So my group is supposed to be playing this game, and some of them are a bit overwhelmed on initial glances through the ruleset.
So I'm asking you guys for advice with it. Things to keep in mind, both as a player and as a GM. How to avoid making a useless character would be a good one, actually.
>>46388272
Once I get home in half an hour or so, I'll post a thing I got from /tg/ a while ago. Basically a cheat sheet of what to roll and when.
>>46390190
Oh cool, that'd be very helpful!
>>46388272
bump
>>46388272
>>46390190
Sorry, took longer than I thought.
>>46388272
So is Champions Complete the latest version? I'm a bit behind.
Look here for ideas: http://surbrook.devermore.net/index/
>>46391527
Kinda. It's basically their one volume Champions, so if you have this you don't need the two volume HERO System 6e and Champions. They've realised that single volume complete sets sell better than multiple volume basic sets.
>>46392005
Ah, but all of the extra power expansions and the like are still separate?
>>46392023
Nope, all the powers to be a superhero and the like are there. I have it and the other books and I only look at Champions Complete. Trust me, you do not need any of the other pages save for ideas, extras and gravy.
I've been wanting to make a character that absorbs energy and uses it to temporarily boost amp their physical abilities. Like, they soak a plasma blast and use it to either make themselves tougher, make them faster, or allow them to hit harder.
How can I go about doing that?
>>46392181
Haven't got the book in front of me (I'll have a look in a couple of hours when I get home), but you can do this. Isn't the power you want Absorption? Your power allows you to absorb a certain amount of points from the attacks which you can then use to temporarily increase other abilities.
>>46388272
I'm looking to run this as well, and I'm curious how to balance the infinitene scaling of attack and defense. How do I keep attacks from being guaranteed hits or misses, for some people?
Should I just put a cap on those? I'm worried that there will be no reason to not just buy them to cap, then every fight comes purely down to who rolls higher, with no difference in actual chance to hit or miss. Might there be a way to implement something like Mutants and Masterminds trade-off system?
>>46392364
Find ways to get around it. Like environmental modifiers or something.
>>46392364
Just what do you mean by infinitene scaling?
Your players shouldn't be tossing guaranteed hits or dodges unless they're practically useless for anything else.
>>46392303
Yep, the power you want is Absorption. You specify whether you want to absorb energy or physical attacks and then where you want the power to go. You can vary this with advantages. You only absorb BODY damage taken, not stun, or fill up on stun defences!
Champions Complete, page 51
>>46392303
>>46393852
Oh, neat. Thanks. I tried to do it in Mutants and Masterminds, but ended up just doing a speedster instead.
>>46392364
Use the maximum suggested Characticistic Maxima (Champions Complete page 21), which would limit OCV and DCV to 8. Very respectable, but not unbeatable. This would cost 40 points which is actually a large chunk of your average 350 points considering you have bought nothing else yet...
No captcha, a red triangular road sign is not a road sign.
>>46393885
Speedsters are just way too easy to build, I like things a little different. My favourite was Oooze, which was a character who just turned into a liquid and dribbled places...
>>46394226
I had a time limit, so I just went with something easy, ahaha.
>>46391218
Jeesus Christ that's some bullshit complicated system.
>>46395795
Oh, playing it is actually pretty simple, once you get the hang of things.
Chargen, though. Fucking character generation.
>>46395819
Oh sure you can get used to it. But there's still so much bullshit I see in that.
The dice counting.
Hell, having lethal damage as default rule and having friggin separate rules for it for a superhero game is bollocks by itself.
And THEN it has some wacky separate pointbuys.
Characteristics seem to be referenced only in multipliers of 5. Maybe it's just the abridgement, maybe the system actually doesn't have meaning for other numbers.
And then speed seems to be running on exalted's tick timeline, but also apparently has initiative on each? Fucking what.
>>46396009
Bear in mind that what's linked there is for the HERO System, which was designed to cover ANY form of gameplay, not just superhero stuff. Champions is just built off of HERO rules.
Normal damage is what you're usually going to be doing if you're the traditional cape. Boxing glove arrows, rubber bullets, punching people, energy blasts.
