Spidey88

Re: Ways to manage a huge team with a lot of characters?

Every player creates a single main character. They are always in the action unless mandated by the storyline. These main characters should be created so as to work together well as a team, both in personality and powers. Each player then selects or creates additional characters, but knows they can only use one of these a session. These secondary characters may or may not get along and may or may not have complementary powers (or even have mostly useless powers). As a GM, you also create some that can be used to guide the PCs and help out, but are either rarely or never used as PCs.

 

As part of character creation, decide how often each character is willing and able to be part of the group. Some are rarely available, others camp out on the base's doorstep. Define some basic rules like if A is present, sidekick B must be present as well, but C and D are romantic rivals and so will only serve together in dire emergencies. For each character, have a basic timeline going. If A can't show up, decide how long he'll be out of action. Don't bother figuring out where he is or what he is doing, just know that during the block of time he is unavailable. Quicker, but less fun, is to assign each a probability of being available. I would not let the players have any character they wanted - there are times they must do without A, because his mental powers would ruin the scenario, or you want them to run a certain combo.

Once we get past the initial competition to be on the team, I'm going to figure out who has other priorities, who's available all the time, etc. I also figure I'll be responsible for who is available to be on active duty, but I'll take requests from the players. "Sorry, Extendor has to take his mom to the mall today. He says he can come in tomorrow. El Toro Rojo called, though - he's got some free time and was hoping to get some help cleaning up the organized crime in Mazatlan."

I'm also going to assume most of the NPCs will get some points here and there, but I'm not going to worry about it excessively. My only real concern was from a bookkeeping perspective (keeping track of who got what over time is harder than just saying everybody gets the same).

At least once, run a scenario where the second-raters are the only ones available. All the primary characters are busy, or captured and need rescued. Use this as a change of pace and tone as needed. Make sure in at least one scenario all the chosen characters are the incorrect ones for the job, and in another you insure the perfect team is chosen to easily overwhelm the opposition. Don't always let them know who the opposition is going to be. Sometimes it's just who is on duty and can respond in time, while others they can put out the call for A and B, because supernatural agents are their specialty.

You've pretty much come to the same conclusion I have - always picking the perfect NPC for the job can ruin certain types of stories. They'll get to do that sometimes, but not all the time - gotta make sure they have to work hard for success from time to time!

Re: Common superhero types you've never seen in play

Original HERO discussion thread

 

link to cover and basic plot

 

review of 1st issue

review of 2nd issue

 

youtube video part 1:

 

youtube video part 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnqbtgIJfP0&feature=related

I was going to say: "I can give you the play-by-play" - but this is way faster!

Re: 5th Ed. Question: Desolidification(is affected by magic) vs Magical being?

Well, that limitation means Ghostwalker is affected by magical attacks normally, not (if I recall the rules correctly) that he couldn't pass through a magical barrier, area, or person. I'd lean towards "sure, why couldn't he possess Bocal?" Now - if Bocal has a magical force field, I could see that being a slightly stickier issue special effect-wise.

Re: Therietical "Champions of the Rising Son", what would you want to see?

I'd also like to see this theoretical book in a format much like Champions of the North. While a lot of the background wasn't necessary for me (being Canadian myself), it seemed to be great spread of useful info that GMs would need.

A team that' date=' while effective, stroked every single Anime cliche for all its worth. Sparkly catgirl superfighters, moody pretty-boys that highly resemble hot chicks, characters named in really strange ways, power combinations that make no damned sense at all. You know... the classics.[/quote']

 

A single team like this, I could handle (and could be quite entertaining). If the whole book was full of anime and manga tropes, large as life and in your face, I'd drop the book and run away screaming...

Re: Common superhero types you've never seen in play

For my part, I'm sorry for having inadvertently stirred this particular pot a bit in another thread.

I know that's I'm firmly on one side of the fence on this particular issue, so I'm not going to comment on it - perhaps we should all agree to disagree?

Not that anyone here is getting terribly hostile or anything - I just figure we should maybe try to let sleeping dogs lie before it gets out of hand. Previous searches here have indicated this topic is quite a hornet's nest...

Anyway, back to the topic of the thread:

My current campaign has, as major NPC team-mates:

1) a stretchy guy

2) a shrinking lady

3) an invisible/desolidification guy

4) a shadow/darkness manipulator

5) an amphibious guy (not helpless out of the water at all, but has some aquaman-esque elements, and will be talking to certain aquatic animals in short order)

6) 2 superscientists who aren't gadgeteers.

