Spidey88

Re: Telekinetic "Push"

 

But "in the air" is a minus 1d6 on the Knockback roll. Huh? says I....then I realize that it assumes the target is flying and can "push back". Not the case here.

 

 

There seems to be a little confusion - the knockback roll is what's subtracted from normal knockback (knockback is normally a function of the number of BODY dmg done, minus the knockback roll). The less knockback dice, the farther you get launched. With this in mind, it's actually harder to resist knockback in flight (since there's nothing solid to push off of or brace against), and easier to resist it if you have Clinging (since you can stick to the ground instead of sliding along it).

 

For example:

 

Joe, Jim, and Jerry are all moving towards the rapid-firing energy projector. This blaster-type fellow has a 9d6 energy blast, and successfully shoots each of the three J-brothers - assuming average rolls, each shot will do 32 STUN damage and 9 BODY. Before any dice are rolled to resist it, that's a base knockback of 9.

 

Joe, who is running, has no powers whatsoever. He has 2d6 to roll against knockback, and rolls a 7. He gets stopped dead in his tracks, and is flung back 4 meters or so (2 inches) to land on his kiester.

 

Jim, who is flying, has only 1d6 to roll against knockback. He rolls a measly 2, and is sent tumbling end-over-end for 14 meters (7 inches)!

 

Jerry, the last brother, has clinging. He rolls his 3d6 to resist knockback, and rolls an 11. He doesn't budge an inch (having rolled higher than the total knockback he could have taken), but looks mighty ticked off from having to take 32 STUN on the chin.

 

 

Hopefully that makes things a little clearer.

Re: The Worst character in comics

 

The original B&W TMNT was quite cool if I remember correctly.

 

Agreed. The current B&W run (vol. 4) is also very good, and a fun read. The most recent cartoon (save for its final devolution into "Fast Forward") is also quite good, and follows the comics surprisingly closely - though it's rather less bloody for the sake of the kiddies, the stories are still quite well-done with interesting character developments.

 

The color versions (Archie comics) and the 90's cartoons are considerably less inspiring. I've seen far worse (eg. Chuck Norris' Karate Kommandos), but I'd hesitate to call them "good".

Re: So, what don't you like about HERO 5th?

 

"I'll bounce off that broad flat surface and be in a lot of pain."*

 

That would be The Tick, after breaking through a horizontal flagpole he expected to bounce off of.

 

C'mon - gimme a hard one!

Re: Published test pilots

 

There's at least one test pilot in the 4E book Normals Unbound, as well as a crack chopper pilot who would fit the bill skill-wise.

Re: Is combat in HERO strategic?

 

Well, to answer the question (at least what I think is being asked):

 

HERO can be extremely tactical, if you want it to be. You've got an incredible amount of offensive and defensive options, and tons of ways to play with them. Tactical thinking in real-world terms carries over to effectiveness in the game; and, in theory, you could potentially do all sorts of things while acting defensively - though going "full defensive" means you can't attack at the same time.

 

Honestly, few systems come close to the combat verisimilitude that HERO offers. That being said: if you don't feel like you're up to much thinking and just want to duke it out with your adversary, you can trade punches all you like and no one will get in your way. It's only as complicated as you want it to be.

Re: A pair of power sets into 5th ed Champions from City of Heroes?

 

One other little tidbit for the Willpower set - adding the limitation "requires EGO roll" to the damage reduction seems like it'd be a nice little touch to get that "gritting your teeth through the pain" feel.

Re: Are YOU a superhero?

 

I got 130 myself.

 

I did stop a crime in progress last week, so I guess there's supporting evidence for my results - I chased down a guy I caught breaking into a truck, and the cops hauled him away in cuffs soon after. Very satisfying.

 

When a co-worker asked why I did it, I responded "why wouldn't I? It's the right thing to do. What else would I have done?"

Re: A pair of power sets into 5th ed Champions from City of Heroes?

