mrinku

Hugh, wasn't able to work out how to reply to your individual points as you did with mine, so I'll address them in summary: The comment I made about my players not being too gamey was in relation to my original, flawed idea that allowed them to take half their actions at once. I don't think they'd use it in the manner that others posted, but I admit I could be wrong You're quite right that under this variant some speeds vs some other speeds get an extra tap earlier in the Turn, but that will mean losing a tap later on. In the case of SPD7 vs SPD4 the current sequence, assuming SPD7 has higher DEX, is 7-4-7-7-4-7-7-4-7-7-4 with the variant going 7-7-7-4-7-4-7-7-4-7-4. I fully take your concern about the triple tap, and agree the speed chart is fairer (it should always remain the default) because it DOES spread actions more evenly. But in framing this example, it took me about four times as long to write down the 7vs4 sequence from a table as it did to mentally work out the variant sequence. And as ever, SPD 7 annoys. Good work zeroing in on that inconvenient Prime Shifting the odd action to the second Round may end up being a better approach. I'll need to analyze it better. (Edit: Another way to do things might be to have everyone take their first action then their second, then their third etc. Might mirror the later double and triple taps better. And maybe use SPD as first tiebreaker.) The haymaker thing bothers me too. But the fact that the existing chart gives differing results based on speed does as well. SPD/DEX builds probably shouldn't be using them much anyway: -5 DCV for two whole segments is not something you do lightly. And yeah, it looks complex written down. But I talked to a person yesterday who has never played HERO, though they're a veteran RPG gamer, and I was able to explain the concept in about a minute to the point that they fully understood it. Someone who would need briefing in concepts such as "number of actions in a turn" "initiative order" and "held actions" would take a bit longer, but that would be needed for explaining the speed chart anyway. In thirty years I've yet to fully memorise the speed chart, and my eyesight isn't what it was. Wasting time switching focus from the minis or screen to check the chart (EDIT: or a running sheet, which is what I normally use) and back all the time is going to slow me more than you may credit. My hope is that this idea, which gives something approximating the chart, will be an easier thing for some players and GMs to hold in their head. We haven't playtested this yet (I only had the idea yesterday and I've aready overhauled it). I plan to run things RAW to start with and once the players are familiar with that to trial this idea and see how it affects things in play. If the answer is more than "not much, really" it's a fail, otherwise I'll use it when it's appropriate.

An alternate approach for Accessible foci would be to use Martial Disarm as a base and take skill levels to enhance it. Stretching would allow it to be used at range. As far as direct attacks go, what special effect you're defining will dictate your options a bit. For example, an EMP that shorts out electronics might have an AE and the limit of "only vs electrical equipment without hardened defenses" would be safe to allow an NND RKA. On the other hand, if you're defining it as a pinpoint laser, Penetrating sounds like a better approach. If it's a spell that turns technology into wooden objects, Transform is your power (I'd avoid Dispel since you may have to deal with characters that fall into your definition of what kinds of Focus your attack affects, and it's best to leave them a way of recovering. Also, some foci may still be somewhat usable as wooden objects).

Robo-bushi gets away with being buck nekkid, like most robots Plus he's armoured. Dwarfstar shrinks but doesn't change mass... he gets very dense very quickly, and since the costume does as well, it's effectively indestructable, I guess. (Dwarfy was designed in good old 3rd ed, when Density Increase gave you resistant defense, too. Annoyed me having to buy that separate and add it in 4th) Captain Third goes to the third best tailor in the world, and being the third richest man in Jefferson City can afford to.

I'll add my thumbs up for an excellent bit of work! Only real gripe is the character sheet. Seriously, this is Champions not generic HERO. Where's the character portrait blank? I realise there wasn't room to include pre-drawn heroes, but previous versions of the sheet managed to get everything onto ONE page AND still found room for a big rectangle to show the costume. And powers on the back of the sheet? Really?

Hi! Been a Champions nut for a very long time (1985, 3rd ed) but been quite inactive over the last decade and a half. Ran a lot of 3rd and 4th ed but skipped over Fuzion (ugh) and 5th ed. Champions Complete has recently fallen into my lap and the old juices are starting to flow again. How did you come up with your 'handle' (forum name)? I picked up a nickname as "The Missing Link" at my first proper job. Link is "Rinku" in Japanese which I was always a fan of. Nothing to do with Zelda - but because of Link from Zelda I got into the habit of sticking the "m" for missing in front to make a handle. What was the first tabletop RPG you played? 1st Edition Traveller, circa 1980. What was the first tabletop RPG you GMed? Ditto. What are you currently playing/GMing? Playing 2nd Ed Space:1889 (Ubiquity version) with the old gang via Skype. Prepping to run Champions 6th after we finish that campaign. Edit: Just added a profile picture. Never played Captain Third in a tabletop game, but he's appeared in City of Heroes, DCUO, Pirates of the Burning Sea and has a miniature (pictured). Probably I should have a picture of Robo-bushi or Dwarfstar who go back to my actual Champions playing days, but Cap started as a wargaming tournament in-joke and the first drawing of him was as a forum profile portrait, so hey.

Yep. Dumbest thing ever IMHO. I'm quite glad I skipped 5th now. Fortunately 6th has a far better Regeneration, including the 1 BODY per day effect that an earlier poster was after for 4pts. As far as the topic goes, the old 1d6 HKA blade backed up by 15 STR was always a favorite. 15 points (-1 OAF) for 7 points. Very efficient at minor property damage, cutting ropes and even carving initials as a calling card, should you so be inclined.

