Haerandir

Originally posted by Lord Liaden

LOL! That's an interesting rationale, Haerandir, and the logic is almost twisted enough to fit the government brass mindset. I guess my problem is that Lucius Grimes aka Stalwart isn't like the loyal, dedicated men and women that the government entrusts with their fighter airplanes or the controls to their missile silos. Sure, one could imagine one of them going rogue too, but it's not something their bosses are counting on.

Well, sure. The military's been doing this sort of thing since forever. They've got it down to a science. You'll note that the FBI doesn't have much experience with fighter planes and missile silos. The FBI is hardly as bad as the CIA or similar pure espionage organizations, but they spend most of their time chasing terrorists, serial killers and covert paramilitary organizations. It's bound to warp their thinking. They're just not used to thinking in terms of 'loyal, dedicated and trustworthy' so much as 'not too disloyal, fairly dedicated and more-or-less trustworthy'.

At least, that's how it seems to work in fiction. We're talking conspiracy-theory fodder here, not real life. I have no intention of impugning the loyalty/dedication/trustworthiness of real-world FBI types.

Having said all of that, I'm not a huge Stalwart fan, either...

More David Weber: the 'Empire from the Ashes' trilogy (recently republished in collected form under that title, published individually as Mutineers' Moon, the Armageddon Inheritance and Heirs of Empire). Primarily interesting for the descriptions of the Fourth Empire, but the 'present day' of the stories is good for the whole 'rebuilding after the fall' element.

Birthright: The Book of Man, by Mike Resnick. A future history tracking the rise and fall of a human empire over the course of the next several thousand years. Not without its flaws, but it definitely deals with the topic at hand.

Originally posted by Monolith

That is a pretty common comic book cliché. I never could understand why government organizations were also so quick to give every loon a shot at greatness. Major Force was always one of the worse for me, but if you think about it the entire Suicide Squad fit the bill too.

Well, I think it's a case of paranoid government spooks double-thinking themselves into a bad situation. See, the FBI knows that the second any government agency gives superpowers to anyone, they have set in motion a chain of events which will inevitably culminate in the super-agent going rogue. Primus has already lost a couple of Avengers that way. So, they handed the suit to an obvious bad seed so that they'd at least know he was going to go bad ahead of time, and they'd be ready for it. No doubt they've got all sorts of contingency plans in place for when he flips out and steals the suit. Besides, at least they know he's motivated and resourceful enough to cheat on his exams to get into the agency, and dumb enough to need to cheat and to get caught. So, when he goes bad, it shouldn't be too hard to catch him.

Imagine their surprise should he happen to retire from the agency after ~30 years of loyal service!

Check out this thread:

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=3689

Second post has a link to a file containing 4th ed. writeups of the C: NM Champions, including artwork.

Also, check out the Superhero Images thread and Storn's Art & Character's thread.

I just can't get behind Nighthawk. I'd rather have seen Crusader make the leap to the current edition if the Champions absolutely had to include a 'grim vigilante detective' slot.

Originally posted by TheImperialKhan

^^^ True but it doesn't mean my question's been answered either.

 

I'd still like to know why Jim or Steve or whoever wanted to use two FTL Drives on the same ships in the first place.

Well, Steve did say that Monolith gave the same answer he would have, so that's out of the way.

The problem is that you're trying to turn a discussion on strategy into a simple mathematical equation. More guns/armor is not always the best solution to a military problem. The Terran Empire has chosen to emphasize speed and flexibility over raw power. That's a valid strategy, particularly since (as I understand it), the Terran Empire is not currently engaged in a major defensive war or cold war buildup, and doesn't expect to routinely fight opponents who can match their firepower. Under those circumstances, it's quite logical to subscribe to a naval doctrine that's better suited to policing a large volume of space and taking on less well-equipped opponents. You don't need the power to destroy a sun to suppress pirates or insurgents. You do need to be able to gather all of your dispersed anti-piracy patrols to respond to an unexpected threat, and being able to outmaneuver your foes once you get there is easily important as the ability to blow away a single ship in one massive salvo.

So, the question is, which is more inefficient: Two drive systems which allow you to customize your ability to move according to the tactical situation, or guns which will never fire, either because you can't catch your opponent, or you blew him away with 25% of your armament?

