massey

In the 1940s comics, Robin was clearly very young. I think 8 or 9 years old would be about right. Remember that it was supposed to make the book more appealing to children. Supposedly the thinking was that kids couldn't picture themselves as Batman, but they could picture themselves hanging out with Batman. I don't know, I never had a hard time picturing myself as Batman or Superman (I always thought Robin sucked, even as a kid).

I've read a bunch of the old 1940s GL books. As I recall, he didn't actually have a vulnerability to wood. That was more a later addition once the Silver Age had begun and Hal Jordan had come along.

I have started taking martial art classes to get into better shape. I am not very good at it yet. We did a sparring session, and a guy who is much better than me started throwing punches and kicks (light contact, wearing pads). I realized very very quickly that my OCV isn't very good -- blocking him was not going to work. It was a much better plan to abort to dodge (i.e., ducking and moving and trying to get out of the way). I also sparred a guy who wasn't very good either, and I had a much easier time blocking his attacks and responding. The wizard doesn't really have to know how well trained someone is. He just has to be able to tell if they are better than he is or not. That's not really very hard, honestly.

I played a Batman-type character once, and I gave him a Megascale Teleport, with enough distance to cover the campaign area (basically the city and surrounding areas). It had a limitation, "only to arrive at the scene". The idea was that my Batman guy knew more than the other characters, and he left earlier without telling any of them what was going on. Either that, or I just happened to be in the neighborhood when the crime occurred. So basically the rest of the group would show up, and I'd step out of an alleyway and be like "took you long enough..." Other players really hated that power.

In the JLA comics I read (late 90s), Robin wasn't anything. That version of Batman's character sheet didn't bother to include Robin, because Robin virtually never showed up. I think there are several "right" ways to build Batman and Robin. One of them has Robin as a DNPC. In this version, Robin is always getting kidnapped. He's more of a pain than he is a help, and Batman often has to go out of his way to save him. In another version, Robin is a Follower. He's much more useful to Batman here, and sometimes can even save Batman's butt. Anyway, he fights alongside Batman and is a competent adventurer on his own. Another way to do it is to have two players, each with one of the characters. Batman is more directly powerful, more efficiently built. Robin on the other hand, may have some goofier powers with noncombat skills that Batman lacks. So if Batman has a 12D6 Offensive Strike and a 6 Speed, Robin's best punch might be a 9D6 Martial Strike, but maybe he can hit an 11D6 Passing Strike when he swings in on his batline and kicks somebody. He might also have several D6 of Luck, and maybe some combat skill levels that only apply when he's fighting with Batman (effectively, bad guys pay much more attention to Bats, making it easier for Robin). Finally, I've toyed with the idea of making Robin the PC. He's an average Champions martial artist with a utility belt and several powers that represent him being Batman's sidekick. Chief among those is Summon: Batman, which he always uses when he gets captured by the bad guys. So your 350 point Robin can bring in a 500 point Batman if the need arises. This is basically "Robin as DNPC" just from the opposite direction.

I really learned how to block when I played in a martial arts oriented campaign. Everybody played a ninja-type character, and we made heavy use of maneuvers. It was at that point that I really figured out how to use the Speed chart. LoneWolf is right, players who don't know how to use the combat maneuvers will be slaughtered by those that do. You don't need to do anything to make block more powerful, it's already one of the best maneuvers in the game. But you have to know how to use it. My suggestion would be to create an opponent who relies on it heavily. Have a swordsman or something who uses Martial Block, with a couple of levels in it. Just have him parry the crap out of your players' moves. Block block, block block block. After a successful block, you can continue to do it with a -2 penalty against more attacks. So if you've got a 10 OCV and you need a 13- to block Ragnar's attack, as long as you make the roll you can continue blocking. So now his buddy Sven runs over, and you're effectively OCV 8 to block his attack. That's [i]before[/i] your next phase comes up, so you can continue to defend against multiple attackers while only using one action. Blockmaster Bob (Dex 20, Speed 5, OCV 10 with block) fights Stabby Steve (Dex 20, Spd 4, OCV 9 with stab). On segment 3, the two make a Dex roll off to see who goes first. Steve wins, and promptly tries to stab Bob. Bob aborts his action to block. His OCV is 10, he needs a 12 or less to block Steve. He succeeds, and Steve's attack is wasted. On Segment 5, it's Bob's turn. He can attack Steve or do something else if he wants. On Segment 6, Steve can go again. Steve decides to stab Bob. Bob acted on 5, but now he can abort his next action (upcoming segment 8 ) to block again. He needs another 12-. Steve's segment 6 is wasted. On Segment 8 Bob resets (he can now abort again). Steve stabs again on 9, and Bob can abort his upcoming segment 10. On segment 12, they roll off Dex again to see who goes first. It may feel like Steve controlled this fight, but he was burning Endurance left and right, and Bob got in an attack on Segment 5 that Steve couldn't respond to.

