CorpCommander

Re: Internet and cell phones I used to work for Sprint PCS. They gave me great offers for me and my family to have cell phones. At least 15% off the best rates. I never took them up on it. As the old saying goes, there is a reason they make the sausages at night. I did have service with Bell Atlantic/Verizon for years and recently switched to Cingular. A) cells drop calls all the time, more so now than 10 years ago in my experience. cell service is expensive, generally. Roaming charges will bite you in the butt like crazy. Verizon was tacking on at least $100 extra a month on my bill for roaming. The service sucked too. I switched to Cingular because there are no roaming charges in their system. Of course if you aren't on their network you don't get service. C) service can suck even if you are looking up at the tower!!! Living in Tennessee can make you wonder if you are in fact in Bosnia instead. Just 10 miles out from Nashville you can suddenly find yourself in no-mans land with reguards to service. My friend Laura lives on a street that some how magically kills all cell phone service. We saw a tall guy and short redhead in black trenchcoats skulking around so apparently this phenomena has gotten the attention of some in the government... ;-) D) In real life do you feel totally powerful running around with your Cell Phone on? Sheesh! I know I don't. I know a lot of people run around with them on their belt like they are the freaking sherriff but lets get real. They are convinient but they aren't God Given Gifts of Crime Fighting Wonder! E) The bad guys have them too. F) they can be jammed, have your SID sucked from them, easily damaged, easily listened in on (well, less so with the digital ones), etc. As far as the Internet goes. HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA! Please. There is so much useless crap on the internet its not even funny. Search engines cover at best 20% of it at any given time. The Government Databases like NIHM and CRISP are cool if you are a researcher but as far as getting game breaking info???? No. Not likely. Its also not real time. There was breaking news in Kiev a friend was telling me about via IM and I went to search for any hint of it and wasn't all that successful. I know search engines quite well. I've built them and my Brother was deeply involved in Altavista in the day. The Internet is just very, very hard to index. Plus, half of it is porn and the majority of the rest are very boring, stupid blogs. Try Googling this: Viper Plans for World Domination. Did you get the plans Viper is going to use in your world for World Domination? No? Ok well try again later I guess! By the way it does come up with some interesting hits, only a few are Hero related!

Re: Conan vs. Elric Is he smart? Can he outsmart the Noose of Flesh? :-) Wow this is bringing back memories. I think the guy said it best when he suggested that is Elric was Conan's enemy it was a clear win for Conan but if they were friends Conan was going to meet a very terrible and awful ending. Perhaps worse than having your soul sucked by a runesword of mighty power. Has anyone else here read The Swordbearer by Glen Cook? Great book! --Pete

Re: Conan vs. Elric Coin and cleavage will cheer any adventurer up. I think even Red Sonja couldn't disagree with that! Of course the whores pretty much would end up dead from an accidental nick from Stormbringer...

Re: Conan vs. Elric In "Sailor on the Seas of Fate", isn't it Stormbringer that brings several Eternal Champions together to fight Gog and Magog? I read the books some 20 years ago so my memory may be faulty on this one. SotSoF was my favorite of the Elric books.

Re: Conan vs. Elric

Re: XM8 Assualt Rifle. The M14 was used in GW1? Wow, did not know that. I am shocked because where are the spare parts coming from? The M4 is the primere reconfigurable weapon par exelence in my humble opinion. From adding lasers, lights, handles, mp3 players and George Foreman Grills its the one to get. There are real benefits to the 6.5 and 6.8mm ammo. Better range and stopping power with a trade off in accuracy. So, what else is on the drawing boards? When do we get the gun from Eraser?

Re: XM8 Assualt Rifle. I am not going to defend the XM8. I have heard it is easier to maintain than the M4/M16 series and if so then its a valuable, if evolutionary change. As for retooling and retraining - that isn't an issue. When you are not spending time on your MOS you are training in the military. So, I don't see replacing a weapon system as being impossible because their might be training involved. What I would like to see is some of the new support weapons that are coming out get fielded. The 25mm guns that have bullets that home, do air bursts, etc. That would be a major difference on the battlefield. I'd like to see more ways of gathering situational awareness. Right now the biggest problem in Iraq is the enemy will only engage in ambush fights. I don't blame them. I wouldn't want to face off against the US in a straight up fight either. So far its been a good force equalizer and really they just have to wait for the US public to give up in order to win. Worked in Vietnam, and I am sure it will work here. Being able to detect ambushes better would be a good way for the US to offset the one advantage the insurgents and foriegn fighters have. It would be nice to think that peace and soverignty could be restored in that poor country. Anyway, nuf said, don't want to get too political here. I agree with GEWING - don't trust the guys put in charge of procuring these weapon systems. It only takes one bag egg up near the top of the chain to skew the results. Lets spend our money on real solutions to existing problems.

Re: Why I love HERO

Re: Power Defence... Ugg Zornwill, I don't think your argument proves his defense is flawed, more than it shows an inconsistancy in the Hero System. I think this results from the inception. I have in my hands right now a copy of Champions I and when you look at it, the obvious thing you note is -- they had no idea in 1981 what the game would become in 2004! Or even that I would hold a copy of 5th edition in hard back along with almost 20" of bookshelf space taken up by Hero books. I mean really back then powers had options (not just advantages and limitation!) Energy blast had the option of no knockback and no stun. They also state a range mod of -1 per 3" in the Energy Blast description itself. All of these original inconsistancies were later smoothed out in 5th edition. Is there room for more improvement? Sure. 6th edition will be here in time for the colonization of Mars. Finally, you say that "How are adjustment attacks delivered? The others are delivered via real, definable mechanisms, physical, energy, sense-blinding, mental, things we understand." Well, adjustment powers are too... if you read comic books and base a roleplaying game based on every comic you read in the 1970's! And really, do you actually believe in psionic powers and think mental powers are a "real and definable mechanism"???

