WonderStuff

Re: Lifetime Subscription No one will "waste" the full $200. Even if you don't like the game and decide not to play anymore, you should deduct the amount of time/fees paid for the amount of time you tried it. For instance, if you would give the game 6 months and after that much time decided to take your interests elsewhere, then you are really only risking/losing $140. No small piece of change to be sure, but not $200. More to consider: If you play the game MORE than 14 months, then it's all gravy. I'm been on WoW since it started (three years? more?). If you expect a life expectancy as that, then you will make out well. Even More: The game should improve with more capital. With added revenue, the company should make the commitment to "fix" a broken game.

I would like a rules clarification on this, please. 5th Edition 423, Breaking out of Entangles and Grabs (last paragraph) There are some Martial Maneuvers such as Choke Hold which only grab one limb. May a Grabbed hero use the "Free one limb @ +5 STR" option on such a grab and be 100% free from the Grab? Other options include: 1) The Grabbed limb is free but the target is still grabbed (perhaps around his torso or waist) 2) The Free One Limb option should not be available since normally he has an option of freeing just one limb or all held limbs. If only one limb is held, he needs to follow the rules for freeing all limbs.

Re: Smelly Bob w00t!!! Who would have thought that having an engine fire flare up in your face and destroy your olfactory nerves could ever be a good thing? Not Winston, that's for sure! Man-o-man I needed that break. If I had a few negative CSL I'd have been toast. Disads turning into perks FTW! Thanks for the help to my GM, guys (and girls.) It was a fun combat. I thought I was going to pwn him by segment 12, but it went on for about 4 turns with a very narrow victory. (BTW: I had no sense of smell LONG before this battle and didn't know of this thread until GM brought it to my attention after the battle.)

Our Super Hero Team's Jet has a stealth mode which imparts invisibilty Stealth Mode: Invisibility to Sight and Hearing Groups and Radar , Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (45 Active Points); OIF Bulky (-1) Omega Force had to beat a retreat from a military situation that had heat seeking missiles on hand. If any of the soldier was aware of the Jet by either seeing its fringe, having errant bullets bounce off of it, etc., they might send a heat seeker its way. My questions are based on how the rules should be written and how you would play this out. The Jet's Invisibility does not specifically cover heat that would be generated by the engines which is what SAM Heat-seekers key in on. A Player made the point that the missiles work off of infrared vision which is in the Sight Group so therefore is covered. I wasn't so sure. (BTW: I let his suggestion stand since I didn't want to slow down game with a lengthy rules discussion.) Heat/Thermal in this case should be the Touch Group, but Invis to Touch falls under Desolid and that seemed more cludgy than anything. Would asking for a Adder that included be acceptable or is it fine the way it stands or is there another method I'm missing? Thanks in advance

Re: New Player Hates All The Dice First of all... This literally made me LOL...nice job. Second... In addition to the comments above (all good ones)... Roll the larger damage rolls for her. Let her handle the 3d6s. You handle everything else. I use the "group by 10s" method. And once you shame her at how easy it is she'll do it for herself. (BTW: I learned how to count small numbers very quickly by playing blackjack on the school bus for an hour a day for 3 years.)

My Two Cents I echo the earlier comments of "Welcome Aboard". Here's my two cents...and it's not directly about the questions you raised. Keep the powers simple. Nothing is going to turn players "off" quicker than ... 1) the game grinds to a halt as GM and Player(s) stop the actin to look up a game effect, 2) It's very, very, very frustrating to not have a power work as you intend it. Get an idea of how the power(s) work and play it that way. Once the game session is done, look up any questions you had about the power*(s) and correct them for next session. Don't stop action every time you have a question about powers. (In this way you and the players wil learn more about the powers they are playing. After player Hero System since 2nd Edition, I still need to look up many rules (mostly things like Invisibilty, Darkness and Entangles)). 3) For virtual beginnners, I'd recommend keeping the Heroes fairly simple. As the Heroes gain EXP, so will the player and he can start looking into ways to upgrade his powers. When they meet a challenge and they come up just a little short, he'll start thinking about applying Advantages or other Special Effect-based powers to tackle the situation in the future. As the players are learning how to use their "simple" powers, and learning the system, they can spend more time enjoying your adventure. Hope this helps. And as stated earlier...if you need any advice, just holler. Mark

Re: IST San Angelo version 2.0 You neglected to mention Wilie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Re: IST San Angelo version 2.0 I'll let CBikle keep his secret. I've seen Kevin Smith around Red Bank and been in his comic book/collectible store. There's a big "An Evening with Kevin Smith" thing going on at The Count Basie theatre if interested. http://viewaskew.com/news/countbasie/ My other "brush with greatness" is sledding with Springsteen at Tower Hill. Oh yeah...and playing Champs with Steve Long and JamesG at a con.

