Peregrine

Originally posted by Eodin

Lockout as a limitation means that if that power is used, all other slots are unavailable, no matter how many points in the multipower reserve... it "locks out" the use of any other slot at the same time. It used to be worth -1/4.

Doesn't making a slot an 'Ultra' slot do the same thing?

Originally posted by Koshka

I know the feeling -- I've kept my AOL account active for personal reasons, and if you count different screen names I could be 7 more people. Quite a crowd for a one bedroom apartment .

Note that registering to vote includes a name and a real-world address. Unless you go about making up otherwise plausible names and addresses to go along with alternate email accounts, that's a decent counter-fraud measure right there.

Voted.

Now I have to fight the urge to use an alternate email account to vote again. We need to keep this as honest as possible.

Two words: Seeker Lives!

OK, he's been 'reduced' to an inside joke. But I have WotD, and while I haven't looked closely, I'll bet that minimal changes would be necessary to upgrade him to 5th. (Adding some Combat Luck is the first thing that comes to mind.) So, in my campaign, Seeker continues his quest for the Truth.

Originally posted by BlackCobra

I think you guys are talking two different kinds of things here -- sports-supers and actual superhero teams. One's job is largely entertainment (play games) and the other is largely protective (stop supervillains/crime). If, as MfH's original premise goes, super powers show up regularly on campus (see his post for reasons) and you can expect a certain level of supervillains to show up, you need a protective team. One that's probably at least lead by a full-time professional, if not entirely staffed by professionals (Campus Super-Safety, anyone?). I can see these teams having student members, particularly at the smaller colleges, but at the bigger Universities, I would imagine they're all staffed by professional supers.

 

If you had a super-hero level game that a superhero team could compete in (super-football, super-soccer, I don't know), then you have the direct parallel with regular sports teams. We just need a sport that seems appropriate (and safe) to the genre and the use of super-powers. This could be really a fun concept, especially with the possibility of the super-sports-team occaisionally helping out the Campus Safety team.

 

Anyone have a super-sports idea?

Given the highly individualistic nature of powers, it's unlikely that any sort of team sports competition would be practical. Considering real-world sports, the only thing that comes to mind is:

Track and field: Bricks would dominate throwing events, speedsters would dominate running events, and it would be an interesting competition between the two types in jumping events.

And again, unless there's a progression to post-collegiate athletics, I see no incentive to create such teams and hold such events on an ongoing basis.

Originally posted by keithcurtis

It's terrible, mate.

 

Keith "Close enough" Curtis

Thought so.

Must... resist... spoiler...

Originally posted by keithcurtis

No time to say much now, but suffice to say that page 52 will generate more board traffic than any other page in a DoJ product. And whose hands are those committing the heinous act? My guess: Steve Long's.

 

Keith "Mr. Cryptic" Curtis

As I've only seen the playtest, I have to ask - that wouldn't be the CU Champions comic (and the characters featured therein), would it?

Binary Man is corporate sponsored for advertising/publicity purposes, the idea being that his highly visible activities will raise awareness of Binary Corp. in the mind of the public and thus any potential Binary customers.

To extrapolate collegiate superteams from that would require two things - superteam activities serving as positive publicity for their sponsoring colleges and universities, thus leading to increased funding (from increased enrollment, increased alumni donations, etc.); and corporate sponsored superteams recruiting primarily from the collegiate teams. If the collegiate teams are not seen as a gateway to the 'pros' (corporate-sponsored positions), then the incentive for the potential collegiate super is to go straight to corporate sponsorship.

These days, there'd need to be a professional superhero league for the supers to 'graduate' to, or the established superhero teams would have to look to the collegiate teams for new recruits, and recruit regularly, in order for there to be an incentive for collegiate teams to from, unless (as suggested) the colleges devised a way of directly profiting from superbattles. Which raises the question - why would colleges be unique in profiting from superbattles? Why wouldn't, say, corporations also profit from the battles. Of course, that creates the de facto 'professional' superteams... say, we may just have something here...

From HS5e, p. 15

Standard Superheroic Character Guidelines

Base Points: 200

Max Disad Points: 150

Total Points: 350

Char Ranges: 10-40 (some exceptions, particularly STR)

SPD Ranges: 3-10

CV Ranges: 7-13

DC Ranges: 6-14

Active Points Ranges: 40-80

Skill Points Ranges: 25-80

Skill Roll Ranges: 11-15-

DEF/rDEF: 20/10

Within those ranges, 350 points allows for a character who is more than a 'one-trick pony', who is capable both in and out of combat, who can explore some of the nuances of their archetype from the beginning of the campaign. All of this requires GM/player interaction before and/or during character generation. You can't let the players generate their characters 'in a vacuum', so to speak, and expect a balanced (vis-a-vis each other, or the campaign world) set of player characters, no matter what point totals you use.

Don't overlook that the major sports teams (football and basketball) are revenue generators for their schools by way of the advertising revenues their televised games generate. Also, collegiate sports are often seen as a gateway into professional or Olympic sports.

