Pattern Ghost

Re: Science Skill for Spidey I'd put that type of feat down to a general Mechanics/Electronics background plus a high INT.

I was looking up Darkness (in Fifth Ed, pg. 96] to refresh my memory on current costs to create a smoke grenade when I came across the following line: Then it hit me: I'd been about to build the umpteenth million smoke pellet/grenade construct with the Hero rules, without thinking out the effect. I've seen plenty of real smoke grenades in action in the Army. While heavy smoke can be completely obscuring to normal vision, it shouldn't stop IR vision, and you can usually see movement and at least some outlines if you're close enough. (The default level of Darkness in Fifth is against the entire sense group, which would stop IR vision for example.) So, why not use Change Environment instead? While I'm pretty sure I haven't been the first person to think of this, I still see tons of builds both official and player base created using Darkness, even though CE now has the capability of simulating the effect. EDIT: One thing I should probably point out: Darkness suggests its use for smoke grenades in the second sentence of its entry, and Change Environment says it can't be used to simulate the Darkness power. I put forth that Darkness at the default of affecting the entire sense group is not appropriate for the SFX. Since we're looking for obscured vision, such as the sidebar Pea Soup write up, this doesn't violate the restriction on CE.

Re: Normal-proofing your Bricks?

Re: Normal-proofing your Bricks? No, you missed the point. I'm talking about super martial artists with the origin of being (at least physically) a highly trained normal. I.E., posessing no super human physical attributes. Someone like Daredevil, for example. (Has sensory powers, and advanced MA training.)

In comics, Bricks are usually nigh-invulnerable to anything resembling a normal human or a normal human weapon. Now, you may not want to model the extreme ends of that spectrum in a game, such as shrugging off nukes or even crew-served weapons, but you certainly want bullets to bounce off your chest, and you don't want to get whittled down to size by that pesky "normal" martial artist. Daredevil doesn't damage the Hulk, he doesn't put a dent in Luke Cage, and his best billy club whack to the back of the Thing's skull is as likely to be confused for rain drops. Hero/Champions has quite a different paradigm at work, however. If you follow the guidelines for max defenses, even a fairly modest martial artist is going to cut you down to size eventually. There are great offensive ways to deal with the pests, but if you stay within most campaign limits, it's hard to simply ignore them. Let's crunch some numbers: Typical Def at 25. Let's brick up a bit and buy a nice round 30 for PD. Now, Joe Dojo walks in, strapping young hero that he is, with his mighty 20 STR (4d6), his Offensive Strike (4d6), His Baseball Bat or 2 DC levels (let's say 2d6), and some CSLs left over to add to damage due to our CV differences (let's say 2 levels, or 6 STUN). So, Joe Dojo is tossing out an impressive 10d6 damage, +6 STUN. On average, that's 41 STUN. On an *average* hit, we're taking 11 of that damage. Let's say he hits us with that attack six times in a Turn, and lands four of those. That's 44 STUN for the Turn. Ouch? I've never heard of GMs imposing "real-human" limitations on human origin or NCM characters, so we're going to have to solve this little break from comic reality some other way, without violating (at least not too much) the spirit of the rules (the no absolutes thing) or campaign guidelines (i.e. not pumping PD up to 45 and calling it a day). Perhaps some extra defenses or damage reduction with "only versus real humans"? Invisibile Missile Deflect like the one 4th Ed brick had to handle bullets? Desolid, only versus Uppity Martial Artists? I don't have the Ultimate Brick, and I don't intend to own it in the near future. This thread is more intended to work out a compromise between comic realism and Champions realism among our collective brains, rather than to aid in building any particular character. So, suggestions of checking out that fine publication are certainly not frowned upon, but they're not exactly what I'm looking for if you know what I mean.

