gmurie

Re: What do you look for in Con Pregens as a player? @Killer Shrike Thanks, that's all good advice. I like the newbie/intermediate/advanced suggestion. I tend to get carried away with frameworks, advantages, and disadvantages too much. I should add some simplistic characters for newbs. I really like the munchkin bait idea. @ Arkham So would those character outlines I wrote give you a hook if fleshed out enough?

Re: Minuteman Prime - Need some robot building help Cool! I hadn't thought of that. That's a good approach.

Re: Minuteman Prime - Need some robot building help

I'd like to run a game at a con, and I remember one striking thing from the rare occasions when I played in various Champions games (or tried to). The pregens tended to stink out loud, or rather I never found exactly what I was looking for in a character. I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm a unashamed brute in games. I'm the guy who smashes down the doors, kills the monsters, and pillages the treasure while the rest of the group dithers about whether the door was oak or pine, and whether that meant it was trapped. I look for bricks and I never find them in con pregens, or I find some weak kneed energy projector with a strength boosting slot in his MPP ultra'ed against his flight so I don't even get the joy of suicidal move throughs. So I know what I'd look for in the pregens I need to provide (melee oriented ass-kickers) what is it that YOU look for? So far I've got the following (no capes! It's specific to the plot.): Officer John Patterson - A brawler with Spiderman strength and wolverine regeneration plus beat cop equipment and skills. Martial arts with an emphasis on grabs, disarms, and takedowns. Joe Sideways - A precog/postcog who's potential future selves talk to him. He's also got some telepathic gifts/curses that give him some utility for knocking people's perceptions out of whack. He's central to the plot, but can be used "off screen" so he doesn't steal anyone's thunder. DJ Dischord - a non-hero ex-petty crook with sonic powers, an attitude, and a kid to care for. He scrapes by doing endorsments and minor stunts for small businesses. Stanley Case - Got Growth/DI powers in an industrial accident. Union man, and an "independent contractor" that uses his powers to help on big construction sites where using normal equipment might be too hazardous. Milton Freely - Engineering school dropout with power armor or gadgets and mechempath powers. Had to drop out because he was "cheating" on his final project by use of that power.

I'm doing this for a convention game, and this is the big badguy for the end battle. The idea is this: Genocide has been having some problems with their Minuteman robots getting trashed by their prey all the time. They need a weapons upgrade, and they need something that can cope with mutant powers. Warlord just so happens to sell high tech weapons, so he sells them some gear and a rogue VIPER scientist sets them up with a "Replication Matrix" stolen from a VIPER lab. What they end up with is Minuteman Prime, which can stuff unconscious mutants into storage chambers in its torso. The mutants become comatose, and so long as they're trapped the Minuteman Prime has access to all their powers (Cosmic MPP with a whopper of a limited use) and its characteristics lift to the highest of all their scores (CHA bonus with the limit "Only as high as the highest value of any captive mutant.) I'm thinking a Minor Transform of "Unconscious or incapacitated mutant into comatose captive" is at least part of the way that I want to do this, but I also want to have some mechanical way of representing that the captives can be torn out so the Minuteman can have its powers gradually stripped away. Entangle doesn't seem quite right, but even if it is the correct approach I'm not sure how to do it mechanically.

Re: IK Hero? OK, some further thoughts... ARM and damage capacity have to be munged into one calculation. Otherwise you get all sorts of oddness, since most of the warriors, even the most elite like the Stormguard are only one wound. Most of the warcasters have fifteen or more damage points, and warjacks can absorb twenty or more damage points. One wound warriors: ARM:11 or less is pathetic. Look at it hard and it dies. ARM:12 is low average. Grunt troops with light armor. ARM:13 is high average. Tougher warriors with medium armor. ARM:14 is pretty good. Tough warriors with better than average armor. ARM:15 is getting damn tough. Heavily armored knights in serricsteel plate. ARM:16 is getting inhuman, like the undead Bane Knights ARM:17 is way above average, regenerating trollkin warriors and steam armor. ARM:18 is nearly immune to average attacks of POW:10 like rifles. ARM:19+ is virtually untouchable by typical attacks. You have to get pounded on by warjacks, and even then there's a chance of survival... Use the ARM value for CON, and at the higher levels feel free to add a few to several points. For BODY subtract 4 from ARM to get BODY, and again feel free to add a few points at the higher levels as seems apropriate. STUN should just be calculated. For resistant defense devide ARM by two and subtract a few points at the lower end of the scale.

