Newbie assistance

[tcabril]

Hi all!

I recently got my copies of the Hero System 6th edition books - and all I can say is WOW!!! First off the books are extremely well put together (not flimsy at all) and are just jam-packed with information. I have to say that in the 25+ years of role-playing I have never seen so much bang for you buck!!

 

As I try to work my way through the rules (especially those dealing with powers) I keep trying to place the rules in context with powers and abilities that I see in my favorite comics (yes at 40 I still collect comics much to my wife's chagrin!)

 

So I was wondering in the event that it is okay to ask here (I did not see anything in the rules preventing it but if I missed it please bear with me) if anyone had done any Marvel or DC comic builds?

 

For example - how would one do Spider-Man or Wolverine? I tried playing around with Drain to see what I could do with Rogue but not so good so far (like I said I am still new at this).

 

So if anyone has done any builds of popular characters I would love to see them and see if I can reverse engineer them (so to speak) to see how you got there and the path you took.

 

I found this technique to be very useful when I learned Mutants and Masterminds but since I am moving onto Hero - I would love to use this methodology again.

 

Thanks in advance

 

Todd

[Haerandir]

Re: Newbie assistance

 

Well, the Web is festooned with Hero System writeups of popular characters, so you're in luck there. I'm sure The Question Man will be along with his usual list o' links. He's the best when it comes to this sort of thing. I did a quick search and came up with a few recent threads in this forum that have writeups of characters you could take a look at while you wait, though:

 

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php/69557-Nextwave-Agents-Of-H.A.T.E.

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php/78864-Hellboy

 

You've chosen a good method to learn about the system. One thing that you'll discover quickly is that every different player/GM has their own ideas about appropriate power levels and mechanics, so it's often best to look at several different writeups of a character to get a complete picture. Indeed, you can learn a great deal about the system by looking at the different approaches people take to common powers, such as mutant healing factors and so on. Feel free to post questions here, we love to argue about the 'best' way to write up a given power...

[Rapier]

Re: Newbie assistance

 

While it is very tempting to want to build Wolverine, SpiderMan or IronMan, it's something I would almost urge you to stay away from.

 

The first problem you will find is that comic book characters seem to have whatever powers and power level a particular writer wants/needs them to have for that particular issue/arc. They can vary widely from year to year. It can be difficult to narrow down the character to a particular power set.

 

Secondly, characters in comic books are frequently built beyond the bounds of what would most frequently be allowed in any game.

 

Instead, try working on a character that has a little bit of a bunch of characters.

 

For instance, my very first character had:

 

- Wings like Angel (hubba hubba)

- a tail and the dexterity of NightCrawler

- Always On Invisibility (rather displacer beast like, including the image of himself 3" to the left)

- a mental blast like Jean Grey or Charles Xavier

 

It's much easier to ask questions like, How do I make a character with Strength like the Hulk, rather than How do I make the Hulk.

 

SpiderMan's main ability is his Dexterity (OCV, DCV and DEX) and his Webslingers (Entangle, Blast, Swinging). Both of which are easy to model.

Wolverine's main ability is his Healing Factor (Regen) and his Claws (Hand-to-Hand Killing Attack). Again, very easy to model.

Rogue is going to be a pain. She is very, very much a build for someone very experienced in the system. Basically she is going to have a Cosmic 0-Phase Power Pool and some linked STUN Drain.

 

Welcome! We are glad to see you and yes, this IS the place to come for more opinions than you can shake a stick at.

[Lucius]

Re: Newbie assistance

 

Check this out:

 

http://surbrook.devermore.net/adaptationscomic/comicchar.html

 

and this for other, non-comic examples

 

http://surbrook.devermore.net/index/archive.html

 

Michael Surbrook is a frequent contributor here under the name Susano. "Surbrook's Stuff" is a legendary collection of characters, many designed by himself and others contributed to him.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Palindromedary Enterprises

[bigbywolfe]

Re: Newbie assistance

 

Here's a link to Hyper-Man's JLA on 350 points project. It's pretty good.

 

http://killershrike.com/MiscCharacters/Contributions/Hyper-Man/Supers/JLA/HyperManJLA.aspx

[torchwolf]

Re: Newbie assistance

 

Most Excellent sites mentioned above.

 

There is also the Wild Hunt site which features 66 X-Men character writeups (4th & 5th Ed versions):

http://the-wild-hunt.org/x-men/index.html

 

Beware that the Wild Hunt writeups are hideously combat capable and could not be used in most campaigns without toning them down some; these are intended to represent abilities as depicted in comics rather than designed for game balance.

[Checkmate]

Re: Newbie assistance

 

Something to be careful of though is that a lot of the sites are still 5th ed and haven't been converted over. Also, especially with Hyper-Man's 350 JLA the builds can be confusing to a newbie.

 

Here's what I suggest: Come up with a concept for a character and post it in this thread. Then we'll show you how we'd build that concept, and even tell you why we did what we did.

 

As far as the rules and where to post what, don't worry too much about getting in trouble, you're safe as long as you're not deliberately trying to be offensive. The Mods are great and will redirect your posts where they should go and let you know.

 

P.S.

Something I forgot to mention, one of the greatest teaching tools out there is a program called Hero Designer. It's the electronic Character Maker. It is absolutely fantastic and will teach you so much about the system. I would HIGHLY recommend making HD your next purchase as soon as possible