megaplayboy

you could probably define a really tough brick as nigh-invulnerable to conventional military hardware without too many PC vs. PC/PC vs. NPC balance issues popping up. either Desol vs. X, or DR, only vs. X, or +32rPD Armor, hard, only vs. X, plus KB resist, only vs. X, etc. That probably annoys the purists, but is a great sfx power, and explains why only the heroes can defeat Villain X.

Tech expert finds defunct Mechanon body, hollows it out, turns it into a power suit, only superficial change to appearance is to paint it gold. Needless to say, "Golden Mechanon" had the most misunderstanding fights EVER:D

Re: Re: Galactic Champions thanks for the update and info:)

I think the page count is likely to rise, since the Gal. Fed. sourcebook got pushed to next year, and they said DW was going to add about 40 pages of material on the Federation. My wish list: 1. stats for a Malvan ultradreadnought. 2. an explanation on how heroes can take on starships. 3. guidelines for running any high level supers game. 4. outlines/guidelines for a "no point limit" style campaign. 5. a couple decent megavillains, possibly including a planet-eater type and a nihilistic dark cosmic despot type.

This should probably be in "company questions", but I echo that sentiment. I'll add in my own question: I know the baseline assumption is 600 point PCs, from what I've heard, but will there be any example "cosmic level"(700+ point) superheroes?

It's a new campaign, so adapting our powers probably isn't yet viable, and we don't have a gadgeteer or mage type in the group to whip up special goggles, or entangle solvent or whatever. I'm thinking about just swiping enough of their grenades to use them as a "plot device" type counter attack.

I think a flying brick with a 60 STR and 30" of flight could manage a diving move-through(60") against the "non-Abrams AFV"'s top armor(16DEF) for 32d6(34d6 with pushing) and pretty much pulverize it without doing more than stunning themselves. apply the -12 OCV penalty to their 8 OCV, then consider they are targeting a non-moving multihex vehicle--probably a decent shot at a solid hit. Even the diving move by would do 18d6. Against relatively slow and bulky vehicles, heroes have no tactical disincentive to uncork such sledgehammer tactics. Scale up to the 80 or 90+ AP type supers, and they CAN wreck tanks. I won't even mention the "Earth Special Forces"(essentially a superhero team) from Dragon Ball Z:D I think upscaling is always going to be an issue for any campaign that lasts more than a year or two. If you average 2-3xp/session, and game: 1x/month:25-30xp/year 2x/month:50-60xp/year 4x/month:100-125 xp/year Take a baseline 350 point PC, keep playing them twice a month for 4 years, and you have a 600 point PC, who could technically be operating at the sub-cosmic power level. So, either as a GM of a long-running game you capitulate to the inevitable power-creep, or you impose an arbitrary power cap(which has the unintended tendency to make every PC a "do everything" type), or you have to scrap campaigns when they reach a level you are no longer "comfortable" with. The other point, of course, is that maybe a majority of players in a group actually want to be Avengers types without having to game for 5 years to reach that level...shouldn't the game system, and the Hero community, be flexible and open-minded enough to accomodate the upper end of the scale as well as the lower?

I do have a problem in one campaign I'm currently in: The agents are all well-coordinated, toss darkness grenades which block all sight(my brick is the only one who can see through it), one hex entangles, atuofire normal blasters, and heavy blasters. So unless we can just swarm the agents immediately, we get stomped badly really quickly unless we run away. Irritates the heck out of me.

I think they overestimate the capabilities of the Batman and Capt. America types and underestimate the capabilities of the Hulk/Thor/Supes types(and even characters like Storm, for that matter), if that makes any sense to you.

Sometimes I think that "Champions genre" is a whole different animal than "comic book superhero genre". A lot of the differences seem guided by game mechanics/balance considerations. It often looks like compromises were made to limit the capabilities of game heroes compared to their literary counterparts. The most ironic thing is that often in veteran Champions groups, when one suggests playing characters at the level of capability presented in comics, some players will recoil in horror, as if it were somehow unnatural to actually play at that level. I don't really know if there's a solution that would please everyone, except to suggest that some folks are entirely too fixated on game mechanics and not enough on genre simulation and having fun(I know the counter-argument is that playing a game above their "comfort level" is no fun for them). There's gotta be a happy medium somewhere.

Were I ed-in-chief at Marvel, I would impose a 1-year moratorium on anti-mutant/mutant supremacist storylines across all X-books, and tell them to come up with creative plots that have nothing to do with that cliche'. Then after they all walked off in protest, I'd hire new writers;)

Here's a suggestion--why not evaluate how effective the Warlord and his crew would be against military opp? He's supposed to be a military genius, and a leader of his own small army, so it's quite likely that he would come into conflict with military forces.

