dsatow

Re: Getting started in Champions with two young boys Given the boys age, I'd use the Basic Rulebook first and run a Teen Champions game. Once they get the hang of things, I'd move them up to standard champions and buy the Big Blue Books. As supplemental stuff, you might want to buy the Ult. Martial Arts book if they seem to tend more towards the Batman like stuff and the Champions Powers Book if they are having problems coming up with unique powers.

Re: NND vs Barrier

Re: NND vs Barrier It would depend on the description of power itself as to why the PD barrier is considered a defense. If the NND is supposed to describe a remote barrier not in physical contact with the target, then an entangle on the target would not provide sufficient defense. An example might be a Kinetic Energy attack which vibrates solid objects but actually has no physical form. Having no PD and just body, the barrier could vibrate transmitting the attack to the other side. Again, the GM would make the call based on the special effect its trying to create.

Re: NND vs Barrier just tossing in my $0.02. First lets look at blast against a person with a barrier up. The blast hits the barrier does damage. If the damage exceeds the defense, the barrier goes down and whats left hits the target. Ex: a hammer against the Invisible Woman's Force Wall. Next is a NND blast against a person with a barrier up. The blast hits the barrier and tries to do damage. Since the blast does no body, the barrier stays up even if it doesn't have the defense. Unless the GM rules otherwise, and personally I wouldn't, the NND doesn't pierce the barrier. Ex: a tranq dart against the Invisible Woman's Force Wall. Next is a NND does Body blast against a person with a barrier up. The blast hits the barrier and tries to do damage. Since the blast does body, the barrier takes damage if it doesn't have the defense. If the barrier has no body, it barrier breaks and the rest of the blast goes against the target. Ex: a cosmic radiation beam against the Invisible Woman's Force Wall. Next is a NND with indirect blast against a person with a barrier up. The blast bypasses the barrier and attacks the target. The barrier stays up to protect the target against other attacks but not against this particular attack. Ex: Invisible Woman's Force Wall is up the mutant gates a tranq dart inside her force wall. One of the issues that seems to be perplexing people is the assumption that NND (or as its known in 6e AVAD all or nothing) gives other benefits such as indirect, area of effect, etc. It does not. Simply changing the defense of the NND to make it indirect does not make it indirect. There is a common saying that a limitation which isn't limiting is not worth anything. Well, conversely, an advantage which does more than it should costs more. Of course, your GM can ignore anything, its their game. If they want, say knockback to do knockback, the more bounce to them. But by rules definition, NND does not automatically give indirect. As far as the Champions 6E write up, if the NND is blocked by PD force walls or force fields, then its block regardless of the level of defense of the wall. This means, entangles, energy only barriers, do not stop the NND.

Re: symbiote,how whould i make it? Its been quoted in the comic book, that the Symbiote actually amplified Spiderman's powers. On the subject of the thread, I think most GMs would just call the symbiote a special effect of the powers rather than a character itself and leave any worries about the symbiote leaving as story arcs. Given a special effect version of the symbiote, I would treat it as Only in Alternate Identity, with possibly Major Side Effects defined as sometimes the symbiote doesn't want to do what you want it to do.

Re: How to build: "Mental Block" My suggestion, and it probably depends on the prevalence of mental powers in your campaign, is to just see if there is a problem in using martial arts with mental powers. If there are lots of mental powers being flung about, I don't think this will be a problem.

Re: Gestalt Space Cruiser I'd create each ship independently and then give each ship clinging.

Re: Quantum Fuzzy: Mirror Universe version of the Tribble...to be or not to be Carnivorous tribbles already exist in a different movie. Its called Critters. http://www.nefariousfilms.com/TBDB/tbdb%20critters.html

Re: 6th Ed House Rules I've been wondering about letting +1 Stun mod be allowed for Blasts and other attacks and not just killing attacks. Ex: a 12d6 EB with +1 Stun would get an effective +12 Stun or just slightly better than an extra 3d6(10.5). A 8d6 EB with +1 Stun would get an effective +8 stun or just slightly better than getting +2d6(7). A 20d6 EB would get +20 Stun or just slightly better than +5d6(17.5) Ex2: a 4d6 Mental Attack would get an effective +4 stun or slightly better than an extra 1d6(3.5). A 6d6 Mental attack would get an effective +6 stun or slightly better than +1.5d6(5.5) If we try and nerf the advantage, say buying +8 stun on a blast, the advantage would look like the following. Ex: a 4d6 EB with +8 stun would do on average 46 stun, slightly better than a 12d6 blast (42)and do only 4 body. What do people think about the idea?

Re: Project WyrmStar Deadlines Bummer, I finally have some relief from work's heavy schedule and I read this after Oct 31. Do you guys take submissions on a general basis out of curiosity? I was looking at your website without registering and didn't see anything.

