esampson

Quite definitely it is a 'style' issue.

Switching opponents would work if the KS was limited to an individual, but in the example being given they were able cram the KS for the entire group. I would also point out that the proposed limitation isn't 'must make a KS roll' but simply 'must possess the KS'. It's one of those funny edge cases, really. Yes, it is a limitation but the question is how often does the limitation apply? Limitations that apply too rarely don't count (power does not work during vernal equinoxes that coincide with a full moon mean that there is a brief period about once every 30 years where the power won't work, so that's not even a -1/4). If the agents are able to successfully cram the entire group for the vast majority of fights then again, it isn't really a limitation. On the other hand, yes, if cramming is limited to individuals and the ability can be circumvented just by switching targets then it is a fairly substantial limitation. Likewise the cramming could extend to the entire group but since the GM assumes there's hero groups in the city beyond the PCs maybe the agents are only able to use it in 2 fights out of 3, at which point it is definitely a valid limitation as well. It's just something that I saw and that set off warning flags. Again, it really doesn't matter anyway since agents don't technically have any point restrictions. The bigger problem is that if the players find out that the agents they are fighting are tough despite being built on a certain point total because they feel that the GM is doing something shady it can sour the relationship between GMs and players. Ask yourself how you would feel if you were playing and you found out that the agents all had a -2 limitation on their equipment 'Only to affect the PCs'. The GM could argue that this is a substantial limitation since it means that their gear is useless against 99.9999999% of the population but I'll bet you would still feel that the GM was 'cheating', all of which is completely unnecessary since if the GM wants to give the agents gear that is somehow designed to specifically target the PCs he could just have them pay the full cost for it and then handle the 'Only against PCs' limitation through roleplay. I can almost guarantee that the players will be much more accepting of a 45 point '18d6 OAF Gun' that only affects the PCs because it was built using some special process that allows it to better target the PCs than a 15 point version of the same that has been loaded up with 'non-limiting limitations' (It only affects the PCs, it only works on one day out of the week, which is of course the day the agents attack, etc.)

I think a lot of the complaints about 'being captured' tend to stem from the feeling of being railroaded. I have been absolutely guilty of the sin of railroading myself in many forms over the years and it has taken me a long time to understand why it is so dreadful. I even ran a number of sessions in which I wanted to recreate something very similar to the earlier mentioned Island of Dr. Apocalypse Saker from the first half dozen issues of the Elementals and at the time I couldn't understand why my players were being so recalcitrant. I've got this great story idea. Go with it. It will be fun. I honestly did not see what the problem was. Fast forward thirty years and it finally clicks (it takes me a while, but I'll get there). What we do when we have a game session is that we collaboratively tell a story.; all of us. The GM, the dice, and the players are all part of that process. When a GM 'railroads' a storyline what they are doing is eliminating (or at least greatly reducing) their player's participation in that storyline. They take the player's ability to influence the actions of their characters and remove that from them in any meaningful way. I've been captured because the GM has a storyline that requires me to be captured. Even though I trust my GM and know that I will not remain captured the truth of the matter is that with most storylines that start out this way there will be no real chance to escape until the pre-designated 'escape scene' in the story which will most likely involve a specific method that the GM has determined in advance. Some GMs are more flexible and won't have a pre-designated 'escape scene' with an approved escape method, but most GMs who are good enough to do that will also probably not railroad me into being captured in the first place. They will present a more reasonable scene and if I avoid be captured then we go off to do something else. So in what is suppose to be a cooperative medium I am captured without any real input, I am held prisoner without any real influence on the storyline, and I escape because that's what the script has called for. I might as well just hand my sheet over to the GM and let him write up my exciting adventure so I can read how I was able to find the weakness in the prison and successfully escape. I don't really need to be here for any of this, do I? Yes, I am overexagerrating a bit, but it is to illustrate the point. In a cooperative storytelling excercise there are probably few sins greater than removing the ability of your players to participate in the process. Unfortunately in the case of most 'Prisoner' scenarios that is done to an extreme degree, and I am not referring to the fact that as a prisoner a player has limited control over their actions. I am referring to the entire process, from being captured to being held to eventual escape.

