Supreme Serpent

Ah. Then I would suggest being creative. As for welcoming you back, this was the source of my confusion. Thought that you haven't been playing in a while.

Any hero types would work. My main advice would be to try to avoid characters that are too close to what the PC's want to do. Accordingly, until you HAVE players and characters, I wouldn't get into too much detail. If one of your players wants to play "Blue Arrow", you may not want a famous NPC archer hero out there (although if the player goes along, could be used for fun - friendly rivalry, they keep getting mistaken for each other, even attacked by each other's enemies, etc.). If the PC's aren't going to interact with them, no need to worry about stats/writeups. Just give them names, basic costumes, basic personalities and basic powers (ie - "ice powers"). If you need them in an adventure, write them up at that time. If you want some for the PC's to interact with, there are writeups for a team named, appropriately enough, "The Champions". If you need more, find villain writeups, change the names and disads, and voila! Instant heroes! There are several areas online you can find writeups, some for 5th ed (also commonly called FRED) and earlier 4th ed. (you'd hardly notice the difference most of the time). The Great Book of Net Heroes is still floating around somewhere, and there is a "Hero of the Day" thread on this very forum with tons of writeups. Oh, and welcome back to Champions/HERO by the way!

They don't exist anymore in the official Champions Universe, but you can of course include them in your own game world(s). Prof Muerte's dead, Scorpia and Feur joined Eurostar. Don't remember if Giganto's dead or just wandered off into the jungle after PM died. And BTW - welcome back to Champions!

Re: Too Many Liaisons? I'd think that only Homeland Security and/or the NSC would have an actual liason assigned to the team - ie is often at the base, is privy to lots of info, cleared for base security, etc. They would serve as go-between between the team and other parts of the government as needed - FBI, CIA, DOD, etc. As you have multiple Avengers teams, I imagine that each team's liason would have regular contact/meetings with their opposite numbers on the other teams to compare notes/address overall issues/problems that the Avengers as a whole face ("What's our policy going to be for background checks on deities?" "How are negotiations coming for access rights to operate within Russia?" etc). It's likely that one of them (probably liason with Washington DC team, or original NY team) would be "over" the others, and would take the lead in any higher-level contacts (Cabinet secretaries, the President, etc) that are needed. Localities (ie San Fran) would probably have a specified official (Deputy Mayor, Police Commissioner, etc) who aside from their other duties, coordinates as needed with the team, but I don't think that they would have an official liason that has the kind of influence/access "Avengers Liasons" have typically had (ie Henry Gyrich, Duane Freeman). In a lot of ways, an Avengers Liason would effectively be a "member" of the team, whose "powers" are a high Bureaucratics roll and loads of contacts.

Well, if you're a Dr. Mengele-level sicko... Kidnap sets of twins. Enhance one of each pair. Then run them both through the same unpleasantness in a search for weaknesses. "Subject A seems more affected by the prolonged meat-freezer exposure than subject B." "Both subjects sustained similar radiation burns from handling the uranium." etc.

Bob beat me to it. Could set yourself up as a "Power Broker" type, enhancing people for a price. Or just get yourselves lots of super-thugs.

Yeah...and let's see...Paper has a Vuln to Scissors' attacks, Scissors has a Vuln to Stone's attacks, Stone has a Vuln to Paper's attacks...make them really powerful, and the PC's have to figure out a way to have them attack each other in order to win.

Our group has 7 regulars, and just about all of us GM at least from time-to-time, so we all get to be players. Unfortunately, we are only managing 1/month (with several games run each session). Hopefully that will improve.

The Cyclone armor from Robotech could work - basic suit + motorcycle, cycle can add onto armor.

I only know 4th ed, but I assume that the FRED answer is the same. Yes, it can go to an End reserve, but it goes at a 1:1 rate, not 1:10.

I know John Desmaris (sp?) has them, and I think the Teen Titans done up as well.

Black Panther uses a "special herb" to get his powers. Spider-Man's radioactive blood could count. In one issue, Silverman tried to suck it out to help rejuvenate him. For that matter, any radioactive type. Radioactive Man, appropriately enough. Swarm's radioactive bones. Wonder-Man, et al have the Ionic power bit. Just use them pre-energy body phase. In fact early on they required a serum to prevent ionic poisoning, iirc. Nick Fury's Infinity Formula. I don't know about in original continuity, but in the 90's Hawkworld stuff, Byth (sp?) had his shapechanging powers come from a drug, I think called "Krotan".

You might not need duplication to get the effect you want, unless you want the birds going all over the place. One of the greatest (and most hated) bad guys my friend ran us up against in his Victorian era game was "Caw" - magical crow villain. One of his forms was a big cloud of crows. Instead of doing it as duplication, he went with the effects - could create a localized darkness (all the birds flying around target, obscuring vision), could "desolidify" (birds flying out of the way of attacks, letting them pass through the mass), and had a small autofire 'peck' attack. Together the birds could lift a goodly amount, so had a reasonable (10) str, so they could fly off with someone. Same deal could work with a cloud of bats, etc. But, if you want raven 7 to be able to scope out the ball game while raven 25 is across town, and ravens 10-15 watch the major intersections...above construct wouldn't work too well.

