Balabanto

Re: Heroes Well, at least Kristen Bell is joining the cast. (Sigh) Now I have to watch it. Even though Veronica Mars was TEN times the show this is.

Re: Best Published Superhero Adventure? I don't love Death Duel With The Destroyers. Read the first four issues of Elementals. Saker=Doctor Apocalypse. There is NO change in the plot, except that at the end, the villain gets killed. My favorite published superhero adventures, in no particular order, are... 1) My own, because I'm ARROGANT! 2) To Serve and Protect, Scott F. Heine. He's MY hero. 3) Target Hero 4) The Island of Doctor Destroyer. Both Rod and I were really put out when the tribute adventure Steve made did not begin with a message from Agent Zed. 5) Great Supervillain Contest.

Re: Gestalt Now Available In Color My contention is that paying the extra money for color makes the service cheaper in the long run. The more people who are willing to do so, the cheaper the process becomes overall.

Re: Gestalt Now Available In Color I don't know, they haven't shipped it yet.

I just successfully ordered my color copy of Gestalt from Lulu.com. It's 80 bucks, which is expensive, but the Brawling Balabanto always puts his money where his mouth is. Superhero supplements should be in color.

Re: People with Powers Yeah. There's not a lot I wouldn't do to be considered one of the chosen few instead of one of the millions of schlubs.

Re: WWCYD: Lethal Force is Authorized That's why, for 5 points less, I allow Code vs. Killing Humans, common, Total. This allows your character to fight and destroy slimy bug monsters, alien invasions, and blow up things that REALLY need to be blown up, but still suffer all the moral dilemma of not being able to kill his archenemy.

Re: WWYCD: Dead Man Running Yeah. Waiting for this guy to show up does present a lot of promise, but.... Let's add a twist to this: What if you KNOW the guy was wrongfully executed and you can't prove it? Now this becomes a lot more complicated. The law generally rules, with Mhoram's exception above, that once the person dies, or if the execution is ruled to be carried out succcessfully, they are legally dead, or the execution is considered to be successful, even if the target somehow survives. Now, he's not looking for the people who convicted him, instead, he's trying to stay "alive" while the people who wanted him dead try to kill him again. And despite the fact that he's not guilty of THIS crime, he is guilty of several others which make him deserving of death. Resolve that.

Re: Convention Game Idea - Classic Champions If this is a convention game, your best bet is actually Scott F. Heine's To Serve and Protect.

Re: Who Is... Your Favorite Villain? I don't know if Hero even has the RIGHTS to Doctor Koo anymore, or I'd build him and publish him.

Re: Help me name this hero! The best part of course, is when the character marries the clowngirl NPC. You have a Clown Priest and everyone communicates through little squeezy balls. Do you take this man? Honk Honk! Do you take this woman? Honk Honk! You may now spritz the bride! (Shoots her in the face with a seltzer bottle) Then they run down the aisle to their clown car, hit the side of it, pratfall, get in, and drive off in reverse!

Re: Wonder Woman: the best stories Byrne did not make the Golden Age Wonder Woman decision. He was TOLD to do that.

Re: Wings of the Valkyrie update Well, if you wanted to change the premise, perhaps going back in time to kill Hitler leads to a future where superbeings are worshipped by the Germans as gods. This faith based movement swiftly spreads to the rest of the world. (I.E. the assassins and their amazing powers are seen.) In the post-death of hitler universe, your PC's come back to the present, only to discover that Superbeings rule the world, including some of them, and that it's a highly pantheistic view of which superhero is their god. Unfortunately, not all of these cults are friendly, or use ethical means of promoting their membership. Some of them are very strange. Imagine the heroes returning to find that "Lady Liberty promotes her cult by having sex with her worshippers" or "Doctor Agammemnon educates his students in the ancient greek manner" or "This city is under the protection of the Golden Guardian! Pay tribute to his temple! Thank you, citizen, and protect the innocent!"

Re: Super City You forgot: Cafe Incognito:Where everyone goes to meet in disguise, regardless of how well a disguise might actually hold up.

Re: plot: a cougar at a sports event Manimal. Shudder. Does he get the same cheesy recycled footage for his transformation scene?

Re: Sonics - tired power, need new ideas I'll just sit here now with my tiny flag in the corner and say "Um...guys? Ultimate Energy Projector? UNTIL Powers books? Guys? Guys?"

Re: [Review] Villainy Amok You forgot hero system freelance authors. Balabanto- On fire and loving it.

Re: Creative or just munchkin? When asking the question "Am I a munchkin?" one should carefully consider how the power is designed and what else in your build makes it more or less ridiculous. For instance. Bob has a 20/20 Force Field. No problem. But if when Bob turns on his 20/20 0 End Force field and everyone stops moviing because of his twinky suppress power and his one pip speed drain...yeah...that's munchkin. So I think you really need to show us the design.