While I agree that agents shouldn't be built with lots of levels simply to screw over the hero this isn't what I (at least) am referring to. When you are putting agents onto the field they should be there for a reason, and by that I am not simply referring to them being there for an 'in game' reason. Running a bunch of agents/thugs means that the GM is pushing around an awful lot of 'pieces' in relation to the heroes. At the very least you are usually looking at about 2 1/2 agents for every hero and quite possibly more. When it becomes the agent's phase (and that happens pretty quickly since combats start on phase 12) you're looking at things slowing down a fair chunk for the players while the GM has to decide what to do for each agent, roll to hit, and quite possibly roll damage. Additionally there's all the bookkeeping that needs to be done for each agent to keep track of their stun, endurance, and any ammo they might have used (and I'm assuming you're playing in a campaign where you aren't having to really worry about the body of the agents). Given that a lot of the time agents will have similar but not identical stats and you are really looking at a modest amount of work on the part of the GM to keep track of things. So why do this if they are simply there to be steamrollered with ease by the players every single time? If I want my players to feel good about themselves I have lots of ways to do this that won't require so much effort or have the negative aspects of 'combat boredom' (that feeling that occurs when you are waiting for your turn to do something but all the action is occuring between other players and NPCs). For the most part agents exist for the same reason that NPC villains exist; to challenge the heroes. They shouldn't exist for the purpose of kicking in the hero's teeth (and if I gave the impression that's what I was suggesting be done with agents then I apologize) but by the same token they shouldn't just be there to be a barely perceptible speed bump to the heroes. It's just too much work running a group of them for that to happen and I think that most players will grow bored playing a game where they constantly win with ease over their opponents. Try running a game sometime where all the opponents are 40 point talented normals and you never have more than a 1 to 1 ration of opponents to characters and where there are no obstacles to counter the players' overwhelming advantage and see how long people enjoy it. So with that said, agents need to provide (or increase in the case of agents supporting a villain) the challenge that players deal with. They shouldn't generally be deployed to 'smash the heroes' because that's not the goal (and if that is your goal as a GM you're doing something wrong. You've got all the power so there's no challenge in 'smashing the heroes'. Just throw Dr. Destroyer, Dark Seraph, and Mechanon at them all at once. Won't that be fun?) but to challenge the heroes they still need to be effective. Even more than that they need to be effective within a certain 'build style'. It's easy to challenge the players by throwing and equal number of 400 point characters at them built with similar defenses, similar CVs, and similar DCs, but those aren't 'agents'. So the question is 'how do you make NPCs who shouldn't be as skillful as a well trained character, who do less damage than most characters, and who have lower defenses than your average PC and make them interesting?'. For my group that occasionally requires shaking things up. The rare occasion where the Masked Marauder tries to burst in on the Alleged Perpetrators and finds out that not all gangs are equal means that the next time he has to take down a gang he will put a bit more thought into it than 'jump through window and start hitting people until they give up' and that will make the subsequent encounters between him and gang members much more interesting.

Interesting idea, though not quite how I would do it (I've actually used a somewhat similar concept in the past except that rather than being a super-villain training thugs it was an organization). To be 'fair' the limitation 'only vs Targets you have a KS of (KS: The Sentinals, etc...)' shouldn't be worth very many points since the NPCs have Cramming and I assume that in the majority of cases they will have already 'crammed' for the proper heroes. That's a case of one of those 'non-limiting limitations' (or slightly limiting since you might occasionally have them fail to cram for one character or another for some reason). Those are also probably some fairly pricey adders onto the agents. Granted in both cases you are talking about NPCs who don't really need to be point balanced, so in the end it doesn't really matter, but giving agents and thugs 'expensive' abilities or allowing them to apply limitations that players wouldn't really be allowed to take (although in the case of a player the limitation is more valid since a lot of the time a player won't know who to 'cram' for) just seems a little off to me. In my case I just applied some packages to the people who had been trained. Thugs turning out to have teamwork, a few extra levels, and some basic martial arts manuevers would often throw the heroes off their stride, and then there was usually the intangible benefits of the training. Usually when I would GM regular thugs they would fight in a fairly straight-forward 'dumb' style. If they had a range weapon, they used it. If they didn't they would move straight towards the hero and attack. The thugs who had been trained, on the other hand, would take advantage of cover, try and surround the heroes so they could get bonuses for attacking from behind, would be more likely to concentrate their attacks on a hero (especially if the hero was a 'weak link' and there was good reason to believe that attacking said hero would throw the remaining heroes off balance as they protected the other person) and would generally fight much smarter. Depending on your game even regular thugs can provide concerns for a hero when they 'fight smart'. It's one thing when you smash into the garage of the Alleged Perpetrators street gang and they all rush you. It is another when it turns out that they always keep a couple of guys stationed in the rafters with low-light goggles and hunting rifles (loaded with armor piercing bullets) and you discover that they've covered the window that you just jumped through with a couple of claymores (it can even be downright embarassing when you discover that those grimy windows you planned to jump through were actually bulletproof glass). Of course your mileage may vary on this. If you are running 'Spider-man' style campaigns then well trained thugs with a plan can be a nightmare (if used sparringly. If thugs are like that all the time then the players will be ready for them). On the other hand if you are running a 'Thor' style of campaign than the best a well trained group of thugs can reasonably hope for is embarassing the hero by making it look like it's his fault when the warehouse explodes. Hidden snipers, bulletproof glass, and claymore mines to that kind of character won't really do anything other than cause him to blink in surprise.

