Lord Liaden

Re: Be the Spider! You might also want to check out the Spider's HERO character sheet: http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Realm/6532/spyder.html

Re: Hero Plus Adventure #18 -- The Tablets Of Destiny -- Now Available!

Re: Help Requested: Name my Canadian team and it's members

Re: Could someone tell me about star hero?

Re: Worlds of Empire You're partly right, but it isn't the Arcane (from Alien Enemies), although Steve Long said that they were one inspiration for his version of the Thane. It's the Thane who will be given more detail in WOE, including a character sheet of a sample Thane. There will also be more information on the Elder Worm, including a few more of their occult artifacts. I'm afraid that's all I've seen about it beyond the promotional blurb.

Re: Hero Plus Adventure #18 -- The Tablets Of Destiny -- Now Available! Which is one reason why I love having it in PDF on my The Ultimate Ultimate Collection CD. Pages 159-160. The section of writeups for magical items starts from p. 157 to 164. Personally I'd boost the power level of most of them - the 5E Champs Universe is generally a heavier weight class than 4E.

Re: Transformer HERO? Also, don't overlook scrolling down Matt's page to his "Higher Point Writeups." Quite a few of those are classic Transformers, too.

Re: Could someone tell me about star hero? There are several detailed reviews of Star HERO on the RPGnet website; you can access them via the links on this webpage. For the first of those reviews, the followup discussion makes some comparisons with GURPS Space (albeit the GURPS Third Edition version).

Re: Hero Plus Adventure #18 -- The Tablets Of Destiny -- Now Available! Huh. That's a pity. The Tablet is described and statted in detail in the old Ultimate Supermage sourcebook. Mostly it has great powers to give the bearer mastery of others: Mind Controls, Transforms, big Presence boost, plus other abilities.

Re: Archimago I'd like him to possess Donald Trump, just to see if his powers are miraculous enough to fix that hair.

Speaking Apokaliptically On the subject of Darkseid homages: When my current campaign wraps up, there's another concept I've been thinking of introducing. I want to use the alien race known as the Thane, but not the ones mentioned in Terran Empire. I would go with their description from the Fourth Edition Champions Universe: an incredibly ancient race of malevolent necromancers, reanimated in undead state in the modern era. In my concept they seek the mystic energy of an entire magic-rich planet to revive their dead homeworld - Earth is particularly suited to their needs. I would likely equip their minions with magitech patterned after that used by the Lemurians, as described in Hidden Lands. I also want to use Takofanes as the basis for the Thane ruler; as incongruous as Tak sometimes seems on the modern CU Earth, I think he'd make a splendid Darkseid homage as lord of his own planet.

Re: Brainstorm: The Black Paladin Recruits! Gee, doesn't that put BP at risk of a confrontation with Takofanes? Tak doesn't strike me as the kind to let one of his creations go willingly.

Re: Hero Plus Adventure #18 -- The Tablets Of Destiny -- Now Available! From the online Encyclopedia Mythica, The Tablets of Destiny. The associated links in that article include a few more details about it/them. IIRC the Tablets are given a HERO writeup in The Mystic World.

Re: Time of Crisis Thanks, MitchellS. Hmm... based on that description either Tyrannon the Conqueror or Skarn the Shaper from The Mystic World might serve. They both have that whole expand-their-dimension-by-swallowing-others thing going, albeit they want to rule rather than obliterate. Skarn would likely make a better head-to-head opponent for superheroes than Tyrannon - the Conqueror is overwhelmingly powerful, at least when taken collectively.

Re: Archimago Archimago is written up in the Fourth Edition Champions supplement, Creatures of the Night: Horror Enemies. An overall pretty cool collection of horror-themed villains, penned by Dean Shomshak; several of whom have also made it into his Fifth Editon books.

Re: Archimago

Re: Time of Crisis I don't know the adventure - could you describe Omega a little?

Re: Archimago I loved the character, especially his complex history. As far as "archlichs" go, he's much more interesting to me than Takofanes. I considered using Archimago for my current campaign instead of Tak, but the latter had some CU historical ties that I wanted to play with, so I ended up going with the Ravager of Men instead. If I were to bring back Archimago in a future campaign (tempting), I'd probably graft the bulk of Takofanes' character sheet onto him, at least for his final appearances. I used his 4E incarnation pretty much as suggested in Creatures of the Night - attempting to provoke universal Armageddon. If I were to run the character again I'd likely start earlier in his career, before his death and resurrection.

