Steve

I titled this thread as The Second Stringers, meaning the heroes who don't quite cut it. Heroes who have less than useful powers, or maybe even utterly useless powers, but who still try to be heroes. Or maybe they're people who really have no business putting on a costume, because even though they have powers, they're not very competent. Who are the also-rans in your campaigns? Are they PCs?

Who are the funny villains in your campaigns? I'm talking the villains that are Foxbat-like, who probably have psych lims like Code Against Killing. I'm not necessarily talking CLOWN, just villains who are more light-hearted in their villainy, Silver Age sorts.

Re: Pulparize It!

Re: Pulparize It!

Re: The Kid Gloves Are ... on? You can Pull A Punch with any melee combat maneuver (according to page 395 of Revised 5th), and even with a ranged attack with GM permission. Now, assuming a 10d6 attack, buying 2 levels with HTH (10 Active) through an IIF (-1/4) that can only be used to offset penalties for pulling (-1) works out to 4 points by my calculations. I believe since the penalty is based on -1/5d6 that up to 12d6 would be covered by the 4 point purchase, but going up to 13d6 would require paying 7 points for 3 levels. Not too bad actually, IMHO.

Re: Pulparize It! Miami Vice: Prohibition-era police in sunny Miami, the city of palm trees, beautiful women, speedboats, fast cars, smugglers, hustlers, Mafia hoods, dollars and death. James 'Sonny' Crockett: a seasoned hardcore veteran of the rough-and-tumble Vice Squad. Ricardo 'Rico' Tubbs: a hip, black, brassy New York street cop, who rolls into Miami packing only his wits, a suitcase full of counterfeit cash, and a sawed-off shotgun. Crockett and Tubbs are on a collision course, and someone's going to get burned. We find out about his family, his cover, his alligator Elvis, and his beloved car.

Re: Is Crimefighting Ethical? Another thing to consider is the temptations offered by having superpowers. This is how supervillains get created. Say you could control people's minds, then wouldn't you be tempted to use such a power on an attractive member of the opposite sex? How about getting out of a ticket for speeding? What about going into politics? If you were able to turn invisible, wouldn't you be tempted to go places you normally wouldn't be able to go, and do it just because you could? If you were resistant to damage up to a nuclear bomb blast and able to lift a couple of tons without breaking a sweat, what's to prevent you from just taking anything you want? Taking superpowers into the real world brings us to Iron Age questions of morality. Why bother stopping crime or doing good deeds? Why not just satisfy your own desires instead?

Re: DC's Best Martial Artist Here is one link I found, but I don't have a direct link to any editor quoted as saying this. It is just hearsay, but I do remember reading this same thing in one of the editorial pages at the back of one of the Batman comics several years back.

Re: DC's Best Martial Artist I'm late getting into this thread. One character I didn't see mentioned is Tigress of the Injustice Society. She was able to hold her own against Wildcat in one of the recent JSA stories. She had some cracked ribs, but she put him down, I believe. Regarding the Batman/Shiva relative ability thing, I once read that the Batman editors generally felt that in a fight between the two of them Batman would win 4 out of 10 times. Shiva's just that good. Not sure if that is still true, since this is from a few years back, when Shiva was involved in Bruce's retraining after recovering from his broken back.

Re: Best Martial Artist: Champions Universe Twilight scooped me!

Re: Best Martial Artist: Champions Universe Actually, Panthanatos was written up in Predators, so he is now part of the Dark Champions world.

Re: DC Suckverse? She'll be back soon. My understanding is that the estate of her creator (William Moulton Marston) will have all rights Wonder Woman revert to them if she stays out of publication for long. Per Wikipedia: Negotiated before his death in 1947, his heirs retain small royalties from all Wonder Woman related creations and merchandise. Also there is a reversion of rights clause that states if DC Comics does not publish for one month any Wonder Woman comic book, the rights to the Wonder Woman character and related merchandise, past, current, and future revert to his family. Effectively, this means that if DC Comics became so poor that they could only publish one comic book a month, it would have to be Wonder Woman, or else they would lose her to Marston's family. Presumably though, this has been extended to the creation and distribution of other Wonder Woman merchandise. However, there is a possibility that this is no longer true.

