novi

Sorry, I've been distracted/busy the last... month? Really? Finally buying Civ VI in the Steam summer sale certainly didn't help. But yes, what you guys have said here is helpful, and proves my hunch that I was missing a bunch of options. Also, so many characters out there from the 30-40 years that Champions has been out there. Now, I might actually be farther from a decision now that I have more options to pick from, but I've also got options for more types of plots and elements to bring in. Going to have to sit down and make a choice at some point here... Thanks

Regarding that gender-flipped Justice League, you should be able to find some more pictures from that if you google "gender bent justice league." For instance:

I was looking at the books to see if there was a female mastermind-type villain to build a campaign around, and I came back with only only 3.5 choices. Are there really that few canon choices? For the purposes of this exercise, I'm looking for villains likely to run a big scheme that takes multiple adventures to fully stop. Just having a lot of points isn't what I want - Galaxia is strong, but she doesn't have the resources & contacts for a grand scheme. I would also accept a villain team, but that doesn't seem to give me any more choices when sticking to canon. I mean, GRAB has the highest female membership of the teams I can think of, but they're just thieves in it for the money. 1. Istvatha V'han - Yes, but she's a bit too large-scale for my tastes. 2. Gravitar - She's the half I mentioned. Has most of the characteristics, I'm looking for, except that it explicitely says that she's generally not a schemer - she's going to conquer the world with her own two hands, or not at all. 3. The Engineer - My top choice of what I can find. Her biggest let down is the canon write-up says that she under-invests in her infrastructure, so she's a little light on bases and followers to beat up. While I can just give her more, it does deviate from canon... 4. Duchess Henrietta von Drotte - This is a bit of a stretch, but one of the top 5 in VIPER, who is a fabulously wealthy industrialist? She has a lot of the right attributes, but it needs some explaining as to why she's the main target, and not just VIPER. Is that it? I'd like to make sure I've considered all the canon choices before I start gender-flipping or inventing new villains.

I managed to find a working version of the DC-Animated-style heromachine recently. Download is still goofy, but the live version works fine for me in Firefox and Edge. https://voltron42.github.io/apps/hero-o-matic/

True. And if we're being honest, Seeker is more Paul Hogan, anyway.

What Lord Liaden said. A brand new team with its own PR. Anyway, Mel Gibson in a wheelchair versus Timothy Dalton in a wheelchair. Oh, the choices... And the ham.

Black Phantom would be cool, but I'm going to say that he's too old, and likely dead without shenanigans. Which, admittedly, comics, but that's my opinion and I'm sticking to it. Likewise, Defender would also work, but he would be setting us up as a junior Champions franchise. My group eventually choose not to go that route - they're going to be their own team, without a famous name to use and live up to. I haven't looked at Nightwind or Seeker in a while, but they hold promise. As a bit of an update, our choice of city has come down to Boston, Chicago, or San Francisco. Is there any more information on the New Paladins, the California Patrol, the Peacekeepers, the Bay Guardians, or the Freedom Patrol beyond what I can find in Champions Universe? There might be something there I can use. And as always, thanks for any replies.

I've started up a pbp game over on rpol, and worked out with the players that the reason that the team formed is that an older, somewhat retired hero is sponsoring and mentoring them as a team to fight crime in [tbd campaign city]. At one point, I had memorized enough setting books to pick one myself, but it's been a while. Are there any existing characters that, given the passage of time, would work well in that role? I could just make my own, but why reinvent the wheel? And by passage of time, I mean that some characters have fixed dates on their timeline and have actually gotten older. For instance, Defender founded the Champions back in 2001. But not every character; is it really Champions without Foxbat and the Ultimates? And who cares how old Grond, Ogre, and Pulsar are? I'll probably start a different thread to ask for suggestions on that once I have a campaign city. A wheelchair-bound Night-duck has occured to me, but he's just not a character I'd enjoy playing.

And the fairly expected comeback for Ohio. Ah, well. It'll be interesting to see whether Penn or Wisconsin gets to go to Pasadena. Also, Oklahoma, with defense? Interesting concept.

14-0 Wisconsin over Ohio? I know it's only the 2nd quarter, but still, who expected Ohio to be that far down at any point in this game?

Yeah, top 4 does seem pretty set. If Georgia does manage an upset, I'm going to guess LSU is out, unless it's a super-close game. No, I'm just waiting to see how badly Ohio beats Wisconsin this weekend. Well, I suppose there does exist a chance of a Wisconsin upset, but it seems awful remote. Then again, Wisconsin beating Minnesota on the strength of their passing game is also not a sentence I thought I would ever see, so...

Part of the problem with future history, as well as alternate history, is that there isn't just one destination. You really have to work backwards, defining some part of where you want to be, and how things work in around that. Also, you have to bear in mind that the Champions Universe functions, at least somewhat, along narrative lines. Being a comic book/superhero setting means some things that really shouldn't work in the real world, do. Not just superpowers and super-tech, but a criminal syndicate like VIPER being able to operate underground in the US. Where I'm going with this right now is that on a certain level, superheroes exist because there are supervillains to be stopped. If the age of superheroes is coming to an end, it should also correspond to the age of supervillains ending. If you want to go that way, there just aren't as many new supervillains popping up. Supercrime is trending down. The heroes might ponder whether their kind of extraordinary response is really needed anymore. And if they do reverse the mana decline, new waves of villains pop up. Nice job breaking it, heroes. As far as humanity's presence in space, it's not too optimistic for that many space colonies in a century. Especially with the head start that various supertech gives them. Asteroid mining is practically inevitable if we can avoid civilization collapsing, there is only so much of various elements economically accessible on Earth's surface

In a change of pace, Minnesota and Wisconsin are both pretty good teams heading into rivalry week, playing for Big Ten West champs. And the odds are looking pretty even on this game, so it will be interesting to see how it turns out. Especially since the rivalry is currently tied up (60-60-8). Of course, the winner gets to lose to Ohio State in the Big Ten Championship game. Let's not kid ourselves on sure things.

