Haerandir

Re: Top 10 Insupportable Premises in Comic Book Universes Pff... Investigators are unneccessary. This is what paparazzi do.

Re: Icons - The Costume and Superpowers Store

Re: CHAMPIONS VILLAINS -- What Do *You* Want To See? Good points. I know I for one am sick of looking at the Plot Seeds and seeing yet another, "Villain falls in love with PC X" blurb... But I would miss the feature for the ones that actually ARE good/inspring. And some villains really do lend themselves to oddball scenarios (Captain Chronos, Nebula, Black Harlequin, and so forth). Perhaps an essay at the end with a list of 'generic plot seeds' (your DNPC has been kidnapped! Villain X is in love with PC Y, but only in their Secret ID! "With this generic MacGuffin I could, dare I say it, Rule The World!" Etc.), and then for those occasions when an author really DOES have an original idea for a given character, that could be a white-space-filler?

Re: Icons - The Costume and Superpowers Store It might be an interesting RP wrinkle to force them to continue to operate under the original rules... A reformed villain might have to bank enough ill-gotten gains to make his payments before he 'went legit', or he'd lose his powers. A fallen hero would be able to commit crimes and keep the cash, as long as he continued to protect innocents and oppose other villains.

Re: Parallel Universe Star Wars Several possibilities: A) The galaxy is full of protocol droids and astromech droids. If you don't actively interact with one on a regular basis, they kind of blend into the background. It's been 20 years since Obi-wan gave either of them a moment's thought. Obi-Wan is old. Old people forget things. Even Jedi old people. C) He did recognize them, he was just being inscrutable per Jedi union rules. D) He did recognize them, but he knows that droids get their memories wiped routinely, so he didn't expect them to be functionally different from a brand-new droid with whom he's never interacted in the past.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Finally remembered to write stuff down at this week's Amber session, so there's more than usual: The Cast: (and their Elder Amberite parentage) ----- Conrad (son of Julian) Quintus (son of Eric, Benedict's apprentice) Alaric "The Wolf" (son of Caine) Vincent (son of Brand) Leandro (son of Florimel) ----- While choosing a place from which to order dinner for the session: Quintus (OOC, looking at a delivery menu): "Tiki In's lack of a second 'n' disturbs me." Vincent (OOC): "Well, it's not like you actually sleep there, so it's not really an inn." ----- Alaric (OOC): "I wonder how much Endurance it would take to use the Head of Vecna?" Leandro (OOC): "More than you've got." ----- Quintus (OOC, recapping a previous solo encounter): "It was at this point that I realized that running away was the 'right' plan, but for role-playing reasons I pressed on." ----- Leandro consults with Uncle Corwin, while Conrad makes friends and influences people: Leandro: "We're concerned that Quintus may have been kidnapped." Conrad (to Corwin): "And you're our resident expert on being kidnapped, so we thought we'd ask your advice!" Alaric (OOC): "I'd just like to point out that I am nowhere near Conrad." Leandro scoots a few feet farther away. Conrad (OOC): "Look, I'm Julian's son. I'm contractually obligated to annoy Corwin. Besides, what's he gonna do? He owes me for rescuing him last time he got kidnapped." ----- Leandro: "Let's see... If I put my back to the tree, it will turn out to be a monster. If I stand out in the open, I'll get jumped from behind. I could never get this one in school... What would Benedict do?" A lively debate ensues about how various Elder Amberites would handle this dilemma, leading to the following conclusions: Conrad: "OK, so far we have: Benedict would maneuver the attacker into being eaten by the tree, Corwin would hit the tree with his attacker, and Gerard would hit the attacker with the tree. That sounds about right." ----- Quintus: "Well, I could act immediately on what I've learned. ORrr I could do something useful." ----- Quintus: "I'm reasonably certain I've been sent here as a spy to deceive and destroy you." Conrad shrugs: "OK." ----- Quintus (exasperated): "Why did you bring him here?" Conrad (equally exasperated): "I don't know." ----- Vincent: (IC) "Right! Only one thing to do!" (OOC) "I go get him a croissant." ----- Conrad (to our Uncle Bleys): "Come with us if you want reality to live." ----- Leandro has tried and failed to reach Aunt Fiona and King Random: Leandro: "I contacted my mother, since I'm certain no one would bother to take her out first. Or even third, in this case." Bleys: "That's actually a remarkably clever plan. I wouldn't have thought of that." -----

Re: Death Touch

Re: Death Touch

Re: Death Touch Excellent point. I do wish that was mentioned directly in the description of Drain, even with just a page reference to 6E1 141. I tend to forget stuff like that if it's not right in front of me. So, yeah... New answer! 12d6 Drain vs. BODY it is. Shame. I actually liked the idea of a 6d6 Drain vs. BODY being a viable power. It would have created a compelling argument for raising your BOD above 10.

