Kraven Kor

Re: As Thick as a Brick (brick fan thread) In Champions, I've only played one Brick of my own creation. Hell, I've only gotten to play Champions a handful of times, with only one long standing campaign. My Brick was "Hardcase", a cyborg created by Doctor Destroyer from the body of a low-powered mutant who was part of a defeated UNTIL team or some such. He was hard to build, as I wanted your average brick - so needed 75+ STR and insane defenses for the campaign at hand - but I also wanted your usual cyborg tricks; enhanced perception, computer link, IR/Telescopic Vision, etc. The GM ended up allowing a VPP Pool for Skills, so I could simulate being able to access the 'net and download whatever info I needed. By the time I got 50 or so XP, I was able to "upgrade" him to a more well-rounded version without sacrificing the brick schtick He had the usual brick weaknesses - drains, transfers, and mental attacks. I added some defense against those later, but they never amounted to much. He was also weak to EMP attacks, which the GM never once used.

Re: Good marvel write-ups? I'm thinking late 80's, early 90's - the last time I actually read them at all, I was never "into" comics but had friends who were so I'd read the occasional X-Men or Wolverine comics around that time. About the only story arcs I recall were when Omega Red first showed up, and then bits and pieces of the "Age of Apocalypse" stuff.

Re: Favorite Anti-Brick tricks? One of the nastiest tricks pulled on my old brick Hardcase was Mental Illusions - bad guy made me think the person we were rescuing was him, I didn't know until I had already started pummelling 25 Point Normals do not take 22d6 Move Throughs very well...

Re: Superman on 350 points Most bullets are around 2000 meters per second speed, so 1,000" Running for a Speed 12 character, or 3,000" Running for a speed 4 character. I'd go with just lots of noncombat movement, say Speed 5, 20" Running, x256 noncombat.

Re: Superman on 350 points Supes is hard to do at nearly any point level. The one I did was 600 or so, and I still felt it was not quite up to par.

Re: Good marvel write-ups? Thanks, the one Doom write-up I see there has a Gadget Pool inside a Multipower... is that even legal?

I'm having trouble finding decent Marvel characters converted / written up for HERO. (Re-re-re-)Introducing some friends to HERO, they are Marvel fans so letting them assemble a team of 6 to run through a few quick scenarios to teach the system. I found a few, found Iron Man - one of their picks - but opted to build my own. Have a few questions on him as well - does he have any particular weakness or vulnerability, something his suit doesn't handle well? Does he have any defenses against mental powers? Magic? I am looking for some specific characters, even if only to compare my own write-ups to (I'll post mine once fleshed out, if desired): Villians: Dr. Doom Juggernaut Mr. Sinister Apocalypse Magneto Thanos Galacticus Mystique Heroes: Xavier Storm Rogue Colossus Hulk Jean Grey Iron Man Doctor Strange Thanks in advance!

Re: 3D Astrocartography... Heh, I remember the last time I looked into this here, Nyrath had used a graphing program to create his own star maps I still have the maps he sent me.

Re: Avoiding The Blow/Artful Dodging Combat Luck is just a defining limitation on rXD. You could call it "Artful Dodging" and build it the same way - resistant defense with a limitation that it only works against attacks you can perceive, and only if you are able to move.

Re: HERO noob Yeah, it is notated badly. Essentially, Base + Disadvantages = Total, total being the number of points spent (or spendable, when creating) on char/skills/powers/talents/perks/etc.

Re: Alas and Farewell, Digital Hero Any chance of ordering back issues? I've sadly just returned to the HERO world (though still can't find any players / games here in St. Louis ), but would love to get back copies if at all possible.

Re: HERO noob It is a bit complex at first. Various campaigns have various "Power Levels" - A "Pulp" game might be 75 Points Base, 25 Disadvantage. A "Silver Age" comic game might be 250 points base, 100 disad. What that means is that you start with X points, then can "buy" extra points with disadvantages. If you list 150 points worth of disadvantages, you get an extra 150 points on top of the base points. There is always a maximum number of disadvantages, just like there is a max base points, for any character - determined by the GM and the setting of the campaign. So if you are doing, say, 250/100, you get to "buy" 350 points of characteristics/powers/skills/etc - if you take all 100 points worth of disadvantages. You don't have to take the full number of disadvantages, but it is advisable and many GM's will require it. Disadvantages can be honest to god weaknesses (Superman's vulnerability to kryptonite and magic), or personality disorders (Dr. Doom's overconfidence, Wolverine's anger management issues), etc. Hope that helps, and welcome to HERO! I'd highly recommend you look at HERO Designer, it makes character creation MUCH easier!

