Vulcan

Re: Which is your least favorite archetype to play? We're totally agreed there. In Champions, a Hero should never be totally dependant upon a killing attack, except in the darkest of Iron Age games. He should always have less-than-lethal options. And since the player is the one building the character, it is his responsability to make sure of that. Bringing up another character of mine: Mist Dragon. Japanese martial artist with a ridiculously sharp ancestral blade (2d6 AP, Pen...) in a scabbard vaguely reminiscent of 'Blind Fury' - for those who haven't seen the movie, it was basically concelaed in a short staff/walking stick. I believe 'zatoichi' is the japanese name for it... His first attacks were usually unarmed (8d6 Defensive Strike), then moved up to the staff (+4d6) as needed. When the sword came out, well, someone's going to die, but it's not because I didn't try less lethal options first. (BTW, that was a Bronze age, fairly high powered game...)

Re: teen champons geeks vs jocks kung fu version That's the other thing about stereotypical jocks. They tend to be an 'exclusive' group. The same 20 or so guys are on all the sports teams, party together, and are generally buds. I can't see a dedicated MA spending that much time 'partying' (i.e. getting drunk) and such. Which means they aren't part of the group, and therefore get lumped in with the other geeks who don't party...\ It probably wouldn't matter if he was on the team, or the cornerstone of the team; if he doens't party and socialize with them, he's an outcast.

Re: What would happen if Los Angeles County vanished? Like, totally, man!

Re: teen champons geeks vs jocks kung fu version The classic outsider, who would be lumped into the 'assorted geeks, nerds, and etc.' but the in-cliques, but probably not part of any the geek/nerd cliques, unless he had another interest (chess, RPG's, computers...) that made him part of one of the geek/nerd cliques. The martial artist falls out of the classic 'jock' clique because his extensive training - well beyond that for any normal sport - would mark him as 'weird' to the jocks. And for the classic 'jock,' 'wierd' equals 'inferior' - even after the MA beats the whole football team into the ground a couple times, because that's what steriotypical jocks do. Having said that, there's no reason a MA couldn't transcend the cliques and have a broad appeal to many different people. Since many MA styles teach a certain amount of meditation and transcendance into the art, this certainly wouldn't be totally out of the question...

Re: Catch the Punch Grappling block is probably the most efficient way to go. However, every time I've seen it done in the source material, there always seems to be that moment in between the catching of the fist, and the 'catchee' being hurt. So Block followed by Grab and Squeeze seems the most appropriate way to do it... to me, anyway. YMMV.

Re: Abandoned Soviet Nuclear Powered Lighthouse And they still work today, glowing with an eerie green light at night...

Re: Daredevil-like senses and PER Mods Or go just go whole hog and buy Clairsentience with Hearing..

Re: Which is your least favorite archetype to play? SO: No Hawkeye, Green Arrow, Black Knight, Human Torch (fire is every but as lethal as a manmade weapon), Batman (you don't think those pointed batarangs could be dangerous, do you?)... or for that matter, any attack in Champions that does 11d6 Normal damage or better (which in one hit will reduce an average person to -1 BODY and bleeding to death). So once we stiplutate that, what's left? Oh yeah, a bunch of guys who will be completely ineffective against Grond, much less an epic villian like Dr.D! Having a potentially lethal attack DOES NOT equal using said attack to kill.

Re: Changing Into The Powersuit The last Power Armor guy I played (Teleporting/streching brick, using the power of a controlled point singularity - rubber science at it's finest! ) had a 'speedial' set up on his cellphone. When he hit it, the phone called the armor, which would then teleport 'onto' him. Really just a special effect for Instant Change... and OIHID rather than OIF.

Re: Double Ended Weapons The benefit of a double-ended weapon is minimal. The only weapons to be used in such a manner are the quarterstaff (and some really exotic martial arts weapons like the lajatang based on that fighting style), the Greek longspears (which only used the spike on the back end if the primary spearhead got chopped off, so it doesn't really count), and the martial arts/ninja chain weapons (kusari-gama and that sorta thing, which don't really count for this discussion because of the chain). The reason? It's really easy to disembowel yourself using a double-ended weapon. The quarterstaff works because messing up with it means you smack yourself in the arm with a stick. The exotic martial arts weapons work because you train with a staff, and then get the real weapon once you know enough not to kill yourself accidentally. I presume training for a double-lightsaber would work the same way. Having said that, I would say that a double-weapon of the sort being contemplated (that is, both ends the same) should probably be purchased with the Advantange Autofire: Two Shot, and perhaps some levels with multiple blocks. But there are other ways to do it, you should pick the one that works best for you and your GM.

