drunkonduty

Re: 5th Edition; the correct application of the Independent power limitation

@ Bigbywolf; RE. Cap's shield. You might be right, but I'm still inclined to say that it's an Independent Focus. Yeah he always gets it back but that doesn't mean it can't be lost permanently. The GM (ie: Marvel) has decided for metagame reasons (ie: the readers would spit) not to do so yet.

@Ternaugh. Yeah, the use of limitations (and disads) can throw people who are new to HERO. When I introduced some people to it last year I was very careful to explain that limitations and disads WILL have an effect. I tried to impart the sense that they're a way of defining a character, both good and bad aspects. And role playing opportunities. By and large they took to it in the right spirit.

cheers.

reason for edit: weird font.

Re: 5th Edition; the correct application of the Independent power limitation

I never had a problem with Ind. Focus. I can't say I've seen it used much.

But if I were running a game and someone wanted Independent Focus I'd let them take it.

And sometimes I'd take that focus away from the player. I would also make it the target of enemies who want that wonderful toy for themselves. If things go badly the bad guys might even get the focus and use it against the PC. What I wouldn't do as a GM is destroy the Independent Focus without permission or some serious provocation from the player.

Oh and just for the record I'd say Cap's shield is IF. It's supposed to be unique.

cheers.

Re: Reason for creating team.

Poor old Grond, the eternal catspaw... One day he's gonna come up with a plan all of his own. Then look out!

Re: Catch Me If You Can: A Champions Adventure

Brilliant! Thanks for that.

Re: Argent

There's some stuff in various supplements, like Champions: News of the World. In fact most of the campaign supplements mention them somewhere but usually only in passing. I don't think there's a source book dedicated to them anywhere. I could be wrong.

Re: From Superfriends to Watchmen: The Extremes of Superheroes

I feel the same way. As the perpetual GM I often just want a chance to play one of my characters.

We should start a support group.

Re: From Superfriends to Watchmen: The Extremes of Superheroes

I sit somewhere in the middle. I wouldn't want to run a game as cuddly as the Super Friends but at the same time I wouldn't want to run a long term game in the style of Watchmen. Although I loved The Watchmen, both comic and movie I would find running that sort of game draining after a while. Now if I got the chance to PLAY, well hell, I'd play anything, any style; from Gold to Rusty Iron to post-Iron. Oh, I'd love to actually get to PLAY one of my characters.

Ahem. Sorry about that.

My first exposure to the supers genre was the old Fleishman (Sp?) Superman cartoon from the late 30's and the 60's Marvel TV shows. My 2 favourite characters were Thor and The Submariner: one the pure, noble hero, the other a brooding anti hero. I preferred them to the Super Friends; from a very early age I found Super Friends too cheesy. Too much club-house kids action. But Thor and Subby, I liked. I liked the art and stories. Yeah the shows were done on the cheap, even as a kid I knew that. But art doesn't need to be expensive to be good. I liked Subby the most, it seemed that his struggles were more meaningful to him on a personal level: defending his kingdom from Atlantean barbarians, trying to regain his throne, defending his people from the Surface Worlders (ie: Us!) I liked that we (people, the characters one is supposed to identify with in most such stories) were not always the good guys. Things we did could have unintended harmful effects and others were justified in fighting against us. That's a pretty big conceptual leap for a young child.

And then along came Spiderman. Now here's a fella a kid can get in to. He's young, he has a young person's problems, he's constantly misunderstood by authority figures despite trying to do the right thing. He makes jokes even when he's in trouble. Yep, I liked Spiderman. Still do.

I guess all this adds up to: colour me bronze.

Cheers. :-)

Re: X Ray-ted Vision

Knight Rider actually built her successful lingerie, perfume, accessory empire from her catwalk career. She has no problem with the general concept of a doign a nudie spread to raise money for charity (she'd go with UNICEF.) But she's a smart, hard nosed business woman so when she sat down with the girlie magazine people her first question is going to be "What do you mean by 'All the money raised? My appearance fee? Fine. What about your advertsing revenue for the issue, including the website?"

So yeah she'd do it, but she'd drive a hard deal and get as much money for UNICEF as she can.

Re: Wonder Woman's at 70!

Wonder Woman is 70? Wow. She's, like, totally a GMILF.

Actually on topic: Can't you put Lockout on some of her Lasso powers? It's point shaving I know, but I can't help myself, I shave very closely.

Nice write up though.

cheers.

Re: Lucky enough not to leave a trail

A player of mine has a character, Chaos Theory, who does it in a similar fashion to the Transform Heroic Halfwit describes above except it only effects records of the character. Records includes videos, computer records, photos and such forth. The character has a mix of Luck and Chaos powers so the special effect is that some lucky accident destroys/renders the record useless in a couple of days.

For instance the group mad scientist, er I mean Gadgeteer, likes to run tests on the other PCs in order to understand their powers. After running a battery of tests on Chaos Theory the scientist's incompetent DNPC managed to lose the records in her "unique" filing system.

Of course the down side of this is that Chaos Theory cannot have a job, a bank account, a driver's licence, that sort of thing. He's a homeless bum.

Re: Bring Out The Old!

