Lord Liaden

Re: What's Up With Combat Skill Levels? That's a very reasonable and practical compromise, stan, and well within the spirit of the rules. I'd Rep ya but I'm not allowed yet, so I'll have to owe it.

Re: Marvel's Best Martial Artists

Re: Marvel's Best Martial Artists

Re: Marvel's Best Martial Artists That's about the way I look at it, too. I suspect that apart from Mantis, Shang's technique and training are the most sophisticated in the MU. Or gene therapy. Depends on your definition.

Re: Marvel's Best Martial Artists Here's a good short bio of Mantis, at least before events in Marvel comics in recent years (which have left the character a confusing mess): http://marvelite.prohosting.com/surfer/profiles/mantis.html

Re: Marvel's Best Martial Artists So much of this is subjective. I can only try to go with the precedents I remember. I have to put Mantis as #1, as far as purely human martial artists go. She was trained by the Priests of Pama in Kree martial arts refined for hundreds of thousands of years. In her "audition" for Avengers membership she hit Thor hard and precisely enough to floor him, and her "mantis grip" rendered Captain America unconscious in less than a minute. After that it gets harder. Shang Chi fought beside Iron Fist, and once remarked that Iron Fist's "martial arts skills are very nearly the equal of my own." Iron Fist and Daredevil fought an extended duel that was pretty much a dead draw. OTOH Iron Fist battled Captain America and was clearly overmatched; as Fist put it, "his technique is basic, but his speed and power are incredible!" So, I'd be inclined to put Cap ahead of those others, with SC, IF and DD too close to call. Elektra is probably in that same class now, but I'd put the Black Widow a little below them. What's the current definition of the Black Panther? Whether it's been explained as due to the "panther herb" or "panther spirit," he's been considered superhuman in his physical abilities in the past. Certainly his senses are far beyond human level. Moondragon, I haven't seen enough of her martial arts (as opposed to her mental powers) to form an opinion. Wolverine is such a fanboy favorite that I'm reluctant to take any of his published exploits as definitive; but I've seen him pitted against clearly superior martial artists, where it was his healing factor that carried him through. At this point I'll commit to a first-place rank to Mantis, with Captain America in second place due to his physical edge. Daredevil, Shang Chi, Iron Fist and Elektra get a third-place tie, with Black Widow fourth. The others I'll have to think about more. EDIT: I'm not sure whether Karnak really belongs on this list. He may not have been exposed to the Terrigen Mist, but as an Inhuman he's clearly physically superhuman, as well as being the king of the Find Weakness ability in comics. I can't deny that he is a very skilled martial artist, though.

Re: Space Master by ICE I think you can guess my position.

Re: Character for Review: Gojira-chan Nice lower-powered super, Zeropoint, but given that she was raised by Occidental parents, I do have to question the name "Gojira-chan." It's certainly clever and appropriate, but it doesn't sound like something that a Lindsay Connor would have chosen for herself, nor something that Western media would have pinned on her. At the very least I'd expect some variation on "Godzilla." Of course she does speak Japanese; a little rationalization as to why she learned it, and what her connection to Japanese culture is, would probably cover things nicely.

Re: Just Picked Up Champions Worldwide Ah, related to Lung Hung, then.

Re: Creating Fire And Change Environment has Adders to make it Long Lasting, or even Permanent with GM permission. OTOH the UNTIL Superpowers Database builds this effect as a RKA 1 point, Continuous, Uncontrolled (stopped the way fires normally are), Sticky (only affects flammables; +1/4), 0 END. The writeup adds more Modifiers to customize it, but I don't want to transcribe all of Hero Games's IP. For what you want to do, though, those are the pertinent stats.

Re: resolving a tie Slight misinterpretation of the Skill vs. Skill scenario, based on the wording that you quoted - there aren't any ties possible there. Assuming the first person in the contest makes his Skill Roll, every point that he exceeds his target number by translates to a -1 penalty to the roll of the second person opposing the first. In a way it is true that the second person has to "succeed by the same or greater margin as the first," but practically speaking he simply either makes or fails his modified Skill Roll.

