Cosmic Conversions: 4C to Invulnerable
Sometimes, you start a campaign, but want to switch to a different system later on. Maybe the new system has new bad guys to beat up, or you just want to explore a new “look and feel” for your existing heroes.
This system allows you to convert 4C heroes to the Invulnerable system. Remember, converting characters isn’t an exact process; the most important part is that you end up with a hero that will fit in the campaign, one that you can have fun playing, and one that retains the “spirit” of the original character.
Since the 4C system’s “descriptors” can change from campaign to campaign, only numeric values are listed here for the 4C stats. You can make your own notes if you’re using a specific set of descriptors for your campaign, such as “Astounding” for 31-36, “Spectacular” for 37-46, and so on, as in 4C and the beloved old school system it’s based on.
There are three main steps to converting a 4C hero to Invulnerable:
- Step 1.Choose Origin
- Step 2. Convert Attributes, Repute, and Wealth
- Step 3. Convert Powers
- Step 4. Spend Points on Talents, Calculate Resources, and choose Weaknesses and Equipment.
One thing to note is that Invulnerable is quite a bit crunchier than 4C, and less granular, particularly at high Levels. You may need to make some decisions as to how you want the hero to turn out.
Step 1. Choose Origin.
To find the hero’s Origin in Invulnerable, look on the Origin Conversion Table and choose the Origin that is closest to the hero’s old Origin.
Origin Conversions Table.
4C Origin Invulnerable Origin
-----------------------------------
Alien Alien, Atlantean, Avatar, or Lemurian Robot Android, Convertibot, or Golem Skilled Human Prodigy Changed Human Chosen, Cursed, Defender of Mind, Freak Accident, Sorcerer, or Symbiote Mutant Mutant or Mutant Animal Technologically Battlesuit Pilot, Cyborg, Gadget-Monger, Enhanced or Super-Scientist
To derive the hero’s Attributes, find the value for each 4C Attribute from the Relative Levels Table, and convert or calculate as needed.
Attribute Conversions Table.
4C Invulnerable Attributes Attributes --------------------------------------- (Average of Melee = Agility/2 + Coordination) Brawn = Strength Fortitude = Toughness (Average of Intellect = Insight + Awareness) Willpower * 2 = Divided into Personality and Will
If the 4C Willpower is superhuman, you may divide the Hyper-Attribute Levels between the Hyper-Personality or Hyper-Will Powers. Most heroes will go with Hyper-Will, but you don’t have to.
4C Invulnerable Inv. Inv. Inv. Ranks Attributes Powers REP Wealth ------------------------------------------- 98-149 HA 10* 10 18 MMTG 10 88-97 HA 9* 9 17 MMTG 9 68-87 HA 8* 8 17 MMTG 9 48-67 HA 7* 8 16 MMTG 8 45-47 HA 6* 7 16 MMTG 8 42-44 HA 5* 7 16 MMTG 7 39-41 HA 4* 6 15 MMTG 7 36-38 HA 3* 6 15 MMTG 6 33-35 HA 2* 5 14 MMTG 5 30-32 HA 1* 5 14 MMTG 4 20-29 10 4 13 MMTG 3 16-20 9 4 13 MMTG 2 10-15 8 3 12 MMTG 1 8-9 7 3 12 No changes. 6-7 6 2 11 No changes. 5 5 2 10 DP 1 4 4 2 8 DP 2 3 3 1 6 DP 4 2 2 1 4 DP 8 1 1 1 2 DP 10
MMTG = More Money Than God Talent. DP = Dirt Poor Weakness.
* = The hero has the appropriate Hyper-Attribute Power at the listed Level. Randomly determine the character’s actual Attribute Level. This is the character’s Attribute Level when their powers are completely removed or suppressed. Attributes may be randomly determined in Invulnerable by rolling 3d6, discarding the lowest and highest dice, and adding 3.
Step 3. Convert Powers and find Awesomeness Level.
