Lord Mhoram

Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

I've been enjoying the Chicago Code.

This being the third series that Shawn Ryan has created/co-created that I really like.

Re: A DC Animated-style HeroMachine

In Lord Mhoram's campaign universe, the Golden Avenger drifted from "annoyingly right-wing" to "actively fascist" and left UNTIL. He resurfaced some time later as the field leader of an organization dedicated to the destruction of all metahumans not under their own control: Genocide.

 

He is...

 

A little background there - I had superpowers show up at the start of the campaign. So there were no mutants - The opening adventure of the campaign was the heroes escaping a prison/research camp that was created to hold those with superpowers (the lead scientists was also killing as many as he could, but the Government didn't know about that). So the start of the game had a fair amount of anti-super sentiment, but that died out aside from a few individuals. Golden Avenger was one of them. When he was outmaneuvered and lost control of Primus, he went rouge and took a chunk of them with him (the Gov. let the outmanuever happen because of his unpopular hard line stance against supers).

In their first meeting, Pariah's character (Jack Diamond) hit Vengeance with an attack that triggered two separate vulnerabilities. In their next meeting Jack stole his AP gauntlets. Thus a hunted was born.

When I decided to introduce Genocide in the game, he was a natural to be near the top (he was the White Kings Knight as I recall).

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now?

Tongue Twister Typo - Blackmarket

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now?

One Step Closer - Linkin Park (from my Rock Band mix)

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now?

Offrande - Satan Jokers (a French Metal band that sings in their native tounge).

I have it in a metal mix that also includes Loudness (Japanese), Rammstein (German), Alabarda (Spanish), and a bunch of more normal bands. I find it amusing that my mix have 5 languages in it.

Re: A Storeowner's First Impression

I'm honestly surprised that cover art (or art in general) can make such a big difference.

You would be amazed.

I was working at a comic/game shop during the launch of 3E D&D. We had the Creature Collection (third party monster book out before the monster manual - great monsters, great B&W lined art). On at least two occasions people picked it, flipped through it, and said something like "Ehh - Black and White art" and put it back.

Completely shocked me, because I don't care about art in game books that way.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now?

Unbelievable - EMF

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now?

21st Century Schizoid Man - April Wine

That's not bad, but I much prefer the original.

For me:

Octavium - Dream Theater - 4 minutes in, 19 more to go.

Re: Your favorite champions character

Mine has to be Black Cat. Played for going on 17 years (is a solo character the wife runs). Karate Kid from the Legion of Superheroes has been a favorite superhero for decades, and I finally got to play a martial artist like him (damage near what the bricks dish out, no stealth, in your face combat monster).

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now?

I love a rainy night - Eddie Rabbit

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now?

Forces of Nature - Pearl Jam (off the new CD. It's pretty good actually).

Re: The Twelve most Wanted

What would your lone hero do?

Black Cat would use her personal Dimensional movement powers to get a lock on this place (to return to), go home, recruit a huge team, and they would come through and clean the place up. She would likely stay for years to help get the new government(s) going.

Terminal Velocity would gather info, and try and figure out how to use his speedster powers to move interdimensionally (hey, they do it in the comics). He'd most likely try to contact Jeopardy back home - she has the best skills for this kind of situation.

Meeb would start an underground resistance.

Sift would dim-shift back home, and repeat basically what 'Cat would do.

Re: Xbox 360 Version of Champions Online Being Held Back By MS

Well you should play it on the PC anyway' date=' it looks great at 1680x1050. [/quote']

 

Well, I don't have a machine that will run it, or the money to upgrade. But I do have a 360.

 

I figure that MS wants to limit it to Gold Live subscribers or something.

Re: The unofficial: I Have 6th edition thread

I bought the Megabundle.

A friend wants the hardcopy, and I didn't want to spend all that much on 6th, so I ordered for both of us - he gets the books, I have the PDFs.

Re: Reactions to 6e

I'll be using a FrankenHero too I think. There's some interesting new stuff in 6th edition but nothing that turned me against 5th.

I've used 4th ed Damage Shield, Regen, and Instant Change in my 5E game, plus some houserules, and the 3E approach to ECs (pretty much anything goes into them with justification) - although I use the Drain one power drain 'em all idea from 5th (just not the double whammy of draining the EC cost too). I'll be adding elements from 6th too. To me the 6E books are just another "ultimate" book with new alternate rules I can use. I'll likely get the APG for the same reason.

FrankenHero. I like that.

Re: Reactions to 6e

Having done a basic read through of the 2 books (most attention payed to the character creation book)...

Very pretty - they look awesome.

Some very cool new stuff - Barrier, Damage Negation, the new Area Effect stuff, and a number of other powers and modifiers. The change to VPPs is going to be something I am going to be looking at.

I went into this with something of a "prove to me you are better than the Hero I play now" attitude (which is really the same attitude I give any RPG I read). It didn't.

I still don't like the way characteristics are handled, and I dislike the removal of ECs. Some cost things just seem a bit wonky to me (6 pts per die on a few powers, and the changes to skill levels costs and Regen).

For me, enough stuff that I liked / thought was fine was changed and little enough stuff was "fixed" that I prefer 5th. I suspected that with the prerelease info (ECs and Fig Chars), but reading through the books prove it.

