The Nexus

Re: Superhuman women less attractive in 6th Edition?

There can be if you really want there to be.

 

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php/45604-Modeling-er-quot-sexual-prowess-quot/page2

 

Stretching 1" (5 Base & Active) Very Limited Body Parts (-1) No Noncombat Stretch (-1/4) Always Direct (-1/4) Restrainable (Turn it off by turning him off) (-1/4) No Velocity Damage (-1/4) Side Effects: Int Drain (-1/2) Limited Power: Less than one hex Stretch (-1/4) Limited Power: Refractory Period (Must wait between activations) (-3/4) Real Cost: 1

See and if you do want, Hero gives you the option (as you've shown)

So you're saying that players are likely to want their characters to compete about how attractive they are but not about how manly they are? Personally I think that if something like the above power had been a longstanding part of standard Hero, there'd be people buying it multiple times for bragging rights. "Mine's so big, the cumulative INT Drain takes me to negative ten!"

They may, and depending on how they want to do it (wrestle for it, knowledge of "manly" movies etc.), there is a mechanic that can be used to do it. The only mechanic for granular attractiveness has been taken away.

Re: Old Marvel Super Heroes to Champions conversion.

Wow Ultimate Powers book, I hadn't heard that in years. I used to have all the OHOTMU with the character stats in them. Wish I knew what happened to all that.

Re: Superman 350 Points with VPP

That's a really neat take. I've never considered doing things that way. I usually just go with a 60 STR and call it good.

Re: Quantum from Dragon Magazine #111, 1986 by George MacDonald

Heh, I got that issue as well. Saved all the Super Hero ones, locked them up in the box of doom. Still though, that magazine was top notch back then. It's a shame we don't really have something like it now that's worth a hill of beans.

 

~Rex

I hear you, a few years ago I took a look at a Dragon magazine (or was it Dungeon?) it was like 12 pages and 11 of them were advertisments.

Re: 6th Edition Brick

Wow reading this thread makes me realize how much I have to learn about making a character and I've been playing since 3rd ed. I hadn't even considered that a 7 DCV could be all but useless (depending on norms of course) and might as well go with a 4 and up defenses. I need to hone up some math skills.

Re: The Capes of Vibora Bay

Nice interesting run so for. I always like to see the characters players use in actual games.

Re: Superhuman women less attractive in 6th Edition?

Wrong.

 

Wrong about why COM was dropped, and wrong about how differences in appearance play out in game.

 

Both your Sizzling Sexpot and Plain Jane, for example, can walk into a public women's room without attracting any notice. My characters Qutzelcoatl or Stormwalker couldn't. They don't have Complication: Male, nor for that matter did they spend points on any Perk, Power, Skill, or Characteristic that marks them as male; it's just part of the character description. Much of the time, it's not going to make a real difference in play; sometimes it will.

 

Quetzalcoatel can (in secret ID) blend with the crowd in Little Tokyo, where Stormwalker and Amphibian would probably look like tourists. If someone has to infiltrate a Ku Klux Klan style group, Stormwalker could do it (if he could restrain his disgust) but Amphibian or Quetzlcoatl would need to use Disguise skill. None of them paid any points for their skin color. It's just part of their physical description, and usually irrelevant; but not always.

 

"Special Effects" are part of Hero and do, sometimes, make a difference.

 

To return to your specific examples; let's go ahead and assume that we're under the prior dispensation, and one female character has COM 18 and the other COM 8. I'll bring a male character to the table who also has COM 18. Is he as likely as the female of COM 18 to distract a guard? Assuming they have the same skills, is he as likely to seduce a male agent and pump him for information? Why should the girl get an advantage - she didn't spend points specifically to be female, did she?

 

In short, yes, it's fine for Sexpot to be more likely to distract a guard than Jane - and it's also fine that Jane tends to blend into the background and get less unwanted attention than Sexpot. These fall under the "Special Effects" of being those characters. If these traits are played up a lot, they should be expressed with points (give one Striking Apearance, the other Shadowing Skill maybe?) but it's an exercise in futility to try to require a point expenditure for every single aspect of a character that might come up in play.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Yes, I have a license for this palindromedary, and no, I didn't pay points for it.

