Superheroes General

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Time traveling Superman Nazi

Soon-to-be GM here, starting a game soon and trying to find a good low-level villain that can grow with the players.

I'm going to be hosting a session of Champions Complete and I have two questions.
1. How should I go about making complex underground hideouts and command centers for villains and foes without accidentally making them too powerful? (3-4 heroes at 240-270 points).
2. How much Resistant PD, ED, and Body should a top of the line safe have? One of the players was statting out his hero's house and was wondering how much a safe for valuables would cost. I told him to mark it down as 1 point extra cost and I'll stat it out later.

>>46698257
What system are you running?

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>>46698315
Just put the safe as invincible. Top of the line safes can probably take a tank shell point-blank and shrug it off. Fuckers are THICK. Pic related.

>>46696881
haven't played a superhero game but I have been trying to come up with some cool villains for one I plan to GM one day.

here are two I came up with. part 1
The first is a woman named Eliza lou. Born into a poor family, young Eliza often had to make her own toys to entertain herself while her parents struggled to pay the bills. This led to her becoming a very good doll maker at a young age and would often sell her dolls in the park to try to help her parents. After the rainbow event, a mass vision that everyone on earth saw, the dolls she made afterwards began to come to life.
She would become one of the first supers to use her powers for financial reasons by staring in a children's show were she and her dolls would play, tell stories and give lessons in doll making to kids. Life seemed great for the girl until a gang tried to take over the TV station by killing her family to force the owner to sign over. They forced her parents into a car crash where they were killed, leaving her with all the money from both the TV show and the life insurance policy they took out. The gang was caught but the events left a fire burning in her heart. Several years later Eliza and her doll army are cutting a bloody swath though the criminal underworld where our heroes have to stop her.

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>>46699086
The second is her right hand man named Ted. Calm, cool under fire and rocks an awesome suit and gloves, he is the very picture of a badass bodyguard. Which is exactly what his maker Eliza intended him to be. A golem made of cloth he has no need for food, sleep or even air. Made of some of the best materials money can buy he is proficient in multiple forms of combat, though he prefers gun taking advantage of the fact his he doesn't need to breathe or have a pulse to have uncanny accuracy. He's very loyal to Eliza not only because she's his lifeline but also due to the fact that he feels that she gave him the answer to one of life's oldest questions
"Why was I made", something he feels that no human has ever gotten a straight answer for. His big weakness is the fact that he has a limited battery life outside of his maker's area of control, but as he often says if he doing his job right he will never has to leave it.

So I want to DM solo adventures for my group and then eventually have them come together in an Avengers sort of thing.

What system is the best way to go about it?

>>46698338
Haven't decided yet. I want something that plays fast and smooth instead of being a tactical simulator, maybe with a dice pool a la L5R. But I don't want to go as far as ORE where every character works the same.

>>46699729
I think Marvel Heroic might be something you want to look into since the system is dice pool instead D20

>>46699765
How much is it tied to the Marvel IP? I have zero desire to play in their universe and iirc a lot of their games take pains to prevent you from doing so, like not including a character creation system.

It's going pretty good, we just cleared some cisterns of a festering queen, and the rest of the team don't yet fully recognize me as a villain.

Favorite DM made villain, probably evil Not-Ghost Rider in a monster truck.

>>46699816
The book tells you how to do it. There's just not a lot tied down to hard rules on characters since it's a system that lets you play a team of Hulk, Black Panther, Dr. Strange, and Daredevil without anything hard like PL or EXP buy for creation.

>>46696881
...is he feeding energy blasts to that dragon?

Only ran one supers game unfortunately, because it was a blast even if after 10ish sessions I still have no idea how to the HERO system works. The plot was a pretty basic Mars Attacks setup, and the BBEG an interplanetary emperor awoken when an impactor probe hit the ice cap that he was frozen in, attacking with alien technology and I-Can't-Believe-They're-Not-Tripods. His plan was to recreate the Martian race from scratch by establishing massive cloning and manufacturing facilities on Earth, and wiping out the humans so they wouldn't compete with him for resources.

About halfway through we did a subplot about an American general who got the nuclear football and decided that it would be a better idea to nuke Earth into oblivion than let the Martians have it, and the president (featuring my horrible Obama impression) ordered the supers to put a stop to him. I drew a lot of inspiration from XCom for this one, with the other sessions revolving around destroying attack robots, taking down UFOs and raiding the cloning bases.

