pawsplay

I think D&D 5e style sneak attack is best represented by 4 PSLs vs. Hit Location penalties (12 points). Limit it to "Daggers and light blades" for 8 points. That lets you aim for the Vitals without penalty when you have surprise.

Historically, it wasn't a part of the original Fantasy Hero and didn't fit the conception of magic given in 4th edition. However, if you dig around in FH you'll find some conversion notes that mention Multipower works really well for converting GURPS magic users. Multipowers generally aren't used in FH because the spells tend to require you to actively maintain them, you have to divide your powers between different effects, there isn't a big cost break for lots of Limitations, and you generally have to magic the magic thematically tight. If your fantasy campaign has a more "psychic" magic style, multipower works really well. It doesn't work all that well for D&D style wizards because they tend to mix it up between long duration "trap", portal, and protection spells, offensive spells, and some concentration effects like telekinesis. One thing it does really well is for very versatile spells. Mystic Masters has some examples, like a Multipower of light spells that create various attacks and environmental effects. D&D spells that could this treatment include dispel evil, symbol, and imprisonment.

I'd put all the wings powers into an EC, and then for the defensive maneuver make it Force Field, Constrained (not while flying)

It's pretty good. I ordered a hard copy. I put up a review in the Hero Products section.

Honestly, this is just part of the larger and more general problem that swords are considered cool, but historically they are a specialized, secondary weapon. The samurai are associated with the katana, but during the height of medieval warfare in Japan, the chief weapons were the spear and the bow. European knights had their swords mythologized by 18th and 19th century writers who romanticized swords because fencing was popular. As in Japan, in Europe, the sword took on greater status as its utility on the open field of battle waned. The Roman gladius was a sidearm. During the Crusades era, the sword was popular in part because it could be depicted as cruciform, and the Arabic scimitar as a crescent, and this imagery persisted centuries later as the Crusades era became romanticized. But most of the actual killing during the Crusades was done by arrows, axes, maces, spears, and flails. High impact weapons were needed to breach mail or mangle flesh under it. The sword is incredibly effective in a duel, but as a general utility weapon, you would rather have a dagger in a scrum, a spear in a charge, and an axe against a well-armored foe. So all the arguments against swords and space are really just arguments against swords in general, but in space. In short, the reason to have lots of swords in space would be to resurrect the reason swords were popular in real life: duels, as status items for aristocrats, and as secondary weapons in pitched battles that hadn't quite got to the dagger/choking/atomic piledriver stage yet. Daggers, though. You can always find a justification for a dagger.

In the USA. If you look at its overseas box office, it looks like a runaway hit.

But closets full of dead, nude women are fine. "Of course."

Here's a revised version, based on some suggestions from Ron. Basically, putting in an Elemental Control for her theme of being a fast, cat-like fighter. CATSEYE Alias: Katye Cortés Katye is an athletic Mexican-American woman with light brown hair and wide, dark brown eyes. Her demeanor is plaful and maybe a little daring, but she can also hide from the limelight. As Catseye, she wears a gray body stocking with black boots and clawed gloves, and a black mask with "ears." While she may not have flashy powers, Katye has reflexes and agility beyond a normal human's. While a great champion of ordinary people, Katye sometimes dabbles in mischief and her own personal sense of justice. The Golden Wyvern Adepts still haven't forgiven her for the theft of a powerful idol. Unable to thwart the Adepts intention to use the idol in a forbidden ritual, Catseye simply stole it and sold it to a private collector, alerting several occult heroes to its whereabouts. Situations Secret Identity (15) Psych: Walks the line between justice and mischief, irrational (20) Psych: Curious (15) Hunted: The Golden Wyvern Adepts, small, superpowers, ruinous/murderous (25) Vulnerability: Sonic attacks (25) Strength 3d6 (5) Presence 3d6 (5) Defense 10 Body 13 (30) Speed 4 (30) Recovery 13 Stunned 13 Knockout 26 Endurance 39 Dexterity 13 (20) Intelligence 11 Ego 11 Skills Climbing (5) Disguise (5) Security Systems (5) Stealth (5) Luck 3d6 (15) Acrobatics (10) Martial Attacks (10) Martial Moves (10) Powers Fast as Cats: Elemental Control (15) Elusive Target: Force Field 12, Constrained (with Acrobatics) (10) Scratch Your Eyes: Flash 2d6, Strike (adds to Martial Punch) (20)

