Lord Liaden

Re: very basic knockback Q There certainly can be. Knockback is based on the Body total rolled on the Damage dice for an attack, not on whether or not any of that Body damage gets through to the target. A character may be completely unhurt Stun or Bodywise by an attack, but if he wasn't braced against the Knockback done by it or has no Knockback Resistance he can still be sent flying. One of the reasons the Increased Knockback Advantage can be so nasty.

Re: Hero Help One thing about these boards - when you post a question or request for help, you usually get quite a bit of it, and pretty promptly.

Re: CHAMPIONS UNIVERSE II - What Do You Want To See? Point of trivia - from my Webster's Encyclopedic Dictionary: gadroon: n. 1.Archit. An ornamental molding marked by the use of notches or carved work. 2. A decorative band used especially in silverwork and characterized by the use of fluted work or reedings in a usually oval pattern. They may have been ruthless invaders, but I bet they were sharp dressers.

Re: Who uses or has used Dr. McQuark? Dr. McQuark and his facilities played an important role in a past campaign of mine, but not as originally written. When I saw the diverse backgrounds and talents of the members of his staff, and McQuark's own childlike wonder and enthusiasm, I decided that rather than a supertech supplier they would work better as a training facility for young supers, a variant on Professor X's school, but more public and less staid. I mixed in a few of the NPCs from Normals Unbound with teaching or training expertise, and we were off to the races. I mean, the receptionist talks to people through stuffed animals. If that isn't a great way to get through to troubled children, I don't know what is.

Re: Need an organization name The Delphi Institute The Society for Advanced General Exploration (SAGE)

Re: Do I need the core rule book? And let's not overlook the huge contribution from James Cambias to Star HERO. He deserves a lot of the credit for that book and for the pattern of subsequent genre books.

Re: Which characters would you enjoy playing? Among the current crop of heroes, Dr. Silverback (smart, funny, ladies' man, and a gorilla - 'nuff said), or Bulletproof from Galactic Champions (has both the "regular joe" and "fish out of water" archetypes going for him, two of my favorites). Old school, American Eagle of the Freedom Squad (a true elder statesman among superheroes), or Nuada of the Silver Hand (my favorite - I love mythic characters and tragic heroes). Among current CU villains, Foxbat of course (probably needs no explanation), or Molnya from Champions Worldwide (the most stable and well-rounded mastermind in current continuity). Old school, Baron Jean de'Lear from The Mutant File (epic-scale ancient gothic vampire, with style and brilliance). EDIT: I'm seeing a lot of Dr. Silverback and Foxbat support on this thread.

Re: The Collected DC & Marvel Writeups. Welcome aboard, General! (And I'm not just saying that because you could crush me like a ripe fruit.) If you want to mix all the superheroes into one world, you picked a good system. Fans of HERO/Champions have written up many, many published super characters, hero and villain, over the years, and you can read those freely on the Internet. We'll be happy to direct you to various websites where you can find them, but perhaps it would be better to give you time to digest the game before throwing all that stuff at you. In the meantime, any questions you have about the system, sourcebooks, playing supers, building characters and powers, or anything else, please feel free to post 'em. We're a pretty friendly and helpful bunch to newcomers. EDIT: I can offer you a couple of links which may help you get your feet wet in HERO. This one will let you access the website's online FAQ about the game, providing you with some basic information and examples: http://www.herogames.com/SupportFAQs/workingherosystem.htm From this webpage you can download several helpful free PDF: an introduction to the basic mechanical concepts of the system, a summary of the combat sequence and options, and advice on using HERO to run several different game genres, with sample characters and superpower, spell and gadget builds: http://www.herogames.com/FreeStuff/freedocs.htm

Re: CHAMPIONS UNIVERSE II - What Do You Want To See?

Re: CHAMPIONS UNIVERSE II - What Do You Want To See? BTW, I asked about Menton upthread, but how about some developments re Takofanes? For such a major villain power he hasn't been mentioned much in relation to major events on Champions Earth, other than causing (apparently) random death and destruction. FWIW there were a number of ideas for using him presented on this thread.

Re: CHAMPIONS UNIVERSE II - What Do You Want To See? There is more information on the Elder Worm (although not a lot) in Galactic Champions, and some about their servant race, the Thane, in Worlds Of Empire. GC also introduced a race of shape-shifters, the Roinesh, who become major galactic players late in the Third Millennium - although without a writeup. It would be cool if there was any to introduce the Roinesh into the present day CU, preferably with game stats... but given that the race was virtually unknown up to the Terran Empire era, that would seem difficult to accomplish without violating continuity. EDIT: Unless there was a secret Roinesh conspiracy to gain power among the other major races of the galaxy, which didn't bear fruit until centuries later. Although the Roinesh were always largely thwarted (perhaps just barely), the various governments involved kept their existence quiet to prevent a panic... including governments on Earth.

Re: CHAMPIONS UNIVERSE II - What Do You Want To See? The official CU sourcebooks seem to follow the usual mainstream comic tack, in that Earth is unusual in having real mythological gods who walk the contemporary world; but in an era of high magic it doesn't necessarily have to be unique in that regard. In fact Desert Dragon, of the Sword of Ackal in Galactic Champions, was apparently granted her powers by one such Ackalian spirit. I was thinking that certain alien religions might lend themselves to beings with "divine" origins, such as the Avatars of the Velarian Scomaru Shaan.

Re: Wwycd: Doom!!!! Nuada of the Silver Hand: "Arrogant fool! Such ignorant meddling first loosed the Fomori upon Earth, and set me on the path of eternal war! Nonetheless it is my duty and burden to drive Hell from this world, and so I will fight beside even you if I must. But know this: should you ever play with such dangerous toys again, I will hold you personally responsible for the result, and not all your lackeys will keep my sword from your heart!"

