Martin2

Re: Have you written a story? Anyone done any Champions stories based on set Champions scenarios? It has been done for D&D where a scenario is turned into a novel. Most published scenarios have a lot of information in them and with back weave from players backgrounds could be made into a short novel that at least some champions players would read . Obviously it would have to be approved by HERO and royalties etc

Re: Ghouls that are not undead creatures Also the complication Distinctive Features Concealable Extream Reaction (Fear / loathing etc) Detectable by Commonly Used senses 20 points (which you probbaly need for all of your "heroes"). Connected to the +X PRE always on but only to cause fear and loathing etc and can not be used on friendly skills. Possibly Striking appearance but the horrific one that causes fear on interaction rolls and only to cause people to fear you. How about high Interogation. Again the skill direction is not subtle but just to scare the cr*p out of everyone. Possibly a limitation so you can not do the subtle way. So all this is stacked into whenever you approach someone you make a presence attack and they will run away screaming even if you want to talk nicely to them. You could also throw in negative reputations. Say Negative reputation, very frequently Extream reaction for say blood thirsty monster etc (again one you should have for most of your characters). If you want a character that looks like a monster and causes fear like a monster you should not expect to be able to switch it off when you want to look friendly and talk nicely to members of the public the press etc. So when most of your character in any game system enters a room no one will be able to tell if you are the hero or the villain (a trend that seems to go through most of your character generation may it be a hero or a villain). ** (added later) Then after your character starts (and lives through the first few sessions) he can then start using experience to buy of the complications and the only use to cause fear limitations. So this will be the development of a monster to a hero character. But expect most of your characters to be attacked or at least given bad press which may not help any group of heroes you may be with. Possibly best to discuss this character and your other character with your GM first though as he may not want characters lik ethis in his game.

Re: Killiing a lot of zombies from a safe position. Sorry I always assumed = this is bit before is a joke so dont take it too seriously. It as ment to be a joke comment, so I appologise if anyone took offence (call it British sence of humour). As you say everything is down to the GM and zombies can be how ever powered as the GM wants. In some games they do not get much more powered and the numbers increase and in some they can get more powerful. In situation it sounded like a duck shooting situation with mindless / not very intellegent zombies similar to the ones on your not OTT films (the ones that are not belching fire etc). The ones that may move towards gun fire and try to get to the roof through windows and doors (the ones in most situations do). In most systems they do not just stand there unless ordered by there masters. They normally are hungry and move towards noise as it could be possibly food. And 10 zombies battering on a standard locked door usually means locked door is broken in some sort of time frame in most gaming systems (unless its a metal door etc). After they have killed off hundreds of zombies it could be turned both ways of either you kill all the zombies and everyone is happy or the opposite of they have killed all these zombies and they have not achieved anything as the rest of the area is just full of zombies. But what ever you want in your particular game.

Re: Killiing a lot of zombies from a safe position. Your running a zombie game and the group has got up to a safe high place and have ACCESSS TO 100's of rounds of ammo!!!! You have failed as a GM!!!!!! This never happens in the movies, well usualy just at the end. It would get a bit boring if you just do this and the players just get to shoot lots of zombies. Also as a game plot what does it do? I think I would just use it as a method of depleting their ammo. But if the game has access to lots of ammo and it is not the end of the world situation this is what I keep saying should happen. You just get a group armed in riot gear head to toe with riot shields and have them backed up with people with lots of ammo and are good shots and then you clear an area. I am currently watching Walking Dead TV serries which is good background for these sort of games. Anyway back to the situation on the roof. How secure was it? Firing hundreds of times will get more zombies moving towards the area and a secure place is never secure for long as some zombies will find a route up to the roof. I think at least one or two should find a route to their place or at least test their defences. So several hours later you will have 300+ rounds expended (I would go through a few rounds with each player firing at a reasonable range and get the results and then extrapolate to an hour, this will give you a kill rate to ammo usage rate, then tell the players this approximate kill rate) , you have killed less than that zombies but looking around have the numbers increased due to all the noise? Also are those noises coming from the door you barricaded nearest the zombies??

Re: Can be used as...

