Lord Liaden

Re: How would you build identity disassociation? So, Pteryx, are we in the ballpark for what you wanted?

Re: Hidden Template

Re: CHAR: Wonder Woman Agreed that that is a very thorough writeup, E84. I also agree with the comments that her Speed should go up, though; speed was one of Diana's gifts from Hermes, who's obviously no slouch in that area. Kurt Busiek also wrote her as exceptionally quick; for example, in the JLA/Avengers crossover when Hawkeye used a boomerang arrow to snatch the Ultimate Nullifier away from the JLA, WW grabbed the arrow out of the air. The Avengers were explicitly startled by her quickness. OTOH with all of the CSL you gave her, her Dexterity is probably fine, although a bit of Lightning Reflexes wouldn't be out of place.

Re: Homages you would like to see officially

Re: Champions "What Ifs" What if Menton had never left Dr. Destroyer's service? What if Takofanes regained the mental acuity he possessed as a living man?

Re: Champions "What Ifs"

Re: CHAR: Wonder Woman I've long felt that the concept of Wonder Woman is the best source-material justification for a separate category of Resistant Defenses even for super-level bricks. From the start she's been vulnerable to ordinary bullets and knives without her bracelets. I suppose that's the nature of the magic from which her powers derive. That said, even if she's injured by such attacks that rarely seems to slow her down - she just toughs her way through it. I'm thinking it might be more appropriate to give her Resistant Damage Reduction instead.

Re: post-apocalyptic genre book I can certainly understand not wanting to put Anopheles in the main PAH genre book, and I think it was very classy of you to let Allen give it away. If the upcoming Horror HERO genre book does well, though, I hope you won't discard out of hand the idea of expanding this setting into a campaign book for it. The timeline that Allen created for that setting is rife with plot and scenario ideas for every era from pulp to present day, super or heroic. And there's plenty of system stuff that could and should be updated to 5E. It also wouldn't be the first time I've seen something previously free on a website, get pulled after it makes it into a published Hero book.

Re: Hidden Template One of the elements of the "hidden template" that's easy to overlook is that HERO places far greater weight on elements that are usable in combat over those which work out of combat, even if those provide considerable benefits. Consider the low, low price of Perks, for example: for the cost of a 1D6 Killing Attack, you can be a multi-billionaire or the leader of your own country. Benefits like those are far costlier in many other games, even HERO's cousin, GURPS; and when you think of what you could practically do with such resources that's hard to argue with.

Re: On skill levels... For my part, I would consider that extra +1 OCV, and extra Damage from attacks, to balance things out well enough. Moreover, Skill Levels in general become a much better deal in all the non-supers genres in which Normal Characteristic Maxima are the norm. However, I don't mind a slight relative deficiency in builds if one method suits the concept I want better than another. For a lot of bricks for ex, Skill Levels just seem more appropriate than high Dexterity.

Re: What Champions Books Would You Like Published in the Future? Steve Long has mentioned that he and Allen Thomas used to discuss ideas for this. Apparently they concluded that ARGENT could sustain an entire sourcebook, and were considering it. No telling when it will appear, though, especially with Allen out of the company.

Re: Deaf disadvantage The interpretation of "Deaf" as a Physical Limitation from The Master List Of Limitations calls it All the Time, Greatly Impairing for 20 points. I would support Greatly over Fully Impairing, since there are practical steps that a character can take to reduce the restrictions of deafness. The description from the Master List includes some interesting suggestions for how to run it.

Re: Homages you would like to see officially

Re: Best SuperHero Fights ever That cliffhanger also illustrated one of the greatest Presence Attacks I've ever seen in comics. Nefaria has just downed the entire Avengers lineup after a vicious fight, and is thinking of killing them while they're helpless. Suddenly bolts of lightning erupt all around him. The next panel is a half-page spread shown over Nefaria's shoulder of Thor, surrounded by lightning, cape swirling in the wind, face contorted in rage, hurling his hammer straight at the Count as he shouts: "THOU HAST DARED MUCH, VILLAIN... AND VERILY, THINE HOUR OF JUDGEMENT IS AT HAND!" Gave me goosebumps.

Re: Homages you would like to see officially I'd probably base a Legion-style hero team in the Conjoined Civilizations Republic. It seems to be pretty benevolent and racially diverse (what with the Se'ecra always "uplifting" other species).

Re: Finally, I bought the game! Only one problem... Well, to be fair, a great deal of those minutiae are in response to fan requests for clarification and examples, both before and since Fifth Edition was published. Whether or not that much stuff should have been included in the core rulebook is open to debate; but in any case it would have been a lot smaller if so many HERO gamers weren't so... inquisitive. (Took me a while to find a polite word.) Still, it's a lot easier to look up all those details in the organized rulebook than the previous FAQ.

