Tasha

Re: How to make the Loner feel not so Lonely? Rambo is a vet who has seen too much in war and is wondering around to probably work out his issues. He passes through a town and is hassled by cops for his looks (Long hair and well worn military attire ie Hippie/non conformist/scary other). Things spiral out of control with the Sheriff deciding to hunt down Rambo to kill him. Rambo goes on the defensive using the skills he learned in the jungles of Vietnam. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Blood It's the best of the series. The later movies turn Rambo into a superhero with his exploits. It is worth watching. I don't remember how bloody it is, though it shouldn't be too bad being an early Action movie

Re: How to make the Loner feel not so Lonely? NP, been there! It usually takes my SO to talk me down before I embarrass myself. Tasha

Re: How to make the Loner feel not so Lonely? What do you mean "Heavy Handed"?

Re: How to make the Loner feel not so Lonely? I don't see that Sim has much of a choice. The player comes as part of a package with a player that fits into the game. The Choices are 1) Ignore the issue: Probably ends up with 'claw quittting and taking friend with him. Or worse case, claw stays and ends up being a disruption to the other players 2) Write the player off as not worth the effort. I only reserve this for players who are disruptive to the other players. Not ones who aren't engaged with the game. The latter can be rehabilitated with effort (mostly yours). 3) Work with the player(Claw) and his friend. If you have to, talk to the friend first. Explain to him that you would like to integrate Claw into the game better as you can tell he isn't having fun. See if the friend will work with you to come up with a background. Better yet talk to them both about it. Express your concerns in as non-confrontational a manner as you can manage. This is the kind of thing that will be resolved with a ton of communication.

Re: How to make the Loner feel not so Lonely? In my experience a Combat Monster is just someone who hasn't been challenged enough by the RP. It takes time and patience to draw this kind of person out. I am speaking from the viewpoint of a recovering Combat Monster who's SO is also a Combat Monster (we have just gotten her to start to RP more than just combats). It takes time, patience and some work. Most Combat Monsters are uncomfortable with RP because it is kind of scary opening up one's imagination to other folk for the first time. I recommend helping create the character beyond the combat powers. Find out what the player is interested in and tailor the skills around that. My SO is really interested in fighter aircraft, so her first characters were pilots. The trick is to have some fun skills that noone else has so you can draw the CM into the RP by asking for skill based on that (or those) skills. Successfully making skill rolls (and making the character relay the info to the party), can get the player into the habit of RP. It's just a bunch of baby steps. Also keep them interested by running the combats they crave. That way the players has something to look forward to after the investigation. With the mysterious past (and character being lower points than the rest) you have both the resources (bring him up to the other PC's level) and the excuse to have a "breakthrough" where the character remembers bits of their past (and the skills needed to function in that past persona). Again, I would recommend throwing some ideas at the player and see what sticks in the way of background. Heck, since he sees himself as having a Rambo background. Use bits of that. Perhaps there's an Officer that likes the character who has been looking for their long lost friend. Gives the character to have soldier skills and perhaps stuff like Interrogation and Bureaucracy. Also knowledge of Military Hardware and Military Culture. Perhaps also knowledge of a secret military project where he got those powers or was trained in the use of powers he already had. Tasha

Re: How to make the Loner feel not so Lonely?

Re: How to make the Loner feel not so Lonely? Sounds like it's time to deal with that "troubled past". Find out more about it, who was involved, what happened, etc. Have someone from his troubled past show up to beat him up (ie think Sabertooth), show him up, and otherwise shame him into being a bit more civilized. Sometimes the trick is to find the Player's hook(s) and draw them into the campaign. It is sounding to me that perhaps it's time to have some magical catastrophe that only the team of secretive magical beings can deal with. Perhaps tie this (potentially?) catatropic event to BloodClaw's past. AKA the whole pigeons come to roost scenario. Have enough combat to make BloodClaw happy, and more than your players are used to dealing with. Perhaps with some world class threats that will draw your players out of their happy RP box. BTW If Bloodclaw won't give you details of said "troubled past", throw some ideas of your own at him and see if any get a positive reaction. Hell, use his friend as a source of info on the character. Also you can run the BloodClaw plot line along side of your regular plots. Just don't wait too long to blow it up in the player's faces Have fun Tasha PS As a player I love talking heads RP, but I also enjoy being in a fun challenging combat. The more often you run combats the easier they get.