Re: Death Touch This is a valid question. In 6th Edition, a 6d6 Drain vs. BODY will have the effect I described. In earlier editions, when BODY cost more, you'll need a 12d6 Drain to get the same effect. Which is probably OK for a one-trick pony NPC, but is fairly prohibitive for most PCs. That's something to bear in mind.

Re: Death Touch You probably want Drain BODY 6d6 or thereabouts. That will subtract 21 BOD from the target, on average, which will kill just about any 'ordinary' human outright and either kill or incapacitate most supers, unless they have bought their BODY way up, or have Power Defense. And unless they have 25 Power Defense or more, they'll probably know they're in trouble. So, even a Superman-type should worry about it. Bloodstone is right, the value of "Only vs. Living Tissue" as a Power Limitation is a judgement call, depending on the campaign and the GM's preferences. In a 'standard' superhero campaign, I'd probably call it a -1, since it can't be used against bank vaults, robots, ghosts, zombies, vampires, energy beings, some aliens and most golems. But you could definitely make a case for it being a lesser value, particularly if the character is an assassin or non-organic characters are relatively rare.

Re: Must have books Well, you have everything you need already. Most of the other setting books have something to recommend them, it's more a matter of what you're looking for. CU: News of the World is probably the most helpful in terms of updating the setting as a whole, plus it's got lots of new villains and several major hero teams to use as allies/rivals/contacts/guest stars/whatever. Millennium City and Vibora Bay are both quite useful as settings in their own rights, as sources of additional heroes, villains & ordinary NPCs, plot hooks and background fluff. Even if you don't decide to run your campaign in either city, they're quite useful as places to visit and general background. Similarly, you'll probalby find something useful by picking up Champions Worldwide, Champions of the North or Hidden Lands. Obviously, all of the enemy books and organization books have uses if you're planning to include any of those characters in the campaign. Conquerors, Killers & Crooks is probably the one you'll want most, as that was the first one and includes the majority of the 'core' villains in the CU. VIPER: Coils of the Serpent is also a big one, as VIPER is pretty much the standard-bearer for villainous organizations in the CU. Opinions are far more mixed on DEMON: Servants of Darkness. It's a pretty radical departure from earlier depictions of DEMON, and is very dark in overall tone. I own it, and I think it's well-done, but if I was running a CU campaign, I probably would make relatively limited use of it. On the other hand, it's got all of the stuff you need to whip up a few dozen Morbanes and cultists on short notice, so even if you ignore most of the plot elements and named characters, it's got definite uses. If you want to run a magic-heavy campaign, then you'll probably get a lot of mileage out of the Mystic World and Arcane Adversaries. Again, The Mystic World isn't everyone's cup of tea, as it fleshes out a number of things that many people would prefer to leave mysterious, or handle differently in their own campaigns, but it's still an idea-mine. The Book of the Destroyer is pretty good if you either want to make Dr. Destroyer the focus of your campaign, or if you don't care for him as written but are looking for ways to fit him into your campaign anyhow. The historical armors and alternate-genre writeups of him are good guides for altering the basic idea of Dr. D to fit your campaign, for instance. As for the adventure modules, well, they're adventure modules. You'll either use them or you won't. Most of them have characters and plot hooks, even if you don't want to run the actual plot outlined in them. I've got Shades of Black and Sharper than a Serpent's Tooth. I'll probably never actually run those adventures, but the expanded backgrounds & writeups for the featured villains are worth it to me. Those are the ones I have an opinion on. I can't really comment on most of the rest, as I haven't bought them.

Re: Worst Hero Names (of your campaigns) No, they were running with the Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog reference.