I'm guessing he means he use to do that in earlier editions, before there was Restrainable.

Remember that your agents are there for a job and that job is almost certainly not to fight the hero. By this I don't mean that they aren't prepared to fight the hero. I just mean that there objective is almost never to engage a hero head on. Usually agents are either there to steal something (or someone), provide extra firepower for some villain, or delay the hero while the villain does something. In the first example it only takes a few agents to grab something (or someone) and make off with it. The rest of the agents should be using delaying tactics. When a hero tries to attack them they should block, dodge, or dive for cover as needed. Sure, they lose their next action, but it doesn't matter because they just caused the hero to use theirs (and all their buddies can still shoot). If the block or dodge succeeds thats an entire extra action that the hero has to take and when there's a ticking clock those actions are important. Most agents should probably have some martial arts skills. Not necessarily karate or kung-fu but just commando training style of martial arts. Spend 1 point so they can use it with their gun (not shooting but using the stock of the gun to strike, using the body to block, etc.) You're talking a +2 OCV and DCV bonus when they block. Even better, if they have Martial Strike then against a hero who has closed with them they will probably be attacking for around 8 dice of damage (Figuring 3d6 for Strength, +3d6 for using a rifle as a club, and +2d6 for Martial Strike) with a +2 to their DCV. Coming from an agent that's nothing to sneeze at. (One note; you should build the gun with a +3d6 HA since this isn't just an improvised weapon. Stick it in a multipower and it will probably cost 1 or 2 points). In the second case have them widely spread out all over the place. This will give them overlapping fields of fire, protect them against AoEs, and cause problems for the hero since they have to spend time moving to each one. Have them set and brace, use scopes (PSL through a focus with a limitation that the user must set and/or brace), and take cover. A normal agent's DCV isn't that great so halving usually takes it from about a 5 to a 3. They lose two points but then can usually gain around 3/4 cover which is a -4 to OCV, so they are 2 points ahead. They should also be causing their opponent to take range penalties (unless the hero has some PSLs themself). With a rifle instead of a pistol (2 PSLs against range), Bracing (+2 OCV to offset range penalties), and a scope (another +2 PSLs only when set and/or braced) they can be shooting at a hero who is 60 meters away and their OCV will actually be a point higher than normal (+1 for set). It's going to take some time for most heroes to close that distance during which they are being attacked by the villain and the other agents. This brings up one other point. Properly equip your agents. Don't just give them an 8d6 OAF blaster. If it's a rifle give it a few PSLs through the focus because rifles have better accuracy over distance than a pistol. Buy it a scope (more PSLs with additional limitations). On the other hand if the agents are going to need to be in close because their job is to delay give them carbines. 7d6 autofire, OCV bonus when using autofire to represent those extra bullets flying about, replace the scope with a laser scope (another OCV bonus) and give the gun the 'butt-strike' ability. Since their job is to slow down the hero give them flash grenades (and equip them with some flash defense) and smoke grenades (bonus points if they can see through the smoke). This isn't even really 'super-gear'. This is all more or less what you might expect to see mundane paramilitary type people using. If you want to get fancier you can give them entangle grenades. Sure, the effect of the entangle will be fairly low but it is fairly easy for low OCV agents to hit higher DCV heroes with them and unless they are so weak that the hero breaks out with casual strength they will drop the targets DCV and can quite likely cost them an action as they have to break out. If you want to be really mean to your heroes have the agents 'juice'. Half damage reduction PD and ED, only verses stun, fragile focus with 1 continuing charge that lasts several turns. Throw in a bit of extra presence with a limitation that it is only for defense. You would be surprised at how cheap that becomes, especially if you add in some side-effects when the drugs wear off. You end up with agents who are feeling no pain or fear. However they still take the same body they would so the heroes won't be free to absolutely unload on them with massive attacks (not as helpful in a campaign where the 'heroes' are unconcerned with how much injury they cause to agents, but in a more four-colored campaign it can definitely have an effect).

