massey

The biggest problem is that the cost of powers in the game is not structured with this in mind. Zero End is a +1/2 advantage because you are normally spending End every time you use the power. Change Constant powers so that they only pay End as if you were Speed 2, and it becomes far far cheaper to just buy a little extra End and not worry about it. You break the cost structure of the game if you do that.

I think it's entirely reasonable for constant powers to cost End every phase. Not only does it make actually playing the game much simpler, but it makes a certain amount of sense in real life as well. About six months ago, I decided to get into shape. So I joined a Taekwondo gym (I went before as a kid and liked it) and have been going 2-3 times per week. You know one of the toughest things for me? When the class starts, you do various stretches, and then a bunch of practice kicks, and you count out loud in Korean. I found that the simple act of counting makes it so much harder. Normally counting is a 0 End activity, but trying to manage your breathing while you're in a deep stretch or doing a side kick, that wears me out faster than the kicking does. Doing an additional task, even an easy one, while you're pushing yourself at a higher level of physical activity is very difficult. If you just want to sit there all day with your Force Field on, that's pretty simple. Voluntarily drop your Speed to 2 and have at it. Captain Force Field (Speed 6) isn't operating at his full Speed when he's hanging around the base. He only goes up to his normal Speed when he's flying, dodging, blasting, whatever. Then he's moving as fast as he can, and the normal minimal level of exertion to keep his force field up becomes a lot more significant.

You've got access. https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/Superman-The-Golden-Age https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/Adventure-Comics-1938 There are a ton of old comics available for free.

Again, I thought the tone of the post would get across that Agent Jerkface is intended to be a J. Jonah Jameson/Harvey Bullock/FBI guy from Die Hard type character. He's an arrogant blowhard who is there to be a minor recurring antagonist/comic relief to the PCs. I thought about suggesting that he ends up getting fired as head of the local PRIMUS division, which pleases the PCs greatly until they find out his new assignment -- liaison to their super team. Something can be aggravating to the PCs, yet hilarious to the players at the same time. We all have to deal with bureaucracy in the real world, nobody wants to actually play through it in the game. On the other hand, it can be funny to describe all the frustrations that a character has to go through, offscreen. You don't want to play it out, but sometimes it's funny to think about a guy in a super suit standing in line at the DMV. Then he gets to the front and the lady is like "it's time for my break" and walks off. That could be a good explanation for where a character went when Bob misses a game session. Humor is a big part of the superhero genre, and knowing what your players think is funny will really help.

The tone of my post was fairly tongue in cheek. Obviously people know their own groups better than I do, and know how they'll respond to things. If your group wouldn't like that, then don't do it. I think my group would laugh it up, since it's clearly intended as a joke.

