Solomon

Re: Should the 5th CU have a "Euro Guard"? I'd rather have an indipendent superteam, much like an European version of the Avengers or Justice League, than an official EU-sponsored team, but that's just me. So, would the EU fund a superteam? In a "four-color" setting, that would depend on: 1) The need for such a thing, ie powerful supervillain teams that can threaten Europe across national boundaries. 2) A lack of protection from indipendent teams. In a more "realistic" setting (like "canon" Champions Universe, I think) only "1" above would apply, as the EU wouldn't entrust his safety exclusively to indipendents. Could the EU manage and run a continental superteam? I'd say yes from both a "four-color" and "realistic" POVs. The objection that the EU would need a lot of political and diplomatic work, unlike for instance the USA or China, is pertinent, as is the paralel with the as-yet mostly conjectural European joint defense. However, the main reason there's no joint European defense in the real world is that such a thing simply isn't seen as a priority. But if the need for a coordinated superteam arose, I think it's fair to assume the EU would fund one. And the name would be? Either something that can cross language barriers easily (ie no need to be translated, and isn't associated with a single language, like "Euro"), or something that can easily be "ported" to most major European languages. Euroguard sounds a wee bit too typically English to me, but I think it could do in a pinch, as could many names with the euro- root. Eurowatch? Euroforce? I'm partial to AEGIS myself... partly because it was the name I used for the premiere European team in my old campaign. It sounds cool, has a nice mythical imagery, and can be turned into an acronym, and that's always good in a superheroic setting. Turkish objections? I don't see that as a problem. First, Turkey will not join until 2015 at the very least. Second, I don't think they would jeopardize their EU application with a quibble over an agency's name, considering that Turkish issues that currently threaten their application are several orders of magnitude larger (human rights, Cyprus, the Armenian genocide, migration...). And last, even the word "Europe" comes from a Greek myth, and it's not like Turkey refuses to join because of that.

Re: Future Boy Conan? Conan was possibly the best Anime series of the late '70s. No anime fan shoud miss this. Something that would help recreate the feel of a Miyazaki production is a cast or well-rounded villains. Miyazaki's characterization of opponents is often sympathetic - they're usually likable characters who just happen to be on the other side of the fence, and some of them join the heroes sooner or later in the show. Even though Miyazaki seems to have a pretty clear idea of what is good and moral and what is not, there are no cardboard "doing evil for evil's sake" villains in his works.

Re: Lum! Yum! I'd also love to see a writeup for Moroboshi. He acted as a jerkish moron most of the time, but he consistently displayed dogged determination and amazing resourcefulness, plus a few nifty ninja tricks. Not to mention an unbelievable resistance to injury.

Re: Lum! Yum!

Re: Palladium to HERO conversion? Rereading your post I see you're mostly concerned with SDC weapons. Is a Weapon Compendium we're talking here? If yes, here's some harder-and-faster rules of thumb: For melee weapons and muscle-powered ranged weapons: A 1d6 SDC Palladium weapon equals a 2 to 3 Damage Classes HERO weapon. A 2d6 SDC Palladium weapon equals a 6 Damage Classes HERO weapon. A 3d6 SDC Palladium weapon equals a 7 to 8 Damage Classes HERO weapon. Other weapons should fall somewhere in between: adjudicate based on average damage. For Firearms: Add 2 to the number or Palladium damage dice to get HERO's DC. Compare results with the HERO firearms table.

