levi

Many great points in this thread...not much for me to add but something came leaping to mind...PC Voice recognition replacing keyboard and mouse

Sorry Xagen, but this is yet another case of the math and the system getting in the way of running a game. Buy it as an AE Damage Shield if you want to, the important part is how it plays in the game. I think Kristopher was on the right track with the question about how this power is played. The most important thing about this villan is that the heroes MUST decide to endure damage to themselves to save the day. I have often heard that Superman isn't much of a hero since he can bounce bullets and there is no real chance of him getting hurt unless someone whips out the Kryptonite. In other words it is EASY to be a hero when you aren't risking anything. Your villan has the potential to really define the heroic nature of the PCs in your campaign. Seperate the posers from the bonafide heroes. I would suggest giving it the Does BODY Advantage to really test them. In fact, a recognized tough guy NPC should fall to this guy before the PCs fight him to give them a real sense of how much peril their characters are putting themselves in to fight Backlash. Here's my system suggestion: 10D6 Ego Attack Reduced END (Zero END) +1/2, Continuous (+1), AE Radius 38" selective (+1 1/4), Damage Shield Offensive Affects Mental, Energy & Physical Attackers (+1 1/4) 500 active points. Limited Power - Cannot cause more than double the damage caused to Backlash (-1/2) Cost: 333 pts. Hope that helps...

Technically you halve the result not double the per die cost. This distinction is important as it relates to Power Defense or an AP Drain... 6D6 DRAIN avg result 18 - 6 Pow Def = 12/2 = 6 pts effect 3D6 DRAIN avg result 9 - 6 Pow Def = 3 pt effect 6D6 AP DRAIN avg res 18 - (6/2) Pow Def = 15/2 = 8 pts effect 3D6 AP DRAIN avg res 9 - (6/2) Pow Def = 6/2 = 3 pts effect

I seem to find two schools of thought (no pun intended) on Telepathy. The first is that the Telepath chooses a target, rolls some dice and the GM spills some info. The second is that the Telepath chooses a target, tells the GM what he/she is trying to find out, rolls some dice and the GM relays the appropriate info. I personally have found the second method to be the most balanced. It regards Telepathy like an internet search engine. Plug in some keywords (ex: Where is the VIPER Nest?) decide how specific the search is (GM decides EGO +10) check for results (die roll). The blanket statement by Telepaths in my game group of "What does this guy know?" Would not fly. I find that characters with the power to pick up random surface thoughts or emotions is better served by Detect (possibly with No Concious Control) than Telepathy. My group uses Telepathy like mental interrogation, in fact Interrogation is a complementary skill to Telepathy in our campaigns (+5 to Telepathy result for each point Interrogation Roll is made by). Hope this helps

New Terror Inc Muerte, Giganto, Shamrock & Leech Even though he was left out of CKC Muerte has found new life in my gaming group, literally. Scorpia & Feurmacher's trechery has been repaid as DEMON/Takofanes/Mysterious Magical Bad Guys have reincarnated the former Professor and infused him with an Incan/Mayan Death God. (Think Dark Seraph with a 100 pt VPP - Death Powers - lots of BODY Drains and Transformation Attacks) Destroyer has been looking after Giganto and Shamrock since the betrayal and they both have expanded powers (Earth Control and Luck Powers from the USPD). Muerte's pet, the Leech rounds out my group's new Terror Inc. and the players love to hate these guys. GRAB The newest incarnation is great! Cheshire Cat is a rival for my PC's teleporter (except for that stupid Vuln) and the women make great Role-Playing opportunities.

I love these boards sometimes! To address the issue of making this character cost effective he could go the Martial Artist with Al On Desolid and STR that affects the real world (20 STR = 60 AP). Remember that PRE does not have to be purchased to affect the real world to scare the bejesus out of someone. I had a character named Nightwraith like this...after watching the movie Ghost (with Patrick, Whoopi and Demi) no one ever let me play him unfortunately.

