Moonblade

Re: Help: Folk Heroes. It might be a bit silly but... Johnny Appleseed? PEB autofire? James Bowie (HKA) William Tell Technically, Zorro, but he's already a superhero

Re: Based on Ego Value TK - Basic Question I now get the difference. So if Jedi A (ego 17) wants to pick up a book from a table 3" away from him, then it would be ECV 6 vs DCV 3 (+4 for size) no range modifiers. Thanks all for the help.

I'm having a problem understanding the difference between Telekinesis and Psychokinesis in Champions. They are both moving things with your mind and basically STR at range. I've been reviewing a great Jedi Academy campaign where they use BOECV to imitate the Force. Here's the basic question: how do you target inanimate objects with an ego value attack or power?? Especially in Star Wars, this is what you'd be doing most of the time. Please help!

Re: Potential Campaign: Alpha Flight or Superhero Socialism Fantastic suggestions all. In terms of speaking French, as I understand it, most Canandians would have at least 1 pt. in it to begin with. I like the idea of "pick six points from..." I'd forgotten about that element of Package Deals. I'll look into it and repost. I like the training camp angle, especially for Gamma and Beta. You'd never know where Alpha is based. I'm thinking something along the lines of the Lair from "Who wants to be a superhero?" I agree that being under the auspices of the RCMP or at least working with them is better than intelligence services. However, my concept is that the Flight is its own group. They aren't a part of any other law enforcement section and their authority in the field, epecially Alpha Flight will usually supersede any other officials in the field. And I wasn't looking to undermine Canada's heroes, Mr. Johnston. In fact that whole point of the last paragraph of my original post is that Alpha is world-class. BUt note; the characters who may be in Alpha, Beta and Gamma flight in this campaign will have little resemblance to the characters in John Byrne's stories. Part of the reason I wanted to do this is I felt the original direction the stories could have gone may have been better than what were ultimately told. That's why I called it Department O, just to separate it from the comic. Unlike the later stories, I see the Department as being fairly benevolent. The Flight members may deal with government corruption (I may have a rosier view of Canada's government than our own but noone's perfect.) I think an important question is; would this be a campaign y'all would want to be involved in. Soon I'll post a sample Gamma Flight character.

Re: Potential Campaign: Alpha Flight or Superhero Socialism The Socialism angle is from my instant impression of reading Alpha Flight #1 and the set-up that stood before Byrne and Shooter took yet another interesting, stable situation and turned it on its ear. Sorry, personal gripe. The idea is kind of a "free clinic" of superhero training. Most American superteams either have private funds or are straight military. My version of the Flight (despite its involvement in some military affairs) is stictly civilian yet also part of the government. I don't mean to make a strong political statement. Thanks for the Canada info. Anybody got thoughts on the package deal?

About six months ago, I tried to get a Manhattan game going. (Yes, this is kinda stealth "player finder" thread). I wasn't too concerned about who would GM and who would play but in the interest of generating interest, here's the basics of a campaign I'd be interested in running: Champions Campaign Alpha Flight: Superhero Socialism Time Period: Modern Type: Four Color with some Iron Age elements for flavor. Premise: The PCs are Canadians who have developed superpowers and are offered an opportunity to join “the Flight”, a government group operating under Department O. They are trained in the use of their superpowers in a group called “Delta Flight.” The lessons are free of charge and resemble high-tech variances of physical therapy. If they are willing and are up to the physical and mental minimum standards, they are offered a place with a national peacekeeping taskforce made up of three levels: Gamma Flight: This group is similar from Delta training but now team members begin training in group tactics and combat and criminal situations. They also start to draw a salary and get insurance. When the other two groups are occupied, in certain circumstances, this team may be called into a real-world crisis situation and support local or national police. I’m still debating a point system, and if I were, then at this level (using the FRED for basis) characters would be between 100+100 in disads to 150+100 in disads. Characters will begin here. Characters would have National Police Powers, a Watched by the Government, and the following skills Teamwork KS: Canadian Law Enforcement Procedures 5 pts in CSLs (These are the basics, I’m not great with package deals. So any thoughts in this direction are greatly appreciated) Beta Flight: At this point, PCs would have some serious real world experience. Beta has a mix of supers, those who are still training but are on their way to being rather powerful and some who have peaked at a lower level of metahuman ability and aren’t ‘high-end’ enough to graduate to Alpha Flight. The intelligence arm of Department O will determine whether to use Beta or Alpha Flight in a conflict. Characters at this level would be Standard Superheroes ranging from 150+150 in disads to 200+150 in disads. You would also get a costume designed to your specs free of charge. Beta Flight members have access to certain government equipment and transport. Same as Gamma with: Duty to Department O 11- 10 pts in CSLs Alpha Flight: The Canadian version of the Champions. Characters in this team are fully trained and are the most powerful in Canada. They receive a bigger stipend and are housed by Department O in a special hidden lair. They have high-speed transport (as needed) that can get to any part of the country in 30 minutes. Like the Mounties, their reputation is such that they are often consulted in situations in other countries and have been involved in some military actions. At that level, involvement is entirely voluntary. Pt range is 250+150 disads to 300+150 disads. Same as Beta with: Duty to Department 14- Hunted by Villain Group 8- 15 pts CSLs Small pt. contribution to base and transport ala Champions 4 Ed. Suggestions are more than welcome, especially Canadian flavor and trivia, including quirks of their justic system.

