Ghost Archer

Re: As a GM, do you charge for...knick-knacks Pay for mundane items? No. Even a computer can be acquired fairly easily. And in the case of weapons, if you are a 'superhero' you must pay for all weapons but if you have a secret ID you can have any normal weapon that you are to use in that ID only. Besides, why would Ghost Archer need the pistol he carries as a detective?

Re: Mental Defense, Always On I have always considered Mental Defense, indeed Power Defense, Flash Defense and Lack of Weakness as 'always on' in that you do not have to activate them. You can, in fact, lower those defenses if you would like so in this case I would say the "Always On" would mean it is NOT possilbe to lower Mental Defense for any reason. Now as to how regularly one would wish to lower those defenses . . . therein lies the rub. GM call. In my games, I'd give the full -1/2 but I use a lot of beneficial Mental powers on both sides. If you use them but not often, drop it to -1/4. If never gonna happen, -0.

Re: The Things I Learned Playing A Villain... The most important thing I have learned playing a villain is how truly vile and evil I can be. This bothers me. If I can be that evil, the rest of the human race scares the heck out of me.

Re: The Marvel Handbook online And here I spent money on all those, years ago, and have like three 3 inch binders full of them and all I had to do was wait 15 years....

Re: WWYCD: Registration Ghost Archer: "Don't get me started on Mr. Bush's crap. Of course I am going to ignore it, and he can shove my U.S. Marshal's badge where the sun don't shine if he doesn't like it. I don't LIVE in the U.S., I just help people there as well as the rest of the planet."

Re: WWYCD - a deal with the devil Ghost Archer: "I don't believe in the 'devil' or any other Earthly diety. I have met more than my share of those worshipped by others. Besides, I have my own 'diety' living in a tree house in my Valley and he's been a big enough pain in the neck over the years that he owes me a few. I'd probably make mention to him that someone was poaching on in his domain and screwing with his precious Balance and that would be the end of the so-called 'devil'."

Re: Villianous/Heroic Powers The type of power one has does not make a villain OR a hero. The most vile of villains could have a power as innocuous a couple of d6 NND. No one would consider a 3d6 NND evil but I can come up with a couple of dozen evil things to do with it. By the same token, Superman can push around planets, but you never see him taking advantage of other people.

Re: WWYCD: The Vanishing!!!??!!! Ghost Archer: Celebrate? I know my job isn't finished but the lack of other superpowered beings makes it easier. I guess I'd hang around for a while to see if they might return but once I was satisfied they weren't coming back I wander off to find another world or dimension that needed me. If I happened to locate the missing supers that would be okay with me.

Re: Age of Sail: Sailors and Officers Skills

Re: Age of Sail: Sailors and Officers Skills PS: Bos'n: in charge of rigging, ropes and cordage: also in charge of discipline PS: Sailmaker: in charge of the sails' condition PS: Carpenter: in charge of wood working including damage repair PS: Master Gunner: in charge of the armory and powder magazine PS: Purser: in charge of ship's stores and the accounting thereof PS: Ship's Smith: makes metal fittings as needed PS: Sailing Master: in charge of ship's handling and navigation PS: Cooper: in charge of the ship's barrels PS: Surgeon: in charge of sickbay PS: Cox'n: small boats' captain PS: Ship's Cook: the guy that slings salt horse and dried peas PS: Loblolly Boy: the surgeon's mate PS: Topman: Foretop, Maintop and Mizzentop; expert in working the sails PS: Seaman: a landlubber that can find the right rope at the right time and serve his gun PS: Able Seaman: a true sailor well versed in all duties of a sailing ship Land's man: a landlubber, can't find the head in broad daylight Waisters or wasters: people that don't have a job when the ship beats to quarters, this can include the Carpenter, Cook and such. They do damage control and man the pumps as needed. Petty Officers: Bos'n, Master, Surgeon, Master Gunner Powder Monkeys: young boys that fetch powder, shot and wad as needed by a gun crew Ship's boys: see powder monkey Young Gentlemen: midshipmen, the most useless thing on the ship Gunner's wife: not always a woman but usually in charge of the ship's boys Might want to add SS: Physics as well...YOU try setting up a maintop mast at sea in a swell and tell me you don't need physics. Also, Meteorology, Oceanography, Hydrology, Hydrography, Ship's Trim, Spherical Trigonometry, Mapmaking, Sea Lore (like never sail leave port on a Friday, firing the guns can stop the wind, sticking a marlin spike in the mast will bring up the wind, whitling will bring the wind, parsons are bad luck, scratching a backstay is good luck) Try Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series, I am currently rereading it for the third time. The movie Master and Commander will give you a good idea what shipboard life was like. If I think of anything else, I'll post it.

Re: Where would you go? Spring break, 1964, huh? Even I was a little young to be doing that. You might think about a nice year long vacation someplace hot and muggy, with rice paddies, like Viet Nam. It was just getting started and might be the place to go this season. Then there is the Peace Corp, also new and exciting if you want to help people around the world but I think that was a year long gig too. If not, Malibu, San Diego, Santa Cruz or Hawaii for surfing, very hot about then. How about getting away from it all a little closer to home and hiking the Muir Trail? There is also the traditional backpacking around Europe. Dayton was getting big. Can't think of anything else right off the top of my head . . .

