Woo Hoo! We whipped Eurostar!

[Trebuchet]

In our monthly run yesterday our team MidGuard defeated Eurostar in a pitched battle on a tramp freighter in the Aegean Sea. We had no idea they were involved; we'd already defeated another villain team they'd treacherously set up as scapegoats and rescued the crew of a Russian nuclear sub. Eurostar had us on the ropes for a few seconds; at one time two of our 4 members were out and the other two were stunned, but a couple of seconds later we'd turned it around. My martial artist Zl'f got to strike the final blow that put Mentalla down, with a fabulously lucky 44 Stun generated with a 10d6 attack. (Mentalla even Ego Blasted Zl'f and stunned her while she was fighting Scorpia, but Zl'f recovered before Scorpia could attack because Scorpia had already aborted her next phase to Dive for Cover to avoid Zl'fs Area Effect 1 Hex attack. That's what happens when a SPD 5 martial artist fights a SPD 9 one.) At one point my character was down to 3 Stun; fortunately that was Phase 12 and she got her Post-12 Recovery.

We really sweated blood for that victory; at the low point in the fight we were figuring we'd have to do an "Escape from Eurostar's Headquarters" adventure next month. True, Eurostar was short two members (Fiacho and Fuermacher were absent) but our team was also short two members. All in all, not bad work for 4 350-point characters. :D

How many of you have fought the "Big E"?

[OddHat]

Congratulations on your victory! For Great Jusitice!
:)

I've always gotten a kick out of GMing Eurostar, but I haven't had a chance to fight them. Sounds like a good game.

[Lord Liaden]

Congratulations! It always feels good when your heroes can bring down one of the "name powers" of your world, and Eurostar has always been presented as some of the toughest, meanest muthas on the Champions block.

Haven't faced or used the new version yet, but I was part of a tournament game in which we were playing the Protectors from To Serve and Protect, the climax of which was a full on dustup with the 4E Eurostar. Ten heroes mostly built to the standards of 5E Standard Superheroes, up against all seven Eurostar villains. The GM played the villains very smart, coordinating their attacks and covering each other's backs; Eurostar is devastating that way, what with their great variety of abilities. After one nasty double team by the Whip and Pantera, Dr. Wraithe (the character I was playing) was left with 3 Body.

Every one of the players in that game had played HERO before, and two of us were familiar with To Serve and Protect and knew the special tactics the Protectors use, so we were able to prepare and play smart too. Nonetheless we barely squeeked out a win - by the time Eurostar went down only three heroes were still standing, and two needed immediate medical attention. It was a very satisfying victory. :)

[Trebuchet]

It just goes to show that you can never give up. When my MA was down to 3 Stun I was seriously contemplating having her jump overboard to escape, but I elected for her to stay because running wasn't very heroic, and she opted to attack Mentalla instead. And in just 4 more segments we'd completely turned the tables and pulled out a skin-of-our-teeth victory. The entire fight took two full Turns; a fairly long battle by Champions standards in my experience. She was even running low on END, something that is almost never a factor for her, due to Pushing. Funny how my character, the lightest defended and lowest DC character on the entire team, was at one point the only one even standing.

All in all it was one of the toughest fights (maybe the toughest) I've been in in 20+ years of playing Champions. The GM didn't insult us by cutting us any slack, and that made the victory all the more sweet. :D

[wcw43921]

Outstanding. May you do as well against Dr. Destroyer or Takofanes.

[John515]

In my old 4Ed game we fought them a few times. The first encounter was pretty much a draw-they escaped with their unconcious teammates and we were in too bad a shape to do much about it. The next time we were much smarter (and about 30 XP stronger)and actually managed to subdue them and bring them to justice. The final time we fought them was muuuch later (+another 30XP) and they were in the middle of an operation where they had already killed a bunch a normals and were proceeding to do the same to a much less powerful team of supers who were valiantly attempting to stop them. Eurostar and their 2 extra supervillians for hire managed to take out a few more normals and kill two of the other supers before we finally took the kid gloves off and decided that we were going to finish them off once and for all. It was a quick, bloody battle reducing them to very negative STUN and a lot of Negative BODY. A couple of combined attacks vs Durak and some REALLY lucky damage rolls were much more effective than expected and he ended up KIA. Fiacho was down to about -8 body and later died before he could be treated properly. Everyone else was hurt badly (at least some -BODY).
Our GM had us roleplay out the consequences of a team of heroes killing super villians and we got charged with a variety of crimes like Manslaughter, Murder, Aggrevated Assault, etc. The surviving members all hired high-powered attorneys to take one last stab at us from behind bars. Luckily for us, there were a number of normal witnesses who survived the attack and testified on our behalf and a TV newscrew who got much of the fight on tape. We ended up with some Agg. Assualt and one of our team got hit with Manslaughter, but we beat the Murder rap. Public opinion was pretty much on our side, and the international community was releived to hear that Eurostar was no more.

[Trebuchet]

Most of our team is in the 25-35 XP range, so we're not exactly new but not exactly battle-scarred veterans either. Eurostar had never made an appearance in our campaign (We don't play in the CU, only poach suitably modified villains from it. :) ), so we were quite taken aback when we finally realized who it was we were fighting. Fortunately our mentalist Prodigy was more than a match for Mentalla, although she was tough to finally put down and it ultimately took three of us to do it. Durak was our biggest problem; Prodigy ended up mentally paralyzing him. We'd have done better if we'd had our own brick Silhouette, but her player was the GM.

We all have Code vs Killing, so I can't see our team killing Eurostar except by accident. We even rescued the other villain team Eurostar had hired and treacherously abandoned on a disabled (and about to explode) Russian nuclear submarine 600 feet down. Good thing MidGuard has it's own flying submarine...

[Hermit]

Hot diggity! Congratulations on the victory!

[Patriot]

Saturday night One of the members of Team Vanguard was taken Hostage by Eurostar.....this story line is gonna get intresting...

[Trebuchet]

Originally posted by Patriot
Saturday night One of the members of Team Vanguard was taken Hostage by Eurostar.....this story line is gonna get intresting... Good luck on the rescue. I don't know how tough Team Vanguard is, but unless you're 450 point heroes it'll probably be a very tough fight. I hope your team has some characters with Mental Defense.

[Patriot]

The Kidnapped:Panther A Hindu Martial artist with minor mental abilities.(about 450 points)

The remaining Team:
Theolandus Evermeet: A druid from another planet (About 420 points)
Tassadaric An Alien(based off a half breed zerg/protoss) Strong mentalist 520points
Stellar a surfer dude with the ability to alter density of himself and others 700points
Kira A desolidification based Martail artist 450 points
Nocturus solaris 1/2 angel/1/2demon martail artist /weapon master/celestial 450 points

Thats the base group
others that may show
Shadowwalker 1600 point Ninja(not a typo)
Raven 700 point half dead/half cyborg(thank you duchess) who is a zen master

[Aldarath]

I do belive im more of a 520 pt character, so ha. Damn eurostar...

[Trebuchet]

Originally posted by Patriot
The Kidnapped:Panther A Hindu Martial artist with minor mental abilities.(about 450 points)

The remaining Team:
Theolandus Evermeet: A druid from another planet (About 420 points)
Tassadaric An Alien(based off a half breed zerg/protoss) Strong mentalist 520points
Stellar a surfer dude with the ability to alter density of himself and others 700points
Kira A desolidification based Martail artist 450 points
Nocturus solaris 1/2 angel/1/2demon martail artist /weapon master/celestial 450 points

Thats the base group
others that may show
Shadowwalker 1600 point Ninja(not a typo)
Raven 700 point half dead/half cyborg(thank you duchess) who is a zen master Ye Gawds! :eek:

Your team is unbelievable! Stomping Eurostar should be a cinch for your group, unless of course your GM realizes that and has subjected Eurostar to a nice healthy radiation accident. Of course, he's probably also added a couple new "provisional" members to his Eurostar lineup: Dr. Destroyer, Menton, and Firewing all want to join. :D

[Patriot]

I am the Gm!
Eurostar is the perfect team to go against these guys
due to the fact that they each have a vulnerability , and a member of Eurostar can hit it!

