Jhamin

On the other hand, I'd say that on the Island of Doctor Destroyer you probably get Zero Bars while your Team Communicator Headsets built with superscience and bought as a special device still work. The evil Doctor's missiles can also lock on to unauthorized IPhones. The Team Communicators are probably a grey area. I think people are overthinking letting PCs have smartphones. Sure, they should be ubiquitous in the game just like they are in real life. Your Character can call up Google Maps or Social Media, Take Photos of stuff close by, call other team members, etc but they are also going to be real limited just like they are in real life. Smartphones are delicate, don't like water, don't like lots of high energy discharges, etc so be careful with it. Assume all the super-science villains are hacking you. Coverage in most major cities is going to be OK, although at least where I live the lower income parts of town are always the last to get the new stuff like 5G so your IPhone is going to do great in your stately manor but not as great in crime alley. If you have access to Police Databases or Military Satellites those are still point-worthy Perks if you get to them from a phone or the HeroComputer in your HeroCave. I think the comparison to a Car is a good one. There is a huge difference between a 2018 Toyota and the Batmobile and there is a huge difference between a Samsung Android and the Avengers Communicator Cards. If you want to fight crime from your Honda Fit go for it but you aren't going to win any Fast & Furious car chases unless you pay points. Same with the Smartphones inside a Viper nest.

Combat Luck as a concept didn't exist until 5th edition, which is Im sure why he didn't have any in 4th. In a lot of ways, he is the poster child for the kind of character it exists for. The big blue book of 4th was my introduction to all things Hero. I never even blinked at the shirtless ninja with white pants. If anything, he was one of my favorites. It probably mattered that I was reading a lot of Defalco & Frenz Spiderman, Black & White Ninja Turtles, and Larry Hama GI Joe at the time. His color scheme & attitude didn't seem odd to me with those influences. I'll admit that it always bothered me that as written he couldn't actually use most of the weapons he was packing. That was fixed in the higher point total versions that showed up later, and is actually kind of an argument for the higher starting points we got in later editions.

Huh, Seeker is a little divisive in the Hero Fandom. Some folks think he is just off beat enough to be fun, the blonde Australian Ninja who goes bare chested & wears bright white pants. While Ninja'ing. Others find his sillyness to be offputting. As you are actually kicking around an Australian Champions book, this is actually a good opportunity to ask: As an Actual Australian how do you feel about Seeker as probably the highest profile Aussie in Champions Lore?

I think it was Palladium Fantasy that had a Soldier character class, which was cool... but then started making new classes to define the soldiers of specific Empires. Not modifiers to the basic solder class, *new classes* for solders of a specific nation. And that was one of the reasons I swore to never play that game.......

Which was an intentionally dated reference in 1998, 23 years ago.

Getting trapped in an entangle should be a threat. On the other hand, most GMs allow characters to use their Blasts or Killing Attacks as well as Str to escape entangles, depending on the special effects of the power. There are several Martial Arts maneuvers designed to help escape entangles. There is a *much* narrower set of special effect that would allow a power to interact with a mental entangle.

This might be a way to go. I live in the Midwest USA and we get a fairly constant stream of stereotypes and condescension when we appear on TV and in Movies. If there was a "Champions MidWest" filled with super powered Hockey Guys, inbred hicks, put Pilot: Tractor on the everyman skill list, and everyone had Psych Complication: Fear of Mountains I would be a bit miffed. The fact that our "Australian Heroes" thread resulted in a character that someone had to warn the thread was named with an N-Word level racial epitaph makes me think throwing out a Japan book or an Africa book needs to be handled with some sensitivity......

Yeah, actual comics are pretty racist when they deal with most any Native American or foreign character. The International X-Men have a lot of history at this point but if you were creating the "new" X-Men today Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler, ect would catch a lot of flack for being raging stereotypes. I'm really hoping that anything Hero does manages not to be similarly culturally insensitive. I am *strongly* on the side of the folks saying lets not make a potential Australia book about Dingos, Boomerangs, didgeridoos, Dreamtime, and so on. The fact that drunkonduty has to warn us away from using some pretty nasty ethic slurs as character names says to me that this sort of thing has a high potential to be really embarrassing if done wrong.

