Balabanto

Re: Signs your Champions GM is now (fill in the blank) Signs that your Champions GM is Kurt Busiek 10) Everything is perfect. 9) Every NPC is so crystal clear in your head that you are in love with everything. 8) Every detail makes perfect sense. 7) The right lines are spoken at the right time. 6) No NPC's step on the toes of any other. 5) PCs and NPC's need each other and it makes sense. 4) There are no plot loopholes. 3) When there's a crisis, other people show up to fight it too, but you don't care, you love it anyway. 2) Even Normals can be heroic... 1) Too bad you're lucky to get four sessions of this game a year... You are now waiting for the next issue of Astro City. Please drive carefully.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Apologies if anyone finds this racist, but we thought this was hilarious... During a battle with Leroy, the Awesome Exoskeleton Man Leroy: You cannot fool me, Plastron. I know that the word Plastron means Exoskeleton, and I will prove that you are wearing an exoskeleton to the entire world! Plastron: Actually, it's also a dicky worn under a hauberk. Leroy: You must be a WHITE man in an exoskeleton....

Re: Project: Sunburst Well, if you don't do it, Steve, I'll write a Project Sunburst adventure of some kind.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... "Don't think of me as evil. Think of me as making the world safer for insurance companies..."

Re: QuestionL Would you consider this unfair or rail roading? It's fair as long as the PC's have a chance to notice the villain's minions beforehand, unless he can totally conceal them from the PC's. If they don't, then it's a screwjob, unless one of your PC's is Time Travel lad. Then all bets are off, because if he's not in the PC's normal dimension, they CAN save their NPC's and fight the bad guys at the same time.

Re: The new face of Iron Man My GOD! This is actually WORSE than the Spider Man Clone Saga. Please, oh, please, say it's fake. WHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINE!

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Well, my villain did, in fact, get to say "Behold the mind transfer machine of Doctor Brutallo." Prior to this, however... The players discover a temporally dislocated bottle of Supercola in Bodito Boditay's alternate dimension museum dedicated to his conquest of the world. The bottle of Supercola has two snickers bars and a pack of chewing gum duct taped to it. Confusion ensues... Skybolt: You know, that's pretty weird, what's that doing there? Captain Unity: Well, maybe we should take a look at it and examine it, Eiko, can you disable the security system. Eiko: Sure...(Rolls very low, disables security system) Ember: I really don't see what the purpose of this is. Gideon: The purpose of this is so that I can do THIS...reaches out with an ungloved hand to activate his sometimes working object reading power. Gideon sees a scene after rolling to not go insane. Gideon shakes the bottle a few times after coming out of his trance. "That was...different..." EVERYONE AT ONCE: DON'T SHAKE THAT!!!!!! Eiko: Give me that bottle. Gideon sighs, hands over the bottle. Eiko: And now that I have this temporally displaced, possibly temporally charged object away from you, Mr. Shakey....

Re: Brooklyn Superhero Supply Store That's disturbing. I actually have a location in my game called "Evil Al's Supervillain Gadget and Equipment Emporium." However, it only sees play every once in a while.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... During the same Teen Champions session as before. Seizure in SID: Sarah, why do you have to be such a !#@#$%!!!? And a !!@##$$? You use pranks that are so far out of his ability to retaliate that it isn't fair. Sarah: Life isn't fair. And people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Seizure: But your father is one of the most ethical businessmen in the entire world. Shouldn't you be proper and nice to everyone? Sarah: What? And miss out on the rest of life?

Re: Grond, underpowered pansy? Yes, it is. It's also why I have a 70 AP maximum for "The Most Powerful Heroes in the World." The guys who designed the old editions weren't morons. They really DID know what they were doing. It's just that everything has to be "Bigger, Better, Faster,Harder" now even though there's really no need for it. Is the NEW CU really mighty? Sure. But is the power level necessary? Nope. When a Brick with a 60 STR can level most skyscrapers, you have, in fact, achieved a level of awesome superpower. Sure, he can't knock people BACK the equivalent distance, but that's okay, superheroes should be super tough too. So the answer is, no. Grond is not an underpowered pansy. He's just underpowered by the standards of the overpowered comics that people today are reading. Often, people forget that the best stories that are told in comics are the human stories, the stories about people. The stories we remember from Comics aren't always "The Final Showdown with the Jackal." We remember "A Guy Named Joe". We remember "Everyman." We remember that one Christmas in Gotham City where the Justice League comes to give Batman one night off.... And if you make the characters too powerful, your players will lose that sense that stories like that can be told, indeed, that they even mean anything. So yeah, they have the capability to destroy a building. But don't forget the little stories that make the characters human.

