Lemurion

Re: Battleship? Sub? Naw....BATTLESUB!!! I just bought the download-- VERY good, very very good.

Re: Assumptions within HERO If it were A, yes. But neither quite fits my definition of "invulnerability," though B comes close and the difference may be almost one of semantics. Invulnerability means "I can't be hurt by X." Period. End of Sentence. It's an absolute, and therefore has no qualifiers. One either is, or is not invulnerable. I really enjoy playing HERO, especially Champions, but I have never felt that it handled absolutes all that well. All the flat cost powers feel a little off kilter to me, like poetry that doesn't quite scan.

Re: Battleship? Sub? Naw....BATTLESUB!!! I think you may have just made my credit card mad at me. I'm running a Hudson City 1938 Pulp Supers game and this looks like it fits the genre EXACTLY. Bad people-- Make Lemurion spend money

Re: Battleship? Sub? Naw....BATTLESUB!!! Then of course there were the British K and M class submarines. The K's were very fast steam-driven boats, while the M Class mounted twelve-inch guns for anti-shipping work. (Classed as submarine monitors). There's a lot of great technology in the 30's.

Re: Legion of Super-Pets Nyarlathprotep? Just an idea.

Re: Assumptions within HERO

Re: Battleship? Sub? Naw....BATTLESUB!!! I just find the Battlesub you posted above looks too modern and wrongly streamlined for a Pulp setting. I wish I could draw well enough to do one justice. I'd go for something more Art Deco with 30's style streamlining and then hidden rivets.

Re: Assumptions within HERO Where do you find Steve's latest ruling on Desolidification vs. Falling? It might be interesting to know for future reference.

Re: Battleship? Sub? Naw....BATTLESUB!!! That one should have been in Star Hero. This one is Pulp: I present the Surcouf-- twin 8" guns and a plane in the hangar behind the turret.

Re: why the UNITED NATIONS? (for global super-agency) I'm another who has always seen PRIMUS as being much more that way than UNTIL; and it's one reason why I tend to avoid PRIMUS in my games. It feels to me to be much more an American mind-set than a multi-national one, more reminiscent of how bad FBI officers drive away good local cops in a host of TV shows. Though I'm sure it's not limited to any one or group of nationalities. My current Champions game is Pulp Supers and it's set in 1938, so I don't have to worry about the UN. However when I run a more modern game I tend to go with UNIT rather than UNTIL. I think part of it is that I just don't see a group that large ran by a Major. (It may have changed but my impression of UNTIL dates back to when I read the old Super-Agents supplement which I no longer have.) The other reason is because then I can have "The Brigadier" be in charge. It's my game and I can do as I like with it. But it doesn't do the jump in and walk over people thing. It's more called in than anything.

Re: Pulparize It! In the Pulp Supers game I'm running-- the main villain for the first few sessions has a Zeppelin which carries Martian Battle Tripods. Gotta love pulp technology.

Re: Pulparize It!

Re: Champions universe created by magic? I think that part of the issue is that people are missing the distinction between more advanced mundane technology and "super-technology." More advanced mundane technology will continue to work, because it doesn't rely on anything outside the commonly understood laws of physics. "Super-technology" would cease to work because it's not really technology. It's as if the "cargo cult" believers had been able to carve wooden replica tvs that actually worked. The whole thing about "super-technology" is that it doesn't work. It's the physical manifestation of a super-power, not an external device made according to the laws of chemistry and physics. It may replicate the effects of such a device, but it isn't one. Higher technology may make such a device possible later in the timeline, but it will follow technological rather than "super-technological" premises. A "Dell" built through super-powered means (as the technology of the day couldn't manufacture the chips) would still work provided it followed physics and not "super-physics." An "artificial mind" wouldn't.

Re: Future submarine warfare? Because commercial enterprises are all about cost-- and a regular freighter's thin hull is a lot cheaper than a submarine's pressure hull. That's ignoring the other costs of a submarine's life-support systems and sonar and all the rest. Subs are currently too expensive to make good freighters. The Germans did use some (the milch cow) to support submarine operations in WWII but they were driven by military not economic necessity.

