Monolith

I certainly understand your point here LL, which is why I have refused to get involved in this whole mess in the first place. It takes enough of my energy to argue with people who do know something about the HERO System. I don't need to waste more of it arguing with someone who has clearly shown no such knowledge. Unfortunately, anyone who wants to do a search over at rpg.net can clearly see the esteem Almafeta hold for the HERO System and its players. The best thing everyone can do is just ignore Almafeta, because she is not here to learn anything about the game. Almafeta is here to get some cheap thrills while throwing water balloons at the HERO System players. Almafeta is going to pretend to "ooh" and "ah," but really she's just here to poke the tiger in the zoo with a stick. The best thing everyone can do is just ignore Almafeta in the same way we ignored Shade in all his incarnations. Almafeta's mind is not going to be changed. Over a year of negativity toward the HERO System on RPG.net clearly shows that. So forget about her and her review and lets all just move on.

Mark, here's another piece of design consideration for you then: If Prowler and Shaman are NPCs then they should probably not be listed under the section Allies & Enemies and the sub-section Villains both in the book and the Table Of Contents. The fact that you know those characters are villains and would still tell everyone here that they are not villains but NPCs tells me a great deal about your character and your company. I'm not impressed, and you have just lost a customer.

Who's talking about the NPCs? Look at your villain Prowler. 18 DEX, 4 SPD, 8 DEF. This is the character who can be a "straightforward challenge for martial arts heroes?" Not in any standard Champions game he can't. The same goes for the Shaman. Kong Que Leng is not a badly designed character, but one out of the only three villains in the book is not a good ratio, IMO. That's a cheap shot, and one that makes me want to purchase less of your books in the future. When you present two heroes and three villains in a "Champions" book who are effectively substandard in regards to 5E Champions then you should expect some criticism about it. No player is planning on fighting the reporter or tennis player, but most of the heroes might like to fight the villains, or even the other heroes as the situation arrises, as it does in comics from time-to-time. The 5 characters in Dragon's Gate are Dark Champions power-level, not Champions. Perhaps you should look at marketing the line as usable with Dark Champions instead of Champions. Then you would not have myself, Keneton, and Blue all making statements about the power-levels of the book.

You select Characteristic STR 0, and then click the small box "add modifiers to base characteristic." Then apply the Advantage Reduced End to the characteristic. You do the same thing for Running. Just make sure you do not add additional STR or Running when you click the box.

I think there is good reason to have teams at every power-level. I have no problem with making the PCs the star of their comic, but that does not mean there are not more powerful NPCs around. Comic book teams are about variety. Imagine the Defenders of old: Dr. Strange, Silver Surfer, Hulk, & Namor. Could you imagine a team more powerful in the Marvel Universe? Did the Avengers feel overshadowed? The FF? The X-Men? No, not at all. The PCs should not feel overshadowed by UNITY or the Sentinels or the Justice Squardron either. I have no problem with UNITY not being all-powerful. I was just trying to make the point that UNITY, by itself, would probably not be able to defeat Eurostar. It would need that UNTIL back-up, and it might need some help from a PC or two. I think there's room in the CU for a variety of power levels. I think it's the GM's job to make the players feel like heroes, whether they are playing 200 point Ravenswood cadets or 1,000 point Galactic Knights.

Unity is a nice team but they are not that powerful. IIRC only two characters have more than a 12 DC attack. Myrmidon would be the character to fear in the group. I'd like to run them at a con against Eurostar but I think UNITY would get their butts handed to them.

I think the point that everyone makes about being low-powered is that 350 point starting characters using standard Champions guidelines are exceptionally more powerful than the characters in DG or SA. And of course that's your design decision, but most of the people who are playing 5E Champions are not playing using characters with 15 DEXs and the such. Those are power-levels for Dark Champions. So for most of us each character in the series needs to be rewritten to be useful. It' not something we're opposed to doing. It's just not something we like doing.

Some people hate Hero because it has been around a long time and it's "in fashion" to hate things like D&D or Palladium which has been around forever. Other people hate the game because they just don't understand it. Hero is not an easy game to learn, and on average HERO System gamers are just a little smarter than the average and they like the mental challenge the game presents. Some others don't like the game because of the fanbase. I had many arguments with Darrin Kelley on the Hero list before I left it dealing with his statements about how the Hero fans tried to "lynch" him for not wanting to play the game, and other nonsense. And finally there are just people who have played Hero with a bad GM or in a bad campaign and it ruined the system for them. So they take out their angst on anything Hero which comes across the various message boards. There's nothing wrong with not liking a game system. I've played many I don't like. It just seems stupid that so many people go out of their way to tell the world how much they hate something just because they have a cyber shoebox to stand on, no matter what game system they are complaining about. I think it just makes small people feel bigger.

Tell him you get the same effect by just selling your END back to 0. You do not need to buy the additional 90 CON.

If you buy the power down to 0 END is still qualifies, as does a power with the Costs END Limitation. Both of those are legal in an EC. The reason the END requirement was made was so that people did not start making small point Elementals to get cost breaks on non-END powers like Life Support or Damage Reduction or Enhanced Senses. The bionic eye example above for instance: 2 Bionic Eyes Elemental Control 4 points 3 UV Vision 3 IR Vision 2 +2 Telescopic for Sight Group 2 +2 Enhanced PER Sight Group Someone building an EC like that is the reason the END rule was put into place.

