Kirby

Re: Blinded by the Light -- How much of a Physical Limitation (if at all)?

It will all depend on how the campaign is run. If you're in space, then I would treat it with the same limitations as night time, just reversing it. If you're in a Dark Champions, it might come up even less. In a Heroic or Superhero setting, it would be worth more. In addition, it be worth taking a Vulnerability (1.5x or 2x effect from Light Flashes).

I used to give characters 5 points of Disadvantages (I think they're called Complications in 6E) for every -1 to their roll. So if you took a -3 to PER rolls in daylight, it would be worth 15 points.

Re: How do you feel about House Rules?

Even within the same game system' date=' I've used different house rules for different campaigns... Sometimes it's necessary to house rule to maintain the feel of the campaign as much as it is to "fix" an aspect of the rules that you find buggy or otherwise don't care for.[/quote']You have to do what makes you and your fellow players happy. And welcome-ish!

Re: Justice League-type DC/Champions campaign. Advice, please.

By chance, has anyone made characters (based on 250 or -hopefully- 350 points) for DC's Female Furies? Even Big Barda and Lashina would be nice.

Re: Recommendations and Reviews of Superhero products both old and new

Every villain' date=' hero, and NPC seemed to have been gaming for a good decade compared to the Player Characters.[/quote']Well, ya know, some of them have been around since 1st Ed. But I know what you mean. I prefer some lower powered characters myself, which is why I use some of the 250-300 villains from 4E for my 5E games.

Re: How do you feel about House Rules?

One of my favorite rules of the HERO system (and most systems as well) is this one:

"...DON'T LET THE RULES GET IN THE WAY OF HAVING FUN. If a particular rule spoils your fun, ignore it, discard it, or change it."

-5E, p.343

Re: Superheroes Sponsored by Corporations (Such as the NFL)

Claim Jumper?

Gold Digger?

Re: Recommendations and Reviews of Superhero products both old and new

"To Serve and Protect"

[...]

The module and story line itself is also veryy nice. But for me the NPC heroes of the Protectors are the icing on the cake.

I ran a campaign out of San Francisco precisely because of To Serve and Protect. One player (who also GM'd and had his own copy of To Serve and Protect) made a teen character who was the Huntsman's (Wayne Savage) niece. The Huntsman (whom we cast as Tom Selleck) was his favorite Protector and he thought the tie-in would be great for whenever I ran that adventure; I agreed.

My roommate at the time created a character with the last name Savage, had a few points of wealth, and asked for help fleshing out his background. He knew nothing about the Protectors. I created a small family tree for both of them without telling the other about the connection. (The Huntsman's wife was the sister of one of the niece character's parents, my roommate's character was the Huntsman's younger brother.) Both PCs had Secret ID and both of their character concepts involved a shape change; the niece's skin armored over in a silver metallic color, like Captain Atom. She also was "new" to the superhero scene. The brother (roommate's character) grew about a foot, sprouted wings and wore a helmet, so it wasn't like Superman/Clark Kent at all as far as super/secret ID's went.

The first adventure was getting the PCs together and then introducing them to the Protectors. When the two PCs realized that the Huntsman was related and the players realized their characters were related, we all had a good laugh. (And the other players wished they had done something like that, too.)

Re: Bows, Brace, and DCV

Thanks for that, AmadanNaBriona; I had forgotten all about that, but the video reminded me of watching a show a year or two ago that talked about other civilizations using that method. I found this video:

talking about the Huns using the same method (and this is an episode I watched). These show people holding the arrows in the same hand as the bow; I thought there was a method of holding the bow and arrows in different hands as well, but I cannot find it. Regardless, thanks for the inclusion of an alternate firing method!

Re: Justice League-type DC/Champions campaign. Advice, please.

I had the old DC RPG with that system' date=' never got to play it but it was a good read. i really loved the "trading cards" of the DC heros that came with it. Was tons of fun reading up on all those stats [/quote']I picked it up, but was never able to play it. I did enjoy reading some of the adventures and source books I have for it, though.