7) One of the players has telepathy and mind control, but no TK.

Granted, there's 30 NPCs on the team at the moment, so they're bound to cover a lot of ground concept-wise.

That being said, I've never played with a character who was an energy projector without flight. One of the PCs is "Cyclops, done the way the player would have made him" - so in addition to versatile energy blasts and martial arts prowess, he can fly.

Other types I've rarely seen:

High-level bricks without high defenses, period (resistant or otherwise)

Power-armour wearers without gobs of tech skills (eg. pilot the suit, but didn't make it or can't fix it)

Speedsters with low DEX (pretty odd, but certainly not impossible to have an effective character like this)

Re: popular super heroes and villans

Thanks for the help. Little disappointed that all these established icons are based off 250' date=' that's what I was thinking of starting the players with, but maybe they should start 150-175 ish then[/quote']

 

250 points is, in my mind, a really tiny amount of points (and backed up by recommended starting point totals in the book). I think the whole point of the "250 point project" (don't quote me or anything) was to see if it could be done for all these iconic, powerful heroes and still preserve the spirit of them; rather than any assumption that 250 points was the ideal total to represent those characters.

 

Personally, I have a hard time imagining that Superman, if translated to the Champions Universe, would be built on anything less than 1000 points or so (give or take). Same goes for Batman, with his huge laundry list of skills, all-around high characteristics, and zillion bases, cars, planes, followers, and contacts.

 

400 points is a good budget for competent, but inexperienced heroes - but it really does boil down to your campaign benchmarks (it's all relative). The baseline Champions Universe is built on this level, but your campaign doesn't have to be. If your Flash has a SPD of 6, just make sure everyone else is lower (IMHO, if there's anyone that justifies a 12 SPD, it's him - but that's beside the point). If your Superman or Hulk have 70 STR, make sure your players know that's the upper end of the scale.

Re: Common superhero types you've never seen in play

Eep! Forget I said anything...

Re: Dinosaur Write-Ups for Shapeshifter

For speed, maybe a Dromecieomimus (an ornithomimid) - thought by some to be able to outrun an ostrich, which can get up to about 50 mph.

For agility, perhaps a smaller dromaeosaur like Velociraptor or Deinonychus, or perhaps a Troodon (any of those would have a good combo of speed and agility, extra inches of leaping, nasty claws, coupled with keen senses and at least modest manual dexterity - a dino that could hold a gun or something). If any dinosaur could pull off martial arts or ninja-esque sneakiness, it'd be these kind of guys.

Troodon is also generally considered to be the likely contender for "smartest dinosaur", if that counts for anything.

Ankylosaurs would have pretty awesome defenses - just about the only animal I can think of that had armoured eyelids. Built like a tank, in both proportions and toughness.

Pachycephalosaur of some kind for powerful move-throughs (bony skull for ramming attacks).

Brachiosaur or some other sauropod for raw STR and massive amounts of stompyness.

Parasaurolophus for a stentorian voice (HEY! OVER HERE!)

Re: Common superhero types you've never seen in play

There never was a "Firelord fiasco". Everyone has always underrated Spider-Man.

Well, not everyone. I loved that story!

(I was 13 - admittedly, I still like it.)

Re: Ways to manage a huge team with a lot of characters?

LOL - that is NOT a blizzard. Visibility is too good.

Re: Common superhero types you've never seen in play

Spiderman is a ninja!

 

1) He wears a face-concealing mask and suit.

2) His favorite weapons are surprise and distraction.

3) He's a martial-artist.

4) He can sense danger.

5) He's mystical in some incarnations, scientific in others.

Even more so now, since he's been getting training from Shang-Chi in martial arts.

Re: Common superhero types you've never seen in play

Apparently all the cool kids have one of these, though mine was still spider themed and also a NINJA!

 

Any of you haters that are groaning right now can bite me... it was the 80's, I couldn't help it...

 

You know, I don't think I ever converted him to HERO System... must rectify that situation shortly...

No groaning here - I never really developed past the "Spider-Man + ninja = awesome" phase.

Truthfully, while I've gained a considerable amount of maturity and new interests over the years; anything I loved when I was 6, I still love now - pretty much without exception. I just have a bigger budget for toys now!

Re: Ways to manage a huge team with a lot of characters?

