Marchwarden

Marchwarden has a 38 DEX. Pretty much everything else I design kicks in at 23 unless I'm playing a dedicated mentalist.

Highest DEX I've ever seen was on an NPC villain/anti-hero named Solstice. He was a 450-point character (high power) whose "powers" were having a 60 STR, 60 DEX, 60 CON, flight and a wee bit of damage resistance. He was also rather young, and basically a decent guy; his Psych Lims would have been appropriate for a hero, except that "Loyal to his Friends (Common, Total)" gets problematic when your friends are a pack of criminals with a variety of mental issues and substance abuse problems.

Frustrating to the heroes, since it's obvious that the kid's not bad at heart, but is obviously in with the wrong crowd. But, as he says:

"You don't understand. They need me."

Originally posted by allen

Heck, take a closer look and you'll see that Witchcraft has already been knocked out by Firewing... although I'd guess red-heads move more units than talking apes.

Thanks, I'd overlooked Witchcraft...but why not Nighthawk? After CU, I'd looked forward to him taking up the mantle of "the martial artist with weapons but no weapons elements who gets pasted on every cover".

Just to throw my vote in...it really seems to boil down to whether you can shake the feeling that a "Champions" campaign is always going to feel like it ought to be about the "Champions" (it needn't be, but it's a natural association to make). Certainly, they are neither so powerful nor so well-established as to overshadow the PCs. Personally, I find the existence of another team of roughly equal prowess to offer several positive features:

Noncombat Roleplay: sometimes, it's fun to have two groups of peers hang out, talk shop, swap stories etc.. It can help players flesh out their heroic personae in a fairly relaxed setting. There is also the love interest option.

Friendly Rivalry: It's hard to have a bitter rivalry with the Champions, because they're mostly sweethearts. But there are possibilities. A grinning, swashbuckling streetfighter and Nighthawk might respect each other's work but clash badly in the style department (plenty of room for comedy there). Similarly, an angst-ridden, paranoid-of-humans mutant (or any hero who is grim and gritty) might find Sapphire exasperating. Moreover, an occult hero with spooky SFX (like an avenging ghost, or a possession victim who escaped demonic control but retained some infernal powers) might have a rather tense relationship with Witchcraft, at least initially. It could even be completely lighthearted: how about a charity fundraiser basketball match between the PCs and the Champions?

Also, it's a classic plotline to interweave initial rivalry with romantic tension.

Plot Kicker: Distress signal from Defender! The Champions are in tr-! Very easy way to get the action rolling.

Ejector Seat: It's not good to script things so that the NPCs rescue the PCs, but on occasion even an experienced GM will end up saying, "Oh God, what have I done?". Underestimated the bad guys' strength? PCs made a minor but costly error? Completely freakish die rolls? The key to using NPCs as cavalry is to always think "minimum force". Don't have the entire Champions team come smashing into the VIPER base to spring the PCs...have Nighthawk show up to pick the cell door locks so that they have a decent chance to fight (or sneak, or bluff) their way out. Sure, they might have to put up with his smug looks for a while...but that will make it that much more satisfying when they save his butt down the road.

Temp Service: Sometimes, none of the players feels like playing a mystic...or a detective...or a techie. This can leave gap's in the team's repertoire of skills and Knowledge. Certainly, the GM should tailor adventures to the PCs' capabilities as much as possible, but it's good to have the NPCs around as sources of information. "Hey, we could go ask Bethany about this sceptre thingy..." To keep the PCs from feeling too dependent, have the NPCs come to them sometimes to ask a return favor; it not only balances the ego scales, but can serve as a plot kicker (see above).

Originally posted by Wyrm Ouroboros

IMO, Eternia's 'quest to get ... a soul' should be a matter of very, very good roleplaying; remember, this is the superheroic equivalent to Pinocchio's quest to be 'a real boy'. It isn't a matter of a power, a dying hero (Whose Soul Is It Anyway?), or something 'technical'; it shouldn't even be a clinical matter of 'do X, Y, and Z, and something wondrous will happen!!' You, the GM, should decide what sort of experiences/passions/hopes/dreams Eternia should experience or believe in order to 'gain a soul'. It might be interesting if she had to 'find religion'; after all, faith is just about the only 'proof' we have of the soul, mystic relics notwithstanding.

Your reply hit the board just as I was composing the last one, so you have her origin there...

Just to clarify, I'm a player in C-2018, not the GM. My first question, therefore, was posed mainly for curiosity's sake; I'm sure the GM has something worked out, but I wanted to know how the worthy denizens of these boards would handle it (some of the most entertaining debates on this board stem from "How would you do this?" type questions).