So my user titles stands for now - 5th ed Grognard. But I will be incorporating a number of 6th powers lims and advantages. Still using Hero as a toolkit - just doing it across edition lines, as it were.

Re: Player vs. Player

I make it clear when I start a game, that I want the party to work together. If it is fantasy, and there is a thief, I tell the player right up front that as a GM I won't put up with him stealing treasure more than his fair share, or doing things that will cause party problems. In D&D I only allow Good aligned characters.

I also (as part of my start of game prepared speech) let anyone know that I don't do anything with passed notes, and if I do get handed one, I read it aloud. That tends to shut down that kind of problems.

If the player ends up leaving, then they likely would have caused problems in my game anyway.

I've had a stable group for going on 17 years, so I must be doing something right.

Re: Your favorite character type

I like Martial Artists, notably ones with a MP or Pool for special martial arts moves. I also just like martial arts - almost every character I play has a set of MA moves even if ranges (Smokeater had a ranged set, and Sift my super-mage has a standard HtH type MA, and a ranged package defined as extra magical control).

If you want to move out from there, I like to play a character can that do a little something in every situation - Martial Artists with pools who can do Ch'i healing or other tricks (Black Cat), super-mages with pools or Multipowers with a lot of slots (Ballistic, Sift) or other oddball characters with a tricks MP or Pool (Terminal Velocity a speedster, or Meeb the shape shifter).

I don't necessarily want them the best at any one thing (although 'Cat is) - but I do usually want them to be the most versatile.

Re: Your "Oh #@$%!" Moment

Classic case of where the character and the player both failed their INT rolls.

Yeah.

I supppose I should share one of mine - this one where Pariah was GMing (it seems only fair to balance the scales).

We ran a plot where Black Cat was possessed by her Darkforce powers and went evil (before them being removed and me switching her to a pure Martial Artists). I came up with some of the nastiest things my mind could come up with, and Pariah let me minmax to the extreme (and I can really minmax). I beat up the rest of the team before the plot ended.

So a couple of months later, a body was found, and it looked like the body of the one person 'Cat killed when she was possessed - dessicated husk and total fear on the face. Then more such things show up, pointing a finger to 'Cat but with her powers.

Then we come face to face with a shadowy figure that calls 'Cat sister, and is made of pure Darkforce. We fight, and don't do so well.

Then I realized that Pariah was just using the last writeup I had of Black Cat before she was depowered.

Oh #@$%!

When I told Pariah that using that writeup wasn't fair, he just smiled and evil little smile. He was right.

Re: Your "Oh #@$%!" Moment

My namesake, Pariah, was a Brick with a small elemental magic VPP. In the midst of a fight against Thor (Odinson, God of Thunder, etc.), Pariah activated one of his most useful combat spells: Stature of the Mountain. It supplemented his strength and defenses, primarily with a few levels of Growth.

 

Thor took one look at me and roared, "GIANT!!"

 

Oh #@$%!

One of my favorite moments GMing. When Pariah did the growth thing it was all I could do not to start laughing immediately.

Re: Sixth Edition Showcase #8: APG Goodies

This has been one I was looking forward too even if I didn't get 6th.

Sold.

Re: Sixth Edition Showcase #6: Defense Powers

P

 

Barrier 10PD/10ED, 0 BODY, Costs END to Maintain

That's good enough for me.

The longer it goes, the more I think I will be using 6th powers/Advantages/ect more, and just build all the 5th Powers I like from it, and make them base powers in my games. I'll still have figured Chars, Com and EC though.

Re: Sixth Edition Showcase #6: Defense Powers

I like Barrier as a concept, but I'll have to see the power for sure - We still need to able to model Invisible Woman's Barriers that she has to concentrate to keep up, and gets feedback from. If the appropriate limitations are in place to do that - cool.

I don't mind the resistant advantage, been doing something like that for years, but I also like Damage Resistance.

I've always liked Armor and FF being separate powers. So I'll stick with 5th for that.

Re: Who's your Nemesis? And... WHY?

Terminal Velocity - Speedster who has a rather complicated backstory. He is the illigetimate child of a supervillian mother (Shrike from European Enemies) and a Superhero father (Dr Force in the campaign a member of the New Knights of the Round Table). Dr Force's wife found out about it, and set him up to get killed by Eurostar... she was successful. Velocity's arch-nemesis is his half brother, who is a "TK/ solid force" user, like their father. Velocity has a few points in "force" powers himself. And like Cyclops and Havok, their force powers don't work on each other. TV's mom went straight and raised him to be a hero, his half brother raised by the bitter, resentful and slightly psychopathic widow of Dr Force.

Why it stands out - A villian really tied to the hero and origin. The GM has had fun with them.

Sift - She is a classic supermage. When she was just starting out superheroing, she detected a demon summoning and tried to stop it. She half succeeded, and the demon merged with the summoner, the combined form looking rather grotesque, and he called himself "The Twisted."

Why it stands out - she feels responsible for just about everything he does, because of his origin. Strong roleplaying goes along every time it happens.

Re: Not good enough

Being as my computer resources are nowhere close to running this game (just accessing the graphics-and-features-intensive Cryptic website locks it up from time to time)' date=' and that I haven't the money to expand them in the foreseeable future, I'm grateful that I have no interest in MMOs in general.[/quote']

 

Yeah, I've never played an MMO (to be honest I've never played a game online or in a LAN either). I was interested in this one though.