Steffen

Hello Steve! I'm trying to build a power that allows the character to cover short distances in any direction almost instantly by transforming into some kind of energy. The character is invulnerable but cannot pass through walls or other solid barriers. Teleportation seems to be the obvious base power for this. My question is, does the limitation "must pass through intervening space" allow the character to move unharmed through fire and to move vertically through the air or does it mean that he remains in physical form and can only move on the ground? Thank you!

Thanks for the good wishes but as I wrote when resurrecting the thread we will only play about two more times to finish the story arc and then never again play Champions with the non-compliant players. The complaints and discussions have spoiled the campaign for my girlfriend (Magical Girl character) and me.

You shouldn't be put off by the problems we are experiencing. If your players are cooperative and you didn't have problems with them before you will probably also not have problems with them when playing Champions.

Yes, we started our first session with 100 point characters but everyone was fully aware that the characters would only be slightly super in the beginning. The GM told us that we could only afford 2-4 powers for the first session but that we would be able to increase or buy powers very quickly although it would take some time before we would be as powerful as comic book or movie superheroes. Our characters should start as "people with powers" similar to the "Heroes" TV show so that criminals with guns would pose a danger and slowly evolve into superheroes. During the first session we played the origin story, discovered and used some of our new powers and mainly talked and used skills. We got 10 points for this and 5-15 points after the following sessions so we could quickly improve our characters. Maybe there is a communication problem but then it is with the two other players who dismiss the information they receive from the GM.

Multi-Animal Man prefers versatile characters that can always do something no matter the situation. He loves having a solution for every problem, a plan for every challenge. As far as I know he usually plays wizards or other magic-users with lots of spells in Pathfinder and in earlier editions of D&D he loved psionics because they were extremely powerful. The more options his characters have the better. But I have never heard before that he wanted another character to be less versatile than his own. You are probably right that the GM was not firm enough but he wanted everyone to be happy with their character and now it's just not worth the trouble anymore.

That's correct. The GM tried to keep the challenges and fights suitable for our characters. However, I have to admit that the low starting points have been a problem for the player of the TK character. She wanted to make a reluctant character that would would never be seen with the group and would look like an innocent bystander when using her powers while the rest of us were fighting villains. All of her powers were supposed to be completely invisible and cost no endurance at all but this resulted in a very low TK Strength and Blast so she was unhappy. Oh yes, and she wanted to have a gun. The GM was unhappy because from the start he had asked us to create good superheroes without Killing Attacks that wanted to help people and explicitly mentioned to not have brooding misanthropes with deep seated emotional problems that refused to be part of the group. The ensuing discussions and arguments were the main reason why my enthusiasm was quickly curbed.

The original question of this post has been settled. I am not wondering anymore if the metamorph is overpowering the game. This is not the reason why the group does not work.

The original question was not how the character concept could be built, it was if the concept should be allowed. The GM was aware that a VPP was the most logical way to build it but decided that he didn't want VPPs in his campaign for (legitimate) fear of abuse. The GM simply didn't want a superhero with the theme "all the powers the player thinks are useful".

Please note that all players were aware that we would start with inexperienced low-level characters that would gain XP very quickly. The original post was written 10 months ago, we played once a month and received 5-10 XP per session. Right now all characters have 205 CP. The GM has run HERO before but with a different group and a completely different setting. As far as I know the characters were built with even less points and the players were still having fun. I also know from experience that you can build and play superheroic characters with 150-200 CP and have fun. Your assumption that characters were not able to afford attacks, defenses or movement powers is not correct.

I think you are absolutely right although I do not blame Champions or the HERO system at all. I only think that it is not suitable for everyone. Or maybe not everyone is suitable for the HERO system. Although he knows the approach of the players to roleplaying for more than two decades the GM underestimated the problems that would arise. I think he simply trusted that everyone understood what he wanted but didn't expect that he had to supervise everything. I'm also quite sure that the other two players really believe that they are being treated unfair because they are not allowed to have the characters they want and should be able to build using the HERO system. The rules clearly state that the system can build everything but it is the GM who keeps them from doing so.

