Speed Comics #4 - pt. 1

Yay!  Back to superheroes!

Well, you wouldn't know it at a glance, but this is a page of Shock Gibson, with Shock disguised as a hobo so he can investigate some shenanigans. How does he know those don't look like real hobos? He could have made a tailoring skill check to notice that their clothes looked too nice and too new to be hobo clothes, or maybe he just sniffed and figured they bathed too much. We don't know how, because he never tells us!

Knock-out drops are not called such in the rules, but are detailed under "Sleeping", under "Consumables", on page 67 of the 2nd edition Basic book.

The narrator is giving us a clue what is going on here, but how exactly are Shock's "alert senses" detecting the drug? Should Detect Poison become a power (hint: it might)? Should the power Super-senses detect drugs (hint: no, that's adding too much to an already broad power)? Should a simple skill check be able to detect the taste of the knockout drops (hint: maybe...)?

I guess Shock was hiding that helmet under his hat? Where else was he hiding that? We can overlook this with the use of the power Quick Change. His game of "ten-pins" means he may have activated the power Flurry of Blows (which could in theory hit up to ten targets), but since he does not appear to have struck more than three, and only needs to take out four, it could also just be Multi-Attack.

There's two ways this could happen: a) since Shock is literally lifting the tree out of the ground, this could be the power Raise Car, or b) since the tree is wrecked after this, this could simply be wrecking things. The size of a tree would impact how easily it is wrecked, but with this tree I could use the machines column, maybe generator at best.

I love the cartooniness of this: Shock doesn't even seem to have bound their feet, and left them tied up so loosely that one or more could easily wiggle free, but is confident that his Editor is running a campaign of light enough mood that he doesn't have to worry about such complications.

And I love that he happens to have a thick-tip marker on him for writing this sign on the fly like that. It's important for Heroes to carry gear with them!

Also worth noting -- DC and Marvel take note! -- danger does not always have to be epic in scope; it can be as subtle as those train tracks being disconnected.

Since Shock isn't an alien, in order to run faster and leap higher he has to burn powers for those -- in these specific examples, they would be Race the Train and Leap I.

Again, I appreciate the playfulness of tooting the horn by hand.

Ooo, this is tricky...and not just for Hideouts & Hoodlums. Most RPGs focus on rules for violence and destruction, not constructive things like "how long should it take to repair railroad tracks? Now how long should it take if using superpowers?"

It's difficult to make a fixed rule about such things because the details of building and repair work can vary widely depending on what is being built or repaired.

If the Editor doesn't want to spend a lot of time on this, he can flip the wrecking things chart around and use it as a building/repairing things chart. Like wrecking things, building/repairing could be allowed to take place in 1 turn. I think I wrote about that on the blog once before, but this is only helpful if a superhero is present.

Without a superhero, this could be allowed as a skill check, though the Editor may need to spend some time researching the situation and finding out how many man-hours of time this building/repair work usually takes. If used as a skill check, buffed by superpowers, then the number of man-hours can be halved for each level of power spent (as long as it makes sense for that power to help; Raise Car would be useful for a lot of repair work; Quick Change, not so much). For example, burning a Raise Car power would make the repair work take 1/2 as long. Adding Race the Train, for speed, would make it take 1/4 as long. Adding Flurry of Blows (a 2nd level power) to make for more hammer blows, would reduce the number of man-hours to 1/16.

The rules, in the 2nd edition Basic book, do not account for combining skills with superpowers; this rule will have to be added in the Advanced Hideouts & Hoodlums Heroes Handbook.

"I make my own rules, when lives are to be saved!" is not the motto of a Lawful Hero. It could be the motto of a Neutral or Chaotic Hero, though.

This is the power Raise Bridge, used exactly as intended.

The Basic book ends the Leap powers at Leap III, but after viewing Leap I, II, and III it should be obvious that the length of the leap is multiplied by eight each time. So, for a Leap IV power, Shock would be able to make a running broad jump of 256 miles, with a 2 in 6 chance of making subsequent leaps of the same distance (which the Hero can continue as long as his luck holds out with rolling). That said, it would take 10 leaps at that level of power to go literally "across country." But, unless Shock is given brevet ranks, he should only be a level 3 superhero by now, with access only to Leap I and II. 

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)