I realize the XYZ statement seemed flippant; I was trying to say "if the following set of conditions are met...", and yes, those conditions could easily include dramatic requirements acted out through roleplay as well as plot elements achieved through puzzle-solving or beating up bad guys. In fact, I strongly suspect that combat will have almost nothing to do with this particular subplot; it would suit this particular GM's sense of dramatic irony if the party's (by far) strongest and toughest member could only achieve her most cherished personal goals through means other than fighting.

Originally posted by Lord Liaden

The methods that you suggest for Eternia to acquire a soul all seem reasonable. If she has any Disadvantages associated with her soulless state, you might let her save up enough Experience to buy them off (perhaps partly acquired on a quest to earn a soul), then let her experience a "radiation accident" to buy them all off at once.

Actually, the player and GM worked out a rather novel way of handling the Psych Lims. The player, who has some knowledge of the subject, pointed out that, in RL, survivors of abusive environments don't so much "buy off" their Psych Lims so much as replace them with a different set. So, like Firewing, she has two opposed Psych Lims, her "Victim Complex" (self-doubting, self-hating, instinctually submissive and passive) and her "Survivor Complex" (fiercely independent, assertive, jealous of her dignity and integrity, highly responsible). Right now, "Victim" is Strong, while "Survivor" is Moderate, which means that she will regress more often than not if left to her own devices - this is why it is important for her friends to be there for her at crucial moments.

The idea is that, through time and role-play, the GM will permit zero-sum Disad exchanges, with "Victim"/"Survivor" going from Strong/Moderate to Moderate/Strong and eventually to nonexistant/Total. Personally, I thought it a fairly original and reasonably accurate way to depict the recovery process. I'm guessing that acquiring a soul would certainly constitute a major milestone, and would prompt the first shift.

BTW, the situation behind Eternia's personal problems lies in her origin. It began when Teleios decided that it was too inefficient to keep making fresh batches of test subjects. He'd just made several breakthroughs in the area of cellular regeneration, and became enthused by the prospect of a reuseable subject; imagine performing a test, vivisecting the subject and analyzing the results, thendebriefing the subject and preparing a second round of tests - what possibilities! And since the Perfect Man is as much an artist as a scientist, he reasoned that, since they'd be spending so much time together, the subject ought not to be too unpleasant to look at. COM 30 was adequate by Teleios' standards. Thus was Eternia created in a vat. She spent approximately four years in Teleios' lab, 'helping' him. She actually acquired quite a suite of Science Skills, albeit from a somewhat macabre perspective.

Then came the day when Teleios agreed to furnish VIPER with a cheap, mass-produced, temporary STR-boosting serum which they could issue to their agents in bulk quantities. He had the formula mostly complete, but, before setting the purity and dosage, he wanted to study the effects on human tissue of sudden and drastic strength increase. So, he ordered Eternia to strap herself into the Cellular Invigorator and began increasing her strength to different levels at different rates, pausing periodically to take samples from muscles, bones and ligaments and record his data. That's what he was doing when the base alarms started blaring.

To make a long story slightly less so, a swirling melee between Champions, Genetic Praetorians, escaped clone-monsters and UNTIL agents swept through the base and into the lab. A minion got Knocked Back, hard, against the Invigorator's control panel. In the heat of combat, nobody noticed thet the controls were now jammed at MAX INCR, and the counter kept going up. When it hit 90, Eternia tore herself out of her restraints, just in time to see her 'master' laid low by an arrow. In that instant, a crack opened in her tiny world of subservience and suffering. When the heroes motioned for her to escape with them...she followed them.

So there she is: as strong as Grond, able to heal nearly any injury nearly instantly, inured to pain, as lovely as a goddess...but also woefully naive and burdened with the ultimate case of childhood abuse syndrome. Some abuse survivors experience alienation from humanity - she has genuinely legitimate doubts as to whether or not she's human. In a fairly low-angst group of heroes, she's the token trauma case, but she manages to come across as sympathetic and heart-rending rather than whiny or histrionic. We'd do anything to help her.

After the Great Revenge Smackdown against the Crowns of Krim, we are back at the partially rebuilt Stronghold:

2018 DEFENDER: "You know, everyone...we've been through defeat and victory together, but today was different. For the first time, we were unified and cohesive from start to finish. It seems we've finally learned to think of ourselves, not as a group of individuals, but as..."

MARCHWARDEN: "...a fellowship."

2018 DEFENDER: "I was going to say 'a team'. Where did you say you were from?"

MARCHWARDEN: "I am...from New Zealand."

Everyone else exchanges a look.

