How fast is Kinetik?

purplerainman

Hey. Out of curiosity, does anyone know how fast Kinetik is?

bulgarex

Per his most recent published tabletop game stats, in Champions Universe, Kinetik can hit a top speed of nearly 75,000 MPH; but can sustain that speed continuously for less than a minute before exhausting himself.

bulgarex

It should be noted that Kinetik is not the fastest "speedster" on Champions Earth. Among supers for whom "speed" is the Special Effect of their abilities, the fastest, most agile, and most versatile is probably the villain Vector (Champions Villains Volume Three: Solo Villains). Vector actually flies instead of runs, although he often moves along the ground to make it look like he's running to deceive and surprise opponents who haven't faced him before. Vector's a braggart and showoff who always tries to upstage other speedsters to prove he's the fastest.

It's commonly believed that Vector got his powers from extraordinary reaction to a lightning bolt from a freak storm while he was test-flying a 'plane. Unknown to everyone on Earth, including Vector himself, he's a recipient of one of the Coruscations of Power thrown off during the creation of the alien tyrant Xarriel (see the "Unique Character Origins" thread elsewhere on this forum). But Vector has begun to suspect that storm may have been caused by aliens, and has become paranoid over any alien he may encounter.

jonsills

That's pretty doggone fast, though. Back in 3rd Ed, my character Bluestreak, even with noncombat multiple, only reached about Mach 6, or just over 4600 mph. (We used the suggestion from the gamebook of defining it as Flight, with the limitation Limited To Ground, so he could get going pretty quickly; maybe if I'd made that his main power instead of his PD/ED skinfield and energy blast...)

bulgarex

Later editions of the Hero System added a Modifier, "MegaScale," which allows you to tremendously increase the scale over which Powers work, not just in movement, but the range or area of effect of attacks, senses, and probably some stuff I'm not thinking of.

There are constructs in the system now, which would allow someone to simulate anything the Flash can do. Not exaggerating.

pantagruel01

Well, you could reach those speeds in 4th edition, it just sometimes cost more points (in the case of Kinetik, 40m flight, x2048 non-combat, only along surfaces, would have identical stats to the megascale build). I wasn't very fond of most of the mechanics Steve Long added to the system, including MegaScale, I don't think he was very good at number crunching.

bulgarex

You certainly have a right not to like some of the things in later versions of Hero System. Lord knows you wouldn't be alone. But that Non-Combat Multiplier for Movement means it takes a long while to accelerate to really epic speed. MegaScale lets you get there almost instantaneously, if you want. More flexibility in builds.

pantagruel01

The problem was that the actual builds we saw from people optimizing the system (5e) was stuff like flight 5" with a +1.5 variable advantage (40) that let you move anywhere from 5 hexes to 500 kilometers per phase with no real drawbacks. It's not that what MegaScale wanted to accomplish was per se bad, it was just badly implemented.

bulgarex

Well, you can always take a look at how things were changed for 6E.

pantagruel01

I did. MegaScale didn't get fixed for 6e.

bulgarex

I remember one of our fellow forumites asking whether Champions Universe speedsters utilized something like the "speed force" from DC Comics, because another player had asserted they did. For the record, the CU has no established analogue to the speed force. Speedsters can have whatever explanation you like for their powers. Mind you, nothing is preventing you from defining such a force for your own character, it just won't be the setting default. I mean, the CU already has universes comprising six dimensions, or where darkness is a radiation like light, or where all the planets are sentient and intelligent, or where mathematical concepts are tangible. A speed force dimension doesn't sound very radical in comparison.