Quantum from Dragon Magazine #111, 1986 by George MacDonald

[Mathew Robert Ignash]

Here is another old post from me on this board which has been archived, reposted with updated working links!

 

http://www.herogames.com/forums/topic/79085-quantum-from-dragon-magazine-111-1986-by-george-macdonald/

 

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Back in 1986, Dragon Magazine number 111 printed an article by George MacDonald called "Quantum, Power and Super-Power in the Champions Game." This article detailed the subject of making a character at different levels of "power" for your Champions game.

 

As an example George created a character named Quantum (no relation to the mutant hero in the BBB). Quantum is a woman who gained super powers thanks to an accident with a device created by Doctor Destroyer (read the article for details). George presented tables of Quantum's stats. She ranged in five levels from a starter heroine, to a goddess of destruction who took on alien battle fleets.

 

Presented here are full write ups for all five versions of Quantum, based on George's tables, in easy to use character sheets, updated to 4th edition rules.

 

http://mattcave.fcpages.com/PDFs/QUANTUM1.pdf (300+ points)

http://mattcave.fcpages.com/PDFs/QUANTUM2.pdf (600+ points)

http://mattcave.fcpages.com/PDFs/QUANTUM3.pdf (900+ points)

http://mattcave.fcpages.com/PDFs/QUANTUM4.pdf (1300 points)

http://mattcave.fcpages.com/PDFs/QUANTUM5.pdf (1600+ points)

 

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Oh, as a bonus that magazine also had an original character for V&V RPG named Maxima, written by Jack Herman. Maxima was supposed to be an overpowered female character (fitting with the theme of that issue), so I used the generic conversion notes in V&V to Champions to write her character sheet. She IS aweful overpowered and not well balanced, but I was curious what she would look like in Champions:

 

http://mattcave.fcpages.com/PDFs/MAXIMA.pdf

 

Yes, that a SPD of 13, CON 105, 54 point of resistant defense, 37 levels of Regeneration, etc. I just followed the OFFICIAL conversion rules for converting V&V to Champions printed back then. I did say she was not well balanced, but she's official.

[Balabanto]

Wizards hasn't gotten any of my money since my limited foray into 4th edition. And they likely never will again. 

[Anaximander]

I actually started doing something like this for some NPC supers in my campaign world who started out as low or no powered super heroes but have improved to genuine super hero status over time, and for fun, I thought it would be interesting to build their characters at the different levels until I got to the point when they would be introduced into my campaign.

[Shiva13]

That really brings me back. Seeing when characters were a whole lot less complex.

 

I'm mainly speaking of the 300 point version. It's quite refreshing for me to see such a simple clean design.

[Ninja-Bear]

Matt is that the old Heromaker program? And is there a reason why the enhance sense is after the EC and the UV after the MP? I woukd think they would be listed together. No biggie of course.

[Ninja-Bear]

That really brings me back. Seeing when characters were a whole lot less complex.

 

I'm mainly speaking of the 300 point version. It's quite refreshing for me to see such a simple clean design.

I know and agree. However to imply that you can't still do this in 6th is a little misleading. Depending on concept, you can still build characters like this. Or even if concept seems to want you to make it more complex and you want it simple, you still can-as long as GM approves. I know I can fall in the trap of "well there are more fidely bits so lets make it more complicated". I also wrestle with "accurate" vs playable builds too.

[Mathew Robert Ignash]

Matt is that the old Heromaker program? And is there a reason why the enhance sense is after the EC and the UV after the MP? I woukd think they would be listed together. No biggie of course.

1. Yes. I still use it.

2. Heromaker will, by default, list all enhanced senses separately, and I sorted the powers into alphabetical order, so Enhanced Senses is after Elemental Control alphabetically, as is UV Vision after Multipower. You can place them where you wish and merge them into one line if you want. That's just where they ended up.

[Ninja-Bear]

1. Yes. I still use it.

2. Heromaker will, by default, list all enhanced senses seperately, and I sorted the powers into alphabetical order, so Enhanced Senses is after Elemental Control alphabetically, as is UV Vision after Multipower. You can play them where you wish and merge them into one line if you want. That's just where they ended up.

No problems, just curious on why you listed powers as you did.

[starblaze]

You know I actually like Hero Maker but there are no computers with an A drive anymore and you can't download it.  Also I could figure how to print characters with a new printer.  

 

This reminds me of the earlier Dragon magazine when they used to put gaming stuff for other systems.  Then when WOTC took over that ended it.

[Amorkca]

You know I actually like Hero Maker but there are no computers with an A drive anymore and you can't download it.  Also I could figure how to print characters with a new printer.  

 

 

 

 

You could always get a USB floppy drive, they are available...

[Mathew Robert Ignash]

You know I actually like Hero Maker but there are no computers with an A drive anymore and you can't download it.  Also I could figure how to print characters with a new printer.  

 

This reminds me of the earlier Dragon magazine when they used to put gaming stuff for other systems.  Then when WOTC took over that ended it.

 

I copied the program to my hard drive long ago since I used to run the program on a MSDOS emulation on my Amiga. Running it in MSDOS emulation on a PC today is pretty much the same thing.

 

As for printing, I just print the characters as a postscript file, then I have a utility which converts postscript files to PDF, and you can print a PDF easily in Windows or other operating systems.