CrosshairCollie

Re: Needed: Organizations! Definitely sounds like some interesting organizations ... But what do they do? I've never even heard of any of those series.

Re: Limits on CSL's? General consensus? Of course, if you do that constantly, you're just picking on him ... on the other hand, just like the 'every once in a while, in Champions, you lose a focus', every now and again will help keep him on his toes. More seriously, how limited you make combat skill levels depends partially on your genre, and partially on how realistic you want to be. In some genres, there's no reason to cap the CSLs ... the characters are SUPPOSED to be that nauseatingly good ("There's something you should know ... I'm not left handed."). It's hard to argue that Robin Hood or William Tell didn't have a metric squidload of bow levels with some of the shots that they were purported to make. So, if you're in a fairly 'wild' genre, a high cap is probably good. If you're in a low, more realistic game, then one interesting idea for capping CSLs would be that you can't have more base CV + Levels than the amount possessed by anybody you've beaten in combat. If you never face anybody with a total base CV + Levels over 10, you can't give yourself a CV + CSL level of eleven (you simply haven't had the opportunity to learn to fight better, because you haven't had to). You only get so good if you spend your life fighting DEX 11, 1 level Goblins. Practice only goes so far ... you have to push yourself to the limit to truly get better. to the , baby.

Re: Limits on CSL's? General consensus? If someone has 15 +1 OCV levels with one weapon, then you BREAK THE WEAPON.

I'm finally hammering down a homebrewed Star Hero universe (or a tiny galactic sliver thereof), and I'm needing some organizations. A few I've lifted from various sources (including using the Interstellar League for the over-government, even though it isn't a Terran Empire setting ... hope Steve forgives me). So, here's what I have so far ... Interstellar Leage (Interstel): The over-government, a basic rip-off of the United Federation of Planets. Delegates from the member worlds gather at Interstel HQ and do a United Nations thing, 'cept it actually works. Mostly. Brotherhood of the One True Mind: Essentially, a group of psi-supremacists. Lucifer's Hammers: Name stolen from a book in Star Hero's bibliography; a mercenary unit, but a big one ... practically a privatized army. Work for money, no sense of conscience besides fulfilling the contract. Dark Circle: Stolen from Legion of Superheroes. Claim to be 'mystics', though most claim that their powers are simply psionics or well-concealed technology, and they play 'dress-up' as wizards and sages. Agenda unknown to the public, but they actively recruit people with promises of power and 'control of one's destiny'. Novastorm Pirates: A band of pirates who have, through stories that Interstel refuses to tell (both because of security issues and embarassment), operate out of one of those Star Destroyer style megabattleships as a mobile HQ. The leader, whom I've not named, will be a bit of an homage of Blackbeard, who supposedly once said, "I have to kill one of my crew every now and again, or they begin to forget who I am." Machine Empire: While not precisely an 'Empire', they aspire to be. Android supremacists, essentially (rather like Battlestar Galactica's Cylons, if I recall the show correctly ... organic life must be exterminated). The game's theme will be Space Opera, though the PCs won't necessarily be Interstel personnel (I'm cooking up a big out-of-sector invasion that happened in the very recent past ... all the non-battle-ready Interstel ships will be upgraded to battleships, so they'll have to use freelancers for non-military missions until they get things stabilized). Any blatant omissions of standard sci-fi stuff that I'm missing? (I confess that my sci-fi exposure amounts to Star Wars, Star Trek, and MST3K movies ... I don't read much.)

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... From a quick D&D pickup game ... I was describing a shop the PCs entered ... it was a haberdashery, but all that was already made were cloaks. Dozens of cloaks, all done in shades of very-light-blue and white. Some with embroidered designs resembling icicles, some with snowflakes ... some fur-trimmed, some not. Eventually, one of the players falls into my trap and asks the haberdasher why all his clothes have arctic themes. "I'm an ice-cape artist." (Say it aloud.) At which point, the players cast Dice Storm on me.

