Rene

Re: Stretching/Multi-Grab, Area Grab Question

Thanks for the answers, guys.

Buying Area Effect just to be able to affect someone big seems a tad too unfair (even though some kind of variant of the Area of Effect: Line seems to mirror the stretchy guy tangling several persons nicely, while Area of Effect: Radius would represent the smothering bit).

It's a common maneuver of stretchy heroes in comics to grab many opponents at once or grab huge monsters. But in HERO you can only sweep-grab as many enemies as you have limbs, and a normal-sized human can't grab huge critters.

So, how to build this ability?

Keep it in mind that I just don't like the Entangle solution for stretchy-guy grabs that appears in UNTIL Superpowers Database, I much prefer to simply buy extra STR with "Only to Grab" Limitation.

Should I just add Area Effect to the Extra STR? Or to the character's full STR? Shoud I buy the Area Effect as a Naked Advantage? Is there other ways?

Thanks in advance.

EDIT: I realize that Extra Limbs can deal with the multiple grabs thing (though you'd be forced to use the Sweep Maneuver and make lots of rolls), but not the grabbing giants part.

Re: Avemgers + Politics

I'm looking for some ideas about how to implement a SuperHero campaign that has heavy political overtones, and even some political subject matter.

 

I very much like the idea of a "villain" who's political views challenge the heroes where they are most vulnerable: their confidence. A badguy that doesn't seem so bad makes you wonder why you're fighting him.

 

Also, some of the point of the campaign is to give my players a cathartic outlet for their political discomfort. Making them feel guilty for what Harry Truman did is NOT on the agenda.

Okay, I'll try to give you some tips that hopefully you could use, no matter what your political views. They're kinda obvious and perhaps you have thought about all this before, but...

Option 1: Manicheist campaign. Find where your players are in the political/social spectrum and create villains that are their opposites. This isn't sophisticated, but can be very cathartic.

Option 2: Moral ambiguity campaign. As 1, but create villains that support the same ideals that players are sympathetic to, only taken to extremes, ie using villanous methods to defend causes the players deem "noble".

Option 1.5: This can be the most rewarding, and is a mix of 1 and 2. Opponents with a cause your players are against, but depicted with some sympathy.

All this not mentioning what someone already talked about above. Maybe the players don't like what THEIR side is doing, but the other side seems even worse.

Re: Schmucks?

Arg, lets not start the "Destroyer = Thanos" BS again.

 

Yes, Dr Destroyer can utterly dominate all current NPC heroes, utterly. Yes, Dr Doom is actually challenged by his usual opposition.

 

This is not because Dr Destroyer is more powerful, its because Dr Doom has far superior opposition.

Are you always this rude?

I think Dr. Destroyer is BOTH, he is vastly more powerful than Doom and has vastly inferior opposition. Doom isn't that powerful in a personal, physical, sense.

Re: Schmucks?

I just think that, as written, Dr. Destroyer would show up whenever he felt like it. We are talking about Dr. Doom in a world with no Fantastic Four, and no Avengers.

I like your analogy, but it's a little worse than that. It's more like Darkseid and Mordru in a world where the Teen Titans are the most powerful heroes. Despite the similarities in concept, Dr. Doom isn't a powerhouse like Destroyer or the other CU megavillains.

Doom, Kang, and co. are primarily masterminds. They have a lot of resources to draw upon, but they don't usually fight hero groups directly, not only because it isn't their style, but because they would LOSE. Doom can't even surely defeat any single member of the Fantastic Four in a fair fight, much less the whole team. He is more likely to have another villain like Super-Skrull or Terrax to take the punches.

So, maybe the design failure in the Champions Universe runs deeper. They could've made the mega-villains in the Doom mold. They would still present a threat to high-end PC heroes, on account of their smarts, but they wouldn't clobber low-end PCs.

Re: Schmucks?

Lots of misconceptions at work. I could never understand the argument that once you cross some arbitrary point-total line, games devolve into brainless slugfests, and only low-point games encourage "thinking".

