Tech

Originally posted by TheEmerged

Can you do this? Oh yeah. How often is it necessary? Depends on your campaigns -- it's my experience that you're more likely to run into Penetrating on Drain/Suppress/Transfer than AP.

I've seen AP Flash attks so I don't see why a AP Drain attk is any different. How often is it necessary? Well, that's rather hard to say. I'd rephrase the question into more of a statement: "It depends on the campaign whether or not an AP Drain attack will be used."

Originally posted by Klytus

I never said anybody had to play a pure brick... I'm just surprised that in all of my years of Champions (13+ years), I've only run into one player who actually likes the pure-brick.

In my campaign, I have a pure brick. My friend & my older brother also each have a pure brick. So, I can say I've run into a few myself.

This was somewhat brought up awhile ago but how many heroes (or villains) could be based on a song title? One such song is Windy (Association). Big John was already created but a different version could still be made. I'd like to see other song persons and stats to go with them. My brother created Liberty Valence (spelling?) - a bad news, gun-totting criminal. If possible, the powers should be based mostly on what the song was about.

If figures - Steve, could you move this to the Champions forum?

Originally posted by Fireg0lem

You can, just its rarely worth it, because exotic defenses are rare and exotic attacks are low-dice already.

 

Consider a 6d6 drain vs. a 4d6 AP drain.

Against a target with 14 power defense, both are equally effective. Against a target with more, the AP is better, against a target with less, the normal is better. Targets with Power Defense over 15 are simply not common enough for it to be useful often.

Well put. This gives me an idea for one of my villains who has a MP of Drains. He's one of those villains who will most likely defeat you while you're at full Stun points.

Re: Power Defense Question

Originally posted by LadyChaos

Can Power Defense be bought Hardened? For that matter, can drains, transfers, etc., be bought with Armor Piercing to disregard Power Defense?

 

The answer is probably staring me right in the face somewhere.

Wow. Good question. I don't know if I've ever seen an AP Power Drain. Inquiring minds want to know.

Originally posted by austenandrews

I just use the official "perfect" UT ... from previous versions of the game.

 

I think 5E often goes too far in granulating simple effects.

 

-AA

I TOTALLY agree here. 5e does it too much, as some others have also said. One such example is REPLICATIVE CLONING, from the THE SUPERPOWERS DATABASE MISCELLANEOUS POWERS online. Never mind the fact you have a 20d6 Transform into a perfect copy of someone else. No, you have to make break it up into 20d6 vs physical, mental and spirit. What a cheese-tactic. Another example is Instant Change. Yes, it could be done with Transform but the point differences are so little in comparison to each other and 5e is a whole lot more complicated, why not leave it at the simpler previous 4e? I think it's that 5e is too detailed that a lot of people new to Hero Games look at it and get confused. 5e has taken too much detailing over fun in certain areas. Don't get me wrong: a lot of things needed changing in 5e but too much details is just that - too much.

Originally posted by Killer Shrike

 

Here's a little Photoshop magic, using a Terran Marine toy as the base.

My brother used a picture of a toy robot once... nope, make that twice. Toys work well and so does this picture.

Re: Freedom Force - Champions 4th Edition Team

Originally posted by Kid Chaos

A Skinner for the Irrational Games Freedom Force has done some of the Champions from 4th edition skins.

 

They are all pretty nicely done and include Obsidian, Seeker, Quantum, Solitaire and Defender.

 

I'm not sure if they violate any copyright or intellectual property that either Steve L. or the previous Hero crew may have on said characters but if they pass his approval and anyone is interested in either seeing a screen shot of them or the skins themselves I'll put them somewhere.

Can you email me the link to the FF skins? It'd be at least interesting to look at.

Originally posted by Galadorn

Great costume.

I agree. Can we keep this post going? I've seen so many really good pictures as well as good ideas that it'd be a shame to see it go.

Re: Changes from 4th to 5th Edition

I've seen some of these before but hey, why not?

Originally posted by Jeff

The odd changes:

1) Insisting that light generation go through Images rather than Change Environment. Images is basically there to create the appearance of something else. Change Environment is there to provide various relatively minor changes in the environment. (Duh.) Getting lit is a relatively minor change in the environment. It's not the appearance of something else.

I can go either route, here.

2) Eliminating Instant Change and replacing it with a Transform on your clothes. It was essentially a convenience on the one hand and a tip of the hat to a genre bit on the other - replaced by a need to concern oneself with the BODY value of the wardrobe. It's particularly odd when there's an alternative just sitting there - Shapeshift with limitations.

IMO, the new Instant Change reeks. Sure, it can be done with Transform (but there are some big problems with it, one of my players pointed out recently.) However, it replaces the simplicity of the first 4 editions of Instant Change and makes it tedious in it's explanation.

3) The refusal to use Growth, Shrinking, and/or Density Increase and Always On for characters that are big, small, and/or dense all the time. Instead, we're to buy basically the same effects with other powers - when there _aren't_ other powers specifically to affect size or mass - and take disads for the drawbacks - when actually using those powers and Always On would conveniently define those drawbacks.

