Ghost Archer

Re: combat spell An action that requires a 'full phase' merely means that the character that is performing the action can cannot do anything else during that phase, such as making a half move. The spell will still fire on Phase 6 in the character's phase.

Re: combat The character with the highest DEX acts first and if that action results in the 'death' of the second that second does not get an action. This is one of the advantages of having the higher DEX.

Re: If YOU have been playing Hero since the 80's why do you still keep coming back? 1982 for me and I never left so I can't 'come back'. I am a detail freak so the character generation has always been the primary draw of Hero. Couple that with the versatility of genre, why go anywhere else?

Re: Eating your lunch... Lessee...doesn't Marvel have a game? Gee, with all THAT advertising, you'd think they'd dominate the superhero genre. Oh, yeah, there is the little matter of game play. Face it, nobody does it better than Hero.

Re: What was your first character like? Even though I was playing AD&D about four years before Champions, I was always the DM so I never really had my own character. When I started playing Champions, I knew immediately what type of character I wanted. The result? Ghost Archer and I have been playing him for 23 years now. Over the years since then I have been very slow to develop new characters as I have to have a true feeling for what I want before I'll build it. Ghost Archer, Icehawk, Psion, Goliath, Probe, Tark tan ji and Blurr. That's about one new character every three years. You guys think I'm slow?

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? For the Love of God: Steve Vai

Re: Blimp/dirigible resources? Ultimate Vehicle

Re: Skilled with a pen? Always wondered that myself as Ghost Archer's real name is Cufaen, Spirit of the Bow. We must read the same thing.

Re: My first post... Thought that was a Southern thang . . . well I guess you're about as Southern as you can get, come to think of it. And Batai? That first post, the addiction possiblities are pretty high so watch out and welcome.

Re: I've got 5ER! Hero Designer but you might want to wait until HDv3 comes out after the first of the year, not that I am says HDv2 isn't great . . . it's a huge help in making characters.

Re: Champions Jargon Dice Lice: the tiny, horribly over-weight, creatures that GENERALLY scamper around War Eagle’s dice, their weight in the dice pips causing him to roll just the opposite of what he needs. Dice Lice can be, and usually, are contagious. Picking Lint: the player is off on his own little adventure in his head. It also means a player who did not make the game. He is said to be Picking Lint. Tick Turd: generally used by Sarge to indicate his frustration with either a character or player. Nine time out of ten this was directed at me. SOF: for Soldier of Fortune. It indicates a particularly stupid move, like firing a LAW rocket from inside a closed up helicopter. A SOF move is always detrimental to the whole group rather than just the individual. Screen doors on a submarine: mostly the same as SOF but generally a lot more dangerous to the group, like opening a hatch on a submarine a 1000 feet down. Mist or Red Mist: killed by an overwhelming attack, like 24d6 haymaker on a normal. “He’s mist, Sarge!†I Shoot Him: a boring combat declaration heard so regularly from War Eagle it became a warning to players that they had better get more creative or the one XP for roleplaying was out the door.

Re: Champions (Super)Hero Resources I would appreciate it if you would change this to http://the-wild-hunt.org as I have a bad habit of not updating my site map. If you are aiming for the X-Men part it would be http://x-men.the-wild-hunt.org .

Re: The cranky thread Cranky, huh? Okay, how about this. My eleven year old daughter wants to learn how to play RPGs. So I have been taking things over with her, filling her in on what its all about, talking about a character, Champions, of course. So what does the wife tell me when my daughter is out of the room? "I don't want her to play because she'll end up hanging out with geeks and nerds." Yeah, that make ME cranky.