Re: Best SuperHero Fights ever So many good ones here, many of them my favorites too. I'll just throw in a few more that come to my mind: Old school, Fantastic Four against Dr. Doom just after Doom had stolen the Silver Surfer's power cosmic. Doom took everything the FF could throw at him, and basically laughed it off. In the end Doom let them simply walk away unharmed, because he had proven that they were no longer a threat to him. Daredevil vs. Iron Fist, in a crossover with the Power Man and Iron Fist title. DD and IF threw punches and kicks at each other, bobbing and weaving in return, and neither one could lay a glove on the other. They actually started complimenting each other's styles: IF: "Very nice! What do you call that move?" DD: "Ducking." IF: "Hmm. A little unorthodox, but it works!" More recently, the Avengers and the Thunderbolts in the climax of their crossover against Count Nefaria. Pulling out all the stops against one of their strongest and cleverest foes, while his doomsday device counts down... Speaking of Doomsday: his second confrontation with Superman in the miniseries, Superman/Doomsday: Hunter/Prey was the kind of fight that their first one should have been. Superman fighting both hard and smart against a foe who clearly overmatched him, but refusing to go down until he found a way to win.

Re: Question about the Villain Holocaust--missing VPP control skill I'm not sure I understand your point. The requirement of at least one Turn of time out of combat to change a VPP is the default for that Framework, not a Limitation. There's nothing in Holocaust's writeup that says he only requires a Half Phase to change his "Energy Control" VPP. If he had bought Power Skill for his VPP, he'd be able to use that to change it in combat, as a Full Phase Action. Being able to change it in a Half Phase would be a +1/2 Advantage to the Control Cost of the VPP, which Holocaust also doesn't have. The time Holocaust needs isn't specified, so I just assumed it was minimum one Turn. If I'm missing the point you're trying to make, please clarify.

Re: A Dummy's Guide to the Turakian Age I forgot to mention that Free Stuff also contains a breakdown of all the gods of the Turakian "High Faith," as well as the Westerlands Calendar. They're downloadable from here: http://www.herogames.com/FreeStuff/freedocs.htm

Re: Question about the Villain Holocaust--missing VPP control skill Strictly speaking, Holocaust doesn't need Power Skill or any further Advantage to change his VPP, unless he wants to do so during combat. Any VPP can be changed out of combat with at least one Turn of time. As written Holocaust would have to prepare his VPP before combat to handle whatever type of attacks he expected to face, or else withdraw from the battle to reconfigure it. Not a bad restriction on the character IMHO, considering the level of power he already wields without feeding on the powers of others. Giving him the ability to change that sucker during combat would make him considerably nastier.

Re: Knockback Well, I can only repeat that my experience has been that Bracing with Strength and/or Flight has kept Knockback from being a major combat slowdown in most cases. Bricks, who have often been brought up in examples here, have been the least problematic in battles I've run; as the DC from STR goes up, the resistance to KB due to STR goes up just as much. As long as the DCs among the various characters involved in a fight are comparable, it tends to even out. Flyers get an even better deal, with 1" of Flight subtracting 1" of KB. High DCV types try to avoid getting hit at all, of course. In practice there simply hasn't been that much knocking around going on, unless someone is tagged from an unexpected direction - but that's just good team tactics IMO. In a one-on-one fight between two flying bricks like Superman and Captain Marvel, who can use both STR and Flight where appropriate, neither one is likely to go anywhere unless hit by a truly massive blow. EDIT: I apologise if that came across as criticism of people who have a problem with Knockback as it stands and want to change it. Of course you should modify the game in any way that satisfies what you want it to do.

Re: A Dummy's Guide to the Turakian Age Well, our board colleague Labrat made a start at organizing this information in an "almanac"- like format, and Attaching the material to a post on a previous thread. He's just covered the Westerlands so far. It's supposedly an .xls file, but for some reason my computer won't read it, so I can't give you any more details. Anyway, here's where you'll find it: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32098 Steve Long also summarized a few elements of Ambrethel on this thread: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16959 This may or may not help you, but ace Hero cartographer Keith Curtis provided downloadable maps of Ambrethel in different formats on the "Free Stuff" section of the website: http://herogames.com/FreeStuff/wallpapers.htm

Re: No Range + AE This is the way I've always run it. However, according to the description of the Area Of Effect Advantage on 5E p. 159/ 5ER p. 248, AOE Powers with No Range always center at the character using the Power.

Re: How would you build identity disassociation? I'm not that familiar with Exalted either, but I agree with Sean; the mechanics will make a big difference. The number of "Resplendent Destinies" that a character can have at any one time would affect how I'd suggest handling it. If the character can assume any other identity he can imagine at any time, then I'd favor Shape Shift, with the SFX that people just don't recognize him as the same person. I'd add Limitations based on the circumstances through which the identity can be penetrated. Based on the circumstances you describe above, I'd call it -1/4. OTOH if a character can only have a limited number of different Resplendent Destinies to choose from, I would buy each one as the Perk, "Deep Cover." That would in practice give you what you're looking for. It's possible for Deep Covers to be "blown," so I'd just say that the actions you mention would do so.

Re: Magnetism: Abuse And Super Metals I seem to recall reading that a strong enough magnetic field could ionize atmosphere, and that said ions could be magnetically manipulated. Any truth to this, or am I delusional? (I mean, about this issue specifically.)