Extra: Charged Power and Blood Magic

The system includes a flaw "Action" which allows the player to get a discount on his power by moving it from a stadard action to a full round action, and further to 1 full round. From there you can have the complication if the power takes even longer to cast.

This is ideal for powers like boost that you could make cheap by giving a crazy time to charge up, then be able to go use it as needed, instead of a power you need to make use of in combat.

However, I think there's room for one more kind of power- a charged power.

Extra: Charged Power (+0)
A charged power has its power level modified by how quick an action it is. Consult the chart below. Whatever power level you buy the power at is the "base" power level. This power cannot be further modified in either direction by the action edge/flaws.

Free Action (once per round): Power can activate at PL 1.
Move Action: Power Can activate at 1/4 PL (round down, min 1).
Standard Action: Power can activate at 1/2 PL (round down, min 1).
Full Round Action: Power can activate at base PL.
1 Full Round: Power can be activated at PL +1 (can break PL limits).
For each step on time/progression table, power can be activated at a further PL +1. (Maximum PL x 2 or PL 20)

During the "charge" time, the character is using all his actions to charge the power. He cannot move, and he is flat footed (but not helpless). He can be moved (such as being in a car, or carried on a horse or by others), but any vigorous movement requires a Concentration Check DC 15+PL or the charge is wasted and the power is lost.

If he is damaged, he must make a concentration check DC PL of power used + Toughness save of damage dealt or he loses the power and charge is wasted.

This can allow you to do Dragonball esque battles with long charge times and massive effects.


Notes:

• If you buy "Full Power" complication on this, you must charge up to maximum power in order to use the power at all. 
• Feedback is a good flaw to use, with the idea that you are damaged or stunned or otherwise hurt if you lose the power prior to the charge being completed. 
• You may want to limit this to combat powers (blast, nullify, snare, etc) rather than allowing characters to charge a long time for high level and high duration powers like boost or transform self, etc. It gets broken if a PL 10 character can charge in his house all day to gain benefits of a PL 20 transform or boost and run around with high level powers all day. 

Extra: Blood Magic (+0)

Blood Magic is a power that drains the caster of their essence as they use it. Basically this power has the constant side effect that the user must make a toughness save against the damage TN of the power when it is used, or they are damaged. The damage given is incurable, and can only be healed through natural healing, not through the healing power or regeneration. The power must be purchased at the maximum power level. If you die from this, you completely disintegrate and cannot be resurrected (though you might be saved by time travel or something)

However, the advantage is that you may set any power level when you cast the power. Of course, higher power levels mean you will likely be irreversibly destroyed. The plus side is the ability to demolish power level limits and defeat more powerful foes.

Notes:

• You will certainly want to limit this to PC main characters, as this gets out of hand if they are used by summons, duplicates, minions, or other highly disposable characters. 
• This should be viewed with distrust or as if it is evil, and public display will likely create penalties for public support rolls (or just outright villainy points). 
• This makes for a great way for a hero to self sacrifice himself to beat a powerful villain, but keep in mind that this could have a huge party turnover of people willing to throw away a character to avoid a plot. This gets very powerful very quick. You've been warned. 

Optional Rules: Public Support and Villany

Below are two optional rules you might want to include in your mutants campaign.



Public Support: This represents how much the average population views you as their hero, or as a troublesome vigilante. These can be separate per character, or the entire superhero team's result. You have a public support modifier, which starts at 0.

At the end of every public villain fight, roll 1d20, and apply the following modifiers:

• Heroes defeated Villain in a public fight (+2)
• During fight, villain was threatening civilian lives (+2)
• Normal law enforcement was powerless to defeat villain (+2)
• Innocent people were injured (-1) or killed (-5) or killed via friendly fire/carlessness of heroes (-10)
• Gross Property damage was incurred (-2)
• Heroes were supported or backed by an important public figure (chief of police, mayor, president) +2
• Hero allowed villain to escape in order to save civilians (+2)
• Hero captured the villain (+2), Hero killed the villain (-2), Hero killed the villain AFTER incapacitating him (-5), Villain killed by his own doing (purposefully or accidnetially) (+0)
• If captured, villain receives a full trial and goes to lawful imprisonment (+1)
• If a villain gets a trial, he is found not guilty (+0), or he is not able to be convicted due to an error made by the heroes (-2)
• Hero made use of especially terrifying powers (as determined by GM, but summoning demons, transforming into a monster, etc) (-2)
• Hero acted unethically in the combat to defeat the villain (-2) (Does not involve tricking the villain, but being generally unethical)
• Hero's actions caused damage to property or injury to public (-5), this goes to (-2) if this happened due to mind control or if it's proven to not be the hero's fault.
• Hero prevents villain's obvious scheme (stealing an object for example) (+1)
• Hero is defeated by the villain (-2)
• Villain has more public support than the heroes (subtract the difference)
• Hero has more public support than the villain (add the difference)

So, during a battle with the evil Hansel Oliphant, master of mind control, and presidential candidate, the heroes are mind controlled and cause property damage (-2). They are able to overcome him (+2), but he escapes. However, he has a public support of 5 and the heroes have public support of 1 (-4). So the heroes roll 1d20 -2 (-2, +2, -4).

They consult the following table:
Result is less than Zero: Hero loses 1 point of public support. If they are already at zero, they gain 1 point of villainy.
Result is 0-20: No change to public support.
Result is 21+: Hero loses 1 point of villainy. If they have zero, the gain 1 point of public support.

Value of Public Support:

Public support represents how much the public values the hero's efforts. The player may roll a public support check (1d20+ support value) to get one of the following benefits:

DC 15: There is a parade or event in the hero's honor, perhaps the mayor gives him the key to the city or something.
DC 20: The hero gets a free rank of the "benefit" feat, as appropriate. Using this will reduce public support value by 2 points.
DC 20: The heroes can call for "crowd support" during a combat, where civilians will rush to the hero's aid in some fashion (determined by the GM) during a public fight. (See below for the obvious example from spiderman). Using this reduces public support by 2 points, but provides an additional +2 bonus to the public support gaining roll)

DC 30: The hero gets a museum or something similar built in his honor. Using this reduces public support by 5.
DC 30: The hero can call in a favor from an important political figure on a city level (such as a mayor or chief of police). This reduces your public support roll by 1.
DC 40: The hero can call in a favor from an important political figure on a state level, (such as the governor, or a city official from another city in the state). This reduces public support by 2.
DC 50: The hero can call in a favor from an important political figure on a national level (such as the president, or a city/state official from anywhere in the country). This reduces public support by 5.
DC 60: The hero can call in a favor from an important political figure on a global level (such as a leader of another country, or the united nations). This reduces public support by 10.
DC 70: The hero can call in a favor from an important political figure anywhere he is aware of, including another dimension, another planet, etc. This reduces public support by 20.


Villainy:

This is the opposite of public support in concept, but different in execution. This is when a player does something villainous, even for a good purpose. Perhaps he tortures a villain for information, or murders villains instead of jailing them. Perhaps he just does villainous things in general. Doing this gives out villain points. Note: The villainy does not need to be public knowledge. The hero's regularly stop villains who are being secretive about their evil plots. Likewise, the PCs secret evils might be discovered via esp, mind reading, postcognition, etc.


Villain Points:
Character Does minor villainy (such as stealing items harmlessly, making a deal with a bad guy to make a mission easier, letting a false villain take a fall, attacking police) +1 point.
Moderate Villainy (killing an enemy, torturing someone for a good purpose, gross negligence, hurts people) +2 points
Major Villainy (rape, killing innocents, rampant destruction) +4 points
Epic Villainy (genocide, disintegration of a planet, etc) +10 points.

