MitchellS

Re: Double The Hero Excitement!

(they are playing a d20 Supers game' date=' so maybe they have, but still).[/quote']

Just, fyi, M&M isn't a d20 superhero game. It's an ogl superhero game. The open gaming license doesn't disappear when 4e comes out. It stays around forever and all the companies currently doing ogl games will continue to do so [steve Kenson has said as much about M&M on this very forum]. Also, fyi, I'd estimate that about 1/4 of the posters on the think tank are former/current Champs players [steve Perrin, Dave Mattingly, Sketchpad, Death Tribble, Victim, Slaughter, Worldmaker to name but a few] and there are often threads about things like converting between the games one way or the other so it's not as though M&M players have never heard of Champs or Hero.

Re: Comic Book powers that don't work as well in gaming

You can build a perfectly viable Time Stop power or power suite in Hero; the balancing act just takes place at the campaign level rather than the system level.

True, but you and I are not Nexus, who feels the powers he listed are problematic and require fiat in superhero games. The fact that you and I feel differently about it then he does doesn't change the fact of how he feels about it. So while he might feel it's a fiat issue for Hero you and I can see it as nothing more then a design challenge [and for some games, like M&M, it's as common as water and not even a design challenge].

Re: Comic Book powers that don't work as well in gaming

As to experience in other systems' date=' I've played almost every super hero system I've run into over the last 28+ years, and GMed many of them. A fair number of Fantasy, Sci Fi, Horror and "Universal" systems as well. I try not to assume that the person I'm talking to has a less varied background.[/quote']

My impression of Nexus' post was that he was talking about superhero games in general, not just Champs. I was addressing Nexus' original point, in part, where he states "Mainly, these are powers that require pure fiat..." My response was that in some game systems [and I used M&M as the example] they're nothing more then game mechanics which require no fiat at all; they're common and ordinary and that the issue is more about your experience with dealing with it then anything else. How much background Nexus has had no bearing on what I felt was an inaccurate statement about superhero games in general.

Re: Comic Book powers that don't work as well in gaming

There is a forum for Mutants and Masterminds you know. Go there if you feel compelled to talk up the competition to the kind host of the forum you ARE posting on.

My point above was that the commonality or problems caused by certain powers [as in the original list Nexus provided] are really based on the game system you're playing and your gaming experience with various systems. The problems aren't universal to all game systems [each game system will have its own problems].

For example, if you've only ever played Champions in your life then the concept of an auto-hit power can seem quite alien to you because Hero doesn't really have one [and only added AE Accurate with 5e]. M&M has well over a dozen auto-hit powers and auto-hitting is nothing more then an advantage you can add to any power. If you've always gamed with auto-hit then you don't really see it as a problem with people having it. If you've never gamed with auto-hit it can seem quite daunting to you when someone wants it. It's more about individual gaming experiences then saying X is a problem in superhero games.

Re: Comic Book powers that don't work as well in gaming

I personally haven't had any problems with any of the powers you've listed above. Basically every example power you listed is a power in M&M that anyone could buy so they are seen much more often in my M&M games then they probably are in a standard Champs game. The real issue to me is the interaction between the players and gm. Some gms really hate to lose, and some players really hate to lose, so you end up with gms who craft detailed enoounters to defeat the players and players who are always looking for the easy win. I try to stress genre over just winning and losing. The superhero genre's one of the few where you constantly have the same reoccuring foes so the definitive win or loss isn't as important as the story itself, IMO. Generally the interesting foes are going to find ways to work around your 'ultimate' power so while your time stop might work once or twice eventually your rogue's gallery is going to find a way around it. That's what makes fights against all the absolute heroes interesting.

Re: Conversion of M&M Archetypes as HDC files

Off topic' date=' but I have found Multiform, of clairsentience to work better as Astral Projection than the duplication that is the "official" way[/quote']

M&M's version of astral form is, in fact, a type of clairsentience called esp.

Re: Conversion of M&M Archetypes as HDC files

Your preferences are well-known.

My game system preferences have no bearing on how each system's rules work. As I showed above, speed has no bearing on time penalties. I was working with in the Hero rules.

Fortunately, the average player isn't nearly as picky.