Re: IST San Angelo version 2.0 JamesG, you got anything that matches that description? We all really liked your "black glove" contribution. If you have anything from a 1950s etiquette book, I'd be more than thrilled, but I'd accept something along the lines of your last pic. CBikle...hope you "finish" before our next Champs game. Don't come over if you haven't.

Re: IST San Angelo version 2.0 See if this doesn't prove my point about White Gloves. Richard Gere tried to teach Julia Roberts manners, also. I'm starting to think that "teaching manners" is code for "Kama Sutra".

Re: IST San Angelo version 2.0 White Gloves: See what I mean? Look at the little party tramp.

Re: IST San Angelo version 2.0 No, you've got it all wrong. Clear gloves make you look like you're a fast food handler. (Help me out crowd...I'll bet half of the members on this board still work fast food. Am I right???) White gloves make you look like a whore. Remember Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman? She wore white gloves and she only charged $300 for the whole night. Blue Gloves make you look like anime. Orange and "Brown" gloves amke you look like the PoopSmith http://www.homestarrunner.com/vcr_poop.html.

Re: Integrating the CU into an existing campaign That's a cool idea. We were contemplating if we should have some sort of "Crisis" or "Secret War" to explain the move to Millennium City and the Champions Universe. But I like your suggestion. You got my wheels turning. hope my players aren't reading this. (Hi James)

Our gaming group loves the new products for the Hero System. We are working out ways to incorporate the Champions Universe supplement into our campaign. Here is our situation and our proposed solution. If any group has faced the same situation we'd love to hear your solution. As you know, Champions Universe gives a wealth of information. We were trying to mesh all the new information and backgrounds into what has previously occurred in our world. Here's an example. I ran an adventure where the Atlanteans had saved themselves before the deluge by using their advance mental powers to send their essences into a specially prepared totem. this was our world's first contact with the Atlanteans. My presentation of the Atlanteans differs greatly from the CU version of them. Mine had advanced mental powers and when modern man came in contact with this totem an Atlanteans was able to move his essence into the human and take over his body. Our dilemma was to maintain the consistency CU has to offer, at the same time allowing for creative licenses to explore new territory in a well-known genre (i.e.: Atlantis). This is compounded because the information in CU would be public knowledge. If I had run my Atlantis after the players were familiar with CU it would have been totally different. they might have gone to the Atlanteans ambassador, visited the King, had a clear idea of what their powers were, etc. It would not have been the same adventure. So now we have two versions of the Atlanteans. What do we do? Do we change the Atlanteans in CU or reconstruct my adventure to fit the book. And how does this address the possibility that someone would want to run an adventure with some element in the book but with their own spin to them. Here’s how we did it. We are using the books as the official template. If any GM runs an adventure they prepare a short write up explaining anything that differs from the CU book (or other supplement). Since we have rotating GMs if another GM wants to include Atlanteans in their adventure, they would read the GM notes to see what changes are in effect. Using my Atlantis adventure from above, we decided that since the Atlanteans broke off into different tribes, this tribe was a branch apart from the more mainstream Atlanteans and developed it's mental powers on its own. Now this is included with our World History so we can still use the CU history or my version without too much confusion. Same will be done with space aliens, hidden jungle cities, etc. Anything that differs from the books will need to be explained so as not to interfere with the CU environment. Does anyone else have any suggestions, comments or tips?

