pbemguy

(I normally don't mind wading through legalese but I'm running on about 54 hours without sleep at the moment and would trust that I understood, or would remember, what I've read. Thanks for the reply.)
 
That's perfectly fine as a starting point, unless others can find a better way for it to easily work. I basically needed to know what to expect before starting rather than risking anyone finding out it wasn't going to act like she thought it might long after already making her contributions to the project. I much prefer established rules which everyone (at least mostly) understands to unending chaos and drama. 
 
If anyone really balks at the idea of signing over their most precious characters for the project, it might be that someone much more clever than I could find a way to make it work so that they retained the rights. In the original superhero team for the Champions game, if I remember correctly, the creator of Gargoyle reserved that character for himself yet that character's image showed up on a cover or two of official HERO products.And I think that character was at least mentioned in the Champions comic book.

Actually, the term “mercy bullet” came from Doc Savage using them in his pulp novels in the 1930’s.

I'm not sure how that works (and don't have the patience to wade through potential legalese at the moment).  Nor do I know how group projects, in general, work when it comes to creator rights.
 
Let's say I contribute some really cool idea that I've been toying with for decades and it gets included in a small part of the book. I decide later that I can finally dedicate the time to flesh out that idea as it's own book.
 
1) The concept for this wiki book is that all the profits go to HERO. Would I still have ownership rights of my contribution and be able to write my own for-my-profit book using it? Could HERO tell me "no"? Could I take it and use it in another non-HERO universe or have I permanently ceded the idea to be part of the HERO universe (unless I file of the serial numbers and rename everything)? I don't have a particular problem with it staying in the HERO universe but if I think of an awesome short story to use it in the Wild Cards universe, it'd be nice to know whether it's worth my time plotting it out and pitching the idea before I spend my time obsessively thinking it through.
 
2) Would I have any control over how my contribution is used in the future in HERO products? Not that I expect that my contribution will turn out to be secretly willing pawns of Evil Space Nazis From Outer Space if some other author touches it but I expect that my contribution will turn out to be secretly willing pawns of Evil Space Nazis From Outer Space if someone else touches it.
 
3) What happens with those ideas that I throw out for the wiki which don't get chosen to be included? Does that material remain part of the group effort perhaps for inclusion their second or third campaign book (or to go dormant because those ideas belong to a mostly defunct group)? Do those ideas become open for use by the other contributors in their HERO projects because they were once part of the group? Or do all rights revert to me?
 
Tossing off casual ideas off the top of my head or helping someone else fine tune their idea is one thing. I'll literally do that all day long for fun.
 
But offering ideas which I've put quite a bit of thought into over the course of years is quite a bit different, for me at least.
 
Very much looking forward to the project. Just trying to clarify to what extent I can feel comfortable contributing ideas in which I've become emotionally invested.

Transform is an interesting effect. Ultron once used an Encephalo-Beam weapon on the Avengers which was basically "Transform target person into a coma patient".
 
A less severe option might be "Transform target into someone who has to spend x2 END for any action". That sounds a little more like the power an evil GM would give to next week's villain but I could see a hero using it in an attempt to cripple a villain who is otherwise too tough to handle.

I had a character in 4th edition with a Sonic Auto-Blaster.
 
It was something like 2d6 Energy Blast, Autofire, One Hex, 0 END, NND (defenses were being deaf or having no internal body structure to be painfully rattled around). The low initial cost meant you could add on tons of advantages and the effect still be cheap. I don't remember the costs on the advantages in that edition off-hand but I think it added up +4 1/2 or +5 which made for an affordable cost to purchase.
 
The special effects was something like what they showed sometimes in the original Star Trek series when someone grabs their head and pretends to be in agony (this time from repeated sonic strobing which is heard very loudly in the one hex and somewhat muted and not painful from further away).
 
