MitchellS

Re: [Review] CU: News Of The World (+ Long Argument On MPA's & Frameworks)

Re: Three Heroes to Save the Universe Come on now, we all know that Foxbat's the villain on the other side of the portal.

Re: Three Heroes to Save the Universe

Re: Project Mongoose Duke Steel reminds me of a younger Steeljack from Astro City [a favorite character of mine]. I'll be adding him to my M&M game.

Re: Red Doom There's 38 pages about Russia and its heroes and villains in Champions Worldwide. I wouldn't mind seeing a little more about the area in the future but I don't think the area needs its own book.

Re: What does HERO Games have against >30 DEX, INT and EGO? I agree with your points. I've long argued against the universal approach to everything. That said, I don't think it has anything to do with the benchmark point of this thread. The fact that Ironman can be stunned by a .357 or the Hulk can't defeat a tank has nothing to do with why there aren't any characters with superhuman dex, intelligence, or ego in the game. There are plenty of characters with superhuman str, con, pre, pd/ed, speed, end, and stun but only 2 with superhuman dex [in the main CU] and none with int or ego. It doesn't seem any more unlikely that players would want to see a superhuman dex character like Spiderman then wanting to see a superhuman strength character like Hulk. The CU is full of characters with superhuman strength. I think a lot of use are just wondering what's the hangup with the authors about having superhuman dex, int, and ego.

Re: Three Heroes to Save the Universe The Drifter is in Champions Universe: News of the World. He's a member of the Justice Squadron. 1,147 points of mystic superhero. He has the 150 point vpp to rival Takofanes and the Edomite and enough damage reduction and force fields to take a decent beating [not to mention the regen and full life support].

Re: What does HERO Games have against >30 DEX, INT and EGO? I agree with your overall points but I want to address what was brought up here. When DoJ started releasing books the benchmarks chart was only in the Champions books: Champions and Champions Universe. While it's true that chart was later added to 5Er it was originally only designed to be the benchmarks for game run in the specific Champions Universe. The chart was added to 5Er to give people some rough guideline, and it states such with the chart, but the benchmark chart was never meant to be the hard-fast rule for the entire Hero line. I don't believe any of us are complaining that the entire Hero line of products isn't following the benchmarks [because there really are no established benchmarks for the entire line]. I think we're complaining about the fact that the Champions Universe line isn't following the benchmarks set down for the Champions Universe.

Re: Three Heroes to Save the Universe Mentiac: He's not the most offensively powerful hero but there's only one person in the world smarter. He's Reed Richards. If he can't figure it out no other hero will. The Drifter: He knows dimensions and he has the mystical might to get things done. He should be the next Archmage, IMO. Diamond: He's the uncle you always know you can count on. Level-headed and powerful, he brings the human and practical element to the team.

Re: What does HERO Games have against >30 DEX, INT and EGO? So what you're saying is 33 dex guy is bad for the game but a 23 dex guy with the defensive strike maneuver and 2 levels with defensive strike is ok for the game, even though both characters would be 11 ocv and dcv? Flat comparisons such as yours are useless the moment you start adding martial arts maneuvers and combat levels to the character. Assuming a standard Champions game many 21-26 dex characters will buy 1-3 combat levels. Many 30 to 35 dex characters won't.

Re: New Millenium question The 2E version of C:tNM had 5E writeups [though there were enough errors in the writeups to make them seem more like 4E writeups]. 4E conversion of the C:tNM characters used to be available on the old Hero website as a webpage. I don't know what happen to them since DoJ bought the company.

Re: New Millenium question Champions: The New Millennium Alliances Bay City

Re: What does HERO Games have against >30 DEX, INT and EGO? I don't believe this thread is really about stat inflation or whether you play NCM Champions or standard Champions. If you play NCM Champions that only means most of your characters are going to have a 20 dex or less because that's your benchmark for normal humans. There's nothing wrong with using a 20 for normal humans as long as you're consistent in your game. But, even in an NCM Champions game there are going to be characters with a 21+ dex in the game. There's going to be the speedster with the 24 dex and 6 speed or mutant spider-clone with the 27 dex. The normal human benchmark is going to be exceeded by a decent percentage of superhuman characters in the NCM universe; maybe 5%, maybe 10%, maybe 20% depending on each person's homebrew universe. In the mainline Champions Universe there are only 2 characters who exceed the normal human benchmark [Vector and the Living Sphinx] out of over 400 published characters. We're not talking about 5%, 10%, or 20% here. We're talking about less then 1%. The benchmark Hero Games choose to use for normal humans is so high that they're not creating characters who exceed the benchmark. It's almost as if Hero Games said the universe's ceiling was 30 rather then the normals' ceiling; and those are really 2 different things. If your universe's Captain America is a 30 then there needs to be room for your Spiderman, and Nightcrawler, and the other superhumanly agile characters to exceed your pinnacle normal. That's not happening in the CU because the characters you'd think would be superhumanly agile are listed as 29 and 30s. As I said above, this isn't an issue of stat inflation. It's an issue of publishing characters that meet and exceed the published benchmarks. If you have superhuman characters with 21+ dex in an NCM Champions game then there needs to be a like number of superhuman characters with a 31+ dex in a Standard Champions game. Otherwise the benchmarks are meaningless.

