Haerandir

Glad you liked 'Siege'. It's the one I would go with, myself. But, as long as I'm here, I've been working up a few more: On the theme of toughness: Adamant On the theme of reflecting energy: The Mirror Rebound Repercussion Reflector Resonator Not an awful lot in the origin. Not that it's a bad origin, just that there aren't too many adjectives there. I suppose you could work with the 'visual distortion' effect, but most of the things I can come up with for that involve heat. Though, given that he's a 'mirror' and he 'distorts' things, you could call him Funhouse. Personally, I'd stick with Siege.

My philosophy on number-crunching vs. role-playing I have found that doing the number crunching during character creation frees you up to concentrate on role-playing once the game actually starts. The most important thing is to design a character you will have fun playing. That means avoiding the pitfalls of both over-engineering AND under-engineering. I have found that it's a rare player who can actively enjoy being consistently outshone by the other PCs, and no one likes to roleplay being unconscious. So, while you lose something by ignoring the flavor of the character and trying to make the 'most effective' collection of stats and skills, you also lose something by ignoring point-breaks and efficient design. -A lot of people have mentioned the wonders of 3 and 8. The formula in question really is 5x-2, where x is the amount you want to add to all your characteristic rolls. The formula for CVs is 3x-1, where x is the value you want your CV or ECV to be. You really want your DEX to be some value from the formula 15x-7, as that gives you the best of both worlds. This means: 8, 23 and 38 are more efficient than 13, 18, 28 and 33. I've never seen a character with a DEX of 53, and I hope I never do... -Of course, if you're more interested in CV than DEX-based skills, there's a lot to be said for 11, 14, 17, 20 and so on. I.e. something from the 3x-1 progression. This rule holds true for EGO, too, as there are very few EGO skills. It depends on how important your EGO roll is to you. -If you're going to buy up your secondary characteristics, check to make sure you can't get a better deal by raising your primaries instead. Strength is better than free. Constitution is very nearly free. Dexterity, as has been pointed out, is a very good deal when compared to a combination of SPD, Lightning Reflexes and flexible CSL's. If you're spending points on all of those things, consider increasing your DEX instead. -Always buy your movement powers as an odd number, to get the round-up inch on your Half Moves. -Armor Piercing is rarely worth the points it costs you, especially if you're working under an active point cap or damage class cap. You should generally never buy your primary attack as Armor Piercing, as you will usually be losing damage potential against most opponents. Find Weakness, on the other hand, can be a very effective alternative, if you're willing to spend the time to use it. Those are the things that spring to mind. Most of my other suggestions have already been covered. A final suggestion, which has less to do with 'point-shaving' and more to do with effective character design: decide what your character's combat tactics are going to be while you're creating the character. Figure out what you expect to see from opponents in terms of CV's, defenses, attacks, and so on, and decide how your character will deal with those things, both the average and the extremes. Do not go overboard with this, though. For one thing, you will not have the points to make your character able to deal with any situation that could possibly come up, and even if you did, you shouldn't. Half the fun of combat is coming up with cool improvised solutions to 'unbeatable' foes. On the other hand, you should have an idea of what to do about some of the more common opponents. Nothing is less heroic than standing around furiously trying to come up with a plan to defeat Ogre because you don't have any way of getting past hardened ED... I also like to have some idea how I'm going to spend my first 50 experience points with any given character. I think of it as en extension of the character creation process. Of course, I almost never follow that plan, as I'm forever playing a character and discovering some flaw in his design that needs correcting, or a niche that the party needs someone to fill. But it's good to have a plan, just in case nothing unexpected comes up.... Like that would happen...

Exactly! Dr. Silverback moves units. Defender does not. If anything, we should be concerned about Dr. Silverback overshadowing both the Champions and the PCs. I just hope they don't make a plush Dr. Silverback doll. That'd be the end of it for the Champions.

GW has a line of Egyptian Undead themed miniatures for their Warhammer Fantasy Battles game. Take a look here: http://www.gamesworkshop.com/warhammerworld/warhammer/khemri/khemri.htm If you do a search on 'Tomb Kings' in their online store, you'll be able to see most of the miniatures they have available. The pictures don't show as much detail as I'd like, but if you have an FLGS that sells Warhammer figures, you could take a look at them there. Of particular interest would be the Ushabti figures, which are big animal-headed guys. I believe they do a crocodile, a jackal, a bird and one other. Unfortunately, GW figures are not exactly cheap, so you probably won't be able to afford to use the Ushabti as hordes of nameless beastmen. Also, their 'Necron' line for the Warhammer 40,000 game is a group of futuristic robots with an Egyptian undead theme, of all things.

Man, would they be PO'ed when Kinetik figured it out and handed the bracelet off to a nearby unpowered police officer...

Good ol' Transform. It's just like an RKA, only it's applied to Power Defense.

