Trebuchet

Me too, I started playing Champions in 1993, but I still prefer 350 points. IME 250 point characters are almost purely combat-oriented whereas 350 point characters tend to be more fleshed out. I don't have any problem with 250 point original characters in a campaign (we run a 250-point "street level" game in our bigger universe); but most iconic comic-book characters would be well above that. As a GM I don't view Disadvantages as problematical, but as providing plot hooks for the characters. Rising above Disadvantages gives a character a way to be truly heroic. The challenge I can understand, but I think it's a bit ludicrous to presume every character should be able to fight every other character. The source material very clearly has extreme levels of power level differentiation, meaning Batman shouldn't be able to fight Superman with any chance of winning unless Superman has some reason to deliberately lose or Batman is armed with a (non-paid for) Plot Device such as Kryptonite. Personally I'm a big fan of Captain America, but his fight against Galactus would last nanoseconds. Luscious curves aside, the Black Widow will still not defeat the Hulk. It's not Iron Man if his armor is made of paper mache. Power levels are as much part of a character's concept as their origin, schtick, or powers. Changing them to hit an arbitrary point limit is tampering with them at a very fundamental level. A 250 point so-called "Silver Age Superman" is no longer even remotely the iconic Superman you purport to be building; it's just something you've named Superman. Personally, I feel that is highly disrespectful to the original character. It's not an homage; it's a parody. JMO. YMMV.

Cassandra, I'm curious as to why you selected 250 points for your Champions baseline instead of 5E's "Standard" level of 350 points for supers? What do you see as the advantages your campaign derives from that limit? I could see the upside if you're running a low-powered street-level Champions campaign, but the fact you've been trying to build iconic characters like Superman on 250 points suggests that's not the case. Myself, I like the 350 points much better because I think it produces more well-rounded characters. My experience with 250 point supers from 2E through 4E was that the characters tended to be almost purely combat-oriented, whereas with 350 to start they ended up just as combat capable but also had far more non-combat skills; which provided far more plot hooks for me as a GM. This is not intended as criticism; I'm just curious as to your reasoning.

IIRC in the Silver Age Kryptonite had harmful effects on Superman but none on humans, so that would make it a Susceptibility by default. In all honesty, given the frequency with which he runs into Kryptonite, I think you could easily justify it being both a Susceptibility and a Vulnerability. After all, a Kryptonite bullet or Kryptonite laser would still harm a human just like more conventional ones; they would just do more damage to Superman.

I wasn't addressing any build by Hyper-Man (which was never presented in the first place), but Cassandra's use of both a VPP and Multiform at the same time. She is in essence stacking two elements - Multiform and VPP - which in her build do the same thing solely for the purpose of shaving points, which is a clear violation of Hero system Metarule#6 (5ER, pg. 559). Since Superman's defenses never change, they wouldn't be in any VPP or change in a Multiform anyway. Most of what she's trying to do could be handled with a Multipower or possibly a couple of them. As to Superman using "all of his powers at once", can you cite a single instance where what he was doing couldn't have been modeled with an EC? Iron Man certainly has two or more "forms": Tony Stark and Iron Man (the number of distinct Iron Man forms - Space, Underwater, Hulkbuster, Stealth, Silver Sphinx, Mk. VII, etc. - would change over time) but there is a clear distinction between his human form and the suits of armor he puts on. Kal-El does not change forms, he has precisely the same powers as Clark Kent as he does as Superman (unless one counts his sometimes-invulnerable costume, which Clark wears under his street clothes anyway).

Oh, come on! Hugo Danner's scientist father gave him powers with a serum. Kal-El's scientist father game him powers by sending him to another planet. Their powers were identical. Gladiator was published in 1930; Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel read it in 1932 . He and co-creator Joe Schuster began developing Superman in 1934. The difference is that Superman, having a regular comic, evolved new powers over time. Hugo Danner, being pretty much limited to one novel, didn't. Blatant ripoffs were notorious in the old pulp novels and comics. Admittedly the early Superman comics had other influences, most obviously Doc Savage (another offspring of a scientist father), including plots all but stolen from Doc Savage stories. Even Batman has more than a few elements of Doc Savage and Zorro. I've got no problem with any of that; I see it as cross-pollinization. I borrow scenarios and characters from comics and books for our pulp and superhero campaigns all the time; I love doing "classic" tropes. I'm just willing to acknowledge the geneology.