Maybe this will help as kind of an example. Session 1 -- The intro The PCs are all presumed to know one another. Even if they aren't a defined "team", they have all been operating in the city for a few months and they are at least on speaking terms with each other. Now we just need a reason for them to get together. So we'll say there's a bank robbery. Two of the players are there in their secret identities. The other players happen to be close by (let's say they can arrive within a turn of combat starting). The supervillain Ogre busts his way into the bank, flanked by a squad of masked goons. The goons have generic comic book blaster guns, which they point at the people in the bank. Ogre makes his way to the underground vault, and starts yanking on the door, trying to rip it off its hinges (Ogre is not quite as strong as he thinks he is, this will take him a minute). One of the tellers hits a silent alarm. The players who aren't at the bank will be alerted that something is happening, and they'll start to make their way there. The players who are at the bank now have the opportunity to find a place to change into their costumes and either attack the goons, or attack Ogre. Neither the goons nor Ogre should be tough enough to stand up to two heroes for very long. If the heroes learn to cooperate, this will be a quick fight ("Thanks GM! Now I know!" "And knowing is half the battle!"). If they don't cooperate, things can get embarrassing. Even if the heroes split up (one takes Ogre, the other takes the goons), they should do okay as long as they aren't getting in each other's way. You might try putting the most inexperienced players in this initial encounter. It gives the GM a chance to baby-step them through a fairly unimportant combat, and you've already got reinforcements on the way (so it won't feel artificial when the cavalry shows up). Once the rest of the heroes show up, Ogre and the goons are done for. If the first two heroes have already won, then when the rest of the team shows up, they see a high-tech looking van parked out in front of the bank. There are also some goons standing outside of the van, also with blasters. The van has some kind of radar dish and laser cannon on top, big reinforced side doors (for Ogre to climb out of), heavy plates of armor, and can outrun a police car. It also transforms into a submarine, which was their escape plan (drive right off a bridge into the river below, and cruise away underwater). The laser hits hard enough to knock a hero for a loop, probably around the campaign max (12D6 or so for an average game). It gets a bonus to hit on the first shot because the heroes don't see it immediately. If Ogre and friends won the fight inside, they'll come running out of the bank right now with the money. They'll pile in the van and try to drive away. The goons may leave Ogre behind as a distraction (they can always break him out later if he gets caught). If Ogre and friends were defeated in the bank, then when more heroes show up, the van will take a pot-shot and drive away. The heroes will need to decide who chases the van and who stays at the bank. Regardless of whether they catch the van or not, or if the villains succeed at the robbery or not, it should be immediately obvious that someone else is pulling the strings. Ogre is not known for his brilliant scientific mind, and the goons you capture are just career criminals with some high tech guns. Somebody is supplying these guys. Don't feel the need to help the bad guys escape -- these guys are all losers, and the master villain doesn't really care if they get caught or not. If the players do well and capture the bad guys that's great, it's good for them to succeed. If they do poorly, the bad guys are just after money. They won't stick around to boot-stomp the heroes, they'll just leave. Now you've got to rope the heroes into being a team. Exactly how you do this will depend on your specific players. I'd suggest leaving a clue that ties it to one or more of the players' backgrounds. One of the unconscious goons has a weird tattoo that means he works for a rival ninja clan. Or maybe there's a mystic symbol on one of the guys' forehead or something. Anyway at least one of the players realizes that he's personally connected to this. Or if the bad guys got away, maybe they kidnapped one of the PC's girlfriends or something. So one or more of the players realize that this is a bigger deal than it appeared at first glance, and they need to request the assistance of these other heroes. If this adventure takes up all the time you have that evening, then that's a wrap for your first session. If the players rocket through it and you've still got half the night left, then another villain encounter will be handy. It can be completely unrelated to the first one (not everything has to tie to a larger meta-plot). Session 2 -- The Villain Team This could serve as a continuation of the first session if it goes fast enough, or it can be saved for the second time you play. A group of loser villains have come together to commit some type of crime. You'll want a change of scenery from a bank robbery. These guys have attacked the local hydroelectric dam, or high tech science lab, or whatever. They have an evil plan they'll shout out at the top of their lungs ("With this blah blah blah, you'll never stop me from blah blah blah..."). The villains are roughly on par with the heroes, except for a few shortcomings. Maybe one of them has a harsh vulnerability to a particular hero's powers. The killer robot has a x2 vulnerability to Captain Lightning's attack. Or perhaps they're fairly even, but they average about 1 point less Speed than the heroes. Or maybe one of the villains doesn't have a real movement power -- he gets left behind during the fight and can't catch up. Perhaps the villains all have about 10 less Stun than the heroes. Or some combination of all these. The villains have the same number of characters as the heroes, one villain per hero. In a straight-up fight, each villain should lose, even if the heroes aren't that coordinated. Don't play the villains as exceedingly deadly or vicious (maybe they're beginners too, and they're very overconfident in their powers). Your players can still lose this battle even if everything is stacked in their favor (never underestimate the players' ability to waste their time with ineffective tactics). If you can work in the scenery into the battle plan, that's even better. A fight on top of a hydroelectric dam is awesome, particularly if somebody gets blasted off of it and falls a long way. Or if a hole gets blasted through it and the heroes have to spend some time stopping a massive water leak. Playing with the environment around you in a way that fantasy characters can't is part of what makes superhero games so much fun. Anyway eventually the heroes defeat the villains. The PCs get to wait around for a bit until the PRIMUS team (i.e., the government agency who investigate supercrime, are ineffective at fighting villains, and run the revolving door superprison) shows up to take the bad guys into custody. Agent Jerkface is in charge, and he doesn't like superpeople. He's going to bitch and moan to the PCs, and try to intimidate them. He might actually have a heart of gold, or he might just be a jerk. It's up to you. He'll complain about having to "clean up your messes", while conveniently ignoring the fact that his PRIMUS team was woefully incapable of stopping this minor supervillain team. Hopefully one of your players makes a comment about leaving him some sloppy seconds, and the PCs can have a wonderfully antagonistic relationship with the people who are supposed to be helping out. Regardless, PRIMUS will load the defeated supervillains into some armored cars, or maybe an armored helicopter, and take them to some detention facility. It's perfectly okay to have Agent Jerkface be halfway through a holier-than-thou speech about "competent professionals" being better than a bunch of amateurs, and then there's a loud BANG in the distance as the doors are blown off the helicopter and the villain team jumps to freedom. It should be far in the distance, so the heroes don't really have the movement to get over there, nor do they feel like they're supposed to (it's clearly the crushing force of irony coming down on the agent -- don't worry, he won't learn his lesson). Perfectly silhouetted against the setting sun, these tiny little figures jump out of the side of the smoking helicopter, and they fly away. Agent Jerkface about chokes on his cigar, and the players have a good laugh. After the fight, the PCs meet Doctor Von Scientist, the man responsible for whatever thing the bad guys were attempting to take. He's a nice guy, but lacks wisdom. He of course had zero foresight that anybody would want to steal his Mega Ray or whatever it was. "Oh, the consequences of that would be catastrophic!" Of course even if he destroys the prototype, he knows how to build a new one. Anyone with the ability to read minds and a massive technical lab could capture him and get the secrets from him. We call this "foreshadowing". He's okay for now, and he's friendly to the PCs. But he's going to be more of a pain in the ass than an actual asset. Have him be an expert in some field that the players don't have covered. That way if something comes up later, they can go bother this guy about it. ---- Anyway, that should give a general idea of how Champions games feel. The "metaplot" doesn't have to move forward each session. You can have nice little self-contained stories each week. And occasionally you'll refer back to something that happened before. Just plant some seeds and give them enough time to develop into properly develop. Feel free to steal from cartoons, movies, old comic books, new comic books, other people's campaigns, etc. Old Ninja Turtles cartoons are almost superhero stories, the same with Transformers and GI Joe. An evil organization works great, particularly if they've got some super-powered enforcers on the payroll to stop those meddling heroes.

