Spidey88

Re: Write Your Own Obituary Hmm... Well, with Phidippus' obit, I'll go for what he'd want someone to say (he's a little too humble to write something like this himself if he knew it would see print), rather than what he necessarily thinks would be said if he died. Also, this obit would obviously make no mention of his secret I.D.! Today we mourn the loss of one of the city's, indeed, the world's most stalwart defenders - Phidippus. In the brief time that we knew him, he proved to us that true heroism trancends the darkest past, and that sincere redemption is not just a naieve dream. From humble origins he came: an orphan, taken in by vipers, and given great power with the intention that he use it for destruction and evil. Those vipers, as did many who sought to commit hateful acts against those around them, underestimated his fortitude, courage, and unquenchable spirit of decency; and against all odds, Phidippus cast off the shackles of treachery and deceit, and embraced his true destiny - using his lightning-quick wits and unparalled athletic prowess as our cherished defender, role model, and friend. Though he faced incredible challenges on a daily basis, not for a single moment did his dedication to his noble ideals falter; though others might have used such astounding abilities for selfish purposes, he pledged them to our defense and well-being; and even though he stared down modern-day demons whose darkness threatened to envelop our very souls, he maintained the lighthearted spirit and good nature that touched everyone who knew him, however short-lived their accquaintance. He has left an enduring legacy, both for those who knew him and those generations yet to come. We will all miss Phidippus. Though he is gone, he will live on eternally, providing we remember him, and follow the example he set for us. In that sense, at least, his immortality is assured. Phidippus leaves behind no next of kin, but all those kind and decent in the world, especially the children, called him "friend". All those wishing to pay their respects may do so at Memorial Park, Tuesday at 9:00 AM, where the Mayor will unveil the statue commisioned in his memory. Please bring a donation of non-perishable items to be given to the food bank, gently used clothing of any kind for the homeless shelter and orphanage, or a monetary donation for the above if you are able. ("sniff....")

Re: New poster here, Character help needed too! Rynak Whitestar: I think we may be on the same page in terms of thinking that a) the "linked" on all these powers is perhaps not the right usage, and that taking OIF and OIHID is perhaps double-dipping, esp. combined with the Linked. Linked seems to be a lim that incites a lot of discussion here, as it's a little ambiguous. It's a fuzzy issue to me at the moment. Again, assuming I remember the book correctly, even if you do allow it, -1/2 is probably too much for this type of linked anyway, assuming Darksteel is using the armour most of the time (and he should, considering he has no powers whatsoever without it!) As for the "Very difficult to obtain" lim, that doesn't necessarily imply that the focus is expendable (again, AFAIK without my book), just that if the Focus does get bady damaged/stolen, it's nearly impossible to replace! For example, think Green Lantern, if he had no connection to the Green Lantern Corps. Some alien crashlands in the field, and gee whiz! Look at this funky magic ring he gave me. The next year, GL's ring slips off while he's fighting a hurricane in the mid-pacific. Assuming he doesn't drown, he's got to either a) suck up to Aquaman and get him to pass the word along when some hermit crab stumbles across it, or hope another alien crashlands in his hometown. Basically, he'd be absolutely screwed until the DC GM decided to give him a break. In this case, the armour could be built off the remains of that same alien spacecraft out of some unknown metal, be the product of a once-in-a-lifetime stroke of genius that's nearly impossible to reproduce, etc. So, AFAIK, it's book-legal (help me out here, guys!), but will proably lead to no good later on. Maybe much later, but sometime. If it doesn't, then he's getting a limitation that isn't a limitation - if it does, well, he's out of a superhero career for the forseeable future. Since you've got the Champions genre book, then that helps a little. Defender provides a good template to work off of. That being said, in my opinion, the published characters for the Champions Universe are written up in a fashion that is as non-controversial as possible, so you could use them in a game by the most uptight GM imaginable, and also avoid the temptation in players to saddle themselves with every lim possible to squeeze out that extra point. I think the primary reason you don't see builds with the "Difficult to replace focus" shtick is that it creates a situation that lets the character with those foci have the potential for way more power than normal, or way less power than normal, at the whim of something like a single determined thief. I don't feel confident enough to say one way or the other what to do with this lim, but my opinion if it were my own game: it's best left for a villain's one-shot maguffin. Sooner or later, it'll bite you in the backside. HARD. TheSneakySmalls: if Rynak Whitestar gives you the OK on those lims; be sure you're cool with the thought of Darksteel losing his armour for an extended period of time, relieved pretty much at Rynak's whim, with no substitutes save what you can buy with saved character points. It sounds really harsh - but that's what that limitation entails (in my mind anyway). Incidentally, that program seems to keep gypping you on the points in your skills. Sounds like you're keeping tabs on that, though. Oh - and good plan to change that disad to fatigue only. It'll keep Darksteel out of the hospital after a night on patrol, at least! Maybe you should post Darksteel on his own thread? It might generate a little more responses from the rest of HEROdom, and there's plenty of folks who could HERO-fu me into the ground (and resolve some of the things I'm struggling with a bit)...

