Duke Bushido

What sort of magic level are you looking at? That would help narrow down what information or suggestions would potentially be useful to you. Lord knows my wizards aren't going to help you at all! It's funny- and thanks for this thread, by the way-- but until I read the responses, I thought I was the only one who did this. I don't play "magic users" very often, and when I do, they tend to be druidic, shamanistic / totemic, hoodo / sympathetic or the rare clerical types of magic. My wizards have always-- and I mean _always_-- been one-hundred-percent frauds. Thanks, guys! It's wonderful to be part of such excellent company. Now this that said, and without any idea of just what you're looking for magic-wise or even what might be allowable within the campaign, I will offer a few lines about my typical wizard, starting with a preface: About the only time I play a self-proclaimed wizard is in low-magic settings where magic has a fierce reputation, and it _does exist_ in some form or other, but the idea of a single powerful sorcerer is more myth than reality, though everyone has heard the legends of and seen the left-overs of the handiwork of X, the sorcerer or the Wizard Y, who strode these lands for a thousand years before disappearing not a hundred years ago, blah-blah-blah..... TL; DR: everyone believes that they exist, and are incredibly powerful; everyone has heard of one, but no one has actually _seen_ one. They might even know a guy who knew a guy who saw one, but they haven't seen one themselves. Wizards are incredibly rare, and almost one-hundred-percent of them are con men and grifters with phenomenal skills of oration, persuasion, and their incredible acting talents. They tend to have high Presence (augmented by their other skills, of course), and even an extra die or two of Presence Attack (if that's something your group does). They are extremely learned and knowledgeable-- while they may not have much formal education, they have all sought to learn as much as is possible about what the world-of-the-setting understands about science, and physics in particular. This helps them immensely with their other, most necessary skills: Sleight of Hand and Stage Magic. If possible, they even have a bit of skills at pyrotechnics. They have vast knowledge of-- well, probably not actual magic or manipulating the forces from which the universe is made, but of what people believe such magic to be. They have memorized a thousand (useless, but well-known to those who "know such things") spells and curses and phrases and terms to give even the Gods pause about the true nature of the mortal and immortal realms, and often even the king's own most learned men pale in knowledge next to a ... >ahem< 'wizard,' and they will understand that the wizard knows this, as he can see through them. Wizards They carry themselves with the grim seriousness of Diogenes himself, as if the whole of the future rests upon them and their decisions, and appear to always be greatly concerned about matters so far above the understanding of mere mortals that even the thought of accidentally interrupting their thoughts appears... unsafe. but all of this-- It's all part of their armor. It's part of selling themselves, and selling the con. The opportunity to be near one so wise and learned is usually worth a meal or three, perhaps even lodging. Watching him summon lightning (flash paper) to create a bird from thin air-- such a miracle! And the off-handed way in which he does it, as if he can take no joy, and perhaps regrets whatever damage he has done to the fabric of the world for this incredible feat.... They are masters of philosophy, such as is possible in the world at hand, and will work any questions about magic into a long journey to discover the absolute truths of the universe, always with cautions that such thoughts and such actions should not be pursued, "for I was once as you, a thousand years ago, and as I wended my way through the words behind the creation of the gods and dined on knowledge from beyond the stars in the heavens, I found that each tiny burning mote of pure sorcerous ability cost just the tiniest bit of my happiness; my joy... until there was nothing left but the quest for more and more absolute power, and in the end, even my soul was no hard price to pay for the power in my body, and the knowledge in my mind.. Away, you! Away, I say, from such pursuits, lest the gods mark black against you, as they have done for me, and leave you to wander the earth forever, unwilling champion of their ten-thousand causes...." And words to that effect. Again, they are gifted at sleight of hand and stage magic in a way that no modern magician could dare to dream, and are always absolutely prepared to perform instant miracles, as if on accident, unthinkingly. They are also extremely resourceful, and adept at coming up with plans and schemes on the fly: there's more than one reason they like studying physics, tactics, philosophy, and whatever passes for psychology in the setting. A well-timed strike with the butt of a walking stick to dislodge a keystone in a stone arch bridge-- while igniting a tiny bit of paper and pumping his arms and elbows in tight to himself, sending a puff of air through his cloak that momentarily ruffles his hair in a windless cave all while chanting the Ancient curses "Get off this path!"-- leads to the collapse of a bridge, across which a mighty enemy strode.... and it was _magic_! I have absolutely no idea if that helps or not, but man does it feel good to know I'm not as horrible a person as my fantasy GM thinks I am. Or at least, I'm not the only guy in the club.

