Doctor Agenda

Re: The Things I Learned Playing A Villain...

Right, Jay Garrick, my bad brain. I know SOME speedster got his powers from the River Styx, I remember reading it and being struck by him getting super speed instead of invulnerability. Anyone know what I'm talking about, as I evidently don't?

Re: The Things I Learned Playing A Villain...

True.

 

Perhaps the reason I'm down on the 'drown Aquaman' thing is simply because it ignores one of his primary abilities. He's an ocean dweller after all, he's lived in water all his life, trying to drown him just seems innately lame to me.

 

Making him fear the water on the other hand, that plays on his weaknesses and is just plain mean, making it a much better plan.

I thought Jay Garett got his super speed from the River Styx?

Re: Tuala Morn

Let me know how that is.

Pretty good, I'm not really interested in the rules, more in the geography and ancient civilizations. Mediterranea is now Europa, and there is more on cool First Age Atlantean technomagic devices: submarines, flying platforms that look like manta rays, fire lances, that kind of thing. I'm stealing ideas from the Turakian Age to apply to the Citadel of Tok in Draconea. It is a good fit for my campaign, which features balloons, black powder, and steam power.

Re: Tuala Morn

That sounds like the book from the now-defunct Bard Games' date=' which also published the original [i']Talislanta[/i]. A very fine tome and setting, particularly for the era.

 

You might be interested to know that a newer game publisher, Morrigan Press, acquired the rights to that property and has recently released Atlantis: The Second Age, a spiffy update of the classic world book. It uses the Omni System, based on the game mechanics from Talislanta Fourth Edition. If it sells well Morrigan plans to publish further world expansions.

That's the one!

Thanks for the tip, I am now the proud owner of the new electronic edition!

Re: Tuala Morn

There'll be a brief chapter touching on areas beyond Tuala Morn. It will mostly focus on a few nearby Northern European-esque areas, and the descriptions won't be too extensive -- very much an "overview" sort of thing. Anything beyond that's not going to get more than a paragraph or two, at most.

 

I'd be happy to detail the rest of the setting, but the TM book has to sell well enough first.

I'll do my part. Looking forward to buying the book and hope you do more with the time period. Currently I'm limping along with a twenty-something year old 2nd-age of Atlantis game book for my prehistoric-but-suggestive-of-historical-cultures-to-come fantasy setting.

Re: Marvel's Best Martial Artists

Just got here and haven't read the whole thread, but no Yellow Claw?

Re: Review of Hidden Lands

Define the Missile Deflection as bracing for impact and it won't require finesse.

20 resistant hardened Def should be enough to make him tank-proof, the remaining non-resistant PD & ED should be enough to take care of the Stun.

He already has enough skills.

His technical skills imply a level of former geekiness.

A Watched by Ashima, Archon, or/and the authorities would all be appropriate, IMO.

I'm unclear as to what effect he actually has on his surrouding environment when he uses his powers?

Re: Review of Hidden Lands

Yep, as I said he's a pretty solid character. He just happens not to fulfill my peculiar obsession about the criteria for looking truly "super" (as 30 STR, 10/10 Resistant Defenses, 10d6 Energy Blasts and 10" Flight aren't nothing any wuxia fighter couldn't manage nicely, too), but apart of my bias (blame my growing up gorging on the outlandish comic stuff only, such as Avengers, FF4, Thor, Silver Surfer, Dr. Strange), he's fine.

 

Yep, skill customization from character background, beyond "class" template. I see the rationale. Conversation just didn't strike as the most typical social skill for a teen to have.

 

If you do something all the time, you proably end up rubbing some of the expertise from the exposition, so a 11- or 12- in Persuasion and Seduction might be justified, since Johnny isn't going to have very high rolls in social skills anyway (maybe I'd balance him a bit more between PRE and COM, or he risks to be a bit too much of "only skin deep".

 

Hmm, IMO it's pretty much the same issue as whether it is justified to get Hunted (employer): Watching and Subject to Orders. IMO there is ample justification for getting double disadvantages in both cases. However, none of the canon Empyrean characters have the double Secret ID, so I did not use it, whileas as lof of canon characters are both Watched and Subject to Orders.

 

Rather good, the first part has a lot of discussion on the teen mindset and way of living (though IMO it delves a bit too much on the "insecure teen" and too little on the "cocky teen" viewpoint)and high school social dynamics; I dunno how much it will be truly useful for the younger slice of the fanbase, but it's rather good. What truly shines, IMO, it is the second part, where you get a lof of setting info on the CU signature Superhuman School (can we say Xavier and on a more general sense, about the Super-School subgenre. Anyone willing to do this angle of the genre will find it quite useful.