I thought the stated purpose of the templates were to try and convert M&M players to Champions. As an M&M player going from flying 500 mph to flying 60 mph will take some getting used to, but's probably livable. Going from being able to do mundane things superquick [10x faster then everyone else] to doing them normally is probably livable too. Going from being able to bounce tank shells to, at times, taking stun damage from 2d6 rka bullets will be much harder to swallow. Going from being able to crush tanks and military submarines into a ball in a single round to not being able to crush a chevy caprice into a ball in 1 phase is a big change that many non-picky people might sqawk at.

If you don't like it, don't use it. Or better yet, step up and offer something of your own.

That's a valid argument. Of course I had no intention of using it. I was just curious how it was being used. If I feel like putting the time into it I might offer up some 350 pt examples of my own.

Re: Conversion of M&M Archetypes as HDC files

Movement speed may not' date=' but DEX and SPD do. A SPD 6 char can clean, type (though that doesn't help with writer's block), and disassemble three times faster than a SPD 2 character.[/quote']

Those actions aren't based off of speed. Those actions are based on a preset time the GM determines they take, and you can then take a penalty to your skill roll to try and do them faster: It takes you 5 min to defuse the bomb, 30 minutes to clean your room, 1 hour to write your report [a high dex and speed would be pointless if you can't think fast enough to write the report in less then an hour].

 

Plus, with a higher DEX roll, the Paragon can take a penalty to do the job quicker and still do it as well as the normal person. It may not be a full 10x as fast, but it's fast enough that it shouldn't make a difference to anyone except the most nitpicky of players.

Saying a character should have a higher characteristic solely for potential time penalty rolls seems stupid to me. Ideally quickness in M&M should be simulated with penalty skill levels for time related actions. It shouldn't be simulated with more dex and speed as listed above because those things have no bearing on the time the GM will assign for those actions. If it takes 5 min to defuse a bomb it doesn't matter if the 6 speed or the 4 speed character is doing it. What matters is which one has the higher roll and which one can take the bigger time penalty.

 

I don't feel the archetype example I've seen above accurately represents the M&M character it states it is emulating. The Hero character above is just a brick named "paragon" but has little resemblance to the M&M archetype of the same name, IMO.

Re: Conversion of M&M Archetypes as HDC files

Again' date=' that's a rather subtle distinction for most players. 30/30 Defenses will bounce all normal bullets, and even AP bullets aren't gong to do BODY through halved defenses. Yes, it may cause a fair amount of STUN (depending on the power of the attack and how the GM handles the STUN multiplier), but that's a difference between how the two systems handle lethal and nonlethal damage.[/quote']

Lethal and non-lethal have no bearing on what I was talking about. Champs characters seldom take body. What's more important is the distinction about how much stun you take. Harden allows you to often take less and is more in line with what impervious is in M&M [a pale shadow of impervious but still closer to concept the damage resistance].

 

 

The posted character can actually do things 10x quicker than a normal person. Compare a SPD 2 character with a 3 CV and 6" of running versus a SPD 6 character with a 10 OCV (easily handling the multiple move-by penalties) and 15" of Flight. The Paragon moves almost 10" as fast, and can take out 10 thugs in the time that a SPD 2 character can take out 1. It's just a matter of explaining the relevant HERO maneuver to the player.

Combat and movement was not what I was referring to. In M&M the paragon could clean his house 10x faster then an average person or hero. He could type his story times times faster then the average person or hero. He could disassemble a car 10x faster then the average person or hero, etc. A character's speed has no bearing on how long it takes to do a timed job.

Re: Conversion of M&M Archetypes as HDC files

If you were referring to a specific character in a campaign world' date=' that might be true. But you should be able to carry over the general feel of the archetype on 350 points. You may not have the [i']exact [/i]powers, but it will have the same feel (superstrong, supertough, can fly, etc). Which, if you want to introduce an M&M player to HERO, is precisely the point.

If all you are wanting are base archetypes then Champions already provides them [as well as a random character generator]. If you're trying to bring M&M players to Champs then the archetypes should, at least, be similar in design rather just in spirit, IMO. Otherwise the M&M player's going to ask why his M&M character can fly 500 mph as a full move while his Champs character's flying 60 mph, why the Champs character doesn't have harden defenses, why the Champs character can't do things 10x quicker then a normal person, etc. Themes are fine. I was just under the impression that the files were more about converting M&M to Hero then just converting themes.