Re: Avoiding The Blow/Artful Dodging Combat Luck, anyone?

Re: combat luck If you play HERO enough to warrant buying a book, I'd highly recommend at least checking out 5E at your FLGS. It is a lot "better" than 4E, though again mostly in better wording, better layout, easier to find / build stuff, etc. Also, HERO Designer is 5E, and is a fantastic tool to save time on character creation and updates and making combat records and such.

Re: 6th Edition WAGs There is no "head asplode" emoticon, so that's the best I can do.

Re: How Much Experience? One thing I'd like to add is that how often you play should be part of the consideration. If you play weekly, then 1-3 XP per session should be more than enough, with a little bit more at the close of a chapter or whatever. But if you are only playing monthly, you may want to give out more so the characters can feel like they are getting some advancement. Rules on where / how / how fast they can spend the points are helpful as well. I'd generally make them able to only spend 1-2 points at a time toward any single power, making them "store up" points for things that cost more than 1 point.

Re: Starwars Vehicles: Any ideas? I set them up, in 4E, as multiple forcewalls in a multipower. This let them simulate the "double front" and such - set both forcewalls to be in front of you, or one front one rear. They were 5 ED each, IIRC, so that a 1d6 RKA *could* get through on a high roll. I had more than just 2 forcewalls on larger ships, so they could take a bit more of a beating before total collapse - you would have to burn through multiple forcewalls. I had them run off an END reserve with very limited recovery, and END only required to activate, and then a skill roll to activate or "angle" them. I'll see if I still have any of my old write-ups.

Re: Confusion about Ablative Just a clarification... Stormtrooper armor isn't really armor. Han punched a stormtrooper right in his helmetted face and it didn't even seem to hurt his hand. I mean, midgets with stone axes seemed as effective as blasters. Ever seen a stormtrooper stay standing when he got shot? Didn't think so. Sorry to go on a tangent.

Re: What I Learned Playing a Robot When you are a hulking metal killing machine, the bad guys tend to learn of your weakness to mind control attacks very, very quickly. Ah, Hardcase... the cyborg who had to stay home when the team was fighting mentalist villains I guess I can't blame the team for being a bit upset when I started nailing them with 20d6 move-throughs. ---- On the "expensive" front, the life support is the least of your worries. Automaton shouldn't even be used for player characters, but if it is, then yes that is an expensive chunk of the character. The expensive part comes in when you want to simulate the fact that you don't just have "eyes" but rather a sophisticated optical sensor system with a software suite designed to help interpret that information in ways humans are incapable. Things like auto range sense, telescopic/microscopic vision, lightning calculator, the ability to link directly to computers, the ability to have "chipped" skills, etc. I remember building Hardcase. I wanted a Cyborg Brick. But I wanted him to have all the cool features that a cyborg should have. It was not easy to do with 350 points, not without munchkinizing at any rate. Not all robots need this stuff, but I figured a cyborg supersoldier should have a pretty cool suite of enhanced senses, skill bonuses and such on top of being built like a tank.

Re: in-system movement?? The general concept I came up with for my SH campaign was that ships use JumpGates to go between systems, and Ion/Plasma/Solar Sail drives for in-system travel. Efficient, constant acceleration. I decided I wanted it to take a few days to cross most systems. Someone helped me on the math part. I'll dig up the post tonight if I get a chance, and post a sample ship or the one I already put up.

Re: SpaceCraft Miniatures... LOL sorry. Wasn't overly worried, was just thinking maybe you hadn't seen the PM or something. Didn't realize you had enough to deliver twice

Re: SpaceCraft Miniatures... I did PM you my address, on the 11th -- 2 days before this post

Re: Force Fields anyone? Well, if you want to get technical about it, I'd call it an all or nothing dispel vs. missiles with a trigger. But, Missile deflection is a much simpler way to define it I suppose. ---- That being said, this is nothing like a force field as it implies it projects some "beam of fragments" to intercept the missile. Very cool, but not impressed

Re: SpaceCraft Miniatures... I cannot seem to get them to be available in word. I tried both the .ttf and .pfm fonts, unzipped them to my C:\Windows\Fonts directory, but it is not listed as an available font in Word. I'm not finding anywhere that explains what I am doing wrong. I'm not finding fonts stored anywhere else, either. Any ideas?

Re: SpaceCraft Miniatures... Yeah, I want some that are all high tech looking, but mostly I want blocky and "gritty" looks for my ships. I don't want to use Star Wars, Star Trek, B5, or any major IP property for my minis. Just because then my game session will degenerate into a discussion of that property lol.