pbemguy

The penny just dropped. Ron Edwards. I am a huge fan. 

Okay, so Ron Edwards is the ideal choice for Champions Now.

So my only suggestions at this point are:

1. Relabel CHAMPIONS NOW as CHAMPIONS BASIC

2. Hire George Perez to do the cover

3. Get Ron to be simultaneously working on CHAMPIONS ADVANCED (something like an amalgam of 4e,5e,6e but that does not contradict BASIC)

4. Get a separate team working on Viper, Foxbat, Dr. Destroyer, the Enemies book

I liked the 2e book. Yeah, that could work. I remember getting that boxed set for Christmas.

It's for sale at DriveThruRPG.com

So it's ready to go!

Link: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/256854/Champions-The-Super-Hero-Role-Playing-Game-2nd-Edition

Spoilers below if you haven't seen Part 3 yet. (I know you have seen Part 1 and 2, because you live on Earth.)

Reputation (Extreme)

What about Psych Limits? Something about his wife? He's staying alive for the memory of his wife, so this drives his survival? Not sure that's a disadvantage.

Maybe "Haunted by memories of his happy life"? (5 points) -- Sometimes the memories distract him.

IDNPC: Dog

Hunteds galore, especially in Part 3.

Watched by The Table, 14-

3d6 Luck/3d6 Unluck

Vengeful? He doesn't seem vengeful to me, but on the other hand...

Missing a finger, 5 points?

Protective of/Loves his car, 10 points? (It gets him into trouble.)

I prefer a TXT or PDF file for character sheets, or just copy-and-paste into an email. Nothing fancy is necessary.

And 4th Edition submissions are allowed and encouraged.

10 hours ago, Tjack said:

This sounds really good, but I don’t speak 5e.  I stopped at the big blue book a long time ago and I’m too brain damaged to start learning something new now.  (That’s not just a figure of speech.)

You can build in 4e (BBB is fine!). I will open the door to anyone who wants to build in 4th Edition. I played a lot of tabletop hours (a lot) in 4th so I can do any conversions on my end.

11 hours ago, aylwin13 said:

Considering this. Quick question: are there point guidelines/limits?

Yes. 200 to spend + 150 in disadvantages. No real limits but the GM may ask you to redesign something if it is overpowered.

Please see the top post in this thread for other guidelines.

I have two ideas:

1. What about repackaging the 5e rules with a new cover, like they did with George Perez? And get Perez to do the update. We could crowdfund that. (And lots of new interior art, and some new villains inside.)

2. More of a question: What can we do as a community to raise the profile of Champions/Hero? Like, it's not a charity, but it is a cause. But why is it so important to some of us? I think it's because Champions is just so good at making EXACTLY what you want, in such a balanced way. And the combat system is so satisfying. That's why I want to make it more popular. Because just building characters and doing the crunchy work is satisfying.

I do. I knew this thread would feel troll-y but I actually love Champions so much I'm hoping that going back to this well one more time might yield something new.

24 minutes ago, massey said:

You might say his gun is Only in Hero ID.  Very occasionally you might catch him without it, in which case he has his 1/2D6 HKA "object of opportunity" and combines that with 1/2D6 Killing Strike (D6+1 total, 2D6 with Str, uses combat levels to target the head and get x2 Body).

YES!!! I love the "object of opportunity" idea. A floating 1/2d6 HKA with a plausible (or at least slightly plausible) "anything" focus.

I'm sure this thread has been posted many times with many permutations and combinations.

But, would it be weird to rewind Champions to 5e, offer the ruleset for free, send some volunteers to every gamecon (assuming they ever reopen) to spread the word?

I say rewind because it feels like 5e is more in use. It's what I use in my online campaign, for example. Then the money could come from people posting supplements etc. here and Hero could get a huge cut of every sale.

I understand why 6th edition was made, and I understand the reasoning of Champions Now. But this is along the same lines.

