Brett

Re: Thats one nimble little bull

Another factor that may or may not have been discussed yet is the evolutionary effect the change in rules will have on future characters.

The 6E books have characters that were mostly converted very closely from their 5E counterparts. However, since DEX no longer has any effect on CV or SPD, maybe Taurus will discover in the future that some of those 26 points would have been better spent on something else. If this is the case, we may see DEX values dropping in characters.

As far as supers being legendary in all things, I don't think that tends to apply to other characteristics the way it has to DEX. I agree that bulls are not slow and clumsy. However, it should be noted that Taurus's INT is 14 and his EGO is 12. They are above average, but not Legendary. Personally, I would think that a bull-like character would be more strong willed than agile.

Eagle-Eye's Ego is 12. Hardpoint's is 15. Maelstrom has a STR of 15, an INT of 10, and an EGO of 11 (of course, he is a villian). None of the the sample super characters have and INT over 20 or an EGO over 15. They all have a DEX of 23 or 24.

It should be noted that they all have high CONs too. So maybe since combat is such a large part of games and comics, there is a bias towards the physical over the mental.

Re: Spartan Soldier (300)

Cool character design, as always!

Re: Particle accelerator

I'm sure that Steve is going to cover this exact issue in The Ultimate Base.

Re: Thats one nimble little bull

When the founders created the game they tried to come up with a system that reflected the comics of the era. Comics have changed, but I don't think that they have changed enough to invalidate the basic assumptions of Champions. That Superheroes are quite a bit better than normal people. They not only bounce bullets off of their defenses, but they also react faster and attack more often than normal folk. They are stronger, tougher, prettier and better at everything. Champions models that quite well.

 

The only thing that Champions doesn't model well in the genre is the apparent lack of resistant defenses in comics. That is more due to writers not having bad guys with high powered rifles and/or just having gunshot miss the heroes. Gamers tend to be more pragmatic (and they didn't have to worry about the Comics Code), so Champions games see more guns being fired at heroes, and other KA's being used including blades, claws etc. So to have an effective(ie non-dead) character in combat, Resistant defenses are more prevalent.

 

I like Champions the way it is. I am hoping that this decoupling of the secondary stats cause more diversity in stat levels. CV's are going to remain high. Dex might fall a bit as it isn't needed to drive those cheap CVs. Stun totals might go up, but with CV being expensive their won't be the points for it. I think that we might see some minor changes in the way characters are built, but nothing truly dramatic.

 

Tasha

I first bought the Champions Boxed Set a long, long, time ago in a galaxy far, far away. I think that was 2nd edition. Once I understood the rules better, one of the things that I thought was great about the Hero System was that it was the first game that the system explained how Spider-man was vulnerable to bullets and blades, but could take punches from supervillians that could smash through brick walls.

Of course, the problem is that, as others have stated, comics, novels, and movies are not games and vice versa. I'm surprised that there are not more powers or superskills to reflect how characters seem to avoid getting mortally wounded. However, if such powers are not there, the would be easy to create with the Hero System. I think Pulp Hero might have something similar to that.

I've always found it amusing in comics, movies, etc... how normal defense characters somehow avoid terrible damage, but on the other hand, characters with Regeneration frequently get shot up and stabbed. Bionic characters somehow always get their artifical left arm blown up, but their organic right arm never takes serious damage. Such is the power of the writer.

Re: Official Hero Boards Super Team And Chat Channel!

Until we start to run up against the cap I'm not really gonna worry about it much. We can always start a second team if need be.

At that point, you might want a Super Team for characters who have made it to level 40 and another one for those that are still leveling. It probably depends on what time of end game challenges CO has.

Re: 6E Needs A Name

"Thing One and Thing Two... Thing Two and Thing One... You can make anything, anything, anything under the sun!"

:)

Re: Thats one nimble little bull

Personally, I never liked how most Champions characters seemed to have an unusually high DEX. While other characteristics such as CON, STR, and INT tended to be above average, they usually weren't over 20 without fitting into the character concept.

I agree that superheroes should generally be much better (and have more DEX) than non heroes. Just look at how any character in a comic book that loses his or her powers seems to be able to still take on enemy guards and soldiers without too much problems.

However, I always felt that it would be better to have a moderate DEX and buy OCV levels to reflect this.

I was also surprised that the character examples in the 6E books didn't seem to have more variaiton in their characteristic levels. I skimmed through it looking for this last week and only recall one character who had different OCV and DCV values. I think she had an OCV of 5 and a DCV of 6. All other charcters had equal values.

