gojira

Re: Got the Metal in the Meat

Requiring money to buy cyberware elimiates some interesting characters. Where is the poor strugling street samari, who must consider if he should sell his last real organ to make ends meet, when the only rich can buy cyberware?

I say points only for cyberware. My opinion of course, but I wanted to put the above bug in your ear.

Consider however varying the description of the cyberware according to a players wealth level. The rich should have trendy cyberware. Cybered eyes should look like the latest sunglasses, enhanced strength should look like buff fashion models, etc.

Whereas the street samari above should have last year's model. Obvious chrome work should make it hard for him to get into high places. His rough enhancements should doom him to a life of menial jobs with no security.

Of course this is all personal opinion too, but I think it matches the genre of most cyperpunk fiction. Your world may be different.

Re: Off beat question from one of my players about how Hero would handle something.

I remember that in the 1984 (?) edition of Champions, the villian Armadillo had the Psych Lim: Always Anounces What He's Going to Do Before He Does It.

Or something like that.

Re: My Prefabs for FH

Thanks! I totally missed the archive at the bottom.

Re: Character growth potential and speed questions

Welcome Valkyrie, er... kuoshu!

One thing to be aware of is that your players under hero can advance at different rates. While it can take 30 to 50 points for a hero to get a new power, it can take as little as 3 to 5 points to get +1 to any combat skill. That's like going up a level, and can give you huge headaches.

For example, if the group tank (brick, big strong guy who bounces attacks) is saving for some large cost new power, and your martial artist is gleefully buying more skill levels every three game sessions, it can be hard to balance things out as the brick isn't going to be able to hit anything that will challenge the martial.

Don't give out XP to quickly or things will get out of control. Give about half of what your first inclination is. Like per adventure (not play session), give 1 XP for success, 1 XP for good role playing, and 1 XP for figuring something out, making the group laugh, etc., three XP maximum per person. Watch what players spend it on, and start thinking about how you will deal with it before it catches you by surprise or ruins a play session.

One thing you can do is have super villian teams. Make sure there is somone on each villian team that each player can handle, then make sure that they get to fight that person eventually. Villian martial artists should attack the group MA, the big slow villian brick should tangle with the group brick, etc. This will at least ensure that they don't feel worthless or overpowered.

Another thing to do is after being stingy with the XP for a while, start talking to your players about a large XP reward for all their hard work. Encourage them to spend it on something expensive, like a new power that would take a long time to save up for, or more skill levels if that's what they've been lacking. This can make things very exciting for the players, since they will have some cool new thing to play with, and it can provide a way for you to quickly balance out any problems that have been creeping up on you.

Re: My Prefabs for FH

Everything is an "hdp" file. What's that?

Re: Summoning stuff

Yes, KITT. Doesn't Batman sometimes summon the batmobile with a radio thingy? And I think Wonder Woman can do the same with her jet. But this is a great way to limit the summon: the batmobile has to be able to drive there, plus the range would probably be somewhat limited (for the summon) and it'd be easy to block (GM: "No, you can't summon the batmobile. The Joker must be jamming your transmitter.")

And the jet might show up and hover, but so what? You still have to be able to climb up into it. That's almost just a SFX of having a super invisible jet there, it really doesn't buy you much other than convenience.

Anything involving mega-scale TP should be looked at carefully. Summon a specific person? Like the President of the USA, or John Cleese? If I were the GM, I'd be very skeptical. Details are needed.

Re: Hero System vs. d20

As at least one other person mentioned, don't be afraid to ask for help here. Wizards would be pretty easy to do, and it wouldn't hurt for you and your players to get a look at how an experienced player puts one together.

For example, I'd use a multipower, with limitations like Incantations, Powers Occur at Bottom of Phase, One Charge per Day and volia! You have a pretty good aproximation of a DnD wizard. You can stuff some pretty big spells in that sucker too, which your players may enjoy.

(I didn't use Gestures or OAF: material components because I don't want those to apply to all slots of the multipower. Just apply those limitations to slots where you need some extra oomph.)

So maybe we could all come up with some ideas for starting characters, and then the players could customize them as they get used to them. That might kick start ya' a bit.

In general tho, ignoring END at the begininning is a good idea, and also maybe start with them less CP, and allow players to "upgrade" quickly after a few simple play sessions, if they see any problems with their initial characters.

Re: X-men characters

This is awesome, I LOVE low powered (350 point) heroes. Too many writes-ups are 700+ point gods.

Good job!

Re: World In Crisis..Idea help please

Gojira - I'm not using the ready made groups because I don't have enough source material to run a CHAMPIONS game' date=' and I wanted to summon up a slightly different world....I suppose I could have just transposed the groups since the players arent familiar with Champions anyhow...But I guess I wanted a challenge.[/quote']

 

No worries, of course. But if we're going to help, I needed to know a bit about why your world is the way it is.

