Wyrm Ouroboros

Hate to say this, but you just broke apart your own school.

Think about what you just posted: 'gadgeteers', 'martial artists', 'normals'. This isn't Mutant High, this is Teen Champions In a Box. Either go with Mutant High, or go build the Teen Titans or some such, but don't fumble the two together.

If you're going to build Mutant High, -everyone- is a mutant -- from the guy with photographic lightning reflexes to the kid who can breath (and talk) underwater to the chicken-looking guy who can (if he tries really hard) fly. You may very well have massive clique-building (see current X-Men issues with the 'expanded school' for examples), but you aren't going to have 'gadgeteers and gizmoteers' over here, 'martial artists' over there, and 'mutants' over that way; they're all mutants, so they all know that their particular abilities aren't earned, they're inborn.

'Gadgeteers' will probably be your brainy clique, while 'martial artists' are more likely going to be your speedster clique; since these are all MUTANTS, there's a completely different flow going instead of 'hey, I can upgrade' or 'gee, I really worked hard, you're a slacker'. Arrogance of a different type may exist -- consider Quicksilver (various X-Groups) or Northstar (Alpha Flight, now X-Men), two total pricks with cause, or who considered themselves to have cause. As Pietro once said, "Imagine how it feels standing behind an old woman who can't use the ATM. I feel like that all the time." Arrogance of a different type may set in, but it's of the sort of 'I betcha I can kick your ass if I wanted to' thing that gamers do with their characters all the time.

Also, you should probably decide whether it's Charlie Xavier's School for Mutants, or Emma Frost's Massachusetts Acadamy with Mutants On The Side. The first accepts ONLY mutants, while the second accepted normals but had a 'school within a school' -- and a secret one at that, the mutants automatically becoming their own clique. If you want a broad mutant base, enough to have 'power/ability dynamics', to accept normals is the kiss of death, because like in any school, brawls will break out, and when powers are involved -- especially the untrained powers of new mutants -- Norm Deaths Will Surely Follow.

Next character creation challenge: The Hitchhiker. Remember, he needs to have loads of Streetwise, PRE-defense, and probably a couple things for Cramming AKs....

The skills he gains from 'Bob' ...

Okay, I hate 'Bob the Ancient Warrior of Light'. Let's go with someone with a bit more pep. Ramses. (And, btw, most ancient gods had one, maybe two 'elements' associated with them, never all of them, so Ramses is going to have to be the Chosen Warrior of an entire Pantheon -- not a bad gig, if you can get it.)

Okay. The skills and powers he gains from Ramses -- not from the armor itself (which, I presume, is powered by the gods themselves) -- should all be taken IIF Amulet. In addition, you (the GM) should come up with Ramses' psych-profile, i.e. Intelligence, Ego, and Presence, any skills he has that he ISN'T passing along to his student, and his list of Psychological Limitations.

For the Possession part, you have two choices: either make it a 'simple' Psych Lim, or else (the more expensive choice) make it a Multiform, triggered by the stunning/unconsciousness of the first form. It all depends, of course, on whether you want Ramses to have similar pursuits as Joe Superhero; I presume they are, therefore the Multiform is the way to go. Naturally, being required to purchase the powers all over again will 'tone down' the power of the armor, but that's what you get with Multiforms.

Originally posted by Snarf

Actually, It sounds lke you could make a great superhero with all those towel powers. I'll call him either towel-master or the towel-inator.

I'd recommend a bit of editing to the background, actually, thus....

1) The ship should 'come out of warp' somewhere around Jupiter, and be detected and approaching Earth for a few days (remember 'Independence Day'?). It should also be very large -- Long Island or larger. (Hey, maybe it's oblong, as large as the North and South Islands -- fits in right over the two?)

2) Have the ship first circle the planet a few times, hunting for a good spot; NZ was perhaps chosen because of its size relative to the ease-of-access of geothermal energy. (Hawaii would be as good, but it's so small...)

