The Monster

Could this character be built as an AI instead of as a full character? It's not the same as Desolid, but doesn't/can't have all the stats like STR, BODY, etc. That way you don't have to buy ARW for powers, though you would have to buy END Reserve or zero END for everything. KA would have no effect, but mental powers, Drains, et al. would work just fine without special modifiers. You'd have to buy senses, sound Images to talk, etc. Actually, this is pretty much the same idea as the much-maligned Spirit rules from the old sourcebook, but I think it's a valid application. I'm just talking off the top of my snot-filled head (sneeze, wheeze) so there's probably big problems with this. Standing by for slings and arrows...

as a side note, you may want to prepare yourself for jokes regarding your villain's name - in re: the animated movie a couple years ago "Shrek" I like the name; it's just good to be aware of possibly unfortunate associations...

I've run a zeppelin-based pulp JI campaign for years; I Know A Few Things About Zeppelins.... (but my wife knows more...) Don't use hydrogen, unless you really want everyone to try to set in on fire - even if it wouldn't be that easy in RL, you'll get a big argument when someone tosses a match at it and it doesn't just go poof. Use helium or a fictional gas (or some totally rubber-science foofaraw like that vacuum ship). Note: the Hindenburg wasn't designed for hydrogen; some of the safety devices and procedures that would have been in place on an H2 ship were not on the Hindenburg. The only reason they didn't use helium was that the only source for it at the time was in the USA, and we wouldn't let Nazi Germany have access to such a strategic material (the government strategic helium reserve program wasn't shut down until a few years ago). Now, about the ship... My thought on rocket/jet fighters. Problem with the exhaust and thrust power involved (flame and pressure on a lighter-than-air frame). I'd stick with high-powered prop jobs, perhaps with some kind of V/STOL capability - maybe even Osprey-type rotating wings. Those could easily be launched from the top (historically, planes were launched & retrieved on hooks lowered from the bottom, so you could even have it both ways). This does give a bit more SHIELD-flavor, with a landing platform on top, but oh, well, not everything we do can be totally original. Crimson Skies has kewl pulpy planes for the period. Gun/missile platforms of course, you seem to have tacticals well enough in hand. Bombs of course. With supers and wild pilots (a la Crimson Skies) you'd have to prepare for boarding actions; marines (aerines?) with some points in Swinging or even hang gliders/ultralights could be a surprise; there might even be deployable boarding nets for marines to use for climbing. Air torpedoes, etc. IIRC the largest ships were some 800 feet long - btw, check out the American ships Akron and Macon, the finest military airships ever built; that's what I based my zeppelin on. Yours will have to be much larger to accomodate a real superbase. Big prop engines along either side for thrust (the Akron had six, maybe 8, it's tired and I'm late), and there's little reason they couldn't swing up or down for further control - again, maybe too SHIELDish for you, but it makes too much sense. You'd have a loading bay with big power winches so that you don't have to go into hangar for resupply. One big hint: go to Star Trek for ideas. It's what inspired my campaign. You have a big, independent ship with lots of people, well-armed, with defenses, weapons, engines, entertainment areas, crew quarters, galley, etc. Anything you see on ST will have its analog on this ship (OK, no holodeck, just a movie projector). Even the transporter could be paralleled with a small, fast winch which ferries up to six people to the ground . (Oh, that brings to mind the "cloud cars" - little one-man pods lowered from the zeppelin for observation, so the ship could remain hidden in the clouds while still keeping a lookout below.) A ship which uses Captain Nemo's mysterious power source from 20,000 Leagues could fly forever without refueling. Solar power's another possibility. The idea of charging batteries from electrical storms has great possibilities for fun. On weather: I recall a statement by the most successful airship captain ever, as to why he never crashed a ship: to the effect of : "I just flew around the storms instead of trying to go through them." If you can arrange weather control, even of a limited sort, you'd have a major advantage - really, even reliable weather prediction would have saved lives and ships in RL. That reminds me, be sure to put radar on it. Maybe it strikes you as a "duh" but it was a Really New Thing in the 30s, and only became deployable on an aircraft later in the war. Even on a helium ship, there'd probably be a strong prejudice against smoking. To save weight, there'd be a constant sense of things being light or even flimsy, even if richly appointed. One ship (IIRC the H'burg) had a piano - made of aluminum to save weight. Intercabin walls would be little more than traditional Japanese wood/paper walls. Hardpoints of course would have some armor (gondola, auxiliary control room, forward gun emplacement...). One interesting thing that happened IRL (I think it was the Shenandoah crash) was that when the ship broke apart, the tail section managed to land in one piece; the tail airfoils provided some semi-controlled semi-gliding capability which saved lives. The supervillain base might have that kind of thing designed in, so that the tail, gondola, and maybe even the nose can split off and come to a more or less safe landing. With a separate gondola, the nose might even be able to conduct independent flights and reattach, kind of like the Star Trek saucer. It would either operate as an unpowered balloon or have a small internal engine for thrust. In my campaign, the people on board are divided into the airship crew itself and the staff - the latter being the various scientists, linguists, and other SMEs who don't actually run the ship systems. The whole thing is under the captain, but it allows the ship to operate as a military unit while the scientists conduct their research more or less separately, without assigning them ranks within the military ladder. That should be quite enough for now. I can blather much longer of course (what gamer can't?), but it's time to get back to MOO3 before bed.

