The Champions Do they suck?

[Katherine]

Post your opinions about the Champions Universe Stars/Pet Characters/Placeholders/etc team, the Champions here.

 

Personally, I like 'em.

[JohnOSpencer]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

I like them, but i'd like to see experienced versions of them. Not too big, but a little more powerful.

 

John

[Blue]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

Nope. They don't.

 

 

(What? You wanted more?)

[Hermit]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

The 5th Ed crew has grown on me. They need some fleshing out (not just experience points, but back story) but I've used them regularly as NPCs and they've become a great group for the PCs to socialize with, buy as contacts, and join in adventures on if needed (One group actually rescued the champions).

[JmOz]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

Random Thoughts:

 

Primary Purpose of Champions: Example of a super team for players

 

Secondary Purpose: To act as the important tewam in the Champs Universe (Avengers/JLA like role)

 

Problem: As the starting level is that of defenders of a city, to expect a small group of starting level heroes to be able to go against the baddest of the bad is inapropriate

 

The World should be changed to be less Champions (team) centric, very few villains should have them as hunteds, etc...

[Solomon]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

I'm happy they're not a world-spanning superteam like the Avengers of the JLA. The game's supposed to be about the PCs, so all-important NPCs are rarely an esset, and often a liability. That being said, I think tey're a good example group. Of course they would be much better with Seeker.

[phydaux]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

They are a decent team. They cover the basic architypes, and as a result can tackle villains in the 400 point range.

 

I'll be using them in my Island of Dr. Destroyer one-off on the 23rd.

[MitchellS]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

I don't believe the Champions suck. They are a well-designed starting-level team. I think they need more meat though, both in character points and back-story. As example characters they are fine. As icons for the CU they are not so good because of their 350 point level. Iconic Champions should have been built in the 500-600 point range to justify their iconic status considering all the villains they hunt and who hunt them.

 

As a continuity buff I'd much rather see pictures of other superheroes engaged in various hero activities against villains rather than almost always seeing the Champions. I don't see the purpose of having 11 superhero teams in the US if only the Champions are ever used as place holders. For the CU to be a "real" place the threats need to be spread around. Seeing a picture of Diamond getting crushed by Gravitar is much more interesting to me than seeing it be Nighthawk.

 

If it had been my decision the Champions would have been the big-gun team of the CU, with the Sentinels, Justice Squadron, and UNITY being secondary teams. And then the other 7 CU teams would have been designed in the 300-400 point range. That power level would justify the level of respect the Champions seem to garner within the CU. Again though, this is a continuity thing for me. I see the CU as a comic book world not a game world.

 

The characters themselves I like. I would have preferred to see the members be a little more exotic in design but the Champions are a good team of characters. If the Champions had been a little more exotic it would have opened more archetypes choices for the players who wanted to game in Millennium City. The powered armor millionaire, the brooding detective, the wise-cracking speedster, and the isolated brick, are usually character types the players build around so you end up with double, and sometimes triple, archetype teams within Millennium City. It's not that you can't have archetype duplicates but a good GM always hates to see the players upstaged by NPCs either in power-level, popularity, or archetype.

[OddHat]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

The characters themselves I like. I would have preferred to see the members be a little more exotic in design but the Champions are a good team of characters. If the Champions had been a little more exotic it would have opened more archetypes choices for the players who wanted to game in Millennium City. The powered armor millionaire' date=' the brooding detective, the wise-cracking speedster, and the isolated brick, are usually character types the players build around so you end up with double, and sometimes triple, archetype teams within Millennium City. It's not that you can't have archetype duplicates but a good GM always hates to see the players upstaged by NPCs either in power-level, popularity, or archetype.[/quote']

 

That's why, in my next campaign, the Champions will be replaced by one of the following teams:

 

Battle Babe & Drifter

 

Team Sky-Dog!

 

The Pantheon!

 

Enchantress, Palladine and the Mad Scotsman!

 

Team Trinity! (Now reformed)

 

Animal Pack!

 

The Lonestar Brigade!

 

The Dogs of War!

 

Yes, one of these teams will be the next defenders of Millennium City!

 

Now if only we could make them official...

[Kristopher]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

IMO, the Champions shouldn't be used as a "generic placeholder" team, constantly shown in situations they have no business surviving. As they are, they're too weak to handle the situations they're often depicted in, or to hunt some of the people they're supposedly hunting. That's just objective analysis of the numbers. Even if you give them all the heroic authorial fiat in the world, the odds will catch up with them, and soon -- anything else would be transparently hokey.

