Theron

Re: A DC Animated-style HeroMachine Not bad. A little too bright for my tastes (but I tend towards a muted palette, I've noticed), but a very worthwhile adaptation.

Re: What's the Simplest Way To Do This? She does have a "normal" form. Of course, the normal form is low-level superheroic in her own right. At the moment, I'm playing around with the Multiform, paying attention to make sure the stats all line up between the forms. It served to make the "Normal" a little better, and freed up points to do a couple more "Goddess-y" things (like add some life support) with the Aspect of Athena (the first I've tried so far). I suspect The Missus will like this version better, since it's got more stuff. Thanks for the input. I haven't had this much fun crunching numbers in ages. (And Chris, I wish you were local. I'm a little short on players for this game.)

My wife has a pet character concept we've tried to build on a number of occasions. Since she wants to run this character in my upcoming campaign, I took another, different crack at it yesterday. But after sleeping on it, I'm not sure it was the best approach, given that it breaks a couple of the rules that Hero Designer will let slide with a warning. Here's the basic idea: Oracle has the ability to channel the powers of Athena, Artemis, and Aphrodite, but only one at a time. Athena is a HtH combat monster and overall skill booster, Artemis is a ranged combat machine with high running speed and tracking abilities, and Aphrodite is a mentalist/social monster. The logical approach to this is a multiform, but we found that rather cumbersome in implementation. Especially since the character concept allows for significant freedom in switching between aspects. This time around, I decided to take a different approach and make her fairly competent right out of the box (which gives her a range of consistent stats and skills across the board) and used a VPP with Lockout and a Limitation that she can only use the pre-defined powers of the individual goddess packages. My reasoning for this is that she's not really taking on different forms, more like she's shifting enormous ultra slots in a MP. When she's channeling Athena, she has access to greater strength, a HtH attack with reach (her spear), a few non-combat skill levels, and a bunch of combat skills stuff. Of course, that means putting things in a Power Framework that shouldn't go in one, like Skill levels and Enhanced Senses. As far as I can tell at this point, it basically works. But I have this niggling feeling that doing it as a multiform would be more efficient in some respects, just as long as her CON, BOD, DEX, SPD, and Stun remain constant between forms. I'm also not sure what sort of can of worms I may be opening with putting verboten stuff in a Framework. Any suggestions? The game's tentatively scheduled for next week, so I've still got a few days to work on her.

Re: A DC Animated-style HeroMachine And, because no one else seems to have done it, here's the model sheets from "Champions: the Animated Series." Defender (based more on his appearance on book covers than the description in his write-ups) Ironclad Nighthawk (To date, the hardest adaptation I've done, and it's still not right.) Sapphire Witchcraft

Re: A DC Animated-style HeroMachine Some new tinkering. It's been a busy week, so I haven't had much time to play with it lately. First up, from VV&V, it's The Crimelords! Dreadnaught Morgaine the Mystic Starflare (one of my few attempts at editing the image after the fact) Tiger Lily Warhammer And from Champions... Talisman

Re: A DC Animated-style HeroMachine And it's back.

Re: The "True" Origin of Mechanon I've not really thought about an origin for him in current CU continuity. Back in the days of the BBB and Classic Enemies, it was something along the lines of Mechanon was the Guardians' (not the Champions) security robot, infected with an alien computer virus during the Firewing Invasion (a major plot point in my campaign that basically ushered in the new age of superheroes). The virus "mutated," and the result was Mechanon's destructive programming. Or something like that.

Re: A DC Animated-style HeroMachine Oh good. Server issues I can deal with. A C&D from Time-Warner would be far worse.

Re: A DC Animated-style HeroMachine Has anyone else had trouble accessing this today? I'm getting "Not Found" errors at the URLs I had bookmarked.

Re: how many points to spend on villains One thing I always do is make my solo villains faster than they conceptually need to be. I don't care if Mag-Maaa, the Lord of UnderMuncie is a gigantic shambling pile of molten rock, he gets a SPD of 7 or 8. Because even with a SPD of 7 or 8, a group of four PCs with an average SPD of 5 will get 20 actions to his 7 or 8; as such, he needs to be able to blow a few on Blocks, Recoveries, etc. Then again, I map SPD to screen time, so a SPD 4 speedster is a perfectly valid concept in my games.

Re: The Champions Universe Without The Champions. How Hard Can It Be? Mainly because that's more explanation (i.e. work) than this campaign needs, or frankly, deserves at this point. Which defeats the purpose of using a canned setting. Honestly, I've already settled on a course of action. Mostly, this thread was the internet equivalent of thinking out loud and gleaning a couple of good ideas from the ensuing discussion. If other folks want to continue to run with this idea, that's groovy, but I've gotten what I wanted from it with thanks to those who participated.

Re: The Champions Universe Without The Champions. How Hard Can It Be?

