Comic

Partly, my earlier response is because I recognize this situation. Mastermind vs. Dark Phoenix had a similar circumstance, although Mastermind would have had to be far more powerful than Swain to overcome the defenses Charles Xavier supposedly trains all his students with. My own Champions characters are Family rated, so Swain simply wouldn't exist in their world. For reference, what would various mutants do? Charles Xavier? I foresee Byron Swain taking a vow of celibacy and donating all his vast wealth to shelters for victims of abuse when he takes vows at a distant monastery. Wolverine? *sniff* *sniff* *SNIKT!* Rogue? Sugah, remembah what happened tuh Carol Danvers? Ororo? Pheremones against the Wind Rider? Doubtful. .. How about the Fantastic Four? Seems like the plot of the Malice storyline, a bit. Even if not, I don't see Swain ending well. Avengers? I'm not sure how the details would play out, but after Hank Pym's abuses.. uh, let's suggest the storyline would be very short. The Inhumans? Compared to Teragin Mist, mere pheremones? The DCU? Suggestions? Who would hurt Swain more, She Hulk or Wonder Woman?

You could be raided by the Chinese Zodiac. Oh, and there are at least two sometimes candidates for the 13th (and 14th) spot place in the Zodiac; Ophidius being the most common.

Creepier things have been written up as villains -- and sometimes as heroes -- in Champions terms. This particular creepy thing wouldn't last very long, given his write up and powers, as pheremones can be detected hours, days or weeks later by special tracking senses common to all sorts of other creepy things that like a nice spicy snack and hunt by scent, generally creepy things that hunt in packs and have regeneration, berserk and claws, so mind control, transformation, Glocks and armor aren't particularly a obstacle to them. (Btw, as the transformation attack is equivalent to another power, as a GM I'd disallow it and require Mind Control; also, the condition for reversing the transformation is incompatible with the speed of action in most campaigns, so I'd disallow that and impose a more plausible mechanism for breaking it, if allowed at all, such as "He transformed my nemesis/stalker/sister/mother/daughter/best friend/?! I'll murder him!" along with "all pheremone and PRE-based abilities rendered powerless against the formerly transformed", to more accurately reflect the power.) Now, if you're asking about the moral dimensions of the character? How is he different from any other DNPC, really, when you get right down to it?

Yes. In those cases, the power would be something like +10 OCV, only vs. Block/Reflect, and a Variable Effect on the attack. One thing if it hits, a different thing if it doesn't.

Well, since Fire and Ice, Thermodynamics and like themes are already cliche, why not let the colors suggest Air and Earth? From a world where magic long ago melded with technology, Gre'kori Skystone has followed the family tradition of honor, service, and justice into the Air Ranger Corps. His uniform stands for freedom and reliability, as the Air Rangers true and brave scout the Four Winds to uphold the right for the sake of the many.