I think any Superman story dealing with Mr. Mxyzptlk (or even Lex Luthor) involves much more thinking on the part of the protagonist than any time Daredevil battled Gladiator (that is the name of the guy with buzzsaws on his wrists?). Despite the fact that Superman is 1500 pts, while Daredevil is 400.

People will say playing Daredevil requires more thinking than the Avengers because Daredevil would have a harder time battling some bank robbers. Man, if your GM is planning Avengers adventures around bank heists, then he isn't doing his job right.

Likewise the realism thing. The low-point snobs will say it's more "realistic". At least IMO, realism has a lot more to do with mood and in-world rationale, than point totals. I think Alan Moore's Miracleman is more realistic than the Amazing Spider-Man, even though Miraclaman can punch through tanks, and Spidey can't.

The 350-pts thing is very relative too. If you're playing in the Wild Cards universe, 350 pts will give you a first-class superhero, because the foes usually are normal guys, and the world-shaking villains are 600 pts. Now, in the Marvel Universe, 350-pts isn't quite a "schmuck", but it's a guy in the low-end of the superhuman community. Think Angel, Beast, or Black Knight. In MU, the respectable superheroes are the ones with 600 pts (Cap. America, Spider-Man, Mr. Fantastic, the Thing).

Re: The Big Arguments

I basically agree with Killer Shrike. I only wanted to add that, if you have a Power Skill for shapeshifting, the benefit derived is small and not repeatedly used, and it's under 30% of the point cost of your Shape Shift, then the system already provides a semi-official way for doing it.

Re: No progression in Champions

Even with a great GM and some excellent roleplaying' date=' I would see my character as stagnant if there were not mechanical improvment over time...it just don't seem right to me.[/quote']

 

Case-by-case basis with me.

 

Some characters are built for great improvement. The rookie group of heroes that will graduate slowly to the big leagues. In Champions terms, that is most of the Marvel Universe in the first ten years of existence.

 

But some characters and game styles don't have a need for great mechanical changes, except as occasional plot devices, that get "fixed" soon. Superman and Batman, for instance, are more or less "complete" characters and have been for a while.

 

You can even mix the two styles in a single group of players, that is very appropriate for a blend of veterans and novices, where some players start the game powerful but change little, while others should gain more XP to signal the novice catching up. That is the scheme of hundreds of fantasy novels...

Re: Another "would you allow this in your campaign" question...

What I wanted to know is if people thought this power was unbalanced. If the target does not have a particularly high EGO' date=' and the power does indeed prevent the target from doing anything, this entangle could be mighty difficult to break out of without outside help.[/quote']

 

I'd probably use: Mind Control, Set Effect: "Stand Still", NND (Tough Skin blocks it completely, but Mental DEF is useless), Visible, Normal Range, etc. This way, you can't use Mental Attacks to break out of it, just your plain old EGO Roll.

Re: The Big Arguments

A Power such as your proposed Actual Shape Shift' date=' whose purpose would be to replicate other Powers, is completely unnecessary and counter to the HERO System "Reasoning from Effects" orientation. Either buy the Powers you want to replicate directly or take a VPP set up to mirror your SFX concept.[/quote']

 

I'll go further and say that it would be hard to come by with a "real Shape Shift" power that would be much different from a dressed-up VPP. DC Heroes, GURPS 4e, SAS, M&M, all have Shape Shift powers that are nothing more than variations of HERO's VPP: you can assume shapes that mimic powers that cost X, where X can't be higher than your "level" in the Shape Shift power.

Re: The Big Arguments

What are the game benefits of "Actual Shape Shifting"? Literally changing shape provides two types of benefits: a) altering your perception profile and granting the ability to do extra-normal things based upon altered shape. Thus literal form changing might allow one to grow wings and fly' date=' grow claws, stretch, grow, shrink, etc. All things that involve form changing. [/quote']

 

You said much more elegantly and throughly what I was trying to say. When you get down to it, "Shape Shift" is kinda misnamed as a power. "Shape" is simply a special effect in HERO.

