The Souljourner

Re: Character Curveballs Animal characters seem to be the order of the day. I made a Parrot mentalist with the ability to summon an automaton pirate to ride around on. To everyone else, it's a pirate with a parrot on his shoulder. The pirate speaks and interacts with people, and most people don't know it's just an automaton created by the parrot, who is literally the only brain the two have. I find it's hard to come up with truly off the wall character ideas that would also be in any way useful in a Hero group. -Nate

Re: What bizarre rules issues have you encountered? The only one I can think of is what happens to the stun damage when you blast through an Entangle to hurt someone inside. It's not defined in the rules... according to Steve the entangled character takes Stun - (Def + body remaining of the entangle). -Nate

Re: Power writeup: "I know everyone's number." Meh.... this seems like the sort of thing where you guys are trying too hard to model the special effects instead of the end result. I think mindlink with OAF is perfectly fine with the special effect that you pick up a phone, call a number, and a phone near the specified person rings. I might require mindscan as well, since you're technically supposed to do that to find minds to link with, but given the whole "they don't have to pick up/someone else might pick up", I'm good with handwaving it. You don't actually care what the number of the phone is near them. You don't actually care how you figure out that number. The only thing that really matters is that you can sometimes get them to pick up. -Nate

Re: Resurrection Healing Limitation Meh, the whole "you must have a reasonable way to prevent it" seems like something that should be a campaign limitation, not a built-in rule.

Re: Desol Move Through Yeah, I'm with the guys who say you don't need APW on your movement. I honestly don't even know what that would do on a movement power unless it was also UAA. Is it possible to abuse APW on strength, but then again, like others said, it's possible to abuse a lot of advantages on Strength. That's what GMs are for -Nate

Re: Power writeup: "I know everyone's number." Well, it is "any willing target", since like you said, they can just refuse to pick up. The only other options are "one specific person" or "limited group of people". Obviously you wanted to be able to call anyone. It is an interesting thought... how does that work normally? If they're unwilling does it cost END? Do you still expend an action trying? -Nate

Re: Power writeup: "I know everyone's number." Very cool power idea. I think it's actually pretty easy: Mind Link, Any Willing Target, Any distance, No LOS Needed (30 Active Points); OAF (phone of opportunity -1), 15 points. I don't know that I'd let you apply OAF more than once, though. Detect isn't it, 'cause that would just let you determine where they are, which is not the power you're looking for. -Nate

Let's say you're attacking someone inside a 5 Def 5 Body Entangle. You hit them with a 12 body, 36 stun attack. The entangle's def stops 5 body, 5 body is applied to the body of the entangle, and 2 body gets through... but how much stun does the encased person take? 36? 31? 0? It doesn't seem to be very clear in the book. -Nate

Re: Catching Players off guard. That is totally kick ***! I *love* stuff like that... when everything suddenly falls into place... it's one of those Eureka moments -Nate

Re: How do you use Regeneration in your campaign?

Re: Question about Armor in Champions The whole "what if X, what if Y" stuff is all well and good, but how often is that actually going to come into play? Once in a campaign? Maybe twice? It certainly does not reduce the usefulness of the armor by 1/3, which is what the -1/2 limitation is trying to imply. If the character has a secret identity and is likely to have to pretend to be hurt once every couple of sessions (has a dangerous job where accidents are common), or if he's expected to get an injection once every few days (everyone lines up to get the happy drug on Tuesdays), then sure. But on the off chance that the GM decides to put a super virus in the campaign that requires an injection? Sorry, but no. -Nate

Re: Ranged killing attack + No rage modifer broke? Two things.... in general, most people have a cap on how many active points you can put into a power, specifically to stop stuff like this. If you're in a starting game of 350 point characters, a lot of people like 60 active point limits, some let it go as far as 75. The 202 you posted is insanely too much over that. As for XP per session, we tend to get 2-3, with more for "final battle" type things (like 8-10). -Nate

Re: Question about Armor in Champions As others have said, one of the main rules in the book is that if a limitation is not limiting, it's not worth any points. You CAN take Always On for Armor, but it has to be a pretty big problem for the guy. Honestly, I don't think I'd allow it except in extreme circumstances. Certainly "i'm just always tough" is not an extreme circumstance. Always On is one of those easily abused limitations that needs special attention from a GM. In my mind, it should really probably be -1/4 at best. -Nate

Re: Multiform and OIHID What everyone else said. They are two different ways of accomplishing the same thing. 99% of the time you'll never see them used on the same character. Unless Brutus starts off puny and gains all his powers through some kind of transformation, he doesn't get OIHID. He IS the heroic ID. -Nate

