Chris-M

I am a longtime Hero gamer, but until recently I have never owned a set of the famous Hero dice. While doing some random web surfing I found that a site called dicepool.com had sets in stock, so I ordered some. Dicepool filled my order quickly and professionally and within a couple days I had my long-desired Hero dice (they still have a few sets in stock, FYI). By way of review, let me briefly mention that dice are a bit oversized compared to the standard 16mm scale, although I personally got used to the larger scale without trouble. The dice are very sturdy and well molded. Now, to get more game system analytical for a moment, I know people who prefer, say, rolling a single d20 for skill/hit resolution because all of the numbers that can be rolled are equally likely. Personally, I like the bell curve because I like the idea that if I'm good I'll succeed/hit more often and I'll experience fewer outlier results, but to each his own, of course. Now, here's what's super-cool about the dice and one of my favorite Hero-isms: Making an important roll with the Hero dice and rolling each die one at a time. Man, for me, there is nothing more fun in all gamingdom than the following: GM: "You need to roll a nine or less to shoot the gun out of Dr. Havoc's hand or he's going to kill Nurse Jennings." Player: "Alright." [Rolls a 5] Other Players: *groan!* Player: "Crap." [Rolls a 3] Other Players: "Aw, man..." Player: "Come on, baby!" [Rolls the third die and it comes up...THE HERO SYMBOL!!] Everyone: YEAH!!!! Player: "Take that, Havoc!" Next Player: "I'm going to do my 24d6 Haymaker on Dr. Havoc now...!" That's some fun right there. Hero dice rock!

Re: Alignments I'd be surprised if someone else at some point hasn't suggested this, but if it's appropriate to the campaign setting, you could accomplish much of what Alignment accomplishes in terms of power functionality (e.g. Detect Evil, Protection from Chaos, etc.) by some combination of Distinctive Features and Physical Limitation (just redefine it as an, er, Spiritual Limitation or some such). Apply appropriate Psych/Social Lim as necessary, and viola! I haven't designed anything along these lines myself, but it seems that you could put together something workable from the above.

O Wise and Sagacious Steve, On p. 267 of FH, there is a sample spell called "Grant Wish." The accompanying descriptive text says: "...the spellcaster must permanently sacrifice Character/Experience Points equal to the cost of the spell..." The spell write up doesn't seem to include any limitation that accounts for this permanent additional CP/EP cost. Admittedly, I tend to read rules out of order, so it's entirely possible I've missed or forgotten something. Is this permanent additional cost a GM/designer fiat rule for campaign balance, or is there a rule for it somewhere that I'm missing? (BTW, using Extra-Dimension Movement to model a Wish spell is really quite brilliant.) :-)

Re: Master List of Limitations, HD Prefabs Thanks for the updated info, LL. The new wiki looks great -- can't wait for Jack to get the migration complete. (Although on an unrelated note: Mutants and Masterminds? Yuck!) :-) Yeah, the old GG site has a ton of great stuff. It definitely was/is a great resource for Hero gamers.

Re: Master List of Limitations, HD Prefabs As it happens, I'm the Chris Maka who created the original Master List of Psychological Limitations for Champions, which of course Jack and his cohorts went on to finish and expand beyond my wildest dreams. So how come the Global Guardians site is no more and only available via the Wayback Machine? Does this amazing resource have a new regular home on the web somewhere else? --Chris M.

Waaay back when MSH first came out, there was an article in Adventurers Club on how to convert characters between the two. It was extremely detailed, very well done, and covered a lot more aspects of conversions than any of the conversion systems I've found online. Unfortunately, my copy got lost during a move. Does anyone have a copy of this article?

Re: Superhero Images Franz looks very cool, although, oddly, he also looks like what you'd get if Cyclops and Geddy Lee had a love child.

Over on my games and game design blog I have an entry up on aquatic-themed characters like Aquaman and "Environmental Specialist" characters in general: http://www.whiterose.org/butisitfun/archives/2005/09/under_the_sea.html And a new entry on NPC superheroes: http://www.whiterose.org/butisitfun/archives/2005/09/the_super_guys.html Which I hope some of you might find interesting. Check 'em out!

Re: More on Block and STR Totally cool idea, Sean. Stidg, your point is totally valid, but I'm looking at it from a special effects perspective (which may not be the right way to look at it). Many of the things you talked about earlier -- blocking a serious attack from a baseball bat without going STR-v-STR or injuring yourself, for example -- are things that require a LOT of specialized training. The basic maneuvers are things that, in theory, anyone can do.

