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I've made up this power category. I'd like to ask for feedback, comments, suggestions, and such to it. Sorry for lack of pics, I'm not much of artist. You're free to help expand or use or share this idea, as long as I get the credits for the concept.

[*]This is revised edition since the old topic that had been dropped so many pages that a giant necro posting would have been silly.

Power Category: Wealth Revised edition
Original concept by Dobergirl

Wealth is associated with power. Thus, the more wealth you have, the more powerful you are. These are people who are normal people who have the funds and connections enough to make even the greatest super heroes tremble. These characters work best as NPC villains, support characters or could make for a very unique playable character.

The four types of wealthy poweress
Playes can either pick one or roll using the random table provided bellow.

01-25 CEO
26-50 Kingpin
51-75 Leader
76-00 Inherited

CEO

A wealthy CEO of multimillionaire company who enjoys the luxurious lifestyle and all the benefits it gives.

Step one; Character attributes

Roll the character as you'd normally do, with the following bonus.

Bonus

+1d4 to MA

If even after the bonus, you have low MA, adjust your MA acoardingly: MA 19. Do not add bonus roll to this any more, it's the final stat

Age

Most CEOs are old, regardless of how young or old the actualy company they're running is. From the experience

01-20 40 years old
21-40 50 years old
41-60 60 years old
61-80 70 years old
81-00 80 years old

Focus of the company

Select one area or roll

01- 10 Agriculture and mining; production of raw material, such as plants or minerals.
11-20 Financial; include banks and other companies that generate profit through investment and management of capital.
21-30 Information; generate profits primarily from the resale of intellectual property and include movie studios, publishers and packaged software companies.
31-40 Manufacturers; produce products, from raw materials or component parts, which they then sell at a profit. Companies that make physical goods, such as cars or pipes, are considered manufacturers.
41-50 Real estate: generate profit from the selling, renting, and development of properties comprising land, residential homes, and other kinds of buildings.
51-60 Retailers and distributors; act as middle-men in getting goods produced by manufacturers to the intended consumer, generating a profit as a result of providing sales or distribution services. Most consumer-oriented stores and catalog companies are distributors or retailers.
61-70 Service ; offer intangible goods or services and typically generate a profit by charging for labor or other services provided to government, other businesses, or consumers. Organizations ranging from house decorators to consulting firms, restaurants, and even entertainers are types of service businesses.
71-80 Transportation; deliver goods and individuals from location to location, generating a profit on the transportation costs.
81-00 Utilities; produce public services such as electricity or sewage treatment, usually under a government charter.


The age of Company

Generally, the longer the company has run the less chance it has of failing. Long running company also have better reputation and are more known.

01-20 Ten years
21-40 Five years
41-60 Two years
61-80 One year
81-00 1d4 months

Note: The time the company has been around does not affect money or any of the other things CEO gets. This is meant as help to creating the nature of the company.

Step Two; Skills and education

Do not roll for education and skill as usual. The character has equilavent of Bachelor's degree and gets the skill programs, bonuses and secondary skills going with it but there are requirements.

Business Program and Technical Skill Programs must be selected. Must be able to speak and write at least 3 different languages (the native language counts as one).

Step Three: Special Abilities

1. Money.

Gain 50,000$ per every month from the company. At levels 3, 5, 7, 9, 13, and 15, a new branch office is opened that generates 25,000$ monthly.

2. Access to every item listed in the equipment section. This includes things that are miliatry grade and things that are usually not avaivable to public, the person can pull few strings to get an item that wasn't for sale.

Step Four: Equipment

Personal items
A plush house, furnished with about 2,000,000$ worth, a 1d4 years old sports car, and probably a Yacht.

Financial Resources

Starts with 1d4x1,000,000$, with about 40% of the money being ready to use cash, the rest come from stocks and bonds that need to be liquidified to get acess to the money but it'll take 2d6 months for the assest to fully turned. The assest can be sold faster if the money is needed but then have only 30% of the price.

Note that this character does NOT have lifetime savings, as these are all of his money he's gathered during his life.

Step Five: Other stuff

Aligment: Any aligment can be chosen, but generally leans towards good or selfish.

Experience table: Use Hardware.

Kingpin

Not all business are within the law. There are crime syndicates that make money at the expense of others. Because of the nature of the money come from shady operations rather than something of legal nature, the character doesn't have a steady source of money but rather must actively break the law to obtain more money.

Step one; Character attributes

Roll the character as you'd normally do, with the following bonus.

Bonus

+2 to MA
+1d6 to IQ

Step Two; Skills and education

Do not roll for education and skill as usual.

Crime Syndicate program

Basic Mathematics 98%
Drive Automobile +10%
Speak, read, and write native language 98%
Speak and be literate at another language +20%
Business&Finance +20%
Computer Operation +20%
Surveilance systems +10%
5 skills can be chosen from Rogue Category
3 Secondary Skills

Step Three: Special Abilities

1. Thugs

The character starts with 2d6 thugs that start from level one. The thugs can be named and the player can choose their gender or use the following table to help choose the genders.

01-50 Male
51-00 Female

Each thug has the following stats

IQ: 8+1d4
PS: 12+1d6
P.P: 8+1d6

All rest are "average" of 9.

The thugs start with base of 35 SDC.

Aligment (roll for each)

01-20 Abberant
21-60 Miscreant
61-80 Diabolic
81-00 Anarchist

Skills known to all thugs

Speak Native language (+30%)
Literacy (+30%)
Basic math (+30%)
Climbing (+15%)
Prowl (+15%)
Pilot Motorcycle (20%)
W.P Knife
W.P Revolver

Select only two of the additional skills for any of the thugs

Basic electronics (+15%)
Basic mechanics (+10%)
Pick Pockets (+20%)
Pick Locks (+20%)
Running
Body building
Boxing
Pilot Truck (20%)
Forgery (+20%)
Disguise (20%)

None of the thugs start with equipment and must be bought seperately.

You get 1d4 more thugs when the Kingpin reaches levels of 2, 3, 7, 10, and 13.

2. Special agents

Starting at level 5 the Kingpin gets far more highly skilled agents, 1 at level 5, then 1 more at levels 8, 12, and 15. Roll 1d4+6 for each invidual's level. The Kingpin is free to choose their gender or roll using the table found under thugs section.

Each special agent starts with the following stats

IQ: 14+1d6
ME: 12+1d4
PS: 11+1d6
PP: 10+1d6

The rest of stats are 12.

Aligment (roll for each)

01-20 Abberant
21-60 Miscreant
61-80 Diabolic
81-00 Anarchist

Roll a percentile for the power category of the agent

1-40 Hardware
Use the HU2 table
41-80 Special Training
Roll only for the ones bellow
01-50 Hunter/Manhunter/Vigilante
51-70 Secret Operative/Spy
71-90 Stage Magician/Master of Illusion
91-00 Ancient Master
81-00 Cyborgs

The special agent gets all the bonuses and education from their power category. All equipment must be purchased for agents.

2. Pay day!

No criminal wants to work for free forever. To determine the monthly wage of a thug, roll 1d4x500$ and add 500$ per level. Special agents have 1d4x1000$ and add 500$ per level. If unable to pay or the Kingpin chooses to neglect the pay day, the thug/agent will most likely walk off or at the worst case, even attempt to take what's theirs forcefuly! Remember, to manage a big criminal empire you also need a steady flow of a cash to be able to pay your minions.

3.Underworld connections

Does not have to pay extra for any item on "black market."

Step Four: Equipment

Personal items
A plush house, with many "hot goods" and items that have been collected by the thugs, about 100,000$ worth, plus a bullet proof limo.

Money

Roll the dice for money

1-15 100,000$
16-29 150,000$
30-45 200,000$
46-60 250,000$
61-75 300,000$
76-89 350,000$
90-00 400,000$

This is in combination with any possible lifetime savings the character may have rolled at the start.

Step Five: Other stuff

Aligment: Generally evil but can also be played as selfish

Experience table: Use Special Training.

Leader

There are the people who run things. They make the decisions that alter the very country that the roleplay takes place in.

Note: For purposes of the gaming, we're to assume the game takes place in a democratic country. If in monarchy run country, switch the stats of Elected and Monarchry together.

Three arch types of a leader

Either roll randomly or pick one

01-40 Elected
41-80 Monarchy
81-00 Dictatorship

Step one; Character attributes

Roll character like normally, with the following bonuses.

Bonus

For Elected

MA set to 16 or if above, add +1d4
PB set to 13 or if above, add +1d4

For Monarchy

MA set to 15 or if above, add +1
PB set to 15 or if above, add +2

For Dictatorship

MA set to 19 or if above, add +1d4
PB set to 12 or if above, add +2

Step Two; Skills and education

Select four technical skill and four languages the character can speak and be literate at. All skills have 15% starting bonus. Also gets eight Secondary Skills.

NOTE: Must have the skills in Business and Finance, both Math: Basic and Advanced, and Law (General). Photography and TV/Video is suggested, but not required.

Step Three: Special Abilities

1. Political immunity: The character has diplomatic immunity and can bend some laws, as long as they do not get caught by the press doing so. Has many connections to people and can get acess to all items, including miliatry grade and hot goods.

2. Imporant hostage: Any hostile action towards the character is considered a major attack that will have the offender be charged with big crimes and have the best branches of SWAT, S.C.R.E.T and more to help combat the offender and save the diplomat. This character is always considered a high priority hostage and the law enfoircements will do whatever in their power to save them.

3.Bodyguards: Starts with having 2d4 ammount of bodyguards around him, with minimum of three guards.

Roll the stats for each invidual bodyguard, each roll is final.

