Corsair

The Superman of my youth (silver age) is so ridiculously off the scale that it isn't a contest. But honestly, that's a bad character. More recent versions would have Superman unwisely getting into a fistfight with the Hulk, which would be to the Hulk's advantage. If Superman gets away in time, then he realizes he must use mobility, speed, and his various other super powers. The Hulk in turn does so much carnage that Superman would have to spend his entire time protecting innocent bystanders. Hulk leaps away, Superman pursues belatedly, and is misdirected by the rather frazzled looking bystander, who is,of course, Bruce Banner. Banner decides to carry some Kryptonite for the next encounter because otherwise Superman will out-think the Hulk the next time. For Batman, the trick is getting past the shield, which is basically super-powered. Does his utility equipment accomplish that? Stun? Shield. Batarang? Dodges. Gas? Holds his breath to the peak of human ability and moves out of the gas cloud. If Cap is still holding his shield when they get to melee range, Batman loses. Neutralize all gear and Cap eventually,if narrowly, wears him down (perfect beats as perfect as one can get without quite being perfect). Batman says the heck with this and escapes (smoke grenade). He then reads about the campaigns of Trajan vs. the Dacians and applies the lesson by spending a few million dollars coming up with Anti-Captain America gear, and wins round two. The gear is promptly forgotten about for the next issue.

Chrome growth is always an issue as the fanatics want more and everyone else finds it tedious. Star Fleet Battles killed itself by the designers only listening to the fanatics. Champions? There are bits and pieces meant to cover gaps, but it seems very much the same system now as it did decades ago. It's an involved character creation process, that you can keep easy, or create an intimidating wall of data with. My advice is just stick to simpler designs if you don't like walls of data. Or reduce the amount of points to make more focused heroes. I'm experimenting with 350 point characters rather than 400 for 6th Edition, and I might well take it down to 300 (young superheroes suggestion). Better to let the players start small and grow into it, and then let them do a new/additional character later on with more points. Simpler systems are - simpler. You simply can't capture the subtleties that Champions can - you are giving that up for ease of play. I didn't really see Mutants and Masterminds as all that simpler, and at least I understood Champions from past use.

Silver age for me. The whole DC revival of superheroes in the late fifties and early sixties, and then them being blown completely out of the water with the neighborhood kids when we discovered Marvel in early 1963. I suppose the campaign I'm developing borrows a little bit of this and that from several eras, but tries not to overdose on any.

Hardened, reflec, AND stain resistant! But overall, I'm with Edna: No capes!

Steve Ditko era Spider-Man. John Byrne era X-Men. Legion of Superheroes honorable mention (way back in Adventure Comics). Magneto. No qualifiers. :-)

It depends on the nature of the campaign. Gritty, underworld, counter-culture "heroes", and no holds barred. Bright shining super-hero utopia with government sanctioning to non-lethal groups and even the villains tend to keep the gentlemen's agreement to be civilized. And then there was the odd campaign where the unwritten rule was to stymie the GM with laid-back heroes who thought of powers as something to have a good time with. Fight villains? Why? You just get bloody and dirty.

I suppose I noticed this more for Cyclops than Havoc, but basically, the writers would cheat. Cyclop's beam would rip through most anything, unless it was in the writer's interest to make it more of a concussive blast. I don't recall it being any artifact of his visor (he'd raise his glasses and get the concussive effect when it suited the situation), but in the intervening years since I first started reading X-Men (issue #1 - no, reboots don't count) and now, someone could well have retrofitted an explanation onto the problem.

My apologies - this is just a bit too cryptic for me to decipher. A thread started by Gestalt (Scott) Bennie? On page 26 of this forum? Which there isn't at the moment (ones on page 25 and 27 don't seem to apply). Thread title? Or did you really mean Gesalt, which returns nothing on a search.

Thanks, that was helpful. Pretty much I have to design a few characters to see what works.

Thanks all for the comments. As to Hero Designer: don't have it and it isn't in the budget for a while (still paying off car repair bills). Not looking to be argued into 70 active point cap - more for appropriate levels/starting character points for other stats based on an initial 50 active point cap.