[Diamond Spear]

If you are playing a MA how did you KO Mentalla since she flies and her powers work on LOS?

[Mastermind]

Originally posted by Diamond Spear
If you are playing a MA how did you KO Mentalla since she flies and her powers work on LOS?

Yes, good question!

In our last adv, the party Mentalist was not even physically on the battlegroud---he was Mind Scanning, targeting and then Ego Attacking or Draining.

I am sure that Mentalla could do much the same.

[Hugh Neilson]

Originally posted by Diamond Spear
If you are playing a MA how did you KO Mentalla since she flies and her powers work on LOS?

Haven't looked at the character recently. Is she Overconfident? :rolleyes:

How many people take that disadvantage like it's free points, and think still take every available tactical advantage? "It's not worth the effort to avoid you."

[lemming]

One of my martial artists was well suited for going after mentalists. Not all MAs are limited to HtH. (That and she had one of the shiftiest minds around. )

Of course if there was mind scanning, etc... being done, it would take much longer.

My theory is that Mentala made the mistake of being too close.

[Diamond Spear]

I'm not sure if his MA had some sort of ranged attack but as for Mentalla making a mistake that is really not like her.

Eurostar is so dangerous not only because of their power level but because of their intelligence. They are smart, well coordinated and not afraid to retreat and regroup. They also have the versatility to take almost any group on and win and aren't shy about endangering normals to make good their escape. Not to mention Bora's habit of hangout invisibly and either putting you through the floor (double KB straight into the ground HURTS!) or grabbing the fallen with her TK (while fully invisible) and flying off at high speed.

[lemming]

Originally posted by Diamond Spear
I'm not sure if his MA had some sort of ranged attack but as for Mentalla making a mistake that is really not like her.
All this is pure speculation of course. Plus the fact that there was a mentalist on the hero's side and it was happenning on a ship. The villians setup, etc...
Anyway, Treb can clear it up if he wants too.

[Mentor]

Originally posted by Diamond Spear
If you are playing a MA how did you KO Mentalla since she flies and her powers work on LOS? His martial artist character is also the team speedster with lots of running and a long inherent leap. Beleive it or not she did a move through. My mentalist PC, Prodigy had just finished mentally paralyzing Durak who had just KOd our teleporting demi brick. Our Energy Projector, Thunderbird, had just been Ego Blasted into nighty nite land by Mentalla, and the Olympic medalist (even before she was super) acrobatics martial speedster Z'lf did a move through two "inches" in the air over the cargo hold of the ship and lands with her hands in the air looking for the judges' scores. It was incredible to behold.:)

[pinecone]

In all my years I've only faced Eurostar once and it was fun, we managed to knock out 4 of them and the rest ran for it. And then my character the Star spangled avenger had to desperatly abort the B-52 strike I had called in on those coords when I had realized who we were facing...:) I suspect that the GM was taking it easy on us as we were a scrach team and Eurostar did not seem to use much in the way of tactics and Star spangled seemed much stronger than the other heros and I felt like I was simply in Eurostars league, most of my "powers" were things like being able to comadeer US military equipment and call the president and not be put on hold ,rather than throwing big bunches of dice....

[Trebuchet]

Originally posted by Diamond Spear
If you are playing a MA how did you KO Mentalla since she flies and her powers work on LOS? Fair question. It's really not that complicated, although I may have a couple of the details wrong. (Understand I was paying more attention to Durak and Scorpia than what was going on between Mentalla and the rest of the team.) Mentor may have some corrections to offer, but this was how I saw it.

Mentalla was in fact hiding in the cargo hold when we arrived; and just as was stated attempted to attack Prodigy with a mental attack (Ego Blast, I think.) through a Mind Scan. Her Ego Blast mostly bounced off Prodigy's high Mental Defenses. Since the other villain team we had just beaten and rescued was missing its previously encountered mentallist, Prodigy still had his 90 point VPP set with extra Mental Defenses. He then rendered himself invisible to Mind Scan, which caused Mentalla to come up from the cargo hold to attempt to gain LOS on her opponent. She hovered a few inches above the cargo hatch to get her bearings.

Once outside the cargo hold, she was fair game. Thunderbird, our energy projector, also had some Mental Defense supplied by Prodigy, so she was unable to stun him. Meanwhile T'bird summoned a Megascale storm (Change Environment) which reduced her sight PER rolls by -3 and flight speed by 5". IIRC she Ego Blasted Thunderbird a couple more times and finally succeeded in KOing him, but not before he'd he'd shot Ultrasonique out of the sky and hit her with a couple 13d6 EB lightning bolts.

Then Mentalla turned to Ego Blast my martial artist Zl'f, who was fighting (and fairly handily beating) Scorpia due to her vast SPD advantage (SPD 9 vs SPD 5). Mentalla managed to stun Zl'f and get her within 3 points of KO, but as that was Phase 12 Zl'f got her post-12 recovery. Zl'f managed to put down Scorpia immediately in phase 2 of the next turn, then turned to deal with Mentalla in phases 3 and 4

Zl'f first ran over and leaped attempting a Move Through on Mentalla, but narrowly missed. In her next phase she made a successful hit with her Sacrifice Strike (10d6) for 44 points of stun, which put Mentalla out of the fight. Since Prodigy had already mentally paralyzed Durak, that pretty much ended the fight.

Mentalla might possibly have done better to go higher up , but going too high up not only risked her losing LOS with most of her opponents, especially Prodigy who didn't need LOS because he could Mind Scan, but really puts her in Thunderbird's element since he is truly awesome in aerial combat and has Personal Immunity from the effects of his own storm. Zl'f can run 30" and jump 6" straight up; Mentalla is not the first flying villain to discover that merely being airborne does not make one safe from Zl'f. :D

[Blackjack]

Originally posted by Mentor
His martial artist character is also the team speedster with lots of running and a long inherent leap. Beleive it or not she did a move through. My mentalist PC, Prodigy had just finished mentally paralyzing Durak who had just KOd our teleporting demi brick. Our Energy Projector, Thunderbird, had just been Ego Blasted into nighty nite land by Mentalla, and the Olympic medalist (even before she was super) acrobatics martial speedster Z'lf did a move through two "inches" in the air over the cargo hold of the ship and lands with her hands in the air looking for the judges' scores. It was incredible to behold.:)

In Phase 12, Z'lf appeared to be neutralized, and Mentalla had just been shot by Thunderbird. Mentalla used her Phase 12 action to strategically 1/2-move and attack the greatest threat at the moment: Thunderbird, successfully knowcking him out. It would have worked, to, if Midguard had just stayed down: Three of the four members of the team were stunned or unconcious. But as the heroes they are, Midguard rallied.

Besides, even if Mentalla had known that Z'lf would suck it up and attack, she had used her action: Z'lf had phases 2 and 3 (Z'lf has a MUCH higher DEX than Mentalla's EGO) before Mentalla could act again...

When I decided to put Midguard up against EuroStar, I knew it would be a tough fight. I didn't know that the Good Guys would win, but I thought they had a good chance. My hat is off to Midguard for exceeding those expectations...

[Mentor]

Originally posted by Trebuchet
Fair question. It's really not that complicated, although I may have a couple of the details wrong. (Understand I was paying more attention to Durak and Scorpia than what was going on between Mentalla and the rest of the team.) Mentor may have some corrections to offer, but this was how I saw it.