Re: A DC Animated-style HeroMachine Deathstroke! From left to right: Death Singer, Frost, Stinger, Arrowhead, and Death Commando.

Re: The Champions Universe Without The Champions. How Hard Can It Be? (Rep on its way to both Tom and Shaft) Those are some good ideas and handle things well. One thing I've learned about canned settings is that, often, when you take something out, you have to put back twice as much. I like the idea of the Champions just never forming, but the characters being around the periphery somewhere. I especially like the idea of Hudson City with Nighthawk, since I'm vehemently NOT a "Dark Champions takes place in the same world as Champions" guy.

Re: The Champions Universe Without The Champions. How Hard Can It Be? Good question. I don't want to do that, as it inevitably sets up the heroes as having to live up to the previous bunch's legacy. I've done the replacement heroes game a number of times, and while it works fine, it's not the angle I want to pursue with this campaign.

That is the question. I'm trying to get a new campaign off the ground. But I'm also not up to building a world from scratch, so I'm thinking about letting the CU product line do the heavy lifting for me. Thing is, I really don't want the Champions in there. At all. I have nothing against the characters in particular. I even played Defender at a convention and had a fine time. But they're standing squarely in that PC-shaped hole in my campaign. Leaving them in as another group of locals is more trouble than it's worth, in my experience. Moving them to another city is entirely possible, but in all honesty, I'd just rather excise them from the setting. Which can lead to unintended consequences I'd rather know about ahead of time. F'rinstance, Talisman is Witchcraft's sister. And Witchcraft is a prime contender for Sorceror Supreme (or the CU equivalent). So that's a niche a PC could potentially fill, or another NPC. While I was typing this, It occurred to me that I could change Witchcraft's name to Solitaire and set her up as a more "go it alone" type NPC heroine who handles the big mystical stuff the PCs aren't up to yet, but is often off-dimension when they actually need her. Sort of like Elminster. But that's kind of my point as well. I certainly CAN make the necessary changes. I've been playing and GMing this game for 26 freakin' years, and I've picked up a thing or two in that time. The thing is, there's a difference between "Can" and "Want to." Which is why I'm bothering y'all. See, I figure someone out there has noted the places where the CU intersects the Champions in particular and what might need to be changed in order to keep them out of the picture. Or not. I figure there might be some decent discussion on the subject either way.

Re: Build to Concept Champions You guys are gonna make me blush. But thanks for the kind words.

Re: Build to Concept Champions It's no longer available as a freebie, but my article "Pointless Champions" in DH #3 was specifically about our first-hand experience with just such a campaign. I planned to write a follow-up after the campaign finally ended, but I never got around to it.

Re: The Geodesics! It came out back in the day. It was a nice set, with Denis Loubet artwork that I think showed up later in the 4th edition GM's screen. The tricky part is that my set has been "based" (hot glued to pennies) for about 23 years or so, so I'm having to do a lot of close looking to guess at who's who unless it's really obvious. Looking at my set, I can see what I'm pretty sure is Ultraviolet (she's in a very generic blue-ish purple outfit), but none of the others are immediately recognizable. I also seem to recall a somewhat reformed version of UV showed up in a later issue of Adventurer's Club. A quick check of the collection shows it was AC #22, "Castle Security."

Re: The Geodesics! Nice! The only color versions I ever saw were in the Steve Jackson Games Cardboard Heroes set.

Re: Gettin' Crafty! The maps are out of the Hero System Resource Kit. The modern street map is a very slightly updated version of the original map that came in the Champions second printing boxed set, back in olden times.

Re: Gettin' Crafty! There's a thread still on the front page here that Chris-M started with attached files containing the distilled Hero fan knowledge of how to use the Heromatic, based on trial, error, and Babelfish.

Re: Gettin' Crafty!

Re: Gettin' Crafty! Because I'm one of those lazy bums who's always trying to come up with a way to make something easier/more efficient, I wanted to share my further refinements. First off, the cardstock with sealant was definitely the way to go. It made it a little harder to seal the artwork to the wooden disk, but the lack of smears on the final art is worth it. Today, I went shopping for more of the 1" disks I'm using to make the counters. Unfortunately, Hobby Lobby was out, and Michael's only had a rather overpriced seven for $1.50, and only one package of those. However, Michael's did have something else: Lara's Crafts' Alphabet Circles. One inch wooden disks with a letter of the alphabet painted/printed on one side. Best of all, a bag of 52 is only $1.99. The best part, however is that the unpainted side has a heavy-duty adhesive backing. Which means I only have to stick the cardstock on the disks, then seal them with the decoupage. One could also paint the backs of the disks if one is opposed to the alphabet on aesthetic grounds. I haven't decided if I'm going to do that or not.

Re: A DC Animated-style HeroMachine I tried that. It looked awkward.