I would think that most bricks would have a mid teen level DEX combined with an OCV that is higher than the DCV. Then they would primarily rely on their toughness to avoid damage or Block attacks.

Re: If magic cost full price...

In the comparison of CP cost and Money cost for both warriors and wizards, keep in mind that nearly all the basic spell write-ups in FHG require a OAF Expendable spell component (usually a fairly expensive one).

The way that the default Turakian Age magic system works, the cost break is probably necessary. You have to buy a skill for each arcana that you want to use (about a dozen or so). Most combat spells have an Active Point penalty of -5 to -7, so these skills need to be fairly high or you need magic skill levels. Then you still need to pay 1/3 the cost of the spell.

I guess that it depends on what restrictions you are going to put on magic. Are you going to have requirements similar to the Turakian Age magic without the cost break, or can magic users build their spells (or whatever) like superpowers?

If a character can bypass the Requires a Skill Roll or make that skill roll based on a single magic skill, many points are freed up for buying spells at full cost.

Brett

Re: Waterspout Spell: -21 to Water Magic Roll?

These are all really great ideas, and I really like how these ideas are used to promote more description and roleplaying.

That being said, however, even if the spell caster can negate 10 points of the -21 penalty on the Waterspout (or similar) spell, he or she is still left with a -11 penalty. To have slightly over a 50% chance of success, the caster would still need to pay 2 points a level to get his Water Magic Skill up to 22- or buy a bunch of 5 point Casting Magic Spells Skill Levels to get his roll to 22-.

That expense with the addition of the preparation seems to be a lot of work to get a final 11- roll. Also, as I mentioned earlier, a spellcaster with a Water Magic skill that high would almost automatically succeed at any other spell in that arcana. A caster with a lot of Casting Magic Spells skill levels would automatically succeed in all but the toughest of spells in any arcana. This seems to go against requiring the skill roll to start with or adding flavor to the magic use in a campaign.

One possible solution that just occurred to me is that maybe the GM could allow the character to buy 1 point skill levels for an individual spell.

Therefore, a Water Mage could have a good Water Magic Skill of 16-, +4 skill levels with Casting Magic Spells, and 10 points (+10 skill levels) with Waterspout. This would give the caster 20- with all Water Magic Spells, +4 to the skill roll of other arcana she knows, and a 30- with the Waterspout spell (which would be 9- without any additional preparation other than what is required by the spell).

This would represent the additional practice and training the wizard invested into learning that one particularly difficult spell. This would also make that wizard more unique in that powerful wizards may have great enough skills for moderate spells, but only a few select wizards in a campaign world will be able to cast each of these extremely powerful spells. A wizard who does have a reasonable chance of casting one of these spells with huge penalties could soon get a Reputation for that skill and be sought after, feared, or identified by using the spell.

"Admiral, Admiral!!! A huge waterspout has appeared out of nowhere and is tearing through the fleet!"

"Calm down Captain. Only Aquilas the Sea Mage can cast such a spell in this region, but our reports indicated that she was dead."

Brett

Re: Waterspout Spell: -21 to Water Magic Roll?

Part of the problem that I have with these large modifiers is a comparison of Magic Skills and Normal Skills.

As I mentioned in another thread somewhere, in Steve's Turakian Age setting, the most famous Elven "treesmith" in the Elvenholme sidebar has a PS of 16-. This NPC has probably been practicing this art for centuries.

On the other hand, a 16- would not give a wizard's a 50/50 chance of casting most of the spells of an arcana.

It seems that it would be much better to buy off the active point penalty for spells such as this rather than trying to improve the skill sufficiently or buying skill levels. A high enough Water Magic skill or skill levels to cast Waterspout would pretty much give a character a near automatic success on any lesser water spells.

Brett

Re: Waterspout Spell: -21 to Water Magic Roll?

I would say that the best uses for a spell like that would be against enemy cities' date=' fleets, and ships. You'll generally be able to take plenty of extra time in casting it against these targets.[/quote']

I do not have the book, but as I mentioned before, the spell takes one turn to cast normally. I do not remember the time chart, but I think that it goes 1 turn, 1 minute, 5 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 6 hours (??? or something like this). For each stage up on the time chart, I believe that you get a +1 bonus. So spending an entire day casting the spell would only get a +5 or +6 bonus.

 

Brett

Re: Waterspout Spell: -21 to Water Magic Roll?