Re: "Thing ring, do your thing!" Yep, It was in the prime era of my cartoon viewing. It was actually being replayed somewhere on TV last year. I was very enamored with it, even though it had nothing to do with the Thing in any other continuity (even then I was a geek about this stuff). Having seen it again, it was pretty awful but still oddly engaging. Around the same time was a Fantastic Four series where I think they replaced the Thing with Herbie the Robot or something. I was nine and that was a loooonnnng time ago.

Re: newbie Q - is this cheesy? Hang on -- picking a nit here, if a power is in the Multipower wouldn't you have to simply make to multipower more expensive? Or conversely just have that slot cost of whole lot more (the way it automatically is calculated in Hero Designer and the like?

Re: Practical Costuming (not quite a WWYCD) In actual comics, a vigilante named Wild Dog from DC Comics was developed using only things you could get in the real world. His outfit ended up being a hockey mask kevlar vest under a football jersy with a Red Dog on it, fatigues and heavy boots. Worked pretty well. I designed a kooky blaster (based on Starman's Cosmic Rod) who wore a top hat (with sewn in hair) and waist coat with stars on it. His face was covered by over-sized Elton John sunglasses (flash defense) Fencing pants, knee high socks and sneakers. God bless the hippies. Easily made and no one would mistake him for a civilian. Or a Republican. Useful in some places, not in others. Though based on Karmakaze's post, burkahs may become the next unstable molecules. I'd put those women up against Mechanon!

Re: Star Frontiers Conversion Sigh, here's where I get military geeky. Every version of the M-16, along with the CAR-15, M-14, AK-47, Steyr-Aug, Uzi submachine gun, Galil Assault Rifle, whatever automatic rifle NATO uses, H&K MP5 submachine gun (plus the dozens of models I can't think of right now) all have clips of 30 rounds of more and most of them were made before 1977. I just figured the guys making the game would be up on this stuff. The point of game flavor is taken, since the whole point of this discussion is to try and capture the environment of the game.

Re: Star Frontiers Conversion Nah, the original 1/2D6 K damage. You have to pump a lot of charges into the weapon before you do 3d6+1. The basic idea of a weapon is that a decent shot with one round to the body should kill somebody, especially modern weapons. Why would you use a weapon that had half the stopping power of a weapon of lesser technology (9MM = 1d+1 K). Sure you can do a lot of damage by boosting but you'll be out of charges in under a turn if you're fast (SPD 4). Of all the elements of the original game I'd shed that would be the first. Another thing: the automatic rifle is SF had twenty shots. At the time of publication, any automatic long weapon had at least 30 shots. The future isn't what it used to be...

Re: Star Frontiers Conversion All the stuff is on the web including that module at starfrontiers.com. Most of it is also in PDF form ready for downloading and printing. I've already printe out most of the adventures and the Basic Game (I always only had the Expanded Rules). I'm looking into converting the characters and monsters to Hero Rules (CHA = SF stats/5 i.e. STA - 45 = Con - 9) with some shifting for sense. A lot of NPC pirates and the like would be pretty anemic by Hero standards and since stats tend to top out at 75, that would mean the best a charcter could have is 15. Hmmm, maybe divide by 4 or so. In terms of the boostable charges, it just seems retarded to have a futuristic weapon that does so little damage on a typical setting. I'd rather opt for a more standardized (higher) damage. But otherwise 20 charges (cost END) would work for me.

