BlackCobra

Actually, fairly interesting character. One bit I REALLY liked was the Enraged/Beserk disad -- that's really a neat way to do a person who's paranoid at the reflex level. Neato! Hmmm, might I suggest Combat Driving? Also, since you seem to have a lot of mental conditioning against interrogation (disads & mental defence), may I suggest an interesting option on the Mental Defence you did take? Try adding a Side Effects limit -- whenever you have to use it, it causes you pain (stun). I would imagine that to simulate the rather aggressive anti-interrogation conditioning that the disads seemt to imply. Just a thought.

I, too, am eagerly awaiting the arrival of Fantasy Hero. (Does it show? I actually started up a Primal Order campaign where the players played gods and helped create a new world ... which will lead to the Fantasy Hero campaign I hope to be running soon. Unfortunately, it didn't exactly turn out as planned (I almost posted it in the Doomed Campaigns thread), but I think I can salvage a fun fantasy campaign out of it.

I would say the simplest way to do that helmet would be as an OIF. The way to remove it takes a turn (and you can almost see that turn passing as the X-men flip the catches), although every little bit has to be accomplished in order for the helmet to come off. Imagine their perspective: here you have an invulnerable guy, who's only weakness is mental powers and the GM gives him a helmet that blocks mental powers -- and it's an OIF! Obviously, there had to be an in-combat way around that.

You'll probably get a better and more specific answer from the Steve when he has time, but here's what I understand. The Fantasy Hero book won't be a world-specific book -- it'll be more like the D&D 3rd Ed Player's Handbook (plus the Dungeon Master's Guide). It'll let you build whatever fantasy world you want, or make whatever character you want. From what I recall of the vague description of contents, there will be example character packages (for Wizard or whatever), but they'll be something pretty customizable for whatever fantasy world you're running. As far as specific world content (e.g. TSR's Greyhawk setting), I believe Hero is coming out with a separate setting book to cover that. I have no idea what their world will be like, although I gather that the free PDF describes their multi-genre Hero setting. But the great thing about the Hero system is that you don't have to used the published material if you don't want to -- you can even use other source material for it. In fact, I had great success in using Steve Jackson Games' IST superhero setting using the Hero system. Hope that helps!

I'd explore everything you can do with Area of Effect: Selective Target. There's so much that fits into the speedster motif using that advantage combination that it's just really not funny. For instance: - on EB, for running around and hitting everyone you want really fast - on Flash, for throwing sand in each person's face (might require a focus) - on Transform (cosmetic) for painting an orange N on their chests - the Entangle example from the previous post, combined with these advantages, let's you tie up all the thugs at once! - on Telekinesis, to do all sorts of things (definitely get fine manipulation), including disarming all those thugs simultaneously. Hope that gives you some ideas!

Wow, I bow to your superior, er, geek-knowledge-ness. And I just saw this movie again like 2 weeks ago!

