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One of my story arcs started 14 years ago, with each episode story well-received by the group. Each episode focuses on a particular character in a situation that must be resolved. If resolved well, the hero has grown a little as a hero and perhaps a person; if not resolved, there may be some dire consequences (such as losing their powers, for example). Fortunately, the heroes have never failed.

I'm actually doing my next one this coming Friday. This story goes something like this: the sword-user's special swords will fail during a fight with a villain; these are swords of legend. Another hero from England will help the group travel to England to find an actual knight who can give him the Knight's Oath. The hero must take the Oath, which will restore the swords to power. Restored now, the hero faces the villain again to triumph over him.

Off-hand, I'm going to go with a -1/4 limitation but it depends on the campaign setting.

This makes sense. Thanks.

I've always wondered why the Martial Arts Escape maneuver has a +0 OCV +0 DCV to it. It seems to me to be an automatic success to hit, regardless of Hero Games not having absolutes, hence my wondering about the +0 OCV. Now, whether you break out of the Grab is another thing. You're not going to use this maneuver unless you're Grabbed and if you're already Grabbed, why a DCV modifier? So, looking for some clarity to this.

7 hours ago, Shaun_Donohue said:

Hello! I have had characters designed for me and played before, but I am trying to make a character myself for the first time. I am making an Idol, someone super famous and positively well known. Super hero Identity is the Idol, but has a personal secret identity that lacks confidence.  So massive presence, but only uses it in "Character.".

 

My question is, besides building a high presence and some striking appearance, what could I do with a charismatic character? Not wanting to intimidate. Wanting to be a very positive encouraging hero.

Someone super famous and positively well known can have any set of powers you want. Regardless of what abilities/powers you give the character, playing the character as an idol will be the challenge. A couple skills I'd suggest are Persuasion and Oratory. Your regular PRE could easily be 15 or 20  but buy +15 PRE, only to inspire/encourage others.

I use battlemaps when I want some visual to help out the players. Also, the players really enjoy moving their characters around on the color battlemaps. So, we use 1 hex = 2m

It's been a long time since I GM'd Terror, Inc. in a game. A thought came around to me: What is Prof Muerte's end goal? Okay, he's a terrorist and isn't nice. What is his final goal if everything went his way? Is he trying to take over the world, all the financial markets of the world or to get the ultimate lotion to deal with his, um, looks?  Pardon my ignorance if this has been shown somewhere but I'm not aware of it.

On 8/7/2021 at 8:48 AM, Tjack said:

    DC Comics “Invasion” event during the ‘80’s clarified their policy on origins.  
They established the “Meta-Gene”.   A fraction of the human population has the genetic quirk to allow mutation under outside influences.
 Basically, Barry Allen who has the gene gets splashed with chemicals hit by lightning...he gets superpowers.  Joe Shmoe standing next to him doesn’t have the gene and gets hit with all the same stuff and ends up in the ICU burn ward.  Tough break Joe.

 Elongated Man (yes he’s DC) just happened to be able to metabolize the chemical in the fruit that gave him the powers. Anybody else could eat the stuff by the truckload and the best they could do is be the best student in their Yoga class.

When I read the last line, I thought it said: "best they could do is be the best student in their Yogurt class." 

I want to design a power where a hero's STR stat is boosted to 50 automatically, whether the STR is 10, 15, 35, etc., but no higher. If the STR is already higher, then the power has no effect. How would you build this?

Hi all. I'm looking for a high-def version of this picture. This is only 500x375. My various searches haven't come up with anything larger, including reverse.

Can you help find one? Thanks.

Well done, fdw3773. I hope things go well for your future projects. This is what I'd plan to do if I eventually retire from Champions/Hero Games.

21 hours ago, Grailknight said:

 

Lockout can be taken on any Power per CC. Though it's given value is -1/2, the description says it should be adjusted based on how many and what powers are affected.

 

As to the OP, I'd allow it assuming it wasn't pulling from a different END source than the rest of your powers. I can remember several combats in my old campaign where it would be a useful powerset but would have come back to bite you.

I was going to post that but everytime I tried hitting 'Submit Reply', the button would just sit there greyed out and not doing anything. Any suggestions what's going on?

The Hero System avoids absolutes; in this case not taking any damage from attacks. If you're going this route, I agree with LW: don't bother balancing the character. I personally wouldn't go with Desolid though, because Affects Desolid can affect him though. If he's got lots of defenses, Desolid isn't necessary.

Some time ago, someone came up with a couple charts where you could get 100% Damage Reduction for PD, ED, etc. You could go that route since you're going for an absolute effect, or you could just give the villain 100 PD, 100 ED, etc on Power Def, Mental Def, etc. Of course, if you're going to go with the villain not taking damage or balancing it, don't bother trying to justify it: just write down on the sheet: "Cannot be hurt" and leave it at that. You're the only one who's going to be looking at the sheet anyways, since you're the GM.

Frozen

5 hours ago, Terminax said:

Haven't been a fan how 6E recategorized or altered certain powers and effects (damage shield and size powers chiefly), and when 6E annoys me, I just do it the way I'm used to and I'm more concerned how to tell the story than fussing over mechanics.

 

Exactly. The game is there for you to have fun, not to give you headaches.

14 hours ago, Pariah said:

Nanogirl is a humanoid alien; she normally stands 10-12 cm (~4") tall. After arriving on Earth, she discovered (read: stole) a device that allows her to grow to normal human size for a time. She can be either small or human-sized, nowhere in between. How would you build this?

