and Self Teleportation via the medical system by the Freedom Corps due to lack of "Powered" travel. I guess what it is, is that I'm taking offense at your choice of the word "Nonviable" ...

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There's nothing wrong with some characters being given unrestricted access to the teleportation grid. But pretending the addition leaves the character an undiluted natural concept character is ridiculous-- it reveals a basic misunderstanding about what a natural concept character is. If such a character were still a good natural concept, so would be Iron Man.

And I *especially* don't get why you'd take offense at this.

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I think this is a good guide for playing a "natural human" for sure ^^

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Actually, it could apply to somebody who was alien; the main thing is that they would have human-equivalent technology and intellectual and physical prowess, to the point that we could identify with the character and what he accomplishes. Good examples of this is can be found in the Star Trek setting.

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Thats one thing people have to remember about CoX origins - they overlap *constantly*.

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That's true, and likewise, nothing in the comics themselves falls discretely into some five imaginary categories with zero overlap. Batman's obviously working borderline super-tech equipment. Kane from Kung Fu obviously practices abilities that border on mystical. The essence of the natural concept, however, is (unlike many other motifs in comics, including the ones pretty well represented by some of the other origins) positively defined by what it excludes.

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I will however, also agree with those saying that there is a great deal more to the Natural origin than you are allowing for - even if they game itself didn't agree with us - in a comic book sense if you can justify it, it works.

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The current Natural Origin includes flying aliens with lazer-beam eyes and coruscating energy fields. It doesn't identify *any* distinctive category in the comics genre, at all, and indeed no longer even functions as a contrastive category in CoH the way it was obviously meant to. It doesn't relate to anything identifiable in the comics, or any other cool, integrating ideas of its own. It's so broadly defined, that it's nearly meaningless, and certainly useless for any creative purposes.

Meanwhile, natural concept characters are extremely interesting and evocative, and extremely genre. Which is why I tried to bring an awareness of them to a guide, with careful definitions and examples. I realize there are those for whom "anything goes!" is itself both the means and ultimate aim of 'creativity.' But obviously I didn't write a guide on how to develop a character concept for which "anything goes!" That'd be just as dumb as propounding a philosophy well-encapsulated by the phrase: "Do as thou wilt."

I hope I don't seem overly strident, but really, I'm vaguely annoyed with all the posts that amount to nothing but thinly veiled dismay over something I didn't do (try to tell people how to play), and/or reminders that the game mechanics don't prevent power selections based on origin choice.

[1]Edit: Wrding of the contrast more uniform.

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The point is, as long as you're patient enough to explain yourself again. And again. And Again. It's all gravy.

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With the tradition of floating heads, and of boxes that read: "Wolverine. Admantium claws and unbreakable bones made of the same material. Mutant regeneration factor. He's the best at what he does." ... this PoV is pretty genre, true.

As a rule though, stuff you have to explain over and over is probably not a good concept; fans of comic book superheroes do not have quite the same attention spans as do fans of, say, Herbert's Dune series. ^_^

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Just to provide factual context, I believe this is the in-game description of Natural origin...

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What you quote *is* the current definition, but is not the correct context. The manual-published definition to which I referred was, originally:

"Your origin involves no mysterious forces or secret discoveries; you have simply used your remarkable talents to train yourself to the very pinnacle of human potential."

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My character Sovereign Savior (BS/Regen) is natural based on the fact that his original body was a typical human. It was the brain transplant thing that put him into another person's body that had powers to work with. So he combines both the new body's density manipulating capabilities given powers by this sword that is inseparable from the body...

The sword is a manifestation of Sov's passion to achieve his goal. His powers are a reflection of that in a sense...

Plus I chose Natural as a reflection of his orientation.

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Cool concept, and has a few elements in common with natural concept characters, sounds like. The concept is pretty far removed from the natural concept, but that doesn't make it any less cool. Some of the best science, tech, and mutant concept characters mix in elements that naturals focus on, for the same reasons naturals themselves are interesting-- we can identify with them better.

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So, you're telling Manticore he shouldn't be a Natural, and instead should have been Technology... Solely because he was given access to the hospital grid teleportation, even though the rest of him is 100% Natural Archery?

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• When was I talking to Manticore? Wouldn't talking to a character from a video game make me crazy? Why would somebody in-character have a conversation with Manticore about traits of characters in some video game?
• Why are you pretending I've said anything about whether an in-game character has the 'wrong' origin? (Hint: I discussed appropriateness of particular powersets to certain concepts, not characters-to-'Origins.') How did you miss the part where I made this clear about what I'm talking about: "...natural concept characters as I defined them, to whom not all powersets are equally appropriate."