IQ: 1d6+8
ME: 2d6+6
MA: 1d6+8
PS: 2d6+14
PP: 2d6+8
PE: 2d6+8
PB. 2D6+6
SPD: 2d6+8
SDC: 45
HP: PE+1d6 per level and 10 once in lifetime bonus.
Level of Exprience: 1d4+2
Number of attacks: 5
Attacks: Punch 1d6, Kick 1d6+2, Knockout/Stun; natural 20
Bonuses: +3 initiative, +2 to strike, +3 to parry, +4 damage, +4 pull punch, +2 roll with punch, +1 save vs magic/poison, +6% vs coma/death
Typical skills: Streetwise (+24), Prowl (10%), Detect Ambush (+10%), W.P Automatic Pistol, plus two domestic and three technical skills of choice, eight secondary skills, plus either Weapon proficiency modern OR physical/athletic program.
Weapons: Typically, carries a large pistol in shoulder holster, concealed back up pistol in a belt and/or ankle holster, and blackjack for general purposes of protection. No heavy duty weapons or cybernetic implants or any hi tech are readily avaivable to them, but each guard can be fitted with any upgrades the player wishes.

Each bodyguard is ready to die for the leader and would take a bullet to the chest for them or sacrifice self to let the leader escape.

If a bodyguard dies, finding a suitable replacement will take 1d4 months, at which point the bodyguard is rolled as new one.

Can hire an extra bodyguard at level 3, 6, 9, 13, and 15.

4. The press: All actions the character does receive huge media coverage and mass attention. While this may sound like a great deal when making a business deal or a publicity stunt, if the character is caught doing illegal activities, they will receive huge negative mark. Diplomatic characters may lose their position, while monarchy or dictators may be overthrown as result.

5. Save the situation: In case of being caught in the middle of an inescapable scandal of utmost heinous crimes, there's a chance that the player may lose their position. Depending on the severity of the crime, the character must roll 1d20 over the required amount of the crime that has been done based on several factors. The character has +2 save from scandal at lvl 1 and gets 1+ bonus to save from scandal at levels 3, 5, 8, 12, and 14.

Breaking and entering 4
Forgery 5
Extortion 6
Theft 7
Drugs 8
Robbery 9
Kidnapping 10
Assault 11
Murder 12

Also, add the following numbers to the required number to roll with the several factors

Linked to the crime or having organized the crime 2
Caught doing the thing in person 4
Caught doing the thing in person with concrete evidence (Clear photos or videos or concrete audio) 6
For each witness 1

So seeing the person literally kill another, captured on tape and seen by two would require roll of 18!

When scandal arises

If the scandal goes public through any means then the leader must roll percentile

01-31 Forgiven Either the public does not believe the evidence or they are too in love with the leader to care.
32-57 Minor scandal The smear is minor and the leader has to only pay 1d4x2000 in fines to hush up the murmurs or do donation drives
58-80 Major scandal Major smear on the reputation that may tarnish the leader's image forever, roll 3d6 for the amount of months people will be suspicious of the leader, don't answer to his cries of help and may even throw rotten tomatoes and such at them!
81-83 Impeached The character is stripped off his power either by higher power or their monarchy and kingdom gets overthrown. They lose 75% of all their cash aside and they lose their diplomatic privilages. Only one loyalist agent will remain, who has been with the leader the longest period of time while the rest abandon him.
84-00 Declared public menace The leader becomes target, not only do they lose their diplomatic privilages, all their assets will be frozen. Police, SWAT, and maybe even SCRET will actively hunt the character until ammends are made.

It is up to GM's decision how and if the leader can make sufficent ammends to help rebuild their reputation and maybe gain back their lost fortune.

Step Four: Equipment

Personal items
A plush house, furnished with about 600,000$ worth, a 1d4 years old sports car, and probably a Yacht.

Financial Resources

Roll 2d6x100,000 for the money you start with, this is in combination with any life savings the character may have. There is 40% chance the character also own stocks and bonds worth 2d6x100,000.

Step Five: Other stuff

Aligment: Any aligment can be chosen.

Experience table: Use Special Training

Inherited

Some people are born with "golden spoon in mouth" and never have to rise their fingers to get to where they are. They get most of the money possible but have to meet certain requirements to get acess to the fortune.

Step one; Character attributes

Roll the character as you'd normally do. Do not roll the life savings as the character has unqiue life savings table.

Step Two; Skills and education

Character can have as big of education as they want, roll as normally.


Step Three: Special Abilities

1. Life savings Roll percentile for how much you already have in the bank.

1-12 10,000$
13-26 20,000$
27-38 30,000$
39-50 40,000$
51-63 60,000$
64-76 80,000$
77-88 100,000$
89-00 120,000$

2 The Family Fortune. The inherited fortune that you're entitled to you is vast and varies greatly. These are additions to any life savings the character may have.

Roll the percentile to see what is the type of the money or property the character is entitled to.

1-10 Cash! 2d6x1,00,000$
11-20 Property Old coins that have been collected for many years. Valued list price is 4d6x1,000,000$ but will take 3 to 12 months (roll 3d4) months to liquidate. Quick sale will get 30% of full value.
21-30 Cash! Only 4d6x10,000$
31-40 Blue Chip Stocks Total number of stocks is 2dx100; each stock is approximitely 10,000$ EACH. The stocks may go up and down, if sold immediattely the fortune is 10,000$ per each, minus 2% broker's fee from the the cash ammount.
41-50 Property Your old family manor is your inheritance. (You've since moved away from it.) Value is at 3d6x1,000,000$ but to get full value 4 to 16 months (roll 4d4). Quick sale means reducing the asking price by 30%.
51-60 Trust Fund 3d4x1,000,000$ has been set aside for the character by a benefactor. However, the character can only draw on 10% of the total avaivable money per year. When the total reaches a minimum of 10,000$ the character will receive it in a lump sum. The money is carefully dispensed by a law firm.
61-70 Property Your inheritance consists of jewels such as diamonds, sapphires, rubies and so on, many of them cut. Value is 2d4x1,000,000$ but to get full value would need 3 to 12 months (roll 3d4) Quick sale will get 60% of the full value.
71-80 Cash! 6d6x100,000$
81-90 PropertyPriceless antique is your inheritance. Value is at 2d4x1,000,000$ but to get full value it will take 4 to to 16 months (roll 4d4) Quick sale will get 50% of the full value.
91-00 Bonds The bonds are valued at 1d6x1,000,000$ but do not reach their full maturity and value untill for 1 to 4 years. (roll 1d4) All or some can be cashed prematurely for half the price.

3.Butler Male or female butler (01-60 Male, 61-00 Female) who lives inside the house. They do various chores such as:

Cleaning the house.
Watering plants.
Making beds.
Serving food.
Caring for babies.
Fending off obsessed fans.
Repairing possible costume
Assures public this is not the hero/villain, unless especially stated that they want to be known as one
Repairing broken objects and electronics.
Evicting unwanted personel.

Roll 3D6 for each attribute of the butler, along with any of the bonuses.

HP is 3D6+PE +1d6 per level
SDC 1d6+15

The butler is 9+1d4 level.

The aligment of the butler is always SAME AS THE CHARACTER.

The butler has the base following skills, the IQ bonuses and level bonuses apply

Butler program

Cooking +25%,
Speak native language +40%
Read and write native language +35%
Basic Math +15%
Play musical instrument +20%
Sewing +25%
Drive automobile +15%
Preserve food +15%

Also select one program and ten secondary skills. If butler is rolled being level 12, add one extra secondary skill like HU 2 recommends starting from LEVEL ONE and progress the skills as needed.

The butler's wage is 1200$ per week. If wished, the butler can be fired and a new one can be hired later. The same butler cannot be hired ever again, they have gone off to other duties.

If the butler dies very suddenly, finding suitable replacement may take from two months to even a year! (2d6) The new butler candidate is rolled like the earlier.

Step Four: Equipment

Personal items

The character has a new conventional automobile (car, SUV, ETC, the car is 1d4 weeks old) worth of about 18,000$, nice two story house, the latest computers (one desktop, one portable, one electronic notebook), electronics, cell phone (probably the latest in the market with phone, game, and mp3 player all rolled in one), expensive wardrobe, personal posessions, and the basics they need to live comfortably.

Financial Resources

Roll 2d6x100,000 for the money you have on the ready.

Step Five: Other stuff

Aligment: Any aligment can be chosen.

Experience table: Use Hardware

Not bad.

I would allow some of the Special abilities of the Black marketeer from Rifts Black market,to add a little some thing more.

I think the money numbers to be too low. To truly be worth a super power you need many hundreds of millions to billions of dollars. Think Gates, Buffet, Koch, Rockefeller level of wealth, starting with less than 250 million dollars isn't super power level.

SpiritInterface wrote:I think the money numbers to be too low. To truly be worth a super power you need many hundreds of millions to billions of dollars. Think Gates, Buffet, Koch, Rockefeller level of wealth, starting with less than 250 million dollars isn't super power level.

Look at the cost of the equipment in the game though, having billions of dollars to start with would mean the character would be able to purchase everything on first day of play many times over essentially break the game.

Dobergirl wrote:

SpiritInterface wrote:I think the money numbers to be too low. To truly be worth a super power you need many hundreds of millions to billions of dollars. Think Gates, Buffet, Koch, Rockefeller level of wealth, starting with less than 250 million dollars isn't super power level.

Look at the cost of the equipment in the game though, having billions of dollars to start with would mean the character would be able to purchase everything on first day of play many times over essentially break the game.

While you raise a good point, I think we should also look at the characters in the genre that essentially have money as a super power.
Batman - Inherited multi-national corporation
Blue Beetle (Ted Kord) - Took over his father's multi-national corporation
Iron Man - Inherited multi-national corporation
Green Arrow - Inherited multi-national corporation
Lex Luthor - Built his own multi-national corporation several times

After all, there are only so many things that a character can haul around at any given time. But being a multi-billionaire is within genre.

wyrmraker wrote:

Dobergirl wrote:

SpiritInterface wrote:I think the money numbers to be too low. To truly be worth a super power you need many hundreds of millions to billions of dollars. Think Gates, Buffet, Koch, Rockefeller level of wealth, starting with less than 250 million dollars isn't super power level.

Look at the cost of the equipment in the game though, having billions of dollars to start with would mean the character would be able to purchase everything on first day of play many times over essentially break the game.

While you raise a good point, I think we should also look at the characters in the genre that essentially have money as a super power.
Batman - Inherited multi-national corporation
Blue Beetle (Ted Kord) - Took over his father's multi-national corporation
Iron Man - Inherited multi-national corporation
Green Arrow - Inherited multi-national corporation
Lex Luthor - Built his own multi-national corporation several times

After all, there are only so many things that a character can haul around at any given time. But being a multi-billionaire is within genre.