Silver Age Superman (IOW, the Really Stupid Era Superman) was the most idiotically overpowered version; and consistently so poorly written that the writers in that era should have all been drawn and quartered. (31 flavors of Kryptonite! Being turned to straw! Blowing out suns with his freeze breath! Seriously!?) He would not only be essentially impossible to build in a point-based system like Hero, but even if it were attempted it would require thousands or tens of thousands of points. You could make a reasonable Golden Age Superman (1938 to about 1950) with 250 points, but I think it would make more sense and be truer to the source material to start with the standard 350 points of 5E or 400 of 6E.

Please explain what the alternate forms are supposed to be, since all of Superman's powers are all always available? "Clark Kent" isn't an alternate form, it's a successful and carefully prepped Disguise roll. The 50 Point CPP Cosmic I can buy as a valid build; I just can't grasp the use of Multiform.

No, not really. But while there is no "right" way to build almost any power, there are certainly "wrong" ways. A classic character like Superman being built with Multiform falls squarely into that category. That's not to say some other original character with a set of Superman-like powers might not be viably built with Multiform; just that Superman, with all of his powers always functional, cannot be.

Well, I'm not going to claim we are a typical group because we certainly are not. We have eight players in our group and every one of them also GM's. This means nobody gets isolated behind a GM screen permanently and forgets what it's like to be a player; and conversely every player knows how disruptive an unbalanced power can be. We self-limit because we want to keep the ratios in line. We have, in fact, continually pushed our brick's player to increase her STR and defenses because she is supposed to be that tough; just as I have deliberately kept my MA's attacks and defenses very low (her defenses are just over a third of the brick's). What we have done, in essence, is create - with deliberate aforethought - an Avenger-like spread of power levels and made it work in a Champions campaign for over 20 years, but the only way we could make that work was to dump the formal caps. Lower damage characters compensate with more SPD; and so for years our only "Rule of X" (which is more like a guideline anyway) has been very simple: Damage Classes + Speed <= 20. That's been exceeded now, but not until about 2 or 3 years ago; and I think only 3 characters have exceeded it, by only 1 or 2 points. (My PC Sil'f is one of them, but she is the most experienced member of the team and her standard 9d6 attack with her SPD of 9 exceeds it only if she uses her +1/2 Advantaged attacks, which burn too much END for her to use throughout any battle.) A 9d6 attack, IME, is really not all that weak in a game which averages 13d6 attacks. An average roll does 31.5 points of STUN, which will hurt almost any non-brick, and good rolls - or adding +1/2 Advantages such as AP or PEN - can do even better. Would that hurt our team's brick? Not in the least. But then I don't expect Captain America, Hawkeye, or the Black Widow could actually hurt Thor or the Hulk either. Annoy, yes. Actually inflict significant injury, no.

There is some truth to this, but it obfuscates the fact that there are many more ways to be "effective" in combat than just delivering a lot of damage and/or Stunning or KO'ing the opponent. People focus too much on blasting and not enough on being useful. A lower-damage character can block to protect teammates or civilians, they can throw opponents to the ground to set them up for the heavy hitters, they can leak just enough STUN through to prevent the opponent from getting his Recovery, they can figure out how to steal or disable the Evil McGuffin, they can engage the mooks who are slowing down the team's heavy hitters. As a rule of thumb low damage characters compensate for doing less damage per Phase by having more Phases to act, unusual powers, and/or by being ignored by the Big Bad because "they're harmless." Anyone think Black Widow or Captain America were "ineffective" in The Avengers movie? Should players only want to run Iron Man, Thor, or Hulk wannabes? I've been playing the "low-damage" character in our campaign, Sil'f, for nearly 21 years, and I can guarantee nobody in our gaming group would even remotely categorize Sil'f as ineffective. On more than one occasion she's been the only team member still standing during a fight, including a notable one against Eurostar about 10 years ago which we discussed on this forum. As I noted above, our team's damage spread goes from 9d6 to 17d6 (with an average of about 13d6) and yet everyone seems to have plenty of fun. And that's the whole point of the exercise, isn't it?

It's distasteful for a totally valid reason: It's a bogus way to build most characters. Multiform makes perfect sense if you're building Iron Man's various unique sets of armor or Bruce Banner/The Incredible Hulk. But it is absurd to consider it a way to model Superman, a character who only changes his clothes but always has all of his powers. It's as absurd as building Victory Man as a character with a 300 point "Transform (Major) Foe to Defeated Foe" power. Wouldn't be a very interesting fight now, would it? The Hero system allows players to do almost anything, but just because it can be done doesn't mean it should be done. Sometimes the player has to exercise a bit of restraint; and if he doesn't then his GM has to. Players and GM's both need to keep in mind that this is a system designed to allow interactive storytelling. If it isn't going to provide an interesting game session, why bother playing at all?

