Tech

Wow, Veer is simply... cool! Well done.

Don't forget to go with the flow when a hero or villain is hit with a power that should hurt them because they haven't actually bought the defense, but the hero/villain concept says they shouldn't be. Make a fast ruling rather than stop the game and after the game is over, either think about it or ask the players. Most likely, if you ask the players, they'll agree with your quick decision. Your quick rule may also give the player a new defense to buy so it doesn't happen again.

Skills inevitably also go this route. Powers, too.

Don't get personally caught up with your villains. If the players defeat them, don't get upset. That leads to the feeling of 'you vs. them'. Instead, commend your players for excellent planning and good roleplaying. This encourages players to play their characters better and think out battles.

Don't always try to make sure your villains escape. This can frustrate players. It can also make it seem like every time they defeat someone, they're going to get away anyways so ... let's really pound the villain but good!

That was fast. Thanks.

Originally posted by Knightraven

I recently asked Storn, via PM, about the flying woman that appears in both Champions U and Millenium City. The one with the cape, gauntlets, and light colored hair. He said "..."

He no-know. So, he suggested that I post in this thread and ask the assembled Herodom what they thought of the look of this character and any suggestions for her abilities or usage.

He also mentioned that his GM was using her as a re-tooled updated design for Doc Sonic of the Protectors, but I don't feel that she's geeky enough for Doc S, myself.

I was thinking, with the oddly stlyed bodysuit, how it seems to shimmer, maybe a solar-powered brick? Not enough female flying bricks, IMO.

What are yer ideas?

Could someone post the pic of who this woman is? I don't yet have the funds for either book yet.

This was such a cool thread I didn't feel like letting it slip away. I'm going to check to see what I can show here.

I found the Villains And Vigilantes conversion to Champions. Mind you, this is 3rd edition, i.e. Champions III that I'm reprinting here. I've updated certain powers to 5th ed terminology. I've also used current Power terms instead of the old olds when possible (ex. Mental Defense vs Ego Defense)

STR : Use the Champions Strength Chart to find the Champions STR that represents the V&V Character's carrying capacity. Use the V&V life numbers straight, do not convert from pounds to kilograms.

DEX : 15+(3x V&V Accuracy)

CON : 1/3 of V&V Power Score.

BODY : 6+V&V Basic Hits.

INT : V&V Intelligence.

EGO : V&V Charisma.

COM : Player's choice.

SPD : (V&V Agility + Intiative Bonus (if any)/10+3.[/b]

Some powers may affect the Champions Figured Characteristics. Double the Base Figured PD or ED if the character has no powers that help defend from physical or energy attacks.

Note: I've found even this may not be enough sometimes. Use your judgement.

The GM may use as many dice of damage for each attack as he feels fits into his/her campaign. To get the number of normal dice of attack, halve the maximum damage of the V&V attack and add the character's Damage Modifier. Divide the result by 3 to get dice of Killing Attack. Multiply the number of dice by 5 to get Active Points in other powers. Whenever the value of a Defense is not specified, the Champions character gets 10 + V&V Chracter Level in points of Defense.

For Ground/Swimming movement, divide the V&V move in inches by twice the Champions Speed to get movement per phase.

For Flight, divide the V&V move in inches by 2 and take the square root.

Note: Good time to use a calculator

V&V Power...................CHAMPIONS power

Absorbption.................3d6 Absorbtion and/or Power Transfer

Adaptation..................Full Life Support, 1/2 Dmg Reduct vs Ranged Energy Attks

Android Power............+10 CON, 10 pts Mental Def., one other power

Animal Control...........12d6 Mind Control, specific animals only

Animal Powers............Whatever is appropriate

Animated Servant.......create a Robot

Armor 31-60.................Armor 12 PD, 12 ED, Act 11 or less

Armor 61-90.................Armor 18 PD, 18 ED, Act 14 or less

Armor 91+....................Armor 24 PD, 24 ED

Astral Projection...........Desolid, must leave normal body behind

Bionics..........................Whatever is appropriate

Body Powers................Whatever is appropriate

Chemical Power..........Multiform (why?), 1/2 Dam Reduct vs ranged energy attks

Cosmic Awareness........Gamemaster discretion

DarknessControl.............Darkness vs normal vision

Death Touch..................1d6 Power Destruction vs BODY

Disintegration Ray.........3d6 Energy RKA

Devitalization Ray.........10d6 Power Drain at range, vs END

Dimensional Travel........Extradimensional Teleport

Emotion Control............12d6 Mind Control, emotions only

Flame Power 1...............Energy Blast, Fire

Flame Power 2..............