To start out the campaign, I'd give the players a rough idea of power level and setting, and then build the rest of the world through the choices they make with their characters. The Marvel movies did that. For instance, in the first Iron Man movie, they introduce the "arc reactor" technology. This is really what sets the Marvel world apart from our world. Tony Stark invents some really awesome stuff, and the "super" tech that we see all comes from him. Of course his dad was brilliant too, and so if we need to have some existing supertech that Tony didn't invent, it probably came from his dad. Then we get the Incredible Hulk, and we know that there's this serum the government has been messing with for decades, and if you do it wrong it produces monsters. Then we get Thor, and we learn there are aliens who have been messing around on Earth for eons, and a lot of our old myths probably come from their exploits. They've got advanced technology that looks like magic to us, and they aren't big on explaining themselves to humans. Finally we get Captain America, and we not only see what the super-soldier serum does when it works right, but we also see the glowing cube thingy that (among other things) gives Nazis supertech. This all comes together with the Avengers movie, where we get glowing cube thingy, brainwashing staff, alien armies, super-agents, and a flying helicarrier. Everything we see in the early Marvel movies has its origins in something tied in with the "PCs" of that world. Look at the origins of the main characters, and that gives you your villains. So say you've got 5 players. Bob wants to be a ninja. Dave insists on playing a chain-smoking Scottish wizard who wears a trench coat and fights demonic creatures. Ricky has designed a power armor character who spent all his points on the cool armor, and doesn't have any skills or wealth. When forced to come up with an explanation, he says he's a military pilot and was given the armor for this special assignment. Frank plays an alien from another world who gets his powers from Earth's reflected moonlight or something. And Sarah wants to play an anime character she really likes. She's got a teenage girl who changes into a super teenage girl and shoots rainbow beams of power. She does this to fight off the evil queen from Planet X. What do you do? Well, you've got two characters with asian themes, so that'll probably feature heavily. We know that ninjas are real. You've also got two different alien races (Planet X people and also Frank's character, though you might tie them together somehow). The government has advanced enough tech to hand out a power suit to Corporal Moron. And we've got shadowy demon creatures running around in the background thanks to our cynical mage, Harry Trainspotter. That gives you a lot of possible enemies for these guys. Then you can gradually build out the world based on what happens with these characters. Just go with the logical conclusions of their actions and how they describe their backgrounds. It sounds to me like evil cults should be a thing, maybe they hire ninja clans to guard their meeting places? And if the governments of the world know that aliens are real, perhaps they are trying to use their super-suits to prevent possible invasion. That sounds like a good reason for them to build a lot of different experimental units, many of which can get stolen. And then sometimes Planet X could send some advanced scouts to Earth, and maybe they get captured or they drop an important alien tech thingy (and somebody else finds it). Anyway, when you introduce a new villain, it can help to tie it to one of the characters. Sorry Bob, but the cyber-ninja that tried to kill the mayor seems very familiar to you -- he reminds you of a dead man, someone you once killed. You're honor bound to investigate. And Ricky, that laser sword he used looks like something you saw in the testing center when they gave you your armor. You're almost afraid to ask your superiors where it came from. Something is definitely up. You don't have to resolve the problem immediately, in fact it may be better if you just let it linger for a while. Bob can get revenge and knock the villain off a building into the river (where he disappears), but Ricky is still left wondering who he can trust within his own organization. Each game session, you might have a villain that is related to a different hero, or maybe multiple heroes at once. The players end up being tied together by circumstances, because all the villains link back to their own backgrounds.

If you aren't that familiar with the superhero genre, I'd suggest reading some classic comic books to get a feel for what superheroes are all about. My own tastes lean towards the late 70s through the 1980s, but it kinda depends on what you're going for. There's a website called Read Comics Online that has a huge storehouse of comics. https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/The-New-Teen-Titans-1980 The early 1980s Teen Titans storyline is a great team adventure. It's got a mix of "woe is me" teen angst, characters balancing their super lives with their secret identities, one-off fights with villains, and overarching plots that the characters will encounter again and again.

No, he does take focus. But Captain Flagsuit doesn’t have a super special one-of-a-kind vibranium/adamantium shield (unbreakable, OAF). Instead his shield is just a regular metal discus. He buys the power the exact same way (Energy Blast, levels in DCV, Force Field, whatever), he just makes sure that his shield can be easily reproduced. It’s still OAF, it might even still be unbreakable. It’s his amazing skill with this run of the mill shield that makes it powerful. In someone else’s hands (without his ultra specialized training and experience) it would just be a 8/8 Def piece of metal. Same exact character build, different description.

See, all that’s gonna happen when you start taking away somebody’s special focus is that they begin redefining their characters. Captain Flagsuit doesn’t have a rare, one of a kind invincible shield. He’s got a regular shield, and he’s just that damn good with it. Albino Sorcerer Man doesn’t have a unique soul-sucking sword. He’s haunted by a demon that gradually transforms any sword he uses into a demon blade. Functionally there’s no difference here. The guy is just going to have a different explanation for why his weapon will always come back.