Originally posted by Hyper-Man: You've drawn exactly the wrong conclusion from Steve's example. True, the Hero System doesn't have a "Lightning Bolt" power; the character does. Voltage Man can use any of several game system mechanics to model his "Lightning Bolt" (EB or RKA or Flash or some other way) but the point is that he has it. That's why 5ER has an entire page on SFX (p. 96) and another (p. 97) on "Reasoning from Effect" to show the intent behind working backwards from the desired special effect. That's why Step 1 on page 97 is "Decide what sort of power you want to create by choosing the power's special effect." The player isn't supposed to say "I want my new character to have a 4d6 RKA!" as he begins creating his character; he's supposed to go "I want my character to shoot laser beams out of his eyes!" Nor are Powers supposed to be "sfx neutral"; the pluses and minuses of each unique sfx are simply supposed to balance out in play over the long term. The SFX are what ultimately define the power, not it's build. SFX are supposed to be considered first, not last.

I beg to differ. The Hero system is explicitly tied to sfx; the rules clearly state that sfx are supposed to trump mere system mechanics. Yes, one could legally build a Multiform version of Superman which included "Heat Vision Superman" and "X-Ray Vision Superman" and "Freeze Breath Superman" and "Faster Than Light Superman" and "Planet Moving Superman" and "Time Traveling Superman" and "Utterly Invulnerable Superman" and "Immovable Object Superman" and a veritable host of Multiforms, but it would be violating a prime system metarule. It would be just as valid to build Silver Age Superman as a human-sized Vehicle for a sentient race of Kryptonian DNA-equivalent molecules. If each crewman donates one point towards the "team vehicle" then Superman could be built with millions or even billions of points.

Iron Man's armor is a reasonable creation with Multiform IMO. Superman changing from Standard Superman to Faster Then a Speeding Bullet Superman and then to More Powerful Then A Locomotive Superman is just XP. Look at the earliest versions of Superman - he didn't fly; he jumped. He was bulletproof, and mostly fought corrupt officials and mobsters, not supervillains. Superman is, BTW, an outright ripoff of a character from a book called Gladiator. I doubt it's still in print, but I read it online years ago. All the early Superman's creators did was change his origin and add a costume. The powers are totally identical.

NP. I'm not particularly known for my tact. I just wish he'd have taken it in the spirit in which it was intended instead of running off in a huff. You really can learn useful things here if you take the time to listen.

bigbywolfe, before you accuse me of "putting words in his mouth" perhaps you ought to read limaxophobic's actual quote in Post #7.1: "I don't really care for running or playing 'stories' ". As to being "rude" to him, I beg to differ. He asked for input on how to address an issue he had as a GM and I gave it to him straight, like I would to any adult. I've been playing Champions for 30 years and running a single campaign for 20 of those years; I'd like to think I've picked up a few solid approaches by now. He asked what I presumed was a serious question and I gave him a serious answer; only to have him categorically reject all of the suggestions that were given by a number of members with more experience. Now that's rude. If this modest criticism makes him think this board is too hostile then he's got no business being a GM.

What is it about Fanfiction.net that they think it's a good idea to center all story text instead of the standard left justification that western peoples have been using for 1500 years? I find it makes reading stories there very difficult. I've bookmarked your story and I'll try to read it soon.

I would only observe that IME Ironclad is also a fairly puny brick defense-wise - almost what we'd call a "demi-brick. In the 30 years I've been playing Champions I've seen plenty of MAs with PD and ED in the 23 range. We didn't usually consider someone a "true" brick until both his PD/ED and CON were in the upper end of the 20s or low 30's and/or he slapped on some Damage Reduction. His STUN is good, as is his REC, but he definitely suffers from low defenses. On this I agree 100%. While in our campaign our brick comfortably rules the roost damage-wise with 17d6 (85 STR), her defenses against ED attacks is actually slightly lower (31/28r) than our primary Energy Projector, and the EB is our second most powerful on the attack. But the EB falls vastly short in the CON and STUN departments. Your observation of the result of damage caps mirrors our experience precisely. When we started our MidGuard campaign in 1992 we imposed caps (12 DC) and every single PC did 11 or 12 DC's. When we relaxed them with the release of 5E the damage range spread from 10 to 15 DC's. Currently it's from 9d6 (The 9d6 character can also apply AP or PEN advantages to the 9d6 by burning triple the usual END, so the effective low end is probably around 11DC.) to 17d6. Everybody seems happier with this spread.

Certainly it is a type of mockery, but I can't see how it is a Presence attack since it has no effect on the opponent (besides possibly pissing him off).

I've never particularly liked any of the stock HD Export formats, although the old Champions Two Column was decent. For many years now I've either just played my characters directly off HD3 or used a character sheet I designed in MS Word solely for my primary character.