 

I'm not super familiar with either of the powersets, honestly - but Willpower would seem to be a lot of different types of Damage Reduction. You still take damage, but your iron will allows you to grit your teeth and ignore some of it.

 

As for spines? Again, I'm not incredibly familiar with it - but I suspect a lot of the effects could be covered with a HtH killing attack (hand spines/claws), the same as a 0-END damage shield (pokey bits all over - don't punch him!), a ranged killing attack (firing a spine from one's arm), and the same with AOE: radius (blasting spines out all around you in a burst). If the above attacks are too deadly for your style (they'd likely be for mine), change them to extra HtH damage and energy blasts that work off of PD instead of ED (a physical blast, if you will) - the same special effects, but not so inherently deadly (ie. better for a Silver-Age feel game)

 

 

Fire out some specific effects you'd want to cover, and we can get into some more detail.

Re: Snake men

 

Don't forget:

 

 

1) Venom in various forms (eg. drain BODY/CON), sometimes usable at short range (eg. spitting cobra - nasty AVLD visual flash attack)

 

2) All sorts of enhanced senses, eg. discriminatory/tracking smell (nearly any snake), infrared perception (pit vipers, some pythons, etc.)

 

3) Extra inches of swimming (serpentine slithering generally works better underwater than on land)

 

4) Reduced life support (air, food, water) - being cold-blooded has benefits.

 

5) bonus STR for grabs + escapes (eg. constrictors)

Re: My Danger Sense Goes . . .

 

As demonstrated by certain heroes from which I garner my colloquial appellation, a Danger Sense can be used to justify:

 

1) Enhanced stealth (knowing when a dangerous enemy might glance in your direction, or when you're about to step on a creaky floorboard).

 

2) Ability to navigate without any other sensory input, if the danger sense is seriously sensitive.

 

3) Nearly foolproof ways to know if your bomb disposal techniques are sound without blowing yourself up (bonuses to demolitions disposal-type skills).

Re: Information for HERO/Champions Fans About The Champions Online MMO

 

Heck - though I'm really looking forward to playing the game, what I'm really interested in is the opportunity to do some voice acting for it. I've been on multiple radio shows and more than one Bioware game already here in Edmonton - but the chance to be one of the characters I've known for years from the Champions stable? THAT would be truly awesome.

 

(You should hear my "BWA-HA-HA-HAAA!")

Re: Multitasking, or the hyper-advanced intellect

 

For my character Phidippus (who has multiple arms and eyes), I went with something like:

 

3 Overall skill levels, only for tasks that require manual manipulation, only to reduce "hurried" penalties. In addition, he's got Ambidexterity, 2-weapon fighting, and some CSLs with Sweep (only to reduce penalties, not above starting OCV).

 

In essence, with the OSLs he can accomplish many physical tasks (mechanics, electronics, painting, etc.) a full step down on the time scale. This will mean that he's usually performing said tasks about 5 times faster than a normal person. I figured the Ambidexterity, two-weapon fighting, and Sweep CSLs were more than enough to justify the special effects of "being able to do multiple things at once, at normal speed for each individual task" (since I couldn't find exact modifiers for trying to do multiple skills at once beyond typical Sweep penalties).

 

 

How to do this on a mental perspective? I'd say you could get away with having OSLs (only to accomplish mental tasks, only to reduce penalties or some such things), with perhaps some sort of skill level with sweep (mental only) might be sufficient.

 

Kinda clunky, but I think it at least covers the bases.

Re: Time Travel Wish List?

 

Natural history tends to interest me more than human history. With that in mind, my top three times would be:

 

1) The late Cambrian period, about 515 MYA. So many trippy critters with no known descendants, so few specimen containers... Check out details about the critters found in the Burgess shale and you'll know what I mean.

 

2) The late Carboniferous period. Giant arthropods abound! 6-foot millipedes, 9-foot eurypterids. Need I say more?