Lethal damage is when the hero decides they want to kill. Regular bullets, swords, etc.
The damage is handled differently because it's assumed that normal damage is when you're holding back.
Characteristics are fine with other numbers. You divide them by five and round off. So if I had, like, 4.2, I'd round down to 4. Or 7.8, I'd round up to 8. It specifically says to round off when you need to, btw.
If your speed is high enough, you can move multiple times per round. So each round has several ticks, and someone with super speed has several initiative slots.
>>46392978
>>46392364
When you design a campaign you put limits on just about everything, from OCV to DCV to defense to attack. At the same time you say 'no' to certain powers you are not wanting in your campaign.
Be aggressive with this. I've gone so far in the past as to define things like 'super agent characters have ocv/dcv max of #, brick #'. While I'd allow just about any exception if you made a good argument for it, I wanted to have certain themes.
Also, remember that while the players have certain limits...NPC's do not. Don't fall in to the trap (as most of us do I think) of thinking that you need to design out your bad guys and make them use the same campaign rules the players use. Do what you need. Focus on the character concept and make them as powerful as they need to be.
>>46396196
>>46396009
This might help with the Initiative/Speed confusion.
If I were to run this, are there any powers I should keep an eye out for? Like, will speedsters, summoners or multi-men break the action economy or something?
>>46398083
The books actually have symbols to warn you if a certain entry is potentially game-breaking.
>>46396009
It's pretty much just character generation that gets kind of involved. Things are referenced in multiples of 5 and 3 for the most part. You can get a variation of a half die (d3) at times.
>speed seems to be running on exalted's tick timeline
Except Hero predates Exalted by a fair number of years
>>46398083
There's a campaign worksheet that will allow you to outline certain things and help keep everything moving in the general direction.
Declaring how many points to start with, max disads, limitations, advantages, active power cap, etc
Yes, it takes some getting used to
>>46398781
High-tier Exalted characters are nowhere near as powerful as high-tier HERO characters.
>>46398831
One version
>>46396009
Some of your complaints really aren't that big of a deal in actual play. Honestly, most of it is pretty easy. But, the game is complex. Especially in character creation.
That is in some part intended. It is a super hero simulation game. So it covers a lot of ground. In trying to allow anything that can happen in a comic (character wise) you end up with a very complex system.
It is sort of (God forgive me for saying this) sort of a Pathfinder vs D&D5e debate. Champions being firmly on the Pathfinder side as far as complexity goes. It is a great system though. And, yeah, you can run any kind of campaign you want with it.
Super heroes? Yep, first intent. Post apoc or western or fantasy - it all works.
In the Champions book I'm looking at example characters. Witchcraft and Defender both have a skill listed as "+2 with *their multipower" at a cost of 10. What skill is that, exactly? Power? And what does it entail?
Also what does CK before a skill mean? I figure KS is Knowledge Skill, but I'm not sure what CK is
>>46401466
CK is City Knowledge.
I'm not sure about the +2, but I think that means that they get bonuses to roll with checks involving those because they've put skills in?
>>46401789
>>46401466
SKILLS
Type: Special Power
Perceivability: Varies
Duration: Constant
Target: Self Only
Range: Self
Costs END: Varies
Cost: Varies
Characters can purchase Skills as Powers, with Advantages and Limitations. Examples include a universal key that provides Lockpicking or a rifle scope that provides Combat Skill Levels. Skills bought as Powers have the same traits those Skills normally have (cost, END use, and so on). Characteristic-Based Skills bought through Foci use 0 for the value of the Characteristic. Background Skills bought through Foci do not receive the benefits of Skill Enhancers.
>>46401853
I'm not sure I follow. I'm looking at this, is that what that's supposed to be?
>>46402013
Basically, if I'm understanding it right, any time she rolls to use her Greater Magic multipower, she adds +2 to her end result.
>>46401853 is off, but not by much. That's a skill as a power, like if Karate Kid bought Close Combat ranks and put them under power.