This is pretty quirky, and would require some serious thought on your part, but I might use this one myself... Playing off the earlier suggestion of having everyone play normals, why not have the mystery start out with "What happened to all the PC Heroes?" The players would play investigators/police/reporters/DNPCs/Contacts who are trying to discover why all the superheroes disappeared suddenly. Were they murdered? Abducted? Just way overdue on a mission? It might be a fun change of pace and still give everyone a personal stake in the outcome.

Another possibility: diplomatic missions. You mentioned "Japanese/Atlantean" force; perhaps the heroes could be sent to Atlantis or even a real-world nation to show why and how America can win the war, why they're the good guys, etc. - sort of an international "war bond" tour. They could be opposed by villains undermining their work secretly or openly, forced into trials of strength against super representatives of the Axis, score big diplomatic/PR points by intervening in natural disasters, stopping the last of the (real or fictional) Nazi commerce raiders (supers against the Bismarck! - yes, I know the Bismarck was gone by '42, but you get the idea). Weapons testing could be a 'Change of pace" for one night - with supers in the world, the army will certainly investigate ways to counter them, perhaps tailored against certain known enemy supers. The heroes - especially those with similar powers - could be tapped to test the weapons, opening the opportunity for accidents or deliberate sabotage ("Who the devil put *live* rounds in the transpectral deatomizer!"). Just a few random thoughts...

I don't game online for about the same reason I don't play ftf more than once a week or so - I just can't make the schedule! I'm fortunate enough to have a regular Friday night group (pretty stable membership for almost 20 years!), and even with one kid, I can't commit to a regular weekly thing beyond that. Maybe as he grows, we can start gaming toether regularly...

I'm setting up my first full-blown supers campaign (I've run JI and FH for over a decade), and I'm wondering if anyone out there actually uses the "rule of x" that the new Champions book discusses in the margins of pages 131-133? If so, do you have any advice about it? What numbers are appropriate for a "standard superhero" campaign? What factors do you use?

Stargate. Has everything I'd want in a Hero game: --PCs are basically normals, --but they get to have nice equipment, --but the PCs own bosses can't always be trusted, --and the bad guys get to have kewl powers (*and* kewl equipment), --and there are a lot more bad guys than heroes, --almost any setting or NPC culture can be justified, --you can't always tell who the bad guys are, --there's a Big Evil Enemy out there who will Destroy the Earth Unless the Players Save The Day (but not every adventure revolves around them). If only I'd thought of it first...

Well, I can't cough up as much as $833, but would it help if I made reaaalllllly big puppy eyes and said "Pleeeeeeeeease?" in my cutest cartoon-kid voice?