I guess I can see that, though I'd add Black Panther in there, I think he's even more rich than any of those people. You also forget that Palladium is "Thinking man's RP" and that we're generally not meant to do guys as strong as Superman and such, in fact I think that's kinda against the rules. Plus 250 million dollars IS a ton of money when the most expensive thing you can purchase is not even one tenth of the price. Handing them endless means of cash on first level would mean that they have no way to actually progress and increase their wealth.


I don't want to over power them, though I do take suggestions that would be somewhat happy medium? (Though in the chat, people were alrerady calling them overpowered already as is) Part of some of the characters like Kingpin is that they need to do stuff to make money, if they already have insane cash pool then they wouldn't need to do crimes.

Dobergirl wrote:

wyrmraker wrote:

Dobergirl wrote:

SpiritInterface wrote:I think the money numbers to be too low. To truly be worth a super power you need many hundreds of millions to billions of dollars. Think Gates, Buffet, Koch, Rockefeller level of wealth, starting with less than 250 million dollars isn't super power level.

Look at the cost of the equipment in the game though, having billions of dollars to start with would mean the character would be able to purchase everything on first day of play many times over essentially break the game.

While you raise a good point, I think we should also look at the characters in the genre that essentially have money as a super power.
Batman - Inherited multi-national corporation
Blue Beetle (Ted Kord) - Took over his father's multi-national corporation
Iron Man - Inherited multi-national corporation
Green Arrow - Inherited multi-national corporation
Lex Luthor - Built his own multi-national corporation several times

After all, there are only so many things that a character can haul around at any given time. But being a multi-billionaire is within genre.

I guess I can see that, though I'd add Black Panther in there, I think he's even more rich than any of those people. You also forget that Palladium is "Thinking man's RP" and that we're generally not meant to do guys as strong as Superman and such, in fact I think that's kinda against the rules. Plus 250 million dollars IS a ton of money when the most expensive thing you can purchase is not even one tenth of the price. Handing them endless means of cash on first level would mean that they have no way to actually progress and increase their wealth.


I don't want to over power them, though I do take suggestions that would be somewhat happy medium? (Though in the chat, people were alrerady calling them overpowered already as is) Part of some of the characters like Kingpin is that they need to do stuff to make money, if they already have insane cash pool then they wouldn't need to do crimes.

One note that is important to look at is that many of these people don't ACTUALLY have wealth as a super power. They have wealth as the background/justification for their powers (gizmo's, armor, ect)
And I would say that most of them are not good examples of level 1 characters (or starting characters in the Palladium-verse mold)

As for wealth being a super power, I don't see it as any less of a justification to be a hero than powers, magic weapons, psychic abilities. It really comes down to how a characters uses their capabilities. If a character is filthy rich (be it by a power category or a Hardware getting rich with inventions, which is a topic for an entirely different thread), then why shouldn't they do heroics with it?

Yeah, if I have a character with near-bottomless resources, I could afford to hire some of the best and craziest engineers to design me an armor under the Super Invention rules. Is that game-breaking? I don't see how, depending on the GM.

So I think I ended up just rambling and never did really address all the hard work you did up there. Sorry about that. Part of me thinks I should just delete all the below but I'm going to go ahead and post it. Again my apologies for rambling.

I guess if I were to do a wealth based "power" category the money would become a bit of an abstraction. You are worth more than you can keep track of, however keeping track of, and successfully moving the money is the problem. See wealth isn't just liquid assets you can throw around. However most of the Palladium Rules aren't really built with that in mind ... So I would have to improvise.

One ideal would to be run the numbers on how much a "Hardware's" Equipment would cost if it were initially bought instead of made (looks like 4-6 times) and give a budget based on those numbers for initial equipment. Then we state that the character has the money to buy anything that is for sell during game play. If he wants to buy something that is not for sale he needs to make a skill roll. This skill roll would show if he were able to move around enough money to make the purchase without being questioned. So while buying a new car would be more expensive than buying a machine gun, a new car is something a rich guy buys, a machinegun with depleted uranium shells isn't. Perhaps place the initial funds equal to an analytical hardware. Then throw around a table, perhaps a tiered table based on how wealthy the character is supposed to be, assign minuses to the character percentages based on the time to get the money together and how easy the purchase is to cover. For example -20% if the money is needed immediately. -20% if it's required as cash. +15% if the money is going to a well respected institution.

Another idea would to build the wealthy character as if he's a Ninja & Super Spies organization onto himself.

Dobergirl wrote:

SpiritInterface wrote:I think the money numbers to be too low. To truly be worth a super power you need many hundreds of millions to billions of dollars. Think Gates, Buffet, Koch, Rockefeller level of wealth, starting with less than 250 million dollars isn't super power level.

Look at the cost of the equipment in the game though, having billions of dollars to start with would mean the character would be able to purchase everything on first day of play many times over essentially break the game.

From day one, Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark could buy anything they wanted or needed that is the origin of their abilities. The ability to wield influence that wealth provides more than just material things. The political, social, and financial influence that the massive level of wealth can bring to bear is staggering. Heroes Unlimited has never dealt with Wealth, Influence, Contacts, Access, Sociopolitical Power well. It is left to the GM to deal with.

SpiritInterface wrote:

Dobergirl wrote:

SpiritInterface wrote:I think the money numbers to be too low. To truly be worth a super power you need many hundreds of millions to billions of dollars. Think Gates, Buffet, Koch, Rockefeller level of wealth, starting with less than 250 million dollars isn't super power level.

Look at the cost of the equipment in the game though, having billions of dollars to start with would mean the character would be able to purchase everything on first day of play many times over essentially break the game.

From day one, Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark could buy anything they wanted or needed that is the origin of their abilities. The ability to wield influence that wealth provides more than just material things. The political, social, and financial influence that the massive level of wealth can bring to bear is staggering. Heroes Unlimited has never dealt with Wealth, Influence, Contacts, Access, Sociopolitical Power well. It is left to the GM to deal with.

Not really, the origin of Stark's abilities is his genius and Wayne's abilities his grim determination driving him after his parents' murders. The money made it easier to reach their full potential but even poor Stark could have created his first Iron Man suit or otherwise been able to work his way up an Wayne could have still trained and improved himself to be a badass normal he just wouldn't have been able to find so many experts to give him as wide a skill base as he has. Often when we see wealth show up in a fabulous fashion it's more like in an anime or manga where someone on the support side just happens to have the wealthy family so surprises everyone with things like lavish trips or expensive items they rightly shouldn't have. In comics wealth isn't seen much as an influence either (or at least you never get it on-camera), heroes like Stark and Wayne just don't generally go around tossing money at things in the course of their adventures (unlike the Revenant from PS238, he readily tosses around cash-packed debit cards if it'll help).

SpiritInterface wrote:

Dobergirl wrote:

SpiritInterface wrote:I think the money numbers to be too low. To truly be worth a super power you need many hundreds of millions to billions of dollars. Think Gates, Buffet, Koch, Rockefeller level of wealth, starting with less than 250 million dollars isn't super power level.

Look at the cost of the equipment in the game though, having billions of dollars to start with would mean the character would be able to purchase everything on first day of play many times over essentially break the game.

From day one, Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark could buy anything they wanted or needed that is the origin of their abilities. The ability to wield influence that wealth provides more than just material things. The political, social, and financial influence that the massive level of wealth can bring to bear is staggering. Heroes Unlimited has never dealt with Wealth, Influence, Contacts, Access, Sociopolitical Power well. It is left to the GM to deal with.

I never really liked that aspect of Heroes Unlimited. I mean, if you're going to be playing a Hardware character, why *wouldn't* that character be a heavily-influencial power in their field? As for Contacts, I have played many systems where that is either a stat (Marvel Super Heroes) or an advantage to be purchased (GURPS and Old World of Darkness), so I don't see why that couldn't be something significant in HU.

Huh. Now that I think about it, Marvel Super Heroes covers Wealth, Influence (as Popularity), and Contacts at character creation as particular items that you roll for.

wyrmraker wrote:

SpiritInterface wrote:

Dobergirl wrote:

SpiritInterface wrote:I think the money numbers to be too low. To truly be worth a super power you need many hundreds of millions to billions of dollars. Think Gates, Buffet, Koch, Rockefeller level of wealth, starting with less than 250 million dollars isn't super power level.

Look at the cost of the equipment in the game though, having billions of dollars to start with would mean the character would be able to purchase everything on first day of play many times over essentially break the game.

From day one, Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark could buy anything they wanted or needed that is the origin of their abilities. The ability to wield influence that wealth provides more than just material things. The political, social, and financial influence that the massive level of wealth can bring to bear is staggering. Heroes Unlimited has never dealt with Wealth, Influence, Contacts, Access, Sociopolitical Power well. It is left to the GM to deal with.

I never really liked that aspect of Heroes Unlimited. I mean, if you're going to be playing a Hardware character, why *wouldn't* that character be a heavily-influencial power in their field? As for Contacts, I have played many systems where that is either a stat (Marvel Super Heroes) or an advantage to be purchased (GURPS and Old World of Darkness), so I don't see why that couldn't be something significant in HU.

Huh. Now that I think about it, Marvel Super Heroes covers Wealth, Influence (as Popularity), and Contacts at character creation as particular items that you roll for.

Well not everyone does end up influential in their field even when they're geniuses at it, some only end up that way after they've died and people realize 'man that guy was a genius!', which is probably at least part of why Marvel has it as a random factor to reflect not every genius is or at least not every one of them starts out wealthy or influential.

Nightmask wrote:

wyrmraker wrote:

SpiritInterface wrote:

Dobergirl wrote:

SpiritInterface wrote:I think the money numbers to be too low. To truly be worth a super power you need many hundreds of millions to billions of dollars. Think Gates, Buffet, Koch, Rockefeller level of wealth, starting with less than 250 million dollars isn't super power level.

Look at the cost of the equipment in the game though, having billions of dollars to start with would mean the character would be able to purchase everything on first day of play many times over essentially break the game.