3) The energy field shouldn't throw out shards; I mean, 'realistically' a magnetic field doesn't toss off pieces. Irradiate, yes, but that's a different story. Instead of having the energy field's detonation and the ship crash being two separate occurrences, why not combine them? The energy field goes up (along with 200,000,000 cubic yards of irradiated seawater), and when the aliens are taken out by Mysterious Solar Space Guy, he takes out the ship, too. The ship -- perhaps it's in geosynchronous orbit -- breaks up, and orbiting chunks begin re-entering earth's atmosphere. Many pieces ("Little things, the size of basketballs and Volkswagens and stuff...") survive relatively intact, cabinet-equivalents containing advanced technology.

So what happens next? 3rd-World powers leap to the forefront for two weeks, then once again become yesterday's news. Indonesian separatists separate from Indonesia, then suddenly get separated from life as their mysterious technology blows up (or consumes them all, muahahaha). Citizens from Carson City to Katmandu find themselves 'irradiated' from rainwater from the New Zealand Event (which, by the way, you should invent a cool name for -- Marvel's 'New Universe' had 'the White Event', you should have something similar). Citizens begin to display superpowers; other people find Alien Tech Gizmos in the chicken coops and figure out how to use them, though probably not how they work.

Incidentally, while I approve of having a massive increase in the population of the 'occupied territory', I'd also recommend that they aren't 'happy shiny people', all with superpowers. If this place was 'accellerated in time', while in general you may want the humans to live extended lifespans, there needs to be a reason the Mysterious Solar Space Guy blew the aliens away to 'protect Earth'. Perhaps the NZers were enslaved, their lifespans artificially extended in order to extend their usefulness. Unless you want New Zealand to become the Premier World Power -- 150 million superpowered citizens will do that, especially when the rest of the world only has a handful -- you might consider giving them 'merely' an extended lifespan, a bit of a boost to their CON, and, well, whatever minimal other stuff they'd need to not be CONSTANTLY squished by the Evil Alien Overlords.

All things considered, this isn't a bad idea. I think my first move would be to have a supergenius/mystic acquire some of the 'Alien Tech', figure it out, then promptly conquer a small (insert continent here) nation before starting to plot world domination. Dr. Doom is quite my favorite Bad Guy, mostly because he can often be misunderstood...

Originally posted by Yamo

Just try writing up complete game stats for a towel one of these days if you don't believe that. It has Stretching, Flash, Transform (wet to dry) and many other Powers. It's also completely ridiculous.

That depends on whether or not you're hitchhiking your way across the galaxy, now, doesn't it?

Depends on what you want the effect to be, of course. If it's just 'make everything go up/left/right/whatever', Change Environment. If you want it to be more a 'scoop everything up/no manipulation', I'd modify 'Affects Whole Object (-¼)' from the TK disads as an area-of-effect disad. Instead of making a bazillion 'to hit' rolls, you just make the one (for the AoE), but you of course only lift/shift/throw what your TK Str can, in total. Thus, if you have a TK MPow, it becomes:

Big Green Scooping Hand:

20 Str TK, Area of Effect (Radius) (+1) (60 Active Points), Affects Whole Area Equally (-¼): 48 Points.

Because a) you haven't bought Fine Work with it and you DID take the 'Affects Whole Area Equally' disad, you're pretty much 'stuck' with a simple lift-and-throw. Which, if all you can lift is metallic objects and the area happens to be filled with ball bearings or razors, isn't necessarily a bad thing....

If you look like Mickey Mouse on the other hand ...

I'd go with DF. 'Looks Like Famous Person': Concealable, Major Reaction (autograph hounds, 'hey, aren't you...', etc.), Not distinctive in some cultures/societies: 10 points. I'd also then put it into effect frequently and/or continuously. Walking down the street, every block or so. In the bank. At the supermarket. Driving your car. You get the idea. If he goes out to dinner, you should have papparazzi waiting outside for him afterwards.