It just feels like the company is still thinking inside the box. And I know that's not the case, because there are some really smart people pulling the strings.

This "gun magnet" idea reminds me of when John Byrne was writing Avengers/West Coast Avengers and he had Hank Pym with all these shrunken down weapons and devices, so he could pull any gun he wanted. Byrne did a similar thing in Superman, with a villain who could teleport weapons to himself from a huge armory.

Has anyone built John WIck in 5e? I'm also curious about his Disadvantages.

He seems to be a "gun magnet" if you will: he's constantly pulling guns off adversaries, even reloading his weapons by snatching clips off opponents. It's not a superpower per se, but he does have something special.

They laughed when we started the PBEM. Who would want to play by email when we can gather together instead?

Who's laughing now?!?!

Just kidding. We're a pretty laid back group and we have several players posting. This is purely by email: no forums or anything.

The tone is pretty dark but mixed heavily with comedy. There are bonus xp awarded for funny moments and great one-liners.

We use Hero 5e. Usually the GM makes all the rolls but we sometimes take a battle and break it down to be really crunchy and use an online dice roller. So we have the best of both worlds.

There is a kind of IQ requirement for the group, but that usually sorts itself pretty quickly. (Stop being politically incorrect. Oh right, sorry.)

Shoot me a line at pbemguy at yahoo dot calm

Thank you so much. I think it wasn't working the day I tried it! This is awesome.

This is still open.

This is awesome!

I thought I was probably going to have to build her from scratch. I have a player who is a newbie to Hero rules and wants me to build for him, which is totally A-OK. He's not playing Scarlet Witch but wants a sort of expy of her, so I don't need to be dead on but I want to capture her flavor as it were.

I kind of imagined not using Luck at all, if you can see where I'm coming from. I saw it more as a VPP as you did. Inspired by you, I would build it entirely as a VPP with Luck-based special effect or whatever.

My current plan is to build her with a Multipower, with Flight, EB, and TK in there, plus a smaller VPP with some  limitations like "No Conscious Control" and "Reactionary to a life-threatening situation". 

I very much appreciate your post!! It's getting my brain rebooted!!

I'm looking for a write-up of the comic book version of her (hex power etc.). Anyone got any ideas?

I tried http://www.sysabend.org/champions/ but her write-up comes up missing, and the Wayback Machine can't find it either. 😮

A name for the flying Wolverine guy? Maybe...Talon? 

I'm the GM of a long-running superhero PBEM campaign. It is a modern campaign, actually set in 2025. Alien tech is becoming part of the world due to a foiled alien invasion from 10 years prior.

Please contact me by email: my email address is pbemguy at yahoo dot com.

Anyway, the game is split into two streams: PG and R-rated. There are crossovers between the two streams and the crossovers are PG-rated. The R-rated is dark in tone and has adult themes. The PG is around Marvel movie level. Both streams are open but if you choose R-rated, it's pretty gritty, so you've been warned. :)

The rule set is Hero System 5e.

Please note that the slots fill up quickly so I apologize in advance if you don't get in. I only need two or three players so act now! ;)

Submit a character concept along with a pic of your character in costume, as well as an image of the actor who would play your character in secret id. (Please don't pick, like, Ryan Gosling, even though he is awesome. Choose a lesser-known actor or actress like someone from a soap opera or an obscure TV show. Think B-list!)

So a perfect submission that would make it easy for me would be like:

Character concept: A Wolverine-ish dude who flies

Costume: (attached pic of a costume I found on DeviantArt)

Looks like: Chad Kinney from The Vampire Chronicles TV series

Looking forward to hearing from you!

So in the original Star Wars, I'd say you have at a minimum 3, maximum 6 players.  You've got at least Han, Luke, and Leia.

