Christopher R Taylor

Yeah I was just thinking it would be an easy device she could use at will (defense being "no openings large enough for Wasp to fly into") which would include things like ear holes. She's blasted more than one big bad guy right in the ear, for bonus damage. Mostly though, her blasts bounce off even moderately tough guys. She uses indirect attacks like collapsing things on them and cutting electrical wires, etc. That's something I wish I could get players to try more often but they seem to lose all creativity when their powers don't work well.

If it ended up some kind of fight, Dr Strange alone could take out the DC universe, except maybe Specter. But then, if they caught him by surprise he'd have a harder time.

Another critter, this time an adaptation from the old Heroes of Might and Magic series of games (and Might & Magic, for that matter): Evil Eye Val Char Cost 10 STR 0 16 DEX 12 13 CON 3 9 BODY -1 6 INT -4 12 EGO 2 15 PRE 5 3/7 PD 1 5/9 ED 3 4 SPD 20 7 REC 3 30 END 2 26 STN 3 12m RUN 0 4m SWIM 0 2m LEAP -1 Characteristics Cost: 79 Cost Power 2 Tentacles: Stretching 2m 5 Tentacles: Extra Limbs (10 or more) (1) 6 Keen Eyesight: +3 PER with Sight Group 10 Many Eyes: Increased Arc Of Perception (360 Degrees) with Sight Group 5 Night Vision: Ultraviolet Perception (Sight Group) 5 Heat Vision: Infrared Perception (Sight Group) 5 Many Eyes: Sight Group Flash Defense (5 points) 12 Chitin: Resistant Protection (4 PD/4 ED) 30 Eye Blast: Killing Attack - Ranged 2d6 30 Charged Tentacle: Killing Attack - Hand-To-Hand 1d6+1 (1 1/2d6 w/STR), Penetrating (+1/2) (30 Active Points) 21 Levitate: Flight 14m, Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (21 Active Points) Powers Cost: 131 Cost Skill 4 +2 vs Range Modifiers Skills Cost: 4 Total Character Cost: 214 Pts. Complications 10 Physical Complication: Small (Infrequently; Slightly Impairing) 15 Physical Complication: Animal Intelligence (Frequently; Slightly Impairing) Disadvantage Points: 25 Ecology: Evil Eyes are cave dwellers almost exclusively, although some may be found in very remote, dark ruins. They tend to be loners, although at times a small number will gather together. Evil Eyes have the intellect of an animal despite their apparently brainy appearance, and will often be found in service of a more powerful master. Evil Eyes float about constantly, almost never touching the ground unless forced to or dead. Even asleep they hover in place. They feast on meat almost exclusively, and prefer meat that is slightly rotted. Evil Eyes birth live young that look like an eyeball with a single tentacle. The children are kept hidden away in small niche nests as they are very vulnerable and cannot fly (they balance on their single tentacle) for a month or more after birth. Personality/Motivation: Semi-intelligent, Evil Eyes like to collect bright and valuable-looking things. They are very irritable and angry, but if clearly outmatched or being defeated greatly, they will at times offer this treasure for their lives. Typically, however, it will flee (upward) and heal somewhere difficult to access. Powers/Tactics: In combat, the Evil Eye uses it’s potent eye blast, but should a target get too close, each has two specialized tentacles that it can charge with this energy to strike harder (doing energy damage). If possible, the Evil Eye will gain airspace where it cannot be reached with melee weapons. If this is not possible, it will use its charged tentacle to rip at opponents until they retreat, and then shoot them with its eye blast. Evil Eyes are not very tough, but they are very observant and have incredible eyesight. Due to their many eyes, it is very difficult to actually blind one with a flash attack. Campaign Use: Evil Eyes make good guardians, given their keen eyesight that can see in all directions at once. Alone, they are simply a hazard lurking in the darkness. These are often encountered solo, but can be met in groups, sometimes very large groups of several dozen deep in the darkest caves. Appearance: An Evil Eye looks like one very large eye with many smaller eyes clustered at the top and dozens of tentacles hanging nearly to the ground at the base. Two of the tentacles are longer and have flattened tips similar to a squid. Evil Eyes tend toward darker, less visible colors in the gloom of a cave, but their eyes are garish, bright mixes of colors, like green and red in fractal-like patterns offset by the whites.

When we count body on dice in our group we count the number of dice, add any sixes, and subtract any ones. Its a pretty simple system, although I highly recommend purchasing some Hero Dice (they are slightly larger than some people prefer but they make counting body easier for many people and have a fancy hero symbol for 1).

Her sting is pretty minor but can be quite effective yeah. Especially when she can get inside something; you could model that with an extra time AVAD full damage attack.

At this point both companies have lost so much quality and have annoyed me so greatly that I don't even read anything either puts out. In the past I was more of a Marvel fan, but there were always DC titles I enjoyed. In truth my favorite comics were the independent ones from the late 80s from companies like Eclipse, Comico, and the like.