Re: Grond, underpowered pansy? Ahh, the 64 hex hole. This is actually sort of polite and assumes Grond rolls average. If he punches, that's 18d6. Thats 1 2 4 8 16 32 64 if you count out where 12 destroys the wall. If he haymakers...(God Forbid, but really, he should do this, because he's probably going dead LAST in the order and there's no one to stop him from doing it, you go to 128 256 512 1024) At this point, the problem is, the building's weight is not evenly distributed, because that hole has obliterated the base of support for the outer edge of the building, thus forcing the girders and interior superstructure to support that extra weight without it connecting to anything and distributing that extra mass. Ergo, the building is going to start falling, real soon. By the way, once you have a 1024 Hex hole, that pretty much wrecks any hope the PC's have of saving everyone. Even if you assume that a city block is about 1/18 of a mile, or about 360 feet, that's about 120 meters, or 60 hexes, that entire city block, or at least, that building, is over. Now, this means that we're talking about a building like the Sears Tower or the Empire State Building. Smaller Skyscrapers...forget about it.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... After discovering that their High School has been meticulously covered with bombs by the villainess Countdown, and the entire building wired... Countdown: Yoo-hoo! I see someone's hiding in the machine shop! Won't you please come outside into the hallway with everyone else? Plastron: Egress is not possible at this time. Countdown: It is now! (BOOOOOOM!) The machine shop is destroyed. Prestige: I'll bet you I can send this bomb away, and nothing will happen to anyone. Countdown: Sure! Take your best shot! Prestige: (Wiggles her fingers, bomb disappears) Cut to...Shadow Lord (Another PC) in his shadow dimension, entertaining some dimensional visitors. I roll to determine bomb placement in his living room. I'm like...!!@#$%!...right under him. (BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM) Shadow Lord, take 14 Body and 56 stun. Your guests take it too. Shadow Lord: Isn't that 112 Stun? Ordinarily, I'd say I'd get a roll for this, but under these circumstances, no. Me: Sure! So Shadow Lord Exploded, and was almost killed. Later in this circus of events.... Prestige: So, can I come to where you are? Countdown: Sure! No problem! Prestige (Grabbing Plastron and Teleporting.) They arrive. ZZZZZZZZZZAARRRRRRRRRRK! Countdown: Just try not to land on the trap next time, sweetie! ...... After it's all over... Saiphe: That's it, my father's going to be looking for me, I need to sneak back inside. Siezure: (Thought Balloon.) Why does the ONLY hot guy on the team always leave me to talk to the press? ....... Later, during a group discussion over something important with the Vice Principal... Seizure: (Thought Balloon.) It's unethical to mind control normals. It's unethical to mind control normals. It's unethical to mind control normals....

Re: Top 10 List of the Lamest Superheroes of All Times Well, I do have lame superheroes in my game world who try to join PC hero teams. So far, none have succeeded. Foghead: He makes a foghorn noise and giant rolling clouds of fog pour from his ears. If he could see in it, this might be a somewhat useful power...but nahhh.... Laundromaxx: That's right, folks. He wears a suit of power armor that looks like a Washer/Dryer setup. That pretty much says it all. Captain Canard and the Deadly Duck: Captain Canard is a fairly capable martial artist, as long as he isn't too far from his flying, obonxious, quacky duck associate who can generate a sonic blast from his beak. Players have actually considered Captain Canard and the Duck for membership, but he refused when they wanted to change his name. Frogolator: A man with giant cybernetic frog legs. 'Nuff said, True believers. Pizza Man: He throws pizzas which explode. This is not incredibly dangerous, but he does make a great pizza pie when he's NOT making pizzas explode. The Elephant Master: He has powerful telekinesis, but only over elephants. The Burger Kingpin: A man in a hamburger outfit. No one is really sure what he does. But they really don't want to find out. And...my personal favorite... THE BIG CHEESE: That's right. He turns into a colossal twelve foot cube of Swiss Cheese. For 24 hours. And he CAN'T SHUT IT OFF ONCE IT STARTS.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... I guarantee you that in three short weeks, my villain will say this: Bodito Boditay: So, you've finally come to prevent yourselves from passing into nonexistence and erasing mine. Unfortunately for you, I've already discovered a way of surviving my own nonexistence, and none of you can stop me! Behold! The Mind Transfer Machine...OF DOCTOR BRUTALLO!...what? You thought he was the only one who could say it?