This wasn't really meant to be a post about foci but simply about how the amount of information you might want to put into something like Champions Complete will always be insufficient and will need expansion, usually to the point where it is unwieldly for the more 'casual' use. As for the editors, yes, there job would be to examine a work and compare it to the core rules to make sure the rules are consistent between authors. However if the greater level of detail isn't recorded somewhere then even the editors will not be in full agreement. Is the Pendant of Isis OIF? It appears that it needs to be exposed and obvious for it to work, yet it can be worn underneath clothing and when seen can be easily believed to be a piece of jewelery (if perhaps a bit gaudy). Very easy for one editor to rule one way and another to rule another without a more lengthy explanation of precisely what Obvious means. And once that information is written down it should probably be made available to authors creating products because while the editors are suppose to catch errors it would still reduce headaches if the authors knew the exact rules they were writing for rather than the general rules they were writing for.

This is why I think a better setup would be to ensure that all rules are compatible with some core system and then the core system could be published separately, much like the Big Blue Books. The core system wouldn't be necessary at all for play but it would be available for people who need more detail on the finer points of a power. Does OIF mean that the focus has to be obvious even when it isn't performing its function? Does it mean that it has to be obviously performing the function? These questions could make a big difference in whether an armored costume is OIF or IIF. Is it OIF if I can wear it under street clothes? Does that mean that if it functions (e.g. if I am shot) that it then becomes obvious because of torn clothing? When I am fully garbed in my costume and I am shot is it immediately obvious to everyone that it was my costume protecting me and not my natural toughness? When I am fully garbed is it immediately obvious to people that my costume is armored? While the answers to these questions might seem to be immediately clear there still is a fair degree of room for people to argue interpretations. An awful lot of Spider-Man's enemies have armored costumes that would be usually construed as OIF yet they are pretty typically able to hide the fact they are wearing such costumes beneath a trench coat and hat. Naturally there are always going to be issues with the translation of comics to rules. Is this one of them? Maybe a trenchcoat is just a focus for a Naked Advantage (or whatever the new term is) that changes the OIF costume to an IIF costume. While putting all of this detail into the Champions Complete book would be prohibitive (because it's not just this detail, but it is the same level for every power, advantage, limitation, etc.) due both to the cost of printing as well as bloating the book and making it unwieldy for new players (they generally wouldn't be as concerned with all the subtle nuances of whether a focus is Obvious or Inobvious and could get around the trenchcoat problem with general hand waving) I think a lot of us die-hard grognards would love to delve into it. Admittedly, sales for such a thing may not have a huge demand but with PDFs and with Print on Demand coming of age that becomes less of a problem. In fact given that such a system might need semi-constant revision as new questions are raised and answered a PDF subscription service might be a better way to go for such a set of rules (You pay $50 and for the next year you can download the latest revision to the Core Rules any time you want). Even if the core system is never published it would be very useful for making sure that different authors maintain compatibility. It would prevent issues such as one author making the armored costume of his bad guy IIF since he is able to conceal it beneath a trench coat while another author uses the mechanism of an OIF costume with a separate Trench Coat focus that makes it IIF.

That's great, and honestly, I think it is a good direction to go. I personally feel like the 'best' design would be for a core rule system to be developed with each individual genre book built off of those core rules (such as how Champions Complete and Fantasy Hero Complete are being done). The 'core rule system' is referenced by anyone designing a new genre book and compatibility is encouraged (if not mandated). This results in stand alone genre books that are compatible with one another rather than the sort of hodge-podge that existed back with Danger International, Fantasy Hero, and Champions 3e. A genre book like Champions Complete might not include hit locations, bleeding, incapacitating, and other various optional rules that are usually not appropriate to the setting resulting in a book that is more streamlined for people first getting into the system. The 'core rules' could be published, much like the 6e books are published, to provide greater depth to people who want to dig into the system and tweak their games, although that is hardly a requirement (either for people to purchase or for Hero Games to sell). The problem is that right now things such as Steve Long's earlier statement makes it unclear as to exactly what the 'official' rules are. I had been thinking that Champions Complete was meant to supercede the big blue books but then when I heard that I was uncertain until your post. Adding in the fact that Hero Designer needs to be upgraded to CC and people coming in might wonder if they've bought the wrong book. That sort of lack of clarity is not a good thing in the long run.