Re: Champions Villains Volume 4: Fan Favourites

Do you mean Lavender? As in, the bluish-purple color?

Re: Bows, Brace, and DCV

Many of the muscle powered ranged weapons such as bows and slings are built with Concentration (1/2 DCV) Limitation.

Re: Bows, Brace, and DCV

Many of the muscle powered ranged weapons such as bows and slings are built with Concentration (1/2 DCV) Limitation. Now the maneuver Brace is a 0 phase action that give +2 versus ranged penalties at the cost of halving your DCV. If I am remembering correctly the halving penalties do not stack. Would that mean you could always Brace while using a bow with no real penalty as you are already at 1/2 DCV or would you not allow Brace with such weapons as there is no real down side? Has this been covered and I'm just revealing my horrible memory?

Or I suppose another option is just to ignore the "your DCV can only be halved once" bit' date=' and allow it to continue reducing to 1/4 DCV, 1/8 DCV, and so on...[/quote']

Not that I've needed to use the rule much (and definitely not recently), but back in 4E, I think we treated it at 1/2 your (full) calculated DCV. So, if someone had a ranged attack that was Bulky, putting them at 1/2 DCV, then used something like Concentration or Braced, we had that put them at 0 DCV. Although, it's been over 10 years since I can last recall doing that, so maybe we did do 1/2, 1/4, etc.

Re: Champions Villains Volume 4: Fan Favourites

The Verdict (group)

Members: Judge, Jury and Executioner (all had NCM)

Draconian villains - every crime was punishable by death; targeted supervillains.

Judge - "I am the law." Homage to/Ripoff of Judge Dredd. Former police officer who executed a nasty criminal and then fled the force.

Jury - Homage to Silent Majority (DC Comics - I only saw him in one or two issues of Suicide Squad). Duplicated into twelve people total.

Executioner - (Leader) Death/Grim Reaper motif. Permanently Desolid. His HKA had Affects Real World.

This group was really created "back in the day" when I made some villains just for the PCs to fight, so there weren't any real backstories for the charcters (other than Judge). And the PCs only encountered them a couple or so times. But if I were to create something without deep consideration...

Adventure - A murderous villain is in downtown/ mall/ populated area and killing innocents. PCs are having a tough time. Enter the Verdict who kills the NPC villain during combat.

Adventure - A supervillain group (VIPER? DEMON?) is holding hostages demanding a ransom. PCs are with negotiators. The Verdict shows up, captures the NPC group, then executes them as the PCs enter the area.

Adventure - PCs are chasing a non-violent, supervillain thief. The Verdict shows up pronouncing a death sentence.

Adventure - A PC or NPC hero friend (or maybe a DNPC normal!) is wanted for questioning. The PCs escort said person to the police station, but the Verdict arrives, attacking first and asking questions later.

Master Plan - Kill as many supercriminals as possible? Attack Stronghold! (Executioner has teleport; can carry up to 3 others with him.)

Re: How do you feel about House Rules?

Okay I changed my mind' date=' I will play again. But I will let the players call it whatever they want. [/quote']Does that make it a house rule?

 

Possibly - Because that's what McCoy was referencing in his post about originally not getting it - Stunned has nothing to do with Stun (Characteristic), everything to do with Stun Damage. Which are different.

 

We have:

Your Stun Characteristic

How much Stun you have

Your Maximum Stun

Stun Damage done

Stun Damage taken

Are you Stunned?

 

One word, many variances. I can see how "Con Stunned" can come about in that environment.

Not to mention having your Stun Drained. "A Drain STUN will Stun a character if the Drain removes more points of STUN than he has points of CON with any one attack." (FREd, p.100)

Yeah' date=' you want to avoid being stunned, you buy more CON, not more STUN.[/quote']Reminds me of the jokes about parking in a driveway, driving on a parkway, and apartments are built together.

