esampson

Re: Supervillain Monologues

My favorite badguy monologue:

(Granted, it isn't the stuff of a four color comic, but it was still a great scene.

Re: Types of Superheroes/Villains

. . .Funny thing is that the Mutant thing became so popular in Marvel comics. That DC started their own Mutant types. Though not as persecuted as Marvel's Mutants. . .

That's because DC tried alternately making aliens and then android as the persecuted minority (so that they wouldn't be viewed as copying Marvel's idea). DC doesn't even like using the words 'mutant' or 'mutation' which is why they have the 'metagene'.

Re: [New Product] Champions Complete

So....CC comes out and the world ends?

Re: The Good and Bad about Marvel and DC

The only person that stays dead is Barry Allen.

Oh, wait.....

Re: Comparing STR for HtH vs. DCs

What you want to try and be aware of is the damage from attacks that the person will be 'routinely' throwing. In the case of a character with an offensive strike this will often be utilizing the offensive strike but depending on how many levels the character has and their base OCV and DCV you probably wouldn't have to worry about them dumping all of their combat levels into DCs.

As an example, if a character has an OCV and DCV of 8 and 4 levels (combat or just HtH levels) I would probably not assume that they would be using the levels to add damage to their Offensive Strike. Given the OCV penalty and smaller DCV bonus (as opposed to Martial Strike) I would imagine most of the time those levels would be used for OCV and DCV. On the other hand if the character has 6 additional levels in Offensive Strike then I would definitely be considering those 4 levels being used to increase damage.

Similarly, a normal brick probably won't be doing Move Throughs or Haymakers all that much because of the inherent drawbacks on those attacks and you shouldn't worry about them as part of the cap while on the other hand with a brick who has purchased an extra 48m of running, 6 levels in Move Through, and an extra 30 PD which only applies against their own Move Through damage then yes, you definitely need to consider their Move Through damage.

Re: Comparing STR for HtH vs. DCs

. . .So if the campaign cap is 13 DCs' date=' everyone has to take 4 DC from Haymaker, subtract that from 13, and no attack can exceed 9DCs. . .[/quote']

Haymaker isn't a martial arts maneuver. Most people I know don't figure Haymaker into the DC limits. On the other hand they would figure Offensive Strike into the limits since it is far easier to use Offensive Strike than it is to use Haymaker. The same thing tends to happen with Move Throughs which will usually push the attack of a brick over the DC limit by a few points since it isn't likely to be something they will use a lot. On the other hand a character who is clearly designed for Move Throughs will usually be limited to the DC cap of the game.

 

I'm also thinking that a hard cap of say 13 DCs and 65 APs makes it advantageous to have one 13 DC attack at full power, but also have a 10d6 attack at 1/2 Endurance too. (Do folks count Endurance Reduction in Active Points? I'd be inclined too, for just this reason, but I couldn't find in the rules if it said specifically.)

Endurance Reduction absolutely is part of your active points. Active points is simply Base Cost * (1 + Advantages) and Reduced Endurance is an Advantage.

 

The bigger issue tends to be whether or not Reduced Endurance affects the DC of the attack. In 6e they do not affect it in the RAW because only advantages that "directly affect how the victim takes damage" affect the DCs (6e2 pg. 97) and despite the "Golden Rule" most GMs I know probably would not count it as increasing the DCs (but your mileage may always vary).

 

Same deal with CV. If you have martial dodge, you just subtract your +5 DCV from the campaign max. Which gives you a lower DCV the rest of the time. If you don't have Martial Dodge, you can actually be better than the Martial Artist at not being hit, most of the time. This also feels unsatisfying to me, at least.

That's assuming the campaign's DCV limit is the limit after a maneuver. Some GMs set that as the limit before a maneuver. Of course that can lead to its own problems since someone can take lots of levels with Dodge and that will break things.

 

In the end I'm not a huge fan of campaign maxima for exactly these reasons. I think a GM is much better off providing an 'average range' for the campaign and then just evaluating the characters on a character by character basis. This tends to lead to much more interesting concepts like 'Glass Cannons' (which are usually viewed as a bad thing but when well done can be fun to play), 'Scrappers', and 'Armor Plated Golf Balls'.

Re: Comparing STR for HtH vs. DCs

Is that really worth a 1/2 limitation though?. . .

I think it's still worth a 1/2 limitation. It affects your ability to lift things which in turn can affect what you're able to use as a weapon (which can cost you such things as the ability to use a lamppost for extra reach or using large objects for bonuses). It can also affect how far you can throw things (and people) and your ability to use your strength to resist being knocked back or shoved around.

