Epiphanis

Re: From Superfriends to Watchmen: The Extremes of Superheroes I've played it at both extremes depending on the context of the campaign. As a GM, for most superhero games I prefer to impose some sort of Code vs. Killing, because my own tastes run to Silver/Bronze Age and not Iron Age stories and I think far too many PCs focus on power fantasies while neglecting the "heroic" side of things. These conversations inevitably highlight popular moral controversies, and inevitably prompt someone to argue that it is immoral NOT to murder certain people in cold blood. I do not take this position.

I made a little Excel spreadsheet to help balance out attacks by cross indexing the attacker's SPD and modified offensive CV to find a balanced level of Active Points for the attack power. I used defaults assuming a campaign with median attack power of 60 APs, SPD of 5, and modified OCV/DCV (factoring in CSLs) of 10, which I believe is about right for published Champions Universe materials. You can modify these defaults for your own campaign. The spreadsheet is macroless in the ZIP file. I also included a picture of the output table. Anybody with knowledge of Excel and interest in such things is invited to examine and critique the formulae I used. Otherwise, feel free to use it to help you balance encounters. I believe the text box in the spreadsheet adequately explains its use. [ATTACH]41469[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]41470[/ATTACH]

Re: Emotion-Based Powers

Re: City Maps In the current Bendis Moon Knight series, Moon Knight has relocated to LA where he is producing a television show based on his own adventures.

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER So you want unwholesome food porn? Nothing beats Deep Fried Butter on a Stick: [ATTACH=CONFIG]41367[/ATTACH] Look at it! LOOK AT IT AND TREMBLE! Look at it and know that your God has forsaken you!

I was working out specific powers and was wondering about the use of Change Environment. Are the following appropriate uses? A zone of radiation that "damages" (Drains?) CON at 5 pts /level, reduced by Power Defense? (With the Long-Lasting advantage, a cast and forget power for a radiation user). A zone of sickliness that forces CON rolls in order to take any action involving END expenditure at 3 pts/level? A zone of confusion requiring an INT roll to take any action other than a repeat of the last one taken at 3pts/lvl? A zone of fear requiring a PRE roll to take any action other than fleeing at 3pt/lvl?

Re: cu map You mean, like a map of Earth showing fictional CU places like Chiquador, Monster Island, Lugendu, etc.? I don't think so.

Re: The value of Critical Hit rules (and the toolkitting thereof) I agree with Ozymandias. The existing optional Hero crit rule permits nearly anyone to crit against someone, including potentially some who they would have trouble merely hitting on an average roll, and yet it does factor in relative offensive and defensive skill -- with a single die roll rather than two.

Re: The value of Critical Hit rules (and the toolkitting thereof) No. That was sort of the point: statistically, most attacks with that mechanic would not crit against anyone, but a rare good roll could crit against most everyone.

Re: The value of Critical Hit rules (and the toolkitting thereof) With respect to the DCV-target only limitation for critting, factor in that there are many, many conditions, maneuvers, and effects that modify OCV and DCV in the game, but relatively (relatively) few that modify OMCV and DMCV. This cuts both ways; it would be harder to find an exploit rendering a target more vulnerable to a mental crit, but also harder to cripple a Mind Blast attacker's OMCV. The relative number of modifiers already effectively causes the system to treat Mental and Physical CVs differently, does making criticals physical-only significantly exacerbate the problem? There are still lots of reasons to use DMCV-targeting attacks rather than DCV targeting. Do 1/2-DCV criticals render low-Evasion, high-Defense tanks like The Thing "nerfed" relative to high-Evasion, low-Defense acrobatic dodgers like Spider-Man? Umm... maybe? On the other hand, I think the opposite is definitely true with respect to the system without criticals. In practice, in the basic rules once you get your DCV up to about 8 you are much better off spending points on Combat Luck and Resistant Protection than on additional DCV-- yet, conversely, there is never any upper limit of how much Defense is "too much". Do 1/2-DCV criticals overcompensate for that? Is there a better balance to be found?

Re: The value of Critical Hit rules (and the toolkitting thereof) I've been tinkering with programming functions with MapTool, and I experimented with an alternate mechanic. What if, instead of making crits dependent on a threshold of half the target's DCV, we make it double the 3d6 roll to determine "to hit"? I.e.: An ordinary "to hit" threshold can be expressed as: 11+[Attacker's modified OCV]-[3d6]=[Highest DCV hit] Now, using the same roll, express the critical hit threshold as: 11+[Attacker's modified OCV]-[2x(3d6)]=[Highest DCV critted against] This makes the mechanic significantly more random than the rule at 6E2 118. The difference between the hit threshold and the critical hit threshold will be equal to the actual number rolled on the dice, on a bell curve ranging from 3 to 18 with a median of 11. That means a typical OCV 10 attacker will not be able to crit against anybody regardless of how low their DCV is on most rolls, but could hit a DCV 18 and crit against a DCV 15 if he rolled a "3". Would this be preferable to the 6E2 118 "half the target's to-hit DCV threshold?