Re: CHAMPIONS UNIVERSE II - What Do You Want To See? No criticism intended, Herm. Those are fine characters that I just wanted to illustrate my point. Anytime someone posts something cool to the boards that the rest of us can use for free, I figure we're getting a good deal with no right to complain because there isn't more.

Re: CHAMPIONS UNIVERSE II - What Do You Want To See? I'll second Hermit's recommendations, particularly regarding the Hzeel. They've had the most interaction with Earth of any of the major galactic powers, and are said to have explicit designs on this world. It would be interesting to find out more about what their civilization was like before they devolved into an interstellar Cosa Nostra. I for one would prefer to develop the existing galactic races with an eye toward how they might impact on Earth today, rather than introduce new aliens or resurrect moribund ones such as the Qularr or the Sirians. The exception would be any new official race which could pose a challenge to Earth's superheroes without upsetting established continuity by their introduction, like alien Empyreans or Mike Surbrook's Nehkojin. As far as what information I would find useful, I'd like to point out that the present day is still one of relatively high magic across the CU's Milky Way, and that superhumans of alien races have already been mentioned and written up in several Champs books. If there are equivalents to the Sword of Ackal among the contemporary Hzeel, Perseids, Se'ecra etc., they're likely to be the ones to interact with Earth's superheroes, either when those heroes travel to the aliens' worlds, or should they arrive on Earth as explorers or scouts for invaders, or pursuing alien criminals attempting to hide on this planet. Obviously character sheets would be nice, but even names and brief descriptions, as used for the unwritten characters in Champions Universe and Champions Worldwide, would be helpful. EDIT: For example, here are a couple of Perseid supers that Hermit once wrote up as part of a mission to recover an AWOL Drogen Lar: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10577 (writeups starting at post #14).

Re: [Game Idea] Beacons in the Night It should be noted that not all creatures in the Bestiary are built to the same standards. For example, the Demon Princes are well optimized and stack up well against published master supervillains of comparable points, and would be a match alone for most hero teams.

Re: Firewing vs. Gravitar? Steve Long has put "illegal" Power constructs into several of his published writeups when he thought that they would be appropriate and interesting, although he almost always notes that he is bending the rules. If it's good enough for HERO's Big Kahuna, I figure I can get away with it once in a while in my little campaign.

Re: [Game Idea] Beacons in the Night Very valid points. OTOH those Bestiary creatures are not as "efficiently" built as many supers are, using Power Frameworks and Limitations. IMHO their point totals are a good measure of their effectiveness vs. heroic level opponents, but most published Champions supers of the same point totals would eat those monsters for breakfast. (If the supers are monsters themselves, perhaps literally.)

Re: [Game Idea] Beacons in the Night IMO 350-point "Standard Superhero" levels should be more than adequate to make your monsters very powerful compared to normal humans, unless you expect them to fight military-level hardware on a regular basis.

Re: Help with some African Supervillains please ! If you ever saw the old Champions villain compendium Enemies: Villainy Unbound, one of the villains was Lionslayer, formerly a radical Zulu revolutionary from Apartheid-era South Africa who became disillusioned with the cause and became a supervillain (joining the terrorist group VOICE). Our board colleague Enforcer84 posted a fine Fifth Edition update of Lionslayer to the boards, including a HDC file: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?p=761079

Re: Ideas for a curcus/carnival themed villain team Jugglers, with gimmicked projectiles like balls or Indian clubs.

Re: Vampires in Supers Setting

Re: Vampires in Supers Setting Not the Karloff version, no. That Mummy was a classic pulp mastermind with a rather gruesome origin. Imhotep from the recent Mummy films would be a threat to a whole team of superheroes. Superhuman strength, true immortality, desolidification (sand form), life-draining, command of the Biblical plagues of Egypt, undead servants, large-scale mind control, massive mastery of the elements, and in the second film, psychokinesis. Throw in the army of Anubis and you have a challenge for most hero teams.

Re: Vampires in Supers Setting The most fun I ever had with a vampire character in a supers setting was the leader of a VIPER nest in one of my past campaigns. "Seraphina" was patterned after the child in Interview With The Vampire: trapped for four hundred years in the body of a nine-year-old girl. Physically she was no stronger than an athletic adult male, but she had massive power over the minds of others, and centuries of experience in manipulating people, including exploiting her apparent helplessness. Seraphina had the self-centeredness, lack of empathy and casual cruelty of many children taken to the nth degree, and loved making adults suffer due to her envy of them. Her schemes often borrowed the themes of nursery rhymes or childhood games, with a deadly twist.

Re: [Game Idea] Beacons in the Night For that matter, the patron of the group could actually be Frankenstein's monster, the original. Since the end of Frankenstein never definitively showed the monster's death, he could still be alive in the modern day. With almost two hundred years in which to study and to accumulate wealth, his resources today could be very considerable. There are certainly plenty of classic monster archetypes that could be redefined as supers, many of which have already been used in comics: Vampire trying to control his bloodlust; Lycanthrope trying to control her bestial changes; Ghosts (great for stealth types and mentalist/psychics); Mummy cursed with eternal unlife; Free-willed golems; not just fleshly types like Frank's experiment, but magically animated statues (literal "bricks"); Moreau-style mutated humanoid animals; Robots or androids, experimental or from the future; Stranded aliens (shape-shifters, Predators with a conscience, and the like); Leftovers from the mythic eras (harpies, Rhinemaidens, tanuki, etc.); Escaped demons from Hell seeking redemption (possibly possessing someone).