 

My thoughts:

 

1) Build her using the Miniscule size template, then buy a limited form of Growth to allow her to get bigger.

 

2) Buy the appropriate levels of Shrinking to 0 END and Persistent and handwave the smaller state as the default.

 

3) Build her as a Multiform, one form for each size.

 

4) Some other brilliant option I haven't thought of yet.

 

Help me out here.

For her normal shrunk form, buy her as usual with stats, powers, etc., with a Physical Complication/Disadvantage:  Normal size is 10-12cm (with anything that might go with being that size, such as +4m to KB/+2" to KB).  Since she can turn to normal human size "for a time", I'd go with limited Growth.

Alternative: buy her with Physical Complication/Disadvantage. Since her stats don't seem to change when normal human size, you could add Knockback Resistance equal to your Complication, with a Side Effect being that she's normal size (or just make it special effect that she's normal size).

6 hours ago, LoneWolf said:

Is hitting someone in the arm easier than hitting a small pistol held in the hand?  If you are using the hit location as a comparison you should be taking a lot more penalty to target most foci than the rules provide.  If you did that the value of the focus limitation would need to be greatly reduced. 

 

Buying the limb as a follower (robot) would significantly increase the cost, with little or no added benefits.

 

For some reason, I was thinking the limbs could do things on their own ala Doc Oc, but a robot would provide a limb with Body that could be brought back with time. Duplication - 0 Body and it's 'dead'.  I guess focus is the best but how would you work that out, point cost-wise? Your limbs are 0 pt cost, innate on top of that.

I've got a villain who uses darkness powers. One of his powers is to create a nighttime effect, but doesn't blind anyone; it gives the same modifiers as night. I was initially thinking Darkness but that blinds the opponents. Heroes have a -4 PER roll during nighttime and that's what I'm looking for so I'm inclined to go with Change Environment with a large radius. I don't think Images will do. How would you build this?

You could also buy the limbs as robots.

I'll tell the the bad character concepts I remember:

Photogen!  The hero who can take pictures with his eyes, and pull the picture out of his stomach. That's all the player wanted him to do initially. We managed to convince him to take a light-based attack.

Mr. Pain! The 50 Str hero who wanted to Haymaker everything, even the unarmored agents. 😬  Eventually, I made him a villain with the reasoning that he liked inflicting pain so much he became a villain so he could do it more often.

Timelord  A Dr. Who rip-off who was just plain weird. Even the player could barely stand him. A one episode hero.

Major Ugums (a villain): A 50 Str villain who is so generic that he joined a group of other bad concepts... they don't even have a villain team name!

Razorback The name is taken from a wild razorback hog, he had a killing attack on his back that he had to do an acrobatic flip to land on the villain because the razor killing attack was on his back. He also had a 20 pt Code vs Killing 🤔  He only had a 20 Str to do any other kind of damage. He spent alot of time on the sideline doing nothing.

Amoeba Man! The all-time winner of loser-dom! He was a taxi driver who could transform into a giant amoeba. It/he could float and use a weak ego attack... because he bought so many things for his appearance he had very little points leftover for an attack. Originally, he wanted to be able to duplicate every time he was hit but Champions 2 had just come out - and we weren't going to tell him about the power "duplication".  His grand appearance went like this:  other heroes arrive to stop a bank robbery. The bank has a large glass window so people can see in/out. The taxi is driving by with a passenger in the back. The driver sees the robbery in progress, swerves the taxi and crashed through the bank window. He immediately then transforms into an amoeba and "splurps" out of the taxi, floating. EVERYONE in the bank stops and stares while the passenger gets out of the taxi and runs screaming down the street. Both heroes and villains pause to consider teaming up to attack this monster. Amoeba Man starts to attack the villains so the heroes decide to finish off the villains, while keeping an eye on the monster. After the fight, Amoeba Man (who never said a word or communicated, although he could) just floats off into the sky.

We celebrated the 40th anniversary this weekend. I had made medals for each player. I also made one special medal (which I kept) for all the bad character concepts that have ever been made. Do you realize that's 2080 weeks for so long a campaign? Also, my brother made a video for the players to watch before the Champions episode started. The video simply ended: "Now, let the game begin!".

I had Microwave shrunk down and hiding behind The Dash during combat. When he got KO'd, the heroes noticed:

"You see Dash's unconscious body suddenly float up and fly away."  The first time, the players were "WHAT?!"  After a few times, they

finally caught on after seeing Microwave actually attack a few times.

The super speed villain known as "The Dash" was in the 'Great Supervillain Contest' along with few other villains, including the megavillain. I still use "The Dash". You can get a PDF of it in the Hero Game store, in 3rd edition Champions.

On 6/4/2021 at 8:44 PM, Lord Liaden said:

Another good template for a Surfer-type would be the mightiest hero of Canada, Celestar, from  Champions Of The North. A being of "living cosmic energy," Celestar isn't quite Surfer-class in magnitude or versatility of powers, but his style is very cosmic-blast-throwing, and he's spent an extended period in space, which he's well-suited to.

I didn't find him in Champions Of The North, nor in the book index of all the heroes & villains. Tried page by page and he's not there. Was he from somewhere else?

Our hero team runs into a villain team they've fought before, but this time the hero team has a new member. The villains say who they are and one of them points at the new team member, "Who is that?"

My young heroine kicks in with her spunky reply, "He's our lawyer... and he's going to sue you."

All the players are laughing now, and the GM.