Kzinbane

Uses hit location chart advantage Heh, maybe I should just allow for an advantage - uses hit location (+1 advantage). I think I'll just continue without it - if it ain't broke don't fix it. I may suggest the character buy some find weakness which sort of/kind of simulates hit location.

Yes I'm at work without the books, but a drain on movement - linked to damage in some way. If the target is moving 10" for example the drain takes effect - with drain points also corresponding to damage. Obviously if I roll more drain than the target has movement then he stops and does not take any excess damage. If one looks at the basics of what exactly friction does - it serves to counter movement by absorbing movement - at some point eventually the movement energy "drain" becomes enough to manifest as heat. The power would be "simply" that the typical object moving in the atmosphere may need to go mach 5 to get heat effects, the power simply drops that down to 30 kph or something. You get considerable drag and heating effects at MUCH slower speeds than you should in other words. Heh, get the poor guy in space and he's in trouble. Underwater though he could just about stop someone cold - the water would tend to absorb the heat (damage) but the drag would ... be a drag! The more I think about this guy the more interesting it gets... me and my complicated character concepts...

zodiac powers I've been around goats a bit - they were pretty tame. Mountain goats on the other hand have good qualities - very sure footed, great senses, ability to handle extreme cold conditions not to mention VERY sharp horns... I have by no means finished the characters - I need more information on the signs themselves and the personality traits they are supposed to enail. In any case the basic ones - Taurus, Leo, Cancer, Scorpio, Aries, Pisces - I just gave them abilities matching their critter namesakes. Cancer for example, loads of armor - moderate strength. Leo - lion powers (stealth, senses, strength), Aries I made a move through/move by specialist. PIsces I decied on an Aquaman sort more shark based (hey, sharks are fish). Scorpio is one I took a turn on and made into a sorceror/mystic. Let's see... Gemini can become a twin of one nearby character (limited by point values) - either good guy or bad, though retains his own motivations. Libra ended up sort of a Batman esque character that knows guilt and innocence virtually always and dishes out justice as needed. Sagittarius the archer - think Hawkeye or Green arrow. Virgo - gave this one lots of aid, healing and some pre-cog powers useable on others (can grant pre-cognitive dodge to a team-mate). Aquarius - water elemental. Hmm, I know I am leaving out someone.. oh - Capricorn - as previously mentioned somewhat based on an Antilope or wild goat - fast running, sure footed, sharp horns and enhanced senses. I think that's it - I repeat though they are all subject to changes...

Re: Also From a pure super powers stand point "monkey powers" aren't too horribly bad. I had quite a time with Capricorn - I mean what the heck powers does a #%*@! goat have? Hmm, eats everything in sight (universal digestion)? Sure footed? Produces low fat easily digestible milk??? I ended up making the character more along the lines of an antilope than a goat... so I cheated I guess. Goat man though... sheesh.

Hmm, yeah - Entangle does't quite work does it. Supress may work as suggested - perhaps the number of supress dice rolled are linked to energy blast - heat somehow. Figuring out how to link the damage potentially taken directly to the velocity of the person is the tricky part. The way I picture it is that friction lad (or whatever) really can't do too much to you 'cept maybe cause you to end up on your butt unless you move. Once you start moving he gets near automatic hits on you, doing damage at an increasing level as your velocity goes up. Ug. This is a tricky one. Why can't I come up with characters that are simple bricks or blasters? Sigh...

Obviously in mid game I need to question my players before I make any changes, but I am in the middle of GMing a Champions game and so far am not using the hit location rules/charts. I'm curious - how many of you DO use HL for super style campaigns? If you have tried it and don't like it (or vice versa DO like it better) I am interested in why that is. one of the PC's in the game is a Bullseye type - adding hit location seems like it could add a bit of spice to his abilities and make it more fun for him. I don't want to bog down everything else though - my aim (no pun intended) is for the players to enjoy the gaming after all.

While the Until super powers data base has a great write up on some friction control powers I wanted to take the idea a bit further. Consider a character that can affect an attacker - causeing increasingly more damage the faster the attacker is moving (consider it to be atmospheric heating). I THINK this could be run something like an entangle since the air friction would work to slow the attacker down even as he/she was moving in on the friction controlling person. As with all HERO powers though, writing it up and spending the points is the tricky part. Another option is a damage shield - that automatically damages anything that is moving to a minimum extent, growing in effect as the moving object (or person) increases in speed. This would obviously need extended range on it. Very large objects tossed would potentially burn up partially and still hit (a disadvantage to be sure, anything left to hit the character would be hot and potentially molten if it were metal). Finally if it's friction control he's not going to be able to do anything VS an actual energy beam, light, etc. So missile deflection (object burns up all the way or partially depending on size) would work only on matter. I guess it could treat someone flying toward the character AS a missile. Put on your power creation thinking caps please - some ideas on how to work the "burns up in atmosphere" part of the character are badly needed!

