Brian Stanfield

Despite all the jokes about the south, it's the only state where it's legal to marry a sibling or a parent.  I am far more concerned about the people who don't leave.
 
 

You know, I was thinking about this while lurking on this thread. I’ve always wondered if the character point inflation wouldn’t have been necessary in 6e if they had simply shifted all the Characteristic ranges back down to lower levels. If normal is still 10, and if DEX doesn’t need to be elevated to drive the Figureds, then the ranges could overlap more, and supers could still excel at some Characteristics while remaining “normal” at others. Then the point inflation could be reduced.
 
I only say this as I’m building some pre-gen heroic characters for a Pulp campaign. I’m fighting against every urge to inflate DEX and the CVs simply out of habit. My players are all new, so they won’t be programmed to think like the earlier editions, so I’m trying to reset the ranges in my own mind.

If you find something you like, pop the floorplan into something like GIMP and remove walls for the ballroom/dining area until you're satisfied.

...or the upper levels cave in because you took out a load-bearing wall.

I seem to remember something suitable, but I'll need to look.

CON stunned is not in the book.  Only stunned. 
 
My friend a long time ago said that the only correct version of CON stunned is the one where you have been gaming for 24 hours straight, hopped on Coca Cola and junk food, at a convention on the third night and the GM asks you what are you doing.  The blank look of the CON goer is CON stunned.

What is a build sheet? Is this the old list of character conception questions from the early years?

I believe there is one in Thrilling Places.
 
There is.  The Grant Building.

Oh, one more mechanical change - 6e added several non-martial maneuvers that, IMO, were missing for a long time.  You no longer need be a Martial Artist to choke or trip an opponent!
 
Could you have made similar maneuvers for prior editions?  Sure.  But I will suggest anything we "made up for ourselves" reflected a mechanic which was perceived as missing.  We added it to make the game better.  Doesn't adding mechanics that make the game better make the new edition mechanically superior?

Yeah, this is what I mean, and of course forgot to say. The conversion of characters (especially the CU villains and Champions, etc.) from 5e to 6e left them with crazy high points to match the original builds. Really, the original builds should have been completely redone with fewer points, but that would make using any pre-6e material really problematic. So the easier (and understandable) move was to keep the stats the same and just increase the starting Character Points so that new characters could keep up with the traditional ones. That is another sort of opportunity “not taken,” and could have gone a long way toward correcting the slow creep in the Character Point totals. 

I bookmarked these for future reference. The descriptions were how the sites were described to me. I haven't had time to look at any of them.
 
I thought I had another group of map links that I know were specifically for modern games but I can't find it. Maybe it was on an old computer which has gone to that great computer graveyard in the sky.
 
http://www.hexographer.com/ - old school roleplaying style mapping software. Has a forum.
https://secure.profantasy.com/products/cc3.asp a long-standing game mapping program. Has a forum.
https://www.cartographersguild.com/content.php - a site devoted to providing resources for game mapping. Has a forum.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/105897774940532146183 - Google+ community for game mappers.
https://vulpinoid.blogspot.com/ - blog by Michael Wenman, full of game mapping goodies.
 
 

I think what Hugh means by "not taken" is reflected in the published material choices made more so than the philosophy behind them. Removing Figured Characteristics was a chance to demonstrate examples of lower DEX and a general decrease in power. The game could have been balanced to more rounded characters at maybe a 10 DC average to reflect the increase in character expense.
 
Instead we got straight ports of the earlier villains, maintaining DEX and CV at the Figured levels, a needless 10 DC bump of the main Master Villains and a promotion of the secondary masters to 20+ DC. The big boys are so stupidly powerful that even teams of experienced heroes get trounced handily unless the campaign limits are designed with fighting them from the beginning
 

I think you are on to something... at least the point inflation wouldn't have been THAT much.

If we can deprogram ourselves on this... there are many character who have no need of more than an 11 DEX, when what they really need is a 6 OCV and some levels and you'd never really notice what their DEX was most of the time. You can have 10 STR Cyclops type characters, because you don't have to feel like you are overpaying for Stun by not buying up his STR which will rarely come into play... 15 STR if you want him to be older, trained, in his prime Cyclops, etc. 
 