I think Elemental Controls model many different aspects of a character now that were not fully addressed in the past. It also makes character conversion from other game systems easier to understand now. Elementals now make sense to me I enjoy using them now. Realizing that an Elemental Control is a single power with purchased power stunts brings it all home. Your have the power of Fire Control. The power stunts of Fire Control are Energy Blast, Flight, Damage Shield, Force Field, and Change Enviroment. If you drain Fire Control (the actual power) all the power stunts get weaker because they aer not 5 separate powers but one power with 5 power stunts. In the past ECs were thought of as a group of powers which got a cost break due to SFX. In 5E ECs are considered a single power with numerous power stunts. It's an entirely different way of looking at things. It's a better way of looking at things, IMO.

I certainly don't want to have those arguments again. Let's just leave it at the fact that the majority of players still prefer having COM, and 1 pt STR, etc. For most of us those things do still fit.

Re: Elemental Control: My Take I agree. I think Aid got the short straw in that. I do not think the No END rule should be thrown out, but I do think the GM should be allowed to have more latitude in the choices of 0 END power that can be put into the EC. For instance, I don't think and EC full of special senses like IR and UV should be allowed just because the EC is "Bionic Eyes." I am also a little leary about allowing Damage Reduction in ECs because of the fact that they do not need to be purchased as one unit. I hate to see a player take 1 slot for 50% DR PD and 1 slot for 50% DR ED. That is the rule, and has been for a number of years. Agreed. I love the idea that ECs are now one power with multiple SFX. I had been doing ECs as nothing more the SFX saving pools for years before 5E made that realization sink into my head. Agreed. As with my example above each power put into an EC needs to be monitored by the GM. It is very easy for a player to come up with rationalizations. GMs just need to learn to say no.

YMMV means Your Mileage May Vary. I personally consider each 25-30 points to be equal to 1 level in D&D. So a 150 point starting character is around a 5th-6th level character when they begin play.

I know that in the novels Zephram Cochrane was originally from Alpha Centauri. I do not know if that was ever carried over in TOS. If an official screen change was made then it was probably due to the fact that Alpha Centauri has never been mentioned as being important to the Star Trek universe in any fashion. There would be a bigger movie impact from saving the Earth from being borged than from saving Alpha Centauri. As I said though, I do not know if Cochrane was stated to be from Alpha Centauri in TOS or not, so it is possible there is no continuity error. It's also very clear that the current producers B&B (who might be getting the axe due to Enterprise's low ratings) have no real interest in Trek continuity. Between the 5 series there are numerous continuity errors.

The 1st through 3rd Edition Champions were actually called "The Guardians." They consisted of: Dove Flare Gargoyle Goliath Icestar Marksman Rose

The problem here is that you are looking for 1 power which turns him into Thor. The fact of the matter is that he turns into Thor and then gains access to all the powers. There is no actual power which turns Blake into Thor. That is just a SFX. In the old days we would have done this with Instant Change. In 5E it is just a SFX of how all his powers work. (Of course both Thor and Hulk are Multiforms as the characters have different personalities, powers, and skills but that is neither here not there as far as this dicussion)

If the character has major changes in personality and Skills along with Characteristics then I would use the Multiform power, and if needed take the Extra Time Limitation. If all that happens is the character gets more powerful in another form (Colossus) then just buy all the additional abilities with the OIHID Limitation and give him a 5 point Physical Limitation stating it takes x amount of time to transform.

I would purchase the MP pool with the OAF Limitation, not the OIF. It's really no different than many other weapon-type Multipowers. This would be no different than Thunderbird's Blaster Arsenal or Black Harlequin's Fiendish Toychest MPs. You can grab some of the weapons, but due to the SFX you cannot grab them all. I would not use the EC because I do not consider each weapon to be a "power stunt" of the main Elemental.

Give the power a minor Side Effect that it costs END when power deflects: -1/4

The only difference between the book and the pdf is that one superhero (Flamestar) has been removed and the write-ups for the characters in Action! and M&M have been added in place of the Fuzion write-ups. In every other way the two are exactly the same.

DG is fairly easy to customize into any game. There would need to be a few "tweaks" but most would be minor. The main issue with DG is power-level. The super characters in the book (and there are not many) would need to be beefed up as most are built using a scale less powerful than a standard Champions game. Most of the characters in DG are closer to Dark Champions power level than standard Champions. The Chinatown info itself is quite useful though.

If I were choosing I would say: Ironclad (same reason as in the other question), Sapphire (the loss of celebrity/spotlight might turn her), and Kinetik (because he realizes Flash is the weakest member in the JL cartoon)! I don't think Defender would turn due to his ideologies. Nighthawk is dedicated and I do not think he would turn because his reason for being a hero is just as strong as Defenders. It just comes from a different place. Witchcraft cannot go bad because her sister is already bad and she needs to be the yin to Talisman's yang, IMO.

I'm sorry to hear that distribution sales have been slower than expected, but I think a great deal of that has to do witht he fact that DG is a reprint of a product that many of us have owned as a pdf for around 3 years now. The demand to the HERO System gamer is just not that great. I think you would have had better success if you had printed one of the other manuscripts instead.

I think he is referring to the 5E vesion of those books, not the 4E versions.