Champions RPG

[Felon]

No.

Don't "no" me. There is a revised 5th edition, which is why there are cheap 5th-edition books out there.

 

[Krolik]

Dr. Doom and The Red Skull aren't powerhouses.

I think you would be hard pressed to find anyone who didn't put Dr. Doom on a top 5 Marvel villains list and Red Skull is a mastermind villain in the mold of Moriarty or Fu Manchu.

 

[Krolik]

Don't "no" me. There is a revised 5th edition, which is why there are cheap 5th-edition books out there.

I believe his point is that Revised wasn't published "within the first few months of its release." It was published over 3 years later.

 

[Sketchpad]

Speaking as a player of both Champions/Hero and M&M, I've never had a problem running either system. I've had Supermen, Batmen, Captain Americas, Ms. America ... you name it, I've done it. With both systems. Can you play a PL 10/150pp Superman in M&M? Yup. Can you do the same with 350 pts in Hero? Yup. Sure, he might not be a planet smasher like the Superfriends version, but he could in time The same applies to any superhero ... it's a rare fact that heroes just suddenly sprout at full power and fight the bad guys.
One character I've played started in V&V and has hit nearly every superhero game up till M&M. He started as a young punk kid (which is what I was when I made him ) and has risen to Batman-like characteristics and eventually has become a hybrid of "Batman meets Hellboy". A good chunk of the character's growth actually happened in Hero and has been adapted over to M&M fairly easily
As for starting out, it all depends on the campaign and the GM. If a GM wants, he could start a game with the heroes at PL 10, but have them use 250pp in M&M .. the same can be said in Hero, allowing for experienced heroes to start at 750+. My point is that many starting characters don't immediately live up to the characters in fiction. In D&D, can someone play Gandalf at 1st level? I doubt it. How about playing Han Solo as a 1st level Scoundrel? Probably not. It takes time ... and that's what helps create some the most endearing qualities

 

[Felon]

I have never had any problem with this in M&M. Two weekends ago I ran three FLGS demos with the system using the Avengers against the Legion of Doom. All of the Avengers were the same PL they just had differenet point totals. The guy playing Hawkeye had just as much fun as the guy playing Thor.

One of the great things about M&M is that someone doing +5 Damage can still be effective in the game. The 10 Toughness villain still has a 45% chance of taking Damage from the Blast 5; everyone does not need to do +10 Damage to be considered effective. This allows characters to have a huge potential Damage Range in the game. This is in direct contrast to a game like HERO where someone with a 5d6 Energy Blast would be completely useless in a game where everyone else is doing 10d6+.

I think the trade-off of attack and damage, defense and saves, works nicely. It provides not only mechanical balance, but it is true to the genre. Thor can level a city block, but his aim is kind of wild. Hawkeye's arrows may not do a ton of damage, but he can shoot a fly at a 1000 paces. Spidey dodges attacks, while Hulk sucks it up.

Ever since HERO came out with those extremely ill-conceived 2-pt OCV levels, the concept of dodging an attack has become almost a quaint concept. What were they thinking?

 

[Felon]

This reminds me of another important thing to remember: comparing # of dice in HERO doesn't really tell you enough. What matters is total Active Points. A 10d6 EB is not better than a 5d6 EB if the former has Reduced Penetration and Only Works Underwater while the later is Armor Piercing or NND and has Autofire.

Limitations don't factor in Active Point cost. Only the Power and any Advantages.

And about the only way for that 5d6 blast to break even with the 10d6 one is to be NND. Even armor-piercing and Autofire is, statistically, weak against equivalent defenses.

 

[Croesus]

I'm going to avoid the whole PL discussion and just throw out a few observations about Champions:

1. Sidekick is plenty to play the game, if you're at all familiar with the system. The 5E rulebook has a lot a good info and some hero/villain write-ups. It has extra rules, including (IIRC) variable power pools and power frameworks. But you can design good characters and play the game just fine with Sidekick. Besides, the 5E rule book is dry as the sahara desert.