Re: The Warlord's Other Hobby... A couple of years back, I had the notion of developing an entire campaign (or at least a 'mini-series') around the concept of a huge derelict spacecraft drifting into the Solar System and the various expeditions that got sent out to explore/loot it (UNTIL/UNITY, PRIMUS/NASA, EU, China, Japan, VIPER, the Warlord, Eurostar, Lemurians... Everyone, really.) racing each other to get there first, jumping one another's claims, ambushing returning expeditions to steal their discoveries, that sort of thing. The PCs could be a private expedition, or attached to one of the national or international teams as civilian experts and/or security. The Warlord would have been the 'Big Bad' in this scenario, as he straddles the line between an organization like VIPER and an independent megavillain, but is likely to take more of a direct, personal interest in the situation than other master villains (such as Dr. Destroyer).

Re: Why doesn't 6e use hexes as a unit of measurement? It was a joke, son. Like Rapier & Hugh say, some folks use blank paper, or miniature terrain, or a whiteboard, or vary their scale depending on circumstance/whim. And some people hear you talking about a game where everything's measured in 'hexes' or 'inches' and assume you're talking about a wargame, not an RPG. From discussions in game stores and on other Internet sites, I know that there are people out there who reject HERO out of hand because of cosmetic things like this. From the game designer's viewpoint, there's really no advantage to hard-coding a scale into the ruleset.

Re: Why doesn't 6e use hexes as a unit of measurement? I imagine for two reasons: First, because it actually removes a math step (no more converting map inches into real-world meters) and because they want to conform more closely to the MMO (which doesn't use a hex grid, but does use meters in all of its power descriptions). There's no fundamental law of physics that says a battlemat's hexes HAVE to equal 2 meters. We're just used to it from 28 years of Hero System convention. Plus, a lot of these young whippersnappers who are getting into gaming these days don't even USE battlemats! I know, I know, it sounds like blasphemy, but there it is. Gotta keep up with the times.

Re: List Your CO Heroes! I've been meaning to update my character list: My main: Dudette (level 37 Munitions/MA/Sorcery/Supernatural hybrid) And the Legion of Alts: Murphy Brawn (level 16 Might) Mekaera (level 13 Power Armor) Omen (level 13 Sorcery) Cap'n Pickerel (level 11 Dual Blades) Power Puma (level 10 Fighting Claws) Lin Kuei (level 10 Single Blade) Empyrielle (Level 13 Celestial) Pathfinder (level 12 Archery) Maurigan (level 10 Supernatural) Korona (level 10 Fire) Pi Yuzhen (level 11 Ice) Red Menace (level 12 Martial Arts, was originally a Gadgeteer, but I rerolled) Psabre (level 11 Telekinesis) Doctor Kalashnikov (level 12 Munitions, wanted to try some of the powers Dudette didn't take)

Re: Newbie assistance Well, the Web is festooned with Hero System writeups of popular characters, so you're in luck there. I'm sure The Question Man will be along with his usual list o' links. He's the best when it comes to this sort of thing. I did a quick search and came up with a few recent threads in this forum that have writeups of characters you could take a look at while you wait, though: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php/69557-Nextwave-Agents-Of-H.A.T.E. http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php/78864-Hellboy You've chosen a good method to learn about the system. One thing that you'll discover quickly is that every different player/GM has their own ideas about appropriate power levels and mechanics, so it's often best to look at several different writeups of a character to get a complete picture. Indeed, you can learn a great deal about the system by looking at the different approaches people take to common powers, such as mutant healing factors and so on. Feel free to post questions here, we love to argue about the 'best' way to write up a given power...

Re: What Era Should I Choose? Well, it's a good era, but if you or your players would prefer a different time period/power level/overall feel, don't let the lack of Nazis deter you! After all, there's time travel, alternate dimensions and themed supervillain lackeys to provide you with an unlimited supply of Nazis to punch in any superheroic era!

Re: Dream Park Hero? I've toyed with similar ideas, whether for adapting Dream Park, or Steppe by Piers Anthony, another novel built around the conceit of a world-wide LARP. Many years ago, in the pages of one Hero supplemant/fanzine or other (Haymaker? Adventurer's Club? I'll have to hit my bookshelves and see if I can find it), I stumbled across an article about playing Hollywood actors, where you would have your core character (the actor), and in each story line you'd get a suite of powers/abilities to represent the role you were playing in your current TV show/movie (this month I'm a Space Marine! One with soulful eyes girls drool over. Not like last month, when I was a fireman with soulful eyes girls drool over!). Thus, your actual character was primarily a function of the things that made him a good actor, and his other abilities were determined by the scenario. Something similar could work for Dream Park. So, rather than advancing a specific character with a set background, as you participated in more Dream Park games, you'd build a suite of abilities that would allow you to get more out of the roles you took on, or more control over the roles you were offered, or something along those lines. Perhaps a system modeled on Resource points? Or a set of Talents and/or Perks that defined certain meta-game abilities you picked up by various means? Or both?