Remember that Strength has the same active cost and endurance cost as Blast even though it doesn't have the range of Blast and you don't see people talking about purchasing Blast - No Range as a substitute for Strength (although you use to see it as a way to represent a weapon before the Hand Attack power was created).

Basically, there's a lot more to strength than just doing damage.

. . .Plus I don't count maneuvers as part of CV caps, so martial arts is a good way to boost yourself beyond the cap. . .

That's probably a mistake, IMO. I think most GMs don't allow martial arts to exceed the cap.

. . .If the AP cap is 60 points, for example, should STR + DCs total less than 12 dice? Maybe limit to 10 dice or something, for that example. . .Does anyone hold DCs and AP to the same number? In a 75 AP point campaign, do you normally cap DCs at 15 or some lessor value? And does that DC cap affect all attacks or just martial arts? Do you allow a huge 15 dice attack if you're willing to pay full End cost?

I think most campaigns tend to have the same limit for martial arts as any other attack. I hesitate to say that in a 75 AP campaign you would have a 15 DC limit because I've seen campaigns where the AP limit is separate from the DC limit (so you can't have any power that has an active cost higher than, say, 90, but the damage cap of 14 DCs mean you can't have any attacks with an active cost higher than 70).

Re: hex graph

I would personally go with 1" hexes that represent 2 meters each. That gives you a scale pretty close to most miniatures and commercially produced maps.

Re: Energy Names Required

. . .

1. A 'brick' whose strength and resilience relies on soaking up electrical force - either from his comrades' energy blasts or household current.

. . .

5. An energy source who can't actually 'fire' energy blasts without a home-made rifle - an electrical version of Pulson.

. . .

Well, I don't know about the other three characters but the names of these two seem to write themselves;

Assault and Battery

Re: [New Product] Champions Complete

Really? You want to try raiding a place of business run by a man who shot a book just to see if it would stop the bullet? Your funeral. :-)

The truth is he shot a book in Reno just to watch it die.

Re: And Now for Something Slightly Different: Mis-Spelled and Reimagined Supers

The Red Tomato: Android with power over vegetables (or are they fruits?)

Re: And Now for Something Slightly Different: Mis-Spelled and Reimagined Supers

Supermane: Alien visitor from another planet who gains incredible hair under our planet's yellow sun.

Re: The Serpent's Crown

I'm not really all that convinced that it would be necessary to build the Serpent Crown as an AI. I think you could probably replicate the effects of thee crown just fine as a focus and psychological limitations.

Re: World with superheroes - Only one power set?

A lot of it probably depends upon the 'flavor' of the game you are trying to run. On one end you could easily go with the 'standard' super set of flight, super strength, and invulnerability (and optionally they might all have some form of energy projection). Heroes and villains both dress up in colorful costumes, use code names, and most probably maintain some form of secret identity.

On the opposite end of the spectrum you've got people who are a bit faster, stronger, and tougher than normal humans (30 str isn't that uncommon and some might even reach 40, PD and ED in the 10-15 range with possibly a few points being resistant, etc.). Another possibility would be that everyone has mental powers (telepathy, mental blast, mental illusions, mind control, etc.). In such a campaign people might maintain secret identities and wear costumes similar to a street level Champions campaign or they might not even do that behaving more like the characters of Alphas and relying upon the general ignorance of humanity at large to allow them to hide among society.

Re: World with superheroes - Only one power set?

All of the Wild Cards were based on TK.

CES

A lot of them were but hardly all of them. Brain Trust, Dead Head, Demise, Digger Downs, Envoy, the Jumpers, Kid Dinosaur, Popinjay, Puppetman, Roulette, Ti Malice, and Wraith are all examples of Aces that didn't exhibit any form of telekinesis. Croyd and Mark Meadows might sometimes exhibit TK but that wasn't really the basis of their Ace ability.

Re: Fox is dead: The Dragon

. . .Generally speaking unified power should not be applied to slots in a multipower' date=' if the multipower itself is drained then all slots are unuseable anyway as they are all bought as fixed slots. . .[/quote']

You can't drain a multipower. Drain has to target a power or characteristic. Multipower is a framework and so is not a valid target.