But here's the thing, to use your example, there isn't some one that can be MORE male than your character. There is no one that has STRONGER XY chromosomes, they are just male. With COM players will sometimes want to quantify how attractive their characters are in comparison to other characters. This goes beyond just a physical description of skin color or ethnic background. There are varying degrees of attractiveness. Now of course you can fall back on "Well that's not realistic, some people find Brad Pitt attractive others don't blah blah blah" however you have to remember that we're talking about a game where people can shoot lighting bolts out of their nose hair or survive a fall from terminal velocity with a little tuck and roll, are we really concerned about realism?

But it was never useless in our games - as noted in the long-running COM debate, it certainly had multiple potential effects (indeed, 5E included games rules for the mechanical effects). The debate seems to run: "COM has no effects!" "Sure it does, here's the rules" "Oh, we never use those...."

 

Anyway, that debate seem to have run its course. I'm still pondering if we'll move to 6E and if we do, whether to add COM back in - but I'll finish the current game first.

 

cheers, Mark

This made me laugh. It brings me back to the time that Bruce Harlick (back when he was in charge) answered the "Great Link Debate" and yet it still continued for years afterwards. The COM debate seems to be following in its footsteps. Those that like it, always will, those that don't, never will. Not much point in arguing about it anymore... Not that that will stop us

Re: Tactile Metal Control powers

When I make a Magneto type character I usually use a Range Killing Attack vs metal. This only works if you just want to damage the metal. If you envision a reshaping of the metal then you have to go with a transform. I personally don't like Drain because most drains heal back in 12 Seconds and it doesn't really fit, how does broken metal repair itself?

Re: American Dream character, getting out from dust

Every time I see this thread title I keep expecting to see a writeup of Dusty Rhodes the American Dream.

 

Okay that's just mean. You can't just throw a picture like that out there without some warning to little kids. Spoiler tags man, Spoiler tags.

Re: New Protectors Rising! (Bay City Campaign idea)

Makes me wish I did make up and submit a character for the idea I had for Silverfist II. Ah well I can live vicariously through everyone playing

Re: What sort of technology do you use in yiour games?

I really like a netbook for gaming. It's small enough that I can get around it when I need to. PDF's are a gift from God when GM'ing. The search feature is incredible. A fellow poster on here, is also a good friend of mine, kept harping on how awesome Hero Designer was. It took me awhile but I finally gave in and got it, and I have to say, it is probably the best investment I've ever made in my gaming career.

Re: Quantum from Dragon Magazine #111, 1986 by George MacDonald

I still have that issue.

Oh really mature... You big boogie head

Re: Quantum from Dragon Magazine #111, 1986 by George MacDonald

Wow I remember that issue. Had over the top super women for all the different super hero games.

Re: Superhuman women less attractive in 6th Edition?

I see no reason anyone couldn't do the exact same thing in 6e: a 5e Comeliness score of 20 can be converted to 6e by taking a 5pt custom perk: Drop-dead gorgeous.

Same cost, same effect: five points spent on 'flavor' with no other purpose.

Right, except the point of this thread is that the pre-made characters USED to spend those points, and now they don't. The game is also encourages against this type of behavoir by giving players free skills something to the effect that: If your character should know how to read a map, and it won't come up often, they don't need to buy Navigation, they just get it for free.

I detested having any character with just a 10 COM but I rarely spent more than 4 points on the stat.

I believe a lot of people felt this way. I think for a lot of people COM did have an effect, it was just a Role-Playing, and this gets into one of my larger issues.

I used to be VERY involved with Hero. I started in 3rd Ed, played 4th for years and years, and when 5th came out, I didn't like the direction it was going and left (eventually I broke down and bought some of the books). My problem was that Hero was become way too power game-y. In 4th ed. If you wanted a character that could attack a lot you bought up your SPD or bought Autofire. That's what it was for. In 5th and beyond, you have Sweep, and Multiple Power Attacks (which I absolutely despise by the way) to make people feel more powerful so they can attack more in a phase. It's gotten worse now with encouraging giving away free skills. Now I got over my... Tiff, I guess you'd call it, when I decided I didn't care how the management wanted me to play, I was going to continue to do it my way.

Wow, sorry rant over.

Re: So how does Champions compare to Mutants and Masterminds?

