Opal

The Coven While not powerful mages individually, the Coven can imbue one of its members with great power for a period ranging from one to, at most, 25 hours (from midnight to 1 am the following night). The powers gained, however, depend on the member's position within the Coven and the challenge they are trying to overcome, but generally center around one of: commanding an apect of nature, like weather or fire or plants or animals, transformations either transforming others into harmless animal forms or allowing the chosen member to assume a powerful bestial or mythical form, or influencing the senses or mind, or most severely 'twisting fate' to bring about certain outcomes without apparent direct agency. When opposing those who abuse magic, the Coven can invoke & enforce the "law of threefold return" which visits the trebbled consequences of malevolent magic back upon its caster or, on the other extreme, grant an obsessive mage the object of his desire in return for setting aside magical powers (thought it's depressing how often mages, when granted what they tell themselves they have taken up magical power to attain, instead choose to continue weilding magic for its own sake). When working with the other Messengers of the Goddess, the Coven will sometimes enhance an ally's powers instead of sending one of their own into action. The Coven, itself, is subject to the Law of Threefold Return, but they distribute the consequences among the whole, thus their empowered representative can afford to use magic to harm or even kil - sparingly. (Yes, that's meant to count as a single character, though they could also function as background 'agents' and support when not putting all their effort in empowering one of them to superhero levels.)

It was exactly because I felt the OP's description of the effect functionally precluded interactions with the full-size world that I thought of XD-Move (which, yes, is nothing more than a plot device with a point cost). If there were still potential interaction some sort of adjustment power might make more sense, reducing movement and damage potential, perhaps, while as a side effect, making them harder to hit or even find. But, I think the lower limit to that might be closer to action-figure sized, like the classics Dr. Cyclops and Land of the Giants.

Tiny ants is getting into the realm of not really interacting with regular-size creatures anymore, so you might go with X-D move, and have a whole micro-setting for the shrunken characters to interact with.

I used to wear a t-shirt that said DNPC. People often assumed it was from a computer company. It got the odd laugh at cons though.

So, philosophical game-design questions. (and my first take at answers, but I'm really looking for ideas, so please, chime in) What is a Skill? Well, I guess a skill is something that anyone might be able to perform, given training, but that they well might have no chance of performing without some sort of training. As opposed to an innate ability which just anyone can do, just by being; or an innate talent that only some gifted sorts can use. Obviously as opposed to a 'power.' If you could divide very possible skill into six (or pick an arbitrary number you think would work better) categories, of roughly equal number/value/importance across genres, what might they be? Maybe: Know Stuff, Do Stuff, Figure Stuff Out, Make Stuff, Fix Stuff, Express Stuff.... ? ;) or maybe: Knowledge, Science, Magic, Social, Physical, Intellectual...?

I think Find Weakness was also a skill in 1e, and 10 pts, but yeah. But I've sometimes thought a 5, 10, and maybe higher level of broad, consolidated skill might have worked... One thing Chapions! had done really well was handle diminishing marginal utility and allowing vastly different conceptual levels of power to coexist in a campaign or scene while retaining some relevance. That latter is Hero Doubling. The 8d Martial Kick skilled-normal superhero and the 18d EB (1000x more powerful!) Cosmic Guardian superhero can be in the same fight and both be relevant. Contrast that with the low and high-level characters in D&D or freak'n 'scale changes' in others. The former is the way being able to do one thing really well is actually worth quite a lot, but being able to do a second quite similar thing about as well really isn't worth much more - multipowers neatly addressed that (Linked addressed it much less neatly). At least, it's always done it well with power f/x, and buying powers, characteristics, and skill levels. Skills, though, outside of levels, I feel it kinda lost it's way. Though, things like Scholar & Scientist worked, a bit, in that direction. Of course, with, non-granular skills and 4e-style levels, you could still get granular. if "Doctor" was any medical check, you could still have a more granular medical-drama game where relatively low-pt characters have very different talents and specialities based on their 1-pt levels with specic procedurs and 2-point levels with specific specialities, to really stretch the point on the low end. More reasonably, though, a skill pyramid with a handful of 10 point sills covering basically everything you could ever do with skills, each 'breaking down' in to a handful 5 point skills, each encompasing a few 3 point skills, and an open-ended plethora of 2-pt skills and 1-pt familiarities, could work, prettymuch regardless of genre. In a superhero genre, high-point heros tend towards being Scientists like Dr Who and Detectives in the sense of Sherlock Holmes, whil much-lower point genres all skills are at the 1 & 2 point level. The neat bit is a given superhero might have a few 1 or 2 or 3 point skills for a specific interest here or there, but if they buy a number of them, it becomes pointless not to just buy the next-level up 3 or 5 point skill. OTOH, I'm such a fan of 5pt Hero-Doubling, I'd rather like skills to be like, your first two skills are 5pt each. For 5 more points, pick two more skills... etc... ;) Anyway, way off topic... ...somewhat on topic, though apropos of little, I'm afraid: it's interesting that the first 4 editions of Campions! happend in less than 10 years, that 4th (& thus Hero System) lasted more than 10 years, and the next two (two-and-a-half)? have covered almost 20 years....