Every session, roll 1d20 and add the villain points. (only roll if villain points > 0)

Result:
15-20:Police show up to attempt to apprehend the PC.
20-25: Another superhero attempts to apprehend the PC.
25-29: A superhero team attempts to apprehend the PC.
30+ The PC is deemed a public enemy and is wanted by governments as well as superheroes.

Alternately, the hero may lose villain points by doing especially altruistic acts, or sell them for "GM Hero Points" where the GM can have the villains use hero points at no benefit to the PCs except using up one of their villain points.

The idea here is for the PCs to act like heroes, and if they act more like antiheroes or villains instead, sooner or later someone comes after them.

What do people think? Would you use this in your campaign?

Alternate Dimensions

We talked about the dimension super movement, but I wanted to take a second to detail potential locales for superheroes to go into.

Space: Space is nice. It requires only 3 dimensional travel, so with a ship you can bring in any other planets you want. Of course, since space is "easy" to travel for superheroes, it's easy for aliens to come back. It's all about distance. The nice things about space is (based on speed of light) it's possible to communicate with other planets (albeit potentially slowly) so people may be able to communicate with you even if you're stranded on another planet.

Separate Dimensions: Think of D&D dimensions here, a plane of fire, the astral plane, the ethereal plane, Heaven, Hell, etc. These are dimensions that do not overlap earth in any kind of "dimensional space). This is what people typically think of when you think of alternate dimensions. Requires dimensional travel to access. Typically if you're trapped here you have little ways to communicate with home.

Alternate Dimensions: These are like Sliders alternate earths, not time travel, but the exact same place but on an alternate dimension. The Flash TV show justifies that the different dimensions vibrate at different speeds thus we simply don't see each other, which is interesting. Just like separate dimensions, except you're more likely to see very familiar items here, where separate dimensions will have drastically different areas, gravity, etc. This one is less likely for you to need some kind of environmental adaptation.

The Microverse: Accessed by shrinking to the subatomic level, you enter a microverse, which could be an entire new universe existing within a singular atom. It's not an alternate dimension, it just exists within very small space, so you can't escape it without growing in size.

The Macroverse: The opposite of the microverse, this is done by growing so large that our entire universe fills the space of a single molecule or atom to you. The danger here is that returning to your own universe is VERY difficult, as you have to find the exact atom you used to stand in before shrinking back down (also you will probably do some damage while growing). Special teleportation might be able to help you get home, but it's not an alternate dimension it's space.

Alternate Universe: This is based on you leaving your universe, and entering another one. For all intents and purposes, this involves 3 dimensional space, but you might not be able to access it properly from your own universe. Imagine that your universe is a donut- no matter what direction you go, you loop around somewhere, but there may be other donuts that you can jump onto. (Perhaps by traversing the macroverse). Alternate dimension won't help you, though you may be able to teleport between them, or use the macroverse to travel.

Alternate Timeline: An alternate timeline is your own dimension, but affected as if the past was different. This is similar to Alternate Dimension, except that you can't teleport off it, the only way back to your own timeline is to go back in time, repair the issue, and then go back to the future. (Pretty tricky to accomplish). Time travel stories frequently use this.

Alternate Time: This is your own timeline, but somewhere in the past or future. It could be millions of years, making the world very different (regardless of direction) but you might be able to utilize postcognition or precognition to communicate with your home time, or if you're in the past, you might be able to use fossils or stalactite formations to communicate with the deep future. Temporal movement is the way to get here or home from here.

Did I miss anything? Let me know what dimensions you've played with in your campaigns.

Non-Standard Attacks

You attack. He rolls toughness. He attacks, you roll toughness. 

Get's a little tedious? Not just tedium, think about how easy you leave it to make a character who can't be hurt when toughness is the prime save. Below is a look at different attack "styles" and the pros and cons of each...

Standard Damage:
This can be energy, physical, strike, blast, but any attack that does damage with a toughness save.
Notable attacks include:

Melee: Easiest to break damage limits by wielding weapons, abusing the AIM manuver, and tradeoffs.

Ranged: Attack from a distance, but enemies in melee, lying down, with cover, etc get some AC bonuses against you.

Perception: Always hits, but not variance to damage. An equal villain should save about 50% of the time.

Corrosion/Disintegrate: Notable in that it lowers the save FIRST (if you fail FORT) then you make the save. (See Debuffs below).

Pro: Can be easy to break TN limits, and since toughness is limited lower than other saves, probably the simplest way to attack.
Con: Because it's everyone's "Go to", many people use immunities or protections to get around it- such as impervious. Also healing and regeneration make even the failed saves of little effect, and those are very commonly taken powers.

Debuffs:
This is mainly drain or some aspect of it, but could include nullify, or power use to turn off powers. These attacks generally help other attacks succeed, by lowering your stats or reducing your powers.

Pro: Targets a different save (usually fort) which would have needed to be bought up separately. Useful against "dodgy" characters with low fort by removing their other suppliment powers.
Con: Toughness and fort are both CON based and usually if one is high, both are high. Nullify grants "best of" opposed PL and saving throw to defender. Hard to justify the missed action in most cases, unless linked to a damaging power directly (like corrosion).

Debilitators:
These attacks don't kill or deal "damage" but they render a status effect onto the enemy, which some situational penalties that go with it. Notable examples:

Fatigue: Many characters take immunity to fatigue, so this power doesn't have all the best use. The best use of this power is when you use the restorative extra so you can heal your fatigue as you grant it to others, allowing you to use more extra effort, drawing your energy "harmlessly" from weak citizens or something nearby. (You aren't actually hurting them, after all). I do see many PCs taking immunity to fatigue.

Stun: Notable in that no one can be immune to stun (since it's a damage condition), and it lasts multiple rounds potentially (unlike the damage condition).

Snare: Relatively harmless and can render enemies helpless.This includes creating objects around enemies. Nice in that helpless enemies remain conscious (unlike fatigue and stun) so you can interrogate them or talk to them still. The down side is that many powers are not prevented, such as mental powers and teleports, and that the snare can often be escaped by either strength checks, escape artist rolls, or damage. Also, between snares and grapples I see lots of PCs take immunity to entrapment effects.

Combat Maneuvers: Trip, Bull Rush, Disarm, Grapple: These are easy to max the roll on and make it difficult to escape, but so few powers rely on anything that these maneuvers effect, and movement powers make it difficult to keep anyone trapped.

Shrinking: With enough size, you can shrink someone into the microcosm, and effectively remove him from the combat (or the world!) until he turns back (if he does).

Pro: The system includes nonlethal "damage" but some damage types (chainsaws) don't make sense non-lethally, and this is a good way to take people out without killing them. Also with the "alternate save" extra you can potentially attack whatever save is the weakest.
Con: When saving throws are maxed they are higher than Toughness and more likely to succeed. PCs tend to use hero points on saving throws more often than anything else. Compared to "save or die" powers (below) these use the same saving throw, but have lowered effects, or tiered effects.

Save or Die:
These effects include anything where the save must win or the target is completely helpless to your character- effectively they have one chance or it's all over. Unlike debilitating effects (above), or toughness saves for damage, the amount by which they fail the save is irrelevant, they either pass or fail, so these tend to be the favored attacks. Notable examples:

Transform: Turning people to frogs, statues, very small rocks, etc. Anyone with shape changing powers can just turn back, but for most people this is effective. Mental transform can remove someone's ability to use their powers and turn them completely into a willing ally immediately. I've also heard "transform you into dead you" as a variant of transform.

Mind Control: A favorite power amongst PCs. Failure and the enemy is yours, and with certain options can be better than mind reading as you can have the enemy tell you anything you want to know. With mind control, each save gives you +1 to successive saving throws, so you can't  just spam it at them until they fail. Mental effects is one of the favorite immunities. Alternately using a fort save instead and calling it "body control" to get around the mental immunity, though then you don't control their powers and can't force them to give you information.