Essentially, what it represents is that she's very skilled in using those powers. It's a combat skill thing, all combat skills can be used to enhance the usage of powers. Check out Pages 27 and 33.
>>46402244
Thanks, that seriously helps.
>>46399330
Considering there's no cap to power levels unless the GM places one, Hero can probably out power a lot of systems. The later editions even includes mega scaling.
>>46403136
IIRC, one of the earlier versions actually had God creating the Earth in seven days as an example of how some of the mechanics worked.
>>46402013
>>46401789
I totally tl;dr
But a multipower is a power framework. There are a few different kinds of frameworks where you stick a grouping of powers together to get a discount on points. Some of these groupings share the points, so they can't all be active at the same time.
At +2 with the power, I'm taking a wild guess that a skill roll is required to use the powers in the multipower. So the character has points put into improving their chances of succeeding their skill check. A failed roll could mean a fizzle, or the result of a 3 could yield some interesting results..
>>46403265
If you're attacking with the one of the powers in the Greater Magic multipower, then you'll need to roll to successfully pull off the attack.
>>46401466
>skill listed as "+2 with *their multipower"
One of the 'skills' you can buy is a +1 with a narrow set of abilities. Instead of buying a two point (cost) +1 to each skill, you pay five points (cost) and can use a +1 with one of the abilities (at a time, not with two).
So say you put four attacks in your multipower, if you bought a five point skill (+1) with that multipower you would be able to have a +1 to hit (OCV) with any of those attacks. If you bought it per slot it would be more expensive.
In addition a five point skill can be used for other things, like increasing the damage dice by one instead of adding to OCV. Or maybe used as a bonus to the activation role if there was one.
Look up skills in the book.
As a further example there is a ten point (cost) skill that lets you take +1 with any ability you have.
>>46402013
Greater Witchcraft is likely the name of her multipower (or power pool, whatever). She has '+2' with it. Which could give a +2 to OCV to hit, add a (or two) damage dice, give +2 to activate, or several other options. It could also be split so she could say give +1 OCV to hit with a blast while adding one additional damage dice.
>>46403333
That's more or less what I said but with more words. The thing is, an actual attack roll is still required. Assuming it's an attack.
So I'm reading Multipower's info, and I'm having a bit of trouble understanding what exactly it's trying to say. Specifically what a Fixed slot is. Am I to understand it that a Fixed slot must take maximum amount of points available, but can be used at a lower point value, and Variable can be anywhere at or below the point maximum?
>>46404853
It does not have to be used at that max level.
Say you have 100 points in a multi power.
you have three Fixed slots with 50 points each. Whenever you use a slot (one of those) it takes up 50 points from the pool, even if you choose to use it at a lower ability.
In effect, in this example you could use two powers at one time but not all three.
>>46405061
So even if you use the ability at a lower point value, say 30, it'll still draw 50 from your total of 100?
>>46404853
>>46405061
Think of it like the old X-Wing and TIE fighter games, how you had so much power that you had to divert between engines, weapons, and shields.
Variable lets you wiggle the numbers around manually, but you still can't exceed the maximum. In Maureen's, a Variable could just go 30/30/40 for those three powers. They won't be as strong, but you can change that.
For a Fixed example, you can tone it down whenever you like, but you still have to treat your power pool as if you were going at maximum.
Go to Page 210 and look at the Power Ring. It has a 120 point Active Pool. Its only fixed power is Flight. The user can go as slow as they like, but if they're flying, it's still using 44 Points from the Active Pool. The powers, however, can be adjusted as the situation demands.
>>46405222
Exactly. That is why it costs less than the variable.
>>46405283
Gotcha.
I'm looking at Focus, and I'm reminded of something I saw earlier. It says "Value -1" for an OAF. I recall reading NND gives +1 to the cost (Specifically I'm looking at page 7) and that changes it from 15 base, to 30 active. Where can I read, exactly, how that works?
First Hero System thread on this board I've ever seen that I haven't started.
I love Hero System and 100% endorse it.
>>46407853
>>46407853
To me it seems the only hurdle is the character genning, but otherwise it looks a good system. Solid, at any rate
Would Contacts work to represent being part of/the leader of an organization?