 

3) The late Cretaceous. I'd love the chance to see my favorite dinosaurs - assuming I wasn't in a position to get eaten.

 

 

That being said, I realize this wouldn't be to most people's tastes RPG-wise! So much of why I'd like this sort of thing would be knowing what things were "really" like - not nearly so satisfying when it's all made up.

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game

 

I was playing last night and met "Feurmacher" on the Champion server (I'm normally playing on Justice). A fellow on his team apparently had "Dr. Destroyer" and "Mentalla" as characters on his account. Funnily enough, I was playing as "Fyredrake" (I had to change the 'I' to a 'Y').

 

Anybody here fit the bill for the above players? Just curious...

Re: Best and worst jobs for Superheroes

 

I would think that the absolute perfect job for a superhero would be the writer/artist who writes and draws his own comic-book adventures--

 

THE EDITOR: "Great job on these Thunder Man pages, Robbie! We've got another best-selling issue for sure!"

 

ROBBIE: "Thanks, Chief!"

 

THE EDITOR: "I love these action scenes! It feels like I'm right there in the middle of the action! Reading these, I could actually believe YOU were Thunder Man!"

 

ROBBIE: "HA HA HA HA HA! That's a good one, Chief! But we both know I couldn't possibly be Thunder Man!"

 

(Broad Wink At The Audience)

 

My current Champions character, Phidippus, is a comic book artist and writer in his secret I.D. Of course, he's not so narcissistic as to write about himself - but he does work on comics about heroes he's actually met, which helps immensely!

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares

 

Dexter's Lab - starring Anthony Michael Hall.

 

Much the same, mind you - but the lab coat would likely have some bloodstains.

Re: What were the best Superhero comics of the 90's?

 

"Untold Tales of Spider-Man" was another Busiek comic that delivered quality by the bucketload. I imagine they aren't too expensive to pick up, either.

 

 

TMNT was pretty good in the early 90's - at least the regular version (not the kiddie Archie version, which I couldn't comment on either way). The stories kind of jumped around all over the place, but there were some good tales to be found. "The River", taking place over issues 24-26, was one that stands out as being darn good IMHO.

Re: Captain America II (Reborn)

 

Nice try, but . . .

 

*BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM*

 

 

Fool! The followers of Quesada can track your Captain Americas, wherever they go!

 

Now, where's the next Spider-Man writeup . . .

 

Eeep!

 

Ummm... You know what? I think I'll just go home now.

Re: Do you use miniatures?

 

I use miniatures all the time in my Champions games.

 

For a cheap source of superhero minis, I'd recommend Heroclix - they're what I use, anyway. Sure, you don't get a huge range of "generic" superheroes (they're all familiar names to a comic book fan like myself) - but there's so many available, you can't go wrong. There's a lot of Heroclix out there, and many of them have generic enough costumes that a simple paint job is enough to make them look like the heroes you want them to represent - and if you don't want to bother, there'll be somebody that's "close enough". For example - energy projector with high-speed flight? Nova's a good stand-in. Stretchy guy? Mr. Fantastic or Plastic man.

 

I haven't had to spend a ton of money on them. I haven't bought very many of the actual booster packs (maybe 20, max, in the years since they started making these things) - most of my collection has been a) scammed from buddies who were fine with ditching their extra commons/quintuple copies of figure X, or bought individually or en masse from my local gaming store. I don't actually play Heroclix, so I don't care whether or not a mini is veteran, rookie, etc. - I just get them for the figures, so I save some money there.

 

Also, my local store has a box on the front counter where cheap, extremely common figures are sold on the cheap. Last summer, they got in a huge conglomeration of (relatively common) figures they didn't have room for - I got 120 or so in a single sitting, for less than 25 cents each! (I still could use a lot more Hydra agents, though - there's never enough when the heroes raid a VIPER base...)

