A few revisions of the rules ago, Super Strength got a nice little upgrade for those occasional characters with the power who couldn’t smash through walls or destroy objects without help due to only having 1 or 2 damage value. And for a while, that was all the tweaking Super Strength needed.

But other rules have changed as well, leaving Super Strength somewhat in the dust.

See, back in the old days, Super Strength was guaranteed to have potentially six objects on the board, three of which you could pretty much rely on getting your Super Strong mitts on. But then came Special Objects, with several deleterious effects on the green Attack power:

• early Special Objects frequently provided powerful 0-cost effects that using the object in an attack would deprive you of, discouraging said use;
• there were also immobile blue-ringed objects that could never be used with Super Strength;
• later, Special Objects would usually come with a point cost, further discouraging their use;
• with the phasing out of feats and bystanders, these new Objects have become increasingly important point fillers, making them more ubiquitous;
• and all Special Objects must be set up at least 5 squares from all starting areas, rendering them extra vulnerable to destruction by a long-ranged opponent;
• worst of all, with objects becoming part of the force, players have the choice of fielding fewer or none at all, potentially halving the number of weapons available for Super Strength.

Simply put, all this has served to leave Super Strength rather literally empty-handed in Modern Age games where the perpetually usable Generator/Dumpster 3D object or the Rip It Up feat are unavailable.

Therefore, short of a Modern Age version of the Generator, the #4 most needed change to HeroClix is this revised line to Super Strength: “When this character makes a close combat attack targeting blocking terrain, a wall, or an object, modify its damage value by +2 for the attack and give it a light object from outside the game.”

It’s not a free action, being tied to an attack on terrain, and the object is immediately held, so this new ability to keep objects in the game shouldn’t break things too terribly. (Though Cyborg Superman gives me pause.) It also gives a little more reason to use that smashing 2nd ability of the power, even when already holding an object (not that you’d likely want to try with a heavy object).