Re: The value of Critical Hit rules (and the toolkitting thereof) My crit rules wouldn't apply to anything except Normal and Killing Attacks targeting individual DCVs. Drains, Mental Blasts, AoEs, etc. just don't crit. Though perhaps a Mental Blast with an ACV targeting DCV could... for instance, Psylocke's mindblade would probably be built that way and would be crittable. Letting the attacker choose not to crit... why not? I'm slightly inclined to prefer a little more unpredictability disadvantaging the PCs; it adds a bit more tension/interest to combat I think. But I'll be the first to admit that it is difficult to fine-tune the balance between that tension and long-term playability. Fortunately the less-lethal Hero System STUN damage allows one to ameliorate that problem more than many other systems. Yes, the DCV-penalizing (and especially halving) maneuvers become significantly riskier. I really don't know if, looked at holistically, I will find that a good thing or not. Certain character types, like stealthy ninja-types and Entangle-users like CU's Binder and Medusa became significantly more dangerous in combat.

I have been familiarizing myself with the 6E rules and doing a bit of toolkitting for a superhero campaign. I was thinking that I don’t want to use the optional Hit Locations rules, but may want to incorporate the optional Critical Hits rules (6E2 118). I thought about modifying them in the following ways: 1) Applies only to attacks that target individual DCV. No crits for AoEs or attacks that target DMCV like Mental Blasts. 2) Apply only to attacks that inflict Normal Damage or Killing Damage – not to things like Drains. 3) Normal Damage when critted is rolled normally. Although the max possible STUN (i.e. 6 per d6) would be substituted for the STUN indicated by the roll, the BODY damage inflicted would be unaffected (i.e., averaging 1 per d6 rather than the flat 2 per d6 by the rules as written). This is to mitigate the lethality of the crit rules a bit. 4) Killing Damage when critted would result in the max possible BODY (6 per d6) but the STUN damage multiplier would be randomized normally (averaging 2.x rather than flat 3x ). Because the BODY multiplied is itself maximized, arguably you would get a lot more out of a critted Killing Damage attack than a critted Normal Damage one, but I don’t think this would be a problem. 5) Any effect that would normally prevent a Called Shot attack or other Hit Location specific attack (such as the No Hit Location power on a target like a blob or robot) would prevent a crit and is treated as a normal hit. I haven’t actually playtested the Crit rules or my modifications thereof. I think the ramifications would be desirable for what I’m after. 1) Higher OCV and DCV expenditures would be more desirable relative to Attack and Defense Powers than they are in the basic rules; by the base rules OCV plus relevant CV averages out at 10 for most 400-450 pt characters and have sharply diminishing returns above 12. I think these rules make high-accuracy, high-evasion characters more viable and flavorful. 2) DCV-penalizing effects become more scary (and tactically useful), particularly DCV-halvers like Entangles and Surprise, and make things like Haymakers much riskier. Too much so? 3) The book warns that the crit rules make combat more unpredictable and lethal. I think the unpredictability is not necessarily a bad thing, but am concerned a bit about the lethality. Do you have any impressions or experiences with Critical Hit rules that I may not have thought of? I’d like to hear them.

Re: Immigration into the USA - legal, or making illegal legal The real world United States offers "O" Class nonimmigrant visas for individuals with extraordinary abilities. I imagine that an individual with superpowers should be able to gain such without too many problems.

Re: Women of the Champions Universe (Fanpictorial) Actually, I cribbed the pose from a photo reference of a woman playing tennis; in the original she held a racket in her right hand and was in mid-swing. I thought it was suitably action-y but it looks like the end result fell flat.

Re: Was there a canon Champions NPC named Silver Shamrock? There is also a retired hero called "Silver Shield."

Re: The Question It was the 80s series by Denny O'Neil; Sage had encounters with Batman, including the Annual involving Shiva's O-Sensei. Batman was impressed with Sage's (well, Tot's) mask but nothing else. Later on Batman revised his opinion of the Question slightly more favorably. Shiva, however, was always a villain, or at least an anti-hero dating back to Richard Dragon. O'Neil went a long way to establishing Shiva as the most skilled, completely badass fighter in DC continuity, and I was forced to shed small, manly tears when they pissed that away with her crap 'daughter' Sin/Batgirl and some of the stupid stuff Gail Simone made her do in Birds of Prey.

Re: Women of the Champions Universe (Fanpictorial) Well, in 1970 Siren was still young and a bit shy. She gained confidence and poise later.

Re: Women of the Champions Universe (Fanpictorial) [ATTACH=CONFIG]41260[/ATTACH] Siren (c. 1970)

Re: Women of the Champions Universe (Fanpictorial) [ATTACH=CONFIG]41257[/ATTACH] Morgaine the Mystic.

Re: Octagon Campaign I can't help but apply some "real world" thinking... a Growth-based super probably shouldn't show so much skin. In Swift's 'Gulliver's Travels' Gulliver comments on how repulsive the giants of Brobdingag are, with their pores, body hair, and imperfections magnified to tremendous size. Two hunded years later Brad Pitt movies in IMAX proved him right!

Re: Women of the Champions Universe (Fanpictorial) [ATTACH=CONFIG]41256[/ATTACH] Mentalla.

Re: Differences between 5th and 6th ed Champions Universe? Most of the "alterations" are merely updates and not retcons of the source material. Tyhere are revelations regarding the origins of Mechanon and Captain Chronos; the addition of several new villains, including Professor Paradigm and Alchemica; and the addition of a number of events introduced by Cryptic, like the Qularr invasion and the Blood Moon event.

Re: Women of the Champions Universe (Fanpictorial) In 6th Ed, with the costume depicted here (more or less) Vixen was in Champions Villains Volume 3. With a slightly different costume she appeared in a 5th Ed supplement as well, though I forget which.

Re: Women of the Champions Universe (Fanpictorial) [ATTACH=CONFIG]41164[/ATTACH] Orchid.