Acroyear II

The original.  Not very complex but man that killing attack is brutal.  I used him several times when I just want a near unstoppable villain.

Of all the published Champions villains, it would have to be Fleshtone (Champions Villains Volume Three: Solo Villains). His powers involve "biokinetically" reshaping living flesh in practically any manner he desires, with attacks expressed through Drain, Transform, and Blast or RKA NND Does Body, with SFX that are grotesque and hideous. He's powerful, murderous, sadistic, very difficult for most heroes to defend against, and his attacks can leave someone disfigured and/or crippled permanently. He can also use his power to make himself look like anyone, so he can easily lose himself in a crowd, or sneak up on someone in disguise.
 
I've never had the nerve or the cruelty to actually run him in a game.

The campaign that a I posted about here (over a year ago!?) has been running since then and I thought I would share some of the stuff that I've produced for it. As I mentioned above, it's set in 1988 in Detroit, and I did end up populating it with lots of old classic Champions NPC's, organizations, etc. It's an Iron Age campaign, however, and despite being set in the past it's obviously written for modern tastes. So while familiar faces show up, they're often grittier and darker than the original Silver/Bronze Age-ish versions. For example, many of the NPC's, especially villains, have partially or completely reworked origins. I can only swallow so many freak accidents and alien artifacts.
 
In populating and setting up my Champions Universe, I started with the 6e version of Champions Universe - that stuff is more or less "cannon." Then I pulled out all of my old books, bought a whole lot of ebooks and (of course) customized stuff to focus on my players' and player characters' interests and backgrounds. In particular, one of the PC's is a cosmic refugee who is immortal and has been living in hiding on earth for several centuries, so we've done quite a bit of back and forth on his role in and knowledge of "history."
 
The timeline that I've produced is definitely a work in progress. I've mashed together all of the versions of the Champions Universe books and tried to hammer out a single, (relatively) consistent history, and I'm still in the process of going through all of the different supplements and adventures and deciding which to incorporate, which to pass on and which to set aside for future adventures. 
 
IN: Books of the Destroyer and the Machine, the Mutant Files, San Angelo, VIPER, UNTIL, PRIMUS, DEMON, PSI, Genocide/IHA, Atlas/Prometheus, ARGENT, TERROR Inc., Doctor Yin Wu and the Red Banner, Sanctuary, Deathstroke, Villains International (picks up some of VOICE's portfolio), the Olympians, the Zodiac Conspiracy 
Adventures: reworked VIPER's Nest/Champions Begins, powered-up Shadows of the City, Future: Day of the Destroyer, Mind Games, the Great Supervillain Contest, Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth/COIL
OUT: VOICE, SAT, CLOWN, Dr. Lirby Koo (though the reworked Geodesics are in, as Payback) 
 
The Timeline (Players' version. GM's version is too messy and disorganized to share atm)
C4E Timeline.pdf
 

One thing to keep in mind is that while the concept is cool the implementation may not be as much fun as the character think.  To keep the character balanced and playable requires putting limits on what the character can do.  Often this means the character turns into a less powerful version of what is copied. Just because the character touches DR Destroyer does not mean they are going to get all his powers.  What it comes down to, is can the character afford to buy all the powers the other character has.  Even a multiform will not prevent that.   Mimicking Bulldozer is fairly simple, but the character is not going to have the points to mimic DR Destroyer or Firewing.   
 
The other thing to consider is that this concept has the ability to ty up the game.  Using a VPP or Multiform is probably the way to go.  But that means that the character may have to create a character on the fly.  This often means that the game is stopped while this character figures out what powers they end up with.  Do you really want to pause the game, while the player writes up a new character?  This could happen multiple times in a combat.   Personally, I would be very hesitant to allow this and would only allow a player that knows the system inside and out to do so.  Even then I would put limits on how long they can take. 

This is one of the most powerful things that a character can do. I'd try to steer the player to a different concept.
 