Oooh, ooh -- happy to oblige. Lot's of good ideas: Society of Assassins: easy, all those different hitmen, murder organizations and assassins-supervillains are really all part of the Society -- or (of course!) work for someone who does. You hardly ever need to tip your hand, just perhaps have odd connections between assassins (or assassinations) that seem to be completely unrelated. UFOs: also easy -- just lump all the aliens (or all the ones not in the Bermuda) into an umbrella organization, maybe an alien UN that can't entirely agree on how to manage first-contact relations, or is attempting to meddle in Earth affairs to get it ready for joining up. Servants of Cthulhu -- gosh, do you really need help with this one? Let's try various demon-summoning and/or death cults, variously showing up and causing havoc, each of which (it turns out) is attempting to (1) weaken the World Gates for the great Summoning to occur in X years, or (2) collect all the correct stuff to do the Great Summoning. In either case, I'd suggest a nameless underling that visibly gets away each time (even if they use something flashy like teleport) right as the rest of the cult is getting trounced. You might even have them use the same spell or item to effect their escape. Bermuda Triangle -- several possibilities here. Option A: this is a tightly-held secret opening into an alternate world, one Atlantis went to when the rest of the world went to heck. They've been watching, waiting and quietly changing things from behind the scenes. Once in a while, they capture individuals they think are special and incorporate them into their Plan. Option B: they're a different faction of aliens who don't quite agree with what the UFO group are doing. Or rebels who fled to Earth and can't let anyone know they're there...... Discordians -- oh, who knows WHAT these guys are up to! But I can tell you one thing, a certain fox-styled superclown is definitely a member. And you could probably stick every other lame or clownish super into it, and then slowly reveal strange connections between them (they're all the same age? they all use the same glue in their glue-guns? they all have green eyes?). Shangra-La -- ah, my personal favorite. Have you ever seen a movie (old!) where this plane crash-lands somewhere in the himalayas, and the folks are rescued by natives & europeans. They're taken to a valley, where it turns out they've been preserving art and knowledge against the ravages of time and men. They're also aging Really Slowly (because life is so KEEN there). So agents of Shangra-La will be a strange mix --- those who acquire art, buy books, computers, etc. They also make strange offers to scientists and philosphers, if they can make the journey and weather the coming Storm. They also work to promote peace in the world, which is no mean feat. But above all they preserve what's good and keep it secret from the rest. Enjoy -- hope that helps your writer's block!

Personally I was never a big fan of allowing skills in a VPP. I think this is one of those special effects vs. actual power things. To best simulate this, I'd take 15 or 20 maneuvers (or about 60 points worth) instead, showing that your character is trained in all major martial arts forms. Then take Scholar & the knowledge skills you'd need (as suggested above).

I'd also recommend, for best effect, adding Invisible Power Effects on the duplication, unless it's really really obvious (like Mojo JoJo style obvious) that he has 2 brains. This kind of duplication is really interesting. My first instinct was "No!" but then I thought about it a little. Interesting idea!

Ok, first, I'm with the hover for 1" crowd. Second, my question would always be "how's the wind?" That 1" to hover is great, except when the wind is blowing at 2" from the North -- then you're going to have trouble. If that 2" wind sounds like a lot -- consider how inexpensive the Change Environment would be to create that sort of natural weather. Third, I fully expect any moment one of you good-at-math folks will hop in here and tell me that those are 500 mile-an-hour winds, and I should shut up about the wind shear.

Actually, I definitely think that AI's can have Social Limitations, particularly (or only?) in societies that class Artificial Intelligences as people and have laws (or expect the regular ones) that apply to them. So if you have an AI who's part of the military, they have to obey orders, go where they're told, be called up out of the reserves, etc. (Hmmm, interesting character idea, a retired military AI.) Or say you have an AI who's responsible for traffic control in a major city -- they have to maintain the laws of the city, do their job and generally keep the trains running. Heck, you could even have an AI running around who has a Secret they don't want to get out ("I was programmed by a mass-murderer, but I'm really an OK entity!"). If you want an interesting take on it -- look at the Ship Who Sang stuff by Anne McAffrey. Although the Ships (and one city) are really technically cyborgs, they might as well be built as AIs (with some odd physical limitations). And boy do they have some Social Limitations. Not the least of which is that most unknowing people think they're really computers. Does that help?

The Scorpion With the one arm and the whip as his sting, it isn't too far a stretch. You might even add a color or some menacing adjective to spice it up. It's a very 30's kind of name --- think the Green Hornet. I would imagine him in black (or other color) leather biker kind-of outfit with a half-face mask. Sort of police-inspired, but with a big scorpion emblem on it somewhere. It comes off American (leather & police outfit) and asian (scorpion). Does that help at all?