Pro: These instantly eliminate the enemy, and also non-lethally also. Some may be very troublesome as you can make a powerful enemy into an ally with some mind alterations.
Con: Whatever extras you put on these, nothing is ever permanent- they can be dispelled later. Also mental effect immunity is cheap and very commonly taken by PCs. They usually include regular saving throws to throw off the effects also, unless you throw extra points into making it continuous.

Non-Standard:
The reason for this entry completely, a list of some attacks that are uncommon, and thus unlikely for an enemy or PC to simply be immune to.

Teleport: Used as an attack, this can remove someone from the battlefield. Leaving them in a jail, underground, wherever can ensure that even with flight or super speed they don't just come back. Sending them into a dangerous environment like space, volcanoes, the sun, or underwater is a big one too. Teleporting characters can just return themselves, but many other characters may be unharmed, but are pretty much out of the fight. Teleports can't save others unless they have some way of knowing where they were sent.

Anatomic Separation: Forcing the limbs off a character (using the attack extra). He can put them back together if he can bring his limbs back together, but in the meantime you may have limited some of his powers or attacks, and regeneration/healing will not regrow the limbs if they are still active. Some powers might not be bothered by having limbs removed, but many do.

Dimensional Pocket: Like teleport, but you force the enemy into a bag, portrait, or whatever. The nice thing is that because it's interdimensional, you can't just teleport back if you're a teleporter, and the enemy has you "where he wants you" and can take you around wherever.

Insubstantial/Astral Projection: Particularly insubstantial 4, but also astral projection or similar powers to force them into a form that can't attack you except with mental effects. You can't contain him necessarily (without other powers) but you can prevent his ability to affect you.

Duplication: With the attack extra, you basically copy the enemy and have him attack the original, such as with a mirror of opposition. What's more, the duplicate knows everything he knows. Keep in mind, you don't by default control the duplicate, though with the right terms you can at least make sure it hates him.

Temporal/Dimensional Movement (with attack): Whether you're going with him and grappling him to count towards your weight limit, or using an attack power, you can strand someone in the deep future or an alternate dimension. Just realize if it's an attack, the save DC will be very low, as this caps out at rank 3.

Power Use/Boost: This one could warrant its own entry, but between Boost, Affects others Powers, and power use, you can force the enemy to use powers that are harmful to himself. Examples include-

• Giving the enemy empathic healing and forcing him to use it on the party with power use. 
• Giving the enemy a feedback  or side/effect power and forcing him to use it, taking the feedback or side effect. 
• Giving him an aura of emotion control; rage to get everyone to attack him, even his minions.

Not only can these create more dynamic and interesting battles, but overcome a lot of those common immunities and defenses as well. Please reply in the comments if you have any additional ideas besides what was mentioned above. 

Temporal Movement and Dimensional Movement

Super Movement has 2 types of movements that specifically say the GM should highly regulate or ban use of altogether. Temporal Movement and Dimensional Movement. Earlier I spoke about how to make a "Time Traveler" without the Temporal Movement ability per say. But is it possible to have a campaign that allows these movements (which most GMs just ban outright?)

Temporal Movement:
1 rank (2 points): Travel between the present and one fixed point in time (such as 100 years in the past or 1000 years in the future).
2 ranks (4 points): Move to any point in either the past OR the future (and presumably back to the present again).
3 ranks (6 points): To any point in time.

Dimensional Movement:
1 rank (2 points): Between the home dimension and one other dimension.
2 ranks (4 points): Between any of a related group of dimensions (mystical, alien dimensions, etc)
3 ranks (6 points): Any dimension.

By comparison, 2 ranks (4 points) of wall crawling allows you to move at your full movement speed when climbing with no climb check, or to ignore hampered movement, or walk at full speed horizontally on air.

Both of these powers work like teleporting to some degree also, but let's first clarify some of the inherent weaknesses in both. First being that they are NOT teleport.

Travelling between dimensions gets tricky, because the dimensions do not necessarily overlap each other in physical space, but the GM has four options here:

1. Travelling to dimension B takes you to the same point on dimension B each time regardless of where you were when you left dimension B or where on earth you left from.
2. When you leave dimension B your location is set. So if you are in jail on dimension B when you leave, you return to jail on dimension B when you return, regardless of what happens on earth (and vice versa).
3. Your destination on dimension B is linked to your physical location on earth. (Think Zelda: Link to the past and the dark world- you're location is based 100% on where you were in Hyrule when you cross over, and vice versa).
4. You can go wherever, and this power becomes way cheaper than Teleport, and I highly discourage this option.

Both time travel and dimension travel lose some of the potential benefits of teleportation: you can't change your facing, your inertia (if you're falling) or anything else you would be able to do with teleport feats.

As time travel and dimension travel are instantaneous, without precognition or some kind of dimensional/temporal ESP, you could very easily end up travelling into solid matter. With dimensional movement you also have no guarantee of a hospitable environment you travel into.

That's just the tip of the iceberg. Let's examine the two real problems with these powers. How can they be abused to be UNBALANCED, and how can they be just TROUBLESOME.

• Unbalanced: Characters can travel to other dimensions or time periods to charge a weapon, heal up, repair things, or accomplish tasks, then return instantly to mid-fight, or potentially shoot across dimensions at foes here.
• Troublesome: The GM is forced to create other dimensions for the characters to go into, or deal with other eras of history that he may not have been prepared to run.
• Troublesome: The character can go back in time within his own timeline in an attempt to change things that are already campaign history, including main plot points.
• Troublesome: If the other PCs aren't brought along, one PC monopolizes the GM's time with their travel.
• Unbalanced: A PC who travels into other dimensions or the future may be expecting to return with alien/magic/future technology (though as GM you should just force him to spend power points on whatever he gets).
• Troublesome: The PC who interacts with other versions of himself or the party may require the GM to take over a past character, or allow the character to "role play with himself".
• Troublesome: PCs who want to dimension travel to alternate earths (like sliders) who want to use this to circumvent plots (like going to an alternate earth where this isn't happening).

While the powers seem broken, overall they are more troublesome than they are unbalanced. Both these powers can be abused during battle (and moreso if converted to attack powers). Here are some potential workarounds to the troublesome aspects.

• Establishing your dimensions ahead of time takes more work but limits where the PCs go. Perhaps they need to be aware of a dimension before they go to it with the power.
• You might limit PCs not to be able to time travel into a time period that they occupy. This could prevent them trying to use time travel as an "undo"button and prevent time travel into the immediate future or past. This can get further complicated if you need to track times that contain a time travelling PC and times that do not, and will prevent many time travelling complications (both troubling for the GM and plot related)
• A PC who time travels can find himself particularly at risk underground or in cities. How long as this cave been here, and when will it collapse? Don't guess wrong! Also jumping a few rounds into the futures gives enemies an opportunity to put a big stone block or other obstacle in your square for you to materialize into and get trapped in. (Maybe you can time travel back out, but it gets complicated for you to find an appropriate escape time that leaves you able to participate in the battle. 
• Timecop brought in the "don't touch yourself" rule that is carried in Shadows of Memories and in Project Almanac it gets even more severe with inability to interact with yourself at all without creating a self-destructive paradox. 
• Use alternate dimensions style of time travel discourages time travel to the past, as the future doesn't change "around" the other PCs- you just travel into another version of history, thus taking your character out of the campaign.
• D&D had introduced the concept of "Inevitables"- beings whose job it is to enforce certain laws, such as trying to keep the dimensions separated, or maintaining the proper timeline. A lot of abuse could draw attention from creatures like this, or in organizations like in Legends of Tomorrow or Star Trek Voyager who are tasked with dealing with troublesome time travelers and maintaining the timeline. 
• Flashpoint introduces the concept of "Time Boom" like a sonic boom caused by time travel, where the butterfly effect can have such intense effects that it would discourage messing with history less you screw things up for the worse. 
• If alternate dimensions are being abused in combat as escape routes, you could have complications arise in the alternate dimensions that a character needs to deal with alone (since he left his party behind). Likewise if he continues to hide in the past or future to heal up (or level up!).
• If a character doesn't have age immunity, you may want to punish him with rapid aging for all the time he spends in alternate time periods. Time could flow differently in different dimensions causing the PC to be ejected far in the future (or past) or something when he returns to his own dimension also. If each round in the alternate dimension is a day on earth, he can't stay long. Careful with this though, as the reverse is true, and if they find a dimension in which time does not flow, they could easily go there, do a bunch of healing/buffing/summoning etc, then return mid battle do wreak havoc. 
• Any power the PCs abuse is eligible to be abused by Villains, so it's not crazy to have villains do the same thing (or chase them into alternate dimensions) or be able to shoot across dimensions at them, or time travel themselves to mess with the party.