Curious how you all would interpret this:

After the gruesome defeat I posted about a while back, the Champions 2018 players were wondering if the GM missed a trick. After all, at least two of the 2018 Crowns of Krim can sense living souls, so they should have been able to tell that Eternia wasn't really dead, despite being dismembered. We were wrong. In the Great Godawful Smackdown Rematch Fight, the villains threw out a few taunts ("Toy of Teleios", "Soulless spawn of science", that sort of thing), which seemed to confirm some of Eternia's worst fears. Her doubts about her own "humanity" are reflected in her Psych Lims, and she started to suffer a sort of collapse. That was the first time in any Champions combat that I ever had to make a PRE Attack against my own team's brick in order to provide emotional support. Well, she snapped out of it in time to save me from Temblor, and the Champions eventually prevailed. Nonetheless, Eternia's pretty devastated. On the upside, Heartseeker pointed out that all the Crowns once had souls and lost them, so why should it be impossible for someone born without a soul to earn one?

So, that's our new subplot: the quest to get our teammate a soul. I have two questions: first, how do you think this will work mechanically? Transform specifically says that it can't turn unliving into living things - but Eternia isn't inanimate like an armchair, or even like Mechanon. I'm thinking either a Spiritual Transform, or else a Summon (summoning a nascent soul into her body, that is), or else GM-dictated plot device (when conditions X, Y and Z are satified, it will just happen).

Secondly, where in the CU ought we to look for help? Witchcraft is Archmage in 2018, and not always easy to contact: I suspect she'll tell us something helpful but necessarily cryptic. There are also the religious institutions that exist in the real world as well. Finally, we confiscated some tomes and paraphernalia from the Crowns, which seems to involve soul-related ritual magic. I'm more than a little uncomfortable about seeking help from that quarter, though...

IMO, Desolid makes for a poor primary means of defense; it's usually either too good or not good enough in any given encounter ("Here come the Ultimates! You're invincible! Now here comes DEMON! You're toast!"). This is usually not fun to play.

Desolid seems to work best in Power Frameworks. A sorcerer with a magic VPP can assume "etherial form" when necessary, but use the points for something else where it wouldn't be appropriate.

A very common model for energy projectors is to buy a Multipower with a 60 AP reserve (a common point cap). The slots will generally be an EB and/or RKA, a selection or two from the Flash/Drain/Entangle/Dispel menu, and Desolid with 0 END (special effect: Fiery Form/Body of Light/Whatever). This last slot is known as the "ejector seat", for reasons which ought to be readily deduced. It's only 6 points, so it can function as a secondary defense while leaving enough points for conventional protection.

Originally posted by Karma

How about "There is a dozen nukes in the city. One will go off every hour on the hour unless you find them. Signed Charles Baker"

 

Then there's 13 (a Baker's Dozen) although that might be a little cerebral for some it's the kind of thing a "I'm the most intelligent person on the planet and I'm going to prove it by making you look like fools" type villian would do.

I actually used this one once. I did make it a little easier. It wasn't singed by anybody, but the first bomb they found was in Baker Square, the second was at a gospel radio station broadcasting Rev. Jimmy Bakker, one was at the Nissen Baked Goods distribution center, etc.. Once they got the pattern, it became actually possible to narrow the search and actually find 12 nukes hidden across New York City in one hour. In fact, they got number 12 with seven minutes to spare. They spent a couple of minutes sighing with relief and smiling at the cameras, and that was when the team leader made the "OH ****!" face as he realized that "Baker's Dozen" was the final part of the riddle. The next 5 minutes were played out in Champions combat time: phase by phase. It was the tensest roleplay I'd ever seen: players wiping their sweaty palms on their jeans, looking ill, spilling their Cokes...

...but when they disarmed the 13th nuke on phase 8 of Turn 25 (Timer stuck at 00:04), they felt like gods. I was worried that it would drag out too long or that they'd get frustrated, but it turned into one of those "our finest hour" sessions.

As far as I'm concerned, it was just another old-style Champions marathon fight scene, with the clock as the enemy.

Originally posted by Blue

Hey! The perfect opening to debut my new iconic patriot-type hero: I give you... UNCLE SLAM! (With the uber-cool catch phrase, "You'll be seeing stars and stripes forever!)

Blue, that is indeed way-cool.

There is one thing that bothers me, though...why did Scorpia and Feuermacher melt the "body" into molten slag and drop it into the ocean? It's not as if they have much need to hide the evidence - they're already well known to be multiple-murderers, and San Muerte isn't exactly going to have much luck extraditing them from Europe.

Hmm...

"Yeah, boss, we got rid of Muerte. The body? Oh, it's unrecognizable and inaccessible, and nobody else witnessed the killing. But look - we brought some of his old gadgets and the number of his bank account!"

How's this - Fiacho believes that he turned Scorpia and Feuermacher; in fact, Muerte turned Mentalla. Her task? To reassure Fiacho that telepathy validates their story, then to bide her time along with the two double agents until Muerte gives the signal.

bwa ha ha ha ha

Originally posted by Knightraven

I love seeing Foxbat back.

Fenris has become a favorite in play. The players hate him.

