source
Black Lightning - PL 11
Strength 3, Stamina 4, Agility 4, Dexterity 6, Fighting 5, Intellect 4, Awareness 3, Presence 5
Advantages
Agile Feint, All-out Attack, Connected, Defensive Roll 4, Extraordinary Effort, Improved Critical 2: Lightning Bolt: Blast 12, Improved Initiative, Power Attack, Ranged Attack 4
Skills
Acrobatics 5 (+9), Athletics 10 (+13), Close Combat: Short Circuit 5 (+10), Close Combat: Unarmed 5 (+10), Expertise: Education 12 (+16), Expertise: Politics 6 (+10), Insight 5 (+8), Intimidation 3 (+8), Investigation 3 (+7), Perception 5 (+8), Ranged Combat: Stun Shock 3 (+9)
Powers
Electrokinesis
. .
Ground Charge: Burst Area Affliction 11 ([0 active, 0/24 PP, 2/r], 1st degree: Dazed, 2nd degree: Stunned, 3rd degree: Incapacitated, Resisted by: Fortitude, DC 21; Burst Area: 30 feet radius sphere, DC 21)
. .
Lightning Bolt: Blast 12 ([0 active, 0/24 PP, 2/r], DC 27)
. .
Ride the Lightning: Flight 4 ([0 active, 0/24 PP, 1/r], Speed: 30 miles/hour, 500 feet/round; Concentration)
. .
Short Circuit: Affliction 12 ([0 active, 0/24 PP, 1/2r], 1st degree: Impaired, 2nd degree: Disabled, 3rd degree: Incapacitated, DC 22; Alternate Resistance (Dodge); Limited: Only effects electrical devices, robots, and cybernetics)
. .
Static Shield: Protection 7 ([0 active, 0/24 PP, 3/r], +7 Toughness; Affects Others, Increased Duration: continuous, Increased Range: ranged; Distracting)
. .
Stun Shock: Affliction 9 ([0 active, 0/24 PP, 2/r], 1st degree: Dazed, 2nd degree: Stunned, 3rd degree: Incapacitated, Resisted by: Fortitude, DC 19; Increased Range: ranged)
Offense
Initiative +8
Grab, +5 (DC Spec 13)
Ground Charge: Burst Area Affliction 11 (DC Fort 21)
Lightning Bolt: Blast 12, +10 (DC 27)
Short Circuit: Affliction 12, +10 (DC Dog/Fort/Will 22)
Stun Shock: Affliction 9, +13 (DC Fort 19)
Throw, +10 (DC 18)
Unarmed, +10 (DC 18)
Complications
Social Responsibility: Black Lightning is as interested in helping society by running a food drive or teaching a civics class at an inner-city high school as he is helping society by defeating super-villains. In addition to being a super hero, he has also been a high school principal and the U.S. Secretary of Education.
Defense
Dodge 14, Parry 10, Fortitude 8, Toughness 8/4, Will 8
Power Points
Abilities 68 + Powers 35 + Advantages 16 + Skills 31 (62 ranks) + Defenses 24 = 174
Black Lightning! The only character in this list with "Black" in their name who is actually African American and always was.* Jefferson Pierce is a literal Olympic athlete, getting gold at the '76 Olympics (although this could be retconned depending on how old he needs to be for a particular writer/player). No glory hound, he's still civic-minded enough to return to his old neighborhood to become a high school principal to help clean up the streets of Southside, a suburb of Metropolis colloquially known as "Suicide Slums" which is essentially ruled over by crime lord Tobias Whale and a gang known as The 100. To fight back, Pierce creates the identity of Black Lightning, using powers that he had suppressed most of his life.**
BL makes Southside his home turf and responsibility much like Batman does for Gotham, so much so that he declines an invite to the JLA, although he does help form several separate versions of the Outsiders. His skill, reputation and sense of civic duty did get him appointed Secretary of Education under President Luthor, though.
On the mechanical side, there's nothing technically wrong with BL's build, but there are a few things worth tuning. Abilities are all in the 3-5 range, where you'd expect a well-educated and charismatic Olympic decathlete, except for DEX 6 which would be surprisingly high even if he did have DEX-based skills, which he does not. Advantages all seem good, although Connected would be more effective if he had Persuasion (the PRE 5 isn't a bad base, though) and dropping DEX while raising Ranged Attack is an obvious fix, the only question being how much. Skills are also mostly okay, but 2 separate Close Combat Skills could just as easily be Close Attack or even swap points up for FGT 10 (easily justified by training with some of the greatest melee fighters on earth).
His Powers are all bundled up in a Dynamic Array, and while I can see some justification for that based on how he occasionally needs to balance his electricity, it feels like it'd be a little clunky in play. Also I decided to read through Black Lightning Year One and not all of these powers showed up AFAIK:
Lightning Bolt - obvi.
Ground Charge - this is built as an Area Stun, but because of the name and the fact it's electricity, I'm not sure if it should have a "touching ground" limit on it or if it could be used in a 30' globe to hit targets above or below in flight. Speaking of which:
Ride the Lightning - this is built as low rank Concentration Flight, so it's relatively slow and he can't attack easily while flying. He might use this in more JLA-style books but in Year One Pierce runs. I mean he
RUNS, drawn in a near-horizontal lean kind of run that reminds you he's an athlete. It's largely a street-level series, so he's fine and looking great vaulting fences and crossing rooftops; I might trade a few Athletics ranks for Spd 1 and Leaping 1 just to keep down the Ath rolls, or possibly give him Skill Mastery: Athletics. So Flight, especially such limited flight, seems kind of optional to make BL work.