I remember liking most of the villains in High Tech Enemies, but it has been some time since I read it. Master Control would be a fine atagonist for my power armour character. I can't remember their names but the ex-military guys, (one flyer, 1 arty, 1 silent assassin and one, er, other) were big faves of mine and I was dead keen to run them sometime. Alas I never did.

Not a fan of CLOWN: put me in Steve Long's camp when it comes to these guys.

I like Time Master too. And yeah, he could do with some fleshing out to make him more interesting.

Re: Lostorum - Looking for input on some races / monsters (hot-climate critters)

Shh, shh. Remember: Google is always right. Chant it with me...

Re: Power Armor Characteristic Purchase

@Esafarc

No need for asbestos around me. Under the right circumstances I'd allow a player to use the vehicle rules. It's even suggested somewhere in one of the 5ed rule books as an option. I would certainly be careful. For instance: I have one mate who is a shocking rules rapist/power gamer and I wouldn't allow him to do so under any circumstances. But I'm sure you know your players well enough to decide for yourself.

Re: Identifying Quotes, favorite sayings, and battle cries

"Here I come to save the daaaay!"

Re: Power Armor Characteristic Purchase

I'd allow the character to buy stats through the armour. I wouldn't require the Costs END limitation but it would certainly be an option I'd encourage.

Yeah power armour types wind up getting more points to play with. Just remember that there's a Power Limitation in place: sometimes you the GM get to limit the power in some way. You're obviously aware of taking the armour away. Of course it doesn't have to mean the hero gets his/her armour taken off them all the time. For instance: if the hero is in secret ID at some function and the bad guys attack the hero has to spend valubale time finding somewhere to change into their armour, assuming they could even have it with them.

ANd as a Focus the armour will lose a randomly selected power everytime it takes BODY damage. Be a real bummer if that random power is the END reserve that powers every other power...

If you've got any of the villain books have a look at some of the power armour types in them to get an idea of the "standard" way in which to do power armour.

cheers and good luck.

Re: Worst Hero Names (of your campaigns)

Had a teen champions game years ago with:

A flying brick who strapped his surf board to his feet and called himself the Floral Surfer (for his flowery board shorts).

A guy who transformed into water and whose preferred attack was to charge opponents: called The Flush. He tried to change it to Tsunami but, hey, these stick don't they? Just ask Paste Pot Pete.

Re: What Champions Universe character would you gender change?

Fortunately I do not know who Salena Gomez is so the horror is lost upon me.

No thanks, I don't feel the need to be informed. ;-)

Re: Telephone conversations in combat

I had a similar thing one session I ran.

One player, who refused to allow the dirty alien telepath access to his head and so wasn't in the group mind link, wanted to text the location of an incoming VIPER strike team to the rest of the party as a 1/2 phase action.

GM said no.

I mean, sure he could text it, but not that quickly. I said 2 phases. In the end the player opted to highlight the VIPER team's location with a grenade.

cheers. :-)

Re: What Champions Universe character would you gender change?

Sapphire as a man. Juist think Ricky Martin or Justin Timberlake with superpowers and you have the idea.

 

 

 

The Teen Champions version: Justin Bieber.

Re: What Champions Universe character would you gender change?

I wouldn't retcon Bulldozer as female. But I might have him sign up for gender alteration surgery as a plot line/expansion on him being so deep in the closet he can see Narnia.

I like the idea of Gargantua being a woman. Attack of the 50 Metre Woman... Awesome.

Which master Villain would I change...Mmm. How about the Supreme Serpent. But she actually pretends to be a man, ala the villain (forget the name) from G-Force/Battle of the Planets. I like a nice call out to old tv shows.

Re: Greeks at it again

Actually I was thinking what Lawnmower boy was thinking.

Re: Istvatha V'han - why can't she conquer Earth?

True, but Takofanes might be awfully possessive of humanity. "These are my sheep, begone little green-blue woman." PLus the spell has the benefit of killing many folks. So, hey, maybe.

Of course I don't think it would work on V'Han but that's my take on her dimension of origin.

Re: Is Defender the new Seeker?

The thread topic just has me imagining Defender singing "Hey there, Georgie-Girl."

Re: Istvatha V'han - why can't she conquer Earth?

Re. the Quartenion Banishment. It is only effective against beings from the, er, higher dimensions... Can't think of the name of them, at work at the moment so can't check books. But the higher dimensions being those 3 groupings of dimensions that does NOT include the group that includes the Earth dimension. God, does that even make sense? I'm a bit high on flu medicine right now. ANYWAY... the spell may well not work on V'Han as she may not be from these higher dimensions.

For why she just wouldn't win: I really liked Oddhat's explanations as given way back, near the start of the thread. Basically she can't go and just invade willy nilly. There are considerations that go beyond merely being bigger and badder than the Earth: the whole balance of international powers; factions at home; other military commitments.

cheers all.

Re: What are YOUR character trademark(s)?

@Hyperman.

Thanks for the clarifications.

Taking them into consideration I must say, that as a GM, I lean toward the flexible on things like Sensor Arrays. Frankly I don't see any real difference between them and the given example of a telescope or glasses.

cheers for the thoughts.