Jagged

Re: Setting, really: Corporate Champions? I would just like to say that I don't think these would be the same people at all. I say this as someone that would be classed as anti-gun ownership by American standards and pro-gun ownership by English standards

Re: Half Dice Options

Re: Half Dice Options I have to agree. Whether or not d6-1 can give 0 or not it still averages better than 1/2 and what are the body rules for d6-1? I can find some for a half die but not for d6-1. So I assume its the same for d6? Which is again much better than a half. So why would a player ever go for a half if d6-1 is allowed? I should add that the reason I am interested is because I am trying to provide some native support for fractions of dice into Maptool and was asked about d6-1. I thought it only existed to provide differential on standard weapons and to allow you to calculate the damage class of a standard weapon. But it seems unclear

Re: Half Dice Options Thanks for the responses. I really thought this would be a straight forward "Yes" or "No" question Maybe I will post in the rules section?

Quickie (I think) In another forum it was suggested to me that if you have a killing attack with a half die, you had the option of taking d6-1 instead of 1/2. Now I know the damage table lists 1/2 and d6-1 against the same Damage Class but I thought the -1 option existed only for when you needed to convert weapons into DCs. After all, if d6-1 is an option why would you ever want 1/2? Do 5E and 6 differ in any regard on this? Are their rules and point levels that result in d6-1 rather than 1/2?

Re: What do you really think of Champions Online? If your favourite part is creating characters then you should definitely try City of Heroes when that goes free-to-pay. Perhaps I should whisper it, but some think CoH has better character(appearance) creation than its newer sister, which is strange considering its the same dev team. But true or not, worth a try for free.

Re: Bows I used to do a bit of archery and have had a "play" with traditional English Longbow. This was a scary piece of kit, both highly accurate and deadly. On the other hand, it was large and a bit cumbersome. The one I used had a draw strength of a little under 50 pounds. That's less than would have been the norm, for example most of the longbows found on the Marie Rose were estimated to be between 65 & 70 pounds pull. Even at 50 pounds the arrows have massive penetration power because, unlike bullets, they are not soft projectiles. Its said the typical Marie Rose longbow could pierce armour at 250 yards or more. I was never a great archer (sorry to say) but could reliably hit animal targets at 40 yards. I am sure a Tudor Englishman that practised every Sunday could easily do the same at 100 yards with a dozen arrows a minute. As others have said above the arrow heads used in war are nasty hard things that increase the penetration of the hit. Apparently they used different types of arrows for different types of target, long ones for chainmail, short for plate!

Re: Cooperative Timeline I was thinking something slightly different, what if getting rid of Hitler made things worse? It has been suggested in some serious treatments of the war that we (the Allies) were "lucky" Hitler was incharge, because he overruled his Generals on a number of crucial occasions, that lead to better outcomes for us. For example, during the early stages of the war, the Luftwaffe concentrated all their bombing raids on taking out the RAF. As things got bad for the RAF the Allies started bombing German cities and this, it is believed, lead Hitler to overrule Goring and to direct the Luftwaffe to attack British cities instead. It is also said that during this period the RAF was reduced to one days worth of supplies and had the bombings continued as Goring directed, the RAF would have been effectively destroyed. Apologies if any of this is historically inaccurate, but it makes an interesting hypothesis

Re: Invincible I was always a little curious about Conquest's arm. I got the impression that Viltrumites do regenerate, so I think his injury must have been something unusual. I don't think Robert Kirkman ever explained but did once comment, "A Viltrumite with a cybernetic arm! What's that about?"

Re: What do you really think of Champions Online?

Re: Hmmm. More on Special Effects I think that whoever set up the campaign world we live in, included defense against this attack as part of a very common package deal

Re: Artwork needed: Cat people. Not a commission, but Googling "cat person" is scar Although not really relevant I had to post this link > Cat's ear headset that matches your mood

Re: Does Range play a big part in your games?

Re: Does Range play a big part in your games? Hmmm, very useful!

I guess my gaming group has always taken a relaxed view about maps. Players have just described their actions to the ref and left it for him to decide exactly where we all are, and how far away everything is. This has meant that range modifiers have rarely come into play and villains are usually a half-move-and-punch away Recently though, we have been playing online using the flippin' brilliant MapTool to provide our 5E environment. Suddenly everything is in squares or hexes and range is easily determined. Now we find that sometimes a Move-Through is the only way to reach your target. Movement, range and choice of combat manoeuvre have suddenly become much more important and I am finding the change quite refreshing! So I was wondering whether other groups are strict enforcers of range or not? If I was playing face-to-face would the extra effort involved in tracking everything take the fun away?

Re: What do you really think of Champions Online? I only played in Beta but decided not to purchase for the following reasons: 1) Lack of content. I am a slow player, I like to take my time and it took me years to get through CoX content. But CO didn't seem to have enough at the start. Certainly less than its predecessor at launch. 2) Combat didn't excite. On paper I liked all the ideas as they described them. In actual play I found them wanting. 3) Didn't enjoy creating characters. Not sure how they managed to do that! I love creating characters! In CO I found it a chore. I also found it difficult to make my characters play differently. No doubt if you played them to higher levels you could make their powers extremely different but at the low levels I played before I got bored it was all too similar. 4) Cryptics attitude towards macro transactions. Didn't like the way this seemed to be going.

Re: Champions Online - Cue Dead Parrot Sketch!

Re: Would you play a game with pre-generated characters?

Re: Would you play a game with pre-generated characters? I am a big fan of pre-generated characters. The forum poster Sean Waters has run most of the Champions games I have played and he piloted the use of pre-generated characters within our group. I have to say that initially I was reluctant. I do enjoy the character creation process and playing and tweaking the numbers to create an efficient character does appeal. However ... I believe the best stories are built around the characters that inhabit them. The best stories are not stories about "things that happen to certain people" the best stories are peoples stories. I think it is a lot easier for the referee to build integrated plots if the referee built the characters as well. I say this as a ref who has built the all the player characters in the last few games he has run. Beyond that there are other benefits to be gained. The characters are more likely to be balanced against each other and each player is more likely to have their own role to fill. Plus the game will be quicker to pick up. Incidentally the first time we played with pre-generated characters we also played with hidden powers and characteristics. We only had a written description of what our characters could do. Which led to strange situations of characters falsely believing they were stronger than others due to the feats they had achieved. All very interesting. But I think in the end Sean found that too much like hard work

Re: Champions Online - Cue Dead Parrot Sketch! I doubt it. I read that press release and had a flash-back to the City of Heroes days. It all sounded so similar. Rushed patches, not properly QA'ed. Followed by more hasty patching. Oh dear. They say they have learnt their lessons but I find it hard to imagine they have learnt anything in the few months of CO that the failed to learn in the 5 years of COH.

Re: Favorite Marvel 'What If?' I pretty much loved any "What If" that featured Doc Doom. That so many did is just more proof as to what an awesome character he is

Re: So how did you guys learn the system? Yeah, for the test on Monday. You remembered about the test right?

Re: STR v Point of Origin Happens to Cyclops all the time and seems reasonable given the SFX description. As a Ref I might make it harder to prevent Eyebiter targeting Testosterone's foot or arm than simply maintaining a hold.

From the BBC

Re: Focus *sneaks into thread* Do foci really need both PD/ED and rPD/rED? Shouldn't it just be r? Maybe thats the difference between normal and fragile?