I mean, if you want to ignore tactical realities in order to pack more boom into your ship, that's fine with me. But if we get into a war, don't complain to me because my 'inefficient' and 'poorly designed' ships routinely outmaneuver you and blow up your planets.

There's some good discussion of CSL's on the FAQ page:

http://www.herogames.com/SupportFAQs/rules/SKILLS.htm

Scroll down a bit, the Combat Skill Levels section is right after the General Skills section.

As for how they're recorded on a character sheet, just make a note of them along with the rest of your skills. The official character sheet in the back of the Hero rulebook also has a space in the 'Combat Information' section in the upper right to summarize your CSL's, so you don't have to go wading through your 35-entry skills 'n' powers list every time you want to find out what levels you have.

So, for instance, a character might have a Skill list that looked like this:

3 Acrobatics, 14-

3 Breakfall, 14-

3 Deduction, 12-

5 +1 w/Hand-to-Hand

3 +1 w/Karate

As you can see, they're recorded in much the same way as other skills. I like to keep all of my CSL's together at the end of my skill list, just so they're easy to find.

If the character above were attempting to use his Karate skills to hit someone with a Snap Kick maneuver, he could use both of his levels to increase his OCV and/or DCV. He could apply both levels to damage, also. If he was flailing away at his opponent with a bar stool, he could still use his Hand-to-Hand level, but not his Karate level. If he's shooting someone with a gun, he couldn't use either level with that attack, though he could still set them to defense, in case someone tried to punch him.

An important note: The only ways to increase your DCV against ranged attacks are:

5-point 'DCV' skill levels, which apply to all attacks, all the time, but can't be used for anything but DCV.

Tactical modifiers (range penalties, cover, darkness)

Dexterity (DEX does everything)

Specifically, he's on pp. 203-206 of the Champions genre book.

Calculator Commando Time:

Lemming gives two numbers. I just ran his formula through the calculator, and he got it right the first time... 0.3728 is the proper outcome, not 0.3278.

Originally posted by BobGreenwade

New Jersey's on the west coast???

Didn't you get the memo?

Most of my characters would drop everything in an attempt to save Dr. Destroyer... Why?

Because Dr. Destroyer is Earth's Mightiest Champion! He's the last line of defense (and in some cases only realistic defense) against:

Istvatha V'Han

Mechanon

Tyrannon

The Warlord

Takofanes

Eurostar

Menton

Gravitar

Any and all alien invasion fleets

Everyone else

Sure, Dr. D. is bad news in and of himself. But he's fairly predictable, and there's only the one of him. He won't allow anyone else to conquer Earth, and he's not been especially successful at taking it over himself. He can usually be contained. I mean, honestly, he's been at it since the '50's, and the worst he's done is blow up one lousy Midwestern city. Heck, large portions of it survived relatively unscathed! That's a small price to pay for alien invasion insurance, if you ask me. Gotta keep the old geezer propped up, or Earth will be overrun within the week.

However, you must never let on to Dr. Destroyer that you WANT him alive and well. He might become petulant and refuse to save the Earth out of spite.

Some sort of RKA/HKA that only affects programs. He only uses it on Agent Smith in the first movie. Not sure why he doesn't just routinely blow up his opponents in Reloaded.

Though, given the ultimate result of blowing up Smith, maybe it's just as well he doesn't.

Speaking of Feng Shui, this one is from a game I was in a couple of years ago:

My friend Joey rolls to hit an opponent who has laughed off the worst the party has been able to throw at him so far, and gets a 6 on his positive die (which, in Feng Shui means he gets to re-roll it and add the results).

Me: "Impressive."

Joey: (rolls another 6)

Me: "Most impressive."

Joey: (rolls another 6)

Me: "Obi-Wan has taught you well."

Joey: (rolls something that isn't a 6)

Me: "Oh, good, I was running out of Darth Vader quotes."

Needless to say, he waxed the poor bad guy pretty thoroughly.

-edited to fix stupid html tags

The higest DEX on any PC I've ever played was 33, and he was a speedster/martial artist. So, I figure that's not unreasonable. My martial artists generally clock in at 28, my bricks anywhere from 10-18 (I played a 20 DEX brick once, but he was a 'martial brick'). All of my other characters are generally in the 14-23 range.