If he looks like ANOTHER hero (or, god forbid, a villan), he should get the other guy's Hunteds after him constantly -- though I'd increase the 'Reaction' value on that (i.e. an extreme reaction).

I'd go with the Disguise skill; shapechanging for the object is just too farking expensive. After all, if you know what you're looking for... Consider also the fact that you can buy disguise/concealment for bases.

• Concealment: hard to find, but when you uncover it, 'damn, yeah, that's a base all right.'
  
• Disguise: Even when you've found it, you may not know what it is: 'Okay, so what's this old house doing out here in the middle of nowhere??'
  

If it's still a pen in its off hours (heh), give it a Disguise skill -- applicably with OAF. Therefore, your blaster pen might look like this:

Blaster Pen: Package

a) 6d6 EB (30 actives), OAF Universal Breakable (-1), 15 Points.

Disguise, 15- (15 Actives), OAF Universal Breakable (-1): 7 Points.

Your 'cool hidden blaster pen' works like a pen, writes like a pen, but click-click, you can go *ZAP* with it. To spot it as being a Weapon instead of a Pen, you have to beat its Disguise in a contested roll. (I seem to recall that objects have a base skill roll of 9-, so that's what I used.)

I hate to be the party pooper on such a fascinating subject (especially one that I've had problems with before), but I'm going to offer a few things for your consideration -- things pretty much right out of FREd.

For 'mass AoE lifting': Change Environment is built to do this, and in fact has the specific adder '5 AP per point of TK STR'. The last 'Gravitar' example displays this, a basic low-level magnetic field that acts as a 0 STR TK to pull ferrous metal objects straight up. As described, this is clearly a matter of 'X Strength is applied individually to each and every item in the field'.

For 'manipulate anything in the field': considering that TK is, by its nature, particular AND manipulative of the objects, an AoE TK should be considered as innately 'Selective Target' as it is inherently 'Indirect'; if you didn't grab the specific object you want, well then put it down. If you want to lift and manipulate all of these items, however, then you are going to be limited to your AoE's Strength maximum; a 20 Str TK AoE is going to be able to lift 400kg, whether that's pianos or ping-pong balls. The difference is that you'll be able to manipulate them both equally well -- whether it's playing two pianos or swirling 200,000 ping-pong balls.

For damage, I think that's pretty clear; X Str damage to each and every item. You aren't lifting it, you're just damaging it. In case of an AoE TK Grab, however, I would say that the X Str applies to each individually UNTIL they manage to coordinate their efforts -- i.e. try to break free at the same time, at which point the Held people's Str has to overcome the TK Str appropriately. (A 20 Str AoE TK could thus hold 5 people with 10 Str relatively easily until they coordinated their efforts, thus 'straining' with a 21-22 Str.)

If the power in question doesn't/shouldn't have 'weight limitations' by its concept of changing the way an area works, then don't go with TK; go with Change Environment. That's what it's for.

Originally posted by Intrope

Bryan's Big Bag of Stuff:

Bag: Vehicle-like object...

I don't know. I think I'd do the Bag of Holding as a limited E-D space.

For those who want more, though ...

Mouse Knives

When you're bit by a mouse, it seems that the little thing always draws blood; the mouse knife does likewise, finding chinks in armor and Achilles' heels with surprising adeptness. Mouse knives come in many different shapes, just like regular knives; in fact, mouse knives are usually regular knives (albeit well-made ones) with an enchantment and perhaps a minor change in appearance, the most popular addition to which is a pommel in the shape of a small rodent -- usually the mouse, hence the name.

History: The mouse knife is not all that complex an item; in fact, back in their heyday, they were actually very common. One of the final tests for apprentices at many schools of magic is the enchantment of an item so minor as to be negligible; the mouse knife was most commonly selected because of its future usefulness to the mage. They do not, however, last forever, and can be broken just like any other ordinary knife, though until they are the enchantment does not wear off.