I use the 5th ed somewhat reluctantly. I've heard Steve's explanation on this and only very mildly agree with him. I'll probably try going back to previous rules for these.

These are the first times I've ever seen Hero Games development deliberately do things the hard way - when the tremendous flexibility of the system trots out easy ways with all its usual charm.

Yep, then again, that what House Rules are for.

Originally posted by Cybertooth

I guess I'm just an old fart at heart. I really have no problems with the new characters. However, I much prefer the older characters, especially those that go way back to the beginning.

 

I've started playing Champions from the beginning. I've also collected everything from the beginning on. Unfortunately my 5th ed. collection has stalled due to a lack of funds, but I'm working on that. Also, I currently don't have a current campaign running right now, so I have no reason (yet) to get used to, or familiarized with the newer characters.

 

For me, the older characters had a certain charm to them. The rules were simple and they were simple. They were in essence blank slates that we tweaked to fill our needs. We "filled in the blanks" as we developed our campaigns, and in doing so they became an integral part of those campaigns.

The same goes for the villains. I mean, who didn't fight Ogre and Pulsar as their first adventure?

 

Sure, the older rules did not cover practically every concievable power. But, a lot of us were younger then and our characters and games were simpler. Rules were made on the fly, as were combat decisions, and new powers for those that didn't exist. We had more time to devote to the game. Now, we are older adults and a lot of simply don't have that kind of time to invest. For me, it was always about the game, not about having a perfectly created mathmatically correct character or villain.

Totally agreeing with you. I started with Champions 1st Edition, 1st Volume when it first came out. Making up rules on the moment was part of the fun. Let's not forget heroes with a mighty 9 ED because there wasn't any examples except in the back of the book that you could base your heroes on.

There was a reason Classic Enemies was so popular. Personally, I'd like to see all (and I mean all) the older characters created 5th edition style. I'd love Hero Games to put it out as a book. I would love to see Gargoyle, Icestar, Dove, Marksman, Rose, Goliath, and the others. I always wondered what that spider/human hybrid that fired a beam from his forehead in Champions II (???) was and what his character sheet looked like. I always wanted a name and stats for the villain on the cover of the original Champions and Enemies rulebook (although, I think there was a contest to name him, I never found out officially what it was--I always referred to him as Cyclopean. Heck, he was probably Dr. Destroyer).

Cybertooth, if you want to know what the freaky spider/human hybrid's stats were, I made my own up when I first got Champions II and he became a staple in my campaign for years. If interested, email me and I'll type them up for you! I'll even look up his origin (if I can find it) and give you the context of who I used him with. I think you'll find it very nice.

Originally posted by CorpCommander

That is a great system, I love it! It makes planning any type of Hero game a bit easier. I'm thinking of running a fantasy game by converting some adventures I really like from D20 to Hero but I don't want to mis-convert the beasts the party will have to fight into paper tigers/steam rollers. This is a great way of looking at it.

 

Thanks everyone.

Yeah, I think it's a great system, too. Assuming a beginning GM, one way is to take enemies on about the same power level as the player characters. This should be an even fight. Should you pull out a stronger-than-PC enemy, my rule-of-thumb is to underestimate. It's always easier to throw more at the heroes. By underestimating a) the heroes aren't killed you start to get an idea of what power level you can throw at your players in a single enemy, whether a tiger, supervillain, alien, whatever.

I've only run into this problem a couple times and finally decided to see what everyone else thought. An Area Effect Entangle was thrown on the P.C.'s? Does only one person have to break out or do each PC have to break out? After someone has done a Grab manuever and is now just using STR to hold onto the person, if the person grabbed breaks free using their own STR, is that a half-move or full-move?

I'm at work and 95% brain dead. This morning I was 99%.

Forgot about the time...

I forgot to mention the time I was GM'ing... how I'm glad I'm past that. The villains would throw their punches, energy blasts or whatever and so the usual damage. However, the moment they switched to a Killing Attack, the players almost (I say 'almost') felt bad for me. So what if you have a 4d6 RKA if you keep rolling 1's!

I haven't hit you with the punchline yet. This lasted for almost (drum roll please).............. 1 year.

Jayde Tiger, PsiKnight is pretty well done but Haywire is just mindblowingly cool. Excellent job.

As I understood it, TK is fully indirect. Regardless of whether it is or not, I use a houserule and go with it not being indirect and the cost is 1 per 1 pt.

Thank You, All!

My many thanks to all of you! I'm not alone with horrible dice rolls. Here's some of me and my group's experiences (and by the way, I'm not superstitious but ya gotta wonder sometimes...):

My older brother has a martial arts character called Hawk. He picked up the nick-name "Mister 4.0 average". It was only with the character, too. It wasn't the dice because we all used them. He's got close to 300 6-sided dice, I think.

My twin brother had a character, now retired, called Prism. Whenever he attacked, we all waited for "the Prism touch." I have no idea what happened but whenever he got into this groove, there was simply no way he could do wrong with his dice rolls. More than once, he needed a perfect 3 to hit and he rolled it easily. Eventually, it seemed it started to rub off on the group.

