Mr Mole

In a sense, none of it is "free"... Rather like having a Mystery Disadvantage.

I hand out free equipment and the occassional temporary power boost from time to time... But only if I'm almost certain they're gonna *NEED* them. If they don't end up needing them, I either take them away, or see to it that they *DO* need them. Bases & Vehicles are a great example. I generally donate a decent Base and/or Vehicle to encourage the "team" theme, and I try to scale them to fit the campaign. A fully staffed, orbital space station, with a full sensor array, communications equipment, transporters, and stasis cells for prisoners tends to tip the scales rather dramatically in favor of the PCs. The *BEST* part about handing out freebies to PCs? I don't feel at all bad about taking it away again... Or having the Bad Guys use their toys against them... Just to knock them totally off-balance. The better the toy, the more strings are attached.

Zaratustra already said it... Accidental Change. Make it a Physical Limitation or somesuch, if it makes more sense to you that way. Depending on the Power, if it's actually an Advantage to have it suddenly pop "on" (like Teleporting to a secure location when stunned), then the Trigger Advantage might be called for. Oh. You'll also likely need to make sure the power is Persistent, since it's going to remain active while the character is unconscious. If you really insist on a Limitation rather than a Disadvantage, try "Only Very Slightly Uncontrolled Under Certain Circumstances -1/4", or something equally silly...

Wow. I'm more normal than I ever would've guessed. I only scored 24. I spent my early years around kids with downs and autism, so I maybe my perspective is just a bit "off".

Your DCV bonus applies against ALL attacks until your next phase.

Pattern Ghost brought up a number of very good points. Helped me see some things from a slightly different perspective. One thing I always try to do with newcomers is run them through some basic "danger room" scenarios to get in tune with the feel of combat using the Hero System. Sometimes it's sparring against NPCs or with each other. Sometimes it's against holographic simulations. Sometimes it's a solo run and sometimes it's a team session. The idea is to give the Players an idea of what their PCs can do... without them having to worry overmuch about consequences. There's rarely any sort of stigma attached to losing. No permanent harm to the PCs... and only sometimes the slightest harm to the Players' or PCs' egos. It's also fun, later down the road, when the enemy gadgeteer breaks into the team's Danger Room and turns off the safey protocols. I know it's cliche, but it's just so darned much fun.

I believe you're referring to Adventurers Club #25, GM's Discrection, page 63, by Steve Perrin. Great collumn by Mr. Perrin. I still use his alternate form of Armor Piercing as a optional Advantage in my campaigns.

Frighteningly, I have all but three of the books listed already... I lack only "The Blood & Dr McQuark", "Gadgets", and "Strikeforce". Of those three, the only one I *REALLY* wanna see is "Strikeforce", and you say it's sold out. Why are you tormenting me like that? I haven't done much to fill in the gaps in my out-of-print hero collection in awhile. Maybe I should start looking around again.

If it were anyone but the esteemed Mr. Surbrook who came up with that one, I'd be running away and hiding... Not familiar with that particular beastie. Does one have to come in contact with the entrails themselves, or is there sufficient drippage from them to affect anyone the critter flies over? Sounds like the latter, from what's been said so far. I'd lean toward some variant of Area Effect (Line or Any), probably with Non-Selective. I'd toss in "Must Fly Over Target" (-1/2 to -1?), and say the potentially extended Area Effect is just Special Effect. Figuring most targets will probably be on the ground, it's not much of an Advantage or Limitation. Truely vile, sir. I salute you. Love the web-site. Have for years. Waiting for a new update, BTW...

In a setting using those guidelines, a 300 point Multiform should generally suffice. If it's a low-powered, early X-Men setting, Rogue wouldn't have her enhanced Strength & Flight. She didn't get those until her mishap with Carrol Danvers/Ms Marvel/Binary/Warbird/Whatever-She's-Calling-Herself-These-Days. In most of the spin-off, non-comic book versions or Rogue, she has only her power leeching (X-Men: Evolution cartoon, X-Men & X-Men 2 movies, etc). When I used a 300 point Multiform as an example, it was in the context of the campaign parameters originally mentioned. There's no WAY you could fit the current, comic book version of Rogue in that point structure. Then again, who'd want to? She's become so absurdly unbalanced as a character over the years... As have many of the X-Men, I suppose. Remember back in the days BEFORE Wolverine was "the best there is at what he does"?

Major "Stop Sign" power combination here... As was suggested earlier, a Variable Power Pool with "Multiform Only" would do the trick. It wasn't legal, strictly speaking, under 4th Edition, as Multiform was a Special Power. Under FREd, Multiform is a Standard Power. You could stack on plenty of other Limitations to simulate the exact effect, but they wouldn't change the Pool Cost; just the Control Cost. With a 60 point VPP, a 300 point alternate form could be created. With the point caps you've specified, that should be enough to handle mimicing pretty much anyone's Powers / Skills / Characteristics / Whatever. Stikes me as at least bordering on "munchkinism", but I'd allow a reasonably mature Player to have that kind of Power... with lots of appropriate Disadvantages and Limitations, of course. YMMV...

I think (almost) everyone will agree that the problem stems far more from the group than from the rules. I'm not the world's biggest WotC/D&D3/d20 fan. I do think, however, that the core rules have shown tremendous improvement over the years. Some parts are looking more and more like Hero all the time. For example, lifting capacity in 3E is based on doublings now, unlike previous editions, allowing for a far greater range of effects. There are "good" and "bad" gamers using every system and in every genre. The proportions aren't all that different, for the most part, from any other game. D&D just tends to have a larger pool of gamers. It takes a truely advanced, enlightened, and sophisticated game like FREd to bring out the very best , of course.

On the Mystique issue, I'm not familiar with her having ever taken on a non-humaoid form except in the WB X-Men: Evolution cartoon. There, she's become a bird, cat, and wolf, in addition to various humanoid forms. For Rogue, The Until Super Powers Database playtest had some ideas on mimic-type powers. I can't wait to pick up my copy of the real thing. It also had some ideas for pyrokinesis that would work very well for Pyro. Actually, it had power writeups for just about any of the Marvelous Mutants. The only things that makes me really gasp is the 75/75 part. I could probably write up the original X-Men, as they first appeared, with only 150 points, but I can't imagine trying to fit anything more recent in that point range... especially Rogue.

One of the first things I did after getting my copy of CKC (after reading it, of course) was to make that exact same list. I mostly did it to get an idea of what the average combat stats of 350 point characters in CKC was. I haven't gone and made any characters based on their stats just yet. I *did* go and check out how Thunderbolt I stands up against Thunderbolt II. If the original has any sense of tactics whatsoever, then the newcomer is toast. Seeing as how #1 is teamed up with Binder and the Ultimates now, I suspect #2 would be in trouble. #2 actually isn't that badly off except for that nasty Vulnerability: x 2 STUN from Electical attacks. Unless #2 decides to start throwing things at #1, he has no ranged attacks. #1 pretty much just has to wait for #2 to get within range, use his Lightning Blast I, burn a few dice to Spread his attack, and watch #2 go down hard. Not a pretty sight.

I haven't whipped out my copy to proof read the context, but it doesn't sound like a typo. 1G does equal 60" per turn after the first segment. It's an acceleration, so it increases over time. 60" per turn per segment. A lot of the "optional" rules use velocities in terms of hexes per turn. Don't mind me. I'm just trying to up my post count...

One more vote for Hero Games... With one tiny exception... Had to do it... As much as I enjoy Digital Hero, it was up against Knights of the Dinner Table... I had to vote according to my (admittedly warped) conscience... I'm gonna go hang my head in shame now...