D&D is unique in the TTRPG market because of it's hallowed first RPG status among established gamers, and it's unmatched mainstream name recognition (by RPG standards, still far from that of Superman or Harry Potter or anything actually mainstream or even Guardians of the Galaxy, for that matter). Well, and the 80s finally coming back - the 50s came back in the 70s, the 60 came bake in the 80s, the 70s came back in the 90s... and it wasn't until 2015 or so that the 80s even started to come back... Stranger Things seemed like the watershed 80s comeback moment, and it included D&D quite prominently. So yeah, "D&D is doing well, but (insert any other RPG) is still languishing," is a universal truism. And, yes, there has long been a problem with the Hero System as a marketable game or business model - you don't really need anything but the core book. The Universal System seemed like the holy grail of RPG design back in the 80s, but it was quickly thrown over for setting-centric and storytelling and retro and indie designs, because it's self-defeating, it kills it's own market.

(BTW, how do you get quotes to work on the forum these days - I've been away since 2012... yeah...) Obviously, you can't wake up from 0 or less stun with a PER roll, so sleeping is not quite the same as unconscious, even if the two states are otherwise very similar. While unnaturally putting a waking target 'to sleep' could be F/X for reducing stun below 0 in a variety of ways. So does the Hand put people to sleep, say, in combat, or does it keep already-naturally-sleeping people from awakening? My feel for it from the versions of the folklore I've heard over the years is closer to the latter. So, while suppressing a talent is maybe a bit cheesy, and a silence field could have issues of it's own, I think working to induce failure on that PER roll would be more apropos than an actual attack, since it's the existing mechanic for waking up, which is what the Hand is supposed to prevent. But an attack mechanic would be right for a version where you could, say, light it, step into a bank, and have the customers and tellers all fall asleep while you rob the place.

"Killing Attacks STUN multiple 1-3 eliminates the STUN lottery. Want to knock someone out? That's not a KILLING attack." I never liked the STN LOTTO, except that it *could* give you the odd 'creased his skull' result where a bullet KOs a character while barely injuring him, as well as the classic dying-declaration possibillity where a dying character still has enough STN left to remain conscious and gasp out some last words (or even squeeze off a last shot and kill someone who really deserves it). But, those classic bits are mostly there for characters lacking resistant defense. The STN LOTTO also made it virtually impossible for a superman-style brick to bounce machine-gun bullets off his chest while still having total PD in a reasonable range (the way normal-tech weapons' KAs kept going up didn't help, either). It sounds like Damage Negation could have handled that last without eliminating the first. (What I did for the longest time was aply the STNx only to the BOD that got through defenses, so 20 resistant PD could outright bounce 3d KAs, while a character taking a few body from a 1d KA or through a low-DEF vest could still get a lot of stun to go with it, as also seems to happen in a lot of genres, FWIW.) "you can play 6th rules with the more "general" skill groupings from the 4e era pretty easily" I shudder to think what 6th skills must be like if 4th's extrensive skill lists, including the open-ended Professional, Knowledge, Area, & Science skills, can be thought of as 'more general." ;) If anything, I'd like to go back to 1st edition's take on skills: just a handful of superheroing-applicable skills at 5 or 10 pts each. (Warning, this is just a pet peeve of mine with game design, in general, and has been since the 20th century, so skip it if you don't like laughing at elders' rantings - heck, this rant goes all the way back to the introduction of the Thief to OD&D) In all the many RPGs I've played and perused over the decades, fewer skills usually seems to work better than more, and a fixed skill list is always better than an open-ended one. Because adding skills creates incompetence. You have your paleosuperhero built in 1e with "Detective Work" for 5pts, you're a dective, add INT/levels to get a 17-, you're a great detective. But you 'add' skills to the campain, say lifting Streetwise, Shadowing, Deduction, &c from DI or whatever, and adding them to your Champions! campaign, and that great detective is suddenly unable to do the full range of detecive work. He's become incompetent at something he was formerly great at, due only to the increased granularity. It got worse: 4th, you'd want Streetwise, Criminology, Deduction, Interrogation, Shadowing, a PI liscence, AK: The City, and a number of Contacts, and, if you want to go all Sherlock Holmes, that decuction and maybe some other skills, you might want to be 18- or better, preferably 24-, so you can pull 'Extraordinary' checks. 5th continued the trend. You could, in 1st ,buy litterally every skill in the book, and some overall levels and just be good at anything. It's not an insane superhero concept, really. From Doc Savage to the Taskmaster it's been out there. But, the older Hero got, the more prohibitive that sort of concept became.

