Victim

Re: Batman vs Midnighter Aside from Midnighter's super abilities, isn't this match basically like Kasparov vs. Deep Blue?

Re: Alternate balance concept Just change the way points are spent. A 300 point character that spends tons of points on skills and contacts will be different than one that spends his points on powers.

Re: Oddball Parties: list yours here! Why is this party a party? (D- for teamwork; A+ for raw power) Xel: Xel is manipulative devil that was built by a crazy archmage 500 years ago. He's sneaky, subtle, and has magic powers that he never uses at full power. Atticus Fitch: Atticus is supposed to be a badass assassin, one of the two greatest in the land. But he's pretty much a pansy, and unlucky to boot. He was mostlyn useless, and took tons of crap because of it. Note that this wasn't really his fault, the player has no killer instinct so many of his abilities were wasted. Any real assassin would have killed most of the group in their sleep rather than put up with all the insult we threw his way - he could have found some way to get paid out of it, so don't say it's professionalism. He dies in duel with his rival and is replaced with: Correlon. Take a made in Hong Kong version of Legolas and add in some magic and divinely powered archery. You now have Correlon. He has no personality, but surfs around on a flying carpet and shoots arrows amazingly well (if he can magic up) and has some decent spells. Urug uk Grimnar: Urug is an elite beserking warrior from an evil empire. This half orc is also a tribal chieftan, and wants to remove his tribe from the empire's oppresive grasp - so he can train his orcs to be more like a Roman Legion than a horde. His tribe is more of a liability than an asset, because vanilla orcs suck. However, the tribe's shaman is a notable exception: Grumshalar: Grumshalar is priest of the orc god and thinks Urug is that god's chosen. He doesn't win friends with his charming personality (because he's an abrasive ass fanatically devoted to his vicious god and Urug), but most of the group doesn't care because of his amazing skill with enhancement magic. Still, Grumshalar and Correlon barely avoid fighting to the death upon a few occasions - maybe because Correlon does his own buffs. Laura Emberblossom: Laura is a military wizard specializing in mass destruction (think low grade megascale). She's arrogant, sarcastic, prudish, bad tempered, and maybe a little crazy. But defending her feudal kingdom from the evil empire for nearly her entire life has got to count for something right? Yep, High Treason - notice how she's not there at the moment. Urug doesn't like Laura. Her killing ten of thousands of his people might have something to do with it. Gawain is a land holding noble and paladin from the same country as Laura. Between his skills, divine smitings, and the fact that he rides a dragon, he might be greatest mounted combat expert in the world. Despite his awe inspiring presence, he tends to say things like "Shut up old man and give me a discount," which kind of ruins the effect.

Re: I Give Up!!!!!!!!!!!!! Aren't those Linked lims actually illegal since his Armor isn't the greater power?

Re: Psychological Limitation discussion: Casual Killer It certainly would make difference when looking at Mind Control and other stuff that plays off the character's psych lims. A "Kill your friends" use of mind control might actually work on such a character. In many genres, a reluctant killer will have pretty much the same freedom of action, gets about the same # of points, and will have less problematic accidents. Casual Killer seems to be in some respects the reverse of Code versus Killing or Will not Kill; both govern the level of force a character is willing to employ, but not necessarily the frequency in which they resort to violence. CvK supers seem to get into fights all the time. I don't see anything that would prevent a CvK character from firing a stun-only blast into some annoying guy's face, so I'm not that a casual killer would necessarily blow the guy's head off. While Bullseye certainly is a casual killer in the daredevil movie, he's got other nasty psych lims as well.

Re: Jack-Jack Parr

Re: Jack-Jack Parr Law of Conservation of Super Powers. Jack Jack has to pick up the slack for all the losers baited by Syndrome.

Re: What is it about Champions? I'd rather have a higher degree of mechanical integrity than backwards compatability. Sure, you can use lots of old stuff with HERO 5 with no problems. But that means it also doesn't address certain areas, for example, the cost of STR, etc. If you overconstrain the revision process with lots of compatability requirements, then there's not much point to revising at all. But I agree that 3.5 didn't wait long enough after the release of 3.0. That and it and broke about as much stuff as it fixed. One game I hate is WUSHU. It's supposed to be rules light, over the top action, ala Wuxia and the Matrix. What it seems to come down to is overly long descriptions, k3wl one-up-manship, which resolution based on who rolls fewer 6s on 6d6. Even though my brother has some cool stories from playing with the guy who invented the game, I can still see shadows of the same problems we experienced in our group.

Re: Use the news One of these scenarios doesn't preclude the other. But then the heroes will probably hate all forms of government.

Re: Playing Head games

Re: At what point can HERO sue? I'm pretty sure you can't patent game mechanics, so HERO can't sue.

Re: Storn's Fantasy Art, Comics and Doodles When I check the website, I can find the first page under Fresh Art, but nothing else for the webcomic. Unfortunate, since the first page seems rather intriguing.