Re: Few Qs about Hero and my setting I always wondered if you ever bothered trying the damage roll or hit points optional rules? Either of those options gives the game a different feel. I don't believe there's a major difference between the granularity of the two games. The real difference is that in Hero the granularity either costs or saves you character points during creation and in M&M the granularity is a complication that earns you hero points to use during play. So in Hero you would give your gun 8 bullets and get a -1/2 limitation that saves you x number of character points. In M&M I'd tell my GM I only want the gun to have 8 shots and if I ended up needing more he'd give me a hero point for the inconvenience of running out of bullets. Either way you end up with only 8 bullets.

Re: Few Qs about Hero and my setting

Re: What does HERO Games have against >30 DEX, INT and EGO? I guess my point was that you don't set your own benchmark rules when you choose to game in an official world. The setting sets the benchmark rules for you whether that's starting with 8s in The Valdorian age, using NCMs in Dark Champions, or the benchmarks presented for the Champions Universe for supers. What benchmarks you set in your own world are your own business. There are plenty of published characters who have superhuman con, pd, and ed but the CU doesn't, IMO, reflect it's own benchmarks when it comes to characters with superhuman dex, int, ego, or pre [mostly because those last 3 benchmarks are set way too high]. In a superhero setting their needs to be some characters with superhuman dexterity, intelligence, and ego.

Re: What does HERO Games have against >30 DEX, INT and EGO? That answer is not consistent with the benchmark table Hero Games choose to use with the CU. That table states that 31+ dex is superhuman. As I said in another thread, there are only 3 characters out of over 400 currently published who have a superhuman dex: Charm, Vector, Living Sphinx [and Charm is part of the augmented C3000 line]. It doesn't matter where the benchmark is set. The point is there needs to be consistent use of the benchmark. Where are the Spidermans and Nightcrawlers in the CU? The benchmark becomes meaningless if no one ever uses it. With the vast majority of CU characters being super-powered rather then trained humans it would certainly make sense that some of them should have superhuman dexterity. Unfortunately only 2 make into the mainline CU. The real problem with the CU is consistency, IMO. You have two different main authors who each have two different game benchmark systems, and neither of those systems fit within the benchmark system they designed for their universe. If Hero Games wanted superhuman dex to begin at 26 then they should have made the benchmark 26+, not made the benchmark 31+ and then virtually never use it, IMO.

Re: [book Review] Champions Universe: News Of The World

Re: [book Review] Champions Universe: News Of The World That seems a little crunchy for the game. I wouldn't require a player's underwater character to take personal immunity for something like that. Sometimes you gotta run with the special effects.

Re: [book Review] Champions Universe: News Of The World

Re: Champions Worldwide?

Re: [Review] CU: News Of The World (+ Long Argument On MPA's & Frameworks)

Re: Champions Worldwide? I've been playing superhero games for coming up on 30 years now between V&V, Champions, and M&M, and I can honestly say that I haven't had adventures outside of North America [uS, Canada, and Mexico] probably more then a dozen times in all those years. I've had far more dimensional/temporal adventures then I've ever had global. Anyone I'd use from CWW would almost always be encountered in the US not in their home country. It's always nice to know about the rest of the CU but how often are characters going to run off and visit those 40 countries in Africa that they need to know more about all their heroes and villains? Probably not more then once, IMO [and even then any such adventure is probably going to take place in Egypt or South Africa because those are the places we hear about]. Rightly or wrongly Champions material is written for an American audience. That's where most of the customer base is [i'd even go as far as to say 90% of the customer base] so the need to find out what's going on in the rest of the world isn't as pressing as the need to have more information about what's going on in the US. Heck, it's taken 5 years just to get info on a couple of the major superhero teams in the US.

Re: Freedom League Conversions Here's an rtf file written by Steve Kenson. It doesn't contain all the FC characters, and some have some small changes from when it was supposed to be a Gold Rush Games sourcebook for San Angelo, but it'll get you on your way. http://members.aol.com/talonstudio/freedomcity/fchero.html

Re: Drain variable stat power Having 13 choices of characteristics is fairly broad but certainly not as broad as having 13 choices of characteristics, dozens of choices of skills, dozens of choices of talents and perks, and dozens of choices of power. That's why I went with the +1/4 variable effect. The limitation value is really subjective but it does belong on the power as a whole rather then on the variable effect advantage because you are limiting the power rather then the advantage. I went with the -1/4 because it offsets the variable effect and because many of the characteristics you drain can have serious consequences. When you get right down to it only losing comeliness has no in combat effect.