Mind Flayers

[Alcibiades]

INT, EGO, and PRE Drain with a very very slow return rate, only after a Grab.

[Ninja-Bear]

...unless someone has Resurrection of course.

 

I agree with you that using horror elements in a supers game is not the same as running a horror game. If the heroes can fight back reliably, it's not horror. For that matter, I typically describe the difference between urban fantasy and horror as: urban fantasy has heroes, horror has victims.

This being in Champions and a villain, the points and power level are raised to the level needed for your GM needs. If the Beak needs to be 5D6 HKA AP and Pen then so be it.

[Tasha]

Now that is something that might scare the players. Beginning to click into the whole re-write to concept rather than try to replicate functionality. :-)

 

The power my players hated more than any other was Mental Entangle (3rd edition I think). I soon understood that any villain who even suggested they might possess that power became the sole focus of attacks until they were a faint red smear on the ground. The power was effectively removed from the game unless I wanted to label a villain as despicable beyond measure....

 

Doc

Most Champions characters know to fear Mentalists in general and will focus fire on any Mentalist until they are in GM's option and perhaps further. 

[Ninja-Bear]

Most Champions characters know to fear Mentalists in general and will focus fire on any Mentalist until they are in GM's option and perhaps further.

Right and this is because most characters cannot protect against a mentalist. So a Mind Flayer should be given what is needed to recreate this type of dread.

 

And Tasha perhaps the beaks of Mind Flayers produce a type of acid that can dissolve steel and bone so the beak can get to the grey matter?

[Doc Democracy]

Right and this is because most characters cannot protect against a mentalist. So a Mind Flayer should be given what is needed to recreate this type of dread.

 

And Tasha perhaps the beaks of Mind Flayers produce a type of acid that can dissolve steel and bone so the beak can get to the grey matter?

 

I would have them be creatures of the mind, partly embodied on the material plane with their beaks built using killing attacks defended by mental defence rather than PD or ED.  Shouldn't matter the physical strength of the opponent - they simply phase through the physicality until they reach the mental morel within....

[bigdamnhero]

Putting mechanics aside for a moment....

 

There's a great old Hitchcock quote about the difference between suspense and surprise. tldr: there's no suspense if the audience doesn't see it coming. So if the goal is to make the characters/players fear the flayers, just having one show up and one-shot a PC has a high shock value, but doesn't create a sense of dread ahead of time. (Sure, they'll fear it next time...)

 

In D&D, everyone knows how lethal flayers are because we've all read the Monster Manual and thought "Holy Crap I hope I never have to fight one of those!" That's far less of a factor in Champions because even if you're using, say, a villain from Champions Villains the players don't know how much you've customized them to fit your campaign. In general, I think that's a good thing because it creates a little uncertainty. But in this case, it works against you, especially because "highly lethal" in some ways runs counter to the usual genre expectations. (Not saying that's always a bad thing.)

 

So how you build it is in some ways less important than how do you "market" it, for lack of a better term. There are obviously a number of ways to do that: have an early encounter or a news report where one kills an NPC, etc, but even that may not achieve the desired effect because the players know PCs are harder to kill than NPCs. Or you could not make it a simple one-shot mechanism, like the Grab-Miss-THEN-Kill process I described earlier, where the players can see the threat building and have time to get properly scared. Whatever works for you, but it seemed worth mentioning.

[Doc Democracy]

BDH is right. The only time I got a real horror feel in a superhero game was when I played a haunted house, removing options and agency from the players, all guiding them towards the cellar where one of them almost died right at the start of the adventure.

 

It only really worked because I abandoned the rules, assuming they were overmatched unless they figured the trick or until they went where they were supposed to.

 

Irony is that they figured an out then threw it away which only fed the feeling of being swept toward a doom...

[Tasha]

Building dread is why Star Trek and other shows use "red shirts" basically minor characters to show off the new monster of the week's scary power. Killing PC's in Champions is also kind of contra genre and will change a game not always for the best. I guess IF you want to make you game feel like the worst parts of D&D go for it. If your players agree that is fun then more power to you. I truly hate that kind of gameplay. I would be really POed to be the target of that instant kill attack. I would literally get up gather my stuff and walk out of that game. I play champions and Hero System for character development and good stories. Randomly killing PC's is not character development or a good story.

[Doc Democracy]

...though if a player has told you he fancies a change, then killing a character in the right way can be a dramatic boost to a campaign. The key is that the death is a surprise to everyone bar the GM and that one player.

[Vanguard]

Well in 2e all four tentacles have to hit in order to partake of the grey matter milkshake so it's not an easy maneuver to pull off. The prospect of dying gave you a closer bond with your beloved character I always found. D&D was my first rpg when I started back in 197(cough)9.

 

I've found that I develop a closer bond to my character the more I play them.  Not by how quickly they can be killed.

