Hadmar von Wieser

And of course SPIDERMAN vs ELECTRO, Times Square, with that "using the infrastructure" RKA I built für ELECTROCUTIONER:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxwG0vyWsWk
 

I built ELECTROCUTIONER for my JUSTICE LEAGUE campaign. Might be interesting as he is a close combat fighter with only one surprising ranged attack. I never finished so here is just some fragments:

A touch from one of his hands delivers a severe shock, when both his hands touch a victim the circuit is completed and the victim dies:

4d6 w/STR Hand-to-Hand KILLING ATTACK vs. ED, Basis: 3d6 (45); Increased STUN Multiplier: 1d3+1 x STUN (+¼); Knockback: BODY-3d6; Real Weapon (-¼), IAF (-½)

You can't block when I shock:

Hand-to-Hand KILLING ATTACK; Indirect (+¼)

The usual NND:

BLAST 5d6, No Normal Defense Attack, Def: Insulated clothing, not grounded (+1), STUN only (+0); No Knockback (-0); Beam attack (-¼)

Touching metal railings, floor grids, and gates to shock a distant opponent:

Ranged KILLING ATTACK, Limited Range: 30m (-¼); Indirect (+¼),

+10 PRE: Hitting fists against one another to produce crackling discharges
 

Here is two vids for inspiration:
Batman Arkham Origins: Electrocutioner Boss Fight (funny)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uD1tTsMr2CE
 

And then of course there IS the build with Images vs. Touch.

If you create visual illusions, you can make your victim "see" a car approaching - forcing him to jump out of the way or react in a similar way (or show impressive INT and EGO to resist that urge).
So you logically are able to do the same to another sense. You just BELIEVE there is that itch down there because your neurons are telling your brain so. But try to resist that impression ...

Just for the fun of it: A curse variant with more long-time effect:
 

Severe Transform 4d6 (person without that Disadvantage to person with Psychological Complication indicating compulsive disorder or mental disturbance, or with it at a lesser level of effect; heals back by being subjected to spells or phenomena that cause the madness), Based On EGO Combat Value: vs. MENTAL DEFENSE, no range penalty (+1), Works Against EGO Not BODY (+¼), Cumulative (+½) (??? Active Points); Concentration, constant: Half DCV (-½), Extra Time: 1 Turn (-1), Incantations, Continuous (Constant) (-½), Limited Target (humans suffering mental impairment; -½), No Range (-½)

and the effect would be something like:

Has to scratch his itch, loosing 1/2 phase every phase (Psych. Complication: very common, strong, EGO Roll to resist)

(Hereby connecting to Cantripeds model with provoking an EGO Roll, which I like.)

Considering that their seems to be no consensus on bugs and tracers I got a whole file of ideas I collected over the years. I just copy and paste this here, so please excuse the totally different styles of write-ups; they are from half a dozen players:
 

• ENHANCED SENSES, Detect A Class Of Things ??- (Radio Sense Group): Transmitter 360° Sensing (10) Affected as Radio & Sight Sense Group (-½),

• Radio Perception / Transmission, Usable as Attack (+1 1/4), 1 Continuing Charge of 1 Week Duration (+1/2) (27 Active Points); IAF (-1/2), Transmit Only on Select Frequency (-0). 18 Real Points.

• 1-u Radio XMIT/REC,"Tracer arrows.", 2 Charges (+¼), continuing, duration: 1 day, Usable Against Others (+1), Ranged (+½), Cancel: Finding the tracer.

• High Range Radio Receive/Transmit (12), Usable Against One Recipient (+¼), Unwilling (+1), Grantor Controls Power (+½), At Range (+½), Recipient Must Be within Standard Range when Power is Granted (+½), Can Only Grant the Power to Others (-½), OIF (-½), 2 charges (-1 ½)

(And of course the approaches with Bugging, Images, or Clairsentience mentioned here again.)

I still am not satisfied ...
 

I just built several vehicles for a new campaign and in my opinion the STR you need to destroy or grab or remove an Focus rather well correlates with the damage the weapon does. That means: If you can take it you don't need it.

Superboy using a mini-gun looks real badass. But pointwise it isn't much more than a SFX using his usual powers.

The focus rules are pretty balanced after 30 years.
 

