Hadmar von Wieser

The Cup-bearers

A secret society with members from hermetic magic, freemasons, renegade Illuminati, and several cultists. They are after the Holy Grail - and their strategy is simple: They rob, steal, or dig up every vessel somehow said to be magic or super-natural. Hoping to pile up enough wealth and informations in the way to finally find the real thing. They are a bunch of humorless fanatics, everyone of them having his diverging worldview, magic concept, and explanation for everything that happens. So they always are quarrelling, even while robbing museums and crypts. "See? I told you!" "You paracelsian buffon, once again you ignore the karmatic relevance of ..." "Silent, you two polytheistic amateurs, yonder comes another guard."

And of course they react rather humorless to any references to the Chalice from the Palace and the Vessel with the Pestle ...
 

The basis for a fastness for whom? A player character team? A villain? A social club? Because that will need different ideas.

Prometheus: anarchistic inventor. Believes in information's right to be free. Steals inventions, especially from MegaCorps and Super Villains, and spreads them via Internet leaks.

Irrigator: African water summoner obsessed with the idea of re-fertilizing Sahara and Kalahari.

Or if I want the Rabbit Punch do I just buy it as a regular (2 shot) auto fire attack?

Was that reference to the Rabbit Punch a pun on Rapid Punch , a misspelling, or just a coincidence due to an actual reference to the maneuver (which is 1 hit, not 2)?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_punch

Remember that the rules state that UAA when applied to movement powers demands a defense to be defined - just like NND.

I had a similar power for a demon sending you for a short trip to hell, including lesser demons attacking you there, and the defense of defeating them and that way ending the trip.

I like the EDM approach with a side effect "Gadgeteer has to go there, too". That way we have
1. a reasonable chance of defense for the victim
2. a classic combination of death trap and showdown with lots of narrative potential
3. an expensive limitation making the power affordable. (The gadgeteer wouldn't use this on the arch villain built to fight the whole team.)

 

Yes, an ENTANGLE with limited duration (= instant) is my first choice, too. Works on knockbacked characters, too.

If we just want to STOP people. Hurting them needs another approach, I suppose.

Invisible Extra Limbs is original. I think I haven't heard that in 25 years of playing CHAMPIONS.

Senses, Enhanced Senses, Clairsentience, Sense Groups, Unusual Group, Sense affecting powers. Not exactly one of the easier parts of Heroes.

We seem to have a lot of new posters and a lot old misconceptions floating around.

Bump - to keep Christopher's introduction thread active and detectable for usual senses.   

How about we buy DUPLICATION twice? The base character has it to create 1. Generation Duplicates, those have it to create 2. Generation, and possibly so on.
Of course that way they would degrade in power. My clone's clone's clone's clone's clone's clones wouldn't be much more than a shadow of my self.
But that would be rather fitting for the way most cases of "me populating the universe" are depicted, anyhow. We all have the impression that individuality watered down somehow makes you less, don't we?
 

Or are we all missing GCMorris' point: Is it not ME having more time, but the victim having less time?
What do you mean by stopping or slowing time? Do I have more time or less when it slows in my area?

Or +SPD for a phase only you can act on. (With the usual problems of SPD change builds.)

We'll need several non-lethal attacks, convincingly in-character, funny, effective, but charming:
 

Pie-throwing battle BLAST, only STUN, linked with a nice cream in your eyes FLASH.
 

An original Slapstick OAF: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slapstick

Spud Gun OAF: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spud_gun

Confetti cannon OAF.

Itching powder and sneezing powder.

Lots of banana peels.

A liquid to make the floor slippery.

6 little yellow mechanic walking ducks that manage to fill the room with tripwires within a few seconds.

An umbrella OAF for blocking and force-walling.

A surprisingly effective mirror OAF against energy attacks.

And as escape vehicle a pogo stick.
Or a grey riding ass whom Pooky fed only beans for the last three days so when you follow him he will fart in your face and then, if you shake that off, give you a two-hoofed HtH Attack with double knockback.

 

You even could watch Shakespeare and sigh: "Oh, seems the actor and the director did not get the real joke. Hell, they ruined the best part."
Or read Don Quijote and laugh: "Oh, that one is SO fresh. *urm* Looses a little bit since they abolished knights."
(And if no one understands what you are talking about: Even better role-playing.)

And one dramaturgic idea: I will not describe them as clean linen, but as old and tattered and rancid (just for flavor) and covered with hieroglyphs. That way the non-fighters and academics will have an incentive and a chance to find out about the bandages spells, orders, command words, and story. Either during the fight (could be very thrilling with the fighters keeping the bandages off distance or holding them while the professor tries to read them) or afterwards (just for atmosphere).
 