Re: IK Hero? Well OK, if you want what I think would be a more accurate translation of the Warmachine stats here we go. Remember that the models in Warmachine are elite, and even the least warrior is at least 5th level in D&D terms. There's also a lot of abstraction in a minis game that creates blank spots that have to be filled in SPD:4 is really slow. Like painfully slow. A move of 4" to 6" and SPD:2-3 SPD:5 is average or touch below. A move of 5" to 7" and SPD:2-3 SPD:6 is a touch above average. A move 6" to 9" and SPD:3-4 SPD:7 is super fast. A move of at least 9" and SPD:4 SPD:8 or more would be superhuman and qualify for SPD:5 STR:3 or less is weak as a kitten. STR:5 STR:4 is averagish. STR:8-10 STR:5 is slightly above average: STR:10-12 STR:6 is a bit above average: STR:13-15 STR:7 is getting quite a lot above average: STR:15-18 STR:8 is getting a bit above human norms: STR: 20-23 STR:9 is past normal humans: STR:25 STR:10 is smallest of the heavy warjacks: STR:28-30 STR:11 is just about the strongest thing in WM: STR: 35 STR:12 is the Khadoran heavies, which can pick up six ton robots and throw them some distance: STR:40 For DEX and combat values I worked up a formula that should work for most WM models and accurately reflect how agile and skilled they are: 1) Take MAT, RAT, and (DEF-8). Average the three numbers and that's the model's base CV. Give it a DEX that'll give it that CV, going high or low based on your feel for the model. 2) For each point above the CV you got that the model's MAT is give it a combat level with its melee weapons. 3) For each point above the CV you got that the model's RAT is give it a combat level with its ranged weapons. 4) For each point above the CV you got that the model's (DEF-8) is give it a generic combat level. Example: Allistair Caine is MAT:5, RAT:8, and DEF:17. Subtracting eight from DEF:17 and averaging the three I get a CV of seven. That's DEX:20, and because he's RAT:8 give him a level with his pistols and because his DEF-8 is nine he gets two combat levels. ARM I'm a little weak on. This is totally abstract by the standards of RPGs. Most warriors that get so much as looked at funny by a warcaster or warjack die horribly and quickly. Usually in large numbers. At a guess I'd say use half of the base ARM value as total non-resistant defense, and ARM-10 is the amount of that that should be resistant. You'd also have to derive CON, BOD, and STUN from a combination of ARM and damage points. Though warcasters have a thing called a power field that's more like an Ablative Force Field that they can recharge, and warjacks are like automatons that lose functions when they take damage. Models of five damage points or less are in the human norm, and few models other than warcasters or warjacks can absorb more than ten damage points which can be bought as their steam armor foci or whatever. Focus I'd use as a rule of thumb for a MPP for the warcaster's spells with fifteen active points for each point of focus. Make each spell low enough in active points cost to allow the warcaster to cast two or three at a time.

Re: IK Hero? No need to get all in a snit. I didn't intend any insult. If you must work from Warmachine might I suggest starting with the warrior units and solos then? Start with the Long Gunners, Mechanithralls, and Winter Guard. It is a tabletop miniatures game. Not really ideal for translation into an RPG. That's why Privateer doesn't bother keeping the rules of Warmachine in sync with their d20 Iron Kingdoms setting. You'd also be denying a lot of the flavor from the IKCG (Iron Kingdoms Campaign Guide) which of course I know quite intimately from my work trying to cram it into PCGEN. Just for example humanity is divvied up into about a dozen or more ethnic groups. Each representable by its own package deal. What would be very nice with Hero is that the Hero games system would be better set up for Mechanika. The rules in the Liber Mechanika rulebook that they've jammed into the d20 system are ideal for translation to Hero. Any time someone tries to create some elaborate system of complex maths for generating objects of power into d20 Hero trumps it. Hero's just better for creating stuff like Steam Armor and Mechanikal servants.