>>46700102
>I still have no idea how to the HERO system works

I have literally never seen anyne talk about HERO's gameplay, just bitch about character creation. I want to get into it, because it seems flexible yet balanced, but if the gameplay is a drag it's not worth it.

Basically I'm trying to avoid sinking a ton of time into learning it only to find out it's no fun to play. Or run, for that matter.

>>46697022
Hey, it's Iron Wolf from M&M.
I STRONGLY suspect that that character's name and design are a reference to the Witcher novels, what with his region of origin being the area around the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

>>46700191
His head looking like the witcher logo might be another clue

>>46700254
True that.
His powers are completely different though; magically-based and deriving strength from the old Commonwealth rulers and virtues, and instead of a cranky old guy he's a youthful Spider-Man type.

>>46700577
>deriving strength from the old Commonwealth rulers and virtues

u wot m8

>>46701096
MAGIC!

>>46700181
Even though I felt like I was "winging it" it worked out great, helped in part by the fact that my group was completely into the whole "power of teamwork" theme I was trying to push on them. We used a character creation program and I kept a close eye on everyone to make sure nobody had anything that seemed like it would overshadow the rest of the group, and when combat came the only thing weird to keep track of was initiative, which is a bit more involved than other games but once you figure it out you can basically just create a list of when each player would get their turn and decide on-the-fly when the NPCs turns fall in.

I really liked some of the ideas in the system, like how damage worked and how everything scaled smoothly by awarding build points at the end of each session (I also let my players use build points mid-session to either acquire suspiciously convenient superpowers Superman style or upgrade existing ones mid-use Goku style). It is very crunch heavy though and I found myself taking notes on a lot of things as I read them so I wouldn't have to constantly go back to the manual mid combat. Pretty much though I tend to run everything in a very seat-of-the-pants way and went with what felt right, and nobody complained so I figure it worked great.

In the end I would recommend it if your players are grognards who appreciate the detail it provides AND have the experience necessary to do things quick (ie they won't be searching through the book every initiative pass). If both of those don't apply I would go with GURPS or Savage Worlds, having never played any of the dedicated supers RPGs for myself.

>>46701481
what's good about how damage works?

>>46701612
I think he's talking about how damage is divided in STUN and BODY.

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>>46696881
Ancient king of persia reborn with disintegration-laser-eyes, superstrenght, the power to fly and an aura to make attacks miss more often.

>>46699729
Wild Talents (despite being ORE) is varied enough in the application of powers to fill your last requirement. The big hurdle is getting everyone to understand the minutiae of how they're supposed to function.

>>46700181
Gameplay is fucking lightspeed compared to chargen. The reason character creation is such a pain is because you calculate every bonus possible before you play so all you have to do is glance and roll. It's all front loaded.

Neat concept, good execution in my book.

The first villain we ever fought in the supers game I played in was a dude with lightning powers who wore a distressingly realistic whole-head pig mask. We named him ''Streaky Bacon''. We later found out he was actually called ''Animal Crackers'' for some indefinable reason, and decided that we were sticking with Streaky Bacon.

>>46698257
Evil scientist/engineer who makes robots and every time he is defeated he just uses some device to escape while yelling "I'll get you next time, Player Characters!" and then comes back with a better robot, eventually creating Mega-Doom-Bot, something that is as strong, if not stronger, as the BBEG they are fighting.

If classics are not your taste, try a slowly mutating brute or super stronk martial artist.

>>46707908
Let's say I'm the GM running for five players.

How long would a combat take with:

Group vs 1 big bad
Group vs several villains
Group vs horde of henchmen

Are we talking 10 minutes per round and over in four rounds, an hour per round and over in 10 rounds, what?

>>46707881
>The big hurdle is getting everyone to understand the minutiae of how they're supposed to function.

That doesn't sound good

We're starting next weekend, I'm actually pretty hype.

To stick to the thread topic, the only villain confirmed so far is one of the players' archenemies. A CIA spook with the power to eat memories and emotions, and keep them for himself. Spooky dude.

>>46699729
I've homebrewed a system wherein instead of HP the characters all have fatigue, similiar to Lacuna's BPM system.

Every bit of damage, or risky maneuvre, etc, raises their fatigue.
After a certain threshold, enemies will try to take them down permanently by rolling d20-under their fatigue score. They can augment the enemy's roll by burning from their power pool, which is basically mana.
Means the more fatigue they accrue the more likely they are to be KO'd

Im trying to come up with a variety of adventure seeds just now, feel free to throw ideas and shit at me and il share some.