Good, good... Oh, and if you need an undercover VIPER recruiter for "Career Day", I can arrange for one to swing by...

If you put a sliding scale on buying specific skills up, how would more general, or even overall levels factor in? Just something to consider...

OK, now that we have an idea of what books this is supposed to emulate, some of "what I want to see": "Sidekicks: Growing up in a Hero's shadow" - tips for making sidekick characters in various stages (just starting, full partner stage, "moving out"). Challenges and opportunities that come with the tights. "Teen Champions Challenges" - teen heroes have to deal with what other heroes have to deal with, and have other problems on top of that. Less respect from authority figures/adult heroes, schoolwork, parents,general teenage BS. Can YOU handle the school bully without using your fire powers? "High School Today" - problems/issues/overview of high school life/issues in general, and in sub-genres - private/public, suburb/inner city, poor vs well-funded. Be careful about keeping your costume in your bookbag with the drug searches going on... "Millenium Central" - example high school, with maps, some staff/teachers/students laid out. ("normal" high school, not a Ravenswood Academy thing) "Ravenswood Academy" - the special school for teens with powers. "Teen Enemies" - ideas for teen-specific plots. Teachers being taken over by aliens. Superpowered teen gang making problems...and looking for new recruits. Master villain looking for what he thinks will make more impressionable lackeys, etc.

Or have his powers at reduced END only near the power lines.

Never read it, but I assume Ninja High School would fit in well. Oh, and a lot of the early Impulse issues.

Everyone's had good points, and I'll second Blue's wish. ;)Start based on the heroes' capabilities. Gives you a good starting point. Not that all encounters need to be "fair". Sometimes you intentionally want the PC's to have an easy time, sometimes you want them to have a hard one. As a GM, I am a major STUN cheat when it helps the drama. Often, but especially if the PC's are having a rough time already, if a villain goes out, he's out - proceed automatically to -31 land. If the villain is being taken out much too easily, then STUN gets added on. Usually I only need to do this early in the campaign when I'm not as in tune with the PC's abilities/methods, or when people switch out characters. If going into it, I know the PC's are outmatched, I also try to make sure to include some environmental benefits they can take advantage of - high-voltage transformer they could arrange to KB the villain into, fire hydrants when fighting flame character, etc. Of course, these things come up normally, but I put more thought into them if the PC's are outgunned.

OK. Again, we don't know enough about the character and the game to really make informed judgements. But, from what we've seen here, my issues: - All his spells require gestures&incant. , except the one that enables him to get out to use all of his others. It's a bit handy, isn't it? I'd actually feel better about it if it was set up through the VPP (required the gestures&incant to set up, can only go off once before being reset) rather than on its own. Trigger a healing spell "when I take BODY damage" etc. I could live with same way. Or, I'd like to see it as a magic item that he made - an "Amulet of Apportation" or somesuch that could be taken away from him. Either way, I'd feel better about the character as a GM.

As a player, I'd probably refer to it as "Kraut Fu" or "Hun-jitsu". Otto Skorzeny would be a likely inventor of this, so you could call it "die Skorzeny Methode"; "the Skorzeny Method".

From the sound of it, there are some game-specific conventions ("only so many slots available for spells") involved that might alter things. So, if you don't feel it's an attempt to sleaze the system, great.

Hmmm...exactly how does this trigger work/how is it defined/how does it determine where to t-port him? Couple of thoughts: a) sounds like the player is trying to make his limits not be actual limits anymore - ex saves 50+pts, pays 10pts to get power that eliminates his limit. If this is the case, I would severly scale down the value of the limit, perhaps even making it a -0 special effect, or disallow the t-port. Sounds like having most powers "only works in intense magnetic field" and buying change environment without that limit, and which creates, surprise! - an "intense magnetic field". If this is not the case, I would make sure that the trigger is more explicit, like "when arms restrained" - wouldn't necessarily help vs stasis rays, etc. If it is broadly defined, the character may find himself teleporting in his sleep when he rolls over onto his arm and restricts its movement. It will also be hard to hug this guy. c) This has good "deathtrap" possibilites. If it always teleports him 2", for example, put him in a room with 5" thick walls and have an AE entangle in the room - he gets entangled - teleports - into an entangle - teleports - etc. and is caught in a loop he can't get out of. If this costs him END, he's in real trouble.

If you're really going to try to abuse things, make the first four powers into an EC...

...but I doubt he'd be able to do it *every phase*. I imagine it would take more time and effort than normal.