Vanderbilt_Grad

Here you go: http://www.sysabend.org/champions/rules/disadvantages/ All the physical & psych are mixed together though & it looks like this was from before the introduction of social disads in FREd

A long time ago the Hulk didn't really have much control over when he became Banner. IMO old Hulk to Banner would have been handled by Accidnetal Change.

I would think that PS: Meditation or PS: Bio-Feedback would do. Heck 2 to 3 points would cover it nicely. It just stikes me that I've heard of very few athelets that can do the kind of Bio-Feedback that Zl'f does. Martial Artists sometimes train for this but I haven't heard of many dancers or gymnists really going all out on this sort of real life skill. Almost anyone can raise their hearbeat, but I've read that *very* few people can slow it to any great degree. A little ... maybe. A lot ... probably not. And what you are talking about with Zl'f is a long term state change, even modern Yogi types usually have to concentrate to maintain really low heart rates.

Just curious as to why she doesn't have any skills to support the 'bio-feedback' she uses to control her powers. This is just IMO but given how tough it is to drain SPD you usually get more bang for your buck going after already slow characters. Slowing the Brick from SPD 4 to SPD 2 is hugely more effective than slowing the Speedster from SPD 9 to SPD 7. Speed Drains are one of the *least* effective attacks to level at a Speedster.

I figured that you had a reason … but I’m still not 100% clear. Champs mechanics & balance wise I can see how this works. In play it sounds like you don’t abuse it which is always good. I’m sure your story will be interesting though a 23 dex martial artist is no slouch for a normal mugger. But I’m still not understanding how it works SFX wise. Sure ZL’F is a speedster / martial artist … but how do her powers ‘work.’ Does she use something like the Flash’s ‘Speed Force’ that she has to tap into? Is there a special Soviet era drug she has to take? Why does she only see in UV all the time if she has to ‘activate’ her powers (i.e. go into Hero ID)? Unlike Colossus she is not ‘transforming’ into solid metal. It’s not clear from what you’ve written here that anyone would even be able to see the difference between her ‘powered up’ and ‘powered down’ states. These are the sorts of things I love to see in the Powers/Tactics section. The overlapping Short physical limitation and Young looking Social limitation also bother me a bit. 25 total points for both of them seems a bit high somehow. Just FYI too, most of the above is just nit-picking. ZL’F is cool!

ZL'F looks interesting but I have to ask ... how does she transform into 'hero ID' and why is it limiting? That's the kind of info that would be really useful in the powers section.

Mind Link is probably better than Telepathy for communication.

Entangle BOECV per FREd is the best setup for 'freeze!' IMO. Supressing the Phoenix force could easily have been mental power vs mental power rolls rather than supress.

Xavier- 120 MP: Telepathy Pool (120 point pool) 24m Telepathy (24d6) 24m Mind Scan (24d6) 24m Mind Control (19d6) Telepathic (+1/4) 24m Ego Attack (12d6) 12m Transform: Psychic Surgery (Major, 4d6) BOECV (+1) 240 Naked Advantage: Variable Advantage +1 on Telepathy Pool Powers (+2) 50 Levels with Ego Powers & Combat (10) You can make the Naked Advantage cheaper by making it 0 DCV Activation & Full Phase Activation or whatever other limitations you think work. The VPP would be workable & possibly cheaper but I don't think that it fits quite as well IMO.

I’ve seen the UltiMech and Perfection entries … but how about: Teleion, the perfect fusion of man and machine! Teleion was the result of an accident. Both Mechanon and Teleios were fond of contingences. Both planned for resurrection on the off chance that something or someone unforeseen managed to kill their current bodies. Unfortunately for them they both chose nearly the same location. Their secret backup labs sat adjacent to one another, separated by just one thin wall, for almost 5 years before an unsuspecting city worker accidentally linked their communication systems. The end result was that the two merged creating a composite body from Teleios’ clone and Mechanon’s backup body. Teleion, as the new being called himself was the perfect fusion of man an machine. His entire body is composed of an odd combination of biological and machine structures inhabited by living nano machines that are the source of many of his powers.

Just a note, but per the FAQ Variable Advantage must be bought to at least the +1/2 level (making it a +1 advantage).

Tesseract would immediately decide to scout. He knows that he is not well suited to take out legions of robots. With powerful teleportation and intangibility he will attempt to learn as much as he can about the invaders. After that he will report to UNTIL. He could be useful for evacuating captives or inserting a superteam after that and will want to find out what UNTIL is planning.

Mind Control, 0 End, Persistent, Telepathic, Cumulative with Increased Max, Area Effect, (maybe MegaScale), Always On, No Range, Single Command. Very Expensive. Folks with even moderate mental defense will have much better odds of resisting this power. If you want to get them too then add either penetrating or NND.

Buy UBO to +1/2. It’s the standard in all the examples. +1 for ‘attack gates’ though that doesn’t seem to be your focus here. You don’t need safe blind teleport since you can just look through the gate first & try again, though it is useable. (See the FAQ here) Other than that it looks fine. Might want to buy a floating location so you don’t have to worry about targeting it at all.

I know. I just figured that since you were invoked as 'the man' ... well....

