Filkerman

Re: D20 r0xx0rs!!!1!

Smelly Hero Fanboy.

When do these T-Shirts show up in the Online Store?

I'm seeing the Green Man in some other shade, with the cartoon wavy stench lines emanating from him.

And of course on the back it must have the text of the power

Smelly Hero Fanboy, which I will not write at the moment because I'm sleep-deprived, as usual.

Re: Superhero Images

My superhero wears this T-Shirt lounging around the base.

Repped! and sto^H^H^Hsaved for sharing with my tabletop group.

Re: The Promise and Problems of PBeM

The Remarkable Shelley Mactyre wrote some tips about running PBeM here:

http://www.mactyre.net/shelley/pbem.html

I've read the turns of her previous games, and was greatly entertained.

They were a part of the inspiration for me to get into Worldmaker's Global Guardians universe. (The other part being Jack's excellent website and background material.)

I've not been in a regular FtF Champions game in a long time. I tried for far too many years to get my superhero RP from MUSHes/MUXes, but the lack of everything that makes a campaign a _campaign_ put me off them. Having seen some posts from the GGU Golden Age game, it looks like the PBeM will give me the next best thing to being there.

Re: Aiming at the hex versus the foe

Now I'll be the first to admit I'm not as up-to-date on rules as I'd like to be' date=' and I'm not perfect, but I didn't think you could do that with an EB. (Unless you purchased it with a Variable Advantage or through House Rules) Unless I'm mistaken EB's are always fired at a character, not at a hex.[/quote']

 

 

I wasn't sure so I checked FRED before I posted and couldn't find anything one way or the other, so I assume unless someone can cite a rule I overlooked, you can aim at a hex with anything, subject to any and all other rules.

 

Now that I think about it, this is 'balanced' by the fact that unless you use spreading, aiming at the hex with a non AoE means you are in fact doing damage to the hex, not the foe standing in it. This would make it less than useful as a tactic unless you were trying to blast a hole for the foe to fall through.

 

The exception to this would be spreading to fill hexes, which effectively gives you AoE (hexes) at -1 DC per extra hex and then you have to make seperate attack rolls per target, not getting the benefit of the DCV 3 (or 0).

 

Maybe the question was not as interesting as I thought. Bother.

it would be nice to only have to hit my own hex and do damage to everyone around me' date=' but it just seems to be an abuse of the rules.[/quote']

 

 

I am curious about Herodom's opinions of just how cheesy/sleazy/abusive/not in the spirit of the rules aiming at the hex is (or isn't), regardless of concept or SFX, given the points that have been mentioned in other recent threads about AoEs generally being weaker then straight up 'at the target' attacks, and the issue of building to maximize Move By/Through as a primary (often used) tactic.

 

I've seen AoE with No Range on a few characters, and done it once or twice myself. The characters involved were not built to have this be a primary or optimized attack, or they were generally not combat monsters, but this may have just been happenstance.

 

So, is using an AoE and No Range attack on your hex/the adjacent hex self-policing/balanced, or abuse?

 

On the other hand, what about aiming at the hex with a plain old EB or the like? Is this abuse? How about that character with plenty of Penalty Skill Levels to offest range modifiers, who "always" aims at his foe's hex?

Re: Please Suggest Names for a Hulk Tribute Character

The name would depend upon who gave him the name.

I second this point, although 'it was a rampage' to me sounds unnatural. I'd expect to say/hear 'it was _on_ a rampage'.

I only skimmed the thread - did anyone suggest The Brute?

"The brute is back, sir! We're hitting it with everything we've got, but it won't stay down!"

Re: HERO Hall of Fame?

My favorite was Gemini, whom I played in a Champs 3E game and hope to bring back as an NPC in The Campaign I Will Run Someday.

His power set was nothing earth shattering. Duplication (one dupe), some gadgets and ehnanced senses and martial arts. He was the team scout/stealth guy and computer expert. When he was one person, he could be invisible. When he was two people both could be intangible (Desolidification). The rest of the team called the dupes Gemini Red and Gemini Blue given his costume's color schtick.

The thing that made him a beauty to play was he did not consider himself to be two people, but had either Psychological or Physical Limitations (I forget which) about pronoun use. When he was one person, he refered to himself as 'we'. When he was two people, both of them refered to BOTH selves as me/I.

This drove players nuts at the table, especially when the separated Red and Blue would both be talking on the (audio only) team communicator. It culminated in a plot where one of them was away for months undercover, and in the meantime the other had been dating a woman and gotten engaged.

Role-playing both sides of the conversation that ensued upon the dupe's return I said:

"If I think I'm going to let me marry a woman I've never met, I've got another think coming!"

Re: Presenting a genre using the toolkit

For the first time' date=' the character sheet looked like a superhero, not like a list of numbers.[/quote']

 

 

Ok this is not really on topic but ---

 

If this custom supers sheet is accessible anywhere online I would love to see it. I'll even send Doc D a SASE.

 

I'm getting the fever to run a Champions campaign this summer after a long hiatus. The players will have only limited previous experience with Hero, and also limited comics exposure. The latter I'm fixing ahead of time by giving them a reading list, and lecture notes ("this is the kind of story and theme we will be emulating, and that you should have characters suited for. This other is not").

