DC Heroes RPG – New Rules – Advantages

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Context

This is a technical article for the DC Heroes RPG.

For a list of all articles like this one, see the Guide to new DC Heroes RPG rules.

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Aging-Reduction Advantages – New Advantages

Author: Sébastien Andrivet.
Helper: Geomancer.
Cost: 5/15/25 *

Slowed Aging [Cost: 5 *]

This Advantage increases the life-span of a Character by a factor of x4 to x10, as determined by the player and the GM during character creation. Such Characters age at this reduced rate throughout their lives.

Aging attacks directed against the Character, such as Spirit Drain with the Aging Bonus, have their RV increased by 5 APs.

Human Characters undergoing anagathicWhich suspends aging. treatments, mutants with a healing factorThe power to heal wounds and regrow tissues, like Wolverine., and long-lived aliens often have this Advantage.

Near-Immortal [Cost: 15 *]

This Advantage increases the life-span of a Character by a factor of x20 to x150+, making their total lifespan at least a millennium.

Such Characters might age at this rate throughout their lives. Or they may age normally to adulthood, after which their aging is slowed.

Aging attacks directed against the Character have their RV increased by 15 APs. Superheroic gods and demi-gods often have this Advantage.

Immortal [Cost: 25 *]

This Advantage means that the Character is entirely unaging. They may have been created in their current form, never have changed and never will.

Aging attacks against the Character will have their RV increased by 25 APs.

Cosmic beings often have this Advantage.

Most versions of Thor have the Near-Immortal Advantage.

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Area Knowledge Advantage enhancers

Author: Sébastien Andrivet.
Helpers: Eric Langendorff, William Chamberlin.
Cost: Each enhancer costs as much as the Area Knowledge Advantage that it is supporting.

Enhancers to Area Knowledge provide an extraordinary level of information.

These are usually the result of technology (for instance being cybernetically interfaced with a large spaceship so as to know where everything is and what is happening), super-intuition, ultra-luck or magic.

Characters using these bonuses include Diego “Rush” Zhao, the Question (Veitch urban shaman take) or Mercury (the fixer working with Faith in the video game Mirror’s Edge.

Area Knowledge — Floorplans Bonus

A Character with an Area Knowledge Advantage enhanced with the Floorplans Bonus can navigate any germane area (wilderness, buildings, streets, subway tunnels, deadly labyrinths full of monsters, etc.) as if they had extensively studied its annotated floorplans.

This works even if they’ve never set foot in the specific area in question. They just know where they are, where stuff is, and how to navigate from point A to point B.

Video game enthusiasts can imagine this as having the best possible minimap unfolding in one’s mind, with zooms and colour codes and icons oh my.

Area Knowledge — Real-Time Bonus

A Character with an Area Knowledge Advantage enhanced with the Real-Time Bonus has their information current to the second.

One example would be, rather than “where can I generally find cannabis dealers ?” as per normal Area Knowledge, to ask “where can I be certain to find a cannabis dealer right now ?“.

This is information that falls under the normal perview of Area Knowledge, but absolutely up-to-date.

Another example would be “where’s a good bar still open for at least 2 more hours ?” or “how late is the route 402 bus ?”.

Smartphone enthusiasts can imagine this as having real-time status flags for every business and service, legal or not, throughout the area.

Real-Time Bonus *plus* Floorplans Bonus

It is possible to have both Bonuses stacked on a given Area Knowledge – which means that the “minimap” is updated and retagged to the second.

For instance, if a fire is raging in a building, a Character with a relevant Area Knowledge and both Bonuses will have accurate knowledge of burned out and weakened areas, collapsed floors and ceilings, etc. as they stand right now.

Another example would be navigating subways tunnels. The Character would know exactly where all the subway trains are and drive their own vehicle in the tunnels with zero risks of a collision.

Faith Connors’ radio uplink provides her with real-time intelligence about city activities.

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Attractive (usage note)

This Advantage, which brings a significant Bonus, can be confusing when modelling Characters.

