Armitage

I started playing Champions with 4e, but I have a lot of books from the older versions. Not the rule books though. Vehicles used to have statistics called ACC, DCC, and TURN. Obviously, these are acceleration, deceleration, and (presumably) the equivalent of turn mode. The question is, how do these statistics relate to the current rules? For example, the Continuum Craft in Adventurer's Club #9 had a maximum flight speed of 500" per Segment (no vehicle SPD back then), ACC 4, DCC 5, and TURN 10. Mechanically, what would those last three numbers mean in terms of performance? The article says "It's rather ungainly, and so its ACC, DCC and TURN are not in line with jet aircraft."

Back in the old days (no pun intended), Age was a Disadvantage (Complication) that reduced a character's Characteristic Maxima, assuming a Heroic campaign or a superhero with the Normal Characteristic Maxima Disadvantage (which also no longer exists). The categories were Normal, Age 40+, and age 60+, with the latter two changing the point at which a character had to start paying double cost for various Characteristics. STR, CON, BODY were 15 at 40+ and 10 at 60+. DEX, COM (now gone), and SPD didn't change. INT, EGO, and PRE were 25 at 40+ and 30 at 60+. PD and ED were 6 at 40+ and 4 at 60+. REC was 8 at 40+ and 6 at 60+. END and STUN were 40 at 40+ and 30 at 60+. Running was 8" (16m) at 40+ and 6" (12 m) at 60+. Swimming was 4" (8m) at 40+ and 3" (6m) at 60+. Leaping was 3" (6m) at 40+ and 2" (4m) at 60+. "Normal" was the maximums that are currently on 6E1 50 and Champions Complete p. 21.

That sounds like the Absolute Effect rule, not Standard Effect. It creates the "absolute" situations that the Hero rules normally don't allow, such as complete immunity to damage, never missing a target, or instantly killing anyone. The GM decides that x amount of defense vs. a special effect provides complete immunity, regardless of the actual damage roll, or y Combat Skill Levels make an attack never miss, regardless of the target's DCV, or z Damage Classes kills any target, regardless of their BODY.

The Paint Gun in the 6e Hero System Equipment Guide and the 5e Gadgets & Gear is built as a Cosmetic Transform, but it doesn't provide a PER bonus for the target to be seen.

Reminds me of a comic book character I remember hearing about. He had the ability to transform himself into a living black hole. After a brief villain career, a hero convinced him to go straight, and he became filthy rich using his powers to dispose of toxic and radioactive waste.

It's buried in the Multipower rules rather than the Charges rules. 6E1 407. It first appeared on page 321 of 5E Revised. "If a character has Charges for a Multipower reserve, he may want to make one of the slots function as if Charges assigned to it were Continuing Charges. To do this, he calculates the value of the Continuing Charge by subtracting the value of the Charges on the reserve from the standard value of the same number of Continuing Charges. Then he applies the remainder to the slot as an Advantage (or a Limitation, if it is one). Example: A Multipower has 32 Charges (+1/4) on its reserve. One slot is Darkness, which the character wants to last for 1 Turn. Normally, 32 Charges lasting 1 Turn each is a +3/4 Advantage. So, +3/4 - +1/4 = a +1/2 Advantage on the slot."

Spider Robinson's Hugo-winning novella "By Any Other Name" featured a future in which a scientist released a virus that enhanced the human sense of smell to superhuman levels. His expectation was that it would cause people to stop polluting once they were more sensitive to its effects. Instead, people became physically unable to live in cities, or even any large groups, and civilization collapsed. In the comedy superhero movie "The Specials", gadgeteer superhero Mr. Smart creates a device that gives him a superhuman sense of smell. He eventually exclaims in disgust "The world is covered in urine", but the device gets stuck on his face and he can't remove it.

That's actually how his powers are built. High levels of Invulnerability, but only against attacks that would be immediately fatal. It's impossible to kill him, but he's just as easy to injure as a normal human. He apparently doesn't think that far into it. He did get his answers by selling his soul on a whim, after all.

The Paragons setting book for Mutants & Masterminds had a character named "17" who was granted supernatural answers to 20 questions, answered as accurately as possible in a single breath (he has 17 questions left at the time of the book). One of his questions was used to learn the exact time, date, and circumstances of his death. As a result, he acts like Arthur Dent did in "Mostly Harmless". He knows he's effectively immortal until the predicted point in time.

Hudson City Blues (4e) had a character called Mr. Nobody, who was like the Silence on Doctor Who. As soon as you can't see him, you forget you ever saw him. Fortunately, he's an ally and information source, not a villain. His character quote is "Yes, I'm serious about taking notes, you really should. Trust me. You want to remember this conversation, don't you?" He was treated as a plot device character though. He didn't have actual statistics.

The 4e Champions/Dark Champions villain book "Underworld Enemies' had a character named Plain Jane who had always on telepathic invisibility. She can be seen, but nobody consciously reacts to her presence. If she walks thorough a crowd, people don't bump into her, but otherwise, everyone acts like she doesn't exist, ignoring any physical evidence she leaves behind, reflexively turning off alarms she triggers, etc.. Her crimes are a steadily escalating effort to make people notice her. At one point, she stood next to the President and fired a gun into the air. After 15 minutes of trying to locate the source of the gunshot, the Secret Service just stopped looking and the President finished his speech as if nothing happened. Later, when the video of the event was reviewed, they were shocked to see a woman standing next to the President for 10 minutes after the shot, just crying.

I recall this question coming up in the past. Pulp Hero, Dark Champions, Post Apocalyptic Hero, even Horror Hero, which would be the best fit. None of them have a normal everyday chainsaw.