Re: Thunderbird Questions James Proudstar's stats from the TSR MSH game X-Men supplement are as follows: Fighting Ex (Regular, formal training. Ex: Cyclops/Nightcrawler) Agility Gd (Some training in dexterity and accuracy. Ex: Invis Woman/Colossus) Strength In (Able to Press 10 tons, Spidey-level) Endurance Rm (Intensive Exercise. Ex: Captain America/Cyclops) Reason Gd (Repair and install 80's (current IOW) technology. Ex: Capt Am.) Intuition Rm (Detective Skills or Background. Ex: Cyclops/Spider-Man) Psyche Rm (Trained in resisting outside forces. Ex: Hulk/Mr. Fantastic) Body Armor Gd (stops normal handguns) Tracking Rm He's bilingual in Apache/English, has tracking/survival/outdoor skills, American Indian history and student talents. Fighting is the character's overall hand to hand competence. There are martial arts talents that can bump the column you roll on for different aspects of hand to hand, but James has none of those. Agility is used to determine ranged combat hits. Again, no great shakes here. A Hero DEX of about 18-21 is probably appropriate based on the above. SPD is probably around 4. Strength lifting capacity is based on an overhead press, not a deadlift. So STR around 45-50 is probably appropriate. Endurance is max 30 for a normal Human. That's why Cap is one of their examples for that level of End. In MSH, Mutants get a bonus to END, so that's why Cyclops is sitting there. Otherwise, he and Thunderbird would be sitting at EX. I'd say a RM probably rates him at 23-25 in most hero games simply because of the number of "normal" human ranges. I tend to think of them along the lines of Typical = 8, Good = 13, Ex = 18, Rm = 23, or thereabouts. Reason in Marvel is more a measure of how good you are at manipulating technology rather than thinking ability overall. Intuition = PER. Combning the two, I'd give him 13 INT and a couple of overall PER levels, for an INT roll of 12- and a PER roll of 14-. Psyche is basically EGO. His SFX for the high Psyche score is resistance to mental attacks trained by Xavier. You can go several routes with that. I'd say maybe 11-14 EGO (for the ECV levels) and either a little Mental Defense or Resistance perk levels. Good Body Armor is enough to stop a pistol or rifle in Marvel terms, so maybe 10-15 resistant defenses. Everything else could be bought with skills.

Re: Champions Or Mutants & Masterminds? I'd say there's a huge difference in running a 200 point character with no disadvantages in a game with 150 points of disadvantages allowed (where everyone else is going to take the full 350 and most villains are going to be built assuming you took your 350) versus a lot of other systems where you get only a handfull of points to round out your character. I don't know the numbers for M&M, but let's say BESM at 50 pts + 5 or so pts for example. Of course, I know you weren't overly serious in that statement. =) Still, Hero assumes you're going to take a LOT more points in Disadvantages than a lot of competing systems.

Re: Ok, I have decided... I'd go with an EC, personally. Let you use that armor and the attack on the same phase.

Re: Normal in a Supers Land I don't want to beat a dead horse here, b/c Assault already addressed this, but what you just described is a character LOSING 17 points for a 20 point Disadvantage. That's a harsh penalty for a Disad. If you're going to buy up multiple stats over NCM, then you really shouldn't take it.

Re: Normal in a Supers Land IMO invest in nuclear weapons. If you can't get your hands on nuclear weapons, how are your social skills looking? In some games, having a "face man" may not come up too often, but a nice combo of social (PRE) skills can come in handy in certain situations. A bag of marbles is also sometimes handy, if you're short on social skills and nuclear weapons. Or oil, even. Strategically placed, you could potentially have your own shooting gallery of enemy agents! I always liked Night Man's taser-gloves. I liked 'em because my PC Striker had 'em first. =P Adding a little Energy HA or NND to your punches can come in handy for overcoming high physical defenses, and is a little less brute force looking (aesthetically anyway, if a character sheet can be aesthetic) than a ton of DCs. (Cheaper too.)

Re: Flavor Power for Brick Assuming he has a Lion Rampant somewhere on his costume, you could have the lion leap off his uniform and enter the fray, either as a power with a lion special effect, or a summons or follower. Perhaps making it an unusual power that's not too frequently used would give it more impact. Something along the lines of a dispel against magic-based effects, or an unusual sensory power.

Re: Firearms granularity I thought the history of this thread was pretty much discussing ways to take out the cinematic aspects.

Re: Firearms granularity One thing I've always found funny in reading Hero write ups is that in Supers campaigns, everyone goes with exactly that approach: High defenses, almost no wasted points in BODY, while in lower level games like Fantasy or modern/pulp, everyone has a bit of extra BODY.