Re: Metal Skin Well it depends. Most of your characters tend to look like monsters being 10+ foot tall with horns and claws. These tend to stand out in the field and will attract a lot of attention. So no covert operations. Your characters also seemed to be anti heroes with a tendancy to just want to maim and kill things in horrific ways. Which is again what the military want if you are the last man standing on your side so you kill all the enemy amd not any friendly targets. But how about in aggresive stand offs where there is no need to kill everyone and you have a character that is just a hair trigger of killing everyone in a whole block? All of your previous character options have been like this. Is this the plan for this character??? What the military want is a well trained soldier with super powers. So lots of skills in tactics, team work, KS military, stealth, tracking, covert skills etc. And not just a mutant that can take lots of damage and still keep going. But also the mentality of being a good soldier who follows orders and does not have beserk complications and the need to drain life forces from people. Most military units would have mutants that are well trained and will follow orders and only kill when they order you to kill. So is this another monster with metal skin?

Re: Magic pistols OK thanks all for the feed back. My interpretation of the rules seems to be similar to some and not similar to others . His multipower is 60 points "magic" which has two "magic guns" which are not actually focus based as they are indestructible and can return to his hand to some extent (normal grabs will not work but other grabs may delay the return) so they are restrainable (the theory being that he can remagic another weapon if one is lost but this takes some time to do it). Each "gun" has two slots each and are spell powered with endurance and not bullets (charges). One based on fire and one based on ice. I will approach the player and say he has the option of having magic only powers that look like fire and ice. Or he can have them to have effects of fire and ice and effect targets as fire and ice. If he picks fire/ ice effects I will consider that the target will be be effected by magic fire and magic ice so any defences / vulnerabilities for either magic or fire / ice will take effect (I am thinking if the target has both magic or fire / ice then only the worst / best effect will be used. But I will think more about this if it ever happens). If he is targeted by a magic drain then all powers will have a chance of being effected. If a fire or ice drain is used then one of the multipower slots will be effected so could take out one of the "guns" and two of the slots from the multipower in a couple of drains. But this is my thoughts and for my campaign and some may disagree . At least I seem to pick grey areas in the rules and everyone gets a chance to put over what they do in their games .

Re: Magic pistols What about say a magic villain with 10 ED limitation only versus magic attacks? In your case the fire attack would not trigger extra ED? So looking through Talisman powers shadow bolt, shadow embrace, hellfire, hellfire gate etc all from magic but not in the description. So the ED would not trigger these? But 10 ED limitation only versus shadow powers or 10 ED only versus hellfire would?

Re: Magic pistols Totally confused . So people have different thoughts on this which is sort of confusing me on how to judge it . So the example I am using from above. Magic source with fire effect. Would a villain with vulnerability magic take additional damage? Would a villain with vulnerability fire take additional damage? Would a drain magic effect drain the power? Would a drain fire effect drain the power? I would probably now say both would count. But then some people will not and would have an extra advantage for it so reducing the dice effect. But then if the player picks say electical attack or radiation attack for his next exp spends he is racking up a lot of powers that effect a lot of vulnerabilities. So would most people go with dual drain and vulnerability sources etc or all go for magic or fire for that specific power?

Re: Magic pistols Thanks for the feed back. I have decided to go for restrainable and also have reminded the player about his fire and ice being magical and not fire and ice. I may also give him the option to pick another weapon to use as his "focus" if he loses his two pistols.

I have a new player joining and wants to build a character with a sort of magic SFX. He says he has the ability to enchant physical items with magic. His concept is to enchant a pair of pistols with arcane magic to have the effect of firing fire and ice. He thought only to fire bullets that would be ice and fire so a different SFX for each gun. My thoughts were that it is magic so he could have anything related to fire or ice as the guns themselves are just a feature of where the power is. So game mechanic is Multipower with Fire Blast, Fire AoE, Ice armour piercing, Ice auto fire power etc. He thought Focus power so -1 so halving the cost. I though this would limit the character if he came up against anyone who could take his guns of him so suggested as not a focus but a special effect of the power and no limitation but it would mean the guns would be indestructible and would magically appear in his hands when he wanted to even if the guns were removed from his grasp. They are also powered by END and not charges. Obviously my option costs more. What would anyone else do to write this up and give him more points. The SFX being magic hand guns that can fire fire and ice (60 points Champions game). Thanks for any suggestions.