Re: Grond, underpowered pansy? Does it? From a realistic perspective, sure. But this is a comic book universe. First and foremost, you have to encourage PC's to be careful with their superpowers. If a guy leaps from the top of a building and he's a one ton object, and he expects to freely land after colliding with a random object in midair, it's likely he's just going to take the terminal velocity falling damage. Using their rules on the size of the hole, it wound up being about 8 city blocks. A hole is a hole. It doesn't contain anything. This falls into the category of let supers be super. Just make sure if you're going to take this option you ask your players questions like "Are you sure you want to take this action?"

Re: Grond, underpowered pansy? A 12d6 attack punches a "Man" sized hole in a building big enough for a single character to fit through. EVERY point of body above that DOUBLES the size of the hole. When the hole is larger than the building, the building WILL fall down. This is simple common sense.

Re: Grond, underpowered pansy? What IF Grond is in a desert? I haymaker the ground. I have a strength of 90. You've all acted. I'm hurting, but I have a 30 REC. I don't care. Everyone who doesn't have life support or flight is now drowning under the sand. Perhaps one or two characters are still free to rescue people. By the time they've dug everyone out, I've punched three people for 18d6 of damage, assuming you can even find any of the buried people. So it's phase 9, and maybe you have two active PCs, and everyone else without the right powers is pretty much obeying the drowning rules and not getting recoveries. Have you seen what 18d6 actually does to most characters with 25 points of defenses? That's 38 stun and, god forbid they're in the air, an average of 11 inches of KB. So that's 46 stun if they hit something, like, I don't know, another PC. NPCs can use characters as weapons too, and there aren't too many people who can casual STR their way out of a STR 90 grab.

Re: Grond, underpowered pansy? THe problem is that if you obey the rules to the letter, Grond is incredibly dangerous. Let's take a look at Grond's STR 90. Assuming the PC's don't knock him out on phase 12, Grond Punches a Skyscraper. Joe Skyscraper has standard concrete walls, for a DEF of 7 and a BODY of 5. So that means that Grond has just punched a 64 Hex hole in that building. Now, a city block in New York City is 1/18 of a mile, or about 32 hexes. So, can your superheroes stop a falling skyscraper? Yeah, that's right, a falling Skyscraper. This weighs more than any superhero in your game can probably lift, the building is FILLED WITH PEOPLE, and when it hits, well, the shockwave will produce even more damage. So think twice about Grond. Because the danger doesn't always come from what happens if he hits a character.

Re: Top 10 List of the Lamest Superheroes of All Times Well, let me put this one up for you. You think those are lame, huh? GM: Okay, guys, let's play some champions, Geoff, Brad , Gail, you all brought me character sheets, let's see what you came up with. Brad: Cool, can you handle me first? GM: Oh, my god, this is completely laughable. Let me get this straight. He's a multimillionaire whose parents were killed when he was a boy. He has NO DNPC's whatsoever? Where's the fun in that for you or the other players, Brad? He has a CAVE under his mansion, that he lives in most of the time, and he pretends to be this flibbertigibbet during the day, while at night he sneaks around dressed as a bat and beats people up? And these hunteds, my god, where am I going to get the time to come up with all this stuff? And "Joker?" and "Riddler?" Those are just too similar. And this computer, my god, it's ridiculous. With a link that enables you to access it anywhere in the world? Obsessed with crimefighting? Where's the roleplaying in that? And there's no martial artist on earth who can even come close to these skills. Maybe you should take this down a touch. Brad: Sure, Mr. GM. I think I can cut that back a notch. You want me to get rid of this hunted by the Society of Assassins? That might be a little much, I think. GM: Yeah, that looks a little better. GM: Now, Geoff, let's look at yours. WHAT THE HELL IS THIS? Let me get this straight. A -1/4 limitation that none of his powers work under the light of a red sun? How the HELL am I supposed to come up with a "Red Sun Ray?" And he's got a susceptibility to chunks of his own planet that have fallen to earth? And he was raised in Iowa by loving midwestern folks, who somehow have managed to hide this EIGHT FOOT SPACESHIP from passers by, satellites, and the Federal Government? Oh, and none of his powers work near the stuff that kills him, so he dies in three turns. Yeah, right, that's real heroic. Code vs. Killing, I like that, he had better have that since you gave him a STR of 100. I have no idea what kind of villain I could put this character up against that would be balanced against Brad's character. I mean, look at this guy. Brad's character swings around on a rope. Your guy is faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and leaps tall buildings in a single bound. I think you need to take the power level on this down. And his hunted, this Lex Luthor, is the richest man in the world? Look, Lex and Brad can't both be the richest man in the world, something's gotta give there, I think. One of you's going to have to lower that, and I think it's gonna have to be Brad, because otherwise, I can't challenge...what the heck is his name in Secret ID? Clark Kent? Oh, yeah, that's a hoot. And his secret identity is changed by TAKING OFF HIS GLASSES? No one would EVER believe that.... Geoff: I take it you don't like it. GM: No, I'll work with it, just take away the multicolored "kryptonite" limitations, whatever that stuff is, I'll figure it out later, and lower the STR a little bit and we'll be good. Now let's look at this one, Gail... Brief Pause BWUH...Oh, my god, this is even more cracked. Your character comes from an island in the middle of the mediterranean that no one has seen for 2000 years. Did you forget there's this planetary mapping system called LANSAT? And she's the Princess of these Amazons? Did she buy Diplomatic Immunity? Likely not, I don't think the United Nations would actually recognize a nation this small, since they don't recognize the Vatican. She's strong, she's fast, she's almost as good a fighter as Brad's character, and she has an INVISIBLE plane? Would someone please tell me how that works? And she's magical, which is good, because Mr. Kent here gets all swoony whenever magic gets within a hundred feet of him. And she deflects bullets with her metal wristbands? Well, I guess I buy it, sort of. And she's a bondage queen, excellent, loses ALL of her powers when her hands are tied? Kinky, Gail, maybe I should be dating you. But my favorite, the magic lasso? That MAKES people tell the truth? Geez, this will make things no fun for Brads character at all, he's got 150 points of detective skills. I think you might have to rebuild some of this stuff. Gail: Sure, Mr. GM. No problem. GM Thought Balloon: What the hell am I going to run. These characters are completely cracked and broken. There's nothing on EARTH I can use to hurt these guys...nothing on Earth...I know...this Lex Luthor guy...he'll summon a giant alien starfish from space, and...