I think that the answer to your question lies more in the style of play that you group uses. Does your group spend most of the game session RPing the events that lead up to a fight or do they spend most of the time fighting? If the answer is the former, this character will shine. If the latter answer is more accurate, be ready to spend most of the night cheering your friends on. One of my characters is a Batman-esque character who is loaded with skills and often gets the rest of the team to where the action is with his detective skills. He then spends the rest of the fight invisible and making find weakness rolls against the toughest bad guy and usually puts the villan down with a flying kick to the now painfully vulnerable area (his only attack of the fight).

Re: Character driven... We have a similar situation in my group. About ten years ago, we had a team of heroes in San Francisco named the Protectors. Anthem - was like Ultimate Cap, ten years ago. He was created by a German scientist at the start of WWII who saw what the Reich had planned for the world and gave the genetic formula to the Allies. They raised him as the "perfect" soldier and he led the Allies to final victory without using "the bomb". In the decades since, Anthem has fought in every major conflict the world has known, thanks to his enhanced genetics he ages slowly. He retired to become the senator of Montana when the Protectors disbanded. In the current campaign, the West Coast Defenders proect the bay area under the auspices of PRIMUS and their special liazon Anthem. The old man comes in and lectures the whipper-snappers when they get out of line and provides a vehicle for interacting with PRIMUS and the US Gov't when the story requires it or the players request it. This character was always hard to play because he was supposed to have seen it all, he makes a MUCH better NPC.

This Dash character reminds me of a game I ran in which one of the characters was named Jester and was a wise-cracking martial artist with toy themed gadgets. In one game, he rushed into a burning building to save some innocents and was horribly burned in the process... GM (me): "There are children on the adjacent ledge, but the ceiling is about to collapse. If you jump in there, you MIGHT save them, but you will not likely make it out intact." Jester: "I don't even hesitate, I AM a hero afterall." ...Jester was horribly burned and the Player, instead of having a fit about how his character had just been punished for being heroic, used it as a reason to make his character more dark and Bats like. He changed to meaning of the "J" symbol on his costume from Jester to Justice and became a dark avenger of the night and the character still lives on in the stories told by our gamimng group even though that Player has long since left the group.

Steve, Can you tell us more about The Galactic Fed book? Will there be species with superhuman stats / abilities to draw on for a Galactic Champions campaign or will super-beings of a different species be akin to human Supers in power level differences?

It sounds as though you have a thorough, almost encyclopedic command of this character. You also seem to understand that you cannot do everything right from the start. So you can go about this two ways...1 Look at what is least expensive and start there saving up for the more expensive aspects of the character or 2) Get the expensive stuff up fron and pick up one or two new smaller point abilities from each session's XPs I like to start with the big stuff and I Would start with a MP for the Psychic Reading / Cleansing...Maybe Clairsentience / Transformation. Then buy your Martial Arts Maneuvers and reasonable skills. Then maybe some AID to DEX (or even just +xx DEX) bought as Spirit Possesion. Maybe even a Multiform with an Accidental Change: When Jake doesn't follow the code of Bushido. If you want to make Jake a vessel for Tadeka, the Multiform is a good way to go. You can make Jake the psychic detective and the Tadeka multiform a martial combat monster. Hope some of that helps... Please post the final character once you have him completed.

I agree with Shrike...just don't let the newbies get over on active point limits in your game because of it. When they see other characters throwing more dice because they are willing to track END, they will come around.

South American and central African coutries are also good choices because of NAZI expatriates that fled to these areas after the war and they have very corruptable governments.

Along those lines, we had a situation where a brick threw a guy who then would turn on his density increase! I was unsure how the change in density should affect the velocity of the character being thrown, but the GM ruled that no velocity was lost (the throwing distance / velocity was determined at the time of the throw based on the character's pre-DI weight).

Personally, I don't see a reason to use a Power when a maneuver exists, but just for the sake of boredom...lol I don't have my FRED handy, but something along the lines of... STR at Range (up to 75 STR) (+1/2) 112 Active Points OAF Throwable Friendly Character (-1), One Recoverable Charge (-3??) Cost = 28 points ...should do the trick.

