What would be a good Hero Mastermind?

Redeemed villains don't necessarily have to be heroic do-gooders like Superman (when he's not being a jerk anyway), you know. Venom and Deadpool are two of Marvel's most well-known anti-heroes. Deadpool, despite having a heroic bent, will still hire himself out to whoever pays him, making him entirely still a Pistols Corruptor/Dual Blades Stalker (or whatever; he's tough to pigeonhole). Venom, despite his whole "Lethal Protector" thing, still went around threatening to eat the spleens of those he deemed bad guys.

So there's no reason a redeemed Mastermind can't coldly send his minions to their certain death, if it's for the greater good.

So long as you don't take Detonator, you're good. You could probably take it for Robots and not be too anti-heroic, but for the other primaries, it just looks bad.

There are low level Paragon Police Bosses (Captain?)who summon cops to help them. That "could" be worked into a new set, not that we need another set.

My vision of a hero mastermind, the Commander, would be something like a frontline or direct participant in combat. He/she gets less "henchmen" and would be encouraged to participate in battle alongside his/her fellow fighters. I think the powers would have to be thematic based on the primary, so a solider style commander gets rifle attacks or a bruiser type commander goes into melee with his men.. The secondaries would be team boosting leadership powers like what SoAs have, and other powers that strengthen your fighters.

To make it even more thematic, you and your soldiers would share a bodyguard like HP pool. As long as you're alive, your henchies are. As they take damage, so do you, and likewise. You are "defeated" when the HP pool is gone and all members of the squad, including yourself, take a trip to the hospital. This futher deviates it from the "resummon and upgrade" feeling of disposable soldiers. In fact, you don't summon your guys at all. with I16's ability to have your pets follow you through zones, your guys are ALWAYS there with you. Soon as you enter the tutorial zone, bam, there's you and 3 soldiers. This gives you the feeling that you're not just one dude with the ability to control other dudes, but an actual living breathing squad. They never leave your side.

I think that fits thematically with a hero style mastermind, without just recycling the AT and giving it a new name.

I think the whole necromancy thing is hard to pin down because of the whole respect for the dead thing, there being a cultural thing of not disturbing dead bodies and letting peoples souls rest in peace. It could be seen as different to demon binding because Souls are essentially seen as good things and binding a soul is enslaving another person to do your biding. But then again Demons, although evil, are still sentient (well I assumed they are, but even if they're not what about those who think enslaving animals are evil - demons could be seen as a kind of animal) so it is still a bit evil to bind one to do good (same with dark servant). But then there is the whole shades of grey, interpretations of good and evil argument!

[Ok the above paragraph grew from one sentence to a bit a ramble when I typed it]

From a RP point of view I guess good necromancy could be explained by:
* Reanimation of corpses doesn't involve souls (as someone mentioned earlier on) and a cultural view point that only a person's soul is important in terms of who they are etc. so a dead body means nothing
* Using only willing souls to bind to bodies etc. An example of this would be a very old hero called Green Lama who summoned the souls of dead heroes to fight evil.

Another thing I thought about in terms of mercs doing good is in terms of the Hero Corps. They are an organisation that sells heroes abilities to rich and wealthy. They are doing good work but for selfish reasons. A couple of my toons have backgrounds as mercs who work for the Hero Corps but as part of their backstory they work better as Corruptors rather than Blaster/Defender (AR/Devices and TA/Arch becoming Dual Pistols/Traps and Arch/TA).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger Quote: 16. Has Paragon Studios redefined "player" to require your mouse to subscribe separately from your keyboard? If your mouse has greater processing power than your gfx card, the answer is yes.

Actually, I faced this dilemma red-side with a bots/traps MM who appears somewhat more heroic than villainous, or at least neutral as intended in the original "Firebase Charlie" concept for this character. I could easily transport him hero-side and he'd fit right in.

I still find it rather odd that people have such a problem with Heroic Masterminds. Half the heroes I see in Atlas have horns, demon wings, or flaming skulls for heads. Not to mention the exceedingly fatal nature of most of the powersets if they existed in a real world - fire, electricity, assault rifles, swords, maces and battle axes aren't generally known for being "bring 'em back alive" compatible. And even aside from all that, there are still plenty of "real" comic book heroes who use a variety of fairly nasty powers in a heroic way. Cloak and some versions of Ghost Rider leap to mind. (And then there's the X-Men - I haven't been keeping up, but last time I checked, Sabertooth, Mystique and Magneto have all taken at least a short turn as good guys, and just about all the actual X-Men have gone bad at least once.)

In terms of this game, I can't really see the devs changing the game mechanics of an AT depending on which side you're on. It would be a balancing nightmare if nothing else. I don't think that they'd do "good" versions of the pets, either. A big part of the reason Masterminds get new primaries so rarely is that setting up the summon powers is supposedly much more work than for any other powerset. Creating a Good version of each set would be as much work as adding six new primary sets for MMs.

i think mercs or robots can be good as heroes i mean desdimona is a demon summoner an if a demon can do good well ... as for weird redside ATs as heroes i fail to see how a blaster can save any one they just destroy i plan to make a evil blaster and trollers are just as sadistic as a dominator if you dont belive me try an pvp one in RV no mercy at all man! its basically all in how you look at it . warshades are supposed to be evil when rogues goes live im changeing my elec /sheild brute into a hero