 

After reading Invincible and the Pact, I got wondering about doing a teenager cosmic-powered supergroup; though the suggested power level is way different from what I wanted, I found the book rather useful. I look forward to getting my hardcopy fondly.

Thanks for your insights, Wanderer!

I'll be glad to see TH if only because my campaign is set in North Detroit and one of the PCs is a benefactor of RW, and I've been kind of avoiding it while waiting to see what comes out. Just like I held back on revealing one of the characters is an Empyrean until the Hidden Lands came out. It is actually kind of good for my game, keeps me from rushing subplots.

Re: Review of Hidden Lands

This is no real difficulty for me, since I am persuaded that the canon writeup of Archon is quite underpowered anyway. A character like that, one of the most important members of the CU Avengers' equivalent, one of the most prominent and battle-worthy Empyreans, the CU equivalent of Ikaris or Gilgamesh, should definitely be in the Thor/Silver Surfer range, and should clock at 1000+ pts. range.

I agree Archon should be 100 or 200 points more powerful than most of the other Sentinels. Is he not?

Re: Review of Hidden Lands

As I said, I pretty much picked and chose among the skills in the Teens templates (geek, popular boy, loner) in my playtest copy of Teen Champions. I was guilty of not being able to choose a single clique at the time, so I left in there skills fitting for 2-3 teen social backgrounds. OK. My fault for gorging in Skills.

 

Here, do you think this is going to be more acceptable for an Empyrean superhero upperclassman or college freshman ?

 

KS: The Empyreans 8-

KS: Music 13-

KS: Pop Culture 13-

KS: The Superhuman World 8-

 

And:

 

Oratory 14-

Persuasion 14-

Seduction 14-

for a popular boy/girl

 

Or:

Computer Programming 13-

Electronics 13-

Mechanics 13-

for a geek

 

Maybe even a brief career in superheroics at the cosmic power range might justify buying a familiarity with KS: World Politics, much like you tend to get KS: The Superhuman World, I'm uncertain about it.

Looks interesting, I'm looking forward to seeing Teen Hero myself. That first set looks especially appropriate for a typical Empyrean teenager.

Re: Review of Hidden Lands

Well-grounded as a concept, even if he is so low-powered that IMO he looks rather like more of a talented cinematic wuxia fighter than a "real" super. But I'm biased anyway, since in my sensibility to be a true super you have *at least* to be in the Warbird/Human Torch range. Apart from this completely subjective opinion, I'm somewhat perplexed on making Conversation the only relevant social skill for a teen. Conversation implies refined speech patterns. I'd rather use Persuasion and/or Seduction instead, they are more focused on typical social interactions close to a teen's heart (getting adults to do what they want, and scoring with pretty peers . Another note: for Empyrean characters, I'm always somewhat dubious about whether their racial secret would qualify as a separate Social Disdvantage, in addition to Secret Identity (such as Harmful Secret). There two different secrets to hide.

You definitely took care of the discrepancy between Irithion and Archon!

I think Johnny's pretty reasonably powered for a New Mutants/Sky High or Low-powered Champions game. The point was really to bring a Young Empyrean down to 250 points...start with Johnny as a base (reworking the skills) and you can have a perfectly playable 350-point standard hero. It's a heck of alot easier to add points than take them away. It also means that not every Empyrean is going to overwhelm a 350-point opponent.

I don't think Conversation implies refined speech patterns, I think it implies the ability to get people to talk about themselves, but another social skill would have been fine. Johnny is just good at getting people to open up. I avoided Seduction cause he's so pretty the girls are after him, he never had to learn it. I didn't mean it to be the only relevant social skill for a teen, it just happens to be the one he had. Lots of folks don't have any.

I was dubious about Empyrean as a separate Secret ID too, that's why I combined them.

I haven't seen Teen Hero yet, is it any good?

Re: Review of Hidden Lands

Blerg' date=' I think therein lay the problem: three skills total. IMHO, no hero outside of a Grond-like imbecile should be that skill-less.[/quote']

 

I disagree about that being a valid criticism for a teenage character, but that's just me. OTH, Johnny is a low-power super, upgrade him to standard 350, surely you can tweak him to your satisfaction with 100 more points to play with?

Re: Review of Hidden Lands

Well, he's a teen, so it's reasonable to cut his skills back... Would spending another ten points on skills make you happy?

 

That would take him to 260 points, and he could be trimmed back to 250 easily enough.

 

Personally, I'm not too stressed about his skills. Once you include his "Everykid" skills he would be able to do most of the stuff he should be able to do.

