If CoX used PnP mechanics

Suppose that somehow a point-based mechanic, as used in pen-and-paper systems, was added to the game. You can now add attributes to your characters based on their backstories and personalities, but every bonus has to be balanced out by an equal penalty. For example:

1.) My Elec/Energy blaster, Recharged, was killed in his previous hero identity and resurrected by a bolt of lightning striking his grave. Having been dead, he doesn't find much that frightens him anymore (+Fear Protection, making him harder to fear). However, he's not the brightest, and it's pretty easy to get into his head and screw around with his perceptions (-Confuse Resistance, making them last longer).

2.) My Archery/Devices blaster, the Unblinking Watchman, is basically Batman, if he were a 16-year-old sci-fi nerd. His archnemesis, the Divine Rogue, wields fire stolen from the gods; as such, he's woven flame-retardant material into his trenchcoat (+Fire Defense). But he's just a kid in a trenchcoat, and on a teenager's allowance, he can't afford any real protection (-Smashing/Lethal Resistance).

3.) My Energy/Energy brute, Vis Vires, is a mutant, capable of manipulating energy fields into shielding and to enhance his punches. However, he is insane, convinced that he is an avenging angel, smiting those who use their powers incorrectly (by protecting the weak, instead of oppressing them). The more righteous he feels, the more power he gains, manipulating energy more and more masterfully (as his Fury builds, he gains some Smashing/Lethal Defense as well as damage). But when confronted with his true nature, his powers shut down entirely, and his mind breaks (-Psi resistance, when feared he receives a massive -Defense and -Damage).

So, suppose this system existed. What would your characters get?

If such things were true...

My Corruptor, Heretyk, is essentially a corpse reanimated by dark, sinister forces beyond our imagination. When I say dark, I mean it; he's a dark/dark corruptor. His 'host', the corpse, was born with an incredible intelligence and dexterity, so he'd gain a bonus to accuracy and perception, while light could seriously hurt him; a weakness to energy and whatnot.

Let's see...

Vincent, my Claws/Dark Armor Scrapper (who I imported from a story I'm working on, and eventually adopted his name as my Forum handle because I used my regular handle as a log in name...) is a human who was turned into a "Vaguely-Demonic-Looking-Dragon-Thing™ by a dragon worshiping cult.
Since he looks so frightening, he'd be able to scare off enemies just by being near them. (Cloak of Fear, though I don't have that power yet).
In addition, he'd have to have enormous strength of will in order not to have a nervous break down over the fact that he's... a VDLDT™. (+Psi Resistance) However, since he's so new at being a VDLDT™, he's still somewhat awkward, and quite easy to knock off balance. (-Knockback)

On the flipside, my SS/WP Brute Night-Errant was a normal human who found a cursed suit of armor and gained super strength and endurance. (+STR +DEF) (Though, if that's all it did, then it was more "enchanted" than "cursed"...) In order to actually locate the armor, I'd expect he'd have to have some knowledge of history or magic. (+int? -psi?)
However, he does have difficulty controlling the exact degree of strength he uses. (-Dex). That's what led him to end up in the Zig, which led him to the rogue islands, which led him to become a bounty hunter. ...Seriously waiting for GR with that one.

Well, my main hero is a regen scrapper, so he HAS no weaknesses


Seriously though, I would love a merits/flaws system, although it would probably exploited something fierce by the min/max crowd.

It depends on the system you intend to use. The Hero System as mentioned above is not implemented in Champions Online and I can say this as someone who played and owned Champions for some four years and built several characters. Champions Online uses a Hero System Lite and isn't reflective.

That being said, to gain any advantage with a power (such as the ability to be Armor Piercing, or reduce the amount of defence the target has) would have to be bought with some compensating disadvantage, such as lower damage and so on. It's meticulous, but mathematically you could have a balanced character. BUT, you could also min/max. Purely comes down to what you're aiming for.

That being said, my Super Strength/Invulnerability tanker is an avatar of an Australian Aboriginal creation deity. He's vastly less than what he is (being confined to a single body, for one) but his disadvantage is pollution in concentrated forms, such as the treatment plants near Founders Falls. It greatly reduces his Strength and Invulnerability, as well as damages him. General levels of pollution means he needs to connect with a natural environment physically once a day or he suffers lower levels of the same effect.

S.

That's the thing, they bought the Champions IP and not the ruleset, the power picking thing is 'sort of' like Champions but not really.

Anyway...

Barb Arian aka Servant of Rularuu (two different characters, same person, different points in her life).

Barb Arian: Axe/SR brute: She's from War World which means that she's focused purely on fighting, it's a primitive world so she's easily impressed by magic or technology (-confuse resistance). She also tends to focus less on agility and more on brute strength (-5% defence to all, +10% damage). She is however, very hard to stop once she gets going (+resistance to slow, -recharge and immobilize).

Servant of Rularuu: SS/Fire brute: She lost to a personal nemesis and sought power wherever she could find it, she found it in the Shadow Shards...

