laxrulz777

Re: DEX: and the Marvel Universe I'm a bit curious as to the justification for putting daredevil higher than cap... I can see giving daredevil some DCV levels or something but there's no way that cap (pretty much peak human for all the physical stats) could be less dexterous than daredevil (whose powers are pretty much restricted to heightened senses)... am i missing something here?

Re: Looking to join Genocide Genocide was a very well done villain group. They were designed to prey on your heroes weaknesses and were very deadly... I think the book was called "Mutant File" and it had a write up for the organization and a group of mutants that fought them... very well done nothing new for 5th yet though...

Re: Passing Strike (martial maneuver) Unbalanced? I think the problem most people have is that Passing Strike is too efficient. People are saying abusive and getting the response of, "Then don't allow it" but that's missing the main point they're making... so let's examine the main point they're making... If your campaign has a DC cap of 15d6 here are some simple ways to get there STR 50 Passing Strike +10" leap 55 pnts STR 35 2 1/2d6 HKA 65 pnts STR 20 Offensive Strike +7 DCs with Martial arts 43 pnts so far passing strike doesn't look too bad... Or we could look at it this way: I know I want to make a Brick. I know I want to hit the damage cap. My choices are STR 75 in which case I pay 65 pnts and have a 7 end 15d6 punch STR 50 Passing Strike +10" Leap 55 pnts I've saved 10 pnts and have some more leaping but i'm also down 5 PD and 12.5 STUN and I can't lift anywhere near as much... Note: I actually wrote this email thinking I would side with the Passing Strike haters but I now think that Passing Strike is okay. As long as the GM is paying attention to who buys it I think it's probably just fine and (as demonstrated above) its not terribly more efficient then other choices.

Re: Need help with military rank titles Are the armed forces unified (i.e. airforce, navy, army, etc. all together or seperate)... Perhaps a structure like this Field Marshal Marshal Theatre Marshal Marshal of the (North, South, East, West, *name for upper*, *name for lower*) Marshal of the (Navy, Army, Air Force, etc.) High Marshal Grand Marshal Lord Marshal other adjectives that you might try: Regional, Sectional, High, Lower, National, Continental...

Re: Favorite Abuse I think if I had a player try that I'd either A) veto it outright or tell them that it will only work against someone with at least one radar based sense... Not sure what I'd do against someone who did AVLD touch sense flash defense (millions of tiny needles perhaps)

Re: Has anyone ever had... well the npc in question was getting ready to trash the bar and beat up his girlfriend... the use of MC was already anticipated. What surprised me was that he walked out with the guy without an explanation to the other hero (who was trying to defuse the situation verbally) and the other hero just kinda let him leave. Kinda threw me for a loop.

Re: What??!! The Roman Empire fell to pieces while Jesus was still alive??!! The only reason that I didn't suggest a Persian Empire was that they were kind of restricted by geography. East of them was a very strong oriental dynasty, West of them was alot of land before you got to water and north of them was inhospitable desert and mountain regions. Sardis, Damascus and Jerusalem were already Roman holdings (and had been for almost 20 years) when Jesus died. So Persia would have had to take them back from the dying Roman Empire and then either make peace with the Empire and start trading with their people or start building military vessels there and conquering. In fitting with the Champions motif, I think the most likely European Empire would have been an Arthurian one. A pagan Arthur might have had a very different relationship with Mordred (Maybe not evil but certainly darker). I can picture a long lasting Camelot led Empire with holdings in Spain, France, Germany and Scandinavia. Alternatively, you could use Arthur as the spread of christianity (albeit greatly delayed) with Camelot becoming this world's equivalent of Rome (after the schism with the Orthodox church). I think Europe would have known about the Orient MUCH earlier thanks to Persia however. This might have led to a discovery of America sooner. Marco Polo "discovered" the orient in 1271 and Columbus sailed in 1492 so figure that if someone in 700 had gone to the orient you'd be looking at someone in 900 trying to sail west to get to Asia. That opens up all kinds of cookiness.