Yeah, the idea that a large geographical area can be summed up easily and homogeneously is just going to get the publisher into trouble. Africa is a place, but there is an incredible amount of diversity there. And the whole "Darkest Africa" thing is... not so acceptable anymore. "European Enemies" is an old 4th edition Villain book widely considered to be the worst product ever put out for Champions. A lot of that has to do with how bad the writeups for the characters are, but there is also a lot wrong with how cliched all the characters are, and how they are all written from an American point of view. The Swiss guy has watch based powers, the Scottish villain is a Banshee, the German Guy is named "The Wall" as it was written during the cold war, the Italian guy is a Mafia Don (modeled after movie Mafioso, not actual ones) etc. If there was an author actually from once of the places that wanted to write a book that reflected local culture I would be super down with that, but I'd be really leery of a South America book written by someone from Chicago who has never been there and ends up creating a team that includes Samba Man, RainForest Lord, a guy with Soccer themed powers and they have their HQ in the big statue of Jesus outside Rio de Janeiro. If we only get a limited number of Hero Books, I'd much rather see one about the IHA, Argent, The book of the Crown (Dark Seraph), etc than I would like to see a detailed writup of South America (for example).

The first trailer for the last Suicide Squad looked surprisingly promising. Then we got what we got. Different creative team, maybe lessons were learned from the last one. We shall see.

Is that the episode where he gets excited about being an army officer & dresses up in a Patton Costume and has Jed buy him a tank so the Army can spend the money elsewhere? I think Granny gives him his medical exam & sends a report with him to the induction office (So the overworked Army Doctors don't have too) and because Granny Jethro ends up burnt, in a splint, and with crutches. The Army officers debate if he is a true patriot who wants to fight through the pain or if he is the greatest draft doger in history.

Not to shill a product, but this sounds like a good job for the Champions Character Creation Cards. There are various "colors" of cards to generate base stats, backgrounds, complications, powers, skills, etc. The intent with the product is to random generate a whole super character by drawing cards from each catagory & putting them together to form a character. In this case you could start with your base character (Thug, High-Schooler, Taxi Driver, and then just draw x number of "power cards" (defined by how many points of powers you want them to have) and add it to the base character. It works just as well to have a bunch of pre-defined powers in HD6 and just roll dice on which ones they get, but drawing cards from a deck is fun. 🗃️

Does giving 2-3 predesignated huntedes and then sketching out how they go about hunting a hero work? In theory it should always be personal, but Champions is filled with a ton of heroes who are hunted by (say) Viper. Lay out a series of escapades with Viper and various set-pieces where they attack a hero at a public event or send an infiltrator to find out a Secret ID, then go after his place of employment once they know his secret ID. Lay out some "Viper Stuff" and give advice on how to handle the PCs taking various tacks on things. The "Adventure Paths' series by Pathfinder are all pre-canned campaigns and each one starts with a players guide that basically lays out character choices that will fit the game and ones that you can do but probably won't get as much love. (If your ranger buys special anti-Goblin abilites, well there are lots of goblins on deck, but if you hate Giants there will be like 2 over the entire game. Or maybe don't play an anti-authority berserker as this game is about all of you being mid-level officers in a fantasy army, but your Career Soldier pc Concept will be *great* for this) Likewise the Character creation advice in this Hero supplement can say: Super-Wizards and Gadgeteers welcome, but "Mutant Rights" won't be a thing so maybe don't make that the focus of your character. If you are hunted by one of the following: Viper, Mechassasin, The Ultimates, Black Harlequin, the adventure will seem more personal for you and your GM will appreciate it.

I've been watching the Muppet Show since it was added to Disney+ It's interesting what the ratio of stars you have heard of is vs people that were big in 1977 and have since dropped into obscurity.