Remember, the powers should be USEFUL (they're spending points on them) and they can make for great adventure hooks, but they shouldn't be ABUSED. So going back in time to plant a tree for them to climb over a wall is one thing. Going back in time a day to amass an army who will show up right now is another thing altogether. Only nerf powers being abused, if the PC is using it in a plot friendly and less troublesome manner, this can be a good way of introducing plot to the characters. 

Time Travel in your Campaign

It always seems to come up in superhero stores. Superman turned back time to stop both missiles and save Lois Lane in Superman 1. The Flash frequently goes back in time, and Heroes is a mess of time travel nonsense. Here are some thoughts around time travel in your superhero game.


Bill and Ted it: This is what we call the tactic used by Bill and Ted in their movies. "After we win, we'll go back in time and leave us the items we need now!" (Don't forget to go do those things afterwards!). Based on your future declaration, the items show up, having been placed there.

Of course, this assumes that you'll win, which you might not, and that you'll actually go leave the items there, which you might not. But this can be a clever use of "create object: innate". But how do you deal with the time travel paradox if you've given them the items, but they fail anyway, or for some reason cannot set the items up later?

Changing the Past: The big reason everyone wants time travel is to change the past. Unfortunately, it's can be hard to GM the butterfly effect, especially only if 1 PC with time travel remembers everything (or he doesn't!). Also there's a paradox involved when the PC now has no reason to go back in time to change things in the first place. A 1 point immunity to time paradoxes has been suggested, but think about it- if you're immune to changes in the timeline, you'll always be a part of the ORIGINAL timeline, regardless of changes in the past. That might not be the base timeline of the world, and if you do change the past, you'll go back to the future and see nothing has changed (since you don't move along the timeline).

Even if you say your immunity just protects your memory of the original timeline so you can identify changes happening, there could theoretically be infinite changes happening all the time (we as humans only experience the final one) but you'll experience all of them (or none of them).

Precognition as a "Save Game": I've seen some GMs where the precog can identify that he is looking into the future, then the game goes into "Maybe Mode" where they continue gaming, but at any point the PC can say "I'm done" and they go back in time to the moment he started looking into the future- the entire from that point was a precognitive vision, not actual events. Can be an interesting idea, but things can get very repetitive if he's trying to use precognition to change minor things until he gets the best result. Also, do you remember every die roll, since random chance would be the same, right? Or can he re-roll failed checks each time until he gets the better result?

The Past is Not Set: There is no history but what we make for ourselves: A twist on the line from Terminator about the future. Just like the future may not be set- with time travel the past is not set either. Think about all the characters in movies that come from a future that will never happen. Marty in back to the future visits a 2015 that would never happen (since he erases it later) and COULD never happen (as he and jennifer disappeared in 1985 and haven't been seen in 30 years). People come back in time to prevent tragedies, and if they succeed, the come from a future that never happened (perhaps they disappear as a result, but they still stuck around from a deleted timeline for a while- long enough to help delete it!).

Likewise, with precognition, you can interact with things in the future. You can make changes based on what you see. So can precogs from 10 years ago. While you might argue that they clearly did not, based on the timeline you're already in- but then if someone has postcognition, they might be able to engage in back and forth communication with a precog from the past, thus the future having a direct influence on past events.

The simplest way I've found to eliminate paradoxes is by using the multiple universe technique. You can visit your past, but any changes remain, and you find it impossible to RETURN to your future. You can GO to a future, based on the current state of events, and you can RETURN to your past, but you never need fear disappearing.

So you go back in time 10 minutes, grab your past self and have a conversation. 10 minutes pass and he never leaves, now there are two of you. Kill your past self? It won't matter, because you're not REALLY from the future, you're from the future of an alternate timeline, so no need for paradoxes.

This also allows you to have people from multiple varied futures come back as characters (or PCs) in your campaign. We've had characters from a terminator apocalypse, a planet of the apes apocalypse, a druid controlled apocalypse all while the characters were trying to stave off a zombie apocalypse. Meanwhile they had a character who was travelling back in time and killing has past self over and over so he could win the lottery or the stock market using future tips, but killing his past self because after winning the lottery he wouldn't go back in time.

But most GMs outlaw time travel in general in their campaigns to avoid these complications (especially if 1 PC has it and the others are always getting left behind). For the characters who WANT to play a time traveler without using the time travel power, try the following:

Duplicate: For having your "future" or "past" selves show up from to help you out. You are time travelling, we're just seeing the final timeline.

Create Object: For Bill and Tedding it above- the object isn't being created, you're just justifying that it was left by your future (or precognative past) self.

Regeneration/Healing: Justified perhaps that you time travelled away and healed up normally, but requires you to be able to take actions as a limited to regenerate. Self healing might make more sense, you "heal" by teleporting into another time, healing normally, then returning.

Precognition/Postcognition: Justified by you "remembering" what happened when you travelled to the other time and checked it out in person.

Teleport: You're really just walking to the new location- but you're doing it in the future or the past or something so from a third party perspective you're arriving at the same moment.

Speed/Super Speed: You're altering your connection in space/time so you just appear to be moving faster when really you've slowed down your perception of time.

Luck Control/Luck Feat: You've seen the future and you're doing it for the 2nd time, slightly differently this time in an attempt to change fate.

Thinking this way, you can easily make a time-travelling character without all the paradox and mess of actually travelling through time in an active sense.

Optional Rules; Hero Ball, Idiot Ball, Villain Ball

The Idiot Ball

The idiot ball is when the character misses an obvious clue, falls into a villains obvious trap, goes along with the villain when he's being villainous because he claimed to be a good guy, etc. This mainly involves the PCs being non-genre savvy for the sake of the plot. Letting the hot girl tie you to the bed (where she can leave you there to steal your stuff), or taunting a villain, or letting him escape so you can rescue the hostages when you could specifically do both at once (by splitting up the team or using time travel or whatever).

The idiot ball is represented by a physical ball passed to the player character. He agrees to act not like a moron, but not to break the plot either. For example, in one session you had to repair a time machine to go back in time because you were trapped in a dystopian  future.  Obviously such a machine would be very useful in your own time. Why not take the time machine schematics back with you and build your own? Well, because you took the idiot ball.


In many cases, the idiot ball means that a villain trying to get away will do so, because despite your ability to teleport, fly, and telekinetically trap him at a distance- you try to foot race him and he escapes. You then give up, instead of searching for him with postcognition. It may also mean using suboptimal tactics in combat which are still effective, but not instant wins. Despite having an area snare power, you still charge the big bad for the brawl, letting your party members kill the minions (even though you could wipe them all out yourself with one power use).