an adventure that just got totally screwed because your catalyst event was short-circuited? In a PBEM game in which I'm running I was going to have the Tank run in to the Mentalist over a jealous boyfriend bar fight. The mentalist just istantly mind controlled the guy and when asked about it said, "Don't worry" and walked away and the Tank didn't follow. So because of player apathy the two didn't meet and now I'm stuck either playing them both completely seperate until I can engineer another (now even more contrived) meeting or forcing some kind of encounter in this episode... bah... games would go soooo much smoother without the stupid players in the way

Re: What??!! The Roman Empire fell to pieces while Jesus was still alive??!! The Roman empire was the vessel for the spread of christianity. If the empire falls then Jesus might or might not have stayed alive (probably killed shortly after by the Jews but perhaps not). If he does stay alive then his martyrdom might happen in an entirely different way (if at all) and you might have to look at revising the entire modern Christian faith (salvation through faith alone might not even exist as a modern tenet). Additionally, christianity would probably have stayed more local. Paul would not have made all those trips to Rome and the home of any 21st century Christian church would probably be in Judea, Greece or Turkey perhaps (who knows really but it wouldn't be anywhere near Rome). Christianity would NOT have spread to England and England would have stayed a Pagan dominated island as would Germany. The Arthurian legends might be couched in an entirely different religion (in fact the alterations to England seem like the most interesting variations). Islam's roots might have been very different. Remember that Mohammed viewed Jesus as a prophet. It seems more likely that Islam would have been a tighter offshoot of Christianity (perhaps even its first schism?). The crusades would have been nothing like what we've got today. Either they would have been against another group (Perhaps those Germanic and English pagans mentioned above?), they would have been half-hearted against the muslims (seems unlikely) or (if Mohammed had been more influenced by Hinduism or Zorastrianism) they might have been full scale holy wars with one side claiming complete victory. That above paragraph probably sets up the most crucial changes to the modern era. Let's pick one: Crusades against the Pagans and Mohammed influenced by Hinduism. You'd imagine that Islam's relations with Hinduism and Christianity would be flip flopped (i.e. out and out war with Hinduism now and simmering hatred with Christianity). Pakistan and Turkey would be like Northern Ireland and Ireland were in the 80s (or like Palestine and Israel today perhaps). Israel probably wouldn't have come around. Asia was so isolationist that it probably remained mostly the same as would Africa. However, America probably wouldn't have been founded by puritan immigrants fleeing british religious persecution. More likely that explorers would have founded individual settlements (like spain in FL and holland in NY for example) and that those settlements would have been the major players. I doubt America as a country would have even come about but you might have had a succession of wars for independence as they decided to help eachother out in seperating from their colonial masters. So North America would probably look alot more like South America. Whether the World Wars would have happened at all is anyone's guess but I would think that if they did the wars would have been against Russia (unchecked by America) and would have been later (in place of the Cold War). One or more nuclear strikes might even have occurred. A possible (and interesting) outcome would have been for a WW to have been fought similar to WWII in which the european and asian countries allied against Russia (perhaps with a vietnamese or japanese ally) and in which Europe and China split up Russia piecemeal (just like Russia and the western powers split up Germany) leading to a current Cold War between Europe and China.

support. Like holding up a rock slide or what not (building debris in the case that came up).

Re: Thinking about starting a PBEM. Hero Central? I think that, like Hero system itself, hero central is whatever you want it to be... It might be nice if everyone made a pledge to try to be online off and on during the weekends or wednesday night or something just so you could get through those sessions quickly but it doesn't have to be that way. The one I'm in now (Third Millenium) gets posts once or maybe twice a night and it works pretty well...