Re: A Secret Service Question Hmm. With this setup, I'd expect some kind of trick question, so the First Lady is probably the hardest to protect. While the Slayer would be big problem for the Service, she also has the best self defense ability. What normal threat would phase her? Also, if vampires exist, the Secret Service probably has at least some capability against them. The diabetic circus acrobat sounds like a disaster waiting to happen though.

Re: Kill Bill I wouldn't go that high. Using Sweep to hit multiple crazies at once would give the appearence of a higher speed. Depending on writeups, she could also be using autofire, area attacks, triggered counter attacks, or spreading a no range RKA. Bud's shotgun probably had several levels of increased Stun multiplier - wasn't it loaded with rock salt?

Re: Girl Fight: The Prelims Well, I don't have much experience with actual fights, but you might be underplaying the importance of normal STUN. Many characters have 12d6 attacks and roughly 20 defenses. Even if the 20 or so STUN that gets through doesn't CON stun someone, many characters will drop in 2 or 3 hits. While Recoveries are a bit easier to pull off in 1v1, I wouldn't consider them guarenteed unless the battlefield (or some zero END barrier) can be exploited. Also, someone using held phases could attack twice in a row, so if a 2 shot is viable, there might be no chance for a recovery. But getting Stunned probably would be game over.

Re: On balance...when no one else follows it. What power framework or stop sign power is MA/Brick/Detective going to have anyway? How could you afford one? You can't put the stats and skills you were buying into a framework anyway. In theory, a brick MA seems pretty good in combat. High CV, attacks, and conventional defenses all seem like decent combat ability, although you might be lacking in movement. STR, CON, and DEX are all very efficient buys, and you'll be buying all of them to a high level. If you think about it, a 3 power EC saves about 60 points. STR provides benefits roughly equal to twice its cost, so with a high STR you come out even. If you want to save some points without using a framework, just talk to the GM about consolidating some of your background knowledge skills. Then get Analyze and Find Weakness or more stats.

Re: I smell something fishy Yes, it's a talent, but it's completely built around Detect. Like most talents, it's just a power (in this case, Detect) written up in a certain pre-fab way. In some cases, it'd be better to skip the middleman and just work with Danger Sense as a Detect.

Re: Defensive VPP -- would you allow this? No, your order of operations is wrong. Mimic has a pool of points. He can spend these points A) by touching someone, copying powers that they have, and C) only up to their level of powers. He can't buy life support, then look around for the person he needs to satify the conditions of his power. He doesn't have life support; he has the ability to copy powers. If there is no person to copy from, he can't use his VPP and thus doesn't buy Life Support AT ALL, much less with a bunch of limitations.

Re: Tactics Advice Well, for different variable effects, how about: Invisible to Sight (this force ram is transparent) Indirect (create the force effect behind or to the side, then bash target) Affects Desolid (exploit the force interactions that allow Desolid characters to move around, ect) Impart more of your force to the target with x1.5 Knockback. Reduced End might help you in some cases. If you use your TK to grab or trip someone, then a 0 END Rapid Fire attack gives you additional firepower without leaving you gasping like an ordinary attack might. In some cases, Penetrating might be applicable, perhaps by creating the force effect on the inside of the target, thus bypassing their defenses and getting directly to the squishy bits. Transdimensional to hit Ethereal targets. --------------------------------------------- Don't forget that you can use your TK to help your teammates. Move them around if need be, get the slow guys into place faster, help the ground pounders against flyers, etc.

Re: The Invisibles Writeups Actually, I reccomend making the Zero-Point Energy AoE 1 Hex - Accurate. Since Selective requires attack rolls against enemies' normal CV and since Syndrome has a normal's CV, he'd be rather ineffective attacking in that fashion. Also, he seems to only snag groups when they're standing close together. He could be spreading his attack when he nails the entire family. Not sure how the math works out, but you could take the points from dropping the AoE to +1/2 and buy some TK "only for spreading" -1/2 or whatever. Of course, you need to remove the beam limitation.

Re: Defensive VPP -- would you allow this? You don't put Cosmic +2 on powers inside your Cosmic VPP, so the other control related limitations don't apply on powers inside a VPP either.

Re: commonality of unusual defenses

Re: commonality of unusual defenses I can see lots of actual force fields (not non-persistent armor like an ice sheath, but an energy barrier kind of thing) having Lack of Weaknes. The readily observable characteristics of the field generally won't be very useful (this one's purple) because the visual signature is just a by product of the energy field. Someone who bypasses armor by picking apart joints and connections is going to have a tough time against TK shield or energy barrier. Granted, specialized senses might have an easier time against forcefields (hence, a limitation on the LoW). Similarly, the same energy field might not care about normal AP characteristics. Again, the TK barrier might not care about razor sharp Adamatine claws that can cut through anything if it just sucks away their momentum/KE. Of course, it's a bit of a reach for that TK to have good ED, but whatever. Similarly, I can see alot of MAs with lots of combat luck, which is hardened.

Re: A Difficult Power Distinctive features: always some type of dead body.

Re: Point/Effectiveness Ceiling Besides, you could just as easily have a normal guy in a battlesuit with the same absurb defenses but worthless CV. Having a toddler has nothing to do with problems from no cap or guidelines on powers.