 

But then, I did start playing in the Bad Old Days, when buying a Professional skill, a City Knowledge, an Area Knowledge and a Knowledge skill demonstrated a serious committment to roleplaying.

 

(Hmm... that's ten points worth. Definitely serious!)

(I'm assuming 3 points each for PS and CK, 2 each for AK and KS. Or tweak a bit.)

That was my take, that most teenagers would have fewer skills than the average adult, and you could consider Johnny to have a 0-point PS like Student or Metalhead or Jock or Popular Kid. I think his skills are about right for an Empyrean teenager who was fairly normal before his powers 'came online' and spent a summer with the other side of the family before returning to home and school. I just don't think a suite of athletic, social, and technical skills is realistic for a teenage character who isn't supposed to be a polymath prodigy.

PS: Thanks for the post, Questionman!

Re: Review of Hidden Lands

I figure a character like mine would be at home in an X-Something ' date=' Young JLA or "reserve Avengers" team, as a prospective full member in training of the major teams, with some more years of experience under his belt. Well, after some attitude adjustment and a bit more mastery on controlling attack powers...[/quote']

 

Your high-power bias certainly shows, Irioth is more powerful than Archon(!), an Empyrean 29 hundred and some change Irioth's senior.

 

Here's my take on a 'Teenpyrean', if I can get the spacing right this time:

 

Johnny Gray, Empyrean High School Student, 'Zap' in his Heroic ID

Val Char Base Cost

30 Str 10 20

18 Dex 10 24

20 Con 10 20

15 Bod 10 10

13 Int 10 3

14 Ego 10 8

13 Pre 10 3

20 Com 10 5

10 PD 6 4

10 ED 4 6

4 Spd 2.8 12

10 Rec 10 0

40 End 40 0

40 Stn 40 0

Characteristics: 115

Cost Power

25 Graviton-manipulating Flight: 10" at 1/2 End (+1/4) to 1 End

47 Empyrean Physiology: As Empyrean package plus 8 hrs sleep/week

10 Empyrean Toughness: 10rPD, 10rED Damage Resistance

3 Empyrean Physiology: -3 Lack of Weakness for resistant defenses

5 Empyrean Physiology: 5 points Power Defense

5 Empyrean Mental Shields: 8 points Mental Defense with Ego 14

25 Bioenergy Blast: 10d6, x2 End (-1/2), Act 14-(-1/2) at 10 End

Powers: 120

9 Contact 8- with Empyreans (very useful skills or resources, org)

1 KS: Empyreans 8-

2 KS: Music 11-

3 Conversaton 12-

Skills & Perks: 15

 

Points Disadvantage

20 DNPCs 8-: Normal Friends & Family (x2 Group)

15 Hunted 8- by Lemurians

5 Monitored 8- by Ashima the Enforcer

15 Psych Lim: Protective of Innocents

15 Psych Lim: Code vs Killing

10 Psych Lim: Feels Duty to Help the Less Fortunate

5 Reputation 8- as Helpful Teen Hero/High School Underachiever

15 Soc Lim: Secret ID (that he's Johnny AND that he's an Empyrean)

 

Base: 150 Disads: 100 Total: 250

Re: Review of Hidden Lands

Wow! That's quite a teenager! Is he really a teenager (13-19) or relatively a teenager (20-99)?

I agree it is a perspective thing. The highest point level I've ever GMed was around 500 points and that was supposed to be mythically powerful. I understood changing the standard hero to 350 points because so many powers not directly related to combat or movement became more expensive it is harder to make a distinctive superhero on 250 points (although you can still build a combat-effective one on that). I also think low-powered heroes and villains are under-represented in the 5th edition, like there is a 'must be at least 300 points to wear spandex' rule. Hopefully Teen and Golden Age Hero will help in that area. So, to reiterate, I am coming from a different angle and think Joe Empyrean being 250 points would still be pretty awesome for an entire RACE of beings. And, IMO, these sorts of things should be designed to fit in lower-powered as well as high-powered campaigns so more of us can use them without extensive rewriting.

