Opal

Re: Create a Hero Theme Team!
 
Davis Walters was a closet neo pagan who ended up joining the United States Army. When his unit was ambushed, and many of them were badly wounded, he recalled an old spell that might allow him to save them that drew on the protective power of Mars, Eagle, and Inanna! His willingness to give his own life and lore attracted their attention it seems, for he was given great power in exchange for one task: He would become a champion of religious freedom in America. He would be allowed to keep his identity secret, but he would wear the colors of his nation, and his pagan trappings both proudly. Upon accepting, his ritual knife was empowered with many mystic properties. Now he is a sorceror soldier with a blade that can deflect bullets, sever mystic bindings, and grant him visions in its reflective metal.
 
He calls himself American Athame!

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.

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.

That certainly surprises me, but then the popularity of child and teen protagonists was something I was baffled by even as a child and a teen 😁 

An option could possibly be meta-skills, you take this and get all these bundled and assumed.  For example: Detective gets PS Detective, KS: Detective work, Deduction, Conversation, etc.  That way people can take packages of skills without having a 9 yard character sheet, and maybe give them a cost break for consistent concept and building to theme.  The problem is that if you spend 30 points on skills they aren't nearly as useful to you in most games as 30 points in, say, resistant defenses.
 
It got so bad in 5th that I was buying street detective types with an elemental control to trim the cost down a little.  Cheesy and questionable, but it made the characters more eqivalent.

I think you can use the quote style.
 
 
But I haven't figured out how to attribute that style of quotation.

Knowing things. Doing things. Teaching things.
 
All things are Physical, Mental or Other.
 
6 things, 9 combinations, covers it all for me.
 
- E

Ooh! Good question!
 
Obviously there is no correct answer, as it is an opinion poll, but I will offer you my own opinions, briefly:
 
Was it a mistake?
 
No.
 
Do I like it?
 
Also no.
 
I see the validity of it: there are more options and powers and skills-- there are more things you can spend points on than ever before.  Some of them are pretty pricey: Desolidification was once a movement power, bought in increments to a point you felt was appropriate for your character.  Now its 40 points, period.  I will spare a long discussion of all the little xhanges and how they add up and skip to why I don't think it was a bad idea. 
 
The end goal of any company is growth, and at a bare minimum, long-term survival.  The goal of gamers is more gamers: more players, more GMs, more opportunities for games, discussion, friends, etc.  Both of these require new customers for the company.  Champions /HERO has a bottomless complexity, _once you really learn the system_.
 
Experienced pkayers know how to design the "just right thing," using various modifiers to control costs and create specific game effcts relatively inexpensively by focusing on the individual aspects they want (and negotiation skills with the GM).  "Shrinking: only to reduce mass" is a build I remember approving years ago, but I no longer remember the particulars.  There was a simialr thing with density increase for the same character, but it doesn't matter for this conversation.
 
Anyway, this fine tuning- the skills and know-how to get exactly what you want and increase your cost-efficiency come with practice, and nothing but practice.
 
Upping the points makes it easier for new players to build the character they see in their heads: he can fly, so I will buy flight.  He shouts beams of solar radiation, so I will buy Blast.
 
No modifiers, no fractions, no multipowers and VPPs-- no complications at all.
 
Thus, I dont think its a bad idea.  I dobt like it because it lets us old hands really, really ramp up the power level, and in a hurry.   however, I can let it slide simpky because eveeyone has to learn, and there really ia a lot more to spend points on these days.
 
I would have preferred to have seen a talk covering the value of higher piints for new players or simpler builds, and regulating points up or down in later campaigns as pkayers gained experience, but likely that would have added more words, so I am quite content to keep my disappointment personal, and not find fault with the book(s).      
 
 

AKAIK, you can't get quotes to work for outside-of-the-thread sources since the site update ("upgrade") last year. The best you can do is copy-and-paste then put quotation marks around it.
 
For quotes from people who have posted in the thread, hit the quote button underneath their comment. Then after that content shows up, you are free to add or delete from that content if you want to respond to some particular section of what they said.

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.

(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.

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.

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.

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?)

Serpent's breath, charm of death and life, thy omen of making.  Old Irish.
 
https://www.evertype.com/misc/charm.html

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.

The Hardest Lessons (Warning; Potentially 'dark champions' disturbing.)
 
Morgana was a mere seven years old when she encountered her first predatory pedophile. The fellow saw the strange-looking, but still quite attractive child running around the carnival alone. He figured he got lucky when she chanced past the shadows he was lurking in. He grabbed her from behind pinning her to his chest far more strongly than she could resist while covering her mouth, her muffled screams utterly swamped by the noise of the carnival.