Perhaps you should have two or more stages of magic. The first stage is the simple stuff that any beginning mage can do. It doesn't cost points, other than a magic skill roll and maybe a weapon familiarity with that type of spell. You pay money for your spellbook or scroll, but the spells themselves are just like mundane weapons. So we've got Bob, a wizard's apprentice, who has snuck out of the tower and made off with a book of magic, a couple of scrolls, a talisman, and about a year's worth of training. He's got Magic Skill at 12-, and has to make this any time he wants to cast something from his book of magic. He's got WF: Fire Magic, WF: Divination Magic, and WF: Transmutation Magic. Since these are "categories" of magic they cost 2 points each. It's the equivalent of having WF: Swords or WF: Bows. So Bob has spent a total of 11 points to know how to do basic magic, and he'd have to spend however much money the book is worth to replace it if he lost it (he begins with it as starting equipment). Unlike a warrior, Bob has to make a skill roll to do anything, and the spells that this works for are all created by the GM and balanced as if they were mundane equipment. An arrow from a crossbow may do 2D6 damage, while Bob's Spell of Fiery Bolt does 2 1/2D6 but requires a skill roll first. You can take away the warrior's crossbow, but you can also take away Bob's spellbook. Perhaps you can raise an undead skeleton warrior if you've got WF: Necromantic Magic, and all you need is a dead body and 10 gp worth of rare powders (which might be enough money for a normal person to hire a generic mercenary for a week). Magic is a bit more powerful but also a bit less reliable. Eventually Bob has gained some experience and wants to be a more successful wizard. So he buys Deadly Blow or whatever it's called with his Fire Magic. Now instead of a 2 1/2D6 Fiery Bolt, he does 3 1/2D6. Now he's cooking with gas, and he's actually pretty impressive. He can reduce an orc to cinders with one shot. But he's also poured quite a few points into that ability, and he's gonna be similar to a fighter who has a weapon he's specialized in. If this were a video game, the archer character would be shooting arrows at enemies while the wizard is shooting glowing energy thingys at them. Functionally they're very similar. The final level of magic would be to just buy your spells outright. Things like this probably shouldn't duplicate normal powers. Raising the dead, creating an undead legion, now you're into what we might call "strategic level magic". You can bring down the walls of a castle, or summon a storm. They aren't necessarily things you'd use in combat, and they aren't necessarily spells that you'd have a lot of. A full-scale wizard who can change into forest animals, mesmerize people with his voice, and knows how to build golems is a devastating opponent even for a kingdom. He's just not the kind of guy who goes running around dungeons.

My thoughts on Duke Bushido's concerns (most of this is extremely basic and everyone already knows it, I'm just outlining my philosophy on it): Playing an RPG is a cooperative task. We get together and agree to what we want to play (Hero System), where we want to play (at Bob's house), when we want to play (Saturday afternoons), and who we want to play with (Bob, Joe, Steve, and Mike, but not Dave -- he's not invited anymore after the incident with the tuna fish). The Hero System takes the position that the players should have more control over what kind of character they play. Ever played D&D and you really wanted to be a Paladin/Ranger/whatever, but you rolled crappy stats and were stuck as a cleric or something? Ever thought it would be neat to play something unique, like a farm boy who found a magic hat that gave him unusual abilities to compete with the big sword/big fireball crowd? Well the Hero System allows you to do that. In the Hero System, you can take powers and abilities through something called a "focus". A focus is an object that is required to use the power. This gives you a discount because the object can then be taken away from you. If they take away your suit of armor/magic hat/special shield/freeze ray, then you can't use the associated powers. But one of the inherent assumptions of this particular game is that you have a degree of control over your character concept. If you want to be the farm boy with the magic hat, then you get to be the farm boy with the magic hat (subject to the agreement of the rest of the people in your group, of course -- I'm sorry Wayne, you can't play Captain Bitch-Rape in a game based on Saturday morning cartoon characters). That means that even though a focus can be taken away, you can be secure in the knowledge that you're going to get it back at some point soon. Yes, the orcs can capture you and take away your magic hat. But normally they aren't going to send it away to the evil wizard on another continent, not before you manage to escape the dungeon and find the hat carelessly left sitting in a storage room. The magic hat, you see, is an integral part of your character concept. The discount you received for taking a focus is based on the problems you incur for losing it temporarily, not permanently. Now, as I said, games are a cooperative effort. You have some degree of control over your character, but not total. In some circumstances, the GM may decide that the story demands you spend a period of time without that hat. You've got to go on a quest to reclaim it or something. And it's entirely possible that halfway through that quest, you say "screw the hat, I want to do something else". And that's fine too. But generally you'll get your focus back, because this is a cooperative game we're playing, and it's not real life. The genre you're playing should have more influence on what happens than what would "realistically" take place. In real life if you lose your special hat, there's very little guarantee you'll ever get that exact hat back. But in a cartoon, the animators always draw you with that same hat, so you're probably gonna get it returned pretty soon. When Rocket Pack Man gives the alien rocket pack that he found on the street to Gary Groundpounder, and Gary flies off, that focus may be gone until the GM and the player have a conversation. Things like "why did you do that? Do you want to change your character? You know he wasn't planning on coming back, right?" And the player is like "I dunno, I didn't think about it." One of the guidelines for playing in a cooperative game is not to try to ruin the fun -- don't do things that put the other people at the table in a difficult situation (as opposed to putting the characters in a difficult situation, which is fine). If you wanted to keep your irreplaceable rocket pack, why did you give it to the alien who was going back to his home planet? Now the GM has to come up with some kind of in-game excuse for how you get it back. Or he can let you change your character. -- The most important thing to realize is that the game rules exist to give us options for playing. "Focus" is a limitation that generally reflects people being temporarily deprived of an ability. The easier it is to deprive them of it, the more points it is worth. But that doesn't mean that everyone with a sword has a focus. Let's look at some examples. He-Man has a sword. He-Man is almost never deprived of his sword. He almost never gets disarmed, though it may happen very occasionally. Of course, He-Man almost never hits anyone with the sword anyway. The sword is really He-Man's method of transformation. He-Man's player and the GM talk about this before the game begins, and they decide that Only In Hero ID is the appropriate limitation here. The sword is basically an infinitely durable thingy that he holds in his hand and uses to change form, but it doesn't actually do any real damage (because it's a Filmation cartoon and he isn't allowed to stab people). The sword isn't a focus, it has no powers. He just has a big boost to his stats with -1/4 "Only in Hero ID" written beside it. And the way to change is to hold up the sword that nobody ever pays attention to you carrying around. It's occasionally possible to get stuck as Prince Adam, but it'll be rare. Joe the Fighter is just a standard heroic fantasy character. He has a variety of swords, some better than others. They aren't really a focus, they're just a weapon he found. He didn't pay points for them, he can't sell them for points. It doesn't matter if Joe is carrying a +2 longsword or a two-handed sword, no particular sword is a core part of his concept. He is a more normal RPG character, where his equipment is gained or lost entirely through the events of the game. None of his equipment has "plot protection" where you know that's his special weapon and he should always have a version of it (I'm looking at you, Simon Belmont from Castlevania with that whip you always have). Nope, Joe the Fighter just uses what's available, and even if he likes a certain weapon, it isn't special enough to him to become a part of his character concept. If it were, he'd have spent points on it. Darth Vader has a red lightsaber. Vader is so good with his lightsaber that nobody can ever disarm him (unless, you know, you actually cut his arm off). Vader may not have actually put the focus limitation on his sword power. He may not have any limitation on it. While it looks like a lightsaber and he wears it on his belt, he never loses it once in the entire trilogy. He just always has his sword when he needs it. "But couldn't he be captured and the lightsaber taken away?" Mmmmmaybe. But he probably cleared that with the GM first. "Don't worry, you aren't gonna be captured. This isn't that kind of story." Vader doesn't get the focus limitation, but also no matter how many times you try to disarm him, it won't work. He can just use the Force and now it's back in his hand, no questions asked. Vader comes up with a semi-plausible reason for why people can't take it away from him and therefore they don't. Remember, there's cooperation in this between the player and the GM.

