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Re: Hero Philosophy - SPEED The one and only character I've ever had to worry about this with this ALMOST what I did. Since the character in question has a fairly low DEX (by campaign standards) anyway, I let him keep his 3 and 9 instead of bumping him to those to 4 and 10. But the limited phases are still 2 and 8.

Re: Someone Please Explain This to Me?

Re: Mass musings Does Mass really apply unless you're Catholic or Anglican?

Re: It's Darna, heroine of the Phillipines! Cool.

Re: The Distinctive, The Special, The Cool Designing a character instead of randomly rolling up a character. This was a big selling point for me. Primary and figured characteristics. The inter-connectivity led to a natural consistency to the mathematical model of people regardless of their level of ability, power or skill. STUN and BODY - two different types of damage to represent different aspects of how people get hurt.

Re: Power Build: Super Archery http://www.rcuhero.net/hsheets/longbowrc.htm I forgot Jim went with something nonstandard with the file name.

Re: Superhuman Endurance The big drawback I would see with the +2 SPD "Only to take recoveries" would be that for two phases per turn the character would be obligated to drop his DCV while he recovered.

Re: Power Build: Super Archery A friend of mine built an archer where the bow and arrows were separate from the trick arrowheads. I liked the build because it meant he could use the arrowheads at close range without the bow and because it keeps him from relying to heavily on them and instead he relies on his devastating skill. Since his shtick is hitting things accurately, we actually use hit locations. A 7d6 normal attack to the head (x2 stun natch) hits roughly like the 14d6 attacks his compatriots use. http://www.rcuhero.net/hsheets/longbow.htm

Re: Partially limited Multipower I never said it would be easy or cheap. I said it would be complex.

Re: Transdimensional PREsence See Wesley's "To the Pain" speech from the end of "The Princess Bride" for a non-Hero example of a Presence Attack. A presence attack is essentially brute force social interaction. Where conversation, persuasion or seduction are all based on skill, a presence attack is just exerting one's will to generate a gut level emotion. I think they exist, and, in my experience, I think they get used more often than people think about. And I think that they are inherently indirect.

Re: Partially limited Multipower Maybe something like "Only 40 active points may be used with out the OAF ___________" (-1/2) or "Only 40 active points may be used with out the OIF ___________" (-1/4) would work? Or, if one wants to get complex, build the 40 pt. Multipower as it exists without the focus. Then build an Aid or Succor, with a maximum number of points it can add being 40 points, with a +2 advantage to affect several powers at once, and put the Focus limitation on this power. http://www.rcuhero.net/hsheets/brainwave.htm

Re: The Unbalancer As a matter of fact... Actually it's more of "they" wanted. I was drawing from specific experience. It's happened more than once. There were some players who could do it (Savinien, I'm looking at you) and some who couldn't. I've seen it with other types of characters to. Someone who wants to play a Superman type (flight, strength, invulnerable) because he wants to be the biggest and the baddest and the one everyone looks to is going to be a problem because players will resent him. Someone who wants to play the Superman type (same powers) who is humble and tries to make others feel worthwhile and is reliable and can be looked up to will have have a much better time.

Re: The Unbalancer It's usually not going to be the characters or the concept for them that cause the problem. It's going to be the player. There are some concepts that aren't the best fit for a particular game, obviously. But usually even then most concepts leave some wiggle room. (Granted if the campaign is supposed to be about, say, a team of androids then any non-android concept is likely to be a problem.) But these situations still largely hinge on the player's attitude. The game is a "Global Champions" game - high powered heroes that deal with problems all over the world. Player wants to play a non-powered urban vigilante (NPUV). Potential problem situation as the NPUV tries to call in his buddies into situation that they are really overkill in. Bad situation. Good player with NPUV could play up the "I-don't-trust-parahumans" angle or the "I-shouldn't-be-here-I-need to-be-at-home-on-the-streets" angle, while all the while contributing to the missions in a positive way, and focussing on fighting cleverly rather than just fighting straight and feeling underpowered. I've seen both. The concept doesn't change. The player simply adjusts his attitudes and expectations.

Re: Hero Philosophy - SPEED When I started my Champions campaign, I tried using the general guidelines the books provided. I did; however, allow a speedster to actually play SPD 12. He was essentially a really good agent buster. Over several years of SPD creeping upwards across the game, for no real good reason then player wanting their characters to go "first" I installed SPD limits. Basically there was an across the board SPD reduction for everyone with a SPD higher then 4. The 5s became 4s, the 6s became 5s and so on. The speedsters dropped more. Turbo went from 12 to 8 (and then to 6 at the players request), and other speedsters had similar jumps. It helped play dramatically. Having 85% of the characters be the same SPD (4). It lets a speedster play at 6 feel like a speedster still, but not be the GM attention hog. I highly recommend "low" SPD games.

Re: Demolition Dunphy: Where's the Love?! Ah, yes, the one that LOOKS like it was designed by a blind man.

Re: Pointless Hero Not exactly "pointless" but my campaign reached a point where there were both veteran characters and rookies and had been running for nearly (now over) two decades that I had to develop a policy of multiple "tiers" of starting points and multiple "tiers" of ability. We still keep track of points but there's no attempt to balance things. There are characters who do 10-12d6 attacks and characters who can do 18-20d6 attacks. And a lot of characters in between. We've made playing to concept more important than point balance.

Re: How much Megascale to cover the world I'd go up one more level to 1"= 100,000 km, and only buy the Area Effect to the "One Hex" level. Should save 15 points.

Re: Your PCs might be Underpowered if... Preach it, brother!!

Re: Using other characteristics for combat levels In the Marvel SAGA system, the targeting value for Hand to Hand combat came from Strength instead of Agility. If one can see value in that line of reasoning (a stronger arm is moving faster?) then I suppose it could be done. HtH OCV = STR / 7 or somesuch. I wouldn't actually recommend it though.

Re: Patriotic Equipment I have this friend, a professional singer, who was to sing the American national anthem at the launching of a new ship for a major cruise line last year. She practiced it at another of her shows, which I was at. My equipment was patriotic enough to be standing at attention for it.

Re: What's in the moon? One of three rare elements that can be combined to create a growth ray. What, it worked for Bizarro and the Legion of Doom.

Re: Who homages the Watchmen or those the Watchmen homaged? Nathan Ford and the Leverage team.

Re: Your PCs might be Underpowered if... You built your character as a standard 350 point character, and your GM is planning on using the published CU.

Re: Picking a codename that, like, a million other characters haven't already used. One of the best I only heard once was for a strongman/stretcher called "Flexus".

Re: Picking a codename that, like, a million other characters haven't already used. I had a player who wanted to name a character Nimrod, after the Babylonian King/hunter. He was either unaware or willfully blind of the insult. Part of the problem is that the insult portion became ingrained with children without them ever seeing the cartoon. I know I had heard the term as an insult BEFORE I ever saw the cartoon. And I've never been good at remembering names from the book of Genesis. It really wasn't until I was an adult that I put it all together. Growing up, I just thought "nimrod" was a slurring of "numb rod", i.e. like "limp d*ck", essentially referring to being sexually impotent. Which may have been a deliberate double entendre when Bugs calls Fudd a "poor little Nimrod". I told Tim to pick a different name for the character.