Balabanto

Re: Queer heroes I should note at this point that it WAS authorial intention in next month's Digital Hero for Calendar Girl and Snow Tiger to be lesbians, but I deliberately left it a little vague so GM's could change it if they wanted to. When Secret Origins II is published, there's no hiding some of the more diverse relationships on that team. Hey, my PC's roleplayed it all, so them's the breaks. I try to encourage positive and negative role models of all kinds when I run Champions, fortunately, I have a mature enough group of people that I actually can. Sometimes, though, this leads to some pretty funny situations. GM: You see a strange looking man who is apparently composed of blackness with a strange looking stone object that floats bizarrely half in and half out of his chest on the rooftop across from your window. PC: I teleport there. "Who...or what...are you?" NPC: I am Obelisk. PC: Uhmmm....GOOD CHOICE! PC #2: Mike, you just kicked in my Overprotective of Women disad. I leap in front of the mentalist and shout "Stay Away From Her..." Me: The window shatters and you leap across the roof, landing in front of Emerald. Obelisk: "You really have misunderstood me, haven't you? I wouldn't do a thing to her, but you're rather handsome..." PC #2: Ooops...

Re: CHAMPIONS UNIVERSE II - What Do You Want To See? Chains of Doom in next month's Digital Hero. Unkindness soon. Secret Origins II soon. Foxbat for President soon. Mind over Matter soon. Then many, many articles on building a world (Which is called Legacies), rewriting a world, etc. The first one will probably be about parameters and where you want your planet to be. The second will be How to make a world history, how to have a Crisis or Infinite Crisis style event without making it stupid, plus a villain that can make it happen... There will, of course, still be adventures. People LOVE adventures. It's just that all adventures will be designed to operate with the Legacies material. Then you'll see what came out of that. Lots and lots of it. The Council Shall Rule The World! And the Oligarch Shall Rule the Council...

Re: CHAMPIONS UNIVERSE II - What Do You Want To See? Well, when I'm done with the current spat of adventures in Digital Hero, I'm going to be focussing on a series of "Building your world and how to get it where you want it to go" articles for DH, so if you're looking for alternate universes and the like, there will be stuff. Oh, yes. Lots of stuff. Eventually, TWENTY PLUS years of stuff. (By the time it all gets out there, I'll be a geezer. WHEE!)

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... I'm sorry. "Check Glorf's Nut Sack" is where you should have stopped. That pretty much says it all.

Re: Batman vs Midnighter I normally don't post on these things, but.... I think Midnighter's superhuman abilities are, unfortunately, based on your ability to see your opponent. If I am Batman, and I see this guy show up, I use the most powerful ability I have to take him down. I fight dirty. Cape over head. Kidney punch. Done. Or. Three pounds of force to break a kneecap. This guy's killed thousands of people. That gets around. No walk. No combat. If I am Midnighter, I try to get Batman's arsenal of special weapons away from him so he doesn't have a chance to throw a cape over my head, or blow me up with gas grenades, etc. Remember, Midnighter's special abilities make him vulnerable to a lot of batman's flash grenades, smoke grenades, and other nasty "futility belt" paphernelia. So that's the story. Whoever has the best plan and the ability to execute it wins. These two guys are all about the terrain. That's it.

Re: Are HERO gamers more wedded to more "realistic" game physics? I would like to point out that this is why Rod Currie rocks and we are all puny ants beneath his mighty light.

The text of the Force Wall Power reads as follows: A character may englobe a target with a Force Wall that provides PD as a defense and is at least 2" long or tall. Is that 2" a hexside or a hex, Steve?

