Supreme

There are few, if any, differences between (current) Supreme and the Silver-Age Superman. The most notable differences are that Supreme has no super-ventriloquism or super-breath. Check out the first trade-paper back collection of Supreme, "Story of the Year." There are two issues that mention specifics on his powers. The first is when Supreme is flying off to rescue Suprema from Gorrl the Living Galaxy. Supreme has a running inner monologue about how his senses work. He really just extends his consciousness. Thus he has no "micro-sight" but merely extends his consciousness to the molecular level. The other is when he fights the fictional "Omni-Man," summoned by Mr Mxyp-- I mean, Szazs the Sprite Supreme. Thats' where there's mention of Supreme having no equivalent to "Omni-Exhalation." Keep in mind that Supreme's universe undergoes constant "revisions" which periodically redefine his powers. In the first issue of "Story of the Year" Supreme meets other Supreme's who were "revised" out of existence. One of them comments, "Be careful, his powers may be so poorly defined that they are practically unlimited." In this way, Supreme is VERY close to the Silver-Age Superman. His powers (or limits thereof) are very poorly defined and change periodically to fit the story. You may consider giving your Supreme a VERY large VPP to reflect that.

Well, yes, that's one of the things about super-heroes - like any set of myths or legends or tall-tales - they aren't meant to be realistic or even internally consistent. They are impossible on virtually every level. I was just trying to focus on one of the impossibilities. And you raise an interesting point about ice. Are there any rules about knockback while on ice, or in microgravity?

Though it is possible that your suggestion is sound, I'll never know because your avatar is just too distracting.

She's got NCM. Once her COM hits 20, which costs 5 points, the cost doubles. Thus, to get her to 25 from 20 costs another 5 points.

Ah! Now we're getting somewhere. But isn't there a limit on how much planting you can do? Isn't there a point, on the super-human scale, when the ground should give way? I'm only curious about this. I'd never burden my players with nit-picking like this.

Well, Keith's comments aside, most of the time when someone gets knocked down from a punch it's because they get pushed off balance, or lose consciousness. They don't usually get knocked down by the force of the blow, even in heayweight boxing matches.

That's why gyms have strong floors.

If I had ridiculously high strength and hit someone with enough force to send them flying several meters, wouldn't I also send myself backward a (roughly) equal amount? Equal an opposite reactions being what they are.

Good to know. Thanks, guys. Of course that begs a MUCH larger question (that's probably already been debated). What if I defined a sense as sight (SFX-wise), but paid for all those "fringe benefits?" Would I be able to keep that sense if I were flashed for normal sight. For instance, if I bought Detect: Magic and defined the special effect as something that my character senses through his eyes, then paid for all the other effects normally associated with sight. Then someone did a normal sight flash on me. Would I still retain my "magic sight" which would allow me to "see" things like characters and objects with magical effects (with non-magical things appearing as black)?

My Wife Supreme used to run a pep squad, so don't think the knowledge I'm about to present is any indication that I'm some kind of a Pederast Supreme... Cheerleading really should be based upon DEX. It's basically a combination of dancing and acrobatics. I suppose you could make an argument that the cheering and getting the crowd hyped up would be a function of PRE, but the physical demands are SO much more central. You could argue that cheerleading choreography was INT based.

Wouldn't this only allow detection at no range (adjacent hex) and without being able to sense any detail? In other words, you would only detect a spirit when it was right next to you, and then you would only "see" an amorphous shape and "hear" unintelligible sounds. You wouldn't be able to tell if this was the same spirit that you detected a minute ago, whether it was male or female (in life), whether it was even human (in life), or what it was saying (if anything). This is actually where the expanded senses rules mystify me a bit. If I buy a five point detect and declare it as part of my sight group, does that mean that the other features of normal sight (as sense, range, discriminatory, targetting, etc.) get tacked on for free? I suppose that would seem fair since you also lose that sense when flashed for normal sight, the most common flash attack there is.

Sounds a but like Hermes. Interesting. Aesthetically, I like "Volos" a lot! Thanks.

There used to be a couple of online HERO dice generators (ones you didn't have to install on your PC). Anyone know where they are?

I'm making a Dr. Doom-style character for an upcoming Marvel Age (early 60s) game. He's a guy from a fictitious Eastern-bloc country who gets technological secrets from a derelict space-craft. His primary MO is to use this technology to simulate magic. He is particularly fond of using his techno-magic to recreate things like vampires, werewolves, zombies, etc. The arc of this villain will be to go from Dr. ___ to Lord ___ after he conquers his fictitious slavic country of origin. So what I'm looking for is a slavic name that's similar to an English word related to his faux-magic MO (i.e., conjuror, magician, arcane, etc.). Also acceptable would be a name/word relating to fear or terror since that's the reason he's adopted his MO. Thanks Supreme in advance.

