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Kenn

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Everything posted by Kenn

  1. Re: Fairness question: PS: X-Man/Avenger/whatever Can you use complimentary rolls with familiarities?
  2. Re: How to make a character that turns into a spaceship? That would be PRE. COM would make you an attractive spaceship. Not quite the same thing.
  3. Re: Fairness question: PS: X-Man/Avenger/whatever I'd see it as buying the 1 pt. 8- versions of Combat Piloting, Computer Programming and System Operations but with a -1/2 limitation: Only with League/Avenger/etc. equipment. It assumes that a quinjet is different enough from a typical plane that the character couldn't use the skill to fly a Piper Cub. Or just because you can use the Justice League's teleporter properly, doesn't mean you can use the Injustice Gang's teleporter. Or that Cerebro doesn't use a Microsoft or Apple OS. I see nothing wrong with it, and except for perhaps violating the letter of the law (in Hero 3x(1/1.5) does not equal (3x1)/1.5) I think it's balanced enough. Someone could actually pay the extra point for the "full version" of all three familiarities, and actually gain something for it, so it should be fine.
  4. Re: How to make a character that turns into a spaceship? Fatman, the Human Flying Saucer, anyone?
  5. Re: Making a character too efficient? It's not the characters who are efficient or inefficient... It's the players. Some players thrive with a lot of options and can be creative. Other players are stifled by having too many options. And I've seen a character get switched from one player to another, the character get slightly de-powered in the process, and become far more effective anyway.
  6. Re: [Worst Ever...] Reasons to be a superhero It was this or run for President.
  7. Kenn

    Luke Cage

    Re: Luke Cage Cap can lift 3 and a half tons????
  8. Re: [Worst Ever...] Reasons to be a superhero "Well, I was out tricking, and a cop saw me in this outfit and I needed some kind of explanation." "I retired from profession downhill skiing and I had to do SOMETHING with this outfit."
  9. Re: WWYCD: Magic Fishnets?
  10. Re: Thoughts on Evolving Villains I like using this kind of idea, and have implemented a variety of variations of these. One villain organisation is more of a group of parahuman soldiers/terrorists so I've tried to have them come across as a group who is regularly prepared to try to counter the heroes. I have one still not fully revealed criminal organisation called the Phoenix Syndicate that is essentially made up of the members from several older smaller teams who have come to realise that the Champions of Justice keep growing and so staying a 5-8 man team wasn't a good idea. Similarly, the Collectors and Hazard, Inc. joined forces to become the Collection Agency.
  11. Re: A "bat-like" character Essentially, it depends on the standards of the game world. If you're in the Champions Universe where a "well-trained normal" can have a 29 DEX and a 7 SPD, exceeding most starting-level PC speedsters, then taking Normal Characteristic Maxima is a mistake. If you play a game where "well-trained normal" actually has meaning besides "I want to be as powerful as the powered people but without powers" taking it has merit.
  12. Re: A "bat-like" character In a super-heroic game, being subject to characteristic maxima is worth 20 points, at a base level, with further points available if you also take the Age disadvantage. Whether its truly a disadvantage of not is one of those topics that is frequently debated.
  13. Re: Looking for feedback for the new V&V conversion website Is there a link to said site?
  14. Re: How many staffers does a superhero team need? I believe Narratio was referring to the Justice Society prior to 1996. Granted in the 1940s their headquarters was a little sparse. And in the late 40s it was established they had a cleaning woman (who's son wanted to be a detective.) And at least one Teen Titans headquarters had staff. The Gabriel's Horn disco on Long Island had to have cooks and wait staff. Plus there were the other members of Great Frog besides Roy and Mal.
  15. Re: Songs that inspire(d) you to make a Champions Character http://www.rcuhero.net/scsheets/pinballwizard.htm
  16. Re: Justice League of America (Silver Age) And sometimes Black Canary rode the purple arrow... (from Justice League of America, vol. 1, #219) Black Canary: It's about this (holds hands 9 or 10 inches apart) long and as big around as a marking pen. Power Girl: Tell Oliver I'm impressed Dinah.... I didn't think you could make an arrow that big, let alone fire it.
  17. Re: Build to Concept Champions Some years back I converted my campaign to something like this. It worked pretty well until we all got old and schedules got in the way. I established a high end of what acceptable power levels were. The low end fell together pretty easily. I do allow players to have more than one character in the campaign (though they rarely will meet) with the encouragement being to have one "powerhouse" and one "more human" character. That way they can swap in and out, and I can tailor stories (some are more human, some are more cosmic, some are mix-n-match.) It is true that a lot of the more human types have a hard time being combat effective against the power houses, but then that's more in-genre. (In the JLU finale, Batman couldn't do much to Darkseid.)
  18. Re: John Hancock (spoilers) The combat skill levels presumably will help with called shots... "...one more time and your head is going up his..."
  19. Kenn