Thank you! I mean, it's the "violence is caused by video games" argument. In the beginning, all was peace and tranquility.... Then, into this perfect world, came the one they called "Pong," and Eden was lost... forever....

Use a dictionary, actually. Phrygian was a new one on me.

My wife is diabetic and insulin-dependent. Her second pregnancy left her with diabetes, which is why we had no more kids. I will gladly confirm that yes, insulin runs about three-hundred bucks per vial. I can also tell you that it costs about ten dollars a vial to make. I won't get political, but a good chunk of those profits are used to fight regulation of prices. > : [ I would like to believe what they teach you in school: supply and demand, competition, a competitor willing to hold prices down will bring down the prices of everyone else in the market. Reality, however, has demonstrated otherwise. The "problem guy" gets forced out, one way or another, or he learns to play ball. No change happens. I really hope not. We're good at making insulin. Most industrialized nations are really good at making insulin. But it has to be done correctly, or it can ruin a million lives in no time at all. I want it to happen, but I want it to happen _properly_.

Can you explain that... differently? No; I'm not an idiot (said the moron), but something just isn't clicking. Could be all the late nights, but something's not clicking. I'm not sure why you're doing the 2x END here. Yes: I get that if you use the STR that comes with Growth, you pay END for that STR, but I think you're saying something... beyond that, maybe? compared to what pre-6 Growth was, I think I get the costing: you're adding in a few things it didn't get before, like the stretching and the movement. With that in mind, I have no problem with the price increase. Be aware, however, that just like that God-awful "Growth Momentum" thing that popped up an edition or so back, including those as default does two things: it assumes a particular special effect (I become huge, and remain perfectly me-not-grown shaped and proportioned and become a bit faster (more in a moment). It makes available a less-expensive version of Growth by taking custom Limitations on the bits you're not interested in: I don't want the stretching or the running; is that a -1 or a -1.25? (yes; those values are pulled completely from the air, because as I mentioned: I have a head full of fuzzy visions of sleep right now. Anyone following along: arguing those numbers is playing solitaire: they are used for example, and I have no interest in defending them now or in the future. Have fun with it ). I can sort of get behind the PRE, so long as it was "only to create reaction." Just because you're big doesn't mean you don't suffer the same phobias or fear of guns or whatever that you had when you weren't big. It _does_, however, make you a bit more startling to stumble into. Yes; I get that "well now that I'm way up here, I can't see how scary you are!" However, HERO doesn't require any sort of eyesight or PER penalties assessed against you because you're big, so by the rules, what was unnerving before is just as unnerving as it was before. No the promised more on movement: First, I can go either way on this: It's easy to say "but my stride has become huge!" It's easy to say because... well, you're _right_! At least, assuming you are still little-guy-you shaped when you're big. However, each leg is eight times as massive as it was before, and inertia remains, so it is not guaranteed that you will be faster than you were; it's entirely reasonable to assume that, against inertia, you move in a more slow-motion type fashion. I say "type" because it's not actually slower; it just takes longer to move each leg. As a F'rinstance, in boxing, it's generally accepted (at least until Mike Tyson way back then) that a big fighter was slower than a smaller fighter. Yes, he also hit with much greater power, but he didn't do it as quickly. Even a "fast" big guy was slower than a fast little guy. One of those reasons is throw length (though, for Growth, it would be leg length). A fighter throwing a twelve-inch punch doesn't have to move as far to punch, draw back, and punch again as a fighter throwing a sixteen or an eighteen inch punch. In order to just move at the exact same speed-- that is, blows per minute-- the bigger guy would work much harder, and have to punch much faster, just to hit the same number of blows in the same length of time. I think the same thing comes into play with Growth: you're legs are moving further with each step, but they aren't necessarily covering more ground per minute than they would when you're small; there's a lot more leg to lift and push, and a lot of you to rock forward onto each new step. Again: I _get_ the justification for the extra movement; I am simply saying that I see equal justification for _not_ getting that extra movement. Granted, it's easier to see than when you grew up as both the shortest and the fastest of thirteen kids. The Stretching--- well, I can go either way with that, too. Granted, lots of this is because I tend to be leery of "compound powers." That's "compound powers" with quotes, as opposed to compound powers without quotes, because compound powers without quotes means that you are paying for each power (though sure: depending on your rules edition, you may take discounts on one of them, but you are still legitimately buying it. "Compound powers," however, is free other powers tossed in as SFX of some other power but not actually paying for those extra powers. I see that you have raised the cost a bit, and were I not able to see a number of Growth SFX that do not provide extra reach, I probably wouldn't think twice, so like I said: I can go either way on that with what you've got thus far. I wouldn't assess a Stealth penalty per se. I would go with the older editions rules and assess a PER bonus to anyone who might detect you. It works out the same way, with the added bonus that I can't bypass the penalty simply by not trying to be stealthy. That, and if part of your power set is Desolidification or even Flight, there's no reason that being bigger should make you louder. Walking, sure, but flying in stealthy and quiet? That's a possibility too, and one that should not take a penalty because you grew (Good Lord! Did you hear that? It sounded like a really _huge_ guy in a hang glider! ) I hope you meant that.