Game Statistics:

½d6 HKA, x3 Penetrating (+1½), 0 END (+½) [30 AP], STR Min. 3 (-1/4), OAF Breakable (-1): 13 Real Points. (+1 damage class per +15 Str, max at 1d6+1 HKA at 33 Str.)

Yes, the Mouse Knife costs only half as much as the Most Terrible Daemon Axe of Nurm Geotleif, but that's what you get sometimes -- lots of disads == low cost, while few == high cost. A mouse knife will do Body to damn near anything, though, while the Daemon Axe sometimes needs to bash for a while before it starts getting through.

GMs starting/running a Fantasy Hero campaign who are willing to let their mage start with a very minor magic item might suggest this to them, or its 'little brother' version:

1 pip HKA, x3 Penetrating (+1½), 0 END (+½) [15 AP], STR Min. 3 (-1/4), OAF Breakable (-1): 7 Real Points (rounding 6 2/3 up). (+1 damage class per +15 Str, max at ½d6 HKA at 18 Str.)

On Cyclops, I seem to recall building all his eyebeams into one MPower, with the 'default' being a cone AoE 0 END Persistent Always On/OIF. Yes, Toad did the whole Goggles thing, and it's been done otherwise, but it's mostly a story thing -- it doesn't usually happen In Combat, because hey, he's using it, and looking into the guy's eyes is going to give you one hell of a headache, right? Heh.

Otherwise, Cyclops can (not necessarily does yet) have a hell of a lot of control over his optic blast, enough to smack a hole through the middle of a flipped quarter. Oh yeah, and remember -- he has Personal Immunity to it.

For X-Men campaigns with 'everyone', you might take a gander to the various 'Ultimates' series Marvel's been putting out -- going back to the beginning, sort of sliding a lot of the early stuff together. Spider-Man, X-Men, and Avengers are the ones I'm aware of; I'm sure there's others. The line I like best from those is one in regards to Iron Man and Wolverine...

Iron Man is flying at about rooftop/warehouse-top level, carrying one of the X-Men. Over the headset:

Fury: "Iron Man! Get some altitude! Get some altitude!!"

Iron Man: "What for? There's nothing on the radar."

Fury: "You idiot, we designed him to be INVISIBLE to radar!!"

(Wolverine leaps from a warehouse and onto Iron Man, claws popped and starting to rake.)

Iron Man: "YOU IDIOT! GET OFF ME! You know how much this stuff COSTS?!"

Wolverine: "Ahhh, shaddap, Stark, you can afford it..." *rake rake rake*

The stories are slightly different, very interesting, and backgrounds are given just the most compelling twist...

Okay, that's funnier than hell...

Having read the Jump Gate rules, I think I might suggest something different. Jump gates each open to a specific location in Hyperspace; one navigates from beacon to beacon in hyperspace, until one reaches a 'jumpgate-interrogator' beacon. Pinging the beacon requests/makes the jumpgate in 'realspace' open up, and you slide into realspace.

I would, therefore, remove the 'megascale on ship's flight' (you can, after all, have fighter battles within jumpspace), as well as removing the 'Any Location in Hyperspace'. You have to travel from beacon to beacon, point to point (and can get lost!!), can get attacked, etc. etc. It's just that the distances travelled in hyperspace correspond to much larger distances in realspace. Instead of giving this 'power' to a gate or whatnot, it instead becomes a property of the dimension into which they're travelling.

Also, I suspect that these distances aren't always the same, nor is the equivalency constant. What I mean by that is that the 'realspace/hyperspace' ratio might be 50:1 from Earth to B5, but it might be 55:1 from Narn to B5, and 45:1 from Centauri to Narn. Earth to B5 might also vary, ranging from 48:1 to 53:1 -- you can never be quite certain. Undoubtedly the beacons have some way of checking their 'real' location and adjusting themselves for appropriate stationkeeping...

Ye gods, the things I could post ...