Thought I'd directly answer these good points (using the tweaked version from my edit). The "problem" is avoiding a look up table to plan forward. If I'm SPD 5 fighting one SPD 7 and one SPD 4 opponent, unless I have a VERY good memorisation of the table it'll take me a little while to work out when to dodge, when to hold, when the best time to launch a Haymaker and so forth. With this way of doing things it's a lot clearer - I'll get an extra action in Phase A before the SPD 4 guy, but the SPD 7 guy will get an extra action before me in both Phases. For me, the predictability of the speed chart is not an issue at all, and this variant is not intended to address that. EDIT: Though.... if you wanted a bit of unpredictability you could have everyone roll their SPD as normal damage dice at the start of the Turn and count the BODY to give them their actual SPD for the Turn. That's a separate idea and can be used with the normal Speed Chart. If this would cause END issues in a carefully tuned character that had more SPD than they could handle, they can always choose to act at a lower speed, using the normal rule for that. Also, Haymakers in the revised Round A/B idea need to change slightly, since there's no "next segment" for them to land at the end of. Instead, they would land at the end of the next group of actions, and nullify any regular action that character had (normal Haymaker rule about losing a Phase). I'm not fully happy with that, but Haymakers can be launched with varying penalties depending on the timing... a low DEX character going last on segment 6 often has a free shot since not many speeds act on segment 7, while high speed characters often expect to lose a phase throwing one.

Sound points there. I will explain that my players aren't particularly gamey, so personally I'm not too worried about abuse too much. I mainly see it as a way of speeding up combat when there's a lot of mooks and the players are getting multiple moves anyway. SPD6 super vs SPD 3 thugs already gets a free action for every thug one. Maybe it's an idea that would better suit Heroic campaigns where the speed range is 2-4? EDIT: Thought of an easy tweak that seems to deal with the above concerns. Instead of a character taking all their actions, count down the actions from the maximum for that Round (possibly from 6, but in many cases this will just be 3 or 2) and all characters that have than many actions take them in DEX order. I've also changed it so that any remainder action gets taken in the first Round as this makes the sequence conform better to the normal speed chart. So if we have a combat with SPD 3,4,5,6 and 7, the sequence goes: Round A: Those with four actions (SPD 7) Those with three or more actions (SPD 7, 6 and 5) Those with two or more actions (SPD 7, 6, 5, 4 and 3) Those with one or more action (SPD 7, 6, 5, 4 and 3) Round B: Those with three or more actions (SPD 7 and 6) Those with two or more actions (SPD 7, 6, 5 and 4) Those with one or more action (SPD 7, 6, 5, 4 and 3) It does still slightly advantage some faster characters at the start of the turn, however will result in a slightly better situation for the slower character later in the turn. And while the absolute action sequence is different to the standard chart, in cases where the faster character also has the higher DEX it's the same for SPD 5 vs SPD 6, which is a pretty common one: 6-5-6-5-6-5-6-6-5-6-5 SPD 6 vs SPD 4 now results in a 6-6-4-6-4-6-6-4-6-4 sequence instead of 6-4-6-6-4-6-4-6-6-4 one, which I don't think is going to break anyone's game or build. Other comparisons give similar results. SPD 1 still acts in the middle of the Turn (and after SPD2 unless they have a better DEX). So, why bother at all if it's so similar? Well, I can hold these simple rules in my head and can easily remember when one character is going to act. That should speed up decision making. The only maths needed to work it out is dividing small integers by two. And I'd hope it would be easier to learn for new players (your mileage may vary). Round two!

Just coming back in after a decade or so away, but my heart has belonged to Champions since 1985. Anyway, I got access to some 6th edition stuff and am having a go at updating the old campaign from 4th edition and because we'll be playing via Skype and will have fairly narrow session limits (one 2 and a half hour session a week) I was mulling over speeding up combat a bit and came up with the following idea. Apologies if this is something others have invented - I literally thought of it this morning! Okay, so the idea is to ditch the speed chart altogether and have two 6-second rounds in a Turn, Round A and Round B (I used letters to avoid confusion with Phases and Segments). Characters act in descending order of SPD each round, with the usual DEX tiebreakers for equal SPD, and then get to use half of their SPD as actions all at one go. Odd numbered SPD characters get their extra one in Phase B, which is in line with how the current speed chart weights phases towards the end of a Turn. Actions are held normally, but in practice you'll only need to hold your last action of a Round. Aborts work normally, but again you won't be able to abort again until your time to act has happened. Haymakers would be limited to one per Round and land at the end of that Round. (If you have fast characters that routinely spam them, you probably shouldn't use this variant...) A successful hand to hand Block results in the blocker going before the attacker on the next Round. This is an improvement IMHO since the current "if they act together in their next phase" rule has always felt wrong. It's meant to be a reward for a slow character that's outfought a faster one, but often enough the faster guy acts on an earlier segment and there's no effect. I ran the idea through an example with my players and it seemed to work pretty smoothly (I can post the example - 6 VIPER agents vs three supers - tomorrow if you want, but the text is at work and it's a bit long to recreate). It may not be something to run EVERY combat, but you can always swap back to standard speed chart on the next turn if you want or need to. This variant changes no stats and has no effect on between turns stuff like the end of turn Recovery. Now - pick it to shreds!

Summon can be used to put them on the map.Then it's just a matter of designing them, probably using autonomon features. Summon also has rules for the summoned thing disappearing - in this case the special effect dictates that happens when they explode or run out of fuel. Flight with fuel, a one shot explosion Blast or KA, a targeting sense and an appropriate order should be sufficient.