MitchellS

Re: The artwork drives me nuts

No' date=' I am not talking about full-color, am talking about the presentation. Just look the M&M adventure Time of Vengeance. It was in B&W, but it still look amazing and easy to read.[/quote']

Yes, I agree with you then. I've long said there was no reason for the simple layout in the Champions books. IMO the Champs line shouldn't look like the other genre lines. Each genre should have some defining layout characteristics that make them unique. Champions is a genre suited to higher presentation value whereas. I don't think Hero is going to want to change now though.

Re: The artwork drives me nuts

The presentation value for the M&M books is general outstanding and I fail to understand why HERO cannot do the same for the Champions line.

If you're talking about a little flashier presentation then yes, that's easily possible. Hero Games has just decided they prefer the newsprint format. If you're talking about full-color then no, that's not possible. Hero Games does'nt print in the type of volume that would make full-color printing viable.

Then again, the use of the one standard Champions universe is silly. It stopped or delayed a number great projects such as a Protectors sourcebook, Scott Bennie's Gestalt and Aaron Allston's Stike Force. The current Champions universe just does not strike me as a comic book reality and the artwork really stops me even more so.

I don't believe publishing the CU has anything to do with not wanting to publish the other books you've mentioned. If you remember Hero was going to publish Psych Wars before Allen left the company. That book had no connection to the CU. There could be many other reasons why the above projects were not considered for publication by Hero Games [and personally, outside of Gestalt, I have no interest in seeing Hero keep republishing the same things over and over anyway]. On top of that Aaron's not some poor dishwasher at McDonalds. If he really wanted to publish Strike Force I'm sure he could get the money together and do it himself. Hero seems quite willing to license out to anyone.

Re: The artwork drives me nuts

Netherless i cant help feeling Herogames are missing out on something here' date=' i hope someone takes note of whats being discussed...perhaps something for someone to bring up with S.Long? There are a lot of great products out there and iam happy to say i count herosystem as one of them, i hope it stays one of them:thumbup:[/quote']

Hero Games understands what type of books they're putting out. No one at Hero is stupid or can't see what the books look like. Storn, Chris, and the rest of the earlier artists probably aren't coming back due to payment issues. It's as simple as that.

 

More importantly I think Hero Games has given up trying to attract new gamers. I think they've decided that catering to their core fan base is all they're going to worry about now [at least until the core starts to radically dwindle too]. As long as the core fans keep buying there's no incentive for Hero to try and find better artists. What you see now is as good as it gets. At least they're back to occasionally putting a real cover on the books.

Re: Villains Vandals And Vermin (VVV)

I don't believe most people find one-punch characters to be that entertaining in the game. Using said characters always ends up with the same storyline: One-punch must threaten something harm to keep from getting hit or One-punch gets one-punched.

Re: Villains Vandals And Vermin (VVV)

It just seemed odd to complain so vehmently about characters being unusable without alteration when you'd have to convert to use them anyway.

You're assuming that just because I play M&M that I have no interest in the CU as an entity unto itself. I see the CU as a living breathing world in much the same way I see Marvel or DC [i don't play in those worlds either but I can still complain when I see Captain American fighting Aunt May ]. Since Champions books are the only Hero books I buy I'm looking for expanded continuity and development. When I see things that make no sense I talk about it. You're also assuming that just because I'm playing M&M now that I'll never play Champions again [you're probably right there though ].

If, for example, you were really really enthusiastic about Buzzsaw, you could make him any PL you wanted when you did his M and M character sheet.

I already did his M&M conversion [i've already converted the whole books]. He came out to PL 6.

Re: Villains Vandals And Vermin (VVV)

But I don't think I'm going to change your mind and it hardly matters; you don't play Champions so you wouldn't be using these characters with some fairly extensive conversion even if they did meet with your approval.

Just FYI, I'd say the same thing on the M&M forum I'm saying here if Green Ronin published a new book of villains for Freedom City and 1/3 of them were PL 8 or lower.

Re: Villains Vandals And Vermin (VVV)

Not every character in a comic universe conforms to the standard' date=' nor does every Champions game.[/quote']

IMO the purpose of official books shouldn't be to cater to those who choose to use the material in a non-standard way. If someone wants to play a 250 point CU game that is fine but the books shouldn't be written for those people. The books should be written for the CU standard and is someone wants to play lower or higher point games they should do the legwork themselves. It's far easier for the 10% of buyers who play at 250 points to make characters weaker then it is for the 90% who don't to be forced to make the adjustments, IMO.