CATSEYE Alias: Katye Cortés Katye is an athletic Mexican-American woman with light brown hair and wide, dark brown eyes. Her demeanor is plaful and maybe a little daring, but she can also hide from the limelight. As Catseye, she wears a gray body stocking with black boots and clawed gloves, and a black mask with "ears." While she may not have flashy powers, Katye has reflexes and agility beyond a normal human's. While a great champion of ordinary people, Katye sometimes dabbles in mischief and her own personal sense of justice. The Golden Wyvern Adepts still haven't forgiven her for the theft of a powerful idol. Unable to thwart the Adepts intention to use the idol in a forbidden ritual, Catseye simply stole it and sold it to a private collector, alerting several occult heroes to its whereabouts. Situations Secret Identity (15) Psych: Walks the line between justice and mischief, irrational (20) Psych: Curious (15) Hunted: The Golden Wyvern Adepts, small, superpowers, ruinous/murderous (25) Vulnerability: Sonic attacks (25) Strength 3d6 (5) Presence 3d6 (5) Defense 10 Body 13 (30) Speed 4 (30) Recovery 13 Stunned 13 Knockout 26 Endurance 39 Dexterity 13 (20) Intelligence 11 Ego 11 Skills Climbing (5) Disguise (5) Security Systems (5) Stealth (5) Luck 1d6 (5) Acrobatics (10) Martial Attacks (10) Martial Moves (10) Powers Elusive Target: Force Field 12, Constrained (with Acrobatics) (20) Scratch Your Eyes: Flash 2d6, Strike (adds to Martial Punch) (35)

Truthfully, my review is written in essay format, as a series of linked paragraphs, most of them either structured as a series of building points, or as premise-elaboration-conclusion.