Re: Thank you! & The Protectors Web page Great start . . . now, suggestions. Like you I started my site on a free webhost, at the time it was Geocities which was bought up by Yahoo. Rather quickly I discovered I would rather have total command of what shows up on my site. First thing I would suggest is move to a less ad intrusive host, like Yahoo. The ads are still there but on a closable side bar and they don't use your own pages to insert ads at keywords. THAT alone would be enough to tick me off as the site builder. Second, the Zipped PDF thing. For some reason my computer does not unzip and read the file unless I save it first then unzip then open it with Acrobat. Is there a reason you don't just make it an HTML out of Herodesigner? And you might want to clean up the PDFs by removing the headers, page numbers and the footer. Everything else is just design suggestions . . . On your index.html, find a star background to match the Logo's background. On all your pages, put your text into a table with the borders off and set the table size to say 90%. Center the table. This will keep your text from running from leading edge to trailing edge. If you are trying to save space by using the zipped PDFs, turn your sound wav files into MP3s. Good luck with the site.

Twenty-four years I have been playing Champions, not Hero, Champions. Over the years I have taught the game to hundreds, not bragging, of people young and old. Last night, Hotshot, aka Archerette, became the newest hero of the Wild Hunt. On her first outing she responded to a simple break-in at the Wayne's Auto Parts located at famed Champions Corner. When she arrived she noted an idling car parked at the curb nearly in front of the building and a shattered plate glass window. Why would someone break into an Auto Parts place when there is a bank across the street? She figured less chance of alarms. So, she waits until the mook comes out of the shop through the shattered window and drops down to meet him. Okay, punching him was a very bad idea considering all she managed was to knock him to his knees. From this position, the dastardly Viper Agent hit her twice with his VB-A4 "Jackhammer" Blaster Rifle. Very surprised, she found herself soaring across the street and narrowly missing the street light pole. This is about the point she realize that prehaps a ranged attack might be a better option than getting up close and personal. Let's just say her Fire Bolt did far more to the agent than his blaster did to her. I believe he is still in a coma at SF General. While she didn't stick around for the cops, she did remove all of the agent's neat little Viper toys. Makes a father proud. Next up, how to convince Archer Jr. that a 'droid is probably not the best type of hero to play to start with. Maybe I can recondition him once I get all of his Star Wars video games hidden. Yeah, right, I got a better chance of ripping off Dr. D then getting video games from a nine year old.

Re: Opinion Fluff: Hero Versions I played a very little 2nd, it was really a tutorial. Most of my play was under 3rd and if I ranked them by pure enjoyment, I'd have to rank them: 3rd 4th 5th 2nd If I rank them by game completeness: 5th 4th 3rd 2nd (Pretty obvious, huh?) If I ranked them by innovation: 3rd to me is the only real innovation, everything after was just improvements on that. 4th to me was just the collecting into one tome all previous works. 5th to me was merely clarification of what came before and nothing was new, really. (I can't really rank 2nd here as, like I said, it was a tutorial for me.)

Re: help my friend is overpowered!!!!! I disagree. In most cases it IS the size of your attack that players have always seemed to be more concerned with than a character stepping on their toes when it comes to computer hacking. No one wants to play with a character that can knock Grond out in one shot and if that happens on a regular basis, they will quickly become very disgruntled. But when Fred speaks German as will as someone else does, or Jessica can pilot the ship better than someone else, they usually don't get nearly as upset. Anyone that has GMed as long as many of us have understands one thing about this and any other game. The first thing players do is start measuring the size of their d**k against others. That never means their SKILLS d**k. As for characters having the same or similar powers and skills . . . I have a huge advantage in this case. I build almost all of characters that are played in my game OR that of my co-GM. This is mainly because I have the books, HD, a website and a bunch of experience with the system. This is also because most of the people that join the game are newies. All the player does is tell me what they want, and this can take hours, but I try to steer them away from powers, especially, and skills that overlap others. As for spotlight time, as I have said before in other threads, that all depends on the player. I will play to them if they contribute. I have been doing this too long to have any desire to force a player into actually joining in and acting as if they have free will. That's why they are here, if THEY don't join in, I am not doing to drag them into the game. I feel a player has the power to assert their rights to play but if they sit back and wait they may have a long wait ahead. My best friend, War Eagle, is probably the worst RPer in history but he will always try his best and I appreciate that and play to him. Others, like the Cat, do nothing but react. You have to have proactive players, not reactive ones.