At this point she's a complete psychopath worshipping a universe devouring diety, she's given up all pretense of defensive abilites and is just out to cause as much damage as possible (-10% defence to all, +20% damage, since she already lacks defense in any shape or form it means mobs would go from a 50% chance to hit, to a 60% chance to hit).

She's been altered and shifted at the whim of the Devourer but granted abilities to hide it from normal people (alternate form: Rularuu Overseer with all their abilities) but as such she still feels 'unnatural' to even the most remotely sane person, people just wont go near her or like dealing with her (-50% on all Influence earned, contacts take twice as long to give out their phone number and for Going Rogue, cannot side switch).

Dr Mechano: Bot/FF Mastermind: He's a frail old man and isn't one to do any actual fighting, prefering to let his bots do it for him (-20% HP). However he is a brillaint, if mad, scientist and can create wild and varying chemical potions (only requires 2 insps of any one variety to combine into another).

His battle drones are led by a single military AI (+acc) but as such during battle the three way split on the military AI causes some strain (-dmg).

The two Protector bots are fully sentient AI but unfortunately that means one will try to charge into melee and refuse to heal (Arhnuld, who loves his Conan moves, gains a 100% bonus to melee damage only and will only ever melee) and the other will hang back and just heal since Gizelda is the mothering type (heals do more and she heals more often).

The Assault bot Succubus aka Elise is a tempremental teenager (-defense -resistance to confuse) but tends to be more aggressive to make up for the other, less effective, robots and try to make her 'father' proud (+a lot of damage since only one of the Protector bots does damage and the Battle drones suffer from -damage as well) and better built than the others (+hp).

Calash - Fire/SS/Pyre tanker

Built on recovered Rikti technology he gains an advantage against them, but at a cost.

+3% Resistance to all type of damage from a Rikti source.
+ Ability to detect Rikti or Rikti based objectives on a mission map. All members of the team can see the enemy locations on the map.
- 3% damage to Rikti targets.

Lesse...

1) Assembled Girl comes in three different flavors, but regardless she'd have significant +Lethal Resistance (being a cyborg covered in metal), and also have a small bonus to Psionic damage. Penalty-wise, she'd more susceptible to Fear and Energy damage.

2) Masked Bolt has a terrible fear of fire, from when his house burned down. (Fire damage gains a chance to Fear.) On the other hand, he has incredible technological prowess and Archery skills, and I could see him getting a reduction to crafting costs and a slight reduction to recharge time.

3) I have several characters who use either Dark powers or an equivalent opposite in the form of Holy powers (represented by Sonic Blast, Thermal, and Invulnerability). They would all either have a strength or a weakness to their opposite, I'm quite sure which.

Some of the first PnP characters my brother and I (we're twins) wrote up were twin energy projectors; they were vulnerable to each others SFX (badly missed shots were painful). They also had a single "combined" attack that did 150% the active points either could throw alone (had to stand together and both make a to-hit roll against same target, or attack fizzled).

I've wished we had something like this forever, but I also know there are very good reasons to not do it. For one, most of my blasters would have inherent resistance to their own damage type, since it seems a bit goofy for somebody with enough control over ice/fire/energy/whatever to cause minor apocalypses with it to still take full damage from it. ("Now suffer the full wrath of my Inferno, evildoers! You shall--AAAGH! FIRE! AND IT'S HOT! GET IT AWAY GET IT AWAY GETITAWAYGETITAWAY!")

Erica Strauss (MA/Regen Scrapper)- Should have good resistance to psionic damage thanks to having an alien symbiote piggybacking on her brain, but huge weakness to fire cauterizing her wounds so she can't regenerate.

Silead the Lament (Claws/Ninja Stalker)- Like +20% defense and -50% resistance. One good punch is supposed to hurt enough to send her into shock, so she's made sure she's damn good at dodging. Of course, if I really cared to, I could probably soft-cap her with IOs without the weakness.

Sorrow-Weave (Dark/Electric Brute)- A -speed/recharge penalty on damaging powers and bonus Fury generation, weakness to psionic damage and psionics-based mezzes. She's a messed-up psychic and not very good at controlling it, so she feels the opposite emotions of what people around her are... which both makes her weak to psionics and really like hurting people in creative ways.

Jessica Reid (Thugs/Poison MM)- Gets her thugs by slipping them heavy-duty brainwashing poison, so she can have about as many thugs as she can find people on Mercy Island willing to inject themselves with strange drugs (+recharge on Gang War), but she has practically zero education (cannot craft).

I'm going to have to agree with everyone as to why a system like this would never get implemented in game. It's just too easy to play the system to get more than you would otherwise (even assuming the system is designed to generate a net loss to account for min/maxing) considering the ease at which players can choose their own challenges.

As to what I would use for the only character I bother to RP even the slightest...

Umbral Fist (DM/Regen) would have greater armor penetration thanks to the nanites that comprise his blood stream (and that leak out of his prosthetic fists during combat) operating on a molecular and even atomic level, but, because the same nanites that attack his foes are also the same ones that continually heal him, any -regen would also generate a similar level of -dmg.