Re: MancerBear's Art Den Keep it up! (Translated to supervillain-ese) More! MORE! MOOOOOOOORRRE!

Re: New poster here, Character help needed too! Hmm... Well, you've got a solid concept, and some good ideas thus far - that's 2/3 the battle taken care of right there. You've got a long list of skills, many of which are unrelated to combat, so it seems that Darksteel will be a huge asset to the team, both on and off the field. That being said, it's easier to pick things apart than build them in the first place, so on to the hard part (eep)... Things that I might potentially see as problems if I was your GM: The OIF (extremely difficult to obtain new focus) thing on nearly all your powers feels like it might be a little much. Granted, it's perfectly legal, it just means that sooner or later, you're going to have that armour destroyed or stolen, and have to go without it for a long time, or sell your soul to get another suit - which will be a huge pain... Also, in conjunction with the "linked" lim on all of them, it feels a little like double-dipping - but that's just an instinctive opinion as opposed to saying "it's wrong!". This is definitely a subject to discuss with the GM and the other players - as-is, you're getting over double the powers Blacklamb's (and presumably most of the other characters) are! If, on the other hand, your GM never brings up the issue of having the armour taken away, then it isn't really a limitation! That nasty disad about taking damage from the suit is a bit of a mitigating factor, but it might get to be pretty irritating pretty quick - at least it's cheap enough that you could buy it off pretty quick if it was too much of a pain. (For the record, it's unique and imaginative, as well as possibly being fairly realistic - but 2d6 an hour, esp. with BODY damage means you will not be able to take long stretches in the suit, and will have to spend long periods outside of it getting better.) (Not intended as a harsh critique, just wanted to give you food for thought. This may be a knee-jerk reaction on my part, since I'm used to seeng most "official" power-armour types get written up with just "OIF" or "OIHID" on their armour-based powers.) Also, though I'm working off of memory here, I think you're giving too much of a limitation for "Linked" at -1/2. I'm assuming Darksteel is going to be wearing the armour pretty much all the time in crimefighting mode, and I think "Linked" is worth a little less (only -1/4) when the power linked to is "on" or in use most of the time. Your punches + kicks HA slot, when combined with your STR, will exceed the 85 active point cap of your campaign - the base STR, armour bonus STR, and HA damage all stack in that regard for that calculation. You'll do 18d6 damage with a punch (and 1/2 END to boot) - you'd have to reduce the HA damage pretty significantly (to a maximum of 5 1/2 d6, which would stack with 5 1/2 d6 dmg from STR - see earlier in the thread for some details on stacking advantaged HA damage and STR), or reduce the damage by just 1d6 and drop the 1/2 END. Ask about this if it's still fuzzy - stacking damage from HAs, advantaged HAs, STR, and martial maneuvers is pretty complex, as I've recently discovered. You could probably save some points by buying some skill levels with related skills, instead of all those bonuses to individual skills. eg. "+X to Electronics, Inventor, and Systems Operation" (those were just pulled out of a hat, so don't think of those skills as the only possible combination), or "+X to all Intellect skills". If I'm reading the sheet right, you overpaid for your Electronics skill by 3 points - it's just one skill, you shouldn't have to break it up like that into separate specialties, like in GURPS. Ditto for Combat Piloting and Acrobatics cost-wise - either you paid too much, or the roll's too low. Be advised that your character will be vey susceptible to mental attacks and PRE attacks - if you knew that already, cool - just thought you should be aware! Extra PRE, OIHID is a cheap investment. I think, for the time being, that your character is beyond my ability to comment on further without the proper resources at hand. Perhaps someone with better HERO-fu can step in for the moment... I sincerely hope I haven't come across as overly negative thus far. Please, feel free to disagree with anything I've said - I don't claim to know everything! If this is your first HERO character, you've done better than most!

Re: Stupid Velocity Question Great minds think alike, evidently!