Re: The Big Arguments

I don't know whether Shape Shift is priced fairly or not' date=' but it should be based on shapes, not on senses. After all, it's not a sense-affecting power. As it is, it's clumsy to do the most cannonical comic-book shape shifting, a la Plastic Man, where you are molded into the shape of an elephant, but people can still see the red suit and white goggles. [/quote']

 

Plastic Man would have Shape Shift vs. Sight too, but with "Can't Change Color" Limitation. But I don't quite see how Shape Shift can be based on shapes, when shapes are mostly an abstraction in HERO. The way to go for real Shape Shifting (that does more than deceive and impersonate) is with a Variable Power Pool.

 

 

And Damage Shield is correctly priced at +1/2. Not +1 1/2' date=' not even +1. I've used it a lot (at the 4th ed. price) and have never had a balance problem with it. [/quote']

 

I completely agree with this. I still use the 4th edition version of Damage Shield in my games. Another pet peeve of mine is "Only vs Fire" as a -1/2 Lim for Defense Powers. Makes being invulnerable to a single special effect prohibitively costly in supers games. It's MUCH MORE point-effective to buy straight defenses.

 

This kind of limitation should be based on the genre and setting. Only vs. a single energy special effect should be at least a -2 Lim for supers (and any genre with dozens of energy types). Only vs. Lasers in a SF world where most weapons are lasers, or some such, now this really merits a -1/2 (or even -1/4).

Re: The Big Arguments

I think' date=' given your comments, the real undervaluing of Shape Shift that you contend is more general/generic than HERO having arisen from Champions, the superhero genre, but moreso simply a factor of, as with most RPGs, a combat orientation in general.[/quote']

 

In a way. Most RPGs are skewed toward combat, but HERO (and D&D) more than most. By way of comparision, GURPS and World of Darkness price some non-combat traits much higher, with the understanding that they can be pretty useful. Now HERO has "Head of State" Perk for 10 points. IMO, in HERO most non-combat stuff is treated as an after-thought.

Re: The Big Arguments

To me' date=' though, I was annoyed at the way Shape Shift was revised in 5th, just in that I think that while a discussion as to the limitations of SS are valid, I don't think it needed the Adders/de facto recosting except as possibly options, and possibly not in the core book at all.[/quote']

 

I, for one, liked the new Shape Shift rules. I think the old version was underpriced and unpleasantly vague. HERO has always been too skewed toward the superhero genre, so that anything that isn't directly useable in a super-brawl tends to be undercosted, and you could pay 20 pts (was that it? I don't remember) to be able to change into any form. Some players would say: but that is alright, since Shape Shift don't give any direct combat advantage. Yes, you can only take over the world with Shape Shift, while a Energy Blast of comparable price is pratically useless in non-superhero genres where everybody can pick up a gun.

 

I agree with Killer Shrike about the STR issue too. I think it's another legacy of the superhero thing, to make Bricks balanced against the other character types who have the Multipower cheat.

Re: An Alternate Superman

To me the point of Superman being raised as humble Clark Kent in rural Kansas is a demonstration of our unspoken cultural belief that Urban America is morally bankrupt and that the rural heartland of America is where we get our morals and values. I'm not a big fan of that idea' date=' so I'd like to see a story where Kal-El is adopted by a middle-class family from New York or Chicago or even Atlanta.[/quote']

 

No, I don't think there is anything in Superman that implies that Urban America is morally bankrupt. Clark feels the need to move to the big city, and falls in love with Metropolis, that big sprawling gleaming ode to urbanism. The Big City is further embodied in reporter Lois Lane, more sophisticated than Clark, an object of fascination for him, tough and worldly but as morally "pure" as Superman himself. He even ended up marrying her. To me, that looks like a celebration of a union between rural and urban.

 

Or perhaps I'm reading too much into it.

Re: An Alternate Superman

I think this goes back to Frank Miller's first Dark Knight series, when Batman was very much against the Establishment and Superman was taking orders from it. You see this attitude in almost all the DC comics, where Superman is out there doing what he thinks is right, and Batman sort of hangs back like he's waiting for Superman to screw up.

 

That's what it looks like to me, anyway.