Re: Justice League-type DC/Champions campaign. Advice, please.

Standard is where most start. Most of the leaguers are "standard" heroes. Only a couple are mythic.

You're right of course' date=' but I can't help feel that I'd more often rather play Batman than Robin. Having just visited a thread where some of the JLA big guns were crafted at 400 points, I must say that I'm a lot more inclined to consider Standard.[/quote']Just to add my two cents to this, most "Standard" characters, using the "non-lethal" blasts, could actually put an "everyday Joe" in the hospital in one hit, if not the grave. Designed lethal (Killing) attacks would kill most normals in one hit as well.

 

But you wouldn't do that, right?

Re: How do you feel about House Rules?

Why else use a term "Con Stunned" unless you or your group confuses being Stunned with being KOed? There's really no other form of being stunned in the game... If you have a reason that I am not seeing here' date=' please enlighten me.[/quote']Because people (prime example: me) were using "CON Stunned" in place of "Stunned," not "Knocked Out." That's been reiterated. I think your frustration comes from the fact that you're using absolutes and assumptions.

 

You just proved that the "Barely Stunned" verbage is a 6e addition to the rules.

I'm not sure how I proved that, especially when I don't own any 6E material. In addition, neither of us has quoted from a rulebook using "Barely Stunned" verbiage. Your own quoting of 6E states "deeply Stunned," which came to in 5E. For someone so adamantly pedantic, I'm somewhat surprised you erred on this.

 

so this strange business of 0 to -9 Stun being Unconscious' date=' but still being able to keep track of combat (with a PER roll) was added with 4th ed. BTW in those old rules one had to Recover from being Stunned before they could start recoveries of their Stun Total.[/quote']Well, it's 0 to -10, but yes, it came about in 4th Ed (and I'm happy it did). Now, this entire 4th Ed rule you're talking about is one of my House Rules. I'm curious if that automatically qualifies me -in your opinion only, of course- of trying to be clever, being a munchkin, annoying, or making it cumbersome?

 

All of that and your last sentence makes my point.

 

I am trying to once and for all figure out where the term "Con Stunned" comes from. I am trying to rationalize that it came from gamers who somehow were confusing being Stunned with being Knocked Out.

 

All you are doing Kirby is saying that I am wrong then not giving me an alternate explanation that is any different from my Hypothesis.

Because that wasn't the issue. In essence, the topic/point was that I (and my old gaming group) interchanged Dazed, CON Stunned and Stunned. You then created the false argument that gamers were confusing Stunned with being Knocked Out. I've been asking where did you get the idea that they were confusing the two because it hadn't been mentioned prior to your interjection.

 

If you won't let this false problem go without an alternate explanations, I'll offer up one. My old group used to rotate between 2-4 GMs playing different RPGs twice a week. We played Star Wars, Star Trek, Rifts, AD&D, L5R, Deadlands, Champions, White Wolf, Top Secret, a couple others that I can't recall their names and a few I'm sure I've forgotten about or we only played once after I joined (such as Call of Cthulhu). If you can break out of the mindset that a group only thinks about that one game they're playing, you might understand how house rules come about as well as synonyms used to replace official jargon.

 

Sorry that the thread has drifted a bit. We will get back to annoying House Rules and why people use them. In some way "Con Stunned" is a house rule by itself. It's a term that certain groups use instead of the correct term that is in the RAW.

Here is another example of your absolutes and assumptions. Already' date=' House Rules are defined as annoying (an absolute statement), then you assume that "CON Stunned" is incorrect, without knowing its origin. The [i']official[/i] term is Stunned. The correct term is whatever the campaign uses.

 

Yes it does bug me. Nearly as much as when people use the terms Phase and Segment interchangeably. (don't get me started on that one please).

I find it interesting how pedantic you are regarding HERO, yet you have grammar errors in nearly every post in this thread.

 

They shouldn't be surprised that when they attend Conventions and/or get new players who use the RAW Jargon that the group specific jargon causes confusion and annoyance.