Re: Brainstorm: The Black Paladin Recruits! All right, now we have something to work with. Let's see here (sound of pages shuffling)... Well, from Conquerors, Killers And Crooks there are a few possibilities. Morningstar was already mentioned; he definitely fits with the Black Paladin's motif and inclinations, and as long as BP treats him with more respect and rewards him better than the Morbanes did he'll probably be a good soldier. The origin of the Leech doesn't specify the sorceror who created him. If you tweak that slightly to make it the Black Paladin (probably with assistance from Talisman), you have a fine blindly loyal monster to serve him. Speaking of monsters, the Monster is a possibility if you give him a demonic background, and some means for BP to control him. Looking at UNTIL: Defenders Of Freedom, I noticed a plot seed for Scimitar in which a mystic tells him that his sword is the "reincarnation" of an ancient magic weapon. Make that mystic the Black Paladin or Talisman, who promises to help Scimitar unlock his weapon's potential in exchange for service, and BP gains a ruthless super killer who's paranoid enough to appreciate the protection of these other "knights." From the HERO System Bestiary, several of the more formidable demons (Shadow, Succubus, or Lesser Demon), or undead (Ghost or Vampire) could be the basis for characters willing to join with the Black Paladin. It would also be appropriate on several levels to give him a Demon Steed for a mount, and perhaps a pack of Demon Hounds. Going back to Champions Worldwide, one of the plot seeds for Der Schwarze Tod suggests him becoming increasingly motivated to spread indiscriminate suffering and death, which the Black Paladin would doubtless be able to provide. DST already has a suitable mindset, and certainly looks the part of a fitting henchman. Also, although he doesn't quite fit BP's visuals, Turs al-Sh'ab is as ruthless and sadistic as they come, and is in the market for another patron who can give him the power and status to indulge his inclinations. From the 4E hardcover, several of the Asesinos could reasonably ally with BP. Stalker might join just for the challenge of lots of opportunities to battle superheroes; while the Tombstone Kid, Ocelote and Montana could have been animated by/ drawn to Black Paladin instead of Stalker. From Classic Organizations, Mordeki would identify with BP right off, and the Rose would be easy to recruit. Loup Garou would probably also work willingly with the Paladin. EDIT: BTW, as long as you own Robot Warriors, you might appreciate Chris Goodwin's detailed notes for updating RW to Fifth Edition: http://home.comcast.net/~archer7/rw2hero.html

Re: Brainstorm: The Black Paladin Recruits! Say, Weldun, how about listing the books you do have access to? From your remarks I have to wonder whether you'd consider updating Fourth Edition characters? If so, list your 4E books too.

Re: Power idea: Empathic Leech (help requested statting this) Okay. I've been giving this concept some thought. It seems to me that there are two issues here: one is the broad issue of how to quantify "emotions" within the context of system mechanics; the other is how to construct a Power build that will allow for emotional exchanges between characters. Let's start with the first one, because that's pretty fundamental. To take "emotion" beyond the realm of roleplaying and make a stat out of it, I think we need to look at how the system handles the matter and see if a consistent framework can be extracted from it. Directly modifying a character's state of mind can be achieved in four ways: through the use of Interaction Skills, application of Mind Control, making a Presence Attack, or triggering/adding Psychological Limitations. The first option is unpredictable in that it can either succeed or fail based on a single die roll, and the degree of success is largely subjective through the GM interpreting a large roll (at least until The Ultimate Skill comes out) ; so I don't think that would be a useful precedent in this case. However, the other three have discreet levels of effect - the first two based on Presence and/or Ego +10, +20, +30, and the last one with Moderate, Strong and Total intensity - with suggestions as to what sort and degree of behaviors are appropriate at each level. Between them they run the gamut of encouragement or restriction of behavior: they can cause atypical actions, make people obey commands, force certain actions in certain circumstances, terrify, inspire, etc. I would say that the descriptions for what can be expected at each level of effect for these three could be used as a framework for overall emotion manipulation. (More on that shortly.) Now let's consider an appropriate "delivery system" for emotion manipulation. Robyn, from your description of the character's ability it seems that there are two Powers, one for long-term effects and the other for short term. You appear to be satisfied with using a Mental Transform to impose Psychological Limitations on a character as a reflection of long-term emotional manipulation. For the short term effects either Mind Control or Presence Attack has some of what you're looking for. I would go with Mind Control since it's more precisely targeted to individual minds, and its duration is precisely defined by game mechanics. However, IMO it would be reasonable to add some of the guidelines for Presence Attacks to what can be achieved with Mind Control based on emotion manipulation, since they both use essentially the same scale of effect. (If you do pick up The Ultimate Mentalist, that book goes into more detail on how Mind Control can be used to manipulate a target's emotions.) Note that in the case of both Mental Transform and Mind Control, the Powers work against Ego, and the quantity of Ego that a character has determines how much of an application of the Power is necessary to achieve a given level of effect. Since Ego is defined as a character's "mental strength and strength of will," I'd say it would be reasonable to also use it as a reflection of the relative strength of "good" and "evil" in a person, in that forcing a person to act contrary to their normal inclination, or said person overcoming their own Psych Lims, is determined by their Ego score. So, in Ego we already have a stat which can be used to quantify good and evil for game purposes; and in Transform and Mind Control we have Powers to affect Ego in quantifiable ways. Robyn, assuming we're on the same page to this point , the next stage would be to define how to apply these Powers to get what you want mechanically. You've said that you want these Powers to affect two characters simultaneously, which could be either two targets, or one target plus the user of the Power. The latter case would simply require a Power with Side Effects, but the former takes a little more thought. There are four mechanisms by which multiple targets can be hit by a single Power use: the Combat Maneuvers Rapid Fire (ranged) or Sweep (hand to hand); Spreading the attack; applying the Autofire Advantage; or applying Area Of Effect. The first three have some significant CV penalties, especially if the chosen targets aren't close together, so I would recommend the last option. Adding Selective Target to AOE would let you pick out the specific targets you want to affect within that area. As a GM I would probably allow a -1/2 Limitation for only being able to affect two targets in the area, and always having to affect two targets. Now, the two targets would by definition be affected in opposite ways, and that's not normally allowed for AOE Powers; but if one target must always be affected in the opposite way to the other target, I would probably allow it. Maybe call that a -0 Limitation, just for bookkeeping purposes. Some other adjustments would probably be needed to this construct to fine tune it, but I would need to hear more details about how you want this to work before I volunteered anything more. This is the direction I would recommend taking, though.