Re: Power "Cooldown": how to write up That's pretty much what I was envisioning as the "right" answer Tasha

Re: Npc overload!! Actually, it's in genre for Killing attacks to be quite rare. That's why in the Champions Universe a group like Viper uses blasters that are based on big Energy Blasts. It's just more in genre to shoot energy beams and not bullets. I highly recommend having even the RP interaction folk have a combat capable character. They don't necessarily have to have resistant defenses, but they should have at least the minimum of PD and ED. I recommend at least 2x the average DC in PD ie if the campaign is based around 12d6 attacks then the PCs should have at least 24 defense (or within 10%) and no more than 30 PD and ED (which is 2.5x avg DC). The characters should be able to go into battle and not be hospitalized by it. BTW Combats give lots of fodder for out of combat role play. It's where characters with Codes vs Killing can butt heads with those who don't. It's also the time where that cast of a thousand NPC army can be terrorized by the villains. It can also be a nice change of pace for everyone Combat monsters and RP fiends alike. As for plot ideas and how to add combat into the soap opera. I would recommend the 70's era Fantastic Four books. The characters had matured, but there was still the strange love/hate triangles and conflicts. Even villains (ie Sub Mariner) could cause problems for the group impersonally. They would argue for an issue or two and then would have to go out to defeat some menace. Wash, rinse, repeat. Tasha

Re: My PCs are made of GLASS! Balanced combats... that's a very important skill for a Hero GM. One thing is to look at the party and the Villains. I recommend having a plan of attack before you even start the combat. You aren't there to decimate the PC's you want to challenge them. Every archetype has a weakness. ie Your scrapper will probably be easy pickings for a mentalist. Bricks tend to have a hard time with Martial Artists. Mentalists tend to be blown over by a strong wind if they are percieved. Energy Projectors tend to be Brick fodder (or other Energy Projector fodder). If one hero is stronger in combat than the others, have him be double teamed. As for your mentalist with no defenses, I would recommend either Shrinking (gives high DCV and is hard to see) or Invisibility (hard to see). Also things like mental Flash vs sight (turning off the optic nerves), or Mental Entangles (Can be very unbalancing if purchased) high def/body. Hell, Lots of 5 point skill levels vs DCV (ie the old Mental illusion of being a foot away from where the mentalist actually is AKA D&D Displacement Spell) If the characters are really that far away from one another in combat effectiveness. You could talk to all of the players and see if you could get the most powerful to tone his character down a bit and the least effective to pump up their combat abilities. If you really want our opinions on your PCs. Go ahead an post their character sheets and/or the Hero designer files. The folk on these boards are great at helping folk tweak characters to make them better (whatever that means for the player). Tasha

Re: New to Champions. So how did your first game go? Tasha

Re: It's the Little Things.... From what i can see in the book, it seems that you have to buy a minimum of 2 Str TK. There is a section (pg 115 5ER) that deals with buying less than the full amount of a power. So I believe that having a 3str TK is legal (Costing 4 points).

So having been contaminated by playing MMOs like City of Heroes and World of Warcraft. I have been coming up with power concepts that have cooldowns. How it works. You use the power. Then the power is locked out and unusuable till the time period elapses. It's great for powers that you don't want used all of the time (ie Healing) or weapons that literally need to cooldown before they fire again (ie Fusion canons). It resembles extra time, but allows you to use the power first without waiting. It shouldn't have more than 24hr cooldown or you could use Charges instead (ie 1 Charge recovers 24 hrs after power used, costs end -2 1/2) So what do you all think? Tasha PS I really wish I would have thought of this in time to post it in one of the 6e threads...