I think more to the point, players don't pay for equipment that they aqcuire. Find the Quarterstaff of Wu Pass* and it doesn't cost anything. It was an acquirred item. Pay for it with gold you've obtained through other methods (including Wealth) and it doesn't cost you anything since it is acquirred. On the other hand if you start off the game with it then you pay some points for it, just like the character who starts off Wealthy does. Why does the guy who starts with an item pay points when the guy who finds the item doesn't? For the same reason that the guy who starts with Wealth pays points while the guy who finds a chest of coins doesn't. You're spending points for the early advantage. TANSTAAFL. Creating items is a bit trickier because generally you wouldn't charge a character any points to make a normal sword, assuming they have the blacksmith skill. The problem is that if you use the same approach towards magical items you will end up with characters grinding out huge amounts of magical items. Making the creator shell out points is the common solution but there are others (rare ingredients for instance). There are also 'fusion' solutions (rare ingredients may be required on items over a certain cost, rare ingredients might reduce the cost, or lack of rare ingredients might increase the cost). *Wu Pass was one of four strategic mountain passes along the southern border of the ancient state of Qin. The temple located within the pass would teach the monks the art of Wu Pass.

Actually, the killing attack stun modifier is one area that the hit location chart 'breaks down', but it doesn't do it in the way that you think. When you roll 3d6 your average stun multipler is 2.87 (when you account for the differing probabilities for various locations). This is in contrast to the 2.67 that you would normally get using the older 1d6-1 method or the 2 you would get using the newer 1/2d6 method.. That's about a 7% improvement in stun over the old method and a 44% improvement over the new 1/2d6 method. On the other hand when you are using a 'high shot' the average damage is 3.53, a 32% improvement over the old method, 77% improvement over the new method, and a 23% improvement over the 3d6 hit location chart. So yes, you are playing a little bit of a lottery when you make high shots with a short weapon but it is definitely one that pays off. Yes, you will hit hands and arms a lot while you are doing that which wouldn't make sense if the person was simply standing there but in a fight people tend to raise their hands up. Depending on what's being done the hands are usually at a level between the bottoms of the ribs and the face and typically out in front of the body, so I don't think all those hits on the hands are that unexpected. Sure, there are plenty of stances that will not put the hands and arms in those positions but the majority will and unless you want to add to the complication of the system by creating different hit location charts based on stances I think this is about the best we can hope for.

You could do that, but really you would probably lose more than you would gain. In theory the chart should do three things (at least IMO). The first is that it should provide somewhat accurate percentages to hit various locations. As the chart currently stands there odds for different body parts are as follows. Head: 4.6%, Hands: 4.6%, Arms: 16.7%, Shoulders: 11.6%, Chest: 25%, Stomach: 11.6%, Vitals: 9.7%, Thigh: 6.9%, Legs: 7.4%, Feet: 1.9%. Are these odds close enough to provide a reasonable simulation? Honestly, I'd probably like to see some adjustments but let's leave that for now. Unfortunately using a 3D6 system you are going to be pretty constrained to how close you can get (although I suspect with a bit of mathematical modeling I could get a lot closer). The second thing the chart should do is not be a detriment or an advantage over not using the chart, damage wise. A lot of people are complaining that there are too many x1/2 areas that you end up doing less damage using this chart. If you take the odds of hitting each location, multiply it by the stun modifier, and then total them up you will get 99.95%. The missing .05% is actually a rounding error and the truth of the matter is that the total is exactly 100%. I've got no idea how they were able to work that out so precisely. I think it is probably a combination of luck and probably one of the reasons that the odds of hitting a given location are a bit skewed. If I were to rework things into a more 'correct' model for probability I doubt I could hit exactly 100% like they originally did here. The last thing that the hit location chart needs to do is cluster appropriate body parts together. This way if someone is standing behind a low wall when they get hit you can roll 2d6+1 instead of 3d6 and avoid hit locations that shouldn't happen since they were covered (incidentally, it should be noted that when you roll 2d6+1 for hit location, a free option when you are using a short weapon, the damage is also 100%). Unfortunately any kind of modification to the chart to put the 'bad locations' at one end and the 'good locations' at the other would destroy this.

True, there were other uses of Independent beyond magic items. My real point, though, was that in the past there was an extra point break for a magical item over 'an ability that requires an item' to reflect the greater limitations (it had to be the specific item and those points could be permanently lost).

If they aren't worrying about it they really should be. Fighter types in heavy armor (chainmail or better) will probably suffer from some sort of serious stun based effect (being stunned or being knocked unconcious) long before their body becomes an issue in your average fight. Over time accumulated body could become an issue but it is really not very expensive for someone to have a fairly potent 'out of combat' (incantations, gestures, full concentration, foci, and extra time) healing effect that can be used to heal up the fighters between battles.