There is this decade-old kinda-silly-but-fun story written by Dan Jurgens as a Armageddon 2001 tie-in (yes, I know the ending sucked, but the individual stories were kinda cool), where Jurgens more or less reversed Dark Knight. After seeing a big piece of Metropolis levelled by an Intergang nuclear device, Superman becomes much more proactive and obsessed, and it's Batman that is contacted by the Establishment to bring him down. Or something.

Anyone here reading "DC: The New Frontier"? At the risk of spoiling a minor point of the series, it was kinda cool how the writer used the cliche of Superman/Batman rivalry in other elseworlds as a red herring in this one.

Re: Captain America's Shield

Hi,

 

This may have been done to death, and I'm sorry for that, but I did a search and turned up nothing in these forums (please point me in the right direction if you know of where this has been discussed before).

 

At any rate, I'm seeking suggestions on how to build this focus. Specifically how to capture the offensive and ranged capabilities and balance that with the defensive abilities. Any ideas?

Thanks!

 

Hawkfu

I usually prefer to go with Steve Long's suggestion and buy an unholy amount of Armor and some KB Resistance with the Limitation that he needs to "block" the attack (ie. roll OCV vs. OCV, and only vs. "Blockable" attacks), but still able to do it as a 0-Phase action.

Alternately, you could do as ChuckG suggested and just represent it as huge bonus to Block and Deflection, but in this case make sure to give Cap a *very* high SPD so he won't spend all his phases on the defensive, especially against other martial artists.

Actually I prefer to combine the two approaches and give the higher bonus for when Cap actually sacrifices his Phases to do "Real" blocks, and no bonus at all when he does "0-Phase faux blocking".

I also like to give him Damage Reduction against Explosions. He just hides behind his shield, no need to make any rolls, and he takes less damage from the Explosion. This power should probably be Usable by Others Simultaneously.

The shield throwing trick. I don't like to use Rapid Fire or Ricochet or whatever for it. I prefer to go all out and build it as a Selective Area Effect attack. So he won't have any penalties hitting a dozen guys, and won't be 1/2 DCV. With the Limitation that he can't make any further rolls if he fails any Attack Rolls. Cap's throwing also has the Limitation that the Shield only returns to his hand the Next Segment, probably, and only if he suceeded on all his attack rolls.

Those are the hardest bits, the rest is pretty basic. HA, HKA...

Oh yes, Except that if he does a Ranged Missile Deflection, he probably loses his shield (can Cap throw it to protect someone from a bullet AND have it bounce back to him too?)

Re: Why is Superman being called stupid?

Pre-Crisis Wally had a bad case of CIS. Not PIS, CIS.

 

OTOH, today's Wally is much more experienced, and much much much much much less of an idiot.

His smarts seem to come and go. In his own post-Crisis book he wasn't that smart until Waid, and in JLE, well... Okay, we should discount that. If there was someone who dumbed down characters it was Giffen. Only it was done in the name of sitcom comedy instead of drama.

Re: Why is Superman being called stupid?

It just comes down to what people have already said. If Supes or Wally used their full potential- and not just in combat- writers would be tearing their hair out trying to fill 19 pages worth of comic book.

Wally must have a obscene Movement power, and lots of Lightning Reflexes, but a not-so-good DEX. He is always losing DEX x DEX Contests with villains who Hold their Actions to see who goes first.

Re: Why is Superman being called stupid?

If he'd just had Wally get dropped by an ultrasonic gizmo like the one Vandal Savage used on Jesse Quick' date=' it would have been 'ordinary' PIS to have Wally forget that he could've just run over and snatched it out of Deathstroke's hand before Deathstroke turned it on. But to run straight into the point of a sword like he was blind? A sword that was swung into position faster than Wally can run? That's not PIS, that's just silly.[/quote']

 

I don't think it is much more silly than Barry Allen running at Captain Cold while Cold is pointing his Cold Gun. Cold's finger must be moving at superspeed to manage a shot before Barry hits him a thousand times. Barry had speed and reflexes a *million* times faster than normal.

 

Now, instead of running into a gun, Wally went and run into a melee weapon. A melee weapon is supposed to be slower than a gun, but for a guy that can move a million times faster than a human, does it matter? We can even suppose that Deathstroke, due to being enhanced himself, can move his sword faster than Captain Cold can pull the trigger of his gun.