Powers in Invulnerable are more like an entire cluster of tricks and Power Feats that a hero will collect over their heroic career, rather than a single, does-only-one thing that the hero uses without variation.
4C powers map to specific Enhancements in an Invulnerable Power. Convert the hero’s 4C Power Levels to Invulnerable Power Levels; the hero’s Awesomeness Level is equal to their highest Power Level. When all of the 4C Powers are converted, the hero may choose any additional Enhancements they would gain, if they have fewer Enhancements than their AWE.
| 4C Power | Invulnerable Power |
| ———————————————— | |
| Absorption | Absorption with the Absorb Energy and Absorption Boost Enhancements. |
| Alter Ego | Shapeshifting with Assume Appearance Enhancement and Limited Application (Typical) Detriment. |
| Animal Command | Telepathy with Mind Control Enhancement and “Animals Only” Power Modifier |
| Astoundingly Wealthy | N/A. |
| Body Armor | Elemental Control or Extra Body Parts with Scales Enhancement or Hyper-Toughness |
| Burrowing | Elemental Control or Extra Body Parts, with Tunneling Enhancement. This new Travel Enhancement allows the hero to move through earth and soil at 1/2 Standard speed, at 1/2 Standard Cost. To move through rock, either the Speed or Cost are increased to Standard; to move through rock, both are increased to Standard. |
| Celebrity | N/A |
| Chameleon | Extra Body Parts with Chameleon Skin Enhancement. |
| Claws | Extra Body Parts with Claws Enhancement |
| Combat Awareness | Time Control with Precognition Enhancement. |
| Contaminant Resistance | Hyper-Toughness with the Resistance [Toxins] Enhancement. |
| Detection | Elemental Control with the Elemental Sense Enhancement, or Extra Body Parts or Hyper-Insight with the New Sense Enhancement. |
| Dimension Jump | Teleportation with Dimensional Teleport Enhancement |
| Elasticity | Stretching |
| Elemental/Energy Control | Elemental Control [Any] with the Limited Application [Cannot create, only control] Detriment. |
| Elemental/Energy Generation | Elemental Control |
| Extra Body Parts | Extra Body Parts |
| Fast Attack | Hyper-Agility with the Alacrity Enhancement |
| Flight | Elemental Control with Flight Enhancement or Levitation |
| Force Field | Elemental Control [Force Fields] with Elemental Barrier Enhancement |
| Growth/Shrinking | Growth or Shrinking |
| Headquarters | (Ranks)/10 Levels in the Super-Headquarters Advanced Talent. |
| Improved Skills | Additional (Ranks) BP for Talents. |
| Invisibility | Invisibility |
| Mind Control | Telepathy with Mind Control Enhancement |
| Mind Shield | Hyper-Will |
| Nine Lives | Luck Control with Best Destiny Enhancement |
| Nullification | Leech with Deny Power Enhancement |
| One-of-a-Kind Weapon | Arsenal Talent with Chosen Weapon or Chosen Armor Focus. May take additional Powers with the Implement Power Modifier. |
| Paralyzing Touch | Telepathy with the Neural Lance Enhancement and Tag Chance [Decreased Range – Touch], or Elemental Control with the Elemental Entanglement Enhancement. |
| Phasing | Intangibility |
| Physical Metamorphosis | Elemental Control with the Transform Into Energy or Transform Into Matter Enhancements |
| Plant Control | Elemental Control [Plants] |
| Protected Sense | Hyper-Toughness with the Resistance [One form of sensory attack] Enhancement (or simply give the hero Sunglasses from the Gear chaper) |
| Reflection | Absorption with the Absorb Energy and Absorb Impact Enhancements. To allow the hero to dynamically change the power they gain with the Amplify use of this Power, take a Major Benefit (worth 3 Levels). |
| Regeneration | Hyper-Toughness with Regeneration Enhancement |
| Shapeshift | Shapeshifting |
| Sidekick | (Ranks)/10 Levels in the Sidekick Advanced Talent. |
| Super Leap | Hyper-Strength or Hyper-Agility with Super-Leaping Enhancement |
| Supersense | Extra Body Parts or Hyper-Insight with Enhanced Sense Enhancement |
| Superspeed | Hyper-Agility with the Hyper-Running Enhancement. |
| Telekinesis | Elemental Control [Telekinesis]. |
| Telepathy | Telepathy |
| Teleportation | Teleportation |
| Trait Boost | Any Hyper-Attribute with a new Typical Limited Application Detriment, “Only lasts 1 hour at a time.” |
| Trait Increase | N/A |
| Vehicle | (Ranks)/10 Levels in the Super-Vehicle Advanced Talent. |
| Wall Crawling | Adhesion or Extra Body Parts with Adhesion Enhancement |
| Water Native | Extra Body Parts with the Gills Enhancement. |
| Weapon | Arsenal Talent with Chosen Weapon Focus |
Example of conversion: Dark Wolf is a Changed Human with the powers of a natural predator, and great strength and endurance. Origin: We look over the choices and decide that Dark Wolf is most likely a Freak Accident.
