zornwil

Re: Mental Powers It's a fair argument point on either side and I respect your comments. However, there is a key difference, and that is that the real-world effects of these are known and quantifiable and can be debated in that context, and are reflected in heroic fiction thusly as well. This CoM construct hs no real-world and no solid heroic-fiction basis. That introduces the variability and confusion and an entirely (and important in my criticism) arbitrary nature, which I object to. (Major snippage) There's a major difference in Lims vs CoM. Lims do have defined standards of use. CoM does not. You may infer that it does, and you may even be correct, but the lacking explanation leaves any number of scenarios to mind in its application and the degree of utility versus commonality implied by the model. I really am curious - why is plant not a CoM and as it is not, where does it fit? What was implied by that? Is it "anything equivalent to a -2 Lim is outside the scope of CoM?

Re: Mental Powers I think the problem is that in absence of doing it in the carefully thought-out manner your closing comment suggests, we instead end up with something that clearly needs a lot more work and does more harm than good. Obviously, opinions vary.

Re: Champs Worldwide: Whaddya want? FWIW, I definitely agree with that approach. Enough time has passed to broach it, but not enough for more than just that.

Re: Mentalist Conundrum I forgot about Prof N.

Re: Could your Champions character beat...

Re: Mentalist Conundrum Who's got mental powers??

Re: Mental Powers So what is your take on it? I understand Hugh's, and I presume by your answer I don't understand yours. Hugh's is mechanical and imbues SFX only to the degree we realistically know that machines and brain-organisms are different. There's no other presumption - I think - to how mental abilities work, aside from the system-instructed "mental powers work against EGO" and the added rule over time re machines and INT (IIRC, this was suggested/in place before but not the core rules). As a side note, are single-cell and other undifferentiated non-brain life-forms "Animals" by Class of Mind? I'd think they're more Alien or in a Plant group. I wonder. What is a "Limited Class of Mind", +5? Is Plant a Limited CLass of Mind? Or a Limitation to a power with Class of Mind applied as "Animal"? I still don't see any reduced complexity to the structure except for dealing with the mechanics of lacking EGO.

Re: Mental Powers

Re: Mental Powers But limited invulnerability is a different issue and bringing this up begs, "so how is Class of Minds applicable otherwise to create the same effect?" Or is it simply an orphan mechanic?

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat "Wait - I think I saw that "Get out of jail free" card up your sleeve, mister..." BLAM!

Re: Could your Champions character beat...

Re: Mental Powers You're still wrong about your longer post (I just saw it, I missed it before). Still, at the risk of going around the mulberry bush, I disagree it's any easier to have this arbitrary animal/alien/human than to have left as is, at least without the preferences as you stated them at the outset of your post, and I think those are pivotal, not to be brushed aside. I would have no or at least little problem with it if it were presented along the lines you indicated. Anyway, I don't think it's so much the "are they equal" issue as to the delineation, but the complications of the implied levels of equal utility when even that is in grave question, and in fact a legitimate source of acrimony is where powers indeed do NOT match in the points they are assigned. But, hey, I'm just restating some essentials of my position, and I fear the circle is becoming complete...

Re: Page one of the V&V Conversions is up! What's up, the site doesn't show?

Re: The status of normals in the Superhero genre That sounds like a neat setting idea. As to the thread, yeah, the supers are pretty well beyond normals, but can be manipulated by normals in government and normals have found ways to protect themselves at least on the most important levels, though often with the employ of supers. There really is a question of long-term balance and in fact supers may indeed someday take away power; that's what Magneto wants, though he's currently reconsidering for a host of reasons, including his own collapse of power as his group has broken up into splinter factions ranging from basically old-fashioned super-powered vigilantes to hateful mutant super-terrorists. In fact, the role of how supers use this vast power has been a running theme, and the Justice Squad, the PCs, has gone back and forth over this, ranging from essentially condoning the enslavement of a zombie-fied Dr. Normal (who was indeed a normal, using gadgets and such against supers whom he hated) to treading a more respectful and careful path. They're moving into the forefront of a fight for mutual respect and democratic traditions/ambitions among humans and mutants. But the reality is, if mutants banded together as Magneto has tried to encourage, they could indeed topple humans, though with, at this stage, a great and terrible effort. The first major nation to be run by a super is Russia, now run by Dr. Doom, who is very much mirroring Putin, albeit somewhat more successfully.