The majority of super-hero comic book characters are “extremely physically attractive” (as per the Advantage’s wording). Therefore, they all might seem to be candidates for this Advantage.

Our usual approach being evidence-based, we do use the Attractive Advantage for characters who have a markedly, consistently better track record at Persuading people attracted to their gender than with other people.

As a counter-intuitive example of this approach, modern Wonder Woman (Diana of Themyscira) doesn’t have Attractive. She may be to sex-appeal what a flamethrower is to a lighter, but people who aren’t sexually attracted toward women find her every bit as convincing, inspiring and awesome as those who are.

Which clearly doesn’t match the mechanics of the Attractive Advantage.

If that helps, you can change the point of view from “does the Character has a sizeable social bonus toward people attracted toward their gender ?” to “does the Character has a sizeable social *penalty* toward people not attracted toward their gender&nbsp?”.

This evolution in usage can be seen in its earlier stages in the changes between DC Heroes 3^rd edition and Blood of Heroes: Special Edition (ditching the heteronormative  language was the other goal).

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Cheerleadership

Author: Sébastien Andrivet.
Cost: 5 points *.

A Character with this Advantage makes the Hero Points they bestow to others more efficient. But their own use of Hero Points is less efficient.

The ability to bestow Hero Points is necessary to have Cheerleadership. That usually means the Leadership Advantage, or the Dream Team Advantage.

Using Cheerleadership :

It is legal for a Leader to bestow Hero Points to a Cheerleader, who then bestows them to another (or even the Leader !). Who can then spend them at the more favorable rates.

On the other hand, the Cheerleader has all their own Hero Points spendings penalised by one Genre (one column toward the right on the Genre Table).

Design notes

The Cheerleadership Advantage models dated team dynamics. These were oft-seen in comic books of the 1950s-to-1980s (and before, and beyond).

These dynamics almost fully overlap with the Smurfette Principle  . This intersection is when the sole woman on the team seldom *does* anything – but provides encouragement to the men. Vintage Karin Grace is a solid example.

Though it could also be useful for some other archetypes. Such as the aged sports coach or the wheelchair-bound mentor (but not Chuck).

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Conditional Soaking – New Advantage

Author: Sébastien Andrivet.
Cost: 20 *

The Character can better endure certain damage types than their BODY Attribute and HPs would suggest.

The specific form of attack (e.g., fists and blunt weapons, heat and flame, suffocation, etc.) should be specified when taking the Advantage. For instance Conditional Soaking (Blunt damage).

Descriptors are useful for this Advantage.

When attempting LDD against the attack type their Conditional Soaking applies against, the Character will use a HP cost for LDD that is one point lower than the current Genre.

For instance a Character in a Gritty campaign (where LDD cost is 3) with Conditional Soaking (Punches) would have a Last Ditch Defense cost of 2 versus such attacks.

This Advantage cannot reduce LDD cost below 1. It is therefore useless in Humor and Action Genres.

Spider-Man (Peter Parker) can Soak blunt attacks.

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Dream Team – New Advantage

Author: Sébastien Andrivet.
Cost: 5 or 15 †

Dream Team is a cheaper version of Leadership.

It allows for transferring Hero Points in the same manner as Leadership. However, this is only feasible among the core members of a specific group. These must be listed when the Advantage is taken.

Rupture condition

A Rupture Condition can be specified by the group when this Advantage is taken. When this Condition is met :

In the case of the Cold War Suicide Squad — for which the Dream Team Advantage was designed — the Rupture Condition was “Doc Evans and Jess realise that Karin is in love with Rick”.

The Rupture Condition must be approved by the GM – and all group members with the Advantage. In particular, the GM must make sure the players are interested in going through the drama of the Rupture Condition happening at some point in the campaign.

If the group is not interested in having the Rupture Condition — and/or the players are likely to do everything they can so it never happens — do not allow for a Rupture Condition.

