DoctorItron

This GM wants some feedback from y'all. Superpowers are fairly new in my game world. The Secret Service has developed some countermeasures to protect the President (of the United States), but they still have a lot of catching up to do. Paragon, the Assistant Director of PRIMUS in my campaign, is a scaled-down Superman homage. He is strong, tough, capable of flight, respected by the public, ethical, etc. He has already saved the President from supervillains on multiple occasions. Paragon knows that he can't always be there, though. There's an unacceptable risk that a supervillain will manage to kill the President, causing all sorts of turmoil. Paragon has gotten the bright (or maybe not-so-bright) idea to run for the office himself. "Vote for me, since the villains can't kill me. And I'm pretty resistant to mind-control, too." Paragon knows he can't have a one-dimensional campaign and will take a stand on the usual political issues. His main goal, though, is to make changes (develop technology, modify laws) so that the next President doesn't have to be superpowered to avoid getting pulped by supervillains. Comments welcome. Any holes in my idea? How might the sitting President's campaign respond? Do you think the world would change with a superpowered President?

Re: So Viper, huh. In the campaign I'm GMing, game history is that superpowers have only existed for a few years. VIPER is an old organized crime group, a rival of the mob. VIPER started the campaign as little more than thugs with good equipment, but said equipment was limited to real-world tech. The PCs could sweep through VIPER squads rather easily at the start of the campaign, since VIPER wasn't prepared for fighting superheroes. Now that the campaign is 2 years old, VIPER is a much bigger threat, even though the PCs have grown from 350 points to ~ 550. Here are some things that made VIPER get tougher and smarter as the campaign evolved: 1) Temporarily slowed down the criminal ops and focused on inventing better armor and weapons. 2) Began compiling a roster of mercenary supervillains. 3) Hired Teleios to create the Super Serpent Serum. Home-grown supervillains can be more reliable than mercenaries. 4) The PCs learned about one of VIPER's leaders. She's an ancient dragon, complete with magic spell pool.

Re: Champions Minus, 5E Version! Worst character name in one of my games... A friend was making a Shadowrun character. A very tall street samurai. He started with the name "Titan" but wanted to embellish it a bit, so he added a "-us" suffix. Thus was tight-anus (Titanus) born.

Re: Suggestions for Experience:Pinnacle It looks like the character runs out of END in < 2 turns. Some extra END couldn't hurt. Or maybe put the reduced END advantage on more of your powers. Such a large character probably has a very large fist. One-hex advantage on STR. Buy more skills. Since the character is worried about her effectiveness, maybe she would study to try filling a skill-gap in the team.

Re: Champions Minus, 5E Version! Back in the olden days, before we had Hero Designer or even Heromaker, we made our characters using pen and paper. I fondly remember these: Justification for Power Defense: "Imprevious to Poisson". What, the character never had fish before??? It should have been "Impervious to Poison". Disadvantage: "Pigs Feet". This one was due to poor handwriting. The player meant "Dist Feat" as an abbreviation. Edit: I forgot all about "Pubic ID".

Re: Hero Games Maps - What do YOU want to see? I had a major problem with Shades of Black. The PDF is configured with copy & paste disabled. I wasn't able to copy an image, paste it into another program, and resize. I also couldn't clip the most important text to make a one page summary to reference while I was GMing. An email to Hero Games received a "yes, that's our formatting standard" reply. Shades of Black was sadly the last PDF product that I'll buy until I hear that the copy & paste policy changes, or someone lets me know about another way to do a copy. I'm still baffled by the policy. It's doesn't do anything to prevent illegal distribution of the entire file. So, Keith, if you could pass this along to the powers that be, I'd appreciate it. Or am I missing some other business need for the "no copy & paste" configuration? Edit: Steve, I see you're reading this thread, too. Since you are "the powers that be", have I adequately explained how the current settings make your PDF products much less useful than they woukld otherwise be? P.S. I'm not complaining about the excellent content of Shades of Black, just the one PDF security setting.

Re: Any suggestions on a hero concept I have Possibly some sort of stealth, camoflague (sp.), or limited invisibility. SFX: the silvery surface of mercury reflects light, allowing for a chameleon-like color shift.

Re: Ego Not vs. Psych Lims I think it could be worth anywhere from -1/4 or -1 limitation, depending on how many Psych Lims the character has, how often those Psych Lims will be a factor in the game, and the frequency of mental attacks. My preference for such a character concept, though, would be to take all the Psych Lims at the "total" level.