Re: Why does Nighthawk always get depicted getting the crap kicked out of him? Hmm. Anybody who's got a lot of the 3rd Edition and earlier supplements ... check to see if the team Martial Artist of those 'iconic' teams were usually depicted as getting the snerd beat out of them. It may just be a curse ... like the Chicago Cubs. "Hello, this is Defender. I'm returning your call about your application to our organization. Our Speedster position is filled, but if you're interested, we have an opening in the Martial Artist division ... hello? Hello? Are you still there?" "I have got to repair this phone ... that's the fifth time this week."

Re: what character concepts -HAVE- Gm's allowed that you thought they wouldn't? Someone actually let me play a character with a DBZ-style powerup ability (as lifted from Mr. Surbrook's Site; the Aid To Damn Near Everything Combat Related). Of course, losing those two or three phases at the start of the fight to power up hurt me a lot more than I thought it would ... I also think the only reason I got away with it was because the character didn't have a DBZ personality ("The solution to every problem is MORE POWER!"). I had a Code Against Killing, for the luvva Mike.

Re: Strange Race Question Anything furry, 'cause they look cool.

Re: Steve, you dirty boy! We're goin' off on a weird tangent here, guys ...

Re: Telepathy that does stun.. You'd need to link an attack to it, most likely an Ego Attack (though an amusing alternative might be an NND based on ECV with the defense being resisting the telepathy).

Re: Darts One old (like 2E) build for poisoned darts built them as an NND with the defense being 'taking no body from an imaginary 1d6 RKA, Penetrating and Armor Piercing', which may or may not penetrate Combat Luck. The 1d6 RKA didn't actually exist ... but if it would do damage, you took the drug effect.

Re: What would your heroes do about this...? I don't think any of my characters would cut their nation of origin any slack about crimes against humanity. Evil's evil.

Re: Combined Attack Well, that and the Rangers, typically, had rules against escalating battles (though this was violated on numerous occassions).

Re: Your Gaming Group's Jargon Ah, that reminds me ... how could I forget ... "Radland" -- Having negative-triple-digits-STUN. In one old Champions game, a character named Rad (skateboarding kid with radiation powers) got knocked into a lava pit. He was only at -6 (or so) at the time, and the team's flying brick had an action coming up and could have fished him out. Instead, said flying brick used his body like a snowplow blade to try to 'scoop' lava up onto the evil wizard we were fighting! The player, now with nothing else to do (but in no fear of dying due to high Resistant Def), kept rolling the damage against himself every segment and doing the math, eventually winding up near -700 STUN by the time the fight was over.

Re: Your Gaming Group's Jargon Brown - any poor die roll, especially initiative rolls in d20 ("I go on brown.") From an old Star Wars d6 game where an Imperial Techie we told to send an 'everything is okay' message sent 'Code Brown' (referring to the color of, well, you know).

Re: Combined Attack The more, the merrier.

Re: Another FH5th Question: Races? Thank you very much. Next question ... how do you SAY Erqigdlit?

Re: Another FH5th Question: Races? Cool. Sounds like a nice mix, but ... what the heck is a Erqigdlit? *scoots FH a little further up the 'RPG supplement priority' ladder*

Since we're asking a lot of questions about the new FH world, I figured I'd chime in since I'm rapidly approaching being this '' close to buying it as soon as financially feasible ... What are the official races of the world? I'm presuming it wouldn't be particularly difficult to homebrew one's own, but what kinds of races officially occupy the various lands? Are there new, unique races, or is it the standard Tolkien-esque stuff? Most importantly, did the 4E Felines survive the transition? *mew*

Re: Oops... Well, the way to not get screwed twice by Knockback is to buy Breakfall, as far as 'rules-as-written' ways of handling it, since that means you may land on your feet. I would permit the 'abort to stand up' maneuver, myself, though I'd probably require an acrobatics roll to pull it off. Brick DCVs are so low that halving their DCVs isn't THAT big of a problem, but high DCV martial artists get the shaft. As far as the 'maneuver shuffle', the new modifier replaces the old one; so if you Haymakered, then dodged on a later segment, you get a +3DCV (which is why the time to attack someone in a Haymaker is *before* it goes off).