Of course the original character had 13 OCV vs 3 DCV for the hex so most people would get hit with 8-10 dice of NND damage...it was deliberately just a bit over-powered. But if your Punisher guy doesn't have an outrageously high OCV, it shouldn't be too much though. It's a nice effect that's probably going to stun a normal person or two. Or let the hero get at least some damage done to extremely high defense opponents, hard to hit martial artists, etc. rather than flailing away to no effect with other attacks.
 
If you didn't want to do the power as a gun, it could be bought as grenades.
 
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Drop a gadget that warns bystanders away and automatically calls the police,  PRIMUS, or your teammates. Very flavorful at least but I don't know that I'd want to pay points for it.
 
Alternatively, it'd be humorous to drop a gadget that pretends to call PRIMUS and lets you call out a "conversation" to it in a series of pre-programmed responses.
 
Stuff like "We've got a situation here" gets a reply of "We're homing in on the locator beacon. Five more seconds and we'll have it." Or pretending you're giving the description of the perps or their license plate or whatever information the bad guys wouldn't want the authorities to immediately have. You're wanting the bad guys to think "Oh, crap. I need to silence that communicator" rather than focus on shooting at you. It makes your monologues more meaningful.
 
 
 
 

Synapse-Sticks: escrima sticks that Drain INT. Most characters don't buy up INT so it doesn't take much to take them down to 0 INT or less. See your edition for the effects of 0 INT but I think the effect is generally that a person with 0 INT or less has to make an INT roll if they want to take a different action (if they blow the roll, they just continue doing what they were doing because they literally can't think of anything better to do).
 
Obviously more humorous if you catch them doing something inappropriate rather than punching you. For example, if they're getting up off the floor, they'd continue to try to get up off the floor whether or not they were already up.

What can be more "Punisher Light" then "mercy bullets", bullets with a wax tip filled with sleepy juice. They do body damage, but are not as lethal as full bullets.
 
Blame Marvel for that.

How about oil slick grenades to cause people to slip and fall?
Flash Bangs are popular though I think I may over use them.
Aerosol numbing agents - Touch flash.  Makes it harder to fight in HTH.
Holographic 3D emitters.  Make 6 of you with images sight and sound.
Stun Knux.  Basically Tasers built into brass knuckles.
An ugly stick.  A linked PRE drain only vs. attacks.  You bloody then up so badly its hard to take them seriously.  I might have to do this against my players soon.  heh heh heh.
 
I have a couple of HTH fighters with neat gimmicks.  Most of these are on villains but a couple are on heroes.
I have a hero with 0 END Strength and martial arts.  However, he has a naked advantage on his entire punch damage that also costs 0 end with an activation roll of 8-.  The advantage is autofire 3, so yeah, it's expensive.  What happens is, I make a normal punch.  If I connect, I roll 3d6 and on a 8-, I find an opening and the regular attack becomes up to 3 more hits.  Note if I miss or I don't hit him well enough, it doesn't matter.  So far, its never activated properly. I have a villain which has 1d6 aid on a trigger.  Every time he misses, he aids his OCV (6th ed).  Eventually, he will get so good in combat as to always hit you.  The aid is only good against one hero, so different heroes have a different bonus to be hit.  The trick would be to constantly change who fights the villain.  So far, his OCV against a hero only got up to about +3 before he gets double teamed and knocked out (see below about one of the attacks). The same villain also had 2d6 aid to DCV on a similar trigger but only if he got hit by a direct attack.  He only got to +1 DCV before someone haymakered him to oblivion.  The main problem here was the players had poor CVs and he had a good DCV so he was hardly hit. The no martial art martial multipower (6th) basically has 20 strength, and 4 OCV and 4 DCV in multiple variable slots.  It also has HA area of effect hexes for groups of agents, HA AP as a find weakness attack, HA NND, and HA autofire. I am one of the few GMs which will allow speed drain and I have one martial artist with a 1d6 speed drain.  This probably isn't useful for most PCs as most GMs abhor this.  But you could also drain PD, ED, or CON per hit.  Basically wearing down of defenses and making it easier to stun the target. I have a gunfu character with a naked variable advantage on her gun (5th).  It allows her to do head shots (+ STUN), autofire, AP, or indirect with her single shot pistol as a form of trick shooting.  
 

