Rapier

Re: Proper use of Hardened & Defenses This is a difficult concept for newer players. Someone recently posted a VERY nice reference, but I can't recall where. If Attack is Killing Attack (and character has a minimum of 1 resistant DEF): rPD or rED protects against the BODY of the attack Total DEF (PD or ED) protects against the STUN of the attack If Attack is Killing Attack (and character has no resistant DEF): Character takes ALL BODY and ALL STUN Non-Killing Attacks Total DEF protects against BODY and STUN In your case your have 20 rPD and a total of 20 DEF vs Physical. Hardened will only stop the affects of an AP attack. If the character is attacked by an attack that is not AP hardened has no effect.

Re: GM's "rights"

Re: GM's "rights" With you 100%. I just want to scream when someone present me with a character sheet for the T1000. We all have very good imaginations rife with ideas. There is no need to stoop to outright cloning...unless you want to play a sheep (HA!). I would also NEVER compare a character to a published character during an audit. The published characters have too much baggage. Character X gained the ability to Y. Why did this happen? The writer that just took over has spent the last 5 years writing for this other comic where all the characters had Power Y. Or a character will develop a unique power/effect because it is required by the storyline in yet another crossover plot. Comparing a character to similar published characters is a very, very bad idea. Plus, you run into those problems oh "What do you mean I can't do that? I playing Thor and Thor can do this...that means I can do it! I don't care what my character sheet says, I'm playing THOR!"

Re: GM's "rights"

Re: GM's "rights" I'm glad to hear that. That last bit was more of an observation than directed towards you. I keep hearing stories from all these GMs that are not as fortunate as you or I. We started out roleplaying together and over time, players have gone and joined etc. What we have been left with is a core group of REALLY, REALLY good friends.

Re: Nature control

Re: "Dark" Champions Plots I'm currently running a subplot (run amok...el grande subplot) where a serial killer is possessing people and commiting his murders while inhabiting their bodies. The victims are entirely aware of what is going on with their bodies. A number of them have committed suicide or gone WAY off the deep end afterwards. This is about as dark as I like things to get. Too much more and the games get very draining and our group has enough bad things going on RL that we don't need to drag even more into it when we game.

Re: manipulation powers While I applaud your efforts, the list if infinite. You can manipulate any matter or energy (which pretty much encompasses all of creation). Those you have listed is a fair start at the most common.

Re: held action I'm almost thinking that, especially in FH, a good skill would be: PS: Magical Combat I can't decide if its INT or DEX based (maybe the average of both). Having given it a little more thought I'm thinking this: Mage A casts Fireball at Mage B Mage B announces he is aborting to defense Mage A rolls his DEX (since he doesn't have PS: Magical Combat) at -3 (since he doesn't have Magical Combat) Mage B rolls his PS: Magical Combat. Whomever wins the roll off, has their action take effect first. Or maybe instead of PS: Magical Combat use Lightning Reflexes (for Magical Combat Only). So many options. Definately needs some further thought. I do like the fact that defensive actions don't always get precedence. The only reason we've been using it that way for so long was after the Hero concept of DEF is always cheaper than attacks.

Re: Shapeshifting I've often wondered. The only thing I can think of, is that with the Sense Affects of SS, Transform seemed more appropriate. After giving it a little more thought: There is also the fact that InstaChange had the "Any suit of clothes" option/adder (don't have the BBB handy). SS would mean that even though it looks like a leather jacket, it is still only a windbreaker. Not quite the effect we would want, neh?

Re: How to create water I agree. The game effect is more what drives the Cosmetic vs Minor vs Major question. I mean, at some point you could granularise and say that there are neutrons, protons and electrons all around and that you are merely rearranging them (a cosmetic or possibly minor transform). This means that as long as there is matter around, you could create anything for cheap. I/We have defined transforms along these lines: Comsetic: Changes only the appearance (new hairstyle, change colour etc) Minor: Rearrange/alter form (turn water into ice, turn sand into glass) Major: Significant alterations (create something from nothing, change FlameGal into a frog) Sometimes you get an effect that rides the edge of a definition, but by this point we have enough previous examples that if Johnny Transform had a similar power and it was a Major Transform then Sally Semantic's power is a Major Transform.

Re: Nature control

Re: Quantum manipulation

Re: GM's "rights"

Re: Does your Team have a Charter?

Re: [Release Schedule] Dark Champions Battlegrounds? Huh. Who knew? I mean, I've always really enjoyed the DC stuff. I was always more of a fan of the gritty street level than the standard 4-colour boy scouts. I just didn't realise that it was all that popular. KUDOS! I'm really looking forward to the darned UPS man. I can't wait to get my grubby lil mitts on DC and FH. While we are on the topic, what was your greatest surprise (what genre is performing better than you expected)?

Re: How to create water Doc is right on the money. Hero is Special Effect (SFX) neutral. Creating water could be: Never Emptying Cup (as above): Life Support, No need to Drink UBO Tidal Wave: Energy Blast vs PD AOE: Line, x2 KnockBack Wall of Water: Force Wall Drowning: EB NND (Def is being able to breath underwater or self contained breathing) Create Water Elemental: Summon Water Elemental Body of Water: Shape Shifth Water Form: Desol And all this just off the top of my head! Summoning water can be as complicated or easy as you need!

Re: GM's "rights" Last night I read through all of ab3s website. Quite funny. He has a player that is ALWAYS a ninja. I knew a guy in High School that was the same way. EVERYTHING he played was a ninja. If we were playing zombies, he was a zombie ninja. If we were playing Dr Who, he was a timelord ninja. If we were playing Boot Hill, he was a 1st Lt ninja. If we played TMNT, well....that one is actually funny...he played an ice cream man. Sometimes a player needs a little coaxing to get his concept in line with the campaign. As a GM I have a duty to the rest of the players to ensure that no single character will overshadow everyone else. The rest of the group has just as much right to enjoy themselves as NinjaBoy .

Re: [Release Schedule] Dark Champions Battlegrounds? : comfort : That is amazing. I mean, I guess it makes sense. Hero being the generic system that it is, any single genre is only going to grab a fraction of the player base. I, personally, have back-burnered all the Star Hero and Vehicle books since they aren't going to give me any real benefit for my campaigns (granted, I'm sure there are some juicy rules tidbits in there). D&D comes out with a new mage book or something and they can pretty much bank on it selling to a significant fraction of the playerbase. Its strange seeing into the other side of the system. I bought a bunch of books from FRPGames a week or so ago and I did notice that SideKick was on their BestSeller list. Any chance of getting some kind of ranking on the most popular genre (maybe by core rule book sales)? I'm curious to know how the genres split out. EDIT: I bought both the BattleGrounds books. Haven't received them yet (CMON UPS MAN!), but I bought 'em.

Re: Ramifications of "Powers NOW"

Re: New To Hero: Character Advancement FREAKS!!

Re: How would you do this concept? DEX is pretty low. Id check with the GM. In my campaign the average DEX is around 20.

Re: Quantum manipulation

Re: held action

Re: held action