Teleportation is inappropriate to natural concept characters-- it's an exotic power deriving from a guarded/secret technology, which divorces it from natural concept characters, but leaves it plenty of room among high-tech, gadgeteer, hard-science-fictinoney, iron-man-like character concepts, just the same way, for example, tactical nukes or powered flight would. Natural concepts revolve around a *lack* of powers that are rare among everyday humans from planet earth, early 21st century-- a definition which is extremely important and resilient regardless of nonsequitur objections like "Well, couldn't lazer eyebeams be 'natural' to people from the planet Zeist?" or "Well, isn't it just possible that an average joe could find a tactical nuke rifle on his front porch, delivered by mistake?"

Also, BTW, since you solicited it, yes the implicit question: If Manticore teleports despite being intended (I assume we agree on this) as a natural concept character, it definitely weakens his concept. Another good example, if you'd wanted to raise this (non-)objection, would have been Statesman, who I get the impression was intended as a natural concept character. But invulnerability is extremely inappropriate to natural concept characters clad in just spandex and an aluminum mask-- for exactly the same reasons you'd never see Batman try and go toe to toe with Superman under the marquis of queensbury. Manticore and States are weakened conceptually to the extent that they try to draw on the natural concept mystique-- because in practice they don't manage to do it (actually, I thought Manticore did fine in the comic, but I don't recall him teleporting). I think they're better showcased as intermediate concepts, and as such are not weak at all.

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alright, im just gonna have to plain dis-agree with you on gravity being the worst controller

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I disagree with whomever said that too.

What I said was, in a sample so small that it's at least a little flakey to draw conclusions from it, it looks like gravity is the slowest leveler.

Gravity's the set I've played second most, after Mind. I dig on it.

Everybody--

Thanks for your praise. I couldn'ta done it without everybody on the controller forums, really. I just don't like to give them credit because they made me (the lazy guy) compile the thing.

Asterix,

Good input; "animation" is a little ambiguous, and I didn't know VG actually had a damage component!

Rad's staying off my "best teaming" component until I play either of my rad toons three session in a row were somebody doesn't *seem* to be deliberately killing my anchors first in every fight despite explanations. ^_^ Anyway, I'll think about it.

Re: Empathy-- my stats are ... er, around 9 mos old now. The frequency of */empathy controllers has been steadily rising that whole time. I'm quite sure that at least we could say empathy's in the top three ATM. I'm pretty confident it's still not #1, though, frequency-wise.

On "defensive," it might be that the category should read "Most defensive:" rather than "Best defensive." Of course, as your comment re: empathy reminds us, I've made zero distinction between single ally and AoE in this category.

Go play the Best. Game. Evar.

Homeworld.

Errata:


Dubious Sets:
<ul type="square">[*]Speed
Speed is the best super-movement set for a natural concept character-- none are ideal, and probably a minority of players will really want to cope with getting around the city with swift, sprint, and hurdle. Flurry and Hasten (despite hasten's annoying animations) work just fine for naturals. Indeed, neither claims to be superhuman in any way. Superspeed itself, though, is the major movement power of the set, and running *that* fast with a glow under your feet is pretty hard to take seriously as a natural power. You can always claim you're riding a motorcycle while using the power, but the lack of a motorcycle emote is sad, truly sad. Whirlwind needless to say is also hard to explain as a natural power.[*]Jumping
Jumping is a set with three great powers for a natural-- combat jumping, jumpkick, and acrobatics. You get a lot of status protection and some defense out of combat jumping and acrobatics. Jumpkick is an adequate single target attack with a fair chance of knockdown. But the animation's slow and it's lackluster compared with Air Superiority. The big problem with the set is, again, the major movement power. Vertical jump ability tends to be one of those things that people have a good intuitive sense of (Spud Webb and Michael Jordan, anyone?). Superjump handles more like flight, and is hard to take seriously as a natural power.[/list]
Nonviable Movement Sets:
<ul type="square">[*]Teleportation
Teleportation is sometimes mentioned by fans of natural concept characters as plausible via the "hospital grid teleportation" theory. This is a good theory, as far as it goes, and as an organic explanation of a unique character's powers, it works great. It's a poor fit to natural concept characters, however. The original definition of the Natural origin captured this concept well: technology that's still secret or guarded is something that belongs in the purview of a seperate kind of character: the Tech character. Teleportation technology, like for example nuclear fusion technology, relies not just on 'gear,' but on relatively exotic physics and carefully *controlled* technology.[*]Flight
While Air Superiority is a perfectly plausible overhand smashing attack that comes recommended for filling out the attack chain of any natural origin character you need another attack for, the remaining three powers involve lifting you off the ground completely for extended periods of time. The closest "off the shelf" technology comes to permitting such powers is helicopters-- which are still much faster and less maneuverable than fly or hover. And much like superspeed and motorcycles, in the absence of a chopper emote, this one just fails to satisfy.[/list]