Re: More on Block and STR I could buy that argument for Martial Block, especially if the character had a certain number of points in the style, but not for the basic Block maneuver.

Re: Disadvantage I tend to agree, even moreso, I think, for stuff like the 2X Stuns. Having a 2X Stun to something that really is common in the genre, like Fire attacks, is way more of a problem than an equivalent amount of DNPCs and Enrageds. While I think that the dependences and vulnerabilities probably are a little too low points-wise, the discrepency isn't really that bad -- IF the GM holds the characters proverbial feet to the fire on 'em. The problem is that it's easier for a GM to get the points out of a 2X Stun from Cold Attacks or a Dependency on frozen pizza to maintain one's powers than for most Psych Lims, DNPCs, and so forth. I think it's just a lot harder to tell a player, "You're not playing your character right," than to just hit 'em with a 10d6 attack they're vulnerable to. And even some disads, like DNPC or Hunteds, that should be non-fuzzy never really get utilized to their fullest. If you have a group of six heroes and you actually had their Hunteds and DNPCs involved as often as the probabilities dictate they should, it would just ridiculous. I suppose you could fix that as a GM by forbidding players from buying 14-, or maybe even 11- disads in those categories, which effectively makes those categories worth less points since now the players will have to buy other disads to make up the difference. Sorry, it's late and now I'm rambling. :-)

Re: More on Block and STR Yeah, good point, Sean. I tend to think of Block as requiring some level of physical contact, which of course it doesn't unless you choose to interpret it that way (there's support for this in the Fantasy Hero rules and the way Block is generally discussed). But, yeah, the core rules state what they state. The "Parry" maneuver is nice idea. Another approach might be to have a separate "Evade" that's a limited form of "Dodge." I myself am not overly concerned about it -- I tend to lean toward a rules light approach as well -- but it's fun to ponder these things.

I thought Erik's question over on the 5ER rules board was interesting: 5ER, p383 ... the GM must apply common sense, dramatic sense, and considerations of game balance when determining what attacks a character can Block. A common circumstance in my games involves a weaker character attempting to Block a stronger character's Strike. Besides the general advice above, are there any rules or guidance you can offer to systematically determine the maximum strength difference in which a Block makes sense? Steve answered (short version) that there wasn't a specific rule about this, and suggested some places to look for guidelines. Intrigued, I discuss the issue and propose a quick house rule approach in an article on my game design blog. Take a look and see what you thinK (there are also a couple entries on the Champions campaign I'm getting to run that you may find interesting): http://www.whiterose.org/butisitfun/archives/2005/08/block_party.html

Re: THE ULTIMATE METAMORPH -- What Do *You* Want To See? I agree, Hugh, that would be cool to see covered. I'd also like to second those who've talked about seeing more on the things that can be done with Density Increase, Growth, and Shrinking. In particular (not sure if this has been brought up before), since each of those powers has a whole set of factors that comes with it, it would be interesting to see a discussion of ways you can purchase or build those powers to eliminate, lessen, or increase one or more of the aspects. For instance, being able to buy levels of Density Increase without necessarily weighing as much as the book lists, or being able to control your weight when you shrink as the Silver Age Atom does. Just different ways to muck around with those powers and explore different possibilities would be cool.

Re: WWYCD: Don't Say You Didn't Warn You Guardian would take the corpse of his fallen future self to the labs at the team's headquarters to try to verify that this is in fact himself from the future and not some sort of clone used to set a trap or something. As Guardian is paranoid, he wouldn't believe that it's himself, since his future self would know that there's no way his past self would believe him unless he told his younger self something only he would know. Obviously this is a set up of some sort.

I'm getting ready to run my first 5th edition Champions game. I've been playing Champions since 1982, but I'm in the process of reading the 5th edition rules for the first time. Steve, kudos to you. I can't begin to tell you how impressed I am with this edition. So I have a question about complimentary skill rolls that I haven't been able to locate an answer to (but I may just have failed my reading comprehension roll). If the GM rules that Skill B is complimentary to Skill A, and the player blows the Skill B roll, does that miss result in a penalty for the roll on Skill A, the primary skill? I have a couple ideas for how I would house rule it, but what's the official word?