Mechanically, the system makes this concept's cost outrageously expensive. (The go-to method is just an enormous Variable Power Pool with a series of Limitations that prevents using it for anything else but copying Powers; making the VPP Only For Multiform doesn't reduce the cost to such a degree that the character will be able to do anything else.) Socially, the character will end up copying his allies if no other targets present themselves, so whoever's the biggest badass on the team, now there are two—that can lead to bad feels from the other players. Narratively, copying Powers gives away plots that the GM might not want to reveal. ("O, so Doc Stopwatch has LS: Immortality. That explains a lot.") Also, before the character enters the campaign, the GM must carefully define what can and can't be copied, and this, too, likely has campaign repercussions. Can "learned" powers (superior skill uses bought as Powers, for instance) be copied? Can magic powers be copied? Can the cosmic powers granted to the Herald of the Planet-eater be copied? Can 1-in-a-hundred-bllion-chance, bit-by-a-radioactive-giraffe Powers be copied? How about mechanical powers, including cybernetics and DNA-rewriting nanobots? The GM must dig into the setting to determine the natural laws of "powers," and, in many settings, that's enormously complicated.
 
(And if you're using Multiform for this, there's the fact that the character potentially becomes the target in every way… but for some reason this excludes the target's Skills? And doesn't change the character's own Skills? Or does it? Does the character take on the personality of the target, too? If not then why not?)
 
The power suite that's described raises a lot of questions that demand answers before the character ever sees play. I'd encourage the player to aim differently. Seriously, there's nothing wrong with flying, throwing tanks, and shooting laser beams from your eyes. You don't have to go meta to have fun.

Recently, we did the 40th anniversary episode for the campaign. More recently, the 100th episode for one of our newest supergroups. However, this past Saturday, we did the 600th episode for our earliest, and continually running, supergroup. It featured every hero of that group for the past 40 years, against Dr. Destroyer. Total supers, including cameos of which there were plenty, came out to 18 superheroes. Woo! It was a rousing success, complete with a 3 minute video I created (which came out to be the 250th video created for our Champions campaign), and an actual map of Paris the players used to save the city.

We just make sure his family knows that Darren mattered to us. It's up to them to tell us if they want something more.

Very sad to hear of Darrin's passing, and heartbroken for his family. I was a big of his work, particularly Golden Age Champions. 

Very sad to hear of Darrin's passing, and heartbroken for his family. I was a big of his work, particularly Golden Age Champions. 

Greetings everyone! We have a new Champions organization book available, first on Amazon but shortly in the Hero Store, on DriveThruRPG, and at Indie Press Revolution.
 
The Institute for Human Advancement is one of the most insidious villain organizations in the Champions Universe. Any super mutant who has a positive public image has had to defend it, and themselves, from the IHA at some point. And anyone would develop a hatred for an organization if they had to routinely fend off the combination of frivolous lawsuits, hostile "newsmen," hate websites, front groups, lethal poisons, and occasional armed assassins created by it!
 
However, most of the public doesn't consider the IHA to be evil. Just slightly annoying. They don't have flashy uniforms like VIPER or DEMON. (Though they're happy to use them as disguises when needed!) They don't go around making big speeches about taking over the world or subjugating humanity like Dr. Destroyer. In the minds of the public their peppy commercials and boring midday talk show appearances make them appear more banal than anything else.
 
But the truth of this clever and genocidal organization is much, much more sinister. And its dark history, methods, structure, agents, and equipment are to be found within the pages of this book.
 
You can pick up a copy on Amazon, or wait for it to become available here or at other locations.

Greetings fellow HERO System fans! I know these updates should happen more often; and I’ll try to improve upon that. But for now, here’s what’s going on with Hero Games and the HERO System at the end of 2022.
 
1) First of all, if you haven’t joined our Patreon account (https://www.patreon.com/hero_games), please consider doing so. By becoming patron you will not only help fund the creation of of new books, but also gain the ability to review and comment upon unreleased material before it becomes available to the public. Right now we have a little more than fifty patrons; but I envision Hero Games having more like one hundred in 2023. Then we would be really “cooking with gas,” in terms of getting manuscripts turned into books more expediently.
 
And I really prefer Patreon for Hero Games as a crowdfunding method over Kickstarter, IndieGoGo, or any of the other platforms. Though that is admittedly a personal preference.
 
2) Have you seen our Champions Complete bundle on Roll20 (https://roll20.net/)? It has everything you need to play Champions with your friends online, including all of the material from Champions Complete and Champions Begins usable in Roll20.
 