 

The best fantasy games I have been in have had genre-reflecting props. I'm going to introduce this trick in the game, with the belief that since the culture and technology of a standard superhero game is more modern than your typical fantasy world, it will seem fresh.

 

Anything new I can add to reinforce the feeling that we are 'in a comic book' will help, and I think the idea of a snazzy character sheet will go over big time with this group. I loved the 3rd Edition character sheets with the body templates on them. Anything in that vein, especially if color is involved, is gravy, IMHO. If you have ideas and experiences in this regard, I wanna hear it.

 

If this post derails the thread too much, feel free to email or PM me instead.

Re: The Golden Age Recruitment Drive

Just in case this is seen before private messages -

Hawksmoor I sent you a PM with a couple of preliminary questions.

Re: Channeling Past Lives

I was typing in the same "VPP only for Multiforms" idea as Lord Laiden. The VPP to avoid the 'pre-defined forms' problem, and the Multiform to allow actual swaps of skills and disads. I'd throw in some limitation about "the other form must carry over physical traits", assuming your intent is, while Cleopatra is in my body I might get her EGO and PRE and her KS: Egypt skills, and lose my KS: Beethoven, but Cleo inherits my STR, CON, DEX and Physical Limitation: Allergic to cats . Poor Cleo might not get her full Seduction skill given I'm not built like she is, but she might enjoy my Contortionist skill.

Multiform also has a special psych lim "Multiform Amnesia" that probably works here.

Re: John Henry based brick

You know DC already used this idea' date=' right?[/quote']

 

Are you referring to Steel (John Henry Irons)? If so, I see Steel and nexus' idea (and OddHat's implementation) as two diffrerent characters. Steel is a technological hero, sort of an Iron Man without the ranged weaponry. His strength and toughness come from his suit. I always got the feeling that his name happened to be John Henry and he had a hammer was an in-joke, not really part of his background per se.

 

The Great John Henry as described by nexus and written up by OddHat is more of a myth made real - either the embodiment of the John Henry of legend, or a man imbued with his powers the collective unconscious' shared idea of who John Henry can do.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

Possibly offensive, apologies beforehand...

In a high powered fantasy game, we had "one of those players". Playing a mage of a shape-changing race, he constantly did things in secret so the party wouldn't find out what race and alignment he was. To boot he had terrible dice luck, constantly fumbling attacks and spells at key moments.

During an adventure on another plane where 'time stood still', this mage gave himself a small wound to try to deduce the time flow differential since he had an abnormal healing rate. He did not explain the reasons to us in character, saying merely "I prick my finger".

Upon our return to our home plane, he collapsed from blood loss. Thereafter "I prick my finger" became the way to say you thought a plan or action was...ill-considered.

Years go by real time and game time, with the poor mage getting told "I prick my finger" by everyone constantly. Finally he retaliates...or so he thinks.

Other Player : (announces plan)

Sneaky Mage: "I prick my finger"

Other Player (without missing a beat): "You roll a 1, and finger your prick."

You can imagine the laughter. There was more than one spit-take.

Re: Forgotten Golden Age heroes

Red Bee's was better: It was something about how Nazi intelegence is not sure if he is a mystery man (AKA Super hero) or an escaped lunitic

Well, yes, there were several that were funny and in the "These Amerikaners think anyone can put on a mask and be threat, they must all be crazy" vein. They were all, IMO, sarcastic but fond editorial comments about the absurdity of some of the characters.

While I still choose the Whip's entry as the best comment, I will grant you the Red Bee is a more lame character.

I don't know if this is true, but I had heard somewhere that DC Comics had come up with an Iron Age version of the Red Bee, making him a psycho with a swarm of killer bees under his mental thrall.

Can anyone confirm or refute this? I haven't bought a comic book in around two years between being laid off and generally disgusted with the quality of the mainstream titles. (Said disgust is what is leading me to start up a Champions campaign RSN.)

Re: Forgotten Golden Age heroes

I don't remember one for DCH' date=' phil; perhaps you are thinking of the [u']JSA Sourcebook[/u] for the DCURPG? A worthwhile book to pick up, if you can find it. It's got write-ups for the GA JSA, the All-Star Squadron, the Young All-Stars, the Freedom Fighters, the Seven Soldiers of Victory, Infinity Inc., and the modern JSA, with the information up-to-date through the publishing date of May, 2001.

Phil is refering to Mayfair's _The World At War_, which was indeed for the DCHeroes RPG. It contains a succinct timeline of WW2 that manages to convey the atmosphere of the All-Star Squadron comics, which survives (I think) the Crisis on Infinite Earths mostly intact by virtue of focusing on these 'forgotten heroes' instead of the Justice Society and the Big Three (Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman). It's a pity the related "America versus the Justice Society" couldn't - but I digress.

To me the most entertaining part of the book is the flavor text after each write up of the All-Stars - allegedly excerpts from the Fifth Column Field Guide and comments by Captain Nazi. For example, following the Spectre's stats it reads "flee immediately...if you can" and "Our only cause for hope is the fortunate lengthy gaps between his appearances."

Of all these, my favorite is Captain Nazi's terse assessment of The Whip (a Zorro rip-off). Herr Krieger says "The _what_?"