Re: Villains Vandals And Vermin (VVV)

And that statement would be that the book isn't very useful for you without revision which is fair but not that its objectively bad. Personally' date=' I'll have use for most of the characters in it for a couple of lower powered games I'm running.[/quote']

Well the other issues such as poorly constructed characters were covered farther up in the thread so there was no need to bring that up in my reply to Colossus.

 

IMO if Hero Games wanted to build a supervillain book that didn't conform to the standards they set forth in their own Champions Universe then they shouldn't have tied the characters into the CU. They could have produced a generic supervillain book without backdrop. As part of the CU many of these characters are vastly under powered, and that takes away from the continuity of the game universe, IMO.

Re: Villains Vandals And Vermin (VVV)

From the description' date=' I think Buzzsaw is useful. Buzzsaw or any underpowered villain is often able to catch the PC off guard. 1d6 RKA with an autofire is no real danger to most 350 PC, but it is to normals. If 4 blades hit a single normal (10 Body) they are most likely dead. Even if you play without hit location damage multipliers, as most of us do (I think), 2 1d6 can kill a person. PC tends to forget that they can ignore flying razor blades, but people on the street cannot.[/quote']

A supervillain whose only threat scale to the players is endangering innocents doesn't need to be a "super"-villain at all. I can use Joe Chill with a .9mm to threaten normals and stymie the players just as easily.

 

My issue isn't with the fact that VVV included a low powered character in Buzzsaw. My issue is that VVV included many exceptionally low powered characters like Buzzsaw: Ambush, Arachne, Avant Guard, Lash, Lynx, Onslaught, and Vesper. And on top of that created more characters with normal or high damage who can't even take a single hit from a 10d6 attack without being stunned such as Blindside, Gauntlet, Grenadier, Mindgame, and Timelapse. And then there's another group of characters who can't resist the average 12d6 attack such as the Dreamwitch, Mantisman, Megavolt, Mirrors, Overbrain, Ricochet, and Technocrat.

 

My issues with the book aren't only about power levels but when 1/3 of the characters in the book are essentially one-hit wonders it does make a statement about the book.

Re: Getting the heroes together (the first time)

I like things to move a little more slowly. I'd start with someone hiring the two detectives to investigate Vulcan in his civilian identity. This person has some idea that things aren't right with the CEO at the company and feels Vulcan might be behind it. The mentalist might pick up on a random thought and learn the person is Vulcan. That leads to a friendship and sense of mutual acquaintance. Now they must find out about this person who hired them.

Meanwhile Arcane and Titan cross paths when Arcane notices something in one of the comics Titan is drawing. There's a hidden glyph of power on one of the pages. This leads Arcane to confront Titan in his civilian ID to learn about the situation. Eventually it might turn out that some demon lord has been sending Titan subliminal messages to draw these glyphs in the hope of weakening the seal trapping him in his own dimension [but that's for a later conflict].

The guy who hired the detectives to find out about Vulcan has a metahuman child who is sick. The doctor has been treating the child and will be present when the other 3 heroes find their way back to his home. Now there's a conflict between the doctor who feels he must protect the child and parent and the other 3 heroes who want answers. The doctor slips out and returns as Rush. Now it's a mutant child and Rush against the other 3 heroes.

Of course the man who wants the information lives right next door to Titan, who happens to be getting the visit from Arcane. They hear the commotion and each goes to investigate in their own way. Now you have all the heroes in one spot in a showdown type of situation. That's when the major villain who's trying to get the mutant child shows up. Little does he understand that 6 heroes are there waiting for him.

The villain gets vanquished, you learn all the secrets of why the man thought Vulcan was behind the situation at the R&D firm, the mutant child gets introduced, and the heroes all decide they need to work together to help the child and all of society.

Add the flavor where you need it based on backgrounds and various psych limitations.

Re: [Character] Card Shark

Interesting. I have a very similar villain called High Card in my M&M game. His combat deck is randomly distributed though, so he never knows which attack is going to fly out of the card shufflers under his jacket [or so it's believed anyway ].

Re: Chloroform Write Up?