    Batgirl 250

    Re: Batgirl 250
  20. Re: Superhero Aging I think it's interesting, but a variety of aspects make it unwieldy. 1) As Basil said, the equation is clumsy, and could be simplified to a single multiplication. 2) The interval of 0.14 years per year is too small, in my own opinion. I remember some 15 years ago when DC started doing timelines that started Superman's career "10 years ago". In the early 2000s, they were saying "12 years ago." There's room for debate. Personally, I think 0.2 years per year works better, but that's just me. 3) What do we do with characters that age semi-realistically (Jay Garrick, Alan Scott, etc.)? We'll have to exclude them. 4) How do we know a character's age at the beginning of their career? For example, I always thought in the early Batgirl stories, as originally published (i.e. before DC started trying to make things "fit") that Babs was at least 24. Why? Because she was a professional librarian, and knowing quite a few of those in real life, I know that it is a position that requires a Master's degree, hence an extra 2 years of school. But heroes who were established professionals when we first see them, like Barry Allen, Ray Palmer, and Hal Jordan, are very difficult to get ages for them even then. Now, there are some fun exercises in all of this. Like explaining how come characters like Dick Grayson and Billy Batson who both seemed to be about 12 or 13 in 1940 could be so disparate in age now. If Dick Grayson went off to Hudson University it would have been after nearly 6 years of adventuring (related to us in 1969, using my 0.2 years/year). His dropping out (established circa 1980) would have occurred just over 2 years later. Since he was still presumably a teen (since he was leading the New Teen Titans) then, I'll assume he started his Robin career at 11, and graduated high school early. He'd be 20 when he first became Nightwing. He'd be 24, nearly 25 today. Billy Batson, I'm going to have to assume was just tall for his age in 1940. Billy being Captain Marvel for nearly 14 years (68 * 0.2 = 13.6) doesn't really work. Now, there are the 20 years between 1953 and 1973 when Billy didn't age at all. (Comics said he and his family and friends were trapped in Suspendium.) So we can knock 4 (20 * 0.2) years off there. That's still nearly a decade. If he wasn't 12 in 1940, just a tall and reasonably mature 8 year old, then him still being 17 today almost works. How old was Wally West when he became Kid Flash? He looked kind of young. His debut was in 1959, 49 years ago. Or 9.8 comic years ago. We know he's close in age to Dick Grayson. However, his high school graduation wasn't shown until 1977 or '78, and he was still new to college in 1980. Using the 0.2 rule, this puts him finishing high school two comic years after Dick Grayson. Since I already concluded Dick finished high school a year early, this would make Wally a year his junior. This works out that Wally must have been 13 when he became Kid Flash and nearly 19 when he became the Flash. He's 23 today. Roy Harper became Speedy shortly after Dick became Robin. He was still in his late teens when he developed his drug problem. He was a very young DEA agent. But mostly, I'm going to assume Roy and Dick are the same age. (After all Speedy was just robin with a bow and arrow, right?) This is fun. If Bruce Wayne became Batman at 25, he'd be nearly 39 today. I can accept that. Clark Kent was 22 or 23 when he started working at the Daily Planet. So he'd be 36 or 37. (Lois Lane must be a few years older than him, or got her journalism degree faster.) Princess Diana, there's no way of knowing her age when Steve Trevor crashed near Paradise Island. I'd guess she was 19, and make her about 32 today (not that it matters.) Black Canary is an odd one. She first appeared in 1947, so the 0.2 rule would make her adventuring career about 12 years. And she was fairly young, having just been turned down from the police academy, when she began. So she was only 18 or 19, which would make her 30 or 31 today. HOWEVER, all of this ignores the whole retcon that said from 1947-1969 it was one Black Canary, and from 1969 on it was her daughter. Using that, the younger Dinah's career would only be 7.8 years. And make her only 26 or so. Just a shade older than Ollie's ward...??? I think we'd best use the calculation minus the retcon, and relegate the "older Dinah" to the same category as Jay and Alan. I think since Barry, Hal and Ray were shown to be contemporaries of Bruce and Clark, but began than adventuring careers 15-20+ years (real time later) I think that we can probably say that they're about the same age, but the 3 or 4 "comic year" difference in when they started just means they were older when they began. Which would handle the fact that they were established in their careers already when they debuted. Peter Parker was 16 in 1962 right? So, using the 0.2 year rule, it would make him now 25. Which is slightly less than the 28 that Hawkmoor mentioned, but not by much. It does fit the "9 years ago" that I've seen marvel use though. Barbara Gordon, as I said, I think didn't start until she was 24. And that would have been 8 years ago using the 0.2 rule. So she'd be 32 now. Since she's clearly younger than that today, we probably should include the retcons that said she finished high school and college early.
  21. Kenn

    Batgirl 250

    Re: Batgirl 250 I don't think, even after her years of adventuring, ever got that strong. 15, certainly. 18 maybe. 20, no.
  22. Kenn

    The Gambler

    Re: The Gambler He drank down my last swallow.
  23. Re: Character Effectiveness Remember to include a player effectiveness multiplier at the end. Seriously. You can hand the EXACT same character to two different players, and depending on the players' skills one will regularly be more effective than the other.
  24. Re: A DC Animated-style HeroMachine You want a picture of him with his ball & chain? Do a picture of his wife and edit them into one picture.
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