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The 'Elminster' of Hero: Harbringer of Justice?


arcady

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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... :P

 

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?

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Re: The 'Elminster' of Hero: Harbringer of Justice?

 

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. :stupid:

 

He's just all wrong for the subgenre.

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Re: The 'Elminster' of Hero: Harbringer of Justice?

 

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.

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Re: The 'Elminster' of Hero: Harbringer of Justice?

 

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.

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Re: The 'Elminster' of Hero: Harbringer of Justice?

 

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.

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Re: The 'Elminster' of Hero: Harbringer of Justice?

 

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.

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Re: The 'Elminster' of Hero: Harbringer of Justice?

 

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.

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Re: The 'Elminster' of Hero: Harbringer of Justice?

 

In his 4e incarnation' date=' 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.[/quote']

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.

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Re: The 'Elminster' of Hero: Harbringer of Justice?

 

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+.

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Re: The 'Elminster' of Hero: Harbringer of Justice?

 

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. :bmk:

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Re: The 'Elminster' of Hero: Harbringer of Justice?

 

I've become used to iconics as per DnD, and the major NPCs in Mutants and Masterminds - all of which are usually built as genre or setting examples and thus built to show what you can do on the normal game settings.

 

Harbringer was just way too much in the old day, and he was also the author's PC, making it somewhat worse by having him be the ultimate example of a DM-NPC. Thus the title of 'Elminster' of Hero.

 

I'd like to see him on a more normal scale, especially as he is the character that 'holds up the genre' of the HUdson City setting. To me it is even more important for the iconic character to balance out than any other character.

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Re: The 'Elminster' of Hero: Harbringer of Justice?

 

That is what makes them the 'icons' or samples of the genre.

 

What good is a sample of a genre to me as a GM or to my players if it is outside the scope of normal play?

 

Look at the DnD iconics - they were constructed at key levels of DnD play to show a sample group through the levels. Look at Dai Blackthorn from GURPS - he's a 100 point character that has been present in every edition of GURPS to show an example of a fantasy character.

 

Look at the Freedom League in MnM's Freedom City - they're built to an average PL of 10 to show 'the archetype' of a super hero team. Thus you can slot them out and slot in the PCs, or place the PCs alongside them and not have the question of 'why do we need the PCs in this setting?'

 

They also serve to really help newer players and GMs know how to design a PC that works for both that game system and that setting.

 

 

Harbringer smacks too much of 'this is my personal campaign and everybody who plays in it is just there to give me fanboyism.' He's like an Elminster - with him around, why bother having anyone else? What point is there in only being around to get the issues that fell off his table?

 

Make him an iconic rather than an Elminster - make him a peer to the PCs rather than their 'lord and master' and he suddenly works to uphold the genre - in character design players could look to him for ideas on working out a concept, and in play the GM could use him as an ally, contact, or even opponant.

 

Let him get his extra 680XP through play, and not in the initial writeup...

 

Sure he may have been the author's PC for years, but the setting is not the the author's game once we buy it.

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Re: The 'Elminster' of Hero: Harbringer of Justice?

 

Boo frickin' Hoo!

 

He was in the original edition, so ya gotta keep him in the new version. Doing otherwise would be tantamount to heresy!

 

Now what I want to see is Dark Champions Foxbat! Now that would be the REAL Deal!!!

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Re: The 'Elminster' of Hero: Harbringer of Justice?

 

You and I are apparently using different definitions of "icon." The one I use is "the people that you look up to, the ones who inspire new heroes, who wish to become more like them."

 

IOW, the icons are the best of the prior generation of heroes.

 

What you are using would be better replaced as "archetypical." Archetypes don't necessarily imply relative position in the setting.

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Re: The 'Elminster' of Hero: Harbringer of Justice?

 

I don't have a problem with him specifically. We lowered his DEX to 25, SPD to 5 and INT to 28 then stripped out the gun'port pool. His stats were overblown but as 'the premier vigilante' (like Batman, Cappy, Bond, and others of that caliber) he is gonna clock in at a huge number of points. In fact, most skill based characters are going to top a Champions power-based character in terms of raw points. Just look at the package deals - several are in the 90 - 130 points area for the package deal alone.

 

I guess it is all in how you see the game - and how you run it at the table.

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Re: The 'Elminster' of Hero: Harbringer of Justice?

 

Isn't "iconic" the term White Wolf used for its handful of characters from each WoD game that were unbeatable and uberkewl? I imagine they were designers' PCs as well...

 

You can inject so much more personality into your world setting if you can have heroes other than the PCs on the covers of you books and in you "in character" blurbs inside the book.

 

I believe that Iconic characters as WW used them were meant to be characters that represented specific archetypes in official game literature. They were referred to in fiction, used as character examples, and gave a specific name and face to the races/classes/clans/breeds they were a part of.

 

The fact that they quickly became uber-unstoppable kewl magnets is an unfortunate end to a good idea. D&D 3 and 3.5 have gone this same route with their iconic characters (Redgar the fighter, Mialee the elven wizard, etc). They are on the covers of the books, are the example characters in rules explinations, and even as sample characters in the backs of adventures.

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Re: The 'Elminster' of Hero: Harbringer of Justice?

 

OK, I'm rambling. Back on topic

 

IMHO iconics need to do a few things:

 

1) Give a game personality while reenforcing the genre the game represents

2) Serve as an example of a typical (if powerful or prominent) PC type character.

3) Provide consistancy by giving the art a central character to focus on.

4) Be flexible enough that they can be used in rules examples and power/gift/feat examples.

 

Hero has been using Iconics since the beginning, with specific heroes on the covers of various books going all the way back to the beginning. The Champions (4th and 5th) editions are really good iconics. Both teams are examples of beginning characters as well as personalities to hang the game art around.

 

Harbringer is a great character who does serve as the Dark Champions Iconic. Problem is that he doesn't hit all of (my) requirements of an Iconic.

 

He certainly meets #1, #3 and #4, but he is so far away from #2 as to confuse and frustrate those who try to reconsile him with a 250 point character campaign.

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Re: The 'Elminster' of Hero: Harbringer of Justice?

 

However, wouldn't there logically be characters like the Harbinger in a setting where hero ( and villain ) type characters have been around for a while?? Much as logically, you will have D&D adventurers of 20th level in a setting wherein adventuring is a time-honored tradition??

 

As an aside, I find the Elminster comparison unfair. The difference between a 900 point and 200 point character doesn't even approximate the difference between Elminster and a 1st level D&D character, or even to a 10th level character.

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