An old GM of mine, also went by the name Ouroboros (long story, but I had the name first, dammit), wrote up a whole TON of weapons, wonders, gadgets and gizmos. They were, however, written for the Warhammer FRP game, and would take some mucking around to translate into Hero. However, my favorite comes to mind ...

The Daemon Axe of Nurm Geotlief

-- Kadrin-gototh, 'Slayer's Fist', Khazalid

The Axe was empty; then it was filled.

The Axe was soul-less; then it was alive.

The Axe was a void; then it drew blood.

-- from the chant of Nurm Goetlief, Norse axeman

A double-bitted axe of fearsome design, hundreds, perhaps thousands of skulls and leering faces press outwards from the once-smooth faces of the legendary weapon. The edges are yet keen enough to cut light, and spill out a rainbow hue despite the oily blackness of the steel. The triple-dragon's-head pommel actually smokes during battle, reeking of sulphur, and the thrusting tip in front is so jagged with screaming mouths that when the weapon is swung the tortured screams of scores of condemned souls sounds as the wind whistles past them. Runes on the blade pulse, the only unwarped portion of the steel, but even they alternate between drinking and expelling the light. The haft of the two-handed axe is wrapped in hide that seems to mix lizard and snake skins in its makeup, for it is both scaly and bumpy. Whatever the creature that gave its hide, it is excellent for gripping.

History: Hints found in Dwarven legends suggest that this may be the axe originally carried by the dwarvish ancestral God of Slayers into the Chaos Wastelands, where his fate is yet unknown. Since then, this ancient axe has been almost constantly on the move, appearing even after seemingly lost forever after a period of only five or ten years. During the Second Incursion of Chaos, the axe once again made itself known, in the hands of a Norseman berserker whose deeds lent his name to the axe. Fighting his way out of Praag as it fell, Nurm Goetlief slew scores of Warriors of Chaos along the north of the Kislev nation until he reached Kislev itself. At the forefront of the battle before the walls of Kislev, it is said that he was the first person from within the walls to greet the armies of Magnus the Pious -- by slaughtering his way out to the relieving force. After the siege broke, Goetlief moved on within only a few months, hunting Chaos bands to the west and north, supposedly heading back to his native Norscaa. The axe disappeared along with him.

Game Statistics: 'Package', Nurm Geotlief's Axe:

2-H Weapon (-1/2), Str Min 18 (-1), OAF Unbreakable (-1): 79 Actives, 21 Real Cost.

a) 2d6+1 HKA: Great Axe, 1/2 END (+1/2) [44 Actives]: 2 END.

+1 pip HKA: Additional Mystic Damage [5 Actives]; 2 'recoverable' charges (see text), -1/4.

c) 1/2d6 Drain: vs both PD and rPD (+1/2), 0 END (+1/2), Return Rate 25 Years (+3) [25 Actives]; Linked (To Main HKA, -1/2).

d) Final Death, 5 Actives (Special Effect, see Text).

-- If the axe inflicts ONLY the 'additional' damage to its target (i.e. the axe inflicts 8 points to a person with -- currently -- 7 rPD), one 'charge' of the second HKA is used up. It has two charges per day, the first refreshing at moonrise, the second at moonset (or however you want to run it). As I don't have Fantasy Hero, I didn't quite know how to run that, but as the person wielding this axe isn't liable to often inflict only 1 point of BODY damage, it shouldn't be too much of a penalty, hence the -1/4.

d) Final Death. Any person killed by this weapon dies -- no resurrection, no 'raised dead', no coming back as a ghost. The body may be animated as a zombie or skeleton, but the spirit of the person -- or daemon, or whatever -- is 'taken into' the axe itself. In WFRP, this is intended to be only daemons, chaos warriors, and nasty-evil-bad entities/critters. If the GM wants, however, this can be anybody and everybody. To quote from the game description for WFRP:

When a soul is taken into the blade, the axe changes minutely as it takes on part of the aspect of its newest 'victim'. As the axe has hewn more Chaos creatures than all of the Empire's Runefangs put together, its evil appearance is actually due to its war against Chaos, not its infection with it. The souls within are trapped, completely taken from the great stream of life, never to bother anyone ever again -- unless the axe is somehow destroyed, which will release on the spot a horde of ghosts, daemons, and other nasties to ravage the world. To prevent just such an occurance, a unique rune upon the blade confers upon it a 90% chance to resist any sort of destruction, above and beyond any normal resistances. Roll the 'anti-destruction' chance after the destructive force (weapon that destroys magical weapons, great forge hammer, dragon's breath, etc.) has achieved what the GM judges as sufficient force. If the resistance roll is 10% or under, the destructive force actually recoils upon itself.

This accounts also for the 'Unbreakable' aspect. If the axe ever IS broken, well, it should nigh be the end of the game world ...

Originally posted by Alibear

25+25 reminds me of starting level D&D or Warhammer FRP characters.

ALERT ** ALERT ** ALERT ** ALERT

Gamer story follows!!

ALERT ** ALERT ** ALERT ** ALERT

Okay, that out of the way ...

In a long-running WFRP game run by the primary writer of the 'Children of the Sun' game, our well-advanced characters had been effectively stripped of all the cool stuff they'd acquired, sent out into the winter wilderness with little but their courtly clothes, and hounded across a country (Bretonnia, for those who know) and into the mountains. Still sans virtually any good weapons or armor, we got confronted by a really powerful necromancer, who had an army of ... hmmm. Something in the range of 500 skeletons, a few wraiths, all that sort of thing.

We got the grand choice of defending 50-some villagers, fighting to destroy the necromancer and the undead army, and eventually evacuating the lot. We managed to get SOME aid from a nearby group (15, IIRC) of dwarven miners, but that was it. We survived. So did most of the townspeople. The necromancer did not.

I think it was one of the best 'desperate fights against impossible odds' that I've ever played in, and our characters were by no means 'starting characters'. We just had nothing that could have made the job any easier...

As for the 'insta-downloading' bit, 'strongly suggest' that they each buy one or three levels of Cramming. If you note, Trinity didn't combat pilot the helicopter all that well; about what you'd expect with an 8-.

Other than that, they should buy the appropriate (mostly combat) skills with the -1/4 (-1/2?) limitation 'Only In The Matrix', but any knowledge skills they have, generally any non-combat skills they have -- mechanics, electronics, etc. -- should work in both worlds. If you're going to permit a VPP or a MPow of some type, I recommend the MultiPower -- things the character learns as s/he goes along. Being faster, stronger, leaping from tall building to tall building in a single bound ... you are what you think, but one generally can only think about one (or a few) thing(s) at a time. In ALL cases the GM should have close control of what goes into each pool -- maybe 'purchasing' an ability requires RP and an Ego roll, to 'break free' a bit more.

Originally posted by jtelson

Sat by the side of the river long enough...

I wonder how many people get this one.

Mack the Knife should be a very, very, very competent normal, the 'Leon' of your superhero world. Levels in DCV, levels in the weapon of choice (i.e. the knife). Smarts. Contacts. The intellectual capacity to do research, you know? This isn't the guy who's going to be doing backflips and karate moves on the superheros; this is the guy who's going to be sneaking around until he gets an opportunity to put a blade into a kidney.

Powers? The knife. A garrotte, perhaps. CV levels. Find Weakness up the yin-yang. DCV levels. Oh, and 'Vanishing Teleport'.

Go see 'Leon', aka 'The Professional', for inspiration.

Most Force Skills (i.e. Powers in our terminology) ARE taught. However, when you use your Force-based TK, do you:

• Grab the X-Wing and lift it out of the water?
  
• Control four things at once, balancing three rocks and lifting R2-D2?
  
• Start tossing a bunch of big heavy things at Luke?
  