This is one of the wildest things I've ever purchased. In a nutshell, this is a remix of old school Champions, the superhero roleplaying game, first through third editions, by Ron "I am definitely modern gaming" Edwards of Sorcerer fame. The whole book is written in caffeinated, stream-of-consciousness format, defying decades of textbook-style game writing, in favor of a style I usually associate with hundred page spirals from the university print shop. To get right to the point, this is one of the most fun and exciting things in gaming I've read in years. If you have even one superhero game on your shelf, you owe it to yourself to buy this game. Why? I'll tell you why, true believers. That is, after all, the main point of a review. Many people associate Champions with baroque, math-heavy character creation. My personal introduction began in a book store in the early 90s with a charming-looking hardback called Champions. After a quick thumb through, one thing jumped out at me: Energy Blast, 5 points per 1d6 damage. After learning from the amazing-but-chart-heavy classic DC Heroes and the quirky yet catchy Marvel Super Heroes games, this was like a bolt from the blue. You could just spend a few points for whatever you want, no scaling costs, no limits, and powers were as simple or as complex as you wanted them to be. And make no mistake, under the surface, Champions and Hero System retain that core of simplicity after six editions. You can still make a 6e Champions character with five powers, no modifiers, a handful of skills, and some characteristics. Champions Now takes that core and brings me right back to that bookstore. Make no mistake, Champions Now retains such familiar elements as modifiers and characteristics. Champions Now strips that right down to its essential core. There is only a bare minimum a new Champions player would need to sit down and join a game. Champions Now poses the question of our day: what do you really, truly, need beyond that? Moreover, "special effects" has long been a hallmark of Champions. While Champions 6e allows you to modify a power to a truly exacting description of its effects, "special effects" remain in play. Essentially, it's the idea that fire burns. Regardless of all the modifiers and costs on the worksheet, intended to capture the essence of an ability, the GM is supposed to use those artifacts of play to reflect a fictional narrative. Does your character know how to make sushi? Of course she does! There's no point value for that. Well, Champions Now brings that completely to the front. Everything is special effects. The Powers section is prefaced with the statement: "Although we call these “powers” for convenience, they aren’t. They’re rules to punch the powers’ special effects into play." I'm not sure that's something I want to spell out. It's a little like revealing a magician's tricks. But as a concept, it's a winner. This is well beyond Hero System's "What does this power really do?" This is beyond M&M's "these are effects that build powers." This is way back to Marvel Super Heroes, "Here is a somewhat rambling essay about Wolverine's regeneration masquerading as an entry on a character sheet," but, as Ron says, "with teeth." Champions Now, however, is its own beast. Combat is very fast and very rough. Ron states repeatedly and emphatically that this is a "let the dice fall where they may" style game. This is not only true to the roots of such old school games, but is also a tool of design. From the get-go, Champions Now is about putting elements into play to see what happens. The GM designs a game around Two Statements, one of which is about superheroes and the other one isn't. Like you might have, "The characters are young adult mutants living in Greenwich Village," and "Friends who are family." Having put that in place, the GM turns things loose to the players. Each player is urged to build their character around three corners: person, powers, and problems. So you have Jennifer, a perpetually broke graduate student on the outs with her wealthy parents. She has lightning powers, but specifically, close-in, high voltage current. And she feels a lot of sense of responsibility for her powers. She also has, I don't know, a teenage cousin who moved in after running away from her alcoholic parents. There is no negotiation phase, no hash-it-out, no setting bible. It's more like one of those games where every participant adds a sentence to the story. Nonetheless, the game is built around integrity. Every element is intended to add change, excitement, and dare I hope, emotion to the game. Mechanics fall into the "get out of the way" variety. Almost everything is special effects. A power consists of little more than how much, how often, and what is the result. Is it a Piercing blast? A damage Aura? As to what to do, Champions Now doubles and triples down on Champions's two most iconic elements. The first is Endurance. While a lot of modern games dispense with such resource accounting, this element will be very familiar to any MMO player who has had to deal with limited energy and powerful cool-downs. CN is all pacing. Sometimes you fire off a few punches. Sometimes you expend extra effort, dipping deep into your endurance reserves at some risk. Sometimes you hide behind a pillar and Recover while your allies hold the line. Characters are durable, but if you start to take punishment, you will go down fast as Endurance and Knockout quickly run out. The other iconic Champions element is the Presence Attack. Just as much as they are defined by punches, dodges, and energy blasts, Champions characters are defined by Presence. Some characters have just a little, just enough to cow an ordinary thug with your powers. Others literally stop the action just by talking into the room. More importantly, though, are situational modifiers. Just glaring at people in the middle of a pitched fight will get you nowhere. But if you stride into a room, announced, "You started with out me? How rude!" and toss a bad guy through a window with telekinesis while standing literally on top of table with a cutting-ceremony cake for two hundred, you get a few extra dice. Online combat per se with its beat by beat pacing, Presence Attacks take no action, little time, and can happen at any moment, even, if you can get a word in edgewise, on someone else's turn. Presence Attacks reinforce the tropes of superheroes while encouraging constant, dig-deep inventiveness. And what is a superhero, anyway? Early Batman hung guys out windows to their deaths. Superman ricocheted bullets right back at bad guys, ending them karmically. Later Batman refused to kill at all. Iron Man wrestled with alcoholism. DCAU series Wonder Woman was an out-and-out warrior, but with the heart and boundless compassion the character is known for. Champions Now focuses on the pulpy, messy, forget-continuity-the-Watcher-will-know-his-own style, mostly from the early Silver Age to the early Bronze. But literally, there is no telling you want to do. This could be the Mystery Men movie, or The Specials. It could be the New 52. It could be your own version of Cold War era do-gooders. It could be Cold War era style do-gooders, in the 21st century. Guys in goggles. Women in tights. Gorillas in football jersies. Ten year old wizards. Twenty foot tall anthropomorphic dogs. Lovable kid sidekicks. Terrifying actual-kid sidekicks in danger. This is not a perfect book. Like the game it contains, like the media and stories it seeks to unleash, this lo-fi, superheropunk, indiepunk, retro-futuro madness. This is not the most accessible game to dive into and read. Still, if you walk with this book, if you read this book through once without trying to understand it all, if you go back and read it again, and jump around to the different parts until you get it, this thing will get inside you. If I had any complaint, it's that there is no newbie-friendly capsule version. Mind you, that won't capture the full spirit of what Ron is trying to accomplish here. But I think it might be a bit much to expect your average player to "get it" on the first time through. Make no mistake, though, this is a very accessible game to a new group, if presented in actual play. If one or two players make the effort of digging deep into it, they can easily lead the way. And for a savvy GM, this game is a cinch to run and a cinch to teach. If CN really catches on, I think it could lead to a refined second edition, with maybe a few helpful pamphlets to fire up the coal in the engine. Such refinement, though, needs to be done carefully, lest this four-color rock star nerd magic of a game turn into a glossy, never-sweating, overproduced imitation of itself. Even if you never play this game, by all means, at least read it. But play it. Special Thanks to: Ron Edwards, Steve Long, George MacDonald, and Steve Peterson, long may they reign.