Characteristics – Metaman – Drake Dean VAL CHA CP Base Price END Roll Notes 35 STR 25 10 1 [3] 16- Lift 3200 kg, 7d6 HTH; 50 STR w/DI 25 ton 10d6 13 DEX 6 10 2 12- 25 CON 15 10 1 14- 18 INT 8 10 1 13- PER Roll 12- 13 EGO 3 10 1 12- 15 PRE 5 10 1 12- PRE Attack: 3d6 6 OCV 15 3 5 3 DCV 0 3 5 3 OMCV 0 3 3 6 DMCV 9 3 3 4 SPD 20 2 10 Phases: 12, 3, 6, 9 20 PD 18 2 1 33(13r)HI; 4DC Damage Negate Body Only; 36(13r) w/DI 20 ED 18 2 1 33(13r)HI; 4DC Damage Negate Body Only; 36(13r) w/DI 16 REC 12 4 1 25 END 1 20 1/5 10 BODY 0 10 1 26 STUN 3 20 1/2 Meters Movement 14 FLY - - - [1] Megascale 1m=1km 4 LEAP 0 4 1/2 [1] up to half upward 12 RUN 0 12 1 [2] X2 Noncombat 14 SWIM - - 1/2 [1] Megascale 1m=1km 158 Characteristics & Movement Total CP Powers Notes [END] Powers Dwarfstar Entaglement 12 Absorb 6 BODY Delayed Return Rate (+1/4) Increased Max x8 (+3/4) Energy to Relaxed Containment [-] 12 Absorb 6 BODY Delayed Return Rate (+1/4) Increased Max x8 (+3/4) Physical to Relaxed Containment [-] 10 Bare Advantage ED 20 Hardened (+1/4) Impenetrable (+1/4) [-] 10 Bare Advantage PD 20 Hardened (+1/4) Impenetrable (+1/4) [-] 13 Damage Negation -4 DC Energy 20 AP Body Only (-1/2) [-] 13 Damage Negation -4 DC Physical 20 AP Body Only (-1/2) [-] 20 DI 3x 12 AP 0 END (+1/2) & 0 END on STR 15 (+1/2) Visible (-1/4) 'Relaxed Containment' [0] 5 Flash Defense 5 Sight Group [-] 35 Flight 14m 1/2 END (+1/4) Megascale 1m=1km (+1) Usable as Swimming (+1/4) [1] 35 Life Support All Age, Disease, Environments & Poisons, Self Contained Breathing; Eat 1/Week [-] 5 Power Defense 5 [-] 58 Resistant Protection 13 rPD/13 rED 39 AP Hardened (+1/4) Impenetrable (+1/4) [-] 0 Positive Reputation: Metaman, the Metahero (Limited Group) 5 Eidetic Memory - AK: Campaign City Everyman 8- 3 Bureaucratics 12- 3 Conversation 12- 3 Deduction 13- - KS: News Everyman 11- - LS: English Native Everyman – Literate - PS: Cub Reporter Everyman 11- - TF: Human-powered vehicles 242 Total Powers, Perks, Talents & Skills 400 Total CP Complications 10 DNPC: Floating 10 Distinctive Feature: Teenage Boy Who Becomes Metaman (Easily Concealed, Major Reaction) 10 Hunted: Floating (As Powerful, NCI, PC Easy to Find, Watching Only, Infrequently) 15 Psych Lim: Protective of Innocents 10 Psych Lim: Explorer's Curiosity 5 Rivalry: Floating 15 Social: Secret Identity, cub reporter Drake Dean 75 Total Complications Background The Ky'yr are a primordial advanced spacefaring humanoid race from a heavy gravity world. Even without their technology, a Ky'yr can lift over six tons. This combination of innate physical power and space travel turns out to be rare, due the difficulty of so strong a being leaving a planet heavy enough to evolve on. For the Ky'yr, this does not apply. Long after they became so advanced they could survive almost anything the Universe could throw at them, the Universe threw a dwarf star, shattering their planet and casting the Ky'yr to space, homeless. Ky'yr society began to revolve around dwarf stars – the most plentiful kind of world in the galaxy. Their innate durability and resistance to radiation suited them perfectly to life on shells built about dwarf stars. Their technology allowed them to harness the energy of the degenerate electron matter of collapsars to power travel spanning space. Very much respected by other alien races due their combined brutal might and much progressed scientific minds, the Ky'yr explored and colonized, unmolested as the sole species suited to endure hostile dwarf star settlement. Then, on a tiny planet about an insignificant yellow star companion to a dwarf star, a Ky'yr discovered a tiny wild species capable of learning menial tasks, more versatile (and safer) than artificial intelligence, similar to primitive little Ky'yr, and suited to quantum entanglement with degenerate electron matter. A quarter of a million years ago – next to no time at all in Ky'yr reconning – the first of the savage breed was collected and the experiment began. Many generations of quantum entangled twins were dropped into the dwarfstar before the first few pairs stabilized. The point of this experiment was to produce a companion slave race to do heavy lifting and routine chores too menial for Ky'yr. Held in a failsafe containment field, the menial sub-Ky'yr remained weak, slow and servile. As the Ky'yr masters relax the field, more of the dwarfstar power flows from the sub-Ky'yr through their quantum entanglement bond, giving the Ky'yr servants of immense power, who also proved useful in security operations when troublesome spacefaring rivals needed policing. On the whole, Ky'yr are terrible masters: arrogant, inconsiderate, unempathetic, cruel and with no regard for the value of a slave's life or suffering. Da'wn was one of the menials who felt so, a long-lived sub-Ky'yr who had policed among more enlightened alien races whom he put down for his overlords, and who had ventured nearer to bright, uncollapsed, stars so feared by Ky'yr than most on missions for his Ky'yr owners. On one such expedition, Da'wn was sent to explore the odd patterns of radiation from the sub-Ky'yr homeworld, 'Earth'. It turns out that in the Ky'yr absence, the wild root stock of the sub-Ky'yr had begun to gradually develop primitive technologies. Da'wn's evaluation, after decades of study, was that the wild 'human' race would snuff itself out playing with forces beyond its proper understanding, within a few centuries at most. Da'wn took pity on his Earthly kind, and at the same time planted the seed of a rebellion against his overlords. Mingling with humans, Da'wn fathered a child before leaving the planet. His son, Drake Dean, would have all the power of a sub-Ky'yr, but unlike the slave population he alone would learn to control his own containment field using the energy of the Sun. With the sum of Ky'yr knowledge imbedded in Drake's unconscious, one day Drake Dean would be capable of leading his fellow humans from the ignorance that imperiled their own world, to free the enslaved sub-Ky'yr humans as well. Drake inherited his father's sense of duty toward the innocent, and love of exploration. Raised in Virginia by his grandparents after his mother succumbed to a mysterious malady, Drake has been taught to hide his differences from a world not quite ready to be saved. When his containment field relaxes, a sub-Ky'yr expands in apparent size and mass, as the warp around him decreases. Drake, a normal teenage boy about 4'6” tall, takes on the size of a 6'6” man rippling with sub-Ky'yr muscles and exaggerated chest and arms. Doppler shifting of the little light he does not absorb tinges his blurred form red and blue. “What are you, some kind of metal man?” the first person to speak to the flying hero who had just performed his first rescue asked. “More of a Metaman,” was Drake's quip in reply before he flew away, caught on a video that went viral online. The name stuck. Drake lives in a town small enough to not just have a local newspaper, but for the old editor to remember a time when cub reporters were how journalism got its leads. Cub reporting fits Drake's gifts for clear memory, conversation, handling red tape and deduction as well as his desires to protect others and explore. It doesn't hurt that he secretly has the power to fly and is virtually impervious to harm.