BTW, I am really happy with the large number of 350 point characters. Until the UNTIL SUPERPOWERS DATABASE comes out, its nice to have 350 point characters for the players to peruse and/or use as a template.

In a friend's campaign, Lazer was converted into a good guy. They dropped the pistol (and maybe one of the less appropriate skills) and turned the rifle into OIF (it's a Laser Gauntlet now). This makes him less readily neutralized. Then, they simply changed his Psych Lims and Hunteds to make him a former-merc-with-a-conscience type.

Hummingbird makes a perfectly suitable (if slightly annoying) teen heroine just as is.

Also, some of the larger villains can be pared down. I loved Tesseract, so I used her as both a structural model and plot hook for Pentaflex. The story is that after the malignant sixth-dimensional entities merged with Ms. Palamaris, a benevolent group of fifth-dimensional entities responded by also merging with a human host. He's therefore less powerful but also less nuts. She's a Hunted of his, but their encounters tend to turn into these bizarre fight/dialogues between two inimical extradimensional forces, each partially possessing two humans who have no need to harm each other.

Originally posted by Haerandir

Good ol' Transform. It's just like an RKA, only it's applied to Power Defense.

That, plus your Code vs. Killing isn't compromised...

Let's see...

Tesseract is a blast. Dimensional powers are great fun, and as an unwilling world conqueror she gives the PCs a few moral issues to work with.

I've always liked Firewing. Yes, the new version is less sympathetic; instead of a tortured figure who would almost be a hero (at least in his native culture), we have Desslok of Gamilon - definitely an enemy, albeit one with honorable qualities and a bit of style. His power-ups also make him very versatile, which makes him a better match for a flexible team.

Teleios (the Malachite rewrite) is, I think, better executed in terms of points and powers. He's Malachite with a mechanical retooling.

Istvatha V'Han...poses personal angst for me. She conquers the multiverse because she believes she's best qualified to run it...and there is some evidence to support her view. Her subjects' lives are generally improved by incorporation into her empire, and she does not seek to impose any ideology, religion or undue financial burden on them. So really, the only right she deprives them of is the right to choose their own leaders, all of whom are manifestly less qualified than Istvatha. I realise that it's more the principle of the thing...but sometimes I read the news and have to wonder about "V'Han in 2004: All your base are belong to V'Han". Besides, Istvatha V'Han: Empress of a Billion Dimensions is just an amazingly cool name.

I'm actually happier with the new Eurostar lineup. I realize that some Terror, Inc. fans are displeased, but I always thought of Muerte as a superfluous Destroyer Lite.

The Crowns of Krim are great fun, although my experience with them has mainly been as a player in "Champions 2018", an era in which Bloodstone has souled out for a power-up, and Talisman and Black Paladin have seized the Iron and Shadow crowns, respectively, in a coup. Never thought I'd yearn for the days of fighting the old Dark Seraph..."Talisman, Bride of Krim" is a spandex-soiling cancept made real.

Of final mention, Captain Chronos, in the hands of the right GM, becomes sort of a cross between Foxbat and Q. Never a dull moment.

Although AP is rarely efficient on its own (say, an 8D6 AP EB vs. a straight 12D6 EB), it can become so in conjunction with maneuvers and extra DCs. If you use the 8D6 AP EB with Fast Shot and 2 RDCs, you pay 72 points for a 12D6 AP EB, which works out to a +1/5 advantage with a +1 OCV tossed in as a tip. Almost always compares favorably to spending the same 72 points on a 14D6 EB and a +1 OCV w/single attack.

Actually, we had one character who was the offspring of the only Valkyrie to survive Ragnarok and Firewing.

This is from a campaign a friend is playing in. 350 points, custom gameworld, Bronze Age milieu. They had, at one point, beaten the tar out of their principal villain team; only the leader, Baron von Hellebore, escaped arrest. The next time, he was back with a new crew. A classic thug-brick, a manic, frazzled lightning-slinger, a power-armor type called Battle Beetle (appeared to be a man in a huge bug-shaped battlesuit, but was actually a huge bug in a form-fitting battlesuit)...and Waif.

Waif was this scrawny, pale little thing wrapped in tattered black rags, with big dark staring eyes and a tiny whispery voice. Apart from being far too pathetic for any self-respecting hero to hit, she had almost no defense but, apparently, high reductions or else a healing factor: any attack would toss her about like a rag doll and leave awful-looking cuts and bruises on her feeble little body, but nothing seemed capable of actually putting her out of the fight. Her only means of offense was a VPP (apparently in the 60AP base range) which apparently only did Suppresses. She seemed very good at switching the pool, very good at hitting and very, very good at picking what to Suppress (also, picking the right limitations so as to keep multiple Suppresses running for apparently little END). She quickly became more hated and feared than any mastervillain in the campaign world.