Re: Shield of Confusion activating a DS does not require an attack roll so it doesn't qualify as a multiple power attack frankly the rules on DS are a bit unclear anyways (for example, does it cost end every turn or just when it deals damage??) but the MPA aspect is quite clear

Re: Double Knockback too pricey? I kinda like that as a wind blast though... as long as the GM keeps an eye on it that with the AE cone affect could be pretty cool...

Re: Shield of Confusion You'll note that i did not say "can't put linked slots" I said can't put linked attacks which you clearly can quoting from page 204: "You cannot Link Powers in different slots of an EC to activate together. You must buy any Linked Powers in a single slot... " It's not a special case... it's just not a multiple power attack...

Re: Shield of Confusion The powers are constant... The EC rule which you're getting hung up on reads as follows: "Characters cannot combine two or more powers from the same EC into a Multiple-Power Attack (page 234) without GM's permission." The problem here is a logical syllogism... You are looking at the rules of a multiple power attack. But read it again. The rules you're reading are conditions for making a special type of attack. If you say to the GM, "I want to fire off my Ultra Bolt and throw a Haymaker punch" your GM would point to page 234 and ask you if you meet all the criteria to be allowed to do such a thing. However, just because you meet these criteria individually doesn't make it a multiple power attack. (the syllogism would be: All Multiple Power Attacks meet Criteria 1-4, however not all actions meeting criteria 1-4 are Multiple Power Attacks)... I can think of a perfect counter-example. Any linked attack meets all of the criteria for a Multiple-Power attack. And if you're reading of the rules was correct then we could never put linked attacks into an EC. In fact, in reading reading the rules on linked powers its pretty clear that this is not the case. On page 196 the 6th paragraph, 1st column quotes the Multiple Power Attack section almost verbatim but it NEVER says that this is a multiple power attack. For what you're describing to be a problem the section would have to be something like this. "A Multiple Power Attack is any action that meets criteria 1, 2, 3 and 4" I can't believe what a mountain this mole hill has become...

I find myself often wanting to buy this advantage conceptually and then never deciding to buy it because there's always something else. At +3/4 without the ability to increase it beyond double it just seems really pricey to me. If I want a weak attack that does even semi-significant KB I have to do some linking with TK at which point it becomes a bit more rules confusing... Not to mention isn't it usually better just to have the bigger blast (why have an 8d6 KB with the KB power of a 16d6 blast when you could just have a 14d6 blast all the time... the KB difference between the two is relatively small and you get lots of extra damage) Is there an upside that I'm not seeing?

Re: Shield of Confusion I think the answer to the first part is 2... For example, couldn't a character with one damage shield do the following. Half Move, Martial Grab, Damage Shield kicks in Crush, Damage Shield kicks in In the second case you would be doing two attacks (by your logic)... The damage shield advantage makes the power "something else" I don't know what the something else is but, frankly, I'm not sure it really matters... As for the rest, I believe you get a Casual Strength check immediately and you could abort to a martial escape IF IT HAS ABORT as a characteristic... Otherwise I don't think you can abort to use you full strength (I might be wrong about this last part) All you have to do is touch them with a non-damaging hth attack. Martial Grab is sufficient but Choke Hold is not. As long as you're continuing to hold them they continue to take damage (on your segments not theirs) Well, it wouldn't necessarily be DCV 3... It would be his DCV - the growth effects... and yes you would still affect him with the Damage Shield because (as mentioned above) you hit him with a non-damaging attack (what the DnD d20 system would call a "touch" attack).

Re: The Meta X MR Wild Card Gene Syndrome Virus is Female Dominant! are you sure you're not playing Everquest or City of Heroes?? Seriously, I've never had this problem. I've found that the male playing a female character is not very common FtF... PBEM might be different...