In my attempts to be as faithful to the comic books as possible, I give every group in my superhero game 16 sessions a year. That's 12 issues, a double sized annual, and a giant sized special, more or less. I usually open with something really light so that if things get nasty later, people still have fond memories of whatever kicked things off that year. This year, one of my groups was hanging out in their base before going patrolling when a guy wearing blue and white robes, carrying a gnarled staff, with only sandals on his feet showed up at their door. Captain Unity II: "Good afternoon, welcome to the Freedom Strike base, can we help you?" Gideon, the somewhat temporally aware gunslinger: "Who are you?" Mysterious Man: "I am Exodus, I wish to join your superhero team." Ember the Fire Projector: "Cool name, what do you do?" Exodus: "My powers are simple. I visit the plagues of Egypt upon my foes!" All characters present: "You're kidding, right?" Exodus: "Absolutely not! Watch this! (Raises his arms, makes some gestures) RAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN Of FROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOGGGGGGGGGGGGGS!" KA-FOOM! Suddenly, the base was filled with hopping, croaking amphibians. After kicking Exodus out of the base and telling him that the Organization for Paranormal Assistance and Lifestyles in San Francisco might be able to help him, a mere 3000 miles away, they managed to clean up all the frogs and stuff them in the trash. They stank of frogs for hours.

Re: Infinite Crisis Well, I think the idea here is that BATMAN, somehow, is starting to remember all of the events of Pre-crisis, or, that because he WAS mindwiped, that caused him to have memories about OTHER things that he wasn't supposed to know. This would explain a lot of his behavior, as unlike everyone else, who became REALLY different, Bruce Wayne is still a NORMAL HUMAN. He's still the SAME GRIM GUY. I can actually cite an example of why this makes sense. You're the grim character. Suddenly, everyone else is as grim as you are. "Hey, wait, I'm the creepy grim guy. What the HELL are you beacons of sweetness and light doing?" Personal Example, from a Hero System Tournament final round that I participated in at GENCON a couple years ago. Defender unloads a 12d6 EB on an agent, and the agent takes 8 out of 10 possible body AFTER defenses. I'm playing Nighthawk. "Glad to see you're coming around to my way of thinking, Defender..." But the difference is, this has gone so far BEYOND that point that Batman, pretty much, as a normal human, can't recognize these guys. My problems here are all 4th wall problems. Earth 2 Superman comes back from beyond the fourth wall? Would you like some crack with your crackhouse in the timestream? This is ridiculous. The Spectre attacks Shazam, after being convinced that magic is evil? Only if the Rock of Eternity IS the crackhouse in the timestream. When this is over, I REALLY, REALLY hope that Geoff Johns retires if there's even a single loophole, because if I was running this, the way I would do it would be to change the world THEN, so that it doesn't affect NOW. Of course, to do this, you only need to do one thing. Eliminate the deadly onus of...George Perez's Wonder Woman. ALL Post Crisis On Infinite Earths problems can be directly traced back to George Perez's Wonder Woman.

I know SOMEONE will be posting about this disaster in the next few days, so I figured I would just start the ball rolling now. This is just more proof that Geoff Johns needs an enema. I am not sure I'll be able to READ comics anymore after what he's doing. I have only this to say. If Geoff Johns was YOUR Champions GM, would you put up with this BS?