 

It's pretty silly, yes. But it's all silly.

Re: Why is Superman being called stupid?

If it makes you feel any better' date=' most Comic Book characters and Action Heroes are written as idiots from time to time. [/quote']

 

Whatever makes the story work is fine by me, as long as it isn't blatant, like Superman being hurt by a bullet.

 

Okay, now turning off my suspension of disbelief circuit...

 

Superman's most inconsistent power nowadays must be his superspeed. You think Superman would have no trouble fighting big, slow guys like Lobo, Mongul and Doomsday. They're more or less matched in strength and toughness, but Superman has lots and lots of speed and mobility over these guys.

 

But he can't use it, because it would be undramatic in the extreme. Someone said Superman should've used his speed and flight to grab Doomsday and fly him to the sun. But there isn't much of a story there...

 

And oh yes, they really "dumbed" him down after Crisis. He isn't a super-scientist who creates artificial intelligence robots any more. He is often described as having been a bright kid in school, but well within human parameters.

 

EDIT: I had not read Chuckg's message before I sent it. But what he said. Flash is another frequent character who get power downs. And people whine about the Identity Crisis fight... Meltzer didn't do anything different from most writers.

Re: Favorite Pulp Character

I'm fond of the genre, but I don't have any favorite character (I don't think Sherlock Holmes count?). Really, I usually like Philip José Farmer's reinventing of the characters more than the originals.

I guess Farmer is for the pulps what the Ultimate Universe if for the regular Marvel Universe...

Re: Gold, Silver, Modern or post-Modern...era of choice.

When I GM' date=' it's almost always an optimistic Iron/Bronze Age world. Think DC's Vertigo line meets the Wild Cards Novels with plenty of Philip Jose Farmer, Robert Heinlein, and Roger Zelazny in the mix. People are real people (as close as I can get), Magic/Psychic Phenomena is real, physics is as close to real as I can manage while still allowing super powers. The Heroes will often but not always win, the Good Guys are trying to be Good, the Bad Guys either think that they are the Good Guys or don't think at all, and blowing up a few major buildings in Tokyo today means a world wide recession tomorrow.[/quote']

 

I'd love to play in your game!

 

I have somewhat similar leanings when I GM. I like gritty and realistic, but not Image-style gritty, all guns and martial arts. I tend to Wild Cards too, with a small group of decent-but-flawed heroes in a pretty "real" world. That is what I like, not always what my players give me, though. There is always the occasional White Wolf gamer who wants to play a psychopath, there is always the anime fan...

 

When I do Silver/Bronze Age, I try to do Astro City-like Silver Age, or ABC Comics Silver Age. I'd call it Silver Age with a twist and more psychology. But boy, is it hard to do! I've learned that you gotta have players with a similar knowledge in comics to pull it off. If it's hard to seduce the White Wolfers and the Anime fans into gritty Wild Cards game, it's even harder to do it in this style.

Re: Conan vs. Elric

Somewhat off-topic' date=' I read once that Moorcock had basically designed Elric to be the opposite of Conan. Conan was a mighty barbarian who distrusted magic, and eventually won himself an empire, and saved the world. Elric was a weakling emperor who used magic to a great extent, lost his empire, and destroyed the world.[/quote']

 

I think I've read that Moorcock interview too. Same one where he says Tolkien is disgusting and despicable and boring. I read that and thought: "what an a**hole". And I'm no Tolkien fan, just gets to me a writer bashing another writer from the same genre. Sounds so petty.

 

Well, the only "old guard" fantasy writers I really like are Leiber and Zelazny anyway. I tend to prefer the post-80s stuff.

Re: [Optional]Luck Pool System

Hey, Gestalt. That is a nice system. Unlike you, I'm a narrativist at heart, and I think a major flaw in the Champions genre book is that they didn't included expanded options for "Fate/Karma/Hero" Points, more flexible and powerful Pushing options, and more flexible Power Stunt rules (something better than the Power Skill, but still weaker than a real VPP would be ideal). It is incredibly in genre.