Re: Free Super Stuff

Most of the stuff I've done for M&M was just M&M I have a few things that I personally made' date=' but they were freebies in posts rather than through any companies But if anyone has any questions on the stuff I've done, please feel free to ask [/quote']

That's my mistake. I was thinking about some of the other things you'd done for both systems such as New York Eden.

Re: Conversion of M&M Archetypes as HDC files

At first glance' date=' the characters look a bit tough for standard 350-point supers, though it may just be personal taste.[/quote']

Based on the paragon example I'd say that gmurie is creating archetypes of the same name but there's not a lot of similarity with what you're seeing in the M&M character [it's not a conversion]. There's nothing in the Hero build to account for many of the M&M character's skills or various powers.

 

Having played the two games I also can't justify the idea that PL 10 equates to 350 point characters. I'd say that PL 10 is much closer to 500 point characters then 350 pointers just on how the characters relate to their world.

Re: Free Super Stuff

There's some fun stuff in there. I'd guess the Hero Hooks would be the most useful and least mechanical of all of the pdfs there for Hero players [it's not linked to any one game system]. I think at least 1, maybe 2, of the adventures there were done by Sketchpad so you can probably find the Hero version of them by searching this forum.

Re: Conversion of M&M Archetypes as HDC files

Soonish' date=' sure. But some of the archetypes are LOT easier to use with Hero Designer. It really is the best $25 you'll ever spend.[/quote']

I'll echo name-tamer's question as well since I also don't have or use HD3. I'm curious to see what you've come up with, as I have my own versions [though for the opposite reason ].

Re: Conversion of M&M Archetypes as HDC files

Well, the only thing that comes close are power limiters. I have yet to see anything recognizable as a disadvantage as we know them in any D20/OGL variant. Of course, I'm not really looking.

 

and Yes, I am aware of the potential irony of the statement.

Most of what you'd call roleplaying disadvantages are called complications in M&M. This covers hunted, psych lims, dnpcs, etc. Complications earn you the hero points used during play. M&M also has a drawback system for the disads which have a game mechanics use such as vulnerabilities, susceptibilities, accidental change, etc. Those two things make up what a Hero player would call disads.

Re: Max Human attributes in Street level vs full Superheroic scales

Telepathy and Retrocognition, nice build.

 

I didn't have any trouble figuring out the normal people had a 10 dex and a 2 speed even without Champs 2e, and I even managed to work out that thugs were, for the most part, normal people. Figuring stats up from that accordingly didn't take a whole lot a brains and realizing that heroes didn't need a 23 dex 5 speed to deal with a mess of normal thugs could have been worked out with experience but I've always been good at math/modeling so it didn't even require that.

You figured out a lot considering every build the game gave you contradicted everything you believed. How did you ever manage to stick with a game that [at least until Dark Champs came out 12 years later] never gave you a single character build example that agreed with your ideologies?

Re: Max Human attributes in Street level vs full Superheroic scales

OK' date=' since before DI or JI we're available to us my group felt that the stats for the sample superheroes were too high, I think I can safely say that there were people who felt the Champs stats were pre-inflated.[/quote']

I was not actually taking about other genre games like DI and JI. Stats for normals weren't introduced into Champs until 2e and Champions II and Champions III. Prior to that there was no way of knowing that Thug #2 had an 11 dex and senior citizen had a 5.

 

When you saw stats for Dragon Master with his 29 dex and 7 speed you just assumed he was the best of the best. Likewise when you saw Blowtorch with his 20 dex and 4 speed you just assumed he was a guy who used a blowtorch but didn't put much effort into being anything special. There was no sense that Blowtorch was near superhuman with his stats. Those were just the stats normal people had back then.

Re: Max Human attributes in Street level vs full Superheroic scales

Also some of us feel that stats were pre-inflated for our convenience' date=' and Kenn at least experienced inflation in his campaign(s) which has nothing to do with theprovided source material.[/quote']

Well the Champs stats were never pre-inflated for anyone's convenience. Champions stats came before there was any such thing as 'normals' stats. If anything, the flaw was in making normals too weak when their stats were introduced later [but even there I understand that the point was to show that supers are miles above normals, no matter what their origin. Cap never had problems taking out 20 Hydra or AIM agents in a couple of panels].

