Lord Liaden

Re: Anyone here find a use for Takofanes yet?

Re: Got some buildin' exercises for ya... No, that wouldn't be legal under Fifth Edition. I'm not sure if it was legal under Fourth, or if it was ever spelled out. You could Link something to an EC slot if it's outside the Elemental Control, though. Look down the page a bit to "250 Point Villains."

Re: Got some buildin' exercises for ya... Welcome to the community, Viperion! I hope you enjoy your visits here. Please say Hi to your sister Viperia for me. (Champions Universe inside joke) You may get some ideas from this website, which IIRC includes writeups for all the characters you mentioned based on 250 points: http://www.angelfire.com/scifi2/mathew/champions.html . As you might imagine these characters have been trimmed down in ability compared to their recent comic-book feats, but if you want to build them on a budget those writeups should give you a template to work from. Some of the writeups are for Fourth Edition HERO, but as John Desmarais points out the differences from Fifth are generally small and easy to figure out. If you do have trouble with anything, though, come on back here and we'll be glad to enlighten you.

Re: Anyone here find a use for Takofanes yet? The only time that I've used him in my campaign to date was to tie up all these seemingly random slaughters that he indulges in. As I set it up, these were actually ritual sacrifices building toward Takofanes' greatest spell ever. The PC heroes were called in to stop Tak's latest rampage, but just as they arrived to confront him the world around them abruptly changed. Their city, the people around them, in fact the whole world was transformed into their Turakian Age analogues. That included the PCs themselves: the team gadgeteer was reshaped as a dwarf, while the mentalist found himself in the body of a Migdalar. However, they were the only ones who remembered the world the way it was, because they were close to Takofanes when the change occured. Moreover, Takofanes had become the ruler of this reborn world, as he had been during his first life. The heroes had to confront Tak at the center of his power, his recreated northern citadel. I've also considered running an alternate future scenario that I came up with as a result of a discussion board topic: an alliance between Takofanes and Mechanon to sweep the world clean of life. After all, Takofanes doesn't care whether the beings who serve him are alive or dead, and he might not be sufficiently "organic" for Mechanon to want to kill him immediately. Of course once the world was dead they'd be at each other's throats. The Earth isn't big enough to contain those two egos. The heroes would find themselves in the future, after the two villains succeeded in their schemes. The planet would be virtually lifeless, divided between a barren desert populated by animated corpses, and a vast complex of sterile machines. The borders would seethe with ceaseless war between robots and supernatural horrors. After returning to their time the PCs would have to thwart the villains' plan.

Re: Fantasy Hero Setting Conversions?

Re: [WHAT IF?] Frank Castle was the Spirit of Vengence I'm afraid I'm not overly enthused by the idea. To me the essence of an interesting character is internal conflict, which was the primary appeal of the old Johnny Blaze incarnation of Ghost Rider/ Spirit of Vengeance: the conflict between Blaze's human compassion and the Spirit's inhuman obsession. I suspect that Frank Castle and the Spirit would be so in synch that they'd get along like long-lost brothers. In fact Castle would probably be in hog-heaven over having true superpowers to punish the guilty.

Re: Sersi for HERO If you want a "generic" Eternal, maybe these two writeups for Starfox would help: http://www.angelfire.com/scifi2/mathew/csstarfox.html http://www.mactyre.net/scm/deejay/champs/characters/avengers/starfox.html

Re: Post-Apocolyptic Hero Setting I do remember The Men Return. Physical laws, the integrity of matter, kept constantly shifting, so the logical thinking that's the basis for our civilization became useless. Most of humanity had died off, totally incapable of dealing with a non-causal existence. Ironically, a small subset of the human race, who we would classify as totally insane (and who were given a distinctive name I unfortunately can't recall by the remaining "normal men") throve in this bizarre environment and dominated the "sane" humans. "The men returned" when Earth passed out of the non-causality region and reality returned to its former state. One vignette I recall that emphasized the change was when one of the insane tried to eat a rock, which had previously been entirely possible, and choked to death.