>>46407304
Page 94
(Please buy the actual book)
>>46410153
>Would Contacts work to represent being part of/the leader of an organization?
In general, you can skip perks and handle them through roleplay. Giving them to characters as they earn them. They are really just there for when you build your character. You know, to stop the whole 'and then I met the prince and he fell in love and right after I became the captain of the guard and next I became' crap that you see in some character backgrounds.
So if you want that stuff at start, you buy it through perks. After that, you got to seduce that prince through roleplay.
OK...
Part of an organization: You could use Contact as a way to do it, you could also use membership as a justification for the Contact. Usually it is just one guy (of importance) who is the contact. But you can make the contact an organization instead, no problem.
You would probably handle it through Fringe Benefit though.
It could also bring with it justification for a Hunted (watched) disadvantage.
If you want to be the leader of the organization you would do that through the Followers Perk. Buy up the number you want and how powerful they are. Likely buying a base to go with it.
Costly, but fun. I did the 'Batman family' at one time that way.
Follower is also how you would handle it if someone wanted a sidekick.
Be very careful with this. Follower is a good way to unbalance things.
>>46411177
I've met and played with some of the writers for the books. They're super cool people. Definitely buy anything you can reasonably afford, they need the support.
>>46408982
The good news is that there's a character generator that the HERO folks sell that handles a lot of the math.
The bad news is that it's still fairly complicated.
>>46393885
Absorban and Boostan: Absorption 30 BODY (energy, Some Other Powers), Expanded Effect (x4 Characteristics or Powers simultaneously) (+1 1/2) (75 Active Points) Real Cost: 75
I've been playing since 1983. It's second nature now. I find other games needlessly simple.
>>46396220
Champions is my very favorite system but this is deeply, intensely true. If you just let all your players do whatever their want, you're going to have unbalanced everything to the point of unplayability: a walking 8D6K cannon, an invisible telepath, some genius who bought 4D6 Major Transform: Anything to Anything (0 END Autofire), etc. More than any other game out there, the GM needs to know going in what kind of game he wants to play, and make that happen.
Honestly, if the GM and players are both first-time Champions runners I'd say start with premades. I never made the jump the 6th Ed but 5th Ed had a "quick superhuman generator" that did just as well as playing the actual Champions for balance purposes.
Character name: Dead Guy
Disadvantage: Dead. Cannot take any voluntary action whatsoever. Worth about 10 million points.
Spend all those points on indestructibility.
>>46411840
My homebrew players guide is 300+ pages just to avoid this issue. Every page is like a warning to cut it the fuck out.
Is it as easy to abuse as the vidya?
Because holy shit.
>pick health stat and regen stat as core stats
>health stat as primary of the two
>damage abilities scale off health stat
>pick chainsaw hand as first energy spending ability
>punching and kicking as energy regen ability
>third pick shotgun for knockdowns and style
>every other ability there after is just more and more shields scaling off health stats
>twice or thrice the amount of health as other champs my level with shields on top of that
>only stack health stats so doing TONs of AoE melee damage with chainsaw hand
>regen stats makes getting full energy with punches and kicks take about 2 seconds so massive energy cost of chainsaw hand is no problem
>use amazing character creator to make a more or less perfect copy of Ash
I should dig up my old account.
>>46388272
Not trying to start a flame war but which one is better superhero /tg/, Champions or Mutant and Masterminds?
>>46411983
Champions Online resembles the tabletop very little in many aspects.
Everything from the mechanics, the characters, and the resources are different. For example, the Champions aren't exactly the JLA of their world, closer to the West Coast Avengers. Drifter is a guy who got killed in a cowboy costume and now appears whenever disaster is near, not a cowboy cyborg. Vanguard is a Superman homage, not an archer. Questionite is rare as fuck and is pretty much vibranium minus the vibration absorption. Club Caprice has superpowered bouncers and is pretty exclusive, not a place filled with furries, futas, and World of Darkness roleplayers...