The Dream Team Advantage costs 5 Hero Points if it has a shared Rupture Condition, 15 points otherwise.

In the case of the original Suicide Squad, Karin Grace was often the ’HPs dispatcher‘. The other two sent HPs to her and she would pump those plus hers into the person doing the actions they wanted to boost, delivering pep talks and the like to go along with the HPs she was transmitting.

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Edge (Attribute, Power or Skill)

Author: Sébastien Andrivet and Peter Piispanen.
Helpers: Ethan Roe, Eric Langendorff, Vincent Bartilucci, Adam Fuqua.
Cost: See below.

A Character with this Advantage can spend Hero Points on a Dice Action as if the specified Attribute, Power or Skill were one AP higher.

If Pushing an Automatic Action using this Attribute, the roll to Push receives a special +1 Bonus to the final die roll.

The cost of this Advantage can be paid in two manners :

Designers’ note

This Advantage was created for several characters (such as Wildcat (Ted Grant), Cullen Bohannon or Yoko Tsuno) who seem to occasionally have a higher score in, say, STR, Weaponry (Firearms) or DEX.

This performance isn’t consistent enough to peg them to the upper AP. But it is regular enough to not be a result of dice rolls and occurs when they are clearly straining.

Back during the 1990s, this was referred to (in Wildcat’s case) as “having a STR of 4.5 APs”.

This Advantage is a micro-adjustment to reflect the results of the research about the character rather than forcibly fit an oval peg into a round hole.

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Financial Backer (level)

Author: Sébastien Andrivet.
Helpers: Nicolas Lemaçon, Ethan Roe.

A Character with this Advantage knows third parties upon which they can call for financial assistance. This can be done once every three months.

When this Advantage is used, the Character can use a different Wealth rating to make a purchase. The APs of Wealth thus granted determine the cost of the Advantage.

“Mr. Wayne” and “Mr. Luthor” are meant as well-known comic book examples, with well-known Wealth APs, to give a sense of scale. They’re not meant to be literally Bruce Wayne or Lex Luthor.

Optional: Persuasion Roll

As an option, gaining at least one RAP on a Persuasion roll may be necessary to receive the benefits of this Advantage. This can be attempted every three months.

If no RAP is gained, the Rich Family/Friend provides no benefit for this quarter.

To use this option :

Designer’s notes (part 1)

This is an evolution over Rich Family/Friends. We use a different, more general name to avoid confusion as to which version of Rich Family/Friend was intended by the writer.

The revision exists since :

With Financial Backing we have a slightly more complex setup. But it can handle the Newsboy Legion bumming Jim Harper for a steak dinner. As well as New York City real-estate magnates borrowing from their dad at near-zero interest.

Designer’s notes (part 2)

Financial Backer (and Rich Friends/Family) represents a specific setup. Namely, regular access to a higher level of Wealth than what you otherwise paid for.

For many other situations with financial vagaries, a Wealth Subplot will likely be preferable.

Remember that the AP tables for wealth are written using 1980s dollars. Adjusting for this is discussed in the Double-Scale DCH article.

In Stephanie Brown’s case though, her Financial Backer literally is Bruce Wayne.

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Free Access (usage note)

For those of youse who do not have Blood of Heroes: Special Edition, this Advantage was replaced by a more comprehensive one called Credentials.

Free Access might still used in some old writeups.org profiles we haven’t gotten around to updating.

Green Lantern Jo Mullein would once have had Free Access, but now she has more specific Credentials.

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Iron Nerves (usage note)

When modelling a character, deciding whether they have Iron Nerves can be difficult. We suggest considering these two points :

If the answer is “no”, then we are dealing with general Mental and Mystical RVs — MIN and SPI — rather than Iron Nerves.

Lastly, note that for some characters the Schtick (Pain Management) is the better tool.

The eerily unflappable Poodle Lady has Iron Nerves. The poodle might, too.

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Life Support (additional types)

The two Life Support options below are rare. In most cases, Sealed Systems is the better solution.

