Chuckg

The funny thing is, Helene might actually have /fun/ going on a date with a 16-year-old computer geek to a science fiction convention in Oslo. Unless he gets grabby hands. But given that everybody else in the campaign is just waiting for their first chance to trot out their "Eight Simple Rules For Dating My Teenaged Superheroine Teammate" skit, and one of them has a 45 PRE and an intimidation attack that could take out an army(*), that's probably not gonna happen. (*) Addendum -- it's a 750 point campaign, and his character concept combines elements of Thor, Black Adam, and Nuada of the Silver Hand. Nobody takes him lightly.

Heh. You're still one date ahead of Starguard. (Who's also 20 COM -- and 30 PRE, defined as 'cuteness', with a Distinctive Feature that makes any Presence attacks based on fear or intimidation or awe pretty much useless...(*)) (Granted, you've been playing a few years longer...) (*) OTOH, Presence attacks defined as "the kicked puppy look" or "Please?" have been known to melt stone.

She's an FBI agent and she got mugged by a lone stickup man? There is an issue .40 caliber S&W listed on her character sheet, right?

If Zl'f lived in the Ukraine, the invasion of 1941 might have made her have to become a refugee, bounce around some DP camps, and eventually end up in the West...

Starguard -- good God, she's almost lethally cute in human form. And you want to make her a /furry/? It doesn't matter what you pick, it'll make Disney look like Wildstorm. Mmmm... probably a squirrel. Something with a tail... got to have a tail, it's the best aid for animators to show emotion with, and she's very expressive. Dr. Pain -- grizzly bear! The biggest baddest pro wrestlin' grizzly bear you ever saw, 'cause THAT'S YOUR DOCTOR'S ORDERS! Baron von Darien -- is a vampire. How the hell do you make a furry vampire?

Or you could just deep-six the Namor clone to make room... (pun intended)

Starguard -- "You want me to what?" She wouldn't have the slightest thing remotely resembling a clue about how to lead or organize a team. If she's alone and knows the other Sentinels aren't coming back, what she does then is start seeing who else has a job opening. Dr. Pain -- "Ummm... right. I'll work on that." He's not a great leader or an organizer either, but he's not a wallflower. He'd pick his new team members mostly on the basis of reputation, and try to get at least one more experienced guy to be the boss so he wouldn't have to. Baron von Darien -- he's an immortal billionaire supergenius mastermind. If he'd wanted a superhero team at his beck and call, he'd already have one. If he doesn't have one, it's because he doesn't feel the need for one.

Eighteen outta nineteen! YESSSSSSSSS! (The one I missed was, of course, #18. *g*)

Well, I will admit that I'm extrapolating. Still, the CU mentions on him make him much more impressive than his 4e version -- we already know that he's not an ascended mortal sorceror, he's a full-on I-got-your-burning-bush-right-*here* deity and has been since the dawn of time. That plus the fact that WTF Tyrannon is, it will have to be mystically powerful enough to make even Takofanes look small in order to maintain Tyrannon's status as #1 magical uber-badass of the entire Champions-related multiverse... ... heck, that's a working approximation of Darkseid all by itself.

In 4e, yes. In 5e, he seems to be more filling the role of "The God that Satan prays to." -- i.e., classic Kirby Pre-Crisis Darkseid.

Legacy Starguard -- [mindboggle] Starguard is a 750 point Cosmic Power Pool wielder. If she appeared in the Golden Age, she'd be... ummm... ... good God, an 18-year-old utterly innocent teenaged girl version of the Spectre. In concept, if not in raw power. That makes my head hurt. Anyway, as she is unaging, she'd still be around, and probably by now be as mature, majestic, regal, and beautiful as Archangel Novalis(*) or Queen Galadriel. Legacy Dr. Pain -- his grandkid's a superscientist brick. Dad kept nagging his kids to go to school and not just be a boxing bum (no pro wrestling back then) like his old man. Legacy Baron von Darien -- in his original reality, the Baron was /alive/ in WWII... he's 1100 years old. And vampires don't have kids. No change. (*) "In Nomine" RPG reference.

The Empyreans /are/ the Eternals of the CU, aren't they? And they have a funky cloaked mountain valley hideaway like the Inhumans did...

/All/ heroes? DCU has the Spectre, the Thunderbolt, the... ummm, the Spectre just blocked the Silver Surfer, and the Thunderbolt just turned the entire planet Earth and all of its inhabitants into a grape...(*) (*) No guys, seriously, the 5-dimensional imps of the DCU -- of which the Thunderbolt is one -- are powerful on a scale that makes Cosmic Cubes look /weak/. The only thing that keeps the Thunderbolt from totally over-ruling every JSA story is that he can only do what his "handler" tells him to do, no more and no less -- and his handler is, unless another smarter teammate is yelling directly in his ear and giving him step-by-step directions -- a complete imbecile.

In "Future Imperfect", when the Maestro slammed the shield while Rick Jones was holding it, Rick /did/ take Knockback... enough to send him across the room and kill him when he landed on something sharp, AAMOF. (Alternate future.) The shield seems to behave differently when Cap holds it then when anybody else holds it. So we need to separate those powers that are innate to the shield, and those things that Cap has that work only when he has the shield... or even when he's not holding the shield. Such as Cap's skill-based Knockback Resistance. (Remember when there was the explosion and Cap and Spidey were the only two heroes in the entire room not knocked off their feet? To quote... Spidey -- "Cap, how did you do that? I stick to things. You..." Cap -- "It's just a matter of knowing how to balance yourself and being quick to react.")

