Lupus

Rakshasa. Without a doubt. Dude probably already has plans in place to take over Destroyer's resources in case of D's demise. A couple of Destroyer duplicate robots, loyalists in each and every base... he'd take over the incredible army and the amazing technology. Some of the organisation would probably fall apart, but... you'd get an extremely smart and extremely devious spy getting the setup of his dreams. No-one would be safe.

Check out this page: http://www.devermore.net/surbrook/herosource/medievalma.html I agree with the premise here. Basically, they are as follows: historically, it's totally unclear how medieval swordsmen fought, and how well they were trained. But for a game, you can apply martial arts just like you do in any other genre. If someone's received top-notch training, give 'em a few maneuvers. The page also includes a few sample martial packages.

Pretty much. I run a D&D game that's strayed into the high levels, and I use superheroic conventions all the time, there. Keeps it interesting. There are resources you can look up, of course. Xena's a great one (in my opinion - some people hate it). If you can find it, a series called 'The Water Margins' is brilliant. It's a Chinese TV series (or is it Japanese?) that went through an extensive dubbing project in the 70s by a British group. Unlike most dubs, this one was actually darn good. I still prefer subtitles, but a good dub is an acceptible substitute. It's based around a group of rebels who have been reincarnated, and many of whom have some sort of superhuman ability, as well as kick-arse martial arts. And, of course, there's European myth. Siegmund is a fantasy superhero if ever there was one.

Well, that's a judgment call, and depends on what you're looking for in a good setting. In your opinion, a world that doesn't conform to your conception of the real world is a bad setting. Superhero settings, however, are defined by theme and genre as much as by realism. Straying too far from realism is silly, yes. But according to the genre, certain levels of realism-straying are just fine. Any complaints of 'bad world creation' in these cases are personal style. Doesn't fit your style, fine. That doesn't mean it's bad for all groups. As for your other complaints, yes, you make points. However, no-one's saying 'the US would lose.' What I in particular was saying was 'these are things that Destroyer could do to make things more difficult and more complex so that it doesn't just come down to number of troops vs number of troops.' Superhero universe genre convention: it is possible for one lone madman to have better technology than an entire country. Yes. Even the most advanced country in the world. Thsi is because we are in a world where people can leap tall buildings - because Destroyer also has a superpower, and that superpower is intelligence and technical ability. He's as good in that as bricks are at punching things. This makes such ridiculous things possible - it logically follows on. you can assume that he has various tamper-proofing safeguards on his technology to prevent reverse-engineering. He has incredible technology. He has hidden bases. He has hidden manufacturing plants. He has troops approaching superhero status. He has technology he can give to the third-world armies to improve their firepower. He has ways and means to remove air power from the situation and blind surveillance. The US, in short, would not simply be fighting ragtag militias. They'd be fighting a technologically-superior foe. All of this means is: yes, Destroyer would be a serious threat. He wouldn't just be a speedbump to western armies. Arguments can be mounted that he'd lose, arguments can be mounted that he'd win. No-one's denying that he wouldn't simply kick everyone's butt. :/ However, I maintain that it wouldn't be one-sided in the other direction, either. Chances are, he'd be taken out eventually, but it'd take some heroic intervention - say, the stuff seen in an average roleplaying session.

Infrared perception Odd. I'd figured that the purpose behind renaming the power 'infrared perception' was to remove any assumption that it was automatically a part of the sight group. And that, since it could be bought on its own (as a detect) invisibility could be bought specifically against infrared perception. It's a sense which is not normally targetting, and therefore the cost would be 10 points, and would cover all iterations of infrared perception (touch, sight, or naked unusal sense group detect). Myself, I can't see any balance problems with doing it that way. Any comments?

Gigaton looks in his old boss' wardrobe and discovers a couple of spare suits. Neat-o. In my game, I'm tossing up whether D's dead or not. In either case, there's a bunch of old Dr Destroyer tech lying around that got sold off by not-quite-loyal underlings. After all, they don't know that D's still alive, and D can't really stop all of it without making people realise he's alive. Besides, such travesties as Destroyer tech being released... that just adds convincing weight to the ploy. So when Destroyer tech starts getting taken over by Mechanon... though I am considering having the good doctor be foresighted enough to build in a virus that attacks Mechanon as soon as he tries to examine the tech. That could lead to some interesting plots. 'Course, I haven't actually started running yet... but it'll be kewl when I get around to it. Promise.