Where do these powers come from? Magic, technology, martial arts and/or ch'i, mutation, psionics, what? That might help narrow it down a little. Does he do anything outside of super-heroing? Is he a musician, a policeman, a construction worker, a lumberjack, a schoolteacher, a CPA? That might give us some ideas, too. If he wasn't SPD 6, I'd suggest a turtle or tortoise theme. What's fast and has a shell? Darn, Armadillo's been taken. Hmm. How about Siege? It implies both the defensive powers and the 'battering ram' blast... Other possibilities include Blockade, Barricade, Breach, Bastion... You could focus on the force he absorbs. Impact, Crash, Collision, Hammer, Smash, Jolt, Brunt, Buffet, Concussion, Shock... Possibly with an adjective to make it more interesting... Again, I'd have to know more about the character to come up with something descriptive. Do his powers have a visible special effect? Are they a particular color? If so, you could match a descriptive adjective with one of the names above.

I once built a whole character around that Force Limbs idea. Of course, he was a 250-pt. 4th edition character, so the extra limbs and stretching were pretty much his only schtick.

Well, I think the point is that he's psychotic, but he's not a loon. Frankly, I'm not even sure he's psychotic. He could just be very ambitious. That's why I find him refreshing. Instead of being so powerful that you have to make him a nutbar to explain why he doesn't just roll over everyone, he's powerful enough to be scary, without being overwhelming. And you're right about the Crowns of Krim, too. Though I'd have to be worried about my players just packing it in and going home....

quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yamo, I thought you didn't even care about superhero gaming. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well, here I think I see the crux of your dilemma. If you haven't played with the Champions in your campaign before, then you can't possibly view them with the affectionate contempt even a minimally experienced Champions player quickly develops. They're not iconic and intimidating, believe me. Any more than the generic "how to design a D&D character" thief from the D&D PHB is iconic and intimidating. It's not as bad as last edition, where you had Seeker getting his butt kicked on the cover of every other supplement, but give them time. Even in 'Millenium City', it's Dr. Silverback on the cover going toe-to-toe with Firewing, while Defender lurks unnoticed on the back cover.

I rather like the Warlord & his War Machine, personally. The Warlord himself is obviously a villain, but he's fairly rational, and you can talk to him. Sometimes I get tired of megalomaniacal supervillains blowing up Detroit. Warlord's a nice change of pace. And the War Machine and Shadow Army give you a nice progression of opponents. I envision a layered scenario, where the PC's first encounter a group of Shadow Army soldiers and whup up on them, to get them feeling nice and confident. Then they run into a couple of members of the War Machine with Shadow Army backup and beat them with a little effort. THen they fight the entire War Machine, possibly with agent support. Then, in the final encounter, they have to take down the Warlord himself. Gives you a nice feeling of logical progression. Plus, I'm a sucker for powered armor characters.

I once knew a guy who convinced his GM to let him buy a vehicle (a motorcycle) that could Multiform into a battlesuit. So, every point he spent from the main character turned into 25 points worth of battlesuit. Not a bad little force multplier...

I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but my vote goes to European Enemies, too. Any time the fact that they forgot to print the strength value for a brick is NOT the worst error in the book, you have serious problems...

I've had several GM's threaten our groups with the moniker 'Super Heroes in Training' if we fail to come up with a team name. We found it to be an effective motivational tool.

Believe me, I've gone through this very same discussion before, in my various attempts to build a character named 'Renaissance Man'. Technically, according to FREd, you can put skills in a VPP, if your GM says it's OK (it requires GM permission on about 3 different levels, but it's possible). Obviously, everything is possible with GM permission, and nothing without. Many GM's will almost certainly veto a skill VPP for the reasons that have been brought up on this thread. I know I would... The Universal (Skill Group) Talents are a decent house rule, but, like any house rule, require the GM to be on board. However, the increased cost of such a talent, vis-a-vis the VPP, may help you out. Failing to acquire GM permission in both cases leaves the option I eventually went with: The 'Super-skills' VPP. Essentially, you buy a VPP of powers with the special effect that you're really good at lots of things. I.e., I used Clinging to simulate Climbing, and so forth. Mental Powers & Enhanced Senses are really good for simulating a lot of interaction, knowledge and science skills. If your GM doesn't go for that either, then you're out of luck, as far as I can see. In answer to your original question, if I was the GM, I'd probably allow the Universal (Skill Group) Talents, but I'd have to make them available to other players, which could dilute your character's uniqueness. I would not allow a VPP for the purposes of buying skills only, no matter how limited (though Geoff Speare's notion of increasing the cost of skills for the purposes of buying them in a VPP has merit). I also like the Transform idea someone proposed. The real problem is that, if you're playing in a skill-intensive campaign, the ability to know everything and do anything is inherently abusive, unless you make it so expensive the character literally can't do anything else. In a campaign with less focus on skills, no matter how cheap you make it, the character is going to waste a lot of points on the ability to have skills he won't need. You won't often hear me say it, but this is a character who is much easier to write up in SAS or GURPS Supers than in Hero...