17 January

Essential Builds – Ultraman

Written by Ryan Costello

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Just to be honest up front, if you are a big Ultraman fan, you might be disappointed in this entry. I know less about Ultraman than any other subject I’ve covered for Essential Builds (the blog that turns popular culture icons into Essence20 Player Characters). I would have a much easier time build Jerry O’Connell’s character from My Secret Identity.

I, Ryan Costello, may be one of the designers of the Essence20 system and an author on the G.I. JOE, Transformers, and My Little Pony Roleplaying Game Core Rulebooks, as well over a dozen other Essence20 projects from Renegade Game Studios. But I am not an Ultraman fan.

I have nothing against Ultraman! He’s just not on my popular culture radar.

So why build him? Three reasons.

Dan The Man on the Renegade Game Studios Discord requested it.
I thought it would be a fun challenge to build a character I barely know.
Around when Dan The Man put in his request, Finster’s Monster-Matic Cookbook came out for the Power Rangers Roleplaying Game, which introduced the Psycho Paths.

Since then, an Ultraman build has been occupying some small part of my brain. Then I watched Ultraman: Rising.

Who Is Ultraman?

Article section two starts with caveat number two: I’m not building a traditional Ultraman. I’m building the Ultraman who features most prominently in the 2024 Netflix feature film, Ultraman: Rising.

As I said, I know basically nothing about Ultraman. That means I also don’t know if Ultraman: Rising is a faithful take on the character or a complete reinvention. Here’s what I do know:

Professional baseball player Kenji Sato is a real piece of work. Arrogant. Selfish. Dismissive. And yet, despite the amazing season he was in the middle of, he left the American league he played in suddenly to return to Japan.

It ends up, he inherited the powers, and therefore the mantle, of Ultraman from his aged and estranged father. Now he must defend Tokyo from the threat of kaiju attacks. Luckily he can grow to the size of a giant monster.

Building Essence20 Ultraman

I’ve said before that I look for opportunities to use Power Ranger Roles without using the Field Guide To Action & Adventure’s advanced crossover character creation rules to switch out the setting. Normally, that means a setting with mechs, to make use of the Zords rules. Ultraman doesn’t have a mech, because he doesn’t need one to go toe-to-toe with a kaiju.

As I understand it, The Psycho Rangers are Power Rangers that are their own Zords. Exactly what we need here.

Oversimplified? Probably. I’m using mechanics I’ve never seen based on lore I don’t know to build a character I know even less. Let’s see how this goes!

Role

Path Of Stone (Power Rangers Roleplaying Game Finster’s Monster-Matic Cookbook)

I was worried for a second there.

Not knowing the Psycho Paths, I read each one to find the best fit for Ultraman. The first, Path of Cruelty, is unapologetically evil, as the name suggests. I knew the Psycho Rangers were villains, but now I was worried there’d be no separation between each Path and villainy.

Luckily, there’s no overarching theme to the Psycho Paths, with many being element-based. The best for our build is The Path Of Stone.

Outside of growing, Ultraman’s powerset is similar to Superman’s. He’s powerful, can fly, and has a beam attack. The Path Of Stone has all of the above.

At 1st level, Numbness gives us Resistance to Stun attacks, and more as we level up. At 2nd level, On My Own gives us benefits when we aren’t too close to our allies. That’s a good base for our Ultraman build, especially in Ultraman: Rising, since emotional distance is central to the plot. Psychic Scars, though negative, is also a good fit. When we fumble a Skill Test, there’s a 50% chance something negative happens. Ultraman often slips up and ends up on the back heel in a fight.

Second level also gives us Psycho Blast, a ranged attack that can stand in for Ultra Beam. It’s not a perfect fit, since it’s an area effect, but it’s nice that the Role had something that could approximate this trademark power.

Now let’s talk Monster Form. At 3rd level, when Ranger Roles gain a Zord, Psycho Paths gain a Monster Form. Monster Forms aren’t as customizable as Zords, but that’s OK. The Path Of Stone Monster Form is all about being bigger and tougher, with increased Health, more Resistances, an upshift to multiple Skills, including Might, and new attacks, including Massive Fists.

For now, Monster Form only increases our size to Large. Hardly kaiju big. And there’s no flight. The prior isn’t so bad, since we get Grow! at 10th level, which lets us grow to Towering. It means a slower burn of Ultraman getting all of his powers, but at least he gets them. Flight we’ll have to find elsewhere.

Other than Zordbane at 8th level, which specifically helps us fight Zords, the rest of the Role Perks enhance our combat ability in ways that are consistent with Ultraman.