I got my first one when I was... nine, I think? It was disassembled, in a box, and my brother's and I were given the box of parts, frame, and wheels for helping clean out the barn in which the box was stored. Nobody seriously thought we'd get it running, and it took all winter, but we did! It took about ten minutes to fall completely in love with them. I have had over a hundred of them in my lifetime. I have never had less than 2 after that, and usually more. When I met my current wife, I had fourteen of them. Honestly, I used to by them in bad condition,fix them up as much as "felt right," rode them and sold them, over and over. I won't say it was lucrative (it's really hard to part with the ones you like), but I made a steady profit over the years. Then two things happened: My wife bought me what has, so far, been the perfect machine: my Valkyrie. Then we had kids. I have never wanted another motorcycle simply because I can't imagine a better all-around machine than my Valk. (though I have a line on another one, cheap, and with way fewer miles on it.... (mine currently has 327,000 or so on it-- I _really_ like to ride)). Even at nine-hundred-odd pounds, it's even pretty solid off-road as well, though the girth keeps me off a lot of trails I'd really enjoy on a proper dirt bike. We've been working on clutch control the past two nights. She keeps wanting to go just a bit further-- just a bit further-- once she gets it moving, but no; we are nowhere near ready for that. Yes: a lot of people think the idea is to learn how to ride while rolling down the road. A lot of people get hurt really, _really_ badly, too. Clutch control: until you let it out perfectly, without thinking about it-- every single time: until you instinctively feather it at crawling speeds-- you're not ready to do more than practice more clutch control. Once we get that-- and make the thumb reach for the kill switch a solid muscle memory-- we will learn the importance of the front brake. (to help with this, I have temporarily removed the rear brake lever. The _front_ brake stops the bike; the _rear_ brake controls the slide. Period. )

Sorry, but I most certainly _will_ animals; thank you all the same!

Thanks, Assault! I haven't had to do that in a very long time. I had forgotten how much fun it is!

This is where my "balance and points costs" are meaningless as a comparison" speech comes into play. The short version is that it's more difficult than that: I can build a six-hundred-point character that still gets his butt handed to him by Seeker. Or Bulldozer. It doesn't matter if you are using Real Points or Active Points, either. In fact, I have found Active Points to be the least reliable measure of a Character's power or ability, simply because so very few Limitations affect them. I could have a 60d6 Killing Attack, Area Effect, Radius, Personal immunity, and it's going to have a massive AP total. Even if I can only use it once in my lifetime, and only at the exact center of the universe, and the last 200 people to have seen or spoken to me will all die. I also know (so everyone can save all the trouble of pointing it out) that it would absolutely _suck_ to put on the back cover of an adventure as an enticement blurb, but personally, I usually compare SPD, CV, Def, and Dice in the most-frequently-used attack power, then look for any unusual SFX v SFX interactions that might sneak up on me. Yes: I _wish_ there was some reliable way to say "these guys are equal" -- some sort of rating that we could use to compare my apples to your oranges-- And _NO_; that thing did _not_ work. We all tried it; we tried it over twenty years ago, and we've tried all the tweaks and updates and homebrewed modifications to it, and it _still_ doesn't work, and I think we've all proven that to ourselves, yet we _still_ reference it at a useful tool. I am asking with as much respect as I can muster: please don't suggest it again.