 

My suggestion to you: if you're interested, go to your local gaming store and ask around the Heroclix community. Chances are you'll be able to find someone who's looking to get out of the game and offload the old minis, or someone who's got a zillion rookies/common figs he'd like to get rid of.

 

I've got a double-decker pizza box full of the things, myself. They're endlessly useful in my campaign.

Re: Champions Of The North

 

It's actually very much a "Wandering character enters setting and through his presence, changes situations in the setting usually for the better" show.

 

This (apt) description makes me think there should be a link between this line of wonder dogs and a figure like Kane from "Kung Fu"...

 

Perhaps the dogs' line started in the wild west era, when the original crossed paths with an oriental martial artist/mystic? "Dog Fu", anyone?

Re: Alas and Farewell, Digital Hero

 

Dang! I wish I had more money, so I could pay off my credit card, so I could buy more issues of Digital Hero. The ones I have purchased thus far have been very good - I'm saddened to hear it's at the end of the road.

 

DH: you will be missed.

Re: [Twisted Game Concept] VG Supers

 

I'm assuming we're dealing with characters that originated in video games, as opposed to just anybody who's been in one (eg. Luke Skywalker, a zillion superheroes, etc.).

 

He wouldn't be THE most powerful character available, but playing as Gex would be fun. I really enjoyed those games; and an agile, wisecracking talking lizard who can climb walls (and is constantly quoting movies and T.V.) is smack dab right in the middle of my comfort zone as far as characters are concerned...

 

Honestly, I can't imagine a much better fit for me.

Re: Champions Of The North

 

Naturally, Rex should have a spiritual successor in the form of the Littlest Hobo. Perhaps the torch was passed from wonder dog to wonder dog, a la Black Mask 1-10?

Re: What's your comfort range? (More Questions than question)

 

What are the preferred campaign guidelines for your game? What does a starting character look like, 200 points (or lower), 250, 350, 600? Was this a group decision or set by the GM?

I started with 450 pts (300 + 150 disads). I wanted the players to be pretty heavy hitters, and have the points to toss into a lot of detail/flavour powers and abilities. 350 feels a little too tight to simulate the comics I'm used to (though admittedly, it's all relative). It may be my years playing GURPS and making dozens of HERO characters affecting my brain, or my near-obsessive/compulsive tendencies, but I still sometimes feel that even 5th edition characters are a little lean on detail for my tastes (though obviously way better than previous ones, who often had only a couple of skills). In short, I like as much of the stuff your character can be assumed to be able to do on the character sheet - that isn't to say I'm especially anal about it after play starts, though. I let the players get away with quite a bit of "characteristics rolls at significant penalties when the skillsets aren't there" and "this is knowledge/an ability your character really should have based on his concept, and it's trivial enough I'll say 'you can just do it".

 

Do you use Active Point Limits or measure CVs , DCs and Defenses... Speed? How were these limits designed? Do you keep softer limits with a preferred power range? Are these always the same from campaign to campaign or set just for the one your are playing now?

I've set no hard limits of any kind - but I did set up a series of campaign benchmarks based on characters my players were familiar with in the Marvel Universe (mentally cross-referenced with their CU analogues). I went through character creation with each player, so we'd all be working off the same sort of standards. For example (a hypothetical conversation with one of my players):

 

"Your concept is a super-strong, extremely tough fellow whose powerset is based around being able to control his density. As such, giving him a SPD of 8 is really excessive. As you can see on the chart, that's the territory of guys with incredible speed and reflexes (eg. high-powered Spider-Man, mid-range speedster such as Quicksilver). If you want to be that fast, that's fine - but ask yourself: does it fit the concept? If it doesn't, well, I'd suggest dropping the speed (or changing the concept)! My own opinion? 5 feels pretty good. That places you in the ranks of superheroes and extremely skilled brawlers, to be sure - but it's not 'Wow!' fast. This is the level I'd place the Thing at - use that as your guide. Is he slower, faster, or about on par with a canny roughhouser like Ben Grimm who relies on his STR and skill over raw velocity?"