IDK about this comparison of sample characters and 6th being 'more complex' - the Hero System has always been a poster child for complexity, especially in chargen, and 4th was a high point in it's day, 5th wasn't meaningfully more complicated, even though the book was thicker, and I can't imagine, and don't see from the 6th character sheets I've glanced at, any reason to think 6th characters need to be more complex than 4th or 5th. They might need more skills to model the same concept, and they might take more points to model the same powersets, but that's as far as it seems to go. I wouldn't let fear of complexity scare me away from 6th.

I'm flashing back to a sleep <> knocked out discussion from somewhen. ? And doesn't taking damage typically wake a character up? Is there still Change Environment? CE: conditions ideal for sleep, perhaps? I was thinking Darkeness to hearing, but sudden unaccostomed silence can wake you up, too.

I'm no authority on 6th, but as I understood it, another major change was that Figured Characteristics (including OCV & DCV?) are no longer figured, so the overall points spent on characteristics is higher, and Elemental Control is gone (replaced by a relatively minor 'unified' limitation). I don't recall the fate of other power frameworks, but it seems like you can expect to spend more on powers, too. Also, skill inflation has continued apace. IDK if you remember all the way back to the introductions of professional skills in Champions II, but back then you could be a lawyer for 2 pts. by 4th you needed a perk to be a member of the bar, and, well, probably more, maybe a lot more points invested in skills to be any good at it. I seem to recall early examples from 6e having the skill set to be a lawyer adding up to something like 60 points. So, characters build and balance quite differently than in 3rd/4th. It doesn't seem like it should feel that different, in play, though, FWIW. Full disclosure: I had been away from Champions for a few years when my group's interest in D&D revived with 4e, and it was the discussions leading up to Hero 6th, here, which convinced me not to return to adopt the new ed. I'd been using 5e, nominally - I've always mixed up details of prior editions, since I started with 1st on - with plenty of 4th mixed in, and the odd variant. I wrapped my last Champions! campaign in 2009, were I to come back whole-heartedly to Champions!, I'd probably perfer 4th. The BBB wasn't perfect (I'd argue its as close as any universal system ever got), but the game has drifted from it's original strengths since then, I'd be happier to fix up 4e here & there than tackle 5th or 6th.

I started with 1st, so I've always found 1/5 more intuitive, especially for attacks (but, in 1e, movement was 1/5" so was already 1/10 for most movement modes, IIRC), but it did seem to make 1/2 END almost mandatory and charges a pretty good deal. OTOH, if you went with it, if you had tight campaign limits that had the bricks, for instance, going for the full 60 STR rather than lower with 1/2 END, it did bring some drama, something about spending lots of END evokes the feel of superhuman effort to go with those superhuman powers. (and, yeah, 6th failed to grab me; 4th with some variants is my preference)

Desolidification (that's still a power, yes?) stopped by magical wards, that only lets you pass through openable doors, might work, for the opening doors trick, too - it has the advantage of not have a DEF limit, but you can't just leave the door open for somenone else like you could a tunnel. Another version of the folklore I heard was that it keeps the members of the household asleep. Either way, magical burglary tool.