Re: Champions Characters DEX Inflation Why? Even if the "Has a Phase for Both of his Spds' is interpreted the way that you suggest, it still doesn't function. By carefully manipulating who I drain and when, I can make sure that character...NEVER ACTS AGAIN IN COMBAT. This is the cheesiest rule in the world, but it's actually a consequence of the phase system. I've learned that for this, SPD suppress (Which I disallow, along with HIGHLY regulated SPD drain rules) is the single most effective power in the game. Simply by varying the dice I use and the amount of SPD that I suppress, I can make certain that characters never act. Some of my house rules include the following: NO ONE can push for the first combat turn at all, unless your goal is to save someone's life or someone is going to die for sure. Mental Defense is a highly restricted power. You pretty much have to have telepathic powers to have it. If you are a cyberpath, you enter the machine class of minds automatically. There is no such thing as technologically constructed mental defense in my game. The moment you open that door, there are serious broken issues in any game, like every guy who makes fifty million dollars a year is wearing a helmet, earring, or other device that gives him mental defense. The GM has infinite points to give his NPCs this stuff. But PC's don't. Defining Indomitable Will: Indomitable Will is a description, not a superpower. "My god, he's got indomitable will!" is represented by EGO 20. And if you think EGO 20 isn't huge, think again. That gives you an Ego roll of 13-, which busts a 12d6 Mind Control at +20 open after a single action phase. Anything beyond EGO 20 is a superpower, which is usually only available to people with superpowers that are related to the concept.(Mentalists, Mages, etc) Mentalists are rare. I've seen campaigns where mentalists are common. Unless it's psiworld, these campaigns stink. Every investigation for the detective character is sidelined by dingusberry mentalist reading the guy's mind and making a joke out of what I like to call "The Fun of Figuring Things Out." What I DO know is that my game works, has worked, and continues to work for over 19 years. The ranges function, the dice caps function, and because they function, the STORIES become more important than the numbers. It took a LONG time to get there, the first six years of my game were not nearly as good as the stuff I run now. It's not for everyone, but you can see some of the stuff in Digital Hero, so it must be pretty good. The key to running a great, long running game is to keep things simple with a fixed set of ranges. Don't worry, as many people do, about "My character's power level." Worry about who your character IS, what motivates him or her, and what stories surround the character in the world. I use a staggered experience point system, too. You may ask...why the heck would I use a staggered experience point system? Let's say you have six heroes, and they're not all of equal power level. (In my game, this happens from time to time.) The scenario is staged for 6 characters of 450-500 points. (I use 50 point blocks because it's easy, and it works, for whatever reason) Three of the characters are in the range, one is 100 points above, and two characters are below, at 39 and 75 points respectively. The 600 point character loses two XP off the top, the 39 down gets one more, and the 75 down gets two more. This reflects a difficulty level, but more importantly, it stresses this important fact. No matter HOW hard you try, if you face Firewing or some other monstrosity at the start, he cleans your clock, and then eight months later, you can solo the guy, this doesn't FEEL right storywise. In fact, it's kind of cheesy. That makes a good story ONCE, but then what do you do once that's over? The big bad guy's done, and he no longer looms ominously. It should take YEARS to stand a chance of going up against a guy like that one on one, in a game world where there's multiple groups of characters running around, doing different things, meeting each other, and interacting. Since I run multiple campaigns in the same world, all of which affect each other and interact with each other, I have to have power caps, damage class caps, and a lot of micromanagement because otherwise, should someone show up at my game this week because he happens to be in town, or he wants to play a character which wasn't previously in that group, the character is still reasonably in scale and the world handles it accordingly. Without the restrictions, the slightly lower than 5th power levels, the world doesn't function as well, either thematically or storywise. So that's my answer.

Re: Post your most abusive munchkin character here All right. You guys all think you're so tough. Well, let me put this one past you. Global Thermonuclear Follower. The name pretty much says it all. 5 points gets you a 25 point follower. 0 STR -10 0 DEX -30 0 CON -20 1 BODY -18 0 INT -10 0 EGO -20 0 PRE -10 -2 COM -6 Cost Power End 218 2d6 Uncontrolled (+1/2), Continuous (+1), Sticky (+1/2), 8x Penetrating 0 RkA (+4), Megascale (+2 3/4) (The Entire World), 8x Difficult To Dispel (+3/4), Variable Trigger (+1/2) May be set to anything, Trigger (+1/4) If Accidental Change activates, Trigger (+1/4) If Damage Taken, Trigger (+1/4), If affected by any action that would adversely affect it (+1/4), 0 END (+1/2), One Charge of 1 Minute Duration (-3/4) 75 100 Points 2x Hardened Mental Defense, Only to Prevent People from preventing the activation of the explosion (-1) 75 100 points 2x Hardened Power Defense, Only to Prevent People from preventing the activation of the explosion (-1) All Figured Characteristics are 0, Except for SPD, which is 1. It doesn't matter. 25 + Disadvantages 25 No Means of Communication 25 No Manipulatory Limbs 25 Hunted by VIPER, 14- (If you knew what it was, you'd want one, too) 25 Hunted by UNTIL, 14- (If you knew this was out there, you'd be looking to stop it) 25 DF: Giant One Hex Organic Explosion Bomb with many bizarre little pod protrusions, Causes Terror, Conveys the Impression that there is nowhere you can go because Everyone in the World Will Die 25 Accidental Change, to Exploding Bomb, if tampered with, 14- 50 2x Stun and Body From Everything, It DOESN'T MATTER! 20 Reputation, Extreme, 14-, Unsafe Organic Bioweapon Remember, an average hex of dirt has 5 DEF and 4 BODY. So this pretty much destroys the entire world.