In discussing Money and Recognition as motives for natural concept heroes:

<ul type="square">[*]I meant to say it's *not* hard to imagine superheros fight crime for the pay and praise they receive for it.[*]It may have been naive or at any rate inappropriate for me to remark that policemen and firefighters are paid "well." I don't think I'm qualified to figure out how much somebody in such a profession should be payed, and I really have no idea how well they are paid.[/list]
Re: Costumes for Invulnerability

I meant to mention that for natural concept characters who have invulnerability, the "plate" armor skin on chest, gloves, pants, and boots, as well as a sturdy looking helmet, are ideal. Also, tips on building armored costumes: if you want to make your toon look like a real guy in a heavy armored suit, try turning the physique and waist (and on males chest) slider up, and the shoulders down. Also experiment with largest head and cranium sizes if your armor suit includes a full helm head-- this helps make it look like the helmet is wrapped around a normal sized head, and it looks cool, too. Finally do choose the "armored" rather than the "tight" upper and lower body types, and consider "large" gloves and boots.

[ QUOTE ]
aside from a few purists, people said that things like aliens were Natural origin since from their planet they are nothing special. I beleive even a dev posted in that thread agreeing with it.


[/ QUOTE ]

If a Dev said so at that time, I wonder why they turned around and published a manual definition that explicitly referenced humans and the limits of human ability. Anyway, fortunately, comittees don't do the creative work of establishing genre conventions.

The natural origin originally meant something-- it originally referred to natural characters as you find them in the genre and as I've outlined here.

Now, of course, since robots, people born to magic powers, tentacled aliens born with optic blasts, and people obtaining their powers from the strange radiation of an alien sun, are all 'natural,' the term means nothing at all-- neither with reference to anything we expect in the comic supers genre, where every knucklehead knows there's a genre-defining gap between a Batman an a Superman-- nor as part of the game, where it's implicitly a category contrastive with the other four origin categories-- except it isn't.

We can all agree that natural no longer means "human," I'm sure. We only differ on whether that lack of meaning is a good thing, or laughable. Me, I find it laughable to bother ourselves with a category defined as: "Anything! Anything at all! [ zombo.com ]"

Great stuff, Buffy. Your posts help melee n00bs like me immensely.

BTW, mind/ and psimastery/ TK is indeed a standard mag hold. Stacks with other holds and whatnot. Plus the pushback thing. Also didn't notice any mention of intang's, which are really immobs + the "can only affect/be affected by self" thing.

[ QUOTE ]
Natural does not mean non-superpowered human.

[/ QUOTE ]

The origin explicitly and emphatically did refer to ordinary humans without powers mysterious or secret in basis. (It existed exactly because the natural concept character, as I've outlined it above, is a staple of the genre. Anybody who appreciates the genre gets the difference between characters like, to use the perennial example, Superman, and characters like Batman.)

Then the canon game was otherwise-needlessly and nonsensically changed to accomodate Peacebringers.

Regardless, your remarks go wide of the topic of the Guide, which is natural concept characters as I defined them, to whom not all powersets are equally appropriate.

Enantiodromos' Guide to Making
A Natural Concept Character

I. Introduction
II. Power sets
.... Whole Builds List
III. Story
.... Drive
.... Other Traits
.... Assembly
IV. Costumery

INTRODUCTION

This guide is advice to help you build a concept-character natural for City of Heroes. The two key things to a character in city of Heroes are Power sets, and Story. It's understood that this is not a guide the average starting player is desperately seeking-- mainly because nobody really cares about the origins *or* about the "Natural Concept Character" as I discuss it here. This guide is more of an end unto itself.

POWERSETS

First of all, let's talk about what makes a power set what it is, for the purpose of concepts. Three things contribute; appearance, which is to say the animations the set has, and function-- what it does in the abstract-- that is, hurts a lot, tips battles in your favor, bamboozles the enemy, and finally, how the power set is traditionally portrayed and self-described in the manual.