Rather than casual STR, perhaps it would be better to allow the creature to use its Bite attack damage (maybe converted to normal damage, since the stick is lodged between its teeth). Also, the stick might have its DEF increased by a point or two because it's in an unusual position - standard DEF/BODY for "wood" is for breaking things when you have good leverage and angle of attack. You might also have the creature make an INT roll to figure out there's other ways to get the stick out than to bite down on it. All in all, though, all Luke's maneuver really did was distract the rancor for a phase, -- maybe a second one while it looked around for him (PER roll vs Concealment?).

One question is: how high does this thing fly? If it never goes more than a few meters up, then a one-hex area is enough, with limitations always on and only the hex right below. On the other hand, to get nasty, lighten the limitation and the thing can flick its entrails to splatter its target with goo. Wonderfully hideous!

My character in one of our campaigns is *the* Frankenstien monster, though based mostly on the book, not the movie - though it's set at about the same time the movie came out, so it's a plot hook begging to be set. Actually, the campaign is in the Adventure! system, but I got so peeved with that system that I redesigned all the PCs into Hero and run my own "Adventure Hero" sessions at my local con. In the book (also check out "the Annotated Frankenstein"), the monster is really very bright, as well as extremely strong (though I think not quite chain-breaking strong) and agile, also able to withstand extreme temperatures with little problem. I ended up giving him fairly high stats - STR 30, INT 18, plus some Life Support and Resistant Defense. He's probably the most powerful guy in the group, but has very few useful skills and, of course, some major disads in Distinctive Features, Reputation and Psychlims (though he's calmed down a bit from both the book and the movie).

Shouldn't the ability to chuck wood actually be a Limited version of the more general power to chuck anything? Considering the variety of things that can be chucked (let alone up- chucked:eek: ) just chucking wood should be at least a -1/2, amybe as much as -1. Depending of course on how common wood is in your campaign - some Star Hero campaigns may almost never come across enough wood to bother chucking, so it wouldn't be a Limitation at all. While I'm at it, what about Megascale wood chucking? Imagine chucking an entire forest!

Wait! I thought Chucking was a skill not a Power! Otherwise all my Overall Skill Levels won't work and I'll be useless!

I voted - for Hero all the way! I sent the voting link to my group, just for fairness. I'll recommend that they vote for Hero too, but one of their failings as a gaming group is that they don't all love Hero as much as they should!

Maybe magicians don't use DEX Drains becasue they're too bloody expensive to be effective against people that have high DEX, whereas STR drops much faster for the same cost. You don't need magic to take care of random thugs; that's what bodyguards or your own gear and training are for. Battle magic is to do things professional soldiers can't easily do: take out large groups, and take out the heavily armored knights (well, plus futz with the enemy's control, communications, and sensory input). So it's kind of a stupid magician whose combat spell is a simple 2d6 RKA; at least it should be AP, EX, or something, or he's better off using a regular bow or crossbow (and no chance of side effects!). Whether it's swarms of insects, superhard steel, manifesting demon claws, or raw mystic energy, a magical attack should be something special - especially in Hero, where mages can wear armor and heft swords like anyone else. The "balance" between magician and warrior shouldn't depend on the magician's ability to use magic to do the same things the warrior does. More to the orginal point though, if armor is really a problem in a campaign, I suppose encumbrance or DCV/DEX penalties could work (yes, you can run and do martial arts (even marital arts if you believe "Excalibur"), but you can't do them as well). The ultimate system fix is to charge points for armor and weapons. It's not the usual way of doing things, but if it's that big a concern and is making the campaign less fun, it's an easy and fair way to do it. You could even grandfather the characters in, granting them a certain number of points to buy their accustomed gear. Of course, you ought to have full build sheets for the various pieces of armor and weapons, but surely that isn't too big a problem. Now, this still doesn't by itself solve the question of thieves wearing plate, but at least there is a clear point value to choosing armor over magic or skills.