Christopher R Taylor

Sure, just the more powerful and outrageous you make them, the more blatant and annoying it becomes. And there's a big difference between a fit academic (sort of easy to do, lots of down time in academia where you can exercise) and a brick academic. Someone like The Rock does not have time to do any heavy reading or thinking. Someone like Einstein doesn't have time to get ripped. A really great mage has no time or energy to become also a really tough front line bruiser that can take the hits, unless he uses magic to buff himself up.

Its time for a 6th edition version posted here as an homage!

Yeah Anime gives characters like 350 points to build a fantasy hero character then somehow they're still challenged by low powered stuff as the plot requires

Yeah I did the same thing, a heavily modified Champions universe with my own timeline rather than the official one (no Detroit disaster, for instance)

Yeah, but that was the writer's version, not the real guy. He doesn't count. I have Crusader in 4th edition champs, and rebuilt him for 6th, but Marksman, Gargoyle, Rose, and the rest :/ No such luck.

I have long wanted to find those old Guardians character sheets but nobody seems to have them around.

Yeah I took over a guild once because it went inactive. The guild maker eventually showed back up and I gave it back to him, though

Very cool Something I've envisioned having similar to for a gaming room I never could afford.

You can hit the button that looks kind of like a square window that has a mouseover label of "image" and just type in the URL to a picture somewhere else and it will show up too, which is what I did.

Yeah, nobody will ever be better than JK Simmons in that role. It just can't be done.

There is no particular reason in Hero system that Mages should be less able to take a hit than fighters, simply because there is no such thing as 'a mage" or "a fighter" in terms of mechanics. Well I guess in a fantasy game you can kind of abandon all this but... The average person has only so many hours in a day and energy to focus on training. So a mage who studies their whole life to be great at magic is not going to have nearly the time they need to build up the endurance and physical durability to take a hit like a warrior who spends their day doing just that. Its not a matter of rules, but rather concept and reason. Its why your average academic is a milquetoast and your average MMA/bodbuilder type is not particularly well educated. In hero terms: you only have so many points to spend, so you can't be great at both at the same time.

Again, its going to depend on the quality of the armor and the tactics used. Almost all armor has vulnerable points that can be attacked, not to harm the wearer, but to weaken the armor's support and cohesion. Chopping a few straps off that breastplate will make it sag, slip, and even fall off. And a poorly constructed suit of armor will have more of those kinds of weaknesses than a very well made suit. For example, here's an early suit of armor, roman style with visible exterior straps that can be attacked And here is a much later extremely high quality plate armor style with rivets ad almost no gaps or places to attack The construction and quality really makes a difference. For simplicity's sake, I use adjustments to weight (to represent poor distribution and awkward wear), defense, and body of armor if its not made very well or is a really quality piece. Armor I'd guess - I have no practical experience or hard info - would be less likely to wear out than weapons simply because its designed to take blows and is more durable by its nature. Weapons are thin and light as possible while still retaining function to make them more useful.

Even D&D ain't what it used to be. The Role Playing hobby has taken a huge hit in a quick-gratification graphics-heavy culture.

Well yeah, that's true of everything. But as you note, we have a few mentions of swords breaking and tons of non broken swords from the era, which suggests battle damage but not shattering like a lockpick in Skyrim.

A Barrier, an Entangle, a PD/ED Aid, and Usable on others all would work.

Picture this: you are standing beside a highway, and a car drives by. You swap positions with a passenger. They retain velocity and you do not. You're thinking "would this kill Grond?" And I'm thinking "what a nasty and effective way to kill the president"

We're actually working on that with an introductory book for Champions with an adventure characters, etc. One to act as a tutorial. If you want to lend a hand or see what we're doing check out the thread.

POD is a winner all the way around, for businesses as I see it. I think its the future of publishing.

Well, a good sword is a mix of hard and soft, in various areas, to protect from shatter, give flexibility, and yet retain an edge. However, that said, it was not unheard of for a sword to break, and we know of at least a few historical instances. Generally speaking, a well-forged weapon used properly won't break but that's the rub: well-used. Someone who uses a weapon poorly will tend to break it (the blade of a sword, the haft of an axe, the chains of a flail, etc). If you know what you're doing, you won't be doing the stuff that causes this: block with the flat of the blade and slide it along rather than direct contact, etc. Which brings up an interesting point. How would you simulate that in Hero terms? I think the easy way would be to have people using a weapon they are unfamiliar with cause double damage to their weapon. Thus, if they swing, hit something, and 1 body gets through its defenses, it takes 2 instead (or two check marks, or what have you). I prefer this kind of thing very much over OCV penalties, which are a bit overstated in the rules, in my opinion.

I like the opposite. When players find interesting ways to avoid an encounter, fool them, use the environment against them etc I enjoy that more. I try to build encounters specifically to allow and encourage it. The best bits in action scenes are when someone is outmatched and has to figure a different way to beat their foe than diving in fists first. ...and? They still won't have the battle skills or body/hps/what have you. Mages NEED better defenses, because they can't take a hit.

I thought this was about making healing work better on targets, like a spell that increases all healing done to target for x minutes. That's a bit challenging to build in Hero, requiring weird builds like a triggered heal.

Not if you're an assassin using it to eliminate people. Or just don't care what happens to them. You'll want an adder to let you take their velocity, so you can port directly into a speeding car safely, but as for the victim, suddenly appearing somewhere moving 60 miles an hour might be a bonus.

The thing is, Hero won't ever die. I mean there are still people who play Tunnels & Trolls and Runequest. Its just a question of having much market share, which is rough right now. Still, market share plummeted after 4th edition and 5th brought it back quite a bit. I think a series of introductory books and Pathfinder-like campaign modules for Champions would go a long ways to help. Fantasy Hero, too.

He killed a cop for just trying to bust him in the TV show at least

They won't generally shatter (although, who knows, might be an unseen weakness?) but the will degrade, especially edged ones. Notches and dulling will happen every time a blade is used unless its made of some magical super-alloy or something. Reducing DC as items take body is reasonable. Or just reducing DC as damage gets through the defenses and breaking at 0 DC.