A Moral Dilemma Hi. I found an interesting adventure on the internet (kudos to original author whom I've foregotten). This comes the closetest to a no-win I've ever run. Here's the premise (in short)... Scientist Bob is murdered by an assassin. Some time later, Bob comes back as undead to avenge his death and stop futher killings. Bob has a special awareness towards his killer and can locate him anywhere. Being a "Super Assassin", all authorities and super groups have been unable to find him. Heroes catch wind of all this. Being Undead, Bob's spirit can only be stopped by something like an exorcism which will vanquish his spirit and soul and prevent it from reaching "heaven". Anything less than this and Bob's "body" will reform and continue to track down assassin and kill him. Do the Heroes prevent Bob from killing the assassin and condemn him to "purgatory" ? Or do they allow him to hunt down and kill his assassin? (which is morally objectionable unless your Heroes are all Punisher/Wolverine types.) Anyone wanna hear what my Players did? The ramifications are felt to this day. (about 3 years since adventure was run) What would your Hero do? Mark (Wonder Stuff...great Band, fun character)

All of these offers of membership (even probationary) need to be tempered by her impatience. Hastiness like that could lead the whole group into serious trouble. I like the Disad, though. (from a game play point of view) WonderStuff would implore the Scientist to help with finding her. Once located he would try to reason with her and try to make her take the costume off of her own free will. Once this didn't work he would try to grab her and forceable remove it. With a "neural interface " he would be ery, very hesitant to damage the armor as if might give some sort of dangerous feedback (being connected to her brain, presumably). Once subdued, the suit fixed, etc, WonderStuff would take her under his wing and see that she learns the value of patience (insert "glasshopper" here)

"Nighthawk not aborting" Hey! This is what Experience is all about. When you give him his EXP points remind (inform) him that now his hero has learned something important will be more effective next time 'round. This can be a hard lesson to learn when you're in "GM Option Land", but the end result is probably won't make the same mistake twice. (Always looking for the rainbow over the pot o' gold) Sounds like your players (and you) had a good time...congratulations...not always easy to do. WS

Yes...we're ready for a change The Title says it all. We are ready for a change. I agree with just about ALL of the statements made by the participants in this thread. (Thanks). Our challenge is to find a system that allows creativity and uniquenes in our Heroes and balance that with player enjoyment. This usually equates with SPD (number of actions per turn) but as Will is ready to admit, he is willing to forgo some actions to have a larger impact, less often. Very fair and I applaud Will for what might well be the compromise we are looking for. James is volunteering to be the bookkeepper of the of the ER system he is proposing. (see James' post) Cool. I think we should try it and see if it improvs the game and our char. conceptions. And Will, your butt-kissing earns you an extra 10 EXP. Keep up the good work. (Go ahead...spend it on SPD) Mark

real quick...the difference is 25%. The SPD 5 has 25% more actions than the SPD 4. It all depends on whether you consider 25% significant. Hmmm...a 25% pay raise? Sure, that's significant. 25% discount, yepper. 25% more input in combat. I think it's sig. and it seems Will does, too. Obviously the 1 SPD differnce has lesser percentage change at higher speeds. 20% at SPD 5 vs. 6, and so forth. My 2 cents. Mark

Will and James' GM Chimes In Hi All, This might fall under “Too Much Infoâ€, but I’ll offer it just the same. I'm Will's and James' GM though we have all taken turns running adventures. The game has been running for about 5 (???) years. We started at 250 pts. but as new players came on, or player created new Heroes, we raised the starting Points so there would be less discrepancy between power levels. That's all for background. Here are some "house rules"/guidelines I set up from the start and the reasons for them. Bear in mind that the staring group of players had some "munchkins"… "gamers" that would play a very high speed hero just because they would get to be the most active. Also, many players would put all (most) their EXP into combat skills, Dex, Speed, OCV levels, etc. This got real boring and relatively "young" heroes had incredibly high combat stats. But once combat ended and they needed to look for clues, talk to the prisoners, reassure the public, etc. they had their hands in their spandex pockets. "Ummm...is Oratory an Everyman Skill? How about Criminology?". In effect they were just swapping times they couldn't contribute to the game/adventure. High combat skills and low knowledge/background skills meant they were active in combat but bored out of combat. I create (try to at least) adventures where combat is secondary...the point of the adventure would be to figure out the clues, track down the bad guys and figure out a way to defeat them. Combat Machines with little non-combat skills didn't fit into my adventures well. So I put a SPD 5 limit and a OCV limit of 12-14-ish and an Active Cost Limit of 60 pts. By limiting the combat stats, it forced players to spend their EXP on other things and therefore (hopefully) have a more rounded character. And be able to do more out-of-combat stuff which would keep their interest up since they would be participating in the game more. Balance was the key. If the players have lower SPD then they participate less in combat, but HOPEFULLY they spent that 10 or 20 points on useful skills, Contacts, etc. which make them more useful OUT of combat. I was hoping to install (“forceâ€, some would say) balanced Heroes. (Quick note…I based my Villains on an average Hero SPD of 5 and the power levels of the heroes. If I had a Villain I thought should be pretty darn fast, I thought it would be a problem if we had a hero that didn’t have a Speedster concept with a speed of 6 or 7. If the Villain’s concept was like the Flash…of being able to run around, keep actions held to Dive for Cover, Block or Missile Deflect…his concept would fall apart if his SPD was only 1 or 2 higher than the average Hero he’s up against. If even the non-speedsters could go 6 or 7, then MY Speedster would have to be 10, 11 or 12 to get the GAME EFFECT for which I was looking.) But now everyone is SPD 5 (the Super Secret Agent, the Swordsman, the Egoist, etc.) We need more variety and clarifications in our powers. But we need to do this in a way to “reward†players that opt for a lower Speed. That might be to allow them higher APs for some powers. What I’m NOT going to do is incorporate a system that applies my version of their character conception to their character sheet. For instance, “I see your hero as more of a Daredevil quickness rather than Spiderman quickness, so your Dex and SPD are limited to 23 / 5â€. We have a mature group that I hope could have a well defined character conception and can impose self limits on powers and costs. But, again, there should be rewards or benefits for the hero that opts to have 4 actions instead of 6. That’s why were talking about this…to implement a simple, easy and playable system that can allow us to create the characters we envision and maintain some semblance of balance. Whew! Thanks for all the input, Mark