Ah, that's one idea I really can work into my campaign.   Although it will be at least 18 months until my heroes find that supervillains lair beneath the Great Sphinx.

Some comments:

Countless Writhing Bandages: Extra Time, Inherent (+¼)   - I do not understand this. No power, no Char? Probably EXTRA LIMBS?

Eternal Slumber: Do you really think Life Support should be bought as an attack? After all it is "offered" as an advantage. Wouldn't Usable By Others (or the 5E equivalent) be sufficient?

I do not understand Desolidification: If you cannot walk through objects AND does not protect you from damage, what does it do for you? Just for passing through cracks and crevasses?

The Clinging-Build is creative and effective for one of the player's most obvious reactions.

Something about tactics: This thing can attack you with simple STR 10 strikes. Will it? Will it try to grab and disarm opponents, especially those with torches, lamps, or UV devices? What does the Machine Intelligence decide in those cases?

If I calculate right this thing still will have only one attack per round.To make it more interesting for a whole group: Shouldn't we give it Autofire or Area effects on his STR so it can keep all players busy? (Not on the ENTANGLE of course; that one should be it's horrifying finishing move.)
Or at least +4 OCV with Sweep.

And we need Indirect, because if THIS attacks are not, which one will be?

We even could give it a smaller ENTANGLE, Damage Shield so everyone grabbing it, torching it, or hitting it really is busy afterwards. (That first ENTANGLE can be followed by the Mummy Wrap, so we have more steps of escalative threat.)
 

I'd buy back Smell, Taste, Touch and Voice - or give the equivalent Physical Limitation.

No vulnerability by fire? (This is the traditional mummy weakness, considering the bandages are linen soaked with oil.) I try to avoid one-weak-spot-enemies because players often just don't find that one vulnerability.

I think this one deserves DISTINCTIVE FEATURES.

 

Yes, that was his shtick. Proteus meaning "the one that was before (everything)".

The one point that never came up in that thread is Unaging SFX.
Before I can answer how to build my brain's capacity I have to know why it is immortal.

If my cells are somehow indestructible, than the neurons with my memories will be, and I will remember Sumeria and Atlantis as they were yesterday.
If my longevity depends on my cells regenerating all the time, then my neurons will degenerate and regenerate, so my memories will become more and more selective.
If my immortality somehow means all my metabolic processes stopped (usually some kind of undeath), than I will have problems even growing new neurons and will be damned to live in my old memories. The typical anachronistic vampire count in victorian attire, the depressive last survivor of ancient Macchu Picchu, still living "inside the ruins" in his mind.
And then there is the traumatic version of resurrecting which might wipe your memories, although your ego and personality somehow reboot (giving you a chance to explore existential questions of "Who am I and how many if I cannot remember?").

Wolverine tends to loose most of his backstories.
Vandal Savage (50.000 years) more keeps existing on than really learning from his times as Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great. An immortal caveman stays a caveman.
Gandalf is good at remembering earlier ages, but not that helpful with telling you "Oh, we did that last time we tried to save Middle Earth and it didn't work out that well".
The Guardians of the Universe (Green Lantern's bosses) are at least 1.000.000.000 years old (probably more along 5 billion years) and do not seem prepared to history suddenly exploding and the DC universe getting destroyed 5 times within 100 years after "nothing" happening for so long.

On the other hand there are well-written villains and heroes that are very adept at recognizing new situations by comparing them to earlier ones. This propably is less of a skill build than using higher INT, DEX, perhaps even SPD.
Neil Gaiman came up with the Technophage, an intelligent dinosaur hunting us for 65 million years. He is terribly efficient in looking through you.

The SF series Perry Rhodan focusses on the titular hero and several other terrans, who got cell activators, amulets that make them immortal. After 40 years of writing and more than 2000 years of plot the authors had to come up with plausible answers where there hero is storing his experience (especially as his best friend is Atlan the last survivor of Atlantis who has the same problem some 10000 years longer). They just came up with: It's in the cell activators. So you actually can have your undying knowledge in an IAF.

And then there always is that option of pulling slimy white threads out of your brain and storing them in some kind of unaging soup ...

 

To resurrect this thread: I especially like Wonder Woman' Lamborghini Huracan:

I once built a mage who split open the earth beneath your feet.

ENTANGLE

plus TK, Indirect,

Affects all parts (-¼);

only to pull you down (similar to the way Artificial Gravity is built in TUV).

This could be used for a real gap in rocky terrain and falling down, but also for quicksand-like mud slowing swallowing you.
 

I use the Autofire, too. That way when used
1. against logs you almost surely get 3 hits (creating the dig-in effect)

2. against low DCV mooks and zombies you MIGHT hit more then once (creating genre typical splatter effects)

3. but against heros and supervillains you rarely have achance to make high damage (giving them the chance to survive and counter that staple of horror attacks)
 

Somehow the Genius always manages to stand, move, or react in a way you hit surrounding things before you hit him. Sometimes he maneuvers you into striking a lamp post, sometimes he manages to hold some kitchen utensis in your fist's way.