Re: Champions Universe Plot Hole Plugging The problem is that Magic can do anything. I repeat this now. Once you accept the existence of Magic, which is essentially...the force that allows you to defy the normal laws of reality, then anything is possible within the framework that allows the existence of that force. Unless you go out of your way (And this is usually excessive) to define magic as a more limited series/set of forces, then the fundamental flaw in magic is this: Magic can do ANYTHING. It's conceptually based rather than grounded in logic. And this is the problem with the Champions Universe: Gothic Punk Magician Speaks: Oi don't 'ave to come up with an eye-dea that woaks for you! Oi only 'ave to come up with an eye-dea that woaks for me! As long as oi cross my ts and dot my is, it doesn't matter! Because the theme says "It's maaa-gic! F**k Yuuuuuuu!" Want to play "Slice holes in dimensions man?" Of course you can! It's maaa-gic! F**k yuuuuuuuuu! Want to play "El Constipador?" Of course you can! It's maaa-gic! F**k Yuuuuuu!" I can do anything! Because it's Maaaa-gic! It doesn't 'ave RULES!

Re: Champions Characters DEX Inflation Why? He blew his INT roll, huh? Well, unfortunately, that happens only 30 percent of the time. That's right. He's got an INT higher than 10. AN 11- is about 60 percent and a 12- is about 65-70. Did you count the -4 for range? Even with that, Defender needs a 10-, as he's got a 23 intelligence. You relied on a lot of LUCK to get these results, and didn't use the law of averages, which is how you have to scale combats. Why did you suggest flashing the Martial Artist when sucking about 5 points of Seeker's dexterity would GIMP him? At that point, he's kasha varnishkes. Everything changes once he fails the roll, too. No offense, Mitchell, but Krait wins that fight 62 percent of the time. You just got lucky with the other 38. Run the combat again using completely average die rolls. See what happens. USE those adjustment powers. Tamper with people's DEX and SPD. Krait should have plenty of time to take RECs if you do. Remember, if he goes on 2 before anyone else, he can turn any 6 SPD hero into a 5 SPD hero. That hero no longer goes on 2. Now he goes on 8. That's right. He loses his phase 2 action, and the DEX/SPD crossover rules come into effect. Yes, I know these rules are broken beyond a reasonable doubt, but still, that's what happens. There's a few phases to deal with two characters. And why isn't he mind blasting Quantum in your little tactical exercise. This guy's a mercenary. He knows how to recon people and find out what their strengths and weaknesses are. Your example shows VERY little knowledge of Krait's actual background and behavior patterns. Isolate threat, eliminate. Keep in mind, I'm not even having Krait be the biggest !@$! I can be with an example like this. Another wonderful Krait tactic. Mind Blast Quantum on Surprise Round. While Quantum is stunned and has no defenses, on the top of 12, burst of speed up to Quantum and grab. Hold half. Block with Quantum. In fact, with an example like this, unless the PC is a mentalist, it really doesn't matter what character type it is except a brick. If no one attacks you because you have a hostage, be a !@$$!. Drain her on phase 1 and let her go. She won't act again for a while. This is why I can hardly ever use published material anymore. I just look at the stuff, look at the personality that goes with the powers, say "My friends game, which is ridiculously overpowered and has characters with 150+ point abilities floating around in it, probably STILL wouldn't allow this." And he plays fast and loose with the rules.

