incrdbil

Re: commonality of unusual defenses It's all a juggling act; you want to respect players wishes, and reward good concepts, but you always realize what players may want may not be in their best long term interests (ie--covering all bases means that many unusual attacks are useless, and they get tired of the same old same old)--they might have initially made the character they just -had- to have, but it makes it harder for the GM to throw on the best game possible. It's not always a case of denying them the defense, but making them earn it, or put some initial limits. For the ever present polarized contacts, a useful limitation is that the lenses polarization change and return to nromal stull effectively blinds them for a segment or two. Later on, they can perhaps work around this intial design flaw. What I try to discourtage is players researching the most common NND's of the campaign villains, then picking up minimal amounts of every defense. I'm not saying I would never let someone has LS, flash defense, power defense, mental defense, and lack of weakness, but there is going to be some counterbalance. (Crappy DCV, or below average PD, ED, or both, or very significant, common vulnerabilities)--I prefer not to have the all offense/all defense characters; just in my personal experience I've had seen it really work well (as a temmate or GM), but I won't mind giving it a try; like anything, if it starts to go south and is discovered in game play not to be working well in terms of game balance, its up to the GM to fix the situation--and the player not to be selfish, but realize for the GM, and his teammates benefit, that changes might have to be made. In campaigns where I've beena player, most of us were aware of the nature to keep things in reason, and expected GM editing of initial character submissions. There were those with munchkin tendencies, but one way or another, a solution was made. If you were a mentalist, sure you could expect some mental defense, but anyone else? Not very likely unles their background and powers reflected that it was likely you had some mental defenses (usually the minimal amount). Power defense was relatively rrare--only thse with drains/transfers/transform, mystic characters usually started out with it. Occasionally after fighting a drainer/transfer, a defense might be built by the gadgeteer, or a shielding spell/amulet by the group mystic. The danger sign on when you might need to limit the total number of special defenses, or their amounts, comes with the situation that started this thread--when it gets in the way of interesting possibilities and variety.

Re: Fastballl special with shrinking. Interesting responses. So far I'm thinking of the following Growth momentum ok for move throughs, not move bys. Flight only adds velocity/distance if it exceeds velocity gained from thrower. I'll let power activation occur at impact (the halfway restriction doesn't make sense and goes against the norm for power activations--when the character chooses) No more house rule about move-through mods. Always a penalty, hope the target is flashed, stunned, or entangles. For the move through, if the shrinker isn't turning off his shrinking till the moment of impact, the thrower wont just have to hit the hex, he'd have to hit the target...then the shrinker has to make his roll as well. If the shrinker stays shrunk for the move by, same thing. I think that balances it out.

Re: Sex and the Single Superhuman Hornet--happily married..or at least, trying to be while leading the hero life Ranger Married to the work. Had to kill the last woman he loved. Eclipse Hated what powers had done to him, avoided relationships. wound up in one..and eventually pushed her away to let her be with a romantic rival who could provide for her and be there full time. No relationship angle after that. Blaze Unrequired love. Cosmic Power Pool. Many a rival boyfriend NPC owed their life to a successful ego roll. Finally found the girl of his nightmares though. Demon Though 900, was a 9 year old emotionally. Perhaps he had succubus pin up posters in his room, but nothing more. EbonStar Playboy. Never met a woman who he didnt love..or could remember their name later. Nucleon Long distance relationship with a superheroine in an alternate universe, but it worked. Now as a GM, I've created a lot of odd relationships (one entire team had romantic dfficulties after a fight with GenderBender.)

Re: If your character played an RPG... once, while playing star trek, we had a GM get inspired or desperate--crazy game playing aliens scanned the database, discovered D&D, and made our characters play the game in a 'real' environment. In the end, our RPG characters picked up the skill Gaming: RPG's as a result, and the characters had weekly D&D games 'in between scenss' (we didnt play it out, we just often started a game with "while in the midst of rolling initiative, the ship goes ot Red Alert). Now that I look back on it, that was so much concentrated geekness I'm amazed we didnt form a black hole of geek-dom.

Re: Fastballl special with shrinking.

