Shocker

Re: Timestop Gee, I may blush! In my group I'm known as the guy who does very different things with otherwise mundane powers. When they came out with Transform I was a bit relieved because I didn't have to work as hard to do something really out there. Thanks for the compliment.

Re: Equipment Pools? "I myself Have a 15 str according the the book on how much I can bench press." I don't mean to be contrary since I personally don't know you but as I read the STR chart 15 STR can lift 200 kg or 440 pounds. Now if you can BENCH 440 pounds you should be in the olympics, not gaming. "If anyone has played World of Darkness: The Masquerade, they know vampires are incredibly powerful and limitless in potential." Yet again...I hate to be contrary but I do Play WoD quite often. In WoD a Third Generation Vampire...that's one of Cain's grandchildren all of whom are supposed to be destroyed, can max out at a Strength of 10. As listed in the book a Strength of 10 can rip open a steel drum or lift about 1500 pounds which roughly equates to a Champions STR of 24-25. While this would be a lot in a Fantasy game IMO it would not burn up anything like 200 points for stats. I agree with several other posters that it's your game so you can do what you want but I'd like to see one or two of these characters to see how they're built. I can understand building armies of Followers costing lots of points but sheesh!

While we're here... As long as we're talking about Ice Sheets and marbles...how would you build a power that makes a person slide several inches in a specific direction but not necessarily fall down? I was thinking the Change Env mentioned before along with Running, Usable as an Attack linked. The target would hit the ice/marbles/grease/whatever, make a Dex roll (with a minus if it's built in) to avoid falling. Whether they fell or not they'd travel however many inches in the same direction they were travelling when they hit the thing. If they hit something then they take damage, if not then they just slide off the slippery patch and stop. Any thoughts on this?

Re: Timestop The one time we tried to actually create a new power in Hero was to stop time. The way we experimented with it was Time Stop: One Target for one Segment for 20 Points. Extra Segments could be bought as well as extra Targets. The effect was that the Target could not move or take mental actions but could also not be harmed by any attack. If you really wanted to you could duplicate this I suppose but you're talking a massive build. Something like Entangle, Takes No Damage, NND (defense is temporal T-Port or Life Support or something) coupled with a massive Force Wall with Feedback usable Against Others. Put the whole thing on a time limit (One segment for -1, a Phase for -3/4, a turn for -1/2 or something). Entangle NND would mean that the target could not break out unless they had a Time-Controlling power of some kind. The Force Wall would protect the target up until the moment the Force Wall went down at which point any attacks 'caught' in the time field would hit. Advantages: You can time-stop a target on a given phase, wail on him with the whole team and then a second later the field drops and all of the attacks hit at the same time. Disadvantages: Characters can set these up on themselves with a Trigger to go off when they reach 1 Body or -10 Stun or whatever and like a five minute time limit. If the character gets really hurt he goes into suspended animation until several minutes later when the battle is (probably) over.

Re: Invulnerability As a gm I'd have no trouble with the 100% Damage Reduction for 120 points per type plus Life Support option. I've never run a game where the players had enough points to do all that and have more than 50 or so to build the rest of the character. I once used the Force Wall option to make a really tough character and the GM asked me what my weakness was. My reply was that I also had the Characteristic Maxima Disad so I was basically a really tough agent in a super world. All my gadgets were OAF and could be broken once they were taken away from me as the Force Wall no longer covered them. My worst nightmare in the game (character had a Psych Disad actually) was being Entangled. 5D6 of a typical Entangle meant I was out for the fight really.

Re: Sex and the Single Superhuman Depends on the campaign: Shocker was married to team member Psiren. They had two super kids before the campaign closed. Spyder was involved briefly with several NPCs one of which turned out to be a villianess (go figure). Tachyon dated a reporter for a while but the character wasn't around long. DemonBane was 8' tall, 600 pounds and had fangs, wings, claws and a COM of 2...not much of a dater. Talos had a technician that had the hots for him but it was a "I just want to sleep with an alien" kinda thing. The fact that he was permanently 1" tall made things kinda tough romantically anyway...

I've decided to break down and finally try out one of my favorite staple character types: The Ice Power Guy. However, I don't like the way some of the characters I've seen in the past treat some of the ice powers. So I wanted to ask a few questions: Shouldn't Entangle defined as Ice Bonds include a small NND because of the cold? How much of a Focus Limitation would it be if the character created items to use but they were breakable? For instance, Flight (only up or down) with a Focus: Ice Column. I figured -1/2 since he could make a new one but if he was using it and someone broke the column...splat! My big question is the fameous Ice Slide. Some people define it as Running, some as surface Flight but I prefer Gliding. The way I see it he starts up high (hence the ice column) makes a slide and then slides down it. Now the slide is a Focus because it can be broken (resulting in him falling). It would also be Usable Against Others At Range because he can use it to catch other falling people or make slides to steer fliers in another direction. But I'm not sure how all of this should be done. Is the -1/2 Replacable OAF enough? Too much? Input is always appreciated.