That's what I do when Hero Designer gives me crap.

Not compared to the differences between a guy who shoots lightning bolts and one who has napalm breath. When you compare those two guys, the two bullet calibers look identical.

Our group has some basic guidelines we try to follow. This has proven helpful over the years. We don't always stick to it though. Note that these are 5th edition standards, but they should generally apply to 6th as well. --Spend about 10% of your points on skills that can't be used in combat. Not combat skill levels, not martial arts, not autofire skills, I'm talking about science skills, knowledge skills, mechanics, stuff like that. Characters shouldn't be sitting around scratching their butts when not in combat. --The slowest guy in the group should be no more than 3 Speed slower than the fastest guy in the group. So if the slow guy is a Speed, the fastest could be a 7. But don't let some horse's ass of a player screw the rest of the group by not buying it up at all. --A difference of 3 in OCV/DCV is significant. If I've got a 10 OCV and the group average is a 7 DCV, then I'm going to hit on a 14-, which is like a 90% chance to hit. Likewise if I have a 10 DCV and they only have a 7 OCV, they only have about a 20% chance to hit. This site has probabilites listed: http://www.thedarkfortress.co.uk/tech_reports/3_dice_rolls.htm#.Xbn_9VVKiUk . --A normal character should have enough Defense and Stun so that they can stay conscious through about 3 average hits. --A normal character should have enough Defense and Con so that they don't get Stunned (damage exceeds their Def+Con and they lose their next phase) by the average attack. --For superheroic games, characters generally want to have at least one offensive power, at least one defensive power, and at least one movement power. --For an average game of 350 points (400 in 6th ed), it's fairly normal for the damage limit to be 60 active points (12D6 normal, 4D6 killing). So an anime swordsman character might look something like this: Captain Ninja Sword (350 points, 5th edition) Str 20 (very strong for a normal human) Dex 26 (much faster than a normal human, not technically "superhuman" yet) Con 23 (damn tough for a normal person) Body 13 (you don't actually take much Body in a normal Champions game, so we've only bought it up a little) Int 13 (he's smarter than average, kinda) Ego 15 (decently strong-willed, but not a telepath or anything) Pre 20 (an intimidating guy) Com 10 (just average looking) PD 15 (at the very limits of human toughness -- guy can smash face first into a tree and not lose any teeth) ED 15 (same -- a hot frying pan to the face will leave a comedic red mark, but he's probably okay) Speed 6 (he can fight multiple opponents at once, like Bruce Lee in the movies) Rec 9 (starting value with his Str and Con) End 46 (starting value based off his Con -- as a martial artist he won't need much more) Stun 40 (bought it up a bit, to show resiliency) General physical abilities --9/9 Combat Luck (shooting him with a gun will basically never really put him in danger -- note this gives him a total of 24/24 Defense) --Rapid Healing (even if he takes Body, he'll walk it off in a few hours) --12" of Running (twice as much as a normal man, without even accounting for his high Speed stat) --20" of Leaping (120 foot jump) Kickass ninja sword --3D6-1 HKA (4D6 with Str), 0 Endurance, OAF Martial arts package +2 OCV with martial arts Weapon element with sword (note: none of these maneuvers are going to add damage to the sword, only martial strike really makes sense as a sword maneuver anyway) Martial Strike Legsweep Martial Grab Martial Block Martial Dodge Acrobatics 14- (kinda combat related) Breakfall 14- (kinda combat related) Climbing 14- Concealment Conversation Disguise Instructor Interrogation Persuasion Paramedics Stealth Streetwise Survival Tactics (kinda combat related) Teamwork (kinda combat related) Scholar KS: Ninja stuff 12- KS: Martial arts world 12- KS: World history 12- KS: Ancient legends 12- That's 308 points so far. Your basics are covered. You've got an 11 OCV with your sword (at 4D6 HKA it's at the top end of a normal starting game), so you'll hit all day long. Your defense is still pretty good (an average 12D6 attack will do 42 Stun, which means you're taking 18 past defense, not enough to Stun you). You've got enough skills that you're useful in the right non-combat situations. You've got 42 points left to spend to give yourself stronger willpower, various ninja tricks like smoke bombs or invisibility, maybe make yourself smarter or branch out into another skill area, or to give your sword some cool magic tricks. Maybe you can swing the sword and launch an energy beam or something (cutting at range), so you want to turn your sword into a multipower. Those are all fine. This should give you a basic idea on what a normal character looks like.