Re: Stupid Velocity Question Oh, okay - this one's a lot simpler. "V" is how fast you're moving when you pull off the maneuver. That isn't the same as "how far you've moved", since you can accelerate to top speed fairly quickly (at 5" per hex, if I remember correctly, barring the use of movement skill levels). For example, you've got a character with STR 50 and 15" of running. assuming he's got at least 3" between him and his target (allowing him to get up to full speed), ol' freight train here would do STR (10d6) + v/3 (15/3 = 5d6) damage - so the total would be 15d6. Also, if memory serves, you can only get full dice from velocity stuff like this, so if this character had only 14" of running, he'd only get 4d6 extra damage from his move. Of course, the character doesn't have to use his max. movement rate... Again, I couldn't tell you exactly where to look for this, but it will be either: a) the description of the specific maneuver in question (eg. look up move-through in the index), or at the beginning of the section those types of maneuvers are listed in. It should come up as "the v/x element" or something similar, and you should be able to find it in the index too. Hope that's more helpful!

Re: Stupid Velocity Question I'm not sure where it is in 5ER (I don't own it, and my older 5th is on loan) - but here's how to figure it out: Take your character's speed and divide it by 12. Multiply this number (almost surely a fraction) by your character's movement rate - this will give you your character's movement in inches per second. Multiply this number by 2 to get meters per second (though if you consider an inch to be two yards and not meters, multiply this number by 0.915), and then 3.6 to get your character's velocity in kilometers per hour. For those who are metric-impaired, multiply your speed in kph by 0.625 to get your speed in miles per hour. This will give you your combat velocity: don't forget to multiply your combat velocity by your noncombat multiples, to see how fast you can go when you really set your mind to it. You could take pushing into account if you wanted to see the absolute maximum - this would make a huge difference for cheaper movement modes like leaping, swimming, and swinging. Hopefully that comes out reasonably clear!

Re: New poster here, Character help needed too! Ouch! And here I was assuming you were a player, and not the GM!

Re: New poster here, Character help needed too! Hey, why not? I made a villain that can create vast mental illusions, but wears a STR-enhancing powersuit "just in case". That's the great thing about HERO - no arbitrary limits (just not always enough points to do it all at once)!

Re: New poster here, Character help needed too! Good call, Hyper-Man - I'm in the same boat with you there. You don't necessarily need a boatload of skills to start, but XP should make you more versatile as much as (or more than) increasing your power. I don't think this attitude necessitates changing a thing with your character, Blacklamb (like I said, he looks just fine) - but it's something to keep in mind as you play and get more experience. Oh, and welcome aboard, TheSneakySmalls! (Can I assume you're making a stealthy guy with shrinking powers? lol)

Re: New poster here, Character help needed too! So - is everyone in your gaming group new to HERO?

Re: New poster here, Character help needed too! With that handful of points saved (at least 8 or so, assuming we're on the same page), you could get a CSL or three with the chains MP, an extra MP slot, an extra skill or two, and boost his INT and/or EGO - possibly all at once!

Re: New poster here, Character help needed too! Oh, my pleasure! I hope I presented myself as just expressing my opinion, rather than telling you what must be done... FYI: the "area of effect, one hex" would still be useful, esp. coupled with the stretching (which should allow you to place that single hex anywhere within 6" of your character), but for one point more you could effect a much huger radius around you, as opposed to just one hex. Where AOE: one hex would be useful is hitting high DCV targets (or at least making them abort to a dive for cover, thus setting them up for a whumpin' by your pals), but it wouldn't really let you attack more than one target (which AOE: radius would). IMHO, a well-spent point!

Re: New poster here, Character help needed too! Whoops! One more thing - the reserve points on the multipower is too high. The highest Active point cost of any of the abilities is 40 points, and you've got 48 - so there's another few points you could shave off and put somewhere else.

Re: Police Miniatures and similar figs These are all good to know about - thanks, guys! (Now, if I could just find enough Heroclix Hydra agents - I never have enough when the PCs deal with VIPER...)

Re: New poster here, Character help needed too! Wow, dark background (and well-written)! It's nice to see some of that reflected in his Disads, without you making him into a walking pile of psychoses. Having a superhero that acts like a superhero is always good for some brownie points in my book. Incidentally, I might be somewhat leery of all those Hunteds if the rest of your group didn't share most of them. Even at 8-, that could be a lot to juggle, esp. if the other PCs have their own Hunteds! My two cents - carry on!