Re: IK Hero? @ Killer Shrike I think you're WAY off. I don't think you can accurately derive Champions stats from WM stats. If you are going to try, I'd suggest that you work from DEF as the base dexterity, and use MAT and RAT as indications of combat levels. DEF = DEX (or thereabouts) Each point of MAT or RAT over three is a combat level. Caine would be DEX:17 (I'd even jump him up to 18 or more) and have five combat levels with his guns. Off the top of my head Caine should be: STR:13 DEX:18 CON:15 BOD:10 INT:13 EGO:14 PRE:20 COM:20 PD:6 ED:4 SPD:5 REC:8 END:50 STN:35 He'd also have hundreds of points in powers, skills and perks. Especially in perks if you're going to pay for his warjacks as followers. His guns alone work out as a two separate RKAs with Autofire x2 each doing at least 2d6 damage. If you must start with warjacks I'd structure their rules like this: Give each warjack an END reserve and a limitation that it can't do much more than make a full move or half move and take a standard attack with its primary weapon. To do anything fancier it must spend END from the END reserve. Warcasters get AID to the end reserves of their bonded warjacks. People with the Jack Marshal Skill purchase a "power" that's a skill that just gives a few points to the warjacks end reserve. ******* My advice remains this though: Go through the IKCG and create Hero versions of each thing you find in order through the book. Ignore the rules structure of the d20 or Warmachine systems. Focus on the art and the gameworld, and I'd seriously suggest creating a magic system from scratch rather than aping the d20 or Warmachine magic systems, which contradict each other anyway. If you must work from a game system, work from the d20 version, because it's a role playing product and not a tabletop game system. I can give you author rights on my website, http://www.battlecollege.com if you want to post your content there.

Re: IK Hero? I'm just a teensy bit of an IK/Warmachine player (check the sig), and I've been into Champions since the first edition waaaaayyyy back in 1987. Here's what I suggest. Do what Privateer did with Warmachine and their d20 rules. Both systems use the same gameworld, but they're not connected by any rules structure at all. So for a Hero version just use the gameworld info from Warmachine and the IK books and create something from scratch that captures the feel of the world. Another point. Warcasters are 20th level or more in d20 terms. These are people who could smack around a Champions superhero, leave alone a Fantasy Hero character. With the cost of all their followers and perks factored in they'd be in the 500+ points range. It'd be better to leave people of that level of power as NPCs who the players will never even meet except maybe out of combat situations.

Re: The thing's I've learned playing a Brick... A brick without at least 17" of some movement power is deprived. Yes. There is some cheesy application of math here. A Brick with 17" of movement gets a 9" half move, and gets +6d6 on move throughs and +3d6 on move bys. If you add to that: +60 STR, Casual STR Only, 0 END and: 10" KB resistance, Only to resist Move own Through/By KB. you get the Juggernaut. The GM'd be within his/her rights to limit your STR though...

I have a few ideas for characters, but all of them require that I replicate Duplication inside the Duplicates. Is it possible to create a Duplication power that has 64 duplicates, and then give that power to the duplicates as well. Is it OK if the maximum number of duplicates is still 64? I had two character notions in mind. First was Agent Smith. Each of his duplicates has something like BODY drain and the ability to duplicate, and each of his duplicates can also do the BODY drain and create duplicates from the people that he drained. The other was a Triggered Duplication. The trigger being the death of the original, and each duplicate is created in turn as the previous one is killed.

This is an article for D&D villians, but the information is just as good for Champions Villians.

Re: Sharing the Campaign ideas you can't use... yet Bioarmor Teen Champions Inspired by one of my favorite games, Cybergeneration. This is a teen champions game. You provide the players with some templates of popular teen stereotypes (Goth, Jock, Geek, Motorhead, Burnout, Honors Student, etc...) and have them build 0 point characters. These would be exceptional kids in one respect or another. Most teens, lets be honest here, are -25 point characters. Lots of mental limits with no skills or perks to balance them. Have the players play out a session where they are chosen to go on a wilderness retreat together. Get them lost, have them run into wild animals, then on the next session.... The kids wake up lost in the wilderness, and they have the sense that some time has passed, and they're not where they went to sleep. They're all bruised, scraped up and cut. Parties unknown have implanted them with "Guyver-like" bio armor. Aliens? Dr. Destroyer? Viper? Rogue elements of UNTIL or PRIMUS? Unknown! But small contingients of all these agencies and more appear to collect the characters and get into a fracas over them. As they dodge blaster fire their powers manifest. The fun is that you as the GM choose the powers. This was the fun of Cybergeneration, and believe it or not the players were often thrilled by it. THey had no idea what powers they got, so the Jock ended up as a Mentalist, and the nerd ended up as a Brick. They often found creative ways to use their powers that you'd never imagine. So character construction goes thusly: 1. Players build 0 point teens 2. You tack 200 points "Bioarmor" powers and disads onto them. 3. The players get to add another 20 points powers and skills of their own choice over the next three play sessions as they choose what they want to do with their new powers. 50 points from limits and base cost and 10 points experience. There! Now maybe that will stop ricocheting around in my skull!