A full campaign path would be interesting: start the campaign out, then follow it through to some predefined point. My favorite method of starting a superhero campaign is the "retiring supergroup" where people are brought in as applicants to the new supergroup. But what would your high level be for a Champions game? Perhaps an ongoing supervillain working behind the scenes that they finally triumph over? Its not like Pathfinder where you have a campaign to level 20 or some specified point.

The incantation is "surprise!" and the gestures are sneaking up behind someone and poking them in the sides

Yeah the ring would probably shut off the field before the target died. Could knock them out though, Sue Storm has done that before.

Ideally, agents can teach your players tactics; for example the box ambush described above; they're designed to wipe out anyone who moves in any direction except toward the ambush. Players are often good at adopting things they've seen that work well or that they've had to face.

True about Batman but did he train as long, considering he was traveling the world learning about magic, herbs, science, linguistics, computers, how to drive every vehicle possible, chemistry, on and on and on. I mean... yeah he got good training, but only for about 5-10 years, and he was busy traveling the planet training for everything else as well. I know its comic book history and you have to give them a bit of license so he's cool but he really didn't have time to become a master in anything.

See this is where the geek fight begins, but I would define Daredevil as an astoundingly better martial artist than Batman. Not as smart, not as many great gadgets, and probably not as physically tough, but far, far better in martial arts. He's not only trained by one of the best in the world, but his enhanced senses make him much more dangerous. But yeah, when you start adding in all the stuff they've demonstrated or done in comics over the years, even a simple character like Cyclops (eye blasts, tactics) turns into a points monster. He's a pilot! He has armor! He's got 200 levels in OCV! He's got martial arts! On and on it goes. So I agree, stripping the character down to their core is ideal for building or they turn into a 3 page monstrosity.

Yeah when I do convention games or have a new player, I do that on their sheet. Its a pretty quick learning curve, too. And yeah, players figure out their DCV pretty quickly, but its still not exactly certain because of combat maneuvers.

Both Hulk and Thor are just about unkillable, and that's plenty expensive. Hulk's strength is probably closer to 70 when he's really mad and he has some growth depending on the depiction. Plus, Thor has broader weather control than just lightning.

I would have a tough time building Hulk and Thor on 400 pts, and guys like Dr Strange and Silver Surfer would be way above that point.

One of the best examples of life support was an issue of Power Man and Iron Fist, where they were trapped in a container and had to wait until rescue, but the air was running out. Danny Rand meditated, slowing his metabolism until he was nearly dead, and Power Man toughed it out. Power Man eventually passed out but survived because he was so tough, and Danny survived on tiny amounts of air (extended breathing for both).

I've never bothered with point limits when building established characters or creatures. They cost what they cost. When I built the X-Men for a convention game, they ended up pretty varied in point values (guys like Cyclops were really cheap, where Rogue was hellishly expensive, as you'd expect).

Another sample from the Codex, for naval mages: BECALM EFFECT: Removes the wind from around a sailing ship Active Cost: 37 Real Cost: 7 Spell Roll: -4 END Cost: 4 Casting Time: Turn focus Focus: OAF Range: 100m Gesture: yes Incantation: yes Side Effect: no Concentrate: no Becalm afflicts a sailing ship with a lack of wind. This drop in wind speed affects the ship for an hour or more, with each casting of Becalm slowing the wind that reaches the sails of the ship even further. Even a slight amount of sailing speed can make the difference between death and escape, or escape of the prey or them being captured, which makes this spell a popular one among sailors and pirates. POWERS: Drain 1d6 (Swimming) MODIFIERS: Recover per hour (+1 3/4), Can Remove Adders (+1); Bonus (-1), Only to sailing ships (-1), Extra Time Full Turn focus (-3/4), Gesture (-1/4), Incantation (-1/4), OAF (-1) [+2 3/4; 4 1/4]

I can think of plenty of situations I wouldn't want to do knockback; if I'm a strictly HTH guy I don't want to go running after the energy blaster because I slapped him through a building, and if I am trying to stop someone from running away, I don't want to knock them away from me. If I'm worried about someone going over the edge of a cliff I don't want knockback, if there are innocent bystanders they'll crash into, etc, etc.

