The 'Elminster' of Hero: Harbringer of Justice?

[arcady]

In the old version of Drak Champions this guy was simply 'out of control' on 895 points in a book that suggested either 150 or 250 point characters.

Maybe I'm poking a sacred cow with a hot stick when I say this, but I know from personal experience that that character prevented a number of people in my area from choosing to adopt Dark Champions 'back in the day.' He was just way over done, way too much for the genre we were supposed to be buying into.

What I'm wondering is if he'll turn out that way again, when Hudson City comes out, or if he'll be more fitting in scale for the icon of the genre - what I personally feel would suggest he be built on the suggested PC points as an example of an 'ideal' starting character. Though I could deal with an old pro for the setting as well, there are limits of reason...

Am I alone here, or did others find him to be too much back in that day? Do others desire to see a cap put on him this time around?

[Yamo]

I've never liked Harbinger, either.

It's no so much that there's anything wrong with a Punisher clone. It's just that the whole charm of Punisher types, in game terms, is that they're NOT built on more points than Silver Age Superman.

He's just all wrong for the subgenre.

[JJR]

I do believe the 4E version of Harbinger was too powerful but I do not want to see the 5E version as an example character. Example characters are for the genre books. Settings should be about the characters as they will be used in the setting not as examples, in my opinion.

I am not completely sure what the new Hudson City book will be encompassing: whether it is street-level supers like Batman or whether it is just vigilante-style non-costumed "heroes." If the former then I believe Harbinger can be built as a powerful npc in the 400-500 point range without too much trouble. If the latter then I would expect so see Harbinger built in the 200-300 point range. Harbinger is supposed to represent the epitome of the style of character, just as Batman does in Gotham, and all of those skills and abilities are expensive.

[Captain Obvious]

I would think that statting Harbinger for both a supers and a heroic vigilante campaign would be a cool idea. Kind of like in the comics, when Spiderman is nearly in over his head fighting a bunch of agents, but then in another issue or another comic title, he's going toe-to-toe with some cosmic power like Silver Surfer; or Batman when he's fighting punks with Robin and then fighting alien fleets with Superman.

I had thought at one time about running concurrent campaigns of Champions, Dark Champions, and Super Agents, and allowing a player or two to dual-stat a character for the two higher powered campaigns, effectively giving a super level Doomwraith and a vigilante level Doomwraith, and assume he works overtime.

[Metaphysician]

AFAIK, he's appearing in Hudson City, sans teleporting gun pool.

OTOH, I have a hard time complaining about a character being Elminsterish when he started as a 250 point character in an actual campaign. Just shouldn't have been one of the basic example characters.

[Enforcer84]

Never had a problem with him.

[keithcurtis]

I do remember wondering why there was any crime in Hudson City...


Keith "just sayin'..." Curtis

[philnicau]

i never had a problem with him, he's a perfect example of what a dark champions character could aspire to, remember a lot of his points were in skills, contacts etc.

[OddHat]

He was an updated pulp hero, a Batman-Shadow mix in the Iron Age. I had no real problems with his point totals. "Street Level" is more about tone than anything else, and while point limits can help set the tone many street level pulp and super heroes had huge numbers of skills, armies of contacts, vast resources, etc, etc.

As a GM, I never used him as aything but a background character. Overshadowing the PCs is something I try to avoid.

[Metaphysician]

You know, something just occured to me.

When he gets written up in Hudson City ( AFAIK, thats where he is appearing ), the Harbinger of Justice well then become the highest level "hero" yet published.

*barf*

[JJR]

You know, something just occured to me.

When he gets written up in Hudson City ( AFAIK, thats where he is appearing ), the Harbinger of Justice well then become the highest level "hero" yet published.

*barf*

I believe Quasar, Victory and Dr. Silverback all clocked in at a tad over 600 points with Mentiac, Gladiator, and Nightwind in the 500's. It is hard to say where Harbinger will fit into the grand scheme of things.

[Metaphysician]

In his 4e incarnation, HoJ was almost 900 points. Even trading out the cosmic gun pool for a more normal gadget pool isn't going to cut more than a 100 off that total, and there is some stuff probably absent before, like Combat Luck, that really should be added.

[JJR]

In his 4e incarnation, HoJ was almost 900 points. Even trading out the cosmic gun pool for a more normal gadget pool isn't going to cut more than a 100 off that total, and there is some stuff probably absent before, like Combat Luck, that really should be added.

I would imagine you are looking at cutting at least 50-75 points off of Harbinger's characteristics.I doubt he will be the 30 dexterity, 33 intelligence, 38 presence, 6 speed character in the 5E version. Then depending upon how equipment will be handled within the sub-genre of Hudson City - I do not know if it is a heroic level game or a low-powered superheroic one - you can easily be looking at dropping another 150-200 points from his powers sections. As I stated above, I expect to see the character in the 400-500 point range. But again, all those skills, talents, and perks are expensive within the system.

My issues with Harbinger was not that he had too many skills or had too many points. My issues were that he was a champions character in a dark champions setting. As long as Harbinger is doing the same general damage and resisting with the same general defenses as the player characters I do not care if he is built on 200 or 500 more points.

[Tamashii2000]

Harbringer from what I remember suffered a bit from what batman did in Justice League, they had to realy boost him for when he was in the "team' so he would be on an even standing with the rest of the team. Problem was that it resulted in the 'Batman is god' sydrome where he could take out anyone.


Althrough, honestly IMHO, Harbringer having high number of points realy isn't a problem, several 'heroic leve' characters is (for example) Ninja Hero and the Ultimate Martial artist are 350+.

[Twilight]

You know, something just occured to me.

When he gets written up in Hudson City ( AFAIK, thats where he is appearing ), the Harbinger of Justice well then become the highest level "hero" yet published.

*barf*

And now he's got LIBRA for backup as well, like BMK needs a superteam.