 

"As for your strength? Well, that's really your bread-and butter. You say he's really powerful, but not the strongest guy out there - though he's still competitive. Right now, I'm comfortable with about a 65 for the top end. That makes you really strong, but there's still some guys out there at your power level (point base) who are stronger - but that's about all they've got. You, on the other hand, have a wide variety of powers to call upon. Superstrength is one of your schticks - but a specialist could be a little higher. Feel free to throw some points into it as we go on - but keep in mind, the consistently strongest guy around, Grond (the closest equivalent to The Hulk), has a STR of 90! Try to keep it under that in the long run, barring temporary cosmic empowerment."

 

"None of this is written in stone. Where do you see your character fitting into the grand scheme of things? What would you like him to be able to do?"

 

14-16d6 is around the level of "standard impressively powerful attack" - a character's "main gun", if you will, and the SPD hasn't got higher than 8.

 

I can say that I've been graced with some excellent players, all of whom have had well-defined character concepts before we even started. That's helped a lot.

 

For the record, this is the first proper Champions campaign I've run. I've owned the game for years, made a zillion characters, and played occasionally - but this is the first time I've worn the GM hat with it for more than a couple of sessions.

 

If there are caps can they be exceeded once play starts or is that the max for the entire campaign?

Slow progression is allowed for pretty much anything. Of course, if a player is pushing the limits of those campaign benchmarks, I'll let him know. Like Blue, I'd rather see players branch out and fill in details rather than push the boundaries of good taste as far as possible. I'f you're already the most agile man alive, there likely isn't any need to put more points into DEX.

 

Are there any off limits powers for the Campaign? Sorry no Mind Control for you...

Nothing is absolutely, positively off-limits without any room for negotiation. Of course, I'm really careful about VPPs, Telepathy, Mind Control, and Multiform (as well as some others I'm sure I'm forgetting). All of the above are carefully weighed to ensure they won't lead to abuse or schtick stomping. On the other hand, I tend to run fairly fast and loose with what I allow as valid multipowers and ECs.

 

Do you use published thugs, maybe modified a bit, or are your fodder home grown to fit the campaign?

A little of both. Most of the characters associated with PC background stories have been created whole cloth, but the rest have been from published books. One thing about my higher standard point totals is that I often beef up the villains a bit - I actually like things this way, as it allows me more wiggle room to personalize them to fit the game better.

 

How do these factors play into the campaign world or do they?

Well, the overall power levels are higher for the game (villains betting a bit of a boost to challenge the PCs better), but I don't think it really affects the game world that much. The PCs in my game are supposed to be fairly heavy hitters relative to the average meta on the street anyway.

 

Have you noticed any trends with player characters because of these factors?

There's always that trend to keep up with the Joneses, esp. with SPD and DEX - but so far it hasn't got out of control. Not a single character has increased DEX or SPD past the levels they started at at character creation, and STR and MP pools haven't gone up more than 10 points with anyone (by the same extension, DCs haven't gone up by more than 2). I'd like to think that it's because the players have been mostly satisfied with what they started out with in terms of the basic, core stuff - now it's picking up all the options they couldn't afford or didn't think of, or the little things that fit the development of the character. New skills, reputations, CSLs based on attacks they've come to favour, etc.

 

Any ideas on what may change in the next campaign?

No thoughts on the subject. I hope to keep this one running for some time to come, and it's not the only game we play anyway. What I would enjoy is rotating the GM duties occasionally so I can properly play - but I'm not an unhappy GM. It's been going for over a year and a half so far, playing about every week, and so far it hasn't gotten the least bit stale - I just hope to improve things as I go along and keep the game fun for everybody!

Re: The eulogy of a HERO!

 

"Must spread Rep around before giving it to Drhoz again" etc...