Re: Archetype teams The Braverman Foundation, IIRC. They were fun. I'm surprised nobody's mentioned the Classic Elements team (Air, Earth, Fire, Water), which has been a time-honored classic since the Fantastic Four debuted (Mr. Fantastic=Water, Invisible Woman=Air, Thing=Earth, Human Torch=Fire, duh). The Zodiac is another classic theme to build a team around, of course. And, apparently a common obsession among Hero enthusiasts, I have also had a team of all female supervillains running about, who I dubbed Hell's Belles.

Re: Towel - Shout out? I caught it and was amused. Then, when someone wanted a bizarre Ford Prefect/Arthur Dent amalgamation for a Champions game, I made sure I gave him that power.

Re: Agent combat.... More agent fun! 1. Figure out how many agents your heroes are likely to reduce to puddles of comatosity in the first phase. Add that number to the actual number of agents you *want* to use. Dress them in red Classic Trek uniforms, and let them get hosed down. 2. Sneak Attacks are your friend. If all 8 agents get off a shot in the surprise 12, then you might be able to cash in 2 heroes. VIPER agents in stolen UNTIL uniforms are a load of laughs. 3. Entangles are great, but Flashes can be even more annoying. Running a fight with 4E Viper, an agent with a Solar (6d6 Flash Explosion) rifle hosed the entire team. This presumes a relative lack of Flash Defense, of course. 4. Knockback in really big amounts can also be your friend. Scattering the PCs hither and yon reduces their teamwork ability (and anybody without a ranged attack gets really hosed).

Re: Wohoo! I finally got to play a character! "We now go to our correspondent in the field for new on the latest downtown super-battle! Todd, what have you got for us?" "AAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIMYGODWE'REALLGONNADIE"*skrreeeeeee*swerve*KRAFUNCH* " ... now, back to you, Bob."

Re: Minor player problem ... TheQuestionMan: Not so much a problem, but I'm planning a game where all the characters all gain their powers at the same time, and I'd rather the characters' main form of offense be their powers, not 'a smattering of powers and a big gun'. He's a Bishop (X-Men) fan, and invariably wants a gun no matter what his powers (one character in a Marvel Saga game had Heat Powers, Radiation Powers, Flight, Enhanced Senses, Regeneration ... and the first thing he spent a Response Bonus on was getting a big gun which was far inferior to his Heat/Radiation Blasts, but he used it constantly). We started calling him 'Obviously Compensating For Something Man', for obvious reasons. Basically, I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's against the game's theme. StGrimblefig: For the background of this game, all the PCs are going to start completely normal, then gain their powers in a group situation (a la the Fantastic Four, albeit via Kelvarite) by being captured by an evil scientific organization and exposed to Kelvarite Radiation. Of course, this means if he had a gun on him, he doesn't have it now. Hmm ... maybe I should use that bit from the last Digital Hero article where guns are gimped by the laws of game-physics (max dmg 2d6, stun X at fixed 2; 24 points of PD=Immune To Gunfire). If he really wants to use a gun, that's fine ... but it'll be a total waste of points. Maybe I should just tell him this instead ... but knowing him, he'll just want a laser. :/ This guy is the 'Mr. Subtle' (sarcastic) of my group. His only solution to problems is blast it, blast it harder, blast it with that other blast, or blast it many times. If he doesn't try to play a soldier or ex-soldier or cop in the game, I'll be very very surprised. Of course, I've used this to my advantage more than once ... like using the knockback from his blasts to enable Mysterious Villain Escapes.