Don't let this eat you, boy: Mental Defense, Usable By Others

Here's some advice from a guy who tried the same 30 yars ago: +10 EGO, Usable By Others (Only to help moderate and strong Psychological Complication EGO Rolls; -2)

SC: Recent History (Only for the last 50 years)

KS: Anecdotes about people with great ambitions and poor judgement
 

They tried to frighten us with this in '83: +10 PRE, only to resist PRE attacks by media, politicians, and insurance sellers (-2)

KS: Politics 11- (Only for recognizing tricks and situations -1)
 

Magpie more sounds like a thief to me. And Raven could be a psychic or clairvoyant. That also would cover typical 4-or-5-man-team roles.
Compare the DC character:
http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Margaret_Pye_(New_Earth)
 

Thanks for the practical experience input, massey. A played character always offers so much more insight.
 

Among his many powers, the Flash has Desolidification,

I think I prefer Desolidification to most of the Armor, Force Field, Combat Luck approaches. FLASH does not get hit, the projectiles do not bounce off him and ricochet. He just dodges so fast and instinctively that the attacks seem to go right through him. Of course you have to put several FX and limitations and finework on the textbook power to get there.
 

I don't know which degree you completed but obviously you are the Hyper-Man: able to build everything with CHAMPION rules.
But I agree with you: most people building 1500pt-Supermen waste a lot of synergy and limitations depicted in the source materials.

 

If you bought the Flash to represent how he's depicted in the comics, that would be a different thing; you'd have to give him activation rolls on several defensive abilities, etc. 

I like the activation roll concept. If I add a few more conditions I can produce that effect of the stories where sometimes he is untouchable and sometimes gets hit by anything close to an old lady with a handbag.


 

And finally: Here is a thread about triggered movement so you can move AFTER attacking or BEFORE getting attacked:
http://www.herogames.com/forums/topic/94531-various-questions-about-triggered-movement/

I have been working on DC's FLASH for several months now, starting a Justice League campaign next week. Here some ideas:

INSTANT CHANGE of course.

Lightning Reflexes: +16 DEX to act first with All Actions (-1)
 

TELEPORTATION, Must Pass Through Intervening Space (-¼)

Some players here came up with an idea like:

EXTRA-DIMENSIONAL MOVEMENT, Costs Endurance (-½): Move to a dimension where everything but the character is frozen and cannot be affected in any way.
 

HAND-TO-HAND Attack, Autofire

I personally like HAND-TO-HAND Attack, Area Of Effect: Line, selective

HAND-TO-HAND Attack, Penetrating (+½), to simulate a flurry of hits that make the target vibrate.
 

Stretching or Telekinesis to simulate hitting someone and running back without him noticing.

Running in circles Tornadoes: BLAST Explosion or Area Effect

A classic trick is Crowd Disarm: TELEKINESIS (30 STR), Area Of Effect: 5" Radius (+1), selective
 

Change Environment vor more humorous rearrangements of furniture etc.

Speed Reading of course.

And most obvious and still often overlooked: SPD 12. Even if all the other players will hate that player. :-)
 

I'd imagine the main attributes that make you immune against a whale song would be something like "already in harmony with nature" and "so paranoid even whale songs don't sooth you".
To use an example: If a villain uses this against the Justice League, SUPERMAN and GREEN LANTERN might drift away. AQUAMAN and WONDER WOMAN already are peaceful with animals. And BATMAN of course is to disturbed to be tricked like that. :-)

This would allow more BODY damage to occur with normal damage attacks, which seems like it would better fit some genres, like martial arts campaigns.

 

Aside of the mathematical discussion: I always thought the defining aspect of Martial Arts and Boxing movies is that the hero and the villains eat incredible series of hits without taking more BODY than a make-up artist is needed for.

Here is another way to put it (I put that list on my players' characters sheets' bottom to give them an idea what they are trying):
 

5- = 5%  6- = 10% 7- = 16% 8- = 26% 9- = 37,5% 10- = 50%

11- = 62,5% 12- = 74% 13- = 84% 14- = 90% 15- = 95% 16- = 99,98%

Game Master: "Now, you decided what you want to play?"
Player 1: "Four guys. I want to play the tiny guy with no skills and powers to mention. But somehow he got posession of an incredibly powerful heirloom artifact, let's say a ring, that ..."
Game Master: "You can't do that. Level 1 Characters have several skills and powers. And you cannot have an artifact of legendary rank."
Player 2: "I want to play an incredibly powerful mage ..."