By this point in her life, she had been introduced to most of the spells that were in the grimoire but had little experience with casting any of them, so she could do nothing while he carried her off. In the back of a van, he tied her up, gagged her, and most worse of all, covered her head in a sac. That done, he drove off to some unknown destination.

The drive was a good twenty minutes, during which time she was able to calm herself to concentrate. She spent her time remembering everything she could about the "Ghostly Chill" spell her mother had tried to teach her. Her mom knew there were dangerous people in the world and had tried to convey that lesson. But sometimes lessons need to be learned the hard way so they really sink in. That lesson now learned, she recalled all the instruction with deadly seriousness, rehearsing it repeatedly in her mind.

She whispered the old words over and over like a mantra, invoking their power to aid her memory, "Anál nathrach, orth’ bháis ’s bethad, do chél dénmha!"

The ride done, her abductor carried her into a room where he took off her hood, preparing to do his worst. She didn't scream, she didn't struggle, she just took a good look at him. The predator was confused at her odd lack of apparent terror. Then her eyes went white as she looked into his soul with Blindsight. She wanted to see what such a person truly looked like, so she could more easily identify such dangers in the future.

At the sight of her eyes suddenly going white as she stared at him, the villain stood with a start! He opened his mouth to speak, but Morgana had seen enough. She nailed him with Ghostly Chill and he dropped like a sack of potatoes, right on top of her! She was trussed up too much to use her arms to get out from under him and struggle as she might, she couldn't wiggle out.

Again she calmed herself. There was another spell, "Spirit of Akasha" that she had studied but not yet accomplished. Now her life might depend on it. Once more she recalled her lessons, again with the mantra, and while it took some time, the seriousness of her plight catalyzed her success. She phased to spirit. Her ropes fell through her as she glided up and through the unconscious body of her abductor.

She looked around the room, a large closet really. There was little in it save a mattress and a bucket, no window. There was a pile of discarded children's clothing in a corner. Then she noticed that the mattress was covered in bloodstains, and the pedophile had a big knife sheathed on his belt.

It was a day for lessons, there are some truly dark evils in the world as her mother had warned her. She understood what had happened here, apparently at least several times. Morgana was torn now with a hard ethical choice, a really tough choice to face at the young age of seven. 

Her mother had long counselled her on the extreme necessity of their hiding their magic from the world. She had learned the histories, especially of what was done with those simply suspected of witchcraft. She dared not go to the authorities to report this man, there would be too many questions she could not answer. Yet if she simply left, he would continue to perpetrate this extreme evil. She nailed him again with her Ghostly Chill, just to be sure he stayed down. She wasn't going to take any chances.

She stood there and stared at him for a long while, just wrestling with her choice. It was a futile struggle really, as she knew pretty much right away what she had to do. The time was spent convincing herself she 'could' do it. It was during this mental struggle that she discovered a few more of her cantrip magics, as the room glowered from her mood, and as she got closer to her resolve, her eyes started to burn and her hands started to crackle with red arcane lightning.

As her resolve to do what needed to be done reached its fruition, she invoked the Charm of Making once again to catalyze her Arcane Lightning, "Anál nathrach, orth’ bháis ’s bethad, do chél dénmha!"

A red lightning bolt erupted from her hands and with one fell stroke, killed the monster as he lay. He would harm no more.

Morgana searched the house, in case there were any other kids he had kidnapped still there and alive. She found none. She resolved to hide the evidence of how this monster died by setting fire to the house. She'd already ascertained it was in the middle of nowhere.

Not more than a couple of hours had passed in the evening since she's been taken. The carnival would be in operation for a few more still. They didn't drive so far she couldn't maybe see the carnival lights from a height. This one she had done before, I mean what child wouldn't learn to fly first and foremost. The "Wings of Aether" bore her aloft. She had to fly quite high up to see more than the occasional street lamp, but soon enough fortune shone upon her, and she did indeed see the telltale light shape of the carnival's Ferris wheel.

She flew home while pondering what she should say, or if she should say anything at all. She knew now that she could take care of herself. She feared though that her mother might overreact and seek to curtail her freedom so as to "keep her safe". In the end, she resolved to say nothing. No one would know that this night, she had killed someone. She knew she had done the right thing, and as long as no one knew, there would be no consequence.

She slept soundly that night. Her demons were already defeated that day.