Re: Just Picked Up Champions Worldwide Haven't been able to affort it yet. Would you say that Taipan is nastier than the Weasel (from High Tech Enemies)?

Re: The Punisher vs Bugs Bunny Punisher is tough, cunning, nasty, full of rage, and pompously self-righteous. The list of guys like this that Bugs Bunny has turned to mulch would be a long one.

Re: Mjolnir Take your pick: http://www.sysabend.org/champions/gnborh/text/Thor-ms.txt http://www.mactyre.net/scm/deejay/champs/characters/avengers/thor.html http://www.angelfire.com/scifi2/mathew/csthor.html I could dig up the ones from the old Character String thread, if you'd like.

Re: please help a newbie Scads of ways. For starters you should probably check out the Power, "Enhanced Senses." Numerous options, very customizable.

Re: The Ultimate Disadvantage, talk about it here Okay, The Ultimate Toaster, now we're talking! I loves me some warm and crispy baked goods.

Re: Mjolnir

Re: Mjolnir

Re: Mjolnir

Re: Mjolnir Actually, it was Iron Man, Wonder Man, She-Hulk, Vision, and Hercules (using his mace, which he was hitting Supes with so hard that chips were visibly flying off it). And they were all written as being pretty p.o.'d that Superman had beaten Thor down, so they weren't holding back. I'd say that several of those folks could do more than nudge Superman, and I seriously doubt that even he would have been able to stand up to all five in close combat on his best day. But as you say, he was clearly already pretty wasted after his tussle with Thor, which was why he dropped so quickly.

Re: HERO combat - somewhat abstract or entirely specific? If you haven't seen them in the 5E rulebook, the optional Combat Maneuvers, "Blazing Away" and "Rapid Fire," cover this situation very well IMHO.

Re: please help a newbie Welcome aboard, stitches! I think you'll find that HERO is a fun ride. I'm glad you feel you're being treated reasonably well here so far. The HERO online community is typically friendly and helpful, if I do say so myself. Just wanted to add that, assuming you have access to the core rulebook, you'll find a Glossary that lists all those arcane abbreviations that folks around here keep throwing around.

Re: The Ultimate Disadvantage, talk about it here BTW Toadmaster, if you haven't seen it before and it would be useful to you, Michael "Susano" Surbrook has translated many of the Disads from GURPS into HERO terms: http://surbrook.devermore.net/herosource/newdisads.html Adding these to the sources I mentioned above, I think that there are enough examples extant to get players' creative juices flowing. Of course it would be nice if they were all codified into one book, but their existing organization is pretty good. I still think that a DH article on Disad use and abuse would be a helpful and interesting addition. Since I don't anticipate writing one myself, though, I'd be unwilling to bust anyone's chops about getting it done.

Re: Who is your favourite Supervillain that can tackle the whole team? Oh, well, that's a different story. For a straight rockem, sockem slugfest, I recommend Viperia. If your players handled 5E Mechanon, this would be the next step up. If you think they'd enjoy something more frightening and mysterious, go with the Monster. Very durable, very vicious. Put him in an area where he can use his stealth-based Skills to strike at the PCs from ambush, preferably dimly lit and mood enhancing. I once ran him in an old movie set made up like a gothic castle, which he knew well enough to hit-and-run, disappearing into crannies and passages in the set.

Re: The Ultimate Disadvantage, talk about it here I have to admit that having access to The Master List of Limitations has greatly diminished my desire for further compilations of pregenerated Disadvantages, official or otherwise. When I factor in the Index of published sample Disadvantages that's part of the free Hero Fifth Edition Indices, I feel pretty well provided with example Disads. Of course as these are web resources they're not available to everyone, but since they are freely available that would have to cut down the number of gamers that would be interested in a published compilation - likely the more devoted HERO gamers, many of whom use the web resources already. As far as advice in using Disadvantages appropriately and creatively goes, that would probably make an excellent article in Digital Hero, but I'm skeptical that there would really be enough there to justify a separate book. I'm open to being convinced otherwise, though.