Re: The cranky thread Get assigned a job. Objective, reduce the time it takes to complete said job. Discover the average time required the do said job over the last few years was 118 days. Put together a team, set goals and accomplish said job in 29 days and saving something like 192 manhours. Take the same job, and each is very much an individual job, none being the exactly the same, and accomplish the job in 25 days and save 892 manhours. What do you hear? You saved too much money. WTF? I know I work for the government but WTF?!?!? Now do the same job a third time, still haven't gotten the final results, but we did it again in 25 days. Now the fourth job comes along. Everyone above me is singing the praises of the system, mind you the SYSTEM, not the 13 people that are doing the work. Everyone above me is claiming other teams need to learn to do their work this way. YA THINK!?! So when another team becomes available to take the next job, my team figures we get a break. Um . . . WRONG! Those above me can't trust the other teams to do the same work as my team. Huh?!? I have 12 working for me. The other two teams are 15 and 18. Somebody check that math and e-mail it to 'those in power'. Must be government thinking. BTW, this fourth job is at least 80% larger than the previous three. My team's new job. Set up a time line for this new, larger, job. Okay . . . we set the time line last Tuesday. This morning they dropped a huge increase in the work package on us. Okay, government . . . oh . . . we don't get ANY increase the the time allowed to accomplish this job. We have, get this, 35 days. A ten day increase in time for a job that is probably TWICE the size of the last package. So I figure we are being set up to fail because 'top men' aren't comfortable with this system, even after three successes. Two levels above me is an idiot without a spine that doesn't have the brass to tell HIS boss it ain't gonna happen. I don't have that problem so I have been banned from any meeting involving upper management. It sucks when no one has the guts to tell the truth. So, my little team is going to struggle along under intense pressure and blow the schedule out of our collective a$$e$. The other nuggle of crap is that I have been acting as a supervisor for the last 18 months, acting because the way the government figures pay scales, I would have to take about a $600.00 per month pay cut to be 'promoted' to supervisor. Now they tell me they have changed how they figure pay and that if I take the job, it will be a pay raise. About 70 cents an hour. Well, I am a GS worker and in January I get probably 80 cents an hour anyway. Oh, and in April, I am supposed to get a promotion up two grades. That works out to something like $3 per hour within the next six months. So their 70 cents looks pretty tiny. The trouble is, I like what I am doing. I like the people that work for me. We are a great team and I would hate to see my people screwed by a new supervisor that doesn't have any idea what's going on. And if I come to the end of my supervisor position, they have no idea what to do with me. I hate not knowing what I'll be doing from day to day. I had enough of that when I was younger. SOOOOO, I am cranky.

Re: WWYCD: Heroes on Strike Ghost Archer: Some have a higher purpose and politics has nothing to do with it. I am sorry if my friends and associates in the community feel such drastic action is necessary but do not expect me to subscribe to such a course. Rather than trying to change the government they need to get off their collective high-horse and get back to saving lives. I am afraid if I saw one of my colleagues standing by, doing nothing, as innocent people are endangered, that I might take the time after I am finished with the threat, to instructed these 'striking' heroes just exactly what 'striking' means. Trust me, doing that once or twice will persuade more than a few wayward heroes to return to the fight. If I find this is not effective, especially on the more 'iconic' types and figure that it is so contrary to their nature that it is 'unnatural', I would find out why and who ever has caused this to happen had best make peace with the deity of their choice.

Re: WWYCD: Valdorian Age Ghost Archer: Again this drops into the argument as to what constitutes a 'super power'. In my case being stranded in such a world has happened to me any number of times and I wouldn't get excited about it. I'd probably pretty much do what I do everywhere I end up. Be a 'hero'. Its not just a job, its what I am.

Re: Wwycd: They Blew It!! Ghost Archer: What is it the NRA says? "If you outlaw guns, only the criminals will have them?" If you outlaw superheroes, the only paranormals left will be the superviilains. I think I'll stay and risk the wrath of the governement and continue what I do. It might be a bit harder on the villains, since I can no longer turn them in to the government. I can hear them yelling about THEIR rights being violated by that 'illegal super powered vigilente". So . . . I'll have to mete out my own justice and I am a whole lot scarier than a courtroom. Icehawk: Since I have a public ID and as much money as that guy over in Redmond, I wonder what happens to the economy when someone dumps half a trillion dollars in stock on the market? I already own this nice little island in the South Pacific and I can live with working on my tan, after all, I never wanted to be a 'superhero' in the first place.