For Pulp era, where, IMO, they might all have stats in the normal 10-20 range anyway... only the really strong guy have a 25 or the really brilliant scientist, she has a 23 INT, or something... I think you could seriously keep the game in check, as nearly all thugs and cultists would really boil down to 3 or 4 CV and xDC of damage. usually with thugs and agents, I have the noted as "one hit guys" or "two hit guys" or "Three hit guys" depending on their gear and training and such. Then I just look at the PC damage roll... average or below is one hit... noticably above average is two hits... and just wing it. Speed up those hordes of agents.
 
Of course, if you are going for my gritty Pulp, with hit locations and such, then yeah... every thug or agent is a potential threat, and combat is more serious. I love those kind of games, but it really is a matter of campaign style choice.

You know, I was thinking about this while lurking on this thread. I’ve always wondered if the character point inflation wouldn’t have been necessary in 6e if they had simply shifted all the Characteristic ranges back down to lower levels. If normal is still 10, and if DEX doesn’t need to be elevated to drive the Figureds, then the ranges could overlap more, and supers could still excel at some Characteristics while remaining “normal” at others. Then the point inflation could be reduced.
 
I only say this as I’m building some pre-gen heroic characters for a Pulp campaign. I’m fighting against every urge to inflate DEX and the CVs simply out of habit. My players are all new, so they won’t be programmed to think like the earlier editions, so I’m trying to reset the ranges in my own mind.

Why do you say "not taken" as this is what started to happen when we built Supers in 6th Ed.  You could have a 10 DEX Brick, because you put his fighting ability in other stats, and he was just average with agility skills. It still meant that 7/8 Combat Value was probalby the "baseline", but you didn't have to have high DEX to achieve it.  I read everything else you wrote as agreeing with the decoupling of figured stats (the one thing I really love about 6th)... and I really like that it did have the actual in play/in character creation effect of dropping some stats down to a more "reasonable" level.  

If we didn't have such a history of "what a super looks like" from all the other editions, and we started fresh with building characters, I think you would see "11 DEX" on the Thing, but his OCV was probably a base 8, and levels over time. 
 
Also, though I never made a big deal about it... one "justification" I made in the supers games over decades, was "If 23 is the base superhero Dex, even if there was no good reason other than they were a PC... then that just means that stats from 15-20 are more common in the normal population"  Essentially, if the supers were 'bumped up' by default, I 'bumped up' the whole universe a bit. Agents had a base 5 OCV (15 Dex) whatever... then they could get levels. Anybody actually fit and trained who mattered, even if a "normal NPC" could have an 18 DEX, etc. Big strong bikers in bars would regularly have 15-20 STR. And this generally fit the source material... in that "named characters" or even just "the villain of the piece" always were better than the bystanders. 

And keeping this consistent in the campaign meant that the players undestood "what was normal" in the world... because I totally agree with what you said above... the cornerstone of a good supers universe is that the supers have a benchmark "normal" in which to compare themselves.  Just how "super" are they? Since 23 had been set at a default historically, it just became clear that "normal" or more like "normal that mattered dramatically in the stories" was often above average.

Maybe I'm also lucky, but after early high-school days back in the early '80s, I never played with people that really got into the DEX wars. If people played to character, they just didn't point dump into efficient stats... and I never played long with people who prioritized that kind of gaming. That helps, too.

Greetings, Steve. Thanks again for answering our questions; and my apologies if this is spelled out somewhere in the rule books, and I just can't find it. 😔
 
When pro-rating the STR used to increase the Damage Class of an Advantaged HKA, does one factor in only the Advantages on the HKA that themselves affect its Damage Class, e.g. Armor Piercing? Or do all Advantages on the HKA apply?
 
I know what the Fifth Edition rules said about that (all of them but Reduced Endurance), but I wanted to be certain of the rule under Sixth Edition.

You seriously expect that upper class New Yorkers would go to New Jersey voluntarily?

"A Romani woman who left Portugal when WWI hit Europe, moving with the circus to Brazil, and then eventually to the U.S. where she became a silent film star. Now that the talkies have taken over, her accent won't let her continue in that career, so she is a bit of an embittered diva. A life of adventure seems like an interesting option. (She is a bit jealous of the younger Russian woman below)"

You might want to look up the Hollywood Star package deal from Adventures Club #13 in the bonus issue section.

In my games the best PC archers I have allowed them to buy up to +6 with bows, +3 vs. hit location and +3 vs. range penalty. One player's archer would regularly hit enemies 60m to 120m (30 to 60 hexes) and if she had a really good chance to hit she would go for head shots.  Oh and that particular character also paid for combat on horseback so she could shoot from her horse with no penalty.
 