Mentalla was in fact hiding in the cargo hold when we arrived; and just as was stated attempted to attack Prodigy with a mental attack (Ego Blast, I think.) through a Mind Scan. Her Ego Blast mostly bounced off Prodigy's high Mental Defenses. Since the other villain team we had just beaten and rescued was missing its previously encountered mentallist, Prodigy still had his 90 point VPP set with extra Mental Defenses. He then rendered himself invisible to Mind Scan, which caused Mentalla to come up from the cargo hold to attempt to gain LOS on her opponent. She hovered a few inches above the cargo hatch to get her bearings.

Once outside the cargo hold, she was fair game. Thunderbird, our energy projector, also had some Mental Defense supplied by Prodigy, so she was unable to stun him. Meanwhile T'bird summoned a Megascale storm (Change Environment) which reduced her sight PER rolls by -3 and flight speed by 5". IIRC she Ego Blasted Thunderbird a couple more times and finally succeeded in KOing him, but not before he'd he'd shot Ultrasonique out of the sky and hit her with a couple 13d6 EB lightning bolts.

Then Mentalla turned to Ego Blast my martial artist Zl'f, who was fighting (and fairly handily beating) Scorpia due to her vast SPD advantage (SPD 9 vs SPD 5). Mentalla managed to stun Zl'f and get her within 3 points of KO, but as that was Phase 12 Zl'f got her post-12 recovery. Zl'f managed to put down Scorpia immediately in phase 2 of the next turn, then turned to deal with Mentalla in phases 3 and 4

Zl'f first ran over and leaped attempting a Move Through on Mentalla, but narrowly missed. In her next phase she made a successful hit with her Sacrifice Strike (10d6) for 44 points of stun, which put Mentalla out of the fight. Since Prodigy had already mentally paralyzed Durak, that pretty much ended the fight.

Mentalla might possibly have done better to go higher up , but going too high up not only risked her losing LOS with most of her opponents, especially Prodigy who didn't need LOS because he could Mind Scan, but really puts her in Thunderbird's element since he is truly awesome in aerial combat and has Personal Immunity from the effects of his own storm. Zl'f can run 30" and jump 6" straight up; Mentalla is not the first flying villain to discover that merely being airborne does not make one safe from Zl'f. :D I had forgotten about the first attack being a miss, but that's the great thing about having lots of phases to act in a turn. As tough a fight as any character of mine has ever been involved.

Give major kudos to Blackjack for faking us out so smoothly as we thought we were going to clean up a lone villain and some agent types on the fishing trawler and Mentalla drains three points of Prodigy's Ego away. It went South from there when Scorpia, Durak, and Ultrasonique pop in. We just knew that we would be doing the "Escape From Fiacho's Death Trap" scenario until we won by the skin of our teeth.

[Trebuchet]

Originally posted by Mentor
I had forgotten about the first attack being a miss, but that's the great thing about having lots of phases to act in a turn. As tough a fight as any character of mine has ever been involved.

Give major kudos to Blackjack for faking us out so smoothly as we thought we were going to clean up a lone villain and some agent types on the fishing trawler and Mentalla drains three points of Prodigy's Ego away. It went South from there when Scorpia, Durak, and Ultrasonique pop in. We just knew that we would be doing the "Escape From Fiacho's Death Trap" scenario until we won by the skin of our teeth. I'd forgotten about the EGO Drain; although it ultimately made little difference in the fight vs. Mentalla since her EGO was higher than Prodigy's anyway.

And I'll second those kudos for Blackjack; he snookered us good. An outstanding adventure, especially since Blackjack has been GMing for only 8 months or so. I'm going to have to go back to GM school for some refresher courses; the new kid's making me look bad. :D

[starblaze]

I set my team up against Eurostar. I basically decided to play challenge of the gods sort of adventure. Basically I had Odin choose my PC's as champions against the champions of Istvatha V'han who were Eurostar. They ended up defeating the team for the most part but they got away when Scorpia poisoned one the heroes named Makeshift and bargained for the antidote. She actually ended up being the most dangerous villian of the whole team.

[Trebuchet]

Originally posted by starblaze
I set my team up against Eurostar. I basically decided to play challenge of the gods sort of adventure. Basically I had Odin choose my PC's as champions against the champions of Istvatha V'han who were Eurostar. They ended up defeating the team for the most part but they got away when Scorpia poisoned one the heroes named Makeshift and bargained for the antidote. She actually ended up being the most dangerous villian of the whole team. I certainly wouldn't say Scorpia isn't dangerous; simply that against my SPD 9 DEX 43 martial artist she was simply too slow. Without Mentalla's interference Zl'f would have defeated Scorpia by Phase 8. She did actually manage to hit Zl'f once, but failed to do BODY to Zl'f (8 rPD) with her HKA and then got a lousy Stun multiplier to boot. To quote Spock: Random factors appear to have operated in our favor. :D

Against our team's other two martial artists (SPD 5 and 7 respectively, neither of whom was present for this fight), I think she would have been much more of a threat.

[Hugh Neilson]

Originally posted by Trebuchet
I certainly wouldn't say Scorpia isn't dangerous; simply that against my SPD 9 DEX 43 martial artist she was simply too slow.

:eek: 43 DEX 9 SPD - who WOULDN'T be too slow? :eek:

[lemming]

Originally posted by Hugh Neilson
:eek: 43 DEX 9 SPD - who WOULDN'T be too slow? :eek:
Depends on the game and the rest of the balancing factors. Granted I've only got one PC that's faster, but based on what I can determine from Zl'f's defenses, she seems balanced for the game and the scenario.

[Trebuchet]

Originally posted by lemming
Depends on the game and the rest of the balancing factors. Granted I've only got one PC that's faster, but based on what I can determine from Zl'f's defenses, she seems balanced for the game and the scenario. Zl'f's total defenses are 12 PD and 12 ED, literally half of that from Combat Luck. So if Mentalla had Stunned Zl'f before Scorpia had hit with her claws, Zl'f's defenses would have been only 6 PD (2 rPD), and Zl'f would haave been badly injured (with Scorpias's lousy roll, probably not mortally although Zl'f would have certainly taken several BODY).

Zl'f has no "non-conventional" defenses at all: No Power Defense, no Flash Defense, no Mental Defense, no Lack of Weakness, etc. I deliberately keep her vulnerable to odd attacks because she is so hard to hit; it's part of her concept.

[Hugh Neilson]

Originally posted by lemming
Depends on the game and the rest of the balancing factors. Granted I've only got one PC that's faster, but based on what I can determine from Zl'f's defenses, she seems balanced for the game and the scenario.

That's always the test, and I definitely look at DEF and DCV in tandem. On the other hand, I look at OCV, SPD, DC'sand versatility of attacks in tandem, and a 9 SPD is unlikely to pass my "smell check" without some pretty serious limits in other areas.

From Eurostar's perspective, I would be loking for a character with an area effect attack (Bora would be suitable) to make your DCV less relevant. 1 hex area TK to pick up a non-flyer makes the person much easier to hit. And if you can lift them high enough with ne shot, they get some damage regardless, unless a teammate uses a phase to catch him.

[starblaze]

Bora is dead, both her and The Whip were killed by VIPER snipers during a war they had. They were replaced by Scorpia and Feurmacher. Just and FYI.

[Trebuchet]

Originally posted by Hugh Neilson
That's always the test, and I definitely look at DEF and DCV in tandem. On the other hand, I look at OCV, SPD, DC'sand versatility of attacks in tandem, and a 9 SPD is unlikely to pass my "smell check" without some pretty serious limits in other areas.Not that it really matters since I'm not playing Zl'f in your campaign, but I'm curious as to what kind of limits you'd require in order to permit a 9 SPD character into your game? My character already has the lowest PD & ED, the lowest DCs (10d6 max) for her attacks, the lowest STUN (29) and the lowest CON (18) on our entire team. What else can she do?