Punisher Lite - Great Taste, Less Killing

I barely know my sinestra from my destra, but how are you running the campaign? (email? messenger?)

Well, the 5E Gadgets And Gear book has tons of varied stuff, and in PDF isn't too expensive: https://www.herogames.com/store/product/252-gadgets-and-gear-pdf/
 
However, if you're more interested in cool concepts than game stats, I recommend the Gadgets! module for 3E Champions. Every item is given a background history and distinctively-described SFX, which IMHO give them more color and style than later Hero gadget publications. https://www.herogames.com/store/product/835-gadgets-3rd-edition-pdf/
 

Taser gun.
 
Gas grenades (spewing sleep gas or irritation gas)
 
My Belladonna character was conceived carring a dart pistol shooting wooden slivers coated with a plant based sleep toxin (Basically Mind Control, Based On CON, NND [Immune to poison, does not sleep at all, resistant armor all over], one command ["go to sleep"]). It doesn't take more than 4 to 6 dice, cause your only targeting normal with it anyways.

"Let's just pretend it's Tourette's, okay?"
 
My buttons are large
 
 

"I have depression.  I will not apologize for it anymore."

Find a new superhero?

I started gaming in the 80s and Champions was first, then Superworld. In fact, ran  a loose SW campaign that started as a CoC (Call of Cthulhu) game , on and off for nearly a decade. Also  tried Marvel TSR and Gurps. 

I just pick a job that you can put "freelance" in front of.
 
The characters I've played that pop into my head were:
photographer, musician, substitute teacher (eventually lost the job for not showing up to gigs, became a freelance IT guy), paid superhero (like the Avengers)
 
Some of my players have used recently:
private investigator, homeless person, mercenary, CEO of tech company, bookstore/cafe owner
 
 
This one is ideal. But it doesn't have to be a person making money off videos of her superhero self. Many Youtubers make money--even millions--playing video games. So a scrappy little Youtube gamer who occasionally misses upload schedules because he's in a supervillain dungeon could scrape by.
 

Forgive the screaming. 
I have 3 children under 10

Forgive my sarcasm
I have a condition.

Yes, I did the same thing. A VPP of random stuff that helps the character. At one point I had a lightning bolt hit one of her opponents. It was a little cloudy, but the WTF moment was priceless.
 
You can do the "ballet of fortune" like in one of the Superman movies, where Clark steps on a guy coming out of an open manhole etc.
Or naturally occurring Rube Goldberg stuff can take the sting out the power and make the players laugh:
 
"A young woman's bikini top snaps, a guy in a Tesla swerves off the road gawking, hits a fire hydrant, it sprays out and knocks the gun out of your hand as you're about to shoot Snafu."

I don't know if it helps, but once upon a time, Hero Mchine had some sort of liscence you could buy to use their stuff in your commercial product.  You may want to see if that's still an option. 

Shockingly poor judgment, Phy. (11) (all the time)...?

Because it can't be overcome with an Ego Roll, like a psychological one can.

Just out of curiosity i'd like to know if there are here italian speaking players. I'm running a 6th Champions campaign and at the moment I'm not looking for more members but who knows in the future? 
Morover I'd like to know more players speaking my language. 😀

Just a joke, man. 🤷‍♂️
 
 
Personally, I've been using HD since the early days of its life, and while there have been a few glitches here and there I've never had a significant problem w/ it.
 
As a more serious answer, I used earlier products before HD came along, Hero Maker and Creation Workshop if memory serves, and made some export templates for CW...so it has been a very long time since I wrote Hero System characters out by hand. Even in its first version HD blew the doors off of CW for me; I switched and never looked back.