Sunday, October 30, 2005 - 6:55 PM EDT

As ever, interesting propositions.

Leadership definitely needs a boost. Currently, nearly all players consider it to be a wasted slot, preferring to see almost anything else there, or no color and a higher Damage or a lower cost.

If the approach seen in the upcoming Armor Wars proves to be the start of a trend it's already a power I expect to begin to gain some respect due to lower cost characters translating into larger teams, so being able to pull an extra action out of the hat (current effect for the power) will become a little more important.

The appproach you've taken is a thoughtful one, and I agree with the thinking. Are we to presume that for 20 points they have access to new option one and for 30 points they have access to either new option one or new option two during a single turn? I'm presuming this is the case, since new option one (allowing a Leader to "command" any of the powers of teammates within 10 spaces and a clear line of sight of him) is much more powerful than the rallying effect in new option two.

Cap could be quite the terror with the new exp. Quicksilver on his team, especially if he has Armor Piercing. Then again, as I recall in your system Hypersonic Speed pieces can't make ranged attacks while moving that fast, so his being able to move, hit two targets from 6 spaces away, and then move back wouldn't be an issue.

As things stand now most players consider Leadership to be an overpriced power, so the biggest, lasting barrier to this I'd see would be people feeling they're being charged an awful lot on top of already being charged too much for the original effect. I'm not saying I automatically agree, but it's the reaction I'd expect. It's not as bad as if one made a useful replacement TA for the Masters of Evil and then charged for it, but it's approaching it.

Pulse Wave strikes me as being hella, over the top powerful under your proposed change, and people are already seeing it as potent enough. Making the attack nearly automatic, eliminating not only the need for a dice roll (sure, it's still made, but just as an attempt at rolling a critical - miss or hit), but also terrain modifiers for Defense - makes the power even more powerful, and I don't believe it needs it. The Polaris LE and Nimrod, to name two, already do a fair amount of damage. That's just me, though. One note: You've removed the "Attacks made with this power do not target characters" line, which would potentially leave it open to allowing Mystics damage to strike the PW attacker.

The Quake changes are confusing me a little. Your new opening implies that if one wants to use it without going for the optional dice roll that it now functions as a field effect Force Blast, pushing everyone back -- presumably for the Damage value shown. The rest of it is a little confusing, as it appears to skip the comparison of the attack roll with each of the targets. As written, it directs a canny player to target the one adjacent to him with the lowest Defense value, as there's no mention of any AV + roll to Defense comparison made for them. The result is a power much more powerful than EE, save for the range.

As mentioned in email, I very much like the Champions TA. It's new, it's apt, and it's useful.

If they did print an Essential Champions I'd buy it. Hopefully it would mean that they were looking to revive some form of the team, and they'd include (even though I suspect it would be fairly bad) the X-Force/Champions special from '98, where (reportedly) the original five members briefly reassembled to thwart a scheme by Pluto, fitting since he's the one indirectly responsible for them coming together in the first place.

Monday, October 31, 2005 - 9:18 AM EST

>>Leadership definitely needs a boost. Currently, nearly all players consider it to be a wasted slot, preferring to see almost anything else there, or no color and a higher Damage or a lower cost.

Absolutely. The effect these new Leadership mods (basically, Feat Cards written right into the rules) have had on me is to stop dreading seeing Leadership and start actively looking for it. Of course, an additional 20, 30, or 50 points dropped on top of a character isn't a casual price to pay, but I tend to think it would be worth it... although the couple of times I've playtested these, I keep forgetting about the 'remove a token' option. (It would almost benefit one to have two leaders in a team, so one could use all the team's powers and the other one could remove tokens when necessary.)

>>If the approach seen in the upcoming Armor Wars proves to be the start of a trend it's already a power I expect to begin to gain some respect due to lower cost characters translating into larger teams, so being able to pull an extra action out of the hat (current effect for the power) will become a little more important.

It's important in my House Rules, because no matter how large your team is, you only get 5 actions per turn, max. But this makes it a little MORE important.

>>The appproach you've taken is a thoughtful one, and I agree with the thinking. Are we to presume that for 20 points they have access to new option one and for 30 points they have access to either new option one or new option two during a single turn? I'm presuming this is the case, since new option one (allowing a Leader to "command" any of the powers of teammates within 10 spaces and a clear line of sight of him) is much more powerful than the rallying effect in new option two.

Uh... no. First, I disagree. I think being able to shift around action tokens is potentially far more powerful than letting a leader use the powers of his teammates, if they are within a certain range and he has clear line of sight to them. The two power mods are entirely separate -- you pay 20 and get (A), you pay 30 and get (B), or you pay 50 and get both. As I've noted, though, when you give a leader (A), he or she is generally doing stuff every turn with the 'borrowed' powers, so he or she never uses (B). Which is a waste of 30 points.

>>Cap could be quite the terror with the new exp. Quicksilver on his team, especially if he has Armor Piercing. Then again, as I recall in your system Hypersonic Speed pieces can't make ranged attacks while moving that fast, so his being able to move, hit two targets from 6 spaces away, and then move back wouldn't be an issue.

Right. HSS has to be used in Close Combat. But the new Cap, with a lot of Exploit Weakness, will still be a terror if he's directing Quicksilver in exactly how to attack an enemy at that enemy's weak spots.