TRINITY Alias: Ramona McDonald Ramona is a 28 year old woman, the child of a white father, Michael McDonald, and a Creole mother, Marie-Jean Chenille. She studied civil engineering in college, but became discouraged, and became a social worker. Ramona always had an interest in the occult. Acquiring a red quartz from an antiquarian, Ramona thought she was acquiring a psychic crystal but it was actually an incredibly powerful mystic battery. Ramona became Trinity, with the power to transform into three forms: light, darkness, and flame. While possessed of a powerful conscience, Ramona feels the pull of the primal spirit that empowers her abilities. Ramona enjoys employing the Tarot to help with her meditations and divinations. The mysterious Mister Zinn, an occult villain, has sworn to discover how to break the bond between Ramona and the Balefire Stone, and steal her powers. Romona has a medium skin tone, kinky-curly dark blonde hair, and hazel-brown eyes. As Trinity she wears a diamond-speckled black domino mask and an indigo running suit with black neoprene boots. When using her powers, little of her body is visible. As Light, she is armored in glowing yellow-white light; as Dark, she becomes a midnight black shadow that looks misty in bright light, with the appearance of long, smoky tendrils of hair and burning coals for eyes; as Flame, she is covered in a corona of crimson, lambent flames with solar eyes. Situations Enrage: When damaged while in Flame, likely, 11- (10) Hunted: Mister Zinn, includes superpowers, ruinous (20) Psych: Drawn to the mysterious (5) Psych: Feels her powers are a license to mete juistice, happens a lot (15) Psych: Reflexively empathetic (15) Side Effects: When Trinity uses her Hungry Touch, she is subjected to 4d6 Mind Control urging her to use it again (20) Vulnerability: x2 effect from Drain (15) Strength 2d6 Presence 3d6 (5) Defense 11 (1) Body 11 (10) Speed 3 (20) Recovery 11 Stunned 11 Knockout 22 Emndurance 33 Dexterity 12 (10) Intelligence 11 Ego 11 Skills Detective Work (5) Luck 1d6 (5) Powers Multiform 90 Points: Three Balefires 1. Aura of Light Light Blast: Blast 5d6 Flare: Flash 2d6, Explosion Luminous Propulsion: Flight 10 hexes Protective Glow: Force Field 4 Specialized Defense: 1d6 Flash 90 active points in slot (18) 2. Cloak of Darkness Like a Mist: Desolid 3 (up to 6 Body, 15 hex flight moving through objects, 6 resistant Defense) Hungry Touch: Drain 4d6, Lethal Blend into Shadows: Invisibility Walk the Air: Surfaces (Air-walking) 90 active points in slot (18) 3. Body of Flame Covered in Crimson Flames: Blast 4d6, Aura Burning Flight: Flight 10 hexes Burning Sheath: Force Field 6 Hurl Fire Bolt: Blast 5d6 90 active points in slot (18)