With the VPP, once you've learned Telekinesis, the situational specifics are maleable, albeit within a defined zone. (I.e. the GM can say, 'well, that falls in under Y, not under X'.) And while 20 SOUNDS like a huge number, it isn't; you can take up the first eight or ten just with Sense skills alone. Trust me, this particular character has hit 40 and he hasn't even gotten to the 'these aren't the droids you're looking for' point yet. Though his Padawan has the Power to enhance coordination, i.e. give everyone he's working with the 'Teamwork' skill...

And before people start going 'huh?', in this instance I do permit Enhanced Senses to be placed within the Pool. I know they say that you're not supposed to, but it does, after all, say 'should not ... without the GM's permission'. To be able to focus on only certain aspects of The Force at one time fits the concept, ergo it belongs. If/when the player/character wants to move them out and have them going 24/7, then they can pay the points for it. Otherwise, the danger sense / sense force / sense life / sense whatever fits in perfectly well with the VPP.

I'd permit an Acting vs. PER roll to avoid being surprised OUT of combat, i.e. get the 'surprised in combat' effects. This prevents him from taking the x2 Stun, but also (clearly) puts him at the 1/2 DCV he deserves to be for trusting the goon.

Originally posted by Aroooo

I don't think " GM Must Approve New Powers (-1/2)" is a valid limitation. I mean, doesn't the GM have to approve VPP's in the first place? If you (the GM) have a predefined list of Force Powers written up, and those are the only powers the VPP can use (not sure if that is the case), then the "Restricted Type of Powers (Force/Mental Powers Only, -1/2)" should be all you need.

The GM has to approve VPPs, but the GM does NOT have to approve what POWERS go into it. Essentially, the GM gets to say, 'Okay, you've put your 2 points into the power pool, and your one point into the control pool. Your Master will teach you X power and Y power.' The GM DOES have a (rather broad) predefined list of Force Powers, many of which are 'non-Mental', such as Absorption, Damage Reduction, and a host of other things; however, the GM has the added say of what NEW power you get to use in your pool; you don't get to say, 'Okay, now I want to do THIS cool Force trick.' The powers you have in your pool are only gained a bit at a time, and each one has to be OKed by the GM. It may only be worth a -1/4 limitation, or even (in your game) not at all.

Can you explain what "Max Pool = (2 x Ego) + (Int + Pre)/2 (-1/4)" means? I interpret this to be a limit on the VPP pool size (40 in your example). Is 40 the max period, or is it the max for this particular sample character? Or, does this lim. mean its the max active points in any one power in the VPP, and the pool is always 40?

The pool maximum for this particular character is not 40, but rather 55 (EGO 20 x 2) + (INT 18 + PRE 13)/2 = 40 + 31/2 = 40 + 15 = 55. 40 is what he's currently bought it UP to; he has another 15 points that he can add to the Power Pool before he's 'maxed out' and must increase either his intelligence, his presence, or his ego. This prevents a Jedi from having a Power Pool that's 100 points or so without having the wisdom, intelligence, and force of personality to control it.

For a Dark Jedi/Sith Lord, I'd remove that pretty much entirely, instead giving the Pool a -1/4 'Side F/X', with GM-induced nastiness on deciding what any particular failure meant. On some spectacular attempt, he'd half destroy himself, but on some of the 'lesser' ones, things AROUND him would get corrupted.

The reason I went with the VPP, by the way, is because of the vast situation-specific variations a Jedi can pull out of his hat. Getting a MP to do the same thing is just ... hideous. The 'highly controlled VPP' is just more elegant, to my mind.

Originally posted by CrosshairCollie

And this dog triple-dog dares ya to have a mysterious benefactor get ahold of 'em and whip 'em into tactical shape a few games after your PCs wipe the floor with 'em.

 

[Much Cut]

 

Give 'em a good backer, a little Bulletproof Spandex, maybe a few new arrows for Hood, and they'd actually be dangerous (to others, rather than themselves).

