baronspam

Re: LOTR thoughts There were quite a few groups of men who allied with the Dark Lord during the war of the ring. Umbar, the Easterling, the Men of Harad, the hill tribes of Dunland, etc. Considerng they just got a ass kicking at the hands of Gondor/Rohan, they would probably welcome those who wanted to bring about Aragorn's downfall. And as someone else said, there is always the North. Much of Arnor is unsettled or llightly settled. Keep in mind Bree is a major population center for that area. There really are no true cities (maybe the dwarves based on LOTR online, but that is a debatable matter) There are Dwarves in the Blue mountains and Elves near the Coast, but much of it is wild, or very lightly populated, and many of the men of Arnor had at best a vague idea of what was happening in the south, if they had any idea at all. If a well supplied, well funded group showed up on the edges of Breeland or in the lands between the mountain and Mirkwood or somewhere similar and wanted to set up shop, there wouldn't be much to stop them.

Re: What would you do as GM when our intrepid . . . . . . I hope this doesn't come off negative, but it might. First, are the players too stupid to bring some food along? If you are transporting a prisoner, you probably don't want to take time to hunt. Hunting is a time consuming activity that would seriously cut into travel time. The odds of walking out of camp for a quarter of an hour and coming back with a haunch of venison are pretty small. Hard biscuit and salt pork, and keep moving. Second, its the haunted evil forest. Players are too stupid to not stay together? Third, the character was rolling to find some food. How do you get from there to having them possessed by an evil spirit? A failure should be no food, or perhaps some harmful/tainted food, or a minor injury (stepped in a hole and twisted your knee shooting at said food. -1 body). Something like that. Possessed is a whole different issue. Unless that was something I was planning for the story to start with, I certainly would not come up with that over a botched survival roll, especially one that seems unjustified in calling for in the first place. If I had been the player, I would feel like that was a excessivly harsh result from a botched roll.

Re: Historical Late Medieval Period RPG These books were the first thing that came to mind for me as well. No specific info on how to run a game, but they are very accessable "slice of life" history. Like the title says, its about daily life in the middle ages, more specfically western Europe around the start of the 13th century. The city books looks at a city in France, the village book looks a village in England. I am not sure what the case study for the castle book was. But tons of information on "real life' in the high middle ages. also, look at http://www.io.com/~sjohn/demog.htm. its a nice article about realistic demographics in the middle ages, things like population density, ratios of city to village life, the availablitly of merchants, craftsmen, and services, etc. It has some links to a calculator tools to whip up a realistic midieval barony in no time flat.

Re: Does This Seem Shady? It depends on what the red sunlight thing is. If it is "doesn't work in red sunlight" and the characters spend most of their time on earth, then it is -1/4 at best and probably actually -0 unless you guys are going to be going to other star systems. If is is "only works in red sunlight" and you spend most of your time on Earth, then that might be a -2, but those powers will almost never be available. Overall, I would ask for clairifications on this. At minimum it seems very fishy, and it sounds like you are going to have one character who is vastly more powerful than the others. Maybe for a group of HARDCORE role-players who are really just interested in story and character this would be ok, but if you are looking for a game with significant tactical/combat elements it really isn't fair to let one character overshadow everyone else. A more useful thing to look at than points, look at this character's damage class on his attacks, his defences, speed, etc. If he is significantly above everyone else without some kind of compensatory weakness then something is wrong. The first thing a GM should do for a champions champaign is sit down and crunch the numbers in terms of minimums, maximums, and averages for attacks, defences, key stats, etc. There certainly can be some variance between charaters, but there needs to be overall balance. The really strong/tough (max strength, max defences) character needs to be below par elsewhere, like combat values and Speed, so there is a general balance in effectiveness. Or characters with slightly weaker combat abilities need to have significant utility/out of combat abilities. In short, it sucks to be Robin if you have Superman in the group.

Re: Slow target power. I was thinking this would be a drain of some kind as well,just wasn't sure how to pull it off in terms of advantages. It doesn't really have to imobilize people, rather just be something you could drop on a more mobile enemy to decrease the advantage they had from their mobility.

