Tech

17 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

I tend to ignore BODY once the current adventure is over.  Start of next adventure, everyone is hale and hearty.

 

BODY damage, as you intimated, should raise the stakes during the adventure and players should be adapting their tactics to ensure their injured comrades are not unduly exposed to further BODY damage.

 

Doc

 I do this as well. The character is automatically assumed to have healed from any previous episode injuries. Not once, to my memory, have I ever had someone still injured when another episode started.

Rich, thanks for the RL examples. I've got enough so I'm done here.

10 minutes ago, Doc Democracy said:

 

I am inclined to go all SFX on this and not require additional powers for things that make sense.  A motorcycle running up a ramp would also get no ability to leap over a row of buses?  Evel Kneivel would have been devastated...

 

Now, how far is a really difficult question because water is a real drag, submarines would not leap far and I do think dolphins do have a leap ability that adds to their velocity.

 

I would be meaner than @unclevlad for that reason, I might give him about 5m.

 (laughing) Nice.

 Actually, water drag is not a factor, it's already been into account by the fact the person, in this case a superhero, can swim 40meters in water. Done.   What is to be considered is gravity. And guys....  forget the submarine.

If someone was exceptionally fast in water, say 40m, and they swam straight up at maximum speed, how far would they go up after breaching upward out of the water?

Generally, most heroes have made their own costumes. However, nowadays, most suits are made by E (from The Incredibles).

17 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

This is the problem with trying to emulate the comics; The Hulk held up the Himalayas in Secret Wars.  Now, he's very strong, but it doesn't matter how mad he gets, he's not going to be holding up billions of tons of rock.  Every so often writers get a bit crazy in what they have characters do and you have to hold those outliers as mistakes or exceptions rather than how to build a game or a power.  Spidey could easily uproot a small tree but I don't know how big a tree it was (don't recall that issue).

 Spidey had his Wheaties for breakfast?  😃

To answer LoneWolf, it's a Champions game; yes, you are correct - I should have mentioned that. The myth creature lists that as an example of its strength, nothing else is mentioned but it's a mindless beast, no using the tree as a weapon.

unclevlad, you impress me. Gotta love science.

I know about tree, branch and root structures of trees, ground, root stability and so on. Besides, this is Champions with superheroes and supervillains. If we go with what should happen, we wouldn't have a superhero game... and the Sub-Mariner wouldn't be able to rip up a chunk of ice over 20 feet in diameter, superspeedsters would burn up from the friction of super speed, etc etc. We're talking superpowers.

The reason for specifically uprooting a tree is because heroes will be encountering an English myth that states "it can uproot trees". Therefore, this doesn't fall under the usual 'tree breaks from the power'. This myth doesn't follow the usual rules about trees so back to my original question... 😃

How much Strength would it take to knock a rooted tree over? I don't mean a young tree; just your average tree you see outside your window or in a forest.

I can't remember the villain's name nor do I want to. A GM created a nutso villain with a bizarre picture; I don't mean it was bizarre but cool, just bizarre. Anyways, we get to a suspicious abandoned town. As we investigate, occasional doors and even floors blow up - no chance of dodging, making PER roll or anything. Eventually, we started objecting. We even said as players, "WHY are we staying here in this town?" We found the guy, beat him up and left. I never want to meet that villain again.

In a stereotypical martial arts movie, a student has to prove himself by quietly and slowly walking across rice paper. What minus would you give to the Stealth roll for this?

On 12/13/2023 at 12:00 PM, Gauntlet said:

But I believe we are forgetting, Champions is a ROLE-PLAYING Game, not a Comic or TV show or Movie. The purpose of it is to have fun, making a story is just a portion of having fun. While The Flash may be completely unhittable to the point that even a Phalanx system that shoots a 1000 rounds a second cannot hit him, that is not something you would have in a game. Characters have to have vulnerabilities and be able to be hit and knocked out, and even possibly killed. Without this what is the point of playing if there is no chance of losing.

 Yes, the purpose of the game is to have fun. Otherwise, why play the game? However, a character does not have to be able to be hit, KO'd or killed; that's a limited POV. The real question is if the character doesn't have vulnerabilities, can't be hit/KO'd/killed, will the character fit in the game? Will the character be fun to play and will the other players have fun with this character around? I almost created a character like this. I decided against it not because the character couldn't be taken down, but because I liked a different concept more. (Also, an invulnerable character can actually be limiting in concept: okay, what do I buy now that I have 100 xp?  Doh!)  If someone were to introduce an invulnerable person to me, I can easily think of ways to still make the character work as a GM and stop them from hogging the game. I can say this because I've been there. I've seen alot of bad concepts in the decades-old campaign and interestingly, an invulnerable character isn't one that bothers me. I've got at least 1 villain (prob a couple more) that cannot be killed - actually, I don't know if they've ever been KO'd either. Do the players like them? Yes, and they give the villain some respect.