I don't have my FRED handy, but you need to find out what the DEF and BODY of a 12lb. Shotput is so that you can know what the most dice of damage you can do with them is as well as how far your Brick can throw them.... That said, you can use any of the options you listed before.

It seems that the velocity calculation for damage caused should be taken from whatever distance was remaining upon reaching the target. Example: Bulging Muscle Guy throws Hairball Martial Artist at Magnet Master. BMG can throw HMA 25" and MM is 16" away...so the remaining velocity is 9" so the HMA gets 9" velocity (or +3DCs) for damage on the Move Through. If MM were 4" away, then HMA would get 21" velocity (or +7DCs) for damage on the Move Through. This seems to follow the logic of the Knockback damage rules as well. Also remember that your velocity cannot equal more than 5" per Inch travelled. If BMG could throw HMA 100" and MM was 10" away, you could still only generate 50" velocity, despite having 90" distance remaining, due to Hero Game Mechanics. The penalty for throwing the HMA at the MM should be based completely on the original velocity generated (25" or -5 OCV for a Move Through). This could be compensated for by Levels in Fastball Special or any other appropriate combat skill levels. The justification for this point of view is in the loss of accuracy for the sake of power when throwing in the real world.

I recently came up with a game thread that involved a company that made holographic projectors for trading card games so that players could have holographic battles in the streets with their cards. Black Harlequin created a device that stabilized the holograms and put them under his control. He then used them to attack the children / teens playing the card games and eventually the heroes with their own game monsters.

Extra dice for successful Oratory or Persuasion Rolls are often appropriate as well. Rule of thumb in my group = +1d6 per 3 you make the roll by (made by 1-3 = +1d6, 4-6 = +2d6...)

We have a Yahoo Group that covers everything from people's schedules / gaming availability to industry events. In the files section is a folder for my Bay City Defenders Campaign and it includes a Superhype Newsletter. I use it to recap what happens from session to session because not everyone can make it every time we play and it keeps everyone informed. I know a GM who gets consistently frustrated when players cannot remember what happened in the last game session...this seems to help alleviate that problem.

It's all in the way you play it out. Personally I love the fact that the HERO system has a way to represent a character that is capable of illiciting response like this. Let's look at why characters have a high PRE stat...some are hideous, some are gorgeous, some are fearless. Make sure to play these aspects up when encountering a character with super-human PRE (20+). This is your job as the GM...to craft a setting for the players to react in. If you don't do your job of setting this character up as a real terror/knockout, how do you expect the players to understand why their characters are behaving in ways other than what they say they should. Here are a couple of examples... Ex 1) GM: "Mechanon comes around the corner, says he's gonna crush you all and (GM Rolls Dice) you all lose a full PHA while Mechanon hits your team with an Area Effect Energy Blast. This is gonna hurt!" Players (in unison): "What the #$%@#!!!!!" ========== Ex 2) GM: "As you enter the dimly lit factory, the hum of the automated machinery you expected does not fill your ears. As you move into the main production floor of the factory, there you see the source of the recent trouble in Millenium City, Mechanon the robotic destroyer of all organic life. His robotic eyes glow brightly in the dim light and you hear the rhythmic tapping of a hundred mechanical limbs as spider-like automatons creep out of the idle machinery around you, all at once you realize you are surrounded as the synthesized voice of your target hums to life above the tapping, "You imperfect organics have troubled me for the last time. Destroy them!" GM gives Mech +3d6 and uses Standard Effect Rule for a result of 33, costing most characters a full PHA action. (much quicker this way) GM continues: "Your characters are all pretty taken aback by what they've stumbled into and the spider-bots are on you as your characters come to grips with what they've gotten themselves into. You guys will lose PHA 12, but still get your Post-12 Recovery." Players: "Aw man, how're we gonna get out of this one?" My players seldom grumble or feel less than heroic if they lose an action to a PRE attack. In fact, many of them have learned the value of a high PRE and launch their own attacks whenever they can. Remember most criminals are a cowardly lot. I hope this helps.