• EC-Fire
  *Energy Blast
  *Flight
  *Force Field (10 PD, 15 ED)

Flight.......................... Flight, see above text

Force Field 1...............15 PD ForceWall

Force Field 2.................Telekinisis

Gravity Control............Telekinsis

Heightened Attack.....+5 to Active Points in all attacks

Heightened Defense...+2 levels of DCV

Heightened Expertise 01-60....+2 OCV with one attack

Heightened Expertise 61-90....+2 OCV with related attacks

Heightened Expertise 91-100...+2 OCV with all attacks

Heightened Senses.....Danger Sense/appropriate Enhanced Sense(s)

Heightened Speed.....Running (see above test)

Ice Powers..................

• EC-Ice
  *Ice Blast (PD or ED)
  *Armor (see V&V Armor Power above)
  *Force Wall 10 PD/ED

Illusions A........................Images

Illusions B........................10 PD, 10 ED Forcewall and Animating Telekinisis (on Forcewall)

Invisibility........................Invisibility (normal only)

Invulnerability (per pt.)...+1 PD and +1 ED with any appropriate Resist. Def.

Life Support.....................Life Support, breathing, pressure, etc., usual Iron Man stuff

Lightning Control............

• EC-Lightning
  *Lightning Blast
  *20 ED Forcefield
  *Telekinisis Animate (electrical devices only)

Magical Spells..................appropriate powers

Magnetic Powers............

• EC-Magnetic
  *Teleknisis on metal
  *15 PD, 15 ED Forcefield
  *Strength usuable at range only (use TK instead)

Mind Control......................12d6 Mind Control

Mutant Power.....................whatever is appropriate

Natural Weaponry..............1d6 HKA or 1 level with Martial Arts

Non-corporealness...............Desolid, not through Force Walls

Paralysis Ray.........................8d6 AVLD (artifical body ED, Mental Def)

Plant Control.......................Telekinisis (animating plants only)

Pet........................................Other hero or 'vehicle'

Poison/Venom.....................RKA or Transformation

Power Blast...........................Energy Blast and Missile Deflection at Range

Psionics.................................appropriate Mental Powers

Regeneration.......................Healing 1 pt per pt of V&V healing rate

Revivication........................Healing vs dead

Robotic Body.......................2x Density, 5 pts Mental Def, other power

Size Change A....................Growth

Size Change B.....................Shrinking

Sonic Abilities........................Energy Blast - sonic

Speed Bonus.........................Extra movement in one movement power

Special Weapon...................Powers bought through a focus

Telekinisis................................

• EC-TK
  *Telekinisis
  *PD Forcefield
  *Energy Blast - PD

Telepathy..............................

• EC-Telepathy
  *Telepathy
  *Mind Scan
  *Mental Defense

Teleportation.......................Teleportation with extra movement

Transformation A.................Instant Change or Multiform

Transformation B..................Multiform

Transformation C.................Shapeshift or Multiform

Transmutation......................Transformation attk

Vehicle..................................buy a vehicle

Vibratory powers.................

• EC-Vibrations
  *Energy Blast - PD
  *10 PD and 20 ED forcefield
  *Desolidification

Weakness Detection...............Find Weakness

Water Breathing A..................Life Support underwater

Water Breathing B..................

• *Life Support underwater
  *0 End on all powers in water only
  *20 pt Physical Limitation: Recovery drops to 1 while not in water

Weather Control.....................

• EC-Weather Multipower
  *Darkness - clouds
  *Entangle - Rain
  *Energy Blast, variable special effect: Wind, Cold, Ice, Lighting

Willpower A...........................High INT and EGO

Willpower B............................Mental Def, Power Def, Danger Sense

Wings.....................................Flight through wings

As always, go with the spirit of the character being transferred into the Hero Games format.

Which brings to mind something...

If a buy complete immunity to poison ala Life Support, and someone blasts the character with an EB with the special effect of poison, does it affect him? What about poison RKA, Drain, etc etc?

This question seems to mirror the Life Support vs Heat thread.

Originally posted by Sketchpad

I'm quite happy with FREd I'd prefer a game to age a bit before any new editions come out ... unlike some other games where the new editions seem to come out every year.

I think I'd also like to see it age a bit. I've read the posts. I like alot of them and I don't like alot of them, I agree and I disagree. Regardless, I think besides Steve looking at this, this'll probably go the way of all the other posts: It'll disappear eventually.

My take on Mystery Powers was more of a 'you have a power but don't know what it is. Even the player doesn't know.' Assuming I follow this train of thought, I've only done this once with a character. It's great fun but takes a lot of trust on behalf of the player because the player doesn't want the GM to monkey around with his or her concept and send the character in a direction it wasn't supposed to.

(This was under 3rd edition rules.)