Game Master: "You can't do that. We do not start at Level 50."

Player 2: "... but bound by his mystic nature not to steal the other characters' show and only let rip if every hope is lost."
Game Master: "You can't do that. If you are Level 50, you have those spells. If you use them or not, is not my business."
Player 3: "Similar idea. I want to play the elven prince. Infallible, infailible, irresistible, ..."

Game Master: "You can't do that. No epic level characters. And even epics can't have absolute abilities.“
Player 3: "… but much to cool to ever show his skills except when the tiny guy is in danger.“
Game Master: "Don't you listen? If you have it, you can use it. But you don't have it.“

Player 4: "Similar idea. I want to play the dwarven lord. Almost as cool and supreme as the elf, but somehow everything he tries looks ridiculous ..."

Game Master: "You can't do that. There is no class for ridiculous. They all are well balanced.“
Player 4: "… and he looses every competition with the elf but still has an immortal aura of dignity.“
Game Master: "You can't do that. There is no class with dignity.“

 

I agree with the trend of the answers before:
If I know a player is a fast thinker with a good grasp of the rules, and if he plays a archmage-like intellectual expert or a "force of nature", then a VPP with improvized and always surprising new spells is fun and a gain for the game.
Otherwise it's not worth the effort.

Agree to Massey, Cantriped, and Christopher Taylor:
Modern superheros have a complex mythology, sometimes comprising more than a dozen versions over up to 70 years and media as different as comics,TV, movies, PC and console games, and RPG - all of them with different artistic approaches and needs.
That's one of the two reasons why I started this thread about variable SPD to depict "exploding actions", "breakout characters" and "different dramatic impact". :-)

Defensive Maneuver IV is a ten point skill that prevents a character from being taken from behind.  It's a cheap and easy way to simulate the fighting style of a well trained opponent.

 

And that's the key to building the villains to face your heroes.  Give them things like Danger Sense, Lightning Reflexes, Martial Disarm, etc. to counter the powers, focus, or skills that your characters have.  Variable SPD would cause other characters to need to have it in order to function, and that in turn would negate any advantage adding it to the game.

I agree with your last sentence: EVERY new and effective build starts an arms race when players or GM start to react to it.

But apart from that: Almost all of your ideas are purely defensive. That makes a final boss last longer, but not dishing out interesting and challenging attacks to all team members. Even Lightning Reflexes just makes you attack a bit sooner - not more often.

I do not see many possibilities to give a Big Bad more actions than more SPD, AoE Attacks (which still means the same attack for different PCs, not individualistic attacks), Damage Shield Attacks (for an opponent who attacks you every time you attack him), and some Trigger Builds (which are notoriously complicated especially when several of them have to be active at once).

But how would you build DEATHSTROKE taking on the whole Justice League, hitting everyone of them with a fine-tuned attack before they can gang upon him? I have been doing this with superior SPD for the last 30 years. Because that's the way the character is defined in DC universe and how SPD is defined in HERO.

But I am open to new suggestions ...

Here is the whole fight:

https://arousinggrammar.com/2012/08/26/deathstroke-fights-the-entire-jla/

I hoped someone would read so accurately and ask. :-)
What I meant is: Usually there is a typical rhythm between the Batman and the Joker, exchanging attacks and cool quips. But for that special kind of gag attack the Joker usually gets two or three consecutive panels or a very long camera take. Without the Batman being able to react.

I agree. Almost all of my builds up there only change speed at PS12. Changing SPD in the mid of a fight rarely is worth the algebraic disruption.

It's more of a dramatic and cinematic approach: a short change of pace, different background music, getting players in the mood for a different scene.
I am extreme anyhow: I build chars very pedantic, but in actual play I am rather relaxed and flexible, and my players are used to getting chances and problems (like additional attacks) just for the drama of it.

And I am using a speed chart with a comic book page's design and hero and villain markers on it. So we got it visualized pretty good.

Here some thoughts:

I like Galatea - although I did not see the concept behind until your recent posting. You actually want to have that Disney Princess romantic.