Re: 3rd-party systems: Convert or Emulate? That's a very good point, G-A. IMO the key to adapting any source material to HERO is defining not how it looks or feels - that can be laid over it later when describing Special Effects - but what it actually does, what effect it has on the characters and/or the environment. Once you have that you can choose the best way to model it mechanically.

Re: Neutron bolts Absolutely true; but from the published examples I've concluded that this stricture is really meant to apply to an exclusive defense against a NND. I've seen a number of writeups where "not being/having" something is part of the condition for the NND failing, but other conditions/abilities which can be added to a character sheet are also listed. My conclusion is that as long as there's a reasonably common game element that a character can buy which negates the NND, other elements fitting the SFX are allowable. That was why I specifically suggested additional defenses to the NND I described above. Granted, I could have made that point more clearly, so your objection is reasonable and appropriate.

Re: 3rd-party systems: Convert or Emulate? Having collected conversions from other games for the past year and a half, I've seen efforts that cover the whole spectrum. Some people create precise conversion matrices with direct correspondences; these normally cover attributes that are functionally similar to Characteristics, but can include Skills, Damage Classes, Combat Skill Levels, and the abilities related to "levels" in level-based games. Other efforts eschew correspondences, but do attempt to model specific elements described in the game, such as magic spells, psionic powers, technology, or racial abilities. Often the conversion will try to mimic the in-game effect of these elements as closely as the differences in the game systems will allow - some mechanics just don't translate, although I've occasionally seen those concepts ported into the HERO version to retain the flavor of the original. Some people forego the attempt to model how a particular game handles certain things, instead looking to the setting and trying to capture the "spirit" and "feel" of it in HERO terms. This has been most common for licensed games based on a particular setting from another medium, or games based on an historical era or distinct culture. The "converter" bypasses the existing game and goes right to the source material. I can't really say that one approach is any better or more successful than the other, although in general the closer a game is philosophically to HERO, the more detailed and precise the conversion is. By that I mean a game which has precisely defined and quantified elements which have specific and measurable in-game effects, and is based on external conflict either with another character or some task or obstacle. Game elements such as "life-paths" which direct a character's actions and personal development, or conflict resolution through narrative and role-playing, don't translate as readily, being either foreign to HERO or less easily quantified within the standard HERO mechanics. It's certainly possible to apply such concepts to HERO, but that often requires looking at the objectives of the game differently. And of course, I do believe in the sentiment expressed in my signature.

Re: Neutron bolts I'd go with Robyn's recommendation. Build the kinetic damage part (EB or RKA as you think appropriate), then Link a NND attack Power to it. (Linked is a Limitation on a Power that means it can only be used with another Power, not by itself.) The Defense can be Not Being Alive, Immunity to Radiation, and a successful Constitution Roll. You could use the degree to which the CON Roll is failed to determine how much damage the target takes, e.g. for every 1 that the roll is failed by, the target takes 10 Active Points worth of damage. Note that if you want the NND to do Body damage as well, that's an extra +1 Advantage.