casualplayer

Re: What Is The Deal With Talents? Talents are Powers that aren't good enough to get you into the Justice League. They are the middle ground between average human and superhuman.

Re: Armor Wars Tanker training is a few months, and just about anybody can achieve it with determination and dedication. Pilot training is much more intensive and demanding and only a select few are qualified to even try, physically and mentally. Tankers are enlisted and pilots are officers. Fast track a pilot past their psych eval and you get another Ankylosaur. Fast track a tanker through and if he goes rogue the rest of the crew brings him back in line.

Re: Cutting the Drama Out of Character Creation The game sounds very Delta Green/Call of Cthulhu. Bodycount is to be expected but the main characters should buy lots of abilites reflecting Plot Immunity or Resilience. Combat Luck, Luck Luck, Mental Defense, maybe even low level Regeneration Looked Worse Than It Is. Or have the team salted with Redshirts to soak the dramatic death. For character creation for street level Hero, a Skill shopping list is huge. Nothing leaves a sour taste in your mouth like forgetting a concept-crucial skill during creation. And for stats, instead of worrying precise numbers initially, consider just having the player say "hindered (6-8,)" "average (9-11,)" "good (12-14,)" "great (15-17,)" "phenomenal (18-20,)" "inhuman (21+)" and pegging the numbers yourself during creation. You get to hit the range that the player wanted but you get a little budgetary wiggle room if other areas leave you short on points.

Re: Amalgamated Champions

Re: Hey, Balabanto has a Website! Pretty neat. Always enjoy reading gaming philosophy.

Re: Only Humans Need Apply: Campaigns with Just Humans My two favorite, non-homebrewed worlds to run in are 7th Sea and Legend of the Five Rings. Both humanocentric but with distinct cultures and societies within the human race. It's not such a stretch and doesn't constrain storytelling at all. And then on the other end of the spectrum you get things like Rifts, Talislanta, Gamma World and Arduin, where you are lucky if any of the players share a race let alone play a human. Harkins back to Basic D&D and choosing Dwarf or Elf as your class.

Re: Help with power

Re: Help with power How about Mind Control Based on CON Single Command: Cough Uncontrollably?

Re: FANTASY HERO -- What Do *You* Want To See? I would like two things. I would like a delving into what makes fantasy Fantasy, and while most say magic I say it is more broadly ambiance. Wounds are messy and dangerous, and a person with a dagger is a threat. Precious heat comes from capricious fire. Weather can change your plans or dash them on the rocks. Travel and communication are adventures in themselves. Death is close during the day and closer still during the dark. What you don't know can hurt you. Smells. Sounds. Tastes. I would also like some description on how decisions can affect your game. Readily available, pull-from-the-edge-of-death or even resurrection healing makes for a vastly different game than field dressing and praying the flux doesn't set in. A spellcaster needing components smells bad and can be sniffed out and avoided while someone who just has to wiggle their digits is always armed and dangerous and may be anyone in the room right now! Whether or not a spell can be cast faster or slower than a sword can be drawn and swung shapes your game in a monumental way and needs to be carefully considered.

Re: CON Only to Resist Stunning Let's not forget the value of Distance from Zero when thinking about characteristics also. Being able to be Drained to enfeeblement in a blink is no fun.

Re: Pcs and the presidency I've always thought The Justice Department would make a good team name and campaign setting.

Re: CON Only to Resist Stunning CON's value Only to Resist Stunning is directly proportional to how prevalent AVADs are in your game. Not very heroic to get punked by 4d6 that bypasses your defenses and exceeds your 13 CON.

Re: How Do I Build This? Yeah, well, I hate that way of doing things too. Sweep/MPA it where the attack rolls go knife then poison. If knife misses, poison misses with no need to roll. If knife hits, roll to see if poison "hits" (gets in the wound and takes effect.) Poison possibly gets a small Limitation if it can only follow knife, but you might want to be able to drip it in someone's food, flick it into their eyes or another open wound so the Limitation isn't absolute.

Re: How Do I Build This? I thought Linking made it "one power," and all aspects subject to the Drain or any adjustment. I would split the drain proportionally amongst the Linked powers, no double dipping. I'm not going to say Steve is wrong but I will say that is not how I intend to roll.

Re: Rigging Elections in Champions EDM to where I won. Precognition to know where to campaign when, put out fires before they even flare up, know exactly what steps to take on the path to the presidency. Power Behind Throne type Powers where you get someone elected and they appoint you to a position close at hand. Weather Control, because some people won't wait in the rain to vote. Cyberkinesis.

Re: Expanding the War Machine It was partially setting up my own character suggestion and also riffing off an old idea where I gave Le Sone Hearing Images and he caused a fustercluck on the battlefield suppressing and modifying people's speech.

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Read Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett. Lotsa good Vetinari bits and a fun read, even if the main character is a Marty Stu.

Re: Expanding the War Machine Honestly, while it is comic-cool, having a team full of people whose call signs all sound similar is really a horrible idea. "Did Warbird just tell Warwhoop to lay down cover fire?" Unless you add a telepath/Mind Link specialist called Warroom, who can let the team communicate and develop tactics without audible signals.

Re: Steampunk-like world setting needs hero/power ideas In a world with fire elementals and water elementals and steamtech, someone is going to put one of those in a boiler and use the other one to try to heat it. Keeping magic and tech separate is nigh impossible unless there is some governing force that enforces the separation. I've always felt that much of 7th Sea, with the notable addition of locomotives, could work well as a source of Steamagic source material.

Re: Beating Dr. Destroyer...how do (or did) you do it? Speaking of Vanguard, what if you resurrected Vanguard and threw undead Vanguard at Dr. D? Vanguard with Takes No STUN!? Yowza. That might leave a mark.

Re: Expanding the War Machine How about Warwound or Fog of War?

Re: As A Hero Gamer, Do You Use The Surbrook's Stuff Website? Wait, you have a website? Why haven't you mentioned this before? Gotcha bookmarked in my HERO Resources folder. Looking forward to more 6th stuff, Surbrook.

Re: Villain Theme Teams I had Foxbat's Menagerie, with Wyvern, Leech, Bull(dozer) and a home-brewed safecracking savant named Raccoon. The original Panda and Raccoon would have made good members, maybe Armadillo or Stinger, Hummingbird. There were a touch of lightness inbetween grim storylines, but still turned out to be something of a threat. I had Casino, with all the usual card based themes but also Baccarat (8 additional duplicates,) Big Joker, Little Joker, Pit Boss and some others. Actually just stumbled across my 20 year old notes from that campaign while cleaning the garage today. Good times.

Re: Question on Proportions Didn't Oddhat do a Bunyan a few years ago, or Bayonne or something, for a Con game he ran? Edit: there it is http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php/45537-The-Five?p=1072710#post1072710

Re: Beating Dr. Destroyer...how do (or did) you do it? Aside from I wouldn't let you make a Power that Only Affects Copper also, if I did allow it your attack is only going to affect exposed copper. It won't get past anything that acts as a Force Wall, including Cover, insulation and casing. You're trying to make a bullet that Only Affects Flesh and reasoning that it bypasses all non-flesh armor, walls and obstacles. Not without Indirect, even if it is Area Effect.