- Life Support is cheap. There are times and places when a 10 active point attack that removes your ability to breath water can make you long for a nice friendly incoming 12d6 EB.

- Adders are cheap, and Can Remove Adders attacks target them first. There are times and places when having your FF suddenly not protect the people/items you carry, or having your Teleportation suddenly not have No Relative Velocity , that can leave both character and player screaming "NOOOOOOO!!!!" (THUD!)

- Lack of Weakness is a defense power (double value vs. adjustment powers), but it's still cheap. The team brick knew he could always keep the Baron occupied until his teammates were ready to converge...until Waif put that devil's gleam back into the Baron's monocle.

- Power Defense is also a defense, but nobody buys that much of it. The mystic figured that at least she was safe from Waif, and she was...for one extra Phase...

The moral of this story? If it would cost less than 3 points (and would make sense) to make something Inherent , do give it a thought...

I must admit, several of the matchups have rung false to me.

Defender vs. Red Phoenix? Ironclad vs. Sentinel? Thunderbird vs. Alice, Queen of Hearts?

Defender and Sentinel are both leaders, both "true-blue" heroes and both equipped with similar powers (strength, resilience, flight, blasts...albeit from different sources). Tehy seemed like a natural match. That would leave Ironclad to fight Red Phoenix: two very tough but shrewd combatants with fearsome HTH power.

As for T-Bird, I have nothing against him, but he really doesn't have the depth of character to match alice, nor does he enjoy equivalent status in the CU. She's a member of the White Rooks, their premier villain team. Mechassassin or Scorpia, perhaps, are of comparable notoriety.

Unlike the Champions (plus Kinetik) vs. the Guard (plus Officer Prometheus), GOO have a primary villain team while the CU really doesn't - we have many more villains, though. I hope that as we see who else made the cut, it will be the ones we've been fondly battling down through the years.

BTW, can anyone say whether the respective parties decide all the matches in advance, or as things progress? If the lineup's already fixed, I'll spare you further exhortations.;

IIRC, when the new team was introduced, there was a fair amount of discussion of their personalities and background, but relatively little about the integrity of their design. One thing that always bugged me about the BBB team was that, although one of their functions was to provide examples of character design for new players, many of them suffered from odd flaws (shouldn't Seeker know how to use his martial-arts weapons with his martial arts?), which could lead new players astray.

Now, perhaps it was that we were all still getting used to 5th, or perhaps it was that, before CU and CKC, there wasn't enough opposition to give us a solid idea of what "typical" enemies would be like. By now, though, people ought to feel comfortable weighing in. Please note the intended focus is on mechanics:

- do the numbers match the character's intended concept?

- how effective are these characters in practice?

- would their strengths and weaknesses make them fun, or frustrating to play?

I'll kick off a few initial, 'kicker' observations:

DEFENDER: He's got a fair range of combat options: an energy-based multipower plus a decent Move-Through or Haymaker. He should probably go to 4d6 on his Overload Blast, but it's far from critical. His only non-END-costing attack is his Entangle, but he packs a pretty big reserve. His defenses are adequate by the new standards (especially with his in-armour CON of 30). Out of combat, he has both social and technological assets to employ. At 350 points, it's not hard to design a Power Armour hero who's at least a little combat-capable outside the suit, and James really isn't, but that's his only sore spot with me. Disads? Well, if I were powerless outside my costume I wouldn't choose a master sniper as a Hunted, but then, all D's enemies apparently want him alive (Capture), so it's not a kiss of death.

If I were to play him, I'd look into learning Combat Piloting (so that if his suit is ever damaged/stolen/whatever, he can fly the V-Jet or a personal fighting vehicle). I'd also look into picking up some maneuvers (either martial arts, or just tight-group CSLs for whatever he seems to use most often).

IRONCLAD: Offensively, the HTH levels offset the lowish DEX, 60 STR is perfectly adequate for a brick and the Gladiator's Eye makes it downright scary. His PD and ED are...again, OK by the standards of the new edition, and he has a host of peripheral defensive powers and resistances. Is Leaping a good choice of primary movement type when you weigh 2000 kg? Hmm, 2" tunnelling linked to Leaping... Out of combat, he has limited skills, but his off-planet origins would make for entertaining roleplay - sometimes, it's less important to be useful than to be fun. Disads? Firewing wants to kill him. This is bad. The entire team collectively would have trouble taking Firewing. And doesn't Firewing actually want to defeat him in honourable battle and prove his own supremacy? They've scrapped before, and never to the death. Why this sudden "no quarter" attitude from Ariax Thone? "Kill" isn't worth any more points than "Publically Beat the Snot Out Of", and is less in character for Firewing.