From day one, Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark could buy anything they wanted or needed that is the origin of their abilities. The ability to wield influence that wealth provides more than just material things. The political, social, and financial influence that the massive level of wealth can bring to bear is staggering. Heroes Unlimited has never dealt with Wealth, Influence, Contacts, Access, Sociopolitical Power well. It is left to the GM to deal with.

I never really liked that aspect of Heroes Unlimited. I mean, if you're going to be playing a Hardware character, why *wouldn't* that character be a heavily-influencial power in their field? As for Contacts, I have played many systems where that is either a stat (Marvel Super Heroes) or an advantage to be purchased (GURPS and Old World of Darkness), so I don't see why that couldn't be something significant in HU.

Huh. Now that I think about it, Marvel Super Heroes covers Wealth, Influence (as Popularity), and Contacts at character creation as particular items that you roll for.

Well not everyone does end up influential in their field even when they're geniuses at it, some only end up that way after they've died and people realize 'man that guy was a genius!', which is probably at least part of why Marvel has it as a random factor to reflect not every genius is or at least not every one of them starts out wealthy or influential.

You are making part of my point for me. Marvel does indeed have it as a random factor, whereas Heroes Unlimited doesn't have that factor at all.

And as for the various PCs being the tops of their fields, isn't it known that Player Characters are *supposed* to be exceptional examples of the population? And since Hardwares and the Natural Genius are, well, geniuses in their specialized fields, I don't see it as unreasonable that any of them would have a fat stack of cash from various licensing arrangements, at the very least. I mean, why wouldn't a Natural Genius with a Business and Finance skill level of at least 65% (which is the absolute minimum for any Natural Genius, not counting IQ bonus) be, if not the head of their own company, have a stack of patents currently licensed through various corporations? Why wouldn't an Analytical Genius be the head of their own robotics firm that they started back in college? Apart from the book's reason of 'Because we said so', it really doesn't logic out.

wyrmraker wrote:

Nightmask wrote:

wyrmraker wrote:

SpiritInterface wrote:

Dobergirl wrote:Look at the cost of the equipment in the game though, having billions of dollars to start with would mean the character would be able to purchase everything on first day of play many times over essentially break the game.

From day one, Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark could buy anything they wanted or needed that is the origin of their abilities. The ability to wield influence that wealth provides more than just material things. The political, social, and financial influence that the massive level of wealth can bring to bear is staggering. Heroes Unlimited has never dealt with Wealth, Influence, Contacts, Access, Sociopolitical Power well. It is left to the GM to deal with.

I never really liked that aspect of Heroes Unlimited. I mean, if you're going to be playing a Hardware character, why *wouldn't* that character be a heavily-influencial power in their field? As for Contacts, I have played many systems where that is either a stat (Marvel Super Heroes) or an advantage to be purchased (GURPS and Old World of Darkness), so I don't see why that couldn't be something significant in HU.

Huh. Now that I think about it, Marvel Super Heroes covers Wealth, Influence (as Popularity), and Contacts at character creation as particular items that you roll for.

Well not everyone does end up influential in their field even when they're geniuses at it, some only end up that way after they've died and people realize 'man that guy was a genius!', which is probably at least part of why Marvel has it as a random factor to reflect not every genius is or at least not every one of them starts out wealthy or influential.

You are making part of my point for me. Marvel does indeed have it as a random factor, whereas Heroes Unlimited doesn't have that factor at all.

And as for the various PCs being the tops of their fields, isn't it known that Player Characters are *supposed* to be exceptional examples of the population? And since Hardwares and the Natural Genius are, well, geniuses in their specialized fields, I don't see it as unreasonable that any of them would have a fat stack of cash from various licensing arrangements, at the very least. I mean, why wouldn't a Natural Genius with a Business and Finance skill level of at least 65% (which is the absolute minimum for any Natural Genius, not counting IQ bonus) be, if not the head of their own company, have a stack of patents currently licensed through various corporations? Why wouldn't an Analytical Genius be the head of their own robotics firm that they started back in college? Apart from the book's reason of 'Because we said so', it really doesn't logic out.

Maybe because they simply haven't managed to be that successful? Or got scammed and lost it all? Just because you're a genius or have a high percentage in something like Business and Finance doesn't mean it's a given you're going to be successful (although Marvel does have that particular talent giving an automatic bonus I'll readily admit). My issue is you seem to be arguing that they should all be wealthy in contrast to none of them being wealthy as per HU, when at best only some would be wealthy as many wouldn't be either because they weren't great at business, haven't yet had the option of leveraging their skills to become wealthy, were incredibly wasteful with the money they were bringing in, or other factors. HU's position seems to be that all PC start at financial low points rather than starting as multi-millionaires or billionaires. So to start that wealthy you have to work with you GM to get away with it (and if he's a stickler for 'by the book' then you aren't going to).

So forget about the Tony Stark with money to burn to where he can have a dozen full-on robotics fabrication facilities and spare power armor suits for any occasion (something to be fair the Marvel game doesn't really allow for either) or the Batman with a hundred different types of gadgets packaged by the gross for any emergency.

Dobergirl wrote:

wyrmraker wrote:

Dobergirl wrote:

SpiritInterface wrote:I think the money numbers to be too low. To truly be worth a super power you need many hundreds of millions to billions of dollars. Think Gates, Buffet, Koch, Rockefeller level of wealth, starting with less than 250 million dollars isn't super power level.

Look at the cost of the equipment in the game though, having billions of dollars to start with would mean the character would be able to purchase everything on first day of play many times over essentially break the game.

While you raise a good point, I think we should also look at the characters in the genre that essentially have money as a super power.
Batman - Inherited multi-national corporation
Blue Beetle (Ted Kord) - Took over his father's multi-national corporation
Iron Man - Inherited multi-national corporation
Green Arrow - Inherited multi-national corporation
Lex Luthor - Built his own multi-national corporation several times

After all, there are only so many things that a character can haul around at any given time. But being a multi-billionaire is within genre.

I guess I can see that, though I'd add Black Panther in there, I think he's even more rich than any of those people. You also forget that Palladium is "Thinking man's RP" and that we're generally not meant to do guys as strong as Superman and such, in fact I think that's kinda against the rules. Plus 250 million dollars IS a ton of money when the most expensive thing you can purchase is not even one tenth of the price. Handing them endless means of cash on first level would mean that they have no way to actually progress and increase their wealth.


I don't want to over power them, though I do take suggestions that would be somewhat happy medium? (Though in the chat, people were alrerady calling them overpowered already as is) Part of some of the characters like Kingpin is that they need to do stuff to make money, if they already have insane cash pool then they wouldn't need to do crimes.

People commit crimes for more than just money though, many a super-villain particularly in the golden and silver ages came from wealthy backgrounds and committed crimes for the thrill of it rather than financial gain. What money they acquired was more a way of measuring success at their 'game' and they used their own money to start with to finance their criminal behavior.

Something to remember though, the government loves to monitor financial transactions and cause trouble for people when it looks like they may be doing something suspicious even if they aren't actually doing anything wrong. Throwing all sorts of money around could come back to bite someone hard if they aren't careful.

Actually, depending on the Resource level, especially if you account for modern equivalents, Marvel Super Heroes can easily allow for ridiculous amounts of high end gear. Seriously, the high end for rolling Resources is Incredible, which is the same rank as Stark International. And so long as ranks aren't spent on increasing powers...

And the main reason I mentioned those characters is that they are part of what the Heroes Unlimited genre is based upon. And they are definitely what the high-tech character genre is based on.

And while I understand what you're saying about Palladium starting characters off at financial low points, I am still going to disagree with it. It doesn't make sense that *every* Analytical Genius would be building their equipment out of their basement or garage, or that *every* Mechanical Genius would have to rent a garage to build their super vehicle (rental prices are specifically mentioned in the power category). It's little more than an attempt to level the field by the writers. After all, every character's background is different. Why shouldn't an inheritance be a possibility? Or financial success? Marvel has it both ways, both as the Resource Rank and the Talent Heir to Fortune.

I guess my primary arguement is that the core premise of starting all the characters off in such a manner just doesn't make a lot of sense. People like to bring up 'Thinking Man's RPG' as if it's a fact, but it's little more than a marketing term. The only 'thinking' that I tend to do is figuring out how to crawl my character out of the artificially induced financial hole that the book says my character is in. After that, my character can go fight crime, because unless my character is part of the police or military, crime fighting doesn't pay the bills.

wyrmraker wrote:Actually, depending on the Resource level, especially if you account for modern equivalents, Marvel Super Heroes can easily allow for ridiculous amounts of high end gear. Seriously, the high end for rolling Resources is Incredible, which is the same rank as Stark International. And so long as ranks aren't spent on increasing powers...

And the main reason I mentioned those characters is that they are part of what the Heroes Unlimited genre is based upon. And they are definitely what the high-tech character genre is based on.

And while I understand what you're saying about Palladium starting characters off at financial low points, I am still going to disagree with it. It doesn't make sense that *every* Analytical Genius would be building their equipment out of their basement or garage, or that *every* Mechanical Genius would have to rent a garage to build their super vehicle (rental prices are specifically mentioned in the power category). It's little more than an attempt to level the field by the writers. After all, every character's background is different. Why shouldn't an inheritance be a possibility? Or financial success? Marvel has it both ways, both as the Resource Rank and the Talent Heir to Fortune.

I guess my primary arguement is that the core premise of starting all the characters off in such a manner just doesn't make a lot of sense. People like to bring up 'Thinking Man's RPG' as if it's a fact, but it's little more than a marketing term. The only 'thinking' that I tend to do is figuring out how to crawl my character out of the artificially induced financial hole that the book says my character is in. After that, my character can go fight crime, because unless my character is part of the police or military, crime fighting doesn't pay the bills.

Well the odds aren't that good of starting with Incredible in Marvel (or if you're using the UPB a few power categories can get Amazing), but as I noted it sounds like you're advocating all Hardware characters should be starting as Starks or Batmen when most wouldn't. I also wouldn't say that they're starting in a financial hole, they're starting financially where the vast majority of the population is at, and again most shouldn't be starting the game financially flush. What you basically seem to want is HU to offer the same kind of financial starting range as Marvel (or I imagine the DC game as well) makes possible, where you can be anywhere from on the streets unemployed to possibly starting out a multi-millionaire.