 

Solution one would be to make the Champions into the world-class team the background info and general references make them out to be. Add Kinetic as a full-time member, and add whatever number of points to each member as needed to round them out.

 

Solution two would be to breathe a little more life into the CU and actually give us writeups on all the other hero teams and higher-powered heroes that are mentioned but left in limbo. The Defenders of Justice, the Sentinels, etc.

[MitchellS]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

That's why, in my next campaign, the Champions will be replaced by one of the following teams:

 

Battle Babe & Drifter

 

Team Sky-Dog!

 

The Pantheon!

 

Enchantress, Palladine and the Mad Scotsman!

 

Team Trinity! (Now reformed)

 

Animal Pack!

 

The Lonestar Brigade!

 

The Dogs of War!

 

Yes, one of these teams will be the next defenders of Millennium City!

 

Now if only we could make them official...

No rep available. Sorry!

[MitchellS]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

IMO, the Champions shouldn't be used as a "generic placeholder" team, constantly shown in situations they have no business surviving. As they are, they're too weak to handle the situations they're often depicted in, or to hunt some of the people they're supposedly hunting. That's just objective analysis of the numbers. Even if you give them all the heroic authorial fiat in the world, the odds will catch up with them, and soon -- anything else would be transparently hokey.

 

Solution one would be to make the Champions into the world-class team the background info and general references make them out to be. Add Kinetic as a full-time member, and add whatever number of points to each member as needed to round them out.

 

Solution two would be to breathe a little more life into the CU and actually give us writeups on all the other hero teams and higher-powered heroes that are mentioned but left in limbo. The Defenders of Justice, the Sentinels, etc.

Can't we have solutions 1 and 2? I know I'd like to see them both.

[TheEmerged]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

They don't "suck". There are some obvious flaws in the writeups from a character perspective (Sapphire not having contacts/reputation appropriate to her defined status), gaming perspective (the gladiator Ironclad not having appropriate skills like Breakfall), and wargaming perspective (the lack of secondary targetting senses, Witchcraft's lack of an "impact" attack). One of them has an especially galling appearance flaw (cf NightDuck).

 

It's obvious they were intended to be archetypes. That, *in my opinion*, is where they break down. To each their own on that point, I'll admit.

 

Speaking for myself I like Sapphire better than Quantum, Ironclad better than Obsidian, Solitaire better than Witchcraft, and Seeker better than Nighthawk. I also like the team better with Jaguar than without. And here's a key point -- I'm using the Champions I want to use.

 

As to their power level? I rewrote them for the 650-750 pt range for my campaign, because that's the niche I wanted them to fill. Of course, my PC's are villains so the Champs need to fit the role of "unfriendly rivals" especially in the media-friendly issue.

[MitchellS]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

One of them has an especially galling appearance flaw (cf NightDuck).

If you don't mind me asking what do you find so galling about his appearance flaw?

[proditor]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

Ya know, if past history is any indicator, I could probably solve at least some folks problem. Allow me to explain.

 

Back in the early days of Champions, I wanted stats for the Hero guys like Marksman I always saw in products. Just as I finished the write-ups, the comic book came out with their stats in the back. Curses...

 

So I later was running a V&V campaign and thought I need to update the Crusaders, they were cool in a retro way. So I do. I finished the last one, and the comics came out with the notes on how to update them. Curses Redux...

 

So I switched back to Champs with the Big Blue Book and thought, Hey, my characters have grown a lot in a couple of years, I should update the Champions since they are the friendly rivals...and out comes Champions Universe with the updated stats...no worry say I, my version of Seeker at least is better....and out comes Watchers of the Dragon. FOILED AT EVERY TURN!

 

So obviously the answer is that I should start updating the Champions, because within a few months of completion tops, we'll see the updated Champions at roughly 500 or so points.

 

BTW, I sincerely wish I were kidding about the above, but I'm not. Every time, just finish the write-ups, Bam, new product that did it for me and in most cases, better than I did.

 

Now...do I like the Champions? Yeah, I do. I'm probably the only guy that likes Nightduck as well. Part of that comes from liking the mini I made of him, but considering some of the other truly goofy costumes out there, his helmet doesn't bug me.

[Katherine]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

I don't mind Night"ducks" costume. The pictures where the "bill" is shorter or at least foreshortened look better, IMO. I'd got with some more like the helmets from G force.