Re: Sersi for HERO I agree with Peregrine. The CU's Empyreans are very clearly inspired by Marvel's Eternals, so could be used as a template for original Eternal writeups in HERO. However, I did find a writeup for Sersi by Mathew Ignash, along with a thorough summary of her history. Note that this writeup is for 4E HERO, so there are a couple of minor differences from 5E; and it's based on Sersi before her massive powerup near the end of her Avengers membership: http://www.angelfire.com/scifi2/mathew/cssersi.html

Re: How do I update 4E to 5ER You're most welcome. Oh, I forgot to mention the chapter on genre-emulating advice and examples in 5ER; that's mostly a reproduction of the "Hero System Genre By Genre" PDF which is still on the Free Stuff section of the website. If you haven't seen it yet you can download it from this webpage: http://www.herogames.com/FreeStuff/freedocs.htm . Pretty fine stuff, too.

Re: How do I update 4E to 5ER Thanks to zornwil, we do have a conversion of page number references between FREd and 5ER, including brief notes as to what's been added to the Revised version: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=26915 . Almost everything that was added to 5ER came out of the original rules FAQ, which is still on the website, in both online and PDF versions: http://www.herogames.com/SupportFAQs/rulesfaq.htm . It's not as well organized as in the published book, but I don't have 5ER either and I do pretty well with FREd plus the FAQ. I hope that helps.

Re: Amerca's Best Comics, Tom Strong, Promethea, Etc This being the Champions forum, might as well trot out the HERO writeups - in this case, from Top 10: http://surbrook.devermore.net/adaptionscomic/comicchar.html#TEN

Re: Clearing Away Soil Over thirteen hours, we get twenty-four replies and eleven different suggested methods. I love this system.

Re: How do I update 4E to 5ER I think this may be helpful to you: http://theemerged.blogspot.com/HERO425.htm

Re: New Plot Seeds For folks who might not be aware of what Brick is referring to, some time ago our own Hermit started a thread for developing original plot seeds for published 5E Champs characters, which turned into a major collective project. Here is the original thread. You can also download a free PDF compiling many (though by no means all) of the seeds alphabetically by character, courtesy of Nate "Nato" Barnes; you'll find that here. Now, on to Brick's request for a Tezcatlipoca plot seed (and my thanks to FenrisUlf for inspirational material): Smoking the Mirror. Tezcatlipoca has begun to insinuate his influence into the Mexican drug trade. Combining his magical powers with modern pharmacology, his followers have created a powerfully addictive new drug that's entering the American market. However, the drug also has the effect of inducing "spiritual" visions of Tezcatlipoca in its users. The god is using this drug to draw desperate people to his worship, rebuilding his power-base in the modern world. The most loyal of his new followers are inducted into Tezcatlipoca's deadly jaguar cult. The PCs attempt to stop what they believe to be a simple criminal drug-smuggling ring, only to stumble upon fanatical cultists practicing human sacrifice, backed up by fierce were-jaguars and practitioners of ancient Aztec sorcery. Will they be successful in thwarting the cult's activities? And if they are, will that anger Tezcatlipoca enough for him to confront them personally?

Re: Best published adventure

Re: Clearing Away Soil Hey, I went there first! I was the first one to offend Sean! Me!

Re: Hero Prime Directive No disrespect intended, kehrer1701, but has something changed to cause you to start another thread on this subject so soon after your previous one? http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=39838

Re: Clearing Away Soil A few things that come to mind: EB or KA with Area Of Effect, Selective Target, plus an Enhanced Sense like N-Ray Vision to perceive what to avoid hitting; Telekinesis with Fine Manipulation to avoid damaging fragile items; Tunneling with Limited Medium, leaving behind everything that's not of that medium; For something more exotic, Extra-Dimensional Movement, Usable As Attack, Only vs. Soil and Rock; And of course, the always-reliable and -maligned Transform.

Re: Enhanced Senses, overpriced ??

Re: Best published adventure Yes, What Rough Beast is IMHO the best one-shot "dungeon crawl" adventure published for Champions. It also happens to be available on the Internet, with full stats (updated to Fourth Edition HERO), maps, and illustrations: http://www.patric.net/morpheus/hero/beast.html

Re: Sick of Wolverine It's taken you this long?

Re: Vibora Bay vs. Hudson City Based on those criteria, IMO Hudson City by far.

Re: JEFFVERSE - Jeff T's name quest Ooo, now that's just plain cleverer than me. Also Reppable. Since we're tossing out various villain org suggestions, I did use an ancient Illuminati-like group manipulating world affairs behind the scenes. Those few who knew of their existence, called them The Unbroken Chain. Linked to the past, and with links to many power-groups around the world, holding them in secret chains of bondage. The linked chain was their symbol; if you wanted to make some of their activities more overt you can use that to identify their operatives.

Re: I need a gun.