Honestly I haven't bought any comics in ten years except DCAU adaptations, and a few indie books like Invincible and Astro City. I've glanced through some recent JL stuff and it's okay. I wouldn't claim to know the current state of the industry, but if there's a lot of good stuff happening in mainstream books out there I don't know what it is.

I'm coming around to it. There are decisions that are different than I would have made, but made for reasons I understand. In a lot of ways the character creation leads me back to Champions 4 as I first experienced it: while for a lot of people, Champions is rooted in nuts-and-bolts mechanics, what originally drew me in was the concept of "Energy Blast, 5 points per 1d6 of Damage," which was so simple and elegant compared to DC Heroes with its charts or Marvel with its Monstrous Energy Blasts and such. And although CN dispenses with brownie points and fate points and whatnot, it has a lot in common with DC Heroes and Marvel Super Heroes in terms of being a brawly, fast-paced game where heroes can and do hit the dirt from time to time. Some of the no-shenanigas polices ("no limitations on powers in Multiform") seem overly broad (What if one of my slots would seem cooler with Shutdown?). But that's okay, every edition of Champions has some of those rules, every RPG has some of those rules. As to being a book, it's a good book, to me. But not for all purposes. I feel like there could be a capsule version of CN to introduce it to new players.

Skill levels, only to negate penalties for aiming at the vitals. Haymaker is fine, though. And there is nothing wrong with "everyone having sneak attack."

I thought it would be cool to work within the CU framework, but if it isn't even name-checked on any character writeup, I'm fine with leaving it alone. One of the advanced steel alloys, an alien metal, or even orichalcum might work for my purposes.

I was thinking that paradoxically, a neutronium weapon wouldn't necessarily do a lot of damage, since it takes so much muscle just to move it. I had a concept for a weapon-using hero, but I'm wondering if neutronium is too powerful as a concept for a standard superheroic campaign. I'm also wondering if neutronium is durable enough that such a weapon would be considered Unbreakable, or just Durable.

I was thinking neutronium would be about 100x the weight of steel, so a neutronium sword might weigh 200 kg. I can't imagine it weighing literally a ton because 1) you couldn't carry it in an elevator, and 2) that is way beyond "an Olympic athlete can't lift this."

The D&D version is just Drain (Suppress) PD, Only to defeat locks (-1). It is resisted by Arcane Lock but pretty much just works automatically against a mundane lock. 6D6 with plenty of limitations should be both effective and cost-efficient.

I noticed the mention of neutronium in Champions Universe 5e, and I was wondering where it makes appearances. Who uses neutronium weapons?

A Haymaker with a gun could be when the hard-edged hero stairs down the approaching car full of bad guys and puts a bullet straight through the driver.

Can this unlock a questionate bank vault with a combination lock?

I like work-a-day thugs who have made the poor career choice of working for obsessed lunatics. Like, the Penguin themed thug idea, but it's just some tough guy named Mario who puts up with being called Macaroni because the pay is good.

I kind of don't like how easy Club Weapon is. It seems like using a weapon this way ought to be less effective. I haven't thought about Haymaker that much, but it seems legitimate. For ranged attacks, it's an alternative to Brace and Set. For spells, it's a bit weird since I'm not sure how haymaker normally interacts with Full Phase, which a lot of spells are.

One weird thing about Killing Attacks is that in the comics, the opponents most likely to use straight-up Killing Attacks are bad guys with guns, and maybe killer robots... which are some of the least likely opponents to actually kill a superhero.