[Hugh Neilson]

Originally posted by Trebuchet
Not that it really matters since I'm not playing Zl'f in your campaign, but I'm curious as to what kind of limits you'd require in order to permit a 9 SPD character into your game? My character already has the lowest PD & ED, the lowest DCs (10d6 max) for her attacks, the lowest STUN (29) and the lowest CON (18) on our entire team. What else can she do?

I might even allow that one. 9 SPD is pretty potent, and I've never had a character even REQUEST greater than 7.

It's all comparable. If the campaign norm is 12DC with a usual range of 10-14, and SPD ranges from 4 to 6, dropping down to 10 DC to act 50% more often to twice as often seems a pretty good deal.

You don't mention your PD/ED number, nor your DCV, but with a 43 DEX, and a martial artist (which I associate with DCV bonuses), I would expect pretty much any hit with a campaign average DC to be a KO. So with a 12d6 (42 average roll) norm, I'd expect PD/ED of 13 or less.

[Trebuchet]

Originally posted by Hugh Neilson
I might even allow that one. 9 SPD is pretty potent, and I've never had a character even REQUEST greater than 7.

It's all comparable. If the campaign norm is 12DC with a usual range of 10-14, and SPD ranges from 4 to 6, dropping down to 10 DC to act 50% more often to twice as often seems a pretty good deal.

You don't mention your PD/ED number, nor your DCV, but with a 43 DEX, and a martial artist (which I associate with DCV bonuses), I would expect pretty much any hit with a campaign average DC to be a KO. So with a 12d6 (42 average roll) norm, I'd expect PD/ED of 13 or less. PD/ED of 12/12, DCV during max (10d6) attack is 13. I used Sacrifice Strike instead of Offensive Strike because I think an all-out attack should lower DCV. She has one HtH Skill level, which was included in her DCV. My character's most-used attack is Martial Strike for 8d6. We have another martial artist with a 7 SPD.

Campaign average damage is 12d6, with the brick doing 15d6 IIRC and most of the other characters doing 12d6. And yes, a campaign-average 12d6 hit will KO her; a mere 9d6 will Stun her (18 CON). For what it's worth, Zl'f gets KO'd and/or Stunned almost 2 out of every 3 adventures. She got Stunned even in our fight versus Eurostar discussed in this thread. :)

[Agent X]

With area affect attacks out there. If I was your ref I might actually ask you to raise your defenses some.:)

[Trebuchet]

Originally posted by Agent X
With area affect attacks out there. If I was your ref I might actually ask you to raise your defenses some.:) It'd be nice, but not in concept. Oh well...

Thankfully this is a 4-color campaign; deliberately reminiscent of the early 60's comics. :)

[Hugh Neilson]

Originally posted by Trebuchet
PD/ED of 12/12, DCV during max (10d6) attack is 13. I used Sacrifice Strike instead of Offensive Strike because I think an all-out attack should lower DCV. She has one HtH Skill level, which was included in her DCV. My character's most-used attack is Martial Strike for 8d6. We have another martial artist with a 7 SPD.

Campaign average damage is 12d6, with the brick doing 15d6 IIRC and most of the other characters doing 12d6. And yes, a campaign-average 12d6 hit will KO her; a mere 9d6 will Stun her (18 CON). For what it's worth, Zl'f gets KO'd and/or Stunned almost 2 out of every 3 adventures. She got Stunned even in our fight versus Eurostar discussed in this thread. :)

Based on the overall numbers I don't see a problem (at least in my campaign). The character sacrifices offensive power for speed, accuracy and defensive power, and sacrifices soaking up damage for DCV. I'd call it a fair balance.

[Hugh Neilson]

Originally posted by Agent X
With area affect attacks out there. If I was your ref I might actually ask you to raise your defenses some.:)

I could be missing the boat here, but with a 9 Speed and 43 DEX, diving for cover to avoid area effect attacks seems a viable counter to such attacks. It won't walyways work, but a character who can't be beaten makes for a pretty dull campaign.

[Trebuchet]

Originally posted by Hugh Neilson
I could be missing the boat here, but with a 9 Speed and 43 DEX, diving for cover to avoid area effect attacks seems a viable counter to such attacks. It won't walyways work, but a character who can't be beaten makes for a pretty dull campaign. Yep, Dive for Cover and Roll with the Punch feature prominently in Zl'f's combat repertoire, along with the old standbys of Martial Block and Martial Dodge. As for a "character who can't be beaten [making] for a pretty dull campaign," I couldn't agree more. I enjoy having my character rise above her limitations by being heroic; it's a wonderful roleplaying challenge. :D

[Knightraven]

What is the average point build for your game?
A 90 point VPP?
43 Dex, 9 SPD.
I'm betting you guys had each of the individual members of Eurostar beat on total Character Points.
If that's the case, I don't really see where there was any real challenge involved.
IMO.

[Trebuchet]

Originally posted by Knightraven
What is the average point build for your game?
A 90 point VPP?
43 Dex, 9 SPD.
I'm betting you guys had each of the individual members of Eurostar beat on total Character Points.
If that's the case, I don't really see where there was any real challenge involved.
IMO. Standard 5th Edition level, 350 points plus a bit of experience. Every single member of Eurostar is built on more character points than any of our team.

It's not really all that difficult to do. 43 DEX costs only 99 character points even with no Limitations, and comes along with a free 5.3 SPD. So 43 DEX and 9 SPD would still cost "only" 136 character points even bought raw, or only 38.8% of a Standard character's total points. That still leaves 214 points for other powers and skills even without experience. Heck, I've built PC superheroes with fewer points.

True, most characters don't spend 136 points on any one thing, but you do when it's your "schtick." Zl'f's thing is high SPD and CV, she traded in high defenses and big attacks to afford it (12 PD/12 ED), including spending 11 character points on Acrobatics to get a 22- roll instead of sticking with her default 18-. I've seen plenty of bricks with 60 STR, high defenses, STUN and CON that together easily exceed 136 points. It's all in how you allocate your points. Sure, Eurostar has some "fluff" skills, but so do we. For example, my character, who can run 200 mph, also has Riding and Animal Handler for horses to reflect her hobby of horseback riding. Is there a game purpose to buying those skills for such a character? Yes, it's called role-playing.

Our mentalist Prodigy has a huge VPP, but he has to do everything out of it: Attacks, defenses (except for a bit of inherent Mental Defenses), and movement. I've never seen him use more than 60 Active Points on a single power; he's normally doing two or three things at once. It also takes him a full Phase to change powers in the VPP. He may be a big gun, but he's not very mobile so to speak. Three adventures ago he protected a human sacrifice by physically interposing himself between the sacrificial dagger and the intended victim. He literally dove on top of the victim, and the 3d6 (total) HKA did 10 BODY to the mentalist's back (No Resistant defenses). He couldn't change his VPP fast enough to save the victim with his powers, so he acted heroically to save a normal.

[Hugh Neilson]

Originally posted by Trebuchet
Standard 5th Edition level, 350 points plus a bit of experience.

Our mentalist Prodigy has a huge VPP, but he has to do everything out of it: Attacks, defenses (except for a bit of inherent Mental Defenses), and movement. I've never seen him use more than 60 Active Points on a single power; he's normally doing two or three things at once. It also takes him a full Phase to change powers in the VPP.

I'm working on a 90 pt VPP character for a 350 point game, and he has 50 points' life support. You don't have much outside the VPP, so you won't be firing off 90 AP attacks. [I've predefined him having a 12 DC limit anyway to avoid any ability to squish campaign power limits.]

[Mastermind]

Originally posted by Trebuchet
Standard 5th Edition level, 350 points plus a bit of experience. Every single member of Eurostar is built on more character points than any of our team.