Should a character receive extra time chart bonuses applied to skill use for LS: No need to Sleep? Does this constitute an abuse of the Champions Rules?

Re: Help creating sentient-multi-powers (think Witchblade) There is no limit to the number of effects you may acquire with the Side Effects disadvantage on the Multipower. You MAY choose disadvantages. Very few people remember this, but this was the original intent of the limitation. There's no need to put a broken construct like an AI on a sheet like that.

Re: If they get better, is it actually murder? Actually, your problem here is that the law is an ass. Unless an official coroner or someone similar pronounces him dead at the scene, he's not dead. Furthermore, if he's alive, most courts do not accept ressurrection as a viable social option available to anyone, the masses or otherwise. So if Dreadlok shows up in court after Partacel hurls him off the world trade center and he gets impaled on a flagpole at the bottom, chances are, the court will rule that the presence of the fiendish mastermind in the courtroom will render his murder impossible. A judge has license, when presented with the obvious, to dismiss a case immediately, and in such a case, he likely would. You can't try someone for murder with murder victim alive and in the courtroom. Even an INCOMPETENT lawyer could break down those charges, forget about a skilled one like Perry Mason or the like.

Re: Location of Gotham City Technically, Gotham City is sort of where Newark is, if you look at the map. Not so technically, Hudson City (From Dark Champions Sourcebooks) is, umm...well....Hoboken. That's right. Your characters have been saving the restaurant capital of the world from Card Shark for years.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Gideon: .Eiko, I need you to do something for me, and I need you to make sure no one else knows about it. Can you do it? Eiko: I AM capable of subtlety, you know. If not, I could always go get the baseball bat over there. You know, the one I use to adjust my telescope? .... As a result of Gideon not telling everyone on the team his little problem about discovering that he will die in 1953, despite the fact that he temporally skipped that year, the following scene occurred later. GM: The seconds begin counting down to the New Year. (Countdown occurs) And suddenly, you all look different. (Descriptions occur) Happy New Year has become "Happy Bodito Boditay!" Gideon's player: Mike, I'm aware of this, right? Me: Yes, you are! Gideon: I walk over to the nearest policeman. Me: Okay. He's wearing Jackboots now, and a funny "BB" stylized on his shoulder. Gideon: I grab him in a fierce hug and shout "Happy Bodito Boditay!"

Re: 7 heroes summoned through time: who are they? My leader of the Seven Great Villains is that all time historical master of evil..... Rasputin. Crazy. Brilliant. Adviser to Czars. Murdurous, Psychotic, and tough as nails.