My idea plays to the "Mysterious Benefactor" origin and uses a combination of mysticism and super science to create a team that embodies the universal energies of the zodiac signs and uses Mike's Powers... Have the players make up 150 pt. "normals" something along these lines... Taurus: Ex-Military Leader Gemini: Psychologist who specializes in Multiple Personality Disorder Cancer: Marine Treasure Hunter Leo: Big Game Hunter Virgo: New Age Bookstore Owner Libra: Ex-Cop or Lawyer Scorpio: Ex-Assassin Sagittarius: Ex-Olympic Athelete (Archer / Marksman / Track) Capricorn: Orphaned Half-Alien runaway, human appearance. Aquarius: Bio-Chemist Pisces: Marine Biologist Aries: Ex-Pro Wrestler or Football Player These people are brought together by mysterious invitation and are made a ware that they have been a part of a grand plot contrived by the Ancient Order of the Zodiac or The Twelve...something like that. Each of them has been genetically bred over the last ten generations to be the perfect vessel for the spirit of their sign. Something deep inside them knows this to be true, though not all will participate willingly. Those that agree to the process are placed in an advanced tech chamber while an arcane ritual is performed. When they awaken from the chamber, they all have Mike's power list (the extra 200 pts, except Capricorn who would probably have less skills/talents and more Powers) along with the ability to manifest into living embodiments of their associated signs. I would think these would be drastic changes in body size / shape / color to further exemplify their signs (think mythology for inspiration). They could revert to human and lead normal lives, unless contacted by the Mysterious Benefactor to act in the interest of the organization. They would also gain disads such as... Watched by "The Twelve" Hunted by DEMON ~or~ Hunted by Anubis...nobody likes "New Gods" less than Old Gods (ask Neil Gaiman) Accidental Change - on command from "The Twelve" Dist. Features - Aura of Sign Even a genetically bred Vulnerability that "The Twelve" can use to control the avatars. Hope this helps...

My answer to this thread's question would be... Poorly Thought Out Characters This is really more a problem with certain types of players than any archetype. I have seen characters from each of the archetypes mentioned played by people who are looking to play out a good story an people who are just looking to cause as much havok as possible. Character Archetypes should be a matter of frameworks and special effects because when you get right down to it, 12d6 is 12d6 whether it comes from magic spells, plasma blasts or the fist at the end of a brick's arm. If the characters are assailed by threats with varying types of attacks (physical, energy, mental, drains/transfers) they will adapt their characters through experience. As GMs we must do the same. The CKC was not etched in stone and in my campaign Grond may well have Mindless Rage: 30 points of Hardened Mental Defense if I had a PSI on the PC Team that could stop the bruiser before he could become a source of dramatic tension. All to often RPGs become contests between the Players VS the GM instead of an opportunity for the group to work together to tell a story about their characters and the world they live in.

Only the AID values that exceed normal values dissapate or re-normalize over time as I understood it, but it wouldn't be the first time I misunderstood something...lol

I have a brick (named Brawl) who constantly, unconsciously absorbs kinetic energy to replenish himself. He has 1d6 of AID to any Characteristic below normal (+2) Always On (-1/4) O END, Persistent (+1) Inherent (+1/4). This serves to protect him from everythng from STUN & BODY damage to Drains and Transfers. He's not the strongest or most resilient brick in the campaign, but the Aid combined with average brick PD/ED, Damage Reduction, Life Support and a bit of Power Defense ensures that he almost always gets up and has even earned a term in our game group of the "Brawl Scale of Toughness (Brawl being a 10)". He does however have a Vulnerability to attacks on his Nervous System that provides the GM with a way to bring him down when it is necessary. I would hope that these Wolvie characters have Vuln/Susc that play his heightened senses against him.