It's not really all that difficult to do. 43 DEX costs only 99 character points even with no Limitations, and comes along with a free 5.3 SPD. So 43 DEX and 9 SPD would still cost "only" 136 character points even bought raw, or only 38.8% of a Standard character's total points.

I guess you don't have Active Point caps on your powers?

[Trebuchet]

Originally posted by Mastermind
I guess you don't have Active Point caps on your powers? No, we have no point caps of any kind. We lifted them when we converted from 4th to 5th edition. Interestingly, not a single character's attacks or defenses increased. The GMs had to ask the team brick to increase her STR.

[Agent X]

Originally posted by Hugh Neilson
I could be missing the boat here, but with a 9 Speed and 43 DEX, diving for cover to avoid area effect attacks seems a viable counter to such attacks. It won't walyways work, but a character who can't be beaten makes for a pretty dull campaign. And a character who has lots of history and is whacked because of low defenses...

[Trebuchet]

Originally posted by Agent X
And a character who has lots of history and is whacked because of low defenses... ...is playing in the wrong campaign. ;)

Make no mistake, I know her defenses are very low. If I were playing her in any other campaign she'd have 16 PD/ED, some Flash Defense and possibly Power Defense. Mental Defense for sure. It would be easy to have the necessary character points, I'd just cut out all the "fluff" I spent on her hobbies (8 points for Riding, Animal Husbandry and Skiing) and job-related skills (11 points for PS: Executive Assistant, Computer Programming, and Bureaucratics. I could also dump one 3-point Language skill and reduce her English to 2 point level.

That saves 23 points right there, and I could easily cut down her attack Multipower as well from 45 to 35 Active points.

I count on my GMs tailoring the scenarios to fit my character, just as I do for theirs. It seems to work out just fine.

[Blackjack]

Originally posted by Knightraven
What is the average point build for your game?
A 90 point VPP?
43 Dex, 9 SPD.
I'm betting you guys had each of the individual members of Eurostar beat on total Character Points.
If that's the case, I don't really see where there was any real challenge involved.
IMO.

Actually, each member of MidGuard is less than 370 pts and completely book legal. The two characters you cited have spent nearly all of their "powers" points in those areas because it was central to their concepts. It is also worth noting that both the characters in question together average over 65 character points in non-combat skills. Mentalla has twice as many mental powers available to her at any given moment than Prodigy, and doesn't need Extra Time and a skill roll to adapt to her situation. Meanwhile, while Z'lf may have a better base CV than Scorpia, Scorpia has better defenses and MUCH more dangerous attacks... If she had managed to get a clean hit on Z'lf, Z'lf would be toast...

I'm proud of them - it was a tough fight, and they made it work...

[Hugh Neilson]

Originally posted by Agent X
And a character who has lots of history and is whacked because of low defenses...

Has a poor GM for not indicating campaign lethality and expected level of defenses more clearly to the player.

That is what you were going to say, right? ;)

[Talon]

I have to say, the description of this encounter and of the PCs involved sounds very cool. Any chance of posting PC stats? :)

[Tech]

Eurostar has long been the bane of the premier hero group I'm in. (Yes, me, not my hero. j/k :) ) Many an episode was done where there was not one single instance of one or the other having a categorical victory over the other. Years later, our group got together and in a heated battle, finally, a decisive battle was won - in our hero teams favor. Years of playing later, a victory against Eurostar had been achieved. It was worth it!

"And there was much rejoicing."
"Yea-a-a-ah."

[Hugh Neilson]

Hmmm...does your GM not use a lot of PRE attacks, or does Z'lf spend a lot of time looking like :eek:

[Trebuchet]

Originally posted by Hugh Neilson
Hmmm...does your GM not use a lot of PRE attacks, or does Z'lf spend a lot of time looking like :eek: LOL. :)

We don't use a lot of PRE attacks in general in our campaign; they tend to be more along the lines of "Oooohmiiiigod!" when we first see some giant opponent but they seldom effect combat. I've never liked people being impressive just for standing around; I'm more impressed when they do something that creates a real "Wow!" factor. Just look tough; big deal. Level a building; now that's impressive.

For actual Presence attacks, Zl'f has a 13 EGO to help resist those (and I'm planning to buy up her EGO a bit more with XP). I just can't quite see a slender girl who's only 4' 10" tall having a 20 PRE. Besides, with a 9 SPD, even if she loses a Phase she still gets to act more than anyone else. :D

[Agent X]

Originally posted by Hugh Neilson
Has a poor GM for not indicating campaign lethality and expected level of defenses more clearly to the player.

That is what you were going to say, right? ;) Nope. :) I would suggest higher defenses because, even though I tailor my game to the characters somewhat, I don't want to have to be overly concerned that a villain with an explosive attack is going to cripple x character. That, IMO, is dictating too much to the GM.

I would prefer the character to have higher defenses defined by special effect to indicate that the defense is tied to their ability to avoid some of the damage in one way or the other. A good buy would be the power in the Champions Genre Book, "You only nicked me!" Armor bought essentially to minimize body damage. One body always gets through if this power has to be counted on but after that the armor soaks some of the body taken. Keeps the character alive... which is good.

[Trebuchet]

Originally posted by Agent X
Nope. :) I would suggest higher defenses because, even though I tailor my game to the characters somewhat, I don't want to have to be overly concerned that a villain with an explosive attack is going to cripple x character. That, IMO, is dictating too much to the GM.

I would prefer the character to have higher defenses defined by special effect to indicate that the defense is tied to their ability to avoid some of the damage in one way or the other. A good buy would be the power in the Champions Genre Book, "You only nicked me!" Armor bought essentially to minimize body damage. One body always gets through if this power has to be counted on but after that the armor soaks some of the body taken. Keeps the character alive... which is good. Those are certainly valid concerns, Doug. That's exactly why Zl'f has 6 points of Combat Luck, 2 points each of PD & ED Damage Resistance, and 12 BODY. (While 2 extra BODY may not seem like a lot, it makes a huge difference in surviving lethal attacks.) She's taken BODY more than once in the course of this campaign. Her total defenses still equal campaign average Damage Classes; so she's gonna take BODY occasionally, but her Regeneration keeps those injuries from becoming debilitating over time.

I think it's essential for characters to occasionally take BODY, or what's the point of even having such a stat? Taking BODY means your life is in danger; it's an incentive to fight on and win. I've seen many bricks who go their entire careers without ever taking a single point of BODY damage, as is only natural when game damage caps are 12 or 14 DC but most bricks have 25+ points of Resistant defenses. I think it's kind of dull when you know you'll just wake up after a suitable interval. You need to bleed sometimes. :)

[Hugh Neilson]

Originally posted by Trebuchet
For actual Presence attacks, Zl'f has a 13 EGO to help resist those (and I'm planning to buy up her EGO a bit more with XP). I just can't quite see a slender girl who's only 4' 10" tall having a 20 PRE. Besides, with a 9 SPD, even if she loses a Phase she still gets to act more than anyone else. :D

I had looked at the 13 EGO, but a 23 PRE attack isn't all that uncommon (7 dice), and 33 (10 dice) isn't too hard with an impressive action.

Like we said earlier, everyone has their weak points anyway. An option to EGO is PRE only to defend vs. PRE attacks, just to indicate she's not that easily impressed. But if you plan to buy EGO up anyway, defensive PRE has negligible value. [Maybe EGO only to resist PRE attacks?]

[Trebuchet]

Originally posted by Hugh Neilson
I had looked at the 13 EGO, but a 23 PRE attack isn't all that uncommon (7 dice), and 33 (10 dice) isn't too hard with an impressive action.