Re: WWYCD: The Arc My characters would run to Barnes and Noble and buy up all of Arthur C. Clarke's Rama series of books. Then they'd quickly read them and figure out that the series has a god awful conclusion and answers none of the questions of the readers... The nuclear missles would fly shortly after

Re: Penetrating Killing/BOD Attacks If a character has armor defined as a shield (maybe with a 14<- activation) I would say the indirect will (probably) bypass that. If a character is trying to take out the driver of a tank I would say that someone with good familiarity with the tank could make a heavily penalized attack roll to try to originate the blast inside the tank and hit the driver (bypassing the tank's armor)... To me, Indirect bypasses any kind of "directional" defense as well as some kinds of "field" defense. If a character has force field usable on others defined as a damping field where attacks do less damage then indirect doesn't help. If it is defined as the hero generating absorbing fields in front of allies to block incoming attacks then the hero better have some idea where the attack is coming from to stop it (i.e. a small indirect, like a grenade launcher, could be stopped... but a large indirect, like tentacles from the ground is going to require a DEX roll at the very least to stop it). The beauty, and the flaw, of the Hero System is that it is soooo sfx driven. It's what makes a Hero GM's life tougher then, say, a D&D GM... but its also why i love the system

Re: Penetrating Killing/BOD Attacks I'm not sure I understand the delimma on "layering" For AP it doesn't really matter right... you just have the non-hardened defenses and total everything up right? For penetrating you just check do the math as if it was a normal EB (or RKA or whatever) then look at the leftover stun... If it's above the stun that should have penetrated then you do nothing... If it's below that amount then the amount of Stun done is penetrated stun (as rolled by the dice) - hardened defenses. Indirect bypasses defenses based on SfX Ablative defenses are always applied first (common sense permitting) and damage reduction is always applied last (Ablative Damage Reduction should not be allowed for this reason). Am I missing something? as for the partial AP I say no way... just don't allow it...

Re: Strike Force 2? While I would love to see a Strike Force update I actually meant this question in a more general way. I would love to see [insert random GM's name here]'s campaign setting published. Not necessarily the Strike Force universe just a look into someone's home campaign. The Strike Force book was so fantastic (and so much of it has lived on as you and I both pointed out) that I think another book like it could be very good. Nice to know Allston hasn't forgotten his roots though

Re: Have you ever taken a fall? I don't think you need to require a 3 page contract... the above example is perfect... "Attack your teammates" the player attacks them but the character doesn't have to like it and this was a perfect example of role playing the way a smart character might resist (or do something half-hearted) I would have similarly allowed this character to attack with is weakest attacks (although not with partial strength). I even would have allowed him to use an NND attack on a character he knew to be resistant (at least until the mentalist realized what was happening and changed the command). I'd also like to point out that the mentalist's command reinforced the notion that they were teammates and so was internally inconsistent to some degree... The smart and careful mentalist would have made the command something like, "Those people are your mortal enemies" or "Go punch Dr. Photon" or "You love and must protect me from anyone" Any of those commands would have been "better" and none of them are 3 pages long...

Are there any plans to publish a campaign book ala the old Strike Force book? That book is still one of my favorite books. It has a great breadth and depth of material ranging from a cool group of characters (with solo hero suggestions and villain version suggestions) to a detailed campaign back story. It also introduced several concepts that have become a part of Hero Systems (the coolness and versatility of the martial arts system, point shaving, player typing, etc.) I'd like to see a book like this. It could either be a purely homegrown campaign (like Strike Force was for the most part) or it could even be set in the CU as part of the canon (if it was your guys personal campaign). Anyways... Food for thought.

Re: West Coast Sourcebook I'd like to see the Protectors (From to Serve and Protect) be brought into the Champions universe... There are a couple reasons 1) There aren't any biggish groups in the CU proper... JLA size groups are a staple of comic books (DC more than Marvel I suppose) and the 12 Protectors were pretty cool. 2) They were an excellent example of a well rounded group with good teamwork. I used them just as it was suggested in the book... To show that a lower powered group with teamwork could pound the uncoordinated PCs into the ground 3) I really liked the group... I thought there were some cool characters with some cool histories in there and they'd make a nice centerpiece for a West Coast Sourcebook.