Re: Passing the Torch Power That was the one. If ever there were a Champions character that deserved to be made into a comic book that was it. It was just so damn cool. The charge has to be recoverable, because if the "Torchbearer" fails to transform someone then he has to get the charge back so he can have another shot at passing the power on. The side effect would eliminate the Transform along with all the other powers and limitations.

This is a common one in comics. The set of powers that pass on from one person to another. There was a character like this in 3rd ed Dark Champions that I thought was incredibly cool. The "character" was a suit called Vengance if I remember rightly. It copied the skills and memories of each person that wore it, and acted on the vengeful impulses of each person. Anyhoo, here's the power so I can keep it from pingponging around in my head: 6d6 Major Transform into the "Torchbearer" (90 Active points), Healed by transformee Transforming someone else, All or Nothing(-1/2), Limited Target - Unpowered Human (-1/2), No Range (-1/2), 1 Charge (-2), Side Effect - Loses all "Torchbearer" powers and limitations if victim successfully transformed(-2) Real Cost: 14 points or less Optional Limitations - Gradual Effect - No Concious Control This is of course a power for NPCs, but it gives you something in the stats to show to rules lawyers. Mostly I did this because my brain hates me.

Re: Help With Gadget Idea/Design Force Wall 0PD 0ED Xpts Mental Defense, only vs. tech-based mental powers(-1), Opaque to hearing and radio (+15 points). It'd be pretty expensive though.

Re: "Mostly Harmless" powers 10-20 Active points of anything can provide more interest than you might imagine. My favorite for non-heros was always slightly boosted defenses and various life supports.2d6 of Drain is nothing to a hero, but for norms it's pretty huge. One of my player's character's only real powers was LS: Doesn't Age and some light regeneration. The other 230 points was all in wealth, base, followers, and skills. He was one of the most effective characters in the game just because he was always the "go to guy". Plots couldn't progress without him, because he was the only one with any serious skills or connections. Of course that was twenty years back when Champs characters were base 250 points.

Re: Hero Challenge, make up stats for my mini Here's another picture that's a bit better.

I just got done with a minatures painting challenge called the "Chick Challenge" and one of the models I submitted is a superhero mini that my wife dubbed "Amber Alert" (bad I know, blame her not me). For fun I tried making up Hero stats and a history for it, but most of what I came up with was pretty lame. I challenge you forum members to come up with something better. I'm curious to see what people will come up with.

Re: Finally Picked up Heroes 5th and Champions... I'm also impressed. I'm glad they were able to get Aaron Alliston on the Champions book. There are blights on the books just like any others though. Hero 5th: There are weird printing errors in my copy of the book. On some entries there are missing lines in the transition from one column to the next. Champions: The random hero generator sucks. There was a better one way back in third ed I believe, but it took up a lot more page space.