A player had a shapechanger character, into various cats. The final form was a sabre-toothed tiger (nice PRE attack, nasty all around). Still, the idea that the character might be able to sense danger on a primal level was interesting. I asked the player if I could introduce a mystery power. She agreed to it. I added that if the power wasn't liked after finally being revealed, that an adventure could be done to rid the character of it. That factor allows the player to be at ease with their character structure.

Simply put, it was Danger Sense 11-, Act 11-. I didn't consider it redundant to add the Act 11-. The power only came into being about half the time and even then, the power only worked about half the time. Eventually, the character and player started to figure it out. At that point, the power was shown to everyone. However, it was a long time a-coming because Danger Sense 11- would be noticed quickly by the character. Adding the Activation made it work only here and there.

Regardless of the mechanics, it worked well and eventually became a full-time power for the character. Mystery powers can be great fun but as GM, you've got to be careful not to do something that'll make the player get upset and hear:

"Hey, my character wasn't ever supposed to be able to do that!"

I have to say, Yes, I have bothered the GM a couple times when I played... don't know why, I just felt like it. Fortunately, the GM rolled with the blow. Nice GM.

One of my conversations went something like this:

GM: Where is your character at the moment?

Me: Mmm, I don't know.

GM: Are you with the group?

Me: No.

GM: Then where are you?

Me: You decide.

GM: Ok, you're with the group.

Me: Nah, I decided my character's walking down the street a few blocks away looking cool.

GM: Whatever!

Re: Re: Colored Champions Pics

Originally posted by Starlord

These pics are being discussed in about 3-4 different threads, but did this specific question actually get answered somewhere?

 

The full pics would be excellent.

On a different forum, Steve's answer was "We're looking into some options."

Send me an e-mail. One of my friends already built it for one of his heros, including the mini-missiles.

Can't believe I missed this when I made my request in the Hero System Discussion section. That'd be the Sideart Constitution Request. Oh well. That's what I get for posting at work.

Am I the only one who'd love to be able to download all the wonderfulful, color sideart figures we see on the left side of the Hero Games board? Steve, is there anyway that:

We, the people, of the united Hero Games boards, might form a more perfect collection for our players to view, establish tranquility in our players, insure peace for GM's, provide for the common happiness of viewers, promote the general welfare of posters, secure the blessings of the players and future GM's, do request a possible .zip file for this united Hero Games boards.

Well, howabout it Hero Games? (hope) Anyone agree?

As for the above, well, it just kinda popped into my head.

I did a Secret Wars series for awhile. Since we have several GM's in our campaign, we each pulled out our villains and heroes to use. It lasted about 7-9 episodes. The heroes won but not without extreme fights. A couple villains, sensing how the battle would turn out, helped the heroes out.

Regarding leadership of a superteam, the players usually just vote to say who gets to be the leader. In one of our teams, we simply have a spokesman, primarily because the team doesn't need a leader. He used to make the mistake of saying he was the team leader - and got trounced. Nowadays, whenever the media asks if he's the leader, he very quickly waves his hands saying 'No, I am NOT the team leader', knowing full-well that the entire team is watching him. Hey, they begrudgingly let him be called the spokesman while I'm at it.

Originally posted by CrosshairCollie

Just out of curiosity, has anybody, in any game, regardless of genre/setting/whatever, ever actually held a team vote of some sort and ejected a character who was being a pain (bonus points if the player was being a pain, too).

I get to be the first to say 'Yes! A character was kicked out of a team!' I also get the bonus points. It's been a long time so I'll try to recall it:

Gamma Woman, a WonderWoman clone (um, I never did find out why the character was called that.) was a real jerk. The character did what she wanted to, hence arrogance. If she did listen to the leader, she'd do it for awhile at best, then do her own thing. Games that required a lot of thought ended with a punch being thrown by her or jumping agents/bad guys when she shouldn't. If her team got beat-up because of her actions, she'd throw a dumb grin and say something to the effect of 'Guess I shouldn't have, huh?' Now, the player played the character this way on purpose. Of course, he also played a sheikh character with wind powers called Moriah who thought all woman (player characters, NPCs, villainesses and heroines alike) should worship him... he didn't last long. (Afterthought: I should've taken his sheet and made him a villain. Maybe I'll recreate him up again just to do that for a one-shot villain.)

I played the leader of the team, sort of a Reed Richards with fire powers. Quite amazing I played him for over 300 experience points when all he could do offensively was blast you or blast you harder. Of course, there was the gadget pool.

Back to the point. After the player topped his bad moves for a game, I, as the leader of the superteam, kicked Gamma Woman out. To be fair, I also asked the players. They agreed.

