Sunday, March 25, 2007

Special Powers!

As anyone who follows Heroclix at all probably already knows, sweeping (and in my opinion long overdue) improvements are being made to the game. These changes are designed to increase the comic book feel of the game and tilt game mechanics toward comic book accurate theme teams.

Yay! For more details see here .

Anyway, individual characters can now have unique powers, rather than just different combinations of standard powers. The Human Torch, for example, might have "Fire Wall", the ability to create a barrier that does damage to anyone adjacent to it.

Not only does will this allow figures to "act" even more like the characters they represent, it allows for the creation of characters that simply didn't translate very well onto the existing power dial system. Two characters of that type specifically mentioned in the announcement (and planned for the new Justice League set in August) are Deadman and the Phantom Stranger.

Oh, yes. The Phantom Stranger heroclix figure is coming.

There are so many "special powers" the Phantom Stranger deserves. In fact, the Phantom Stranger should have nothing BUT special powers. Hat Wearing. Lion Evaporation. Wrist Breaking. Chick Kissing. Speedboat Surfing. Ice Giant Clobbering. And, most important...

Smack Talk. As a free action, the Phantom Stranger can lower by 2 the Defense Value of any opposing figures within four spaces, just by judging them harshly. Any adjacent opposing figures also receive "Tongue Lashing", which does two clicks of penetrating damage.

With the further news that there'll be a Justice League set in August 07 and a Teen Titans set in Feb 08, each with 60 different characters in it, and the possibilities for new/redone characters with fabulous special powers is mindboggling...

All kidding aside, I'm convinced the JL set will contain a Vibe, since they're trying to represent as many of the various versions of the Justice League as possible. Imagine a Vibe who (in addition to standard powers like Force Blast, Quake, and Explosion) might have...

Breakdancing. Any turn where Vibe doesn't make an attack, he may as a free action use "Breakdancing" to distract any one opposing figure that can see him, preventing it from attacking anyone on the next turn.

Of course, it might up with something unfortunate like "Choked to Death by an Android" (Any opposing figure with the keyword "Robot" automatically succeeds when making a close combat attack against Vibe).

Imagine the other fun possibilities, such as:

Determinism. Anywhere within Supergirl's range, re-roll abilities like Probability Control do not function.

Ghostbreaker. Any figure within view of Dr. Thirteen loses its Mystic Team Ability.


What else can you think of?



12 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wouldn't mind an affordable Spectre, something like 150 points or so that could go on a JSA team. His special ability would be "Judgment - Roll one 6 sided die. On a result of 6, a single adjacent enemy character of equal or lesser value is automatically eliminated from the game"

I also would love an Amazo who could actually copy powers and stats of enemy figures, although I don't quite know how to keep that affordable.

Kyle Latino said...

Well th only one I can think of right now is Batman's "Batarang up the nose". For the first three clix, Batman rolls crits on 10-12, and on a 12 he can choose to negate a power on that clik.

This represents the axiom at my house that. "It's hard to x with a batarang up the nose" (when x equals power or ability that people generally insist would be a threat to Batman, bah).

Scipio said...

I, too, would like a more down to earth Golden Age Spectre, and "Judgement" sounds like a good way of keeping his reasonable but still retaining the fear that at any moment he might just cause your head to explode.

As for Amazo, just give the same kind of rainbow costly dial he has now... then add "At the start of his turn Amazo may replace any of his powers with any power of any opposing JLA figure within his range."

Since he's already got a dial full of expensive powers, switching some out doesn't really change his cost, just his versatility.

That should do it.

Anonymous said...

I don't actually play HeroClix, and you are making me very sad about it. I'm not sure why I should find reading about a game I don't play so satisfying, but there you have it.

I do have one Plastic-Man-as-Mailbox HeroClix piece that I adore, but that's it.

Sigh.

Anonymous said...

Dr Thirteen would totally be immune to Phantom Stranger's Smack Talk, though, and would counter it with Totally Logical but Full of Crap Theory That Ignores What We Just Saw.

CalvinPitt said...

I was thinking with Spider-Man, a lot of times he confuses his opponents by jumping around them and attacking from seemingly all directions. So call it Spider-Agility and have it lower their defense (or attack; they're too befuddled to strike as accurately) value by one on a roll of 5 or 6.

You could apply something similar to the super-speedsters.

Anonymous said...

Dr. Thirteen should also have some great anti-cthulu abilities. Scooby doo style.

Anonymous said...

Mr. Mxyzptlk is basically impossible to do in Clix right now, but you could simulate his powers with the new rules. Here's my idea: "5th Dimensional Magic - Roll one six sided die. On a result of 1 or 2, Mxy deals one unavoidable click of damage to all enemy pieces. On 3 or 4, move all enemy pieces anywhere on the board. On 5 or 6, give all allies Shape Change and Stealth for one turn"

They also have to do something with Two-Face and flipping a coin, although I don't have any good ideas myself.

Anonymous said...

I went to the article about the Justice League set and I didn't see any mention of Phantom Stranger; just Deadman, Lobo, and "a certain loud-mouthed member of the Green Lantern Corps" (that could be just about any of them).

I know nothing about playing the game, but I would suggest some kind of "omni-gadget" ability for Green Arrow to represent his variety of special arrows.

Derek said...

Ooo, Jon, cool. Except it might make Mr. Mxyzptlk too powerful.

How about a Special Vulnerability? Like, if someone makes a successful Outwit against Mr. Mxyzptlk (makes him say his name backwards) he's removed from the game.

The 5th-dimensional imp could do a lot of damage at the beginning of the game, but as soon as someone both has Outwit and is within range of Mr. Mxyzptlk, he can be taken out.

Anonymous said...

>> Except it might make Mr. Mxyzptlk too powerful. <<

Iznat kinda the whole quintessence of Mxyzptlkality? Dude's way too powerful, plus unpredictable, plus the hat. That's the whole concept in three notes. Mxyzptlk oughtta be able to do lots of stuff that nobody whatsoever can do anything about, only in mostly-goofy ways that are often completely harmless.
Hm, okay, I guess I do see the problem...

Jacob T. Levy said...

But on a roll of 4-5, the Stranger should be restricted to take no action *but* Smack Talk on his turn, and on a roll of 6 to take no action whatsoever, because it is not his role (heh) to intervene at this time.