If I were to play Ironclad...well, in time I'd really have to either buy off his cultural impairment or let me swap it for an equal point Disad. Contacts and Earth-relevant noncombat skills would allow him to stay entertaining after the novelty of playing "clueless alien" wears thin. Obviously, I'd like more defense, and since this is the team's official damage sponge, the GM might let me edge up to 30/30.

NIGHTHAWK: No Weapon Element! Argh! for one measly point, he could use his weapon with his technique. Growl, mutter. As it is, he has to Haymaker with the club just to do damage *equal* to his Punch/Kick. His defenses (including defensive maneuvers) are actually not bad for a Martial Artist/Acrobat type. My real beef (besides the WE) is his offense. DEX 25 is certainly not bad, but with only a single Overall Level, and no martial attacks that offer an OCV bonus, combined with his lackluster 10D6 principal attack, means that he's a real terror to muggers, and can whip a Viper agent or even two of them, but supervillains in the 350-point range will generally prove too hard to hit or too hard to hurt.

Of course, this is because Mark isn't just a Martial Artist; he's also a Gadgeteer and a street-sleuth. The weapons on his utility belt are only 30 ap attacks, but at 1 point a slot, he's got a lot of them. If his investigations reveal that a certain enemy has a certain vulnerability, he may have it in his pocketses. He has the teamwork skill, and may be used for timely "assists", pelting a Stunned foe with a sleep-gas pellet to make sure they stay out of the fight, or Martial-throwing a foe so that a teammate can get 'em while they're prone. Out of combat, he has a host of gadgets and skills; no problem being useful there. Disads: erm, Mechassassin isn't As Pow, he's Mo Pow. Drop the frequency to 8- and it works out to the same points (and Mark may survive).

If I were playing Nighthawk: he's actually a good growth prospect. Since my ego doesn't require me to play the heaviest of hitters, I could handle a support/backup role for the first few sessions. Then, 1 point for the weapons element, 3 points a pop for a Kung Fu CSL or two, 1 point each for any gadgets I want to round out the belt with, and suddenly it all starts to come together. The belt weapons (apart from the clubs) tend to be either AE or else are meant to be used in surprise situations or against distracted foes, so I'm not worried about buying up levels for them, and my skills are so high that the Overall level ought to be plenty - for now at least.

Sapphire: Well, she has the "misses a lot" problem even worse than Nighthawk - OCV 8, ranged attacks, and she's not stealthy enough to get many surprise attacks off. Apart from "Ironclad, hold him while I shoot him!", Rapid Fire is flat out -which is too bad, because her 0 END blast would be pretty good there. That said, it fits the character concept for her to be a bit unpracticed, and it's easily fixed. She can spread the beam on Power Bolt I until she improves her aim. Defenses are looking good, although a little bulletproof spandex would be a good idea in case she gets Stunned in flight - that FF's nonpersistent. Unlike many mutant blasters, her END costs are pretty light - which means she shouldn't be afraid to Push when it counts. Noncombat? Well, on the one hand, playing a famous star can be a lot of fun, but there is little she can actually *do* - she hasn't cultivated useful Contacts despite her fame, she has very few skills, her PS: Singing 14- is quite capable but hardly legendary, and she doesn't even have the Acting skill...My God, it *is* J. Lo with mutant powers!

If I were to play Sapphire, I'd...develop the noncombat side with Contacts and/or Followers, possibly Acting and Disguise (useful show-biz skills which apply well to crimefighting, and are especially handy when that Public ID is proving bothersome). It would be out of character to push combat exclusively, but picking up 3-pt CSLs and Rapid Attack (Ranged) in between winning over media figures and learning to dance and act wouldn't be inappropriate.

WITCHCRAFT: Frameworks? Why yes we have frameworks! She's much more likely to hit with her mental spells, which include a perfectly whompy Ego Attack plus MC and MI: the latter two are too weak for brute-force mindbending, but are perfectly serviceable if used subtly. If an opponent's DCV is lowered (he's Sweeping, Stunned, Grabbed, unaware) a 2-shot Transform RF will often be enough to introduce a foe to his "inner amphibian". The Witchfire, IMO, is mainly reserved for use against the odd foe who's not vulnerable to mental spells or human-to-frog; therefore, I'd sooner see it at 12D6 and full END cost, rather than its current lukewarm incarnation. Her defenses are weak even by 5th Ed standards, and while she is in many ways a mentalist, she doesn't have Mind Scan or a Detect with Targeting, which means that staying out of sight may not be a feasible first line of defense.