Actually, I am the guy who wanted lizard-powers but because the other one complained I settled for a character with cold/ice powers to end the argument almost a year ago. But the new concept is fun, too. ? In the end the other guy' was allowed to play a superhero who can have all abilities of all non-extinct animals but "only"one animal at a time. He built this with a Multipower with lots of slots and prepared tables with the characteristics of all interesting animals to facilitate switching the slots. As far as I remember he used these powers and enhanced characteristics: Strength, Dexterity, Speed, Leaping, Running, Clinging, Nightvision and other enhanced Senses, increased OCV, and DCV and resistant Defenses. He bought Regeneration outside of the MP. In my opinion this is already a wide range of powers but you also have to consider that he can use most of them at the maximum campaign level assuming he can find the right animal. But this is not the problem why I don't want to play with him anymore. The first half of the problem is that he complains about the Magical Girl character of another player because she is too versatile. This character has resistant Defenses, Flight, Healing, Sight Group Images to create light and an Attack-Multipower with Blast (STUN only), RKA (only versus objects) and Entangle. Characteristics are at low to mid-level of the campaign guidelines. I cannot accept that this character is supposed to be overpowered. The player didn't even use all EPs because she is tired of having to defend her character. The second half of the problem is that the GM gave us values for Damage Classes, Speed, resistant Defenses etc. showing what he considers low, medium and high and he told us that only one of these can be at the high level. After some time the GM and me realized that the player in question is using his MP to keep changing the actual high-level ability. The GMs mistake was that he didn't explicitly state that the high-level ability must always be the same one. And then there is the player with the TK-powered character... ?

Systems like Pathfinder give the GM and players clear rules for what is possible and allowed and clearly show which abilities a character can have at any given level while HERO only suggests rough guidelines and grants a lot of freedom. This makes the GM directly responsible for the restrictions he imposes on this freedom in order to keep the game balanced and the campaign world in accordance with his vision. And if some players argue about every restriction that is not explicitly mentioned in the rules or resent the GMs rulings because they think they are arbitrary this will get arduous very quickly.

Sorry to bother you but I'll post this anyway. ? I'm not sure how long it will take our GM to come to an end (hopefully only two more sessions) but when the adventure is finished we will never ever again play HERO with the players of the metamorph and the telekineticist. The HERO system is simply not the right game for players who get an important part of their roleplaying fun from finding and using just the right combination of powers and abilities. This is possible and probably intended for Pathfinder but a bad idea in HERO. Hardly knowing the rules (the telekineticist player) and refusing to accept the GM's authority to set the basic campaign parameters (both) doesn't help either. Well, the experiment failed and we are richer for the experience...

He defined "bright light" as standing outside on a very sunny and cloudless summer day or standing under a floodlight. I think the idea is that the character gets illuminated from all sides, similar to what IndianaJoe3 wrote. I don't think that this will happen very often so I went for the -1/4 Limitation.

The player in question also wants his character to have hallucinations of a being talking to him, demanding to use his powers for evil. He doesn't want to give in, just be distracted by the demands. I expect this to be another challenge for the group and me as the GM...

Hello! One of my players wants to play a darkness themed character whose powers don't work in very bright light and stop working when he gets attacked with light-based powers. How can this be built? I'm thinking about a Physical Complication (Infrequently; Fully Impairing) and/or a -1/4 Conditional Power Limitation on relevant powers. Thank you!