Hero scales up better than GURPS does. GURPS probably handles the lower end of the scale a bit better. It's been a long time since I looked at Western Hero, but generally any time you're looking at specific weapons and trying to make them accurately, you're gonna get some glitches between reality and the game system. For instance, every "damage class" in Hero is generally considered to be twice as powerful as the previous one. For normal (non-killing) attacks, that means a 6D6 punch is (theoretically) twice as powerful as a 5D6 punch. In killing damage (which guns use), the steps are 1 point, 1/2 D6, 1D6, 1D6+1, 1 1/2 D6, 2D6, 2D6+1, etc. So a 2 1/2 D6 killing attack is "twice as powerful" as a 2D6+1 killing attack. Now, with a lot of guns, that's going to mean they are virtually identical. A .45 ACP isn't actually twice as damaging as a 9mm (we aren't talking about muzzle velocity or grain, or even joules of energy, it's nebulous "power" and "damage"). There isn't really that much difference between most calibers, not enough to move it more than a single level of damage. As a result, everything ends up looking the same. The Hero System uses points to try to balance powers, and makes some determinations on what should be effective in an average combat. But the Charges limitation doesn't really take into account the fact that one gun might be easier to reload than another. Is a rifle that holds 17 rounds in a tube magazine really that much better than one that holds 16? Normally that's a larger advantage (16 rounds is a +0 Advantage, 17-32 is a +1/4). Since in a heroic game, nobody is paying points for these weapons (you just buy them at the general store like everything else), they didn't try to make the weapons follow the Powers rules exactly -- they just defined how they function.

You should probably regard Independent as similar to real world equipment. Even if somebody makes a bunch of free equipment for Slashy Steve, it's still not something he gets to keep forever. He just gets to keep it until it breaks, or he loses it, or somebody takes it from him. It's just like a D&D character when your +2 longsword fails its save against acid and it melts away. You should be careful about letting a player collect so many of these items that he's unstoppable, but one tipped over canoe later and Steve is swimming in the river and his swords are washing downstream. It ain't that hard to take away magic items, particularly ones that aren't identifiably part of the hero's character.

There's a character who fairly regularly hands out huge power enhancements to people. He's called Galactus. He's got a big huge amount of Usable By Other powers that he can grant to his "heralds". They keep those powers until Galactus decides he doesn't like them anymore, then he takes them away. He's had a lot of heralds over the years, many of them quite temporary (often only showing up once). But occasionally, a herald uses that as his excuse for an origin story. Silver Surfer kept his powers permanently because somebody decided to build their Galactic Champions character on that concept. Groundstuck Man can certainly decide to keep your flying belt, but that makes him a more expensive character. If he's just some dude, well now he's had his origin story. You just gave him his character concept (see the awesome DC character Booster Gold for an example of a hero who got his powers by stealing a bunch of gear from a superhero museum in the future). But your character is now out a flying belt, so you'll have to get another one. Perhaps the flying belt radiation caused you to mutate, and now you can fly naturally. Or maybe you find another one. Or perhaps you have to train extra hard to make up for the lack of flying belt, and during your offscreen time you become proficient in super-parkour, with like 15" of Running, Leaping, and Swinging in a Multipower to represent you bouncing off of walls and doing backflips in the air from building to building. Regardless, you're very quickly back at full points.

Regarding the "focus doesn't really have the power". That's a personal focus. The easiest example is Dumbo's feather. Dumbo needs the feather to fly, because he thinks he needs it. But if you or I grab that feather, it doesn't do anything for us. You can keep Dumbo from flying by taking away the feather, but you don't gain anything by keeping it. Regarding someone taking your focus and running away with it, that's fine. It doesn't matter. It's on your character sheet, you don't lose it. Your character's point total isn't like a bank account where someone can steal from it. Your point total is a measure of your character's power. Steve just yoinked that dude's rocket pack? Why can't he keep it? Because Steve is a 350 point character, and if he had a rocket pack too, he'd be 375 points. But this isn't a 375 game yet. It's the same way that a guy with 15 points of wealth can't buy a bunch of cool vehicles and weapons automatically. There's nothing really preventing him from purchasing them, but once he does that his character is a lot more powerful, and this story is about people who are less powerful than that. Anyway the guy who loses his focus will get it back, or will get something equivalent back. Captain America paid points for his shield. It's his shield. His character costs however many points because he's got that shield. He can lose it temporarily during an adventure (some jerk with a robot arm grabbed it), but he'll get it back by the end of the scene because that's how it works. Iron Man has replacement suits waiting for him, Hawkeye can always get another bow, Spider-Man knows how to make another set of webshooters, and Thor can hold out his hand and his hammer comes back. Cap always gets his shield back because that's how the story works. If somebody were to steal it, he'll be able to find it again, by the next adventure at the latest. Either that, or he gets another shield (or some other weapon) to bring him back up to full points. Remember those triangular looking forearm shields from Infinity War? Sometimes a character goes through a story arc where they don't have their focus. Thor's bitchy sister shows up and shatters his hammer. He's down a bunch of points at the beginning of the adventure until he discovers his Super Thunder God Powers. You see, Thor's player was getting kind of bored and he wanted to change something about the character. "Okay," says the GM, "we'll swap out the hammer for some souped up lightning bolt powers. Cool?" Thor thinks cool. By the end of the adventure, Thor has shuffled around his points and spent some saved XP. Now he's got super lightning. Of course by the next adventure, Thor's decided he wants this big axe thing, so the GM lets him change his points around yet again.