 

As far as experience inflation, well that's another matter entirely. I've never been one who agreed with the idea that supers get much more powerful after their introduced. Only teen supers tend to have big changes in powers and abilities. Hawkeye is certainly not much different in 2007 then he was when he was introduced in 1964 [outside of tech and social changes due to time]. To me the flaw there is the idea that comic superheroes grow into their power. That's the point where Champs [and any other game that uses experience advancement] fails the genre. Going from 250 to 350 to 450 makes major changes in your character that you don't generally see in the comics. The best way to avoid that is to allow more up-front points and severely limit experience.

Re: Max Human attributes in Street level vs full Superheroic scales

I am going to say this yet again, so listen up

 

Characteristics (especialy Dex/Speed)inflation is for the most part a myth, and in 5th edtion we actualy see CHARs going down for the most part. For Inflation to truley exist there would have to have been an increase in CHARs over the years, but when you look at a character you see that they have stayed fairly consistent, take for example

 

Pulsar

2nd edition Dex 23, speed 5

3rd edition Dex 23, Speed 5

4th edition Dex 23, Speed 5

5th edition Dex 23, speed 6

Sidekick Dex 23, speed 6

 

 

So sense 2nd edition Pulsar's Speed has gone up by 1 point, MY GOD THE INFLATION IS OUT OF HAND, END OF THE WORLD In 20 some years an increase of 1 point.

 

The point I am getting at is that the word inflation is used around here without people realising either:

 

1) What the word actualy means (To increase over time)

 

or

 

2) The actual history of Champions the RPG (where we have a Human Martial artist with Dex's over 30 and speeds of 7 sense basicaly the beginning)

while I agree with what you are saying here, in all fairness, a lot of people come to Champs from different genres. The person who was introduced to Hero with Fantasy Hero or Star Hero [even 4e Dark Champions] has a different perspective on characteristics then someone who started with Champions and then moved to the other genres. I can understand someone saying that their 14 dex, 3 speed fighter does fine in Fantasy Hero so they don't understand why they need a 26 dex and 6 speed martial artist in Champs. To them a skilled human is a skilled human no matter which genre.

In this instance, when they're talking about stat inflation, I don't really think they're taking about the differences between Champs 1e and Champs 5e but rather the differences between genre definitions [to my eyes there has been general stat deflation in Champs between 1e and 5e, not inflation].

Re: Max Human attributes in Street level vs full Superheroic scales

Thanks for the rep.

The problem is that the game doesn't generally allow you to play 2 different character sheets. Some campaigns might allow you to have a Nighthawk of the Champions character sheet and a Nighthawk of the streets of Millennium City character sheet but, in general, most Champions characters are going to be for team play and built that way. That means when you want to solo them their foes need to be built to fight the team-play character. In those instances people can't think of 20 as being Olympic just because the book said so. The scale needs to be adjusted so that 30 becomes Olympic. For some strange reason the normal human benchmarks are the one thing people never want to change in a game where they'll change everything else. The normal human benchmarks are no more carved in stone then anything else in the game, IMO.

Re: Max Human attributes in Street level vs full Superheroic scales

As always needs to be pointed out in threads like this [and this is a subject which comes up a lot] NCM isn't a cap or ceiling. It's a threshold. You aren't limited to 20 in an NCM game. Exceeding 20 just costs you more points. Too many people think the 20 is a maximum amount allowed. It'd be very possible to have a 30 dex and 7 speed Batman in an NCM game. It'd mean nothing more then saying Bats paid 60 points more for the last 10 dex and 20 more points for the last 2 speed to get to that point [the threshold is saying few exceed, but few is not none and characters who make it into the comics and become popular are clearly part of the exceptional few. No one generally wants to read about the exploits of the average superhero].

In Champions origins don't limit a character, and they shouldn't. Batman shouldn't have to pay more for his 30 dex then Captain America does just because Bat's origin is that he is a trained human and Cap's is that he's a chemically augmented trained human. How the characters get to the plateau isn't as important as the fact that they're there. The points allowed are the balance mechanism not the origin.