Re: And Now for Something Slightly Different: Mis-Spelled and Reimagined Supers

Obnoxious Prime: He's the leader of the Autobots. He's a 40' tall robot with a massive gun, an energy sword capable of slicing through steel like butter, and is able to transform himself into an 18 wheeler truck, and he's not going to let anyone forget it.

Optimist Prime: He doesn't waste his time battling the Decepticons because he's sure things will work out just fine in the end.

Optometrist Prime: He handles the vision plan for the Autobot's health insurance.

Re: And Now for Something Slightly Different: Mis-Spelled and Reimagined Supers

Optimus Prim: This 40' tall robot is armed with a massive gun, an energy sword capable of slicing through steel like butter, and is able to transform itself into an 18 wheeler truck. Quite possibly one of the most feared warriors on the planet if he didn't talk like C3PO.

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

Watchmen was a great work because it illustrated what could be done by breaking free of the old formulas.

The people who tried to use it to form new formulas completely missed the point.

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

. . .The Comedian and Rorshach had seen the darkness of humanity for so long that they became brutal killers. Rorshach in trying to punish crime and prevent injustice' date=' the Comedian because he believed everything was pointless and fake anyway. There was no good in the world so why pretend any different?. . .[/quote']

Actually, that was one of the things that I found sort of interesting. Some people knock Watchmen and say that no one in it is a hero, but I'm not sure that's true. Dan and Laurie, who are our surrogates, are fairly heroic all the way to the end. True, they don't expose Veidt's plan, but would that have been the heroic thing to do? They tried to stop it and failed. Exposing it after that wouldn't bring anyone back and it would have lead to the annihilation of Earth (at least according to 'the world's smartest man').

 

Rorschach gets swallowed up by the darkness like you said, but he starts out fundamentally damaged. Watchmen doesn't say that anyone who tries to be a hero will become a brutal killer because of all the darkness they will have to face (as Dan and Laurie escape that fate) but it does say that there is a danger it could happen, and for the story that's a good thing, because what's the point of a hero who doesn't have dangers to overcome?

 

The Comedian on the other hand is rotten from the start. He doesn't really descend very much at all. I think in his case all that really happens is he finds he doesn't need to hide what a rotten S.O.B. he is.

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

My bad then. I think that the Watchmen characters weren't meant to be used again. Once The Watchmen ended their story was told.

They weren't meant to be used again. As I understand it Moore is pretty pissed about it (although he gets that way a lot).

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

You're mistaken. The Charleton characters were kept more or less intact' date=' with only adjustments being made to bring them into the DCU.[/quote']

Ok. Then I just misunderstood your point. I agree that most of the adjustments that were made were fairly minor either to bring them into the DCU or else to update some slightly antiquated concepts.

Re: Thoughts on new "house rule"

You should also probably houserule things like no Megascale and No Range Modifiers only in limited circumstances (such as a missile which can correct itself in flight).

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

I don't think so. Tasha seemed to be implying that making the Watchmen prevented DC from using the Charlton characters.

I think Greywind's point (though I could be mistaken) was that even though they released the Charlton characters under their original guises they changed the characters to make them more like their Watchmen counterparts.

I don't think that is particularly true, however, if that was his point. Blue Beetle was very light-hearted when it was released. He was an acrobatic martial artist who quipped in combat and his 'BB gun' used a strobe to blind and disorient his foes (upgraded fairly early to fire a compressed air blast).

The Question was certainly darker, but then he was a rather grim figure back in the Silver Age when Charlton was printing him as well. In fact while the tone of the Question comic might have been a bit darker than what Charlton had produces the character himself was probably a little less of a "dark avenger" than how Ditko originally envisioned him.

Captain Atom was also largely unchanged in personality. His backstory was re-written a little to increase the 'tragedy' aspects of the character (accused of a crime he didn't commit as opposed to accidentally trapped in an exploding rocket) but he was still basically a hero with uber-man level abilities.

I think most of the changes initially done to the Charlton characters were probably just things to bring them up to more current standards. While in the Silver Age nobody thought twice about how a technician could accidentally be trapped in a rocket and launched into space such a storyline just wasn't as acceptable in the mid-80's when people would wonder why there wasn't a huge button marked 'ABORT'. Beyond that, however, the characters really kept a lot of their 'core'.

Re: A DC Animated-style HeroMachine

 

Escrima

 

Member of the Central Counsel of the Red Scorpion Faction

Those are tonfa she is armed with. Escrima uses yantok which are just basically just straight pieces of rattan (although sometimes other woods are used and modern yantok might be constructed from metal or impact plastics)