Like we said earlier, everyone has their weak points anyway. An option to EGO is PRE only to defend vs. PRE attacks, just to indicate she's not that easily impressed. But if you plan to buy EGO up anyway, defensive PRE has negligible value. [Maybe EGO only to resist PRE attacks?] It may amuse you to know that until about 6 months ago Zl'f had a PRE of 8. (Livin' on the edge; that's me.) :D

I'm OK with someone doing a PRE attack on her if it adds to the story. But even if they get to act first because she hesitates, she can still Abort to a defensive action. And if they want her to do something against her better judgement, that's a whole different story...

[Zed-F]

<b><i>Amazing Speed: </b></i>+5 SPD (50 Active Points); Only In Heroic Identity (-1/4), Linked to Phenomenal Coordination (-1/2), Greater Power is Constant (+1/4)

I was just wondering why there is a linked modifier between several of your character's stats and powers, and her Dex. On first glance, it's not quite obvious what the limitation is supposed to be. Is it so that if your Dex gets drained, it affects all the linked powers/characteristics as well? Normally you can only use a linked power in proportion to the power it's linked to, so that would make sense. Since the greater power is not just constant, it's 0 END and persistent, I'm not sure what the limitation would be otherwise.

[Trebuchet]

Originally posted by Zed-F
I was just wondering why there is a linked modifier between several of your character's stats and powers, and her Dex. On first glance, it's not quite obvious what the limitation is supposed to be. Is it so that if your Dex gets drained, it affects all the linked powers/characteristics as well? Normally you can only use a linked power in proportion to the power it's linked to, so that would make sense. Since the greater power is not just constant, it's 0 END and persistent, I'm not sure what the limitation would be otherwise. According to Hero Designer Linked Powers do not need to be proportional; it just reduces the value of the Limitation. The idea is that if Zl'f gets hit with a SPD Drain it affects her DEX, and vice-versa (Concept-wise I view the two as aspects of the same ability - incredible agility. That they are separate characteristics in HERO is just game mechanics). She used to be built with her DEX, SPD and Running in an EC, but I changed her recently to make her "book legal" even though both of my GMs were OK with the EC. This is a somewhat less efficient way to recreate the same effect. Ultimately Elemental Controls are really nothing but a "formalized" cross-linking.

Personally I've never liked that EC powers have to cost END. While it makes sense from a "rules rapist prevention" point of view ("Yeah, all of Mighty Man's abilities come from his "Mutant Body" Elemental Control"), I can see numerous EC concepts that would justify non-END Powers, such as a character with Density Increase also having Armor instead of a Force Field. I see ECs as more of a reward for a tight concept, but the penalty for that is the ability for opponents to Drain everything in it at once with a single attack. ("Gosh, Mighty Man, too bad your strength, dexterity and defenses were all neutralized too when Bad Guy Drained your X-Ray Vision.") ;)

[Zed-F]

Ok, that's fairly close to what I thought. It might be more clear (at least IMHO) to write "affected by DEX and SPD Drains (-1/4)" for all your DEX-related powers rather than using that semi-arcane linked structure. Additionally, as it stands, you're not getting any point break on your DEX for it being vulnerable to SPD drains.

[Hugh Neilson]

Originally posted by Trebuchet
Personally I've never liked that EC powers have to cost END. While it makes sense from a "rules rapist prevention" point of view ("Yeah, all of Mighty Man's abilities come from his "Mutant Body" Elemental Control"), I can see numerous EC concepts that would justify non-END Powers, such as a character with Density Increase also having Armor instead of a Force Field. I see ECs as more of a reward for a tight concept, but the penalty for that is the ability for opponents to Drain everything in it at once with a single attack. ("Gosh, Mighty Man, too bad your strength, dexterity and defenses were all neutralized too when Bad Guy Drained your X-Ray Vision.") ;)

My favorite example is Aid and HEaling. One costs END, so it's valid in an EC, even if I make it zero END with advantages. The other costs no END by default, so can only be in the EC if I make it cost END. Why? Neither game balance nor realism are served by this, in my opinion.

As for "EC: Mutant Body" - that sounds like a racial EC, so you'll have to persuade me all mutants have all these powers (they don't.) and that this is, or will shortly become, fairly well known. That gets you back to the requirement for a tight concept/special effect.

[Trebuchet]

Originally posted by Zed-F
Ok, that's fairly close to what I thought. It might be more clear (at least IMHO) to write "affected by DEX and SPD Drains (-1/4)" for all your DEX-related powers rather than using that semi-arcane linked structure. Additionally, as it stands, you're not getting any point break on your DEX for it being vulnerable to SPD drains. Thanks, that's an excellent suggestion. Not only is it much more elegant, but it saves me 4 CP on the DEX. :)

[Zed-F]

Glad to help. :)

[Trebuchet]

For game purposes I'm going to consider "Drain" to include Drain, Suppress, Transfer or Dispel. I think that's reasonable as a -¼ Limitation on her DEX, SPD, and Multipower, especially as she has no Power Defense.

[Agent X]

Originally posted by Trebuchet
Those are certainly valid concerns, Doug. That's exactly why Zl'f has 6 points of Combat Luck, 2 points each of PD & ED Damage Resistance, and 12 BODY. (While 2 extra BODY may not seem like a lot, it makes a huge difference in surviving lethal attacks.) She's taken BODY more than once in the course of this campaign. Her total defenses still equal campaign average Damage Classes; so she's gonna take BODY occasionally, but her Regeneration keeps those injuries from becoming debilitating over time.

I think it's essential for characters to occasionally take BODY, or what's the point of even having such a stat? Taking BODY means your life is in danger; it's an incentive to fight on and win. I've seen many bricks who go their entire careers without ever taking a single point of BODY damage, as is only natural when game damage caps are 12 or 14 DC but most bricks have 25+ points of Resistant defenses. I think it's kind of dull when you know you'll just wake up after a suitable interval. You need to bleed sometimes. :) We must throw more dice in my campaigns.:)

[Trebuchet]

Originally posted by Agent X
We must throw more dice in my campaigns.:) Quite probably. The biggest attack I can remember ever seeing in my campaign was 16d6, and a couple of 10d6 AP attacks. Most villains hit for 12-14d6. Our campaign is Silver Age 4-color all the way. If I were running this character in most other campaigns, she'd have higher defenses and her Regeneration would be much faster.

My character Zl'f lives up to the low defenses tradition of my favorite comic book superheroes, such as Spiderman, Batman, Daredevil, and Captain America. Like them, she gets cracked ribs, nicked by a bullet, or the like and grits her teeth and keeps fighting. How many times over the years have we seen Spiderman fighting with his arm in a sling or Batman with his ribs wrapped? If her defenses are too low, she's got plenty of excellent company. :)

[Mentor]

Originally posted by Trebuchet
Quite probably. The biggest attack I can remember ever seeing in my campaign was 16d6, and a couple of 10d6 AP attacks. Most villains hit for 12-14d6. Our campaign is Silver Age 4-color all the way. If I were running this character in most other campaigns, she'd have higher defenses and her Regeneration would be much faster.

