AlHazred

It looks close, but I can't find a large image. That's fine, though, at least I have something to work with.

Hmmm... This image looks pretty good. Nice call, Enforcer84!

Can't find that thread, but I'll keep looking. Alternatively (if I can't find it), do you remember any of the artists? It's possible some of the art made it onto websites... I'll have to keep my eyes open for Battle Chasers. MageKnight has some nice stuff, but many of the pieces are a little pricey. As far as the video game goes, all I remember is that it was one of those Street Fighter type games, with a strong fantasy feel. We played it in the arcade of a rest stop in Ohio, I believe, on the way to GenCon 98. Rules constructs are not a problem. I've played Hero since 1985; I can fake up anything I forget in game, and come up with valid mechanics in five minutes. What I was looking for was ideas for what to put in the suit...

Not sure if this belongs here, or in Star Hero, or in Other Genres... Anyway, some of my players had a real problem with the Pulp Hero game I was running. ("Too much real world stuff!" "I don't feel like my character's threatened." Pah. Wimps.) So, for the next campaign, we bandied about a number of concepts. We ended up with Fantasy/Crossworlds/Martial Arts/Action at the high-powered Heroic end (125+125). After condensing all of this (a task involving no small amount of cerebral massage) I came up with "Kumite Hero" with a strong Fantasy edge. As a GM, I paid attention during the character concept stage of character creation, writing down all the ideas for later use as antagonists/opponents. One of them was the Gnome Tinker with a Steampunk (read "magic/science") powered armor suit. The idea came from an old video game where one of the characters was just such a gnome. He had barrel arms and legs, with telescoping parts and stuff. I'd love to use him, but I can't remember any additional details. I'd love ideas at this point, from the Hero community. And, hey, if someone can point me to on-line art of an appropriate nature, I'd appreciate it.

If you're looking for a mechanic to justify containing such an alien, there are two options. If you're looking for a "suit" to contain the alien while letting it interact with the environment, I'd use Derek's idea of buying off the Always On with an OIF. If you're wondering how to make a "containment unit" to imprison the alien, you can use Extra-Dimensional Movement, Usable As Attack, defined as a stasis field. That way, the Damage Shield doesn't destroy the containment unit and you don't have to justify really high DEF materials...

A distinction needs to be made before the list gets too large. In broadcast media SF, there's a difference between a "race" (which are human-like aliens) and a "monster" (which are all those aliens that have no human commonality). Creatures like the Space Amoeba (from Star Trek) or the Bandersnatchi (from Larry Niven's Known Universe novels) are more rightly called "monsters." Their place in the story is to act in unknowable ways to advance the plot. "Races" are usually in there to point up some foible of humanity; a classic example is the Kzinti (again from Larry Niven's Known Universe novels) whose purpose is to make explicit points about the nature of human aggression. If we're going to call them Archetypes, we have to go beyond mere physical details...

To get back on topic, are you using the Dungeons and Dragons magic system as inspiration for spells? There are some really good conversions around (Hierax's and Killer Shrike's come to mind). Just read "MANA Cost" where it says "END Cost" and you're golden.

And finally...

And again...

Here you go. I can take no credit for these; I always turn all of Susano's stuff that I come across into Hero Designer files. It's all so good... Note: Mike, let me know if you want me to take the files off.

FWIW, some GURPS guy did an insanely detailed, granular writeup of Conan. If I'm remembering correctly, he divided him up into four versions, divided along time periods. They were truly crunchy writeups. I wonder if they're on-line...

Incidentally, Nato, nice job on the artwork. Great cover.

Having had a chance to devour the book now (got my copy last week at Gamemaster in Fair Lawn), I have to say, 'Great stuff!' I really didn't think I'd get much use out of it, but I was way wrong. Well put together, with extensive background material and excellent packages. I like the artwork, although I though Jonathan Davenport could have done a better job on Drs. White and Black. On the other hand, I love his Myrmidon, and Quasar looks cool. And, I have to say, UNITY is my new favorite Champions Universe superhero team. Dysfunctional, sure, but they've got lots of character (both literally and figuratively). Anyway, just my 2 cents.