One potential problem of a big team is that you could "always have the right guy for a job". Avengers and JLA avoided this, by simply saying Member X (who could have solved this in Minutes with his shtick) is someplace else doing something important - and suddenly we have a detective adventure and nobody with the perfect Skill-Set at hand....

As much as teams negate your weaknesses, they also let you forget that you have ones.

 

One of the 3rd Season JLU Episodes was about one of superman's enemies attacking when he (and any other brick/high level member in the JLU) was just busy elsewhere. And suddenly a "mundane" brick can get a really big problem (Granted, this guy had also a power level close to superman. The other characters had nothing that could even hurt him.)

 

When focusing on the Point-Balancing aspect (and that PC's pay for this support), I would go this approach:

Let them buy a base. Let the base have a Multipower or VPP of Followers - each "slot" with a Required Roll - and a big enough Reserve to have multiple Followers useable at the same time. When the Reserve is at it's limit already but they need somebody skills, you can alway allow PC's to switch their seat with a NPC (so the player plays an NPC this time).

At the beginning of each adventure you roll (hidden) who is available and who not (thats why there is the required roll). How much the Roll Fails could be a measure how long it takes for this character to finish his current assignment (Ill daugther, GL going to Oa, Superman fighting Braniac/Darkseid, Detective guy is just undercover and not reachable). Just take the number of points the roll failed as step on the timetable (you missed the number by 4 - he will be out totally unavailable; only missed by a 2 - he needs an hour to get here).

Since it is hidden, you can always disable/enable NPC with problematic shticks/necessary shticks for a session.

 

XP just go to the player characters, regardless of who the player played. Advancement of the NPC's would then just investing Points in the base, that it can invest in higher Framework Reserve and/or better Folowers per the usual rules.

That's a rather interesting idea - I may have to bring it up with the players to see what they think. The only potential problem is the fact that not all the NPC team-mates are not all built to the same power level - some of them are considerably less than the PCs. The way Followers are built, you pay for the most expensive one, then 5 points for each 2x multiple.

As-is, there'd be nothing stopping the players from adding enough points to the lower-powered NPCs to match the higher-powered ones - it wouldn't cost a single extra point to the cost of the Followers to boost the low-powered guys by 100 points or more!

Going with the Multipower/VPP thing might work out a little better in this regard (as long as I can accept the base having a thousand extra points or something tossed on top).

Re: Ways to manage a huge team with a lot of characters?

The only decent thing would be to move to Cincinnati so I can play.

Alternatively, you could just move to Edmonton...

Re: Common superhero types you've never seen in play

That's some serious Dex and Speed ......would be an interesting sheet to see.

 

~Rex

He's also got 45 STR and OCV levels with Sweep - he's an absolute holy terror in HTH combat, but only in short spurts (he tires very quickly doing that sort of thing).

I posted him in this thread:

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php/81640-The-October-Eight-competition

Scroll down to post 13 - he's spread out over several posts, otherwise I would have linked to just one post.

He's actually a remade version of my absolute first Champions character from when I was 13 - in many ways, he's sort of an amalgam/homage of Spider-Man and Dr. Octopus.

Re: Common superhero types you've never seen in play

Another Build I'd like to see more of.

 

Darkness using characters. Not just, Blasters with the SFX of a Dark Bolt of power, but actual Darkness...... Guys like The Shroud (one of my favorites), Dr. Mid-Nite, that kinda thing..... I build 'em, but I rarely see them.

 

~Rex

One of the other players in the campaign I'm in does this, plus ninjitsu stuff. She creates darkness, can make shadows come to life and grab foes, form duplicates from them, and teleport through them.

Re: Common superhero types you've never seen in play

Intangible/ghost types' date=' whose powers are based around desolidification and invisibility. Phantom Girl, or Phantom Lady. Now, I've seen these powers combined with the ability to become a cloud of some gas, or in combination with Density Increase and Light Control, but never as the base of their own character.[/quote']

 

My current campaign has a guy exactly like this, Spectre, as our primary NPC teammate. He's pretty handy sometimes.

Re: Common superhero types you've never seen in play

My current character is Kraken, an amphibious cephalopod-man: he combines some Aquaman-ish elements, as well as relying almost entirely on a stratospheric DCV for defense (only 3 rPD and rED from Combat Luck). He's pretty much the definition of "squishy" - it comes in handy when he needs to wriggle through a drainpipe, but less so when he actually gets tagged.

So far it's worked out pretty well - he's got a 38 DEX and 8 SPD, but he's got to act defensively enough that he doesn't dominate fights too badly.