Re: New Hero System Players And Game Masters There is probably no way back to the "good old days of roleplaying". Even when I started 26+ years ago it was a minority hobby. Is sort of started in school and Uni and just som eof us did not give it up after school and Uni . There are more interesting hobbies to have then these things connected to books and rules and throwing dice to come up with these answers to what you do. Its all about getting the computer to do things for you (and your friends are Avatars and they all look a lot better than your real friends ). In my case if you need players they travel. One of mine travels about 60 miles round trip to play a game, one makes a special trip and it must be 160+ miles from Wales to Oxford so one player literally moves countries to play and other make 40 miles and 10 miles round trips. We have two wives that now turn up to play the game. My two kids are 3 and 5 so a bit young to play yet and I have not started brain washing them yet . We have to supply to the old players who are still playing and probably the new players who were dragged into it by being friends of the older players. Who knows how to revitalise the roleplaying gaming industry? Air burst nuke to fry all the computers?? But then that would wipe out the internet ordering so you would have to make sure you have gaming stores full stocked so when the hordes of computer players want something to do you can supply them with the game that started their computer games.

Re: How (un)realistic are Street Samurai? Having run Shadowrun and read a lot of the novels written for it I know the specific definition of a Street Samurai in Shadowrun (there are lots of good novels and quite a few not so good ones. A good one to start with which is a trilogy starting with Never deal with a Dragon by Robert N. Charrette). As previously stated Street Samurai do not have to go around with swords. They are just a street slang for a chromed mercenry "with a strict code of street honour". So every Street Samurai in shadowrun will carry weapons which they think is the most appropriate for the job in hand. Looking through my 3rd edition book the "Street Samurai" has in is equipment 3 SMG's, heavy pistol, light pistol, retractible spurs (long blade in a cyber arm), survival knife and a sword. So I think the sword is low down on the list of weapons they use. From the picture with the character I can not see any sign of a sword (why would he need it when he has the SMG's for medium and close range and a spur which can we drawn with a flick of the wrist and someone will not know he is armed with it until it is exposed in their inards). But most of the "Street Samurai" in the books do not carry swords but if they don't have cyberware spurs or blades will carry a knife. So this thread has developed into a discussion on the concept of a sword over a gun and in most cases this will not be the weapon of choice of a traditional Street Samurai. The weapon of choice of the Street Samurai is more likely to be twin Ingram Smartgun (picture a big high tech Uzi). So we should really be discussing the use of twin Ingram Smartgun over possibly the use of say a heavy pistol or shotgun for its effect in close combat . Or should we be discussing the concept of why would someone replace their own body parts with high technology just to give them an advantage in combat. Cyberpunk possibly covers this better with a game mechanic of the more cyberware you have the more loopy you go. Whilein Shadowrun (at least up to 3rd I am not sure about after 3rd) it just limits your healing rate and magic use etc.

Re: Reason for creating team. The team has to have a reason to form. They are just a bunch or random super powered individuals with no reason to be together. I would recommend you go via the rich famous retired hero or Government / UNTIL route. Tell them their city area does not have a super hero team and the area needs one. They have been chosen to be that team. Bribe them with free contacts and a free base. But for this they have to play as a team and work together. Give them something they can trust in. The famous super hero who will give them advice, government officials who will give them resources and a base to plan the future. It gives them a grounding point for them. Plan a mission for them to launch into just after forming. Possibly a good reason why they need to form up. I did it wrong. I gave them a shadowy government official. He had contacts but did not have the full suport of the government. I wanted to give them an option if they did not want to go the government route to do their own thing. The problem was they did not trust him as he could not give them the whole picture. So they did not throw themselves behind the concept of being "good" heroes and on the first mission he sent them on they did not try and stop the villains as "that is not what they were told to do". When I next start they are going to have a lot more resources thrown at them by the UK Government and UNTIL (well they have just saved the world from a lizard man plague). So a new base (the last one was only a large house) and lots of support staff.

Re: PMCs--Private(and Public) Metahuman Contractors My first Champions was a super strong brick. His back story (which had no effect on the game as it did not come up as the game only lasted a few sessions) was that he was a demolitions expert. He employed meta types in a specialist group what did demolitions in hard to reach places. So why not have a company that employs supers to do specialist jobs. Demolitions "I can slowly demolish that building from the top down and I need no bring in cranes. The building can drop on me and I wont feel a thing. Here are my qualification and insurance for this type of work". Window cleaning "Need your high rise windows cleaning? I can do it quickly and I need no harness as I can fly" Water searches "I can breath under water" Cargo transfer "1ton freight containers anywhere in the world next second with teleport"

Re: Secondary stats Erm secondary stats were in 5th Edn wasnt it? Simply use HD in 5th and fit in any changes from 6th you like.