Our current group, on the other hand, seems cursed when it comes to hitting that dreaded DCV of 7. Now, DCV 7 is on the low-side of DCV's in our campaign but still a nice DCV. The players still groan when a GM pulls out a villain with a DCV 7. Why? We miss... frequently... very frequently! Happened a few days ago. Five misses in a roll with a OCV 8 vs DCV 7 for one character and a couple other characters missed as well.

In a different game, three characters ran across martial artists hitting DCV's of 10 or higher. *whack smack* They're hit. We switch to someone of DCV 7 and we miss. The martial artist gets back up at DCV 13 and *pow* he's hit. Go figure!

Now, for my all-time worse 'luck'. My character Angel, is OCV 8. I missed so many times, I actually started disliking the character but I hung in there. Now, that's not so bad except everytime I missed, I rolled a 14 on the dice. I mean, the odds against me consistently missing and rolling a 14 is nothing short of incredible. Whenever I missed, my friends said, "What'd you roll?" I frowned and said, "Guess!" They understood. The GM at the time felt so bad that he let me hit once, even though I rolled another 14 and missed. Now for those who think it was just the dice, the moment I bought one Overall level, things just started going like it should for the character. I don't know what to think sometimes. Ya gotta wonder, is all I can say.

On an adjacent thought tangent, I made a picture up of Dr. Lirby Koo. I grabbed a picture of my friend Fred, who was gaming. At the moment the picture was taken, he squinted. I showed the picture to my Fred, who laughed and said, "Yeah, I guess the picture does look rather devious."

levi, that is an excellent example of how a presence attack should be described by a GM! I'll admit, I've run some of those "The villain blasts you with his most powerful attack. Presence attack time!" Then again, I've also run the indepth description of the attack and inevitably, the players enjoy the added color. Of course they do! They're having to run their characters in a campaign scenario in their heads and anything that helps them imagine it only adds to the fun.

I allow Presence Attacks to be done by anyone. Once in awhile, the players allow their characters to be impressed even though a Presence Attack was not specifically made.

example:

GM: The taxicab swerves to avoid the fiery blast and in so doing, hits the curb and flips upside down, crashing into the store. The driver gets out, uninjured.

Players 1: Megaman is really impressed. "Now, THAT's a tough cab driver!"

Player 2: (hurries to check on driver since Megaman is impressed.)

I do, however, disallow any presence attacks which simply aren't. I've had more than one player ask "Can I do a presence attack?" and I shake my head, saying, "No, you can't. You just got roasted by that attack." or something along those lines. I'd allow it in the case an attack which the PC's know is deadly and a PC survives it only to unleash an equally nasty attack back on the attacker (rolls very well). This has happened more than once. In these rare cases, except for the 2 combatants, mostly everyone else just backs off.... um, I lost my train of thought. Anyways, I allow presence attacks - it adds flavor.

Blowtorch is one of my favorite villains to whip out at a team.

SPOILERS FOR THOSE WHO DON'T KNOW WHO HE IS (just in case).

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Okay, the Find Weakness ability of his continues to be nasty, regardless of which Blowtorch you use. I personally think for the new Blowtorch that a combination of the first Blowtorch with the CKC will produce interesting results. I must say, the 'soak someone with fluid and light them on fire' is very devious. After I pulled that off on a PC, all the other PC's became very weary of him. Personally, I do wish they'd have kept him 8d6 EB but that's my own opinion. Killing Attacks, depending on how you handle them in your campaign, can be very ineffective and that's all he's got - Killing Attacks.

I got a laugh out of the players after Blowtorch recently attacked a PC, another PC pulled out his sword (which became a flaming sword) and said: "You think you're so tough with your fire? Try THIS on!" Blowtorch's reaction was to stop still for a phase and stare at the fiery blade saying, "Oooooo!"

Manta is very cool! Nice art there!

But Steve said...

Steve mentioned in another forum that he has no intention at this point of coming out with a 6th edition Rulebook. (I hope I'm not misquoting ya, Steve.)

That out of the way, it's a small thing, quite small actually but I'd like to see an easier way to find the formula to convert inches in movement to MPH or KPH. It's currently split between the bottom right column of one page and the top left column of the next.

Way cool, although I wonder if the Twin Buster Rifle should be even more damage. I mean, it wiped out a colony in a few shots (if I'm thinking of the right weapon and right Gundam).

Originally posted by Monolith

My own thinking is that Super Agents will be a sub-genre of Dark Champions. That would give the genre book the entire spectrum from Low-End Supers, to Super Agents, finally to "normal" Agents/Spies. It seems like a logical progression to me.

The original Super-Agents campaign book was interesting, although not as indepth as I would have liked it. It would definitely need an overhaul to fit the 5th ed.

Originally posted by MarkusDark

Don't forget Rescue Rangers Mmmmm Gadget.

 

um, I mean...

 

Actually, I thought that DWD had some real campaign appeal.

Darkwing Duck actually showed up (twice!) in my campaign. Makes for a great episode where the players can relax and just be silly. Foxbat's also someone who can do that.