Lord Liaden

I've also been been voting either HERO or GOO depending on how I felt about each character and battle. I haven't felt a particular need to be loyal to the Champions, partly because the two companies haven't put pressure on us to choose sides. I'm also a little underwhelmed by the current Champions, but I felt much the same about the previous incarnations from the BBB. I think that's partly because both incarnations were created as examples, to fill certain team roles and construction guidelines. Scott Heine's Protectors (which like for so many others, are my favorite heroes from published Champions books), were originally PCs or based on PCs. They had the depth that comes from individual attention being lavished on them, and from being played for some time in a good campaign. I have to say, though, that I was much fonder of the experienced version of the Champions that appeared in the first edition of Champions Universe - all of them well over 400 pts. thanks to Experience. All of them had had their character sheets expanded in appropriate and interesting ways, and had their personalities and histories fleshed out to reflect their experiences, as if they had actually been played. That process went even farther for Seeker in Watchers of the Dragon and Solitaire in Ultimate Mentalist. I even came to like Seeker. Perhaps when more experienced versions of the new Champs appear in a future rewrite, they'll seem meatier too.

There are a host of little changes that differentiate a 4E writeup from a 5E writeup - mostly the cost of various Powers, occasionally how something is built mechanically, or what it's called - but nothing difficult to figure out. You know, we've had a few attempts at listing the changes from 4E to 5E, but now that FREd has been on the market for almost a year, many new gamers have been drawn to the system, perhaps it would be useful to summarize the changes from 5 to 4, for people who are interested in the earlier stuff. As for what I consider the most continuingly useful of the 4E books, I'd have to say: Normals Unbound (really fleshes out the supporting cast for a campaign]; Watchers of the Dragon (could be subtitled "Oriental/Martial Art/Mystical Enemies"); Dark Champions (great discussion of supers-related law, organized crime, government institutions, plus tons of neat stuff to kill people with); Kingdom of Champions and Champions of the North (for reference in international games, plus interesting NPCs); Ultimate Mentalist (much of it made it into FREd, but there's still tons more material to enhance creation and use of mentalists); Ultimate Supermage (I loved Mystic Masters, but USM just has broader and deeper utility for magic-influenced or -based campaigns); VIPER (adds so much credibility to that organization, both in a stand-up fight and as a long-term world threat); PRIMUS (what Scott Bennie did for VIPER, Shelley Crystal Mactyre did for PRIMUS). I'd have to add that of the non-Champions books, the second edition of Fantasy HERO continues to provide some of the best advice and guidelines yet published for running fantasy campaigns. In that regard, the new FH due out this year will have a tough act to follow.

Back when Chris Reeve's first "Superman" movie came out, Saturday Night Live did a "What if Superman had landed in Nazi Germany" parody. Dan Akroyd donned the tights of "Uberman", defender of the Fatherland and National Socialist ideals. They showed newspaper headlines like, "Uberman Levels London" and "Uberman Drains Pearl Harbor". When explaining his powers to Hitler and a couple of reporters, one of them (a surrogate Lois Lane) asked with obvious nervousness, "You mean you can see right through our clothes?" Uberman replied, "Yes," and turning to her male colleague, added, "And through his. He's a Jew."

Yamo, I think you enjoy challenging us. This idea would require a bit of GM leniency, but having checked the FAQ on it, I think it might be allowable as long as the range of attack events isn't too broad, e.g. attacks with standard weapons: Buy a Naked Advantage, Two-shot Autofire, large enough to cover the AP of the attacks you think it would apply to. Make it Usable on Others. Cross-Link it with EDM Movement to a previous moment as Geoff Speare suggested. So, you go back to the moment of the successful attack, and give your ally the ability to use that attack twice. This may need some fine-tuning, so I toss it out to see how everyone thinks it floats.

You have my sympathy. If you would like to use a pregenerated universe, either in whole or in part, CU is a good one: lots of details on the history of supers; how they've affected law, culture, media; the super scene around the planet, galaxy and multiverse. Not a huge number of writeups, but scads of interesting ideas to scavenge. It's meant to reflect the type of comics universe seen in Marvel and DC; supers have had a significant impact, but the world is still essentially the one we're familiar with.