 

Sure, the prospect of dying does add a bit of spice and tension to the actual combat but does nothing to boost the affection I feel for a character.

 

 

Oh, and I really hate that whole save or die mechanic of all of the D&D flavors. It leaves the my character's life up to a single die roll, which IMHO is BORING and Frustrating. There's a VERY VERY Good reason that I switched to Hero in the 80's and never really looked back. Why each other game I play make me want to play Hero more.

 

You and me both Tasha. (and apparently a few others here too. )

 

While I don't find the mechanic boring, I do find it frustrating.  The fact that the fate of one of my characters rests on a single roll (and sometimes not even that.  Finger of Death anyone?) isn't fun and I'm not really sure why they thought something like that should be included in a game.  Especially if they wanted the players to treat their characters as something more than just lead marks on a piece of paper (in the olden days).

 

[snip]

 

But when I build "small" to simulate lower level Fantasy or gritty games at the more normal "real world" ability ranges, I find that while I can build it.  Hero seems to lack and intangible feel that makes a game fun.  

 

This is the problem I'm running into more and more Spence.

 

When I try to make a Heroic level game, Hero just doesn't seem to feel right.  I keep seeing it's Superheroic roots peeking through and they seem to contaminate certain aspects of the game. (Mainly combat)

 

 

A case could be made that in some D&D editions with munchkinny players, the most feared and hated enemies were the rust monsters, who ate your stuff (and there aren't any Resurrect Stuff rituals). Put five mind flayers and two rust monsters on the map, and the party unloads all their alpha strikes immediately on the rust monsters.

 

Wouldn't a Mend spell fix the items?  Can't remember if rust monsters totally destroyed an item first hit or if it took a while. 

 

I do seem to recall that there were Item Saves added later on though . . . . 

 

Most Champions characters know to fear Mentalists in general and will focus fire on any Mentalist until they are in GM's option and perhaps further. 

 

::nods sagely:: Yup. Kill them . ..  Kill them with fire.  Then launch the remains into a Sun.

[Ninja-Bear]

I keep thinking of the description of Doctor Destroyer in Classic Enemies. Be afraid, be very afraid!

[Tasha]

This is the problem I'm running into more and more Spence.

 

When I try to make a Heroic level game, Hero just doesn't seem to feel right.  I keep seeing it's Superheroic roots peeking through and they seem to contaminate certain aspects of the game. (Mainly combat)

That's something I have heard from certain players for years. That Hero Combat and powers seem to feel like a supers game. It's a problem that I just never had with the system. I think that Stats lack real granularity, which is the exact issue I have with Killing attacks. Those are issues that I have when I am designing a campaign and designing characters. They don't really effect my perception of play.

[Vanguard]

That's something I have heard from certain players for years. That Hero Combat and powers seem to feel like a supers game. It's a problem that I just never had with the system. I think that Stats lack real granularity, which is the exact issue I have with Killing attacks. Those are issues that I have when I am designing a campaign and designing characters. They don't really effect my perception of play.

 

Huh, I guess I never thought of it that way but you've pretty much said it.  I've got not problem with HERO combat nor powers.  Were my issues comes from is using the toolkit to create something that isn't Superheroic.

 

When I sit back and try and create something for a Heroic level game, the fact that the rules I'm using were initially designed for a superhero game keeps smacking me in the face.  Sure, it's something I can, and do, ignore but it's still a tender area.

 

PS: I'd've tossed you a like but I used all mine up for the day.

[Tasha]

Thing is that Killing attacks don't really even work correctly in Superheroic games. Which is why they were severely nurfed in 6e.

[Vanguard]

Thing is that Killing attacks don't really even work correctly in Superheroic games. Which is why they were severely nurfed in 6e.

 

Depends on what you mean by working correctly.

 

If you mean that they don't actually kill anything then, yeah, but that's that's par for the genre.

 

How were they severely nerfed in 6e? To me they seem to be just about the same as they were in 5th sans the horrible, horrible stun lotto.

[Tasha]

Depends on what you mean by working correctly.

 

If you mean that they don't actually kill anything then, yeah, but that's that's par for the genre.

 

How were they severely nerfed in 6e? To me they seem to be just about the same as they were in 5th sans the horrible, horrible stun lotto.

They still have the shitty stun lotto it just averages way less stun. Broken because the granularity is so bad, also because it uses a much different mechanic. I also think Mental Powers are broken. They are built for dc 10+ games, which make them really worthless in Heroic games. Also, again they use a much different mechanic than the other powers.

[bigdamnhero]

Building dread is why Star Trek and other shows use "red shirts" basically minor characters to show off the new monster of the week's scary power.

"I'm the guy in the episode who dies to prove how serious the situation is!" - Guy Fleegman, Galaxy Quest

 

Tho that doesn't always translate well to RPGs. The fact that something can kill a 100-point minion doesn't automatically mean a 400-point superhero should be afraid of it.