I'd suggest taking a look at the Skill Roll Modifiers table on FREd p. 28. With the right rationale (and a cooperative GM)' date=' "Character has extensive knowledge", "Character uses good equipment in connection with the Skill Roll" and "Excellent conditions for performing the Skill" could cumulatively net you up to +9 to your Skill Roll.[/quote']

This is helpful also, but I wonder: How can a character have more "extensive knowledge" than the knowledge of the spell? How can a character use better "equipment" than the required spell component? (which is probably something rare and hard to obtain anyway.)

 

Brett

Re: Waterspout Spell: -21 to Water Magic Roll?

It might be 'cheesey', but you could also use a "Bloody Ritual" prior to casting.

 

By which I mean cast another spell that significantly raises your Magic Skill Roll temporarily. "Bloody Ritual" was what I called the spell that did that for necromancers back in my old game. It was basically 15 skill levels (3 points each) that applied to the next Magic Skill Roll made by the caster. If he was an 18-, he became a 33- for one roll, making it possible for him to cast those monster spells. For play balance reasons it had a very long cast time (1 hour) with concentration so he couldnt be doing other things. Not too limiting if the monster spell has Delayed Effect, of course, but then the caster has a limited number of DE slots.

 

Adapting the same structure as a "Water Rite" shouldnt be too hard

That's an interesting idea. I may be missing something, but I have not seen any official spells that have a similar ability.

Maybe multiple wizards could assist in the casting for extra bonuses.

Brett

As mentioned in the title of this thread, the Waterspout spell as well as many others in FHG have very high penalties to the Magic Skill roll. Most offensive spells have at least a -5 or -6. When you get into attacks that affect an area and are continuing, the penalties go up into the teens and the twenties.

Without reducing or eliminating the Requires a Skill Roll Limitation, how could a spell caster reasonably be able to cast a spell with such high penalties? The character would need a Water Magic Skill of 32- (or similar Skill Levels) to have a 50% chance to succeed at the spell. Extra time would probably not be helpful since I believe that it already takes one turn to cast the spell. If you took any longer than that, the spell would be useless unless you were attacking a stationary target.

Brett

Re: SF Novels for Star Hero?

I believe the third book was Children of the Mind. I enjoyed Ender's Game' date=' made it through Speaker for the Dead and stopped reading the series at that point.[/quote']I was going to interject and say that I think the third book was Xenocide, and Children of the Mind was fourth. (It's been a while). Ender's Shadow (which was the last on that I read) tells the story of Bean which takes place in conjunction with Ender's Game.

 

Then I decided not to be lazy and went to the Orson Scott Card web page to find the exact order (of publication at least):

 

Ender's Game

Speaker for the Dead

Xenocide

Children of the Mind

Ender's Shadow

Shadow of the Hegemon

Shadow Puppets

 

 

 

Brett

Re: SF Novels for Star Hero?

How about the Uplift stories by David Brin (multiple galaxy government with talking chimps and dolphins and near unlimited alien races) or the Known Space stories by Larry Niven (for a much smaller community of stars)? The Myth books by Robert Asprin are a great choice if you want a Fantasy/Sci Fi/Comedy series (although it tends much more towards fantasy). Obviously, there is always the Star Wars and Star Trek novels, movies, games, etc...

Brett

I have enjoyed reading the Turakian Age, though I have only been able to read parts of it so far.

I was wondering where all the monsters are located. The parts that I have read do not mention many other races besides the primary and secondary races in the front of the book. I remember some mention of Dragonriders, that some demons and earth elementals were summoned to build a city for the wizards, and some bargain was struck with the ghouls to dispose of the dead in a plague infested city. However, unless I have overlooked something (which is very possible), I have seen no indication of where the Giants, Dragons, or other monsters of Ambrethel live.

Brett

One thing that has kind of confused me is the comparison of magic skill levels compared to skill levels of ordinary skills.

Due to the casting penalties imposed by more powerful skills, spell casters need high skill levels or bonuses to have even a 50% chance of success. The sample spell caster Valerius the Harper in Fantasy Hero has a Fire Magic skill of 15- and +2 Skill levels with Magic Skill Rolls. He also has a magic items that give him a +3 with Fire Magic Spells.

On the other hand, the sidebar next to the entry on Elvenholme in the Turakian Age describes the worlds finest and most sought after treesmith (I am not even going to try Steve's Elven name for this) who has a Professional Skill of 16-. I would think that this great Elven artist who is probably several centuries old would have a higher skill than this since may young wizards need magic skills this high to be able to cast spells.

Would it be appropriate for spell casters to purchase 3 point skill levels to counter the active point penalty from powerful spells? I have not seen this used, but it would be more economical than buying 5 point levels for spell skill rolls.

Brett

Re: What the heck is BODY anyways?