Life Support (Thin Atmosphere) (10 points)

The Character can function without hindrance in thin atmospheres. This ranges from high altitude conditions (the Character ignores increased fatigue) to high up in the atmosphere or on alien planets, where most would suffocate to death within minutes.

As long as large organic creatures can conceivably breathe there using lungs, the Character can.

This also doubles the base amount of time the Character can hold their breathe.

The cost assumes a standard, mid-range super-hero campaign. If the campaign involves frequent visits of places with atmospheres that would require life support equipment, the cost may rise to 15 or more.

Life Support (Toxic Atmosphere) (10 points)

The Character is able to function in atmospheres that would normally be toxic to them, and to process gasses therein as humans process oxygen. This doesn’t offer protection against corrosive atmospheres, or those with dangerously high or low pressures.

But as long as large organic creatures can conceivably breathe there using lungs, the Character can.

This also raises the base OV/RV of the Character against toxic aerosol agents by one CS.

The cost assumes a standard, mid-range super-hero campaign. If the campaign involves frequent visits of places with atmospheres that would require life support equipment, the cost may rise to 15 or more.

Luc Orient and companions have been altered to have this sort of Life Support.

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Mystique – New Advantage

Author: Mayfair Games.
Designer’s Notes: This is a formal description of the Advantage first introduced for Batman’s official DC Heroes 3^rd Edition writeup.
Cost: 10 †.

Characters with Mystique have developed a particularly unnerving reputation among a particular group. This might be a specific city (such as Gotham for Batman, or Dos Rios for El Diablo), or a specific group (such as vampires for the movie version of Blade).

When the character makes an Intimidation Check, they receive a -1CS bonus to the OV. The Gamemaster may decide that this bonus doesn’t apply – for instance criminals who are reasonably sure that the Batman never kills, or who are certain that El Diablo isn’t a supernatural being.

Batman is scary, man.

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Omni-Knowledge – New Advantage

Author: Unknown.
Cost: 50 *.

Omni-Knowledge is a more flexible version of Omni-Scholar. It allows the Character to spend 15 HPs to acquire a Scholar of his choice, 10 HPs to gain an Expertise or Language, or 5 HPs to acquire a Familiarity.

The acquired Advantage lasts for the whole adventure. If the Player want their Character to retain the Advantage for the following adventure, they must pay the HP fee again.

The player can also opt to pay a +5HPs fee to have the HPs double as Character Advancement expenditures.

For instance, if a Character with Omni-Knowledge pays 20 HPs to acquire Scholar (Military Fixed-Wing Aircraft) for the adventure’s duration, this counts as 15 HPs being used for Character Advancement to acquire that Scholar as per standard Character Advancement rules.

This Advantage might have been designed for the Doctor, I ain’t sure.

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Police Rank – New Advantage

Author: Peter Piispanen.
Helpers: Charly Clinch, Roy Cowan, Sébastien Andrivet.
Cost: 0-25 HPs.

The Police Rank Advantage works like the military Rank Advantage described in the World at War sourcebook, except for law enforcement organizations.

This Advantage gives many possibilities for interesting Character Interactions, role-playing and Subplots. It is primarily intended for campaigns where the player characters are police officers.

A character with this Advantage, an appropriate Credentials Advantage, and a Connection to a police department (including the one from Credentials) can be considered to be a police officer.

Police officers usually follow the orders of persons of a higher rank. However, unlike the Rank Advantage disobeying the legal orders of a superior will result in institutional sanctions (including being fired). Rather than the possible criminal charges that could result when a soldier disobeys an order.

Prerogatives

They have the power of arrest and various legal prerogatives. These vary considerably by time and location, and of course their fictional depiction is often complete fantasy.

Additionally, a person with this Advantage can acquire civilian or police vehicles in the field by waving their badge. This is a combined benefit of Police Rank with police Credentials. The state will repay the owner of such acquisitions in case the vehicles gets damaged/destroyed.