>>46709595
Well in HERO system (I use Champions Complete, which is the entirety ofHERO system stuck in one slim bundle) actions are played out in "phases" and "turns". A turn is 12 seconds and there are 12 phases in a turn. When seeing who does what go through the phase order "Phase 1.... Phase 2.. " until people declare that they go on that phase or an NPC/ enemy goes on that phase. Initiative is static and linked to the DEX score plus any modifiers you bought (like lightning reflexes, which increases you initiative and nothing else). After the first turn your players will take 1-2 minutes tops per phase if two or more are going on that phase, and that's mostly the time it takes to count up the mountains of d6's you'll be rolling. The action economy is simplified as well but I won't go into that for now.

>>46710039
I'd be happy to explain the damage system and other things if you want.

>>46710084
Not that guy but how does damage work in HERO system?

Posting some cool powers i run with my players

>Dream Manifestation
I give the player a dream for each session that they've had, and they can conjure those items until they next sleep. However, if I roll badly for their dream they have a nightmare, their nightmares can harm them, and that damage follows over into that day and cannot be healed.

>Funghi/Not-Swamp-Thing

Guy dies in a mycellium infested mushroom colony. It grows through and into his dead brain, uses the structure to achieve critical mass of thought to reach consciousness. Basically a living human-looking nature colony, has an innate link to nature and nature powers. Basically Groot or Swamp Thing, but very vulnerable to fire. Does not entirely do a good job of pretending to be human.

>Smoke Form
Can turn into smoke. Worst weakness is that if contained in something smaller than his human form, he cant change back without getting all mashed up. Also the change scatters him, so every time he dissipates and reforms, he risks losing an important memory, eventually meaning if he uses his powers he'll forget important people and life events, gradually losing his sense of self. Maybe he wont change back, next time...

>Demon Infestation
Body is home to 1000 demons all clamouring to be heard/seize control. Power comes from the capacity for the player to make deals with the demons for power, favours, etc. However they're always bad deals, and occasionally the demons will save a few seconds of seizing-control for an inopportune moment to try and break his willpower down and take proper control of him. IE: Holding a girls hand as she dangles over a drop. Demon gets a few seconds of control as payback for that time you survived a knife wound, and lets her go. Major damage to willpower.

>>46710514
In HERO system all the dice are d6's. Let's say you roll to punch someone with 60 strength. To do that you first must make a successful hit (11 or less +Target's DCV - your OCV with 3d6). Then divide the strength by 5 and you now roll 12d6 physical damage. To count body and stun is simple. Take the total number rolled and that's the stun, for this example let's say rolled 41. The BODY is dependent on the dice rolled. A 2-5 does 1 body, a 6 does 2 body, and a 1 does 0 body. To quickly add it up take the 6's and 1's and pair them together. If you have an equal amount that means you did 12 body. If you have one more 1 than 6's you did 11 BODY. If you have 2 extra 6's that means you did 14 body. Now this damage must go through the target's defenses. The opponent is moderately armored so his PD (physical defense) is 12. That means your attack of 41 STUN and 13 BODY does 29 points of stun damage and 1 point of body damage. If the target has less CON than the STUN damage he took that means he is stunned and cannot take any action next round besides becoming un-stunned. While something is stunned it's DCV and OCV are halved.

>>46710700
Also there are hit-tables some GM's roll to see where the attack hit. These hit locations modify the amount of BODY and STUN damage are taken after any applicable defenses are used.

Kind of poorly, the supervillain female Not-Superman looks set to take over a country, and the only ones really capable of stopping her now are other supervillains, who don't care much about her efforts.

>>46710084
Yes please. I'm really looking for a game where I can get a normal fight over in 30 mins or so, on up to bosses taking an hour, maybe hour and a half.

>>46710700
Really wish it used 2d6 instead of 3d6 to hit

>>46710772
Can you drop those easily or are they built in as heavily as hit locs are in Dark Heresy?