For there to be collegiate superteams analogous to collegiate sports teams, one or both of the above might be necessarily applicable to the superteams. In the absence of organizing bodies for supers analogous to those found in the various sports allowing for a reasonable expectation that collegiate supers had a better opportunity to join 'major league' superteams after graduation (or the end of whatever eligibility they are allowed) and/or the opportunity for collegiate superteams to generate revenues (via advertising, for example) for their sponsoring institution, there may be no compelling reason for such teams to exist.

That said, there is probably a good campaign or three to be found in the idea of collegiate superteams. If such a campaign addressed the above issues, so much the better.

Two words: barrel length.

It seems that a longer barrel nets a +OCV, as the round is spun more in a longer barrel, thus producing a straighter flight path due to spin stabilization. Whereas a +RMod represents other features of the weapon that make it more accurate at range than a weapon of similar barrel length.

Caveat

Paramount took intentional measures to distance the canonical Trek from FASA's work when FASA declined to renew the RPG license. So you cant take anything published by FASA as canonical. (Further caveat: I personally use a lot of FASA material in my own Trek gaming, but I have to make it clear to the players that there are differences between my campaign and what they've seen on TV.)

Originally posted by nblade

I'm going to guess that this is what your looking for.

 

http://www.globalguardians.com/master%20lists/index.html

Yup, that's the one. But I'll also check the others. I need to round out a character's complement of disads, and I don't want to cripple the character (especially as it's a low-powered game to begin with).

Thanks, all!

There's a website that has a 'master list' of HERO disadvantages, but I can't find it. (It's not on the Links page of the Hero website - I checked.) Anyone know where it is?

I'll be the heretic.

D&D, for all it's chronicled faults, has some nice ideas. Of particular recommendation are the Van Richten's Guides. They have a lot of good roleplaying advice for different types of undead and lycanthropes.

Originally posted by Tom Carman

New attack roll:

 

Add 10 to DCV, and convert the attack roll to 3d6 + OCV = DCV hit. Of course, you could leave DCV alone and put "- 10" into the equation, but boosting DCV simplifies things.

That sounds suspiciously like d20...

BURN THE HERETIC!!!

B.I.T.C.H.

Being In Total Control of the Heroes

Originally posted by tiger

Another thing to consider is the MInd Trick suppose to only work on weaker minded people.

 

Presense attacks pay no attention to weak or strong minds. This would also lead one to beleive that it is more inline with Mind Control.

Beg pardon?

"The total of the Presence Attack is compared to the defender's PRE or EGO (whichever is higher)..." (Emphasis mine.)

EGO is the best single measure of strong/weak mind available in the HERO System, and PRE definitely has some mental-psychological aspect in addition to the obvious physical component. Thus, a person who is 'weak-minded' is one who has a lower EGO and PRE, thus rendering them more easily affected by a Presence Attack.

In the end, though, it comes down to 'what works best in my/your campaign.' If you use Mind Control to represent the JMT, I'm not going to tell you that you're doing it wrong. Truth is, I'm still undecided, as both a Presence Attack and a low-effect (EGO or EGO + 10) Mind Control can achieve the effect shown in the films. The 'weak-minded' aspect of the JMT is easily represented by lower EGO and PRE, and fits either construct.

And how do you see the Jedi using force rather than persuasion? The most 'forceful' use of the JMT I've seen was in AOTC when Anakin tried to 'force' the assassin to reveal her employer. Add to that the Jedi philosophy, which is to use force as a last resort, while the JMT is commonly used as a 'first resort' when non-Force use has failed. I think that the JMT is a persuasive ability, rather than a 'take control and force compliance' ability.

Originally posted by tiger

Yes it can, but a presence attack by nature, and most write-ups, is basically puffing out your chest and showing how tough/scary you are. The Mind trick isn't anywhere near that.

While that is the stereotype Presence Attack, perusal of FRED (pp. 238-239) suggests that a Presence Attack can be more subtle. "Out of combat, characters can use them to persuade, inspire, or interrogate NPCs." (Emphasis mine.) Later, "A character could use a Presence Attack to... persuade someone to help him." I have no problem with the SFX of a Presence Attack being something along the lines of the JMT, especially since the Jedi appear to be weak telepathically.

How about a former President of the US who is addicted to celebrity? No wait, that's been done...

UNTIL - United Nations Tribunal on International Law

PRIMUS - Paranormal Research and Investigation Mission of the United States (CU p. 43)

VIPER - Venomous Imperial Party of the Enternal Reptile (CU p. 146)

ICE - Iron Crown Enterprises, a gaming company with which a previous incarnation of Hero Games was affiliated for a period of time - Hero produced the stuff, ICE published it, and there was some crossover between the two, content-wise, mainly Hero stats published in ICE's Shadow World product line.

As for the rest, I can't help you.

With Normal Sight, most of them. Occasionally there's a character who is blind, and has to use a different sense.

I had a time travel scenario once (never finished running it) where the PCs started in an alternate timeline, one where JFK was never assassinated. Yup, you guessed it - they found evidence of tampering and had to go back and thwart the tampering - by ensuring that JFK was assassinated 'on schedule'. I had it set up where one of the PCs might have had to be the assassin.