Mind Control is one of the most expensive powers in the game, and in the early days, it wasn’t hard to see why. Not only did it gain control over a character not on your force, allowing you to move it or make it attack its allies or deactivate one of its powers, but it also gave said character an action token, possibly pushing him/her. Essentially, it combined most of the effects of Telekinesis, Incapacitate and Outwit in one power.

Trouble was, Mind Control’s cost in the point formula isn’t even double ONE of those pricey powers, much less all three — it MIGHT cost as much as Incap OR Outwit. Consequently, it’s been steadily scaled back in a couple of ways:

• Damage reducers are no longer optional and thus Mind Control can’t turn them “off.” (This used to be a vicious way of circumventing Impervious.)
• The Mind Control action no longer gives the controlled character an action token.

While MC is still a potent power, it’s also very high-risk. Not only does the initial MC roll have to land (and not be Super Sensed), but then the target frequently has to make its own rolls to either attack its friendlies or try to break away from them. There’s a great chance that this high-risk power could yield very low reward.

Additionally, unlike most other offensive powers, Mind Control has no moving-attack option other than Telekinesis. The power does gain a bit of extra utility when used with extra targets, though the chance of extra self-damage rises, too.

“What’s the big deal?” some might say. “Other powers are pretty situational, too!” But those other powers are much less expensive than Mind Control is. For Mind Control to share a similar price point as the likes of Outwit or Running Shot, it needs to be a power worth using whenever it shows on a dial — one that begs using instead of simply doing a regular attack.

Even setting aside the playability issues, Mind Control also just doesn’t reflect the comics so well. Most of the time, MC is used as a ranged attack and thus requires line of fire. The trouble? Mind Control in the comics doesn’t always require line of fire to the target. Ways mind control occurs in comics:

• Telepathy (Professor X, Saturn Girl)
• Illusions (Princess Projectra, Mysterio)
• Gas or pheromones (Mysterio, Purple Man, Daken, Deadly Nightshade)
• Hypnotism (Gorgon, Ringmaster)
• Attached devices (Red King, Mad Hatter)
• Gobs and gobs of money (Bruce Wayne)

In fact, in many cases it’s more comic-accurate to say the target needs the line of fire to the Mind Controller, not the other way around!

With these things in mind, the #6 most needed change to HeroClix should be this:

MIND CONTROL: Give this character a power action; it makes a close combat or ranged combat attack (minimum range value 4) as a free action using 3 dice (ignore 1 for the result) that deals no damage and ignores Stealth and Shape Change. A successfully hit target becomes friendly to your force. Each target hit may be assigned one action as a free action, immediately after which the target becomes an opposing character again. Deal this character 1 unavoidable damage for each 100 points of the successfully hit targets’ combined point value.

It’d be another light blow to Shape Change, but given all those methods of mind control that just don’t care WHAT the target looks like, I don’t see why Shape Change should ever really work against Mind Control. And again, so many methods of Mind Control can’t be prevented by mere camouflage, so no Stealth. Finally, the “roll-3-use-2” change reflects Mind Control’s difficulty to evade, as it’s usually an unseen attack. It also gives players a reason to try it rather than simply making a standard attack.

That puts us halfway through the list. Have a Merry Christmas and rejoin us tomorrow for the first of the top 5 changes needed for HeroClix!