3) Carlos and I got in a proof for Thomas Stadley’s new champions universe organization book Institute For Human Advancement: Pride & Prejudice, and there were some issues. So we’ve made some changes, resubmitted it, and I have a new proof on the way to me right now. If everything checks out, we should have that book available in the Hero Games store, DriveThruRPG, Amazon, Indie Press Revolution, and at a game store near you.
 
4) With Christopher Hackler’s Gaslight: Horror & Heroism in the Victorian Era having been through the Patreon account, Carlos and I have begin editing and laying it out. We’ll be presenting finished chapters on Patreon before taking it to print early next year.
 
5) Steven Otte’s Heroes In A Hurry is currently being run through the account. It is in nearly final form, and will go straight to press afterward.
 
6) Michael Satran’s final work Imperial Throne has been reviewed by fans on the Patreon account, and the response has been quite positive. Carlos and I will begin work on that when we’re done with Gaslight.
 
7) We will continue to put out chapters from renowned game designer Scott Bennie’s final novel The Last Orc, at which point I’ll copy edit it in preparation for publication sometime in 2023.
 
8. We’re going to start putting up chapters of Phil Guinchard’s Gemini System soon. It’s a genre-agnostic game heavily influenced by the Hero System and OpenD6; and, like Champions Now, is the sort of experiment we’d like for you to see.
 
That’s all I can think of here at the end of 2022. As always, if you have a Hero Games manuscript, email me at jason@herogames.com and let me know.
 
- Jason Walters, Publisher
 

I found the video on YouTube. 
 
 

The official Champions supervillain, Valak the World-Ravager (Champions Villains Volume Three: Solo Villains) has a custom Professional Skill, "Warlord," based on Presence. I'd say there's enough justification to create a PS: Team Leader, to cover all the aspects of that role that aren't specifically apportioned to other Skills, like Tactics or Oratory.

I finished another side project which is a re-imagined version of the classic villain duet Thunder & Lightning (Margaret and John Harrington, respectively) as Assault & Battery for 6th Edition. Assault (Margaret Westfeld) is inspired by Thunder as a physical powerhouse and Battery (John Westfeld) is an electrical energy projector based off of Lightning.
 
One of the scenarios I developed had them working for a government sponsored team known as Task Force Sentinel that is responsible for protecting the families of superheroes in their civilian identities from threats like VIPER. Enjoy! 😉
 

We were able to get a lot accomplished this week for the Champions Begins GM Book & Adventure. We completed editing of Chapters 1 through 4, and added the content to the Roll20 Adventure that'll be included in the bundle. The work done this week concentrated on editing and proofreading the adventure, and formatting it for Roll20. It's just the copy text and art for now. The maps, characters, and tokens are planned for after the text content for the adventure is complete. 
 
The plan for next week is to complete Chapter 5 by editing and formatting for Roll20 (making sure all the headers are consistent, another proofreading pass and such). Then doing a final edit and proofreading pass of the whole adventure. Additionally, we'll do a final review to particularly look for opportunities to include additional links in the text for easy access to references. For example, clicking on VIPER Agent in the text will open up the Character Sheet for it, or clicking the name of a Skill will open up a window with the description. As a stretch goal for the week, we will start adding the characters and character sheets. We'll start with the pre-generated characters first. That'll be a bit of work considering each pregen has a new character sheet per chapter. 

Sad to report that George Perez has died, aged 67, from cancer.  Details:
https://variety.com/2022/film/news/george-perez-dead-wonder-woman-teen-titans-comics-1235261261/
 

That was the great thing about the 4e BBB: you could run the game with just that book. Some of us did that for many many sessions. The BBB had not only the rules, but how to run a superhero RPG, a multipart adventure, a goodly number of hero and villain pregens, and a good amount of info on Viper.

Worth considering in all this is a sort of forgotten 5th edition product called Dark Champions: The Animated Series, that showed how to build a non-punisher style street level campaign both with and without powers, including the settting, bad guys, etc.  And it uses Hudson City which is pretty well fleshed out and built for ready use.

