austenandrews

I would second the mention of Multiple Power Attack. except that every HERO gamer I know thinks the rule is so stupid that it's as if it doesn't exist. -AA

For me it doesn't come down to logic or game statistics or what-have-you. For me the real question is, can you write a comic book in which X beats Y in a genuine fight, without resorting to cheap tactics? As I see it, absolutely you can write a convincing story having Bats defeat Cap, through clever use of stealth and whatnot. That's no stretch at all. Put'em in a cage match and it's a stretch, no question. Let Batman control the battlefield, you've got a story. End of discussion for me. *shrug* -AA

I have no idea who all these DC martial artists are that you're talking about, but I always thought the Joker was smarter than Batman. Is there some question about that? I never saw Batman as a super-genius. Like someone said, he's James Bond. The Joker is Blofeld, on a whole 'nother level. Good thing he's a total loon. And whoever said that Batman's utility belt wouldn't help him against Cap must be talking about a different Batman than the one I know. Fistfight Cap until his oxygen metabolism is way up, slap a net over him (it's been done lots of times, don't get cocky ) and then toss out a few pellets of knockout gas. Lure Cap onto precarious footing and use swinglines to even the odds. Come on, this is Batman, not Moon Knight. Give him some credit. Of course I tend to agree, if Cap makes Bats eat shield more than once or twice, it's nitey-nite for Brucie. -AA

Isn't that pretty much Superman's opinion of the Marvel universe? -AA

Nah, I considered all those factors, and I still like Bats under those conditions. Not that I'm saying Cap would be a pushover, far from it. Neither would Bats be a pushover in a standup fight. But each has an advantage under certain conditions. I do agree with Stone, though, that both characters had their power levels adjusted upward by virtue of membership in their respective teams. -AA

Good grief, how many cross-company comic books have they released?? -AA

CC covered everything I was going to say. I don't care for Missile Deflection in this case because it's OCV based, whereas giant wings are essentially a wall. With Force Wall, if a large or unusual attack knocks it down, you can attribute it to the character flinching or the wing simply being knocked aside in addition to simply piercing the membrane. I second JWK's analysis of the Multipower. And you could add more tricks to the MP later on, like generating gusts of wind, etc. -AA

Liefeld even got the costume wrong. Sad. -AA

Say, you're absolutely right! Maybe we're gonna get our matchups done right after all. The Grandmaster pits Superman & Thor, Hawkeye & Green Arrow, et al. in "cage matches" while some subset of other heroes struggle to free Krona and Galactus for a humongous cosmic show-down. There's hope yet! Suddenly the choice of the Grandmaster doesn't seem so amazingly lame as it did at first. -AA

I'm not trying to slight Cap's smarts & tactical abilities, far from it. But come on, Batman's got so many toys that with enough preparation, he practically gave Superman a run for his money. -AA

Concerning Cap versus Bats, it's one of those situational things. Put them in a cage match and Cap should win 75% of the time. But that's not how Batman operates. He'd lose at least that often in cage matches against Bane or Clayface or an army of other opponents. You could argue that Batman's victories come from avoiding such direct confrontations. His famous ongoing wars (with the Joker, the Penguin, etc.) are about controlling the battlefield much more than raw fighting ability. In other words, pit solo Batman against solo Cap in a dark warehouse district, and there's no question who would win 75% of the time. -AA

I love the idea of that image, but I agree that the rendering is Liefeld-wrong. -AA

By the old definition of the enchantment, Superman should be able to lift the hammer. He's been retconned so many times by now that you'd need a lawyer and an archivist to figure it out. But I'd be surprised if Supers didn't lift the hammer during this series. -AA

Meh, that's not "resisting temptation," that's "wussying out." How much more cliche can you get than two heroes fighting, only to end in a draw? Yawn. Why bother? Busiek needs to show some balls. He did it with Supes and Thor, now keep it going! -AA

Eh, don't lose any sleep over real-world complexity. We're playing games here, not running scientific simulations. -AA

I'm fine with the 5E book. I'd much rather have one book with complete core rules than to spread the core rules over many different books. Better signal-to-noise ration that way. Though it wouldn't be bad if they took the current 5E rules and split them into two soft covers, one for character creation and one for everything else. -AA