Remind me never to game with you. On the other hand, remind me TO game with you -- as a co-player.

I agree, though I've no idea what the stats on these guys are. But if they got their Psych Lims whipped out of them... here's an idea. Have the WViE -- or better yet, WoE, 'Worst of Europe', sorta catchy, see? -- go against the PCs. And not just once -- several times. Their 'big debut' against the PCs ... flops. A few adventures, then WoE breaks out, to try something else spectacular ... which turns into a spectacular flop. Do this several times, until the PCs are used to grinning and patting each other on the back in anticipation of 'an easy day at the office' when they hear 'WoE is loose!!'

Then bring out the 'New, Improved WoE'. The PCs by that time should be virtually oblivious to actually using tactics against these guys, or rather, using the same ol' tried-and-true 'what works' tactics. With the new, improved WoE, they should get their a$$ets kicked across the county ... and the bad guys win one or two in a row, until the PCs can actually manage to fight them to a draw...

Any of the military fiction written by David Drake.

Dune (series), by Frank Herbert.

The Matador Series, by Steve Perry.

Nearly anything else by Steve Perry.

I won't continue, 'cause I have only 4.5 hours to sleep, and this list would take LOTS longer.

Heh heh heh.

Oh boy. Okay, I have worked off of some of the .net-created Force conversions for HERO; I think the best one I've come across was a VPP with certain limitations, thus:

VPP (40 Power Pool Points, 20 Control Pool Points): Change Powers as a 0-Phase Action (+1), No Skill Roll Required to Change Pool (+1) (Control Active Cost: 60); Restricted Type of Powers (Force/Mental Powers Only, -1/2),

GM Must Approve New Powers (-1/2), Max Pool = (2 x Ego) + (Int + Pre)/2 (-1/4), Max Different Powers = Number of Points in Pool (-1/4) [Control Pool: 30 Points] [Total Real Cost: 70 Points]

At first glance, this is amazingly powerful, until you recognize that the Force Powers are a) first eyeballed by the GM, and limited by the number of points you have in the pool. The GM should, of course, pay attention to how you gain the abilities, and should reflect your training by the powers he lets you buy: first Control powers, then Sense powers, then Alter powers. Somewhere in there you can start mixing Contrl/Sense, so on and so forth.

As for the base 'Jedi package', I've copied across the following. One should remember that this is the 'first Jedi' in a campaign taking place in a world almost directly like our own; the 'Religion' skill is really rather necessary, so that he can prove that 'The Force' is not antithetical to any religion.

35 PKG,"Force Sensitive"

(5) 5 Power Defense

(1) 5 Mental Defense (Mental Powers)

(3) Mental Awareness (Mental Powers)

(2) PS: Lightsaber Construction 11-

(5) KS: Jedi Code 15-,(INT based)

(3) KS: Theology 13-,(INT based)

(6) Force Skill: Control 16-

(5) Force Skill: Sense 15-

(5) Force Skill: Alter 14-

In regards to the three Force skills (Control, Sense, Alter): these are all attribute-based skills. However, they're based on attributes that may seem odd at first glance.

Control: The easiest, this is based off Ego. One should control oneself before one can go about changing the world, and Ego relates to mental discipline and self-control.

Sense: An Intelligence-based skill, not only because PER rolls are based off one's Int, one also has to be able to interpret what one is sensing in order to decide what to do about it.

Alter: The oddest of the bunch, Alter is a Presence-based skill. Presence is very much a 'Force of Personality' attribute, the one used to make friends and influence people. It seems appropriate to use it for the Force skill that 'forcibly' makes friends and influences people, never mind the world at large.

I've a long, painful list of what 'Force Skills' I've created; if I have some time, and if people beat me about the head and shoulders in order to get me to do it, I might start giving you the powers I've got floating around here, as translated into the HERO system. I've still got a bit of translating to do, though, to go from the BBB to FREd.