What constitutes a "worldbeater"? I'm pretty sure that means someone built on more than 350 points, or someone built on that many points who has 100+ experience. So, 250 point heroes vs. comic book military? Squad-beaters, yes. Have a hard time with a mechanized platoon. 350 point heroes? Beat the platoon, probably, struggle against that platoon combined with a tank platoon. 450 point heroes? Pull off a win against the above, struggle a bit if you toss in a quartet of Apache choppers. 600 point heroes? Whomp the above, have a very tough time against a megamat packed with military forces(2-3x the above, plus artillery or air support). 700+ point, 150+ active point cosmic types? Unless it's got the nuclear triangle on the ordnance, forget it. Waste of time to deploy agents, soldiers, or anything less than superhuman level resistance. Nothing in the non-nuclear arsenal is going to top 10d6 KA,imo. At a certain power level, most supers will be able to take that and survive. At the highest levels, they can recover from stunned status, take another recovery or two, and be good as new.

If they can't beat the military, they're not exactly "worldbeaters", are they?

I guess I was thinking of modern compound bows with 150 or 200lb pull to them. Those can drive an aluminum shaft through a wall.

well, if a 2d6 RKA bow is, let's say, a 50+kg pull, that's more like 500 joules(or more). And then you have the fudge factor for wound channel, etc. They worked just fine for penetrating plate mail:)

which is exactly what they say in Star Hero--Except you have to attack the whole area of the planet. Your RKA will never be an area effect attack--it will blow a big hole, but it's not going to work the way you say it will. Otherwise, we'd have all kinds of problems, like being able to target the Earth with a 4d6 RKA and blow it up in a few minutes.(well, I got more body through the "Earth wall" , just a dozen more blasts and it's all gone)

Nooo, you will reduce the Earth to rubble, but to vaporize an object, generally speaking, you have to do double its BODY.

If your GM allows it, you can keep things neater on the character sheet by having an MP with pool points at double(or more) the AP cap, and the slots all set at the AP cap or lower. That way, you can run two or more powers through the MP at the same time, with the same basic effect as having more than one MP.

Another way to think about this is to look at the amazing things war heroes do with the odds heavily against them. Then give someone with the same mentality superhuman abilities. If a hero could hold off 50 armed men, a superhero might hold off a whole battalion, and a mighty one might stare down a division. Think genre, not realism,IMHO.

Well, an 800mm cannon shell in WW2 used in the siege of Sebastopol penetrated 100 feet of concrete. That was a 7-ton shell probably traveling at 2 or 3 times the speed of sound(let's say 1km/sec) If you had a mass driver, pushing a 10 ton projectile to the theoretical maximum velocity of 150km/sec. That would be about 1.5*150*150=3.375x10^4 times as much kinetic energy, and maybe 30-40 thousand times the penetration(probably not, but let's keep this up for the sake of argument)--yields 3 or 4 million feet of rock, or 600 to 800 miles of rock. So maybe a 50-100 ton projectile accelerated to near max railgun capability could punch it's way to the core. So accelerate an antimatter warhead(a BIG one) in a supermaterial shell, slam it into a planet, and have the warhead explode after penetrating deep into the crust of the planet. 100 tons of antimatter reacting with 100 tons of matter? E=mc^2, so m=2*10^5 kg, c=3*10^8 m/sec. Do the math: 9*10^16 * 2*10^5= 1.8 x 10^22 joules. IIRC, shorthand, 1 kg of antimatter reacting with 1 kg of matter yields the equivalent of 43 megatons of TNT. The warhead mentioned in my hypothetical would have an equivalent yield of 4.3 Trillion tons of TNT, or the equivalent of 300 million Hiroshima bombs. Aren't you glad I'm not working in a weapons lab somewhere?

The 51d6 is to vaporize the Earth. If you want to just crack it in two, or wipe out everything on the surface, 25 or 26d6 will work just fine:)

If you have a 50 STR, you can push and flip a tank over. A well-balanced superteam, especially if you are talking about world class Avengers/JLA types, will walk over a tank platoon in less than a turn. Considering that's about 12 seconds, they could take out a division in about an hour. Invisible characters could wreak havoc on command and control. Ditto for mentalists. Flying bricks would take a while to show up on radar, and the big problem for the military is that most of them would probably survive an AAM hit. Even a lot of martial artist types tend to have some rDEF, so infantry are basically screwed. The one useful thing about the Hulk movie is that it puts the whole "superbeing vs. military" thing into a proper perspective, IMHO;)

Rodan can perform an outside loop at supersonic speeds--I loved that:)

Well, that's par for the course, I think. Most people didn't realize the verdict in the Simpson criminal case wasn't unreasonable, since the prosecution had left(or the defense had created) room for reasonable doubt. And the verdict in the civil case was also reasonable, due to a different standard of proof. But, hey, I'm just a calendar clerk, my dad, sister and brother-in-law are the ones with the JDs:D attorneys thoroughly unfamiliar with civil procedure are my pet peeve...