Hi, new to this thread, but I was inspired: Leanne Washington was diagnosed with severe autism at an early age, but became comunicative and achieved some level of literacy and numeracy when her parents enrolled her in a special education program in Oak Park, taking her there on the Green Line 3 days a week. She developed an obession with the 'L' that probably drove much of her progress, wanting to read time tables and system maps, she would even talk to people to find out which station they got on and where they were going. But her greatest improvement coincided with the awakening of her mutant powers at puberty. She gained superhuman strength and speed (though neither to the level of powerful bricks or speedsters, the combination of the two makes her effective), and most of her more overt symptoms seemed to vanish, she became high-functioning and able to enroll in a standard middle school in a matter of months. Today 'L-Train' ("Ellie" to her teamates) is a stereotypical teen super-hero, very comfortable and even exuberant in the role, prone to risk-taking and not always following orders or coordinating well with the team, but always trying to do the right thing. She wrestles with whether she should stand up as an example to other neuro-atypical children, though, as she's not certain if she is 'real' or if it was all part of being a mutant. While she has trouble in everyday social situations, difficulty reading emotions and sometimes even recognizing faces, in the superhero arena where her allies & enemies mostly wear masks and colorful costumes, that's not an issue; but she does have an inconsistent vulnerability to PRE and mental powers, while she's usually fearless in the face of physical danger and terrifying foes she can also freeze up when confronted by a powerful personality or overwhelming stimuli. Her parents know of her superhero identity, and had to approve, as she was underaged when she joined the team, but her older brother, Leon, who was away at college when her powers manifested, does not, he is public defender who resents vigilantism and is sometimes a thorn in the team's side when they go after normal criminals rather than other supers. (too much?)

I feel like there was a "Red Raptor" in a Champions! product, maybe some 20 years ago? Flight via red force-field wings?

"Anál nathrach, orth’ bháis ’s bethad, do chél dénmha!" How did you decide how to spell that? Any idea what it's meant to mean, or if it was a RL language? ...hm... wild gues: Welsh... google translate says: "Breath of a snake, in your death and beast, your bald back!" wow I'd been wondering about that since junior high

So, vaguely-remembered anecdote from the 80s: A player creates an mentalist, named (IDKY I remember this) Aris, who is a litle dark and creepy, apparently, and like most mentalists, physically wimply. However, a different player does all the character scetches for the group, and draws Aris as this black-robed&coweled glowing-red-eyed very villainous looking figure... ...holding an enormous sword. Now, Aris's player was known for outre builds with whacked special effects. Like "Growth: special effect, shrinks everything around me." (Don't think about that one too hard.) So he decides to buy the enormous sword. As Martial Arts. BoECV. (see, I got there) I think, I'm kinda guessing, that only the martial arts were BoECV, and STR, or maybe EGO, or maybe something else, adding to it at 5 per DC (so 10 adds 1 die) - this may have been the rather wild-and-woolly Champions 3rd, though I'm sure it got converted to 4th at some point, so it could have been anything the GM felt OK with. Anyway, I wonder, Ragnov, if what you're after is either closer to TK or closer to substituting EGO for DEX? Like, when your mental powers spill over into STR, is it STR that actually lifts physical objects?