I wouldn't worry about the linked Entangle. It's going to come up so rarely that it shouldn't matter, and it's also special effect dependent. If Batman throws his batline around you and ties you up, when you teleport away it should just fall to the ground. Even if you switch places with somebody, they probably aren't positioned in exactly the same way that you are. They probably don't have the exact same body measurements either. Why would the batline magically resize itself and reposition so that the other guy is tied up? On the other hand, if Mr Freeze shoots you with an ice beam and now there's a 10 foot thick chunk of ice surrounding you, it makes more visual sense for you to switch places with somebody and now they're stuck too. Logically the exact same problem exists as with the batline, but it still seems comic-booky to me to be able to swap places and leave somebody trapped in the ice prison. So I wouldn't worry about the Entangle. You can't use it on your own, you have to wait until somebody else Entangles you first. Though I do think you need to purchase Indirect on the Teleport Usable As Attack.

Block becomes more valuable as attacks outstrip defenses, and when you have a high OCV. When you don't know if you can take a hit or not, you block.

The better players in our group block a lot. The dummies get hit in the face a bunch.

You're going to run into an issue with point efficiency. Honestly you're probably going to pay way too much for your powers, if I understand your proposed build correctly. Is the Endurance Reserve the only way you can cast your necromantic magic? Because if so, yeah you're probably paying too much. A normal power is priced based on the assumption that you can use it whenever you want. It doesn't take any extra time, you can just use it over and over again. Characters are basically assumed to have enough Endurance to use their powers regularly. But if you don't buy any Endurance, or you make your spells run off of an Endurance Reserve that doesn't recharge... that's a pretty hefty restriction that you aren't actually getting any points back for. How often do you think your character will be able to Drain somebody and fuel up his End Reserve? Now if you're allowed to do that "off camera", and so your character is always walking around with a full End Reserve and he can whip out those necromantic spells whenever he wants, then that's probably fine. But if you have to do it in the course of regular play, then functionally what's happening is you have something that keeps you from using all your spells as often as you normally could. I'd suggest skipping the End Reserve, skipping the Aid, and try this instead. Slap a Recoverable Charges limitation on all your necromancy spells. That's a limitation directly on the spells, so it makes them cheaper. Make the recovery condition (where you get your charges back) when you successfully Drain somebody of most of their Body. So you always basically start with a full tank of gas, and you can Drain people to get back up to full. You can presume that off camera, the character murders some unimportant people to refill.

You guys are getting hung up on special effect. I'm not worried about what a character could theoretically do. I'm thinking about how the character will be played. There's very little difference between the Bruce Banner/Hulk and Billy Batson/Captain Marvel characters, and Clark Kent/Superman. Yes, theoretically Clark still has all his powers when he's sitting on the toilet at work playing on his phone. But since I'm not intending to have Clark fight supervillains while sitting on the toilet at work, it doesn't matter. I'm aware that the idea offends your sensibilities. I like the idea anyway.

