Condition tokens for Champions

[Wolven]

Hey all.   Do any of you know of any condition tokens that work will with Champions?   Instead of having the GM keep tabs on who may be CON stunned, stunned, entangled, etc.  I know there are tons of options for DnD, but I would love to find some that would work well with Champions.  

[Stanley Teriaca]

There are no official tokens for conditions for Hero. If you must have such things, your going to have to make them yourself.

[Chris Goodwin]

How about a list of conditions that exist in Hero?

• Stunned*
• Unconscious**
• Bleeding
• Dying
• Grabbed
• Entangled
• Flashed (targeting)

What are some others?

 

* "CON Stunned" isn't a thing, even though it's a colloquialism that a lot of us seem to have picked up.

 

** Different condition markers for the different levels of unconsciousness would be a good idea. 

[Stanley Teriaca]

2 hours ago, Chris Goodwin said:

How about a list of conditions that exist in Hero?

• Stunned*

There is normal Stunned, and being out of Stun points. The deeper Stun stuff is basically a function of Unconscious.

 

Like Chris says, there is no such difference between running out of STUN points, and taking enough Damage in Stun to be above twice your CON score or more.

2 hours ago, Chris Goodwin said:

• Unconscious**

There is normal unconscious, where the character gets a recovery every phase they could act, the level where they only get the post 12 recovery, and the coma level. There is also "asleep", for rare-ish effects which force the character to fall asleep (maybe mind control based on CON, maybe plane mind control, maybe a huge attack which only does Stun damage and is a NND attack...).

2 hours ago, Chris Goodwin said:

• Bleeding

An optimal rule normally not used for Champions.

2 hours ago, Chris Goodwin said:

• Dying

The extremely rare time when your BODY score becomes negative your BODY score.

2 hours ago, Chris Goodwin said:

• Grabbed

Not needed. Just put the figure next to each other. 

2 hours ago, Chris Goodwin said:

• Entangled

Ok. I can see this.

2 hours ago, Chris Goodwin said:

• Flashed (targeting)

There can be multiple token for each targeting sense you have.

2 hours ago, Chris Goodwin said:

What are some others?

Mind Controled. Desolification on/off token. Various other power on/off tokens.

2 hours ago, Chris Goodwin said:

 

* "CON Stunned" isn't a thing, even though it's a colloquialism that a lot of us seem to have picked up.

 

** Different condition markers for the different levels of unconsciousness would be a good idea. 

It should be noted, Champions and the Hero System ran quite well without such tokens. There are no rules about actual tokens in the game rules themselves. That doesn't mean you can't use tokens, it is that the only function as reminders, and only for your character. The GM doesn't dish these out using the Rules As Written.

Edited July 6 by Stanley Teriaca

[Stanley Teriaca]

I'm not saying this can't work with Hero...I'm saying it isn't a natural part of Hero. You can add it to the game if you wish. There isn't exactly an official product from Hero you can buy off the shelf to do it.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Maybe drained, just to keep track for people to remember.

[Stanley Teriaca]

1 hour ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Maybe drained, just to keep track for people to remember.

To many stuff to drain. And which token represents how much drain done?

[Christopher R Taylor]

I figure to put the drain token next to what is being drained

[DentArthurDent]

Enraged, Berserk, on Fire (this happens far too often in my group), Desolid

[Stanley Teriaca]

3 minutes ago, DentArthurDent said:

Enraged, Berserk, on Fire (this happens far too often in my group), Desolid

"On fire" is a special effect. It is either a damage over time or continous uncontrolled attack which does damage. It can easily be "acid on my body", or "constant electric shocks", or "strange magic which damages my soul".

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah some "constant effect" token would serve for all those

[Duke Bushido]

On 7/6/2024 at 12:16 PM, Chris Goodwin said:

How about a list of conditions that exist in Hero?

• Stunned*
• Unconscious**
• Bleeding
• Dying
• Grabbed
• Entangled
• Flashed (targeting)

What are some others?

 

* "CON Stunned" isn't a thing, even though it's a colloquialism that a lot of us seem to have picked up.

 

** Different condition markers for the different levels of unconsciousness would be a good idea. 

 

 

Don't know if this is useful to anyone else, but over the years, I have amassed a number of "condition rings" that we use when mapping out larger combats, to help everyone keep track of who is doing what, etc.

 

Rather than spending extra money, some years ago I started pulling off the little colored rings left on the necks of drink bottles like water bottles and soda bottles.  If you enlist the aid of your players (or even coworkers), you can gather a hundred or so in no time.  It is astounding how many people will drink _anything_ but water...

 

Anyway, color code them anyway you want-  white for stunned; yellow (a hard color to get, by the way) for force field / force wall; black for unconscious /could be dead; green for a specific magic; red for on fire-  whatever you want; change it from game to game if you want.  Just be sure to keep a couple of index cards with the key floating around the table to avoid "and what did this mean again"-type disruptions.

 

It works for us because when we map, we can just hang the ring on the miniature, or the die, or the Lego dude, or whatever represents the characters.  Not only is it zero cost and just as effective as store-bought condition rings, there is no time wasted picking up the mini, snapping the custom-made ring to the base, etc, and no limit on what you can use for a mini because it doesn't matter what size or shape the base is: there is always somewhere you can lay or hang the rings.  Drop on; lift off.

 

While it is the cheapest way to amass condition rings, hazard markers (though the actual colored Plastic bottle caps with a quick wipe of goof off or acetone to remove any ink make less-confusing hazard markers, come with every bottle, and are available in the same spectrum of colors) or whatever (white rings are good guys; black rings are the bad guys), I actually started doing this after the third time buying more "condition rings" to replace lost or broken ones, and thought "Why am I doing this?  They are going to continue to get lost or broken, and they only fit minis with a circular base of this size!"