Yeah, I know, but I'm already thinking about how to import Barsoom into various Crossworlds games I run... And when I stack up various characters against each other, I like to fit them as close as possible to the author's vision. Just my anal retentive, purist bastard thing... I'm wondering what the stats on the Thoat are, as well as those Martian Radium guns. I'd assume most of the archaic weapons are pretty standard, except for those forty foot Green Man lances.

Don't know if I agree with Kevin's Green Martian writeup. The STR seems high, and I noticed some things missing from the Powers. In A Princess of Mars Burroughs describes the Green Men as being fairly physicaly weak. He says: “While the Martians are immense, their bones are very large and they are muscled only in proportion to the gravitation which they must overcome. The result is that they are infinitely less agile and less powerful, in proportion to their weight, than an Earth man, and I doubt that were one of them suddenly to be transported to Earth he could lift his own weight from the ground; in fact, I am convinced that he could not do so…" This seems to me to indicate a STR of at most 14. Secondly, I believe in The Gods of Mars, Burroughs establishes that most Martians are effectively immortal, going "up the river" when they reach 1000 as a strange religious ritual. Third, the Green Men have "eyes [set] at the extreme sides of their heads a trifle above the center and protruded in such a manner that they could be directed either forward or back and also independently of each other, thus permitting this queer animal to look in any direction, or in two directions at once, without the necessity of turning the head." That would indicate Increased Arc of Perception for their visual senses. Not that all this means I don't like the writeup, mind you. Just a few things the purist insisted on...

I don't know. If his powers are defined as working only against the Alien Class of minds, would that work? I mean, when he came back from Mars after the first book, he didn't make a living as the Amazing Randi or anything... It seems apparent to me that either his power doesn't work against Humans, or that they're an artifact of his Astral Travel method (or whatever that was)... Anybody given any thought to the Red Martian cultural package?

I don't know that he has a high Ego Defense. There's a number of ways to do it. For one thing, maybe the GM decided that his mind was a Human Mind, while everyone else on Mars has an Alien Mind. Not sure how to work it. Need to crack open Ultimate Mentalist to do more research. Mental Invisibility? Desolid, Only To Protect Versus Attack? Do we use the Absolute Effect Rule and give him a mess o' Mental Defense as Keith suggested?

I've been reading the Barsoom series myself lately, for completely unrelated reasons, and was struck by a number of things: 1) The Green Martians are the original Science Fiction warrior culture. Screw the Klingons, the Green Martians are MEAN! 2) John Carter is a great fighter, and an honorable human being, who is probably an immortal (something briefly touched on in the first and second books, but no thoroughly explored. Does it show up later?) His intelligence varies, but in many books he's as dumb as a box of hammers. I mean all the little stupidities in the third book alone equate to a man with an INT of 8 at the most. Fortunately, he has at least 6d6 of Luck to make up for it. 3) If you reread the technology through the "filter" of John Carter's low intelligence and scientific ignorance, much delicious gamer pseudoscience emerges to fill the cracks. Not that I'd change any of the names; I'd love to carry around a "Radium Pistol." And keeping in mind the state of general science education in the 1860s and later, the series really was Science Fiction. 4) Barsoom is eminently usable in the Hero System. I'd say, let's start with John Carter. I believe in the first book the farthest he jumps is a little more than 100 yards. Let's call it 50" and we have his maximum Noncombat Leaping. As I said, he gets at least 6d6 of Luck. He's got Psych Lims (Honorable Virginian Gentleman), and Hunteds out the wazoo. Anybody else?

So, is this thread dead? Has the discussion of Justice League characters moved to another thread?

Hey, D-Man, you used Hero Designer to make these, right? Any chance of posting the files? I'm considering slightly modifying the Tremere for my Pulp Heroes game; I'd like to put in a supernatural villain, and I figure on making him a Nazi occult researcher who's made himself a vampire. He's perfect.