While it's true, for example, that the "Radiation Emission" power set describes itself as superhuman powers involving emission of hard radiation, we don't have to think about it this way. For example, if we can imagine magical spells involving green bubbling light (easy), and can imagine them healing, buffing, and debuffing (easy), then we should have no problem building a magical spell using character who takes the radiation set.

Next, to identify natural power sets, we need to cover what a natural is: a natural is a person without access to distinctively, impressively superhuman abilities. That's correct, it's oriented to humans-- not at all because there are no nonhumans in the setting, but only because we, the players, are human. The category exists because we all love a story about a hero who is, ability-wise, an average Joe like ourselves-- somebody we can imagine actually being. The concept has all sorts of precedent in the superhero genre and others. Natural concept characters do not have access to technology or bodily powers that are emphatically beyond that of normal humans. They definitely carry gadgets. They do not carry super-science gadgets (energy-creating transistors), which are the purview of technology. They may be amazingly strong-- world-class power lifters are-- but not superhumanly strong-- able to pick up cars one-handed.

So, as far as power sets go, we're looking for sets that have animations and/or function that best fit the kinds of things we expect a normal human to be able to do.

Ideal Sets:

• Archery
  Archery is a perfect set on any natural. Though it implies some dabbling in chemical munitions (Flaming Arrow, Exploding Arrow), and sometimes makes teammates wonder where you carry all those arrows (hey, we can't help it if they won't give us a quiver costume option!), all the powers in the set basically involve you using your impressive archery skills to shoot somebody down. Damage is lethal, which at high levels can be a touch annoying, but the set has great range and very good AoE damage capacity.
• Martial Arts
  A flawless natural set-- lot of kicking people, basically. Has some nice built-in controls-- the disorients particularly in Cobra Strike and Eagle's Claw, and the immob/slow in Crippling Axe Kick. The damage is all smashing, and its only AoE is Dragon's Tail. Still, it's a single-target powerhouse.
• Broadsword
  Another flawless set for a natural, you sling a huge sword slowly but devastatingly. Broadsword is all about burst lethal damage. With Whirling Sword and Headsplitter, has some nice opportunities to hit several badguys at once. Also has a nice defensive bonus in Parry.
• Katana
  Another flawless set for a natural, Katana is a lighter, straight, chisel-point sword of the sort we can all picture a Ninja or Samurai using. Nice defensive bonus in Divine Avalanche. Comes on a little lighter, but faster, than broadsword.
• Axe
  Another flawless set for naturals to take, Battle Axe has solid single target and area lethal damage for a tanker, with a lot of knockdown, which is itself pretty nice mitigation.
• War Mace
  Another set that works fine for a natural, but widely regarded as relatively weak as tanker secondaries go, with slow animations and weak damage. Has some fair stuns and knockdowns though. Involves whacking people with a big stick.
• Super Reflexes
  Everything in Super Reflexes makes perfect or nearly perfect sense for a natural. Even evasion, lucky, and quickness are fine on a natural. The set's oriented to defense and gives up nearly all resistance for high defense. You need to take most of the set to have good defenses. Not the set to take if you want to be super-tough to start with, but very effective in the long run anyhow, especially in conjunction with ATs with a touch of healing to spam.
• Fitness
  This pool, which offers the nigh-universally loved benefit of stamina, is extremely appropriate on any natural character. Moreover, the first three powers in the pool, though not flashy, are more useful than most people make them out to be. Swift is a nice way to improve your speed on foot in indoor missions unless you're a super-speeder. Hurdle is a great addition to any super-speeder. Health , though unlikely to save your life, is great for incrementally reducing downtime between fights. Finally, Stamina is a much-sought-after boost to your endurance recovery. Naturals often take either superspeed or no movement power, and are not typically running self-heals.
• Leadership
  Leadership is another great pool power for naturals. All the powers in it make sense for a natural to have. Maneuvers is fairly weak except for team play where many people are using it at once. Assault is a nice bonus to your team's damage. Tactics is a great way to add a little extra accuracy to yourself and your entire team. And vengeance, can be quite powerful-- though only assuming you expect to often have a dead teammate to work with. First priorities are Assault and Tactics.
• Presence
  The presence pool makes perfect sense, for a natural character, as well. A mix of taunts and fears, presence is really the only pool method for adding mezzes to a character. However, none of the powers is overwhelmingly powerful, so I wouldn't build them into a character without a good reason.