The Force Analysis power in the 5e UNTIL Superpowers Database was: Find Weakness 11- with one attack (10 Active Points); Force Fields/Walls Only (-½). Total cost: 7 points. In the 6e Champions Powers, it changed to a modifier added to a specific power: Add Armor Piercing (x2; +¾) for Force Blast (45 Active Points); Extra Time (makes whole attack take a Full Phase; -½), Only Applies Against Force-Fields (-½), Requires A PER Roll (-½). Total cost: 18 points. (This used one of the Armor Piercing variants from the Advanced Player's Guide, allowing 1/2 defenses, 1/4, 1/8, etc. for an escalating Advantage value.) If you assume that any sort of Find Weakness will be a similar power, Lack of Weakness could be represented by a Change Environment, using the same format as stealth systems. Change Environment (-1 to Sight Group PER Rolls), Persistent (+1/4), Inherent (+1/4), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (6 Active Points); Only Works Against Weakness Detection (-1), No Range (-1/2), Self Only (-1/2). Total cost: 2 points. Each additional -1 to the attacker's PER Roll costs another 6 AP/2 RP. I've seen some versions that use the Analysis Skill instead of a PER Roll, but Skill penalties cost the same for Change Environment.

6E1 330, right column, a little more than half-way down. "...if a Damage Over Time power is bought as a Multipower or VPP slot and the character switches the Framework to a different slot, the Damage Over Time power doesn't turn off; it continues to function until the defined duration ends." That detail isn't in Champions Complete though, and I don't know which rule book you normally reference.

There's an optional rule in Fantasy Hero and the Hero System Equipment Guide. Bashing weapons gain +1 Stun Multiplier if the attacker succeeds with a STR (or DEX) Roll. Leather and plate armors provide half protection. Slashing weapons gain +1 DC against targets with no Resistant PD if the attacker succeeds with a STR (or DEX) Roll. Leather armors provide half protection. Piercing weapons become Armor Piercing if the attacker succeeds with a STR (or DEX) Roll. Chain armors provide half protection.

They were NND Blasts. Debilitating against living tissue but ineffective against inanimate objects.

This picture doesn't seem too creepy at first, until you realize that it's apparently a picture of someone committing suicide. Unless there's an EMT standing by, ready to perform artificial respiration, and an ambulance ready to take them to the hospital to be put on a ventilator.

Some people like to talk about "the war on Christmas". If Christmas didn't want a war, it shouldn't have crossed the borders of Thanksgiving to attack Halloween.

The updated version of Fire and Ice in "Dystopia" had a dual Susceptibility built as a single Disadvantage. He suffered pain if doused with flammable liquids while his flame powers were active and was Entangled if immersed in water while his ice powers were active.

I always built it as an IMages vs. Radio with a radius equal to the range of the bug. The power has Set Effect creating the radio equivalent of filling the area with neon arrows all pointing at the bug. Anyone with Radio Perception and access to the frequency can get a "This way!! This way!!" signal.

There was a version in the-edition-that-shall-not-be-named, but he was pretty much a completely different martial artist with the same name. A genetically engineered low-level superhuman created by a secret project tracing back to a WWII-era Nazi-Japan research collaboration.

I've occasionally joked that the real reason that the UN asked the BBC to change UNIT (on Doctor Who) from the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce to the Unified Intelligence Taskforce is because UNIT is an effective organization that gets things done, and the UN didn't want people to have unrealistic expectations of them.

Oddly, there's no Whirlpool power in Champions Powers or Hero System Grimoire. If anywhere, I would have expected it to be in Atlantean Age, with its high-power elemental magic. Not there either. Maybe a large area Telekinesis only to pull targets toward the center, like the Gravity Field version of the Selective Gravity power in the Density Alteration chapter of Champions Powers. Selective Gravity: Telekinesis (40 STR); Affects Whole Object (-¼), Only To Pull Objects Directly To Him And/Or “Stick” Them To Him (-½), Limited Range (24m; -¼). Gravity Field: Add Area Of Effect (16m Radius Selective; +1), and replace Limited Range (-¼) with No Range (-½). Maybe make it Explosion, so the effect becomes stronger as you approach the center. Add a Limitation that it ony affects targets in or under the water, not above, like shockwave Blasts that only affect targets on the ground. Then add a Blast or RKA in a smaller Radius in the center to damage targets that get pulled to the center.

While I enjoy and appreciate his work updating and corrrecting these characters, I do disagree with his decision to not give many of these characters Distinctive Features based on the fact that Halfjack, in the 5e Viper sourcebook, doesn't have that Disadvantage. "Removed Silver Hyena's Distinctive Features. If Halfjack (VIPER) doesn't get Distinctive Features, then Silver Hyena sure doesn't." In the same book, Oculon has Distinctive Features-Alien Eyes and Freon has Distinctive Features-Low Body Temperature, so Halfjack lacking that Disadvantage was clearly an editorial oversight.

That represents the fact that the power automatically reacts in a way appropriate to the trigger. With a normal VPP, a character can create any power they want. With this Limitation a character couldn't, for example, develop telekinesis in response to getting attacked with fire. Unless it was built as pyrokinesis that could only manipulate fire, I suppose. Examples would be the Marvel villain The Answer, who temporarily develops whatever power is the best solution to the specific threat he finds himself facing, or the hero Darwin, who automatically develops new powers to survive whatever hazard he's facing at the moment. Darwin is a good example. When facing the Hulk, instead of becoming more durable, his powers protected him by teleporting him to safety.