Ravor

Getting ready for church so I'll respond longer tonight, but thanks for the feedback... (A few quick jotted thoughts) The language VPP doesn't quite work the same way as Universal Translator, but you're right about the cost being cheese so tonight I'll run the two side by side in HD and see what I need to do to get the effectiveness and costs more in line with each other. If it is allowed, I'm thinking about "locking out" her natural STR while using stretching, that by itself would lower her damage to 15d6, and then dropping her vortex STR somewhat would free up a few points. Got to thinking about her Complications, so I think I'll change them around some and probably add "watched" in there because of some of the hijinks I imagine her future self pulling. Thanks... *EDIT* What type of speed score should a super hero be running anyways? I dropped it to four from your build mostly to free up points. *EDIT 2.0* Evening out the Language VPP and Universal Translator simply can't be done without breaking the spirit of the rules it seems... Very well.

Hmm, would this build work the way I think it does? Outside of "Hero Mode", she is basically a very intelligent immortal and regenerating "elite solider" with an interesting gadget that grants her the ability to instantly learn any language, flight, and an on-board computer. The "amp" itself is clicked into place behind her ear and kind-of looks like a Bluetooth earpiece. If destroyed she is capable of creating another amp, although she'll miss it in the meantime as her native language isn't spoken in this Timeline. (Speaking of which, is limiting a VPP to language only game breaking or "merely" a fairly useful flavor power in order to avoid any possible language barriers? Which are occasionally enforced, in part due to my character's extra-dimensional origins.) When she "goes hero" (by activating her defenses which FX is her natural "reconstruction" kicking into overdrive) she gets a distinctive aura as well as becoming much stronger and tougher... (The aura becomes more noticeable the more she amps up her powers, which honestly there isn't much reason for her NOT to run at full power.) She is able to "jump" to just about anywhere in the multiverse, although her trip always takes her through the pocket dimension that she calls "The Eye" (The extra time represents her landing in "The Eye" and then making a second jump to her destination.), although doing so leaves her temporarily drained as well as somewhat battered. (4d6 Penetrating damage is what 30 Active Points comes out to, "The Eye" is not a friendly place and if she ever learns to use this as an attack the threat of leaving someone in The Eye is basically a death sentence. (I envision this is a tactic that her " rival future self" uses on occasion, much to the "present hero's" horror, at least at first.) Given her basic role as a brick is there any real reason not to simulate her vortex abilities as raw STR (defended with ED) coupled with truly indirect combat only Stretching (I don't see her as having much control at range, just damage, grapples, and knockbacks mostly...) Her Secret ID is worth less points to her than normal in large part because she doesn't care about keeping the secret as much as most heroes does. Of course she WANTS to keep her hero life and private life separate, but if she were to be exposed it probably wouldn't change her life very much. Her natural movements are slightly lower than default because she walks with a very slight limp (Her regeneration can't heal it because it existed before her timeline collapsed.), and is a possible "tell" for her Secret ID. ....Time for bed, I'll get into her revised background later.... Rebekah O'Conner.HTML

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Honestly, the best villains have a noble goal at heart, they are just willing to draw the moral line at a different point then the rest of society.

I envision her primary gimmick as being immortal with the rest of it being secondary at best. Perhaps it might help to describe the mmo character that evolved as a translation of the concept. In gaming terms she is the "off tank" that holds aggro through the liberal usage of pbAoE powers coupled with a ranged one-two combo that is really only useful against single boss fights. (She solos just fine, in fact tends to do better without a group than with one.) In pnp terms I see her as functioning as a slightly more rounded Wovlerine, except instead of claws she has her energy vortex. .... Food delivered, will add more later....