I'm not entirely sold on some of that. Suppose you build Clark Kent separately from Superman. While theoretically Clark can use all of Superman's stats and abilities in his normal clothes, in practice the two characters operate differently. As long as you make Clark reasonably super-strong and bulletproof (say 35 Str, 20 PD resistant), that'll be sufficient for anything Clark is likely to do as Clark. You can then spend the rest of your points on fun genre tricks like superspeed typing, as well as his journalistic skills and contacts. Superman is again, the same guy as Clark, just wearing different clothing. There's nothing stopping Superman from conducting an interview or calling on Clark's contacts to get the scoop. Except we know he doesn't do that. There are a lot of skills he technically knows how to use, but he just doesn't when he's being Superman. This is particularly true when Supes is being the "Big Blue Boyscout" and seems to fall for every trick in the book. Goofy, gullible Superman never recognizes the enemy's trap until it goes off in his face. And yet Clark is a brilliant investigative reporter who knows bullcrap when he hears it. I don't think it's unreasonable to give Clark a high Deduction skill roll, and to leave it off Superman's character sheet entirely. Often there's a difference in mindset between the two characters.

A person can have a high Presence without looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger. A great comedian can have a high Pre, because they can dominate a room with their wit and personality. And a low Pre person might still be memorable, just not in a good way. Think of some sleazy molester looking guy with a pornstache and a comb-over. He couldn't persuade you to do anything at all (except to keep your kids away from him), but he definitely stands out.

My D&D roots are showing here. I'd suggest making the dragon tough enough that only high level heroes can fight it. Dragons aren't worried about armies of low level peasants. High level heroes are likely to have things like Find Weakness, Deadly Blow, magic armor piercing weapons, etc. In addition to that, you could also give the dragon a Vulnerability (x2 Body) to certain types of attacks. Now your dragon laughs at siege weapons and groups of archers, but when the big name hero comes riding in with his magic sword, it's a different story. Or you could knock the dragon super unconscious, and then hold his head underwater. Just drown him.

I believe that sentence is a new addition to the 6th edition rules. I don't recall anything like that in previous versions of the rules. Understand that the guy who wrote the 6th edition rules (Steve Long) is a lawyer, and sometimes his lawyer tendencies get the better of him. I think this is one of those times. There's a difference between the Rules As Written, and the Game As Played. I've played in a lot of Hero games over the decades, and I don't think I've ever once seen this come up. The only time this might be an issue is with noncombat movement, in regular movement it shouldn't be an issue. Also remember that there's nothing saying you can't slow down again during your initial movement, and that's probably what characters should be considered as doing during the game. It keeps it simpler that way. Captain Speedster has 50 meters of Running. On Segment 2, he begins moving towards the Mad Scientist and his Doomsday Device. The Mad Scientist is exactly 50 meters away. On Segment 2, Captain Speedster accelerates up to 50 meters per phase of velocity. He travels 10 meters while building up to speed. He travels forward 50 meters and is now standing next to Mad Scientist. He can choose to retain that 50 meters of velocity (in which case he'll have to slow down next phase), or he can simply say that over the last 10 meters of movement, he was reducing his velocity. So the first 10 meters he speeds up, then he covers 30 meters at full speed, and the last 10 meters he slows down. He is now standing next to the Mad Scientist at a velocity of zero. For normal everyday interactions, that's probably how you should handle it. It's a lot easier. Maybe you'd want to handle vehicles differently, or large noncombat multiples. But just for everyday combat movement, you don't want to give yourself headaches.

Yeah, but given that we're talking about "longer, thinner sword", I don't know that it's that big a leap. There's very little difference between a bronze dagger and a steel dagger. You'd have to sharpen the bronze dagger more often, but being a softer metal it would also take less time. All that stuff is offscreen anyway. The big difference would be you can now make weapons that you couldn't make before. I don't think the artificer would be the one developing the weapon skills. You'd need a competent warrior to experiment with the weapon for a time and develop those. The artificer's job is just to make the weapon itself.

