TheEmerged

Just curious, since this doesn't apply to me/my campaigns and is highly unlikely to happen given the players in the group. Those of you that all-but-require (or require) Code Vs Killing and/or feel it is an automatic part of the genre: do you make it an assumption (0-pt disadvantage), or do you "credit" the players for its value with regards to the 50-point category cap? As stated in the title, please keep the flames to "defrost". It's my inner game mechanic asking, not the GM and RolePlayer. I'm not asking you to defend whether you feel its in genre or not, and I doubt either of us is going to convince the other. I'm simply asking about what mechanic you use...

Re: Crisis of Infinite Foxbats

Re: Are you Judge, Jury, and Executioner? Speaking as someone from the minority on this board that believes that some people deserve to be killed, we've never had this kind of argument in our gaming group either -- because each of the players and myself could kill that terrorist and not think twice.

Re: Would your character... Speaking for the PC's in the campaign I GM... Sting doesn't meet the "relatively human" boilerplate, being his description reads "Thok from "Classic Enemies", with dragonfly-style wings and a 'Mortal Kombat' ninja suit". The Disruptor is a 59-year-old male with a COM of zero (0) and a sour attitude. Take a guess Oamen *probably* wouldn't, unless there was some way to convince him that doing so would somehow hurt PRIMUS (Hatred of PRIMUS, Very Common/EGO). Hexadecimal actually has been offered to do so, and refused. I as GM asked her this during an "interview" as part of our last session -- the PC's were interviewed by Villainy Unbound and the interviewer told her she had risen from 40th to 5th on the list readers would like to see 'featured'. She replied that just because she's a villain now doesn't mean she's changed her opinion that it's demeaning -- and the fact that the women do it willing, are paid well, etc. just makes it more disgusting in her opinion.

Re: The Case for Doctor Destroyer RE: "Empire" Limited Series. Great potential. Lousy execution. It could have been a wonderful view into what a Doom/Destroyer run world might look like -- instead we had a bunch of scenes involving corpse manipulation, sexual torture, and underaged sex.

Re: GM Query: House Rules Here's what I use. NCM is 8 Age 40+ is 10 Age 60+ is 12 Age 10- is 6

Re: Power Defence... Ugg RE: Why nobody has ever bought an AVLD attack in your campaign. Because there's little difference between the effectiveness of 6d6 of NND and 6d6 of AVLD, but the AVLD is more expensive. That's one of the reasons I long ago reduced AVLD to +1 and it works better in my opinion.

Re: Emp? Two similar powers have appeared in writeups -- Defender (Champions) has a Dispel vs any one electrical power. Technik (Millennium City) has something pretty similar. Of course, you said you wanted to stay away from Dispel

Re: Power Defence... Ugg I won't at all be surprised if Power Defense gets seperated into categories in a future edition, the way Flash Defense operates and the way Lack Of Weakness now operates under 5th Edition. I've given some thought to adopting this as a house rule for future campaigns...

Re: What do I get? RE: Changes from 4th to 5th. Follow this LINK to a compilation I've made about the changes, and my opinion thereof. No, I don't get paid for hits. In fact I paid to keep the advertisements off the site. RE: Why the extra pages?. Easy one: several major expansions. The most telling example is Change Environment; it went from a couple of paragraphs and an example to two full pages in Fifth Edition. It is far from the only such expansion (Force Wall went from a column to two pages, Entangle takes up 2.5 pages...). Most Drastic Changes, Summary. No order implied Change Environment has been greatly expanded and codified, and now takes its rightful place alongside Transform and Mind Control as a "How Do I..." tool. Flash now works by segment instead of by phase, costs 5 per d6 instead of 10, and (like all sense-affecting powers) operates by sense group instead of by individual sense. Shape Shift is now, for all practical purposes, a sense-affecting power. Two powers are now considered cumulative: Transform (yeah!) and Suppress (boo!). Damage Shield has been changed to require either a Constant power or the Cumulative advantage (a change many players are ignoring or compromising) The "Linked Debate" has been clarified in a different manner than most 4th Edition player expected. Many powers and constructs received changes that allow them to work more like the way they do in genre fiction than under previous editions. Duplication is the strongest example here. There is no such thing as a "General" skill now; all skills are based on attribute rolls. Summoning no longer has a 30-pt overhead. And these are only the most drastic changes

Re: "Super" Cities- How many is too many?

Re: Dependence: A useless Catagory of Disads?