I've never been quite satisfied by the way normal-damage melee weapons were handled in Hero. At times, they've been like nerf bats for high STR characters (only up to double the weapon), and the points don't add up in that stisfying 5 pts/DC way, even with 5th's oddbal HA as a limitation... Many years ago I created an HA that worked like a normal counterpart to HKA. I was never quite happy with it, either. Something reminded me of that old problem again... apologies if this is the wrong place for it. Hand-to-Hand Normal Attack This power can be used to build a weapon or weapon-like power that does normal damage, like a billy club, magical flail, extensible force field, ki punch, etc. An HNA costs 5 points per d6 of normal damage and can be defined as physical or energy, normal or stun-only. HNA adds to STR: An HNA can add to STR damage, only the dice of the HNA are added to the STR damage, no advantages of the HNA are confered to the STR damage. STR adds to HNA: STR used with an HNA can add directly to the HNA, DC for DC, up to doubling the dice of the HNA. So, an HNA can be used to 'transform' STR damage from normal to energy and/or to add advantages. For instance, a 30 STR character with a 6d energy HNA could inflict 12d N(energy) damage with the HNA, while if the HNA were also AP, he'd inflict only 10d of AP damage. Versatile attack: An HNA can be used to do more than just damage, like an EB, it can be manipulated to give different advantages. You can trade one die of HNA for a +1 bonus to OCV to attack with that HNA or Block while 'wielding' it. For 2 dice, you can sweep an HNA through an adjacent hex, attacking each creature in that hex. For each additional die, you can sweep it through another contiguous hex (which does not have to be adjacent to you, so you can use this feature to get some 'reach'). Wielding: An HNA is used as an instantaneous attack, but the power remains active until your next phase begins, you only have to pay END once per phase on an HNA, even if you use it again. Once you have paid END for your HNA (or whenever you have the power available to use, if it is 0 END), you are 'wielding' it. While 'wielding' your HNA, you retain any OCV bonus you traded DCs for, and any modifires your campaign may have for being 'armed.' Limitations: 'Doesn't stack with STR' -1/2, the HNA does not add to STR and STR does not add to the HNA. 'Slam,' -1/4, the HNA always does the same number of dice of damage and is not 'wielded.' 'Real Weapon,' an HNA with the Real Weapon limitation can have a number of dice devoted to OCV or filling hexes, but that number is fixed when it's created, the 'Real Weapon' HNA is still wielded while the character is holding the weapon. Examples: Billy Club: 15 pt HNA, 2d N(p), +1 OCV, 0 End, OAF, STR min, Real Weapon. (You can attack or block with it, you can choke someone with it...) Telescoping Fighting Staff: 4d(p)HNA, 0 End, OAF. (You can sweep this through one or even three hexes adjacent to you - or even sweep through two hexes to hit someone three away - albeit with just your STR damage). Extensible Force Field: 8dHNA(energy, 'magnetic') (A slot in an EC, with Force Field, obviously, and Flight. This character can do some wicked move-throughs, extend his Force Field like a battering ram to catch several enemies, or form it into a whip-like or rod-like 'force field weapon.') Energized Gloves: 6d HNA(energy, 'blaster'), 0 END, OIF, Slam. (Combined with 30 STR, this guy gets to hit hard, like an HKA-based slasher, but without all the blood. The gloves have an aura of blaster-like energy, the harder you hit, the more of that energy is discharged into the target.) Sturmhammergott's Mighty Mallet: 6d HNA(p), Useable At Range, 1/2 End, HIDO (no one can take it away or even lift it, comes to him from anywhere). (He can spin it arround to hit adjacent enemies, or block attacks, and throw it for 12d). Radiant Mace: 4d HNA(energy, magical holy radiance); +4d only vs undead enemies; OAF, wielder must be 'righteous' or just a normal mace, Slam. (This weapon requires strength of faith, not arm, and sacrifice, thus no STR min, 0 END or real weapon limitations. Obviously, for a campaign in which normal maces are readily available.) Stun Whip: 8d stun-only (energy, electrical), 0 END, OAF, doesn't stack with STR, (The slightest brush from this weapon is shocking, but it's light construction prevents any physical damage to the victim. It can be whipped around quicklly to give milder shocks to several enemies.)

Re: Adding damage to weapons

Re: What do speedsters do in 6E? So, there's not some "I retain full DCV when making multiple attacks" thingie you can buy? Doesn't seem like the kind of thing that requires a hard fix like that. You can blast a bunch of agents with an AE. You should be able to bop a bunch of agents with Multiple Move-by. Oh, or you could just buy an AE with that F/X, of course.

Re: No more Figured Characteristics?! Figured Characteristics hadn't changed apreciably since 2nd ed (that's when they notice, oh, you can sell back all your figureds and /net/ points, and implemented the only-buy-down-one rule), for a good reason: there was no need to change something that worked well. Characteristic-based characters, like bricks, were simple to build, fun to play, and pretty 'point efficient' with very little 'system mastery' required to achieve that efficiency. Characters built with Power Frameworks and/or creative limitations could shave as many or more points, they just required a little deeper knowledge of the system.

Re: What do you think of Endurance Reserve in 6E? I've played Champions since the begining, and I've never seen a version of END Battery or END Reserve that really worked. That was not unduly exploitable, that gave a reasonable point savings if ginuinely limiting and had a reasonable cost if not. Charges had generally seemed OK, and reduced/0 END has been workable at each step. I'm not sure any of them have been quite perfect. But END Battery/Reserve has always been problematic in one way or another.

Re: The Hero System is bland and over complicated Yeah, I'm not sure when it was that weapons started getting outrageous in terms of damage. Maybe when Espionage/Danger-International started influencing Champions? I remember way, way back starting with the dynamite in the 1st ed book, and figuring out something like 8-12d KEX for nuke-level damage. Hero's damage scale is one of the things I've always liked about the system. It means that huge swings in conceptual 'power' don't overwhelm the system.

Re: Mind Link w/Targeting? If you want 'targeting' on the subject of the Mind Link, sure, but since Mind Link is something you use on your buddies, that just gives you a very good idea where your linked allies are. Handy, but hardly broken. If you want to 'see' things around the Mind Linked ally, that's a different sense, entirely. Clair is the way to go.