Steve

Characters can use it to transfer between different bodies and death would be mostly an inconvenience, so long as their cortical stack wasn’t destroyed.

The cortical stack from the Altered Carbon books and TV show is a fascinating (and in many ways horrifying) technology for cyberpunk and transhumanism settings. For those unfamiliar with the term, it is a device that records and stores a human's consciousness, memories, skills and personality. It allows a human to transfer their consciousness to another body, either nearby or far away, and achieve virtual immortality. My question is, how do you build it in Hero System terms? My current thinking is to base its cost on Eidetic Memory, since that was the closest existing ability I could think of and the point cost is manageable even for normal humans. I'm uncertain what advantages and limitations might apply.

I confess I was a big proponent of using Damage Reduction in character builds until I started really examining Damage Negation, especially since it could be pretty cheap if limited to STUN Only and also Non-Resistant in some cases. Since the damage is removed from affecting the character, it also reduces hit location adjustments. Damage Reduction gets into some interesting math when hit locations are involved. Damage Negation really shines in lower damage settings. A Heroic character like Rocky Balboa just seems to have Damage Negation, being able to take hit after hit to the face. I’ve also played with building it using limited locations per the armor construction rules to get even more interesting flavors out of it. I was building a boxer character and learned that having a tough chin was actually a thing, so a limited location Damage Negation ability seemed reasonable.

Yes, I was prepared for an epic duel, but things did not go quite as anyone planned. I have lightsabers as an Ancient tech device, so very, very rare in Charted Space and seen as exotic relics rather than something you would fight with. Since no one is a “Jedi” and such combat training doesn’t exist, even among the Zhodani, characters are one bad roll away from losing limbs. Judas Cain had the ability, thanks to his psionic training, to deflect the sniper shot, but doing that dropped his Block bonus just enough to fail his roll against Captain Nemos, who attacked in the same phase. The loss of one clone stunned the other one based on how I have them written up, so two phases was all it took to end a fight I thought would go one or two Turns.

It really wasn’t too much trouble to build the characters in 6th. The conversion information in Traveller Hero made it pretty easy. Skills didn’t really change much from 5th to 6th and character complications were not much trouble either. I’m running a higher point campaign, but that is partially due to Imperium Marines costing quite a bit of points for their skills, and all of them stayed in to retirement age. Navy types convert more cheaply, I noticed.

I always liked the idea that Narosia used, to make a Contact roll the way to wield divine powers. If you make “magic” a type of Contact, it gives it a different feel.

The Change Environment ability seems to fit the bill. Just need to tack on appropriate limitations and advantages. For example, you could have a big bad that has a massive adjustment going on as a megascaled one, but it is dependent on the fear level going on.

After seeing Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool, I keep having him voice Foxbat in my head now.

I still feel like a lot of the ‘risk’ and flavor in wielding supernatural forces can be found in some kind of Side Effect limitation. A sorcerer casts a summoning spell and botches the casting roll. Perhaps having them rush the casting time and not having all the right spell components was a bad idea? It still works but the anticipated summoned creature is antagonistic and strong-willed instead of friendly and amenable to requests. Oops. The wizard draws down lightning and electricity arcs in the area around them before they throw it (a bit like how the Kazei Five sourcebook described telekinetic effects). The caster isn’t harmed, but some minor effects could be felt by their friends standing all around them. Side Effect can add a lot of flavor to magic when done right. You could also tailor the side effects to the school of magic cast. Witchcraft would have different side effects than hermetic wizardry.

Well, with skill rolls, attack rolls and damage rolls involved, I would submit that a spell is very limited in its repeatability. Other than Ars Magica and the various versions of the Storyteller system, the Amber system was the only other one that seemed mysterious to me.

Just rolling dice makes it inconsistent. Some form of triggered side effect might make things interesting. Example: Cast a fire spell defined as doing a certain number of damage classes, but side effect triggers if you rolled too low on the damage. The side effect is that the difference between the average of the damage classes and what you rolled affects the caster. Like a kind of rebound effect if you don’t project enough energy away (rolled too low on your damage dice). Something like this would make a wizard less eager to hurl a fireball, as they could burn themselves up if they minimum out on their damage roll. I’m sure creative minds can come up with other creative side effects for different spell effects.

Just to expand on something I said before, the Cannot Be Stunned ability I typically use is limited by requiring a CON roll, which seems to roughly replicate buying a 40+ CON.

Another consideration is how high to buy CON. I’ve seen a number of brick types built with a 40 CON. I get that it’s supposed to represent super-health and tough to stun. But if the defenses are constructed right, a high CON seems more of a point sink than might be necessary. A 30 CON on a brick with high enough defenses might be reasonable. Although it’s not RAW legal, I’ve played around with concepts that use the Automaton ability Cannot Be Stunned in various limited fashions instead of buying really high CON.