An additional benefit of the Advantage is an increase in Wealth by 1 AP freely upon acquiring the rank of Captain. Attaining any Chief rank increases this Wealth score by another AP freely. The cost of the Advantage represents the work put into the work of attaining that rank.

Anyone being at least a Police Officer may purchase the Police Credentials (Low) Advantage, while it is common for Lieutenants and Detectives and above to purchase the Police Credentials (Medium) advantage.

Police Credentials (High) usually corresponds to Commanders, Chiefs and the like.

Specialagent Englund has a Police Rank.

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Reputation – New Advantage

Author: Dr Peter S Piispanen.
Cost: 25 †

A character with this Advantage is largely perceived as particularly fearsome.

Whenever this character’s name is spoken aloud an Intimidation check is made by the speaker against anyone of an opposing Motivation (villainous if the character is heroic, for example) who happens to be within earshot.

Standard Multi-Attack Penalties apply at the GM’s discretion.

Designer’s Notes

This Advantage is best suited to pulpsCheap, often lurid novels in the US during the 1920s and 1930s./four-colourSomething goofy from over-the-top early comic books. campaigns and might be out of place in grittier Genres unless the character in question is extremely powerful and widely feared.

It is an enhanced version of Mystique.

Judge Dredd has something of a Reputation.

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Scholar (Spellcraft) – New Scholar speciality

Author: Dr Peter S Piispanen.
Cost: 20 †.

When researching existing spells (in a magic library, an old tome, etc), the Character rolls his Occultist Skill vs. the APs of the Ritual. When trying to recognize or understand a new ritual, the Character makes a Perception/Detective check vs. the APs of the Ritual.

In both cases, the character gets a bonus of -2 CS to the OV/RV.

Additionally, Characters with this Scholar can easily come up with new Rituals “on the fly” during adventures. This enables such characters to buy Rituals for attack powers (with low Casting Time and no Components needed, but still paying the HPs for it) in the middle of combat.

When creating a new Ritual, the Character has a +2CS higher Ritual Casting skill. The Spellcraft bonus only applies to Ritual creation. Casting rolls does not benefit from Spellcraft.

Designer’s Notes

This was developed for such magicians as Dr. Strange and John Constantine.

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Stroke of Genius – New Advantage

Author: Unknown.
Cost: 10 *.

This Advantage functions as Genius, but only for a specific item. That item can be modified as long as the modifications themselves would not require Genius.

For example, a Character with Stroke of Genius (Battle suits) could add a standard computer to their power armourStrength-enhancing body armour, like Iron Man’s.. But they couldn’t add an actual artificial intelligence.

Atomic-Man only invented one Genius-grade thing.

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Surreal Sensitivity – New Advantage

Author: Sébastien Andrivet.
Helper(s): Eric Langendorff.
Cost: 15 †.

The Character has a power of intuition allowing them to grokIntuitive yet robust understanding of how something works. surreal, phantasmagorical events. The sort that leaves others completely puzzled, and unable to progress past the impression that what is happening doesn’t make any sense.

Use

Such intuitions are reached by spending Hero Points, allowing a bewildered Player to rely on their Character’s sensitivity to gain some insight.

In a Mock Real Genre (a common Genre for such stories), spending one Hero Point will result in vague sensations about what sort of phenomena are at work, scattered impressions, a fuzzy idea of themes, some images.

Spending 5 Hero Points will result into a more useful intuitive leap, one that leaves a stumped Player with some plausible course of action and at least a partial understanding of why such a course of action would make sense.

(HP fees may be adjusted for harsher or more free-flowing Genres).

Contexts

This form of intuition works with the sort of high weirdness and unreal crises associated with the early 1990s DC’s Vertigo imprint  . In books such as Doom Patrol, Shade the Changing Man, Enigma, Kid Eternity and the like.

Other genres (such as Gothic Horror or UFO Conspiracies) have better-known, more obvious rules. They are less likely to leave the Players completely stumped as to what to do.

