Stone form stuff

I tried posting this before and lost my post which is basically the worst thing ever. Anyway.

I haven't read through the core rules or basic character creation stuff yet, but I started digging through the powers to see what my options are. Basically I'm going for a dude that can turn to stone, burrow through stone, control stone, cause earthquakes, etc. I'm thinking more like Sand from the JSA than the Thing - the matter manipulation stuff is more important than being a badass with tons of superstrength. Here are the powers I'm looking at right now:

Altered Form (Stone)
Burrowing (Pace, Contingent on Altered Form?)
Earthquake (Depth, Earthshake)
Super Strength (Contingent on Altered Form)
Super Vigor (Contingent on Altered Form)
Toughness (Contingent on Altered Form?)
Armor (Contingent on Altered Form, Hardy)
Doesn't Breathe (Contingent on Altered Form)
Attack, Melee (Contingent on Altered Form)
Attack, Ranged (Requires Material, Area) (either chuck boulders at people or the ground reaches up to strike people)
Matter Control (Stone, Requires Material)
Ensnare (Limitation - target must be in contact with solid ground) (stone reaches up to grab people)
Awareness (sense stuff through vibrations)
Heightened Senses (Spatial Sense) (sense stuff through vibrations)

Obviously I'm not going to take every one of these, but these are the powers that seem to fit the theme. I'm thinking he has a general rocky form that he can take, but visually takes on some elements from his surroundings - concrete/asphalt/brick in the city, mossy earth/rock in the forest, things like that. I don't know that it needs any system support, but if there's anything in there that fits I'm open to ideas. Anything I'm missing?

Also I'm not sure how much "system mastery" is required for Savage Worlds - are there any of these powers that are particularly effective or particularly bad for their cost? Anything I should look out for in the rest of character creation?

I'm thinking Tremor for the superhero name but I'm open to suggestions. Obviously if I ever get a sidekick I'm naming him Aftershock.

I can dig it... heh.

My personal recommendation for a well rounded Character is to have at least one of an attack, defense, and mobility power. So grouping them up can sometimes help you pick what you really want (some powers may have overlap like I would consider Earthquake having both offensive and defensive utility) like so:

Attack:
Super Strength (Contingent on Altered Form)
Attack, Melee (Contingent on Altered Form)
Attack, Ranged (Requires Material, Area) (either chuck boulders at people or the ground reaches up to strike people)

Defense:
Altered Form (Stone)
Super Vigor (Contingent on Altered Form)
Toughness (Contingent on Altered Form?)
Armor (Contingent on Altered Form, Hardy)


Attack and Defense:
Earthquake (Depth, Earthshake)
Matter Control (Stone, Requires Material)
Ensnare (Limitation - target must be in contact with solid ground) (stone reaches up to grab people)
Awareness (sense stuff through vibrations)
Heightened Senses (Spatial Sense) (sense stuff through vibrations)

Mobility:
Burrowing (Pace, Contingent on Altered Form?)

Extras:
Doesn't Breathe (Contingent on Altered Form)

This way you can pick and choose but ensure you are well rounded or heavily weighted to attack or defense if you want.

Other recommendations I have are that each power often has unique modifiers like Altered Form has Replenish where if you are in contact with your substance you can heal from it which for a Stone guy in a city would be really nice. So checking the powers you are most interested in for specific modifiers that work similarly to other powers you want is a good idea.

The altered form taking queues from your surroundings would fall under Trappings (I like the idea a lot by the way) and is definitely doable. It's mostly descriptive stuff that doesn't heavily impact dice rolls or any numeric qualifiers of the game.

I don't think the system takes a lot of mastery, it's well rounded so as long as you build a character you like they usually end up being effective (unless you go out of your way to take all kinds of unhelpful and low level powers). We are all learning the system so as we go on there will be opportunities for your powers to grow or change if you feel like a certain ability has been useless for you and want to get rid of it.

Others may have better answers as to what to look out for but when picking Edges some things are built around having an initiative system and stuff like that where as a Play by Post games those abilities won't be helpful for your character.

I like Tremor.

Replenish would be good, and I'll probably tack on Requires Activation for Altered Form as well. I'll start thinking more about the rest of the character and start digging through the books a bit more in the next couple days.