Re: Ways to manage a huge team with a lot of characters?

Things I'd watch out for? Too much duplication between characters - you don't want someone's schtick getting stepped on. A tendency of the PC's to use the NPC's for all the noncombat skills and resources and just focus on their own combat abilities (why should we buy Detective Work? We'll call in NPC #17 if we need that!). That said, you have the opportunity to use the NPC's to fill in any gaps in PC abilities, should the need arise, and that unusual skill or knowledge area may provide an excuse for rotating the roster (we really need Dr. Mystic for this investigation, so Captain Flame is working with his usual team while he works with us).

As far as things to avoid, IMHO the only type of NPC that players hate more than useless NPCs (they should be on par with the players), is NPCs that overshadow them (NPCs shouldn't be too powerful, too versatile, or step on any of the player's toes). I would take special care with this as I just re-read your post and it looks like you may have as many as 4 teammate NPCs in play at a time.

I worked really hard to make sure all the NPCs were as unique as possible - that being said, there's obviously at least some overlap in skills and such. I think I'll just have to sit the players down and spell things out in terms of "try to do things yourself - but if you get stuck..." Perhaps nudging them towards a small team with a rotating roster, rather than a giant group with several subteams, will help to keep things a little simpler from a planning perspective (they choose who's along for each mission, but can't bring EVERYONE - and I don't have to plan for the actions of six different groups of heroes). We'll see what the players have to say about it.

I also need to make sure the PCs aren't overshadowed when an NPC seems like the perfect fit for a particular mission - Booster Gold might want to be involved in detective work, but why bother when you can get Batman to do it? I didn't deliberately make any of the NPCs more powerful than the PCs, but with so many of them, some of them will be better suited to deal with certain situations. As long as everyone has the chance to contribute meaningfully, I suppose - I guess I'll just have to play it by ear to some degree.

Re: Ways to manage a huge team with a lot of characters?

Thanks for the feedback! I'd rep you if I could. (Must spread around, yadda yadda...)

Hey, gang! Thought I'd ask a few questions of you that relate to my current Champions campaign.

In this campaign, all the PCs (and a couple dozen NPCs) are in the process of trying out for a superteam with limited global jurisdiction (much like UNTIL's UNITY, only on a scale a little more like the JLA). They've got a base on the scale of the Avengers Mansion, a team super-jet, support from the UN (again, much like UNITY), and a few regular folks who will act as support staff in and around the base. It's set in a more-or-less straight-up Champions Universe; with Grond, VIPER, and most of the rest (as well as plenty of my own creations).

So far, the PCs are the frontrunners for the team, but they've taken a shine to many of the NPCs and like having them around. Also, one of the players has a bit of a tendency to get bored with his characters and likes to switch them out for new ones from time to time, so I'd wanted some decent excuse to be able to allow him to do this without it being disruptive.

This is a good thing - I'd kind of intended this to be a very large team with a very deep bench - but I've got to keep things at a manageable scale, too. 30+ characters won't fit in the team jet, and coming up with opposition that can challenge them all at once would be an absolute nightmare (combat would take forever).

I'm going to suggest a rotating duty roster, with the PCs as full-time members. 4 or so team slots will be occupied by different NPCs for different missions (sometimes semi-randomly).

My questions are these (followed by what my current off-the-cuff answer is, if I've got one):

1) How would you handle the potential for the team to overwhelm its foes? The fact that the team jet only has eight seats helps a bit, but I still fear for the potential for the Ultimates to get swamped by 32 well-prepared heroes after their latest bank robbery!

(I plan on simply asking the players to try and keep a max of 8 teammates in the spotlight at any given time for the sake of my own sanity - if the rest are waiting on call, or off on side missions, I'm fine with that.)

2) How would you handle character advancement? That is, how would you allocate character points to the players and NPCs? I'd like the NPCs (even the ones off-screen) to be able to advance too, but giving every team member full points doesn't seem quite right.

(I'd assume each PC would get full points as per usual, and perhaps each NPC on active duty as well. Reserve/off-duty members might get half of that. Maybe a floating pool of points the players get to allocate, within certain limits? Voting for who in the roster gets a full or half-share of points? I might just give slightly lower CP rewards across the board, but give to every character equally to avoid bookkeeping issues.)

3) Any random thoughts that you think would be great for a campaign of this type? ie. must-have elements of a team charter, great ways to give the players something fun and unique to do, things to avoid at all costs, etc. Basically, any random useful ideas will be more than appreciated.