A typical application would be Characters with an exceptional sensitivity toward the surreal, such as Crazy Jane and Rebis, intuitively gaining an understanding of what’s going on, what all these weird events and characters mean, and how they work.

In contrast, a Character devoid of such an Advantage, such as Cliff Steel, has no idea about what is going on. He reacts blindly, since very little makes sense from his point of view.

Having such an Advantage works well in a RPG context, where it is quite easy for things to make perfect sense from the Gamemaster’s point of view but leave even a penetrating Player stumped by the surreal events going on.

The Scarab (Louis Sendak) has this sensitivity.

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Wanderer’s Connections – New Connection type

Author: Sébastien Andrivet.

Most super-hero campaigns feature operations from a set place (often with impressive headquarters) and sophisticated telecoms. This encourages managed, stable alliances of the sort handled by the default DC Heroes Connections rules.

However, other traditional campaign types feature roaming heroes. They regularly revisit old haunts, but they’re on the move. This includes many heroic-fantasy adventurers, post-apocalyptic road warriors, xia fighters, Old West gunslingers, enigmatic roninA samurai without a master., etc..

Wanderer’s Connections are adapted to such campaigns.

For campaigns where places are almost never revisited, and without sophisticated telecoms (at least telegrams or an equivalent), there’s little need for either sort of Connections. These can simply be role-played given their transient nature.

Establishing Wanderer’s Connections

The bulk of creating Wanderer’s Connections comes from playing, as the Characters develop ties with the locals. A typical example would be conducting mercenary jobs for them. Or helping them against the black hats.

If an affinity emerges, a Character can :

The HP fees represent the extra social effort involved in forging a bond. The low cost acknowledges that this connection will not come into play often, since the Characters are roaming.

Testing a Wanderer’s Connections

Whenever a Character wants to draw upon an established Wanderer’s Connection, it must be tested.

The Character has not been around in a while and isn’t part of the local social setup – they are an *outsider*. Thus, there’s a constant danger of such connections decaying.

The baseline test is AUR/AUR against an OV/RV of 02/02. Charisma (Persuasion) can be subbed for either AV or EV if desired. Attitude Adjustments are used as normal, likely based on the sort of services the Character performed in the past and how grateful the Connection is for those.

One RAP is sufficient for the Connection to work as intended. Zero RAPs means that a High Wanderer’s Connection drops to Low, or that a Low Wanderer’s Connection is deleted. It’s not easy, being an outsider.

The test is only necessary when a character returns to the place the Wanderer’s Connection live in and reestablishes contact. It will then hold at this level until the Character leaves.

Benefits of a Wanderer’s Connection

A Low Wanderer’s Connection is primarily good for information, but probably nothing secret. Current local events, job opportunities, threats to be aware of, advice, explanations about local bits of history or politics, credible rumours, etc..

It also comes with a willingness to hire and compensate the wanderer (and their allies) if there’s a need.

A High Connection also includes some services. For instance letting the Character crash on the couch, introducing them to people, giving them a ride to a nearby place, granting them a 10% discount… A High Connection will almost always consider hiring the Character is there’s a need, as a trusted contractor.

Other sorts of connections

A Wanderer’s Connection means that the Characters will return to a place. Just not often, and for a brief time, and with but weak ties. But the other two kinds of Connections can still exist :

Examples of the latter would include a patron wizard whom the Character can communicate with magically to benefit from their expertise and perhaps even long-range spells. Or a fortified, well-equipped base the Character returns to monthly or so to resupply and report.

Likewise, even in a traditional “big city” super-hero game, some RP groups may wish to use Wanderer’s Connection. One example would be NPC heroes with whom the hero teams up with superior chemistry, but with no real way to reach them so such team-ups happen infrequently and randomly.

Another example is a setting with a natural hub location, such as the Citadel in Mass Effect. Some minor players here (say, your favourite shop on the Citadel) could conceivably become Wanderer’s Connections.

Alessa, a possible Fallout II Chosen One, has Wanderer’s Connections.

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