Why not start a thread on revised editions of your old favorites? Wouldn't it make sense to create a thread here and put up your own version of your favorite enemies? I was just thinking we have a ton of people here who can make these sorts of conversions and plenty of other people who can/will make suggestions to improve them. Just make the subject line "Post your favorite villian here" and lead it off with a write up Wyvern. It will probably become one of those undead megathread that just keeps on going!

Re: Paying Points for Equipment... Well, darn it, now I am going to have to wait for my FLGS to get it. :-)

Re: Power Defence... Ugg What is and isn't allowed in a campaign is an important duty of the GM. Unrestricted the Munchkins and Munchkins in Denial (guilty as charged) will run rampant and require really bogus enemies. I expect my GM will throw a STR drainer at me at some time. I did not yet buy power defense but I did by healing BODY and STR - my character is a minor Hindu God, if you will, and does this healing though meditation. And he may never send a STR draining attack against my brick ever - but I spent the points because when it comes down to it, without STR my brick is Lame Ass! I will eventually probably buy some Power Defense, its in my character concept to a degree, but we'll see. It depends on what kind of villians the GM is going to throw our way. Oh an the rule on reducing defenses at the same time as an attack can be found on 5E pg. 234 under MULTIPLE-POWER ATTACKS. Its a nicely written section and in fact the ENTERING COMBAT chapter should be re-read several times by anyone who wants to play the game properly. Kudos to Steve on this one.

Re: Power Defence... Ugg

Re: Power Defence... Ugg Well there is a term I am adding to my glossary. I totally know what you mean. The current Champs DM I am running with has you write up a couple of pages of character concept before you design your character. He then compares your write up to your design and pretty much forces you to stick with the 'contract' as it were. Its great. People who Rule Rape aren't decent role players and wouldn't make it far in our group.

Re: Dark Champions Campaigns surely someone out there sells a cel-shading filter out there somewhere. should be easy enough to purchase something! What software do you do your 3D work with?

Re: Power Defence... Ugg MinMaxing in Hero System? What? No, surely you jest!

Re: Power Defence... Ugg You are looking at it wrong. There isn't reduced demand for power defense. There is simply, in your world, a lack of need for it so people don't buy it. There is a big difference there. The equalizing force is reflected in both the defense and the attack. ALSO, don't be confused by the shelf price vs. the "actual value." At the given price, in your world, few people are buying power defense. They can't justify it. In another world where drains/suppress/transforms are more common, it might be a necessity to pay those points for it. If adjustment attacks are so rare in your world so as to occure once in the campaign life of a character then even 1 point spent on power defense if probably too much for the rational purchase. Defense is like insurance. Many people under insure and some over insure. $1 Meeeeliion dollars of renters insurance for all of my crap in my apartment would be over insurance just as 10 points of power defense in your world would be. Of course, when you really need it, you really need it!

Re: Power Defence... Ugg

Re: Power Defence... Ugg

Re: Power Defence... Ugg All powers require, in my mind, a description. From that description SFX can be determined. Visualizing Power Defense, as is, is the challenge left to the players and the GM, no? Coming up with a justification for why its on your character sheet should be a requirement. Flash Defense can be inner eyelids or sunglasses, for example, but they won't defend you if the flash is directed at you in some unusual way. Normally as GM if a player comes up with an attack that by passes the typical defense there has to be some sort of limitation on it. So the problem isn't so much the SFX of the defense as it is the attack getting around such defenses if present. I am all for keeping Power Defence as is, and just keeping in mind that all things require a written description. From there it is role playing and proper game mastering to keep things fun and blanced.

Re: Paying Points for Equipment...

Re: Critique this character First off, thanks for the many great suggestions! I had to get clever in several parts to get this to balance out. I got rid of several things. The +3 DCV levels are gone. I'll purchase them later on during the path of enlightenment! The Enraged over the Taxi thing is gone. The Enraged at demons thing was toned down. The transform for HID has been removed and a disadvantage takes its place. I got rid of the curry, He is now listed as having concealable features! I kept the phys lim on his size intact since if he wants to enter a small space he needs to become human again and when he gets through the small space it takes a full turn for him to regain Boddhisattva status again. I pushed CON to 30 which should keep him awake and less sleepy during combat! ;-) As for senses and naked advantages frameworks I will leave it up to the GM to veto it or not. I put emphasis on playing the role more than on getting my rocks off on pretending to hurt things with my made up character so I don't think it will be abusive. Plus I added a limited Code vs. Killing. It fits and better describes him as enlightened. This Peer Review has been excellent. Here is the latest version in HD format.

Re: Critique this character It won't work just holding it. A turban, if you've ever seen one or worn one, takes quite a bit of time to rewrap correctly if it comes off. So one wind blast spell or a dexterous hand and all that power is gone until he can spend the time to put it all back together. It is a limitation in letter and spirit. *** EDIT *** and in addition I am going to rewrite that into the character write up - it takes a full turn to put the turban back into working order and thats without the distraction of combat! That's worth the -1/4 I would think, no?

Re: Critique this character Hey! These are all great critiques. Some I had considered before hand. The GM is looking over the character today so maybe I'll have more feedback before then. I'll incorporate most if not all of these suggestions into the character and resubmit. Thanks a lot for the help - many of these suggestions add greatly to the roleplayability of the character which I think with this GM are going to be vital (he's not the Monster of the Week kinda GM so I hear.) Again, Big Thanks! Keep them coming. I will post Kedar V2 soon.

Here is the HD format of the character. Enjoy!