How is the balance? GM's of M&M in my experience have to keep a tight leash on the players to keep them from taking advantage of various exploits in the system.

I agree with what the others have said, so I'll just tackle this question. In Hero you absolutely have to keep a tight leash on players. Since the system is so flexible, there are tons of ways to "beat the system". There will be times in your game, where you go "Wow, I had no idea how effective that would be", expecially when you're first starting out. I recommend you tell players that they made need to make changes to their characters once the game starts and you see how things are.

Re: Superhuman women less attractive in 6th Edition?

This, in fact, exactly what was predicted, so I'm not surprised in the slightest. Pity.

 

Cheers, Mark

I agree. I've always been a huge supporter of people who paid points on basically useless things that were basically just for flavor. I was sorry to see COM go.

Re: The Incredible Hulk

Colossus: Pete is vastly stronger than the Thing. He is probably just below Thor, Wonder Man, and Herc...

I'm with you until here. Now I've stopped reading comics, so maybe things have changed, but I would put Petey on the same if not slightly below Thing.

Re: The Incredible Hulk

Yeah' date=' I'd probably do likewise. I peg Spidey, for example, at a 50 STR(he can press 10 tons over his head, which means he could deadlift 25 tons--50 is also a nice, round number compared to 45). Starting at the Class 70 Marvel bricks, I'd rate them at roughly "Marvel class strength level(i.e., Class 80, Class 100) = Champions STR" . And for the in-between guys, I'd say Class 15-25 ~ STR 55, Class 40 ~ STR 60, Class 60 ~ STR 65. Spidey has a higher CON stat than Cap. A., which would tend to push the CON stats for major "bricks" well up there.[/quote']

I thought Spiderman could Press 10 tons, which means just lift it up?

 

Good question. I actually was fairly arbitrary at first. Using Mayfair Games DC Heroes as my baseline and not sugar coating. Then I kind of tweaked. Oh and when the Ultimate Brick came out; I was given even more leeway to spend points.

Oh okay, so you used a different game as a sort of baseline and converted it.

 

I tend to make mine like SleepyDrug, make them more usable in a 350 point (or 400 point) game, keeping the DC's around 14. This doesn't reflect the comics as well, but it makes it easier to determin where to put the stats.

Re: A Marvel-ous Suicide Squad?

Henry Peter Gyrich - Director of the program and loyal patriot with a questionable past. Could easily become an Amanda Waller character if given decent character development.

Good call on the Amanda Waller replacement.

Re: Legends of Marvel & DC Universes, redux

While a minor nit, Tony Stark should proably have a higher COM than 10. Also on Iron Man, I haven't read him in a long time, but I thought he had to use his Stealth Armor to go invisible? I don't think your Damage Shield is built correctly. Don't you have to add persistent or constant to it? I think I would also go with a VPP instead of trying to fit all those minor powers (and allow Enhanced Senses in a VPP). Other than that, wow great write up!

Re: The Incredible Hulk

The question I have, is without some sort of baseline, how do you know where to put the stats? For example why a 75 CON and not a 60 or 90? What do you use to gage where they should be?

Re: American Dream character, getting out from dust

Very interesting build and even a double-legacy hero.

 

You may want to make the shield resistant and maybe this second +1/4 thing for defenses too (don't remember what it was called, I think "Impermeable").

 

The "sexy" part is pretty easy covered with Striking Apereance and you can even go to the "supherhuman" area for it.

The things you're talking about are 6th ed. Opale's character is 5th ed.

As far as the build, I like the way you did her kiss, it's not as powerful as the Enchantress' would be, but she's only half Enchantress, so it works.

The rest of the build is solid, nothing wrong with it.

Re: Armor from x-men type of brick.

No I don't think you'd need the Proportionate disadvantage. You can (I believe) always choose to do less damage. Taking that just means that you couldn't use your full STR unless you had full power in your Force Field.

Re: Using a D20

I hadn't really considered that the game was designed around the Bell Curve when they determined what the bonuses should be. That would be a much larger change than I was looking for, thanks for the help all.

Re: Using a D20

I think that randomness is more (dare I use this word when talking about role-playing games?) realistic. I like the possibility of anyone having the chance to hit anyone. I don't typically do fumbles because of how often they'll effect the PC's versus how often NPC's get nailed with it.