Lord Liaden

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.

Re: Anyone got a Superman Write-up? There are actually a lot of Superman HERO writeups out on the Internet, based on different sources (Golden or Silver Age, comics or animated, etc.) and individual interpretations. They vary quite a bit in details and power level. Here's a selection of some of the most accessible writeups. Note that several of these are for Fourth Edition HERO, but the differences are pretty minor: http://surbrook.devermore.net/adaptionscomic/aju/Superman.HTML http://surbrook.devermore.net/adaptionscomic/superman.html http://www.sysabend.org/champions/gnborh/text/Superman1950-mi.txt http://www.sysabend.org/champions/gnborh/text/Superman-mi.txt http://www.sysabend.org/champions/gnborh/text/SupermanGA1-sb.txt http://www.sysabend.org/champions/gnborh/text/SupermanGA2-sb.txt http://www.sysabend.org/champions/gnborh/text/Superman-sb.txt http://www.sysabend.org/champions/gnborh/text/Superman-mm.txt http://www.sysabend.org/champions/gnborh/text/Superman-el.txt http://www.sysabend.org/champions/gnborh/text/Superman-ms.txt http://www.sysabend.org/champions/gnborh/html/Superman-wj.html

Re: 6th Edition thoughts

Re: 6th Edition thoughts To be honest, I believe that with Fifth Edition, Revised the core HERO System has evolved about as far as it can in its current form. In that book we have all the core rules and many of the optional ones; tons of examples of superpowers, magic spells, tech, weapons of all periods, vehicles, computers and Lord-all; chargen tutorial, combat example, and genre-emulating advice; and sample characters from most genres. Everything is organized, categorized, indexed, and clarified to within an inch of its life. Most of the changes that have been proposed - redefining the cost of certain Characteristics, eliminating the Figured element of Characteristics, changing how Killing Attacks work, etc. - are IMHO in the grand scheme of things just fiddly tweaks which don't fundamentally alter the game. I doubt that all of them taken together would really justify putting out an all-new Sixth Edition, especially since there's no concensus among HEROdom as to what should be changed. Any such modifications would largely be the personal preferences of whoever at Hero Games was put in charge of the project. And let's face it, we all make such modifications to our individual games already. If there was ever to be a Sixth Edition, I for one would only support it if it were a radical departure from what's gone before. I would say, leave the Fifth Edition for those of us who like detailed, layered rules. For Sixth Edition, go for simplified, stripped-down core mechanics, with options to modify them to the complexity that individual gamers want. There have been proposals for such things here on the boards before: eliminate Energy Blast, Killing Attack, Strength damage, and replace them with a generic Attack Power; chuck Force Field, Armor, Normal and Resistant Physical and Energy Defense, in favor of generic Defense; then use Modifiers to customize them to work as desired. Keep a few primary Characteristics, but with the cost for them based on campaign parameters, and any Figured Characteristics based on what would be used in the campaign (e.g. all BODY Damage with no STUN, Endurance or not, Sanity or Mana stats in game genres that would use them). I'm not saying that those specific changes should necessarily be made, but that's the direction I would go. Define the core elements and basic mechanics of HERO, and then provide the tools for gamers to infinitely customize them. Use those tools to create settings and prebuilds as examples of how that could be done, each one tailored to the basic assumptions of that setting within that genre. That, to me, would justify a Sixth Edition. (Just so you know where I'm coming from, I'm actually happy with HERO the way it is, and would like to keep Fifth Edition material around for others like myself even if something like what I describe came about - kind of a "New and Classic Coke" arrangement.)

Re: Accidental Hero ID Nothing at all. Your question simply sparked a tangential debate about the system rules and how to use them. Quite a common thread mutation around here, and not your fault - we're just a creative and opinionated bunch. However, when you brought up "citations" it sounded like you were looking for official examples in published Hero Games books that you possessed, especially since everyone tellling you that it was legal, and mentioning books in which it's used, didn't appear to satisfy you. All of Killer Shrike's examples from above are of course unpublished fan creations; but if we'd realized that you simply wanted writeups using that construct to look at, we could have directed you to such examples from the start and saved all of us a little angst. Just a bit of miscommunication.

Re: Moden Ruins These would be so inspirational for horror games, or post-apoc. Some of those photos give me the willies!

Re: Anyone combine Champs with Call of Cuthulu? I would not want to find my starship caught in Quemetiel's gravity well!!

Re: potion

Re: Homebrew Organizations Well, a lot of super-technology is not in the public domain; it's secret and unpatented like Iron Man's armor, or perhaps stolen from another source like a supervillain or other criminal organization. Therefore it's not protected by law. If the Guild of Swords steals that character's technology it may be impossible for the hero to file charges against them without making his tech public, or revealing his secret ID, or bringing the original inventors of it down on his head. To openly oppose the heroes, the Guild need only field operatives who are not known to be connected to the Guild, at least in any way that can be proven in court. Right now I'm thinking of supertech-equipped agents codenamed after various types of swords, perhaps related to their unique styles, or even region of origin: "Rapier," "Scimitar," "Katana" etc. Of course if the Guild members have wealth and influence, they can always attack the heroes through more circumspect but completely legal channels: harrassing lawsuits, negative publicity, hostile takeovers of the heroes' financial assets, and the like.

Re: If YOU have been playing Hero since the 80's why do you still keep coming back?