Fellow Hero System Fans-


I’d like to take a moment to talk about our plans for Hero Games in 2022. I believe they’re both modest and realistic, in that they can be accomplished on time and using our limited resources. At the same time they are also ambitious, as I intend to release four projects in 2022; one each quarter of the year. They will be the following:


(Quarter One) HERO2023 Champions Begins Created by a group who wish only to be known as “Hero Fans.” This high-quality free electronic product provides everything you need to play your first game of Champions! It’s designed to teach people new to Champions how to play the game, but isn’t a complete presentation of the rules set; it provides you with just enough to play for the first time. The zip file contains a 52 page GM book, a 20 page Player book, a villain book, hero book, paper figurines, and Hero Designer files.


(Quarter Two) HERO2017 IHA: Pride & Prejudice Created by Thomas Stadley. To most people the Institute For Human Advancement is best known for its boring spokespeople who appear on talk shows that only their parents watch. But the Earth’s superheroes know better: the IHA is an insidious, genocidal threat to the planet’s mutants – and anyone else who gets in the way of their plans! Packed with agents, villains, weapons, and equipment, IHA: Pride & Prejudice contains everything you need to introduce the IHA into your campaign.


(Quarter Three) HERO2018 Champions International Created by Steve Long and Jason Walters. There are a variety of imaginary and unusual locations that have been mentioned in Champions Universe books over the years, but have never been fully explored or detailed. Champions International does exactly that, providing an in depth look at locations such as Awad, Lugendu, Larisagrad, and Costa Azul. It also includes some new locations like Transnistria and Prosperidad. Previously released individually in 2021 and 2022, these articles will be further edited and reworked to become chapters in the final version of the book.


(Quarter Four) HERO2024 The Chimera System Created by Philip J. Guinchard. The Chimera System is a hybrid of the Hero and OpenD6 systems in which elements from both have been combined together by the author to create a unique, new game system. Like the recently published Champions Now, it’s a joint undertaking by ourselves and a creator to publish a variation of the Hero System fans will find interesting and useful.


Additionally, if things go well with Champions International, Steve and I are considering creating a Patreon account to fund the creation of the HERO System Advanced Player’s Guide III, Champions Martial World, and other projects starting in 2023. But we’ll see how this year goes before we commit to a long-term project like that!


If you have a manuscript you would like to submit to Hero Games, contact me at jason@herogames.com with a one to three paragraph description of your work. If it sounds like something we would be interested in, you can then send me the full manuscript for review. And, of course, feel free to post any comments or questions on this thread.
 
- Jason Walters, Publisher
 

Sorry, very late to this thread.  Been concentrating on other things, like getting a job.  
 
1) I think a lot of official villains which hit a defense wall are designed like that because they are designed to be challenging to the 12d6/60 act heroes.  They can be taken out by these heroes but are very dangerous to the same heroes due to the high amount of damage they throw.
2) Having been in several very high damage limit campaigns (over 15d6), the defenses generally goes up as damage goes up. So if your dice start at 12d6 and 27 def, it goes up as your dice goes up: e.g.: 14d6 and 35 def, 16d6 and 40 def, 18d6 and 48 def, 20d6 and 55 def, etc.  CVs are also similar, going up at a similar rate.
3) One of the biggest problems with getting to the high levels of powers is that you can never do a story with them at the lower scale again.  From 12-15d6, you can still have police, robbers, and governments step in and still be a bother.  But at some point, usually after 15d6, these things are quite silly.  It ain't like the comics where you can have a human interest story where the Justice League solves Santa's murder or where the Avengers takes on the Kingpin or the Circus of Crime.  It seems like the OP is fine with this, but it can be limiting.

I have to thank all of the above-mentioned people for giving us Herophiles a Golden Age of Hero Games. DOJ Inc. came in when the game appeared all but dead, and produced more and more diverse Hero material than ever before, most of it of high quality. It's a tragedy that many of the company's plans for further publications were unable to be realized, and that new production slowed so dramatically over the second decade compared to the first. But I for one will always be deeply grateful for the many great hours of gaming, and heck, just reading, that DOJ provided me. You all should be very proud of what you accomplished.    
 

Believe it or not, it was 20 years ago today that Darren Watts, Jason Walters, the Secret Masters, and myself bought the HERO System (and its related IPs)!
 
It's been a wonderful, amazing journey ever since -- one with its ups and downs, like any journey -- but still an awesome one. My deepest thanks to all the HERO fans out there who have made it possible!

I would have loved to see reboot of the Zodiac Conspiracy. That has a lot of potential, but the villains need reworking plus so more plot points

Stat them up