Re: Damage Reduction

I am running a game (well to restart after another game has finished). One of my players is mister indestructible with absorption high ED, PD, stun, body and damage reduction. I probably know this answer but it has not come up before for this character, but do AVAD’s also bypass damage reduction? I assume under the rules they do if they are not included in the list on the power. I have sort of considered them a “defence even against AVAD’S” due to his power SFX. But if he has this defence also villains with this defence will also get the protection. Can anyone confirm this?

Re: Magical Created Supersolider If you are playing an evil game it is fine. Are you playing in a evil campaign? If its a traditional "Champions" game it is a fight evil campaign so your fellow team mates will gang up on you and hand your over to the police. And how are your other evil characters you are creating? I see about 6+ in the first page of the forum. Have you completed them and did your fellow players and GM like them? Or did they say they were too evil?

Re: Team as characters Sounds like a reasonable idea. Team crashes Demon / VIPER and they are pissed off. Does only one player gain Hunted or all of them? Some contacts picked up in play are they just for one player or several? A team could get a "character sheet". It would make things easier to keep a track of contacts / hunted that they all picked up and not just one player. I may create a HD sheet for my group as I always lose the "who did they last talk to in UNTIL last list"

Re: Hard Back Rule Book My cover also fell off within a short time of receiving it as well. It was not that abused and thought I must have dropped it or something. Good to know it is not only me then.

Re: What do charges cost? I was just throwing in the comment to highlight the opposite end to the spectrum of effectively having infinite reloads of your 6 round mag if you have chance to reload it through the week but only allowed to take the 6 rounds with you. Comparing it with the extream of you have 6 rounds and then have to find your rounds after the combat. But if you reload to 6 rounds you can not keep the mags of the similar gun you loot from dead bad guys, unless you pay a few exp to keep them (as well as the 60 MP VIPER gun that my players would like to keep but hate my comment of "you have to spend the points on it to keep it after the end of this scenario"). Equipment is a problem in HERO depending on the setting. Good luck to Sean on which method you choose though . I will keep in mind the multiple grenade power increase for the next time they try it though, thanks.

Re: What do charges cost? But with charges, over a specific time frame you get them back. So this simulates at the end of the day you go back and reload your gun from your big box you have in your house / base. So you should have an infinate supply of bullets but you can only carry a mag at a time (if you pay CP's for 1 mag of 6 charges). So in your game do you plan to have the possibility that the second encounter a day later you could have less than 6 bullets in your gun if you spent the EXP on other skills:confused: So the game mechanics is you only have access to one mag and can only have 6 bullets but a big box that you fill up your one mag and no option to stick a few more in your pocket! Yes I have a similar problem with my players in a supers game. "Well I have picked up the 6 grenades from the VIPER agent and I now want to strap them all together and set them off all at once". Says player A. "Yes I know in real life you could do that and you would have 6 grenades going off at the same time for 6 separate times the damage" Says I "but its really a 8D6 blasts area effect with 6 charges and not a 8D6 Blast auto fire 6 with 6 charges which costs more points to buy in game terms!" "But I could do it in real life!" Says Player A "OK I give in, throw 8D6 six times" Says I (but the VIPER agents never get the option to do the same as its not built that way on their sheet). For you game you could just stick with the "your build more clips into your power so have to price the bigger power".

Re: Newbie running a game for Newbies Also hit these forums and do a lot of reading. Scan for key words and see if it helps. I am not running a game but seem to spend several hours a week draining the advice of a lot of people (preparing for the next game). Post if you need help and take the advice and choose if you want to use it or not. Do not be afraid to start the characters and then after a few sessions decide that OK that was our first try and we now know a bit about the game lets rewrite the characters a bit. I was new with new players. I learned a lot as the game went on and advice from here. I built the characters myself with input from the players. Some still do not understand the rules or how the powers work. You may have to totally remove the game mechanics from the character sheet and keep it simple to start with. You will make mistakes (I myself made many like not having the players have killing attacks to try and stop them killing all the villains! Until two Robots trashed the party as only one or two could hurt them and they rolled badly ).

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?