What I was trying to get at is that while Molnya would be a great asset to Putin and of similar background/mindset, I can just as easily see that tipping the paranoia scales against Molnya. Putin might consider him too competent to stay subordinate to him; Molnya's contingency and long-range plans for life after Putin could be considered disloyalty to a sufficiently paranoid mind. Hard to say which way is more likely, or makes for a better story.

Ugh, amazing how time flies. And yes, that was definitely something I had in mind. Which means I'll have to watch some episodes of the old GI Joe, since I never did as a kid.

Derp. Let me rephrase that. They'll probably start off against VIPER agents. The Ultimates would be many adventures in, a tone shift as the serious bad guys. I bring them up as a benchmark for the opposition. I'm asking, because I'm pretty sure that balancing the fights isn't as simple as 8 * 300 point PCs = 5 * 480 point villains. Not that points are meaningless, but they're not the whole story.

I should be running a Champions game (IRL) in the near future, and I've been asked to build all the characters for it. Which simplifies some things, but leaves me getting overly worried about properly balancing the team. (I know that I overthink and overly worry about things, but stopping myself is easier said than done. Oh well.) Also, there will be 7 or 8 players, which is pushing me towards lowering the team power level a bit so that I can keep combats from getting overly bloated. Anyway, the core of the team: After some discussion, the 6th-8th players will be crew members for the band, to be hashed out at a future date. Such concepts as 'a hypercompetent roadie', 'the sound and lights guy', 'a duplicating back-up dancer', and Max Lord'the manager with psychic powers' have been floated. And while not necessarily connected, the band is relatively new, so the characters will still be rookie heroes. So, I'm trying to work out a good power level for the team. In particular, I'd like to be able to run classic Ultimates, with Plasmoid and Charger updated 6th, against the PCs as a fair fight without too much buffing or fudging. Not sure if that is a reasonable goal, though. My thoughts so far are: Aquanet: 10 DC, 5 SPD, 7/7 CV, +1-2 HtH Bondage: VPP – 50 or 60 control cost, 4 SPD, 6/6 CV, +2 Overall Chronic: 8-10 DC, 6 SPD, 7/9 CV Delicious Rick: 12+ DC, 4 SPD, 5/5 CV, +3 Powers, +2 v Range Spandex: 9-10 DC, 5 SPD, 7/7 CV What advice can you veteran GMs and players give this worry-wort?

But does Cap outrank an ordnance technician at a full sprint?

I probably should have guessed Classic Enemies, but wasn't sure which editions had roster changes. ----------------------------- Not going to bother with Soviet supers in my game, at least for a while. My players want to keep low key to start, touring the Midwest as a struggling, young band. So no international intrigue, for now. --------------------------- While not on topic, I will grant that does sound about right for Putin. Hmm, I wonder how Molyna* fits into modern Russia. Seems like he'd either be part of that black-ops superteam, or managed to get on Putin's bad side and is working to undercut the Russian government. *From Champions Worldwide. I kinda liked the character, for whatever reason.

I was actually wondering where to find the original Terror, Inc, not the zombie version. Also, in which book would I find Charger and Plasmoid? The original versions? *snerk* Okay, that's a good one.

Been a bit distracted the last few weeks. Anyway, I never actually said which edition, but it will be 6th. And I'm strongly considering lowering the power level - 10 DCs average attack, probably 350 points total. Where would I find the write-up of that earlier version of the Ultimates? Or, perhaps, would somebody be willing to post 6th ed versions of Charger and Plasmoid somewhere? Oh yeah, and Professor Muerte. I recall the name, but don't think I've seen the original write-up. Which old book is he hiding in? I think my players might enjoy him.

re: Lord Liaden: Yeah, I kinda knew that when I was posting it, but I couldn't figure how to properly communicate otherwise. *sigh* But to be fair, I am kinda looking for both angles. Which actual old-school characters I should look into, as well as which newer characters to use. I probably will have to pick up Road Kill. As for the Ultimates, I'm not familiar with that older line-up. How does it compare to the newer versions?

Um, Work-Energy Theorem? It's been... a while since I had a physics class, so I did a quick Wikipedia visit to make sure I had my formulas correct. And while I was all set to work out the acceleration, I then noticed the page mentioning that work is also equal to delta-Kinetic energy. Seemed like a much more straightforward and accurate approach.

Assuming standard physics word problem rules and constant forces, and not showing my work because I don't want to type in that many equations. And assuming I remember how significant digits work: 1. 6.563 x 10^6 J 2. 8.576 x 10^3 N 3. 6.43 x 10^5 W Yes, I got an A in AP Physics. Why do you ask?

I should probably clarify that other than the BBB, my collection is all 5th and 6th Ed. I'm not sure I've heard of any of BoloOfEarth's suggestions.