I think I'll go with Multiform. The cusp idea isn't bad, but things will be complicated enough with just 13 basic characters to run! I think I'm going to save Zodiak for a full time game. I am GMing right now and one of the players has a short game to GM in "my" universe. I was going to hand him the GM reigns and play Zodiak but as he says, I won't get to have much time with the character(s) before I go back to GM. Ideally I want the 12 characters to have personality traits and quirks just like their namesake sun signs suggest, etc - more work than I want to put into a part time player! Good advice all - thanks

Re- bumblebees: yes I know, but it's more fun to say they fly because they don't know that they can't. Another power source - absolutly proposterous of course... have the entire human race in little capsules and draw power from them, meanwhile keeping them in an illusionary state thinking that they are living normal lives. This of course while one could be keeping elephants or whales or something that generates dozens of times the power and also ignoring geothermal power from volcanoes and the like which would out power bio power by tens of thousands of levels...

random I would roll a 12 sided dice when the main form chose to change and see what he gets. Obviously getting Aquarius if one is in the Sahara could be annoying, but I kind of like challenges like that. I thought of having the change linked to the month but GM's don't always keep track fo what game month, day, etc it is (I do, but I'd be playing this character not GMing). The GM did point out what a pain in the buttox it will be to have 13 different characters to potentially keep track of on combat sheets. As a GM myself I must admit he's right - I'll probably re-do them so all 12 have perhaps 2-3 common speeds and dex. The powers were rather fun to come up with. Some are pretty straight forward like Taurus. Virgo though or Capricorn (the amazing goat man?!) were more challenging! I think it should be fun though. Main characer (Zodiak) is mainly skill based and lower powered (spends the multiform points). THe other 12 are built on 350 base.

The trick I think that making sure the players know you are open to feedback is vital. I have always tried to poll the players occasionally on how things are going and also to encourage them to be critical if they felt the need. To do this you (as GM) have to be sure you can handle the answer though and not get too defensive! One sure way to shut up feedback is to get defensive. Most important thing other than asking and being open is to be sure you know what style of play the people like BEFORE getting started. Do they like action/combat oriented gaming? If they do and you spend time coming up with a deep, complicated and multi fascetted world you're going to be dissapointed and they'll potentially be bored as they'd rather be bashing heads than tracking down clues and solving mysteries.

Hmm As mentioned there is the quantum singularity idea and then the obvious anti-matter source - the other Star trek drive system. In theory though if one can open a worm hole to drive a ship through one could open a hole to the center of a quasar or even some other plane which has a MUCH higher energy state and tap that. Imagine if you could tap a supernova or hypernova right at ignition point? Another idea is thought based - like the Travellor on ST TNG. The idea of this is (as far as I can tell) that time and space exist mainly as limitations imposed by the minds of sentient beings. Sort of like the old joke that from a scientific viewpoint - aerodynamics, weight and wing area a bumblebee should not be able to fly. They can because they don't know they can't. The Travellor idea is that we CAN fly but don't know we can (so we don't). Who needs a power source when you can just think yourself to somewhere else? I wish I could "think" it to Friday afternoon...

I have a basic character called Zodiak that has an amulet. Using the amulet he can change (randomly) into any one of 12 very different supers. I have no problems with the base character - buy the multiform with OAF or OIF on the amulet. The problem comes when I get to the 12 multiforms. Let's use Taurus as an example. I have him as a fairly basic brick type. If he gets the amulet taken away though he reverts to the base Zodiak form. How do I buy Taurus' powers? All powers are subject to the focus? The focus itself is a bit tricky too. If stolen or lost it returns at midnight. If Zodiak is in a multiform he reverts to basic form at midnight and would have to re-change (odds are into something other than he was - 1 in 12 chance of repeating it). Ideas, suggestions on how to work the above are appreciated.

3 off the top of my head RIght off the top of my head Iron man comes to mind first. He starts out in a very limited armored suit that could probably BE a 350 point (or less) starting Champions character. Look at him now though, no way you get him into 350 points reasonably! He has obviously spent a few experience points. Dick Grayson also would be a likely Champions role model. From his days as Robin he's greatly improved, and now can hold his own and is almost a match for Batman at least physically. The only other one that immediatly comes to mind is Sue Storm. She started out as just being able to turn ivisible and having few skills. Now she's likely the most powerful member of the FF, very skillful in her own right and can do lots of fun things with her force shields. I know there are more (I read too many comics) but I'll stop here.

FF The western aspect made perfect sense once I got to watch the episodes in order. Fox apparently had it destined to fail right off the bat. They show them out of order - and there is a continuity in them so that screwed with it right there. THEN to make it worse they plop it down on Friday evening when most people in the age group they're after are off enjoying a weekend evening not watching the tube! I didn't care for FF too much when it was on, but having gotten to watch the DVD set, in order things make SO much more sense. I wish UPN would pick it up or something. There were so many unknowns with the characters. Oh well - rumor is that there may be a movie coming. Can only hope.