But hey at least HU doesn't have the financial growth restrictions Marvel has; I'm sure you've seen enough of the arguments about how you should only get to improve your finances by expending implausible amounts of karma and you could end up jumping from fry cook to corporate CEO without any change in income as far as some were concerned. Nothing you have to worry about with HU, go from fry cook to CEO of a company in HU and you're going to promptly go from wage-slave income to jet-setter income.

Nightmask wrote:

wyrmraker wrote:Actually, depending on the Resource level, especially if you account for modern equivalents, Marvel Super Heroes can easily allow for ridiculous amounts of high end gear. Seriously, the high end for rolling Resources is Incredible, which is the same rank as Stark International. And so long as ranks aren't spent on increasing powers...

And the main reason I mentioned those characters is that they are part of what the Heroes Unlimited genre is based upon. And they are definitely what the high-tech character genre is based on.

And while I understand what you're saying about Palladium starting characters off at financial low points, I am still going to disagree with it. It doesn't make sense that *every* Analytical Genius would be building their equipment out of their basement or garage, or that *every* Mechanical Genius would have to rent a garage to build their super vehicle (rental prices are specifically mentioned in the power category). It's little more than an attempt to level the field by the writers. After all, every character's background is different. Why shouldn't an inheritance be a possibility? Or financial success? Marvel has it both ways, both as the Resource Rank and the Talent Heir to Fortune.

I guess my primary arguement is that the core premise of starting all the characters off in such a manner just doesn't make a lot of sense. People like to bring up 'Thinking Man's RPG' as if it's a fact, but it's little more than a marketing term. The only 'thinking' that I tend to do is figuring out how to crawl my character out of the artificially induced financial hole that the book says my character is in. After that, my character can go fight crime, because unless my character is part of the police or military, crime fighting doesn't pay the bills.

Well the odds aren't that good of starting with Incredible in Marvel (or if you're using the UPB a few power categories can get Amazing), but as I noted it sounds like you're advocating all Hardware characters should be starting as Starks or Batmen when most wouldn't. I also wouldn't say that they're starting in a financial hole, they're starting financially where the vast majority of the population is at, and again most shouldn't be starting the game financially flush. What you basically seem to want is HU to offer the same kind of financial starting range as Marvel (or I imagine the DC game as well) makes possible, where you can be anywhere from on the streets unemployed to possibly starting out a multi-millionaire.

But hey at least HU doesn't have the financial growth restrictions Marvel has; I'm sure you've seen enough of the arguments about how you should only get to improve your finances by expending implausible amounts of karma and you could end up jumping from fry cook to corporate CEO without any change in income as far as some were concerned. Nothing you have to worry about with HU, go from fry cook to CEO of a company in HU and you're going to promptly go from wage-slave income to jet-setter income.

You make excellent points, all the way around. And yes, I'm saying that Heroes Unlimited should have some sort of variance in the financial starting range.

And as for starting everyone at the same level as the majority of the population, while I can see it, it just doesn't seem to make a lot of logical sense. The player characters aren't 'John Everyman', they're exceptional individuals. And starting everyone out as the financial equivalent of Peter Parker just doesn't make much sense. I mean yeah, the struggle from base origins can be an interesting tale, but I don't want to have to do that with every single character.

wyrmraker wrote:

Nightmask wrote:

wyrmraker wrote:Actually, depending on the Resource level, especially if you account for modern equivalents, Marvel Super Heroes can easily allow for ridiculous amounts of high end gear. Seriously, the high end for rolling Resources is Incredible, which is the same rank as Stark International. And so long as ranks aren't spent on increasing powers...

And the main reason I mentioned those characters is that they are part of what the Heroes Unlimited genre is based upon. And they are definitely what the high-tech character genre is based on.

And while I understand what you're saying about Palladium starting characters off at financial low points, I am still going to disagree with it. It doesn't make sense that *every* Analytical Genius would be building their equipment out of their basement or garage, or that *every* Mechanical Genius would have to rent a garage to build their super vehicle (rental prices are specifically mentioned in the power category). It's little more than an attempt to level the field by the writers. After all, every character's background is different. Why shouldn't an inheritance be a possibility? Or financial success? Marvel has it both ways, both as the Resource Rank and the Talent Heir to Fortune.

I guess my primary arguement is that the core premise of starting all the characters off in such a manner just doesn't make a lot of sense. People like to bring up 'Thinking Man's RPG' as if it's a fact, but it's little more than a marketing term. The only 'thinking' that I tend to do is figuring out how to crawl my character out of the artificially induced financial hole that the book says my character is in. After that, my character can go fight crime, because unless my character is part of the police or military, crime fighting doesn't pay the bills.

Well the odds aren't that good of starting with Incredible in Marvel (or if you're using the UPB a few power categories can get Amazing), but as I noted it sounds like you're advocating all Hardware characters should be starting as Starks or Batmen when most wouldn't. I also wouldn't say that they're starting in a financial hole, they're starting financially where the vast majority of the population is at, and again most shouldn't be starting the game financially flush. What you basically seem to want is HU to offer the same kind of financial starting range as Marvel (or I imagine the DC game as well) makes possible, where you can be anywhere from on the streets unemployed to possibly starting out a multi-millionaire.

But hey at least HU doesn't have the financial growth restrictions Marvel has; I'm sure you've seen enough of the arguments about how you should only get to improve your finances by expending implausible amounts of karma and you could end up jumping from fry cook to corporate CEO without any change in income as far as some were concerned. Nothing you have to worry about with HU, go from fry cook to CEO of a company in HU and you're going to promptly go from wage-slave income to jet-setter income.

You make excellent points, all the way around. And yes, I'm saying that Heroes Unlimited should have some sort of variance in the financial starting range.

And as for starting everyone at the same level as the majority of the population, while I can see it, it just doesn't seem to make a lot of logical sense. The player characters aren't 'John Everyman', they're exceptional individuals. And starting everyone out as the financial equivalent of Peter Parker just doesn't make much sense. I mean yeah, the struggle from base origins can be an interesting tale, but I don't want to have to do that with every single character.

Well as previously noted just because they're exceptional doesn't mean they're certain of success, as there have been many exceptional people through the ages that weren't even when they contributed enormously to the world. I can also understand the frustration from being expected to always have to work up from Peter Parker level income when this isn't D&D where money and acquisition of things isn't the primary carrot to drive characters While it is logical to end up starting at Peter Parker level it's more logical that some wouldn't but that isn't how the game is designed, one has to make changes in order to accommodate those other possibilities but remember that those higher financial levels generate other issues.

For example, if you're trying to have a secret ID you can't be tooling around in any kind of brand-market vehicle because someone could trace the vehicle back to you via various vehicle identification numbers (which is also why you wouldn't want to be trashing and buying new vehicles routinely). Just about everything has a tracking number etched into it anymore so your wealthy hero is going to have to spend some extra time scouring away all those tracking numbers if he wants to help protect his anonymity.

Going by Ninjas and Super-spies one of the factors they included was the risk of people recognizing you due to you accomplishments as well, and being a wealthy inventor particularly because you're a successful inventor is going to increase the odds of people recognizing you even when you don't want to be. I think though that many if not most GM tend to miss that and other points when they're denying high levels of wealth thinking it's going to make things 'too easy' for the PC.

Nightmask wrote:

wyrmraker wrote:

Nightmask wrote:

wyrmraker wrote:Actually, depending on the Resource level, especially if you account for modern equivalents, Marvel Super Heroes can easily allow for ridiculous amounts of high end gear. Seriously, the high end for rolling Resources is Incredible, which is the same rank as Stark International. And so long as ranks aren't spent on increasing powers...

And the main reason I mentioned those characters is that they are part of what the Heroes Unlimited genre is based upon. And they are definitely what the high-tech character genre is based on.

And while I understand what you're saying about Palladium starting characters off at financial low points, I am still going to disagree with it. It doesn't make sense that *every* Analytical Genius would be building their equipment out of their basement or garage, or that *every* Mechanical Genius would have to rent a garage to build their super vehicle (rental prices are specifically mentioned in the power category). It's little more than an attempt to level the field by the writers. After all, every character's background is different. Why shouldn't an inheritance be a possibility? Or financial success? Marvel has it both ways, both as the Resource Rank and the Talent Heir to Fortune.

I guess my primary arguement is that the core premise of starting all the characters off in such a manner just doesn't make a lot of sense. People like to bring up 'Thinking Man's RPG' as if it's a fact, but it's little more than a marketing term. The only 'thinking' that I tend to do is figuring out how to crawl my character out of the artificially induced financial hole that the book says my character is in. After that, my character can go fight crime, because unless my character is part of the police or military, crime fighting doesn't pay the bills.

Well the odds aren't that good of starting with Incredible in Marvel (or if you're using the UPB a few power categories can get Amazing), but as I noted it sounds like you're advocating all Hardware characters should be starting as Starks or Batmen when most wouldn't. I also wouldn't say that they're starting in a financial hole, they're starting financially where the vast majority of the population is at, and again most shouldn't be starting the game financially flush. What you basically seem to want is HU to offer the same kind of financial starting range as Marvel (or I imagine the DC game as well) makes possible, where you can be anywhere from on the streets unemployed to possibly starting out a multi-millionaire.

But hey at least HU doesn't have the financial growth restrictions Marvel has; I'm sure you've seen enough of the arguments about how you should only get to improve your finances by expending implausible amounts of karma and you could end up jumping from fry cook to corporate CEO without any change in income as far as some were concerned. Nothing you have to worry about with HU, go from fry cook to CEO of a company in HU and you're going to promptly go from wage-slave income to jet-setter income.

You make excellent points, all the way around. And yes, I'm saying that Heroes Unlimited should have some sort of variance in the financial starting range.

And as for starting everyone at the same level as the majority of the population, while I can see it, it just doesn't seem to make a lot of logical sense. The player characters aren't 'John Everyman', they're exceptional individuals. And starting everyone out as the financial equivalent of Peter Parker just doesn't make much sense. I mean yeah, the struggle from base origins can be an interesting tale, but I don't want to have to do that with every single character.