Re: Robert E Howard or J.R.R. Tolkien? My father introduced me to Edgar Rice Burroughs when I was pretty young and through Tarzan, Conan the Barbarian. I loved the works of both authors and thought, in my immature mind, that they were the apex of adventure and fantasy. The thing was, at the time, I also considered Nero Wolfe and the Lensman books the apex of mystery and sci fi. Boy was I wrong. In high school I tried to read tolkien, first the Hobbit then the LOTR. I have to say I gave up on both after only a few hours of reading. Where was the action? I did discover Asimov and Clark and Silverberg and I didn't read another fantasy book until many years later. While cruising the Indian Ocean, I got bored, having exhausted not only all MY sci fi books but those of everyone else on the ship as well, I asked my father to mail me something to read. Tolkien arrived and I was now several years older and more mature. I realized how shallow Burroughs and Howard had been. Over the last thirty years I have read Tolkien's LOTR and Hobbit at least 20 times. It is almost a yearly thing for me. When Silmarillion was published I had to struggle through it the first time, but now it has become a nearly annual read as well. How do I judge whether I prefer Horward or Tolkien? I have NEVER read a Conan novel twice. In fact for me to read a book twice at all is something of an anomally. As for other fantasy writers? I am afraid I have given up the genre after seeing a huge flood of various D&D type crap in the late '70's and '80's. The only acception to this being, David Eddings. I have read all of his books exactly twice.

Re: What Would Your Character's City Be Like? Ghost Archer: I can't think of any place I'd rather work than San Francisco. It isn't shiny and new or gloomy and dark, its a little of everything. It has ambiance. The cool weather helps, too.

Re: WWYCD: Power Loss Ghost Archer: What makes an individual a 'superhero'? What is considered 'power'? Even of you removed everything from me that is above my racial maximum I would still be a potent force. Remove my ghost powers, been there, didn't change much. Remove my gadgets? I can still use an ordinary bow and blade. If you are talking about removing all my skills, I have had that happen any number of times and survived. See . . . the thing is, so much makes me what I am that you can't just point to this or that and say that is my 'power' and even if you take it all away, I am STILL dedicated to what I am doing. The power isn't the hero, the hero is the power.

Re: Highest level Champions game you could play? I agree whole-heartedly! My campaign ranges from 350 to well over 1000 and still even the highest point characters do not exceed my AP limits (100 pts.) for offensive powers unless it is within the character's concept. I keep DEF's down to something reasonable (at least to me), 25 to 35 range and limit DEX to 35 except for a speedster. The primary selling point to me with Hero is the power to do anything with a character and to me that means 'color' powers. My limiting of the higher point characters also makes it possible for a beginner at 350 to feel like they are actually useful and not overshadowed by the more experienced in the group. When I actually get a chance to play my own character, Ghost Archer, I find myself limiting what I do so that I don't take over a game and make it boring for others. One thing I have had trouble with in a campaign I am playing run by one of my player, is MY experience with not only playing but character design. Some of the powers I have designed for my speedster make it horribly easy for me to stop many of the GM's little plots, especially his combat tactics. Unfortunately he started making up stuff to stop me for playing my character the way I want to play him and pi$$ed me off to the point of dropping out of the campaign. I couldn't totally escape as one of the other players kept begging me to come back to help the team and because of the character's personality, I would give in. Sorta showed me points ain't everything. Imagination is more important than intelligence.

Re: Presence in your campaign Years ago a new player asked what a Presence attack was. I was sitting at a gaming table in a local hobby shop, surrounded by a bunch of people, some experienced, most not. I looked across the room out the front window of the shop and spotted a kid about 14 or so that came in all the time to play the video games. As he opened the door I stared hard at him and said with a growl "Get out". There was a look of shock on his face and he instantly retreated. I said to the new player "That is a Presence attack." Of course I ran out after the kid and got him to come back in.

Re: your campaigns "Superman". Superman? Flying brick with heat vision, or Superman the icon? Not that it makes much of a difference as I don't have either. I have been using a very slightly modified Champions Universe for twenty-three years with very rare incursions by Marvel's X-Teams and no input from DC at all. Since my campaign revolves around the Wild Hunt, my own Ghost Archer has kinda become the most well-known super in the world. I can't call him an icon because he simply isn't, nor is he so overwhelmingly powerful that he can all but ignore Dr. Destroyer or a team like the Seven Horsemen. Even though he is 1302 points now, I haven't really increased his hitting power since he began adventuring in '82. His true talent is the versatility his small Cosmic Power Pool gives him and even this I have limited to 25 points. Do I have plans for creating a Superman character? Yes, I do. He is currently living a life as a surfer/beach bum in San Diego and will one day be my campaigns Superman, but that is years away.

Re: WWYCD: Don't Say You Didn't Warn You

Re: Compleatly stupid question