Champions is the Infinite Game. If restricted only to characters under Champions' trademark I'd use the villain option for 'Dark' Aura from Ultimate Energy Projector as my scientist pick first to splice mix-and-match style from the whole universe to get: Dr. McQuarkstroyer Grondripper Dark Aura Shrinkerette Howling White Flame Pantheracula

Ozymandias Red Hulk Dr. Manhattan Phoenix Bizarro Why settle for second rate villainy or prima donnas?

Well, of course you pay the points for the attacks. It's hard to imagine a projectile that doesn't have both effects on contact, the initial attack and the booby trap. EG: 1d6 RKA Arrow (15 AP) + 6d6 Explosion Booby Trap (45 AP) = 60 AP. If the target deflects the arrow, the Booby Trap still affects them. If they don't deflect the arrow and it hits, both attacks affect the target. I can see no reason to make the Explosion attack more expensive because it is a Booby Trap, or to make it cheaper.

While I think the best thing to do with Leaping when converting from old characters to new is to decide whether a.) the Leap score in the old character was intrinsic to the concept, or a.) just a cheap way to give someone with a high figured Leap from STR faster movement and handle each one separately: a.) Pay for what the concept needs, or scale back the concept to fit the campaign; b.) Put a stop to the Minmaxing, and see a.) An adequate substitute for many of the big Leap powers appears to be Teleport, must pass through intervening space, with a fixed arc of travel. That way, even though you're still at noncombat speed, you get there many phases faster, and it resolves how much you can carry while leaping such distances. On the downside, you lose a lot of move-by/move-through potential that way. If you need it for combat distances, increase the END cost, and you'll get about the same power as before.

You could just set it in any part of the world that ignores the existence of 80% of the planet.. and then set the news feeds to their news rooms to lie? Refuse entry to the national airspace to outside planes, shut the ports on some pretext, block phone calls. Block the internet from outside the country, and you're there.

I don't actually see Desolid in the powers; is it meant to mean 'Shrunk' inside target? I like the balance; great potential, but an enemy with a 1 hex AoE double barrel shotgun shell loaded with cold iron pellets would leave him bleeding out, unconscious, and flying 30m into the nearest hard surface if they caught him unawares. AoE's, the bane of shrinkers everywhere.

Controversy and debate? The roots of modern comics generally are traced to at least as early as 1889 with The Argosy, and Munsey's Magazine, influencing the 1913 Hugo Gernsback Experimenter Publishing, which went into business with Electrical Experimenter (later Science and Invention), and evolved through the excitement of the 1920's to publish Amazing Stories and after bankruptcy when 1929's Wonder Stories, the science fiction magazine that inspired Superman and Batman both, began. If 1938 was the birth of the golden age of comics, then before that was a primordial age of comic titans. So I propose the Titanium Age for 1889-1938.