Re: Champions Universe Plot Hole Plugging I chose that power because it was excessive and ridiculous. Because Magic does not have rules as you and I understand them, any concept, no matter how ridiculous, broken, or stupid, is justifiable. GOOD roleplayers have high quality backgrounds that allow them to justify virtually anything, no matter how ridiculous, broken, or stupid. When you combine these two things, you have a recipe for disaster. It doesn't actually matter what the power IS. It only matters that you can justify it. One of the reasons my game still has the lower 4th ED power levels (See the Dex Inflation thread, even though it's turning bloody) is because when the characters switched over, they were required to buy a TON of skills to justify things that they could ALREADY do under 4th, but required new justification in 5th. One of the joys of the new edition, for me, was that armored characters and magicians actually had the points to justify the existence of their armor, spellbooks, and weird devices. And then the character examples in Champions Universe didn't use those points for it. In my game, if you want to be able to do things with your gadget pool, you have to have a bunch of sciences. If you want to cast spells, you need a bunch of different magic skills. That's the real plot hole in the Champions Universe. The characters are really powerful, but can't think their way out of a paper bag because they lack the requisite skills to power their conceptions.

Re: Champions Universe Plot Hole Plugging My biggest problem with the Champions Universe actually IS that all superpowers come from magic. I didn't feel that this was necessary, and IMHO, it radically damaged the quality of many of the supplements that have been released for a number of reasons. For one thing, it leads to discussions with your players that sound like the Gothic Punk Magician. GM: So, Candleman. You say you have 3d6 of NND RKA that Does Body, yes? Player: Of course I do. You don't like it, do you? GM: I don't think you should have this power. What's the justification for it? Player: It's Maaaa-gic. F**k Yuuuuu! You don't like it because I fooled you! I can justify anything I want because it's Maaaagic. If the actual rules and laws of magic were clearly defined, difficult to manipulate, and obeyed some sort of specific theme guidelines that functioned within the game world, and these rules were more detailed than the focus on people, places and things in the Mystic World supplement, then yeah, I could almost buy this. But they aren't, and they can't be, because of the nature of marketing. For another, it leads to cop outs when you talk with your fellow players. When a player asks you why something was done, you turn to him and become the gothic punk magician@. Player: So why doesn't Doctor Destroyer rule the world? GM: It's maaaa-gic! F**k Yuuuu! You don't like it because I fooled you! I always liked the ideas out of the pulps and superhero comic books that any advanced enough technology was indistinguishable from magic. For me, that's how comic books always worked. But in this universe, any advanced enough magic is capable of producing technology. I can't wrap my mind around this concept.

Re: Champions Characters DEX Inflation Why? That maneuver only works so many times, though.

Re: Champions Characters DEX Inflation Why? Uhh, Mitchell? If GM Munckinism is playing the villains as evil, sneaky bad guys who cheat, attack from surprise, and use every dirty trick in the book to win, that's what a VILLAIN is. It is DRAMATICALLY APPROPRIATE for him to be this way. Guilty as charged. But I'll throw out every Hero System book I own if I have Krait boldly walk out into a bunch of superheroes and challenge them outright. Thank god I don't use this villain.

Re: Champions Characters DEX Inflation Why? Excuse me? Now I'm insulted. One of the reasons why my game is designed the way it is: 1) I don't give powers like that to CHARACTERS who WOULD use them that way. Krait's a mercenary, a terrorist, and a mass murderer. There's no way on God's green earth you can avoid doing that. The personality/motivation section says "Krait is as cold-blooded as his namesake.' 2) Campaign Use Section: Once he has the hero cornered, Krait doesn't stop until he's dead. Right there, these two little bits of text should tell you why I would run the villain that way. Because it is IN CHARACTER for him to do so. It's the TYPE of PERSON that he is. NOT doing it would be even more munchkiny, because rewriting his entire background to make him a "Sporting Gentleman" so that the PC's have a fighting chance is basically gimping everything that COIL is. This is the sort of thing that really makes my blood boil. Don't throw insults around like that. It's not polite.