But the fact are that it *is* genre for many supers to have killing attacks. In the comics or on TV these usually only get used against robots & other ‘non-living’ targets but they do have them. Examples range from the TV Teen Titans (Raven’s darkness shards that shred robots & objects but that are never used on the bad guys) to the Comic book Avengers (Black Knight’s sword) & X-Men (Wolverine anyone). Bottom line is that killing attacks are all over the place but that their lethality combined with code vs. killing results in restrained usage. In many champs characters killing attacks can fall well within character concept. Bricks with ‘rend limb from limb’, fire blasters with ‘lethal burn’ attacks, and martial artists with bladed weapons are all ‘in character’ for the genre. The problem with the current stun lotto & the default HERO rules is that it becomes far more advantageous to use a 60 point RKA than it is to use a 60 point EB and that you are still unlikely to kill the target. So even with a CVK a hero is likely to feel free to unload against most bricks & mega bad guys. Against a ‘worldbeater’ most characters would stand a much better shot of stunning or KOing their foe with a 4d6 RKA than they would with a 12d6 EB … and they will most likely fail to do body either way so they don’t have to worry about killing. Now you can argue that ‘They wouldn’t use it anyway if they had a CVK!’ but I disagree. CVK simply means that the character will not kill or risk the chance in most situations. So against a normal human that 12d6 EB will not be used since it would be very likely to kill … but against Dr. Destroyer the odds of a 4d6 RKA doing a single pip of body are nill and it doesn’t require looking at his sheet to realize this.

Self Esteem is much better covered by Pre than Ego. Hank has very good self control, is dedicated to his studies, etc. All of that is high Ego. Low self esteem & shyness is Pre.

So folks like cover ... my question then becomes how do you build this into a combat maneuver? Secondly can you continue to attack after a normal cover? For instance the cat above might have "Grab 1 limb, Cover with 1 pip HKA (autofire 2), you fall ... then the cat starts attacking with another HKA. One of my Hapkido maneuvers was "Grab 1 limb, Opponent falls, Cover with 1/2d6 HKA ... after that you could in theory head stomp him or something too, though the move was mostly designed to just keep someone from moving for a while.

Gary those are averages ... but that's not really a useful set of numbers for this debate. A more useful measure would have included standard deviations or shown the range that 50% or so of dice rolls fall within.

I like the 10 point talent idea ... but could also see this being a 5 point skill that had to be taken for each martial art style.

Got a question for the forum that was inspired by a guy who was showing me a shapechanging PC. When I play with my cats it’s not uncommon for them to ‘grab’ my hand with their front claws and then go to town biting and raking with their rear claws. In champs terms this is superficially easy enough. Grab then a maneuver that is ‘must follow’ grab. However in real life I’m easily strong enough to ‘break’ the grab but I almost never do … because if I did then those front claws would tear a ton of skin on the way out. That got me thinking. When I studied Hapkido I did a lot of similar maneuvers. I studied how to put an opponent in a joint lock where the joint lock itself does little or no damage … but if my opponent were to try to break out it would hurt them a *lot*. How would one model this using HERO rules? I.E. model a grab that isn’t based on STR but instead does damage if the target tries to break it. While I don’t have the Beastiery or the 5th ed UMA, I do have the 4th ed UMA, Ninja Hero, and tons of other older stuff … but I don’t think that I’ve ever seen a way to do this discussed. Anyone have suggestions?

Your idea of using the male as the primary character works better using the 5th ed rules IMO. Your duplication / multiform idea is a good one. I used a very similar setup on a character I made recently.

Lower speed to 6 (save 10 Points) Get Rid of Martial Arts (save 11 Points) Increase Dex to 29 (3 Points) Increase Int to 28 (3 Points) Increase Ego to 18 (6 Points) Increase Running to 9" (2 Points) Add Combat Luck (6 Points) X-Man Uniform should not have Activation Roll and should be lowered to Armor (6, 6) (Net add of 1 point, 11 to 12 Points) I'll grant you from a Champ's perspective Hank needs those martial maneuvers for the damage, but I don't really recall them in the comics.

Interesting character innominatus. Overall he does feel ‘experienced’ in terms of his power usage and the origin was one that I had not considered before. I like it. I think that the biggest single thing I saw that didn’t ring true was the ‘doesn’t know his own strength’ Disadvantage. He has been training for *years* and has the tricks to back it up … and yet he *still* doesn’t know his own strength. I don’t buy it. Some of those tricks require a lot of finesse. I’m not a huge fan of buying negative DCV levels with powers either. IMO that would have made a better physical limitation. But that’s a minor quibble. For an uber-brick his BODY also seemed just a tad low. Finally it seems to me that the military would have trained a big boy like this a bit better in hand to hand combat in addition to nifty ways to use his natural strength. A few combat levels and/or martial maneuvers would have been the perfect icing to this cake IMO. Thanks for posting!

Don’t have either book, but to me there is a psychological aspect as well. Sure normal people are afraid of terrorists with guns and bombs … but those guys are a dime a dozen. A terrorist with *ray guns* … now that is a cat of a different color. If they have *ray guns* who knows what else they can do?! I imagine that their tech separates them from the common mass of criminals and thugs and is part of the aura of fear that I’m sure that they want to impart.