Ah, I see the problem. First of all, that first character is almost 4000 points. That's 10 times the number of points you will have to work with. When you hit that level of points, balance is already out the window. Numbers just get bigger and bigger, and without any guidelines you don't know what you'll need, or what you'll be facing. You think that character is powerful, but he's a glass cannon. He can't take hits from people his own weight class. What if you run into 100D6 Killing Attack Man? I can build him on a fraction of the points, and he'll pop you like a balloon. At the really high levels, there are so many different builds that are available, that you need to have an idea what you'll be facing. Building characters in a vacuum is hard. Second, from just a quick once over of the 4000 point guy, I think you've got some errors in your build. That 15D6 HKA requires a full Turn to use, every time you use it. That's the only primary attack that I saw (of course the writeup is 6 pages long, so maybe there's something else in there). So that means your 12 Speed is kinda useless. You're also going to blast through your own Endurance and leave yourself unconscious when you try to use all your powers. It seems like you've just sort of thrown things together without any regard for how they'll function. Plus you've got so many different abilities, I don't think you'll remember what all you've got. I took a glance at the 1000 point character, and all the same problems are there. Limit yourself to just the 400 points that you'll actually have in the game. Assume that your character will have a limit of 12D6 attacks (normal damage, not killing), that he can have a Speed no higher than 6, and OCV/DCV no higher than 10. Also assume that you can't use Summon, or have more than a -1 limitation on any particular power. That's not to say that these will be your campaign limits, but it's safe to assume that you will have limits. Build the character again, following those rules, and then we'll have a much better idea where you are. As it is, it's basically "this is an anime character I like, that's really powerful and no one will ever let me play. How can I make characters who are less powerful?" For one, start with a character that is actually within your point limits.

One of the greatest strengths of the Hero System is something that is rarely talked about. It's the Limitation "Limited Power". Basically a custom Limitation. Learn to use it and learn to love it. You can apply it all the time, however you want. That's my solution to things like that. 40 point Multipower (23 points real cost plus 8 points for slots) -- Magic Spells Incantation (-1/4), Gestures (-1/4), Limited Power: All Charges in Multipower go off of same 8 charges (-1/4) --Fireball Spell, 8D6 Energy Blast, 8 charges (-1/2) -- 2 points --Open Doors Spell, 13D6 Dispel vs Body, only versus doors and locks (-1), 8 Charges (-1/2) -- 1 point --Invincible Armor Spell, 16/16 Force Field, 8 Continuing Charges: 1 minute (+1/4) -- 2 points --Cannot Be Seen Spell, Invisibility vs Sight, 8 Continuing Charges: 5 minutes (+1/2) -- 2 points --Blinding Spray, 4D6 Flash vs Sight, Area Effect: Cone (+1), No Range (-1/2), 8 Charges (-1/2) -- 1 point There you go. The Limited Power is only -1/4, because 8 Charges for the whole pool would be -1/2, and the whole reason we're using Limited Power is because simply going with 8 charges is a harsher limitation. We want an easier one, that is less restrictive, so it's only -1/4.

Ah, then that's easy. First, make sure your PCs have their total bonuses calculated and easy to see on the character sheet. Let's say Bob the Fighter has a base OCV of 5. He has 1 level with longsword, and he knows 3 martial maneuvers (defensive strike, fast strike, martial block). Just go ahead and write his Defensive Strike OCV as 7 (base 5 + 1 with longsword + 1 maneuver bonus), and his Fast Strike OCV as 8. While the players are still learning, it's fine to tell the player what number he needs to hit. "The orc has a DCV of 4. You'll need a 14 or less to hit him, 15 or less if you use your fast strike." As they figure it out, they'll get faster and you'll be able to surprise them with enemies that are unexpectedly tough. A martial arts villain can often move around his combat levels and be much more effective with clever use of maneuvers. Don't do that when the players are still new -- it's a cheap shot on new players and they won't know how to handle it when they're still figuring out what "OCV" means. Second, learn the hit location chart yourself. There's no need for every player to look at the chart every time they hit somebody. Instead, they can just say "I hit location 14" and you know that's the thigh. So you say "you got him in the thigh, that's x2 Stun. How much Body did you roll? 7? Okay so he takes 14 Stun, minus his Defense of 8. He loses 6 Stun." Just kinda narrate it as you go. Do that for a few sessions and they'll understand much better. Give them a copy of the hit location chart, so they can follow along, but make sure you know it (Note: I don't know it, I had to look it up for this example. But we don't play heroic level games or use the chart). Third, if you're using partial coverage armor for your villains, have a big note on their sheet about it. "Doesn't have armor on locations 6 -- Hands, 7-8 -- Arms, or 14-18 -- Thighs, Legs, and Feet". That way when the players hit your mook, you'll be like "oh yeah, that's the unarmored part". I'd write both the number and the body part description to jog your memory in the midst of combat. That can speed things up because it increases the amount of damage the bad guys are taking through their defenses. Also, as people start taking Body, they may want to run away. I don't care if he's still got 8 Body left, that bandit just got stabbed in the arm. He may not want to stick around.

One thing you might do, if villains are slowing the fight down too much (particularly agents) is to have people who are unengaged run away. 10 goons versus 4 PCs? If the heroes are slowly slogging through the bad guys, and it's clear that they'll win even if it will take a while, some of those villains may decide to hightail it. Bad Guy Agent #6 is behind everybody, and no one is actively looking at him? Well he just saw Captain Fireball blast one of his buddies. Maybe it's time for him to run out that door that you "forgot" to draw on the map right next to him. Just quietly pull the figure and don't say anything. 10 goons can rapidly become 4 or 5 once the bad guys decide it's time to run. I've had a GM pull that on me before. I'm looking down at my dice, counting up numbers, and when I look up, half the board is clear. The PCs were too busy fighting whoever they were facing to notice that his friends have split.