Has anyone stated they were surprised? (I may have missed it with all this fluff.)

 

Funny' date=' tracking separate wounds for most Hero groups started in 1st Edition Fantasy Hero where the Healing wasn't additive.[/quote']Interesting. The group that I first learned of Champions started playing in 4E. We came up with the AD&D separate wound method and applied it to other genres/RPGs on our own.

 

YMMV.

Re: How do you feel about House Rules?

People suggested the the term CON Stunned was coined to prevent that confusion' date=' so apparently someone was or thought someone else might be.[/quote']By people do you mean one person? I've just seen this on the previous page:

... (odds are pretty good that the group is using 'Con Stunned' because they are using 'Stunned' to mean something else' date=' like the aforementioned Knocked Out (but not really knocked out), though there's plenty of times when that's not true).[/quote']Someone speculating on a phrase's origin doesn't mean their speculation is accurate. Again, Tasha has been the only one suggesting that anyone is confusing Stunned with Knocked Out and hasn't provided anything to substantiate this point of angst. She originally quoted me (post 36) where I stated:

What Greywind stated. It [CON Stunned] is also helpful for new players learning the HERO system (when Stun, Stun Drain, and Stunned come into play).

 

Dazed is a term my old face-to-face group incorporated so long ago that I don't recall if its origin appeared during Champions or another game system.

She replied (post 38) stating:

I have been teaching new players for decades. I have never met anyone who had a problem distinguishing being Stunned from Being Knocked out.

[Emphasis mine.]

As you can clearly see, there was no mention of distinguishing being Stunned from being Knocked Out, yet her complaint persists. I pointed out this error, but she's ignored it for one reason or another, continuing to complain about this, derailing the thread from it's actual topic.

 

YMMV.

 

Kirby "I like house rules, but I don't like like them."

 

EDIT: Speculation: Maybe a group started using CON Stunned to differentiate between being stunned in Star Wars and Star Trek (where you're unconscious) and being Stunned in Champions/HERO.

Re: Justice League-type DC/Champions campaign. Advice, please.

Alternatively' date=' is there any sage advice for a new [i']Champions[/i] GM?

I would actually use the KISS method and keep it simple. With you just starting, I would say to use the 350 point character method if you have 5E, or whatever the 6E is if you have that (I think 400?).

For starting out, I would use pre-made adventures so you (hopefully) don't get stumped. Now, to get a better feel of the game, you might get your players to have one character each (again, I'd recommend pre-made) and you do combat against them with one villain per character and just do a knock-down-drag-out fight to understand combat. The noncombat skills are pretty much self-explanatory and/or understandable by reading their entry in the rules book.

Also, let your gaming companions understand that Batman wouldn't be built on the same points as Wonder Woman, who wouldn't have the same points as Superman. But in the HERO System, you can make Batman-like, Wonder Woman-like and Superman-like characters on the same amount of points so that everyone starts off the same. In Champions (5E; presumably in Champions Complete) for 6E), the superteam called Champions has Nighthawk who's based off Batman and Ironclad who's based off Superman and Kinetik who's based off the Flash (minor differences, such as Ironclad not flying). Just modify them to fit your preferences.

EDIT: Hyper-Man actually created a thread called The Classic Justice League starting members on 350 points. I haven't seen that thread in a long time, but I believe it has some (if not all) those characters in 6E form strewn about as well.

Re: DEMON: After the fall

February 29' date=' 2012 came and went -- and Luther Black, the Edomite, failed to achieve his apotheosis. So, what happened then?[/quote']My preference is to have the Crowns of Krim take over. They've work for (and against) DEMON previously and -to me- they seem the best mystic-suited powerhouses (with Dark Seraph in charge, of course) to fill the void. It might be an easier "switch" for the members of DEMON if Luther Black's true agenda was exposed. (It's been a while since I've read that plot.) If I start up a campaign again, that's probably what I'll end up doing. And if I like the plot itself, I'll have to have Captain Chronos ("Walking plot device, at your service,") instigate it.

