levi

For the Invulnerability to Psychics, I would recommed 75% resistant damage reduction to Mental Powers AND 50 points of Hardened Mental Defense...that should keep even Menton out of this guy's head. Just remember that Vulnerabilities are applied before defenses (ex: 20d6 Mind Control rolls 70 pts effect...x2 Vuln = 140 pts effect - 50MD = 90 pts effect / 4 = 23 pts effect gets through, then subtract EGO should be little enough to shrug off)

For the helmet removal...not everything has to be expressed in game terms. If you say that the helmet has a number of clasps that must be unhooked with successful attack/DEX Rolls...or a number of bolts that must be destroyed by attacks that cause X BODY damage that's not something that HAS to be expressed in game terms. The Focus limitation should be enough. The storytelling is the most important thing here, not the math or the game mechanics.

Hey Blue,

What is the unifying theme for this campaign? Are they all joining a team chartered to a city? Are they all hunted by the same group / villain?

The reason I ask is the Judge / Reformed Criminal relationship. Internal conflict in a group can help create dynamic tension as long as some higher purpose keeps them focused on the greater good of their partnership. I ran a game with a super-cop character and a reformed super-criminal who where both hunted by the same group (the reformed super-criminal's former teammates). This was a great source of role-playing opportunity for the players and their characters really came together when their mutual enemy came calling. They still had fundamental differences in how they approached situations, but they knew they could count on one another when the chips were down.

My WWII Super-Soldier is named Anthem

I have also seen Major Victory, Patriot (Cap knockoffs), Captain Star (Martial Artist / Energy Projector), Brigade (Duplication), Rampart (Brick)...to name a few.

From the info you gave us Harry I would offer the following. The existing team responds to a major threat, but because of the flaws that are tearing them apart, only some of the team shows up and those that do are thrashed by the major threat (Grond, Gravitar, Invading Space Monkeys...whatever) . The second string heroes (the PCs) must step in and save the Old Wave's butts. This sets up the rivalry in the public eye almost immediately.

You may also take the direction of having the New Wave directly involved in the Old Wave's break up by having a member of the Old Wave (possibly one who's but was saved by the New Wave) invite the new guys to join the existing team. After the membership shift is complete, the New Wave can have a press conference to enlighten the masses to the New Wave's way of thinking and how the old days are gone. San Fran will be safer than ever with the New Wave heroes in charge!

Originally posted by lemming

...Though a couple of the characters are in an INT war. kinda odd, I've never seen three digit INT.

My group has started a PRE war. My WWII Super-soldier guy had a 35 PRE for the longest time, then other characters started entering that PRE neighborhood (30 - 40) so I am thinking of spending my next 15 XP on PRE to bring him up to 50 and reestablish him as THE most commanding presence in our games...lol

Lost Villans

Originally posted by Lord Liaden

You know, for someone who wants a revived Prof. Muerte to renew Terror Inc. without violating current continuity, I believe Pantera and White Flame are currently unemployed...

Don't forget The Whip and Shamrock...nothing better than a guy with 75 STR AND Boxing Martial Arts AND 3d6 Luck!

"I hope your insurance is paid up, boyo!" - Love that quote!

Champions Comics

Is there any interest in seeing a Champions line of comics? I have wanted to send in series ideas several times, but I keep coming back to the problem I have always had with the DC or Marvel RPGs.

It is almost impossible to play an established character without someone saying "There's no way [spidey, Batman, etc] would do something like that." This is part of what makes Champions so great. No one can say that Captain Thunder wouldn't do something because (s)he is your character and (s)he does whatever you decide (s)he should.

BTW, I loved Foxbat in those books, before those comics I never thought much of a guy with a Ping Pong Ball Gun.

If I were going to re-vamp Muerte, I would definitely include a re-vamp of Giganto, perhaps making him spikey like a certain nephew of Petunia's was at one point. Or possibly having Muerte attempt to amp up the formula and make Giganto larger (to uh...live up to his name).

Second Teams

In my game group the Chicago Defenders is a long running campaign that has some really powerful heroes. I recently started running a Bay City Defenders campaign set on the West Coast and I have run into the problem of the BC team trying to call in the big guns from Chi Town when the going gets rough.

So I can offer some insights on how to deal with your PCs trying to call in UNITE I when things get rough. UNITE I should always be engaged elsewhere, unless they are being used as a plot device by you (the GM). They are globe-trotting supers and as such will often be out of radio contact or under mission specific radio silence most of the time. If you save the PCs with UNITE I they will feel like they don't really matter to the game world. Also have the UN liazon they report to remind them that UNITE II could be a temporary gig, unless these PCs can prove that they are valuable on their own, calling in the big guns all the time won't prove that UNITY II is viable.