Well as previously noted just because they're exceptional doesn't mean they're certain of success, as there have been many exceptional people through the ages that weren't even when they contributed enormously to the world. I can also understand the frustration from being expected to always have to work up from Peter Parker level income when this isn't D&D where money and acquisition of things isn't the primary carrot to drive characters While it is logical to end up starting at Peter Parker level it's more logical that some wouldn't but that isn't how the game is designed, one has to make changes in order to accommodate those other possibilities but remember that those higher financial levels generate other issues.

For example, if you're trying to have a secret ID you can't be tooling around in any kind of brand-market vehicle because someone could trace the vehicle back to you via various vehicle identification numbers (which is also why you wouldn't want to be trashing and buying new vehicles routinely). Just about everything has a tracking number etched into it anymore so your wealthy hero is going to have to spend some extra time scouring away all those tracking numbers if he wants to help protect his anonymity.

Going by Ninjas and Super-spies one of the factors they included was the risk of people recognizing you due to you accomplishments as well, and being a wealthy inventor particularly because you're a successful inventor is going to increase the odds of people recognizing you even when you don't want to be. I think though that many if not most GM tend to miss that and other points when they're denying high levels of wealth thinking it's going to make things 'too easy' for the PC.

I've actually had the reverse of the 'random people identifying the character' thing. Seriously, international Pit Fighter for 20 years, and nobody in the underworld ever recognized the face, according to the GM. I mean, seriously, how well does a 8'8" mexican blend into a crowd?

And yeah, I get what you're saying about the anonymity issues inherent in being above a certain income level. That doesn't invalidate my position.

My opinion is that you don't need billions of dollars to outfit a character, so making wealth provide excessive amounts is unnecessary. I know of people who use wealth as an ability, but it just allows them to go to the GM and request equipment for their character that the limits of the game does not provide. When you get into the billion dollar range, you can basically outfit a few dozen characters with equipment and it is no longer a single character category.

Stone Gargoyle wrote:My opinion is that you don't need billions of dollars to outfit a character, so making wealth provide excessive amounts is unnecessary. I know of people who use wealth as an ability, but it just allows them to go to the GM and request equipment for their character that the limits of the game does not provide. When you get into the billion dollar range, you can basically outfit a few dozen characters with equipment and it is no longer a single character category.

You don't seem to grasp that the Power 'Wealth' isn't just about equipment that the money can buy, but about the access and influence that comes with Billions of Dollars. Do you think that anyone would care what Warren Buffet thought if he wasn't a Billionaire? George Soros? the Koch Brothers? Wealth like Fame requires a massive amount of it to be worthy of being a "Super Power." There are plenty of Heroes and Groups who have enough money to keep themselves in the best equipment that don't wield the kinds of sociopolitical or cultural influence that Billionaire Heroes do.

this is one of those things that I would have to say is tough to design properly.
with that said I think using something like the organization and or merc company rules (from rifts mercs) is a reasonable start.
another thought is that like shadowrun with its "lifestyle" perk or ability just having money out the wazoo does not mean that you can do anything you want with it. One example from the batman movie where "batman dies" was that bruce wayne had several issues, 1 things money cannot buy, 2 funds tied up in non liquid ways and earmarked for years to come (the boys charity homes) another thing is that sometimes a character doesn't "know" they can buy anything but the "best expensive stuff"

to use an example your average (poor) character is likely to have a basic phone, possibly a smart phone, and might be struggling just to cover the monthly plan /pre paid minutes cards to use it. mr wealth might not even realize that there is any option to NOT have a smart phone with gold insets/plating because its all they have ever dealt with. and those "customized" things have huge sticker prices and lead time to get. I mean look at the iron man example tony had a stable of old cars in his garage.... and everything that was "new" was in the 100K and up (sometimes way way up) categories, does it really matter that if he went down to the local ford dealership he could buy everything on the lot including the dealership with less than a weeks income not really because it wouldn't cross his mind.

another example that comes to mind is the "phules company" novel series by Robert Asprin where he has a certain amount of his time and energies tied up with what he has, but when push comes to shove he can drop major monies but at some level he is rather crude at how he does it. (I am thinking that you go have a meal and normal people tip somewhere around 10-20% of the bill, wheras maybe the rich guy thinks nothing of dropping a $100-1000 tip because they are used to the whole 10,000 to 250,000 a plate fund raisers events as that is the only time they really deal with "money"

SpiritInterface wrote:

Stone Gargoyle wrote:My opinion is that you don't need billions of dollars to outfit a character, so making wealth provide excessive amounts is unnecessary. I know of people who use wealth as an ability, but it just allows them to go to the GM and request equipment for their character that the limits of the game does not provide. When you get into the billion dollar range, you can basically outfit a few dozen characters with equipment and it is no longer a single character category.

You don't seem to grasp that the Power 'Wealth' isn't just about equipment that the money can buy, but about the access and influence that comes with Billions of Dollars. Do you think that anyone would care what Warren Buffet thought if he wasn't a Billionaire? George Soros? the Koch Brothers? Wealth like Fame requires a massive amount of it to be worthy of being a "Super Power." There are plenty of Heroes and Groups who have enough money to keep themselves in the best equipment that don't wield the kinds of sociopolitical or cultural influence that Billionaire Heroes do.

My point is that it unbalances the game to give characters that much money to buy equipment. You can make a character have influence without having to give them insane amounts of money.

Stone Gargoyle wrote:

SpiritInterface wrote:

Stone Gargoyle wrote:My opinion is that you don't need billions of dollars to outfit a character, so making wealth provide excessive amounts is unnecessary. I know of people who use wealth as an ability, but it just allows them to go to the GM and request equipment for their character that the limits of the game does not provide. When you get into the billion dollar range, you can basically outfit a few dozen characters with equipment and it is no longer a single character category.

You don't seem to grasp that the Power 'Wealth' isn't just about equipment that the money can buy, but about the access and influence that comes with Billions of Dollars. Do you think that anyone would care what Warren Buffet thought if he wasn't a Billionaire? George Soros? the Koch Brothers? Wealth like Fame requires a massive amount of it to be worthy of being a "Super Power." There are plenty of Heroes and Groups who have enough money to keep themselves in the best equipment that don't wield the kinds of sociopolitical or cultural influence that Billionaire Heroes do.

My point is that it unbalances the game to give characters that much money to buy equipment. You can make a character have influence without having to give them insane amounts of money.

i guess my question would be why do you think it would be inherently unbalancing. You can only pilot one vehicle after all, and only so many weapons you can use at a time and only so much ammo you can carry and so on.

Nightmask wrote:

Stone Gargoyle wrote:

SpiritInterface wrote:

Stone Gargoyle wrote:My opinion is that you don't need billions of dollars to outfit a character, so making wealth provide excessive amounts is unnecessary. I know of people who use wealth as an ability, but it just allows them to go to the GM and request equipment for their character that the limits of the game does not provide. When you get into the billion dollar range, you can basically outfit a few dozen characters with equipment and it is no longer a single character category.

You don't seem to grasp that the Power 'Wealth' isn't just about equipment that the money can buy, but about the access and influence that comes with Billions of Dollars. Do you think that anyone would care what Warren Buffet thought if he wasn't a Billionaire? George Soros? the Koch Brothers? Wealth like Fame requires a massive amount of it to be worthy of being a "Super Power." There are plenty of Heroes and Groups who have enough money to keep themselves in the best equipment that don't wield the kinds of sociopolitical or cultural influence that Billionaire Heroes do.

My point is that it unbalances the game to give characters that much money to buy equipment. You can make a character have influence without having to give them insane amounts of money.

i guess my question would be why do you think it would be inherently unbalancing. You can only pilot one vehicle after all, and only so many weapons you can use at a time and only so much ammo you can carry and so on.

Because you could basically buy robotics and bionics and whatever else you wanted, thereby playing multiple power categories if you wanted to. Just because they do stuff like that in comics is not justification to do so in a game environment.

Stone Gargoyle wrote:

Nightmask wrote:

Stone Gargoyle wrote:

SpiritInterface wrote:

Stone Gargoyle wrote:My opinion is that you don't need billions of dollars to outfit a character, so making wealth provide excessive amounts is unnecessary. I know of people who use wealth as an ability, but it just allows them to go to the GM and request equipment for their character that the limits of the game does not provide. When you get into the billion dollar range, you can basically outfit a few dozen characters with equipment and it is no longer a single character category.

You don't seem to grasp that the Power 'Wealth' isn't just about equipment that the money can buy, but about the access and influence that comes with Billions of Dollars. Do you think that anyone would care what Warren Buffet thought if he wasn't a Billionaire? George Soros? the Koch Brothers? Wealth like Fame requires a massive amount of it to be worthy of being a "Super Power." There are plenty of Heroes and Groups who have enough money to keep themselves in the best equipment that don't wield the kinds of sociopolitical or cultural influence that Billionaire Heroes do.

My point is that it unbalances the game to give characters that much money to buy equipment. You can make a character have influence without having to give them insane amounts of money.

i guess my question would be why do you think it would be inherently unbalancing. You can only pilot one vehicle after all, and only so many weapons you can use at a time and only so much ammo you can carry and so on.

Because you could basically buy robotics and bionics and whatever else you wanted, thereby playing multiple power categories if you wanted to. Just because they do stuff like that in comics is not justification to do so in a game environment.

Unless the game environment is meant to emulate such things, so an RPG dealing with super-heroes and the like should support the power-armor wearing mutant or the very reasonable and expected idea of a Hardware sort particularly one dealing with vehicles also wearing power armor or piloting a robot vehicle. Simply because someone could be a power-armor wearing ancient martial arts master mutant doesn't qualify as inherently unbalancing it really depends on how one is running the game set-up and whether or not they're letting such things be unbalancing.

According to canon sources, playing more than one category is not allowed. But if you allow a player to run a character with billions of dollars in money, they can basically afford to have their own research company which allows them to do just that. Sure as a GM, I can deny them doing such, but then that makes no sense as far as story. Better just to limit resources so they cannot go crazy modifying their character with everything under the sun.