We were a 5-7th level AD&D (1st Ed.) party, about to enter the tavern together. Our wizard wanted to make a grand entrance, really impress the locals. This was when thieves could advance very, very quickly compared to other classes. So the 5HD fireball hit the oak door, and the DM, reading directly from the example in the DMG word for word, explained the saving throws we'd have to make. What a time for four sixes to show up out of 5d6. So the thief and the fighter fled the scene as the uninjured tavern occupants looted the charred corpses of the 5th level cleric, wizard and cleric-wizard, the fighter taking a couple of nights' rest to return to full health. DM didn't give us any xp for surviving our own wizard.

Tripping sounds more like Change Environment than TK to me. Just saying. Now, what a Bikini-based Change Environment would be..

With Falling Starlette's occasional membership (when people remember her), that brings us to four and a half members on the Grey List. I'm nominating a powerful pair of one and a half mentalists, a psychically bonded duo of Mr. Grey and Ms. Shade, neither of whom can exist without the other. When they are physically together, their conjoined mind is strong enough to remember Falling Starlette, to see past Houseguest's belongability, to know the Unknown Stuntman, pierce Graphix' illusions and bypass Screamplay's warping. Well, except for the warping he used to initially conjoin them, giving his supervillain team a core, a leader, and to bind that leader to them all slavishly. Next.. the Brown List.

Do we have a type for the kind of player who just seems to be involved to spoil the fun other people have? The ones who play a superhero game but don't like to see anyone play either a hero or a super -- at least not their way? The ones who play high fantasy, but resent the fantastic achievements of others? The ones who'd rather nilbog than promote party success, who can't have a character that betrays the other characters without being the player who betrays other players' fun, who take special glee in depriving others of glee?

I admit, when I read "Gatecrasher", images of Louis Tully from Ghostbusters came to mind.

It's just AoE. You can't deflect AoE attacks unless carried in a projectile, by SPFX. Declare your SPFX to be "goes off as shooter plans". Now, if it only affects the target who catches it, that'd be more like OCV levels, only to circumvent block/deflect/reflect, I imagine.

If your goal is to hit the gun in someone's hand, I'd go with the standard -2 OCV to target an OAF. If it's to shoot the gun out of their hand after hitting it, I'd apply Knockback rules based on object size. A standard gun weighs about a pound, or two levels of Shrinking, adding 12m to the knockback distance, so if not enough BODY is done to destroy the weapon, it either drops to the ground or flies from the wielder's hand.

This reminds me of a story I tell way too often. A Champions story, at that. Captain Crunch was the amnesiac alien brick (think a lobotomized Ronan the Accuser struggling to fill in the missing bits of his proud military heritage by modelling on Danny Kaye from White Christmas, the cast of MASH, a marching band, Catch 22 and the Village People) I was handed at the start of this undersea death trap dome of the Crimson Craw, who had all our DNPC's as helpless hostages. The five heroes' job was to pass through seven death trap rooms demonstrating teamwork, self-restraint, and guile over raw power. Crimson Craw (yes, everyone had an alliterative name in the adventure, except the grim, brooding superdetective Hooded Cliche who just had to be different) was closely watching the proceedings from his secret control room 'somewhere on the planet' via floating cameras with boom microphones that trailed the team everywhere, under Crimson Craw's control. One of these rooms required a key found at the far end of another side room.. A side room designed to amplify any sound within it a billion trillionfold.. (which it turns out, is a lot) and turn it back at the source of the sound. As his name indicates, the sonic-vulnerable Captain Crunch was obviously not the one to navigate this particular test. While Crimson Craw taunted the heroes from a floating viewscreen, obviously paying close attention to everything, listening with a pair of high tech electronic earplugs clearly of his own diabolical design, Hooded Cliche engaged his ninja-trained stealth and closed himself in the room by very, very carefully closing the soundproof door. We all sweated as roll after roll Cliche went step by step the length of the room and back. Then Captain Crunch, careful alien observer of humanity (as he was objective about human foibles), exploited the Crimson Craw's obviously overdeveloped sense of curiousity. Crunch whispered, very low, to the camera. He had a secret to reveal about his team mates. But he had to say it verrry. verrrry, verrrrrrry quie --- BOOM! Captain Crunch waited until he saw Crimson Craw adjust his earphones to their maximum, shoved the camera-microphone into the sonic trap, and slammed the door on the room with his full 50 STR. The lights went out. The others in the team cheered and jumped up and down in glee. The two co-GMs, gape-jawed, called a recess in the action -- which had been done real time up to then -- to confer. You see, they hadn't expected anyone to kill the fragile and elderly Master Villain, who was in lone control of the whole death trap from the booth on the far side of the paper-thin wall from the corridor we had been circling the whole time.. and who also had a vulnerability to sonic attacks. In my own defense, it had been a terrifying, engrossing, completely engaging session with four strangers and two of the best GMs I'd ever met, in a finely crafted module they'd spent years perfecting.. We'd almost all taken BODY damage (except Hooded Cliche, who just had to be different), and we'd barely defeated several of the death traps. There had been rhyming couplets as clues to each room, full of hideous puns. There was the floor covered with six-sided tiles, each side numbered one through six, and the clue that rhymed "die" with "pie" to challenge the entrants to the one of five exits that wouldn't kill them all, by the one exact path that wouldn't kill them all. There was the room with the ceiling that not only lowered, but screwed down, so even a child could unscrew it, but not even Captain Crunch could stop it straight on. In the one room a few of the team goofed off, we almost all got a bit skewered by 60' long syringes with rapier-sharp acid-filled needles six inches in diameter. So you can imagine lobotomized Ronan the Accuser getting a little .. vindictive. Still, the GMs badly wanted to see us get through the module they'd slaved over, so they ruled Crimson Craw had 1 BODY remaining and when he regained consciousness was only too eager to run us through the rest of the death trap.