Apologies if anyone gets spammed by my post twice. It didn't appear to go through the first time. :/ I do appear to have managed to delete it, howerver. Yay me.

I'm not going to jump in on the discussion above... except for a couple of bits. For Destroyer's ability to wage war: it could be said that he's been getting ready for war with the world ever since Destruga. After all, he never intended to win the battle of Detroit - only to fake his death convincingly. So he's had nearly twenty years to refine his process. I can see that he'd have boosted his stockpiles of gear and improved it considerably, for the purposes of standing up to whatever he plans on doing. (Frankly, any plan that takes Destroyer that long to prepare for is going to be super-scary.) If his plan is to take on the world's conventional forces, then his stuff would be different than in the books. Scott makes a good point about the TOW missile. Therefore, the Black Talons would probably be redesigned to include an automatic missile deflection. Prolly joined by various artillery pieces that would target missile-wielding troops (TOWs take time to set up, yah?). That’s an example, anyway. Black Talons in my own world are re-designed to have two crewmembers (shamelessly ripped off from Wildstorm). Now, as for the military... the US military in particular is incredibly powerful and flexible, but it’s a beast to run. It requires all kinds of support, co-ordination, and generally relies on having superior technology and training as compared to its opposition. At least, it has post-WWII. A lot of military practice would have to be revised. Destroyer, being on the smart side of average, would know he’d have to target smart. Don’t try to fight the entire military machine. Just make sure enough spanners are thrown in the works. Begin by claiming the real high ground - space. As soon as hostilities begin, blow away all spy satellites, destroy NASA’s space station, and target Gateway in the event that it has any military activity (including surveillance). Then start firing lasers and dropping nails on aircraft carriers. Take out carriers, take out surveillance overflights, take out satellites. An intelligence-blind and air-power-denied US army is a very different beast. Not impotent, for sure. It’s still the scariest beast out there. But without eyes and ears, its strategic operations are limited, even though tactically it’ll still kick anyone’s arses. The aim here could be simply to delay any actual invasion - make people think twice about invasion. Give D time to see what’s going on and refine his plans. Of course, in CU, you also have UNTIL and other supertech organisations. These make things even more complicated, as they have tech countermeasures of their own. Not to mention VIPER. And Menton. Also, never forget human intelligence. And sabotage. Allied troops may be too numerous to handle... so find out where landings are taking place, and nuke them. Give Rakshasa enough time and he could probably have assassins stalking just about every important member of hostile foreign governments. ‘Cease your aggression or all your leaders die.’ After all, in times of war, military command is a legitimate target. That was demonstrated IRL recently. Now, it doesn’t have to go this way. There’s a lot of room in here for superheroes to have actions of their own. Such as destroying battlesats, for space-capable teams. Got an underwater guy? Well, Dr D’s got subs that are invisible to sonar and are causing havoc with naval power. He also has rebel Atlanteans causing a ruckus down there, to keep them occupied. PCs can go solve that problem, and suddenly Atlanteans are busy destroying D’s submarines. Mucho opportunity for PC involvement. Oh, as for the ‘stop or your leaders die’ plot... in addition to VIPER and Eurostar becoming involved, perhaps Menton offers to unmask all the assassins. But perhaps Rakshasa’s placed dummies for him to find. But this can quickly get silly as you devolve into triple-bluff. It’s a very big storyline. Would include a great deal of complexity. But D has proven himself to be pretty durn good at anticipation and deception. Just look at the whole battle of Detroit. 50,000+ dead, as a diversion. That’s kinda... nuts. Inspired nuts, though.

If I remember correctly, Hooded Justice was from Watchmen. One of the old mystery men. I can't remember him having a schtick like that, though - enjoying getting beaten up, that is. There was, however, someone that two of the heroes talked about, who took on a villain persona in order to get beaten up. The female member said that she gave up fighting him when she realised that he was breathing heavily.

Would the mace-staff from the chateau scene in Matrix Reloaded qualify?

Can make finding competent witnesses harder, when investigating crimes. From Babylon 5: "Can you describe your attacker, Captain?" (pause) "Bald, with a bone on his head!"

Suppress 'increased recovery time' on drains? Healing regeneration, which heals damaged characteristics? (+2 for all at once) I don't have FREd on me... does regeneration have to be on BODY and STUN, or can it affect other characteristics? Power defence - extra time?