Going back into the exploding base to try to recover your artifact, offering to trade the MacGuffin to the villain so that he will leave your friends alone, etc can qualify for the idiot ball.

The idiot ball has several uses:

1) You may hand the idiot ball back to the GM at some point, removing it's benefits, but having him give it to the villain in the form of the villain ball (below).
2) While holding the idiot ball you get 1 free hero point per session: though that hero point can only be used to power the inspiration feat, the ultimate effort feat, for inspiration (see use of hero points), or to reroll a failed saving throw.

The Hero Ball

This is a variant of the idiot ball. The hero ball happens when a PC refuses to do what is effective if it is not "right". The villain should go to jail rather than being murdered (even if he could escape- let's try to make a better jail). The hero will drop his weapons when the villain has the gun to the damsel's head, even though he'll probably shoot her anyway. The hero is excited to banter with the villains and will accept an honorable duel (even if the villain ends up cheating- the hero will not).  He will keep his word as long as the villain keeps his (which he usually will not). The hero will not simply let the villain escape and can be smart, but he'd rather the villain escape if he can prevent immediate casualties by doing so, which the villain can exploit by putting others at risk.

Holding the hero ball has the following effects:

1) You get 1 free hero point per session to be used to recover from extra effort, for the leadership feat, for the ultimate effort feat, or to reroll an attack roll.
2) When the villain defeats the heroes the villain must make a will save at the hero's power level. Failure means that he leaves the heroes there (rather than finishing the job). If he succeeds he must make ANOTHER save. Failure means he captures the heroes and puts them in a a cell or something rather than killing them. Success on that roll means he will kill the characters. He must make a third saving throw to kill the characters there instead of putting them inside some kind of death trap.
3) Losing the hero ball requires the character to work in an un-heroic fashion. This gives the enemies 1 free hero point to use every encounter for the rest of the session.

The Villain Ball

Jafar would have won if he just paid Aladdin for the lamp. Many villains put the heroes in situations where if they just kept their word they would win forever, but they instead throw it all away for vengance, to display power, or just to be a dick. If the green goblin had not been taunting Spider Man, he would have killed him, but instead he got spiderman pissed off, and lost. All these happen when the villain holds the villain ball.

The villian ball is generally given to the villain by giving him the idiot ball (above), but some villains can come WITH a villain ball- they must act in this non-optimal way, but they get benefits for doing so.

The villain with the villain ball gets 1 free hero point to use against the party each time they battle. However:

The villain is very likely to monologue, or be tricked into it by the party.
The villain will almost always go back on his word and betray the PCs.
The villain may claim the hero as "his kill" and insist on doing it himself instead of letting a henchman (who's already beating him) finish him off.

Basically he acts more comic book like instead of genre savvy. He's easier to be tricked or goaded, and he's more likely to fall into a special trap.

Optional Rules: Sadane and Monologue

Sadane

Sadane, taken from the courtly game of insults from Legend of the 5 Rings. The idea is that the contestants take turns making backhanded compliments or outright insults of a given object until one has nothing further to say.

"Nice kimono, my grandmother had one just like it when she was your age."
"I am honored by this (inexpensive) gift, which must have cost you a large percentage of your wealth!"

Sadane also has its place in superhero fiction, usually where the Hero and Villain taunt each other back and forth before the battle begins. Nowadays it's usually played for comic effect (such as in Mystery Men where Captain America cannot pronounce the word "Nemeses", or in Megamind, where MetroMan and MegaMind go back and forth until Roxanne has to interrupt them and say "Girls, You're Both Pretty!"

Sadane is a nice way to get the PC and the villain going back and forth before the big combat. Usually the GM would start it off by having the villain make some claim of power, or perhaps monologue, and leave the PC open to respond.

1) This is a game for both sides, and it must hold to the original coversation. If a metaphor was used, the metaphor must be carried.
        Example:

2) The game lasts until 1 of 4 situations happens

• The villain can't respond: Hero wins, gains a hero point, go to initaitive.
• The Hero can't respond: Villain gets use of a hero point during the encounter, go to initiative
• A third party interrupts: If the third party is an ally of the villain or the hero, that team person is assumed to have lost the fight. If the third party is not aligned with either the hero or the villain, no one gets a hero point and go to initiative. Interruption can come from someone speaking or someone attacking. 
• A "situation" happens: Such as something exploding, a volcano erupts, etc. This can happen in one of two ways: If this was a completely unexpected thing, no one gets a hero point and you go to initiative. If however this was planned by one party (and Sadane was being purposefully used as a stall tactic), the person who set the situation up benefits. He gets the hero point, and the loser is considered flat footed for the 1st round of combat (unless he has uncanny dodge). 

3) Role Playing Matters: What the character says can be silly, or it can be actually intimidating. Or the PC might not be able to think of things to say (but the character might be better at it). The PC can roll Intimidate in place of a line. The TN starts at 10, and goes up by 10 for each person who speaks (so the PC starts at 10, the villain must beat 20, then the PC must beat 30, etc). If the PC/GM is able to come up with a witty retort on his own, he auto-succeeds his roll. If the results is considered to be especially "awesome" by the party/GM, he may make a free demoralize attempt against the other player. If the contest continues, each additional demoralization attempt may be used against another person in the losing side's group. (So the villain, then some of his henchman, or the speaking PC, then some of the other PCs). A PC who is able to complete a round of Sadane of at least 3 rounds without resorting to rolls gets a free hero point (regardless of who wins) which must be used during that combat.

Monologue Bait

A villain should be assumed to have the fascinate feat and perform:monologue for his monologue- this forces the PCs to listen as he explains his evil plan and stops them from simply attacking him while he gloats. 

But sometimes the PCs WANT the villain to monologue. Maybe they need to hear his evil plan, maybe they need to stall until backup arrives or the computer virus uploads or the bomb counts down. That's when they need to use monologue bait.

This is an interaction effect (and this villains immune to interaction effects cannot be baited). It uses the Bluff skill. This is language-dependent and requires intelligence. 

The Bluff skill is opposed by the better of the villain's sense motive, or will save. Apply the following modifiers:

Heroes Incapacitated: Only works if all the PCs that the villain considers a threat are apparently incapacitated. (Unconscious/Dead/Tied Up/Pinned etc). +5 to bluff check.

Hero Has the Fascinate Feat: +5 to bluff check (he is effectively fascinating the villain using the villain's own performance)

Villain has no ranks in Perform:Monologue: -10 to bluff check as villain is not prone to monologuing. 

Villain has fallen for this before: -10 to bluff check

Villain is not the plan mastermind: -10 to bluff check- henchmen are much less likely to monologue.

Villain's Evil Plan is about to happen within minutes or assumed to be too late to stop: +10 to bluff check.

Villain needs the distraction also: +10 to bluff check

If the check is successful, the villain will begin his monologue. He will use the fascinate feat, which the heroes must still save against, but the hero who goaded the villain automatically passes his save. The villain is considered flat footed, but not unaware- if the hero (or his team) is taking actions or new people show up, it will break the effect. If the hero has the fascinate feat for a a conversation skill, he may use it to ask follow up questions or to goad the monologue into continuing, giving the villain the standard penalties for being distracted by fascinate (no save). 

If the villain's monologue is interrupted, he has "fallen for this before" and will then on give the -10 to checks on subsequent encounters (he will not be tricked again during this encounter). If he completes his monologue and is preparing to attack the party, it will become apparent in the monologue- no one is flat footed.

Baiting a monologue is a standard action, but by using a hero point, the heroes can attempt this as a reaction, perhaps interrupting combat with a big bad before it begins to get him speaking and allowing them some advantage. 

