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Trained Chicken

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  5. Super-Villain Showdown: The Taskmaster vs Deathstroke the Terminator.

    in Champions

    Posted

    Re: Super-Villain Showdown: The Taskmaster vs Deathstroke the Terminator.

     

    Flash: "Oh, yeah, I forgot that I'm actually a lot faster than Slade. And that I can vibrate my molecules until I'm intangible, so I don't have to worry about any land mines. Duh. My bad."

    Atom: "Hmm, I forgot that I can retain my density when I shrink, so getting hit with a photon isn't going to do anything. I also forgot that I'm too small for Deathstroke to actually see, because I'm dancing in-between particles of light.

    Black Canary: "I forgot that I don't have to unhinge my jaw to use my sonic cry. I also forgot that I'm just as good as Deathstroke in the martial arts."

     

    This, in a nutshell, is why I like Marvel better than DC. Most DC heroes have to forget they have powers to be threatened by the villains in their rogues' galleries. With the exception of Iron Man, most Marvel first-stringers have a plethora of credible threats to face monthly.

  6. Super-Villain Showdown: The Taskmaster vs Deathstroke the Terminator.

    in Champions

    Posted

    Re: Super-Villain Showdown: The Taskmaster vs Deathstroke the Terminator.

     

    Ok, work with me here...

     

    Taskmaster beat up Captain Marvel.

    Captain Marvel stole her name from The Kree warrior, Mar Vell.

    Mar Vell shared dimensional space with Rick Jones.

    Rick Jones hangs out with the Hulk.

    The Hulk beats the crap out of everyone, and he's green.

    Beast Boy is green, and he beat the crap out of Slade.

    Therefore:

    Taskmaster beat Slade.

     

     

    Simple math. :D

     

    Says I gotta spread rep around before I rep you again.

  7. Good Concepts, Bad Characters

    in Champions

    Posted

    There are a lot of DC and Marvel characters (well, mainly DCs) with cool powers, or a cool costume, cool name, or a cool backstory... and absolutely nobody has the slightest clue how to write them... or else, didn't for a long time before anyone figured out how to use them. (I'll leave Image out since they don't use writers.) Hawkman, Starman, Moon Knight, Darkhawk, Metallo, those Serpent Society losers, the Slug, the Ray, Amazo, Paladin (Marvel), Mysterio, Quicksilver, Damage all come to mind.

     

    What characters are disappointments to you, and (if it isn't immediately obvious,) why?

  8. Super-Villain Showdown: The Taskmaster vs Deathstroke the Terminator.

    in Champions

    Posted

    Re: Super-Villain Showdown: The Taskmaster vs Deathstroke the Terminator.

     

    You know, here's where I give it to Taskmaster:

     

    He's smart enough to to fight his own battles. He's become quite wealthy training lackeys for other villains. He also beat the combined might of Captain Marvel, Ant-Man (Scott Lang), Carol Danvers and some other schmuck that I hope has been written out of the Avengers. Rick Jones ultimately chased him off with a suckerpunch, but he had the aforementioned group of fairly powerful heroes stymied for a good six panels (which I assume is about two or three turns of combat).

     

    OTOH, Slade fought... teenagers. Powerful teenagers, but still teenagers. I mean, that's low even for a supervillain.

  13. Superhero Archetypes

    in Champions

    Posted

    Re: Superhero Archetypes

     

    Well' date=' really there are two flavors of archetypes here to be considering. I've never liked the fact that these are often combined. It's simply a question of form or function.[/quote']

     

    Thank you for parting the semantic waters- you beat me to it. Let me split further hairs.

     

    Form archetypes should be more appropriately called Origin archetypes, but I like your function designation. We should also split the form list again, into origin and theme archetypes. "Patriot" (I prefer "flagsuit" as a more generic term) is the first entry in this third list. I think we can come up with others.

     

    Every well-constructed character actually appears on all three lists; Captain America is a Weapons Master/Martial Artist in form, a Martial Artist in function, and a Patriot in theme.

     

     

    So, with new clarity, we have three lists, thus (and forgive their dreadful incompleteness):

     

    Origin Archetypes:

    Mutant

    Magic

    Altered Human (e.g strange chemicals, Super-Soldier Serum)

    Gadgets (technology)/Artifacts (magic)/Battlesuit

    Highly-Trained Human

    Alien

    Robot

    Intelligent Animal

     

    Function Archetypes:

    Brick

    Martial Artist

    Weapons Master

    Energy Projector

    Mentallist

    Support

    Penetrator (I'll lay off the homoerotic overtones :eg: )

    Speedster

     

    Theme Archetypes:

    Patriot

    Unwanted Power/Persectued

    Scientist/Explorer/Academic

    Hired Muscle

    Elemental

    Half-Beast/Feral

  14. Most Powerful Member of the FF?

    in Champions

    Posted

    Re: Most Powerful Member of the FF?

     

    Someone laid down the restriction of only the core 4, otherwise all bets are off. Crystal? Holy smokes! Valeria/Marvel Girl? Sue plus. The Brute? Purple power. Heck, there was even the Commercial 4 team of Hulk, Ghost Rider, Wolverine and Spider-Man.

     

    I am embarassed to say, I bought both halves of that two-parter.

  16. Gamemastering Tutorial Adventures

    in Champions

    Posted

    Re: Gamemastering Tutorial Adventures

     

    I'm surprised you've made the transition from coach of the St. Louis Rams so smoothly.

     

    It's too bad the BBB is not still available- the adventure in the back was very good for introducing everyone to the system. Look at the Company Store section- there are plenty of premade adventures. Since I have only played a small number of them, I don't know which would be the best for your needs.

  17. A Good Word for "Abusive" Framework Uses

    in HERO System Discussion

    Posted

    Re: A Good Word for "Abusive" Framework Uses

     

    During my last regular campaign, in 1999, we were between 300-350 points, and the brick was built on something like 600 points. Because he didn't go out of his way to show up the other PCs, it worked.

     

    The same can be said about frameworks- as long as the player is mature enough to play within the team concept, no framework construction is really abusive.

  19. Gravitar vs Graviton?

    in Champions

    Posted

    Re: Gravitar vs Graviton?

     

    There was a time, however, during the late 80's, when Spider-Man kicked his butt (Along with Titania, Goliath, the Brothers Grimm and Paste-Pot Pete, but they was just for exercise), so you have to be careful about what version that you're talking about.

     

    All in all, Graviton Smash.

  24. WWYCD: Hostages for the Holidays

    in Champions

    Posted

    Re: WWYCD: Hostages for the Holidays

     

    This is a hard category for me, since there are more PCs I love than possible strategies to explore.

     

    Ratman Would probably infiltrate through the heating ducts or a small window in a room with less traffic. His power to disorient and blind his opponent would make him a useful point man in a rescue attempt. I'm not sure how excited he'd be about the rescue, but he'd be pleased to tear into a supervillain with such a crummy plan.

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