Re: Who Is... Your Favorite Villain? As long as we're doing top five villain lists. Favorite Non-Champions Villains 5. Hans Glaub (Alan Rickman, Die Hard) 4. Doctor Doom (Doom does not tolerate being number four on the list...ZOT!) 3. Liu Far Lam (Gordon Liu)-The evil caped mastermind from Black Mask. Just make sure you get the chinese version with the subtitles. 2. Doctor Octopus (Alfred Molina did a fantastic job, plus, let's face it. It's hard to get people to take you seriously when your name is Doctor Octopus. Success is impressive.) 1. Desslok of Gamilon (Star Blazers/Space Cruiser Yamato). From the sly, effete and bored ruler, reclining on his throne to killing a man who laughs at his own jokes just because he doesn't like it, Desslok has it all. Cunning, sneaky, a healthy respect for his greatest enemies, sometimes even admiration, and a creepy kind of upper class twisted panache. There really isn't a substitute for this guy, at all, and it's been about 35 years since he first showed his evil face. All time winner. Top 5 champions villains 5. The Corruptors of All. The idea of another earth ruled by crimelords was just too cool to believe, and the villains had interesting psych crocks that played off each other in believable ways. Unfortunately, Dennis Mallonee, who has never used the characters ever again, thrust a knife into the back of Herophiles everywhere when he took off,and took these guys with him, even to the point that Cryotron is on the back of the original fourth edition Enemies sourcebook. There's a special place in hell reserved for Dennis, I'm sure. 4. The Zodiac: Douglas Shuler's Zodiac was one of the most interesting and clever portrayals in a long time, despite the serious design errors in the printed character sheets. Unfortunately, again, conflict over rights, etc knifed hero system people in the back. We're STILL paying for this one as fans. 3. Foxbat: Without Foxbat, there's just so much of Hero System we wouldn't have. Foxbat and Fandom, Foxbat Unhinged, The Awesome Exoskeleton Man, Harmonious Fist, the Centipedemobile....and...of course, Foxbat for President, coming soon to an issue of Digital Hero near you. (Shameless Plug) Plus there's...(MWOZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ) Foxbat and the Foxbateers, the Many Lives of Foxbat, It's a Foxbat Life, Foxbat on the Half Shell....(GET THAT MIND CONTROL HELMET OFF MY HEAD, YOU PING PONG BALL GUN TOTING FREAK!)...Whew... 2. Deathstroke: That's right. You heard me. Deathstroke. Not the namby pamby dumbed down Where did all my XP go versions from 4th edition, but Frost, Deathsinger, Death Commando, Arrowhead, and Stinger, one of the meanest, toughest superteams ever to grace an adventure. Doctor Draconis was pretty cool in this adventure too, but he wasn't nearly amazing as these guys, the first supervillain team that was really designed as a team, and boy, could they kick your butt, especially in the old days when the mightiest heroes really did throw about 10d6 and an average attack would bounce off Deathsinger's defenses completely. 1. Master Control: Master Control required a little bit of extra work to get into my campaign, and a total background rewrite, but I loved the idea of an armored guy who wasn't really an armored guy, who was a vicious technology pirate so he could, among other things, become a better armored guy than he was. Special kudos to Sean Fannon for coming up with the STRIKE units, who my players CONTINUE to hate. This is one I'd LOVE to redo for 5th edition in Digital Hero, but I have too many other projects right now.

Re: WWYCD: Washington, D.C. is no more. It's likely in my game that there would be superheroes who would try to BECOME the government. There would be a lot of problems, battles between heroes who want to kill everyone involved, and heroes who want to bring these people to justice. Quite frankly, though, in my world Nuclear Disarmament is a world reality. It would be hard to do. There are reasons why I had a villain do this, but the most important is plot motivated. It's the same reason I maintain the rarity of aliens. That way, when someone says "I have an atomic bomb," it's scary. When someone pulls off a guy's mask and says "My god...he's an ALIEN" it retains it's classic comic book meaning.

Re: Help me name this hero! Laughing Man is from a different short story by J.D. Salinger, it could still be a good fit, but it would be MUCH darker. Justice Clown is actually not too bad. Mr. Hilarious The Chortle Subverso! (I really like Subverso, it comes from Subvert or Subversive, meaning to present an image while secretly undermining it, because let's face it. He LOOKS clowny. But he's NOT) Jack-A-Napes. This one would be even funnier if the character's name was Jacqueline Napier and it was a girl. You would get your cheesy original Batman movie tribute. (And it was NOT a bad movie) You would get to be clowny, and EVERYONE loves a hot girl in a clown suit. Harley Quinn is probably the most popular new DC comics character of the past 20 years.

Re: Tricks for a Triplicator? Get arrested. That's right. Get arrested or walk around as a duplicator. Don't need to pay points for that, and boy will the character's enemies be surprised when #3 shows up.

Re: Heroes See, that's your mistake. You consider the Punisher a superhero. Even Marvel Comics acknowledges that the Punisher is not a superhero. I watch Heroes so that I can say "God, I had better not do that." But an hour of cautionary tale each week IS painful to watch.

Re: After DEMON wins... There is a flaw in this plan. The flaw is "What are the EGo scores and Power Defense scores of your group?" Likely, they'll all be reduced to EGO 0 and become half-insane madmen within a few short minutes.

Re: Heroes While the Joker is pretty nasty, this guy combines Serial Killer with Cannnibalism without the Hannibal Lecter veneer. It's not characterization, it's not shock value, it's just gore for the sake of gore. Plus, Sylar is actually motivated by realistic concerns. Hey, I get more powers from eating brains. Perhaps I should eat some more. In other words, he's NOT crazy, he IS responsible for his actions. So should I hit the off switch? Absolutely. The problem is that the writers can't control their desire to write the stupidest things possible.