Trebuchet

Re: In your Universe ... The only real person we've given powers to in our campaign is the magician and skeptic James Randi, who spends his time IRL exposing supposedly supernatural or psychic frauds. In our campaign, he's a metahuman whose power is to (unknowingly) completely suppress all metahuman powers within 100 meters. So no wonder none of those poor psychics' powers ever work when Randi challenges them to demonstrate their abilities.

Re: How to encourage RP? Try throwing a villain at them that takes Coordinated Attacks to bring down. If they don't communicate, they won't win. Repeat as necessary. It can be a real eye-opener when Dinosaur Man, who stomped them into the ground on their first encounter, gets his butt kicked because the characters work together as a team. Ideally, a team should become greater than the sum of its parts.

Re: Just to prove I'm not a complete Comeliness Grognard Reminds me of how a buddy and I played Squad Leader way back when I was in the Army. We'd always play Russian front scenarios, and at the end of each turn the German and Russian player had to drink a shot of schnapps or vodka respectively. Since most of the Squad Leader scenarios ran for 8 - 15 turns, we were usually pretty blasted by the time we finished a game. We called it "the fog of war."

Re: Would you allow the white knight defense?

Re: Would you allow the white knight defense? I'd allow it in all probability. A PC who spends that much on defenses probably won't be much good on offense, and he'd be easy to restrain or defeat with unconventional attacks that the listed defenses won't stop. Functionally invulnerable does not equate to unbeatable. It's a nice thought experiment but I doubt it'd be all that effective in actual play except perhaps for a megavillain.

Re: Naming the baby See post #23 upthread. http://www.herogames.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1849496&postcount=23

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far One weapon having both types is certainly plausible. Why not simply assume the blunt end is a Normal attack and the pointy end is a Killing Attack? The choice of end for the wielder might well depend on the target.

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

Re: CROSS: Agents Of The Vatican Project Pete, if you're interested I have a PC named Justicar who is an agent of the Vatican. He's a Roman Catholic priest and Jesuit. You'd be more than welcome to use him if you're putting a Vatican team together. I'll attach his pic below. (Love your avatar: The coat of arms of the Vatican. )

Re: "UP" pulpy bits in it I liked it too; although I think some of the scenes might have been a bit intense for young children. It's not a work of sheer genius like The Incredibles or Finding Nemo, but it was still fun. Even Pixar's second-tier films are considerably better than average.

Re: Starting Point Totals Nope. I wasn't trying to negate your point; I was just offering my own thoughts on the subject and your post seemed like a good starting point.

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far Me too. Steve's indexes in 5th Edition were lightyears better than those in all previous editions. I don't imagine 6E's index will be anything but better still.

Re: Starting Point Totals I think the intent of the Standard point increase from 4th to 5th was to increase character granularity, not to make the characters more powerful (even though I'm sure there were plenty of players who used that extra 100 CP to make their Champions PCs more powerful). I'm sure that's what Steve has in mind for the 5ER - 6E transition as well. Since as yet we don't know what the new base number will be nor what the costs on revised and/or new Powers and Characteristics will be, it's a bit premature to guess at this point. If I had to guess, I'd say the baseline Champions character in 6E will probably be around 400 points. I must say that in our group the extra 100 CP between 4th and 5th Editions was mostly used to flesh out the characters rather than to buy up combat power. My PC (known as Flash Dancer at the time; now known as Zl'f) at the time went from being an almost pure combat machine to a better rounded character with multiple professional skills for her Secret ID, hobbies, and interests. In fact, her combat power decreased slightly because I reduced her CON by 5, her PD and ED each by 1, and her max DC's by 1. And she became a better character for it. Other players followed similar paths to character improvement.

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far I stand corrected.

Re: Fog RJ is right; fog definitely affects more than just sight. I'd say the classic London pea-souper (which was really smog more than fog; it was a mixture of man-made smoke and natural fog) would be a pretty significant penalty to Hearing and Smell as well as Sight. It could actually get nasty enough to kill people with breathing problems. I'd do it with a Change Environment rather than Darkness.

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far I don't think Steve ever said that. It was certainly implied, if perhaps not explicitly stated, by some of the anti-COM advocates in the 6E Characteristics thread.

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far I don't dislike all of them by any means. That having been said, I also see few thus revealed changes I like better than 5ER. Nobody in my gaming group is enthused by the changes announced and several actively dislike some announced changes, so I've got no real reason to switch to 6E. As I said during the 6E discussions, Steve Long was his own worst competition. I'll almost certainly buy 6E eventually (at least in PDF), but I'm in no hurry and see almost no chance our group will ever adopt it.

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far Va-va-va-Voom! :bounce:

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far Good point, although I suppose I could be stubborn and declare that those builds should be for illustrative purposes only to calculate pricing. Seems to me Talents get used fairly often as "superpowers" in games or genres that don't allow Powers.

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far Most people don't look at the "build" for Talents at all; they simply buy the Talent - especially if they use Hero Designer which doesn't show the build. I've never liked the fact Talents are "built" with Powers and/or Skills anyway; I've always felt they should be entirely self-contained as unique abilities in their own right. I'd hoped that would be one of the changes in 6E although we don't know if that's the case or not yet.

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far I didn't say it would be a majority. Most players I know don't remember how many Levels they have in something; they remember what the number is. IOW, most players IME know they have 6 rPD, 6 rED from Combat Luck and not that they bought 2 levels in it. Same with Skills: They remember their PC has Climbing 16-, not what their base number was and how many Levels up they bought it from that base.

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far Here's my prediction: Ten years from now, when Comeliness hasn't been an official part of the Hero system for a decade, Hero players are still going to be using numbers to describe their characters' attractiveness. GM: "How much Striking Appearance did you buy for Miss Justice?" Player: "I paid 4 Points, so she has an 18 COM." The numbers may mutate to Olympic-style 1.0 - 10 as guys do rating women ("Man, Angelina Jolie's an 11!"), but relative numerical ratings aren't going to go away. It's a shorthand people understand naturally.

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

Re: Captain America Build 350 pts You can't properly do Cap for less than 1000 points! Less than 10,000! Less than a bazillion! Just thought I'd get this out of the way early.