Re: New poster here, Character help needed too! Looks pretty good overall. I see you did use some of the points to boost his stats (most noticeably DEX and SPD). Again, how "good" these are is somewhat subjective - but I'll tell you this much, I can think of only one published villain with a DEX higher than 30, and he's supposed to be one of the world's fastest men! So that's pretty darn good in my book. That's top-flight for the Champions Universe, and equals or beats out my interpretations of Daredevil, Batman, and Captain America slightly - no mean feat! - and nips at the heels of guys like Beast and Nightcrawler (who I peg at 32 - 33). That DEX score will serve you well - though at some point in the future, you may want to consider buying come CSL's (though I'm probably preaching to the choir). The only things I'd want to do would be: - try to squeeze out an extra point for making the Whirling Frenzy slot have that radius of effect, but that's just me. I liked the idea, but you probably nerfed it for a reason - and that's entirely your perogative! - you could easily justify putting the limitation "chains only" (-1/2, if I remember the "Steel Tentacles" sample power correctly and using it as an example) on the Strength of Will, and that should not be redundant with "no figured characteristics". - as min-maxer, I'd be inclined to up Wraith's INT and EGO by one apiece, so that his INT and EGO rolls would go up by one as well - but that's just my personal taste. - watch that stretching closely: as-is, you don't have the "no velocity damage" (-1/4) limitation, so you could concievably add some extra damage dice to your HtH attacks. Coupled with Chain Lash, that would break your 85 active point limit (as the attack would be over 17d6)! Maybe your GM won't care for something this specific, but it's a good reason to take the "no velocity damage" lim and get a couple points back. Don't forget about the indirect effects of stretching, either - not that there's a problem, just that you can use it for a lot of surprise attacks and such! Very handy, indeed. Congratulations! "You've just taken your first step into a larger world."

Re: Corporate Hero Bonus HA damage, OIF (briefcase) Sign here, please: Ego Attack, OIF (legal or financial paperwork that requires a signature, cannot be ignored easily, and is absolutely impenetrable), possibly NND (PS: Lawyer or PS: businessmasn >11-) There's always loopholes: + 30 STR, only for escapes, requires incantations Tax Evasion: Sleight of Hand; coupled with TK, invisible power effects, fine manipulation, lim: only for emptying foe's wallets Time is money: Absolute time sense Have my people call your people: HRRP, OIF (Cellphone) Behold the power of the Iron Yuppie!

Re: Stretching + Autofire STR: how would you handle it? You and me both... Actually, if memory serves, there's a list somewhere of the specific things that PSLs can cover (probably in The Ultimate Skill)- anything else is CSLs. Best not to look to closely and accept the list at face value, and avoid aneurysms...