Re: Anyone have solutions for the Stun Lottery that a high dice Killing Attack creates? I forgot about that thread. I think it's a great idea, Lucius. I also think something needs to be done about the stun lotto, but I do like the slight randomness. Maybe 1d4? That's 2.5 on average, max of 4. Not too terrible. Still allows for some big stunning hits, but it's 1/4 of getting the big hit instead of 1/3 on 1d6-1 (if you count 5 or 4 as big hits). -Nate

Re: Help with a Character Concept – The Energy Form I would use OIHID for supers who simply add on to the base character. I would use multiform for characters who are radically different in their heroic ID, and/or require different disadvantages or lower/different stats. Basically, OIHID is good for supers who just "power up", and multiform is good for supers who really change. I guess given all the differences, I might do yours as a multiform, though it's one of those that is close enough that probably neither would be glaringly wrong. -Nate

Re: C25 deposit I don't think anyone thinks you're doing it for any reason other than to cover your asses... we just kinda think it's one step beyond necessary. A simple "if it doesn't get published, our liability will be limited to refunding the deposit and no more" would work as well to prevent people from suing over it, and would make the 99.99999999% of people who wouldn't even dream of suing you over it a lot more comfortable. *shrug* I'm no lawyer, so you might be doing the best you can, but I swear I've seen this sort of thing before where they did it my way. -Nate

Re: Funny game voices I generally try to do less with voices and more with how they speak and what they say. My black rapper from the wrong side of the tracks doesn't have an accent to match, but he's always throwing down tha' street speak, a'ight? My norse god of storms doesn't have a norse accent, but he talks in a loud, booming voice, and tends to refer to people as "puny mortal". -Nate

Re: The difference between a Brick and a Tank Bricks in my experience do most of their damage with strength. Occasionally "brick tricks" type things are added to make them a bit less boring. Having a character who was basically nothing but defense would be almost useless in Champions. Sure, he'd never die, but no one would ever attack him either. In a MMORPG, the enemies are all controlled by the computer. In an RPG, they're controlled by the GM, who can decide they're smart enough to see they're not denting this guy, and yet he's not dishing out much damage either. They'll then move on to shoot at the annoying blaster who's been picking them off one by one. That's why I build my characters to be a little more well rounded. Sure, I may be a wimpy mentalist, but I need a little armor and at least one "oh crap" power that can keep me from getting splatted if the enemy's heavy hitter suddenly turns his sights on me. -Nate

Re: Mystery Men write-ups? The shoveler is, by far, my favorite character in the movie. He's so laid back, but he's one of the most effective fighters in the group. I just love his dead pan reactions to his wife and Furious. I wouldn't really call the Bowler's abilities that much of a power. With the exception of at the very end when the ball rises up and smashes the psychofraculator, it was all under her control... .very complex and bouncy trajectories, but it didn't need to have powers of its own (except for a mindlink with her, of course Spleen's could be just a really bad case of irritable bowel syndrome And the guns cut in half could have just been a brilliant coincidence.... Ok ok, so yeah, there were some low level powers, but nothing truly amazing... like a guy who could shoot stinging foam into your eyes. -Nate

Re: C25 deposit Sorry, guys, my bad. I just couldn't conceive of anyone trying to get people to give them a $10 deposit that could just get frittered away into nothing. I don't see any reason why they couldn't give people their money back. They keep track of who paid so they know who the books go to, right? Easy enough to use that info to pay people back. If it's such an unlikely occurance, why not just allow for it, and deal with it if it happens? -Nate

Re: Mystery Men write-ups? Aww... I'd love to see those. I think they'd be very open to interpretation, though, since the actual "powers" these guys display are pretty low. Really seems like more of a heroic campaign than superheroic. Btw, I LOVE Mystery Men. LOVE IT. I just wish more people felt the same way. Ironically, the only real superpower anyone showed was Invisible Boy's -Nate

Re: How important is presentation... Both of them sound like they're trying to make a disjointed character that'll cost way too many points. Superman is a brick speedster with an energy blast. He's like 1000 points, easy, and yes, he's disjointed too. I'd tell them to try to come up with a better concept first. Sure, you can do a brick who's not super slow, but I don't want someone with speed 8, 80 strength, and 30 defense in my game. Of course, if they *****ed, I'd just make them write up the character, and I'd yay or nay it from the actual stats. Concepts sometimes crystalize a lot better in Herodesigner than in your head. -Nate

Re: C25 deposit That's not what they said. They said they WILL refund it if they decide not to make the book. You just can't change your mind and get your money back. That's what they mean by non-refundable. I do agree that they need to make that more clear, however, since I had to read it twice to figure that out. -Nate

Re: One-Trick Pony Campaigns