Multiform is easy to abuse. If the GM lets players get away with it, it's really easy to have a 350 or 400 pt "Billy Batson" as your main character, dump all your points into Multiform, then at the beginning of every game session you say "Shazam!" and fly around as an 1800 point monstrosity. There is nothing in the rules to prevent this. It's just up to the GM to say no. Just because something is book legal doesn't mean you have to allow it. In 4th edition, the main character was normally the one built on the most points. As I recall, you could exceed the cost of the main character, but everything past the main character's point total cost 1 for 1 (you didn't get the 5 for 1 cost break). So to become a 250 point character (which was the standard then), you'd pay 50 points for your Mutliform. But to become a 275 point character, you'd pay 75 points for it. They moved away from this in 5th edition. But that requires the GM to keep a closer eye on the power.

My view on this is a little different. A bronze weapon/shield/armor won't have significantly different stats than a steel version would. In game terms, there's not enough difference to make a difference. Def, Body, damage classes, those would be the same or very close. The real difference will be in the types of weapons and armor available (particularly with weapons). You just can't make certain types of sword out of bronze. There's a reason that historical weapons looked the way they did. That was the best version that people of the time could realistically make, for their situation. Most of the bronze age swords were short, stabby weapons. As I understand it, the Roman gladius was made out of iron, but it still resembled bronze age designs. You can't make a katana with bronze, or a medieval knight's arming sword. You'd have to make them too thick to really be functional. Your artificer is going to be able to produce weapons that no one has seen before. His swords will have a huge reach advantage over everyone else's. They'll do more damage because they're larger weapons. They might also have OCV/DCV advantages once the wielder knows how to use them, because opponents are so unfamiliar with them. How would you fight a guy with a 19th century US cavalry saber if you've never seen one before? How close can you stand before you're in danger? People wouldn't know that stuff.

A rough conversion to Champions would be something like this: Str 50 Dex 18 Con 25 Body 15 Int 20 Ego 27 Pre 23 Com 10 PD 25 ED 25 Spd 5-6 Rec 15 End 50 Stun 53 Flight 12 would give you about 20” of Flight with some Megascale as well for long distance travel (4x the speed of sound). Invulnerability works differently in DCH, but full Damage Resistance is probably the easiest way to visualize it. Heat Vision 10 is a 10D6 Energy Blast. Ice Production 6 is 30 active points of whatever sort of freeze breath you want. Shrinking is because she’s only like 2 feet tall. Power Reserve 16 splits between Str and Body, boosting her to an 18 Str and 16 Body, but only up to the level of her strongest opponent. In Champions terms, that’s probably +40 Str, +20 Con, and +20 PD and ED. She gets a lot stronger, instantly, when she fights a more powerful opponent, but only up to their power level.

Initiative determines who goes first, and HP is Hero Points. Hero Points are unspent XP that you can instead spend to make things go your way. Werewolf attacking you in that abandoned mansion, and you don’t have any silver? Run to the kitchen and ask the GM “did the owners of this house leave any silverware behind? The expensive kind made of real silver?” And the GM thinks for a second and says “if you pay 5 Hero Points, then yes, you can find some silver steak knives in a drawer”. Because that’s how it would work in a comic book. Fighting in a laboratory, and this huge mutant thing is beating your face in? He’s got you pressed against the wall and he’s choking the life out of you? Tell the GM “I’m flailing my arm out to the nearby shelf. Can I grab anything, like a beaker of acid, to smash into the mutant’s face?” The GM thinks and says “Sure, but it’ll cost you 10 Hero Points...” (or however many). But it needs to be thematically appropriate. There probably won’t be a beaker of acid at a children’s day care, no matter how many HP you spend. You can also use HP to boost damage, improve your chances to hit, and shrug off damage. Managing your HP in that game can be tough, because it’s real easy to spend it all, and that’s your XP for buying up your stats and powers as well. The Powerpuff Girls writeups there give them a 10 Str in DCH terms, which is the same as a 50 in Champions. The guys on that website do a buttload of research, but they do try to take a minimalist approach. DC Heroes allows for you to “push” your stats, and increase them temporarily with HP use, so that 10 Str (50 Champions) could get boosted up to an 18 or 20 (90 or 100) without too much difficulty, as long as you have HP to spare. As I recall, their reason for stats that low is that the PPG sometimes struggle with people like Fuzzy Lumpkins or other lower-tier opposition. They aren’t always moving mountains around.