Re: Firearms granularity I'd venture to say most head shots from .44 Mags or .223s are going to be very messy. Both are listed as examples of 2d6k attacks in Fifth edition. Given close enough range for either one to deliver its full energy and a square on hit, a brain is going to be shattered by the bullet passing through. The temporary wound channel left by hydrostatic shock is quite permanent in non-elastic gray matter. That's your max damage roll scenario. Any perfect shot to the head that's not deflected by the skull should be instantly fatal. A single .22 LR may not be enough to do the trick, or one of the more anemic loads for a .38 spl, but when you get into magnum caliburs and rifles, you get serious splatter.

Re: Firearms granularity I'd thought Sean thought the damage multiplier was excessive before, now I'm not sure. I agree the granularity of damage isn't realistic. That's probably because people don't like creating new characters frequently. There's a reason why real people, at least the sane ones, avoid gun fights. Turning on Hero's optional damage rules, like hit locations works pretty well in raising the level of lethality, particularly in lower point campaigns. Of course, you run into the problem of metagaming: If your players know combat is lethal, they're going to buy up BODY, and you get into something similar to the SPD race. I'd say for more lethal campaigns, upping the cost of BODY might be a reasonable start.

Re: Firearms granularity Head shots should HURT, though. Of course, you have the low roll possible of 4 BODY, which isn't too bad, maybe a case of the bullet whizzing around the inside of the skull and not hitting too much gray stuff. It can happen. So can the 24 Body, head exploding like a melon type damage. Now, I'm assuming that 2d6 is coming out of a rifle at the very least, so I don't see a big problem with the multiplier in that case.

Re: Super Origins Here's where I'd get uptight about character origins: Wonder Woman spontaneously getting Daredevil level senses. That rings much less true to me than a human being more trained than a super human, really. I can see it having an impact on her hearing, super human physique or not. If her ear drums were hardened against vibration to the degree needed to be immune to an ear cuff, she'd not be able to hear in the first place. He just made her ear drums vibrate excessively and a little painfully. No damage, just a hearing flash. =D

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Hmm, I just did a search on the first title to make sure I got it right and I found: http://www.baen.com/library/067131985X/067131985X.htm So, if you want, read it for yourself for free. =D

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Just finished March Upcountry and March to the Sea by Ringo/Weber. Series of three books, with what looks like one followup book. Good enough that I'll likely pick up the next two books, though nothing amazing or mindblowing. I'd say a solid 3/5. Sub-genre is military SF, but these also have kind of a pulpish feel too.

Re: "Realistic" sanction package Drop one of the ranks IMO. Either your military or LE, not both. Your rank is going to be in the organization you belong to. I dunno about the wealth perk. Guess it'd represent a really well-paid super, but it doesn't feel in genre to me. Military ID = passport for example. Same could go for the organization's credentials. (Of course, that may be why you have it as optional anyway.) Otherwise, looks good.

Re: Random musing of the week The Champions character generator is OK, but after taking a hard look at it over the last few days, I've come to the conclusion that it's pretty broken. It still makes for a good jumping off point for character generation if you're stuck for ideas, and I'm not going to fault the author for tackling a nearly impossible task. My biggest gripes in 5th over 4th (and I don't have revised 5th, just the first one): Organization could be better for a reference-style book of its size. (Not to knock the Index, which is great.) Combat "clarifications" that smack more of the author's house rules. Deconstruction of 4th to the meta system taken too far: Talents rewritten as powers. Regeneration turned into a big rules hash. Shapeshifting likewise turned into a bigger rules extravaganza. Fourth handled all of the above better, IMO. On the other hand, there's not so much change that you can't simply use the 4th Ed. versions of any of the above, so it's not a major gripe. All in all, though, I wouldn't mind seeing something like a beefed up Sidekick, basically 5th with all the rules but most of the fat trimmed. It'd be easier to carry, for one thing.

Re: Unofficial Welcome Mat (For New Members) I unofficially welcome all the new people.

Re: Character concept: Shadowcat Lady Shiva in deep cover.

Re: Cyber Ninja Villan You could send Tsunade after them: But she may be a bit too much of a brick.

Re: Possible Teen Champions Help