Re: Which Edition of Champions/Hero System Worked Best for Your Champions Campaign? Oh, one more thing, as to the post before last - I also think 4th's more colloquial, less formal style contributes to what I call a "rulebook for gameplay" as opposed to the manual style of 5th. But the manual style of 5th does accentuate the toolkit mentality. Yin/yang...

Re: Which Edition of Champions/Hero System Worked Best for Your Champions Campaign? I think in general there's way too much attention and respect for specific rules in gaming systems, and I think (speculative, truly, but it's my impression) to some degree Steve didn't/doesn't expect things to be taken in the way that unfortunately inevitably people do It's an aside, but an important one, to the issue of the complexity and detail in 5th.

Re: Which Edition of Champions/Hero System Worked Best for Your Champions Campaign? I liked Piercing, too! I don't know, I'm across the board, and my rules are really a 3rd-through-5th hybrid in many ways. As a rulebook for gameplay, I must admit I think 3rd and 4th were the best, hard to choose between them, 4th introduced complexity but didn't do a good job in many ways of handling it while 3rd was simpler but a bit restraining/limited. One of these days I really have to go about doing a 2nd edition game or 2, really been wanting to do that. (PS - 5th may not have made my top as the "rulebook for gameplay" but I phrased it that way as 5th is a treasure trove in other, interesting ways)

Re: Sidekicks you probably wouldn't want Thanks, Dr. A, checking it out... I'll list the post links here, for those who hate OT and just want write-ups: http://herogame.dans.cust.servlets.net/forums/showpost.php?p=736040&postcount=112 http://herogame.dans.cust.servlets.net/forums/showpost.php?p=735759&postcount=111 http://herogame.dans.cust.servlets.net/forums/showpost.php?p=735758&postcount=110 http://herogame.dans.cust.servlets.net/forums/showpost.php?p=732165&postcount=87 http://herogame.dans.cust.servlets.net/forums/showpost.php?p=729935&postcount=64 http://herogame.dans.cust.servlets.net/forums/showpost.php?p=729306&postcount=32 http://herogame.dans.cust.servlets.net/forums/showpost.php?p=729321&postcount=34

Re: Team of second rate Villains Geee, second rate villains in a team...that's like half my bad guy teams! Game Show Host and the Models and the insubstantial invisible Narrator... The Lizard King with the Human Tongue (yes, that's all he is, one big-ass tongue, little DEF but he heals REAL fast), Octal Fist (who gets tougher each go-round, basically started as a slightly cowardly martial artist with full desol/invis combo and a small but annoying attack in that state), Mover Shaker (started as 8 and became 16 duplicates who basically can only teleport people; they often gang up, coordinate, and teleport someone into the air so that they fall), Eyes (eyes in the back of his head...), Cripper (drainer/dispeller, invis SFX), and Brainswapper (transforms people, swapping his brain with theirs, he actually got oddly kiled completly by accident in battle; he sounds real powerful but he can only do one at a time, and it takes him a little time, another invis pow sfx, this was sort of a half aggressive/gonna-get-ya crew with scaredy-cats alongside!). And so on...but not much as far as villains go from published books along these lines.

Re: Memoirs of failed concepts Hey, it's Altar Boy, the other-worlds version! And Panorama seems a LOT like a possible Multiform variant for I-know-who - (PS - except for probably being too varied/multi-dimensional, couldn't really read that write-up due to the formatting thing) Anyway, just caught up to it, funny to see.

Re: Who Do You Tthink Thay Will Lock Up In "Stronghold" (the book)? The Stronghold Adventure: the PCs have to inexplicably (fabricate whatever background) a major villain, they only have limited info, but he's a mastermind whose plans could destroy the world ... but against the current threat just might save it! And 50% of the time it's a mad Dr. Destroyer and the other 50% of the time it's a mad (in another way) Foxbat...

Re: Of course we're criminals. We have to be.

Re: Champions (Super)Hero Resources Nice work, Question Man!

Re: Something we should all look into.. Wow, Jkeown, nice stuff! May I request something? Sounds like you left it open (how could this thread die???). I'd like to see how you do the Urban Druid: cloak and cape; it blends in with the background, chameleon-like, its native color is green but most often is blending in with concrete and the like, urban environment face - thin-faced, young, big shock of brown hair obscuring half of face physique - slight the cape swirls around him, Batman-like gloves of same material as cloak/cape, with grey pointy boots would be cool if he had his Russian Blue cat, Pinky Blue, an alleycat, with him, tough-looking skinny Russian Blue

Re: Mental Powers Oh, sure, be a smart guy.. Nice catch, caris.