Excellent points... Dimensional Singularity Powers (I'm totally stealing that one.) Regeneration/Agelessness: Imagine for a moment that her arm was torn off and three witnesses decided to study her as it grew back, one completely normal, one has extremely powerful "micro-vision" and the other has the ability to see time/dimensional tidal forces. The mundane would simply see what started as an arm shaped "haze" that would become steadily more "solid" until she had a fully functional arm once again. "Micro-man" instead would see the various particles of her arm seemingly "rotate" out of an invisible state and "snap" into place, almost as if her arm was a jigsaw puzzle that was being put back together one subatomic bit at a time. "Lady Hourglass" instead would see the naked dimensional vortex swirling in the place where her arm use to be, actually snatching the pieces of her intact arm out of the past in order to reconstruct them in the present. Hourglass is left more than a little nervous when it dawns on her that every time her friend gets a paper cut is a new instance of a seemingly unresolved paradox being born. Also unanswered is the basic question of "when" is the vortex getting the copy from? The hero personally theorizes that somewhere in the singularity itself is the exact moment when her timeline collapsed, forever frozen and unchanging and the vortex is using that moment as a template to repair its housing, namely her. Of course, the hero doesn't like to think about the related possibility that she may be nothing more than a copy of herself that is being used to house the corpse of an entire timeline and that the "real" her died in that weapons test instead of being thrown across the multiverse. These questions tend to haunt her late at night, especially when she has had too much to drink. However, she can take some cold comfort in the fact that whatever the case may be, it only seems to affect her body and not her soul or mind, not that she would *EVER* admit to beliving in anything as spiritual as a "soul", at least when she was sober of course. On an unrelated note, the only other surviving piece of her multiverse that she is aware of is a native flower (the closest analog in CU would be a "metallic rose") that she was wearing in her hair at the time of the test, it appears to exhibit the same style of regeneration and agelessness as she does. She lost the official uniform she was wearing shortly after finding herself in the second timeline and doesn't know whether or not it does or doesn't reconstruct as well although she would suspect that it should. (Due to fear of possible interference with the teleportation test she was not wearing her "amp" at the time.) Dimensional Vortex / Tempest She is able to tap into the raw energies that are swirling around the singularity by "opening up the floodgates". Yeah, various blasts, AoE Damage Shields, ect.... (For the most part I envision them as being relatively short ranged and focused around her more than a "traditional blast'.) "Magi-Tech" Based Powers: Tinkering: She is usually tinkering with some small gadget or another before discarding said object into hammerspace to be lost to the winds of time, in favor of another. Insta-change Jewel: Basically a "super closet" whatever clothing she might need she has, although said jewel is always incorporated somewhere in the outfit. -- I also imagine that other tech powers could be incorporated into the jewel, probably flight that is granted by wrapping the user in a weak "force field". The hero's jewel is usually mentally controlled using the hero's implant, although voice control can be activated if it is necessary for someone else to use the jewel. D-Psionic Translator Implant / Amp: Her timeline was fragmented into various warring city states, many of whom purposely kept their cultures and languages as insular as possible in order to keep their civilians from realizing that they had more in common with each other than they did with many of their leaders. However, there are times when it is important to understand another language so this implant was designed to solve the problem without breaking the taboo of speaking a "lesser tongue" (Each city held that their language was the one true dialect and everyone else's was sinful and "dirty" at best.) Most of the civilians were wired with the interface plug upon earning full citizenship, but access to the "amps" which were required to make the implants actually work was highly controlled and only issued on a "as needed" basis. (The amp is plugged into a port that is located directly behind one's ear.) What the device actually does is access the information that intelligent beings impress upon the local "astral space" in order to translate both the written and spoken word. Although by default the amps are "read only" the hero realized that was a limitation that was purposefully built in and one of her projects was to modify the amps to work in both directions, with the ultimate goal of creating a psionic weapons platform (results were promising but other weapons remained more brutally effective), although a natural side effect allowed actual two way translation with everyone nearby. (This implant currently can only translate languages that have maintained a "critical mass" in the local astral, so "dead languages", cyphers, or an alien language that is only spoken by a few invaders can not currently be translated by the implant although the hero theorizes that is more of an engineering limitation to be overcome than a physical one. The hero's language is a notable exception due to her special nature thanks to the vortex giving her astral signature "extra" weight.) In theory, this tech could be used to learn everything that anyone who has ever lived has known, but of course doing so would drive any living mind utterly insane. *EDIT* Just to clarify, I haven't clarified in my own mind what "local" actually means yet, although at the largest end would be whatever planet the hero is on...