Re: A super school Random? But we went to all this trouble to build the Sort-O-Matic 9000 Student Assignment Computer! Two fun facts about the Sort-O-Matic 9000: I: The Sort-O-Matic 9000 Student Assignment Computer is NEVER wrong. II: It does, however, work in mysterious ways.

Re: Mentor Wanted Your basic energy-builder attack (Rain of Steel for dual blades) has a built-in ranged Taunt feature, that should allow you to pull foes into melee range with you. One thing that took me a while to figure out in Beta was that the energy-builders are all set up to auto-attack, so you only have to hit that button once per opponent, and it'll fire that attack off whenever you aren't actively doing something else. So, as you approach a fight, your standard procedure should be to pick a target, tap the key for Rain of Steel once while you're still out of range, then run towards them. Depending on how close you are, they'll either come to meet you or wait for you to charge them. Then you just let Rain of Steel run, activating Blade Tempest whenever you have enough endurance. You should mow down the drones and firebugs very quickly this way, then just select your next target and repeat. If you're having trouble with Bugkeepers in particular, make sure you zoom your camera POV out far enough that you can see the space above their heads. This is easier with most other opponents in the game, but Bugkeepers (and some other villains/master villains like Black Talon) are so tall that you can easily find yourself standing up close to them and have no idea whether they're just gonna jab at you or are winding up for a big smash. When they start with their big attacks, the yellow explosion icon will appear there (other types of attacks use different icons, but the yellow explosion is the most common, and the only one Bugkeepers use), and that's your cue to hold down the Block key (Shift if you're using keyboard + mouse). This will greatly reduce the damage you take and give you some Endurance to finish them off with. Also, be aware that one of the Bugkeeper's special attacks has an Entangle component. If you get wrapped up, you need to break out before they get a chance to wind up with their big haymaker punch or you'll end up going down. Between Beta and all of my many currently-played characters, I've gone through the tutorial probably well over 30 times, so it's kinda routine for me now. I'm at work now, and have a game tonight, but if you're still having trouble tomorrow, feel free to look me up Friday evening (or during the day on Saturday, we're on opposite coasts so that might be more feasible). I'd be happy to roll up another alternate character and run through the tutorial with you. PS: It's pretty well-acknowledged that all of the melee sets are underperforming. Personally, I like my Dual Blades character, but my first character started out with Munitions and the ranged sets really are better in a lot of ways. Cryptic is supposedly working on a big revamp of the melee powers for this summer. It might be worth your while to switch to an energy projector or an archer or something just so you can familiarize yourself with the game, and come back to the swordsman once you know the ropes.

Re: Hit Locations in Super-Hero Game? Desolidification and Deflection/Reflection are also possibilities.

Re: Pseudo-elf race as monsters Another good source of names is to branch out from the Celtic & Anglo-Saxon myths. I'm playing in an Amber game at the moment, and my character was raised in a world where most everyone is an 'elf' of some variety or another. Being an Amberite, and thus nominally 'human', I'm the exotic one in that world. For individual NPCs, I pick a region on the map and hit Wikipedia to see what sort of 'fairy' legends they have in that place. My sidekick is a Vila, for instance.

Re: A super school I would name the homerooms after 'iconic' characters (SuperDude, Princess Power, Night Watchman and Arachno-Lad, or whatever), perhaps the founders of the school. Thus, players assigned to a given homeroom would be able to find different thematic links to their 'patron', whether via origin, personality, combat/noncombat role, background and so forth. Students wouldn't necessarily be assigned to a given homeroom for a specific reason, it could just be luck of the draw, but each homeroom has it's own internal culture which is reinforced by the attitudes of the faculty and other classes. Even a player who insisted on playing against type could generate some interesting stories based on the tension between wanting to 'be themselves' and wanting to fit in with their classmates.