Hope that helps.

I asked Steve Long at the DunDraCon in San Ramon last February about the removal of Professor Muerta and he pointed out to me that the character had not been killed and that some aspiring author could revive him if there was want.

In Fuermacher's History it says that he dropped Muerte into the ocean after fusing him into his armor. In the grand tradition of comics, Muerte could rise from the "dead" perhaps more powerful than ever and exact his revenge on Scorpia and Fuermacher. In fact, if those of you who play in my local campaigns are reading this...you can count on it.

In the tradition of Mental Defense getting a bonus of EGO/5. I am willing to give Power Defense a bonus of CON/5 in those situations (Drains/Transfers with the poison & disease special effects)

Is this villan from America? If not, why would he have a name consisting of English words?

Wizard Magazine's Last Man Standing

Wizard finally did this match up in their Last Man Standing feature this month. In their summation it was the magic lightning generated by Mjolnir that finished Supes off, not the hammer blows themselves.

For those of us who missed the Champions GM Screen the first time around, is there ANY chance of this getting re-released or republished?

Please, please, please, pretty please with Mechanon on top!

Originally posted by Grailknight

Doesn't it always? ...Even if a villain found your base and machine they couldn't do anything to you except stop you from changing back. Even this option isn't there if you didn't take focus as a limtation...

This is exactly the kind of thing that I was talking about in my previous post to this thread. No matter how you find yourself paying for something in active or real points, it is the story and the role playing that should drive decisions about how your Powers work.

Champions has always somewhat contradicted itself in this regard. Steve, George and Company made a game that provided a very structured, mathematical system for designing these characters, at the same time using very basic Power names such as Energy Blast (as opposed to Ice Blast, Fire Blast, EM Pulse, etc...) so that the players and the GM are free to develop power signatures and special effects through role playing.

I love this system and I do not want anyone to misinterpret this post as deriding the system. On the contrary, it is those among us who must account numerically for every facet of a character concept that I am bothered by.

In this case it seems that it is not enough to write up a robotic character and explain verbally the way this character powers up. No amount of number crunching should ever replace role-playing these situations out.

Do the two forms have different Skill sets?

Does the player spend any game time in the normal human ID?

If the answers to the above questions are No, then you must ask yourself if going to the time and trouble of making the NHID is worthwhile. You could just as easily write up the robot as the character, maybe with Only in Hero ID used fairly liberally. This may not give you the satisfaction of tweaking the game mechanics to numerically represent each and every facet of this character concept, but it will probably work just as well. I think that Champions players in particular get way to caught up in numerically representing things that can be explained through solid role play.

Daring Dustin Blake - a Luck manipulating bounty hunter turned Hero later changed his name to Jinx

Myriad - Nano-tech Hero that could do almost anything with his body

Flashburn - Second Generation Hero with cosmic energy chanelling powers

Brawl - Italian-American Chicago native, streetfighting Brick who just keeps getting back up...and craving "samiches" This guy also has one of my favorite civilian names Nico Brantonelli

Originally posted by Bartman

...Why would the average Clix player want to play some obscure third party game character when he can play Superman or Spidey?...

I agree with most of Bartman's post, but I have to say that I would LOVE to see Doctor Destroyer wipe the floor with Superman and Spidey in a Clix game.

Mini Maligning

The problem with HERO system minis has always been that the heroes we create are far to varied to make a set of minis that the majority of us would buy. With fanatasy gaming it is much easier to produce a line of minis (1 male, 1 female of 2 races for each character class) that would appeal to the vast majority of that game's players. For Champions you would need a variety of characters that would be simply to broad and expensive compared to the return on investment it would net.

I have been to several gaming cons since Clix came out and almost every game I have seen run has been using Clix for their minis. I know that in my games at home we do this as well and it works great! What might be profitable would be a set of villans from CKC these are pretty universally used/recognized (whether your playing in campaigns from Cali to Michigan you've probably faced off against Ogre, Lazer or even Grond).

I am starting this thread to see if there is enough interest from the masses of players out there to see Herogames' Champions characters make it to clix format. I for one would be as jazzed about Champions clix as I am about Marvel or DC and moreso than Indy. Wouldn't it be cool to have a Doctor Destroyer heroclix fig? These two companies should get together and hammer out some licensing agreements before the end of 2003. Maybe I'm alone here, just wanted to test the waters...