With all the community homebrew and even the playtest book heroes not following the rules as written it can be hard to make a character. So i hope this will help.
Step 1 – what sort of character
- New hero
- Existing hero
This will make a difference later on
Step 2 – rank
This is covered in the book but…
- Rank 1 is normal human
- Rank 5 is low street level, just starting out
- Rank 10 is average mutant, top street level
- Rank 15 is the big Heroes, Avengers, top X-men
- Rank 20 is gods and lower cosmic beings
- Rank 25 is the top cosmic beings
Step 3 – Archetype
You need to decide this early as it affects your ability scores
- Shooting stuff – Blaster
- Hitting stuff – Striker
- Tanking hits – Bruiser
- Clever – Genius
- Relies on powers, maybe defensive – Protector
- All rounder, or not sure – Polymath
So far, by the book, but now you need to consider ignoring the book!
Step 4 – Ability Scores
Which rules do you want to use to make the ability scores?
RAW – this doesn’t just use the ability point scores by rank and the archetype score caps but also the power cap increases. I would not reccomend this. If you notice NONE of the playtest book Heroes use this rule, because none of them go beyond the archetype ability caps and only one has more than 2 abilities above 4 (yes, even Thor and Marvel). Using this rule lets you do stupid things with abilities which totally break the game.
Playtest Book Heroes – Just use Ability Scores by rank and the Archetype score caps (and if you want any relevant traits) but ignore the power cap bonuses. This does leave the awkward thing of only having 2 abilities above 4 when some characters should clealry have more.
What makes Sense – Worry less about caps and rules and go with what makes sense. You don’t even have to spend all the ability points. (I did a 10 point Star-Lord and didn’t spend all the points)
Look at what the book tells us for Ability Scores
- -4 is the bottom.
- 0 is average for a human
- 4 is human limit
- 5-6 is lower superhuman (Rank 5)
- 7-8 is upper superhuman (Ranks 10,15)
- 9-10 is God levels (Rank 20)
- 11 is Cosmic level (Rank 25)
So most characters shouldn’t have scores of even 4 let alone above 4. 4 is Stephen Hawking, Usain Bolt, and any of the World Strongest Men. (Sorry not the widest array of examples). So most characters will be below 4 except for the truly superhuman abilities they have.
And are you use a fighting/striking ability? See below!
Step 5- Traits
Pretty easy, pick origin and profession and pick extra traits. But did you use some custom traits?
And be careful. If I am doing Kitty Pryde, different versions mean different traits. A Shadowcat version will not have Krakoan, because Krakoa is not a state granting immortality (same goes for any 90’s xmen). If I do the modern Mauraduer Pirate Captain Red Queen Katherine Pryde I need traits to represent that.
Step 6- Powers
Are you using the powers in the book, or some homebrew power sets, or the rules for custom power sets?
Step 7- Finishing off
Which archetype tables are you using?
- The ones in the book? There’s an errata for them already
- My reduced ones?
- My Rank 1 tables?
- My Rank 1 tables with striking ability?
- Another set of tables?
- No tables?
What other rules are you using? Gadgets, Equipment, Magic.
Finish off your character as per the book.
Now when you post this character on the ‘net, consider which rules you used and tell people!
Where do I go to get all this extra stuff?
My tables? They are literally 7 lines above.
The errata are on the marvel.com page
that70sgame 