Completely appropriate sets:

• Invulnerability
  Invulnerability is a good set on a natural, making one HUGE assumption, which is that your character's costume includes some sort of suit of heavy armor to explain his invulnerability. The only power in the set that is a little odd for a Natural is Dull Pain, the self-heal. I think you can still take the power without breaking a Natural concept. You *can* also get away with an invulnerability build that doesn't use DP, though you're hurting yourself a bit.
• Devices
  Devices is, in the main, a great set on a natural. There're a couple powers in the set-- cloaking device, targeting drone, autoturret, that seem to push the envelope a bit into the science-fictioney territory of Tech. Still, it's probably the best set for a Natural blaster secondary.
• Trick Arrow
  Trick Arrow is, a lot like archery, a great set on a natural defender or controller. The only difficulty comes in with the questions of EMP arrow and Disruption Arrow-- which, rather like some of the Devices powers, look more like Tech powers than Natural. You can skip them, or, if you take them, I don't think they by themselves ruin a Natural character.
• Assault Rifle
  Assault Rifle is a great power set for a natural, with one drawback, which is the thing everyone complains about with AR anyway: the appearance of the weapon you draw. It's sort of dorky looking. And when you come right down to it, a touch exotic to have all that functionality in one weapon. Still, there's nothing really super-science about any of the AR powers, and you have great area and good single-target damage, mostly lethal and fire.
• Claws
  Claws can work for a natural character, especially assuming your character has some sort of brass knuckles with big claws on them, and is a practiced knife-thrower. I find the claws redraw and shockwave slightly bothersome on a Natural, but for the most part, this set is great. Has decent single-target and good area lethal damage.

Adequate sets:

• Energy manipulation
  Energy Manipulation works better than you might at first think, essentially because all the powers are either boxing-like with oddball side animations similar to Dark and Energy Melee, or they're self-buffs that don't do anything clearly superhuman by themselves. Not really a bad choice at all on a Natural Blaster. Also widely considered the strongest blaster secondary.
• Empathy
  Empathy is an odd but mainly tolerable power to include on a natural character. In a perfectly realistic world, the notion of a natural doctor running ranged single-target massive heals, or point-blank area heals, is more than a little awkward. But these powers tend to slip under the radar with the help of the long convention/tradition of people playing nurse-so-and-so, doctor so-and-so, as a natural empath. Many of the powers work fine-- clear mind, fortitude, and adrenaline boost. The worst of the natural-breaking powers in the set, absorb pain and regeneration aura, can be skipped, though. Empathy's a reasonably effective all-buff set that requires a lot of clicks and is seriously overestimated by most players.
• Kinetics
  Kinetics is an interesting choice for naturals; it doesn't include a lot of super-bright glowy animations-- certainly nothing beyond the marginal effect cues we expect out of powers like leadership and tactics. Most of the power in most of the set can be construed as tactical advice, planning, and on-the-fly team coordination. The worst offenders in the set, with an interpretation like this, are probably transfusion, repel, inertial reduction, and transference. You could perhaps explain repel (the most skippable power in the set) as a specialized martial art. Kinetics is a set you have to decide for yourself how much you can take and suspend your disbelief. On the up side, it's probably one of the most powerful sets in the game, whether on a defender or controller, in a team or solo. Given this, surprisingly few people are really aware of its ubarness.
• Energy Melee
  Energy Melee is a great set for a natural, that has a lot of punching moves making you look like a boxer, which is fantastic on a Natural concept character, especially if you can sort of get over the fact that your hands are glowing. (Hey-- Martial Arts makes your feet glow in the game, too, so, deal with it.) There's no one thing in the set you really need to avoid, and it has great damage and great mitigation via its disorients.
• Mind Control
  Mind Control's a great set for a natural character; most of its animations are short and slight, if not completely invisible, and most of them lend themselves pretty strongly to interpretation as persuasion, intimidation, trickery, and mesmerism. The two powers that don't particularly fit this mould, Levitate and Telekinesis, are very skippable.
• Illusion Control
  Illusion Control slides by because it describes itself as involving stealth, trickery, deception, smoke, and mirrors. Between masterful trickery and low-tech gadgetry, a few of the powers in Illusion-- Blind, Deceive, Flash, and Superior Invisibility, are pretty believable as natural powers. The rest are less so, and push the envelope on being magical powers. If group invisibility is careful deployment and group coordination, I can also see it fitting in. Also, if you're always playing in teams anyhow, phantom army and phantasm work very well as simple misdirection based on your other teammates; a point that goes over well if you don't make a point of advertising how well you solo.
• Super Strength
  Superstrength is a set that can work for a natural character. There's a lot of outright brawling to it without weird animations. There're a few powers-- handclap, hurl, and footstomp, that don't make quite as much sense, but aren't terrible and are largely skippable (I wouldn't really skip footstomp). Gives you some tools to control the enemy, too, with a hold in KO blow, and knockdown in Punch, Haymaker, and Foot Stomp.
• Medicine
  Medicine is an interesting set that, technically, seems awfully tech, but hey-- it's called medicine for a reason-- they have, of course, an animation that involves getting out a medical "tricorder" (is what it looks like to me, anyhow). All the powers are essentially fine for a natural with medical training to take. None of them are overwhelmingly strong, though situationally, they can definitely have their uses.