Let me preface this by saying that I am well aware that this won't work for anyone who started HERO / Champions with 6e, but my "fix" for _lots_ of my personal complaints has been to ignore the Hell out of every 6e "fix" for things I never found to actually be broken. Just sayin'.....

That is the most horrible thing I can imagine. My deepest condolences, Sir (I assume; forgive me if I am wrong).

Finally finished! Whew! Well, not "finished," but finished as far as I was going to go. For those who don't know (ie, those who aren't Chris), my daughter's Christmas present this year was an older VTX 1300. It was in pretty bad shape, and I have been putting most of my time and all my spare money (HA! There's an oxymoron if ever I heard one!) into restoring it. Finally, as of about thirty minutes ago, I am done. Well, as done as I'm going to go, barring finding some factory pipes that haven't been subjected to the Holey Order modification. Still needs a clutch perch (mirror mount on clutch perch is stripped out), quiet pipes, and a sidecover (some previous owner replaced the stock pipes with ridiculously loud pipes. In traditional "make it noisy and cool" fashion, he went with the absolute cheapest pieces of crap on the market (for those on up on this subject, that would be either "Mac" or "Jardine" brand pipes. These are Macs.). The routing is so poor that they cut too close to the body work and have melted / reshaped one of the side covers. I have a metal one (needs paint) to replace it with, but until I can find some stockers-- at least the head pipes, if not the whole things-- I don't see any reason to change it. Needs detailing, badly (came from Brunswick: it lived in salt air) and some wrinkle black "chrome polish" in places. I'd also like to find a factory seat (some previous owner replaced the stocker there with one of those damned Mustang Customs seats. You know: shave half the padding out so you can sit even lower into the bike, on less padding, and generally-- at least for Mustangs-- shoved closer into the tank, and all the while claim how much you love it and how comfortable it is.... ugh. My opinion? Four-hundred and sixty bucks worth of trash. Worst part? You have to give them your seat: it is your seat that they butcher up and then send back to you. Thing runs like a top now (well, it's a large displacement V-twin (I hate V-Twins), so it runs like a tractor, but at least it's back to running like a brand new tractor! Lots of head work and lots of carb work and re-did the transmission and clutch (why is the entire cruiser market-- the V-twin cruiser market in particular-- so cussed terrified of fuel injection?! It's way more reliable, way less maintenance, and returns both better performance _and_ mileage! Oh, yea-- because it gets wonky when you swamp out the tailpipes for something loud; I forgot about that. 😕 (They're still idiots. You can reprogram an FI module more easily than you can re-jet carburetors. The only real difference is that it costs more than four bucks and you actually have to have some kind of clue what you're doing, but hey-- mo'cycle go VROOM!, right?) Took it for a short spin, and I have to say that I was quite shocked! Hondas don't usually ride that smoothly-- I mean it was _nice_! I hate to say "soft," because it wasn't mushy at all, but it soaked up _everything_ I rode across! Wish it wasn't quite so nose-heavy, but I reckon she'll just have to buff up a bit! I really do need to fab up some rear-sets for the controls, though. Not only did some owner at some point install some forward controls (folks: I am six feet tall, and was having trouble reaching those things comfortably), but on this particular model, the factory set-up was already too far forward (for the look, I guess. Same as the factory-installed T-Bars). The funny thing was the people at work when I mentioned that I should be finished up tonight: "You bought a motorcycle for your daughter? Isn't that kind of....?" Kind of what? She's wanted one since she was six. Ten years later, she has one. And gasoline broke four bucks a gallon, so enjoy your jacked-up Dodge with the aftermarket performance chips, blah-blah-blah. Anyway, too many late nights too close together. Duke sleep now.

Keeping in mind that I dobt do sarcasm- I just dont have my reading glasses handy so going through the whole thread again would be difficult: Are you not the same person who told me that your bases were not places to get attacked? The avatar looks right; apologies if you aren't.

Dumb but potentially,marketable idea: Tie the scenarios from Adventurers club- all of them were pretty straight forward- into a single plotline and go from there.