The simple fact is that it's hard for me to resist the siren song of DEX, especially DEX 23, because Derek's right. It's incredibly efficient in terms of what it buys you. But, I think there are valid arguments for keeping DEX low as a general principle. There is nothing wrong with having a high DEX, if your concept requires it. But, whenever you play a character with a DEX of 28 or more, you risk encouraging someone else (another player, the GM, the author of the next Enemies book) to make a character with a high DEX. That person may do so out of a sense of competition, or needing to keep up with the 'new DEX standard' or simply because they think it's acceptable, without considering that it's part of your concept and may not be part of theirs. This is the 'DEX war' or 'DEX inflation' you hear about. And I find that it constrains my ability to build the characters I want to build.

The simple fact of the matter is that having a CV of 8, or 9, or 13, is not inherently advantageous. The advantage lies in having a higher CV than your opponents. If the average CV among the opponents you expect to face is 6, then a CV of 8 gives you a +2 to-hit advantage. In a CV 7 environment, you need a 9 to get the same advantage. In a CV 11 environment, you need the 13. So, if your character concept includes 'unusually high combat skill', a high DEX average forces you to invest more of your character in DEX, which in turn encourages the next guy to buy a higher DEX. If you take the trend to it's logical conclusion, you'll see a bunch of PC's running around with 342 points invested in DEX, and the remaining 8 points devoted to whatever makes their character 'special'.

Obviously, I'm exaggerating. But the underlying truth is the same: DEX inflation means fewer points to spend on your actual character concept. Personally, I'd rather devote my points to making my character interesting and unique than to making another cookie-cutter DEX 28, SPD 6 superhero. Which is not to say that there's anything wrong with a DEX 28, SPD 6 character, just that if I can get the effect I want with a DEX 23, SPD 5 character, I've saved myself 20 points to spend on something else. When I have a character concept that is difficult to build, I often find myself economizing on DEX. Not because DEX isn't good, not because it doesn't hurt to lower it, but because it is so expensive that you can often eke out a lot of 'flavor' abilities for a relatively small reduction in combat effectiveness. And I can always comfort myself by claiming that I'm doing my part to combat DEX inflation.

If you want my advice, base your DEX purchase on a combination of factors:

-The most efficient value for the SPD and skill roll you desire.

-The CV value that will give you the advantage you want over your expected opponents (or the disadvantage you're willing to accept).

-The lowest value that will allow you to execute your character concept.

-The highest value that you can squeeze in after you've spent your other points on everything else you want. ('Cause it really is that good.)

Another thing to consider is the possibility of buying other skills & powers to reflect your character's 'agile' or 'dextrous' concept. Now, obviously, you don't want to go overboard here. If you want high CV, high SPD, high skill rolls and a high initiative value, then DEX is what you want. However, if you only want one of those things, to differentiate your character from everyone else, or to fit your concept, then you can often get that one thing cheaper than you could by investing another 15 points in DEX. This is the one case in which buying skill levels or Lightning Reflexes is more efficient than raw DEX. And, frankly, I think it makes for a more entertaining character. I'd much rather play a DEX 18 character with an unusually high Acrobatics roll than a DEX 28 character, if I thought the DEX 18 character wouldn't embarrass himself by being unable to hit my GM's CV 9 VIPER agents.

Well, if all of your characters do you the favor of coming up with similar origins/sources of power, then you're all set. Just make whatever that is (be it magic, psionics, battlesuits or whatever) the thing that everyone is afraid of. Fluff up a reason why people would be afraid of that thing, and run with it.

If not, then consider having a government agency (possibly a rogue group working 'above the law' as it were) that wants to oppress/co-opt the characters. Sort of a 'work for us or die' angle. Then it doesn't matter whether or not people in general hate or fear the characters, just that some super-powerful government agency that doesn't have to answer to anyone is out to get them.

When I built a character like this, I used Duplication to create the initial robot form, then Multiform to allow him to switch to different robots from there.

I've used a variety methods, but I usually start with the powers. Occasionally, I'll start with a name, and very rarely will I start with a costume or special effect.

My usual process is that I'll have an idea for a power construct and start working it up. In the process of doing so, more powers will occur to me, and that will lead into a background and/or origin to explain how all of these powers came to be concentrated in one person. This will in turn guide me into the character's personality, which will usually suggest a name, which in turn will often dictate the costume. It seems to flow pretty naturally for me that way.