To me, it's also useful if the base form has powers that the second form doesn't have, and vice versa. That is, if the human form has certain powers, and the multiform have certain powers, and they differ. (Especially if, in hero ID, the character has different limitations - such as vulnerability) Otherwise, you're looking at an odd construct of limitations, including 'OIHID' and 'OICID' or something like that. Especially if the base form doesn't look like a normal human, which would remove a geniune Hero ID, and make OIHID questionable. I know you're meant to take the more expensive option, but in this case, I think multiform would be appropriate. As long as, y'know, they didn't then hugely limit multiform and get it way cheap. That's just poor form.

Re: Re: We are excited Ndreare. At least he spelled 'havoc' right. I was on Marvel online games a while back, and everyone there insisted on using a 'k.'

Re: Re: A theory Yep, Menton sounds like the likely suspect to me too.

Re: Re: Fight SMARTER, not harder! Seconded. That situation is something that I hate in comics. Once is okay. Twice, maybe. If it happens every time, then it seriously stretches credibility. Where it /is/ possible is if either the lower-powered guy has skills (and serious skills) in an area where the higher-powered guy has serious gaps, and the adventure is a mix of scenes. So they each get their chance to shine. Sure, the big guy is better in a fight, but he wouldn't be there without the little dude! It's also possible if the player of the less-powerful character is in the game /solely/ for the kicks, and doesn't mind sitting out half of the session while unconscious. 'Course, this stops being fun for the other players if that character is constantly knocked out/held hostage/otherwise leads to them being slapped. Take Jubilee just after the relaunch of the X-Men title (round 1993). She hung around with the X-Men, tended to keep herself safe, hardly did anything useful (but did sometimes, when appropriate) and kept a positive demeanour. I probably wouldn't be happy playing her, but I know some people who would. Even if only so that they can say: 'I fought Dr Destroyer, kicked him, and I lived!' 'Yeah, but you only lived because Ultra-Man stepped in front of you and deflected his power blast.' 'Yeah, but I lived! I rock!' And that's a good way to use a low-powered character. Just takes a very special player.

Only time I've ever seen Jarvis in any kind of action scene, it was against the Masters of Evil, and... well, he was kinda tied up at the time. So it wasn't exactly a fair fight. I think it was basically implied that he had no combat ability. But if you hit him, the Avengers get pissed off. So the outcome of this fight really depends on whether Iron Man's present.

I'd go with this, myself. I'd also toss in extra time/concentration (only to start powers) for the 20-minute-duration ones (to represent having to actually take the drug). A 20-minute duration isn't so big that those limitations would be worthless (a 24-hour duration, however, is big enough that startup time really doesn't impact on the power, so limitations there aren't appropriate. IMHO, anyway).

What can challenge high-point-value fantasy characters? In the bestiary, you have the basilisk, chimera, deadly ooze, demons (Shadow, succubus, lesser demon), dragons (lesser dragon, wyvern), elementals (air, earth, fire, water), golems (clay, metal, stone), gorgon, hydra, giant insects (scorpion, spider), kraken, lycanthropes (werebear, boar, rat, shark, tiger, wolf), rakshasa, roc, sea serpent, giant venomous snake, sphinx, treeman, undead (ghost, mummy, vampire, greater vampire), worm, giant (470 points) These are all the creatures in the 'fantastic beasts' section of the Bestiary that are around the 350 point total, or more. There are plenty there - and they can be joined by others if you slap on the templates from chapter one. Even normal animals sometimes rank up into a couple hundred points. Put elemental templates on them, and you have serious threats. Since some of them are far more expensive than their actual effectiveness, the trick is to look at the combat values, attacks and defences of the creatures and make sure that either your PCs don't overwhelm them, regardless of point value, or that you beef them up so that the PCs are challenged appropriately. You'll also have to decide what genre rules you'll be using: regardless of point value, this could still potentially be a heroic level game. So are you using knockback? Charging characters for equipment? allowing pushing to 10 points? But yes, high point values are valid in a fantasy setting. It's not only D&D that can handle high power.

Re: Smartest? Mmm. Anyone got any theories about what happened there? Been playing Champs since 4th, but I didn't get many of the supplements, so I have no idea what went on with most characters back then.