Re: Questions about VPPs Good question. To answer I have to ask a couple of my own: first would be, "Do you consider Healing and Dispel adjustment powers?" I do. So I'd peg this around -1, as it eliminates a fairly wide selection of powers (like mental powers, movement powers, and defense powers) but still allows for some fairly important ones -- one could argue you have five of the nine key wargaming powers at your disposal (damage foes, heal allies, buff allies, debuff foes, and negate opponent's attacks/adjustments -- with move about, prevent damage, hide from opponent, and locate opponent as the denials). If you don't, this could be worth -1 1/2. -2 would be too strong, as even without Heal and Dispel you've still got quite a lot of options at your disposal. Second Question: do you consider "debuffs" to be attacks, even if they don't use an adjustment power as a mechanic? I made the above valuation on the assumption that you're talking only about the attack powers (Energy Blast, Hand Attack, Killing Attack) and the adjustment powers (aid, drain, suppress, transfer, and possibly Dispel & Healling). If by "Attack Powers" you're including things like using Change Environment to reduce the victim's DCV, then the value of the limitation goes down -- I'd peg the limitation at -1/2 if you could use Dispel/Heal and mechanics like this.

Re: Dependence: A useless Catagory of Disads? RE: Earth 2 Flash. I believe he's refering to the "modern" Earth 2, not the pre-Crisis Earth 2. The Flash from the "modern" Earth 2 takes a drug. And yes, the scare quotes are supposed to indicate that I was disappointed with the graphic novel.

Re: "Super" Cities- How many is too many? I have to confess I'm quite the cribber myself -- a good 60% of my NeoChampions campaign is borrowed from other sources. It's still close enough to Champions, but I've borrowed elements from Aberrant, Brave New World (the game, not the novel), DC, Marvel, Crossgen... --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The focus of the campaign right now has been America, so that's where I've done most of my work. The following represents what I've done work on, not necessarily an exhaustive list on "fake cities/countries". Millenium City, the former Detroit Exists pretty much as it does in 5th Edition CU, except the Millenium City 8 have not formed (primarily because I have not yet been able to purchase the Digital Hero issue with their writeups ). Crescent City -- no longer applicable I had originally planned to keep this fake city from BNW (replacing Chicago), changing its backstory to having been destroyed by Black Hole and leading to the disbanding of the Freedom Patrol (cf VOICE of Doom). I decided against it, it detracted from the Detroit/Millenium City issue. Michtendorf. This fake city exists at the mouth of a river in North Carolina, and is the 3rd largest city in the USA. It is the former home of Hyperion (campaign equivalent of Superman, currently semi-retired & running Destruga/Sanctuary), and has long been the home of the Blask Mask (including #10, the current one). Michtendorf is often nicknamed the nova capital of the world because a> the first nova (Hyperion) erupted there and b> in a world where on global average 1 in 1,000,000 is a nova (although the actual ratio varies quite a bit), about 1 in 15,000 citizens of Michtendorf are novas. Micthendorf is also home to the largest population of Armenians in the world, and home to the Cherokee Indians (there is no Trail of Tears in the NeoChampion history books). Cincinnati, Ohio Not a fake city -- irony aside -- but one with a different history in NeoChampions. Home to several WW2-era vigilantes (novas have only been around since 1972), this city has faired better here than it has in real life. The fact that the Justice Battalion and PRIMUS are headquartered in the Union Terminal (which even in real life bears an uncanny resemblance to the Hall Of Justice) makes this something of a nova hotspot. The fact that the Ravagers, an up-and-coming group of anti-PRIMUS mercenaries (read: the PC's) also seem to be based in the area just makes it moreso. Vibora Bay Exists in name only right now, pending the book's release and my ability to purchase it Destruga/Sanctuary Dr. Destroyer's old base is now home to a "nova sanctuary" started and still mainlined by none other than Hyperion himself, in semi-retirement. Some novas would like to make the island a nova homeland/independent nation, but Hyperion refuses to do so. He claims to have established it so novas could be amongst their "own kind", and except for a short list of especially despised novas (such as The Disruptor, Dr. Destroyer, and similar "irredeemables") any nova is welcome here. Addis Ababa, Ethopia If the hardliners in the USA get their way and the UN gets kicked out of New York, it would almost certainly relocated here. The HQ for Project Utopia, Team Tomorrow, and UNTIL is an oasis of prosperity in an Africa that has otherwise become quite fragmented by nova elites and bush wars. Europe, General. The aftermath of the MindBender Incident had a chaotic effect on Europe, causing many small "postage stamp" countries seceding -- often with the help of nova elites (superhuman mercenaries). Cuba Castro was overthrown by a powerful nova calling himself El Junte'. Despite dozens of attempts on his life, El Junte' still rules Cuba with an iron fist -- and effective iron fist that increasingly benefits his people, but an iron fist nonetheless. El Junte' is in some ways a Doc Doom one-off...