As an English hero, can I suggest a mysterious gentleman working behind the scenes to protect Great Britain, who every once in a while shows up to smite some terrible mystical evil. He does it with a shining sword, of course, and seems nearly invulnerable. I would suggest that he doesn't speak much about his past, but is always accompanied by an older, bearded gentleman who dispenses advice on mystical matters, and refers to the hero as "Arthur" when they're out of ear-shot. Just my obvious England-is-in-trouble suggestion!

Hmm, I think you may have missed two things about using the Hero system to do fantasy magic: 1. You should really decide on what kind of feel you want before worrying about the mechanics of doing it. (You may have already done that, if so, skip to point 2.) If mages require extensive knowledge of names, for instance, Incantations, KSs and books seem like obvious limits. If they require labs to develop spells or if they seek the favors of guardian spirits, you get completely different feels. 2. Look at these advantages again: Delayed Effect, Variable Special Effects, Variable Advantage. I personally really favor buying spells individually, for a variety of reasons. Mostly because it seems a more balanced way to it. The best way simulate a mage who has a lot of variability, but is focused in a particular area (like Fire), is to buy one basic power (like EB) and then give it Variable Advantage. This lets the mage produce an extremely wide range of effects with one (possibly expensive) spell. They have the ability to do things like blast one person really hard (Double Knockback, Armor Piericing), or take out a large number of targets (AoE). They can also do minor effects like light candles (AoE selective, using less power). You can also do things like Weather, Healing and all sorts of other staples of fantasy just by buying one power and having the ability to change the advantages it uses. Variable Limitations might also be handy. If you want to add in lots of limits (to make them cost less, or more importantly to simulate the way magic works in your world), the spells simply need Delayed Effect to enter into the realm of wave-your-hand-and-die magic. In fact, Delayed Effect spells don't even need to have gestures or incantations when you use them.

Uh, back before 5th and the resurrection option on healing, I had a player who wanted to play a vampire. In order to simulate the back from the dead thing, he bought a transformation attack (dead character to "live" character) on a trigger (dead), 0-END, persistent and Independent. The Independent is the key, since such powers continue to work even when the character is dead. However, it did have drawbacks. The character also had regeneration. Transformation attacks always have 2 ways to heal from them (as I recall): something you designate (such as when Vampirism curse dispelled) or healing the body. Well, since the character had regeneration, and a high body, we figured out that because of the come-back-from-the-dead effect being a transformation attack, he'd be dying every 2.5 minutes, and then coming back 1 minute later. Moral of the story: personal immunity on his regeneration. I'm sure this doesn't help.

Well, we've never done the "use whatever points you need", but our group did a 500-pt campaign (in 4th Ed, which is the equivalent of 600 or 700 points in 5th). I ran it and I used the Nexus (the infinite city) as a campaign setting. It worked ok, and was fairly amusing, but I think setting it in that city was the wrong idea. When you get up the big big points, the best thing you can do is to have a detailed background and to have memorable NPCs. And challenges. A regular city-based campaign probably isn't the best place to go for challenges. Something on the Big Stage, like world-encompassing or galaxy-spanning is the best idea.

