Lord Liaden

Re: What are the "Cosmic Cubes" of the 5th Ed CU? Also, the Jade Mirror of Transcendence has the power to reshape the world according to the possessor's desire. Dr. Yin Wu wants it to restore imperial China and make it ruler of the Earth (under himself, of course). The Basilisk Orb is somewhat similar, in that it can show visions of all possible futures, and cause any one of them to become immutable, no matter how improbable it is. The Mandragalore is able to induce devastating "natural" disasters (earthquakes, floods, hurricanes etc.) potentially on a global scale. Rather like the movie The Day After Tomorrow, only with a good explanation.

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

Re: Help Requested: Name my Canadian team and it's members One of the things that I like about the way this team is shaping up, is that the "Canadianness" of it is more subtle than some other national teams that have appeared in comics or games. Of the names chosen so far - Mosaic, the Magus, Kodiac/Lynx, the Arrow, and Big Nickel - none leap out as being Canadian without some familiarity with the sources of the names. That said, don't forget that DC Comics did come up with a government superteam called the Force of July: Major Victory, Lady Liberty, Silent Majority, Mayflower, and Sparkler.

Re: Working on New Constantinople I think it might set this city and this campaign apart from other established Champions settings, if some of the less prominent villain groups were among the major players in New Con, or even the dominant ones. For example, the Institute for Human Advancement might be the reason why paranormals have been so few here until recently; they may be well established in this city and have been keeping it "clean." ARGENT could be the prime mover behind the growing high tech sector in New Con, and heroes probing the financial establishment too closely may draw their ire. The Chinese segment of Kong Town could provide a foothold for the Cult of the Red Banner, who control illegal trade with the Far East passing through New Con's harbor.

Re: Help Requested: Name my Canadian team and it's members I've been thinking about the stretching hero. Right now proditor is divided between "Kodiak" and "Lynx" for his brawler character. What would you say to using Kodiak for him, and naming the stretcher Lynx, as a deliberate pun on "links" as in a chain?

Re: Help Requested: Name my Canadian team and it's members Well, I do have another suggestion for the fire guy, which is fairly topical to Canada and might spark an origin story. Right now the hottest economy in Canada is in the province of Alberta, fueled by its abundant oil reserves. Oil wells sometimes catch fire of course, and there are firefighters who specialize in the very dangerous, and lucrative, field of well extinguishing. The most famous of these was the late "Red" Adair, who was given the nickname Hellfighter. His life inspired a film starring John Wayne, The Hellfighters. (You can read more about Red Adair here.)

Re: Seeking suggestions on speeding up the Hero System On the damage front, Scott Bennie had what I thought was a great suggestion: with characters throwing large numbers of dice in their attacks, use average damage for all but the last three or four dice, which you roll for. That greatly reduces the counting while still preserving some randomness.

Re: Seeking suggestions on speeding up the Hero System If you haven't done so already, look up "Nine Ways To Speed Up Combat" in the index of the rulebook. (I don't know which page it's on in Fifth Revised - I have the "unrevised" edition. But it will be listed in the Index.) Some of your suggestions are already there. I find it really helps to preroll a bunch of Attack and Damage rolls for all your NPCs before you get to the gaming table, and list those results. Then as each character's turn comes up you just have to cross the appropriate result off the list rather than rolling for it. If you trust your players you could have them do the same thing. The Standard Effect rule, having each damage die do 3 points rather than rolling for damage, really speeds things up, although it of course eliminates randomness from the damage that characters do.

Re: Some Villain Powers Help? Well, according to Steve Long, not as the default rule: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4429

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

Re: Help Requested: Name my Canadian team and it's members Had another thought about the fire guy. If he can fly you could call him The Rocket. That was the tag given to Maurice Richard, one of the all-time greatest hockey players and a virtual folk hero in Quebec. Mind you, a superhero with that name probably wouldn't be from Quebec himself; any other Quebecois using Richard's nick would likely be considered sacrilege.

Re: Help Requested: Name my Canadian team and it's members Your shame, as my old acting teacher used to say, "lacks credibility." Okay, more seriously: for #3, I would suggest Roughrider. For a long time there were actually two separate (Canadian) major league football teams named the Roughriders. At the same time. We only have one now, though. I've been struggling with your fire guy. To this point my best idea has been to make him nuclear powered and call him Candu, which is the name of Canada's patented nuclear reactor design. That strikes me as almost too cute, though. And as with "Avro," it's a corporate trademarked name.

Re: Countering powers w/powers There's actually a rule in Fifth Edition that allows for a mentalist to help overcome another mentalist's hold on a target. See "Competing Mental Powers," FREd p. 80/ 5ER p. 119.