 

Han spends his points on smuggler skills, being good with a blaster, being a good pilot, and having the Millennium Falcon.  Leia spends her points on a bunch of diplomatic stuff, contacts, wealth, rank, etc, as well as being pretty good with a blaster.  Luke spends his points on lots of piloting skill, decent combat ability, and then some low level force sensitivity.  All three of these characters are roughly equal, we'll say, but when we first meet Leia she's going through a story arc where she doesn't have most of her stuff available to her.  That's okay though, because Luke doesn't get to fly a ship until the very end, and Han has a decent amount of points tied up in the Falcon, which isn't that useful when it's been captured by the Empire.

 

Now, you've got up to 3 more players in the game.  Chewbacca is cool enough that somebody wants to play him, though he might actually be Han's Follower.  Chewie spent his points on really high physical stats, skill with his crossbow, and tech skills.  The next character who might be a PC/might be an NPC is Obi-Wan.  He's got mystical Force powers that nobody else has, but he doesn't appear to be that powerful physically.  Finally you've got the two droids.  3PO is pretty damn useless most (well, I guess, all) of the time.  But R2 can hack into computers, and repair stuff, and is basically a fully functional team member.  So maybe a player gets both of these characters  Neither of them is a very high point character, but hey, you get two of them.

 

By Empire, Luke has increased his Force abilities, and may have paid for his X-Wing.  Leia (who seems to have most of her points active in between movies) is now a General with the Rebel Alliance.  Han is going legit and has bought skills and contacts with people who aren't crime lords.  Chewie is still Chewie, and Obi-Wan is a ghost.  The droids split up, though they don't really have a lot to do during the movie.  Of course then we introduce Obi-Wan's player's new character, Lando Calrissien.  

 

It's only really in Jedi that we see Luke's abilities start to outstrip the others.  He's clearly the most powerful by that point.  Even still, in the forest fighting on Endor, Leia hangs with him, fighting stormtroopers on speeder bikes.  So I think the other characters have been buying up their stats as well.

I had to quote the whole thing. Brilliant!

When I started thinking of the game and the idea of a jedi being able to also buy a lot of gear, I imagined Darth Vader as a PC. His player was like, "I want all the force skills. And armor. And I'm the best pilot. And I have bionic limbs."

There are a number of threads on the forum regarding using Hero rules to play Star Wars.

I have browsed them, using Google searches to find them.

I was wondering about how to handle the different power levels of the characters, like say a smuggler versus a jedi. My thoughts are to have the characters buy everything with points like in a Champions game, so that way you could have a 200-point bounty hunter with nifty armor and lots of skills, or use those points to buy jedi powers and a lightsaber etc.

Does this make sense to the posters here? I don't have the Star Hero rules in front of me, but IIRC you use money to buy weapons, gadgets, armor etc. but I think a Champions approach would be better in this situation?

Does anyone have experience with this idea I'm toying with?

I do like all the Hero stuff that has been made for Star Wars, but I plan to have a more natural approach where the players throw together what they think their jedi can do (using a multipower) and I just adjudicate whether it seems to be Star Wars-y rather than require some kind of conversion from d20.

Let me know what you think! Any thoughts are welcome.

PS: I plan to use 5th but I might use 6th--I think the discussion fits with either ruleset.

I'd like to see this post re-titled. I am a huge Strike Force/Allston fan and I nearly missed this. No offense, you caught my attention with the clever title, but it really deserves an Allston/Strike Force title.

I have been toying with setting a campaign in a fictional city, but I'm not sure why. Up until now, I've always used real cities. But when you look at DC, they have Metropolis, Gotham, et al.

My question is: Why use a fictional city? (Marvel always uses real cities, and it seems to work fine.)

Follow up: what's the advantage to using a fictional city campaign sourcebook over real-world real city info?

Questions:

- Has anyone done a Hero Glorantha conversion? I could jive to that idea.

 

If Runequest and Heroquest are "the same" as Glorantha (if I understand correctly, I think they are), then there is this for Hero 5e:

http://mojobob.com/roleplay/hero/fantasy/hq/

Looked again. Maybe a little square is 4 feet.