Re: help my friend is overpowered!!!!! I agree wholeheartedly! I have put a great deal of time and thought into Ghost Archer and have been very lucky for the past six years or so to have a GM that handles Ghost Archer's point level very nicely. One of the first thing we did was add a concurrent team in another city that allows us to play back and forth between them. The second team was sponsored by Ghost Archer but he rarely has anything to do with the daily workings of the group. It gave me opportunities to play other characters and I don't resent it in any way because I know Ghost Archer is still there when I want to play him. I don't understand one thing I see in on these boards . . . why do people, GM's and players, seem to have such a difficulty with a wide variant in point levels? I can run a 350 character in a game with a 700 point character and never seem to have a problem. Isn't that what campaign limits are for? Ghost Archer has about 475 points in Skills, Perks and Talents. Did Captain K put those points into Powers? If the character has an overwhelming level of Powers, like a 30d6 Energy Blast, that becomes a problem. If, however, he is within the campaign limits and only has, say, 15d6, then what's the trouble?

Re: help my friend is overpowered!!!!! My own Ghost Archer is about 1300 points but I never really increased his damage class or defenses from where he was 24 years ago. He's become far more adept at many things but I have always stuck to my own rice bowl. I might be a little stronger, but nowhere near the bricks in my teams. I have never increased my DEX or SPD, so while I am damn fast, speedsters will still outclass me by miles. I am not a mentalist, or a mage, and while I do shapeshift once in a while it is solely for fun, like appearing as a drooling Alien to a couple of mooks driving the getaway van. I am very good as a martial artist, but I have always had those skills they have just become more defined by UMA and NH. My biggest advantage over anyone else is the desolidification. People can't stand it when I can scout ahead and find everything before they even enter a building so unless someone asks me to do it, I never suggest it. I don't overpower other players, OR villains, I am just very good at a lot of things. All that being said one way to handle this problem will require Captain K's self-control. I learned early on to let other people have their spotlight. I never horn in on someone else's battle. I'll go save a normal instead. If someone wants to do what I know I can do better, I let them. How can they learn if they never get a chance? I find I enjoy restraining myself as part of my enjoyment is seeing my friends succeed and have fun doing it. One thing I have to fight against is letting others step back and figure "Ghost Archer's here, let him take care of it." Na, ain't gonna happen. "Drag your rear over there and beat up Grond yourself, I gotta go pull those people out from under the rubble of that building." Then there's the problem players being intimidated by Ghost Archer. Hey, that's a positive PRE if you are on my side, dang it! You aren't supposed to be afraid of me. If your friend's as attached to his character as I am to mine, see if you can get him to lay back a little and play the mentor. Think the JLA figures Batman's here, why should we bother? No, they work with him. Sorry but not all superheroes are created equal.

Re: Your personal comic book origins Let's see if I can remember back that far. I remember Kirby's Fantastic Four, the very first one. My grandfather used to walk down to the local newspaper stand every evening. Once in a while I'd go along. He and his friends would sit around out front and play checkers (I kid you not) and I would sit on the floor in the shop between the two comic racks. You know, those old wire carousel type. the whole superhero thing dawned on me with that first book. Sadly, I didn't start collecting comics until about a dozen years later. Still have a half dozen boxes of mostly 70's stuff and mostly Marvel.

Re: High Plains Hero Hate to point something out, if someone else mentioned it kill me, a few years before the Alamo for a Western Hero Campaign? Since the Alamo was in 1836 you might start gathering info on flintlock pistols and Kentucky Long Rifles. Sound more like Frontier Hero to me. And don't forget Col. Bowie's little knife.

Re: Essential Champions Books? Hero Designer but you might want to wait until v3 comes out. Otherwise, I agree with rjcurrie, the USPD and USPD 2. As for the Ultimate books . . . how about after your players figure out what 'type' character they want to play, they pick up the appropriate Ultimate book.

Re: The Developmental History of HERO Ya all got it all wrong...the points changed 'cuz the book got bigger! Tiny 'lil thin thing in 1st to the massively thick tome of 5ER. Size matters is all. I never used point limits anyway so it never mattered to me.

Re: Affects Solid World I know how much Steve hates to answer questions like this but why not? If I can hit you, why can't I hit a button? What's the difference? Another House Rule to add to my games . . . Ignore this ruling.

Re: Got some buildin' exercises for ya... 350, huh? Sorry, I pretty much ignore points when it comes to X critters. I have done a bunch but they're considerably more powerful than 350. Here's the link for those I have written up and not all have been converted to 5th yet. Might give you a few ideas. Oh, Marvel characters are notoriously vulnerable to common things like normal firearms so I jacked up defenses to make them more survivable in my Champions world. The Wild Hunt Presents The X-Men

Re: Best published adventure Hmm...I just realized in 20 odd years, I have only ran one published adventure, the Rev M part of Shadows of the City. I have purchased almost all of them but never used 'em. So any preference I have is purely from the 'how much stuff did I use out of it' point of view. That beng said, my favorite would be The Zodiac Conspiracy. Taurus and Carpricorn have become recurring figures in my campaign to the point I tend to play them as PCs.

Re: combat spell If, however, the spell took an Extra Phase, the spell would not go off until Segment 12 as that would be a SPD 2's next phase.