Black Mask doesn't count? And the CU already has an Atlantis, complete with royalty... although if you wanted your own Aquaman homage, by all means, give Queen Mara a long-lost son and then some old age... (The 4e Atlantis sourcebook -- well, the Prince and Princess seemed to be more /parodies/ of Namor and Namorita, not homages...)

Power Pack really only works for a very light-hearted game. The idea of pre-teens being allowed to fight supervillains with the rest of the hero community not calling Mom & Dad kinda goes against the 'default' tone of Champions, aka 'We're mostly taking this seriously'. For that matter, even teen superheroes aren't encouraged by the general hero community in the Champions U, as witness Ravenswood Academy's policy on extra-curricular activities... The Champions U hero-community-at-large seems to take the quite reasonable position that if you want to volunteer for a job involving combat duties and deadly danger, you should be a legal adult. Note -- I /liked/ Power Pack. i just don't want their homage to be /here/.

God almighty, Freedom City is outstanding. Officially licensed HERO conversion, /please/. (The M&M rules engine... it's weird. I can crunch Hero System in my head. I munch most D20 games like popcorn. GURPS is as much a native language to me as English. Tri-Stat, I can do in my sleep. Even /Palladium/ made sense... mostly. The only rules engine that has ever kicked my butt is Chart... I mean, Rolemaster. /And/ Mutants & Masterminds. It's supposed to be so simple, and yet I just can't get it at all. I have no idea why, but I just can't. But I'd really, really love to spend some time in that world... and it so loudly begs for an official Champions conversion...)

That was the Fabulous Five, led by... what was it, Mr. Amazing? *wonders where the hell he put that book, it was just here yesterday*

Shang-Chi. (OK, so WOTD had Lin Hu, but while the basic concept was OK, I thought the execution could use a severe debugging.)

I really like the idea of giving Cap 3d6 Luck and using that to explain away some of his one-in-a-million feats... simplifies my shield multipower tremendously.

I /did/ think of that once, actually -- but the DM didn't approve it. IIRC, he grumbled something about 'Mechanon wouldn't ever build an AI that went rogue on him' and demanded I play something else. That game didn't last very long.

*rabid Classic Kitty Pryde defender mode -- enable* Kitty may be lame /now/, God knows, but I remember her glory days. (Circa 1984-1987, to be precise). God, what a girl. I'll never get either the limited series *or* X-MEN ANNUAL #9 out of my head until the day I die. *sigh* Those were the good old days... *mode off*

Actually, I always thought that Istvatha V'han was a simultaneous homage to both Kang the Conqueror and Empress Lilandra of the Shi'ar. The Darkseid homage would most likely be Tyrannon.

Starguard -- well, outside of the fact that he's more interested in dating (shy teenaged boy as opposed to shy teenaged girl), and sees slightly less wrong with using Super-Energy Fist to hit people (ah, adolescent testosterone... it never changes!)... not much. Dr. Pain -- girls do not become WWF champion, and the ladies wrestling is far less prominent. Needs a whole origin story makeover. The Baroness von Darien -- only slight changes required. 1100+ year-old vampire elders are bad news no matter /what/ the plumbing looks like.

Evil-Earth Starguard... Well, actually, I could just write her up as the little Demon Princess that she'd be(*), but it's much more horrifying to follow normal Starguard's life path... ... except for one little difference. When she first accidentally severely injured someone using her powers... instead of taking responsibility for what she'd done, her mentor told her instead that the guy had deserved it. Repression, denial, and irresponsibility -- along with building on what she'd been taught there -- takes it from there. And thus, the Power Cosmic is now in the hands of a young girl with no experience, no judgement, and an unshakable delusion that she's fit to be Judge, Jury, and Executioner. Evil-Earth Dr. Pain -- hell, Dr. Pain is a highly-altered *Good*-Earth vision of the 'Doctor Pain' villain from Ninja Hero int he first place! (Granted, that one was for a dfiferent genre of campaign, but hell...) He boozes. He wenches. He takes what he wants and gives out fists in return. He's cunning enough to find allies instead of being Bulldozer II, hence his new career as a VIPER Nest Leader. Someday, he's gonna be kingpin of Dragon Branch, and then he'll *REALLY* have power. But until then, let's party! Oh yeah, /and/ smash people. It's fun to hear the bones break. Evil-Earth Baron von Darien -- ... ummm, think "a non-technology-oriented Victor Von Doom meets the Supreme Serpent with fangs". The /normal/ version of the Baron is one of the scariest people you never wanted to piss of -- the mere idea of him without any moral restraint makes me want to find some Extra-Dimensional Movement, *now*. Expansion -- for one thing, he would /literally/ be the Supreme Serpent -- he's a natural recruit for the original Council of Thirty, and he'd have consolidated his power and had things completely in hand well before Essec ever got out of the ground. *snap* So much for that. (*) Starguard's whole concept is that she's a teenaged girl with the power of an archangel. A straight mirror of her would be kinda like Dark Seraph's even more evil kid sister.