Back in AD&D 1st Ed., the solution was to multiply indoor ranges by ten for outdoor ranges, on the maps. Worked like a charm, except for the one guy who kept confusing it for multiples of twelve because he liked feet, and reasoned inches were, y'know, twelve to the foot. Which would have been fine, except he wasn't the DM, and didn't inform anyone of his on the fly conversion, just took the more advantageous of the two options.

A good GM's job is to make the interesting elements of his players' characters more interesting, without betraying the players' trust that they are, for example, not going to find *surprise* their secret base used as Road Kill's private lounge, or that their DNPC wife turns out to be a shape-shifted amnesiac Dr. Destroyer slowly regaining her memories. Or that the password for accessing their AI's update log is H@57urH@57urH@57ur. You know, unless you're sure your players are into that sort of thing.

There are so many traps one can get into with names. The Olympians are related to the Titans, through Gaia, and he's a wrestler, so Titan Twister Man and Gaian Grabber.. would only lead to awkwardness, I imagine.. though nothing compared to Arieos Aryan, which at best would be kindly shortened to Ar-Ar.. and that's not good. Going with the Roman names, (I know, a sore spot for Hellenic purists), Marshall Mauler, Mars Man, Marian Matt Man.. you see alliteration can be tricky. Amazing Man is good. It hints at the maze of twists and turns pankration can inflict on the limbs of its recipients, and this is after all the Greek Demigod of Ooooh, so it's fitting. Were he wielding an appropriately demigodly electrified javelin, say, he might get away calling it Shock and himself Awe. Awesome Man is likely just wrong, however, and Awe Man.. is definitely more wrong. In Greek, by the way, "Katapli̱ktikós" is 'Amazing'.. but unless he's enlisted, Captain Katapli̱ktikós is.. awkward. Awesome is "Foverós", and Marvel is "Tháv̱ma". You would know 'man' is just 'ánthro̱pos', and there's no easy alliteration.. plus he'd run out of chest to write it on. "Sok kai Déos" (Shock and Awe) is short enough, but not very punchy in Greek or fitting the powerset. "Palaistí̱s" (Wrestler) is pretty good; sounds vaguely like paladin, but more exotic, and shortens to 'Pal', which is far better than shortening to 'Sok'. "Machitis" shortens to 'Mac', and means 'fighter', but "Páli̱" means 'to fight'. Oh, and "Niki̱tí̱s" is 'Winner'. Amyntikós, Defender; Prostáti̱s is Protector, but I'm sure you see the issue with that. Good luck with the name game, however you go. Since he has a Public Id, I'd go with 'Jason Preston', or 'Jay' for short, which is what the laid back media of the PNW would likely call him.

I calls 'em 'torsos' instead of yards or meters meself. The image of a game map covered in networks of torsos end-to-end, in perfect six-sided figures, their arms feebly waving in spasms, their necks still sucking air reflexively. So much better than the metric system for sheer setting and mood, alone. I'd explain what I use in place of grams, but this is a family entertainment. And don't be fooled by those nonstandard torsos. Use standard torsos, or your maps will be off.