Re: Ideas for a Hero Games Legendary Product As my signature says, I've played Hero in one form or another for a LONG time. Champions was and is a great product. Strikeforce was really nice too. My friends and I delighted to Dark Champions because you could do so much with it. Now I'm buying 5ER next week and putting 5th on the shelf. I work in a game store and I just put out a whole shipment of Hero product. Against the boss's best wishes I snuck the display a bit closer towards the window because I love the system, I think it'll sell well and I want to see it continue. IMHO Hero system covers so much that except for 5ER it'll be tough to come up with a 'signature product' any time soon. You have rules for everything under the sun from fantasy to space to supers, expansion books galore, and everything is pretty tight with regards to rules and so forth. Lots of internal consistency and I like that. I have a couple of ideas that might help with sales and while they wouldn't be signature products might help things along. 1) More books about Villians. I don't think you can enough of these really. Some GMs have trouble coming up with new material and these really help. 2) More books about other heroes ala Strikeforce or something similar. Chart a team from its creation to as close to the current day as possible. I once played in a Champions campaign that ran more or less continuously for ten years. I find this fascinating and I think others would too. 3) The Ultimate Base book just sounds cool. Looking forward to it. 4) How about something simple like a book of character pictures for heroes and especially villians? Something as simple as this would have been really nice back in the day and still might help new players and g.m.s get started now. No stats, no data, just pictures. I hope Hero continues to entertain us for a long time to come.

Re: Crazy Idea to Remove the Math As much as I'd like to add players to the system, I kinda like the math (ducking now!). I was a C- average math student until I started playing role-playing games... Now a coil of rope weighs 4 pounds... Water skin is 8 pounds... Armor 14.5 pounds... Factor in the Lighten Advantage... I got straight As in math after all of that. If the literary buffs can use Harry Potter to encourage kids to read, I say use gaming to encourage them to do math!

Re: PREDATORS -- What Do *You* Want To See? Virtually anything except Harbinger of Justice. I saw him in the original Dark Champs and was mortally offended. Here's a guy that can slaughter most supers let alone DC characters... However, Hero Games has done a lot of great team stuff in the past. I almost always have a villian team based on the Zodiac so something like that for DC would be nice. A lot of the other posts have nice ideas...mobsters, ninjas, a smattering of the supernatural (anyone else remember Kolchak the Night Stalker played by Darin McGavin?). Perhaps some mastermind types with unusual twists...hire or equip others to do their dirty work and so on. The rare monster might be a nice change as well...Heroes fighting zombies might be interesting once!

Re: Speedster Name Needed My first and only speedster was called Jet. He wore a mostly black costume (and was nicknamed Jet-Black almost at once). As a sidebar, Jet was FAST! The first time I played him I was joining an established group and it went something like this: (Friend of mine) "So Charles! What kind of character are you playing?" (Me) "A speedster...my first." (Friend) "Cool...how fast is he?" (GM) "Phase One: Jet"

Re: What Would You Do?? #76 Techno Knights of the Periodic Table? Sorry...I just HAD to!

Re: A contriversial "Would your character...?" Sorry but I really hate bullies. My definition of a bully: Anyone who tries to get away with something to the detriment of others just because they're bigger / more powerful / wealthier etc. That being said, I'd try to think my way out. If unable, I'd fight her to the last based on the fact that if you give in once, they might try something worse later on.

Re: What's the Big Difference? "What do you mean all my stuff is patented by someone else and I can't use it?"

Re: What would your character do #~75 Try to determine if the contract came with a foreclosure clause...then get the person in question to screw up and let the 'powers that shall not be named' deal with him. Otherwise build a robot version of a dead villian and have it kill him. Sometimes the simplest plans are the best...

Re: What Would You Do?? #76 Hmmmmm...guy walking around in a suit that COULD be a really neat form of armor. After trying to find a way home via the local mage, I'd likely set myself up as a knight and an inventor. Electricity would have been so useful in the middle ages. But first...the flush toilet!

Re: I Can't Believe He Played That! I was once exposed to a character named Captain Crunch. He was a flying brick with a ring that transformed him from normal to hero ID while making crunch crunch crunch noises. Fortunately most of the people I have gamed with have come up with pretty good character ideas. It was the players themselves who were lame.

I have a number of related questions dealing with velocity and its effects when things go bad: 1) A high Speed person grabs a target while flying at say 30". Before the target can react the flier lets him go into a wall. How to calculate damage on the poor target assuming the wall cannot break? 2) A speedster is running at same 30" and is suddenly stunned by a mental attack (or any non-Knockback attack). Does he fall at 30" and take damage? Does it matter if this occurs on his acting Phase or on a non-acting Segment? 3) Same question as #2 above but assume that the speedster in question is falling while travelling towards a wall as opposed to on a flat surface. Thanks in advance.

The Menace The biggest baddie the players have met (more than once) in my game is Major Menace. He's a psychopathic terrorist/blackmailer type with lots of resources and agents. He's died three times, all dupes in his costume, and whenever the old red and black suit comes out everybody groans.