Re: Champions Characters DEX Inflation Why? Well, Mitchell, the problem here is this. I don't debate to lose. I debate to win. Second, he's only down 9 END on Phase 2. So what? Third, anything that the villain can do, you have to let your PC's have the potential to do. What GM in their right mind would allow a player to have something like this? I run an extremely story driven game. Powers like this BREAK stories and turn them into numbers games. I've been playing this game so long that the first thing I do with any published product is scan it for the most broken stuff I can and then try to decide if this is even usable. Usually, the answer is no, but I love Hero and buy all their products anyway, because product support is the key to a successful game.

Re: Champions Characters DEX Inflation Why? Wrong again, Mitchell. He goes on DEX 38. Read the Lightning Reflexes line. And PRE 12, before the combat STARTS. This guy AMBUSHES people. He doesn't fight people straight up, because he doesn't HAVE to. He has stealth, you know. And if he's 16" away, that PER roll to spot him is at -4 plus his roll for his brand new DEX of 34, which is 16-. Make a PER roll at -9 with range. Even given +5 to all perception rolls on an INT of 23, a character will fail that roll 50 percent of the time. He likely will recover EVERYTHING they do. He's DCV 17. You DO realize that the average OCV on even a 450 point hero is maybe an 11? So if they spread 6 dice each so they can hit him on an 11-, they deal one stun apiece? So what? Once he gimps the high OCV character and destroys his ability to act, he can mangle just about anyone.

Re: Champions Characters DEX Inflation Why? How can you possibly not see the brokenness of Krait? He has a 110 point adjustment power multipower. Pre 12: Krait Aids his DEX and SPD, bringing his effective Dex to 38 for the purposes of phase order and gaining a SPD of 7. Phase 12: Krait selects the highest OCV character in the group (And he'll know this info before the fight starts because Krait does recon) and activates his +4 DCV Ability. He then drains this character's DEX and SPD. Kraits DCV is now 17 in HTH, which neutralizes the martial artist, and barring a massive area effect attack, renders this character ineffective against him. He runs END on his Damage Reduction this phase. Unless anyone is extremely lucky, they don't hit. Spreading won't help you much, as if you spread 6 dice, you'll do one stun to him, and that will give you a whopping 10- to hit. He's probably 16" away, for a total OCV mod of -4, but his OCV is 13, so he needs a 12- to hit for that distance. If he wants to target a martial artist, he just has to be closer. It doesn't matter. Once he hits the martial artist, he doesn't have to run the damage reduction anymore, he has 50 stun and a 20 REC. Then, now that the martial artist is gimped, he ego attacks the brick to death. Once he's done that, everyone else is meat. Tactically, this villain is a nightmare if he's run competently. And he has allies. Plus, all he has to do is hold a few actions, and no one ever goes again. That's right. You heard me. No one ever gets an action. The DEX/SPD crossover chart, properly used, with that drain, Krait can easily ensure that every character goes precisely once every twelve phases. Worse still, a little power defense actually HOSES you. If you have the wrong amount of power defense, and it takes Krait 2 shots, one will be a little above average, one a little below, which means you'll be down about 2 SPD, 6 points of DEX, and the OCV/DCV that goes along with it. Now, because you only recover 5 cp every 12 phases, there will literally be times where your character doesn't get to act at all, depending on the phase in which Krait drained you. This means that while you're picking your teeth and waiting for your DEX and SPD to cross over, Krait is taking recoveries with that 20 REC, and waiting for the right phase to nail you again so that you lose a whole bunch more actions.