>>46412027
Mutants and Masterminds is simpler and easier for players to pick up. Champions/the HERO System is intimidatingly complicated, but replicates pretty much everything that you'd see in a movie or comic book, covering everything M&M does and more.
>>46411983
You can abuse it. But that is why limits are set. The first limits you put are on how high OCV/DVC (to hit, dodge) can be. Next you define how high your defense (resist damage) can be and how high your attack can be. This is usually done by 'active points' rather than 'dice of damage'. Because, yeah, we know you can make one dice of damage far more effective than another through the right modifiers.
That is where you start. You HAVE to set limits here.
After that insist, no exceptions, that you will veto/ok every character and every part of every character. Explain that there are lots of things that maybe you haven't fully explained, forgive me but I am human. And then be ruthless about it.
Yes, you can make the most unbalanced super powerful character you want with this game. Because that is the entire point of the system. To be able to do that.
It is up to the GM to set limits and then enforce them without mercy. Also, do not be afraid of reducing/changing stuff after play. Lots of times you won't see how good (or bad) something is without a bit of actual play. Be ready and willing to say 'nope, got to go'. On the same note, be flexible if someone discovers that their character sucks because something doesn't work right - change that shit.
>>46412038
Y'know, I never went to Club Caprice, I mostly know of it as the place that everyone reacts to by greentexting
>Club Caprice
And posting Mr. Hyde fuck face reaction images.
>>46412077
In-universe, it's an exclusive club that caters to heroes as well as normals, though heroes have their own exclusive floors.
In practice, it's Goldshire. See http://millennium-city-walmart.tumblr.com/ for details.
>>46412038
>Mutants and Masterminds is simpler and easier for players to pick up. Champions/the HERO System is intimidatingly complicated, but replicates pretty much everything that you'd see in a movie or comic book, covering everything M&M does and more.
That is pretty fair to be honest. I'd suggest that the newer Champions 6e made a critical error by putting out those two giant books first. I can't imagine anyone who hasn't already played champions and knows the system buying those two huge volumes to start with. Fuck that.
They should have started with 'champions complete', a much thinner one volume affair.
The good news, in my opinion, is that many of the older versions are really fantastic. Changes were made, but it seems to be mostly about concerns over people abusing things. Which is really a GM watchdog issue anyhow.
I wish I had kept my older stuff. But I had gotten rid of it, then decided to get back in to champions and ended up buying 6e. Great quality books. But I would have preferred to have my older stuff.
Don't hesitate to buy 4e off amazon. Some of the older world books are gold as well.
>>46412121
I will say one thing about CO. Some of their design choices were weird, but some of them, like Defender's costume and Doctor Destroyer's new look, are pretty awesome.
>>46412064
Actually sounds pretty neat.
>>46412186
It really can be.
I help my players design/build their characters. I don't have them do it on their own. I want them to focus on the RP of the system and not the character build mechanics. 'Just tell me what you want' then we work on it, going through trade offs and such.
Avoids a lot of problems. One, that I remember clearly, was a guy who built a gimped character that he really loved the idea of. He just built it poorly. That was when I started working with them on how to build their guys.
Of course, that is all voluntary. I wouldn't intrude where I wasn't wanted.
>>46412256
FWIW I do the same thing. My single least favorite part of Champions is getting all the PCs in line with the campaign points-wise and tonally, especially if I want to surprise them partway through (makes it hard to argue logically why things should or shouldn't be a certain way.) I much prefer to sit down and go through chargen with them.
Because really, it's dizzying at the outset but once you get going it moves pretty quickly, really. The basic mechanics are concepts are fairly straightforward; it's in the details and permutations that things expand into 700 pages.
What does HERO offer me that GURPS does not?
>>46412440
Heavy de-emphasis on skills to focus on powers, much simpler power construction that goes a lot farther, supers can get *much* more powerful in Champions than in GURPS. The skill thing: a Champions skill costs 3 pts, typically, so a superhero who leaves 50 pts for skills can be a doctor/physicist/astronaut with four Ph.D.s pretty easily.
Fair warning: I haven't played GURPS since the '90s so this might be out of date.
