It's that time again...
Today I'm looking at Champions for the Hero System. Our "solar-themed investigator who brings light into dark places" will be rather more outwardly 'heroic' than previous incarnations.
I'm not doing anything fancy here - just a straight-up classic superhero with a secret identity, a costume, and an alliterative name. Mild-mannered schoolteacher Ardent Adams is secretly Daylight, who draws power from the rays of the sun and can unleash them in turn. I'm sticking with the low-powered superhero guidelines; Daylight isn't going to be beating up demigods and destroying the city in the process.
To play a little more strongly into the theme, I've decided Daylight's part of the world is plagued by shadow-monsters and vampires of various kinds. They certainly won't be the only challenge he faces, but they're a recurring theme. This makes it natural that he'd be drawn into superheroing. Maybe the critters are minions of a cabal of shadow-sorcerers, who knows?
Attributes
I don't see Adams as a particularly tough hero, just someone with some unusual powers. Drawing on the guidance from the Champions Guidelines Table, I boost his combat prowess and defences a little, and buy up all his attributes to 15 for a good all-round competence. Presence seems appropriate to a sun-themed character so that goes up to 25. This will also allow him to make effective Presence-based attacks to overawe, terrify or calm people (and therefore less need for violence).
Powers
Building powers is fiddly, but luckily I can draw on the big book of Champions Powers. I choose a selection from across the Light and Solar/Celestial groups. Eyes of Light makes him hard to dazzle or blind, and Summer's Warmth creates a stable warm environment around him. I also add 20 points of Power Defence against darkness, cold and shadow-based powers.
Time for something more active. Create Light is obviously required. I don't really want to go into the generic energy blaster line with this character though; something a bit more offbeat seems more interesting. So I do give him the ability to dazzle with a Flash cone of noonday sunlight, but also a Sunlit Step that allows him to step through patches of direct sunlight as a short-ranged teleport.
Since many of Daylight's adversaries will be shadowy or vampiric, I add a Dispel Darkness ability, as well as a Hand-To-Hand boost that deals 2d6 additional energy damage (-1/2, only against creatures vulnerable to sunlight) as Touch of the Sun. I decide to add a weak version of the Solar Storage power - Adams absorbs energy from the sun to power his flashier abilities, so he's dependent on being able to spend plenty of time in the sun, but can still go heroing underground or at night.
I'm not sure the Solar Storage is actually great value - it costs a fair bit and he could almost certainly just rely on his own endurance to do things. But it feels thematic and that's really more important here. Comments welcome!
Talents
These abilities give you minor advantages that aren't really powers. I decide Absolute Time Sense makes sense for a hero based on the sun.
Skills
Adams is a schoolteacher (specifically a high-school science teacher), so he doesn't need huge amounts of unusual skills. The Everyman skills that he gets by default cover most things. I decide to buy up his Professional Skill: Teacher a bit, and give him some other relevant skills like Bureaucracy, Oratory and Persuasion. He needs some actual Science Skills too, but not a huge amount. Also, a Fringe Benefit in the form of his Qualified Teacher Status.
This also seems like a place to play up the solar theme again, so I give him Knowledge Skills in "the Sun", "renewable energy" and "vampires". Adams didn't take the "straight to teaching" route, but spent some time working in the renewable energy field before changing career. A few points of social skills to use that striking Presence he has, some Mechanic to represent tinkering with scientific kit and suchlike in his professional life, and we're done.
Complications
As an inspirational teacher, naturally Adams' life has to be complicated by dealing with the personal issues of various students. They come to him after class, they turn up to watch their hero Daylight rescuing someone, he notices them getting into trouble somewhere when he needs to be chasing a fleeing baddie, and so on. This is a Floating Dependent Group (2 students, incompetent, frequently, unaware of adventuring). It's not always the same students, but there's always at least a couple of people he needs to watch out for.
Naturally, he's also got a Secret Identity like any self-respecting hero.
I decided not to give him an immediate family - he'll have relatives and friends who occasionally turn up, but nobody he's responsible for (i.e. no Dependents). This also helps with storylines: our charismatic, inspirational teacher can become entangled in any number of potential romantic incidents as the plot demands. Some of them, naturally, will turn out to be villains.
Future development
If I were playing with more points (I stuck to a basic 300), I'd aim to round Daylight out with more niche abilities: disinfecting through pulses of UV radiation, maybe making plants grow, and probably at some point an actual sunlight attack (Ultra Sunburn Attaaaaack!). Some kind of mirage or heat haze ability might make sense.
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