Christopher R Taylor

Its easy to see how having a secret ID and yet instant change are an issue: Superman ran into this a lot. I assume the Flash never had a problem because super speed, of course. All Instant Change does is reduce the time it takes to change, not the risk of being caught in costume.

Doing it as a handwave thing probably is fine, but it does seem worth some points to be able to zap into your costume immediately while Platinum Man has to change into his armor over a turn.

I have been doing other writing, but I plan on doing the talent/perk section next. And some unique or special monsters that can't easily be simulated with other creatures.

The thing is, from my point of view, Instant Change was one of those "pointless" Powers. I got a little tired of building Instant Change from Transform over and over doing conversions of characters. Dozens of times. Its used a lot more than you seem to understand.

Anyone heard much about Everquest reboot? With a better interface, updated graphics, and a more player-friendly attitude, that could be a terrific game. SONY/Verant pretty obviously despised its players, but if you could get people who liked their customers it could be a more pleasant experience. The world was terrific, and HUGE, the classes and races and lore were very interesting. I'd love to raid Vox with a better experience.

Very, very little changed in terms of actual play, but builds shifted slightly. things like Damage Over Time, Attack vs Alternate Defense, the change in how Area Effects are bought all are very good and should be put into every game, no matter what version you use (Frankenhero it like Liaden says). The change to Power Pools solves some major annoyances for me in how they worked (you couldn't build some concepts at all) as well. Then there are little shifts like the change to Transform, the clarity for how Change Environment works, etc. Some things that I really don't care for are the loss of Comeliness, the change of missile deflection to being just something anyone can do, and the insistence that Instant Change is a rules-bending version of Transform instead of its own, obvious power. I know its a "unitasker" but if everyone buys the same power the same way every time... its a missing power. The loss of Suppress (the replacement doesn't work exactly the same way and thus some conceptual builds disappeared), and the deletion of Transfer (ugly, huge block o' text replacement) were problematic to me as well. I really did not like the removal of figured characteristics, and it didn't add any flexibility to builds, it just made them more obvious. The only real benefit was to fix costs on some characteristics, but some are really too cheap now (Endurance, for example, and recovery have become so cheap now they just are meaningless and many GMs don't even bother keeping track). I really liked being able to build entangle-based barriers, because they were fire-and-forget which made for some very handy, interesting builds. Now its either a huge block o'text barrier or a weird transform. For me, streamlining builds is better than making them more generic. Some powers were pointless (gliding, swinging) but others worked well and saved time. Its the same philosophy as talents; you can technically build talents by hand and not have them in a list, but its a heck of a lot easier to use them pre-built and not go through the trouble every time. Overall its a bit of a push, as ghost-angel notes. There are some great aspects, some poor ones, and overall its pretty well the same game.

Lots of teamwork maneuvers and combined attacks, use block and throw to set up for the main hero to get the attack in, fill in gaps they aren't great at (be stealthy if they are the door buster, be clever if they are slow, etc)

Add in an "R" for "Great American World Renowned Super Heroes" and you have Goofy's team I figured Gomer Pyle would have G.O.L.L.E.E. "Global Observation Legal League of Extraordinary Earthlings"

Genius! If I ever run a Golden Age game, that's what we'll see! They'd be post-war though

No. the answer is "what they are in the original source material that sold millions of copies over decades." That's not some kind of crypto racist supremacy, and your calumny is not only noted but disgusting.

The coolest variant on vampires I've seen recently was on a TV show called "Monumental Mysteries" in which they talked about a small town story involving disease in New England. But at the time it was believed that vampires actually died, were buried, and lay in their graves remotely draining blood from victims. They sustained their life by blood which kept their heart alive, but never got up out of the grave. I'm using that idea for the least powerful, first stage of vampires in my bestiary

I loved the idea and title of the organization (Government Office of Super Heroes) but never got that far in my golden age campaign.

I bet it makes a jillion dollars because DC isn't targeting comic book fans, they're targeting everyone else who thinks that comic books are stupid and costumes are for children. Marvel has gone more than halfway in that direction as is. DC has decided they want to show how awful the world would be with superheroes in it, then put it to a soundtrack by Two Steps From Hell.

Well I think there's a quantifiable difference between healing faster and never healing at all.

6th edition eliminated figured characteristics entirely, so that's not really an issue but its a thought in previous editions to consider. I'll say this, a system like the one proposed by Markdoc would be a major simplification to the hit location table. You wouldn't need a colum for ka and normal at all, just a stun column and a body column. More room for marking down PD and ED armor

Its worth a small physical complication at least - after all, it is a complication physically that is more of a... disadvantage... than others have. The severity is decent, but the frequency is going to be almost never unless your campaign is pretty lethal and healing magic/etc is rare.

Probably, in a superhero game I'm not sure its even worth a limitation.