Funny you have BOTH the most famous artificial women's names in your team. Galatea is from the old greek myth of Pygmalion. And Hadaly ist the heroine of a french sf novel of 1896, the first to use the expression Android.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Future_Eve

Her Singing VPP seems acceptable to me. It just is that "Requires Characteristic roll" isn't a limitation if the characteristic roll in question is only ever failed on a natural miss. But 14- is okay.
As you still are trying to save points: You might think about a limitation on the VPP: Singing needs air. With Focal's space station you might have several scenes where she is in vacuum. On the other hand: If Focal extends his Life Support she always will have air around, so it would be no limitation.
(I just built BLACK CANARY and her supersonic scream with "Needs clear air", so she will be handicapped by smoke, under water, and the like.)

Speaking of limitations:

Loyal to Hadaly 

Loyalty to Oath of Service and 'Captain' Focal
Remember: A disadvantage that is no disadvantage is no disadvantage.

For a follower, vehicle, or base "Loyal to Boss" is a default position and not worth any points. They are built from the character's perspective.
"Stubborn" is a Complication. Or "Wants to prove his/her/its independency". But not doing what the guy wants anyhow.

On he other hand I do not see much problem with the teleporting base:
Bases are explictly allowed (at least in 4E, I remember) to have movement powers. E.g. a Floating castle.

But if you will not use that power you do not have to pay for it. If the ships orbits earth most of the campaign and the GM just moves the stage once or twice, then the base's movement is a plot device, not a power. No advantage to you, so no costs.

Part 2: Some villains seem to get faster the longer the fight lasts.

DOCTOR DOOM often escapes with additional SPD he never used in the fight.

CATWOMAN usually almost matches BATMAN's SPD – but in those elusive and erotic last moments of a fight she somehow always seems to escape with one more maneuver than he is able to counter.

Then there are those typical Nazi Officers or Occult Middle Managers. As long as there is a room full of stormtroopers or zombies they only get 2 pics per page commanding, boasting, taunting, and insulting the heroes. But some of them when standing alone suddenly evolve into a RED SKULL or a DESAAD, who is a very capable and fast fighter and is able to hold his own against one or two of the heroes.

Finally there is a kind of Boss Fight where this works fine:

ULTRON or KALIBAK (DARKSEID's son). I build them with

SPD 4

+1 SPD as soon as his copies / Parademons are dispatched

+1 SPD when fighting more than 3 opponent's at once
At first he seems to be just a ridiculously strong and indestructible brick.

The team's powerhouse (e.g. IRON MAN or WONDERWOMAN) will take him on and exchange blows.

Or when CAPTAIN AMERICA / BATMAN takes him on, that hero can SPD 6 around him in circles, dodge, abort, use all his tricks, and still look good.

But as soon as the team has taken down his minions he goes in overdrive.

And in the final round when the whole JUSTICE LEAGUE / AVENGERS gang up on him, he explodes with action and is able to deal each hero a personal and almost lethal attack – before he finally goes down.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on and experiences with SPD change for dramatic storytelling effects.

We had an old thread about the Speed Chart where Sean Waters came up with the idea of „random speed“ using SPD with Activation.

I have been experimenting with conditional SPD a lot. Here some ideas:
 

There is DC's WOLF SPIDER, an assassin with 4 additional cyber-arms. A rulebook example to teach beginners the difference between SPD 2 and SPD 6, when his Activation roll (PS12 for the whole turn) succeeds.

A sniper, dangerous enough for the team with SPD 2 shooting without been seen, but with +1 SPD for changing positions if discovered, and +2 SPD for trying to escape so he gives the angry heroes a thrilling hunt.

The SHADOW THIEF gaining additional SPD when jumping through the timeless Shadowlands.
 

A mad scientist like Veronica Cale who injects +2 SPD super-adrenaline as soon as she sees another masterplan being torn apart by WONERWOMAN. To push more buttons or to escape.

The PARASITE who loves to TRANSFER SPD at his first attack so SUPERMAN can suffer dramatically and he has more phases to transfer even more powers.
 

LOOSE CANNON who is plainly crazy and sometimes acts with SPD 4 and sometimes with SPD 2.
The JOKER seems to do this a lot, too. Especially when he is aborting to a never before used phase for an action that is no attack like his famous gun with the BANG flag. (Though I build this is as FX usually.)

Ah, I misunderstood your sentence. "You would go a shorter distance but you would hit (the floor) harder." Of course you are right.
I read this as: "You would go a shorter distance but you would hit (your enemy) harder."