Character Archetypes

The fastest and easiest way to create a hero is to select one of the hero archetypes in the following section. A hero archetype offers a ready-made character, complete with statistics, skills, feats, and powers. Give the hero a name, a costume, and an origin story, and you’re ready to take on whatever supervillains the Gamemaster has to throw at you!

The hero archetypes are also useful for Gamemasters looking for some quick villains or NPC heroes. Take a few archetypes, give them catchy names and descriptions, and you’re ready to go!

Skills are listed with the number of ranks after the skill name and the total skill bonus listed in parentheses. For example: Bluff 5 (+8), means the character has 5 ranks of Bluff and a total bonus of +8 when making Bluff checks.

Many of these archetypes are for a power level 10 game, the default starting power level for most 4-color superhero games. Several of the archetypes use the Attack/Defense trade-off rule to adjust their maximum attack, defense,  damage, and Toughness save bonuses, as determined by their power level.

Under the Hood: Customizing Archetypes
The hero archetypes are intended to give you ready-made characters you can put into play right away. However, more experienced players may want to modify or customize an archetype to suit their particular concept of a character. By all means, do so! Customizing is a good halfway point between using an archetype as-is and having to create a new hero completely from scratch. Make sure to clear any changes to the archetype with your Gamemaster.

Each archetype has its Meta point totals listed so you can modify them as you wish. Ways to customize an archetype include different descriptors for the archetype’s powers, trade-offs between attack and damage or defense and toughness, giving the character different skills or feats, or shifting around some of the archetype’s ability score points. Be aware that some changes (such as to ability scores) can affect the archetype’s other traits, and adjust them accordingly.

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