Re: Solar Hero timeline Strange under technology I would have assumed the distinction between The first fully learning capable AI. The first emotionally aware AI. The first man portable personal energy weapon that is not a flame thrower.

Re: The Future of Food Technology Personally I am on a SciFi bender right now and just happen to be thinking about how food would be done and whether to buy life support need not eat in the ships. I am current against the life support idea. The tech level is fairly high but impractical for the most part. Its along the lines of Cowboy Bebop and Firefly. Energy weapons exist but are damn expensive when compared to guns. So back to the thread... I take a look at the last 2000 years of food preparation, storage, and tastes. I think for the most part, fruits and vegetables will be available to the masses but the taste will be diluted in favor of ease of growth and shelf life. The four basic meats(beef, pork, chicken, fish) will be farm grown the old fashion way but be genetically modified to be more resistant to disease, grow faster, etc. The genetic advances and how they are farmed will affect the flavor again to the detriment of the meat's flavor. Heirloom or enhanced flavor foods would be available to both the wealthy and poor, but will be consumed by mostly the wealthy on a day to day basis. High end restaurants will taste 10x better than comparable lower end food dives but will cost higher. Food preparation will be easier and higher end dishes will have unique properties. People will still cook simple roasts. But the cutting edge dishes might be a roast which is stuffed and when the meat is cut, grave erupts from the meat. Mashed potatoes will still exist but there might be mashed potatoes which changes colors and flavors as it cools. Additionally, foods which might have been considered inedible, could be made edible. Tree bark might now be a delicacy. Gastrochemistry might be able to do very strange things to food in the future. Technological advances might make currently hard dishes easy. We have bread makers, could cake makers be that far off. Finally, fast food and portable food will change. Some of it is not wide spread now but possible in the future. Self heating meal packs exist today but are not widely used. Could self cooling packs exist in the future? I think the best depiction (most realistic) of the future of food in science fiction has probably got to be Babylon 5. People still cook though the more scifi styles of food exist, people still make their own meals. Just like people 200 years ago.

Re: 6th Ed House Rules Personally, I like the new stun mod. The old stun mod, too many people were using killing attacks for the Stun Lottery or buying up the stun mod because it was efficient to do so. Characters were being formed around the chance of wiping out the villain in one shot. Before 6th edition, the simple way to stop the stun lottery was simple to make the stun mod a static 3. Thus on the average 4d6K will still do 42 stun just like a normal attack. So far the one house rule I have not wavered on is Diving for Cover/Flying Dodge when moving out of an area requires a -1 per 2m penalty to a Dex Roll.

Re: Magical Knick Knacks Another knick Knick I remember was the King's ring. It gave the wearer, knowledge skills and language for the King's Kingdom.

A recent post reminded me of little magical items I used to give out as "treasure" for a fantasy hero game. Unlike magic arrows or healing potions, these items were designed just to make life easier on the PCs. After a while though, the PCs found interesting uses for them... I haven't run a fantasy hero game in a long while, but I am curious if other players did things similarly and what did they create. For me, I had literally dozens, from the dice that always rolled what the owner shouted to the shaving and soap stones to the probably most common flashlight. The shaving stone turned out to be the most funny as they used it to shave and ridicule an NPC while he was sleeping before a meeting with royalty. Items I can remember: A hobbit house: looks like a potporri house but if fitted with a candle heated or cooled if water was poured inside a 2" radius. (change environment 2"r hot or cold 1 recoverable charge lasts 6 hours). Shaving stone - activated by spoken word and had an audible special effect hum (cosmetic transformation) Sharpening stone - Actually useful for bladed objects. (Aid 1d6 lasts 1 Day) Hobbit's Picnic basket - 6 charges of Major Transform to create food. The miniature music box - sound images - a mechanical quartet plays what ever music you request. best of all it was pocketable and had no DRM. Jobe's Magic Robes - 2 def leather armor which changed to whatever clothing style you asked (Instachange) Goblet of Poison Detection - Goblet would change depictions on whether there was poison in the cup. (detect poison only in cup) The travelling mug - really useful. Cosmetic Change only to heat or cool liquid in cup.

Re: Electro Magnetic Pulse From your description of the character, I'd personally, skip the realistic approach (and its minor details) and go with the comic book/action movie approach. This way, there is less argument with the GM and continues the feel of most campaigns. Whether the GM allows you to wipe hard disks or not, to me, is just a trivial side effect better suited for role playing than working as a power. But then again, I've found that I have had fun making these little side effect things with points from a purely sadistic GM point of view.

Re: Convention Help I've been finding with experience players, one average combat =~ 2 hours discounting role-playing build up and other stuff. In 4 hours, depending on the amount of role playing you can probably plan 1 -2 combats (2 if one of the combats is simpler).