Re: Which is your least favorite archetype to play? I wanted to expand upon this a little bit here, to illustrate to CC how a gun-character doens't have to be the Punisher. Let's say my Coast Guard character - call him Chief, because he's a chief petty officer - is involved in a supers battle at the docks. His role in the fight is not that different than that of the police officers in the Superman Animated series - although the Champions rules allows the Chief to be a bit more directly involved. So, from a position of cover behind a vehicle, he lays down supression fire to keep the bad guy's head down while his teammates advance. He launches tear gas (or knockout gas, or flashbang, or concussive) grenades from his M-203 to either flush out or incapacitate the bad guys without hurting them. If he must fire directly, he usually start with one of his four clips of rubber bullets, switching to more lethal rounds (copper alloy frangible, RKA-Reduced PEN) only if the rubber bullets bounce. If the frangible rounds don't work, and the bad guys won't surrender, and the situation warrents a lethal response, then he sighs and gets out the (single) clip of AP rounds... or the (again single) frag grenade. Only had to use the AP rounds once. They did the trick on the target. Everyone else surrenedered after that, which was exactly the way I (and the Chief) wanted it.

Re: Which is your least favorite archetype to play?

Re: Which is your least favorite archetype to play?

Re: How to organise space And TOS contradicts itself in several places... not a good start for determining 'canon.'

Re: Which is your least favorite archetype to play?

Re: strange site ...sorry guys, I didn't mean to kill this thread.

Re: Changing Into The Powersuit Or Patlabor? One of the pilots does a neat judo throw with her mecha!

Re: Which is your least favorite archetype to play? You do remember these posts, don't you? I'll grant you that you've never seen it in person. I've never personally seen a nuclear submarine or a russian tank myself. But I have it on good authority that they actually do exist. So do 'gun characters' who are not "a 90's anti-hero murdering lowlife." Watch where you use that super-broad paintbrush, CC.

Re: Martian Airplanes? A very few planes can fly that high (35000 meters roughly equals 95,000 feet, right?). SR-71, F-15 (maybe), XB-70 (when it was operational), X-15... That's about all I can think of offhand. Certainly not airliners, or even most military aircraft. I think that even exceeds the capabilities of the U-2 (though not by much).

Re: Which is your least favorite archetype to play? I know in real life they've been developing (and deploying for evaluation) a series of 'Light .50' assault rifles - usually around 12.5x44, under half the length of the .50 BMG (12.7x99)... Used one on a character a year or so back. Under the current RKA rules, it works pretty well against supers -certainly far better than the 8d6 Plasma Rifles PRIMUS is issued. A .50 BMG assault rifle would probably need a brick to be able to hold it up and handle the recoil!

Re: Conan vs. Elric Okay, to translate into HEROese... Conan, being a mighty hero who routinely battles wizards, has some points of Power Defense, which conviently take a lot of the bite out of the Soul Drain. The mooks... don't. And for that matter, probably can't come close to matching Conan's 20+ CON and BODY either.

Re: Spreading Good WIll I would guess the thread origninator didn't want to restict things to just Champions characters...

Re: Conan vs. Elric The save vs. Stormbinger's soul drain probably takes a penalty based on how much damage is done by the hit. Mooks... don't have that high a save, so the amount of damage done is pretty much redundant.

Re: Spreading Good WIll Vigil would tell him to go find an entertainer. "I fight injustice. I can bring a thug to justice, prevent a murder, or bring evidene of government corruption to light. It's not fair to expect me to make people happy too. THAT'S NOT MY JOB! "If I could make people happy, I'd start with myself." Raoul deBasouville, on the other hand would just say "Sure," thow a bunch of epic parties, and all the food and drink would be laced with euphorics. At the height of the celebrations, he'd turn to the entity and say, "'s 'at good 'nuff?" (since he'd be thoroughly smashed too...)

Re: superuseless superpowers In the game I'm currently stuck in, that might not even be a limitation! (yes, we spend an awwful lot of time playing characters who are badly injured...)