Trebuchet

Re: Re-introducing COM to 6th Edition RJ, Seems to me we're both out of place here in this thread, which is titled "Re-introducing COM to 6th Edition". You have no interest in doing so, so why are you even posting here except to be contentious? And I have no intention of using 6E, so I don't need to figure ways to reintroduce something that still exists in 5E. I don't know about you, but I'm done here.

Re: Re-introducing COM to 6th Edition Why does everything have to be a "power" in Hero? That was half my problem with the entire "dump COM" idea in the first place; the presumption that because it didn't provide some sort of official black-and-white printed +/- bonus then it couldn't have any place in the game. This is a role playing game; if something enhances role-playing then it can be perfectly valid without having a mechanism. There were plenty of people who liked and used COM; you seem to be presuming that because you don't see it that way that those who did were wrong. Hero Designer and most variants of character sheets provide a space for a description and picture, even height and weight. If those are valid to include with a character writeup despite having no mechanical basis in the system, then why not Comeliness? Despite your ringing endorsement of the official method, extra PRE bought with Limitations =/= attractiveness.

Re: OMCV 1? Once upon a time efficient character design wasn't considered cheesy or rules raping. Remember 'Goodman's School of Character Building'? Hero is a point-based system; players will - quite rightly - find ways to save points and make those builds more cost effective. Now we have a new version of the system which means the old trick of buying Primary Characteristics ending in'3'' and '8' to benefit from the rounding no longer work, but new ways are going to develop. If a PC doesn't plan on ever making mental attacks or his campaign simply doesn't utilize mental powers then a player would be foolish not to sell back OMCV and perhaps even DMCV as well - and why not, since I've certainly seen enough characters with an EGO of 10 in Pre-6th editions? That's not unfair in the least, since every player has the option of doing the same thing with their character.

Re: Re-introducing COM to 6th Edition I know this is heresy in Hero country, but I always thought D&D had something with the general concept of Charisma. Looks can obviously be part of that, but personality and maybe a hint of Presence as well. In fact, I think making only physical appearance the pertinent aspect misses the point: You can see someone is physically attractive, but her personality or airheadedness (think Paris Hilton) can drop her score considerably. Likewise, a 9-year-old girl can be cute as a button, but her age and social mores against such relationships make her less desirable. Likewise, a woman can be sexually and physically attractive, but her constant use of foul language or picking fights with friends and family makes her less than ideal. I would have liked to see COM expanded in 6E; to allow both numbers and descriptors such as "COM 16: Cute as a button" or "COM14: The Girl Next Door" or "COM18: Smokin' Hot Coed" or "COM24: Sex God/Goddess" to pick up those nuances. Looks aren't everything, but they certainly are something. It shouldn't be solely about sexuality; there are plenty of people out there that are cute, or friendly, or that you just like because they have nice personalities. Any of these could rate an increased COM.

Re: Rule of X

Re: Rule of X In the nearly 27 years I've been playing Champions/Hero, I've seen literally dozens of Rule of X variants; including monsters designed by rocket scientists to run on spreadsheets. None of them are perfect, and it doesn't seem to matter how complicated or detailed they are, it still takes decisions by the GM to provide something approaching balance. Since we saw no real advantage to using a complex formula, we just went the other way and adopted the simplest possible version of Rule of X we could come up with (although we consider it a guideline rather than a hard rule).

Re: Rule of X This is exactly the tendency our formula was designed to counter. When we did have a formal Rule of X in our campaign, every character tended to hit or closely approach the caps. When we dumped them in favor of the formula, we got a much better spread of SPD, damage, and defenses. Several characters actually decreased abilities that had previously been maxed out. One thing to remember is that once a character hits a hard cap, then he's got to go spend the remaining character points on something else, and as often as not that will end up being another capped item.

Re: Rule of X

Re: Rule of X We abandoned official damage caps years ago. Our brick has a SPD 4 and she does 16d6 (without Pushing, Haymakering, etc.). Our fastest character has a SPD 9 and does 10d6. Everyone else falls somewhere in between; in fact most of our PCs are at 18 or 19 by our formula. It seems to work out very well in practice, and obviously the number could be adjusted upwards or downwards depending on the campaign. I think a pretty good "mainstream" Champions campaign (60 -70 AP caps) could be achieved by substituting 16 or 18 for the 20.

Re: Power Discussion: Barrier The numbers I've seen for Barrier would seem to suggest that a character englobed by a Barrier can break out of it with an equivalent Active Point attack. Perhaps not quickly, but the same was true for Entangle, and being englobed would seem to provide a certain level of protection prior to escaping (We've had a PC with an earth-based Entangle deliberately use it on civilians to protect them during a fight, so the basic tactic isn't new.).

Re: Omcv 1?