Origin

Athletic (Power Rangers Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

This one is probably specific to Ultraman: Rising, but it was an easy pick for this baseball player who fights monsters. Kinda want to see an Utraman/NFL SuperPro team up, honestly.

Athletic is a solid Origin, one I should keep in mind for personal game builds in the future. It’s Strength and Speed based, as you might expect, but the Always Training Origin Perk is where this Origin shines.

Always Training lets us roll untrained Strength and Speed based Skill Tests with a d2 and without a Snag for being untrained. That’s as useful as it is thematic. It evokes images of Ultraman turning baseball drills into kaiju combat tactics.

Influences

1st Angry (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Cobra Codex)

2nd Athlete (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

3rd Destiny (Power Rangers Roleplaying Game Across the Stars)

You know what would be a fun party game? Choosing three Essence20 Influences and having to come up with a movie plot based on them. Because Athlete Angry over his Destiny sums up the start of Kenji Sato’s character arc perfectly.

Mechanically, Angry lets us focus the energy of our anger into a physical feat, gaining an Edge on a Strength-based Skill Test. I can’t guarantee there’s a moment in Ultraman: Rising where Kenji takes out his anger at his father and his lot in life on a kaiju, but it could have totally happened.

Athlete is thematically redundant with our Origin, but mechanically distinct. We gain an Edge on Smarts and Social Skill Tests related to baseball. Considering how Kenji’s eyes light up whenever baseball comes up, it’s worth doubling down on this aspect of his character.

Finally, the perfect Influence for this build: Destiny. That’s important, because having a Destiny shouldn’t be taken lightly.

The mechanics are tricky, so I’m going to quote the text here:

Anytime you make a Skill Test, and the result on your d20 is a lower value than the maximum that could be rolled on your smallest Skill die, you may re-roll the d20, but you must accept the second result.

That means if we’re rolling a Skill Test and we have a +d8, we get to reroll a result of 1-7 on the d20. Which is amazing. However! It means if we Specialize in a Skill, we only get to reroll 1s. That’s a bit of a bummer, but it makes me like this Influence more. Instead of training to be reliable (which Specialization represents, since it flattens the curve), we’re relying on the invisible hand of fate guiding us to our destiny.

Destiny has a Mandatory Hang-Up: Once per scene, the GM can spend a Story Point to turn a failure into a Fumble. I think the Story Point cost is negligible, since no Essence20 GM I know ever runs out of Story Points (assuming they remember or are even aware they get a pool of Story Points). What I really like about this is how it pings off of the Psychic Scars Role Perk. Between the Destiny Influence Perk encouraging success and the Hang-Up making failures much worse, it completely captures the back-and-forth of a kaiju battle.

Essence Scores and Skills

With all of the failsafes in this build, I was able to give us a straightforward Skillset.

Strength 7

Athletics and Might +d6, and 1 Conditioning, as dictated by the Role. I could have gone higher with the Might Ranks, but we have a few Might Upshifts built into our Role. I also could have given him a Baseball Specialization, but chose not to for the reasons I detailed when discussing the Destiny Influence.

Speed 4

Targeting +d6, for our Ultra beam, and +d2 Initiative, just cause. Yes, our Origin Perk would let us treat our Initiative like it’s a +d2 anyway, but I see us raising that to +d4 at some point, I just didn’t have the Skill Points at 1st level.

Smarts 3

First of all, our Role mandated Survival +d2. It’s not especially thematic, but since Stone’s Smarts increases surprisingly quickly, I guess we’re committing to Survival.

After that, I went with Spellcasting +d4. We won’t get Magical until 4th level, which means we can’t fly until then, but that’s consistent with Kenji gradually learning to Ultraman.

Social 2

Deception +d4, because Kenji lies a lot.

General Perks and Other Options

Our first General Perk at level 4 goes into Magical. This not only covers flight, but I’m willing to bet there’s a spell for every Ultraman power I don’t know about.

We have a lot of flexibility with our General Perk picks after that. The melee combat ones will serve us well, but we can also consider the spellcaster General Perks if that ends up playing a major role in the build’s play pattern. Likewise, we can look at the Power Ranger General Perks tied to Grid Powers and Power Points. Versatility, thy name is Ultraman.

Conclusion

So… I think this is a good Ultraman build. If not, it’s at least a good looking Essence20 character. I especially like that it’s a combat character that still has options outside of combat.

I always appreciate feedback on my builds, but I’d love to hear your thoughts on this one more than most. Especially from Ultraman fans. Did I manage to rise up and face this monstrous challenge?