 

And I stopped caring who thinks it's cheap or tacky when I realized I was keeping _some_ plastic out of the trash can, and not contributing money toward the creation of more plastic for this one specific purpose.

 

Amusingly enough (though it may be because there is no snapping on and off of these things), they last way longer that any purpose-built plastic rings I have ever bought, and don't tend to disappear because "the color looks so dope on this character!"  I can honestly say I haven't lost any hazard or terrain markers since we switched to using bottle caps and printed paper, either.

 

I know- it calls back to the early days of being broke students using whatever we could get our hands on, but you know, sometimes we got it _right_ back then. 

 

 

Edited July 7 by Duke Bushido

[Ninja-Bear]

On 7/6/2024 at 10:18 AM, Wolven said:

Hey all.   Do any of you know of any condition tokens that work will with Champions?   Instead of having the GM keep tabs on who may be CON stunned, stunned, entangled, etc.  I know there are tons of options for DnD, but I would love to find some that would work well with Champions.  

What I have used in the past have been poker chips. The red, white and blue ones. And the color I used depended on what I needed at the time. For example

blue could be Force Field and White could be Stunned. We also use those colored stones you find for aquariums also work well.  My nephew the other year got me some condition rings. Now those are for DND so not all will 100% translate line say fairie fire however since the initial on the ring itself is FF, that could work as Force Field in a game. The point is that as long as you keep whatever you use straight you can use almost anything as tokens. And I do find them handy especially keeping a bunch of mooks straight.

 

@Duke Bushido, Injust read your post and wanted to say that the conditions I was given, I just hung off the minis. I never knew that they were suppose to snap on the base. 😂 

On 7/6/2024 at 3:54 PM, Stanley Teriaca said:

I'm not saying this can't work with Hero...I'm saying it isn't a natural part of Hero. You can add it to the game if you wish. There isn't exactly an official product from Hero you can buy off the shelf to do it.

Not sure of what you mean by not natural to hero? 

Edited July 7 by Ninja-Bear

[Duke Bushido]

11 minutes ago, Ninja-Bear said:

 

 

@Duke Bushido, Injust read your post and wanted to say that the conditions I was given, I just hung off the minis. I never knew that they were suppose to snap on the base. 😂 

 

Ha! 

 

I'd rep you for that, but it seems I am all out.  I will try to catch it the next time on the boards.

 

and in all fairness, there may these days be fifty brands that work that way.  I haven't bought them since....  Oh, before 3e DnD was a thing.  Back then, we we're cutting swords and filing crowns off of fantasy figures to make minis for other genres...

 

Anyway,it seemed all the condition rings you could buy back then snapped onto the bases of figures from the same company, though the overlap in base styles from brand to brand meant they fit a solid portion of other store-bought minis as well. 

 

I never thought of poker chips, though.  A few cans of spray paint would really open up the color options (ie, number of conditions that could be confirmed at a glance).

 

Nice!

 

 

Edited July 8 by Duke Bushido

[Ninja-Bear]

@Duke Bushido, the idea of Poker Chips came from not having money. I got a set at a yard sale and thought hmm how to use them. Even the simple act of putting say white ones under agents that have been hit helps. Also we use spare d6 to put a mini on top to represent flying.

[Stanley Teriaca]

 

1 hour ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Not sure of what you mean by not natural to hero? 

What I mean is that there has never been rules in the rule book which says "put this on top of your character sheet to indicate that this is happening to your character", or sheets of symbols representing various states which you could cut out and put somewhere on your character sheet or mini. This was "never a natural rules for indicating" meaning in the rule book never says if your character is x put a y upon your sheet.

[Ninja-Bear]

10 hours ago, Stanley Teriaca said:

 

What I mean is that there has never been rules in the rule book which says "put this on top of your character sheet to indicate that this is happening to your character", or sheets of symbols representing various states which you could cut out and put somewhere on your character sheet or mini. This was "never a natural rules for indicating" meaning in the rule book never says if your character is x put a y upon your sheet.

Ok, that’s what I thought you mean. I don’t think any game makes tokens a natural part of the game as you say. It’s to some a necessity to help keep things straight. 

[Duke Bushido]

For the most part, not only does it help the GM keep up with what is going on with either large groups or those one or two forgotten NPCs in the previous chamber,irhelps prevent _dozens_ of slow downs related to players asking things like "okay, was this guy still fighting?  Which guy was on fire?"etc. bylettinf the players see at a glance what the GM sees.

 

(Note;it is important not to tag a character as mind controlled or invisible until the PCs are aware of it. 

 

 

[Wolven]

Thanks for all of the great replies guys!  Lots of good information.     I am hoping to use something like this for the group I play with as we tend to forget things about an enemy or ally.   Seeing a indicator helps us to not forget.  I try to help my GM by reminding him of things since he has a ton to keep track of.    Sometimes we both miss it and might not notice till a few other people have gone and then we have to back up and redo things.  

[Christopher R Taylor]

We used to use these cheap plastic colored chips from a parker brothers Vegas game for characters on a tabletop.  A dry erase pen put a number or letter on each one, back when we were kids.  We scavanged all the dice out of the board games for hero

[Ninja-Bear]

@Stanley Teriaca, hey I just wanted to add that I didn’t think Christopher Taylor or anyone else was suggesting that this was ever mandatory to the game. You’re right that it isn’t just an aide.

[Stanley Teriaca]

13 minutes ago, Ninja-Bear said:

@Stanley Teriaca, hey I just wanted to add that I didn’t think Christopher Taylor or anyone else was suggesting that this was ever mandatory to the game. You’re right that it isn’t just an aide.

I agree Ninja. If it helps you remember stuff, then use it. If it works then 'your not cheeting'.