2. Hero is more work when designing characters, but a breeze when running the game. An energy blast is an energy blast is an energy blast. No special rules because one is called "magic missile", another "color spray", another "fireball", and another "prismatic spray". Once the characters are built, gameplay is much smoother, IMO, than many other RPG's.

3. Yep, players can abuse the system badly. But a good GM and reasonable players can minimize this problem. I have a player who is a great munchkin, but if I tell him he's gone too far, he'll happily re-work the character. Having fun is more important that having the most overpowered character.

4. I think I still like 4E best. It wasn't as balanced as 5E, but it was simpler and (IMO) just had better flavor. If I could still print out my characters in the old Heromaker software, I'd probably still be playing it (darn software won't print right on anything but a 10-year old printer...)

 

[ShinHakkaider]

Don't "no" me. There is a revised 5th edition, which is why there are cheap 5th-edition books out there.

I will "no" you, because you were wrong about a revised edition of 5th Edition being put out months after the 5th Edition debut. Read my post to see what context it's I'm talking about. Thanks.

 

[buzz]

Buzz, did you even read what you just typed above? 20 is the MAXIMUM in a 350 point Champions game? So you are telling me every 350 point character with greater then a 20 is breaking the rules because they are exceeding the MAXIMUM allowed?

HERO 5th has point guidelines for various campaign levels and types. The GM putting those guidelines in place is HERO's equivalent of M&M's PL cap. Def 20 is at the top of the scale for Standard 350pt supers. Def 35 is up in the top end of the 600pt supers range. It's not fair of you to hold M&M to one standard and HERO to another in order to make your argument.

No. Not at all. For every guy with a 15 Defense there are just as many guys with a 35 Defense in HERO. 20 is the AVERAGE not the MAXIMUM just as I stated above.

20 is not the average. I don't know kind of campaigns you were playing in where starting supers were walking around with 35 Def. Even nonresistant, a high STR brick would have to shell out upwards of 50 points for 35 PD/ED. Make that Def resistant and add another 30-40 points or so. That's a very big investment for a 350pt super, assuming they had a GM crazy enough to allow it.

This isn't an issue of breaking rules. The issue is that you're slanting your comparison by pitting an attack that would be on the low end for even a 150pt Fantasy HERO character against a tough 350pt superhero. 5d6 is only barely more dangerous than a household electrical socket in HERO. That's totally bogus.

Basically, you're taking some rational M&M stats and pitting them against completely skewed HERO numbers and calling it an accurate comparison. You decided +5 = 5d6 instead of picking a HERO attack that had anywhere near the equivalent power. An equivalent would be a vanilla EB 20% less effective (DC25 vs. DC20) than the top end for a 350pt super (80 APs, i.e. 14d6). That'd be 10-11d6, not 5d6.

That you're dismissing Advantages and Active Point totals makes this discussion even more pointless.

On top of this, we've derailed a polite, helpful thread into a system pissing match.

Thing is, I'm not even sure what point you're trying to make. That M&M does a better job of balancing PCs of different overall combat effectiveness? I dunno. Maybe it does, though the flip side of your argument, i.e., that even a PC with their Toughness at the PL max can get hit by some schmuck with +5 Damage, isn't doing a lot to convince me.

The real irony, too, is that I really like M&M. My issue is simply your numbers.

 

[buzz]

Limitations don't factor in Active Point cost. Only the Power and any Advantages.

I know. I'm assuming you're beefing up that puny 5d6 with some Advantages. The 10d6 water-blast was hyperbole.

And about the only way for that 5d6 blast to break even with the 10d6 one is to be NND. Even armor-piercing and Autofire is, statistically, weak against equivalent defenses.

NND it is, then.

Granted, any Champions game where 10d6 was at the top end damage-wise is one in which 20 PD/ED is *not* going to be the average defense. Ergo, your AP Autofire 5d6 EB is gonna do okay.