[Lightray]

I don't think they suck, but I also don't find them terribly impressive or helpful as sample characters.

 

I think Witchcraft and Sapphire are downright dull, both in personality and powers. I never liked Quantum, either, but consider Solitare a far superior character and example.

 

I preferred Obsidian to Ironclad. I was never fond of Seeker, but oddly find myself missing him now. The terror that flaps in the night needs to get rid of the Bird Hat!, but is rather good as an example character.

 

I was fond of Jaguar, but as an example of a character he was rather pedestrian.

[Koshka]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

Katherine, have you been talking with one of my players? I happen to like the Champions, but whenever I'm running a convention game playtest with them I can count on at least one of the people at the table spending half his time complaining about how "badly built" (translation: not munchkined out) they are.

 

Personally, since they're example characters, I'm just as glad they're not munchkin wet dreams. I would have changed a few things had I been writing them, but overall they're good examples of character creation.

 

(I've got a one-shot villain game on the back burner; two of my players will probably be taking their dog in to be put to sleep within the next month, and if it happens close to our game day they may want a "stress-relief" session instead of our regularly scheduled storyline. It is so tempting to send them against the Champions and show that the heroes can accomplish something if the person running them quits griping and plays. But neither of them is the one I was talking about above, and it would be mean.)

[Metaphysician]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

As characters, they aren't bad. Nighthawk needs a revamped origin, but the rest aren't bad.

 

The problem is, they are utterly inadequate as iconic heroes. The fundamental problem is they are portrayed in the setting as being incredibly important heroes. . . when they are built on the *exact same number of points as the vast majority of other heroes, or less.* The fact that said point build is itself inadequate to deal with the more important villains and villain groups, does not help at all.

 

If you upgunned them all to about 500 points, they'd work fine, and still have plenty of room to grow from major heroes to *the* heroes.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

I wouldnt say they suck per se, but I do consider them to be pretty mediocre. They're better as starting points than finished characters to me.

 

I think the main mistake/problem is having them be the patron heroes of Mill City, which was the only CU setting book out for a long time, and is still one of two.

 

Simply put, for many GM's that want to base their PC's in Mill City they get in the way at worst or are redundant at best.

 

Personally I just had them mysteriously disappear off stage slightly before my Millennial Men campaign's timeline began.

[Mutant for Hire]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

I agree with a lot of other people. You can either write up a 750-1000 point set of characters who are the world's equivalent of the JLA/Avengers and are hailed as an important team worldwide, or you can have a bunch of 250-350 starter characters who aren't very important but will be someday. You can't have both.

[Guest WhammeWhamme]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

As characters, they aren't bad. Nighthawk needs a revamped origin, but the rest aren't bad.

 

The problem is, they are utterly inadequate as iconic heroes. The fundamental problem is they are portrayed in the setting as being incredibly important heroes. . . when they are built on the *exact same number of points as the vast majority of other heroes, or less.* The fact that said point build is itself inadequate to deal with the more important villains and villain groups, does not help at all.

 

If you upgunned them all to about 500 points, they'd work fine, and still have plenty of room to grow from major heroes to *the* heroes.

 

Again, again, again...

 

Can you not sleep about night for fretting about how the CU has no 750 point superheroes?

 

Is the lack of an NPC hammer of god the reason you wake up screaming "THE PLAYERS AREN'T PLAYING THE GENRE RIGHT!" each and every night?

 

Does some Hero author come into your house every night and whisper "The CU has unbeatable supervillains" as he 'does his business' while you whimper and bite down on the blanket?

 

No?

 

Then GET OVER IT!

[TheEmerged]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

The Duck hat, pure and simple.

[Kristopher]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

I think they could have published a set of example starting-level characters that had nothing to do with the iconic team of the setting, the team that it's "named for"!

 

The Champions, as they are, just don't cut it as iconic characters.

[MitchellS]

Re: The Champions Do they suck?

 

Again, again, again...

 

Can you not sleep about night for fretting about how the CU has no 750 point superheroes?

 

Is the lack of an NPC hammer of god the reason you wake up screaming "THE PLAYERS AREN'T PLAYING THE GENRE RIGHT!" each and every night?

 

Does some Hero author come into your house every night and whisper "The CU has unbeatable supervillains" as he 'does his business' while you whimper and bite down on the blanket?

 

No?

 

Then GET OVER IT!

Please don't turn this into another personal battle over character points. We all have differing views but we don't have to make personal attacks while stating them; at least not in the first volley of a thread.