Kay thanks, basically I was told, 400 points and try not to break the system versus the published NPCs / powers, I don't think he has any real solid guidelines yet as we've tried to get various Hero system games running in other genres before but it always seems to fall apart so this is a system learning experience for everyone. (If it helps, the lot of us heard about the Hero System from the mmo in the first place so the shear amount of options has me drowning slightly at least but I'm stubborn enough that picking from publish powers seems to defeat the purpose of Hero's flexibility.) The character in question is a dimensional castaway, she was a "magi-tech" (basically dimensional / temporal energy) tinker / war criminal in the employ of one of the warring city states that populated her original timeline since the focus of her discovers tended towards exotic weapon tech, up to and including the "messily" failed attempts of creating the timeline's first super soldiers by infusing condemned criminals with said "magi-tech" energy. That changed when a weapons grade teleportation test (basically a dimensionally based "teleportation nuke") started an unforeseen chain reaction that ended in the utter and complete collapse of the entire timeline. The collapsing timeline threw her across the multiverse and succeeded where her prior experiments failed in creating her timeline's first "super". She tried to set herself up as an immortal goddess-queen in the relatively primitive timeline she found her stranded in but it backfired on her dramatically and she had to flee to yet another timeline (This time she managed without destroying an entire universe although that Earth was in pretty bad shape before she fled.), this time she ended up in the CU and has decided to take a different path in order to try to atone for the unforgivable. The fact that as far as she can tell she'll have uncountable eons to do it is of little confront to her. (Some future version of herself has / will dabble in some time travel and didn't clean up very well after herself so there are fragmentally records of her already existing in the CU.) Her inherent powers are basically centered around the idea that as far as the structure of the multiverse is concerned she is a "fact" and not a person per say. (Her resurrection / agelessness / regeneration powers aren't healing per say, it's her body reverting back to its condition when her home-line first collapsed.) Her damage shield / aoe attack is basically her unleashing some of the infinite energies that was embedded into what she calls her "subspace shadow" (Mystics would call it her soul.) I envision her as having a small "tinkering pool", which if I understand the rules correctly would be best represented by a tiny VPP as well as a tech based semi-psionic universal translator (If I remember correctly a while back on the sci-fi boards for a game that never got off the ground the idea of creating a two way universal translator using the transform rules instead of the published talent seemed to make sense, especially since with new people the psionic field can take a few moments to fully kick in sometimes.), which I imagine she could possibly tinker into some mental blasts / "jedi mind tricks" as a possible future character path. (In the mmo, basically the "Palliate" everyone forget I exist for a short time effect.) Maybe a little drone "sidekick" that she invented as a friend that won't get old and die on her. *EDIT* Once she gets settled, I personally see her personal workshop / life in a similar fashion to what the Doctor settled into in the last X-Mas Special "Time of the Doctor", i.e. in his companion's words; "Fighting monsters and fixing children's toys." Given her specialization in the dimensional / temporal side of things she'll probably make the best toys as far as the lucky children around her are concerned.

How much damage dice should I actually be throwing in a normal Champions game?

If given the choice, Rebekah O'Conner, aka Mandate would probably allow them to make her action figure *IF* she was able to donate the proceeds to help clean up and rebuild her city after super villain attacks. Besides, she'd figure that since her tiny toy company doesn't do action figures there isn't any danger of *Major Toy Company* stealing any of her customers.

I was wondering if I am building these powers correctly in Hero Designer. The basic idea is that the character in question was imbued with a nearly limitless font of energy from the implosion of her native timeline. Her powers are linked to how much of the energy she is drawing on at any given time. Powered Down: At this level although she basically appears normal she is ageless, regenerates relatively slowly and if dies "gets better". However, she can't turn any of these abilities off even if she wanted too so couldn't pass as a mundane if tested. Powered Up: When she decides to activate the dimensional font within her she is clearly not mundane, (I imagine some sort of visible aura.), and her regeneration kicks into overdrive. (If I understand correctly, every time she activates the endurance reserve it starts at 0, until the rec kicks in at the end of the first phase.) Combat Form: In combat she first has to activate one of her two "damage shields", and then can choose to extend the shield of her choice into an aoe tempest, since all of her powers are penetrating and "standard effect" she will always do at least some damage against all but the hardest of targets, and since her powers are selective she doesn't have to worry about friendly fire or destroying scenery if she doesn't want to. *EDIT* The End Reserve needs to be bumped up to End (29) Rec (29), my bad. Dimensional Powers.HTML

Re: List Your CO Heroes! Rebecca Winters --freeform (Sorceress) Mark Winters --freeform (Inventor / Power Armor) Becky and her younger brother were practically raised by their grandmother as their father passed shortly before Mark was born and their mother retreated into a deep state of depression from which she still hasn't recovered. Still, they were heirs to the famed Winterstar Estate and were therefore held to the highest of standards by their grandmother, world class tutors were flown in from the far reaches to teach them in subjects as far ranging as high fianance to mystical trances. Still, the lessions which the children most looked forward to were the ones which Grandmama taught personally; to harness and weild the mystical energies flowing through their very lifeblood. Looking back, that is where the rift between the children first began, as the mystic arts came easily to Becky whereas Mark was far better suited to the laws of science. One fateful night as Becky came of age she was kidnapped by an acient cabal of worlocks who needed her blood for a ritual which they hoped would return their entire race from the state of half-life they were cursed with. Niether sibling will speak of the events that night, but Mark was able disrupt the ritual and rescue his sister slightly too late, for she had already gazed deep into the abyss, and the abyss had gazed deeply into her soul. The next time Rebecca Winters was seen in public some six months later she shocked the room into silence with her cybernetic eye and leg. Both Winters has started down the path of the hero, Mark in order to ease the guilt he feels at not being able to fully save his sister, and Becky in hopes of saving her enternal soul from the damnation of the void.

Re: Curious about your view on the current state of CO. (Anybody still play regularly Started playing last couple of days, like it so far.

