Derek Hiemforth

Re: Missile Deflection and Multipowers Yes. Check out the Defense Actions sidebar on page 236 of HERO System Fifth Edition, under Activating a Defense Power.

It's a great program.

There must be something misconfigured on your system. It works fine for me.

There was a character in the campaign named "Inviant," which stood for Invisible Giant. That's what his powers were... Growth and Invisibility, linked. Sounds interesting in theory, but was odd in execution. No one ever saw him when he was being a superhero, but his unconscious form would sometimes be found on the scene of superhero battles. The press even gave a name to this strange sleeping man in a costume who would often appear in the aftermath of SHIFT adventures: Narcoleptic Lad. Anyway, one time a battle took place near the top of some skyscrapers in San Francisco. A news helicopter wandered too close to the fray, and was knocked into the side of one of the buildings. Its blade wedged into the building, but was still running. The copter shook as it hung by the blade, which was still trying to free itself from the building. The normals inside dangled dangerously above the cityscape. Inviant went over to help. The first thing he did is yell out, "I'm coming to get you!" Now, this is back in the days when Growth gave you extra Presence, so his statement is very commanding and believable. However, they can't see him. So from the standpoint of the people in the copter, a disembodied voice is screaming that "it's coming to get them." Obviously, this inspires panic rather than reassurance. Next, although the copter is reachable from the roof, Inviant climbs over the side and hangs from the building, King Kong style, while he tries to reach the copter. With one hand, he hangs on by a hole in the wall (created by the copter blade's impact), and with the other, he uses his great strength to pull the copter free. To this day, I'm not sure why he didn't just try to get the people out of the copter. ...or at least try to shut it down first! Well, pulling it free while it's still running, the blade proceeds to smack Inviant in the face repeatedly. Since he had already taken damage previously in the super-battle, this is enough to knock Inviant out. At the same time, it occurs to us that Inviant -- who weighs a great deal due to his huge size -- had been supporting his weight by hanging from an already broken section of wall. A large section of it breaks free in Inviant's hand. So now Inviant is falling, unconscious, with a big chunk of wall in one hand, and a running helicopter with terrified normals in it in the other. Due to unconsciousness, he lets go of the copter and the wall. Some amazing piloting by the chopper pilot (and a stabilizing assist from one of the other heroes) enables the helicopter to right itself and land without further mishap. Inviant, meanwhile, reverts to his normal, visible form, and begins plummeting toward his death. One of the other heroes -- the only one fast enough to catch the fleeing villain -- is also the only one fast enough to save the falling Inviant. So he saves Inviant, and the villain escapes. The section of wall, meanwhile, hits the ground and crushes a vehicle on the street... The team battlevan. *sigh* Not SHIFT's finest hour.

How about "Venia Velox?" It's (roughly) Latin for "Graceful and Quick."

No. If he doesn't use the EB, then he can't use the Flash. Doesn't matter why he doesn't use the EB.

I believe it was called Time Riders.

In the 4th Edition version of Fantasy Hero, there was a Limited Power application called "Lockout". It meant that no other spells (powers) could be maintained while this one was in use. The value on that was -1/2. Based on that benchmark, I would assume that a Limitation, saying that the power could not be used when a single other power was on, could only be worth -1/4 at most (in the same way that any kind of limited range is only -1/4 because no range at all is only -1/2).

Re: Jedi Powers This may have some kind of activation roll or something, because I always thought it was amazing that Yoda and Mace Windu at the end of The Phantom Menace could be talking about the evil Sith Lord, and standing right next to Palpatine, and not sense the waves of immense evil from three feet away. (Or perhaps that was just a plot oversight. ) Danger Sense ("There's a disturbance in the Force..." "I've got a bad feeling about this...") Precognitive Clairsentience with some kind of Limited Conscious Control Limitation ("Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future...") Luck for Jedi, Unluck for Sith.

Yowza! What were you trying to make your DEX and SPD be? 100 points will buy you 10 SPD, and that gets you up to a SPD of 12 right there even if you leave your DEX at 10.

The Watchmen is based in Lakeside, a fictional Chicago-analogue.

I have 4 copies of FREd here in the same room with me. One is my standard working copy. One is a copy that I had cut from the binding and coil-bound at Kinko's so I could lay it flat (such as if I wanted to refer to it while typing). One is a pristine copy of the 1st printing that I'm collecting autographs on. And one is an extra copy that I'm keeping for when my day-to-day copy gets too ragged. Does that make me a geek?

Well, maybe. But it doesn't say so in the films, and Jabba berates his lackey for being a "weak-minded fool" (which presumably he wouldn't do if he knew his own immunity stemmed only from his species). Also, why would the Jedis bother to try it on them if they knew it didn't work on their species? Luke's inexperience might explain it with Jabba, but I'd think Qui-Gon would have known better with Watto.