Originally posted by Kevin Scrivner

Good suggestions, all. But doesn't it still depend on your players being willing to play along rather than simply pounding the bad guys the moment they appear?

If you really have a problem with this, then let your players pound on the villain while the city burns down around them. That'll learn 'em.

At least, they should catch on by the third or fourth city.

Originally posted by Hermit

The important thing about Bulldozer, IMHO, is that a female character (preferably played by a female player, because it's just more enjoyable for her) gets to kick his chauvinistic butt around the hexes

It's so sad that they removed the vulnerability from him in this edition. It's still satisfying to see a woman put him in his place, but it's not as, well, impressive in its sheer numerical glory.

If you have the Champions genre book, I recommend monkeying around with the random character-generator in there. It's not without it's flaws, but it will turn out some pretty serviceable characters, and the simple process of getting to know how the random generator works will teach you a good deal about character design.

Since you mentioned you were interested in a basic speedster character, here's one I came up with on the fly, using a combination of the random generation system and my own experience. He's meant to be a pretty generic speedster. His powers are theoretically derived from knowledge of a particular mystical martial art, but he's not built like a traditional martial artist (no martial arts maneuvers). Instead, his abilites manifest themselves as incredible speed and toughness, the martial arts angle is really just a special effect.

Sadly, he can't hit super-sonic speeds. His maximum non-combat running speed translates to about 156MPH (or 252 KPH). If you're really sold on the concept of super-sonic speed, subtract 10 points out of the character somewhere and buy 2 levels of non-combat multiplier on his running. That'll get him up to better than 1200 MPH, which should be sufficient. I recommend ditching the Speed-Reading and reducing the 'Toughness' power to 3pd/3ed of damage resistance if you want to go that route.

Wind Dragon

Player:

Total Character Cost: 350

Disadvantage Points: 150

Base Points: 200

Experience Required: 0

Total Experience Available: 0

Experience Unspent: 0

His Hunted (Green Dragon) and Rival (Kinetik) appear in Champions and Millennium City, respectively. If you don't have those books, then subsitute any martial artist and speedster into those roles.

Once you've got your feet under you, you might want to take a look at this thread. http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2730

While it's primarily about ways to save points, and I definitely don't recommend following all of the advice you might find in there, it can give you some idea of what different people consider important steps in the character design process.

Originally posted by TheEmerged

BLOCKBUSTER... er, BULLDOZER: I'm glad he made the transition, but I disagree with him weighing in below 350. I'm working on a rewrite for the next adventure, so that's all I'm saying about that

Oh, I couldn't disagree with you more. The whole point of Bulldozer is that he's less powerful than a starting PC, and just doesn't get it. That's why the old CE version of him was built on less than 250 points, and that's why the current version is built on 290 points. Making him 350 points would be a grave injustice, unless you're planning on playing High-powered heroes at the 450+ level.

Originally posted by Scott Destroyer

And ya gotta love someone with the cojones to take Tyrannon for a Hunted. (*shudders to think he counts as "More Powerful" than even her*)

Well, Tyrannon is pretty much the definition of 'More Powerful'. That's who he is, that's what he does. Essentially, think of a character with resources equivalent to Istvatha V'han, but instead of being a relatively wussy 716 points, he's built on 8000+. At least, that's what he used to be. No telling what the modern version will look like.

Re: Boston Campaign!

Originally posted by Mastermind

--The first scene (a burned-out and robbed armored car) was of I-93 near/in Medford

If you get involved in any super-battles in this neighborhood, please try avoid blowing up my house. All of my stuff is there.

Names for the Construction Worker guy

Isaac (or Ira) Beam. (Which would naturally be shortened to I. Beam.)

Hard Hat (this one's already been used, in Wild Cards)

The Welder (or Arc Welder, or just Arc)

High Steel

Workingman

Trojan (from 'working like a Trojan')

The Jobber

The Supervisor

The Laborer (or just Labor)

Union, or Union Man (if he's a member of a union, or trying to organize one)

The 6th Edition Superhero sourcebook will be called, not 'Champions', but 'Dr. Silverback and his Slightly Amazing Friends'.