Re: Champions universe created by magic? I can understand why they would want to have an overall explanation. I simply don't like it. I think it would have worked better had they stated that Star Hero came from the future of Hudson City while Galactic Champions came from the future of Millennium City. Two different settings, two different futures. If they can do it in the present, why not the future. I also have problems with the idea that in 14 years any "Official" Champions games will have to start being set in the past. Doesn't make sense to me. That's my two cents, Canadian.

Re: Batman vs Midnighter Getting back to the original idea: I think we are mostly agreed that Midnighter would win an initial combat and that Batman would take him on the rematch (or in any other situation where he had time to prepare and presuming he survives the first round). The question then comes in as to whether Batman could break off the fight before Midnighter killed him. My own thought is that if there is enough cover nearby he probably could, but if they were fighting in the middle of the street it may be impossible. I don't see Midnighter doing one of his one-punch kills though. Not against Batman.

Re: Stone/Bronze Age help I know it's been a while since I posted it, but I am going to stand with my original statement about bronze age vs. stone age warriors, with two clarifications. The first is that I was considering hand to hand combat, and the second that full bronze panoply means (in case anyone doesn't know) the full armor of the Greek Hoplite. Just consider Thermopylae; and then realize most of the stone age troops would be even less well equipped than the Persians.

Re: Trying to run a game for my old GM -- Some very good points there; and my group may be more comfortable with "winging it" than some. However one thing I should mention is that I don't change the villain's stats in mid fight. I just don't spend the time to define them if I don't need to. Once it's defined, it's fixed. It allows for a more fluid game when I don't have a lot of prep time. YMMV.

Re: Elves Now you have me cursing myself for not picking up Valdorian Age yesterday. Good Swords and Sorcery type stuff. Oh well, maybe next week

Re: Was there ever a name for this Guy I may just get another copy then. I can't quibble about the price.

Re: Comic Book Physics I'm running pulp supers right now, and the physics are definitely based on the pulp world, rather than the real world. You can lift ANYTHING with a Zeppelin, you just need one that's big enough. (as a corollary to that, for all practical purposes there is no upper limit on Zeppelin size). Other pulp truisms abound, but that's one of my favorite ones.

Re: Trying to run a game for my old GM -- I actually will design a villain on the fly if need be. As GM I have access to all the points and powers I need. If he needs to go first, his DEX is one point higher than anyone else's. In cases like that, I don't define anything until I need to. A big part of running the game is making sure your main villain makes an entertaining opponent. If you've predetermined their abilities and tactics you've pre-scripted the game and the players are guaranteed to do something else. In the session I ran last night, the main villain had a name and a goal. He also had some henchlings and equipment. I'd gone so far as to map out (rough sketch) his Zeppelin and figure some of the contingency plans he might use. I didn't give him any numbers til the battle began. I took a quick break and put his DEX and SPD into my Excel tracker and ran with it. It's a pulp supers game and tends to go fast and furious. Keeping everyone in the game and the excitement running (it's session two) is more important than crunching out the details. When in doubt-- I roll 3d6 and just make a judgment call based on how good a roll it was. PS: I've been GMing for about 25 years now so I may have a better feel for this than some.

Re: How to get ideas across (GM's) I ran into that in my pulp supers campaign the other night. The main enemy was using a Zeppelin to transport robot war machines (think Martian Tripods) and the player who first spotted it had no idea what a Zeppelin was. (I will admit to using the specific Zeppelin rather than the generic "airship" or "dirigible," for a vehicle that was almost certainly not built by the Zeppelin company. Mea Culpa.)

Re: Was there ever a name for this Guy "White Circle Guy" as I called him, is also on the cover of my Champions GM screen (3rd ED from 1985), but that's the same cover as the rulebook at the time. I also just realized why I took so long to get past the -1 OCV if you move rule. I have yet to get the current GM screen, the 4E one is flimsy, and so that leaves the original 3rd ED one.

Re: Dragonfly and Brick I wish I still had my old 3rd Ed. rulebook with them in. There was a lot of good stuff in those older supplements, and I used to have more than I do now.