4d6 BLAST, Damage Shield, Variable Special Effects (+½), 0 END CostO

OIF Arrangement (Objects of Opportunity Within Reach, universal; -½)

Sounds ike an opportunity to use Autofire: 1-2 Attacks (+¼) on really crazy aspects.

PRE Attack Autofire because TWO heads shout at you?
 

INT-based Skills Autofire: If the less stupid head doesn't get it, the second one will never. But if the first one finds out, the second one might improve the result.

Can I autofire my martial arts?
 

That DISPEL, Area Effect by the way is a great possibility to have those OAF players get their limitation bill presented. (After all the -1 for OAF means: Will work only 50% of the time.)

I once had a scene with an electric freak accident villain who before even attacking fried most of the electrics and electronics around him - involuntarily. GREEN ARROW had half a dozen of his special arrow heads explode, BATMAN's utility belt went *frizzle*, and both heroes lost several phases later picking equipment - and then someone on the table said: "Wouldn't that have worked electrically, too?"
ATOM's Bio-Belt got a malfunction Activation roll for that scene, and when he used Shrinking, he did not get the desired size without a scatter roll, which meant: "You miss molecular level by 2 and go sub-atomic" or "Ooops, you grow again and are 2mm now." That really messed up his usual tactic of entering villains' equipment and dismantling them. Because HIS equipment got dismantled ...
And of course the whole team's com links, headsets, and voice changers were gone. (BATMAN was really pleased because he uses Acting for his hoarse voice while ARROW uses a gadget.)
All in all the players had to rethink a lot of standard procedures, improvize, and come up with surprising and heroic new ideas.
In the end they all loved it. Especially the two billionaires when I told them in the aftermath: "Rebuying and reequipping? How much might that cost? 40.000 for your arrows? 150.000 for all those acids and lasers and tools in your belt? Who cares? You buy three new quivers and a dozen utility belts, just to have spares."

Ad 1+3: ULTIMATE VEHICLE had some 10 pages on Energy Sources from steam engines to reactors - all built with END Reserve.
But according to Page 14 vehicles do not have to pay END for movement. So the usual approach with "1 continuing charge lasting 6 hours" reduces cost, but not END cost, which already is 0. And you can, of course, put a limitation on a movement "Costs END".

Ad 2: Vehicles in VPP: Generally I am reluctant to put Perks in Frameworks.
When i built BATMAN, I thought a lot about the question if having all those Batmobiles, Batplanes, Batboats, Batwing, Tumbler, Bat Shuttle, BatCopter, Bat U-Boat, is a limited advantage like having them in a multipower or VPP. After all he only can use one of them at a time. And several of them were simple oneshot gags, existed only in merchandize, or were wrecked soon.
But then again in the Burton movies and in the 70s comics often BATMAN, ROBIN, and even BATGIRL took off from the BatCave in several vehicles at once. And the Nolan Movie had even BATMAN lend the Tumbler to Commissioner Gordon and the BatCycle to a not-that-trustworty CATWOMAN. That definitely is no VPP effect.

And I am deeply opposed to stacking the 1:5 cost break for vehicles, bases, followers with another cost break. After all the 1:5 already essentially means: I will use that power only 20% of the time, usually for a "get there" scene and one chase, but not more than that.

I still have not decided finally but up to now I settled with using the +15 vor x8 Vehicles, but having the BatCave full of much more old tech. That build includes the power to come up with new stuff (for free). So the player can throw any of the oldtimers out of his active pool any time (still having them rust in the BatCave), introducing some new madness like a Bat Segway or Bat Rocket Wingsuit.
Hell, there even was a Bat Rocket and a Bat Subway somewhen in those 70 years of multi-media batmania.

And totally unrelated except for super electricity: One of my co-players just plays ST. ELMO'S FIRE, who is able to teleport through electrical lines. Interesting because it is a World War II campaign and there are not that many lines all over the world; so he has interesting limitations.

Combine that with me playing INDRA, the Hindu thunderstorm god seriously pissed off the Nazis are misusing his mythology. We are looking forward to interesting combos of my thunder & lightning and ST. ELMO'S FIRE's able to channel electricity.


We still are working on building the mass disarm via electrifying guns.
Either DISPEL or
30 STR TELEKINESIS (??), clumsy: no Fine Work (+0); Area Effect: 5" Radius (+1), selective (+¼); Knockback: BODY-2d6; No Range (-½); Only To Disarm/Grab Objects (-1)

Though this probably is more typical for a hero than for a villain.