Viper source book

[Tech]

Ah, opinions. Gotta love free speech! Now for mine:

 

I'll say I liked and disliked it. The agent creation process certainly gives more options for agents but felt scattered and unclear. I don't care for the mystical background of VIPER but to each their own. I felt that Ripper was right alongside that of many of the villains from CKC - too powerful. Yeah, a lotta campaigns are more powerful and need them but from reading the posts, there's not too many of them. The majority of villains nowadays seem inundated with combat skill levels: who doesn't have them? Very few. Not all villains (or agents!) should have levels. The weapon upgrades for almost all weapons seemed overdone. Cross-referencing the old VIPER book vs the new, I saw some powerful upgrades, including 8d6 and 10d6 KA. Seems a bit too much. I'm not going to say sorry - I do think that the VIPER book (and quite a bit of CKC) is overpowering to the new gamer and promotes powergaming. I tried to say why I didn't like things I saw instead of merely saying I didn't like this or that. I'm glad others saw a great deal of use for the new book; unfortunately, I think I'll stick with 4e VIPER with some exceptions.

[Chuckg]

Yes, the 8d6 and 10d6 RKA are very high, but those are *crew-served miniature artillery pieces*. VIPER isn't going to be dragging those to every superfight... they'll only show if a) VIPER expects /really/ hardened targets and they've got enough time to drag over and set up a 200+ lb. tripod-mounted lump of metal with a big hole in the front.

 

 

OTOH, I think the sourcebook missed a bet -- since we know that VIPER can miniaturize a 10d6 RKA railgun enough that it fits into a tripod-mounted weapon that two men can lift, the same railgun should've been mounted in the turrets of at least /some/ of their main battle tanks. Granted, the laser makes more sense in a 'never runs outta ammo' kinda way, but the VIPER hovertank should have had a "-B variant" that's armed with the railgun instead of the anti-personnel laser... that's the one that's intended to go toe-to-toe with the M1A2 Abrams, and not superheroes or UNTIL APCs.

[Chuckg]

Second thought:

 

Then again, since we know that the US Army in the Champions U is higher-tech than the real-world military, to the point where light and medium powered armor is starting to be used in company- or battalion-sized troop tests, it's entirely possible that the new M2A1 "Schwarzkopf" Main Battle Tank has hover generators of its own (reverse-engineered from captured VIPER gear), a primitive force field generator to back up its honkin' huge layers of Questonite/Chobham sandwich armor, and a 12d6 Penetrating RKA 60mm Gauss cannon.

 

(And costs $40 million per tank. )

[Monolith]

Originally posted by Tech

I felt that Ripper was right alongside that of many of the villains from CKC - too powerful. Yeah, a lotta campaigns are more powerful and need them but from reading the posts, there's not too many of them.

I disagree completely. After nearly a year of playing Champs 5E I can clearly say that most of the 350 point villains are underpowered. There is no 350 point villain in the book who can stand toe-to-toe with a 350 point hero; I have not found one yet; and most of the villains in CKC are 350 pointers. Is Ripper more powerful than he was in 4E? Yes he is, but he still could not stand against the Champions and win. So while the 4E Ripper was an average 2-3 hero threat the 5E Ripper is a team threat, but he is still quite beatable.

 

The 5E Champions world is full of 350 point heroes, not 250 point heroes. The 4E Ripper would get pasted by Nighthawk in a 5E game, and I do not believe that was the intention of the character when he was first designed. When the heroes start out with an additional 100 points all those old villains need to start with an additional 150-200 points to just maintain the same degree of toughness that they had in 4E.

[Tech]

Originally posted by Monolith

I disagree completely. After nearly a year of playing Champs 5E I can clearly say that most of the 350 point villains are underpowered. There is no 350 point villain in the book who can stand toe-to-toe with a 350 point hero; I have not found one yet; and most of the villains in CKC are 350 pointers. Is Ripper more powerful than he was in 4E? Yes he is, but he still could not stand against the Champions and win. So while the 4E Ripper was an average 2-3 hero threat the 5E Ripper is a team threat, but he is still quite beatable.

 

Sorry, but I wholeheartedly disagree on the point of Ripper. Without saying what his defenses are for those who haven't bought it yet, bluntly spoken: they're overwhelming. His 'Rip 'Em in Half' ability is also quite powerful. I may or may not disagree with you on the 350 pt villains but will leave it at neutral as I don't know how you build your heroes with 350 pts. I don't have a view of your heroes stats vs the villains.

[Monolith]

Originally posted by Tech

Sorry, but I wholeheartedly disagree on the point of Ripper. Without saying what his defenses are for those who haven't bought it yet, bluntly spoken: they're overwhelming. His 'Rip 'Em in Half' ability is also quite powerful.

Run the numbers... the 4E version would take 2 STUN on a 12d6 attack, most of the time. The 5E verions takes 5. He takes more than twice the amount of damage per attack.

 

So, 5 heroes each doing 2 point of damage per phase required 26 attacks, in total, not including recoveries, to bring down Ripper in 4E. In 5E, 5 heroes each doing 5 point of damager per phase require 16 attacks, in total, to bring down Ripper. Even taking the activation roll on the 4E version into account, the 5E version will still fall before the 4E version in the same style of combat against the same style of heroes.

 

And yes, Rip Em In Half is powerful, but he is called Ripper.

 

I may or may not disagree with you on the 350 pt villains but will leave it at neutral as I don't know how you build your heroes with 350 pts. I don't have a view of your heroes stats vs the villains.

I play using a Rule Of 130, meaning that Active Points in attack, plus average DEF, plus points of Speed cannot exceed 130. This means most characters are 12d6, 20 DEF, and 5 SPD on average.