Re: Rule of X Our group uses a very simple guideline: Speed + Damage Classes <= 20 rather than a formal and complicated Rule of X.

Re: Omcv 1? Does no one see the irony in 6E deleting COM because it's a "seldom used and poorly defined" Characteristic and then promptly adding a brand new seldom used Characteristic (OMCV) which is already generating house rules to rectify?

Re: Omcv 1? Unless a PC has a background-specific rationale for selling back innate abilities or Characteristics, we generally don't do it in any of our campaigns. In fact I think the only character we have who has done so has sold back some Running to represent a bad leg. He even stipulates that he requires a cane to walk. Few supers (and probably not many heroic PCs) are likely to be able to justify Characteristics lower than a base normal. If they do, they can represent it with a Disadvantage such as Age.

Re: Power Discussion: Barrier Well, IME, for the most part Entangles are viewed as something which totally immobilizes the character unless they have Limitations such as those used to represent handcuffs or the like; and it's pretty hard to use a high power martial art attack when you can't do much more than wiggle.

Re: Power Discussion: Barrier Let me put it this way: I'd much rather be an MA englobed in a Barrier, where I can use a PEN or AP attack to escape, than be caught in an Entangle where I can't even move. To me Barrier seems to be much more of an upgrade to Force Wall than a replacement for Entangle. This seems to me to be one of the coolest (if not the coolest) new Powers in 6E.

Re: Silly Question: Rita Hayworth's COM? Umm... wow. I'd forgotten Miss Hayward was so well endowed. :bounce: Sometimes a picture - even black & white - is worth 1000 words.

Re: Slowing down Character advancement We simply require that expenditure of XPs be approved by a majority of GMs in the campaign (Right now we have 5 GMs, so at least 3 have to approve it. Usually that's not an issue; such decisions are usually unanimous). Furthermore, if the proposed new/improved ability would step on another character's schtick then it requires the other player's approval as well.

Re: Your "Oh #@$%!" Moment Our team MidGuard was fighting a full blown dragon (flaming breath, magic, the whole nine yards), and barely managing to hold our own, but we finally started to wear him down and he decided to execute a tactical retreat and opened a portal back to his home dimension. As his body passed through the mystic gateway, my character Zl'f decided she didn't want him to escape (Darn that Overconfident Disad!) and grabbed his tail. Zl'f weighs 108 pounds. The dragon weighed about 50,000. The results were entirely predictable: She got pulled right through the portal. Oh #@$%! (in Russian, of course). When the dragon actually noticed he had an unwanted passenger, he tossed her off with a contemptuous flick of his tail and flew on. Fortunately he wasn't at a high altitude yet, so she made a Breakfall roll from about 100 feet up and landed without injury, only to find herself standing in waist-deep snow (she's only 4' 9", so that doesn't take much) in an Alps-like mountain range (Asgard, or something closely akin to it - perhaps the realm of the Frost Giants) and a half dozen really large (and undoubtedly supernatural) wolves watching her from a nearby ridge. Oh #@$%! again. Shortly thereafter, the rest of the team arrived to rescue her. Her best friend Silhouette hugged Zl'f, then smacked her upside the head with a loud "What were you thinking!" Zl'f was quite restrained for the next couple of adventures.

Re: How to make the Loner feel not so Lonely? Don't worry, we'll probably scare you off eventually. Just keep in mind that RPG geeks are a bit weird even by the standards of the internet (or in real life - I often wonder what non-gamers who inadvertantly listen to our gaming group's discussions about our campaign at lunch are thinking).

Re: Sixth Edition Showcase #6: Defense Powers "Clingy and Annoying".

Re: How to make the Loner feel not so Lonely?

Re: Sixth Edition Showcase #6: Defense Powers The GMs in our gaming group were discussing this today, and this looks like the path we'll take too. There are clearly just too many good ideas and tweaks in 6E to ignore it even though we'll be retaining 5ER as our core system. None of which precludes the possibility we'll fully adopt 6E at some time in the more distant future. Maybe with the release of 6ER...

Re: How to make the Loner feel not so Lonely? Gaming is supposed to be fun, for player and GM alike. If a player makes you uncomfortable, that's not your fault. I've known two psychologically abusive GM/players over the 30+ years I've been role-playing; I won't play with either of them in any capacity whatsoever. Even if it's just a matter of this guy not understanding what you want in your game, that's a problem for the long-term success of your campaign. I get the impression you're fairly young? If that's the case, don't let your youth make you assume you're overreacting. If something feels wrong, it probably is.

Re: Female/Male Super-Forms Hentai? (I had to look that term up.) No, although it does have a bit of adolescent sexual humor (hardly surprising, since the protagonist is in junior high school). Nothing remotely graphic, though.