Re: New poster here, Character help needed too! Wow - that's high praise! Thank you! - though, to be honest, I think most of us on the HERO forums are cut from the same cloth in that regard... For the armour: buying that separately (as per the "Armour" power) has exactly the same effect gamewise as buying more PD and ED (directly adding to your stats) and making them resistant (via damage resistance). It's two ways of doing the same thing. As for the force field/force wall thing: considering your GM has an active point cap of 85 points, that means that you could reasonably expect to see attacks of that power thrown your way - so an attack of 17d6 against you might be expected at some point, with an average of 60 damage. Granted, that's probably around the upper range. If your character's schtick is being fairly tough, I wouldn't think it unreasonable to have that 10/10 force field too, considering you probably wouldn't have it on all the time due to the END use. 30 defense is impressive, but not impenetrable. Again, a lot depends on relativity. Objectively, your DEX is okay, but not stellar by what I expect most people's standards would be - so in order to avoid having your butt kicked by average supervillains you would need to: a) play very tactically (a perfectly viable option - but you need to be careful, and it might not be the best way to go for a starting player), buy a few CSL's that youd could put at least some of into DCV, or c) buy some more defenses. More defenses is usually the least work! Talk to your GM - he may have a vague idea of what sort of opposition you'll be facing - and talk to the other players, too. If there's a guy who's making a character who's supposed to be nigh-invulnerable and super-strong, and only has a PD of 32 (and the GM feels that's a good level to set his defense at), you might want to back off on your defenses a bit to protect his shtick. Also, though it's not foolproof by any means, your missile deflection (particularly if you go with bonus CSLs with it, on top of any other ones) will mitigate a lot of ranged attacks. Using the missile deflection does keep you on the defensive and unable to attack, but it's something to keep in mind. Short answer: no, it probably wouldn't be redundant! As for how much END you need? Well, I'd say that you've got a lot of different abilities that could all add up to a lot of end. In a long fight, you'll probably need to take an extra recovery or two here and there (but most people do!) Your SPD as is will mitigate that somewhat (it's very respectable for any well-trained "normal", but not super-fast), but I'd personally want to buy reduced END on some of your powers, particularly the stretching and movement - both of which will be cheap to do so for anyway (and also fairly justified, since the chains are doing the work), and eliminate a lot of bookkeeping for you. If your GM will allow an END reserve for you (presumably based on the chains being animated by some magical source that's separate from your regular END and REC), then you can get a lot of REC and END very cheaply - so that's another way to go. It's slightly harder to deal with two pools of endurance at the same time (esp. if one is for the character, and one is for the chains), so I'd suggest buying reduced END on some of the powers, at least the cheaper ones that aren't close to the 85 active point limit you've got. It's just simpler to keep track of. My opinion, anyway. Less END usage = less work. One option in this regard could be a HA in the multipower with 0 END. A lot of MPs you'll see in official writeups are like this - you've got a low END attack that you can use on the mooks, and a high-powered one you can pull out when the poop hits the fan. You may not even really need to worry about it, anyway - END tracking is usually one of the first things to be dropped when things get complex, anyway! I tend to ignore it when I run more than couple of villains at once. If I was you, I'd want to try out the characters in combat in a couple different scenarios with the other players - just a straight-up fight, no consequences for failure - as kind of a shakedown. Good practice. I know I've done it more than once! (A map of some kind always helps. Not just for practicality - it's more fun, too.) It'll give you a much better feel for what the character is capable of, and how to utilize his different abilities quickly when it counts. It should also give you a much better feel for his END expenditure! After the fight's over, you can then tweak your character a bit if you feel it's necessary (maybe with some unused points on the side for that). HERO system combat has so many options that even if you never do anything other than miniatures combat with it, you should still have a lot of fun. I ran a combat session last week with my group that lasted five hours - I set up a representation of a whole subway station on my coffee table out of Lego, and we used Heroclix for the characters and villains - though if we weren't having such a blast and cackling at the top of our lungs constantly we could've probably done it in two!