I can't believe no one has mentioned how important a high Constitution is to a brick. When I make mega-bricks like the Hulk or Superman, I give them a minimum of 33 CON.

If you want you could add a house rule. In HERO there's a little-known optional rule about "Extraordinary Successes." If you make a skill roll by ten or more, you are allowed to make an extraordinary success, which is up to the GM. So, an "extraordinary" perception roll could mean that other than just hearing footsteps, you would be able to tell how many people, what footwear they were wearing, etc. In our game if you make an attack roll by ten or more it's a critical hit. All damage is max (i.e., 10D6 = 60 STUN, 20 BODY). For Missile Deflection, you could say that making the roll by ten or more means you don't lose a half phase or whatever (I never use MD, so I have no idea how much time it takes).

Re: Re: Mysterious Lights? I'd say it was a time-honored tradition starting with the original Beast in Lee & Kirby's X-Men (perhaps even before). The juxtaposition of a character's motif with their expected personality traits. Hank McCoy wasn't originally the bon vivant that we know today. Originally he was a highly-cultured (even somewhat stuffy), book-worm who looked like a gorilla. I wonder if anyone's ever made a psionic who was crude and low-brow. That might be like a bull loose in the china shop.

Excellent post, KA. Comments: I suppose it all depends upon your point of view. Seriously, I guess the real concept is "manipulation of light," but I also wanted to be open to light projection, absorption, etc. I was thinking of this exact thing. It's an extrapolation of the idea of the quantum twinning experiments where they transmitted the properties of one beam of light to another. On a fundamental quantum level a person is composed of energy just like a beam of light. The only problem conceptually for me is that the beam of light he pops out of has to have his equivalent mass in evergy, which is something like a gigaton nuclear explosion. Still, this is a super-hero concept. This is more like it. He can shine a light into his own face, and transmit the properties of the light leaving the scene where the criminals are to him so he can see them. Or in reverse, he can project an image of himself out of their watch-lights, lit matches, etc. That could work! In general, I find GMs not liking detective-types to have telepathy. Also, those aren't technically photons, but electrical impulses transmitted by Potassium ions (is that right?). Not sure what IPE is, but I like this as a SE for MR (M&M?). KA, you're my kind of evil!

Just thought I'd inject this... Like the Greek deities, the Voodoo Loa (or "Lwa") are generally neither good nor evil. They are just super-powerful beings with their own agenda. Regarding them as evil is like hating the rain. Baron Samedi, while the most notorious "party crasher" at ritual possessions (people seeking to be possessed by other Loa often find themselves possessed by Samedi instead), the Baron of Saturday is generally regarded as the Christ figure of Voodoo (hero fighting for humanity who returns from the dead). Not that he wouldn't make a great NPC that the heroes occassionally have to fight, but when they do they should understand that something is really, really wrong. Also he should appear through possessing people.

I once did a complete write-up of the effects of all the Silver-Age Kryptonites. Lost it, unfortunately. My current Golden Age character, Freedom Fighter, is a former heavy-weight boxing chamion who wears a bullet-proof costume made from "Freedom Cloth." It's an "advanced form of anti-ballistic nylon" which his brother invented before being destroyed along with the secret formula at Pearl Harbor. FF's personal hunted is the Baroness von Beck who's out to steal it back. I also came up with an idea for a powered-armor character who got his tech from an abandoned alien ship. The substance is like a long-chain polymer. Orient the molecule one-way and it's a highly resistant, light-weight polymer. Orient the molecule another way, and it becomes a super-conductor. Thus you can make armor plating with it that has molecule-thin circuits that never break.

Good stuff. What are terahertz waves?

Re: Horror campaign Power levels have nothing to do with fear. Players will react to the imagery you conjure. I ran a game once where I tried to scare a player by confronting his character with a giant spider. At first I just said "giant spider," and he replied, "oh." Then I said, "giant mutant spider with a dozen eyes and twenty legs with green venom dripping from its maw." "Oh s%!#" was his reply. As the GM you can always conjure something powerful enough to destroy them. They know this. They also know that, as an honorable GM, you won't just conjure something that kills them and leaves. You have to "play fair." What you have to do is conjure scenarios and images that are emotionally provocative and make them forget all of that. Here you should play dirty. If you know yor players well enough put things in the game that you know they personally fear (the players, not the characters). What would probably be a good idea is to require them to make characters that have at least one phobia that they themselves possess. Damn, I'm devious.

I was thinking about something like that. A big spotlight that prevented them from seeing anything outside of the spot-lit area. That could be his "balefire" (a fire maintained by sentries to warn of evil-doers). He could also add in the x-ray effect so that they each saw their own skeletons. "I know you inside and out." Sort of like the Shadow.