During a monologue, a character who is not fascinated can try sleight of hand moves or stealth moves to make actions without the villain noticing and gain additional advantage. 

Teamwork

Oddly enough, despite superhero stories being all about teamwork a lot of the times, especially the avengers or justice league style stories, this doesn't seem to happen all that much with actual PCs. Sometimes it's because the characters were made separately and they have disparate goals and powers. Sometimes it's because there is lack of a solid leader or communication between members. Sometimes it's because EVERYONE wants to be the one who takes down the big bad and no one wants to be the one who fights the minions, or the reverse: the big bad seems so powerful that everyone leaves it up to each other to fight the big bad, and when he doesn't get attacked or countered, he wipes the floor with the party.

Lack of teamwork does force some PCs to focus on area of effect attacks (area snare, blasts, etc) that damage everyone (selective attack maybe to spare the party) and gives us a heavy case of the Angel Summoner and the BMX Bandit in the party, where some people feel that their character is nothing. I've had PCs make plans where the punchline is "And then Paul will kill all the bad guys". Not as much fun for the other players.

The system leaves itself open to so many ways for the PCs to help each other through teamwork.

The Aid Action: Basically you can make an attack roll against defense 10 to give a friend +2 to attack OR defense on his next turn. Multiple bonuses stack and breaks power level limits. (This is extremely useful when the person getting the bonus has autofire!)

Combined Attack: The team shoots the enemy all at once, and instead of making multiple saves (or winning via impervious toughness or something) the enemy must make 1 save with +2 per PC, potentially making the save unbeatable, or allowing it to bypass his tough defense.

FEATS FOR TEAMWORK

Set Up (Feat): Allows one person to use an interaction skill (such as feinting) and someone else to take the benefit. Allows you to accomplish things in less rounds.

Leadership (Feat): Standard action and Hero Point to remove dazed, fatigued, panicked, shaken, or stunned. Stun is probably the big one here, as nothing else really cures this, and this effectively allows you to use your hero point on someone else's behalf.

Master Plan (Feat): Gives the party +1-+3 for skill checks and attack rolls for 3 rounds (then you lose 1 point over the next 1-3 rounds). You need to have prep time, but there's no action involved in invoking this ability. Breaks power level limits.

Inspire (Feat): Use a hero point to give your allies +1-+5 on attacks,  saves, and skill checks for 1 round. It's a full round action and costs a hero point.

Interpose (Feat) Allows the stronger warrior to take a hit for the weaker warrior.

Teanwork (Feat): Allows the aid action (above) an extra +1-+3 (for a total of up to +5 to attack or defense when used).

POWERS FOR TEAMWORK

Healing/Boost: These are pretty obvious as they increase the strength of other PCs (or yourself). Healing fatigue and taking it into yourself is handy as it allows other PCs to utilize extra effort to greater effect.

Power Use: While normally used on the enemy, this can allow you to use a PC's power using your actions rather than his, especially if he has a power more suited to the given situation.

Deflect: The area version especially as you can protect a party with it.

Gestalt: The ultimate teamwork power, allows you to make a new character with different powers by combining two PCs. Deciding who is in control is another matter altogether, but this can be extremely useful.

Affects Others (Modifier): Allows you to "give" powers to others rather than using them on yourself.

That's all fine and good, but how do you get PCs to actually use tactics like these? Here are some thoughts:

1. Make the enemy weak to a specific weapon, and give one of them to the PCs. This forces the other characters to spend actions feinting and aiding and inspiring the PC with the weapon so that he can make the ridiculously difficult attack roll (or increased his defense so he can survive the attack roll) against the enemy.
2. Give the enemy impervious toughness a few ranks above the PC's power level so they need to combine attack in order to damage him.
3. Have enemies who use these tactics in order to inspire the PCs to try them out.
4. Give out teamwork abilities as mission rewards so PCs don't feel that they need to spend character points using them.
5. Have an NPC battler who helps the PCs use these tactics instead of attacking the enemy themselves.
6. Perhaps give out TEAM hero points that can only be used to power the teamwork feats that require hero points to encourage them to be used more.
7. When you're PLAYING rather than running, have a character who tries to lead the other PCs and plan out attacks ahead of time.
8. Give the PCs time to plan. If everything is always jumping out at them and they don't know what they're up against they will be very reactive. When they're attacking the enemy, they can have a plan and work more in unison.
9. Limit perception based powers. If everyone is using them, many of these teamwork abilities have little to no effect. Encourage PCs to use attack rolls.
10. Have an NPC (or even you as the GM) send them to a leadership camp or make the suggestion to them (like in mystery men with the Sphinx). Reward them with better outcomes if they work together as a team.

Not sure if other people see this in their own campaigns, but PCs who don't work as a team find themselves getting wiped out more often, and it leaves a few power gamers to run the board while the other PCs are getting killed or running around the battle being useless.

UPDATE:

An update to this, and a bit of a correction. I HAVE seen teamwork tactics being used, but not across PCs. I see them being used by Sidekicks, Minions, Duplicates, Summoned Creatures, Animated Objects, etc.  (I'll group them together and call them all henchmen).

Using henchmen, a PC can drastically offset PL limits. Minions don't have hero points, so can't inspire, but they can heal battery, they can AID (and potentially give +5 when aiding each, so 4 henchmen gives  you a +20 to attack- deadly with Autofire), or +20 to defense, or interposing in case of an attack, et cetera. Just something additional to consider when you're approving extra characters. See the Too Many Actions post for more issues with Henchmen.

Skills

Like the feats page, I thought I'd look at the skills quickly and identify their value.

Ride/Swim/Drive/Pilot/Climb/Acrobatics: Worthless since movement powers are so much better. Unless you're in a really weird situation where you need to pilot a jet full of people or something, but usually i see teleportation powers pop up.

Investigate/Intimidate/Gather Info/Search/Notice/Bluff/Diplomacy/Sense Motive/Disguise/Knowledge(all): These powers are all must haves for every single character. They come ALL the time, and people without them always suffer.

Concentration: Nice if you're worried about losing control of your concentration based power, but most people seem to just move the powers to sustained instead.

Craft: Necessary only for characters building things (including with create object powers).

Computers: This is another one many characeters should have but especially any technopath type characeter. Often overlooked.

Disable Device: This is necessary for escaping the villains deathtrap and unlocking doors, but the teleporter gets around it so much I wonder what's the point.

Escape Artist/Handle Animal/ Language/Survival: Survival is good with the track feat, but these skills are a mixed bag. They can be offset (usually cheaper) by powers, or with high strength (for escape artist). Speaking all languages is a 1 point power, and survival doesn't come up when you are immune to hunger or can teleport out.

Profession: An RP skill that does nothing in actuality.

Perform: Great for using fascinate, but otherwise worthless.

Medicine: This is actually a fantastic skill as it can be used to wake up unconscious characters, even if they're suffering from fatigue or damage, allowing them to take actions again! Great for fatigue battery concepts. Sure healing/regen can do the same thing, but healing requires you to take the fatigue into yourself, where medicine allows you to wake a fatigued character with no harm to yourself.

Stealth: Don't rely on invisibility! Stealth is the skill that defeats powers, because they still need to NOTICE you which can be opposed with stealth. Every sneaky character needs this.

Sleight of Hand: Another skill that beats powers. Allows you to take things from an oppnant. Sure you can disarm, or teleport the item from his hands, but that requires saving throws and power level limits. A DC 20 always takes the item, then it's just a matter of being noticed!

Feats

It's been a while since I posted, but I thought I'd go through the FEATS section of the book with some thoughts.

First of all, feats are a great workaround for people who have limited their campaign to "one power per character" or something. For the record, I'm talking about regular feats only- not power feats.