One of my biggest problems with 5E was the handling of Shape Shift. It's too complicated and way too expensive for a simple physical change. Common cases should be easy to build, period. Yes there are instances where you want the change to affect less than the full range of ordinary senses, but a reasonable game design will make them special cases. As for the other issues: Strength. No problem with it. I'm not a big numbers-cruncher when it comes to game design. So it's a good buy; deal with it. Kryptonite Man. Sorry, a Disad is a Disad. I don't have to pay extra points just to trigger your Disad. Presumably Jimmy Olson could kick the snot out of Kryptonite Man, so where's the conflict? Damage Shield. I'm inclined to house rule it to +1, obviously forgoing the mandatory Continuous (which especially makes no sense if the power is already Constant). Damage Shield still sucks for AP caps, but then I think AP caps suck in general. Cumulative Suppress. It's overpowered. However, it has allowed me to build some decent spells inside low-point Multipowers that would otherwise be nearly useless. +1 Stun multiplier at +¼. I didn't realize this was changed. Is +1 Stun Multiple equal in usefulness to AP? I'm inclined to say no. I'll have to see how this plays out. Light via Images. Whatever. Light's a Special Effect anyway. If your CE makes light, that's fine with me, too. If your Force Field makes light, great. I don't care. Positive effects in CE. I never used CE enough before to think about it. I don't see why you couldn't have positive effects, though, like a bonus to Stealth in a fog bank, or a bonus to PER in bright, clear light (see previous paragraph ). Instant Change. I agree, it's silly to change it to Transform. Go ahead and leave it separate. Too much tinkering there. Regeneration. It's inconsistent with the rest of Healing. I don't have a problem with bypassing the max effect rule, but that bypass needs to be part of the system (Advantage, Adder, whatever), not just an unspoken grandfather clause. Otherwise, make it a separate power. Granularity for disease and poison in Life Support. Sorry, I think Steve had too much time on his hands when he wrote that section. I don't need an elaborate list of plant and animal biotoxins. And LS just doesn't come up enough to cost that much. Desolid and Affects Desolid. No worries from me. Adding Damage. What's the complaint there? I don't have the rulebook with me. Variable Effect on Adjustment Powers. No problem with it. Framework changes. Can't say I use EC's enough to know all the issues here. I understand that 0 END powers are now prohibited. Not in my games, though. -AA

Charging points for magic items? Do you charge points for the normal weapons they find, too? Why would one be different from the other? I don't charge. My limiting factor is not giving the PCs more than I'm comfortable with (which is not always as easy as it might sound, granted, given the "racing for pink slips" nature of many fights). -AA

Yeah, I think I would price LS: Immune To Gravity at just about the same cost as, oh, say, 1" of Flight, 0 END Persistent, Always On, Only to Counteract Gravity. That equality of points is just a coincidence, of course. Heck, looking at that structure, it'd probably be cheaper than not having to breathe. Go figure. -AA

"Immune to Gravity." That's a new one. -AA

It is certainly logic worthy of Adams. -AA

If I had my rulebook with me, I'd try to build a world-destroying machine on 6 AP and 1 RP. I'm pretty sure it's doable. -AA

I've run into a similar situation before. I had a Champs game where one of the players wanted a motorcycle, just slightly suped-up, with one or two minor gadgets on it. It was more for color than anything else. When we costed the thing, though, it came out to way more points than it was worth, because the vehicle rules make you pay from scratch. I ruled that the character only had to pay for functionality that went beyond what he could buy from the motorcycle dealer. That worked out much better. -AA

Gah! Can we -please- call a moratorium on "Summon Self, Slavishly Loyal" suggestions? Good grief! -AA (My apologies, but I had to get that out.)

Of course the main thing to do is, you know, to actually scare the players with genuine suspense & frights. Also, yamamura is absolutely right. You'll never scare players who don't want to be scared. Some players are more gamers than role-players. They're too jaded or inhibited or disconnected to allow themselves to get spooked; but the game numbers matter to them. Nothing puts the fear of God (or what-have-you) into these guys like throwing off their characters' combat abilities. So how about this: every time the characters get a good fright (say, +10 on a PRE Attack), jack down their numbers a bit. Example: Fright #1 is a 1/2d6 PRE Drain that heals back one point per (hour, day, week; tailor to the length of the scenario). Linked to that effect is a -1 CV. Fright #2 is a 1d6 PRE Drain with a longer recovery period, and an additional -1 CV. At this point the players will realize that their ability to defend themselves is seriously slipping away. They'll be reluctant to face more frights. They'll start doing crazy stuff like barricading themselves indoors. And of course, that's the desired effect. As an aside, be sure to control dynamite in the game. Have the PCs' crate of explosives blow up on them just before the monster descends. Most players need to learn that Aliens isn't a horror film, it's an action film. Alien is how horror works. -AA