Re: Review of Hidden Lands

In my experience Empyrean characters work best at cosmic level or so. Standard really does not do justice to the scope' date=' broadth and variety of their powers. However, you can easily save some points by dropping Lightsleep for low Sleeping Life Support, the Contact can be reduced to 8- or dropped altogether if the character is a young empyrean who has not yet been discovered by the immortal parent or Ashima, or who likes to be self-reliant or is estranged from the race, universal translator is only justified for Empyreans who have alredy lived several mortal lifetimes. Young ones might get "only for languages character has encountered" (-1/2), e.g. Thalya in Galactic Champions has it, or it even be dropped altogether for adolescent or young adult empyreans. OTOH, almost all characters who have contact should also have Money, at least 5-pts: the average Empyrean likes to live the glamorous, lavish lifestyle, unless the character is an ascetic.[/quote']

 

Good ideas. I think you should be able to play Empyreans at the standard level, although they're fine at the cosmic level, too. They're an homage to Kirby's Eternals, who are 'cosmic-powered' but not cosmically powerful (on average). They range from Gilgamesh (could probably beat Thor and was 'more immortal' which is probably why the writers couldn't resist offing him) to those brothers (Delphi Brothers?) Sersi turned into pigs. A 'no-name' Empyrean should probably be around around 250 points (use Wanderer's or other's suggestions and reduce the individualized powers further), Defender should be able to beat one. A 350-point Empyrean should be considered more competent, powerful, or experienced than average. A 700-point Eternal should be over a thousand years old, or devoted to training, or especially gifted for some reason. Just my two cents, though.

 

It would have been nice to have a look at their technology, all I picked up is they have weather machines and robots. I'm assuming stuff with a Kirby flavor, like cosmo-viewers and stasis cubes.

 

As I've said before, it should be taken as a compliment when people complain that they wish there were more.

Re: where would I find Sentinel and Justice Squad write ups?

And there it is from the horse's mouth. Thanks, Steve. I'll eagerly await that CU update.

 

- Cailano

Cool, something to look forward to! Not just the writeups, but the update. The previous Champions Universe sorely needed one but stopped publishing before it came out, I'll take it as a good sign that this one has more longevity.

Re: New Avengers?

It's sad, but I agree. If someone made a comic that was nothing but "Spidey pwns Wolverine greatest hits" I would be tempted to buy it

 

BTW, for those who want to be spoiled on the incident I'm talking about, someone scanned a page at superhero hype

 

http://www.superherohype.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6315723&postcount=20

Now THAT's funny!

Re: Review of Hidden Lands

Knock 5 points each off Power and Mental Defense and knock the customized powers down to 70-80 points and Empyreans become alot more player-friendly...could indicate a less experienced Empyrean. Issues with the folks could easily reduce the value of the contact. IMO, Universal Translator should be replaced with languages to avoid the accent and randomized understanding problems OR should have No Skill Roll (+1/2), No Accent (+1/2), and Only Previously Learned Languages (-1).

Re: Marvel Second Stringers. Help me out.

Nomad was training his own sidekick for awhile: Vagabond. She was a little acrobatic and alot cute. She'd probably have to train up a bit to be second string, though.

Re: I have Hidden Lands!

Hello,

 

Let's see...standard Empyrean racial Package Deal is 377 points. The only things that I wouldn't really cut at all are the Life Support, Lightsleep, and Universal Translator. So we trim back STR by 10 (-10 points), BODY by 3 (-6), PRE by 5 (-5), Damage Resistance to 4 each for PD and ED (-6), Mental Defense and Power Defense by 5 each (-10), his Powers Template by 10 (-10), drop Reduced END Cost on his Flight (-7), and drop his Contact with the other Empyreans to an 8 or less (-3). That will drop him to 320, giving you 30 for custom-tailoring; call him a young "Teen Champions" Empyrean, and there you have him.

 

Hope this helps!

I would (and did) drop Light Sleep and add 1 point to the Life Support package for 8 hours of sleep/week. My character never had Universal Translator (neither did Thalya and Archon until a minute ago), and I'm not going to add it...besides, he doesn't have an Empyrean mind anyway. No contact, since he doesn't even know he's an Empyrean (yet). The Enforcer can't find him because 'he doesn't have an Empyrean mind anyway'. I cut back the (50 active point) multipower slots he hasn't used yet (all the mental stuff, basically). Retroactively, no visible change. He actually winds up being pretty close to your 'Teen Empyrean'.

The teen idea works really well, even for adults...it should take a long time for Empyreans to come into their full power...50 or 100 years easy.

Re: I have Hidden Lands!

I agree totally, especially with the Universal Translator. These guys have no language skills! Assuming they have a native Empyrean language (rather than all speaking English) most of them travel the world with a 12- chance of communicating and a guaranteed accent! 'Ever notice how many rich and powerful beautiful people have that same strange accent?'

That 20 point Universal Translator is probably (as it is not explained) supposed to represent linguistic talent combined with exposure to hundreds of languages. A better representation would be to get linguist and a bunch of languages, OR Universal Translator with No Skill Roll (+1/2) and No Accent (+1/2) and Only For Human Languages Previously Learned (-1).