It's also important to keep in mind that comic book characters have two personas. They have their solo persona and they have their team-up persona. The Batman who fights Joker, Penguin, and the Riddler is not the same Batman who fights Darseid, Starro, and Ultra-Humanite with the JLA. This really carries over to every character. Even Supes uses the entire JLA to fight people who would take on solo in his own book as well. Whether there's a powering up for a team book [like Batman] or powering down [like Superman] they need to be considered as different from each other.

When you're building characters for the game you need to think about which persona you're trying to emulate. You can't build the solo Batman and expect him to play well in the JLA game and you can't play the JLA Batman in a solo Gotham City game. Either campaign requires you to make system changes for it to work. When the JLA Batman is doing solo stuff in the game his Joker isn't a 12 dex 3 speed foe. He's more like 20 dex and 5 speed. Likewise, the thugs JLA Bats is fighting aren't 10 dex and 2 speed but 15 dex and 3 or 4 speed. This doesn't mean that every thug and petty villain in Gotham is near-Olympic in ability. It just means the system of scale needs to be adjusted so that team-up heroes can have a challenge in solo events.

In Champions normal people aren't built weak because their origin is that they're normal humans. They're built weak so that the PCs can shine compared to them. That's an important distinction, IMO.

Re: Would this be simpler?

I personally think it's just easier to restructure the price of the powers and the various advantages and limitations. Instead of making them cost multipliers make them adders and hide the math: Half-End can cost 10 points and Zero-End can cost 20, etc. Yes, it'll change the cost structure of the game but it's an easy thing to adjust starting point totals to adjust for that, IMO.

Re: Hero threads on rpg.net

To the math issue, I would suggest that the detractors start it by saying "you need a degree in higher math", the supporters continue it by saying "did you drop out of elementary school? this is no tougher than 5th grade math" and so on.

 

The real answer from either side likely should be "The hero character creation process requires a significant degree of elementary math. Some players don't want to spend the time to do the math, or invest in available software to do it for them."

 

To me, however, the work required to do the math isn't greater than the work required to map out a D&D character's progress from 1st to 12th level through feat chains, skill requirements, classes, multiclasses and prestige classes, stat bonuses, etc. covering a dozen or so different books to min/max the character. And a lot of the "hero math is excessive" detractors have no problem with the time they spend doing exactly that.

In general I agree with you 100%. I think part of the problem with many Hero players is that they've gotten thin-skinned over the years. Just because some jerk states some hyperbole about the math doesn't mean that a Hero fan needs to jump up and down and tell him he's stupid for not being able to do it. Most perceived insults would completely disappear if gone unanswered.

Hero's going to sink or swim on it's own merits once the person buys it and decides for themselves if it has too much math, etc. Hero doesn't need staunch defenders who only make all Hero System fans look like fanatics to the outside community. Be fanatic here. Out there act poised. I think that would give Hero a better image to the outsiders.

Re: Hero threads on rpg.net

So your solution is let the initial insult/lie stand? Because again' date=' "they started it". It may seem like a childish response, but one side of this equation is actively lying about the requirements. And your response has been that stating the actual required math is insulting, implied or otherwise. So a lie is just fine then?[/quote']

I don't want to burst your bubble but there wasn't any comments made here about the difficulty of Hero's math by any Hero haters: there was no insult. In this case the Hero folks "started it." I'm basically just saying why fling the mud at all? There is that whole "turn the other cheek" concept that seems to be really popular with some religious groups. It wouldn't hurt to try it a little more often.

Re: Hero threads on rpg.net

No, you did miss the point if you see both as insults.

 

If someone says "HERO requires a degree in mathematics"

 

They are lying. Knowingly or unknowingly.

 

The response "No, it requires math that is taught in 5th grade" is correcting an improper perception. Is it a snarky correction? It could be, though tone would mean a lot. But in the immortal words of first graders everywhere, "They started it". And moreover, they're lying. Allow me to say that again so we're perfectly clear: One side is either willfully or ignorantly misrepresenting the truth. But sure, let's hog tie those trying to respond with the actual facts...

 

Because obviously it is still out there, and still being pushed. And it's still flat out wrong.

 

And no one here is questioning people who don't like math, so feel free to jump off that straw man whenever you like.

Well Goradin stated that it only requires an 8th grade education, and then Phil came back with 5th grade and not paying attention in math class. What they're really implying is that if people don't want to do 8th or 5th grade math they're either lazy or uneducated. An insult's still an insult even when it's not directly stated.