But, then there's the VPP. You can do a lot with 30 points. Out of combat, she has powerful reconnaisance abilities (turning yourself into an innocuous animal with keen senses and human intellect is remarkably effective for the points cost). When preparing for battle, she can do something as straightforward as kicking up some extra defense or as inobvious as a spell of illusion (switching her appearance with Ironclad's is fun, and in subsequent fights you don't even need to actually do it; it's enough that they have to guess)

If I were playing Witchcraft: the problem with developing such a versatile and framework-oriented character is that she could stand to be better at everything she does, but it takes patience to muster the points to kick a framework up a notch. She has the skills she needs, and it would be a tad out of character for such a focused person to start randomly learning a pile of unrelated stuff. Hmm...I'd spend the odd point on increasing her INT (representing her greater overall awareness and comprehension), and switching INT-based skills from 8- and 11- to 9+INT/5-, but I'd stash away about half my earnings Until I could kick the EC up. Faster Flight and a stronger FF would go a goodly way to keeping her from harm, and would leave me free to use the VPP for fun stuff instead of extra defense.

Your thoughts?

I think that much of the umbrage stems from whether the Seeker appearance is interpreted by the reader as an in-joke meant to appeal to older players or as a "jab" meant to snub them.

Now, I love Seeker dearly (despite the infuriating design flaws in the BBB edition), but I wasn't offended by seeing him getting pounded one more time. It's not as if he'd traditionally appeared posing triumphantly on a dozen covers in the old days, and that this illo was attempting to convey that "his time is now over; you must all support the new team". It just wouldn't be classic Seeker if he weren't drawn getting his butt kicked. This isn't "mocking the old team"; it's consistent portrayal, and a salute to those of us hoary and ancient enough to get the reference.

Well, I suppose you could invert the punchline: show a cover with only Seeker left standing. Sort of a "retirement bonus".

The Monster is supposed to be a mystery, true...but if it becomes clear to the players that the mystery is unsolvable by GM fiat, they'll give up trying.

I'd say that the unraveling of the Monster's story ought to be possible, but only as the result of prolonged and heroic effort. If the PCs don't rise to the bait when they encounter the first teaser clues, then the Monster can remain an enigma forever (no sense shoehorning the players into a multipart adventure if they don't seem interested in the plot). If, on the other hand, they seize upon it and swear to unmask the monster at any cost, then the game is afoot.

- The sessions shouldn't run back-to-back. One clue might lead them to cross paths with DEMON, then there might be a natural disater requiring their immediate attention, then more Monster-hunting, then VIPER kidnaps some DNPCs and needs to be dealt with and so on.

- There should be at least one false trail. Perhaps a latent psychic who was terrorized by the Monster starts subconsciously releasing "psychic manifestations" of it whenever frightened or angered...or perhaps when suffering from nightmares. The PCs could spend some time "discovering" that the Monster is actually the product of someone's powerful but traumatized mind, and somehow end that threat (which will require more than just combat skills, since the person causing the problem is actually an unwitting victim), only to discover that the mental-illusion Monster was not in fact the original Monster. Sure, lives have been saved, but they've only been chasing the echo of a nightmare. Back to the drawing board, then...

- By the time they reach the end, spilling the Monster's origin won't be an anticlimax; it will be a reward well earned, and at great price. And, having hit upon a couple of false leads already, the PCs might never be *completely* certain that they know the whole truth...

Just a wee sketch by the very talented Natalie;

Works well for Marchwarden and his all-too-persistent DNPCs, the Legion of Screaming Fangirls..

Hmmm...so many characters over the years. Almost enough shining moments to ease the pain of the defeats...

But just this past week, Marchwarden outdid himself in Champions 2018. Our archenemies, as I'd mentioned on my I-need-a-hug thread, had truly whupped us. Trashed the base, captured our team leader, scattered us to the winds. Two teammates were in the hospital, and one was physically fine but mentally traumatised. Marchwarden had taken a lot of STUN (been knocked out for a bit, even), but was spared lasting harm: he'd run out of arrows, and chose to haul a dying teammate to safety rather than rashly take on the whole villain team with only his long-handled woodland-knives.

We, as players, were keen to bounce back. The GM agreed to an out-of-schedule session with Defender II's player and myself (D2's player is the GM's roommate, so he was available if necessary). He PBEM'd some noncombat interaction whereby two of the original Champions came to see the wounded team members, and they role-played their way through the doubt and shock of our team's first severe defeat, and emerged the stronger.

Meanwhile, Marchwarden tracked down the Crowns. Seeing an opportunity and the need for haste, he undertook to rescue his friend. It was a simple matter of:

- Infiltrating the enemy base solo, knowing that several of them can sense souls, smell blood, detect vibrations etc..

- having to leave his bow and arrows behind , as there was no way to smuggle them in under the circumstances(Marchwarden is a reasonably well rounded weaponmaster, but his archery is by far his primary "power").

- crawling through 200 meters of blood and effluvia (sneaking into temple-converted-from-slaughterhouse via drainage sluice)

- making a nail-biting series of skill and stat checks as he slunk around, hiding from the Crowns, mugging and interrogating cultists, and puzzling out where the prisoner was kept.