Champions Universe has some information about the new versions of VIPER, UNTIL and DEMON, as well as sample rank-and-file agents for each organization, and several gadgets used by each organization. Not really enough to make them central to your campaign, but probably enough for initial encounters with Hunteds. According to the publication schedule, a new VIPER Sourcebook is scheduled for release in August of this year, UNTIL in December, and DEMON tentatively for late 2004. If you don't mind using 4th Edition HERO System material (which really isn't hard to update to 5th): the original VIPER Sourcebook is an excellent resource, with scads of agents, villains, weapons and vehicles to flesh out the boys in green. Classic Organizations has quite a bit of detail on DEMON. UNTIL received its greatest detailing to date in the old Super Agents supplement, but that's hard to find nowadays; however, much of that info was updated to 4E in the HERO System Almanac II. If you don't want to wait for the 5E versions, those 4E books contain a lot of useful stuff. They show up with fair frequency on eBay, and there are online dealers who often have them - several of us could offer you suggestions of where to look if you like. Hope that's of some use to you.

Regarding Suppression of Characteristics, the new Champions and Champions Universe provide benchmarks for Characteristics verging into the superhuman. For Strength, for example, the maximum "human level" STR is 30; it is implicitly impossible for Homo Sapiens to exceed that without some extraordinary augmentation. So, you could say that a "suppress mutant characteristics" would not work below that level. I think that Tamashii2000's Transform suggestion would be the simplest way to achieve the effect you want. You could have the reversal condition for the Transform be "when victim leaves area of mutant suppression field."

You don't take your book with you wherever you go?! How can you call yourself a HERO-obsessed geek? (Oh, right... you didn't. ) Still, designing a character without FREd close to hand is like scuba-diving without oxygen tanks.

For those interested in a supers campaign, there's a lot of ideas to be mined from Gurps IST (International Super Teams). You may disagree with the geopolitical and timeline decisions that the writers made - and of course, some of the references are dated now - but IST pays a wealth of attention to how the presence of superbeings would affect the course of world events, the law, religion, etc. It also provides tons of examples and suggestions for superbeings from countries other than the USA, including foreign language names. In these areas it's superior even to Champions Universe. It's been out of print for some years now, but I've seen quite a few used game retailers who still have copies

Many thanks, Mr. President! I hope we never become complacent about the company brass reading and responding to the discussion boards like this. It's a rare consideration, and one of the really great perks of being a HERO gamer in the new millenium.

One suggestion I've found to be useful in adding value to every point applies to Skill vs. Skill rolls: there's no mechanism given in the core rules to resolve ties, so in that case you could give the win to the character with the higher applicable Characteristic.

I almost forgot this one... HERO System Background Skills: http://fcain.tripod.com/hero_system/background_skills.html Franklin W. Cain organized a host of Science, Professional and other background Skills in an easy-to-find format, giving you precise names and definitions, and notes on how different types of Skills should be handled in game. Slightly dated with the change to 5E, but if you want to fill in the fine shadings of your character's Skill list, this compendium is very useful.

Re: *sob* Take heart, SP: It's the quality of the work that counts, not the quantity. Besides, that designation's just referring to post count. If you haven't posted too much because you actually have a life outside of HERO, that would probably put you ahead of most of us.

Two for two; ever have one of those days? Correction noted, thanks for the catch. Point taken, although even a simple "Reduced END" Advantage has a different effect on lower base-point Powers with a single other Advantage applied to them. That's one of the things that needs to be considered with Armor Piercing, for example, when comparing it to another unmodified attack of the same Active Points and Damage Class.

Fair enough. That's an accurate analysis as far as average damage goes. What I think needs to be considered, though, is what this Advantage does to the minimum and maximum range for damage in each case. To use your example: 15D6 EB: Minimum 15, Maximum 90. 12D6 +1 Stun/DC: Minimum 24, Maximum 84. 10D6 +2 Stun/DC: Minimum 30, Maximum 80. Although the upper limit in these three cases is not that different, the lower limit increases rapidly. And because the extra Stun amounts to a set quantity added to each die roll, the range of possible results is actually fewer than with the higher base point Power. That might balance out the difference in Knockback and Body damage done. And I do think that the effect of other Advantages added on to this one needs to be taken into account; that applies to any Advantage IMO. Like I said, though, I appreciate the input, as I still haven't made up my mind.

Noted and edited for correction. Thanks.

Excellent thesis, MfH! You've obviously given this quite a bit of thought. Good points to keep in mind in the real world, too.

There's quite a lot written on Chiquador in the 4E Dark Champions supplement Justice, Not Law. Since Steve Long wrote both books, and almost all the given details about Chiquador are the same in both, I feel safe in saying that the background given in JNL applies to the new CU as well. To quote: "Chiquadoraos (as the people are known) use several languages. The principal language is Portuguese, but Spanish, French, and English are also spoken by many people." (JNL p. 57)

There are a few vocal CLOWN supporters who have posted to the boards in the past, but for the majority of those who have expressed an opinion on them, that opinion has ranged from dislike to outright loathing. Sadly for the 5th Ed. future of CLOWN, Steve Long seems to be in the latter camp. But JmOz is right: they're easy enough to update to 5E if you want to continue to use them. I do think that the characters themselves are unique and diverse enough that using one or two at a time could make for interesting change-of-pace game sessions, but more than that at once is too much for me, too. Then again, I don't have the highest tolerance for gonzo gaming.