 

I sat down with the players and explained to them that the campaign tone should be very colorful. Its very Avengers style

 

Excellent! This also greatly sets the tone of the world, which will help a lot if we need to help with anything! It sounds like you are happily writing background now, so maybe we should wait until you get that stuff done.

 

One thing I have never done but thought about is to have the players add some of the background themselves. For example, the diety based character (or her owner, I mean) could be enlisted to help write up some info about her gods, and who their adversaries and friends are. Ditto with the magic based character. Get his (?) help writing up any famous Sorcerer Supreme, lost magical worlds, Atlantis(es), ancient Egytpian magical whatnots, etc. This could lighten the load on you, broaden their character backgrounds, and give the players something fun to work on too. Just my 2 super-pennies.

Re: World In Crisis..Idea help please

Is there a reason why you are not using the standard friendly government groups like UNTIL and PRIMUS? Don't forget about METE and The Circle too (see big thread in this forum for a great New Circle write-up).

Here's my first real question though: Is it golden age, silver age, or bronze/iron age? That's the first thing that make me uneasy about your setting. Make sure to talk to your players and see what they want. Then back it up with some player disadvantages. Go with Psych Limitations like "Must Protect Innocents" and "Will not Kill" for golden agers, everyone should have this. For Iron Age, these same disadvantages should be discouraged.

Then a quick timeline, and some local color and a first adventure (brief, like a single combat and get the heroes together) will get you started.

Re: Unarchetypal Heroes

There's always that unique blend of bard and theif: the Disco Bandit.

I won't even get started on the Turtle Tamer or the Pastamancer.

Re: VPP Help

I'd consider that a lot of true "cantrips" are just a SFX of being "magic." Want an imp to stir your potions? Sure. Need your spell book to float in the air while you read it? No prob. Impress the ladies at the market by pulling flowers out of thin air? Good RP.

But 30 points (is that the actual points available? I'm not sure.) is a 6d6 EB. That's pretty healthy for just a cantrip. And zero phase would be a no-go if I was the GM. You need to throw at least a "Bippity Boppity Boo" in there. I'd require at least Incantations, Powers Occur at Bottom of Phase, and probably a focus of some sort too (IIF: Undergraduate Magic School Diploma?).

5 points active (ie. a light) would be as far as I'd go for a cantrip.

Re: PBEM Recruiting:New York Knights

Er... just from reading it' date=' that isn't 'average' so much as 'average maximum' - as high as you can go without having it be part of your schtick.[/quote']

 

Yeah, I think you're on to something here. It does say that you can only have four stats in the high range without permission, implying that it's not really a high so much as a balance thing.

Re: A big cat question

Is it wabbit season yet? God I hope it is...

Re: PBEM Recruiting:New York Knights

Those are from a different' date=' higher powered game than the NYK. Use the information from the first char gen link for this game. Sorry about that! [/quote']

 

That was the first link!

Re: PBEM Recruiting:New York Knights

Stat    AVG     HIGH     MAX

STR     20       50       70
DEX     18       23       28
CON     20       30       35
BODY    10       15       20
INT     20       25       30
EGO     20       25       30
PRE     20       25       30

Just curious: is this a typo? Why so high INT and EGO?

Re: How Long to Learn Hero System?

Do the new rules have a "how to play" example section? The old Champions rules did. If not, I'll write a short summary for you.

My guess: afternoon for GM. Half hour for players.

You (the GM) should spend some time with a basic "hero" character and two to four "mooks", run through them mock combat and see how things go. (Hey, what genre is this anyway? I assumed Superhero but maybe it's not...)

You might want to limit the points available to beginning characters. This makes them much more focused, but also gives them few powers for both players and GMs to keep track of. It's very easy to allocate more points later, very hard to take them away

Old limits for the older edition: 100 points plus 150 pts of disadvantages for superheros. You should "hand wave" a lot of background skills (don't make the players pay points for them). Just make the player's have a background story and use that to add 50 points or so of skills, contacts, money, etc. as appropriate later on.

This give basically 250 point characters to start (not counting the 50 pts of background stuff that you haven't added yet). Good limits for these characters are:

DEX: Range 18-30, centering on 20-23

CON: Range 18-33, centering on 18-23

PD: Range 8-28, centering on 12-18

ED: Range 8-28, centering 12-18

SPD: Range 4-6, centering on 5

Attacks: 40-60 pts, (STR, Damage powers, find weakness, entangle, etc)

Defenses: 20-40 pts, (extra PD, ED, skill levels, extra DEX, force fields, etc)

Movement: 10-40 pts, (Running, Flight, Swimming, extra SPD)

After a few runs, both you and the players will have a good idea where to add improvements, which is a great place to add another 50 points or so. This combined with the background type stuff should get the characters up to a standard 350 pts. without overwhelming anyone at the beginning.

You might want to ignore endurance and knockback at the beginning, it simplifies a lot of things. Add them back in before allocating any more points, though, because it could really change some characters.

Re: Need some "Smart" powers

Just tossing a few ideas out to ya....