Using two weapons could simply be a multiple power attack, though. If he did it more regularly (like, say, a certain dark elf) then I'd be more comfortable with it. His great skill at fighting allows him to do this sort of thing successfully, albeit not comfortably enough for him to do it as a matter of course. I wouldn't be comfortable giving him too many martial arts abilities and such. With a 23 DEX, 2 All Combat skill levels, and 3 HTH skill levels, he doesn't need any sophisticated maneuvers to be deadly with his bare hands. Unless he regularly does things like Choke Holds, Legsweeps and the like, I don't think he should get another Martial Art. In any case, I think this is a great write-up. What about a version of Subotai and the Wizard from the movie?

If it's going to be Harley Quinn, she's probably doing it to impress the Joker, since the only time she goes out on her own is after a spat. You'll need to add a villain to the soap opera: a thinly-veiled Joker clone who always comes out on the bottom in the scripted altercations, maybe called the Clown or something like that. One of the Justice Force Omega heroes should be a thinly-veiled Batman clone (if you're not using the Champions in your world, perhaps this is a job for camera-shy Nighthawk); I'd add him to the roster, making six team members total. Harley's trying to show the Joker how important he is to her by helping him put one over on Bats during the theme park opening. The thing about Harley Quinn is she comes out of hiding more often than Harlequin does in the module script; you'll have to put her in more of the shots, giving her easy escape routes. Perhaps she's in a couple of the death traps "in disguise" instead of it being a hologram. Or maybe it's a hologram of her in a business suit. On second thought, that'll work better - all the holograms of women in jeopardy are actually her. Hmmm... this might actually be a pretty good substitution...

I'd like to point out that much of the Superman mythology had been created, but Siegel and Shuster had to shrink it down to sell it to a paper. Online you can see the historic first strip as published; you can find the "Original Superman" strip as well, which already has many of the elements of the myth, with intriguing differences (frinstance, in the origin strip, the people of Krypton are fantastically endowed because they "represent the human race at its ultimate peak of perfect development", not because of some weird comic book physics explanation involving the color of the sun). Based on that strip, I think you can include many of the later disads as specific mystery disadvantages. In all, an excellent writeup, and one I use for Superman in my Vigilance League campaign (currently in March of 1939).

I came up with Polaris' very idea while catching up on this thread. I think if DOJ offered to sell poster-sized maps (in color) in .pdf format in the on-line store (I'm talking single-digit dollars, here), I'd buy them. Now, I buy all the Hero stuff anyway, but I know several people who have often said you can't get good modern terrain, and a "shopping mall" map or a "city park" map would definitely sell to more than just the people like me. It wouldn't be too hard for most of us to go to Kinko's and pay for a nice poster print-out. All told, I like the direction taken with Champions Battlegrounds, and I was one of the people who said that the plot seeds were good enough. Should be expect to see a Fantasy Hero Battlegrounds and Star Hero Battlegrounds as well?

How to reply... how to reply....? The information needed to place an Ogre in a D&D module is listed in the Monster Manual. The fact that it's a monster doesn't preclude the need for statistics. You can place an "Ogre" that you designed yourself into the module, but it'll be a different adventure than one the author intended, albeit mildly. There's enough information in Champions Battlegrounds to construct your own individual villains. It'll be a different adventure, but still quite playable, since the most important part of it is plot, character interaction, and heroics. As the eminent "Mr Explainy" explained, it's clearly listed on the back that you need Champions Universe and Conquerors, Killers, and Crooks to fully use the book. As far as being labeled as an "adventure", it's true that the front of it says "a sourcebook for Champions." However, the first line on the back (under the title "Superheroic Adventure!") is "Champions Battlegrounds is a collection of five adventures for Champions..." So, if a buyer picked it up without knowing it was an adventure, I'd assume he was like my, and just bought all Hero stuff that comes out. In which case it shouldn't be a problem... As far as prerequisite products to use Hero stuff, I believe Steve has said on the boards (as Keith also mentioned) that they don't plan on repeating writeups (a decision I approve of). That being said, if a module title was something like Viper Battlegrounds, I'd assume that having the VIPER book was required to make full use of it. However, Hero is completely customizable; making the bad guys myself guarantees that they'll surprise all my players...