Summon Looks Great I like the Summon/Duplication Special Effects the best. I know I'm going to "wing" a lot, but having the basic source or their powers and the gmae effects that generate them is a HUGE help. I hadn't even thought of the Summon ability. That helpful tip alone is worth sparing your lives from the Pink liliPutian Patsies known as the Stuffies. Thanks so much. If anyone else has any other suggestion/ideas, chime in. Thanks again, Mark (WonderStuff) "I didn't like you very much when I met you, And now I like you even less" Unbearable Wonderstuff

Thanks Shadow Pup, When I was thinking about bumping his Speed, I was kind of thinking about making it 11 or 12. The Heroes (5) are based on SPD 5. This might him and the Stuffies to get enough actions in, change MP slots, etc. Hmmm but maybe not. Let's see, 5 heroes at SPD 5 get 25 actions vs. 12 Actions for MV. Maybe a differnet plan. I'll look into your Summon idea. Thanks again, WS

Here's my "problem". Any comments would be appreciated. A PC (Wonder Stuff, my screen name and excellent 80's Alternative band) is a shape changer much like Plastic Man. A Master Villain )MV) has taken a body tissue sample from WS and cloned it. The result of the cloning resulted in lots of mini-Wonder Stuffs ( I call them Stuffies). The Master Villain uses a machine to communicate telepathically with these Stufies and command them. The Stuffies can use their powers (such as shape changing into a transportation sled, guard MV with Missle Deflection, etc) with minimal thought/effort from MV. He can give them a command and the keep doing it. Sort of with Animal type intelligence. If they are ordered to Bash on Enigma, they will stop after he is unconscious and may (or may not) attack another Hero without any word from MV. The Stuffies can conglomerate and become a single form with, say, 40 STR, 4d6 Entangle, Missle Deflection UOO. A portion of Stuffies can break away from the Main Stuffy and work independently. Basically the Large portion would become 30 STR, 3d6 Entangle, etc. The Stuffies that broke away would be 10 STR, 1d6 Entangle, etc. Some Powers such as Running, Clinging, etc. would remain and not diminish. Here's what I'm thinking about so far...(This is a NPC Master Villain, so I can 'wing' some things, but I don't want to go into a scenario/combat without a firm basis) Treat it as a MP for MV. This would reflect the Stuffies getting weaker as they breakapart into smaller units. Apply Limitations to reflect the physical form of the Stuffies. Advantages would include Continuous (to reflect attacks that recur without thought from MV) The ADVs and LIMs would be lengthy. The next hard part would be to reflect the fact that there can be more than one attack from the MV with all these Stuffies running around doing his bidding. I'm thinking about bumping MV's SPD up significantly (maybe 11 or 12) with the Lim, only usable to control Stuffies. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. You may e-mail me or post any questions, clarifications or aswers. Thanks