Hi there, I am working on a 400pt standard supers character who has spacial manipulation powers. I am thinking about a power that lets him slow the movement of enemies by changing the nature of space around them. I am a little stuck on how to build this, however. I don't think it is an entangle, as it does't stick them in place, just slows them down, and the target can't really "bust out". I was looking at an adjustment power, but i was wanting something that affected the target no matter the movement power(maybe teleportation would be exempt) or the special effect of the movement power. Is there a way to build that so it doesn't cost a zillion points? Ideally, I would like a version of this that fit in a 50 active point multipower.

Re: Critique my Character Please

Hi all, It has been a long long time since I have built a champions character, and this is my first run a 6th editions one. I was hoping for some feedback on the mechanical aspects of the build, a double check to make sure I am following all the rules, etc. This a standard 400 pt super champaign character, Bronze Age/Four Color morality. Complications are still pending. Super quick thumnail of background: His hero name is Portal (may change if I come up with something better). He was a career criminologist with a FBI unit that investigated crime scenes to determine if there had been superhuman involvment in a crime. At on point his unit was issued some special protective gear, which proved to be faulty and dosed the entire team with high levels of radiation. Several died, but Portal and some others survived, although with long term physical injuries. The process set off a change, however, that granted him spacial manipulation powers. Now retired from the FBI and living on a generous settlement from the manufacturers of the bad powersuits, Portal is essentiall a walking spacial anomoly. The way Dr. Silverback tried to explain it to him "You are sort of like one of those Russian stacking dolls. You exist here and in many micro-dimensions that are just slightly offset from this one simultaniously. That multiple dimensional existance makes you much tougher than a normal person and lets you reconstruct your body if you are damaged. You can also use that same effect to manipulate space, letting you teleport, move objects, generate shock waves, and percieve distant points. In fact, your pecpeption is only partially dependant on normal senses at this point. You are starting to sense the curving of space and dimension itself, which is why you can "see" in the dark and are hard to dazzle." "Um, can you go back to that stacking doll thing again." Dr. Silverback. " Ok, lets try it this way. . . " Str 10 Dex 20 Con 21 Int 13 Ego 13 Pre 20 OCV 7 DCV7 OMCV 3 DMCV3 Speed 6 PD 10 ED12 Rec 14 End 70 Body 15 Stun 40. Powers: MP- Spacial Manipulation Powers 50 Point Reserve, 50 Real Poins 5f-Spacial Distortion Bolt- 10d6 Blast 5 end, 50 active points. 2f-Long Range Teleport-5m Teleport, 4x Mass, No Relative Velocity, Megascale (+1) up to 5 Km. 0DCV Concentrate (-1/2) Full Phase to Activate (-1/2). 50 Active Points, 25 Real Points. 5 End 2f- Dimensional sensing- Clairsentience Sight Sense Group, Hearing, x16 Range, Moble Perception Point, Concentrate ½ DCV (-1/2) Extra Time Full Phase (1/2). 50 Active, 25 Real 5end 4f- Bend Space- 30 Strength TK. 4 End. Dimensional Blink- 30m Teleport, 4x Mass, 40 Points 4 End Telekenetic Hover- 5m Flight, 1 End. Sense Dimensional Contours- Nightsight 5 points and Flash Def 5 Points. No End. Multidimensional body- +10 PD +10 ED Resistant, 10 Pts Power Def, 1 Body Per 20 Min Regeneration, Can Heal Limbs. Total 55. No End. Skills: 3 CSL with Multipower, 15pts Streetwise 13- 3pts Streetwise 13- 3 pts Paramedic 12- 3 pts PS: Law Enforcement 11- 2pts KS: Campaign City 11- 2pts KS Supercriminal Organizations 12- 3 pts KS: Crime of Campaign City 11- 2 pts Criminology 12- 3 pt Skill Total 36 Points Perks: 5 pts weath. Complications still pending along with a more detailed backstory. Can anyone see any outright errors or cheats? And if not, any suggestions on making a more effective character. I tried to use the examlpe characters in the Champions book as a guide. Thanks Much Baron

My understanding of CSLs is that you can use them for DCV for attacks of the same type , i.e. if it is a ranged attack you can used the CSL for defense against ranged, if it is a melee attack you can use it as a defense against melee. What about the case of a 5 point CSL on a power framework, like a multipower, that contains both ranged and melee attacks? If slot one is my Stuper-punch and slot two is my Gynormous Pistol does that mean that the CSL can be used for defense agaist any type of attack?(other than a mental attack I suppose) And if so should the CSL then cost more? Thanks for any reply.