The +1 STUN/DC was given as an optional +1/2 Advantage for Normal Damage attacks in Adventurers Club #27, and I've used it since then. With the changeover to +1/4 for Increased Stun Multiplier in 5E, I've debated making this optional Adv. into +1/4 as well. My current thinking is to leave it at +1/2, because with Normal Damage there's no randomness of result as with the KA Stun Multiplier; you're adding +1 for each die of damage you roll, increasing the damage your attack can do by a significant and reliable amount. I'd welcome other opinions on this, though. Mind you, I'm one of those people who has applied a "fix" to the Stun Multiplier for KA: I roll 3D6 rather than 1D6, and divide the result by 3 before subtracting 1to get the result (I have a small chart handy with the roundings for all the possible results). This creates a pronounced bell curve with the average centering around 2.75, with the result that a KA reliably does more Body but less Stun than a normal-damage attack of the same DC, which is supposed to be the difference between them.

Don't have the new Champions handy so I can't check if there were any changes, but in the old BBB the last incarnation of the Champions paid for their base and team vehicle just as Mr. Vimes describes. I've always followed that pattern in my own games; since everyone on the team shares in the benefit of these things together, it seems fair.

Well, the +1 Variable Effect is not a small Advantage, certainly, but Change Environment is a relatively inexpensive Power, primarily because its effects on combat are limited. It's more intended to add color and to fill in useful but not highly damaging effects that aren't well simulated by some of the other, more combat-effective Powers. One of the more popular examples since the current CE rules came up is to create an icy or oily surface that makes movement on it more treacherous (penalties to DEX rolls, etc). Trying to do that with Drains, Entangles etc. always proved clumsy, and very costly in Active Points for what you get. For the kind of multiple simultaneous storm effects you're looking for, you might consider a Multipower large enough to use two or more of these Power slots simutaneously, or an Elemental Control. You could fit the main Change Environment into the Framework to bring down the cost. Still expensive, I know, but the kind of multi-power attack you're discussing can be pretty potent.

Mechanically, I like the suggestion by The Mad GM (and aren't they all? ) As far as running one character controlled by five players, how about giving each player a successive Phase during which they decide the character's actions? If you have territorial or blame-laying players that might cause a problem, but if everyone is a decent role player who's willing to share the spotlight, I could see that being a lot of fun.

Do you mean, excluding the "HERO Links" at the top of the page? Here are a few of my favorites that aren't listed there: The Master Lists of Limitations: http://www.globalguardians.com/master%20lists/ Hosted by the Global Guardians PBEM, this is a vast archive of custom Physical, Mental and Social Limitations created by HERO gamers. If you've wanted to give your character an unusual Disadvantage but weren't sure how it should work or what it would cost, chances are you'll find something useful here. Hero Games Product List: http://rhinobunny.com/derek/champions/herogameslist.html Derek Hiemforth has compiled this virtually complete list of all books, modules, and e-books that contain HERO System material, from every edition, by every publisher. Thorough and well-organized, this list is a must for the completist collector. Random Character Generator: http://www.trimira.com/hero_stuff/hero_stuff.html Fellow board member niakki has created this wonderful generator for Champions and FH characters. Very flexible and customizable, just the thing for whipping up an NPC on short notice, or givng a design-challenged player a PC to work with. The Great Net Book of Real Heroes: http://www.sysabend.org/champions/gnborh/index.html A huge but coherently organized collection of comic-book and other characters from multiple sources, converted to HERO System stats. Submitted by many authors, often resulting in multiple interpretations of the same character. Many of these are still in 4E HERO, but are easy enough to update.

I don't believe those benchmarks are listed in FREd, but yes, INT 51+ is the boundary of "superhuman". Same thing for EGO and PRE, but all the other Primary Char. are at 30+ for superhuman. It's worth noting that in Champions "superhuman" refers to those levels that humans cannot achieve without some extraordinary augmentation. I believe that the high upper levels in those three categories were put in place to allow for those fictional (or perhaps in some cases, historical) individuals with extraordinary insight or perceptiveness, unbreakable will, or incredible ability to sway crowds or intimidate opponents, but who are otherwise human with human limits. Considering all the Normal Characteristic Maxima debates these boards have seen, that was probably a prudent move. I think the upper limits in those three are a little high myself, but it's the sort of thing that's easy to house-rule, so I'm not concerned by it.