Was it realistic?  Don't know.  Kind of didn't care because they were having fun and the other players were having fun watching it happen; especially since she would often thin out the horde of orcs coming at them ... And honestly this is they way I want my games to feel and how I like to see combat.  For reference (starting about 1:15)
 

Isn't intuitional a limited firm of DS?  I ask because it has been some time since I read 6e, and I have yet to find the time to read Basic. 
 
But it sounds like the side effect of how far the hair was split, in this case. 

Normally Danger Sense gives you full OCV if you make your Danger Sense roll by half even if you don't have any (other) Targeting senses that can sense your attacker.  Intuitional Danger Sense doesn't do this. 

Maybe someone hijacked the booze which was supposed to go to the celebration. The PCs are the first people to show up for the party and they're drafted to go find the missing beer.

Saw this posted on Facebook and thought I'd pass it along--it would be really nifty if there could be something like this for Champions.

I'm more of a fan of the 1920's as a beginning setting than the 1930's. China and Japan get into a very messy war with Japanese atrocities very early in the decade which either puts your people into a war or closes off both China and Japan as settings for adventures.
 
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As for an adventure idea:
 
Search for the long-lost hero or explorer.
 
He could potentially be a friend of the team's industrialist sponsor. Or perhaps a rival who had a secret. Plan for both the hero/explorer being found alive and the hero/explorer being found dead.
 
Listen to the player's speculation as the adventure goes along and if they come up with some good ideas, swipe them.
 
They get the set up from someone to get started on the quest. They come up with ideas for research whether archives or people. They split up or stay together. Public archives are probably safer than secret archives from shadowy or criminal sources. Asking questions to the wrong people can get you hassled or killed.
 
Once they get pointed in what they think is the right direction, they arrange travel to their destination. If it's near, no problem. If it's far away, they might have trouble with passports, lost tickets, the language barrier, unscrupulous guides, their luggage being stolen or at a minimum searched, the government of the country they're visiting assuming they're spies. They'll have time to kill whether traveling by steamer, train, or aeroplane so there might be gambling, dances, meeting people who they'll run into again later, spies who are intentionally following them, spies who are doing something else but who discover the PCs are doing something interesting, stowaways, crewmen who are looking to jump ship, crewmen who report suspicious behavior to the captain.
 
At the destination, discovering the whereabouts of the hero/explorer could be simple or difficult. Most people can drop out of sight simply by not writing home so the guy could be the most well-known person in the city and be "hiding" in plain sight. If you need more adventure out of the adventure, the PCs might have to recruit a caravan/Sherpas/bearers/posse and go across the deserts, mountains, and/or jungles looking for the last place the person was known to be going. Those hirelings can be as generic and loyal or as detailed and motivated to do their own thing as you please.
 
If the guy was an explorer, the PCs might find what the explorer had been looking for but no trace of the explorer himself.
 
If you wanted to go for a historical figure, Ambrose Bierce the American soldier/journalist/science fiction writer/spiritualist and believer in the weird and unexplained disappeared in 1913 at age 71 when following Pancho Villa's army in northern Mexico. His last communication was  a letter which ended "As to me, I leave here tomorrow for an unknown destination," then he disappeared from history. He could have gone with the rebel army somewhere or have gone haring across the desert in search of treasure or legends. Or he could have been sucked up into some alternate dimension like a character in one of his books (and he might or might not have aged there).
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrose_Bierce

HD takes Advantages into account when calculating damage with STR. In the example you're using, Reduced END does not affect the damage calculation (per the rules) and is not included in HD's prorating.

STR Minimum will be taken into account if you replace the range with the actual STR Minimum to use. The range is there to set the level, it is expected that you will specify what the actual minimum is when assigning it.

Just to make sure I wasn't confused, I fired up HERO Designer and created two Heroic level characters in 5th and 6th editions. They had identical starting Characteristics, except that the 6e character had twice as much movement. Regardless, I'm not sure how it comes across that the 5e character has more intuitive numbers than the 6e character, since they are identical. You want to bump up numbers in 5e, you purchase Characteristics, which may affect some of the figures. You want to bump up numbers in 6e, you purchase Characteristics to the level you want. So I'm not really sure what the complaint is here about starting Characteristics.