Two things: 1) I am not against bases. I am against charging for them, seeing as how they offer little that isn't available to a superhero via some other method (Spideman using the lab at college or at some internship; superheores using Star Labs or working with local agencies, etc). The value added versus the points spent just isn't there. If you want a base, fine; have a base. 2) the last several examples from the source material seem to support the idea that a base is both set dressing for where the story takes place _and_ attacked with some regularity. Also, I dont think it's odd that a defense contractor have no 'air defense" at his headquarters / lab / base. I am pretty sure some meals villain could drop a bomb on Lockheed Martin and then head to Northrup Grumman and attack there as well before got something in thw air to take them down. They build the weapons /planes /whatever, but don't necessarily have a stockpile of then laying around, primed and ready to go. Theur biggest defense agaisnt that is "who is going to dly ovwr American soil and attack a military defense contractor?" Similarly, I expect Stark's defense was identical, with the addition of "who is also Iron Man?" Turns out that some whacko with lots of resources and a personal grudge will do that very thing.

Star Labs! That's the name of the organization I was trying to remember! Just watched a Flash rerun and it was mentioned there. Apparently superheroes just walk in and out of it all the time.

Yep. if that had happened then maybe-- just _maybe_-- the ultimate terrifying villain would have been able to take over a high school....

They keep it up, and they will have an army larger than the one Pepsi used to have...

The biggest problem stems from the earliest days: the mistaken conception that the amount of properly-slung weight you can carry is drawn exclusively from your ability to lift an amount of weight; this is from the simplification that all aspects of carrying a physical burden-- balance, rigging, leverage, support, training- even the rhythm of stride and the terrain, and of course the affect that the load itself has or does not have on the body's ability to cool itself sufficiently-- is all summed up in one single characteristic: STR. The solution for a more accurate simulation can be found in the desire to split all those aspects of portage into separate and distinct characteristics-- or, at the very least, modifiers-- and just how far into that simulation one is willing to go. Most of us agree-- there is a scaling issue with encumbrance, casual str, etc, but aren't willing to do the deep dive for true accuracy, or don't find the effort to have sufficient payoff for the efforts, so we tweak a couple of existing rules or enact a couple of house rules until we get what we find an acceptable balance of effort versus simulation versus playability. I can't speak for anyone else, but I personally think that this is one of those areas where "good enough" is good enough. If looked at too long, it becomes a very deep hole. if looked at longer than that, it branches into an absolute rabbit warren.

Yep. I dont think,about it much these days, but our own early 1e and 2e characters were benchmarked off of the villains included at the end od the book: "We want to be able to kick these guys' butts!" which was followed immediately by "and we need some cooler villains!," all of whom were also benchmarked off the guys in the back of the book. The whole "no quouting stat blocks in your Hall of Heroes works- I get it: Steve stayed up late writing those books, and the company wants to sell them, but- it is kind of working against what a curious potential GM really needs to get a game going. Sure: I assume you can create your own baddies and out them in your book (note that I have not checked), but that kind of works against our stated goal of attempting to build a slow burn of interest in the wider published products. I wonder if we can appeal to Jason to possibly allow the full inclusion of "legacy" characters such as those in 1 and 2e, so long as they remained _that_ version of themselves before earning 40 years of experience? Something- anything!- that could be used to bait a hook, you know?

Dude, I _love_ the rear-mounted torpedo. alas, the only "tractor beams" that ever came up in our games were modified grav plates built special for one particular one-off adventure, so it wouldn't have been as effective.

Pretty much what both I and Christopher suggested up-thread. As Steriaca was looking for a Talent, though, I would use this cost difference to determine the actual "cost" of the Talent, regardless of what mechanic was used to justify the underpinning. CAUTION: Do not take any of the following as an attempt to restart that conversation; it is offered as an opinion, and as such has no value outside of that. This is one of the many, _many_ things I point to when maintaining my position that the quest for some sort of mathematically balance and equitable "this many points of X is balanced against this many points of Y" is utter crap.

I'm in the same boat as Chris: Wife says no. I have no military experience, but I have done a lot of shooting, and (owing to a career as a repo man), I have been shot three times and I'm still going. Health is terrible, sure, but not having as much time ahead of me as I have to look back on, I really want to do something worthwhile with it, you know?

I haven't bothered building the guns, but I'd keep something in mind: No matter what the build is, it is _worth_ exactly the difference between "gun with Charges limitation" and "gun without Charges limitation."