Attributes: 4C Invulnerable
Melee 30 AGI Hyper-Agility Level 1.
Coordination 20 STR Hyper-Strength 7
Brawn 50 TGH Hyper-Toughness 7
Fortitude 50 INS Level 3
Intellect 3 AWA Level 8
Awareness 10 PER Hyper-Will 1
Willpower 40 WIL Hyper-Will 3
Lifestyle 30 More Money Than God Level 4.
Repute 20 REP 13
Powers: 4C Invulnerable
Claws 30 Extra Body Parts, Level 5. Enhancements: Claws.
Supersense: Smell 20 Add Enhanced Sense Enhancement to Extra Body Parts.
Fast Attack 40 Raise Hyper-Agility to Level 7, and add the Alacrity Enhancement.
Now we note the Automatic Enhancements that Dark Wolf gains for his Hyper-Attributes Powers.
Power Level Enhancements
Hyper-Agility, 7. Alacrity, Motion Blur. Hyper-Strength, 7. Powerhouse. Hyper-Toughness, 7. Unstoppable. Hyper-Will, 4. Iron Will.
Now we compare these Power Levels to the Awesomeness Table and see the minimum Awesomeness that Dark Wolf can be. It looks like he’s Awesomeness 7. That gives Dark Wolf’s player 7 more Power Enhancements for thePowers listed above. His player chooses:
Power Extra Enhancements
Extra Body Parts: Adhesion, Fangs
Hyper-Agility: Super-Leaping
Hyper-Strength: Unavoidable Wallop
Hyper-Toughness: Happy Landings, Regeneration
Hyper-Will: Hard Glare
Based on Dark Wolf’s Awesomeness 7, he gets 90 BP to spend on Talents, and may take up to 22 BP of Weaknesses.
Dark Wolf’s player still needs to:
- Roll dice to find mundane Attribute Levels for STR, AGI, TGH, PER, and WIL
- Choose two Motivations
- Choose 4 Levels of Weaknesses
- Choose Talent Levels; the easy way is to choose (Talent Points)/10 Basic Talents, and record them all at Level 5
- Calculate Resources
- Select some Gear
Final Notes:
The “standard” method of creating Invulnerable heroes is a balanced, point-based system, and all heroes should end up roughly alike in power. 4C, on the other hand, uses random character creation. 4C characters will fit best into a campaign using the Nigh-Invulnerable rules, to preserve the wild, four-color feel of the old school games 4C is based on.
If you prefer a more free-form conversion, you certainly don’t have to use these rules! They’re meant as a guideline for helping move a character from one ruleset to another, particularly if you’re pretty familiar with 4C but not that familiar with Invulnerable yet. As always, do what’s most fun for your group and your game. If these tables make you break out in cold sweats, ditch the tables and use the normal character creation rules, or just assign the stats that look best to you. It’s your world to save, after all, hero!