Re: My Tank Is Fight! I have seen the pykrete mythbusters as well. The stuff does have seriously neat material properites, but he problem is that is does contain a significant amount of ice, and ice melts. Yes, icebergs take a long time to melt, but it is loosing mass and volume the entire time. A ship is mostly hollow space, not a solid chunk, The hull breaches somewhere, anywhere, and your are done. Keeping the hull cold and the living and working areas warm would probably be a logistical impossibility. The mythbusters boat did work great, and they got it up to fairly high speed, but it was coming appart and taking water in less than an hour. And building a ship you can't redeploy to somehwere warm, even if some elaborate system could keep it from melting in cold water, is just not practical.

Re: Villainous Motivations Galactus is the classic example that comes to my mind. He drains the life force from worlds as food. Talk about being the top of the food chain. If you wanted to do a Galactus style story the last thing you would do is draw up stats for him. By definintion, you can't beat him in a fight. His 5073d6 blast leavs a crater the size of Kansas. The character's attacks are so far below his defences it might take some time before he even realizes he is being attacked. Direct combat is absolute suicide. Instead, the story would revolve around getting the means to defeat him. In the original Fantastic Four series the Human Torch goes into another dimension and brings back a gadget called the Ultimate Nullifier. It allows the user to destroy any target, with the sure knowledge that they will also be destroyed by using it. So you ended up with a sort of Mexican stand off. Galactus survives, but he leaves earth alone because Reed Richards is willing to die to save the planet if he comes back. Such a story could focus on getting exotic raw materials to which the RGBG is vulnerable, unleashing some anchient or arcane force that hates the RGBG and will take him out/imprison him, reactivation magic wards to do the same, or something similar. You don't fight Cthulhu, you fight his minions so he doesn't rise. You don't fight the RGBG, you build a phantom zone projector(a difficult process involving many mini-quest and side adventures) and banish him to another dimension.

Re: Kill, jail, or rehabilitate, what happens to your villains? This is a good point. Defeating the villains should set them back seriously. They should be out of the story for a bit, be it sitting in prison, recoving from being mostly dead, or just rebuilding resources and hatching new schemes. Heck, even Dr. Destroyer took a decade off after that mess in Detroit. Run an arc or two with another main villian for a while before you bring them back. And when you do, you can use any of the tricks mentioned by myself or other posters- to reintroduce them in a differnet form. Honestly, I don't see why Batman, even if he wouldn't kill the Joker, didn't break EVERY FREAKING BONE IN HIS BODY, twice, just so he would stay down for a while. If the superprison/super mental hospital is just a revolving door all but the most fanatical "do gooder" heros will stop sending the badguys there. The victories should mean something, but at the same time, you shouldn't just throw away a good villian because he lost a fight.

Re: The Cape - What do you think of it so far? I picked a random episode off of Hulu and was underwhelmed. I realize that I came in in the middle, so to speak, but there was a midget in a circus costume beating on a safe with a hammer. WTF? They seemed to know who the Cape was, but were also criminals, or at least tragically inept safecrackers. There was a pair of supposedly famous assassins, who seemed to live an a cappy old van with questionable hygene, who would not kill the Cape untill they had studied him. Why? Otherwise, headshot, show over. Lame writing, lazy writing. 4/10 at best. Not going to watch the other episodes.

Re: Kill, jail, or rehabilitate, what happens to your villains? As a GM, I think you really want to keep your major villains alive. Agents, minions, lackeys, lower level super mega-agents and operatives, etc, can hit the ground riddled with holes if you are playing that kind of Iron Age campaign, but for goodness sake don't let the Villians die too often. Which is not to say that they should always escape with an evil lauch and a twirl of their proverbial moustache, but from a story point of view you want your high level badguys to stick around for a while. Or at minimum get them recycled somehow; bring them back as undead, rebuild them as cyborgs, transplant their brains into alien bodies, something. If you have invested significant work and story time into a villain don't treat them like an DnD orc chieftan that won't live to see the end of the encounter.