Dubious sets:

• Fire Manipulation
  Fire Manipulation. You carry around... a tank of kerosene and a bunch of matches. Oh-- and a sword wrapped in kerosene waiting to be ignited. Convinced? Well, I'm not either, entirely, but I can't really call this one totally out of the question. Blazing Aura and Hotfeet probably make even less sense on a natural. It might be well to try and make yourself look like you're wearing a haz-mat suit if you want to play a /fire manip natural blaster. Anyhow, you still get buildup and the marginally plausible fire swords. It's not a complete waste-- besides which, I think most people skip most of the stuff in /fire anyhow.
• Fire Control
  Like Fire Manipulation, Fire control requires a lot of suspending disbelief, but can still be weakly doable, especially if you have a strong secondary in mind. Again, probably a fireproof suit and/or a pyromaniac personality helps this seem plausible. Some of the least plausible powers, though, are some of the best in the set-- hot feet and fire imps. The most plausible ones, Ring of Fire, Char, Smoke, Bonfire, really can't make a strong controller by themselves. If you want to do this, I recommend RoFire, Char, Fire Cages, Smoke, Flashfire, and Bonfire, and infinite patience dealing with people freaking out about why you didn't take Fire Imps, if you plan to play the character past 32.
• Dark Melee
  Dark Melee, especially if you look past the smoky wisps it generates, is a pretty nice set for a natural. The first three powers, much like some of Energy Melee, make you look like a boxer-- one of the best natural looks there is. Touch of Fear and the Taunt can both probably be construed as forms of personal intimidation. Siphon Life, Dark Consumption, and Soul Drain are all a little harder to explain on a natural-- they might thematically work on a character that always fights against impossible odds and never gives up, but the animations may not totally support that interpretation. Of the three, I get the impression only Siphon Life is very skippable. Midnight grasp is even harder to live with, as an animation on a natural, and I don't think it's especially skippable.
• Regeneration
  Regeneration, beginning to end, provides enormous health recovery power. A character can take inhuman amounts of damage, and just keep healing it back. The trick here is, you can explain some of it away, much as with Dark Melee, as cinematic "grit." You just keep coming back for more. Still, that only goes so far. IMO, Regeneration works best on a highly offense-oriented concept natural build. It's also, however, a darn strong secondary. I don't know the set well enough to make strong recommendations about what is skippable.
• Concealment
  Concealment is a great natural pool, for stealth and/or invisibility. The powers are, conceptually, interchangeable for the most part, and either can be explained as either stealthiness or as having a "secret identity." After all, you don't see Behemoth Overlords harassing every stupid pedestrian that wanders by. If you're a normal looking Joe in plainclothes, this could make a lot of sense for you, too, as somebody who's invisible. Grant Invisibility and Phase Shift are a lot harder to explain, however, which is why the pool takes the category of "dubious."

WHOLE BUILDS LIST

Completely Appropriate Blasters:
Archery/Devices (A good soloist)
Assault Rifle/Devices
Archery/Energy Manip (Strong AoE and range.)

Adequate Blasters:
Assault Rifle/Energy Manip (Strong AoE.)
Archery/Fire Manipulation (Weird to play, lots of AoE.)
Assault Rifle/Fire Manipulation (Weird to play, lots of AoE.)


Adequate controllers:
Mind/Trick Arrow (Massive single-target control)
Illusion/Trick Arrow (Well balanced combo.)
Mind/Empathy (Heavy team safety)
Mind/Kinetics (Impressively powerful group or solo controller)
Illusion/Empathy (Newly popular build.)
Illusion/Kinetics (Potentially very powerful.)
Fire/Trick Arrow

Dubious Controllers
Fire/Empathy
Fire/Kinetics (Potentially extremely powerful.)