Every time I listen to it it takes me back in time

Sorry, I didn't realize that this is ambiguous. I didn't want to bore you with details of my campaign world. My campaign is based on the assumption that the legendary gods of Earth were descendants of extradimensional aliens and actually the first superheroes/-villains. However, they didn't know that and actually considered themselves deities. While these supernatural beings owed their powers to unspecified "energies" real magic was a different kind of energy that could also be used by normal humans. One megalomaniac god wanted to be the only one and found a way to destroy all other gods and also render magic useless but his plan was sabotaged. This resulted in the creation of a barrier/energy field that depowered, killed, scattered, trapped or shut out almost every supernatural being (including himself) and suppressed magic. The genetic heritage of the gods became dormant. The barrier has slightly deteriorated over time but is still active. The first new superheroes were created in 2003 when a scientist developed a virus that was able to activate "junk DNA". This was the start of my last campaign. One year after gaining their powers the curious characters managed to crack open the barrier for about a minute to talk to the beings behind/inside it. This is the supernatural event that released the energies that will start the new campaign. It also means that the new superheroes do not need to have the the genetic makeup to be superheroes.

I know but we did this before and you can do a lot with 150 points. The characters will not be Comic Book Superheroes but powerful enough for street level action. And in the beginning I will probably grant XP at a higher rate than usual.

This description matches the shadows . I got the idea from edimmus, some kind of spirits in Sumerian religion, that were considered vengeful toward the living, possessed people and inspired criminal behavior. How do you detect these beings in a living person? Maybe possessed people can be recognized because they don't throw shadows aynmore? And how do you exorcise them? By intense light? Horus will have a Flash attack that may be suitable but it's a bit simple, isn't it? And it will make Horus seem more capable than the other characters...

The Horus character is an archaeologist and will probably be able to read several ancient languages.

How can the Door be deactivated? Maybe it's written in hieroglyphs on the frame. But this sounds like a magic spell or ritual and a paradigm of my campaign world is that magic doesn't work. Maybe I will have to change that or maybe a small amount of magic was released by the event that triggered the artifacts.

I actually own Alien Enemies but didn't read it yet. Thank you for pointing it out.

Thank you everyone, that's a lot of good ideas. As soon as I have the time I'll check them more thoroughly.

Hello! As I'm having a hard time writing a scenario for a group of new superheroes I was told elsewhere on this forum to ask you guys for input and comments. Maybe you can help me. It's going to be the first HERO game for two of the four players, all characters will start with 150 CP, it will be set in the real world with only a few superbeings having appeared so far one year ago and there is no magic (as far as everyone knows). I would like to start with the characters' origin story (I LOVE origin stories!) and give all of them the same one so they have a reason to work as a team even after the first adventure (assuming they have fun and want to continue). If no one will change their mind the rough concepts will be light powers (a Re/Horus avatar), darkness/shadow powers, plant powers (something like a Poison Ivy/Groot mix) and animal powers (not sure if shape changing or abilities only). This is what I came up with so far: A supernatural event (caused by PCs of an earlier campaign) unleashes energies that activates an ancient (Sumerian?) artifact, setting free the captured powers/spirits/energies of deities/demons causing them to find new hosts. Some of these energies end up in the PCs granting them superpowers, other spirits find NPC hosts turning them into heroes or villains to be used for later adventures. At the same time shadow demons/spirits (vulnerable to light and shadow powers) get released and start attacking people. Maybe some shadows are able to possess a few victims turning them into a different kind of monster the heroes have to fight without killing the possessed people. The possession will end at dawn but people will get hurt if the PCs do nothing. The scenario should not only be a series of fight scenes but should also involve investigation and use of various skills. However, I can only think of all of this happening on one evening at a museum, preferably at a special event, lasting only a short time. Things I would like to include: the PCs can keep their civilian identities Re/Horus PC can somehow help ending the possessions maybe a second artifact (Egyptian door?) was activated by the first one and summoned the shadows research crucial information has to be translated from Egyptian or Sumerian texts I'm quite sure that I should be able to turn this into an adventure lasting more than 1-2 evenings but the pieces just won't fall into place. I would really like to hear your comments and ideas. Thank you!