Re: WWYCD: To Bee or not to Bee? Phidippus's response, assuming noone else is around: "F#$%*& Hornet! Man, what a douchebag!" He'd then double-check to make sure that someone else hadn't signed the note... For those that haven't heard me ramble on about my character before, Phidippus was actually granted his arachnid-based powers by Hornet (who I beefed up quite a bit for use as Phidippus' archnemesis), during the time that Hornet was working for VIPER and assembling an arthropod-based superteam called The Swarm (whom we faced in our game just over a week ago). Phidippus defected from the team and VIPER when he was faced with a crisis of conscience (the fact that he had one), and hasn't looked back - but as a result, he and Hornet utterly despise one another. So, you can say they have some history. Really, whenever any insect-related supercrime pops up, Phidippus instantly suspects Hornet. He'd suspect Hornet would get involved in anything insect-related, really - in the same way that any artifact or jewel related even tangentally to cats in Gotham City gets nabbed by Catwoman, or anything bird-related gets nabbed by the Penguin, etc. - it is his schtick, after all. Even if he isn't behind it in some fashion, he'll probably get involved at some point (sigh)... This plot practically screams "Hornet", though there's always the possibility that someone who knows Phidippus well enough (or knows Hornet well enough) is using this fact as a red herring, either to a) throw Phidippus off his trail and onto the wrong one, to make sure he in particular is involved, using Phidippus' sense of personal responsibility regarding Hornet to draw him in to some sort of ambush/set-up, or c) has picked Phidippus knowing that he, more than most other superheroes, will understand the ramifications of this ultimatum and take it seriously. Whatever the case, there has to be a reason Phidippus was selected over anyone else. Maybe he's not the only one, and many different superheroes are running their own errands... In the first two cases, particularly if the requested item is his teammate Ashley's gauntlets (see Saiyanslayer's thread: "Character Post: Ashley" for some details), he'd suspect one of Ashley's enemies was potentially behind the plot too - especially considering we faced some of them at the same time we fought the Swarm (they had apparently teamed up, a prospect neither of us was too happy about). Phidippus has VIPER as a Hunted, and VIPER knows full well about the animosity between him and Hornet, so they're likely culprits too. Suffice to say, there's probably much more to this than meets the eye! That being said, Phidippus would likely try to go through with the plan as described. He's a well-meaning superhero, but this is too serious an issue to take lightly - he'd rather be put in the position of being a thief (and likely set up for an ambush) than be responsible (even indirectly) for the extinction of a species of insect, much less one that's vital to crop production! At the very least, he'd probably have little difficulty with the theft itself. With excellent Security Systems, Electronics, and Mechanics skills, stratospheric Acrobatics, Stealth, and Contortionist skills, not to mention superspeed + Dexterity, a danger sense, and Clinging, I suspect there'd be few heists he couldn't pull off if he set his mind to it. If Hornet or VIPER are behind this though, there's bound to be some sort of snag that will at least temporarily tarnish his reputation (they'd enjoy that way too much to pass up the chance to knock Phidippus down a peg or two). Hopefully this would leave him a fair chunk of time to research CCD in greater detail to either find the source (and beat the bad guy to the punch) or find a cure (making the ultimatum tooththless). If there's any science skill Phidippus excels at (and he is a genius), I think it's entomology! Hopefully his time with Hornet and detailed knowledge of his methodology would prove to be an asset in this case (esp, if Hornet actually is behind this plot). In any case, this much is likely: Whoever is behind this is likely very knowledgeable, or has access to those with extensive knowledge about bees (including their immunology and biochemistry) and/or the suspected causes of CCD (primarily considered to be mites, genetically modified crops, poisonous plants, or pesticides). CCD has been reported in one form or another (though often erratically or inconclusively) since before the turn of the century (though bees aren't my specialty, I am an entomologist and could jabber about this for a while longer if necessary), though it's really only gone through the roof the last couple of years. Phidippus should know this info too, so I wouldn't feel guilty about using it in a game where this scenario showed up. From this, we can infer that the culprit has likely been active at least for over a year (though it's possible said individual has just discovered the cause and has a method of distributing it in large-scale doses), possibly even longer; and has either something to gain from doing so (buy my new genetically-enchanced bees or much of the world's food supply stops) or has a serious beef with society (Darn you all for not recognizing my brilliance! I've stockpiled enough food for decades - the rest of you can rot)! Again, this practically screams Hornet, but Telios is another likely candidate (sweet merciful crap, I hope it's not him - there wouldn't be a hope in Hell of stopping him...) For that matter, maybe for the right price Telios could get involved and find a cure (though Phidippus would be loathe to suggest it). Whatever the end result of this whole mess would be - if there wasn't a cure/preventative measure for CCD uncovered over the course of this mystery, Phidippus would probably devote a large chunk of his resources and skills to finding it. What's a superhero who can make a difference supposed to do? Ignore it?

Re: New poster here, Character help needed too! Also, you could easily afford to have that +30 STR (presumably with the chains only, at a slight discount) out of the MP I posted (now that I know what your base STR is). The first MP slot would stack with 40 points worth of that STR, leaving you with potentially doing 16d6 damage (at 80 active points) - ouch! That, by pretty much anyone's definition, is a mighty powerful attack - maybe too powerful, depending on what you feel about it (I have no idea of your intentions with the character, so I leave that judgement in your hands). If you wanted to max it out completely, you'd need to up the HA damage by 1/2 d6 (which would allow an extra 1/2 d6 of STR dmg to stack with it).

Re: New poster here, Character help needed too! I'm with jkwleisemann: Some extra defenses will help a lot - presumably that's where the belt chain-armour thing comes in. I don't have any critique with the stats you posted, but be sure to get a good idea of what the other players are doing! Nothing sucks so much like having the concept of a nimble, quick guy and finding out you're 5 DEX and 2 SPD behind everyone else. It's all relative. I'm not saying "boost those stats!" What I mean is: make sure your concept matches up scale-wise with the other players. It doesn't have to mean one-upmanship with them, either - just make sure that if you see your character as being in a particular niche attribute-wise, that that niche is protected. I hope that makes sense!

