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Champions Speedster Lore

Just confirming whether something I heard is fact or not. Anyways, I was told that Champions had their own version of the Speed Force, but called the Velocity Force, or something along those lines. All speedsters in Champions are also supposed to be connected to this force and draw their power from it on some level or another.

Is at least the premise of this true? Sort of interested in learning more because I do have a speedster character.

Comments

  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    The short answer is, No. A "speedster" character can have any explanation for his/her super-speed powers that a player prefers. The term, "Velocity Force," has never been used in any official Champions Universe source book. There's also nothing preventing players from defining such a force for their individual characters, providing they don't try to make that a universal for all speedsters.

    A possible origin for the confusion may be that Hero System (the game mechanic for Champs PnP) does include an optional power for speedsters, "Enter the Speed Zone." That was created to simulate someone with so much super-speed that they can interact with the normal world as though everything in it was motionless, and perform such classic speedster feats as manually changing the direction of bullets in mid-air, and moving someone from one spot to another, all apparently instantaneously from the viewpoint of normal people. The default way combat actions are run in Hero System doesn't accommodate that effect well, so Enter the Speed Zone is built using a Power, "Extra-dimensional Movement," to transport the character to another "dimension" in which those conditions apply to him. It's listed as only allowable with the permission of a group's Game Master, since it has obvious potential to unbalance characters and scenarios.
  • omnilord#8416 omnilord Posts: 348 Arc User
    Thank you for the info. I'm not a hardcore lore player, but I do like to incorporate what I can easily play with. So now I realize that I have a little more freedom with my character than I thought.
  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    FWIW Champions PnP doesn't define "speedster" as just fast runners. Anyone whose primary ability is very rapid movement qualifies: flyers, teleporters, leapers, even swimmers. One of the fastest official speedster villains, called Vector, actually flies, but usually moves along the ground to give the impression he's running and tied to a surface; breaking out his third dimension as a surprise move.
  • jonsillsjonsills Posts: 6,315 Arc User
    bulgarex said:

    FWIW Champions PnP doesn't define "speedster" as just fast runners. Anyone whose primary ability is very rapid movement qualifies: flyers, teleporters, leapers, even swimmers. One of the fastest official speedster villains, called Vector, actually flies, but usually moves along the ground to give the impression he's running and tied to a surface; breaking out his third dimension as a surprise move.

    For that matter, at least in 3rd Ed, the rules said that if you wanted to pull a Flash move and run up the side of a building, you didn't need Running jacked to insane levels - you needed Flight with the limitation Limited To Surface. (Running, you see, doesn't permit elevation changes without the accompanying terrain...)

    One of the characters in our college campaign had ludicrous reflexes, to the point that he could grab a bullet out of the air (he moved on every phase), but he didn't have super-running as such, just that if he ran he got to move two to three times as often as most other heroes. We still counted him as a "speedster".
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