Tom McCarthy

Mind swapping machine

I give out 'plot points' for roleplaying, inspiration or actions to drive the plot forward, creating a painted custom mini of your figure, or doing other things above and beyond the call. I let them be used for dramatic edits (an idea seen both in Adventure! and DC Heroes; GM approval required), bonuses to OCV or DCV (3 max), rerolling dice (one die of 3D6 or all 1's in the damage roll), automatic hits on agents, or as 1/5th of an experience point. I typically give out about 1 per player per session, but occasionally a player will accumulate a high tally. Anytime they have more than 8, 5 of them automatically convert to 1 XP.

Power suppressing manacles Hot sleep chambers for Stronghold A Stronghold cell design or two (suitable for a danger room) A VPP-based danger room writeup

UNTIL, Wayland Talos, and Warlord would all seem like good narrators for this book. Tougher to pull off, but fun, would be Foxbat making a wish list of foci for the characters to donate when they buy off the limitations with their XPs.

Some oddball items with oddball powers might be nice. Blue Beetle's BB gun either had a bright strobe (Flash) or compressed air (knockback only). "Knockback only" has been a bit of a problem in the past, typically winding up with very high AP and lots of limitations. Trick boomerangs. I haven't seen trick boomerangs published in a while. Teleport suppression or extradimensional movement suppression is a neat one, and there's a nice writeup in Battlegrounds. For a trickier one, how about the classic attack which doesn't prevent EDM, but scatters the group that's trying to travel together ? Maybe a writeup illustrating the paralyzing effect of electric current. Perhaps a writeup of an 'Inobvious until activated' weapon, like a walking stick that becomes a big hammer when struck on the ground. Deadly squirting flowers, joybuzzers, jack in the boxes.

Now that I think more about it, I might even want an optional detailed gadget building rule set. A way to make a gadget with an arbitrary BODY and DEF (and other defences) and arbitrarily set the points at which it loses its powers or abilities. Like a suit of light body armour which is very durable, like Armour (3 rPD, 3 rED), OIF armour but somehow isn't destroyed by the first hit which does 4 BODY. I'm thinking it might be some 'Incomplete Character' style riff on Automata or Computers. A character class which defaults to a BODY, DEF, and one or more powers. Inaccessible foci might have powers or skills to make them inaccessible (Security Systems ? Lockpicking ? Clinging ?). Foci which don't lose their powers until destroyed would take the similar Automaton power, and pay correspondingly higher prices for DEF. The gadget would be purchased at a fraction of the total cost (perhaps not 1/5th; some fraction keeping it in line with comparable foci under the current system).

I admire the work that went into it, but it doesn't compel me to drop the existing frameworks. Aside from the odd character who straddles the line between frameworks, it just doesn't add much.

Might as well throw down some unpalatable or untenable suggestions: How about a bit of discourse on the BODY and DEF of gadgets and gear ? While the rules for assigning a DEF and BODY to foci are relatively clear, I keep finding myself in midfight wondering just what it takes to break a given object. (And I of course should recognize the contrary case - Blowtorch in CKC has the DEF of his fuel tank explicitly stated in the text.) I also wonder if there might be a simpler system or guidelines a GM can use to assign values that have dramatic applicability (like if Blowtorch's tank had DEF equal to campaign DCs + 4 instead of 23, how much more interesting is the fight ?). How about a paragraph or three on the engineering skills needed to create or fix the gadgets (was it "psionic engineering" in Ultimate Mentalist ?) ? Obviously, you need to start by grabbing writeups from a number of already published sources, like Nighthawk's gear, and STARGuard's staff, for example.

One of the characters in Digital Hero #13 has a pool of powers all tied together and affected by drains but not in an EC. I believe it's Megaera. Worth picking up.

That's a pretty classic layout for a cover. I'm glad they did it, but I'd be hard pressed to find the original such layout. I think that Challenge of the Superfriends was preceded by several comic covers with similar 'opposing lineups' designs, including a JLA vs. Injustice league softball game cover from the 60's, IIRC.

This board is full of people who will give you good advice. If you have a question about anything, come here and ask it. You'll get lots of good advice (or, occasionally, the first guy to answer will nail it and no one else will have anything to add). If you're willing to try Hero System and run superheroes, you probably need the rulebook (Hero System 5th Edition, frequently referred to as Fred on these boards) and Champions (a book describing ins and outs of running superhero games; includes random character generation tables and 10-12 sample characters). Try a few combats, maybe a simple investigation or mystery. Then try character creation, perhaps running your sample character by the rest of us. If you're doing well, you can then think about UNTIL Superpowers Database (prebuilt powers for character creation) or Conquerors, Killers and Crooks (prebuilt supervillains), then maybe Champions Universe (a possible setting) and Millennium City (a key place in Champions Universe) or Champions Battlegrounds (5 adventures set in interesting locations) or Shades of Black (a challenging adventure for superheroes).