Re: Transform into living spacecraft The entangle would be attached to the character and move when he did.

Re: Transform into living spacecraft Extra Limbs let you carry items and passengers. The fact that passengers are inside the character is just a special effect. When an attack gets past the character's defense (a force field that protects carried items), the special effect is that a shot pierces the hull, and whatever is carried inside the ship might get damaged. TK isn't a legit way to do this because, if I remember the rules correctly, the physics of TK don't let you automatically drag something along as you fly at high speed. AoE STR, instead of Extra Limbs, would be yet another way to simulate the cargo and passenger space. Maybe an Entangle would work?. The ship would slowly form, being built a hex at a time, as the character creates barriers with Entangle.

Re: Superhero Images Looks more like an alternate-universe Foxbat to me

Re: Transform into living spacecraft Steve Long has spoken: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?p=429197#post429197 His personal opinion is multiform into a vehicle, but use PD/ED instead of DEF, and buy all the other characteristics (i.e. CON, STUN, INT, EGO, etc.) for the vehicle. He, just like everyone else here, was totally silent on the Extra Limbs. Hero Designer doesn't seem to directly support CON, INT, EGO, etc. for a vehicle template - they are not in the characteristics list on the Powers tab. I'm not so anal about this character build to create a custom template. I guess I could use the standard character template since I don't need DEF, and I could just use a custom power or growth for Size. Looks like I'm going to stick with the Extra Limbs, because it really is the easiest and cheapest way to modify the character. Thanks for nothing, guys (just kidding) Seriously, I appreciate the comments - they'll come in handy if I ever need to do something similar where the main form doesn't have the same powers as the vehicle form.

Steve, I already posted elsewhere and checked the FAQ. Help! I'm trying to create a character who is normally humanoid but can also transform into a biological spacecraft. The following ideas have been paraded around: Extra Limbs; Life Support UBO or AoE: The extra limbs merely simulate the fact that the character can carry multiple people. The humanoid character already has a high STR, Flight, and a Force Field that protects carried objects. Multiform into a Vehicle: Should a vehicle be given mental stats (Hero Designer doesn't seem to allow it), or do I need to create an AI to represent the character's mental stats when in vehicle form? Please comment as to the "legality" of each build. Thanks.

Re: Transform into living spacecraft I don't want to handwave and arbitrarily say that a character can carry internal cargo because he's shaped like a ship. Being shaped like a cat, human, or other item doesn't automatically give you any special abilities, so those shapes are okay via shapeshift. If someone wanted to play "Refrigerator Man", able to carry things inside of himself and control their temperature, I'd want him to buy powers, too. A vehicle with extra stats for INT, EGO, PRE, STUN, etc. might be problematic. Hero Designer won't let me do it on a vehicle template. I wonder if it's rules-legal; time for a posting to Steve. No one expressed outrage at the Extra Limbs idea, nor have they said it's a good idea. The character and vehicle in questions share almost all the same powers. It's so simple to add 1 or 2 powers to the character instead of making an entirely new character with almost identical abilities. Other "turn into vehicle" characters, where the character and vehicle have completely different powers, probably couldn't be done with Extra Limbs, but it seems like a real easy shortcut in my case. I'll let everyone know Steve's replies re. Extra Limbs and adding mental attributes to a vehicle.

Re: Transform into living spacecraft How is multiform "easier"? Multiform doesn't directly solve the main issue of getting a character to carry other characters internally. Yeah, I could do multiform, and then within that multiform buy a vehicle, and buy an AI that has the same mental attributes as the character's main form. That turns 1 character sheet into 3 - overkill for something that's rarely going to be used in combat. Hmmm ... maybe shrinking usable on others so the ship character can swallow his teammates and puke them up

Re: Transform into living spacecraft Summon hadn't occurred to me. I think it would still require a separate character sheet for the ship, so it's not much different than the multiform route. The character's Force Field already has the "protects carried objects" adder, and I would make the Life Support either usable by others or area effect. Extra Limbs lets him carry the passengers, so there's no need to spend lots of points to make the Flight and FTL usable by others.

Re: Transform into living spacecraft My idea for Extra Limbs circumvents the need for viewscreens, internal sensors, and the like. The fact that passengers are inside the ship is merely a special effect, not a power. By the rules, the passengers are outside the PC. They PC and the characters can see and communicate with one another without needing any special powers. Multiform would require a *lot* more work. The characters would have to multiform into a vehicle and an AI; 2 more characters sheets. Am I missing something simpler?