>>46412484
GURPS 4 cleaned up the power stuff a bunch.
>supers can get *much* more powerful in Champions than in GURPS.Technically, supers in GURPS have no upper limit, because you can just keep cranking the point limit to Lensman levels and beyond, but that's cheating.
How about in terms of the generic HERO system?
>>46412440
More versatility, point costs that make more sense.
GURPS isn't made for superhero gaming, though it can do superhero stuff. The costs of some things reflect this.
>>46412519
Champions is HERO. There's no difference in mechanics at all. Just that Champions has a set universe and everything is described in terms of how they'd apply to superheroes and the HERO system doesn't.
>>46412560
>More versatility
How?
>>46412560
>>46412519
Wait, shit. The difference between HERO and GURPS.
Essentially the same thing as the difference between HERO and M&M. GURPS covers more ground than Mutants and Masterminds does, but the HERO System does more.
>>46412560
GURPS has very specific advantages and limitations that can be stacked on powers. HERO has a wider variety to cover a broader set of drawbacks or enhancements.
For example, if I wanted to have a transformation with a time limit, like Hourman's one hour time limit for super strength, HERO has rules for that. GURPS doesn't, not that I can recall.
>>46396009
>The dice counting.
You mean for BODY? That's easy. As you total the dice for STUN just push the 1s in one direction and the 6s in another. The difference between those two sub piles is the difference from the number of dice rolled for BODY.
Ex.: Stompem rolls 12 dice on a kick (1,1,2,2,3,3,4,4,5,6,6,6). During the count to 43 STUN you see one more 6 than 1, so you inflicted 13 BODY.
Caveat: This is how all prior editions did it. 6th might be different.
>>46412756
>GURPS doesn't, not that I can recall.
Power-Ups 8 has Maximum Duration, Minimum Duration, and Reduced Duration in it. I'm not familiar with Hourman, but it sounds like Max. Dur. 1 hr., with or without the Min. Dur. of 1 hr. as well.
>>46413131
Ah. Jeez, eight different Powers books? That's more than I expected.
>>46413160
They're all on different things, and all about 30 pages long.
1 - Imbuements (magic items, etc.)
2 - Perks
3 - Talents
4 - Enhancements
5 - Impulse Buys
6 - Quirks
7 - Wildcard Skills
8 - Limitations
The only really vital one is 8, with 4 coming in second. I can't work out why Extended Duration is in core, but not Max, Min, or Reduced.
>>46413213
Oh, that's a bit better. I was picturing the typical GURPS bricks.
>>46413231
4e moved well away from those, towards lots of small supplements.
>>46388272
resistant defense is worth it, be sure you have both physical and energy defenses covered. You can have absorb go straight back into your body stat. make sure one of your attacks has effect any immaterial, otherwise your opponent will be immune to it, also make sure one of your attacks does body otherwise it will be useless against robots or other things without stun. Multi-power is your friend! It lets you buy a lot of stuff cheaply.
Never forget mental defenses! Don't want your character getting mind control'd do you? Area affect. Do you like monks? This is the best system to build a monk in, the quick martial artist guy who hits hard is one of the easiest and more effective kind of builds. Skills and contacts are very useful for moving the plot along, but if you have high mental scores you can fake it for a bit and buy them later.
Skimming through that Champions Complete pdf, it looks like the main differances between 5th and 6th is point costs, and getting rid of figured characteristics so you just buy up your STUN and CVs from scratch rather than starting with a vaule based on your Con or Dex or whatever.
Are there any other big changes I should know about? And how compatable are the old 5th Ed. villian books with 6th?
I know the point totals will be a lot different but I figure you gotta go by what the villian can actualy do rather than just how many points they're made on anyhow.
>>46415400
5th Edition books are roughly 90% compatible, IIRC.
The character point costs are different, but I'm pretty sure that the numbers all mean the same thing. And the standard distance measurement goes from inches to yards.
I remember Champions from like 20 years ago. Not sure how things have changed since then, but I remember it being really fun to make up a character but a horrible, clunky mess to actually play.