I wonder how much control Pepper still has? She was the CEO, but it looked like she and Tony retired to the lake after the snap. If she still had pull I'd imagine she would have kept the Avengers going. For that matter, who was paying for the Avengers between Infinity War and Endgame? It looked like Black Widow was running a team of some kind out of the Avengers Compound between movies. Even if she did have to eat expired Peanut Butter.

I'm liking what I've seen skimming through it, although I think some of the reference info is a little suspect. The floorplan for a farmhouse includes a kitchen island and two interior bathrooms, which I'm not sure is 100% period

Note that this is for a PDF only. DriveThrough RPG makes Book 2 available for print on demand but not book 1

The nice thing about Hero is that it mostly fits into one book. If you are a new player and are joining a Supers game, you need Champions Complete. That's it. If you are running a Supers Game, I'd go with - Champions Complete (For the rules and the Genre Breakdown and some sample characters) - Champions Villains Vol 1-3 (For bad guys to fight) Optional but highly recommended: - Hero System Martial Arts (Dramatically expands the martial arts rules. If your heroes are the Thing or Iron Man you don't care. If your heroes are Daredevil, Captain America, or Iron Fist this book is the best) - Champions Powers (example powers to speed up character building. Nothing here you couldn't make on your own, but having the example can speed up a lot of character builds and hep new player wrap their heads around the game) - Hero System book of Templates (These are fully built stats for a bunch of classic comic book characters with names filed off. Excellent to get you going, excellent to help new players wrap their heads around the game, but once again nothing you can't do yourself. It just saves time) After that there are some optional things - Champions 6ed (Sets up the Super Genre. There is an abbreviated version in Champs Complete, but more is often good) - Champions Universe 6ed (sets up the world, you can get half of what you need from the villain books & I'm not sure if you really need anything more than a city and some baddies at first) - Hero System 6th Ed books 1 and 2 (*way* more detailed version of the main rules, lots of examples and additional options, but can be overkill for most new players. Can read like the tax code if your brain doesn't work that way. It's also getting almost impossible to find physical copies of. Champs Complete is more than enough for most people) After that there are several books of deep dives into one of the big bad guys or one of the various organizations of the Champs Universe (Dr. Destroyer, Viper, Etc). Nice to have, can inspire story lines, but not actually necessary.

I think she is overestimating her chances. As cool as the Paladins are, they are no where near the level of her actual opponents. She has the home ground advantage, but Xykon has already killed one of her old adventuring party in single combat and the OOTS are high enough level to fight him. So unless she gained a bunch of levels since she setup her dungeon, I don't know that she can expect to take everyone down on her own.

Technically I think Champions Complete is the current "most recent version" of the rules along with some setting stuff & example characters I might go that way.

Do you think the point jump from 250 to 250 in 5th or from 350 to 400 in 6th was a mistake? Would we be better off with a lower point Champions U?

At the risk of derailing the thread, I do agree with you. More skills means more stuff to buy. Hero started to react to this by having meta skills like "I know stuff: 11-" or "Science of any kind: 13-" but these kinds of things aren't on the general skill list and seems to be a case of Hero being in confict with itself. The official 5e Lucha Libre hero suggested giving every PC a 8- "man about town" skill that let then know about anything and everything on an 8- because in the source material Masked Wrestlers seem to just randomly be able to read ancient Aztec or rebuild Airplanes because they are just really cool dudes, but a Masked Wrestling Service Station worker would still buy Mechanics 11- on top of the free skill. So it's official and it isn't. I'd like to see that sort of thing as a campaign choice like points or no points for equipment is.