Now for the fun: in our campaign, Gyro Jim was at his height of popularity and showed up quite often. If anyone knows how in-your-face Gyro Jim was (from Champions II), you get the idea. Gamma Woman, shocked (surprise) that she would be kicked out, wrote Gyro Jim a letter complaining about her being kicked out of the team. Awww. Well, Gyro Jim gave her an even harder critique about her stupidity and agreed with the team's decision. She wasn't used anymore.

I thought I'd end this with Moriah. Everytime this villain, oops, I meant hero showed up, he'd use his identifying quote: "They call the wind MORIIIIIIIIIII-UH!" in a very annoying voice. When he pulled his 'worship me' on the wrong heroines, the 2 male heroes tried weakly to stop them - the ladies still beat him up and good for them!

Originally posted by Rune

Although the Monster is extremely tough with a big attack, its standard design has a very exploitable weakness. It berserks very easily in a combat situation. Its OCV is good but not spectacular.

I disagree. Dex 30 - OCV: 10, DCV: 10 (SPD 6?) is quite good, good enough to give most characters problems, especially with it's high HKA, increased STUN (from previous versions) and certain defenses to make Stunning it difficult.

Originally posted by Agent Escafarc

Unless it's Chucking based on ECV:p

True, and I overlooked chucking while desolid, affects real world.

Depending on the player, an EC or MP can be used well or used poorly. I agree that having both of them and the reasoning for them is sound. However, if a GM doesn't like them, don't use them.

Regarding concepts, not every single character has to have a 'tight concept'. So what if someone wants an EB, Flight, Desolid, Tunneling, Ego Attack, etc, ad nauseum? If your character concept allows it, the character will probably be allowed to have them; just don't expect any breaks on the cost with an EC or MP. The game is for the players to have fun - yes, the GM, too. If someone wants a weird or wacky concept and doesn't cause problems for the campaign, GM or players, go ahead and let them! It's for fun.

We have an interesting way of handling the upgrade from a 100 base to a 200 base for Champions characters. What's amazing is that all the players agree to it. The sitch is that dependent on the character concept, the GM will make the determination of what base to give the character. Yes, we have a variable base for character creation. One character now has a 100 base, another 150, a different one 200. The GM's fine with it, the players are happy and it works.

Not all characters are created equal. Someone who's got tons of skills, languages, Professional Skills, etc., may end up getting a higher base due to a well thought-out concept. It depends on a case-by-case situation. I'm still inclined towards the 100 base. Villains will get a 100 base and anything extra needed is a villain bonus. Some villains are not well rounded and may be living on a poverty level with nominal powers, with the police looking for them.

Originally posted by Thirdbase

Remember an 18 always misses or fails a roll (Pg 2 FREd).

True, unless some GM decides to change it with a house rule.

Originally posted by Gary

Ah, but is chucking a physical action, or is it merely a state of mind?

Definitely a physical action, although I'm sure the simple delight of chucking makes it delightful to woodchucks everywhere. Of course, different woodchucks like different wood, hence different chuckings.

Originally posted by Dr.Unpossible

If I'm a proud owner of the Original "Ultimate Martial Artist" is it worth buying the new UMA?

 

I mean I'm a rabid collector, but If it's mostly a reprint of that "fine" Martial Arts book of a few years ago, I may move it down a few pegs on my "to buy" HERO products list.

I have the original UMA also. Since certain things have been changed since 5th ed came around, so have certain attacks, such as the eye gouge which temporarily blinded your opponent. Flash has changed so it had to be updated. If I'm not mistaken, I believe there are new manuevers you can purchase. The choice is up to you but since you mentioned you're a 'rabid collector', my suggestion is 'Sure, buy it.' Otherwise, not much has changed although the cover is quite a terrific work of art

I'm agree with Uncle Shecky, Terror Inc has also been one of my fav teams so I'm thinking of one of two options: 1) ignore what CKC says and have Eurostar intact with Bora and Pantera - well, maybe not Pantera. 2) Muerte faked the death.

According to Feuermacher origin, he pretty well slagged Muerte's body. Now, Muerte's been hunted by Eurostar for quite a while and I'm sure he's been studious to keep tabs on what Eurostar's doing and who's in Eurostar. How is it Muerte is still alive? After all, a slagged body is pretty dead.

That is, unless he temporarily brainwashed both of them into thinking they actually killed him when it was one of his agents. After all, Fiacho would automatically have Mentalla check their story out. As for Giganto, he's just been waiting around with Muerte, waiting for the time when Muerte would come out on top of Eurostar's plans, exercising and getting stronger. (i.e. convert Giganto from 3rd/4th to 5th ed. as well as Muerte) Muerte can easily upgrade his armor in the interlude as well (convert to 5th ed).

Again, there are numerous ways to prevent his death, change it or whatever else comes up. I rather like the degrade in stats for Eurostar; Fiacho no longer has a 32 Dex, although he's more lethal now.