Also, I note that the Empyreans in the Lemurian Section are built with Flash Defense (Empyrean Eyes), Armor (Empyrean Skin), and Full Life Support. They resemble the write-up for Thalya in Galactic Champions rather than the Empyreans in the Arcadia section. Armor and Damage Resistance are fairly interchangeable, and no reason why an Empyrean can't tweak out that last bit of Life Support, but why don't other Empyreans have 'Empyrean Eyes'? I think the Lemurian section must have been completed before the Empyrean section was fleshed out. Rewriting my character to fit the new package (sans Universal Translator and Empyrean contact), I dropped his Empyrean Eyes (copied from Thalya) to pay for other things in the package I didn't have.

Another inconsistency which I have to resolve in my campaign: it was established in the Viper book that the Commandant of Viper Academy is half-Empyrean with peak human characteristics and powerful telepathy. Now it is Writ that Empyrean-Human crosses produce somewhat superior humans or (1 in 1000) full-fledged Empyreans, never intermediate-powered supers. Sigh. It is inconsistent AND blows away the half-Empyrean character concept (except as an interesting background and justification for competent-level stats). I suppose we can resolve the inconsistency by calling the Commandant a mutant who happens to have an Empyrean parent. I would have preferred, say, 1-in-500 births to have intermediate powers.

I DO like the direction they went with Empyreans having a basic template on which a variety of super powers can be fit. I think they could have squeezed the package down to 300 points so an Empyrean could be fit into a standard 350-point game, but then I guess we would have missed the fun of all this tweaking. Look for PCs who are renegades/amnesiacs/for some reason undiscovered Empyreans who haven't got their full powers for various reasons.

Re: I have Hidden Lands!

Hello,

 

Let's see...standard Empyrean racial Package Deal is 377 points. The only things that I wouldn't really cut at all are the Life Support, Lightsleep, and Universal Translator. So we trim back STR by 10 (-10 points), BODY by 3 (-6), PRE by 5 (-5), Damage Resistance to 4 each for PD and ED (-6), Mental Defense and Power Defense by 5 each (-10), his Powers Template by 10 (-10), drop Reduced END Cost on his Flight (-7), and drop his Contact with the other Empyreans to an 8 or less (-3). That will drop him to 320, giving you 30 for custom-tailoring; call him a young "Teen Champions" Empyrean, and there you have him.

 

Hope this helps!

That IS helpful. I've been waiting for Hidden Lands for years, because I'm so taken with the Empyreans, I only wish the section was longer.

I'm currently running an Empyrean character, fortunately he has the mind of a 19 year old human from North Detroit circa 1949, so he doesn't yet know who the Empyreans are (yet-no 18 point Empyrean contact) and I gave him Armor instead of Damage Resistance and put it in an Empyrean Toughness Elemental Control along with the Life Support. The result is a bit squeezed (only skill is 1940s trivia), but Optimus II is pretty close enough to the package that I won't need to make any serious revisions. Just a bit low on Power and Mental Defense and high on End for flying, compared to the template.

The Lemurian section rocked, that's the kind of detail I would have liked to have seen in the Arcadian section!

However, since my main complaint is that I would have liked there to have been more book (and the artwork was variable), I'm glad I got it.

Re: Mystical Hero Team Archetypes

What about an open-ended spell, a curse for instance, that incarnates into a human-like form to carry out its purpose (eg, rid the world of evil)?

An astral entity formed by a psychic crime victim's burning desire for justice?

A hero inhabited by a magical symbiote that allows him or her to feed on magic?

A scavenger, collector or trader who has acquired multiple interesting magical artifacts in order to be able to fight evil magic on equal terms.

I'm kind of straying from archetypes, though. What about a streetwise PI who has lots of connections and favors owed him in the Occult Underground? Sometimes the kind of favors you can cash in by calling a Name? Maybe he has some unusual mystical knack that makes him particularly useful (analytical Detect Magic, high defenses against magic, can Dispel Magic, is really lucky, etc.) to supernatural types. He could know a little magic himself, or rely on a kevlar vest, a heavy handgun, and his charm.

Re: Villainy Amok

Has anyone used/planned to use the Bottled City of Naldar? Personally I think it's nice to have another bit of crunchy Silver Age goodness in the CU.

In my campaign, The Futurian (II) is married to a Malvan princess who is searching for it. Hopefully she can figure out how to get in to the darn thing so I don't have to stretch credibility by having all the conditions filled by coincidence.