I haven't purchased SOB yet for the following reasons: i) Moneys tight for about 3 months since the car was written off at the end of July ii) Costs for physical books have been high as convention season occurs, and physical stuff sells out (unlike e-books, which usually are available for years). For example, I just got CB last week. I'm still no through FH, and I know FHG, VIPER, Reality Storm, Alien Wars are coming. iii) Time's short right now, with family / summer commitments chewing up playing and reading time. iv) Little sense of urgency. I read it, I playtested it, I'm unlikely to ever run it again (none of my players are ever going to forget it). I will buy it for my collection, but it might be October or November. I like the idea of e-books and keeping costs down. I had hoped for $10 price tag, but will pay $12 when it's the right time for me to buy it.

Q: When does Benn's wife plan to deliver their children ? A: Two cows, a chicken, and a rabid duck

The Option for the Seafaring Package Deal looks incorrect (cut and paste from Nomad, perhaps). The extra STR in the Troll Package Deal is mispriced, too. And the strange year with 9 months broken into 3 seasons of 4 months each...

The multipower pool has to cover the Active points of each slot, so it needs to be 90 points. That said, if the slot to use is dictated (i.e. the multipower user has no choice of the active slot), I would (generously) give the multipower pool a -1 for No Conscious Control of the slot to use. I'd also give it the -.5 for Costs END, just to bring the price down.

Keep it simple. Design a team of 350 point villains with standard physical and energy attacks who are outnumbered by the heroes (maybe a 4 to 6 ratio, or even 4 to 5), and stage a simple bank robbery or brazen jewelry heist. The heroes should win, but it will be close enough that they'll learn combat rules. Some GMs start with one tough guy like Grond, but choose carefully; Grond for example folds under Ego Attack but will present a very tough, very nasty foe to grounded bricks and martial artists.

It's not cheap, but... 1" teleport, usable as attack at range, (AE 1 hex accurate ?) only to teleport target to your location plus 1" teleport, linked to above, only to teleport to target's location That's one possible way.

I tried to write up Tyrannon in 5th edition, and while greatly reduced in power, I believe he still had something like 1420 points above and beyond disadvantages. And I just know Steve (or Dean Shomshak) will beef him up when they do publish him.

I haven't seen the movie yet, but it's pretty much just the 'high concept' from the comic, and a new plot (and several new characters). The comic has Mina Harker (still human after surviving her encounter with Count Dracula) and Captain Nemo recruit a broken Quatermain and unruly Hyde then pressgang an unwilling Invisible Man, and ultimately prevent two nefarious literary villains from conquering/destroying London. The sequel has the same team battling invading tripods from Mars.

I was thinking of Slick or Spill. Some comic book fans might suggest the Anarchist (a published Marvel mutant who can control his sweat; energy blasts, KAs, telekinesis, etc.).

Check the Fred or Ultimate Martial Artist. One of them has a table to assign a limitation based roughly on the value of an activation roll but then say it covers specific hit locations rather than having an actual hit location (IIRC, a helmet which covers locations 3-5 is a -2 limitation, just like an 8- activation roll).

Well, an example of a suit of power armour might include: 40 Armour weapons systems: Multipower, 50 point powers, OIHID (-1/4) 4u Energy blast: 10D6 EB 4u Pulse Blast: 8D6 EB, Autofire (2 shots +1/4) 2u Repulsor Ray: TK (30 STR), push only (-1/2), affects whole object (-1/2) and then outside the multipower, 36 Heavy armour: Armour (15 rPD, 15 rED), OIHID 36 Sealed systems: Life Support: total, OIHID 17 Servo Strength: +30 STR, OIHID, No figured characteristics (-1/2) 15 Servo Speed: +9 DEX, OIHID, no figured characteristics 11 Servo Speed II: +2 SPD, OIHID, no figured characteristics etc.

Sounds like you did just fine, but your instinct is correct. Allowing a dodge, then having the attacks follow would have been better.

1) The most common answer is to apply Only In Hero ID to all such powers and stats. Less commonly, people use Multiform, OIF, or build the armor as a vehicle. 2) Yes, stats are frequently boosted by power armor. Unhelpfully, I'll add that Defender in Champions is a fairly good example of this in a relatively useful book. 3) If the armor has a variety of weapons, you might group them in a multipower. Otherwise, you generally won't use a framework for this type of character.

What is a naked advantage ? Suppose I can do a shockwave by slamming my fists into the ground. I can do it using a 10D6 energy blast with the explosion advantage and limitations to reflect no range and it only affects people on the ground. Or I can buy the following: Explosion advantage for strength 50 (25 points), only affects targets on the ground (-1/4) (20 points). It's an advantage which can be used optionally to boost another power. Other examples: - A dead-eye shooter, where all guns become armor-piercing in his hands - Master of blades, who can throw any edged hand to hand weapon, even those considered impossible to throw - A ghost hunter, who may strike incorporeal beings with any weapon he wields - Replay, who can make any attack which hits hit twice