Re: Captain Average!!! I would agree that Booster Gold and Nova are middle of the road characters, powerful but too powerful, capable but not too capable. Namorita (Namora?) would fit that category too, but my knowledge of Namor's relative comes from New Warriors about a decade past. Heck, Booster Gold's powers came from ripping off superhero gizmos and trinkets from a museum and heading for the past, so he's about as generic as you get. Still, this can be used to decent effect, as the current Manhunter is showing. Nova always seemed to me to be a good example of how a 250-350 point Brick in Hero terms would appear in comics. He's a working class hero. My 500th post!

Re: New Advantage: Painful

Re: Best Martial Artist: Champions Universe Well, if we include Galactic Champions, I would include Bulletproof and Charm. I would also add Scorpia and Cateran to that list. Scorpia worked really well as a Dark Champions crossover character for a solo campaign I ran for a friend.

I am cross-posting this from the NG board, since it looks so cool. Ultraviolet, starring Milla Jovovich and directed by Kurt Wimmer, who did Equilibrium.

Re: Seemingly Silly Things to Model Green Thumb: Plants thrive under the character's care, growing larger and stronger than normal. Black Thumb: Plants die under the character's care, no matter how carefully taken care of.

Re: Life Support: How much is "Intense"? So would Life Support allow a character to ignore someone's Change Environment Power? Example: The Resister has Life Support versus Heat and Cold, and is attacked by the Evil Thermostat, with the power to raise and lower temperatures. The Evil Thermostat raises the temperature around the Reisister by 1000 degrees, and the Resister yawns. Undeterred, the Evil Thermostat lowers the temperature by 2000 degrees, but the Resister just stands there, still unaffected.

Re: Seemingly Silly Things to Model The old Adventurers Club magazine had an article called "Champions Minus" which detailed out some really weird things in Hero terms. I'll have to dig it out and see what wonders I can take from it to add to this list. Here's a couple of examples: Find Week: The character is able to determine the week. (Can't recall if this was of the month or of the year). Haunted: The character is troubled by occurrences related to whatever is Haunting them. Example: Haunted by Elvis. The character is pulled over for speeding, and the town is named Elvis, MO.

Re: Combo too much? Actually, if we are talking martial artists, I suppose an argument could be made for Limitations like "Only Versus HTH Attacks" or "Only Versus Martial Arts Attacks." Perhaps Nonpersistent as a Limitation?

Re: Combo too much? I'm familiar with that as a limitation on defenses, but it sounded like something else was being referenced. If we're talking human martial artists, would you just give them 10 or 15 points of Armor or something, with that limitation? They wouldn't die from a single blow, that's for sure.

Re: Combo too much? Is this from another thread? I'm not familiar with this rule. Have you a world document you can post, or is it posted already somewhere? I know you were going through some revisions from another thread on your campaign.

Re: Combo too much?

Re: "Only Protects Against BODY Damage" Cost? I think one of the better approaches to this was done in Champions for 5th on pg 138: You Only Nicked Me!: Armor (6/6) (18 Active Points); Only Versus BODY (-1/2), Always Lets First BODY Through (-1/2), Applies Last Of All The Character's Defenses (-0). Total Cost: 9 Points. I actually like this construct a little better than the Combat Luck Talent, and it does seem to replicate the "action hero" ability to not get killed too easily. Of course, if combined with Combat Luck, the hero could get nailed for up to 10 points of BODY damage and walk away with just a single BODY pip of actual injury.

Re: Why the "Big Release" Polls Are Flawed Not if you're being pursued by Hounds of Tindalos.