1. Don't forget the whole Eastern thing where enlightenment = perfect control of one's self and one's environment. Some sort of martial arts blend of eastern styles, including ki projection, might fit the bill for a "I'm so smart I have transcended this plane of existance" sorta deal. Add elements of some wierd Tibetan martial arts that includes knowledge of the "elder gods" and you have a good excuse to be A. in league with Cthulhu and B. insane.

2. Gadgets and inventions, sure. Add some kung fu as above and you get Brother Blood after he steals Cyborg's tech. Of course the tech doesn't have to be stolen, you could have invented the martial arts styles and the tech too yourself.

3. Magic. Has anyone mentioned this yet? "I have discover the true secrets of the ancients and the world, which give me ULTIMATE POWER." A kind of Dr. Strange character who "figures it all out" from old books, and make the personal scrafices required to gain said power. Pretty standard, but qualifies as a "smart guy" type power, imo.

Not earth shattering ideas, or as detailed as some of the others have posted, but I thought maybe I'd toss some broad ideas at ya and let you figure out if any were appealing.

Re: TV Teen Titans Writeups

What?! No one's done the base yet for me to steal^H^H^H^H^H admire? I'm very disappointed in you guys. Very disappointed.

Re: Spirit Transform- Examples wanted

Oh I see. I'd use EDM to represent physically going to some other dimesion. Star Gate, Hoppers (? that TV show where the went to an alternate Earth each week), etc. You pick up all your stuff and physically step into another dimesion.

In my campaign, technically, the Astral Plane wouldn't be reachable with EDM because it's "spirit's only." Some types of critters (angels, demons) would be able to preceive and affect the astral plane (and free spirits).

I use transform for the go to the astral plane with silver cord attached spirit quest sorta stuff.

Re: Spirit Transform- Examples wanted

Well' date=' here you get into a lot of the "how do you X?" arguements. I'm curious how are you conceptualizing the astral plane that Transformation is the most effective mechanic to represent some one entering it, and not Clairsentience and/or EDM?[/quote']

 

I'm old school. The old way of performing an exorcism, or a possession, or mind transfer, or entering the astral plane was with the Spirit Shift power. So Transform is the way to genericly encapsulate those types of powers now, it follows that Transform is the logical choice for astral projection as well.

 

Now if you are just talking about preceiving the astral plane, sure, Transfrom is not the answer. But when you enter the astral plane, you are tranforming a spirit that is bound to a container to one that is free.

Re: Freezing Water and Raining Hail

On number 2 I'd go for EB w/ explosive effect unless the damage was very minor or only a side effect. Ie., what does the player actually want to do with it? Is it primarily for damage or is it for changing the weather?

Re: Spirit Transform- Examples wanted

Most likely they could only be performed on certain mystical beings like lesser Fae and the like rather than on those spirits tied to the Judeo-Christian world like angels' date=' humans, or demons.[/quote']

 

I'd include things like possession and exorcism in spiritual transforms, as well as things like entering the astral plane, spirit quests, creation of zombies (creating life, ie a spirit), and so on. So all sorts of priests and shamans would be eligible to have a spirit transform or two, Judeo-Christians included.

Re: In need of a good origin story

What about divine powers given by Mercury?

 

He's a crazy for the speed. He always drive at high speed without careing about other people on the street. One day he crashes with his car and many people dies because his stupid speed crazyness So a God identity appers and lets him live again if he uses the rest of his life to be the good. + speed powers

 

Damned Quick

I like this one a lot.

However, I haven't seen anyone mention being an alien yet. Either he's from a race that is naturally fast (cat people, mongoose people, or just some sort of natural time manipulators) or he's got IIF gagets that allow him to speed up or otherwise manipulate time. Anything besides a surfboard....

Call him ... um... Alien Fast Guy... or something.

Re: Computer Programming

Speaking as someone with some experience both in end-user and tech-support fields, "Computer Programming" best represents the ability to work ON computers, while "System Operation" best represents the ability to work WITH computers. And as a member of the "skills should matter" school of thought, both of these are seperate from PS and KS skills which will often be complimentary.

 

Take the following real-world, really happened to me examples....

While I pretty much agree with your examples, I think you're overthinking this a little. At least, I personally prefer games that have less detailed skills. GM and players should agree on generally what stuff does before hand, then GM uses that to best dramatic effect for the fun of all.

I think that Security Systems should involve the knowledge of physical systems. Stuff that is useful during breaking-and-entering operations. Computer programming is usually not useful here because you are defeating the actual sensors (lasers, IR motion detectors, etc.), not the whole computer.

Programming should include the creation of AIDs and robots, counter-hacking and hacking. What is important here is to NOT let the programmer bypass all the other players and make every detective-type discovery in the game (being a dective is a serperate skill that sometimes involves using computers).

Computer Operation (if added) should involve the operation of specific systems--Windows, Unix running Motif, Unix command line, the defense system at NORAD, etc. But character background could suffice just as well here.

My 2 cents.