Stars Just type in your search engine: Brightest stars and you'll get lists of good names. Some are commonly heard all over (Rigel, Deneb, Capella) but many have alien sounding names and barring making up something from scratch could be good for both Earth based or alien ship names. Here are just a few: Adhara, Achernar, Mimosa, Sargas, Nunki.

Metropolis & Gotham Superman, Green Lantern and others regularly come visit Gotham city in DC. There really isn't the "major menace" often enough in Gotham to justify a really super, super spending full time there. On the aside there really isn't room either! Let's see... we have the Batman, Batgirl, Robin, Huntress, Canary and Oricle all based there along with a cybornetic guy who is a Doctor - only seen him a few times. In short Gotham is pretty full already, and Batman doesn't typically make newbie heroes feel very welcome. Superman and the like are quite content letting Bats and gang take on the nasty Gotham bad guys. Most of them take a bit of brains as opposed to brawn to catch - and it doesn't hurt to be a bit insane yourself (like Batman) to catch them. Same thing could easily be true in the Champions universe. It's not that supers cant operate in Hudson city, there just isn't enough going on there to really justify them. I mean Thor or Green Lantern spending all their time chasing petty theives, druggies, bank robbers, gang members and the like? Not going to happen.

has anyone ever had a character that KNOWS he's really in a role playing game? The DC comics Ambush Bug at one point became aware he was in a comic book - this would be a similar step. What sort of advantages/disadvantages would this entail though - meaing the role playing game charater? Would you need new powers? How many points is "whine to GM, or get GM a cold one from Fridge? The Hero system is pretty comprehensive but they've left this idea totally out. Further ideas of advantages, powers, disadvantages could be fun...

Hmm Heh, how big does a suit have to be before it's not a suit any more and is instead a vehicle? Mental powers work by line of sight on a suit (you could mind blast Iron man for example) but would they work on a mechwarrior if you could not see the operator? I degress... In further talking with the player he's interested in a limited number of suits. His company is hoping to sell versions of them to the public and maybe the Military (I have a few plot seeds sprouting already...). Easiest then would be to simply have a character sheet for each suit. I like easy... I have little enough hair as it is without pulling more out trying to get a modular suit system put together with the (even after reading many times) confising VPP rules!

I had a PC back in 4th edition that could and did take on the Military. He was basically an earth elemental type that could move through and see through the earth and natural rock. As such he was invisible to all common military targetting and attack though seismometers could know if he's around. Just move below a tank and cause it to sink into the earth, go on to the next one and repeat. You don't need to destroy the army, just render it inoperable.

In my view sensors and scanners get mixed up. The Enterprise has sensors that run mainly on automatic. They appear to be run mainly by the computer, and will alert the crew of anything interesting or dangrous and even turn on the deflectors. Once something is detected by the sensors then Spock goes and looks in his funny hood and uses scanners to identify whatever the sensors detected. Here is a real world anology. US navy ship cruising along and the active sonar comes up with a return. Ok, in this instance the ship has sonar techs watching the display - no computer control yet. Anyway the sonar (sensor) has an object. The passive sonar can be used to listen to the object and analyze what it is (scan it - sort of).

That's the one I'm leaning toward Collie - but there are so #*@*! many ways to do things in Hero (which is GOOD... mostly ) that I'm fishing for other ideas as well. Thanks!

also Consider what happens if he's caught on film in action. People that see it will know who he is unless you want it sight based (you see his image it affects you)!

I'm not current on Iron man, but several years ago Tony Stark had several different armor suits he could use. One was a stealth suit - black and hard to see with various stealthy attributes and without many of his offensive systems. He also had his standard suit, a space suit (literally) - designed for orbittal use and with various features in addition to and lacking from his standard. I think he may have had an underwater suit and an "anti-hulk" suit too at some point. Here's the deal. How do you work out a charater that - like Stark wants to have several armor suits to choose from hanging in his closet (or whatever)? VPP seems too expensive and multiform - though it would work (Tony without armor is basic form, 4 different armored forms to choose). Don'cha love complicated characters? what he wants is to have modular armor - right arm can take 4 different attachments, left arm 4, back pack has options, different locomotion options based on situation (jets, silent anti-gravity, underwater jets, etc). This seems perfect for VPP but again - VPP is costly! Ideas?

Hmm Looks pretty good. The only comment I'd make is that Beastie avoids getting hit much like Spider-man does (though without the spider sense obviously). I would consider adding some DCV or making a dodge shot power of some sort and add it to his defenses. Where Wolverine just takes shots beast is very good at being elsewhere when the shot falls! In combat Beast never holds still - should be VERY hard to hit.