Re: Star Frontiers Conversion I didn't get a chance to play it much. By the time we started, I had discovered "point-based" systems like Hero and GURPS and was already leaving random style games behind. The way I defined power packs (50 END reserves, 5 Rec ) the lasers are technically boostable. It's a mechanic of Star Frontiers that doesn't translate well. I suppose one could give the lasers Charges that cost end which are then boostable... but it seems a long way to go for an effect. Like using extra BOD as the Skien Suits and Albedo Screens instead of plain armor and FF powers. And because of the randomness of stats 25+ Disads seems low. I'd probably go with 50+ 50 disads to start. And I defined the lasers as 2D RKA since 1 1/2 just seems too wimpy. let the auto pistol be 1D+1. Otherwise, why switch to energy weapons if they're no better than slugthrowers? But I know you were just being a joker...

Re: Star Frontiers Conversion I can see why you're a Lord. This was very interesting and quite informative. Because the Star Frontiers modules and rules are now available free on the web, I would think they would be very valuable for developing various Star Hero adventures. Also, IMHO, it's a nice universe to play in. Nice balance between space opera and fictional science. The only real problem is most of their modules (but not all) start with the PCs crashing on a planet. The Space Dock industry must be the most profitable business in UPF space.

I've recently unearthed my old SF material and was thinking about how to convert this excellent universe to the Hero system. I started with the powerbatteries by defining them as End Reserves with low-ish REC rates with the limitation "only when plugged in. Thus all the energy weapons didn't actually have charges which made them a bit cheaper (not that it matters for equipment) The actual differences between ship combat in both systems are fairly minor and seem a pretty simple conversion (using the ships of the various modules available for download online) It was the various racial stuff that actually tripped me up, mostly because I still don't understand how to create those templates in Hero Designer (where I do most of my playing around these days). The powers are pretty easy (Dralasites = Detect (Lies) Ranged, or Yazirians = Gliding 5", it's more the stats. So are there some hoary ancient forum threads about this?

Re: WWYCD: You the Jury Having been called for Jury Duty every time I've been up, there are several easy ways out. Really Munchkiny, just delay your service. At least in New York, you can defer once for up to three months or so. Completely avoid the issue. If you knew a case was coming up for your testimony. Now, if you're selected, there's about a 5 percent chance you'll be on a Jury. I was a part of a pool that was completely eliminated, including myself. And this was for a very minor crime. We're talking sixty people. Just mention that you're a member of the ACLU and no prosecutor will touch you. Also, if you work anywhere in the justice system, you will never be picked, no matter what. One of the guys next to me in this pool worked for the DOJ and said he's been called half a dozen times or more and never served. Realistically, you'd know way in advance what trial you were going to be a part of and do these or other little tricks to get out of it. But a damn clever silver age type dilemma. If possible, I'd get somebody to where the outfit and play me in the stand. For Mr. Cosmic, his images are just good enough, he could do the old hologram trick.

Re: Government Bureau of Superheroics! You give good bureaucrat. The agency in your game appears to be extremely benign towards masked vigilantes, despite it's very realistic nature. Have you considered having this change slowly through time, with new administrations making different ground rules sometimes more benign and others oppressive? The closest we got to superhero protection in my old campaign was when our first team was arrested in their original adventure, our GM said their identities were protected under "Massechuessetts V. Gatorman" which he made up on the spot. Of course, I immediately developed Gatorman, a cajun Loup Garou with a reptilian bent. He is a private eye who turns into a cigar chomping anthropomorphic gator. Much Fun. And the next time I get a campaign going, I'm definitely um, "borrowing" all of that.

Re: Super Eyes Suggestions I've liked how people have been using TK in unusual ways. Maybe TK only to move simple objects, flip switchs (and only away from the character) and knock things out of people's hands to reflect a tightly controlled forcebeam. The enhanced senses could work in the multipower if you give them the cost end disadvantage to reflect using special energy from your eyes.

Re: Champions Jargon We had some general phrases we liked "Oh, a Tad" -- A very large amount "Gaff" -- a particularly damaging attack (usually RKA) "Box Cars" -- A roll of all or mostly sixes.

Re: Super City I can't believe nobody thought of: Itelu's Bar: This bar is frequented by the most loose-lipped mob punks on the planet. The owner won the lottery a few years ago, which is the only way he can replace the plate glass mirror behind the bar after the latest "hero" forgets to Google for some information and has to destroy half the bar and three quarters of the patrons to find out a movie time or maybe where their DNPC is being held. Currently seeking an insurance policy out of state.

Re: Chainmail Bikini Effects For reference, Bulletproof Nudity (PD8) is in Gurps Martial Arts. You gained more Passive Defense the less clothes you wore.

Re: Adventure Modules I thought the adventure seeds in Adventurer's Club rocked. Just a reprint of a lot of that suff would be tremendous with 5th Edition modifications, of course. ABG