Static Shield - this is definitely a thing Pierce uses a handful of times throught Year One, although it's built a little funny. Protection with Affects Others works, since it's usually to protect others besides him, but I'm not sure about Distracting. I'd be inclined to use Create instead, possibly with Proportional to keep from making the shield too big. Distracting may be a fix to keep his functional defense below PL, which again is avoided with Create.
Short Circuit - this is effectively a single target touch range EMP. There are several ways to build this, but the Power Profiles have Weaken Electronics (Broad), Affects Objects only as a base for 2p/rank. Weakened equipment can't heal over time without someone repairing it, so this would work great against most simple electronics; Devices and Constructs with Electronics could be Weakened, although you'd have to figure out what to use as a bonus on the resistance check.
Stun Shock - a single target Ranged Stun. I might be tempted to combine this with Ground Charge and make the Area Selective, but all that range might be useful.
*Black Manta (coming soon) debuted in 1967 but has only been "definitely African-American" since '93. Black Adam should arguably be some flavour of Middle Eastern, but that's a whole other discussion. Most of the others are either lily-white or alien.
**the reason for this actually varies. Early BL used a device either as a source or to regulate his innate powers, but later "internalizes" its functions.
source
Black Lightning - PL 10 (Rook RTP edit)
Strength 3, Stamina 4, Agility 4, Dexterity 2, Fighting 9, Intellect 4, Awareness 3, Presence 4
Advantages
Agile Feint, All-out Attack, Connected, Defensive Roll 4, Extraordinary Effort, Improved Critical 2: Lightning Bolt: Blast 11, Improved Initiative, Power Attack
Skills
Acrobatics 5 (+9), Athletics 10 (+13), Expertise: Education 6 (+10), Expertise: Politics 4 (+8), Insight 5 (+8), Intimidation 4 (+8), Investigation 2 (+6), Perception 5 (+8), Ranged Combat: Electrokinesis 7 (+9)
Powers
Electrokinesis - Dynamic Array - 22p pool + 3.5 DAE =
29p
. .
Ground Charge: Burst Area Affliction 10 ([0 active, 0/22 PP, 2/r], 1st degree: Dazed, 2nd degree: Stunned, 3rd degree: Incapacitated, Resisted by: Fortitude, DC 20; Burst Area: 30 feet radius sphere, DC 20)
[20]
. .
Lightning Bolt: Blast 11 ([0 active, 0/22 PP, 2/r], DC 26)
[22]
. .
Static Shield: Create 9 ([0 active, 0/22 PP, 1/r], electricity, Volume: 125 cft., DC 17; Impervious; Distracting, Reduced Range: close)
[9]
. .
Stun Shock: Affliction 11 ([0 active, 0/22 PP, 2/r], 1st degree: Dazed, 2nd degree: Stunned, 3rd degree: Incapacitated, Resisted by: Fortitude, DC 21; Increased Range: ranged)
[22]
Olympic Decathlete -
2p
. .
Leaping 1 (Leap 15 feet at 4 miles/hour)
. .
Speed 1 (Speed: 4 miles/hour, 60 feet/round)
Offense
Initiative +8
Grab, +9 (DC Spec 13)
Ground Charge: Burst Area Affliction 10 (DC Fort 20)
Lightning Bolt: Blast 11, +9 (DC 26)
Stun Shock: Affliction 11, +9 (DC Fort 21)
Throw, +2 (DC 18)
Unarmed, +9 (DC 18)
Complications
Social Responsibility: Black Lightning is as interested in helping society by running a food drive or teaching a civics class at an inner-city high school as he is helping society by defeating super-villains. In addition to being a super hero, he has also been a high school principal and the U.S. Secretary of Education.
Defense
Dodge 12, Parry 10, Fortitude 8, Toughness 8/4, Will 7
Power Points
Abilities 66 + Powers 31 + Advantages 12 + Skills 24 (48 ranks) + Defenses 17 = 150
Here's a cleaned up RTP PL10 version of Jefferson. In keeping with the Year One feel he's slightly less powerful and a little less skilled. I removed Short Circuit since I didn't recall that in the series and it's just as good as a Power Stunt, but kept all the Stuns and Shield because Pierce is more concerned than most heroes about collateral damage. I shaved down his Expertises since he's not US Sec of Ed yet, and dropped a rank on his PRE but bought back his Intimidation. I did cheese a bit with his range bonuses putting almost everything into Ranged Combat: Electrokinesis (Tight Group), which probably disqualifies about half of his "decathlete" cred since he can't throw as well.
I did keep the Dynamic Array. I dropped Flight as well as SC since it was kinda lame and Year One Pierce depends more on his running. The Shield sees a lot of combat use, though, so he can still throw one up and continue to blast out (weaker) shots on his attacks. For the Shield I used Create at Close Range, kept Distracting and added Impervious so it's perfect for holding back low-caliber gunfire. You could also simplify the Array by making it non-Dynamic, freeing up a handful of points to use elsewhere, but BL would be limited to hand-to-hand fighting when the Shield is up, so you might want to drop Distracting in that case since you won't need to save the points for sharing the pool.
RTP Black Lightning could be pre-JLA invite, definitely pre-Sec of Ed invite, and is probably known to a few other supers, particularly for his non-powered newsworthiness. (Clark Kent shows up early on in Year One in his reporter capacity, but Supes doesn't go to Southside, for reasons.) He's also perfectly placed to mentor teen heroes, and could play the token adult on a mostly teen team. Overall, he's a great street-level hero with enough punch to take on higher-level threats and a lot of great hooks and backstory (I almost forgot he's married with two daughters, both with different powersets) to fill out your roleplay.