Re: Need help with a new power idea So far the slickest way to do it that involves the least amount of accounting and fooling around is the MP. Downside is that primary stats bought through MP automatically don't affect figured stats. IIRC you can't have an EC or VPP Char affect figured stats either. Here's three versions... Either you buy a modest MP and have average stats, or buy the stats down to "cripple" level and use a bigger MP to provide the stats. The limited boosts to PD, ED, and SPD assume a standard supers limit on defences and SPD. The Easy way 50 50 Point MPP 7 (m) +50 STR; Doesn't affect figured stats(-1/2) 7 (m) +16 DEX; Doesn't affect figured stats(-1/2) 7 (m) +25 CON; Doesn't affect figured stats(-1/2) 4 (m) +20 PD 4 (m) +20 ED 6 (m) +3 SPD 10 (m) +20 REC The Hard Way (simulating the addition of figured stats). NOTE: You can game legally get the full benefits of the stat increase in the multipower, but the stats must be lower because you have to pay active points for all those individual stats. I think getting the stats as a -1/2 disad is fair. 50 50 Point MPP 7 (m) +25 STR; Doesn't affect figured stats(-1/2), must use in 5 pt increments(-); Total Active points 50, 10 Active points per 5STR +5 PD; Linked to STR, must use 1PD per 5STR(-1/2) +5 REC; Linked to STR, must use 1REC per 5STR(-1/2) +10 STUN; Linked to STR, must use 2STUN per 5STR(-1/2) 5 (m) +10DEX; Doesn't affect figured stats(-1/2) +1 SPD; Only if full 10DEX added, and then MUST be used (-1/2) Total is 40 Active points at full power. 8 (m) +10 CON; Doesn't affect figured stats(-1/2), must use in 5 point increments(-); Total Active points 40, 20 Active points per 5CON +2 ED; Linked to CON, must use 1ED per 5CON(-1/2) +2 REC; Linked to CON, must use 1REC per 5CON(-1/2) +20 END; Linked to CON, must use 10END per 5CON(-1/2) +4 STN; Linked to CON, must use 2STN per 5CON(-1/2) The VPP of doing it. This assumes that you want to change stats in combat. If you want to represent taking time out to meditate between combats or adventures change the Advantages on the Control. Some GMs might allow that Characteristics only is a -1. As noted in the mighty tome, you need special permission from the GM to do it this way because it can be obscenely powerful. 100 100 point Variable Power Pool 71 Control on Pool (50 Active Points) Limited Class of powers (Characteristics; -1/2), No more than 50 Active points to any CHA (-1/4), Half Phase Action(+1/2), Requires no skill roll(+1)

Re: Power Help: Killer Bee! Bee Poison: Usually a NND Drain, RKA, or EB that only kicks in if the HKA does BOD damage. That would be a -3/4 to -1 disad in most cases in a supers game. From the sound of it you'd buy it with the "Does BOD" advantage because the intent is to kill. A Delayed Continuous effect so it does it's damage every five minutes is also possible. Pollen Ball: I'd do it as a one hex AOE continuous uncontrolled NND vs full body covering or at least 10 pts resistant PD. Again, having the attack do BOD would not be inapropriate.. Buy it with duration charges to represent the pollen rubbing off and the bees losing interest. Now that I've thought it through it's a pretty nasty power.

Re: Biotechnological Villain Assistance Needed Well Since you mentioned it... Cost: 20 Summon 300 point creatures(60 Active Points) OAF(Grenade; -1) 4 Charges(-1) BIOHORROR Characteristics: Should be brickish with a fairly high DEX and SPD, and it should be created with the Automaton rules so it never gets stunned or mind controlled and only suffers BOD damage. Powers: Growth that starts at 0 and increases by one level per phase automatically after it's summoning. Then once it's reached it's maximum size it goes down one level each phase until it goes back to zero. Armor to keep it around and a few other oddments like HKA and stretching linked to it's level or Growth to suit your tastes. Disadvantages: Psych: Mindless Killing Machine. Phys: Dies when it's growth returns to zero. Vuln: Double BOD from Fire. A couple other non-social Disads to Suit. Skills, Talents or Perks: Don't be silly!

Re: Biotechnological Villain Assistance Needed For a Variable Power Pool? Living Armor if you're an anime fan. Armor, Life Support, regeneration, and some stats bought with a Limit that they give him 25 points of distinctive features as a 1/2 limitation instead of a Foci. Master Villians need a cheesy way to escape death. "Hah, you never anticipated feature X of my bioarmor!" Slave Collars. Biotech critters like Puppeteers that do a continuous "Obey Lord Biomaster" Mind Control based on CON at a reasonably weak level. Maybe not enough to take over PCs, but enough to take over DNPCs... I'd look to GW's Tyranids for some more weaponlike things. Among which are: *BioCannon that fires a pod that explodes into a giant killer plant. *Extra Limbs with slashing blades *"Flesh Hooks" - Barbs on the end of silly strings providing clinging, RKA, and Stretching all in one. *Various flavors of "living gun" that shoot acid, toxins, or spores. He can't be a master villian without Mooks. His mooks would obviously be kitted out with unsavory looking symbiots that make them stronger, faster, and dumber than normal. This would be outside the VPP, but it occured to me, so I had to mention it. Bio Grenades that release some sort of quick growing mindlessly violent biohorror. Like Marvin the Martian's Instant Martians, but a lot less funny. For a doomsday device a Megascaled AOE NND or Drain to represent a "biointerference generator" or a really cheesy variant of Sticky Drain and/or Mind Control would be excellent.