HQ Places We've Used: Offices -- when the premise of the group was a detective agency (made the supers legal and it fit their motif). The office was heavily modified with reinforced walls and windows -- which didn't help much when a penetrating-attack sniper shot my character through my specially-reinforced window. But that's another story. Top of a Corporate Building (Openly) - pretty much the standard HQ of corporate-sponsored super-heroes. Top of a Corporate Building (Secretly) - the corporation wanted to limit liability and collateral costs (damage) and so our HQ was very open -- across town. Our real HQ was at the top of one of their other buildings and we all had to be very careful about showing up there Heroicly. It put quite a different spin on having a spiffy HQ when we could only show up there in "civilian" clothes and generally couldn't bring people back there. Anytime we wanted to meet someone, we directed them to our public HQ (that small office across town). I think there was a tunnel or teleport or something between them so that we could pull it off easier, but I'm not sure. HQ Building -- the superheroes I ran just recently had their own HQ building taking up a whole block in Hudson City (it was a 4-color campaign set in the Dark Champions city). This was nice, but a little boring. Galactic HQ -- in the Galactic Defense Corps game I played in, we had a large-planet-sized base. We needed space travel to go anywhere (but that was the premise). The campaign twist was that we were recruited on our home planets and when we showed up the base was empty. Thousands of galactic-level supers missing is a lot frightening, let me tell you. Places we HAVEN'T used: I always rather liked the old victorian home (not mansion) described in the Mystic Masters book. If you haven't seen it, it had regular rooms (living room, kitchen, bedrooms, bathrooms) some a little off-kilter (such as the bedroom with no electricity, but working gas lights). It also had a whole 3rd floor when one didn't show on the outside. It was fun. And if one of the characters inheirits it from some dead uncle, but doesn't have any mystical abilities or knowledges, it would be an interesting twist. A large vehicle could also make a great base. I've always wanted to run a pulp-era superhero team based out of a zepplin (with helium, hopefully). It's quiet (mostly), it's big (you can have fights on the outside!), it's slow (which means you have nice down-time) and it can go anywhere. Ships make nice bases, too. Even if the campaign is focused on a specific city, it can make an interesting space just sitting tied-up to a dock somewhere. And then there's the really wild -- a different dimension. If you've ever seen that D&D spell Magnificent Mansion (or it's other variations), I think a simple gate located in an alley somwhere that leads to a palace subdimension would be really fun. It would also give you a host of subplots and odd things to bring into the campaign. Building it with the base rules would be interesting. What would the location modifier be? Oh, look, Steve added "In another dimension" to the table. It would also give you the ability to add exits/entrances to allow the team to get places around town quicker and easier than their power level could really handle. And the disadvantages are almost endless....Watched (extradimensional forces), Dependent NPCs (ghost servants?), accidental change? There's some ideas -- now I want to run/play something myself...sigh.

I would recommend some ability to either enter to connect to the spirit world. I guess it depends on the mythos behind the pantheon the god belongs to. You might also want to play up some psyche limits when in the Bear Avatar form --- or even physical limits on what sort of behavior is acceptable.

Actually, I'd recommend having more than 1 "Mob" or organized crime group in your local campaign world. It gives you a lot more options and interesting stories. My personal favorite mix has been 1 regular mafia-type, 1 Carrebian (sp?), 1 Tong and 1 Yakuza. Generally, they have negotiated some sort of piece and have well-established territories and "crimes" that they control. Throw in 4 or 5 major gangs (controlled by various top-end groups), a super-villain or two lurking in the background, and you have quite a nice Underworld put together. One of my favorite style things has always been to have a VERY honorable Yakuza (the old-fashioned kind) who are much lighter in the gray spectrum than most criminal groups. They actually act more like a vigilante group protecting Little Tokyo than act as traditional thugs. I'd also establish up front the tone you're trying for in the campaign -- how dark, how heroic, etc. Otherwise you can end up hip deep in blood or with characters attending more co-vigilante funerals than you'd planned on. Good luck.

Ok, normally I suck at names, but let's give this one a shot: The Cop: mentalist is a good suggestion. Alternative name: the Authority (which would be better if that great comic hadn't come out). I think I like the Authority better. You might make him simple to play by concentrating only on the Mind Control and less on the other abilities (let the player grow into them?). He should still have a TON of mental defense -- because no one should be able to tell him what to do. Is he supposed to be the team leader? The Cowboy, or The Shootist, or Six Guns Murphy (he'll need six guns, of course). Or really really campy: Chaps. Tomahawk, or Spirit Walker, or Chief (if he's kind of a twit). Cloud Walker might be a better match for his abilities. Even if it doesn't make a good pun. Hard Hat (Contruction Worker), or (again) really campy: Jackhammer. Sailor Boy? (I'm stretching back to remember the Village People.) Well, you can't call him "Cap" since that would lead to confusion. I suppose Sailor Toy would be too campy. And Pirate might bring out the wrong conclusions... The biker should obviously be called Harley. Or Hog, if you really want to go down that road, I guess. Does that help?

