Christopher R Taylor

Meh, that's what multiple power attacks are for.

I can be, if it works for everyone. Its worth hashing some basic concepts out at least

That hurts Hero, as does the desire to leave the "toolkit" open and visible all the time. If I'm playing a fantasy game, I don't want to be told all the different ways that you could create a magic system. I just want a cool and unique magic system. I want somebody to have already done the work, and present it to me in an interesting way. I don't need to see "costs end, incantations, gestures, requires a skill roll" written on every single spell. When I built the Codex, I supplied an optional suggested magic system, along with notes on how to build your own. The spell write ups are in digest form as a list, then descriptive, but each description starts with a simple description of the spell with stats, a full description, then the crunchy build afterward. The theory is that new or more casual players can just use the first parts and ignore the builds, while GMs can know the full build.

So, ablative armor, but increased run speed that grows as the armor lowers? Sounds pretty cool

I never did Marksman but my conversion (direct and literal) from 4th edition Crusader is in this thread.

I built a talent for backstab, basically its a bonus to damage situational on surprise or being unseen and attacking from behind.

My house rule is that attacks from surprise half CON for purposes of being stunned, not double stun. When you walk into the cupboard door by accident it doesn't knock you out any more than being bonked in the head but it hurts more than usual out of sheer surprise. But I do like the thinking of using this as backstab rather than the multipliers etc used in other systems.

Correct, stun multipliers before defenses, body after. Even with normal attacks.

It came up in this discussion of splitting out damage into different types based on physical characteristics. I like the idea so much I'm using it from now on in my heroic games and its going to be in my Jolrhos Fantasy Hero setting when the Player's Handbook and Treasure books come out.

Skill levels to offset location modifiers are Penalty Skill Levels, so they should be bought using that skill rather than Combat Skill Levels. 6th goes into better detail explaining how they're used, incidentally.

I agree, Mob Rule works well as a starting adventure, although not quite as good as Viper's Nest in my opinion.

I like the thinking of some of the people here. Since I run default hit locations in games with people using bows for weaponry, I just saw "picking your target" as a clear hit location issue. However, it does make sense that you could consider a Haymaker just another way of defining that without being specific. In fact I'd go further and say that you could actually use Haymaker to be a hit location proxy: choose the location you hit instead of a damage bonus by taking extra time and a big DCV loss. I like this idea so much I think if I ever run a game again, that's what I'll do. However, with the alternate damage system we've discussed on these boards, it might be unnecessary. In that system, there is no KA alternate dice, just normal dice with AVAD: resistant defenses. So all damage is rolled as if normal damage. That d6+1 RKA because a 4d6 RKA against rPD. And in that system, instead of multipliers in hit locations, you see dice adders, and that begins to act exactly like haymaker anyway. So a head hit would be +4d6 (after defenses) just like a Haymaker.

My work isn't official, but I have more than a few monsters in the Jolrhos Bestiary with sub-3 MCVs (and even OCV/DCV). My philosophy was to try to build creatures as closely to how I envisioned them and ignore the baseline in all cases. Well you had some lousy GMs then. One of my players built a mage with KS: Geology and I worked hard to find ways to make that useful and interesting in the game. When starting out, all players can roll on their PS to have more starting money. I try to find ways to work that into the game, because skills give characters depth. In fact, in many games I gave people free points equal to their INT in background and non-combat skills in addition to their starting points just to encourage having them.

The thing is, it was pretty standard for villains to be very up front and announce their villainy. The brotherhood of Evil Mutants, for example. We're evil. Deal with it.

You must have started at 4th edition.

If you can run down a copy of Viper's Nest, that's a good starting adventure module. Deathstroke is a great one as well but requires considerable work to bring it up to date.

Might be worth slipping CON into session 2 so people get stunned in combat 2 instead of 1, but its not that complicated a mechanic

If possible, I encourage you to build your game around enforcing genre and teaching players about what they should and shouldn't do as heroes to start with. NOt a lecture, but adventures that emphasize heroism, self sacrifice, doing good, protecting people over killing, getting loot, advancing personal goals, and triumphing. Champions is a very different creature than D&D: its not about gaining power and prestige, its about being a hero.

Yeah its all rep, not real comparison. Even making a Savage Worlds character requires significant math and work to figure out. Its just what people learned and how they learned, not the complexity of the rules (unless you go really crazy like Phoenix Command). Hero has a rep of being crazy complicated, so its considered bad now. D&D has a rep of being simple despite being no more simple than Hero, so people prefer it.

Historically and realistically, you can underfire a bow (not draw it back the full way) but you can't overfire a bow (give it more power than proper use), so no I would not. I don't like haymakers with ranged weapons to begin with, it just doesn't make sense even with a thrown weapon. thrown weapons are more about technique than raw power, if you throw them too hard, you mess up the ballistics and it won't hit right, or at all because it will go wild. Its like pitching a baseball, if you throw as hard as you can, its going to go wild and probably hurt your arm. But if you throw with proper technique and learning, it can go very fast and exactly where you want. That said: its your game, you can do what you want.

OK I've been in contact with Jason who handles this kind of thing and he's on vacation right now, but will be back in a couple of weeks so I would like to have a proposal ready to give to him so he can pitch it to the guys who own the Champions IP.

My combat survival guide is in downloads, might be useful for you.

I agree, no rules, except the very basics on how to play for the GM in the most simple terms (how to roll to hit, roll damage, do speed, etc) in a tutorial format is the way to go. I think Cracked's text with a goofy picture breaking it up regularly is welcome today. I don't mean to imply that modern people are morons, just that they are used to small bits of text so its best to spoon feed info.

Well I think we can look at maybe more in the future, if we can pull this off and its popular. I like the idea, especially with the different sorts of approaches, but right now its a question if we can get one out yet.

Pretty sure Haymaker is exclusive - that is, it cannot be combined with any other maneuver.