Blackout

Well, you could always save a phase. Or you could buy an attack that's triggered when an enemy crosses into your "threatened" zone...

Mr. Cook, have you ever considered comic books? Just curious...

Re: Where do you go for Fantasy Artwork? As someone already pointed out, Google's image search function is an amazing tool... Be careful though, it can eat up hours of your time. And the pool of images it draws from is huge, so try to be as specific as possible to avoid having to sift through thousands of results.

Time to suck up... I've been playing Champions for, well, since 1984...and there was plenty of "obvious" stuff in FREd that I hadn't thought of. Same goes for USDB. Shameless plug time: I talked up the USDB to one of the customers - a HERO newbie - in my store (Lost Worlds), he bought it, took it home, and was able to finally make up the character he's been wanting to play. This made him VERY happy. Which makes ME very happy, 'cause I love HERO and now there's at least one more person happy with the game. One of the best things about USDB is that it makes life MUCH easier for those HERO GMs among us (me for one) who haven't mastered the mantra, "points are for players." I can slap together a fully "pointed-out" baddie in no time now, and that's a good thing! So, what I'm saying is, if those products can help me (an almost 20 year "vet") AND they can help someone who's been playing less than six months...well, I'd say they're doing what they're supposed to be doing. Back to FH... If this book can help me ween my regular gaming group off of D&D, it'll be worth "slogging" through as many pages as it takes.

That's so... Well, it's just brilliant!

Re: Any Interest in Spelljammer Hero? Ya know... This is one of those odd synchronicities that make me feel like I'm living in a Dickens' novel. I just started a once-a-month Spelljammer campaign with my current gaming group, and I thought it would be a great way to slowly introduce them to Hero for something other than Champions. So, if YOU wanna save me all the conversion trouble, I - for one - would be very happy to see it.

Um...yes and no. Height and weight play a HUGE part in what you can do with a massive STR (at least in the real world). I'm almost ashamed to admit it, but I get a huge kick outta watching World's Strongest Man competitions. In every one I've ever seen, the shorter, lighter guys are at a disadvantage in many events. Bending steel rods? The taller guys with longer arms get much better leverage. Let's use an example event from one of the competitions and apply it directly to our "halfling" character in question: holding a 60 pound weight straight out from your body at shoulder height. Oh, you can't have one leg in front of the other, either. The short character we're talking about wouldn't be able to do this for one second. Sure, he could lift the weight with no problem...but, as soon as he extends his arms, he's gonna fall forward because 60 pounds is almost three times his personal weight. He just doesn't have the mass to counteract the weight he's trying to deal with. The same thing applies to the sword... A two-handed/great sword/claymore is going to weigh nearly HALF of what the character does. The problem I have with this scenario (little-guy big-sword) is all about mass, rather than strength. Again, I'm not saying he shouldn't be able to use the sword, just that he'd have all sorts of penalties doing so. Even though he's strong enough, he just doesn't weigh enough.

I wasn't trying to cast aspersions on your PVC pipe idea:) And I realize there are some problems with the water-filled-bucket schtick (and it was mostly used as an attempt at humor - which, obviously, failed:mad: ) Arguing that the balance of a weapon makes no difference is foolish (and I try not to be that as often as possible:cool: ) The main point I was atually trying to make was that, no matter how well balanced a weapon is, and no matter how strong you are, if something weighs half as much as you do (or even 1/4), it's gonna cause you no end of problems when you try to wave it around at arms length.

Well, ya know, it's not so much the length of the sword... it's how you use it. Okay. Sorry. Couldn't resist. Seriously now. D-Man makes some good points about the vertically challenged character's arm length in relation to the weapon's balance point and what-not. I think the deciding factor for me, if I were in the GM's chair on this one, is the fact that the sword is going to weigh about half as much as the character. I can military press my weight, I can bench more than my weight, and I can curl half my weight... I sure as heck wouldn't want to try swinging around a 6' piece of really sharp steel that was half my weight, though! There's a little something called inertia that'll cause all sorts of problems with that scenario. Newton had something to say about that as well... something about a body in motion staying in motion, if memory serves. I'd let him do it, though, I'd just apply some serious penalties. Forget the PVC pipe experiment someone suggested. If you really wanna demonstrate how silly the notion is, take a 5 gallon pail, fill it with water, have the guy swing it and try to stop. And that won't even be close to the weight differential. I'd suggest doing this outside.

Oh, man, that'd be cool! I mean, I'd be in like Flint!

Right, then, you make some very good points. (As do most everyone who's posted in reply.) I think, when I get this thing going, I'll use hit locations, but only for important opponents. Which is to say, Disposable Thugs (TM and patent pending) won't use the hit location tables against the PCs, and the PCs won't use hit locations against them (though the PCs could go for called shots). In other words, when hit locations could serve to increase the dramatic tension, I'll use 'em. Okay. I gotta ask this... A "palindromedary"? That'd be a camel that looks the same frontwards and backwards? Eating seems easy enough, but, um, how does it defecate? (Something that, by the by, has always bugged me about the cartoon Cat/Dog.)

If the characters are both being played by the same person, I'd go with the previous suggestion of Duplication. If the characters are played by two different people, then I'd go with Mind Link with the Feedback limitation...

I think I'd go with Duplication on this one. One of the Dupes (no insult intended) would be the computer/AI, and the other would be the hologram. I'm not sure if I'd use the AI rules to build that part of the character, though... It might be better to just build a "normal" character and then slap on appropriate disads (can't walk, distinctive features, no hands, etc.). You've got plenty of possibilities for the hologram as well. If it's a hologram, it's going to have Desolidification, right? I'd imagine it would be Always On, and that would mean big points for buying powers with the advantage Affects Physical World. It sounds like a cool idea, and I'm sure you'll get some more help from the local (virtually speaking) Brain Trust.

Ouch Taking half the damage yourself is, I think, the major limiting factor here. Taking full damage yourself if you don't do knockback, is a huge limiting factor. I think some of that depends on the brick-in-question's defenses, too. 22d6 is going to do 77 Stun and 22 Body on average, and if the brick "only" has 30 PD that's gonna hurt if no KB is done. (And, hey, if it's a giant millipede, it's got Clinging, right? That's 1d6 less KB. Depending on how giant "giant" is, that could gut any chance of doing KB right there.) My gaming group finally started playing Champions again this past Saturday. One of the guys (playing a brick) wanted to get through a wall in a hurry, so he tried a move through on it. He didn't do enough Body to break the wall down and ended up Con stunning himself. It was very funny. Well, I laughed.

I think I might be more inclined to work that power up using Mental Illusions. It's already based on ECV, and you get some nifty limitations right off the bat - Self Only (-1), and a Set Effect - "You can't see me" (using Mind Control as a guideline - Set Effect, single emotion - I'd give this a -1 also). Of course, this only works on one target at a time... You could, however, give it No Range (-1/2), and then tack on an Area of Effect (Radius) (+1)... I haven't figured out comparative point costs or anything, so I don't know how the two options would stack up against each other THAT way. Still, the MI seems more appropriate to me.