One of the PCs in my campaign gained his superpowers when he accidentally merged with the DNA of a biological spacecraft. His powers already include flight, life support, and a force field that protects carried objects. Now that the group is approaching 200 XP and spending more time traveling around, the player thinks it's time to actually be able to change shape into a spacecraft so he can ferry the entire hero team around. I'm looking for the easiest way to do it. My current thought is extra limbs to carry passengers, adding the area effect or usable by others advantage to his life support, and shape shift. Maybe growth, but I could just do that as SFX to keep the character's STR, DCV, etc. constant for quicker gameplay. Right now, I prefer extra limbs to flight usable by others, since it's the original character who controls the flight, and u.b.o. gets rather expensive for what will often be a plot device to get the team to adventures. The only other way I thought to do this would be a multiform into a vehicle and an AI. That seems far too complex. Anyone have anything that works better?

Re: What to do about missing evidence? I guess one of my earlier posts was vague. The Japanese gov't thinks the PC took "evidence". He told them otherwise. As long as he keeps the eggs hidden, though, no biologist gets a chance to check. So, the gov't continues to view this as a simple (but significant) case of evidence tampering rather than kidnapping or the discovery of a new lifeform. Gov't prosecutors worry that VIPER's lawyers can argue "your honor-san, these dishonorable gaijin have absconded with evidence that is critical for my client's case, and planted this other evidence".

Re: What to do about missing evidence? Good observation. I see 2 other people made related comments. The situation is even more complex than my original post. The eggs were found during a long story arc where the PCs and MTF have pretty much wiped out VIPER in Japan. The 5 largest nests and several smaller nests have been eliminated. The remaining nests may go rogue or defect to the yakuza, although Serpent X, VIPER's unseen commander for Asia, escaped and might be able to regroup. After the PC got out of jail and checked the eggs, he cast a spell to search for mommy. It wasn't a tough spell; as he found out, there's only one dragon on the entire earth. The PC then made mental contact with mommy, said he found her children, made it clear he wasn't the one who stole them, and wanted to know how to return the eggs. Mommy teleported to the PCs and a conversation unsued. Too make a long story short, the PCs learn that ... MOMMY IS SERPENT X!!! A battle unsues, ending in a stalemate. Serpent X is less concernedabout recovering the eggs than expected, and is actually more protective of her lackeys (The VIPER Super Serpent Squad supervillains). The PCs retain ownership of the 2 eggs. Serpent X may have more eggs under her control. So, now the PCs know that the eggs are the offspring of a dragon with a senior leadership role in VIPER. This might give them even more incentive to hold onto the eggs. The PCs now know who Serpent X is, but have no convenient way to prove it to the Japanese authorities who distrust them because of the evidence theft and prior incidents, although the sight of the PCs fighting a huge Chinese dragon over Tokyo might help their case (ya think?). Maybe I'll have the eggs hatch and give the PC a choice: spend XP to buy followers, or the babies are evil and escape to VIPER.

Re: What to do about missing evidence? Supers have only existed in the world for 4 years. There's not much precedent for applying human rights to non-human sentient creatures. The courts are still hashing out the definition of "human". The Japanese gov't is taking the position that these eggs are "evidence" until proven otherwise. Beyond the word of a civilian superhero who "stole" the eggs, there's nothing to indicate the eggs are alive. All the gov't knows is: a) They saw a PC take two items from the VIPER nest, and The PC has stated the items are eggs. The gov't won't truly know if the missing items are eggs, bombs, or something else unless one of their experts examines the eggs. If it's proven that the eggs are in fact sentient creatures that are entitled to the protection of human laws, it possibly becomes worse for the PC. The charges are upgraded from taking evidence to kidnapping. Imagine if Lex Luthor had 2 infants. Superman arrests Lex, turns him over to the police, then announces "these are my kids now, Lex is a bad parent, and I can't trust the courts to place these kids in a good home". Most people, including gov't agencies, do not know if "dragons" really exist. PRIMUS is still baffled by a supervillain who can shift between hydra and human form - scientists are still debating whether she is a human with a superpower that allows her to change shape, or if she is indeed non-human.