My first instinct is to go the other way around. I think all Jedi Mind Controls & Mental Illusions have a standard Limitation that they don't work on targets above about a 15 EGO. Several times, it's mentioned that the Jedi Mind Trick only works on the "weak-minded". Jabba and Watto were immune, but perhaps not because they had Mental Defense... just because they had good EGO scores. Under this setup, Jedi would of course be immune, simply because they all have EGOs of 15 or higher. The Telepathy wouldn't have this restriction, and would only need to roll an effect equal to their EGO to read surface emotions, hence the "open-book" effect...

If the computer and the hologram exist simultaneously, then it might be a computer with Duplication rather than Multiform. But otherwise sure, why not?

Well, only assuming that the missions are very action-oriented. If the "experts" are providing the character with skill sets he doesn't have himself, and they rarely cause trouble for him, then they should be Followers. For example, I have a Dark Champions character named Black Arrow. (Okay, so I'm a Copier. So sue me. ) He doesn't know much about computers and high-tech stuff, but he has a friend who does. She doesn't venture into the field with him... she generally communicates with him via radio when he's in the field. But she provides him with access to skills he doesn't have, and she's much more helpful than she is troublesome, so she's a Follower.

Here's kind of an odd thought... I wonder if it would be feasible or desirable to do "combo" genre books for genres that might be narrow enough (in scope or in popularity) to make a whole genre book more problematic, as long at the genres being "comboed" in the book have some kind of quasi-logical link. For example, you might be able to do a half-and-half book with Western Hero and Victorian Age Hero, because they're largely set in the same time period. While the feel of the stories is usually pretty different, there would be enough material applicable to both (due to similar technology levels, world events, and so on) that it might not seem unreasonable. Likewise, you might be able to do a half-and-half book of Swashbuckling Hero and Revolutionary Hero (both high-adventure genres set more-or-less in the Renaissance), or a combo book of Cyber Hero and Post-Holocaust Hero (both near-future settings with a dark flavor). Just musing... Note: I wrote this before I saw Steve's post about Western Hero. I certainly don't wanna discourage Steve from doing a whole western book if he wants to.

Re: Price Check: What's this lim worth? I'd say -1/2 is about right. If it's for a Champions game, I'd say it's definitely only a -1/2, because on the superhuman level, most things that will be truly dangerous will be other superhumans anyway. "Natural" dangers or commonplace accidents are less threatening to a super.

Awright, so it was a dumb idea. It was 7:30 in the morning. I wasn't thinking straight yet.

If you want all light and darkness effects in a particular world setting to work this way, I think it's easier to just apply it as a ground rule. Rather than buying extra Powers or applying extra Limitations, you could just make it an axiom of the world that darkness and light effects cancel each other out up the Active Points in the power. So if someone cast a 40 Active Point light effect on a 30 Active Point darkness effect, there would be a net 10 Active Points of light remaining (which you could then increase if you wished by casting again). If the darkness was 50 Active Points, then the light spell would have diminished it to 10, but it would still be dark, and so on.

Re: Rules Question Followers are Followers. It doesn't matter what duties you assign them to. Saying that they're assigned to the base doesn't make them any less expensive; likea Computer, you pay the cost of them separately from the cost of the Base itself. So if you've got 4 commandos and 12 experts, and the most expensive of them is 100 Base Points before Disads, then buy Followers for 40 points. 20 points for the first 100-point Follower, +20 for 16x as many Followers.

Misterdeath mentioned something in another thread that got me thinking... Basing a Magic Skill roll on END would have some interesting effects. It would make it easy to cast spells when you were well-rested, and gradually harder and harder as you got tired. Then, as you rested, it would gradually get easier again. If you based the roll on the usual 9+(CHA/5), then your base Magic Skill roll would never be less than 9- (plus whatever amount you may have bought it up), so your ability to cast would never go away completely, no matter how tired you were. But it might be an interesting way to simulate the fact that it's probably easier to cast that big world-alteration spell when you're bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. And actually, if you used the Mana and Mana Recovery stats from Fantasy Hero Companion II, that might work even better... Any thoughts?

Re: Prolly done a million times before... The way Mister Vimes suggests is one of the standard ways, and is the least expensive. However, if you don't want to deal with having a Turn Mode, you might also consider something like this: Cost Power END 34 Superspeed: Multipower, 34-point reserve 3u 1) Superspeed Running: Running +17" (23" total) 3 1u 2) Running Over Water: Swimming +21" (23" total); Surface Only (-1) 2 4 Can Run Up Sheer Surfaces: Clinging (normal STR); Linked To Running (-1/2), Only With Feet (-1/2), Cannot Resist Knockback (-1/4) Powers Cost: 42 Since he can't really "Grab" things with that effect, it might be easier to combine all that into one power... Cost Power END 67 Tornado Hands: Dispel 15d6 vs Any Gas or Fire SFX One At A Time (+1/4), Does Knockback (+1/4) 7 Powers Cost: 67

Not to my knowledge. (I'm 97% sure he did not.) However, he did borrow a lot of concepts from Hero for GURPS, and he mentions Champions as one of GURPS' main influences in the main GURPS book. (Perhaps that mention was the source of the idea that he was "linked to" the Hero System.)

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