 

I'm also on of those people who's never felt Hero doesn't do heroic level well. Maybe because I discovered Fantasy Hero first and played primarily heroic games for more than a decade before I really got into Champions per se. The impression I get - and I'm certainly not trying to put words in anyone's mouth here - is that some people who are used to playing Champions have a harder time scaling back down to heroic level because it means giving up some things they're used to thinking of as central to the system, while "bolting on" extraneous things like Hit Locations, etc. And it means deliberately limiting yourself (and your players) in some major ways compared to supers gaming. Whereas coming from the other direction, scaling up to superheroes you can just let yourself go nuts. [shrug] It just depends what you're used to I guess.

[Christopher R Taylor]

You have a last name, Guy!

 

... do I?  DO I????

 

I find that Hero does heroic extremely well, having run hundreds of games in many different campaign types (cops, Vietnam war, PI pulp stories, spies, post apocalyptic survival, pirates, fantasy, etc).  Its about choosing the right optional rules, overseeing people's abilities, and enforcing genre.

[bigdamnhero]

This reminds me of a conversation years ago - can't remember if it was here or elsewhere - with a longtime Champions gamer who wanted to run a Pulp game and was asking for recommendations for what system to use.

 

"So why not just use Hero?"

"Hero combat takes too long with all the optional rules and stuff. I want something that runs quick and dirty."

"But you can run Hero quick and dirty; just leave out some optional rules..."

"But I like all those optional rules! They're one of the things we love about Hero combat!"

"OK...but you just said you're looking for something that plays quicker and with fewer options?"

"Exactly, Hero has too many options..."

 

  It was a frustrating conversation for everyone.

[Tasha]

This reminds me of a conversation years ago - can't remember if it was here or elsewhere - with a longtime Champions gamer who wanted to run a Pulp game and was asking for recommendations for what system to use.

 

"So why not just use Hero?"

"Hero combat takes too long with all the optional rules and stuff. I want something that runs quick and dirty."

"But you can run Hero quick and dirty; just leave out some optional rules..."

"But I like all those optional rules! They're one of the things we love about Hero combat!"

"OK...but you just said you're looking for something that plays quicker and with fewer options?"

"Exactly, Hero has too many options..."

 

  It was a frustrating conversation for everyone.

Of course you can point out that D&D combats are as long or longer.

[Vanguard]

I'm also on of those people who's never felt Hero doesn't do heroic level well. Maybe because I discovered Fantasy Hero first and played primarily heroic games for more than a decade before I really got into Champions per se. The impression I get - and I'm certainly not trying to put words in anyone's mouth here - is that some people who are used to playing Champions have a harder time scaling back down to heroic level because it means giving up some things they're used to thinking of as central to the system, while "bolting on" extraneous things like Hit Locations, etc. And it means deliberately limiting yourself (and your players) in some major ways compared to supers gaming. Whereas coming from the other direction, scaling up to superheroes you can just let yourself go nuts. [shrug] It just depends what you're used to I guess.

 

I went from Champions to Heroic level play.  And I much prefer Heroic over Champs.

 

My issue with it is the same as Tasha's.  The system lacks granularity in certain aspects of play when scaled down to Heroic level. 

 

They still have the shitty stun lotto it just averages way less stun. Broken because the granularity is so bad, also because it uses a much different mechanic. I also think Mental Powers are broken. They are built for dc 10+ games, which make them really worthless in Heroic games. Also, again they use a much different mechanic than the other powers.

 

Ah I forgot that.  It's been a while since i've played superheroic and we always use hit locations for our heroic games.  No stub lotto there... Unless you get your bell run or kicked in the jimmy.

 

My issues with mental powers are legion. 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Its pretty easy to fix the stun mod system in Champions; use hit locations just for stun multiples.  We've done it for years and it always works out great.

 

Of course, if you shift over to the model that treats KA's as a blast AVAD vs resistant defenses, that fixes things well, too.

[Cancer]

My issue with granularity in Hero was with SPD at the low end; 3 over 2 or 4 over 3 is so enormous a difference that you more or less have to restrict characters to a particular SPD value and permit no variance.

[Tasha]

My issue with granularity in Hero was with SPD at the low end; 3 over 2 or 4 over 3 is so enormous a difference that you more or less have to restrict characters to a particular SPD value and permit no variance.

We kept PC's at Spd 3 and 4, never had any real problems.

[Christopher R Taylor]

The cost of speed tends to restrict its inflation, particularly if you impose normal characteristics maxima (i.e. pick a point after which the stat doubles in cost, usually 4 speed).  For me, the difference in combat ability with speed is a feature, not a bug.  It shows that someone with a lot of combat training will be much faster and readier in combat than someone with little or none.  Its what makes Joe average lose to joe skilled.