Lord Liaden

Re: Looking at the Universe Timeline I've been wondering if it wouldn't be reasonable to use some of the "space gods" of the Champions Universe, such as the Galaxars, in the low-magic era. Galactic Champions implies that there's a distinction between magic and "cosmic power" which such entities wield, so the loss of magic wouldn't necessarily affect their abilities. Incredibly advanced alien beings with vast personal power are certainly not foreign to science fiction.

Re: Help with spell construction My first thought was also Presence Attack. Probably Limited so that a character only suffers combat-related penalties (i.e. no commands). Alternatively you could alter the result of a successful Presence Attack to cause only the specific combat penalties you want, as a -0 Limitation.

Re: Wisdom Hmm... by those definitions I think that you could justify a number of different abilities as a manifestation of a character's "wisdom." Starting with the Skill list, I'd say that Analyze could be expanded to include understanding of people's competence in non-combat areas, as a result of the character's understanding of human nature. Deduction could be an expression of wisdom, as could very broad categories of Knowledge Skills with very high rolls (so that details could be determined even with penalties), particularly KS: Groups and KS: People. Tactics might fit for certain character concepts. And Skill Levels with all such abilities would make sense. Turning to Talents, Danger Sense is justifiable in some circumstances. I think some of the alternate versions of Resistance would reflect wisdom, such as Tight-Lipped (resists Conversation) or Immovable (resists Persuasion). On the Powers front, sufficiently Limited Clairsentience, including Precognition and Retrocognition, could be the SFX of wisdom. Some Detects would have the same justification as Analyze above, as well as Enhanced Perception. Find Weakness might fit if it was Limited. Luck, especially some of its variant forms, is possible. Mental Defense could fit if it was Limited to attempts to influence or deceive (i.e. Mind Control and Mental Illusions). Telepathy Limited to surface thoughts could reflect a character's experience at "reading" people.

Re: The Funny Villains

Re: Need a McGuffin Name The Twilight Seal The Earthfall Stone The Eye of Infinity The Chain of Eternity The Mantle of Worlds

Re: 4th Edition supplements?? For anyone interested, I found three copies of Horror HERO for sale from reputable American online retailers. Two are from Titan Games: one at $5.00 (some damage), another at $15.00. There's also a copy from The Dragon's Trove for $16.00.

Re: the point cost problem People don't mention that enough IMHO. It's always nice to hear that your efforts are appreciated. bblackmoor, if what you're looking to do really is closely patterned after Star Wars, you might want to check my RPG conversion list (via the link in my sig, if you haven't visited before). Various HEROphiles have written up a ton of material dealing with most areas of the Star Wars universe, here on the boards and on several fan websites, which you can access from there. Even if you don't use the specific writeups I guarantee that they and the related discussion will help your own concepts percolate.

Re: Questions about different HERO editions If you or your GM would like to see a summary of the changes from Fourth Edition HERO to Fifth, this webpage will bring you up to speed: http://theemerged.blogspot.com/HERO425.htm There have been a very few large changes, and a bunch of smaller ones, but mostly the difference lies in greater clarification, more options, more examples, and overall better organization. The two editions are still about 90% compatible with each other.

Re: the point cost problem

Re: the point cost problem

Re: Looking at the Universe Timeline

Re: Comprehensive Pulp Resources List

Re: Thoughts on Autofire - what am I Missing? Thia, may I suggest looking at this a little differently? You may be stuck on the term "Autofire" as the only or "proper" way to mechanically model an autofire weapon. With HERO you start with the effect that you want, and then find the mechanic that best suits it. The Autofire Advantage does certain specific mechanical things; if that's not what you want to have happen, perhaps you can try something else. An autofire weapon allows you to fire multiple shots capable of either hitting one target multiple times, or hitting multiple targets in an area. It sounds as though you want the base Damage that a weapon does to the target to increase based on the number of shots you hit it with. In that case, how about just increasing the base RKA that the weapon's built with, instead of adding an Autofire Advantage, and calling that an autofire weapon? The Special Effect of the increased damage would be the target being hit with more than one shot. If you want to hit several targets with the same "burst," just Spread the RKA - the damage done to each target will be lower that way, but that would match the SFX of each target taking fewer hits. Or, you can Spread the attack to increase your chances to hit, with the SFX of "hosing down the area" with bullets/pulse blasts/whatever.

Re: Giant Transforming Robot Hero

Re: Rolemaster level conversion There have been a few basic Rolemaster conversion matrices and ideas posted that might be of some help to you. You can find them by following the link in my signature, below, and scrolling down to the ROLEMASTER listing.

Re: Looking at the Universe Timeline David, are you looking for a rationale for "super" aliens after the magic goes away in 2020? Or just an origin for a current-day (or Champions 3000) campaign where an alien's heritage explains his powers? If it's the former, MitchellS has given you a good rundown, and I can mention a couple of others if you'd like. If it's the latter, don't forget that other alien races can sometimes produce true superbeings through the same circumstances as Earth people can; we already have examples for the Perseids, Fasai, Malvans (especially high concentration thanks to their gladiatorial games), Se'ecra, and Ackalians. In times of high magic the native abilities of Varanyi and Mandaarians have been shown to be capable of boosting to extraordinary power levels (Sage and Sovereign from GC). The current incarnation of the Atlanteans sometime develop certain superhuman "magic mutations," while the Empyreans are all superpowered. Speaking of the Empyreans, Hidden Lands strongly implies that the Progenitors created other "Empyrean" races on other worlds. Although it's not "official," Michael Surbrook recently expanded his background for the Nehkojin (originally presented in Ninja HERO) for Digital Hero #35. That race was inspired by the Saiyajin from Dragonball Z, so the lowliest Nehkojin is equal to a 250 pt. super, while the mightiest are Cosmically Powerful.