Re: Blood-Fueled Magic/Powers Seems to me then that the Blood Magic should be low Endurance with the Side Effect of taking damage then. "Biting people" should then be linked to a healing power with reduced cool-down time, seems to fit with my vision of how vampire feeding works.

Re: Blood-Fueled Magic/Powers Question, what happens to the character in general when she runs out of blood?

Re: Death & Maneuvers Personally if the goal is to simply not kill important NPCs/PCs, then give them the power "Plot Immunity" (Regeneration 1/Day --Resurection Only) for 8 points. Dyng is still something that you'd want to avoid as it means your character is out of play for a bit but you don't have to worry about killing off PCs or NPCs except when the drama/plot calls for it. And best of all, I'd say that it's actually the way that most DMs play their campaigns anyways, this just lets the rules cut both ways.

Re: Everybody Has Powers! (source material request) Last episode of "The 4400".

Re: Post apocalyptic HERO I'm in the beginning phases of running a Zombie Apocalypse game / Lowish Urban Fantasy Game at the moment. The PCs being (extra tasty zombie bait) immortals hopefully will strike the theme that yes, there are things worse than death out there as opposed to being campy. We'll see...

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill My question is, what were the baddies doing? Four Color crime where no-one actually gets hurt and everyone gets a magical rainbow unicorn at the end of the story or more gritty "modern Joker-esk" crime where people *do* get maimed and killed on a regular basis? Because in my opinion, as much as I enjoy Batman, after the nyth time he merely carted Joker back to his paper cage the blood of the innocents has started to stain both of their souls. You don't allow a rabid dog to live and even if a prosecutor would be foolish enough to bring charges there is no-way a jury would ever convict. *EDIT* Because remember, in the ol' days, Bats even had a cure for Joker-gas.

Re: Angels on Earth - plot ideas needed The Book of Cain is a book I found the other day at Hastings, in the graphic novel section, it's in the format of a letter that Deckard Cain wrote to his niece sometime between the end of Diablo II and Daible III. It goes through alot of the backstory and lore, including descriptions of the seven lords of Hell and what their realms look like, ect... I personally enjoyed and would recomend it.

Re: Angels on Earth - plot ideas needed Read "The Book of Cain", it hashes alot of the backstory from the Diablo universe into a rather neat little package. Personally, instead of going political (In which case I'd side on NBC and ilk as being Belial's mouthpiece. ) I think I'd posist Balail as being behind the distorting lens of social media and the net as a whole.

Re: Tongue & Runes of Babel The interesting thing is that the only real difference between Universal Translator & Babel's Tongue is that I removed the "broadcast only" limitation & added the "always on" bit.

Re: "Ookla, Ariel, we ride!" - Anyone ever written up character sheets for Thundarr? Presence attack?

I was wondering how best to build the total ability to communicate with anyone, regardless of written or spoken language. (Each person in a crowd would hear or read the communication as their favored language.) I started with tweaking "Universal Translator" from APGII (page 16) in order to cover two-way communications. (Good news, you know what the bad guys are saying at all times; bad news, they can also understand you at all times.) Babel's Tongue: Telepathy 4d6 (standard effect: 12 points) (Human class of minds), Persistent (+1/4), Inherent (+1/4), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2), Area Of Effect (Voice Range; +1) (60 Active Points); Extra Time (Full Phase, -1/2), Incantations (Requires Incantations throughout; -1/2), No Range (-1/2), Always On (-1/2) Active Points 60 / Real Cost 20 --- Now the real question is, how would be the best way to simulate the same two-way ability with written communications? I was thinking about some sort of cosmetic transform with an auto-reseting trigger of "when read".

Re: Cyberpunk: how did it change? In my opinion, the most important part of cyberpunk isn't the cyber, it's the PUNK, and that is what seems to be missing even from modern so-called "cyberpunk" rpgs today, gone are the "pink mohawk" days where merely being a wageslave justified being geeked because you "had sold your soul to the man". For that matter, the very nature of the mega corps seems to have changed as well, now instead of treating their wageslaves as cattle, including billing them for the very drugs being pumped through the air and laced in the watercooler, not to mention the madatory upgrades needed to perform their jobs; they are instead treated with a veener of respect and human decency because quiting corp A and seeking citizenship with corp B is no longer a possible death sentence only dared as a last resort and then only with something valuable enough to "buy your way in". For that matter, a wageslave can actually hope and expect to possibly rise into the ranks of at least lower-to-mid management. The idea that the "lucky few" who merit a commute to work will see five muggings, three murders, and a rape each day seems to be gone as well. "Illegal" bloodsport is no longer shown on major PPP channels and are in fact the top rated shows. Or to make a long story short, to me cyberpunk can be summed up with the saying, "Bullets are cheap, life is worthless." And that seems to be gone now-a-days.

Re: Superpunk I've never been a huge fan of Iron Man, care to explain? Thanks.