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Re: Perfect bodyguard Or you could build a hyper-vigilent character that always puts himself in the right place to provide protection.

Re: Street Sweepers Are the characters you're describing actual "super" heroes? John McClaine is a hero, but he's not a super hero, as he has no powers. Batman and Robin are super heroes, but I'm not sure how well they'd fit in a low-point game. Maybe you could post a character for the game you are describing? Give us a better idea about what kind of game it is you're discussing. Right now, I'm not sure if you're talking about a Dark Champions or Pulp Hero game, which wouldn't really have "super" heroes, or something more like PS238, which would have low-powered super heroic characters. Or maybe something like Scanners...I'm not sure I'd call those guy super heroes or super villians, even though they have powers.

Re: FH "Scout" For Review Ok. Now that I have lamented the injustices of HERO character design...lets twink this monkey. Characteristics The 16 Dex doesn't do anything. Either go 15 or 17...18 would be better. If you are doing it to go before characters with 15 dexes, get lightning reflexes instead...you get +2 Dex for going first for the same 3 points. Though I guess you do lose a point in SPD this way. I'd just suggest going up to at least 17. We're gonna save some points a little further down to pay for it. 13 CON, at least. Lessons Of The Wilds IMO, +3 to All Perception and the Detect Life are over kill. +3 PER will allow your character to detect life 95% of the time anyway (in a non-mystical way, however). I like the power idea, but maybe ditch the detect life and just go with +4 PER. That'd give him a 17- PER roll.That saves you 12 points to fund your CON purchase, and gets you almost the same abililty, just defined a little differently. Heck, go to +5 if you want. You're still saving a ton of points, and your character will have an all seeing eye... Scout's Pace is a nice idea, but your character only runs 6", or 12" non-combat. With a 3 SPD, that only equates to 3 or 6 END per turn. A 6 REC allows you to do the same thing as Scout's Pace, without paying any points for a fancy power (Though LTE would eventually get you). I'd recommend ditching this power and using the points savings to buy some extra inches of running, some REC, or maybe some more CON. Skills WF: For the same 6 points, you can get all Common Melee, Common Missle, Off-Hand, and Staff. Just some ideas...

Re: FH "Scout" For Review This is all excellent advice. But I read over the character and I wish it wasn't. So many characters end up looking similar because they have to meet the minimum "adventurer" requirements. I guess there is no good way to force people to have "poor" builds, but I'd like to try it sometime and see how it goes...

Re: Meanwhile... Comic-Con is that weekend. The 27th is the final day of the Con. Maybe they are announcing/releasing a Champions Online MMO comic-book? Of course, it could be action figures. It could be a Heroclix-type game. It could be a collectable card game. But my bet would be a comic.

Re: Self-destruct attacks

Re: A question of power level I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone on these boards who wouldn't be interested in playing a low powered game' date=' especially if the GM had a good idea he wanted to play. That said, 75 to 125 points is pretty low for a "supers" game. Sure, you could can buy powers, but in ever other way the character is going to look like a cop, soldier, high school student, etc... Which is not a problem, [i']per se[/i]. But it's also not very "superheroic." In a game with so few points, I think it would be very easy to lose the feel of a true supers game. That game could easily end up more like G.I. Joe, X-Files, or PS238, . While these would all be fun games in their own right, none of them are traditional "superhero" settings. So I can see why there might have been a disconnect between the GM and the players.

Re: Character Effectiveness Good luck with this. Every player runs their characters differently. Every GM runs his games differently. Every setting has different expectations. You'll never be able to come up with a EF rating that is even remotely universal. Go read about Characteristics in the 6th Ed. thread. Some GMs use supplemental COM rolls in every encounter. Some GMs don't even use the COM characteristic at all. You say some powers will affect the flow of the story more than a 10d6 RKA. Most Champs games I played in...that just isn't so. Seriously, I hope you can come up with something and prove me wrong. I really do. But I think HERO just has too much variability for an EF rating as all encompasing as you describe to be very effective.

Re: Concepts Killed by 350 What's the concept, though?

Re: Settlement & Exploration ropogation Do tell...

Re: on Ebay now: Wings of the Valkyrie I would never buy something that nice. My gaming books get used...hard. I would feel like a heel to take it out of the shrink-wrap given what great shape its in. If you have a torn up version with only half a cover, though... Oh, and I looked at it!

Re: What can I do with a Crowd?

Re: A song of Ice & Fire

Re: Alignments

Re: D&D 4th Oh, and I can't think of a single campaign I ever played in that made use of the material component rules for spell-casting. Get wet? No worries about powders being ruined. Need a diamond for that spell? That's expensive, don't worry about it. Rare component only found in Greenland. I'll just pick some up at the store?

Re: D&D 4th

Re: Alignments The GM has to decide. But this determination is also largely subjective, because its the GMs opinion on the matter. I might think it is a "good" thing to have my character kill the tyranical sheriff of Norfolk. But the GM might see my actions as vigilante, and therefore evil. Maybe allowing everyone access to their own "alignment" chart wouldn't be such a bad thing, afterall. At least then the PCs would know if they and their GM disagreed on the definition of "good" and "evil." Clearly, the genre and setting matter, too. If my character is "Dirty Harry" Callahan, I can do a great deal of harm to people and still be "good" in my story. If my character is Sir Lancelot, though, the standard for "goodness" is much, much higher. Are their any games that reward players for acting in accordance with their character's alignment? Other than continued access to their gods spells, I mean? I think Riddle of Steel had something like this, but rather than broad alignment, there were specific goals the PCs were trying to accomplish. When they were working towards those goals, they got extra dice, or something? Anyone?