- spotting Phoenix, who was on guard outside the cell door, and downing him with a do-or-die, push-everything charge, before he could raise an alarm

- reviving his teammate

- finding the armour and getting his friend into it just as someone discovered an unconscious guard and the alarm was raised

- clinging to Defender II's back as he blasted out on jet-overdrive. They outflew all the pursuit...except Dark Talisman, Bride of Krim, who bescried their location when the overdrive burned out, and 'ported in front of them in a burst of brimstone.

- facing her, bowless and arrowless, after she dropped D2 into GM's option; the fleeing heroes had radioed an SOS, but it would take time for help to arrive; she needed to be stalled...

- ducking hellfire gouts, dodging lightning bolts, feeling her evil will press against his... and that's when I casually asked the GM what class of minds her EGO attack affected (she was momentarily puzzled by her spell's lack of effect; then Lomion Tar-Terevhen, Marchwarden of the Galadhrim, threw back his hood and introduced himself properly).

- getting subsequently chased by a seeping, expanding cloud of carnivorous mist, dropping to one knee, pitching slowly forward...barely clinging to life...

- and hearing every audio device within three city blocks come to life and begin blasting Queen's "We are the Champions". The rest of the team had gotten the SOS. Three wounded but determined superheroes plus Ironclad and Sapphire came barreling in to the rescue. The Dark Lady of the Iron Crown was put to flight. The team was reunited. And our leader had even had the presence of mind to recall a few tidbits of information he'd overheard as he languished in captivity...we know now how the got the drop on us last time...we are all looking forward to the rematch.

Bit of a mismatch, really. Not just in power, but in degree of development and color.

Alice is a member of the White Rooks, and cinsidered to be at the top of her field. Mechassassin has comparable notoriety in the Champions Universe, and would have been a better match-up in terms of ability as well.

That said, Scorpia fulfills an iconic role similar to Alice's, but seems a tad underpowered. That said, AQoH's psionics are very short ranged (I think about 10 yards), so it could still be an interesting fight - if Scorpia gets a chance to wing Alice with a drugged dart before they close, then the two femmes fatales would be on a more even footing, the Irishwoman's poison against the Englishwoman's mental powers, with comparable weaponskill and ruthlessness.

Hmm...Mechanon and Iron Duke? I'd have to see the write-ups, but assuming comparable literary efforts, I'd be expecting Mechanon to enjoy a slight edge. If ID destroys Mechanon's body, but Mechanon pulls a comeback with his detachable head...that'd be worth checking out.

Firewing vs. General Winter...oh yes. Gotta happen. I'd probably go with whichever author did a better job of showcasing the raw elemental power these two heavy hitters would be tossing around.

Janus and...I'd have tapped Thunderbird, but since he's busy getting his butt kicked by AQoH, perhaps Mechassassin or Scorpia. Janus' creepy psycho-serial-killer personality would make a Janus vs. the Monster mutual stalk-a-thon a pretty intense read, but even with intersystem power-fudging, Janus really isn't in the Monster's league. I'd contemplated a Janus/Black Harlequin creep-off, but the BH is awkward to write effectively with such a modest word allowance.

Jade Naga? White Banner? SAS has a much shorter list of villains, so it's not hard to predict who'll show up. On the Hero side, I hope the focus falls on the tried-and-true nemeses we've learned to love to hate so much.

Mechanon (easy call, he'll be up against the Iron Duke)

Grond or Ogre (whichever is the nearest in power to his prospective opponent)

Firewing (you *can't* leave Ariax Thone out of a battle royale of these proportions)

Scorpia? Not as much of a staple as some other bad guys, but her resume includes membership in two prominent teams, so her roots go pretty deep in the CU villain community.

Pulsar? He's less of a joke than Bulldozer, and he has been around a while. Hardly anyone hasn't fought him.

Deathstroke and VOICE are gone (at least for now); the Ultimates are fairly notorious, but solo combat isn't where they shine.

Foxbat? They wouldn't. He may be an essential part of the CU rogues' gallery, but he just wouldn't fit in.

1) Can you make multiple-maneuver attacks with Ranged Combat Maneuvers?

2) When making a multiple-maneuver attack with an autofire attack, does the autofire effect apply to each maneuver? For instance, if I make an Offensive Shot + Fast Shot + Far Shot with an AF 3 weapon and make my roll by 5, do I get 3 hits with each of the maneuvers? If not, what is the case?

Let us say that I push my 2D6 HKA (up to 2.5D6, for 10 END).

Is this considered an increase in base damage (thus allowing a possible max damage of 5D6+1), or is it considered to be added damage (maximum still 4d6)?

Similarly, is an Aid to my HKA considered to be an increase to base damage, or is it added damage?

Thanks.