I would buy it as a physical complication, but you could put a 1/2 limitation on Recovery too. Its almost never an issue in a game.

Yeah but all the stuff you need from the sourcebook will be useful for all editions, really.

Star Wars: The Old Republic is doing a double xp event timed to take advantage of Star Wars movie, not sure how long it will run. I'm really late on this, might even be over with by now.

Clearly, that's what i had in mind with a stun multiple adding stun damage. How would a stun multiple add body to begin with? However, you're right about the stacking. +1/2 to add +1d6 is probably fine; that would give you a pretty big thud but not any worse than the way hit locations and stun multiples work now. I mean, +1 stun modifier with a head hit on a killing attack is x6 stun, so you can spend 15 points and get up to 36 stun! That's even more than you listed above! Its broken!!!!! Except it isn't broken, and works fine.

I'm still pondering the suggested system of types of attacks. My first instinct is that while it has a good feel in terms of theory and ideas, it is extra complication that 90% of players will care nothing about and will never use. It will make weapons behave more like they should, but most players will find it too fiddly and too much work to bother with, so it won't ever come into play. That's why I prefer things built into weapons so they just automatically do them rather than requiring special effort on the part of players. Also, when you add martial arts into the mix, it gets even more complicated to attempt an attack, so I am inclined not to use the concept at all. When it comes to hit locations and stun multipliers, I like them a lot for certain builds. Adding +1 stun mod to hammers and maces gives them a punch and unique status. Enchanting a weapon to be +1 to stun multiple is a powerful upgrade that is interesting in the game. Dropping that entire system means a loss of flexibility and distinction and I don't like going in that direction. Granted, the alternate attack type system you suggest would help offset that, but it doesn't really work well for me as noted above. As for rolling extra dice, I don't think most players have a problem with that: the more the merrier, and just not counting body on a couple dice makes the damage easier, not more complicated. I do like the idea of adding and subtracting dice in hit locations (and yes, before defenses) rather than multiples. Multiples get out of control in an awful hurry, but adders are pretty flat and controlled. Having adders for stun and body allows someone to just add a die or two to their damage with stun multiples. The only question is how much? Right now, +1 stun multiple is +1/2 advantage, and it can have huge effects when combined with hit locations. It might be better to make StnX more granular, with +1d6 for +1/4 advantage, so you can stack them up. After a certain point, its going to be very inefficient and not worth using - yes, you can get +8d6 with a +2 advantage, but that's really expensive, and is it worth it? Probably not with most attacks. Granted, in Heroic you're not going to see that cost most of the time unless its a spell, but still.

I guess I'm no sure why it bothers you. As long as the players are having fun, and you're enjoying yourself, why let it upset you?

I agree, the granularity of the KA system has always been so small its difficult to open up any real distinction between weapons for interesting variety. The 1 - 1/2 - d6 model worked, but it was so close together it didn't feel like much of a shift. Adding a d6 feels more like a significant change in the effect. Again, more fun for players, who I always felt were disappointed and uncomfortable with the dice of KAs. Here's the million dollar question though, what do you do with increased stun multiple, which only is allowed for killing attacks in the rules? My first inclination would be to leave them in, but only for settings that use the hit location chart (so you look at the nSTUN column and adjust by stun multiple) but that will give some huge numbers. Hitting someone on the head could be x3 stun. Do that with a 6d6 attack and you're looking at effectively 18d6 worth of stun damage - an average of 63 stun. Maybe that's okay - a greatsword to the dome should be pretty stunning. But that's going to knock a dragon on his butt, and maybe that's not what you want in a fantasy game. An alternate choice would be to give a die or two extra damage - only for stun - rolled as part of the package (different colored dice?). So you roll your 6d6 for the greatsword, then another 1 or 2d6 to represent the increased stun multiple: 6d6 roll: 6 body, 21 stun stun multiple: 0 body, 7 stun (3.5 with 1d6) total: 6 body, 28 stun (or 24 stun) With a head hit that's still 56 stun (or 48), which is still pretty catastrophic. It may be worth just reworking the entire hit location table to get rid of multipliers and go with straight adders. x1 1/2 should be +1d6 maybe? Or +2d6? x2 could be +2 or 3d6. That's what happened to Haymaker, to flatten it out a little. Another option is to have the multiple take effect after defenses for stun just like body, so only what gets through gets increased. Sure, you rolled 24 stun, but armor and PD soaked 16 of that, so you only get 3x8 for 24 stun to the head. But that might end up being too little.

The biggest advantage, in my opinion, of using the AVAD build is more dice. 4d6 is not only more satisfying to roll than d6+1, but it gives a more reliable result with that sweet, sweet bell curve. Killing Attacks have always been disappointingly few dice with wild results and this would flatten things out better.