Stone Gargoyle wrote:According to canon sources, playing more than one category is not allowed. But if you allow a player to run a character with billions of dollars in money, they can basically afford to have their own research company which allows them to do just that. Sure as a GM, I can deny them doing such, but then that makes no sense as far as story. Better just to limit resources so they cannot go crazy modifying their character with everything under the sun.

Except that things overlap and it's illogical to insist that the Hardware: Analytical couldn't build and make use of a power armor or robot vehicle when they're like the perfect class for that or that only the Super Spy could be making use of a super-spy vehicle. Such segregating just doesn't make sense.

Wealth would be better served as a Mega power/Achilles Heel (A special counts as both simultaneously since that level of wealth would have some pretty serious drawbacks as well as amazing benefits) than as a straight up superpower IMO.

Just have them spend (a minor or major whatever you think it is worth) power slot to get the benefits from capitalist entrapenurer from mystic china

Well, here is a "thought"

You might adapt the rules with a time base issue for the wealthy inventer. Where as much like skill training they have to spend x-time to make that item regardless if materials on hand. And have to roll a percentile to see how many bugs they missed. (Much like stark did developing his suits) also if character has to spend x-time upgrading and or improving on the next version.

In the case of way batman he has to rely on the equipment on hand largely at wayne tech. He can push for a new project however it again takes time and development. Meaning that the gm has to find a flex and see if something is availible.

3rd the character is going to have to add time to the builds if they do not have a trusted inside man to account for the money, manufacture, or materials or why such a project is in the works.

In my opinion

Dobergirl wrote:I've made up this power category. I'd like to ask for feedback, comments, suggestions, and such to it. Sorry for lack of pics, I'm not much of artist. You're free to help expand or use or share this idea, as long as I get the credits for the concept.

[*]This is revised edition since the old topic that had been dropped so many pages that a giant necro posting would have been silly.

Power Category: Wealth Revised edition
Original concept by Dobergirl

Wealth is associated with power. Thus, the more wealth you have, the more powerful you are. These are people who are normal people who have the funds and connections enough to make even the greatest super heroes tremble. These characters work best as NPC villains, support characters or could make for a very unique playable character.

The four types of wealthy poweress
Playes can either pick one or roll using the random table provided bellow.

01-25 CEO
26-50 Kingpin
51-75 Leader
76-00 Inherited

CEO

A wealthy CEO of multimillionaire company who enjoys the luxurious lifestyle and all the benefits it gives.

Step one; Character attributes

Roll the character as you'd normally do, with the following bonus.

Bonus

+1d4 to MA

If even after the bonus, you have low MA, adjust your MA acoardingly: MA 19. Do not add bonus roll to this any more, it's the final stat

Age

Most CEOs are old, regardless of how young or old the actualy company they're running is. From the experience

01-20 40 years old
21-40 50 years old
41-60 60 years old
61-80 70 years old
81-00 80 years old

Focus of the company

Select one area or roll

01- 10 Agriculture and mining; production of raw material, such as plants or minerals.
11-20 Financial; include banks and other companies that generate profit through investment and management of capital.
21-30 Information; generate profits primarily from the resale of intellectual property and include movie studios, publishers and packaged software companies.
31-40 Manufacturers; produce products, from raw materials or component parts, which they then sell at a profit. Companies that make physical goods, such as cars or pipes, are considered manufacturers.
41-50 Real estate: generate profit from the selling, renting, and development of properties comprising land, residential homes, and other kinds of buildings.
51-60 Retailers and distributors; act as middle-men in getting goods produced by manufacturers to the intended consumer, generating a profit as a result of providing sales or distribution services. Most consumer-oriented stores and catalog companies are distributors or retailers.
61-70 Service ; offer intangible goods or services and typically generate a profit by charging for labor or other services provided to government, other businesses, or consumers. Organizations ranging from house decorators to consulting firms, restaurants, and even entertainers are types of service businesses.
71-80 Transportation; deliver goods and individuals from location to location, generating a profit on the transportation costs.
81-00 Utilities; produce public services such as electricity or sewage treatment, usually under a government charter.


The age of Company

Generally, the longer the company has run the less chance it has of failing. Long running company also have better reputation and are more known.

01-20 Ten years
21-40 Five years
41-60 Two years
61-80 One year
81-00 1d4 months

Note: The time the company has been around does not affect money or any of the other things CEO gets. This is meant as help to creating the nature of the company.

Step Two; Skills and education

Do not roll for education and skill as usual. The character has equilavent of Bachelor's degree and gets the skill programs, bonuses and secondary skills going with it but there are requirements.

Business Program and Technical Skill Programs must be selected. Must be able to speak and write at least 3 different languages (the native language counts as one).

Step Three: Special Abilities

1. Money.

Gain 50,000$ per every month from the company. At levels 3, 5, 7, 9, 13, and 15, a new branch office is opened that generates 25,000$ monthly.

2. Access to every item listed in the equipment section. This includes things that are miliatry grade and things that are usually not avaivable to public, the person can pull few strings to get an item that wasn't for sale.

Step Four: Equipment

Personal items
A plush house, furnished with about 2,000,000$ worth, a 1d4 years old sports car, and probably a Yacht.

Financial Resources

Starts with 1d4x1,000,000$, with about 40% of the money being ready to use cash, the rest come from stocks and bonds that need to be liquidified to get acess to the money but it'll take 2d6 months for the assest to fully turned. The assest can be sold faster if the money is needed but then have only 30% of the price.

Note that this character does NOT have lifetime savings, as these are all of his money he's gathered during his life.

Step Five: Other stuff

Aligment: Any aligment can be chosen, but generally leans towards good or selfish.

Experience table: Use Hardware.

Kingpin

Not all business are within the law. There are crime syndicates that make money at the expense of others. Because of the nature of the money come from shady operations rather than something of legal nature, the character doesn't have a steady source of money but rather must actively break the law to obtain more money.

Step one; Character attributes

Roll the character as you'd normally do, with the following bonus.

Bonus

+2 to MA
+1d6 to IQ

Step Two; Skills and education

Do not roll for education and skill as usual.

Crime Syndicate program

Basic Mathematics 98%
Drive Automobile +10%
Speak, read, and write native language 98%
Speak and be literate at another language +20%
Business&Finance +20%
Computer Operation +20%
Surveilance systems +10%
5 skills can be chosen from Rogue Category
3 Secondary Skills

Step Three: Special Abilities

1. Thugs

The character starts with 2d6 thugs that start from level one. The thugs can be named and the player can choose their gender or use the following table to help choose the genders.

01-50 Male
51-00 Female

Each thug has the following stats

IQ: 8+1d4
PS: 12+1d6
P.P: 8+1d6

All rest are "average" of 9.

The thugs start with base of 35 SDC.

Aligment (roll for each)

01-20 Abberant
21-60 Miscreant
61-80 Diabolic
81-00 Anarchist

Skills known to all thugs

Speak Native language (+30%)
Literacy (+30%)
Basic math (+30%)
Climbing (+15%)
Prowl (+15%)
Pilot Motorcycle (20%)
W.P Knife
W.P Revolver

Select only two of the additional skills for any of the thugs

Basic electronics (+15%)
Basic mechanics (+10%)
Pick Pockets (+20%)
Pick Locks (+20%)
Running
Body building
Boxing
Pilot Truck (20%)
Forgery (+20%)
Disguise (20%)

None of the thugs start with equipment and must be bought seperately.

You get 1d4 more thugs when the Kingpin reaches levels of 2, 3, 7, 10, and 13.

2. Special agents

Starting at level 5 the Kingpin gets far more highly skilled agents, 1 at level 5, then 1 more at levels 8, 12, and 15. Roll 1d4+6 for each invidual's level. The Kingpin is free to choose their gender or roll using the table found under thugs section.

Each special agent starts with the following stats

IQ: 14+1d6
ME: 12+1d4
PS: 11+1d6
PP: 10+1d6

The rest of stats are 12.

Aligment (roll for each)

01-20 Abberant
21-60 Miscreant
61-80 Diabolic
81-00 Anarchist

Roll a percentile for the power category of the agent

1-40 Hardware
Use the HU2 table
41-80 Special Training
Roll only for the ones bellow
01-50 Hunter/Manhunter/Vigilante
51-70 Secret Operative/Spy
71-90 Stage Magician/Master of Illusion
91-00 Ancient Master
81-00 Cyborgs

The special agent gets all the bonuses and education from their power category. All equipment must be purchased for agents.

2. Pay day!

No criminal wants to work for free forever. To determine the monthly wage of a thug, roll 1d4x500$ and add 500$ per level. Special agents have 1d4x1000$ and add 500$ per level. If unable to pay or the Kingpin chooses to neglect the pay day, the thug/agent will most likely walk off or at the worst case, even attempt to take what's theirs forcefuly! Remember, to manage a big criminal empire you also need a steady flow of a cash to be able to pay your minions.

3.Underworld connections

Does not have to pay extra for any item on "black market."

Step Four: Equipment

Personal items
A plush house, with many "hot goods" and items that have been collected by the thugs, about 100,000$ worth, plus a bullet proof limo.

Money

Roll the dice for money

1-15 100,000$
16-29 150,000$
30-45 200,000$
46-60 250,000$
61-75 300,000$
76-89 350,000$
90-00 400,000$

This is in combination with any possible lifetime savings the character may have rolled at the start.

Step Five: Other stuff

Aligment: Generally evil but can also be played as selfish

Experience table: Use Special Training.

Leader

There are the people who run things. They make the decisions that alter the very country that the roleplay takes place in.

Note: For purposes of the gaming, we're to assume the game takes place in a democratic country. If in monarchy run country, switch the stats of Elected and Monarchry together.

Three arch types of a leader

Either roll randomly or pick one

01-40 Elected
41-80 Monarchy
81-00 Dictatorship

Step one; Character attributes

Roll character like normally, with the following bonuses.