Re: It's the Little Things....

Re: It's the Little Things.... Ahhhh! Cheesy under 4th, but still an interesting power Tasha

Re: It's the Little Things.... BTW this power does 0 body. Penetrating for Killing attacks must be at least 1/2d6 to have a chance of doing 1 body (on a 4,5,6 roll). To have 1 body Standard effect it should be a 1d6RKA. (pg 255 5ER) Tasha

Re: It's the Little Things.... Yeah after we were done with the function that required the bath, he would go out and roll around in the underbrush and other outdoorsie stuff to "lose the smell of Civilzation". He was basically Pigpen with a bow. Tasha

Re: It's the Little Things.... For my paladin of the light Holy Aura: Cosmetic Transform 1 point (Dirty possessions into clean possessions, Time/Getting possessions dirty again), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2), Persistent (+1/2), Partial Transform (+1/2), Continuous (+1) (7 Active Points); Limited Target ([Very Limited]; Self only; -1), Only When Serving The God's Purposes (-1/2), No Range (-1/2), Always On (-1/2) Basically dirt wouldn't stick to her or anything that was in her possession. Which was a stark contrast to our "Ranger" who didn't take baths (unless bodily threatened). Tasha

Re: Campaign: Pulling The Fangs

Re: Arrival on the AE-Galactica 1) Her Great Uncle the Emperor (Usurper to the throne) of a nearby and powerful space empire, finally found that she (The rightful Heir) was on the planet and Planet bombed Earth to take care of her once and for all. 2) Her counterpart, contacted the Space fleet and told them who she was. Thereby splitting the fleet into loyalist and rebel factions (which side is which depends on who you ask). Her counterpart had enough evidence including her mother's robotic bodyguard/companion (robotic teddy bear) and Family implants/nanotech culture (which won't grow in people except the royal family), also a Data dump from her mother's implants detailing her Great Uncle's attempt(s) on her mother. The idea would be to depose her Great Uncle and relocate the remnants of Earth's population on a nice world in the empire (Hopefully close to the capital). Or to possibly terraform either Venus or Mars for the people of Earth to live as full citizens of the Empire. 3) She introduces herself as cross dimensional double to the leader of the fleet. Puts up with the battery of tests that would entail. Then offer her help. Since she's tough, fast and can create long distance (10s of LY) wormholes she could be quite useful. The wormholes could be used for surveillance purposes across light years of distance as well as for communications to possible allies. She could also see if she could find their mother (who is the true heir, but disappeared in the 90's). She can also act as Liason between the Loyalist and Earth ships, having a good rep and good relations with the US government

Re: Waking up with super powers Yeah, Super Regeneration (ie instant healing of all but the most dangerous wounds), With Super Reflexes. Mini Brick class Strength. Wormhole style mega scale Teleportation (would include the ability to see my destination through the Wormhole). FTL Teleport that would allow me to travel around the Galaxy

Re: Campaign: Pulling The Fangs Heh, np. I need to think about a character then. The two ideas I had aren't going to work (I think). Regrouping time Tasha

Re: Campaign: Pulling The Fangs I have been on the edge of wanting to play for the past couple of weeks. I have stared at the Hero Central page(s) and still don't have a feeling for the game. Is this a High Fantasy game set in a Horror setting (ie Ravenloft), or is this a early Steampunk game that has Horror elements (ie Castle Falkenstein). Or something else entirely? Are there non-human Races (ie Elves, Halflings, Orcs etc ala D&D)? Early Firearms meaning up to Flintlocks, Wheellocks (ie Revolutionary war), Percussion Cap Weapons? (ie Early Civil War). This all matters for me so I can choose which character concept is best.

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far Nah, that's what actionfigures are for... LOL

Re: Champion's Universe or your own At our age, 3 years isn't much of a gap.