Christopher R Taylor

Seems like its worth more than 1/4 since you can't use it to hit or lift things, exert in any way except to be just as strong casually as you are normally.  -1/2 at least, depending on how often it comes up.

The stories I've read of it they took years, but only because they stopped and served various princes and potentates along the way.  It is a REALLY long trip, so it would have to be months, but I don't know exactly.

I never once noticed that Bruce & Clark's moms had the same name.

I'm not sure I ever knew Ma Kent had a first name.

Yeah that's the other advantage of lots of visual stuff, lookie loos come by and are curious.

No Christopher Taylor most fights do not end up on the ground in a wrestling type situation.

 

Well, let me clarify: almost all actual real world fights I've seen end up on the ground wrasslin more than punching standing up like a boxing match.  Unless one person totally overwhelms the other with a few quick hits that lay them out... people end up on the ground.

Maybe this scene from The Mask will help

I like that Dumb Luck one, its a pretty solid concept: things can go really well or really badly, and its a very common concept in pulp. 

*yoink* going into Jolrhos Player's Handbook

As a house rule, treat breaking free from Grab identically to breaking out of an Entangle. 

 

 

This is what I do.  If you break free by enough, it took you no time at all.  In fact, I thought that was the rule.

Well in real life combat, grappling is very, very useful.  Almost all real fights (as in, not in a controlled environment with extremely rigid rules and prohibited maneuvers) that aren't a one-punch affair end up on the ground, wrestling.  So it being effective is not exactly unrealistic or unreasonable.

Remember all the other stuff that goes on during grab maneuvers though.  You can only grab a certain number of limbs, you cannot prevent the other limbs from being used to attack you, you're 1/2 DCV not just to the grabbee but others, you're at an OCV penalty to attempt a grab, etc.

Looks like it went well  I think the more figures and stuff you have the more people really enjoy it lately, and it helps attract people.

Maybe your groups were different, but seen the stuff you say aren't "standard" was actually pretty common.

 

I wasn't going based on my group, just on the published characters both hero and villain from the time.  That's why I said that kind of thing was "all pretty standard" at the time, not that it was not.

I find few players want to be the low powered sidekick or the Super's normal buddy. 

 

Probably not, but they ought to try it some time, its pretty fun!

I think a 1st level superhero would be a guy with like one power he could use a couple times a day, or a few points of extra defenses.  Champions presumes more than that, but at least in the old days they started you as a New Mutant, not an Avenger.  Vulnerabilities, activation rolls, etc were all pretty standard in 2-3rd edition.

Its been my observation that if you give players enough points they can build their characters with all the stuff they want, they have a hard time figuring out where to put experience except in "I want to take less damage" or "I want to hit harder."  Leaving players hungry with gaps in their build gives plenty of inspiration to spend xps and places for the GM to exploit and build stories around.

Also Storm probably has defenses we don't see i.e. strong winds making it harder for physical attacks to hit her. I seem to also remember her being pretty resistant to energy attacks. Cyclops probably has the strong resistance to Energy attacks (including total immunity to his brother Havoc's attacks)

 

Well if I built a Cyclops in a game I'd do that but there's no evidence of that in the comics.  His personal immunity to Havok is just because they're brothers and they have the same basic blast type (he's immune to his own attack as well, as in his eyelids can keep back a blast that can punch through a tank).  

Storm is pretty much just given plot protection.  I remember her standing in one image, with no powers, in front of everyone else as this crappy morlock killer uses this blizzard of shrapnel attack.  She sort of cringes and everyone behind her gets torn apart, Collossus is hurt so bad he passes out.  Plot protection.

In Champions, you just get hit with the AE, heh

Defense free in a narrative setting where the author determines how much damage the heroes take. That doesn't quite work that way in an RPG. 

 

Exactly, in a game, the bad guys are typically a bit smarter in terms of tactics, the combat is more about the fighting than telling the story, etc.  What works in a comic book doesn't necessarily in a game.

I find it rather strange to make "experienced characters" the default starting character standard in an RPG

 

That's never been my favorite either, I really prefer the arc of a campaign where you start out small and accomplish something rather than start out on top and... I'm not really sure where you go at that point.  I'm not saying you can't pull it off or nobody should do that, its just not my preferred structure, nor most players that I've met.  

A lot of comic book characters are pretty defense-free.  Cyclops for example is a huge energy blast in two legs.  Yeah he's got some martial arts training and body armor, but its not very significant.  Storm has no defenses, wears little in the way of clothing let alone armor, and is pretty much never hit - but when she is, she goes down in a heap.  Until she lost her powers, then she shifted all her points into martial arts and suddenly was a master hand-to-hand fighter.

It's true that the suggested point increase from 4th to 5th Editions was mostly just to provide more points, but not more power. The suggested power levels really didn't go up, but the suggested spread of points across a character's abilities did change, and character's started to pay for more abilities

 

Well I guess it depends on definition again.  The 12 damage class/60 active point level didn't change, but in Hero, more points = more power.  If you get 50 more points for stuff, that's 50 points more powerful than the guy who didn't spend that.

Moving to 6th required more points to pay for characteristics, but not as much more as 400 points gives.

Here's the thing: a character in 4th edition at 250 points in a literal translation power for power to 6th edition ends up only 50-75 points more expensive, not 150 points more.  I know this, because I've done exactly that on this board with hundreds of 2-4th edition characters.  There's a real increase in power over the editions beyond increased cost.  Nothing in 5th edition made characters have to cost more than 4th, people just wanted more points.  So the base points for the character went up.

There's nothing compelling people to use the suggested starting points, of course.  I don't.  But its false that the point total or power total hasn't gone up over editions.

Attacks of Opportunity also deal with the abstracted representation of combat that D&D uses; you can move past people and away from people without them being able to reasonably react as they would in a real fight because its taking place over a time period instead of blow-by-blow.

That said, I do allow people to abort to a straight OCV attack (no levels or special maneuvers) on someone in more gritty games if they try to blow past someone in combat.  Because of the jerky way movement works in hero combat, it helps offset how you can just race around on the board on your phase while everyone else stands still.

These days Thor just speaks with a different font, from what I've seen.  He dropped all the Thees and thous because Millar/Nicieza et al thought it was lame and, like, old.

You two should collaborate on it.  I know I suggested the Viper's Nest bit because its so established and would be easier to do, but if you can and want to come up with something unique and new, I'm fine with that.  It might even be easier to fit into the proposed sequence of revealed rules and bits as a tutorial.

So is anyone other than Deadman and I actually working on this?  I mean, I can write it and all but I have other, paying stuff to work on.

Yet a Brick with a 18-20 DEX is slow and clumsy compared to other Supers, but Olympic level gymnast level when benchmarked against our "real world" standards. 

Yeah I'll typically build the slower or less agile sort with 14 or so dexterity: enough to move reasonably well but not particularly exceptional.  Unless the character is modeled on The Blob, they're going to be reasonably athletic despite being big and strong.

 

Also GM's understanding the numbers can do a better job setting campaign limits for combat.

 

This is important.  A GM is best served if they are comfortable enough with character design and combat that they have a gut level or instinctual feel for how characters match up.  It helps when setting up combat and building bad guys, it helps when assessing challenges, etc.

I typically build bricks with low speed, but mentalists fairly high because they're usually acting mentally which is quite fast - especially in someone trained with mental powers and an unusually keen brain.  The typical hero seems around 5 speed, with 3 quite low and 6 very fast.  Anything above that is speedster territory to me, but I could see a really well trained martial artist having 6 speed.  I've had a few fantasy hero characters played in my games with 5 speed.  Just that 1-2 points over everyone else really shows up.