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>>46696881

Long ago, a race of aliens developed their own power, steered by their knowledge of genetic modification. with their developing abilities, powered by cosmic radiation, they started conquering other planets, exploring other systems, enslaving other species, untill they formed their own Star Empire. Only a combined effort of their slaves and other spacefaring species could break their power, beat them back to their homeworld, and eventually exterminate them.
However, this alliance against the aliens missed something very important. During the rebellion, the aliens created their ultimate expression of their powers. A new generation, with power far beyond everything the old ones could muster, and adapted to survive almost every environment they could meet. While the aliens strived to create a whole army of them to win the rebellion, they were too late for the final battle. So, they were sent out towards the stars, to continue the legacy of their race, and hopefullly rebuild. Within their pods, they would continue to develop, and would be taught all about their lost species during the trip. Centuries later, one of these aliens lands on earth, emerging out of his pod as a healthy teenager, but with all of his memories blank, due to a pod malfunction. So, he was adopted by some humans, then later abandoned, and became a supervillain powerful enough that only the (other) superman clone of the setting could match him one-on-one, all the while thinking that he was simply an amnesiac mutant. And that is not even it's final form. If he grows old enough and absorbs enough cosmic radiation (read: at the climax of the plot), he transforms into his mature form, becoming MORE POWERFUL THAN YOU COULD POSSIBLY IMAGINE!

(pic related)

>>46711242

Unfortunately for many people, the alliance against these aliens found out about these pod-children. They considered these to be a serious threat, as a fully matured alien could take over almost any planet, creating their own little empire, and any potential halfbreed ofspring could potentially just as powerfull. So, they created massive, spacefaring robots, sent out along all projected flightpaths of these pods. If they find one of these aliens (or anyone with similar powers), they will blow up the planet, to wipe out both them and any possible halfbreeds.

In other words, the end of our campaign was spent dealing with both an unstable supervillain whose powers are spiralling out of control, and a giant space roobot trying to blow up the planet.
What made this one extra fun was the fact that some humman mutants, including one of the PC's, used the same kind of energy, which the robot took as evidence of them being half alien.

>>46710993
I don't know what you mean by "drop them" but you can take called shots with a negative modifier to your OCV, making it harder to hit but more accurate to the place you want to hit. Armor is also limited to where it covers so some parts of your body won't have the bonus from your armor.

>>46712430
by drop them I mean can you not use hit locations without it affecting much, or are they built into the game like they are in 40k where taking them out is essentially the same as playing a new game?

>>46712626
You can drop them without losing much flavor. In the book it says you can just roll on the table and use it for flavor without the damage modifiers.

>>46710039
>Champions Complete
What is that? 7th edition? The one I was reading was still 5e revised (I heard that 6e had some changes like dropping figured characteristcs), what is different about it?

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>>46712981
Well first of all it's a single 360~ page book. It is exactly the same system under a different name, except slimmed down and much more fluid. I personally prefer it because it is all in one book and it has the adjustments made in all previous editions. Plus it doesn't have that annoying symbol on every page.

>>46713117
Uh, I see. Wait...
>360 pages
On their store it says it's 240 pages. Is it the same book?

>>46713231
Sorry. It is 240 pages. Was looking at the wrong PDF. Also don't buy it. Just go ask for it in a PDF thread and you'll get it.

>>46713391
Don't worry, already downloaded it.

>>46709606
Saying it's quite that rough is a bit of an exaggeration. Wild Talent's strength is it's flexibility: you've got three kinds of powers, ones that Attack, ones that Defend, and ones that do all the other Useful shit. You can give any of these qualities to whichever power suits you (ie. 'Telekinesis' or 'Body of Flames' can be built as an ADU power, so long as you can come up with a rationale for how it works and pay the points) and they function (mostly) the same until you get down into your extras and flaws.

Extras and flaws are part of what keep powers from straying into the usual ORE territory of just being handfuls of dice you throw at each other. You can pay extra points to make your power activate faster, add dice/extras to other dice pools, last for a whole scene-forever, or do a variety of things without having to build separate powers for each of them: conversely you can cheapen it up by making it burn willpower whenever you use it, have a limited stock of ammo, be built into a device, etc. It's mostly the edge cases in the extras and flaws that burn people out of the system (like Augment or Variable Effect), but you wouldn't get the flexibility needed to build whatever power you want without them.

Last post before thread probably dies overnight. Just gonna ask what type of hero do you prefer to play as?

>>46720828
Monster hero. Something freaky that's trying to do good.

>>46720828
Mentalist good guy. Someone who uses their power to warp reality (and other people) to do good things and make the world a better place.

>>46720828
Cut-rate Batman.

>>46720828
Either mad scientist or flying brick with a Kamen Rider attitude