At this point, I'm quite confident in how things are going. I'm really just looking for some input from you fine folks as to how I can make things even better, or avoid pitfalls in the future - I've never ran a game with a cast of characters this potentially huge!

Thanks in advance!

Re: Would you buy...

1. Meh. Not my cup of tea.

2. I WOULD BUY THIS IN A HEARTBEAT.

3. Doesn't seem like a rich enough topic to fill a whole book - I'm not terribly interested in filling out Krim that much, either.

4. Seems like a "must-be-written book", honestly. Takofanes is far, far too powerful for me to ever likely use - but the I feel the same way about Dr. Destroyer, and found the thorough coverage of him in Book of the Destroyer to be both quite an engrossing read and full of potential uses.

5. I'd buy this, but there'd be other areas I'd like to see a treatment of first (like the aforementioned Kingdom of Champions).

Re: Help!!!!!!

Or' date=' if you decided to move from 4th to 5th, to avoid the massive changes made in 6th, your could get the 5th ed revised book and then, depending on the ages and tastes of your children, either PS238 for a younger group of heroes or Teen Champions for, well, the name really does say it all. Less cost, less books needed, and less learning curve for you to deal with things like the removal of figured characteristics and change in costs for stats.[/quote']

 

Not to mention the HUGE number of cool books for 5th Edition (about 50 for the Champions/generic HERO stuff alone, without counting Star Hero, Fantasy Hero, etc.) that have been produced, and are now el cheapo in the online store. 5th Edition, Revised has been out of print for some time now, unfortunately - I was able to find it on Amazon for about $35 a couple of months ago.

Re: Help!!!!!!

thanx for that - but I was thinking rather than the basic book and then upgrading I was thinking of the decent core rules - I'm not new to Champions just out of touch - I found 4th Edition in the loft!! I was wondering if, at all, anything is compatable with 4 edition.

 

having browsed the online shop I was thinking of Character creation and combat and just reworking the heros and villains from 4 ed,if possible - I do remember the number crunching hero gen system but at least you get EXACTLY the hero you want (at least 90% accurate)

 

i just cant wait to see my son's face when he misses with his energy projector and hits a bystander!!

As LL mentioned, the changes from 4th Edition to 5th edition were fairly minor. Some holes were filled, and pretty much EVERYTHING was expanded and clarified. The changes from 5th to 6th were bigger (the biggest of which, IMHO, the decoupling of figured characteristics from primary characteristics), but the core of the game (and most of the details, in fact) is still the same.

I can pretty much guarantee you that if you were to look over the writeup of a 6th Edition version of Foxbat, nearly everything on it would make sense to you (assuming you've still got a decent memory of 4th Edition). The biggest confusion factor for you would likely be the size - characters these days get a whole lot more character points, but it's mostly because the design philosophies behind building characters has changed.

In 4th Edition, it wasn't uncommon to see a published character have only 2 or 3 skills, total - these days, there's much more of an impetus to "fill in the blanks". Your character's a super-genius inventor and scientist? He'll probably have several science skills, Systems Operation, Inventor, Electronics and/or Mechanics, PS:Scientist, and more - and them you get into Combat, Social, and Background skills... Bottom line: more of your character is defined on the sheet these days, but overall power levels haven't drastically spiked too much (until you start getting into master villain territory). Grond still has a 90 STR, Dr. Destroyer still has a 35 INT, and Foxbat still has a 23 DEX.

FYI - a pretty hefty proportion of the classic villains (like those three, and more) are still kicking around in both 5th and 6th edition and doing fine. It might be worth your time checking out the various villain books.

As mentioned, Hero Designer is great, and can really save you a lot of time and number crunching.

Re: How can mutants be discriminated against while other "supers" get a pass?

If you abuse it or rush to power yeah' date=' but you REALLY had to push to go over the edge. It really felt tacked on to explain the lead up to the Trinity era where almost all Novas (supers) were Aberrant monsters. And what's a White Wolf game without a Power Corrupts Damnation Meter?[/quote']

 

Amusingly enough, I got my copy of 5th edition Hero from a guy who was offloading his for dirt cheap. Seems he couldn't get over the fact that by default, characters using superpowers weren't slowly corrupted and made broken/evil - and he wouldn't really listen to my claims that "but dude - you can totally use these rules to build that if you want to!"

 

Oh well. The bug up his nose resulted in my gain.