You can make the game move faster during character creation. That solves a lot of problems before they ever crop up. --Certain types of powers, advantages, and limitations can slow down combat. Summon brings more people into the fight. Activation Rolls mean that you've got to roll extra dice before you see if an ability worked, and often there are consequences if it fails. Drain and other adjustment powers reduce your enemy's powers temporarily, but they can return during the fight. Avoid using certain character builds that make the game take longer. Extra steps and extra record keeping are bad. --The fewer things you have to keep track of, the better. If Radioactive Rick is robbing a railroad, and your heroes are just supposed to show up and kick his butt, it's not important to give him a lot of special abilities that eat up your time. He's a throwaway villain, allow him to behave as such. Give him enough Endurance to last the fight. Don't make his powers too complex, such as having a Force Field that he can alternate between PD and ED or something that requires you to think about it. Don't give him a power that randomly activates on certain phases, or defenses that might turn off if he fails a roll. All that stuff requires more time from you. --Monitor your players' character builds. If your player isn't all that familiar with the system, don't let him build a character he doesn't know how to play. Variable Power Pools can paralyze a new player with too many options. Sometimes when you can do everything, you end up doing nothing. Martial arts often modify combat values, and if a player isn't that familiar with them it can slow down the already slow process of figuring out what you need to hit. A lot of complex character designs can leave a new player scratching their heads. Make sure everybody has enough Endurance to run their character for at least a turn before they begin play.

First, you've got to understand that what you're describing is incredibly powerful. With even 1D6 of such an ability, with one action, your character can take out an opponent for up to 6 phases. For most characters that's an entire Turn. It's not quite a one-shot knockout, but it almost is. You can incapacitate opponents for a huge amount of time, and you want it to auto-hit. In other words, it's going to be very expensive. So what you're really looking at is building a power that takes an opponent out of a fight with one shot, but has a limitation on it so it operates according to your "roll a D6, lose that many actions" system. Because basically the guy is hosed for however many phases you roll on the dice. So you build a power to completely take him out, and then limit it from there. So let's go over some possibilities (to give a sense of scale, this is assuming a standard 12D6 game, and I'm using 5th edition rules): The blasty way to do it 30D6 Energy Blast, area effect accurate (+1/2), no knockback (-1/4), only to "KO" to prevent target from taking actions (-1), target recovers automatically in XD6 phases (-?) You knock the target unconscious with your mega-oversized attack. You knock him to -40 Stun or something and he's in the GM discretion range. But the limitation means that he's not actually "unconscious" -- he didn't actually lose any Stun, he didn't take any Body, he didn't fly backwards from knockback, he doesn't take x2 Stun if he's hit by someone else, he's still aware of what is happening, etc. He's only "unconscious" in the sense that being at negative Stun prevents you from acting, and that's the game mechanic you want to duplicate here. The value of the last limitation of recovering in XD6 phases depends on how many D6 you roll. 10D6 would not be a limitation at all. 1D6 might be somewhere between a -1 and a -2. The flashy way to do it 20D6 Flash vs Sight, Hearing, Radar, Touch, Mental, Smell, Spatial Awareness, etc., area effect accurate (+1/2), target still peripherally aware of surroundings (-1/4), target recovers automatically in XD6 phases (-?) It's the same general idea. They get Flashed enough so that they can't sense anything, and therefore can't target anything. So they can't shoot, can't fight, can't really even move around. While they could technically blindly fire off energy blasts or something like that, they can't sense their environment in any way. There's a "peripherally aware of surroundings" limitation which means they won't blindly run into a fire, or fall off a cliff, and if somebody says something to them they might remember it once they can take an action again. But the power is intended to stop them cold when it comes to actual useful actions. The final limitation on automatically recovering will be lower than in the first example, because being at -40 Stun recovers far more slowly than does a 20D6 Flash. Since you're "waking up" faster anyway, you get less of a limitation for a rapid recovery. The scary way to do it +100 Presence, only for presence attacks (-1), only to make target stand still (-1/4), target recovers automatically in XD6 phases (-?) Again, we're taking a power that can totally eliminate a target from play, and limiting it so he isn't as removed as he would normally be. The limit of "only for presence attacks" might actually be too high -- it's in a book somewhere, but you generally don't need +100 Pre to defend or for skill rolls, so it's clear that the only purpose here is for attack anyway. The XD6 limitation will be very very small, as Pre attacks don't tend to last more than a single turn anyway. The go-away way to do it Extra Dimensional Movement, usable as attack (+1), ranged (+1/2), area effect accurate (+1/2), target can still be seen (-0), target comes back XD6 phases (-?) You make them go to a different dimension where there's really nothing for them to do. The upside to this method is that it's a lot cheaper, as you only need the base level of XDM before advantages. The downside is that unless you have Transdimensional attacks, you can't hurt them while they're looking at your magic trick. The "target can still be seen" represents the fact that they haven't really gone anywhere, and it doesn't make sense for them to vanish from view. Effectively they haven't gone anywhere, but since they've technically been moved to another dimension, they aren't a legal target until they come back. For some reason nobody shoots at them during this time. The grabby way to do it 12D6 Entangle, area effect accurate (+1/2), takes no damage from attacks (+1/2), target released after XD6 phases (-?) I think you all get the gist of it by now.