Completely Appropriate Defenders
Trick Arrow/Archery
Empathy/Archery
Kinetics/Archery (Potentially extremely powerful late-game lethal AoE damage offender.)

Ideal Scrappers
MA/SR
Broadsword/SR (Effective, but very gambler-ish)
Katana/SR (Effective, classy, very Ninja.)

Completely Appropriate Scrappers
Claws/SR
MA/Invuln
Broadsword/Invuln
Katana/Invuln
Claws/Invuln

Adequate Scrappers
Dark Melee/Super Reflexes
MA/Regen
Broadsword/Regen
Katana/Regen
Dark Melee/Invuln
Claws/Regen

Dubious Scrappers
Dark Melee/Regen

Completely Appropriate Tanks
Invuln/Battle Axe
Invuln/War Mace

Adequate Tanks
Invuln/Energy Melee
Invuln/Super-strength



STORY

Now we come to the other great half of building a Natural Concept character in City of Heroes. This aspect is a little harder to give great advice on. Let's start with some of our favorite Natural Superheroic characters:

Robin Hood
Yeah, he's pre-comic-book era. Robin Hood, as he's known in conventional retellings, is certainly a shoe-in for superhero; using trickery, skills as a woodsman and archer, in name of justice, righting wrongs. In genesis, the Robin Hood myth has to do with anti-monarchal banditry practiced by middle-class farmers, later distilled into a single character who later still was attributed many of the traits we think of today-- robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, being the dispossessed lord of Loxley and defender of the rightful king (Richard), when the latter was away during the crusades, as well as being a sort of Anglo-Saxon hero against the conquering Normans (a trait you don't hear as much about). Later reprised in the hero Green Arrow.

Jean Valjean
What? Another pre-comic-book character? Definitely. Jean Valjean is a Tank-like Natural hero, or anti-hero, before ever there was a Batman, Punisher, or anything of the sort. He rescues men he has good reason to hate from otherwise inevitable dooms in the septic sewers beneath Paris. He lifts a cart off an elderly man and saves his life. He has incredible compassion, incredible strength, toughness, agility, and willpower, he has incredible drive, and incredible guilt to match. He maintains a Secret Identity. He engages in daring rooftop escapes. He scares off a den of thieves armed to the teeth by pulling a hot poker from the fire and laying it to his own arm as he delivers his soliloquy. Jean Valjean is among the first and greatest superheroes, and he's a Natural Concept character.

Doc Savage
Doc savage, a Natural Concept character, arguably *is* the genesis of the comic-book superhero, who combines the natural abilities of Tarzan and similar "nature boy" physical specimens with the formidable intellect of a Sherlock Holmes, comprehensive scientific education, intensive martial arts training, and vast wealth.

Batman
Batman's a staple of the modern genre. Yes, he uses a lot of gear, some of it being so high tech that it borders on being more like an Iron Man or the like. But what makes Batman tick, not to mention victorious, is his brilliant mind, his intensive martial arts training, his relentless personal drive (or, personal demons), his wealth, his sneakiness, his powers of intimidation, his connections, his foresight, his patience-- all things we can imagine having ourselves without falling into vats of strange chemicals.

Ozymandias
Look on my works, ye mighty, and tremble! Ozymandias is a hero-- because there is, in the end, no morality that is not utilitarian. And like every hero, his efforts are indeed doomed to failure; the victory he achieves over human-made miseries of war and suffering, is clearly not to last. But his brilliance, his foresight, his intensive training and agility, his wealth and connections, seem until the very end to put him in the same league with vastly more powerful figures like Dr. Manhattan.

And the list goes on-- Electra, the Punisher, Lex Luthor, the Kingpin of Crime, Rorschach, to name a few more of the ones I've enjoyed.

There're several things we see recurring in these stories. Intellect, intense martial arts training, money, sneakiness. To assemble our character's story, first we want a list of traits of this sort-- things all Natural Heroes have in common, so we can weave them together.


DRIVE

More than anything else, what these characters have in common is intense personal drive. Some, like early Doc Savage and archetypal Ozymandias, do what they do out of a sense of responsibility to what's right and good. Many others, though, have darker passions that, at least in part, drive them to push to the limits of what's possible. Frankly, we may sometimes wonder whether they're crazy. For good reason.

Robinhood, whose influence is felt in so many comic-book superheroes, is a plainly political, class- and even in fact ethnic-struggle oriented hero. Comicbooks proper have usually been politics-light, but the earlier Robinhood, in his truest sense, had intense motives like any political revolutionary, e.g., Guy Fawkes or even his modern descendant V (for Vendetta).