COMBAT FEATS

Accurate Attack/All Out Attack/Power Attack/Defensive Attack: These are all great as they bypass power level limits and allow you to use tradeoffs on the fly. As long as your character is not using perception powers, these are just awesome.

Attack Focus/Attack Specialization: There is also a power feat called power specialization, and therein lies the conundrum. You can spend 2 points for 1 attack, 1 point for 1 if it's just melee or just ranged, 1 for 2 for 1 weapon, or you can specalize in a power for 2:1, but it's a power feat. The difference here is that a power feat can be utilized as an alternate power. So you can take a 20 point power, and 1 point of alternate power gets you a 15 point power +5 power specialization feats if you need them. This is only really good if you focus on melee weapons as a means to bypass power level limits, and then it's much cheaper than buying attack.

Blind-Fight: This could be good I guess, great in games like D&D, but i never really see it come up in M&M. Partially because all the visual powers that pierce concealment, and all the perception powers. It is okay in some edge cases, but I don't really see it.

Chokehold/ Grappling Finesse/Imp Grapple/Improved Grab/Improved Pin/Ranged Pin- Look, grappling is easy to break in M&M, additional limbs, and enhanced strength can give you a nigh unbeatable grapple check. But then, with so many ways to break grapple: teleport, insubstantial, and just immunity to entrapment effects, I never see these really paying off. As long as you can nullify their ability to escape the grapple somehow these can be good.

Dodge Focus: Half the price of defense. 1/2 your defense is dodge anyway. Yeah you can lose it in some circumstances but realistically you should probably take tihs instead of defense. Just make sure you back it up with Uncanny Dodge.

Defensive Roll: The only way to buy up toughness is this, Con score, and powers. Might as well buy this up as this way is cheaper.

Favored Opponent/Critical Strike/Improved Critical: Great power, as it allows you to crit people immune to crits. This with improved critical where you get a huge crit range swing and you're getting +5 to damage TNs. Sure you need favored opponent (which is only good as a precursor to critical strike), but if you build yourself to crit, this makes it worth it.

Evasion: Who doesn't take this? It makes reflex based powers useless. Especially taking it twice.

Elusive Target/Precise Shot: These two counteract each other. As a melee character, this is strong as it can boost your defense above power level limits, but any ranged character worth his salt has the precise shots (or perception powers), so just like taking impervious or persistent, it's kind of a "why bother" power.

Fast Overrun: Do people actually take this?

Favored Environment/Sneak Attack/Rage: These things are all subject to power level limits, and situational. Sure if you can set them up they'd be cheaper than buying your power all the way up, but why bother?

Improved Aim/Improved Block/Improved Defense: These are actually very nice as they break power level limits. Improved aim taken twice is a great way to maximize tradeoff damage. Drop your attack to increase your damage, and offset your penalties with improved aim. You lose an action, but totally worth it! Improved Block/Defense are nice if you're the type of character to use these options. Just beware of the perception based powers.

Prone Fighting: Unless you're playing Dr. Boskonavich this is a niche power at best. It's nice if you're using super slithering or something and just taking it for free defense against ranged attacks, but how often are you fighting prone anyway?

Throwing Mastery: This is actually nice as it allows you to throw harmless things for damage. Great when your # of powers is limited as it keeps you in the action even during nullifies. Keep in mind anything can be thrown- crayons, dice, pebbles, peanuts.

Improved Disarm/Improved Sunder/Weapon Bind/Weapon Break: Not all that many people seem to use weapons- lots of powers, and even those that do can usually be taken down with a stun attack, fatigue, snare, or just damage. A niche bunch at best.

Redirect: Good with improved block.

Move By Action: Not bad if you're a speedster or have a big fly speed, and if you rely on melee as you can attack and then move out of counterattack range. But as most people I've seen either have ranged, perception, or low movement, another niche feat.

Improved Trip/Improved Throw: Seriously? If this is a VERY low powered world, maybe. But making someone prone does very little to stop them from using powers or escaping. Almost never comes up.

Stunning Attack: Not bad in limited power worlds, as its a feat that can hold its own with power TNs. You need to be in melee though.

Takedown Attack: Nice if you get surrounded by minions, but an area attack does just as well. If you're focusing on being a melee fighter of some kind maybe you can make this work, but I rarely see it come up.

Improved Initiative: The fact that there is no upper limit to this means for 5 points you can pretty much always go first, which is nice if you need to go first.

Fortune Feats

Beginner's Luck: I guess this could come up, but skills are so cheap and ability scores so plentiful that I never see this pay out.

Inspire: This can be great for some character types, as the bonuses break power level limits. 

Leadership: Good for a support character with limited # of powers as it can remove conditons if they come up, but the cost of a hero point is pretty steep when the same hero point could get you an alternate power.

Luck: Who doesn't fill this up? Extra hero points, which powers everything your character does? Buy these up!

Seize Initiative: I don't see this being so relevant. Improved initiative costs no hero point, though you need to buy it a few more times to ensure you go first.

Ultimate Effort: This can be great for several effects. Ultimate attack is great when you've sold your attack for extra damage (but not if you need to compound with a critical). Ultimate save eliminates the need to use hero points to reroll saves because you can force a success. And ultimate skill is mostly useless unless it's a skill you can't take 20 on and you need it to succeed RIGHT NOW, but you need to know the skill in advance. This is so situational you may be better of getting this feat via extra effort when you need it. 

General Feats

Ambidexterity: This is useless! Grants no extra attacks, so just in case you need to carry something in your offhand and attack? So situational as to not matter.

Assessment: Another highly situational power that almost never comes up.

Benefit: People seem to take this a lot for role playing perspective, but it rarely serves a mechanical purpose.

Diehard: With all the healing and regeneration floating around this never comes up. 

Eidetic Memory: Another power people seem to love to take and rarely comes up. Depends on how mean your GM is when it comes to Pcs remembering things. 

Endurance: The saves against weather and temperature and running don't come up all that often, and if they do, you can get environmental adaptation instead. I guess these could come up, but it seems that immunity and flight and such are so common I rarely see people put off by these situations.

Equipment: This is the way to spend points on equiment, which is necessary if you want your character to have basic things like cars and cell phones. A must have. I don't know how many superhero teams have had to take the bus to crime scenes! So unless you're all speedsters and teleporters and telepaths you should plan a couple points into this one!

Fearless: Another staple. A 1 point feat that nerfs an entire subset of powers.

Fearsome Presence: Why bother? Everyone should have fearless!

Instant Up: Well it's this or Prone Fighting I guess. If you're using knockback all the time this can be useful, but so many characters fly or teleport it never seems to come up.

Interpose: This is a nice defensive power to protect your team with, assuming you're standing next to them and they're being attacked by a non-perception power. Great for saving civilians as well. 

Master Plan: I like this one, especially combined with Inspire as you can put both of them up at once. You need to spend time setting it up, but it's a nice way to get around those pesky power level limits. 

Minions/Sidekick: I'm not sure how I feel on these ones. It's like leadership from D&D. Does your party really need more characters in combat? This gets so breakable as well. I've seen minions as AI for a fleet of spaceships, a sidekick who was nothing but a "mimic battery" for a mimic to hide their powers in so that they couldn't lose them, and so forth. Great for the PCs, but usually a nightmare for the GM, and you can get into debates as to whether something is a minion or sidekick instead of being equipment or a device. An intelligent sword with powers for example which can take independent actions and may be cheaper than paying for a device? 

Quick Change: A cute RP ability if secret identities are important in your campaign. 