Re: How do you feel about House Rules?

If the pedigree of CON-Stunned has been sufficiently sleuthed' date=' perhaps we could return to House Rule discussion? [/quote']Are you sure? People have differing preferences on how to have fun and there are still those who deem it necessary that the former method of fun is wrong!

 

The mention of bruising reminds me of an old house rule we used to use that began with AD&D (before the 3.0 junk came out). We started keeping track of our damage as separate wounds. The Healing/Paramedics/First Aid (whatever D&D's name for it was) rolls could be applied to each and you could bandage back 1 hp per wound. We started using this for Dark Champions, but only if you took 1 BODY from an attack; those were then considered bruises. A separate Paramedics roll could be applied to those and, if successful, that BODY would be returned to you. We eventually used it for all of our Champions games (and maybe even other RPGs), which proved very fruitful for my Golden Age character in a solo adventure, when he ended up taking his full BODY in damage over the course of a month. Most attacks caused 1 BODY, which generally were healed back, but by the time the adventure was over and he was headed back home, he was down about 4 BODY, IIRC.

Re: How do you feel about House Rules?

Ok I see now where that is coming from.

"If a character is only barely Knocked Out (down to -10 STUN), he’s not completely unconscious — in fact, it’s more like he’s deeply Stunned. Depending upon the character and the nature of the attack, he may even be on his feet, wobbly but still standing, as he tries to shake off the effects of the attack. He’s dimly aware of what’s going on around him, but is too woozy and dazed to take any action or maintain any power. He can make a PER Roll to perceive something really important, but otherwise he cannot interact with the world. He can’t move, Dodge, take any Actions, or do anything but take Recoveries."

 

Wow I thought that Steve had gotten rid of the confusing rules. That is clear as mud.

Though I don't really see how someone can get Stunned (which was covered in the previous section of the rules) mixed up with Being Unconscious. I guess Steve was giving folk a way to keep interacting with the game even though the character is Unconscious.

Re: How do you feel about House Rules?

I would think it would be more helpful for new players to learn the actual terminology of the game.

I would think the terminology people use in their own games wouldn't upset people who don't play in them. Go figure this thread disproves that. :shrug:

YMMV.

Re: How do you feel about House Rules?

Nope. If your stun Total is 0 or below you are Knocked Out.

Making sure that everyone used Knocked Out or Unconscious to describe a character at 0 or less stun also helped.

"If a character is only barely Knocked Out (down to -10 STUN), he is not completely unconscious - in fact, it's more like he's deeply Stunned. Depending upon the character and the nature of the attack, he may even be on his feet, wobbly but still standing, as he tries to shake off the effects of the attack. He's dimly aware of what's going on around him, but is too woozy and dazed to take any action or maintain any Power. He can make a PER Roll to perceive something really important, but otherwise he cannot interact with the world; he can't move, Dodge take any Actions, or do anything but take Recoveries." (FREd, p. 274)

"If he is only barely Knocked Out (down to -10 STUN), the character is aware of what is going on around him, but is too woozy to take any action or maintain any Power. The character can make a PER Roll to hear something really important, but otherwise he cannot interact with the world, is unable to move, etc. If the character has been Knocked Out further (below -10 STUN), then he cannot have any contact with the outside world - he's out cold." (BBB p. 160)

I would think that the 6E description would be consistent with those.

Re: Australian Supervillains

Double-post

Re: Australian Supervillains

Boomer might be appropriate in the Silver Age. Unfortunately' date=' in my mind it's inextricably connected with this song, which we will never mention ever again.[/quote']Six white boomers

Snow white boomers

Racing Santa Clause

Through the blazing sun

 

Six white boomers

Snow white boomers

On his Australian run

 

Heh, that's a catchy tune; I like it. I also like that at 1:02, Australia looks a bit like a controller for a game console.