Re: New poster here, Character help needed too! Thanks, man! I hope you find this useful when you get a chance to go over it in detail... As for the other powers you mentioned: The protective chains could be bought in many different ways. Again, without my book, I'm unsure of some of the details; but you could go for things such as a force field (which would turn off if you were unconscious), Combat Luck defined as the chains helping defend you (again, you pass out, no protection) or Armour (which would stick around, if I remember correctly). You've got a lot of options - what works best will depend on how thorough you want the defense to be, whther you want it to cost END, etc. A forcewall, limited range could represent whipping the chains around in such a way as to create a barrier. One particular thing that comes to mind: If you want to save a few points on the defense by having it so that the chains don't provide perfect coverage (ie. they wrap around you, but have slight gaps that get hit every once in a while), the defense could have the limitation "activation roll". If you don't want to worry about that, that's fine. Technically, you could purchase armour, define it as a belt buckle; and if you don't put the activation roll limitation on it, all attacks against you will be magically drawn to it without fail! Incidentally, another way to save some points on a lot of these chain-related powers might be to apply the limitations "Obvious, inaccessible focus". Obviously, the chains are the source of a lot of these powers, but thanks to the curse, you can't deprive him of their use for very long. The teleporting through shadows thing? Easy. Buy however many inches of Teleport you want, then apply the limitation "Only in shadows/darkness". If I remember correctly, it's a -1/2 limitation - you can find it in the "Advanced Sneakiness" power in the sidebar beside Invisibility (if you've got the book, that is). The Desolidification? Just apply "increased END cost" limitation if you feel that 4 END a turn isn't enough. Without the book here, I don't think I could take a shot at the Detect Magic thing - but it sounds fairly straightforward. Detect would be the base, then you'd have to decide if it was discriminatory, targeting, etc. I'm also at a loss to figure out the "see the spirits" thing at the moment. You could do a search on the forums for that - there's probably someone who's talked about it already. A few tidbits to consider: Extra STR (only for grabs, -1/2) would seem to make sense for a guy with lots of animated chains at his command, esp. if you've got a fairly low STR to begin with (though I'd be careful combining it with the +30 STR in the MP). You could hold HtH combatants 3" away from you (though you'd be at reduced DCV) while your buddies blasted him. This could cover certain Entangle-type effects, if you didn't want to be flinging independent pieces of chain or separate manacles or something at your enemies (the chains that wrap the enemy up are still attached to you). This would dovetail in a really devastating way with having chains act as extra limbs - you could grab a guy with a couple chains and pound on him with some more while he's held. Any regular maneuvers or martial maneuvers will stack just fine with the bonus HA slots in the MP I typed up before, as far as I know. There'd be a lot of possibilites with the radius one in particular - "Legsweep" in the middle of as many agents/goons as you like, and p-p-p-p-pow! You've got the potential to trip as many guys are in the radius (with successful rolls, of course) - leaving those foes at half DCV until they have their action and can get up (and making them easy pickings for your buddies, if their actions are at the right point in the phase - potentially a good time to consider holding your action to give your pals as much time as possible to pound the tripped foes). I think the same might apply for something like a Martial Disarm, though if you don't go with the "chains as extra limbs" thing, that wouldn't really feel right to me special effect-wise. If you like, to better simulate the slingshotty thing you could apply the enhancement "no gravity penalty (+ 1/2)" to the swinging or leaping - this would mean that you could travel upwards at the same speed you could travel laterally, instead of your upward movement being halved. If the chains can act independently of you and attack without you doing anything, you could set them up as a HA damage shield - anybody who gets too close gets whacked! (Sorry - I don't have Hero Designer, so I'm no help there!) Cheers!