Re: Questions about VPPs First and most importantly -- the base pool of a VPP should never have a limitation applied against it. Only the Control Cost can have its cost reduced this way. You probably know that but I wanted to make sure. Now, to address your specific question. To have a term to work with, let's call the maximum number of active points the character can use for one power within the VPP as the "active cap". In my opinion, the first question to ask is not what percentage of the base pool we're talking about -- it's how big the active cap is relative to the rest of the campaign. If 100 active points is normal for your campaign then it's probably at least a slight limitation. However if most attack powers in your campaign come in around 75 active points I'd argue this is not a really limiting the character and therefore isn't worth points (that is, I'd make it a -0 option instead of a limitation). After that, I'd be inclined to judge the value of the active cap relative to the campaign norms. If 100 Active Points is normal for your campaign a 100 Active Cap is a mild but noticeable limitation -- perhaps -1/2. If 100 Active Points represents a high (or maximum) for the campaign I'd peg it at -1/4. The only way I'd give more than a -1/2 limitation is if the actice cap is *below* the campaign norm. In a campaign where 60-75 active points is the norm, for example, I'd peg a 30 pt active cap at -1.

Re: Dependence: A useless Catagory of Disads? Yeah, I think the time scale needs to be adjusted. To me it's telling that I can't remember the last time I saw dependence on a character sheet from my players...

Re: Adding Damage Personally, I've adopted a house rule that HA works like HKA -- you can no more than double the DC with STR and manuever bonuses. Additionally, since I'm not afraid of a llittle math I've decided to continue pro-rating bonuses across the base power's active points instead of the 5th Edition canon method of adding dice directly.

Re: Perks and Bases Personally, I have a very strong rule against "perk stacking". However, balancing this I usually have a completely seperate pool of points that group perks like bases, vehicle, contacts, and team money come out of. I find it's easier to manage, and means the players don't feel as attached to "stuff" since it doesn't come out of their individual points.

Re: How Long Does It Take? RE: Atomic Blast Thing. It was the conclusion to the JL-Ape crossover event a couple of years back. Technically he was speeding up Wonder Woman to help (she's a low-end speedster herself, remember) and also had a couple of others helping...

Re: How Long Does It Take? Another way to represent the influence of superspeed on mundane tasks is Extra Limbs, bought with Invisible Power Effects. The is useful for times when the character is doing more with their hands than is otherwise possible. One applicable example is inserting dozens of fuses onto a switchbox at once.

Re: Combat Fatigue

Re: Combat Fatigue

Re: Historical Champions I tend to run "alternate history" as oppossed to historical campaigns; I'm the lone history buff of the gaming group so...

Re: Timelines Yes, although mine is written as much for comedic reasons as gameplay Here's the first few entries of the timeline for the NeoChampions Universe... A REALLY, REALLY LONG TIME AGO “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth. And the Earth was without form, and void.†NOT QUITE AS LONG AGO, BUT STILL ANYTHING BUT RECENTLY In six days (and I mean literal “the sun goes up once and down once†days here), God turns the formless void Earth used to be into a world teaming with life. As part of this process, God creates an unbelievably beautiful garden and puts Adam & Eve in it. Side note: while I’m not a true proponent of the “gap theory†of Creationism, the possibility for a gap still exists. AN INDETERMINATE AMOUNT OF TIME LATER (BUT THE SMART MONEY SAYS IT WASN’T ALL THAT LONG…) Adam and Eve, for all tense and purposes, screw it up big time. I mean, God gave them only one rule. ONE, STINKING, LOUSY RULE! But could they keep it? No… They have to go and eat off of the one tree in the whole freaking garden God told them not to. It gets them kicked out of the Garden of Eden and causes all sorts of sundry problems for humanity. ROUGHLY 2000 YEARS LATER (roughly 2000 BC) Apparently ‘screwing up’ is humanity’s best talent, because by now only one man is worshiping God – a guy by the name of Noah. This leads to the Deluge, which kills off everyone on the planet except for Noah, his three sons, and their wives – for a total of 8 people. God promises to never again destroy the planet with water. A PITIFULLY SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME LATER Noah becomes the first documented drunk. Like I said, ‘screwing up’ seems to be humanity’s best talent.