My character Zl'f lives up to the low defenses tradition of my favorite comic book superheroes, such as Spiderman, Batman, Daredevil, and Captain America. Like them, she gets cracked ribs, nicked by a bullet, or the like and grits her teeth and keeps fighting. How many times over the years have we seen Spiderman fighting with his arm in a sling or Batman with his ribs wrapped? If her defenses are too low, she's got plenty of excellent company. :) I am quite proud of Trebuchet's willing ness to play Zl'f and play her so well. You guys have no idea what a departure this type of character is for Trebuchet. His most famous PC was a Power Armor guy, named Ranger, with every type of defense built into the suit and the highest PD and ED (combining armor and force fields to cover those nasty NNDs, you know) of any character in any of the campaigns I have played in or seen. The original omni defense dude. Dr. Destroyer might have gotten Ranger's attention. :)

[Agent X]

Originally posted by Mentor
I am quite proud of Trebuchet's willing ness to play Zl'f and play her so well. You guys have no idea what a departure this type of character is for Trebuchet. His most famous PC was a Power Armor guy, named Ranger, with every type of defense built into the suit and the highest PD and ED (combining armor and force fields to cover those nasty NNDs, you know) of any character in any of the campaigns I have played in or seen. The original omni defense dude. Dr. Destroyer might have gotten Ranger's attention. :) Hey, I like the character. I just worried she might meet an untimely end.:)

Our attacks usually range around 12-15DC but we get awfully inventive with rapid attacks, terrain, haymakers, and move throughs so the dice can creep up once in a while.:)

[Mentor]

Originally posted by Agent X
Hey, I like the character. I just worried she might meet an untimely end.:)

Our attacks usually range around 12-15DC but we get awfully inventive with rapid attacks, terrain, haymakers, and move throughs so the dice can creep up once in a while.:) Zl'f is fast and capable and doesn't get hit often, but she does get stunned or KO'd when when the baddies do connect. The rest of our team has been really good at jumping in to keep a downed team mate from getting the Coup De Gras, so far. All in a days work for Superheroes.

For some reason, a Brick named Fezzek (yes that Fezzek) seems to have her number and I always seem to roll a 4 or 5 to have him hit her. I will admit to fudging the attack from a 15D6 punch to a 10D6 grab and squeeze. GM prerogative and Fezzek doesn't like to hurt little girls. She still took a little nap.:)

[Captain Photon]

Hey Trebuchet + Mentor!

Any chance of seeing Zl'f's character sheet, or at least a picture?

:D :D

[Mentor]

Originally posted by Captain Photon
Hey Trebuchet + Mentor!

Any chance of seeing Zl'f's character sheet, or at least a picture?

:D :D See page 4, this thread.:)

[Mastermind]

Originally posted by Trebuchet
Sure. I don't have copies of the other characters, but I'd be happy to post Zl'f. I'll see if Mentor can post Thunderbird, Sidestep and Prodigy.

<font size=+1><b>ZL'F</b></font>



you wouldn't happen to have the .hdc would you?

[Trebuchet]

Originally posted by Captain Photon
Hey Trebuchet + Mentor!

Any chance of seeing Zl'f's character sheet, or at least a picture?

:D :D I'll post her picture below. And no, it's not a very inspired drawing or costume; I have zero artistic talent. The lettering in the picture is her superheroic name in Russian using Cyrillic lettering: ZL'F.

I'm saving my bottlecaps for a character picture by Storn. :D

http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u311/SCWillson/ZLfHDFormat.jpg

[Trebuchet]

Originally posted by Mastermind
you wouldn't happen to have the .hdc would you? Absolutely. She's a bit different than the version I posted earlier in this thread; I made some minor changes based on an excellent suggestion by Zed-F.

[Trebuchet]

Originally posted by Mentor
I am quite proud of Trebuchet's willing ness to play Zl'f and play her so well. You guys have no idea what a departure this type of character is for Trebuchet. His most famous PC was a Power Armor guy, named Ranger, with every type of defense built into the suit and the highest PD and ED (combining armor and force fields to cover those nasty NNDs, you know) of any character in any of the campaigns I have played in or seen. The original omni defense dude. Dr. Destroyer might have gotten Ranger's attention. :) I retired Ranger about 1986, so long ago I never even designed a 4th Edition version of him. His defenses were as follows:

62 PD (50 Hardened)
58 ED (50 Hardened)
15 Flash Defense (All Hardened)
25 Pts Power Defense
10 Pts Lack of Weakness

EDIT: And I forgot his 20 points of Ego Defense :)

He was fun to play, but I don't think the other characters who were getting hit with "Ranger-buster" attacks were having quite as much fun. The 5th Edition version of him I recently designed has "only" a 52 PD.

Zl'f is my penance for running Ranger. ;)

[Broblawsky]

62 PD (50 Hardened)
58 ED (50 Hardened)
15 Flash Defense (All Hardened)
25 Pts Power Defense
10 Pts Lack of Weakness

Christ almighty, it looks like someone converted the Overlord's power armor to HERO system...how could you afford that monstrosity?

[Trebuchet]

Originally posted by Broblawsky
Christ almighty, it looks like someone converted the Overlord's power armor to HERO system...how could you afford that monstrosity? Well, he was only a SPD 4, DEX 20 character for starters. He had a 70 STR, 12d6 EB, and 25" of Flight. A few Enhanced Senses to round it out. And everything was built into his powered armor OIF. Without the armor he was just an ordinary joe. When I retired him he had 125 XP.

[Jeff T.]

Just FYI.

Fans of Treb's character Zl'f might be interested to know that he has also created an excellent detailed bio of the character. I have it and have read it. She has an interesting and well-written history. It also exhaustively details her superpowered abilities in 'real-world' terms ala The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe.

He might post it here, or send it to those who ask nicely.

:)

[Trebuchet]

Thanks for the kind words, Starlord. I'd forgotten I'd sent you a copy of that.

It's probably too long to post here; it's 40K long. :)

[Trebuchet]

Just in case anyone's interested, I'll post Zl'fs background as a text file. That should keep the size down.

Anyone interested in reading my short story about her first fight just drop me a note and I'll gladly e-mail you a copy. I think it's pretty good, but I may be biased. :)

[championsguru]

In the 20 or so years I've played with my group we've fought Eurostar about 10 different times and won 7 of them.

The early version was above average power, the 4th edition version were really powerful compared to base characters so a starting group really had no chance of beating them. The 5th edition version went back to above average and can be beaten with team work and a little luck by a group of base 350 characters.

Da Guru

[Jeff T.]

I preferred Eurostar at 8 members, I think they've been depowered a bit too much. They aren't as fearsome as they used to be.

[Trebuchet]

Originally posted by championsguru
In the 20 or so years I've played with my group we've fought Eurostar about 10 different times and won 7 of them.

The early version was above average power, the 4th edition version were really powerful compared to base characters so a starting group really had no chance of beating them. The 5th edition version went back to above average and can be beaten with team work and a little luck by a group of base 350 characters.I think this was the first time I've faced Eurostar since I started playing Champions in 1982; although it's possible I've faced them in the past and simply forgotten. I certainly haven't in my current 11 year old campaign.

I can't say I necessarily agree their 5th Edition incarnation is relatively less powerful than the 4th Edition version on a character per character basis. They weren't at full strength, but neither were we. Certainly their current mix is a bit different, but Fuermacher is IMHO a bit tougher than Bora. Scorpia is about even with Pantera combat-wise. Eurostar may be relatively less powerful compared to 350 point base PCs than they were to 250 point base characters, but most campaigns have damage and defense caps anyway which render the extra 100 points less relevant than they would appear (Our campaign doesn't, but we self-limit ourselves pretty well.). I don't think Eurostar was ever intended to be opponents for starting characters. They've always been intended to be the "big gun" of supervillain teams in the Champions universe; somebody you take on after you've been around a while.

In any case, our team MidGuard narrowly beat Eurostar just as you said: With teamwork and a little luck. Considering we had no idea they were involved and our team virtually walked into a Eurostar ambush, I'd say we did pretty well. Heck, we only sent half our team over to check out the freighter Eurostar was hiding on; my character was prepping our flying sub for the return trip to our base in Norway. If our team's teleporting demibrick Sidestep hadn't been with her in the Sea Raptor, the other team members would have been unconscious or dead long before my character was able to get there under her own power by swimming. That freighter was a full kilometer away (500"). It would have taken my character over 3 Turns to swim that far non-combat. That's an eternity in Champions.

[Lord Liaden]

One nice thing about the larger number of members in the 4E Eurostar was that the GM could choose the opponents that the PCs would be up against in a given scenario, tailoring them to give the heroes a good fight without necessarily overwhelming them - unless the GM wanted to for plot purposes, in which case he could bring the whole team together.

