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
Step 2. Convert Attributes, Repute, and Wealth

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.

Relative Levels Table.
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!

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.