Bonus

For Elected

MA set to 16 or if above, add +1d4
PB set to 13 or if above, add +1d4

For Monarchy

MA set to 15 or if above, add +1
PB set to 15 or if above, add +2

For Dictatorship

MA set to 19 or if above, add +1d4
PB set to 12 or if above, add +2

Step Two; Skills and education

Select four technical skill and four languages the character can speak and be literate at. All skills have 15% starting bonus. Also gets eight Secondary Skills.

NOTE: Must have the skills in Business and Finance, both Math: Basic and Advanced, and Law (General). Photography and TV/Video is suggested, but not required.

Step Three: Special Abilities

1. Political immunity: The character has diplomatic immunity and can bend some laws, as long as they do not get caught by the press doing so. Has many connections to people and can get acess to all items, including miliatry grade and hot goods.

2. Imporant hostage: Any hostile action towards the character is considered a major attack that will have the offender be charged with big crimes and have the best branches of SWAT, S.C.R.E.T and more to help combat the offender and save the diplomat. This character is always considered a high priority hostage and the law enfoircements will do whatever in their power to save them.

3.Bodyguards: Starts with having 2d4 ammount of bodyguards around him, with minimum of three guards.

Roll the stats for each invidual bodyguard, each roll is final.

IQ: 1d6+8
ME: 2d6+6
MA: 1d6+8
PS: 2d6+14
PP: 2d6+8
PE: 2d6+8
PB. 2D6+6
SPD: 2d6+8
SDC: 45
HP: PE+1d6 per level and 10 once in lifetime bonus.
Level of Exprience: 1d4+2
Number of attacks: 5
Attacks: Punch 1d6, Kick 1d6+2, Knockout/Stun; natural 20
Bonuses: +3 initiative, +2 to strike, +3 to parry, +4 damage, +4 pull punch, +2 roll with punch, +1 save vs magic/poison, +6% vs coma/death
Typical skills: Streetwise (+24), Prowl (10%), Detect Ambush (+10%), W.P Automatic Pistol, plus two domestic and three technical skills of choice, eight secondary skills, plus either Weapon proficiency modern OR physical/athletic program.
Weapons: Typically, carries a large pistol in shoulder holster, concealed back up pistol in a belt and/or ankle holster, and blackjack for general purposes of protection. No heavy duty weapons or cybernetic implants or any hi tech are readily avaivable to them, but each guard can be fitted with any upgrades the player wishes.

Each bodyguard is ready to die for the leader and would take a bullet to the chest for them or sacrifice self to let the leader escape.

If a bodyguard dies, finding a suitable replacement will take 1d4 months, at which point the bodyguard is rolled as new one.

Can hire an extra bodyguard at level 3, 6, 9, 13, and 15.

4. The press: All actions the character does receive huge media coverage and mass attention. While this may sound like a great deal when making a business deal or a publicity stunt, if the character is caught doing illegal activities, they will receive huge negative mark. Diplomatic characters may lose their position, while monarchy or dictators may be overthrown as result.

5. Save the situation: In case of being caught in the middle of an inescapable scandal of utmost heinous crimes, there's a chance that the player may lose their position. Depending on the severity of the crime, the character must roll 1d20 over the required amount of the crime that has been done based on several factors. The character has +2 save from scandal at lvl 1 and gets 1+ bonus to save from scandal at levels 3, 5, 8, 12, and 14.

Breaking and entering 4
Forgery 5
Extortion 6
Theft 7
Drugs 8
Robbery 9
Kidnapping 10
Assault 11
Murder 12

Also, add the following numbers to the required number to roll with the several factors

Linked to the crime or having organized the crime 2
Caught doing the thing in person 4
Caught doing the thing in person with concrete evidence (Clear photos or videos or concrete audio) 6
For each witness 1

So seeing the person literally kill another, captured on tape and seen by two would require roll of 18!

When scandal arises

If the scandal goes public through any means then the leader must roll percentile

01-31 Forgiven Either the public does not believe the evidence or they are too in love with the leader to care.
32-57 Minor scandal The smear is minor and the leader has to only pay 1d4x2000 in fines to hush up the murmurs or do donation drives
58-80 Major scandal Major smear on the reputation that may tarnish the leader's image forever, roll 3d6 for the amount of months people will be suspicious of the leader, don't answer to his cries of help and may even throw rotten tomatoes and such at them!
81-83 Impeached The character is stripped off his power either by higher power or their monarchy and kingdom gets overthrown. They lose 75% of all their cash aside and they lose their diplomatic privilages. Only one loyalist agent will remain, who has been with the leader the longest period of time while the rest abandon him.
84-00 Declared public menace The leader becomes target, not only do they lose their diplomatic privilages, all their assets will be frozen. Police, SWAT, and maybe even SCRET will actively hunt the character until ammends are made.

It is up to GM's decision how and if the leader can make sufficent ammends to help rebuild their reputation and maybe gain back their lost fortune.

Step Four: Equipment

Personal items
A plush house, furnished with about 600,000$ worth, a 1d4 years old sports car, and probably a Yacht.

Financial Resources

Roll 2d6x100,000 for the money you start with, this is in combination with any life savings the character may have. There is 40% chance the character also own stocks and bonds worth 2d6x100,000.

Step Five: Other stuff

Aligment: Any aligment can be chosen.

Experience table: Use Special Training

Inherited

Some people are born with "golden spoon in mouth" and never have to rise their fingers to get to where they are. They get most of the money possible but have to meet certain requirements to get acess to the fortune.

Step one; Character attributes

Roll the character as you'd normally do. Do not roll the life savings as the character has unqiue life savings table.

Step Two; Skills and education

Character can have as big of education as they want, roll as normally.


Step Three: Special Abilities

1. Life savings Roll percentile for how much you already have in the bank.

1-12 10,000$
13-26 20,000$
27-38 30,000$
39-50 40,000$
51-63 60,000$
64-76 80,000$
77-88 100,000$
89-00 120,000$

2 The Family Fortune. The inherited fortune that you're entitled to you is vast and varies greatly. These are additions to any life savings the character may have.

Roll the percentile to see what is the type of the money or property the character is entitled to.

1-10 Cash! 2d6x1,00,000$
11-20 Property Old coins that have been collected for many years. Valued list price is 4d6x1,000,000$ but will take 3 to 12 months (roll 3d4) months to liquidate. Quick sale will get 30% of full value.
21-30 Cash! Only 4d6x10,000$
31-40 Blue Chip Stocks Total number of stocks is 2dx100; each stock is approximitely 10,000$ EACH. The stocks may go up and down, if sold immediattely the fortune is 10,000$ per each, minus 2% broker's fee from the the cash ammount.
41-50 Property Your old family manor is your inheritance. (You've since moved away from it.) Value is at 3d6x1,000,000$ but to get full value 4 to 16 months (roll 4d4). Quick sale means reducing the asking price by 30%.
51-60 Trust Fund 3d4x1,000,000$ has been set aside for the character by a benefactor. However, the character can only draw on 10% of the total avaivable money per year. When the total reaches a minimum of 10,000$ the character will receive it in a lump sum. The money is carefully dispensed by a law firm.
61-70 Property Your inheritance consists of jewels such as diamonds, sapphires, rubies and so on, many of them cut. Value is 2d4x1,000,000$ but to get full value would need 3 to 12 months (roll 3d4) Quick sale will get 60% of the full value.
71-80 Cash! 6d6x100,000$
81-90 PropertyPriceless antique is your inheritance. Value is at 2d4x1,000,000$ but to get full value it will take 4 to to 16 months (roll 4d4) Quick sale will get 50% of the full value.
91-00 Bonds The bonds are valued at 1d6x1,000,000$ but do not reach their full maturity and value untill for 1 to 4 years. (roll 1d4) All or some can be cashed prematurely for half the price.

3.Butler Male or female butler (01-60 Male, 61-00 Female) who lives inside the house. They do various chores such as:

Cleaning the house.
Watering plants.
Making beds.
Serving food.
Caring for babies.
Fending off obsessed fans.
Repairing possible costume
Assures public this is not the hero/villain, unless especially stated that they want to be known as one
Repairing broken objects and electronics.
Evicting unwanted personel.

Roll 3D6 for each attribute of the butler, along with any of the bonuses.

HP is 3D6+PE +1d6 per level
SDC 1d6+15

The butler is 9+1d4 level.

The aligment of the butler is always SAME AS THE CHARACTER.

The butler has the base following skills, the IQ bonuses and level bonuses apply

Butler program

Cooking +25%,
Speak native language +40%
Read and write native language +35%
Basic Math +15%
Play musical instrument +20%
Sewing +25%
Drive automobile +15%
Preserve food +15%

Also select one program and ten secondary skills. If butler is rolled being level 12, add one extra secondary skill like HU 2 recommends starting from LEVEL ONE and progress the skills as needed.

The butler's wage is 1200$ per week. If wished, the butler can be fired and a new one can be hired later. The same butler cannot be hired ever again, they have gone off to other duties.

If the butler dies very suddenly, finding suitable replacement may take from two months to even a year! (2d6) The new butler candidate is rolled like the earlier.

Step Four: Equipment

Personal items

The character has a new conventional automobile (car, SUV, ETC, the car is 1d4 weeks old) worth of about 18,000$, nice two story house, the latest computers (one desktop, one portable, one electronic notebook), electronics, cell phone (probably the latest in the market with phone, game, and mp3 player all rolled in one), expensive wardrobe, personal posessions, and the basics they need to live comfortably.

Financial Resources

Roll 2d6x100,000 for the money you have on the ready.

Step Five: Other stuff

Aligment: Any aligment can be chosen.

Experience table: Use Hardware

Great work but Id increase those $ amounts , both money and property value by X10 to X20 at least . Employee pay could stay the same to greatly increased depending on position and status in the company . It IS a super hero game . But it also depends on the power lever of the campaign you are running . Very low x0 - x4 , Low level id say x5 - 10 , mid level x 20 - 50 , high level x 60 - 100 , very high x150 - 500 ?

I like it, and I would say that to address the issues of money you could:
1) Build an organization using the rules in various Palladium products such as Mercenaries or Ninjas and Superspies to determine the level of wealth.
2) Say that the amount of money is the character's expendable cash and that other 90% of their wealth is tied up in investments, similar to the Entrepreneur OCC in Mystic China.

-STS