I say keep the current lineup and also bring back Bora, Pantera, White Flame and the Whip. With operations going on all over Europe, it would make sense for Eurostar to have the capacity to send multiple teams to various targets simultaneously. Not to mention that Eurostar is after all taking on all of Europe, its governments and armies as well as its superheroes; they could use all the firepower they can get.

[Mastermind]

Originally posted by Lord Liaden

I say keep the current lineup and also bring back Bora, Pantera, White Flame and the Whip. With operations going on all over Europe, it would make sense for Eurostar to have the capacity to send multiple teams to various targets simultaneously. Not to mention that Eurostar is after all taking on all of Europe, its governments and armies as well as its superheroes; they could use all the firepower they can get.

That seems like a great idea!

[Zed-F]

Originally posted by Trebuchet
Just in case anyone's interested, I'll post Zl'fs background as a text file. That should keep the size down.

Anyone interested in reading my short story about her first fight just drop me a note and I'll gladly e-mail you a copy. I think it's pretty good, but I may be biased. :)

Thanks, that is helpful. I have put together a fairly detailed origin story and powers summary for my current character but this will help me expand on that. Will send you a note shortly regarding that story you mentioned.

[Kirby]

Wow, thanks for the link, Treb!

For those on this thread who aren't subscribed to Jane's Superhumans, I'm pasting my little fight with Eurostar.

"I was in a [4th Ed 250+ points] campaign where we faced them and my character was the skilled normal with a futuristic weapon. Durak had one NPC and was winding up for a haymaker, while Fiacho was beating down a PC. My character switched his 'pistol' setting to "Big Bertha" which was a 4d6 RKA. I debated on who to save, and fearing that Durak would kill the NPC, I went for a head shot on him, and rolled a 4. I ended up saving the NPC (though we were beat down), but I wish I had hit Fiacho instead; it would have come close to killing him (since he had no resist ED in 4th Ed). Oh well, that was then."

Our same party also faced Durak alone during a European vacation. I can't remember if it was before or after this encounter, though I think we got the better of him (not bad for five PCs + 1 GM PC).

[Dr. MID-Nite]

One nice thing about the larger number of members in the 4E Eurostar was that the GM could choose the opponents that the PCs would be up against in a given scenario, tailoring them to give the heroes a good fight without necessarily overwhelming them - unless the GM wanted to for plot purposes, in which case he could bring the whole team together.

I say keep the current lineup and also bring back Bora, Pantera, White Flame and the Whip. With operations going on all over Europe, it would make sense for Eurostar to have the capacity to send multiple teams to various targets simultaneously. Not to mention that Eurostar is after all taking on all of Europe, its governments and armies as well as its superheroes; they could use all the firepower they can get.

I'd leave out White Flame...only because his powers are very close to those of Feurmacher. Seems pointless to have both. Bringing the others back would be fine.

Rob

[Enforcer84]

I retired Ranger about 1986, so long ago I never even designed a 4th Edition version of him. His defenses were as follows:

62 PD (50 Hardened)
58 ED (50 Hardened)
15 Flash Defense (All Hardened)
25 Pts Power Defense
10 Pts Lack of Weakness

EDIT: And I forgot his 20 points of Ego Defense :)

He was fun to play, but I don't think the other characters who were getting hit with "Ranger-buster" attacks were having quite as much fun. The 5th Edition version of him I recently designed has "only" a 52 PD.

Zl'f is my penance for running Ranger. ;)
Heh. One of my buds once made a mage (Nilrem if you look at my HERO aday thread) and his original concept looked like a tall Jawa...
Anyway he had a 40 pt vpp, cosmic, only to create defenses on the fly....
we didn't have "special" powers back in the day, so he would just have any defense he needed.

[Kirby]

I'd leave out White Flame...only because his powers are very close to those of Feurmacher. Seems pointless to have both. Bringing the others back would be fine.
I prefer the 4th Ed Eurostar. Actually, I think I prefer lots of the 4th Ed characters to the 5th Ed. Come to think of it, I'm really ticked at the continuity difference between 4th & 5th Ed. While I like the update on the game (and the 350 point style), there are many 4th Ed things I miss. They are:

The Seven Horsemen
VOICE
The Protectors
San Angelo: City of Heroes setting
4th Ed Eurostar
4th Ed VIPER
Raven
Zodiac Conspiracy
The Olympians


Well, those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

[Kirby]

What I had planned on doing in my last Champions campaign, and may still do in my campaign I'm about to start in a couple of weeks, is eventually have a (4th Ed) Eurostar show up in San Angelo or San Francisco and attack the Protectors. After a turn or two, I would have Anarchy show up to ambush Eurostar. I also have had plans for VOICE and The Seven Horseman to confront Eurostar also. Along with the PCs thrown in there somewhere. :winkgrin:

[Sketchpad]

I prefer the 4th Ed Eurostar. Actually, I think I prefer lots of the 4th Ed characters to the 5th Ed. Come to think of it, I'm really ticked at the continuity difference between 4th & 5th Ed. While I like the update on the game (and the 350 point style), there are many 4th Ed things I miss. They are:

The Seven Horsemen
VOICE
The Protectors
San Angelo: City of Heroes setting
4th Ed Eurostar
4th Ed VIPER
Raven
Zodiac Conspiracy
The Olympians


Well, those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.
I agree with most of that list and would like to add Dr. McQuark and the Blood to it, as well as the info from Strikeforce :)

[Enforcer84]

Heck I'd add the Geodesics and Deathstroke...
Although I don't think the Geodesics actually made it into 4th edition...

[Kirby]

Heck I'd add the Geodesics and Deathstroke...
Although I don't think the Geodesics actually made it into 4th edition...
Well, the nice thing about 4th Ed was that it seemed to keep the 1st-3rd Ed characters around as well.

Which reminds me that I'd like to see the shape-shifting alien race known as the Masq.

[Trebuchet]

Bora was the big loss to the 5e Eurostar lineup. She was not only quite powerful offensively in her own right but was also Eurostar's escape route (Grab her all teammates with AoE TK and vamoose!). Scorpiaa is about as good in a fight as Pantera was, and to my mind fits Eurostar's theme better. The Whip is no loss; he was a yawner as a villain. Of course one less member means less tactical flexibility.

Blackjack, who ran Eurostar for this scenario, despises the way Fiacho is built and has totally rebuilt him for our campaign. As I understand it Fiacho is now much less a bionic supervillain and much more a mastermind. I guess we'll find out just how much he's been rebuilt the next time we face Eurostar. :eek:

[JmOz]

The thing I liked about 4th was that it had that organic feeling that Marvel/DC have, you know where it is obviously written by a hundred different people with a hundred different takes on things. Nothing quite fits right, but at the same time it makes some weird sense all its own.

Now we have a world in some ways similar to the Ultimate line from marvel where a real effort has been made to keep things consistent, which makes more sense but looses a type of magic the other had...

[Kirby]

Scorpiaa is about as good in a fight as Pantera was, and to my mind fits Eurostar's theme better.
:jawdrop: WHAT??? :shock: :bmk: Die! Die! Slanderer! :whip:

-Ahem- Okay, Pantera had 7 Spd, 33 DEX, Find Weakness 14-, a combined 4d6 HKA, and +8 Telescopic vision range levels, coupled with +3 enhanced vision she could basically sniper Find Weakness before attacking.

Scorpia is 5 Spd, 21 Dex, with 4d6 HKA AP.

Also, I've had PCs who have beaten Scorpia seveal times (combined). I think we only beat Pantera once. "Blah," I say, "blah!" Besides, Pantera had this strange animalistic attractiveness to her that... wait, I said too much. :o