Thanks! See, I knew you had things well in hand with the mystical side -- I hadn't considered the local-mystics factor! Good planning ahead, Herr Professor. Feel free to use BlackCobra -- just try not to live up to the name. You don't want a bumbling villain who regenerates falling all over the place, foiling heroes by soaking up attacks! (He was my first Champs character I had made myself, based LOOSELY on Spiderman. Yikes!) Keep us posted on the procedings.

Hmmm, well, then I'd recommend a figure based on how long people have been settled in the area -- which might be a much longer time than civilization age, since many mystical places are left-overs of earlier civilizations anyway. For instance, a place like the Salisbury plain in southern England might have a very very old Age rating, since people have lived there for thousands of years, giving rise to such places as Stone Henge and Salisbury Cathedral. Your friend might want to factor in such things as Age of Civilization (current) and Age of Occupation. Keeping track of them separately seems like a good idea.

I don't know what direction you're going in with Professor Peril, but my favorite Nazi supervillains are always the ones with mystical connections -- ties in nicely with the rest of the sinister group. Even if you don't have that in mind for the good (evil?) Professor right away, it might be something only vaguely hinted at or revealed a bit more when he's defeated. It would also give him some good get-out-of-jail tricks when all his henchmen run out. Just a thought. It sounds like you've got things pretty well in hand here. And a thought on the asian bodygaurd (or whatever position is) -- he'd make a good plant or contant with the Japanese conspiracy you're planning on separately. Keep in mind that there were (historically) very early ties between the Nazi party and the Japanese; meeting took place between high-level advisors and the Japanese government even before Hitler took power. One of these was a Professor (no, really!) of History who helped (reportedly) write Mein Kampf. Isn't the Discovery Channel wonderful for these odd tidbits?

Uh, I have no idea how you'd generate the number I'm about to suggest (GURPS Mysterious Places, maybe?), but how about adding in the number of mystic places in the region. The logic is: the more mystic sites, the more mystic stuff is going to happen or have to be protected against. Ergo, the more mystic protectors. In Europe, I'd definitely factor in the number of standing-stone sites (since they're part of the ley-line network), maybe the number of cathedrals, places like Lourdes, haunted houses, etc. BTW, is he calculating the number of Heroes or just folks with unusual abilities?

Ah, you're missing it. There've been examples of this in the comics and elsewhere, none that I recall, of course, but I'll try a vague sense of what I'm talking about here. If you want to have a sport where super-powers (of whatever variety) are allowed (indeed, expected), you just need some basic ground-rules to keep the competition interesting. For instance, say the game is a pumped-up version of sooccer. Positions and normal rules don't matter that much -- just the basics: ball, goals, other team. So, say the rules are: 1. No powers can be used on the ball itself. This means that players have to pick it up, or kick it, or whatever, to make a goal. 2. No permanent or invasive harm to the other players. So, dazing your opponent with an ego-whammy is ok, but mind controlling him to make a goal for you isn't. 3. No use of powers can harm the audience. 4. No permanent property damage. That still allows a lot of leeway in terms of what powers can be used, and consequently what kind of supers would be on these teams. Over time, certain strategies would give rise to standard positions on the team. There'd probably be a speedster on every team just to cover they other guys use of one. Think Quidditch. There'd even be room on the teams for very talented "normals", much as there are on super-hero teams, because of the skills and abilities they have. Especially team captains. I could really see a major-league sport made out of that, if there's a large enough super-powered population. Heck, most campains seem to be set in a world where super-heroes are relatively recent things -- but what would such a world look like in 20 or 30 years? When super-heroes become so well accepted into society that they're just another brand of celebrity (but more akin to heroes than pop-stars).