Valjean is pursued relentlessly by guilt over his initial imaginary crime-- which he himself can scarcely remember, and over his mistreatment of a chimney sweep. He's also pursued by his unquenchable gratitude to the man of the cloth who took him in and then forgave and protected him after he returned the kindness by trying to steal from him.

Batman is of course driven by the nightmare memory of the death of his wealthy parents at the hands of muggers in a crime-ridden and impoverished portion of the city.

Others, like Electra, Punisher, and Rorschach, more than toy with being outright insane, as do most villains (including Natural ones), owing to the lax imaginations of their authors.

Because motive is such a big part of a Natural concept character, it's important to find good ones and build them strongly into your story.

Possible Motives:

• ... comes great responsibility
  If the character is someone who's intensely aware that he can really enact change, this itself can become an almost irresistible urge-- an urge to express and enact one's own moral vision, because... well, you can. Megalomania with a conscience.
• Thrillseeking
  Most non-sociopaths like to be told that they're doing the right thing. If you frankly thrive on the heat of battle, the chance to really beat the tar out of somebody, at the risk of getting tar beat out of you yourself, there's pretty much one socially acceptable way to seek those kinds of thrills-- beating up criminals and other major threats.
• Recognition and Money
  It's hard to imagine that at least some superheroes fight crime because they're paid and praised to do so. There's nothing reprehensible about that. We don't look down our noses at cops and firefighters who risk their necks to save us-- and get paid well and rightfully lauded as Heroes to do so.
• Revenge and Atonement
  Lots of the most classic heroes are relentlessly driven to do something about the wrongs of the past, even and in fact *especially* if they can never really right those wrongs. The more out of reach fixing the original sin is, the more desperately they pursue it.

OTHER TRAITS

Among the other traits a natural character is likely to have:

• Natural Intellect
  It's usually well, if you want to say that such and such a character is unusually smart, that you either establish that he comes from unusually smart parents, or that his parents and background were (indeed painfully) lacking in anyone as smart as the character.
  
• Applied Genius
  If a character is a brilliant forensic detective or battlefield tactician, the question you should ask is, where did he get that experience? The character may have fought in the Rikti wars, lived amidst crime all his life, been a soldier or mercenary or cop or police detective.
  
• Intense Training
  If you have great physical strength and/or stamina, how'd you get it? Running a treadmill hooked up to electrodes? Working out at Muscle Beach? Practicing for the Olympics? Studying under the grueling dictates of a traditional martial arts regime of exercise and practice?
  
• Madness outright
  If you're crazy, you should go do research on mental illness, so you can know what kinds of manageable insanity could be compatible with fighting crime. Delusional episodes, manic phases of a bipolar disorder, fugue states, are all possibilities. The titular detective from the TV show Monk is a great example. With only a slight stretch of the imagination we can imagine a character flying into murderous manic rage when confronted with injustice.
  
• Wealth
  How'd you make your money? It's easy enough to say that you inherited a gold mine given to your father by grateful natives rescued in Central America, or that he was a philanthropist and successful industrialist. Or that your genius allowed you to make a fortune day trading on Wallstreet. Regardless, all these have implications for your back history and motives.

ASSEMBLY

By the time you have the basis of your motives and other traits assembled in a list, reverse engineering the basic outline of your back history is should be easy. This constitutes the plot of your background. Now, just lightly season it with tried and true details everyone finds juicy; clever deceptions, struggles with authorities, rescues, mistaken identities, conspiracies, unusual love affairs, crimes, deaths and suicides, gain and loss of honor.

COSTUMERY

For a natural toon, there's not much to this, with the caveat that you may as well stick to the male and female builds, eschewing the huge build, and that you can forget about a large portion of the head details, third eyes, horns, antennae-- unless they're part of a helmet, say-- as well as the bio, rock and probably most of the higher-tech textures for armor, torso, and legs. A skin color in the first three rows should be mandatory. But don't hesitate to dress up in heavy armor, weird leather, or weird spandex, to your heart's content. Being a natural does not mean having good taste-- in fact probably some Naturals, competing in the field of mutants, science accidents, wizards, robots, and power-suit guys, would be trying to stand out as much as possible, just to "fit in."

Ha. Grav/kin. Nerfed by yours truly.

Fire/Rad is next.

Cuppa and co:
this:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showf...Number=5643099

Can be included:

Controller Damage Overview