Looking in the book, this would actually be somewhere between "standard" (400 + 75) and "high-powered" ("Nation's greatest super-heroes", 500 + 75). Conceptually, they're not going to be even the region's greatest super-heroes (that's something for them to aspire to long range). The low-powered "youthful superheroes" of 300 + 60 would be more likely fitting. I'll design some test characters around that and see how they turn out, and adjust from there. 70 active points seems like rather a lot to me. 50 is more what I'm aiming for initially. I rather doubt I'll have to prompt the group to get non-combat skills, but I'll probably recommend a range to them

Haven't played Champions in a long time (if my little buddy (Scott) Bennie is around reading this, you were the GM here in SoCal, that's how long ago it was), and never actually ran Champions (ran original edition Fantasy Hero). So, I'm looking at these 400 point characters and scratching my head as to what happened to 250 point starters. Honestly the latter is the power level I'm happy starting my group at, but if I can get advice on what the various levels for active points, offense, defense, physical defense, energy defense and the like for either point total start and perhaps suggested soft/hard caps, I'd be grateful. My intent is to have an initial hard cap, and then move it to soft immediately after character design. 6th edition (Champions Complete).

Returning to this much later, I had "Dealer Dollars" sitting in my pocket at one of the Strategicons here in SoCal, and finally stumbled across Champions Complete. And my role-playing group said, "Superheroes? Well, sure if it is Champions!" So, a happy ending.

Re: [New Product] Champions Complete But did you stay inside the lines?

Re: Classic Super Hero Teams

Re: [New Product] Champions Complete And here I just noted in another thread how I simply wasn't going to pay $110 dollars to have the two part 6th edition and Champions. And hey, how's my little buddy Bennie? Haven't seen you in a long, long time. Back in Canada? (and yes, keeping the mask on) ;-)

Re: Classic Super Hero Teams Since I was referring to the first issue, no, they hadn't. At least not in relation to the Justice League of America (I suppose I just gave away that I ain't exactly young anymore). But I doubt if I would get those other marine creatures as ultimate villains, either. ;-)

Re: Classic Super Hero Teams The whole giant starfish that threatened the world mystified me as a kid. The trick was always to find a creditable challenge for the "world's greatest super-heroes". They tended to have some gimmick that the heroes had to figure out - but that was DC at the time. But a giant starfish? Still don't get it.

Re: Current Champions or will 4th Edition suffice? Thanks for the info on Champions Complete - sounds exactly what I want without busting the budget.

Re: The Good and Bad about Marvel and DC For Marvel, it was breaking the standard super hero conventions. The hero was human, who might inadvertently wash his white tights with his red cape by accident and end up mortified by having to go out in public with a pink uniform. They didn't necessarily have a secret identity. They might not get along with each other. They might not be appreciated by the public despite their selfless acts of valor. These were all huge shocks and changes in their day.

Re: Destruction of public property, and dealing with the aftermath 1. Rich character pays for the damages, while kissing babies and glad-handing the gawkers like a good political. 2. Underground group kind of melts away and is weakly pursued by lawyers, or strongly pursued by hired bounty hunters. 3. Government sanctioned group has the government pay for it all (expected collateral damage), unless it gets too far out of hand, in which case they get yelled at a lot. If I am feeling ornery, they lose their government sanction for a while (see 2 above). 4. Group patches everything up as best they can, and hopes for the best (usually see 2 above, but maybe they saved someone and they are both grateful and insured) 5. Insurance company gets annoyed and group is strongly pursued by high-powered lawyers and/or hired supers, or groups trying to protect their government sanction. 6. Group makes sure they pay their Super Group Insurance policy premium (see 1 above).

Re: Current Champions or will 4th Edition suffice? Thanks for all the replies - it helped me sort out the various options, which just appeared confusing before. I simply got the Heroes Basic set for the moment ($15 because I know the right people). Basically, I wanted it to come in cheap for now for initial planning, and can expand later if I happen to feel like it and have it compatible as possible with the latest and greatest.

Re: Current Champions or will 4th Edition suffice? I guess that would be my second question - any particular reason to go with 5th edition, and I am simply confused by the basic edition and advanced players edition and their value/completeness/or just don't bother with the crippled version factor. I have Mutants and Masterminds, but so far I think I prefer the Champions model (which I used to play somewhere around 3rd edition, also Fantasy Hero).

Not that I can find 6th edition, but this is about pure economics. I mean, $80 for the core rules, and then $30 more for Champions genre - is it really worth $110 rather than just pick up a used copy of 4th edition for $10-20? Edit in: I got some mysterious notification as to where 4th edition could be found for that price, and then the notification equally mysteriously vaporized and never seemed to have a way to reply, but to answer the question and hope the asker stumbles upon my answe here: $10-20 locally in SoCal, depending on condition, but it's also on Amazon (used) for $20 and up. I also see 5th edition (non-revised but hardback) for $20 and up on Amazon. As I see it, 4th edition has the Champions specific material with it, and the 5th or 6th Basic, while I can find for roughly the same price and a generation or two later, don't have the Champions specific material and thus the price skyrockets to get that material. Though I see vague references in various threads to a character generator compatible with 5th and 6th edition...?