If it's not in the equipment guide I couldn't hazard a guess where it might be.

Re: Healing

My question is similar but a little more detailed this time. I am wondering how to best simulate a character who is cannot be affected by any disease' date=' poison, chemicals and such. He is not immune but his body heals so he cannot suffer any effects and he is not a carrier. Example: he may contact Hepatits, Cancer, or TB but he heals it completely. He is not immune but he will heal.[/quote']

This can be done with the various sub-categories of life support. The healing's just a special effect of how the power works.

 

Secondly I am thinking the character is a fluctuation of sound/photon energy and human. Kind of a synergy of those elements on a cellular level. Cells in flux between the 3. So he appears human but can also morph into energy. Question: Lame concept? As GM would you say yeah right good concept maybe later pigs will fly too. Possible names Synergy or Amp?

I don't find it a lame concept. I've played many characters over the years that were made out of or turned into energy.

Re: Question about Hawkman villains

My basic understanding of fascism is that the individual is willing to fore-go his own personal interests and consider the interests of the group/state/country to be of more importance than his own. In some ways every superhero who joins a group and puts aside his own wellbeing for the betterment of the whole is a fascist to some extent.

Re: Who are your favourite Superhero Artists?

In alphabetical order:

Neal Adams

Brent Anderson

John Buscema

John Byrne

Mike Grell

Jack Kirby

Jerry Ordway

George Perez

John Romita, Sr.

Alex Ross

Re: Sand Staff

So her powers are less powerful, but they fit with the character concept and backstory.

 

That, of course, is the Right Answer.

 

Rep to thee.

How dare you rep people for having characters that make sense. That makes the rest of us look bad!

Re: New to the hero system, trying to figure out some things

Energy Blast

0d6

+1 pip

Standard effect (1 Body 1 Stun)

Autofire 5 x256 (1.280)

Penetrating x4

OIF

No knockback

Only in heroic identity

Real weapon

Charges (16.000)

 

Active Points: 17

Real cost: 7

I haven't played Champs for a while but I believe only killing attacks can use the 1 pip rule [unless you meant killing attack but wrote energy blast]. The penetrating will be useless for body as killing attack body can't penetrate 1 pip. You'd need a roll of 2-5 on 1d6 to get 1 body to penetrate. The autofire is legal but you're never going to hit with more then 10 due to the penalty. Since knockback is impossible on 1 pip that limitation is not valid. I'd also question the OIHID and OIF. Those two things generally don't work well together without a really strong concept. Also your active points would be 22, not 17.

This power should be able to deal 15d6 round 1, 30d6 round 2, 45d6 round 3 etc.

You'd need to re-attack the target each phase. The damage doesn't increase all by itself. Also you wouldn't be doing 30d6. You'd be doing 2 15d6 attacks. Beyond that there's a reason why games have active point limits. Check out page 28 of 5ER for that information.

Re: combat calculation

For us it was just knowing that for every 1 you rolled below 11 you hit a DCV +1 higher then your OCV, and vice-versa. It wasn't even a question of doing a calculation. The math just came naturally for us.

Re: What Age?

I'm a bronze age guy. '75 to '95 or so was my comic era. There's a balance point between too silly and too serious. The bronze age covered that well for me.

Re: Who are your favourite Superhero Artists?

The King

???

Kirby is the King.

Re: Who are your favourite Superhero Artists?

No Perez love out there?

Re: Sand Staff

Hunh? Isn't HtH inherent in Hand Attack?

It's a limitation that must be taken, but it's added at the end with all the other limitations [in the example OzMike forgot to add it in]. That way it keeps the active point and endurance costs consistent with the rest of the powers.

Re: The cranky thread

So' date=' spill, who dies? [/quote']

 

Voldemort killed Hermione. Hagrid was killed by Snape

 

Re: The cranky thread

I was told it turned out to be a hoax. I haven't heard anything more about it' date=' though.[/quote']

I don't doubt that it's a hoax, but it still makes my kids cranky, and they make my wife cranky, and that trickles down to me when she makes me cranky.

Re: Buying a Perk, Independent, Charges Never Recover....

The exceptions are Anonymity' date=' worth 3 points, and Deep Cover, worth 2. Not exactly huge blows to most characters if the points are lost.[/quote']

Even then I'd give those points back to the player if those perks were lost to them.