Any system of 'ages' has bleed-through. That is, history doesn't move in definite breaks. For one, the breaks will be different in each comic. It'll also be blurry for a long time and, even in the iron age, you'll run into silver-age-type stories. I'm also sure you'd find bronze-age stories in silver- or gold-age comics (though I don't know of any myself). Of course, the storytelling style will be different. Perhaps that's more of a marker of age. In music, we got the break between classical and romantic period happening anywhere between 1800 and 1850. You can get enormous arguments between music buffs about whether Beethoven should be counted as classical or romantic, and what year the break should be put at. It's all silly, really, since there is no simple break point. It's the same with comics. We can all think of examples of modern comics that are pretty much bronze age rather than iron. (Of course, I hate most iron-age comics. But that's personal opinion and not valid input into a discussion of the historical development of the genre.)

Some variant of 'no conscious control' could work, too. Or 'side effects'. If you're modelling Jean Grey, she could mostly keep control of herself and avoid reading people's minds, unless she got distracted, or there were very strong thoughts. Another option could be an always on area of effect telepathy, with an ego roll and side effects. Side effects being stun damage (telepathic backlash/pain/confusion from all the voices). But that doesn't quite work... if the ego roll fails, that normally means that the power doesn't work. In this case, it's the power working only as expected unless the ego roll fails. Hmm. Returning to effect: this could be best modelled by a susceptibility (when surrounded by people and distracted/stressed/etc). However, sometimes Jean picks up thoughts that are actually useful to her by mistake. This could be simulated by telepathy, no conscious control. That work well enough?

Okay, I can see how that works. And sorry for missing the earlier thread. And yah, there are some very spiffy weapons in there, and I did acknowledge that. Was only talking about the ones that I took issue with. For my own games, I'm gonna have to tinker with the stats. The ones in the book are too simple for my tastes. Lot more can be made of minor advantages, such as increased STUN (especially in the case of lasers). And, of course, OCV/RMod enhancements. Note, I'm not complaining about that. I've long railed against the movie critic's favorite pasttime of attacking a film for not being what they wanted it to be. The stats in the book aren't what I want them to be, but that just means I have to do some work. Then again, I've had to do that already, in cases where I didn't feel the stats were appropriate for even a heroic representation of 'reality'. Tank main gun, for instance. No system is perfect.

Breadth vs depth Naturally, two characters of quite different points values can be matches for each other in a fight. It's all about breadth vs depth. In a super-hero game, you get people with massive defences, massive attacks and very effective non-combat abilities. In a fantasy hero game, you're more likely to see a wide breadth of abilities. Ones that probably wouldn't make them stack up against superheroes, but allow them to handle a wide variety of threats and situations. Say, just about every skill in the book, and the stats to back them up. By careful GM control (setting campaign ceilings, for instance, or adapting a fairly harsh Rule of X), you can keep your PCs under control. Of course, you have to do stuff like that in any game. Let no-one say that HERO is a game that's impossible to rort.

My apologies if this has been asked before. I've only just managed to get a copy of Star HERO, and look through it thoroughly. I also can't see any other similar threads currently in existence on the board. One question sticks out: Given that a 20th-century assault rifle can do 2d6K damage, autofire, +1 STUN mod, with a 30-round clip, while giving +2 OCV and +1 RMod... why would anyone ever choose to use most of the weapons in this book? The experimental, high-power gauss cannon meant for Cyberpunk games has horrible side-effects, but it only does 2d6K AP, autofire. It's AP weapon, which is neat, but it's not that hard to make bullets AP, too, for only a minor reduction in damage. And the aforementioned 2d6K rifles are not the biggest around. Lasers, meanwhile, do 2d6 AP autofire. But they don't work in smoke or steam, which makes then not nearly as useful on the battlefield. The electron gun does 6d6EB... this is the same number of damage classes as a rifle, but in energy blast form - it's a lot easier to defend against. It does have the funky stun setting, but still. The plasma guns, fortunately, do seem to be actually worth carrying. Even if the single-shot plasma gun isn't significantly more powerful than an actual rocket launcher for its price. To get back to the point: these weapons are, largely, not much more powerful than weapons we've had for 30 years. They are less accurate (as they lack OCV and RMod bonuses), they are much more expensive, and they don't carry any more shots. Now, I do realise that I may be missing a design aesthetic such as a scaling issue here. In a Star HERO game, would an M16 do less damage? That would answer this question, although then I'd have a problem with that concept. On the other hand, that'd be a personal opinion rather than an actual mechanical objection. So, anyone else have any thoughts on the matter?