Re: Palladium to HERO conversion? CAVEAT: Palladium's policies regarding conversions to other systems tend to be on the strict, if not outright paranoid, side. That's why you don't see many full conversions on the Web - apparently Palladium asks them to be removed. Anyway, Palladium's normal (SDC) damage sistem is roughly on the same scale as D&D. Medium melee weapons like swords usually deal 1d6 to 1d8 SDC damage plus a Strengh bonus. Two-handed melee weapons deal 2d6 or more. Firearms range from 1d6 SDC (small caliber pistols) to 5d6 (hunting rifles and large bore shotguns). 4d6 is typical for most assault rifles and heavy (.44 or .45) pistols. A typical first-level character (assuming such a thing exists in the Palladium system) will have SDC "hit points" in the low to mid tens. Then there's MDC damage, and here things get messier. MDC damage, or Mega-Damage, was first conceived for the Robotech RPG. It was meant to represent vehicles and structures that are, to most purposes, invulnerable to normal handheld arms and require special weapons to breach. We're talking Varitechs, Mechs, spaceships and the like, though later supplements applied MDC to smaller structures. The rule goes thus: one MDC point equals 100 SDC points. In other words, any amounts of MDC damage will obliterate most SDC characters and things, while usually no amount of SDC damage will scratch a MDC character or thing. It was a crude, but crudely effective, way of keeping man-to-man combat and mecha-to-mecha combat on two distinct levels. Later, the system devolved as SDC and MDC charcaters began to interact on a regular basis, especially in the RIFTS setting. Unfortunately, I don't have my books at hand, and I can't recall what are the damage ranges for MDC weapons. But the gist of it is, any MDC weapon in an anti-tank weapon, even if it deals only 1d6 MDC damage or less. When converting to HERO, I think you'll want to represent Mega-Damage structures by giving them high DEF rather than bucketloads of hit points as Palladium does. You'll also probably want to scale the system so that high-end SDC and low-end MDC weapons almost overlap in effectiveness. Hope this helps.

Re: Limit to Selling Strength? (or any attribute) Ditto what VDM said - being desolid doesn't imply having a low STR score. Having a negative STR doesn't fit the "spirit" character concept. Concerning the "owl multiform" question: this, OTOH, is a case in which a lifting capacity well below STR 0 would be appropriate. In this case I'd probably only let the character buy his STR down to zero, then simulate the even lower fifting capacity with a Physical Limitation.

Re: So, why is longevity so expensive?

Re: So, why is longevity so expensive? It's priced consistently with other mostly "flavor" stuff, like having COM 20 for 5 points.

Re: Challenge: Video game conversions Fixed your typo.

Re: Who was the LAMEST?

Re: Who was the LAMEST? Ravage 2099.

Re: A Thread for Random Musings Old man breaks knee.

Re: Champions vs other systems Marvel Universe - features an unusual diceless resource allocation system. Simple and fast but somewhat flavorless and not easily customizable. Also, it's poorly written IMHO. Pros: It's Marvel. Cons: The line's dead. I'll second OddHat word per word on the other games.

Re: Wedding Bells Are Ringing! And a curly blonde wig over his cowl.

Re: Musings on Random Musings I'm vibrating faster than a pre-crisis Flash.

Re: A Thread for Random Musings Looks like there's a new sherrif in town...

Re: Musings on Random Musings Isn't Rachel a great mom already?

Re: A Thread for Random Musings Whatever happened to the HERO Compilation?

Re: A Thread for Random Musings Isn't this the sacred Thread for Random Musings, where each post is a world unto itself? Also, when did I pass 2k?

Re: A Thread for Random Musings Well, I expected "Catwoman" to bomb, but not so badly. In my area it's been out barely ten days, and it's already selling less tickets than "Cronichles of Riddick" in its fifth week.

Re: Musings on Random Musings Customers who peruse NGD can't get any more insane.

Re: A Thread for Random Musings Mike Patton is batsh*t insane. Also, a genius. Also, he speaks the best Bolognese Italian I've ever heard from an American mouth.

Re: A Thread for Random Musings Taking something that already sucks and making it even worse, isn't this genius? "I'isola dei famosi" (lit. "Island of the famous") must be the saddest TV show ever. It's basically a Survivor variant, except that instead of ten nameless d*rks you got ten famous d*rks. Well, not quite famous... ex-famous. A mediocre singer who scored a single hit somewhere in the '80s. A dubious actress who started his career doing artsy movies, but was doing soft porn five years later. An aging dancer with a potbelly. And so on. I am amazed by the utter lack of self-respect those people show in shilling themselves to get back an ounce of their former fame. Said fame, to be honest, having never been really impressive to start with. Pathetic.

Re: The cranky thread Globalisation has many good points. Eamon's Italian version of "F*ck Y*u" is not one of them.