I haven’t seen that Powerpuff Girls episode since it came out, so probably about 20 years now, so I can’t help you on that. i can help you on DC Heroes rules though. The stat block in that game is organized in an interesting way. Across the top, you’ve got Dex, Str, and Body. These are physical stats. In the middle going across, you’ve got Int, Will, and Mind. These are the mental stats. On the bottom row, you’ve got Influence, Aura, and Spirit. These are the spiritual stats. Physical stats are used in physical combat, mental stats are used in mental combat, spiritual stats are used in spiritual combat. On the left column, you’ve got Dex, Int, and Influence. These are your Acting Values, in Champions terms basically your OCV and DCV, for each form of combat. So Dex helps you hit people and helps you dodge in physical combat, Intelligence does the same against telepaths, and Influence does it against wizards (magic is usually spiritual combat in DC Heroes). The center column, Str, Will, and Aura, are your Effect Values. In Champions terms it’s how many D6 of damage you’d do in that type of combat. So Aura measures the strength of your soul’s roundhouse kick. That’s good to know if you have to fight off a ghost or something trying to possess you. The final column gives your Resistance Values. Body, Mind, and Spirit act basically as defenses, as well as Hit Points/Body/Stun, for their respective levels of combat.

What if it isn’t hungry? What if you invaded its territory, threatened its cubs, or interrupted its mating season?

I think you and I are close then. Obviously “only affects people I want to hurt” isn’t a limitation. But I also remember flipping through the Monster Manual and being disturbed at the number of monsters that wanted to eat your face off that were said to be Chaotic Neutral or True Neutral.

I think I know what he means. Limitations affect powers, and should be priced based on how they affect the power they're applied to, generally without regard to other things the character can do. For example, if Superman purchases a hang-glider (10" of Gliding, OAF bulky, big turn mode, lots of other restrictions), then he still gets the full value of the limitations on the Gliding power, even though he's got 50" of Flight x250 noncombat. His Gliding isn't more expensive just because he's got a backup power that's just as good if not better. He's paying points for both powers. His limitations don't become less limiting overall just because he spent more points elsewhere. If Captain Swordsman has 5 different magic swords, each with its own weird limitations (only affects evil creatures, only vs vampires, does not affect those blessed by a priest, only vs dragons, etc), it doesn't matter that he's got backup weapons. Those limitations are still real. He bought each of those weapons individually, and they all cost points. He shouldn't be paying full price for 5 different swords. That's way worse than just paying for one sword that does everything. Now... there are certain circumstances where a character is obviously designed with powers that negate his limitations. The Mind Mole has 10" of Tunneling through 10 Def material (with the ability to close the hole behind him), N-Ray Vision, and an Ego Attack. His tactic is that he tunnels down into the ground, looks up at you through the Earth with N-Ray, and then brain-zaps you over and over again. He has an OAF magic wand that lets him do this, and an OAF magic hat that gives him 30 points of Mental Defense. Unless he runs into a very specific enemy build, his limitations will probably never come into play. This is a situation in which the GM is justified in saying "I can't think of any way this limitation will ever come up, so for you it isn't worth any points". Doctor Destroyer's powers all come through his armor, but because it can't be damaged and he never takes it off, he doesn't get any points back.

It’s worth at least a -1. Possibly a -87. Hey, this is fun, I can just spout off commandments like I am Moses with stone tablets, or Pharoah. So let it be written, so let it be done. (I think I’m going to end all of my text messages and emails this way from now on. It sounds more official.)