Re: OCV/DCV Am I doing the math right? The neat thing about this formula a friend showed me a long time ago for Fantasy Hero is how it works for Crits. Subtracting the 3d6 again from the formula gives you the DCV you critically hit (i.e. hit by 1/2 or more rounded down). EX: If you have an OCV 8 and rolled a 7, You hit a 11+8-7=12 DCV. You Crit a 11+8-7-7=5 DCV. The chance to critical a 5 DCV is (11+8-5)/2=7 or less.

Re: Who you gonna call? There is a lot of anime/manga out there where people battle ghosts such as Bleach, XXXholic(not porn), and Kekkaishi. As for tv shows, as mentioned, Supernatural, but there is also Dark Shadows, a cult favorite, deserves a mention. In movies, I think you missed the obvious one, Ghost. Might not be about fight Ghosts, but it gives ideas. Wikipedia has a list of ghost movies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ghost_films

Re: 5th Ed: Flying Dodge My problem with it, is its too efficient, rather than breaking the rules per say. When an ability is too efficient, every character in creation begins to have that ability. When End Battery was more broken in 3rd edition, you would see tons of End Battery Twids. Granted, I used that twiddly ability myself, but that doesn't make it right. Those that used it didn't break the game system, but it was a twiddly way to get around END costs at that time and gave the users a lot more effective points than those who didn't use it.

Re: 5th Ed: Flying Dodge

Re: 5th Ed: Flying Dodge As for flying dodge, I seem to recall Steve saying something to the effect that so long as the special effects and timing allow, the Flying Dodge is a dodging action and thus can be continued until the person doing the flying dodge runs out of movement. Personally, I think its too cheap for what it does. I'd allow it to be used as a DFC but I'd impose the -1/2m penalty and require a DEX roll.

Re: 5th Ed: Flying Dodge Since I am at work, I can sit and read the entire thread However, in comparison to the say 3 forms of getting the "heck out of the way" Can prevent a hth attack? DFC = Yes if out of hth range Flying Dodge = Yes if out of hth range Desol = Yes if not affects desol. Breaks haymakers? DFC = yes Flying Dodge = yes Desol = No DCV bonus? DFC = No and you drop to 1/2 DCV Flying Dodge= +4 DCV Desol = No Prone? DFC = Yes, immediately on attempting Flying Dodge = No Desol = No If you are hit while "getting the heck out of the way" can you use breakfall? DFC = No Flying Dodge = Yes Desol = Yes Assuming no End Cost reduction, does it cost end? DFC = Yes, 1 minimum for movement Flying Dodge = Yes, 1 minimum for movement Desol = 4 Any chance of failure DFC = Yes with a -1 per 2m traveled. Flying Dodge = No, regardless of distance Desol = Not without a limitation If you are attacked more than once, can you try again? DFC = Generally, yes at additional penalties. Flying Dodge = Yes, with no penalties Desol = Yes If you fail, can you try again? DFC = No Flying Dodge = yes, I think officially you can continue to "dodge" Desol = yes, unless a limitation Active points DFC = 0 Flying Dodge = 4 Desol = 40 Did I miss anything?

Re: A Boy Scout - First HERO System Character I would've added the Hidden Snickers Bar 1d6 Aid to END 1 non-recoverable charge OAF: Candy Bar recover 5 points per hour. It really satisfies.

Re: Complete Newcomer to the System IMHO, yes and no. If you take the exact numbers for all the values and then compare them to real life situations, then yes it doesn't work out. The best example of this is a boxing match. In a championship bout both boxers are said to be the best in the world, but if you create two identical boxers, each relatively tough and equal in stats, the bout doesn't last 3 minutes, let alone for several rounds. On the other hand, if you disregard a strict interpretation that a turn is 12 seconds and just go for the feel of the combat, the game takes on a movie style feel to the action. Each boxer has several options. Does he block the next blow or does he jab? Should he roll with the punch? Can he stay on his feet long enough or will that lucky blow take him down? I would suggest, to get a feel for the mechanics, to first start a game at the heroic level with no hit locations. In this way, you will learn how the combat works, how movement works, the basics of how to build characters, how skills work, etc. Another idea is to to create simple champions characters, using either premade characters or character kitted together from HERO books and supplements. This can be a bit costly and I don't recommend it when you aren't sure you are going to like the game. If you like how things operate from the previous paragraph, I will say the next step is to create powers. Creating powers is what I think gives HERO is bad rap. This is because HERO has a great deal of diversity in its power based does let you do just about anything. Once you get a handle on it, you'll be amazed at how much fun it is using the system, but I think its a big step. If you do want to plunge into creating powers, I would suggest getting Hero Designer. Its a software piece tool which is sold by Hero Games to help create characters. Always indispensable is a person who knows the system in the game. Most veterans are a great help.