Unfortunately, this digressed from the original topic: can the gaming system be getting too complicated? If I had to pick one, and only one version to use of Champions/HeroGames, I'd prob go with 4th Edition. However, I don't use only one version; I use 1-5th, with a touch of 6th. All my players don't care for 6th edition.

Well a lack of bacon does strange things to people; no telling how people will survive without or society.

56 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

I consider the Herculoids including Zandor to be a super team. Yes, the "animal" members of the team generally did what the humans told them, and Zandor was clearly their tactical leader. Nonetheless, each Herculoid was obviously intelligent, resourceful, and fully capable of acting on their own initiative, independently or as a cooperative team member. Their humans' interactions with them came across much more as equals and friends, than as pet and master.

 Bravo! It's nice to see someone remembers them.

1 hour ago, Old Man said:

 

I find games without maps to be incredibly annoying.  Without a map every fight becomes a super mushy game of mental Calvinball which means I have to interrogate the GM every phase.  Can I reach the bad guy?  Is anyone blocking my shot?  Is there any useful terrain?  How many bad guys can I catch with this AOE effect?  It becomes much easier to take another swing at the guy in front of me and I'm instantly bored.

 To each their own. For our campaign, it becomes impractical to have a map for every encounter. We may have several areas the heroes go to where a  

 fight takes place; the last one had 4 different fights. We're used to using our imagination for non-battlemap adventures. The GM has enough on his plate without having to find/create/search for a picture for every place. But that's us.

I'm glad to say that I reintroduced the battlemap to our players years ago for Champions and they enjoy it. Of course, since then I've had to create 200+ paper minifigs. Having the bad guys place layed-out in front of them makes for a lot more interesting; you get to see just far you can actually move on a half-move, etc.

Decades later after Champions 1st edition came out for the first time, Champions is still my go-to system, and the campaign celebrated it's 40th anniversary. Played Robotech RPG alongside it for years but that campaign stopped.

Also, we use 'E' from 'The Incredibles' movie nowadays.  She really takes care of the problem of 'where did you get your durable suit/weapons from?'

For Champions episodes, where and what have you drawn inspiration from to create episodes? It can come from the oddest places and spur of the moment. If you say 'comic books', specify which one(s). Likewise, if you say movies/tv shows, say which ones?

I will attempt to list some of where I have drawn inspiration from for my own episodes, but it by no stretch of the imagination complete. Get ready because I'm sure you'll be surprised for some of them. In no particular order...

Neverwinter Nights rpg game
oldies (music) ex: (You've Got) The Magic Touch by the Platters

instrumental music: (MANY) example- Chase by Giorgio Moroder

Charlie Brown Christmas

Charlie Brown Easter

Carmen Sandiego

Star Wars

Transformers (cartoon)

Frozen 1 & 2 movies

The Little Mermaid movie/series

Tangled Movie/Series

Sailor Moon

Kingdom Hearts games

Jem (cartoon)

My Life as a Teen-age Robot

The Incredibles movies 1 & 2

Thundercats

Tiny Toon Adventures

I'm sure I could probably list more but this gives you a small list. Let's hear yours.

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.

On 11/2/2023 at 10:27 PM, Lord Liaden said:

For me, Fifth Edition core rules hit the sweet spot of rules completeness and clarity, while still being an interesting and readily digestible read. 5E Revised went a little farther along that first axis than I liked, but remained manageable. Sixth Edition makes me feel like I'm studying to pass the bar. Even over a decade later, I still haven't read through the whole thing.

 5th Edition is primarily what our campaign uses, with a mix of 1st-4th thrown in. I would say 6th is slightly more complicated.

I can see this going pages longer in discussion and ask that you start a new thread so everyone can join in and find it easily.

I'll talk it over with another GM but I'm going to suggest -1 1/4, based on our campaign. Thanks all.

I avoided Transform because Transform works against the Body of an opponent, Mind Control against Ego. It makes more sense for it to be Mind Control; it's also cheaper than Transform with the -1 Limit.