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!

4 minutes ago, Brian Stanfield said:

 

Sounds like a cool concept. I’ve considered doing something like this before. But more importantly it sounds like the GM needs to have a powwow with the non-compliant characters. Good luck to your group! It sounds like it could be fun. 

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.

2 hours ago, Brian Stanfield said:

By the way, I’m totally sympathetic here because I’ve been thinking of teaching Champions to all new players, and this scenario is exactly why I haven’t tried yet!

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.

2 hours ago, Brian Stanfield said:

 

It sounds like maybe there’s a communication problem with the GM here? Just to review, it sounds like you have 100 point characters. Is this true? Because that’s really the source of the problem, even for beginning supers. It’s crazy-low points, which will leave everyone feeling dissatisfied if they think they will have powers that can do anything useful. 50 points with a 25 point AP cap doesn’t sound like anybody could build a character they’d be happy with. Perhaps the GM had an idea that everyone would eventually grow into useful powers as they get experience? This would be a slow process, but has some merit as long as this is communicated to the group. 

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. 

5 hours ago, IndianaJoe3 said:

 

I think it's possible to do a street-level superheroic game at the 175-point level. The trick is scaling the rest of the game to fit. 

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.

14 minutes ago, massey said:

You haven't given us any character sheets or anything, so I can't tell exactly why you're having problems in the game.  I'm not up on Pathfinder enough to know what the game balance between classes looks like, but you know those powerhouse classes that everyone wants to play?  A metamorph is not that.  Metamorphs would be more akin to those classes that nobody plays because they are well behind the power curve.  And you're wondering if they should be allowed because it's overpowering your game.  This information just does not compute.

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.

45 minutes ago, Brian Stanfield said:

 

In all honesty, a VPP would pretty much solve this problem. With your cap at 50 CP and 25 AP, he could make a VPP and discover just how low-powered it would be. He wouldn't have enough points to make a 50/25 VPP, so would have to settle for something like a 25/25 or 30/20 VPP, which will be so limiting that it may eliminate his desire to try to do everything. It would be its own limitation. Problem solved.

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".

7 hours ago, massey said:

The thing that stands out to me is that the power level seems extremely low. A 25 active point limit is frankly pathetic when it comes to superheroes.  Really you just might not have enough points to play certain character concepts.

 

Has the GM run Hero before?  Because it seems like there's a fear of allowing the players to have powerful characters, and sometimes that's due to inexperience.  At very low levels, munchkinism can become more pronounced.  If you have fewer points to spend, you have to be more careful in how you spend them, to make sure you get the most bang for your buck.  That might be what you're running into here.

 

For the game to be enjoyable, I've usually found that every character needs an attack power, a defensive ability, and movement.  It doesn't matter if you swing from buildings or teleport across the city, or whether you've got a fire blast or know kung fu, or if you are bulletproof or can become intangible.  As long as you've got attack, defense, and a way to get to the action, you're okay and you'll have fun.  At very low levels, many players find they don't have the points for those 3 things unless they cheese it out.  It sounds to me like most of your characters don't really have those abilities, and it's creating tension with the players who managed to get all three (because of a clever build, or more experience with the system).

 

I think the solution is to increase the points totals, so that everybody can be reasonably effective.

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.

1 hour ago, Brian Stanfield said:

 

Without knowing the whole story, I’d have to say the problem isn’t with Champions, but is with the players and the GM! These players sound like Pathfinder munchkins who don’t understand the concept of Champions at all. On one hand, it sounds like too many people trying to manipulate the rules without knowing them well enough. On the other hand it sounds like too many people who don’t want to actually play to their concepts(both their advantages AND limitations), which is critical in Champions. The openness of character creation is a benefit, but people who are trained to think in terms of classes, and all the munchkinny aspects that go with it, have a hard time with defining their own limitations. Everyone has to cooperate at this basic level first, and the GM needs to enforce a clarity of concept for each hero.

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... ?

20 hours ago, Surrealone said:

Actually, the Hero system is a fantastic game for players who get an important part of their RP fun from the discovery and implementation/use of 'just the right combination' of powers and abilities.  However, it's a terrible system for someone who wants to do so without consuming and understanding every nuance of the rules … most especially if said someone won't accept the GM's authority, which is final.

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...

17 hours ago, dsatow said:

How bright is bright?

•  Daylight bright?
• Classroom or office building bright?
• An average living room bright?
• Would a maglight cancel his powers?
• How about a handheld spot light?

I wouldn't treat it as a physical complication and I would give it a much higher level of limitation unless you are just going to be running games at night in shadowy alleyways.  Mankind is very adept at chasing away the darkness in a physical sense.  Heroes are needed to chase away the other type.

 

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.

3 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

I remember having a character with a psychological complication of believing his powers did not work under certain circumstances.  It was interesting as it lead to A-Team style circumstances where the team would look to get round this psychological disorder and allow the character to utilise the power they needed.  Much fun, though it does need the player to be tuned into the game you want to play.

 

Doc

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

8 hours ago, Lucius said:

 

 

I don't think I understand you.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary can't wrap its heads around that

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.

On 6/4/2018 at 12:39 AM, assault said:

By the way, 150 points isn't a lot.

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.

On 6/4/2018 at 12:15 AM, Cassandra said:

An invisible creature has a low level attack causing people to take irrational and sometimes dangerous action.  The heroes must find a way to detect the creature while at the same time protect the influenced from hurting themselves.

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...

On 6/3/2018 at 9:13 PM, Ninja-Bear said:

Well it seems to me that all the people happen to be at the museum when the event occurred.  Perhaps Demon or other appropriate sorcerer/occultist was trying to raise some entity of course. Now the museum doesn’t hold all the info so perhaps they have to tract down an ancient manuscript or two. And of course there is trouble there. And translating the texts ain’t going to be easy. So who is willing or can translate them?  Whose going to stop them?

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

On 6/3/2018 at 7:12 PM, Lucius said:

 

And at dawn the light demons arrive and start possessing people.. The player characters must deactivate the ancient Door to put an end to the flow of dangerous spirits.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary sings an old Joni Mitchell song.

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.

21 hours ago, Cassandra said:

There is a group called The Pantheon in Alien Enemies, a 4th Edition supplement book.  They are a group of aliens who take over the bodies of a number of humans and become the basis of Ancient Roman Gods.

 

Maybe the group of heroes in their secret identities are at a museum when pandora's box is opened releasing energy beings that take over a number of DNPCs and they become icons of the seven deadly sins.  The heroes have to battle them and return the beings to the box to free the DNPCs and preserve their secret identities at the same time.

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!