Re: Alignments I think affiliation is different than alignment. Affiliation, to me, is like joining a political party. You weigh your options, then chose which group either most agrees with your views or will provide you with the most tangible benefits. Alignment is more a question of who the character is...his world view. Alignment itself has nothing to do with the outside world, and everything to do with the characters feelings and what the character believes about reality. A lawful good character would probably affiliate herself with a lawful good church. But she could be affiliated with a chaotic evil one, if she thought she could do the most good there. Heck, and she could probably even be affiliated with both...especially if there were no alignment test requirements, and no gods administering the admissions process. But she couldn't just as easily switch her alignment to chaotic evil, or act in a chaotic evil way, then switch back to lawful good again. That would be totally out-of-character. Granted, these are my take on these terms with all the RPG baggage I carry around. I'm not talking about the actual definitions of the words. Just how I would use them in a gaming context.

Re: Urban Fantasy dead horses.

Re: D&D 4th ...while fighting. Virtua Fighter 2 didn't hassle me with that roleplaying non-sense, either. Stun Palm of Doom! Is that what you mean by "cool stuff?"

Re: D&D 4th What about when I hit you in the head, from behind, with my ax, to start combat? Is that simulated well? Maybe only if I'm a rogue? I guess getting killed before the fight even starts isn't very heroic or fun... Ok, I'm being sarcastic. But this whole model of taking damage, dealing damage, and healing damage just seems bizarre to me. Is it me, or does it seem to be designed to keep fights going longer? I can't see how that's a good thing...HERO has long been the butt of all jokes because of its lengthy combats. Maybe D&D 4th wants a shot at the title? In a MMORPG, keeping fights going means making more money. What does it mean in a table top game?

Re: Alignments If I were to ever do alignments, I might do it as something the GM exclusively tracked. I'd let the PCs tell me where they started, but I'd track them over time to see if they actually acted in their proscribed manner. If they didn't, I'd change them to something else after a while. I think D&D used to have a chart for tracking alignment, didn't they? Something like that. However, I'd never tell the player that his character was acting out of alignment. So, after a while, maybe the good character starts being detected as evil, or maybe his "good only" powers stop being effective. I can almost bet he'd still "think" he was good, despite all his actions to the contrary. The idea that there are absolutes doesn't work for me. A destitute father steals bread from his noble landlord to feed his kids. To the kids, the dad is clearly good, because he's providing them with life. To the landlord, the dirty peasant is clearly evil, and lazy to boot, because stealing is wrong. 300 years ago, Tribe A attacked Tribe B and takes their land. Tribe B is forced to take land from Tribe C. Is Tribe B evil for not nobly taking their beating and dying out? In this example, Tribe A could be called the root of "evil," but what is Tribe B? Tribe C certainly thinks Tribe B is evil. 300 years later, when Tribe B comes back and takes the land back from Tribe A, are the roles reversed? No one in Tribe A ever attacked anyone in Tribe B. No one in Tribe B ever lived on their "ancesteral" lands that they feel are theirs. Is Tribe B "justified?" Are they evil for killing to take back what was once their tribe's? Pol Pot was directly responsible for the death of a million people. Ok, that's evil. Suppose later in life he regretted his killing, becomes a buddist monk, and keeps a vow to never hurt another living thing. 5 years after his vow, does he still radiate evil? Is killing kobald children a "good" act? This stuff is all to murky for me to quantify "alignment" in a game. So I generally tend to avoid it.

Re: Complex Sectional Armor This system could work, but you'd actually have to divide up the cost of Armor before applying any limitations. 10PD/10ED Armor is worth 30 points, and it covers all 16 hit locations, and all 216 possible rolls. 10PD/10ED Armor that covers hit locations 3-5, 12, and 13, or 56 out of 216 possibilities, using straight percentile ratios, should cost 8 points. (56/216 = .26, .26*30 = 7.77, rounded up to 8.) Applying the OIF and Double Mass on this would get you a cost of 3 for that additional 10PD/10ED Armor. In summation, because this armor is only covering 26% of the player, he should only have to pay 26% of the cost of the armor. Then, because that 26% of coverage is further limited by OIF and Mass, the cost is brought down even more. But like I said before, certain hit locations are more equal than others...

Re: Complex Sectional Armor I think using straight hit-location coverage percentages is a poor way to limit armor in a game that's using hit locations. Buying additional armor for only vulnerable areas should be less limiting than buying additional armor for non-vulnerable areas. And since that's clear as mud...it should be more expensive to buy extra coverage for your head than it is to buy extra coverage for your foot. Hit location 3 should be more expensive to defend than hit location 18, even though they are both hit 1 time in 216. To me, not taking the vulnerability into account is missing something. Though, it is more complicated that way. Lastly, "Double Listed Mass" would raise my eyebrows if I were the GM. In a super-fantasy game, I'm guessing your character's STR will be high enough to easily manage this armor plus a lot more. To me, that's a limit that isn't very limiting. I guess there would need to be a lot of STR draining going on to make it a limit worth (-1 1/2). A LOT of STR draining, and maybe some tumbles into deep water.

Re: What was that? Elvis weapon in LOTR movie. I haven't seen the movies in a while, but I think it was Saruman's Uruk-hai that used the cleaver like straight swords. I'm pretty sure their's were the swords being forged in the movies. I'll have to go back to check to see if regular orcs appear to prefer curved blades.