Looking for some help to create a new character!

[Shadow7]

Hi all,

 

Although I have almost all the books for Champions, at least the ones that are necessary to play, I have never completely understood all the nuances of playing the game.  So, sadly, I have never played the game.  Every time I see forums to join up, I have always avoided them since I didn't know what I was doing, and no one wants to be the guy in the game, where everybody needs to explain everything to them!   However, I figured the best place might be to understand the game is to start by developing the character I had in mind.  Can someone help me do this?  Here is the character concept that I had in mind:

 

My character is named Flex, he has the powers of stretching his limbs and his body, he travels by forming into a ball and bouncing, and he can harden his fists in order to create a solid punch with his attack.  He is a Black African American in his early 40's, still in good shape for his age. He is not married, but does have a love interest in a news reporter who he has come across as Flex, whose name is Bianca Guerra.  His secret identity is Dr. Odell Bagley, he is the Chief Medical Examiner-Coroner for the Police Department.  He gained his powers through an attempt on his life, in which after providing key evidence in a cold case, the crime organization tried to kill him by making it look like an accident.  While in his exam room during an autopsy, his lab doors were sealed and deadly gas was flooded into the room.  Knowing that he only had one chance to live, he injected himself with embalming agent, and passed out.  When he came to, he discovered that he now had super-stretch powers.  Calling himself Flex, he began to start his war on crime while he continued to aid the police in his role as Medical Examiner-Coroner.  Since his role requires it, he does have medical expertise, he can perform surgery, provide medical aid.  He is a bit of a investigator and has a trivia type mind when it comes to knowledge.  Before he had his powers, he already had quick hands, that could perform card tricks, pick pockets, etc.  Thanks for any help that you can give!  

 

P.S. As a follow-up to this post, I would love to start a topic on naming your most favorite (interesting) PC superhero!

[Lord Liaden]

Hey, Shadow7! I'd say, "Welcome to the community," but your profile says you've been here several years; so I'll just say, I'm glad you spoke up.   If you wanted help you should have asked sooner. We're generally a pretty friendly and helpful bunch, and we love showing off how smart we are and how much we know.

 

Your character sounds like a reasonable superhero concept/power set. Everything you describe can be mechanically represented in Hero System. It would help us help you if you could specify a little more what sort of assistance you're looking for. Do you need advice on how to build specific elements? How to run the character mechanically in a game? How to role play someone with this background?

 

Please note that responding, "everything" wouldn't be very useful.   For example, what edition of Champions/Hero System are you using? What Powers do you have in mind for his abilities? Is there something you're not sure how to model? Could you not find all the Skills you want him to have? On the origin front, injecting oneself with "embalming agent" won't keep one from dying -- the opposite is far more likely. Maybe we could look at modifying that a bit?

[death tribble]

As a starter you might want to discuss with a GM or decide how fast you want to react in a turn.

A GM may want a campaign Speed of reaction to be 5 so you would want to have that Speed and a corresponding Dexterity DEX of between 20-23.

A slower speed would be 4 with a Dex score of between 15-18 but bear in mind that opponents would be going before you in a turn.

A faster speed would be 6 with a Dexterity rating of 29-30. And that would be expensive. The higher the Dex and Speed the more character points you pay.

Bear in mind civilians would have a SPD score of 2.

 

You need to decide how strong he is to determine the Strength STR. The stronger you are the harder you can hit an opponent but you could opt for a normal STR of 10 but adding dice of damage when he wants to hit something. Every 5 pts of STR gives you another dice. So 10 STR is 2d6, 15 is 3d6 etc.

A constitution (CON) score of between 18-23 would seem appropriate. The higher the CON score the harder to stun or knock out you become.

 

You will also be spending on specific skills as he is the chief medical examiner. The description hints at sleight of Hand.

 

If you have any of the Champions books with examples of characters we can perhaps point you at those as well

 

 

[unclevlad]

I'd also check with the GM about whether *chief* ME is too high a position.  It's fairly public, it's got considerable supervisory details, and it's got a major time commitment.  Is it reasonable to balance this with trying to be a superhero?

 

Note that mild tweaks could fix most of this.  Simplest:  not the chief ME, but assistant ME.  Especially if it's a cold case, it's not that likely the head honcho would be involved.  This relaxes the visibility issues;  in fact, if you want, you could take the chief ME as a contact.  You're suggesting extensive experience, and that justifies a fairly good relationship with your boss (who might well be your direct boss, too) and thus he knows what's happened.  

 

Yeah, the powers are nice and straightforward.  Stretching is fun;  HTH attack works fine.  I'm hearing some damage negation, too.  Skills...ask the GM.  Yeah, you're looking at quite a few skills.  IIRC, to claim MD, you need Paramedic, SS:  Medicine, and PS:  Doctor...those are 6E's suggestions.  Here, you're including Forensic Medicine for ME, Criminology, and Bureaucratics...you can't rise to a senior position without it.  I would also include High Society, but maybe just 11-.  And the License perk...and if you're chief ME/coroner, you actually have some police powers.  (But NOT if you're assistant ME.)  Oh, and SILLY ME...full body stretcher?  Contortionist!!!  <whaps self for passing THAT over for toooo long>

 

How long have you had the powers, when you enter the story?  How much training?  Cuz...premed, med school, then a medical career doesn't exactly suggest tons of spare time, or *any* combat training.  It's another area where having a contact like the chief ME would make hooking you up for some training quite reasonable.

[Doc Democracy]

So much advice, to the rest of us, all of it makes sense.  🙂

 

When a player comes to me with a character I often ask particular questions.  These are benchmark stuff.  As GM, I would set the benchmarks for the campaign and I would expect every character to exceed some, meet others and fall short on the rest.

 

So.  Before getting round to building you answer questions such as, are his attacks average for a superhero, better? much better? Worse? Much worse??

 

Same for attacks per round, normal defences, special defences, combat movement, non+combat movement, mental abilities, exotic attacks.

 

This gives you a broad idea of how you see the character playing in relation to others.

 

As a character your key powers (punch, move) are pretty easy.  You buy hand attack and run.  The defining features of characters are often the minor powers.  Such as being able to deform your body to get through small gaps, or reaching Across large spaces, or bouncing projectiles back at an opponent.

 

HERO excels at doing this kind of detail stuff.

 

Folk on the forums might struggle to give advice without knowing benchmarks.  I am an old-timer and so tend to fall back on classic default superhero benchmarks of 7 combat value, 12D6 attacks, 20 defences, speed 5.

 

Doc

 

 

[Tech]

If I recall the benchmarks correctly, the average was CV 7-9, 11d6 attacks, 20-25 in defense and speed was 5.5.

[Doc Democracy]

2 hours ago, Tech said:

If I recall the benchmarks correctly, the average was CV 7-9, 11d6 attacks, 20-25 in defense and speed was 5.5.

 

OK.  MY classic default benchmarks. 😁