A nasty little demon, the "Blender." It has a different name among demons, but this is what the players dubbed it. I came up with these guys after reading a Wormy comic long ago where the horrible little demon thing came out of the snooker balls when they were cracked. They are usually encountered only when summoned, and demonologists use a spell (from The Fantasy Codex, of course) to summon them at range. They don't need controlling; the things love to be anywhere and attack everything in sight, but if you don't control one, it will eventually try to kill you as well. Not terribly tough, but they have a pretty painful attack, and tend to be summoned in 2s and 4s right over a target. Blender Val Char Cost 5 STR -5 17 DEX 14 10 CON 0 5 BODY -5 1 INT -9 1 EGO -9 15 PRE 5 4/8 PD 2 2/4 ED 0 4 SPD 20 8 REC 4 40 END 4 14 STUN -3 12m RUN 0 4m SWIM 0 1m LEAP -1 Characteristics Cost: 45 Cost Power 40 Demonic: Life Support (Eating: Character does not eat; Immunity All terrestrial diseases; Immunity: All terrestrial poisons; Longevity: Immortal; Safe in High Pressure; Safe in High Radiation; Safe in Intense Cold; Safe in Intense Heat; Safe in Low Pressure/Vacuum; Self-Contained Breathing; Sleeping: Character does not sleep) 15 Demonic: Does Not Bleed 10 Demonic: No Hit Locations 5 Demonic Eyes: Infrared Perception (Sight Group) 5 Many Eyes: Sight Group Flash Defense (5 points) 10 Many Eyes: Increased Arc Of Perception (360 Degrees) with Sight Group 6 Demonic Senses: +2 PER with all Sense Groups 9 Chitin: Resistant Protection (4 PD/2 ED) 24 Hover: Flight 16m, Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (24 Active Points) 34 Claws: Killing Attack - Hand-To-Hand 1d6, Armor Piercing (+1/4), Reduced Endurance (1/2 END; +1/2), Autofire (5 shots; +1/2) (34 Active Points) Powers Cost: 158 Cost Skill 6 +3 with any single attack Skills Cost: 6 Total Character Cost: 209 Pts. Complications 35 Enraged: While Conscious (Very Common), go 14-, recover 8- 10 Physical Complication: Diminutive (Infrequently; Slightly Impairing) 20 Physical Complication: Instinctive Intelligence (Frequently; Greatly Impairing) 15 Susceptibility: Holy locations 1d6 damage per Phase (Uncommon) 10 Vulnerability: 1 1/2 x BODY Holy attacks (Common) 10 Vulnerability: 1 1/2 x STUN Holy Attacks (Common) 10 Vulnerability: 1 1/2 x STUN Holy Attacks (Common) 10 Vulnerability: 2 x Effect Presence attacks by holy men (Uncommon) Complication Points: 120 Ecology: Blenders come from hell; they are the piranhas of the netherworld, constantly on the hunt – not for food, simply to kill everything and anything they see. If nothing is left to kill, they simply destroy. These creatures seem to have no purpose other than to kill everything they see and meet, other than each other. For whatever reason they do not attack one another, but will slaughter anything else they see without fear or remorse. Personality/Motivation: Blenders are insane, mad with killing fury at all times like the worst Piranha. Barely intelligent at any level, the Blender is a killing machine. Powers/Tactics: Blenders attack with both claws as fast as possible until the target is recognizably dead, then they move to the next thing to destroy it as well. While weaker than many demons, the Blenders are still very hardy and ignore their environment, whatever the hazards. In combat, a Blender will move to the nearest target and use its autofire claw attack until the target is recognizably dead. Then, it moves to the next target and repeats the process. The only thing that will stop a Blender is death or the inability to reach a target. It will claw through barriers to get to where it knows something living lurks. Campaign Use: These will rarely be encountered in the normal game unless summoned. So destructive and berserk, the Blenders will kill absolutely everything nearby them and hunt for more to slaughter until they are killed in turn. While not particularly dangerous to an experienced hero, these can be dangerous in numbers and certainly are terrible for a normal to face. Appearance: Blenders look like a jagged ball of chitin roughly 3 feet across. From this jut two spindly arms with wicked talons, and scattered randomly over the orb are baleful eyes. Blenders constantly make odd, random noises like giggles, belches, shrieks, growls, and more rude noises with no discernable source or mouth.

I prefer leaving the target's DCV entirely out of the roll, so its OCV+11 - 3d6 roll = DCV hit. That way the players don't have the target's DCV number, only their attack.

Given that the warrior/consular distinction is not in the movies, you could probably do away with that in your game if you wanted without any problem. A multipower goes a long ways I agree, and if you look at the use of some of their powers (outside some of the video games) the Telekinetic strength demonstrated by all but the most vastly powerful and experienced jedi (Yoda) was really quite small.

Yeah I envision them as not breeding well in captivity (Panda complex) and dying rapidly in sunlight, which would limit their production. They would be very expensive and the rich could have them, maybe some mines, but not many else. Plus, they are found in scary places, so tough to collect.

I like the Dandy Lion

I've never done it but I worked out how to play Hero with funny dice, using d100 for skills and to hit. Its a pretty simple conversion, although it makes building powers a lot more complex (such as pricing different dice... what is a d4 blast worth and how do you work out the body?)