Re: New poster here, Character help needed too! Alrighty - I'll give this a shot, though I'm having to work off of memory for a lot of this (I lent my precious Hero System core rules to a friend just tonight)... To start, I'd suggest organizing some of your powers under either an Elemental Control or a Multipower (you can have both, and more than one of both, too - as long as they make sense). How exactly you do this will depend on what exactly you want to do, and what you GM will let you do - but any amount of either will make things a lot cheaper! Multipowers are cheaper to buy multiple powers with, but are generally fairly restrictive with using more than one of those powers at a time. ECs aren't as cheap as MPs, but don't place any restictions on using more than one of the powers in it simultaneously. To start with the simple stuff, Swinging will cover pretty much all of the effects I could forsee with "Slingshotting", and some of the effects of Leaping. Swinging is generally treated like limited flight, with the limitation that you've got to have objects to attach to. As a result, you can usually travel straight upwards at half your normal move. If you want to move faster than normal, Using "Noncombat Speed" (if you're not familiar with it, it basically means "moving and nothing else, relatively heedless of combat around you) could represent taking that extra time to really strain against the chains for a good takeoff, like a cartoon character with a giant rubber band. Extra noncombat multiples will give you the ability to REALLY launch yourself with a little prep time (take a full phase to do nothing but move, or perhaps buy the multiples with the "Takes extra time" Limitation to represent that the setup takes more than normal effort - Like Spider-Man webbing a couple flagpoles in the first movie and then slowly straining backwards). As for Simulating leaping? A high STR will cover some of this (extra STR means extra base inches of jumping), and swinging will cover some of the rest. If you want to make sure your character can launch himself quickly when there are no objects around to grab onto (just the ground to push off of), then that's when extra Leaping would be called for. My personal suggestion? A multipower with one slot for inches of swinging, and one slot for extra leaping (if you want it). I'd keep these in a separate MP from at least some of your attack powers - mobility cannot be underrated, in my mind. You may not want to be a speedster, but swinging and leaping are pretty cheap, and being able to move to the best of your ability and wallop the bad guy is always good. Being able to do only one or the other is often less so! eg. 15) Chainy-speed MP (16 point reserve) 1u) 15" Swinging 1u) + 5" Leaping On to some of the rest: With the Stretching, I'm not quite sure what you mean by the comment "I want 3", so I'll need to buy 6". If that means you want to be able to attack with two chains at once at a range of 3", then I think you might be right (though I'm not sure). If you mean something else, you've lost me, and I'd assume you would only need to buy 3" of stretching until you told me some specific reason why not. Personally, I'd buy the stretching separate from any attack multipower that included extra HA damage so that you could stretch and wallop a guy, unless said MP has enough reserve points to activate both at once. "No fine manipulation" is worth -1/4, and could be applied to the stretching. I'm not quite sure how versatile you want the chains to be, but extra limbs (no fine manip.) could be cheap (4 points), and easily justified as well. If you want to have fairly finite limits on the length of chain you've got on hand, "No NC multiples" seems appropriate, as does making sure you can't use the extra limbs feature at the same time. Here's an idea for an attack-based multipower (don't quote me on the values of enhancements/limitations, as I'm working from memory. You'd better double-check these if you want to use them...). Obviously, feel free to ingore some of them if they contradict what you have in mind for the chains, like how many you can bring to bear at a time. Master of Chains MP (60 point reserve) 3u) Metal's good fer bashin' stuff: + 8d6 HA (HTH attack, -1/2) - 40 active points 3u) Round and round she goes: + 4d6 HA (HTH attack, -1/2), Area of effect (radius, +1) - 40 active points (you might need to reduce the radius to the length of the stretching) 3u) Lotsa chains to bash with: + 4d6 HA (HTH attack, -1/2), Autofire x5 (+1/2), 1/2 END (+1/2) - 40 active points 2u) Bolstering chains: + 30 STR, No figured characteristics (-1/2) - 30 active points 4u)You aint goin' nowhere: Entangle (6d6, 6 DEF), no barriers (-1/2?) - 60 active points (incidentally, the limitation "set effect - arms or legs only" could be appropriate, esp. if it's manacles you're using for an entangle) 4u) Nuthin gets past 'em if I know what's comin': Missile Deflection, any ranged attack (20 points), plus Missile Reflection (x4 END, -1 1/2) (8 points), plus + 4 OCV with missile deflection/reflection (8 points) - 48 active points (I think that should cover what you wanted legally - Missile Deflection costs normal END, but Reflection sucks the END very quickly) Some options/comments: 1)The base cost of the MP is based on the highest cost power - in this case, the entangle. If you can stand for that being less effective, you could save 12 points on the reserve. 2) I deliberately made sure that all of the slots were exclusive to one another and ultras, so you couldn't stack the powers. Feel free to change that at your whim. 3)If I remeber the explanation correctly, HA's and STR stack in this fashion (give Hyper-Man the credit on this call): You can only add as much damage from your STR to an advantaged HA as you have dice in the HA. For example: 4d6 HA (area of attack, radius), 60 STR - you can only add up to 4d6 dmg from the STR, even though the base damage for that STR is 12d6. Alternatively, you could have 20 STR, and a 12d6 AOE HA, and they would stack fine. The HA dmg is way more than the STR dmg. Also, if you have no advantages on the HA, I believe you can stack it with any amount of STR with no issues. Keep this in mind if you have a huge base STR (over 45) and want to combine it with say, the +8d6 HA - you'll break that 85 point limit! Same goes if you adjust the MP to be able to use the + 30 STR at the same time as any other powers. I'll type more later (assuming this wasn't too much to digest already) - sleepytime.... Let me know if this is helpful, too much too take, or too simple for you! (Actually, this looks cheaper than I originally assumed it might...)