Ok--situation--60 Str Brick, tossing someone with 5 levels of shrinking, 30" of flight, and a 15 STR. The tossee starts shrunk, the tosser has a running throw a casual estimation has the brick using an effective 105 Strength for distance he can throw him. I'm without book right now, but the velocity is in the 80" to 100" range, IIRC. the fastbal special hits, and just at the moment of impact, the shrinking character turns off shrinking. According the the rules on fastball, he's supposed to drop the the ground right there--but its the moment of impact. Using the low niumber, 80, the shrinkers strength, and growth damage, this would be a 27.5d6 move by,( only 17.5 d6 if you dissallow the growth modifer, or 22.5d6 if you half it; for a move by I wouldn't allow it) or a ...40d6 move through. Yes, the velocity modifier would be a pain. Using the flight to make turns, this could be a nasty multiple move by. Preferable to the move through, since the shrinker would be wacked silly from the damage. A common rule we used to use was that if the subject was caught by suprise or blinded and was unaware of the fastball special coming at them, the velocity penalty to OCV didnt apply. Anyone use anything like that now as a house rule? It may have been in an older edition, but I think it was just house rule. Am I way off base with this? Part of me, for balances sake, says only use the extra strength the brick gets for tossing the lite weight shrinker for distance, but only allow the damage to be based off the velocity for a normal body mass subject. I won't even mention the optional rule of allowing the shrinkers flight to add to the throwing velocity. Or wha could hapen if the Shrinker has a damage shield or some other hth attack used as a multiple power attack.

Re: If AVLD, why not DVLA?

Re: If AVLD, why not DVLA?

Re: Building a Campaign for Newbies Thansk for the awesome kickstart ideas. I may have the heroes do 'field trips' to MC. Right now, I'm wavering between St Louis and Fictional City, USA. Having a base under the gateway arch seems sort of attractive..and turning it eventually into some portal seems a must. Fictional city though is attractive as well..let creativity run amok.

Re: If AVLD, why not DVLA? I think I like the damage reduction method, though I'd probably throw in a tweak to cover the "dragaaon vs fire God" conflict--perhaps making the DR scale down steps based on the DC of the attacks it faces, based on camapign levels and maximums set by the GM. Just in case you have to make some characters more immune than others, you make an adder that scales up the 100% to remain in full effect at higher and higher damage classes..so you could have a dragon immune to fire--but who is hurt by the fire from a Fire God--who really can't be hurt by anyone elses fire. So, it could be DR 100% up to 20 DC, sliding down to 75% for 21 DC attacks..then have a 30 or 50 point adder for +10 DC to the DR after that. Or you could simply try to avoid having absolurte immunities in the game if at all possible. I think I like the last option, to be honest.

Re: Hooray for Newbies! why are you suddenly here? Thanks for the welcome--its good to be in the work up again. Maybe its just me--but often GM preparation for other games feels like work; with Hero, I'm having fun doing it.

Greetings to all--To cut to the chase, I've got a flock of mainly newbies assembled, and a campaign starting in January. I've never had to run a superhero game for those not experienced with superhero RPG's (or champions for that matter) before--maybe one or two people, but the whole group was there to help out. Now the majority is not only familiar with Champions, but perhaps even less expeirienced with superheros than past groups I've ran. I've been a Champs fan/superhero fan forever. So, I want to make this as easy as possible. I'm going to run a default campaign--established champions universe, to keep things simple, so if they do decide to start buying loads of Hero products, they will find them useful. To reduce complications when starting, I'm preparing a starting character guideline for them, and several 'prebuilt' stock characters that can then be customized during our first, character making session. I've got my unique list of house rules (mainly speed of play changes, not rules changes). I'm going to try to steer people away from problem concepts (no former-villains, no crazed killers, and one 'lone wolf' at most). I'll try to prevent dduplicates (I'm hoping for a mix of 1 brick, 1 energy projector, 1 martial artist, 1 Power Armor, 1 Mentalist, and one..anything else.) Power level is default 350. 12 DC initial cap, 75 point active limit. (my rule of thumb is that only one player can have 75 point/12 DC max in one area--for example, only the brick can have a 60 Str (1/2 end)--the power armor guy will be allowed a 50 Str at max. (his speciality will be having the variety of attacks, if not the highest in any one area). The primary energy projoector gets dibs on the 12d6 eb at range..I just want each PC to be unique and have their own area where they are the best. The Martial artist will probbaly be kept at 10d6, but have the best OCV/DCV, etc. I will raise these limits as the campaign progresses. I thought about doing a common group origin, but I thought that, during their first game, I shouldn't limit their freedom too much--they may have heroes they've wanted to imitate from fiction. So I'm going to allow the traditional 'variety of heroes'. To make them a group initially, I've been mulling over several options. Scenario 1: They respond to the big powerful villain attacking, and must band together to fight him. Ye-Gods, I know that is tired..but it works with newbies. Scenario 2: the heroes awaken...in the cluitches of a villain (maybe a group common hunted)--escape and revenge follow, hopefully unifying them. Scenario 3: the heroes are contacted by who wants to sponsor them as a new superhero team--they just have to pass some 'tryouts' (later on, the benefactor may turn out to be somethign else. I'll try really hard not to hame him be named Charile and only talk to the heroes via speakerphone) Scenario 4: the heroes are approached by a government agency, as part of a 'pilot program' for future teams; they get some funding (a very modest base, vehicle, training and authority)--they agree to serve and protect, and respond to national emergencies (I'm thinking of making it the super-human threat department of the Dept of Homeland Security--setting up ruivalries with the military and Primus later on). This is where I'm tempted to alter the campaign from Hero standard--introduce Until, but also the concept of UN backed IST's..and the creeping idea that the UN and the IST's are corrupt and aimed at subverting and controlling the United States..and are succeeding. UNTIL as a bad guy appeals to me. ) I'll happily accept any other starting scenarios. Campaign setting wont be MC--I want my guys to have the limelight to themselves. I'm thinking Chicago, St Loius, or LA, as its easy to find maps/information about them. Using MC was tempting, but I don't want to erase the Champions, and sharing a town wityh them would overshadow the PC's. I don't want the starting players to feel overshadowed, but very important, My goal is to have them eclipse most super teams in due time. I don't want to eliminate other Hero teams though--the occasional game in other settings or visting out of towners has great potential. I'm working on a list of basic starting villains suitable for Hunteds, and main nemeis--I plan the first 3 to 5 adventures to be mainly episodic, then introduce a main nemeis for a more serial plot for a while. Mechanon, Warlord are in the early running. Biggies like Takofones, Dr. D..I'd rather save for a special series. Any other prime candidates? I'll appreciate any suggestions, commentary, experience or pointers that anyone could share with me.