Hit Points were always explained to me as a an aggregate state representing toughness/will to live/life energy....I would consider BODY pretty much the same thing.

Rob

Actually, my understanding of hit points was much more than this. It was an abstact way of representing the qualities that you mention, but it was also a representation of a character's quickness, luck, and experience at surviving.

It represents things like falling flat or diving for cover as the fireball goes off, slowing your fall off a cliff by grabbing protruding branches and roots, turning at the last moment so that the killing stab gives only a flesh wound.

This is why a 10 points of damage from a battle axe chops a 1st level fighter in half and barely wounds a 10th level fighter.

This is probably why some d20 games (like Star Wars) have gone to a combination of Hit Points and Vitality Points. This way they can maintain the abstractness while having some sort of rule to explain why high level character can get shot ten times with a blaster (and to give the opportunity for a blaster shot to bypass the Vitality and go directly to the Hit Points.)

Brett

Re: Help with team name

Virginia? They want to break into their own identity, leaving the already-made history behind? They're all about college age?

 

What about the "New Rebels?"

I do not know. One is age 17, but two of the others are married which implies that they are in their mid 20's or older.

Brett

Re: Thoughts on having a multi-racial game...

Umm' date=' dude. Dwarves have night vision. End of discussion.[/quote']Of course, you could have a species or culture of humans with night vision also. (Riddick)

 

However, if that is the case, how much different would it be from just having Dwarves?

 

Brett

Re: Help with team name

Sigma got me thinking about fraternities...

 

how about the Fraternity of Freedom ?

Stange minds think alike?

The first thing that came to mind was something like Sigma Chi Huh?

That's not very helpful, though.

Sigma Flight! (Not any better).

This is kind of hard because there does not seem to be anything (from what has been mentioned) to link the characters together other than geographical location. They could be like a pro sports team and be the New Aukland Avatars (Didn't want to use Avatar, so that's out).

I haven't been able to think of anything decent with Virginia either. It was one of the original thirteen colonies, so maybe something like the Patriots or Freedom Fighters. Perhaps something with Liberty, Revolution, Revolutionaries, or Independence (Kind of long words for a Superteam name). Liberty Legion? Patriots, Inc.? Of course, they may not be patriotic supers.

Please provide some information about why they are together, who or what they fight, their motivations, etc... That may help people who reply come up with something more appropriate to what the team is about.

Brett

Re: Bashing people with chairs, lightpoles, automobiles...

Just to point out one thing that I think you may have misunderstood Brett' date=' that damage done with the object is in ADDITION to the character's normal strength damage- so hitting someone with a car is going to do more damage than punching them, plus you can hit everyone in a hex. This damage tops out at (def+body) of object in extra dice, or twice the user's strength, whichever is less, I think...[/quote']

That's what you would think. I was not totally certain when I first posted this, but now I've checked the book and the FAQ. Damage is calculate as I stated. Here is the quote from the FAQ:

 

Q: If a character uses an object to hit another character, does the DEF+BODY of the object add to the character’s STR for purposes of causing damage?

A: No. As noted on 5E 303, the DEF + BODY is the maximum a character can do with an object. If his STR is over that, he’s limited to DEF + BODY, if his STR is less than that, he does his STR damage.

So there is no extra damage according to the official rules when the DEF + BODY is greater than the STR. I would think that if you are not getting some other bonus such as range, AoE, etc... the attacker should get some Hand Attack bonus (perhaps 1/2 of the DEF in d6's up to +4d6.)

 

Brett

Re: The English system

This web site has an english-metric calculator for mass, volume, area, etc... It can also be used for english-english or metric-metric.

I've found it to be very useful.

http://www.metric4us.com/calculator.html

Brett

Re: Thoughts on having a multi-racial game...

With apologies to Steve Long, is that because it's hard to tell humans appart (they all look alike, blast it! ) or the author didn't do a good enough job distinguishing them from each other?

 

Rob

I would say that it is because they are not standard. You can skim over Steve's elves and say, "They are pretty much like most other elves." The humans in TA require you to spend some time getting familiar with them since they are new and unfamiliar. Even the names take a while to get accustomed to using.

Science Fiction seems to have less problems with nonhuman races, in the context that we are discussing at least, because they are usually somewhat unique. Players have a good idea what to expect from a dwarf (which give the opportunity to pull a surprise on them), but they are probably clueless when you tell them that they come face to face with a X'abarix. Most fantasy campaigns use the same fantasy races (with maybe one or two nonstandard or unique additions), while most SF campaigns do not (unless the setting relies heavily on animal people).

Brett