Re: What to do about missing evidence? Thank you all for the constructive comments. Keep 'em comin'. Now, my comments to your comments: Superheroes in my campaign world are definitely not above the law. The campaign has a Bronze Age morality. There's no superhuman registration act or anti-mutant hysteria, but people don't want supers to get special privileges, either. Superpowers are still fairly new to the world (4+ years) and the legal system has yet to catch up. The PCs are arguably the most powerful superhero team on earth. They are well respected. Their relationship with the Japanese gov't is currently tenuous, though, because in a prior adventure the PCs took actions that made the MTF "lose face". Additionally, the MTF works with Japanese supers, and they think they can competently deal with any items recovered from a VIPER nest. The PC who took the eggs, Dragon, has been truthful with the authorities. He's already made a statement that "the eggs are too dangerous for your scientists to be allowed to study". If it came down to a legal battle, Dragon would probably not lie in court, and would therefore be convicted. I have several better options than a trial. (I won't post the options here because some of my players might read this) The PC Dragon checked the eggs more carefully after he posted bail. The eggs *are* ready to hatch "soon" (whenever I deem dramatically appropriate, probably within a couple of months). The eggs' mommy is an ancient Chinese dragon known as "Serpent X". Very high rank within VIPER, and may even be the Supreme Serpent. That rules out returning the eggs to her.

I've got a GMing dilemma due to a PC's arrest for hiding evidence from the Japanese cops. Please read and comment on the proposed resolution. Alternative resolutions are welcome, too. My Champions players found some dragon eggs while assaulting a VIPER nest on Monster Island. One of the PCs, a teenage ubermage coincidentally named Dragon, determined that the eggs are too dangerous to leave lying around, so he cast a spell to send the eggs into a pocket dimension until he can further study the situation. I'm not criticizing the player. It was a reasonable in-character decision for Dragon. However, the MTF (Metahuman Task Force, Japan's equivalent to PRIMUS) was participating in the attack on VIPER and saw the eggs disappear. The MTF agents politely asked Dragon to return the evidence, he politely refused, the MTF politely arrested him. I improvised because I didn't foresee this event. Dragon was carted off to jail, fingerprinted, and then easily made bail. Other things took up the bulk of the session and we never delved into the legal issues. The MTF has a solid case. I don't expect Dragon to return the eggs, and I expect a speedy trial where he pleads guilty. I'm most concerned about the character being sentenced to prison until he returns the eggs. Dragon's powers allow easy escape so he can go back to his NYC-based superhero team, but his secret ID is a Japanese citizen, making it unlikely that the United States would oppose extradition. I do not want to turn the PCs into fugitives from the law. I'm thinking that, barring any surprises from my players, the MTF will request extradition and the US for some reason takes an extended time reviewing the request. That lets me postpone the issue until other in-game events cause a pardon to occur. Your thoughts?

Re: Favorite Abuses Back in the olden days before I started to GM (and realized how abusive this is), many of my characters had autofire and area effect on unusual attacks (ego blast, NNDs, drains, tiny RKA with the penetrating advantage, etc.). 5th ed. rightfully increased the cost of such builds, but they can still be quite effective: The Rapid Fire Exploding Man 2d6 EB (10 points). NND (+1). Make sure the defense is something that your character has. Area effect 5" radius (+1). Autofire 10 shots (+1, +1 for a non-standard attack power). 0 END (+1, because of autofire). No Range (-1/2). 60 active points. 40 real points. If I recall correctly, No Range area effect attacks always hit. That means all 10 shots hit, for an average of 70 STUN pips to everyone within 5" of your character. Zoiks! Most villains will fall instantly if they have neither the NND defense nor Damage Reduction. If you want to get even more obscene, take a multipower and fill it with a few of these attacks, each slot having a different NND defense to guarantee that you'll be ready for any villain. Add a final slot with a BODY Drain for dealing with automatons that take no STUN. John "not in my campaign" Speroni

Re: SPD + DC Balance Method When I'm starting a new campaign, I generally give a suggested range for the important stats (i.e. SPD 4-7; DC 10-12; PD and ED 20-28; etc.). I don't use them as absolute limits. When a character exceeds these limits on either the low or high end, then I'll do a more careful review to verify that the character is effective but not abusive. Here's how I handle XP: I generally let players spend XP however they want, as long as it fits the character. All the players know that I reserve the right to request character modifications if I find something isn't working in my campaign. "Bob, I know you've had that power for 3 weeks, and I approved it, but now I see I made a mistake; that power is too effective and breaks the game." We'll then discuss possible changes. Having a set of mature players is very nice in regards to this.