While I appreciate the suggestion of using killing attacks, that’s not quite what I was looking for. That seems more like the comic book The Authority. That’s much darker than I was intending. Consider two Kryptonians fighting. They can do some BODY damage to each other, but a fight takes quite a while as they don’t seem to be stunning each other.

Thanks for the chart, LoneWolf. The numbers are interesting. What I started this thread for was to see if there was a way to defend against STUN and BODY that would allow occasional points of BODY to be taken but also be able to soak a lot of STUN yet not be immune to stunning effects. Jutst buying additional points of PD and ED versus STUN only seemed inefficient. Damage Negation was my initial idea for soaking STUN damage, since six dice (STUN only; 20 Real Points, plus also defends against Drains versus STUN) seemed a good level versus 50% Damage Reduction (Resistant but STUN only: 20 Real Points). The ability to be resistant and also resist STUN drains was a nice bonus for Damage Negation. This is also an ability that could scale. If everyone is throwing around 12d6 then six levels of DN would work. If it’s 16d6 then that could be bumped up to 8 levels of DN. I’m trying to find a build guideline to replicate a certain flavor of combat, where BODY damage can happen a little more easily but STUN is held down to allow for combats to go longer. it might be that I will need to combine regular defenses like PD and ED, but also include both DN and DR.

A private message resurrected a years old thread?

I’ve been looking over possible combinations of PD/ED and Damage Negation (Stun Only) to try and get a balance that allows a possibility of BODY damage without too frequent stunning results. With a 12d6 attack, the average is 12 BODY and 42 STUN. If I give the character 12 PD, they can ignore the average BODY damage but will likely be stunned. Slightly better rolls will start doing BODY damage. Adding 6d6 of Damage Negation (STUN Only), the average STUN damage drops to 21 and BODY remains at 12. If I raise the PD 25% (to 15), BODY damage still remains likely, and the character will take some STUN damage with each hit. A high roll with this setup could yield STUN damage in the thirties and around 18-20 BODY, which would be serious damage. I’m wondering if anyone has a rule of thumb that looks at damage classes, regular defenses and Damage Negation in combo to try and lower the STUN roar a bit while still allowing possible BODY damage.

I’ve usually had him show up with either some robot henchmen or a few of his team. I only ever had him show up solo against a single hero. I also used him in a Dark Champions: The Animated Series game that ran a few sessions amidst a small team of suitable villains that could be converted to a street-level setting.

Gestalt: The Hero Within It is one of my favorite sourcebooks for Champions.

The Gestalt campaign sourcebook had a more detailed chart that included OCV and DCV as separate categories. As CV ranges rose, damage and defenses lessened.

I think all the hobbits gained in abilities of various sorts. Frodo didn’t seem to change as much because he probably kept having to pour his XPs into buying up his EGO. The other three seemed to gain quite a bit of fighting ability. Merry stabbed the Witch King, and Sam singlehandedly fought off Shelob, which was no mean feat.

The best literature example might be Tolkien’s Fellowship of the Ring. Gandalf and Aragorn on one end of the scale and Frodo and the other hobbits on the opposite end. However, I think it could be said that the top end in power characters didn’t seem to gain as many XPs over the course of the campaign as the four hobbits did. Sam and Frodo both showed quite a bit of growth. Aragorn seemed to be mainly gaining perks along his storyline. And Gandalf didn’t seem to be more powerful, but more like he had his restraints removed. Maybe not quite pointless, but fantasy seems to favor growth in power and ability more than superheroes seem to emphasize. Peter Parker hasn’t seemed to change a lot in his powers from when he was a teenager, but Frodo and Bilbo both changed in their abilities over the course of their heroic journeys.

Well, the concept originated in the Silver Age, and many strange things happened then. I vaguely recall they explored this in some of the later Legion series that happened. Superboy is both a Teen Champion yet also doesn’t fit well in its premises, which is more like the beginning Teen Titans or X-Men. I could see Donna Troy as a Teen Champion due to her being a Teen Titan.

There’s actually a 4th Edition Dark Champions villain with this sort of ability. As I recall, it’s invisibility versus all senses and is always on. Her crimes are drastic attempts to be noticed.

Another thing to consider. Sometimes the players suggest things during table talk that turn out to be much better than what the GM had planned, so don’t be shy about stealing their ideas if they’re good ones. I’m wondering now if the Progenitors had a hand in crafting Faerie. It would be wild if they were somehow its architects and now reside deep within it conducting experiments there as a form of test bed before trying things in the universe. The Dragon chained in humanity’s collective subconscious could be a fallen Progenitor.