Re: Tuala Morn Steve, will this book give us more info about Samhain? His origins, motivations, using him in the Tualan era? Maybe stats geared more for a fantasy setting? (I thought that Samhain's writeup in Champions Universe was a little spare, and would welcome something to flesh him out with. I have plans for him in my current CU campaign.)

Re: VarAdv Q. Plus the Endurance cost for all that Difficult to Dispel, of course. I figure if you have some Advantage space left, you can never go wrong with Reduced Endurance.

Re: I'm gone What Supreme Serpent said. I of course can't speak for you, Mark, but I came to a similar decision not long ago, as a result of many other things happening in my life that left me feeling like I could spare neither the time nor the emotional energy for gaming. As it turned out those other things eventually improved, and I discovered that I not only could continue with this hobby, but that I wanted to. If you truly wish to sever all connections with it, including visiting us here, then I wish you well. If you change your mind, though, don't be embarrassed to come back. You're always welcome.

Re: Best Gaming Superhero fights ever About eight years ago I played in a high powered min-campaign in which Earth faced a combined invasion from "Lovecraftian" aliens from space, and their imprisoned extradimensional kin. The former were attempting the free the latter, to ravage the Universe together - starting with Earth. We had drawn together almost every Lovecraft-inspired monstrosity that Hero Games had published through Fourth Edition for that campaign: the Slug (Classic Enemies version), the Old Ones and the Horsemen from Wrath of the Seven Horsemen, the Crimson Claw (Great Super Villain Contest), the Anopheles (Champions In 3-D), the Arcane (Alien Enemies), Azor of the Blood (The Blood and Dr. McQuark), the Demons from Demons Rule, Vulshoth from Creatures of the Night... I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but you get the idea. Our group was running an ad-hoc collection of the most powerful NPC heroes that had appeared in Champions products to that time. IIRC we included Vincent Dimitrios (Mystic Masters), Peacekeeper (Classic Organizations), Mind Titan (Champions Universe first edition), Captain Australia (Hero System Almanac I), the Harbinger of Justice (Dark Champions), the Jade Tiger (Watchers of the Dragon), the version of Thor from Champions Presents #1... and I got to play my favorite Champs character, Nuada of the Silver Hand from Kingdom of Champions. For the climax of the campaign we had eight players (not everyone had been available to play all the characters in each game session, but for this one we all came together) plus two GMs. Our PCs divided into two teams. One team assaulted the mother ship of the space aliens, while the group that I was in attacked a gate through which the villains were trying to release Vulshoth and his fellows into this world. The GMs switched between the two scenes as the session progressed, doing it turn-by-turn when we went into combat in both locales. It was actually nail-biting fun watching and listening to the action on the ship while we were waiting for our turn to act. Together we came to the conclusion that the only way to stop Vulshoth was to crash the mothership on top of the gate and bury it, hopefully forever. While the space team tried to take control of the ship, our group fought to prevent the completion of the ritual. In the end Nuada (me) had to fight alone to keep War and Death of the Horsemen away from the gate long enough for the rest of the team to bug out. Nuada Teleported away moments before the mothership plunged into the gate site. The whole climactic battle was a hoot, but Nuada's last stand is one of my fonder gaming memories.

Re: Which published characters do you use? I would say that I've used more than half of all the characters and organizations published for Champions since 1982 at one time or another. Far too many to list here.

Re: VarAdv Q. Well, I don't know about the reasons for making it a rule; but on the practical side there's not much benefit to not using the full range of Advantages, since you're paying the END cost for for the whole VA regardless of what you put into it. Might as well get maximum use out of it.

Re: Accidental Hero ID More specifically, Conquerors, Killers And Crooks provides a host of villains for the official Champions superhero universe, as described in the many Hero Games sourcebooks for the line. Some of the characters have origins and backgrounds derived from that universe, but are generally easy enough to drop into another setting with a tweak or two; while others are basically "generic," having nothing linking them to any particular setting.

Re: VarAdv Q. According to the FAQ for Variable Advantage, a character "has to always assign the appropriate value worth of Advantages. He cannot assign no Advantages or less than the full amount of Advantages."

Re: 6th Edition thoughts Hmm... is it just the range of STR +20 that you would like to see more granular, or the whole range of the stat? I don't know whether you've looked at The Ultimate Brick, but that includes a table which breaks STR down into more discreet units of lifting and damage capacity. It does add more granularity at the lower ranges. Also, I'm one of those who doubles the cost of STR in certain heroic-level genres, particularly fantasy. It generally results in the players choosing their stats more carefully, and more variety in STR scores among the PCs. I realize that's not to everyone's liking, though.