Re: 70's and 80's Master Villians Are you using a version of the Champions Universe? If so, it sounds like it's the Fourth Edition incarnation, rather than the current one. That would set the parameters of any suggestion I might offer you. If it's the 4E CU, the adventure "What Rough Beast" from Adventurers Club #3 focussed on an abandoned Genocide base, which I think would be perfect for your purposes. Furthermore, you can find that adventure online, with maps, base and character stats (in 4E HERO), right here: http://www.patric.net/morpheus/hero/beast.html I might also suggest an abandoned Demonlair for the 4E incarnation of DEMON; they were typically underground, and would let you throw occult perils at your PCs.

Re: Help Requested: Name my Canadian team and it's members All right, here's another suggestion, for #1, especially if she has a harder-edged approach toward crimefighting: Mosaic. That would fit her sword (cuts things into pieces) and her phasing if she separates her component atoms. It also suits Canada, which idealizes itself as a "mosaic" country made up of distinct ethnic/linguistic/cultural groups, as opposed to the American "melting pot." Also, for #2, his pose looks rather "mystical;" if you make him a mystic you could call him the Northern Magus, which is a nickname for former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.

Re: Help Requested: Name my Canadian team and it's members Hmm... have to give this some more thought, but a few possibilities that do come to mind: 5) Avro, after Canada's legendary prototype supersonic fighter, the Avro Arrow. Calling her The Arrow would have as much recognition here, if you'd prefer to avoid using an existing company's name. 7) Canadian Shield, major geological region south of Hudson's Bay, a rich mining area. Alternatively, Big Nickel, name of the largest nickel mine in the world, in the same region. If you go with "Big Nickel," I'd recommend "Canadian Shield" as the team name. The only other one I can think of that would have the same sort of resonance to a Canadian would be The Guardians, because our national anthem states that "we stand on guard for thee" [i.e. Canada] three times. Repetitive, but emphatic.

Re: Using M&M's Rule of X in HERO I'm 99% certain that the term and concept of "Rule of X" was introduced in Champions: New Millennium, which of course also introduced the Fuzion game system.

Re: Countering powers w/powers I did find a couple of threads which discuss various options for doing this: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=34066 http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=39824 However, as both of those threads mention, this subject is dealt with in detail in the Fifth Edition Ninja HERO sourcebook, under "Contest of Power."

Re: Using M&M's Rule of X in HERO The thread below went into substantial discussion of various "Rule of X" concepts for HERO. Although it does tend to sidetrack into debate over Keneton's "Effectiveness Rating" formula, several other good guidelines and formulas were laid out: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=469 Another of our boardmates, nyakki, creating a "Combat Rating" computer app based on formulas from an issue of Adventurers Club: http://www.trimira.com/hero_stuff/combat_rating.html# nyakki provided instructions on how to copy that to your own computer: http://www.trimira.com/hero_stuff/combat_rating_text.html

Re: Yet another 'how to build': Body-Swapper Actually, given that the "brain" is an AI in a box and the various "bodies" are sophisticated robots, I'd say that it would make a great deal of sense for the bodies to be built as Vehicles, or as Automaton Followers, paid for by the "head," which it controls when attached to them. The Multiform mentioned above makes sense. Another possibility would be for the various bodies to be bought as Duplicates for the brain which Cannot Recombine, and which remain inert until the brain is attached (perhaps because they have that as a specific Physical Limitation).

Re: Yet another "Help with a Power!" Based on your description, here's what I'd suggest: Drain with Variable Effect, up to the number of different Characteristics and Powers that you see it applying to. Then add the Limitation, No Conscious Control, at the -1 level, meaning that the character can use the Power at will but can't control the effects. Thus whatever your radioactive palm tree blasts, the GM decides what are the appropriate Characteristics or Powers for the radiation to "suppress." How's that? (BTW you're lucky I offered this suggestion at all; for a Canadian, giving this monstrosity the same initials as our revered Royal Canadian Mounted Police is downright insulting.)

Re: Simulating decreasing damage due to exhaustion: Well, the Long-Term Endurance rules are designed to reflect the effects of exhaustion. How about applying them to a fight like this, except that instead of losing points of Endurance, the fighter loses points of Strength?

Re: Your Favorite Fantasy Weapon?

Re: Need a McGuffin Name So, SS, what did you end up using?

Re: Help with spell construction Well, by the description of Presence Attacks in the book there really isn't an "inbuilt decreasing effectiveness" other than for repeated Presence Attacks. There's only a time limit of one Turn given to the extra resistance against contrary Presence Attacks, but nothing about the duration of any other effects. In fact I once asked Steve Long about lingering effects of Presence Attacks on the Rules Questions forum, and his answer seems to me to give you lots of leeway to make the effect last your desired five minutes: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11574