Re: Champions Characters DEX Inflation Why? Actually, there are characters in the game who are close to 600 points, and they couldn't go toe to toe with him either. It's the AP on the powers, guy. Nothing in my world throws more than 14d6 for a PC. And you seem to think that every phase needs to be spent attacking. He can dodge or move, which is actually worse. When I showed my players some of the sheets in this adventure, they looked like they had been stunned for INT. They couldn't believe that someone was irresponsible enough to BUILD this, let alone put it in their game.

Re: Champions Characters DEX Inflation Why? Well, there are two problems here. For one thing, those quoting the standard ranges are off if you're going from 4th edition standard to 5th edition standard. My campaign is still powered on a 4th edition standard, so let me tell you JUST how crazy this gets. Virtually every attempt I have made to use a published 5th edition villain has fallen flat because the attack levels are way too high and the DEX range is monstrous. The new version of King Cobra I can't even use, because of many of his minions. (The villain himself is somehow fine.) Many of the villains in the new edition use what I consider to be irresponsible rules constructions designed to produce a perfect effect, rather than the path of simplest result to get to the superpowered effect. The best example of this I have ever seen is Krait. This is the most dumba**ed, broken sheet I've ever seen. He goes first, he drains your DEX and transfers it to him. Oh, and he has mental abilities. This is essentially "Attack with no defense." Plus, he's a martial artist, so ambushing the villain is virtually impossible. The way this is sheeted, the villain could take an entire team of 10d6-12d6 supers by himself, because by the time they've reached him, targeted him, whatever, unless they have an absurdly powerful mentalist themselves, they will be completely shredded. To get back to the comment about DEX ranges, the dex range in my game is 18-30, with a FEW speedsters floating between 30-33. I have a max of 6 total combat skill levels. Even Utility, who USED to be balanced, is now a horrifying monstrosity who throws 15d6. My players response to CKC and virtually every book after this was...My god, Bal, you aren't going to actually USE this, are you? About the only villain I can use who hasn't changed is...umm...Foxbat. (Now, you can't have a game without Foxbat, as far as I'm concerned, so that's score one for the Hero System Team.) The problem isn't just DEX by itself. It's the way the sheets are designed in RELATION to that DEX. I love Scott Bennie to death. In fact, I think most of his stuff is probably some of the coolest product on the market. The only reason he DIDN'T win the Ennie this year was because Maure Castle fulfilled it's expandability promise immediately because it was released earlier. The Engineer's problem FOR MY GAME WORLD isn't her DEX. It's the 70 point VPP AND 140 point Multipower. I don't even let the most powerful villains in my game world have a 140 point multipower. Active costs have gone way up to represent a more DC Universe Day Glo Funhouse level of power. But, if you're old school like me, and you are not a fan of Geoff Johns and his crackmonkey rewrites, or Brian Michael Bendis and his looney concept of Ultimate Marvel, or J. Michael Strazynski's warped Gwen Stacy/Norman Osborn having sex Green Goblin rewrite, then you will have problems with the way many of the current rewrites are presented. In fact, I can pretty much guarantee that if you think the Iron Age blows chunks, then you will not like many of the current villain designs as Hero System presents them. Some people believe that it's easier to subtract things and power them down than it is to add things spontaneously. Having run and played this system in various forms for 24 years, I believe it is easier to add things to a sheet than it is to subtract them. It is a difference in design philosophy and which side of the coin you fall on. My coin is differently shaped than the current system standard. But it doesn't mean that Scott Bennie's game is bad and my game is good, or that his game is good and my game is bad. It just means that the way that the sheets are designed doesn't match the parameters of my game world, and it's harder to use published material.

Re: DC's turn toward the dark Uh...guys...this is the evidence I've been waiting for. All the evidence points to a DC reboot. And it will be a cool reboot. With a classic villain who has faced the entire Justice League before and defeated them. A villain who has telepathy, telekinesis, and the ability to erase minds, encourage mindwipes, and ruthlessly kill people. But he still can't bring harm to Batman, because deep in his twisted mind, a little piece of him still cares. Alfred Pennyworth is The Outsider. Go back and do your research. If this plays out the way I think it will, we'll have a much shinier DCU when we're done.