I think this right here is the biggest difference between 4th and 5/6. 4th features less complex writeups and shorter rules and power explanations. Which was the only way it could have worked in 1989 when the book came out & jumping on the internet to ask a question wouldn't exist for most players. When 5E came out, Hero had effectively been dead for several years (The Fusion Based Champions: New Millennium had driven a lot of fans away and not brought many new ones in) and the diehards were most of the community at that point. The diehards were really happy that not only was the *real* hero system back, but Steve Long had written the new edition. His stuff was generally balanced & his rules were precise and settled several years old rules arguments when 5th dropped. These sorts of things don't matter for a more casual, non-internet based player base, but it started to matter more when every game had a forum to go with it. His character writups were longer, but that very much followed a trend that had been going on for a long time at that point. Even 4e writups got a lot more complex as the edition went on. (Compare writeups in early 4th ed products like Challenges for Champions or Mind Games with later 4e books like Ultimate Super Mage or PRIMUS). 4E's single big book did a great job of taking someone who had played an RPG game, but never Hero and making them a Hero Player. 5th and 6th are by no means incomprehensible, but they have a lot more options and are thus harder to start from zero on.

This was discussed a lot here on the boards as 5th and 6th each dropped. My takeaway is that the Hero System still worked the same way, but the Champions Campaign Guidelines (and many other genre books) had been changed. There is absolutely nothing stopping a character from buying PS: Police Officer 11- for 3 points and calling it a day, but the way Police are bought in most Hero publications involves PS: Police, KS: Law, WF: Police Gear, and Perk: Law Enforcement Powers. I personally think the characters with 20 overlapping Skills are kind of silly, but I'm also not sure I like the idea that BlindNinja LawyerMan spent 3 points to be a lawyer and 397 points on being a superhero. His lawyering likley comes up enough that if his player spend 15-20 points out of 400 on various law skills and perks that let him meet clients in jail or file injunctions I'm fine with it. This is part of the reason starting points were increased. And yes, Character Build and Balance have evolved in the 30 years since 4th dropped. 4th Edition would have written up EyeblastMan with a 10D6 Eyeblast (maybe a multipower with eyeblast slots), some overall decent stats to let him survive a superfight, one or two skills, and done (and fit it into 250 points) The 6th edtion "standard build" assumes a Eyeblast Multipower, some skills with his eyeblast, some skills reflecting what he is doing when he isn't eyeblasting, character stats that are probably more expensive but don't require him to have olympic level Dex scores to hit with his Eyeblast, a contact that reflects that his old teacher MentalX guy will still take his calls when he wants to borrow the SuperJet, and so on. And it probably totals around 400 points. The "6th Ed Recommended build" *is* a more complex writeup than the 4th ed recommended build was. The people who prefer the simplicity of the 4th Ed writeups aren't wrong. The people who feel the intricate writeups of 6th add some depth aren't wrong.

Long story short: the mechanics are 90% the same as 4th. From a Hero system perspective: The costs for several powers have changed The details of how several powers work have changed A couple powers were altered to be subsets of other powers (Transfer is now a Drain and an Aid bought together instead of a separate power for example) Figured characteristics have been removed (buying more con no longer gives you more stun, you buy each separately). 5th edition allowed characters to throw multiple attacks on one attack action. Apparently this was *always* intended to be in Hero since 1st, but wording was ambiguous. Now it isn't, and 6th carries on in this. It ended up not being as big a deal as was feared, but it's a thing. Characters are no longer required to have as many disadvantages There are new powers, new advantages, new ways of doing things, new stuff The original 6E grew to two books of just rules with extensive examples and options. For some folks this got to be too much. The most recent version of the rules is in Champions Complete, which dials back the wordiness quite a bit and fits Hero and Champions back into one book again. Champions Complete and 6E book 1 and 2 are basically the same rules, Champions Complete is just more concise. From a Champions Perspective (if you are playing supers) Starting characters get more points, the feeling was this does a better job of simulating modern comics Campaign limits/suggestions make characters hit harder and take hits a little less well. This isnt a change in the rules but a change in the recommended builds. It makes fights go quicker *Lots* of stuff in the "Champions Universe" has changed. When 5th came out the universe was reshaped to only include characters that Hero actually owned and took another crack at lots of characters. 6th ed mostly kept what 5th had put into place. Overall: If you already have all your old books and just want to play with those, go ahead. If you want to be able to use the more modern books, I'd go ahead & pick up the 6E rules.