Re: Hooray for Newbies! why are you suddenly here? Well, I'm not a Hero newbie..but a newbie to these boards. Does that count? I"ve played Hero since, well, it was Champions and the staples rusted. I've not gotten to play as much 5th edition as I liked. One brief Star Hero like setting; then another short campaign of The Morrow Project (another oldie but goodie) using Hero. Made a lot of characters, read a lot more...and waited, patiently. But now, at long last, I've got a stable RPG group on hand, a time we can all make, and a good place to do it. I'm replacing Fred, grabbed HD2, clutching my precious sourcebooks..and I'm back in training as a GM. Seeing that the old haunts of usenet are quite a bit less active, I realized it was time to really jump on board here. In the meantime, my group has one other players with Hero experience, and 5 newbies. I'm herding the flock in. Now, quick question--which forum would be the most appropriate for discussing campaign building? I'm trying to balance out by desire as a gM to leap right in guns blazing..and realizing I need to guide the newbies in. All have RPG experience, but most don't have superhero RPG experience, so I'm hoping to bounce ideas off others to make this campaign cater to them from the start.

I'm happy to find this subject, having playyed, and ran, many games in Chicago. It had the style we always liked. I'll admit a heavy influence of variosu movies influenced us--be it qoutes from The Untouchables (many villains sadly found out what the Chicago way was like) or a Ferris Buellers day off inspired day in the life episode, to a Superheroic vehicle recreation of the Blues Brothers car chase scene. (mystic curses have been explained as centering on Wrigley field, among a few other places). Using the University of Chicago, or even northwestern Univerisyt gave us the Academic settings for the technological types--or the mystic types who used Indiana Jones old stomping grounds as place for the mundane jobs. Atmosphere set for the police by classic shows such as Hill Street Blues, heroes singing at Wrigley in the seventh inning..ahh. Though Hudson Bay is the home for 'Dark Champions' Chicago seems like an optimal setting for very independent heroes who, scorning the metahuman registration act, do things their own way. This lack of official recongition would certainly explain why it would be hard for a team to form if they couldn't recieve any local, state, or federal recognition due to failing to register to the oppressive, and obviously waiting to be abused Metahuman Registration act (a Chicago her trust a politician?). So it seems fertile ground as a setting for more vigilante style temas of superhumans--maye not as likely to kill as a Dark Champions chgaracter, but still a very rough type of hero more concerned with justice than the law. So far we've got a basis for academic/techno types Mystic supers Vigilantes. Chicagos adventuring strengths--transport Hub, huge buisness center, fairly central location in North America Though due recognition to the offical chicago temas liek the Peacekeepers is good, I sen nothign wrong with some teams being made up here as part of the Chicago Underground.