Re: The move to FTP A number of games have proved that FTP games typically generate more revenue through their micro-transaction stores than than subscription games do through their subscriptions. Lord of the Rings Online doubled their income by making it FTP. The thing that really annoys me about FTP however, having now tired the game, is that you can only have full access to custom characters if you have a subscription. The character builder honestly is the most interesting part of the game to me. Actual game play, honestly, I put at a 6.5 to 7 out of 10. But having the ability to mess with the character builder and customer characters is very tempting now that I have tried the game- but at 14.99 a month probably not. I just don't have enought time for it, honestly. Thats why FTP games are great for someone like me. If on a given month I feel like spending some money, I can for some extras, but if I don't have the time or the money on a given month I don't have to and I can still access the game and play a bit. For 14.99 I could always go back to City of Heroes and play the new content there.

Re: What do you really think of Champions Online? I tried the free to play version. Honestly, the most interesting element of the game seems to be the character creation system, which you don't have access to unless you are paying the monthly subscription. I tried all the free archtypes, and often found myself wanting to redesign some element of them. I settled on a punch-em-in-da-face flying brick character name Paragon. Pros: Picking up a car and taking out a minion with it is priceless. There are several differnt adventure paths. You can stay in the city and do mostly (so far) door missions, or you can go off to Canada for more of a Hazard zone (to use the CoX term) experience. Cons: Some minor gameplay elements bug me. On a door misson you have to find/run back to an exit once you finish it. It should just have an "exit mission" button. I spent half a hour or more running around an empty map after killing all the badguys trying to find the breifcase I was supposed to locate. It didn't appear untill I was right on top of it. Some of the Supervillian fights are very hard. I don't expect the game to be World of Warcraft easy, but I tried to take on Kevin Poe with a level 9 character (its a level 9 mission) and just flat cound not take him out. I just couldn't survive the damage he was putting out, even with my best efforts to block his heavy attacks and use good tactics. I jumped the superjet to canada and did missions there for a couple of levels and then came back and beat him, but that kind of things annoys me. Personally, I find the city has less personality than much of CoX did. This game does have the advantage that it has non-city zones you can get to very early, but running around Atlas Park and Kings Row was a more immersive experience than fighting super-gangs on the West Side.

Re: Superheroes Sponsored by Corporations (Such as the NFL) Although it is long out of print, if you can lay hands on any of the books from White Wolf's old supers game, i think it was called Abberant or something similar, they did a wonderful job of looking at Heros and society (basically what white wolf is good at.) Although there were conventional "live in a high tech manion and fight crime" characters in that game, it was much more about what would the world be like if there really were super powered individuals. Most of them are not true heroes of true villians, but rather people tyring to make a buck and find a place for themselves. I never cared for the mechanics of the game much, but there were tons of neat campaign ideas there.

Re: The Adventures of Solo-Man! I have both played in and GMed solo and duo champions games before, and I think they work fine. Your player should be careful to build a character who is both reasonably tough and also tactically flexable. You don't want to be a one trick pony if you are the only horse in the ring. I don't think you really need to build a team, but perhaps a side kick, getaway driver, moon copter pilot, or something similar is a help. Some supporting characters make for a richer experience, and someone has to track the villians to their lair and start a diversion in case the hero gets defeated and captured.

Hi all, I am new to the forums, long time chapions player but I have been away for a couple of editions, trying to catch up on the lore and playing the online game a bit as well. In the spirit of the "Whatever Happened to Seeker" thread that I saw, what happened to the Golden Avenger? I found references to Primus and the Silver Avengers in the Champions Online wiki, but nothing about the Golden Avenger. Many years ago when I was playing 3rd edition the Golden Avenger was a favorite heavy of sorts for our campagin. In theory a good guy, but so by-the-book and stop-that-right-there-young-man that we often ended up bumping heads with him. Is her still part of the lore? Did he catch a destroyer beam in the forehead at some point or did he just sort of retcon out fo the story? And by the way, 6th edition looks really great. I just need to find someone to play it with. My group won't give up Dungeons and Dragons, at least for the moment.