CaptnStrawberry Posted December 3, 2014 Report Share Posted December 3, 2014 I last played Champions 3ed way back in the 80s, but have tried to keep tabs on products since then (I have many of the classic 4th ed. books) and am hoping to give Champions Complete a whirl. I recently purchased .pdfs of three 5ed villain books (CCC, VVV and AA) and I'm impressed! The art may be a bit inconsistent, but as usual with the line the character concepts are first rate. If I take the leap to the 3-volume 6ed set, I'm just curious how many villains carried over? Is the set a 'best-of' of all previous editions, and/or is there a lot of new content? I'm probably sold either way, it would be nice to have full-color hard copies, but am curious. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Baker Posted December 3, 2014 Report Share Posted December 3, 2014 About 95% of VVV is also contained in the 3 6E volumes. In AA, only The Kings of Edom and a couple of the solo villains are not in the 6E volumes. CCC is really an organizations book, so based on a quick look at the TOC, those organizations are not represented in the 6E villains books. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaptnStrawberry Posted December 3, 2014 Author Report Share Posted December 3, 2014 Thanks for the info. My bad, I actually have CKC (Conquerors, Killers, Crooks), not CCC, but I'm guessing many of them made the transition also. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Baker Posted December 3, 2014 Report Share Posted December 3, 2014 CKC is probably 98% covered (I only spotted a couple solo villains that I didn't see in Vol 1-3). I should also note that across all of the books, whenever they are covering a villain team, I just looked for coverage of the team. I know that there are some changes to group membership between the 5E and 6E books. I didn't count that against coverage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steriaca Posted December 3, 2014 Report Share Posted December 3, 2014 Don't forget, you have to convert some of the villians to Champions Complete (most villians are runable as is, but mental powers are a problem. Why is Bolaris' Mind Control not with some limitation which says it can't work if people don't see the hynotic lights?). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigbywolfe Posted December 4, 2014 Report Share Posted December 4, 2014 The only thing that changed in regards to Mental Powers in CC was the dropping of the "class of mind" rules. The class of mind rules should have absolutely no effect on whether or not you need your target to make eye contact with something or be able to see something, so I'm not sure what extra conversion you would need. If there was no Limitation requiring eye contact in the 5E version then that's just as much an issue with the 5E version in a 5E game as it would be in a 6E/CC game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Liaden Posted December 4, 2014 Report Share Posted December 4, 2014 I estimate that the 6E Villains trilogy has at least 95% of the villains contained in CKC, VVV, and AA. OTOH I would say those three 5E books cover at most 75% of the villains in the trilogy. The latter add master villains, villain teams, and solo villains drawn from a bunch of other 5E books -- Evil Unleashed, Champions Universe: News Of The World, Champions Worldwide, Champions Of The North, Stronghold, The Dragon Mandarin, The Mystic World, Book Of The Destroyer, Book Of The Machine, and probably others I'm forgetting -- along with several new villains in each category created just for the trilogy, or inspired by characters from Champions Online. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zslane Posted December 4, 2014 Report Share Posted December 4, 2014 Which just further reinforces how invaluable a resource the new villain trilogy is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Critias Posted December 4, 2014 Report Share Posted December 4, 2014 Is it weird that, in my new trilogy of bad guy books, I really, really, miss, CKC's big table, that lists folks by archetype, power source, point value, etc, etc? I loved that big table. If there's any change I dislike from the 5th to 6th edition villain books, it's that table no longer being a thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigbywolfe Posted December 4, 2014 Report Share Posted December 4, 2014 While it doesn't seem like an essential thing to me, I could see how that could be helpful, especially if throwing a game together in a hurry. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steriaca Posted December 5, 2014 Report Share Posted December 5, 2014 You might also get the Hero System Advanced Character Creation books. A small handful use some of the new powers from those books (with possession being the most common of the new power, without giving a 'if you don't own that book' workaround). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Liaden Posted December 5, 2014 Report Share Posted December 5, 2014 One thing that excited me about having all these villains from previous diverse books grouped together, is how it's allowed me to see commonalities and potential connections between them that I never noticed before. For example, I put together a new major villain team for my campaign from several solo villains who happened to be similar in theme and personality. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Liaden Posted December 5, 2014 Report Share Posted December 5, 2014 You might also get the Hero System Advanced Character Creation books. A small handful use some of the new powers from those books (with possession being the most common of the new power, without giving a 'if you don't own that book' workaround). Do you remember which ones? I haven't noticed any in the CV trilogy using other than core HERO 6E rules so far. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaptnStrawberry Posted December 5, 2014 Author Report Share Posted December 5, 2014 From my perspective, it is a little silly to buy more books just for a handful of power descriptions, plus I wonder why they weren't included in Champions Complete? But I may bite the bullet. . . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Baker Posted December 5, 2014 Report Share Posted December 5, 2014 Do you remember which ones? I haven't noticed any in the CV trilogy using other than core HERO 6E rules so far. I found references to Possession on Blindside in Vol1 and Kapilasa in Vol2. Blindside references APG 74 while Kapilasa does not. That makes for an extremely small handful if this is the most common APG reference. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Liaden Posted December 5, 2014 Report Share Posted December 5, 2014 I found references to Possession on Blindside in Vol1 and Kapilasa in Vol2. Blindside references APG 74 while Kapilasa does not. That makes for an extremely small handful if this is the most common APG reference. Okay, I found them on those two character sheets. Actually the Powers/Tactics section of Kapilasa's write-up does refer to APG p. 74, and p. 92, for rules on Possession and Projection. Their 5E write-ups, in Arcane Adversaries and Villains, Vandals, And Vermin uses a Transform mechanic for that power. Since CaptnStrawberry has those books, it should be easy to just substitute that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Liaden Posted December 5, 2014 Report Share Posted December 5, 2014 From my perspective, it is a little silly to buy more books just for a handful of power descriptions, plus I wonder why they weren't included in Champions Complete? But I may bite the bullet. . . Champions Complete is the official core rules. Advanced Players Guide is supposed to cover optional rules, for players/Game Masters who want to stretch the permutations of the HERO System. I guess Steve Long figured these particular rules worked better for the effect he was going for with Blindside and Kapilasa, but I do question the appropriateness of employing something not in the core rule book. Considering how many of these villains you already have in their 5E incarnations, I would advise against considering APG a priority buy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Baker Posted December 5, 2014 Report Share Posted December 5, 2014 Okay, I found them on those two character sheets. Actually the Powers/Tactics section of Kapilasa's write-up does refer to APG p. 74, and p. 92, for rules on Possession and Projection. Their 5E write-ups, in Arcane Adversaries and Villains, Vandals, And Vermin uses a Transform mechanic for that power. Since CaptnStrawberry has those books, it should be easy to just substitute that. I wasn't reading the descriptions, just looking at the character sheets. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zslane Posted December 5, 2014 Report Share Posted December 5, 2014 Those APG powers don't appear in 6E1, but they still reside within the core library, which may have been the only qualification Steve needed to justify using them on a few villains. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Critias Posted December 6, 2014 Report Share Posted December 6, 2014 While it doesn't seem like an essential thing to me, I could see how that could be helpful, especially if throwing a game together in a hurry. To clarify, it's not a "make or break" thing for me, by a longshot. I certainly don't regret my purchases of the 6th edition villain books, or anything like that. It just never hit me how handy that chart was, until I didn't have it any more, y'know? For instance? My current character, he's got lots of "only vs. mutants" powers, a Detect Mutants, some stuff like that. Sure, we can search our pdfs for the word "mutant" and spot 'em that way, but that table really was really cool and handy to have, in order to check 'em all at once (like to get a rough headcount of what percentage of canon NPCs count as mutants, to gauge what sort of Limitation mutant-only powers should get, that sort of thing). Anyways, it's meant as praise to CKC, not a bash on the new books, sorry if I gave the other impression. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Liaden Posted December 6, 2014 Report Share Posted December 6, 2014 What I miss most from the new villain collections is the plot seeds for each one that used to appear in the sidebars for 5E books. Sure, some were obvious, but many others sparked ideas for using the characters that might never have occurred to me otherwise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaptnStrawberry Posted December 6, 2014 Author Report Share Posted December 6, 2014 I actually have a .pdf of Champions-specific plot seeds, organized by villain. I think it was a free download from this site at one point (?). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Haerandir Posted December 8, 2014 Report Share Posted December 8, 2014 I believe that document originated as a thread on these boards. Might be fun to do it again for 6th edition. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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