Second Chance: This is actually quite powerful if you know the kind of things you're fighting against, and if you don't, I'd use extra effort to emulate it for the relevant encounter. The ability to re-roll failed saves is huge. I'll take a fatigue for the combat if it means best of two saves against mind control, or petrification, or whatever save or die power the enemy is using (especially nullify!). Often cheaper than immunity, and can be coupled with the 1/2 power immunity (where you take the limited that the power comes in at 1/2 ranks instead of you being fully immune). Hugely overlooked feat!

Teamwork: The aid action is not a team attack, so in edge situations where you are assisting with a skill roll. Skill rolls get so high that this never seems to matter, though you can use it to get them bonus to their attack rolls.

Trance: I've never seen this used ever. 

Skill Feats

Acrobatic Bluff/Startle/Taunt: These are okay I guess if you have the one set of skills and not the other, but since skills or so cheap I rarely see this come up.

Animal Empathy: Depends on the campaign, but this is another one I hardly see become relevant and is so situational you may want to just use extra effort to fake it if it comes up.

Artificer/Inventor/Ritualist: These 3 are the same power with different skills, and of them Ritualist uses only 1 skill while Artificer and Inventor use 2. These have a huge benefit as they grant you temporary powers, and the jury rigging concept that gives the power in rounds is big too. Very few mechanical reasons NOT to take these feats. 

Connected/Contacts/Well Informed: Mainly for RP purposes, but good feats for that purpose if you're that type of character. Helpful for the GM if you have these feats as it allows him to more easily introduce info to the party. 

Distract: Another feat that replaces a skill with a power, good for low # of power campaigns.

Fascinate: I like this mainly because it's an interaction effect that can affect a group. Great for villains who want to monologue, since the party can be held at attention while he goes off. Also good if a PC wants to distract a group of enemies with "Storytelling" or something, just appearing to be a bumbling fool while his friends slip away. Another thing here as since this is opposed by another skill check rather than being "saved against" the TN is not based on power level limits, and the team can aid another to make the DC unbeatable. Likewise the enemy can monologue while his minions aid him to force the party to listen to the whole thing.

Improvised Tools: If you have the skills that are relevant for this, you should take this. If not, don't bother. Why carry tools ever when for 1 point you don't need to? Remember the equipment costs power points also!

Jack of All Trades: Another feat you might as well get unless you plan on having all skills (or at least the trained only ones). If you have a high intelligence character, this is helpful to allow them to make any knowledge check whenever. 

Skill mastery: This one almost never comes up, but I guess it's nice if the GM is specifically putting you in situations where you need to make skill checks while being attacked, but I never see it become necessary. 

Track: This is also a power, so the fact that it's a feat is nice for limited # of power campaigns, otherwise just take it as a power. 

Hide in Plain Sight: A must-have for any sneaky character. 

50 more mission ideas

1) God hating Rakshasa go back in time to stop the first christmas. Can the party save baby Jesus?
2) An evil druid is trying to wipe out humanity with mutant animals and awakened plants.
3) An evil bard is trying to re-create fairy tales by manipulating real people to take roles in the story.
4) A lich is raising the undead. He cannot be destroyed until his phylactery is discovered.
5) The city's previous superheroes were actually on the take, and never solved crimes, they just hired fall guys to take the blame and make them look good. What about all the unsoved cases?
6) Rich businessmen are purchasing surgically quadrapalegic women as living sex dolls, purchased from a mad doctor overseas where the government is corrupt. How far will the PCs go to stop this?
7) The yakuza seek a specific woman for a mysterious reason.
8) A magazine writer works out a mathematical formula for discovering dragon hoards and is going to publish it in a well known magazine. Naturally, dragons are not to thrilled with this and are willing to kill her to bury her research.
9) A villain lives on an alternate earth where every major NPC (and the PCs!) have dopplegangers who are very different than in this world.
10) Well known heroes are being targeted by assassins
11) Someone is resurrecting people using "reversable" healing, and is threatening to take away their restored life if they don't do as they're told.
12) A superhero has chosen a name that violates copyright (such as Captain Crayola). When the hero causes bad PR for the company, they need him dealt with.
13) A sniper from the future appears to be targeting famous musicians, but in truth he is trying to save them from the true assassins.
14) Someone is burning down the houses of hoarders before they spawn garbage elementals.
15) A man seeks the party's help defending him against his future self who he believes is trying to murder him.
16) Someone discovers a formula to give him temporary powers and is robbing places for ingredients.
17) A villain sends the PCs into the deep future (via a power or "the long way") where they see a post apocalyptic earth and must return to the present to stop the apocalypse.
18) Kids are taking a drug making them immune to damage and are throwing themselves off buildings or into cars under the effect. Especially dangerous since they are immune to damage.
19) A child's love for his toys is making them real, like the velveteen rabbit- but the government wants to weaponize this power.
20) A vampire has been kidnapped for experimentation, and the PCs are asked to aid in his rescue.
21) Powerful demons or ghosts have been released, and the PCs are asked to clean up some of the minor ones while the NPCs take out the big bad.
22) The PCs are asked to help a starting hero defeat villains to raise his confidence, but they must help without him realizing it.
23) Animals at a slaughterhouse are awakened and given intelligence, and they revolt against the human captors.
24) A god is resurrected, but due to lack of proper worship takes a very weak or rediculous form, and seeks help rebuilding his faithful.
25) A group of villain misfits with very specific and stupid powers find that if they band together they can make very effective combo attacks.
26) Aliens have fired weapons upon the earth, but due to space distances, the weapons have been fired hundreds of years ago or more. Can you defend against the weapons, and what can you do to stop further attacks?
27) A dark god is reborn into human form, but doesn't remember his dark god powers. Can the PCs show him the power of goodness before he awakens his deity potential?
28) A swarm of spiders or leeches gain the power to control humans by latching onto them.
29) The villain is trying to erase the PCs by going into the past to destroy their ancestors. The only way the PCs can affect the past is by having their postcog communicate with a precog from that era.
30) A child's birthday wish comes true with disasterous consequences
31) Actors in a movie start suffering the same fate as their chacters
32) A collector is shrinking celebrities to keep in jars in his basement.
33) flashing lights from a distant star hypnotize people who see it into crazed or dangerous acts
34) A magical camera traps people inside the photographs it takes
35) A police strike causes scab police to be hired: mercenaries, robots, or even metahumans, but they may not take the law as seriously as they should (or take it TOO seriously)
36) War breaks out between the superhero's country and a rival nation.
37) A time traveler comes back to prevent a major terrorist attack, but by doing so will cause an even greater calamity. The PCs must ensure that the terrorist attack happens.
38) Someone on death row begs the PCs to re-open his old case to try to absolve him of the death penalty.
39) A spell goes awry and becomes a living spell, a vague cloud like ooze causing its spell effect on everything it touches
40) An ooze is created by a magical accident. It can only communicate by changing colors. Will the PCs identify that it is trying to communicate, or simply destroy it?
41) An author is wanted by the police because all his books are coming true and the police suspects he may be purposefully causing it.
42) The child of an exotic dancer suspects that the city's mayor had his mother killed, and asks the party for help.
43) A computer AI is hijacking power plants for energy because it has become obsessed with its own survival after some of its backup batteries start to fail.
44) A villain was turned into something completely harmeless like a glass of milk or something but still manages to maintain his evil empire somehow.
45) A psychic is trying to murder children that he believes will end up becoming murderers or despots, like the next hitler.
46) When a young boy sleeps his nightmares become real.
47) A witch continually switches bodies with young women to extend her lifespan
48) An orphanage is selling the souls of children to demons for money, as no one goes looking for the missing children.
49) When the PCs defeat a masked villain in the course of committing a crime, the find that the masked villain is actually one of them from the future.
50) Demons host a gameshow where the winner gets 3 wishes- but the losers forfeit their souls.