>>As things stand now most players consider Leadership to be an overpriced power, so the biggest, lasting barrier to this I'd see would be people feeling they're being charged an awful lot on top of already being charged too much for the original effect. I'm not saying I automatically agree, but it's the reaction I'd expect. It's not as bad as if one made a useful replacement TA for the Masters of Evil and then charged for it, but it's approaching it.

I've thought about revising some of the less useful TAs, too... I've considered just biting the bullet and letting Avengers and JLA and Brotherhood movements be free, with them only getting an action token if they attack or activate a power that specifically requires one. This would, essentially, mean members of those groups could move around the board tirelessly as long as they didn't actually take a shot at anyone.

MOE and IL I'm less sure on. I know what WizKids is trying to do with the 'gang attack' powers, and certainly those groups should reflect a 'strength in numbers' sort of thing. I'm considering something like: "When members of these groups attack the same target in the same turn, each successful attack causes the next attacker from this group to gain +1 to their AV." That way, if three members of one of the bad guy groups tee off on a superhero, if the first one hits, the second one gets a plus, if the second one hits, the third one gets a larger plus, etc. It would have the effect of making even a quite wimpy character effective, assuming he was put a bit further down the batting order from the big guns with their 10+ attacks.

If I did any of this, I'd probably charge, I don't know, 5 points per character to use the alternate TAs.

>>Pulse Wave strikes me as being hella, over the top powerful under your proposed change, and people are already seeing it as potent enough. Making the attack nearly automatic, eliminating not only the need for a dice roll (sure, it's still made, but just as an attempt at rolling a critical - miss or hit), but also terrain modifiers for Defense - makes the power even more powerful, and I don't believe it needs it. The Polaris LE and Nimrod, to name two, already do a fair amount of damage. That's just me, though. One note: You've removed the "Attacks made with this power do not target characters" line, which would potentially leave it open to allowing Mystics damage to strike the PW attacker.

Uh... I certainly don't mind if the Mystics damage can hit a Pulse Waver, I hadn't realize that it doesn't.

I think I'm still working on Pulse Wave. What I'm trying to do is come up with one of those types of attacks that some characters can do that just hit EVERYONE... a wide ranging sonic scream or mass psionic blast or... SOMEthing. Like an explosion, but radiating outward from the attacker, rather than starting over there somewhere.

I think, though, that the way to do this is a full reverse on what WizKids did. They let you do a point of damage (or more, with Nova Blast) regardless of the target's protection, as long as you hit everyone around you. But Pulse Wave should actually hit everyone around you nearly automatically... but it shouldn't necessarily cut through their protection. Kang can set his forcefield to suddenly expand outward and that's going to do some damage to normal Avengers, but it won't hurt Thor... in fact, Thor may well just brace himself and stand there, looking grim.

What I probably need to do is as follows:

PULSE WAVE: This character's ranged combat attack can do damage to every figure within half his range value. (Optional) Give this character a ranged combat action. Reduce his range value by half for purposes of this attack. Draw lines of fire to every figure (friendly and opposing) within range in every direction. These lines of fire ignore the effect of figure bases and hindering terrain, as well as all team abilities and powers possessed by characters within range. If clear lines of fire can be drawn to two or more figures within range, reduce this character’s damage to 1. Make only one attack roll. If that attack roll result is a 2, all Pulse Wave damage is done to the attacking figure only, and damage is figured as if that character were the only target within range. If the attack roll result is a 12, add 1 to the Pulse Wave damage done to all figures within range. Any other roll result causes Pulse Wave damage to be done to all characters within range of the Pulse Wave attack. Pulse Wave damage cannot be evaded (by a power effect such as Super Senses) or transferred (Mastermind), although it is reduced normally by damage absorption powers such as Toughness, Invulnerability, and Impervious.

Now it pretty much automatically hits, but doesn't necessarily hurt anyone but the rabble.

>>The Quake changes are confusing me a little. Your new opening implies that if one wants to use it without going for the optional dice roll that it now functions as a field effect Force Blast, pushing everyone back -- presumably for the Damage value shown. The rest of it is a little confusing, as it appears to skip the comparison of the attack roll with each of the targets.

Yes. Quake strikes me as a power that, when we see it in comics, requires no successful attack roll at all... it's a mass attack that only requires someone to strike the ground at their own feet, causing massive tremors that topple everyone around them.

To that extent, it's possible that Quake simply shouldn't do damage, all it should do is a combination of Force Blast and Incapacitate, in a mass application.

However, while that would be somewhat realistic, it would also make Quake really unbalanced in game terms. I do tend to think that people knocked over by Gorgon or the Hulk's ground smashing, or scattered by a Flash attack, would also be stunned and groggy for a turn. I don't think they should take damage. Maybe a successful Quake attack could knock back everyone within, say, 5 squares of the attacker an amount equal to the attacker's damage, and cause everyone so knocked back to take an additional action token... but no damage would be done by taking such a token? I don't know.

Right now, though, the write up seems more straightforward to me than WizKids', which I personally always find baffling. Yeah, you're going to attack the person adjacent to you with the lowest defense, and if you hit him, then he takes knockback (if he takes damage) and so does everyone adjacent to him.

I suspect your confusion may stem from the fact that you haven't realized how simple I've made Energy Explosion in our system:

ENERGY EXPLOSION: This character's ranged combat attack can do damage to all figures adjacent to the target. (Optional) Give this character a ranged combat action and reduce his damage value to 1. A successful ranged combat attack does damage to the target figure and every figure in a square adjacent to the target.

If Sgt. Rock throws a grenade at Baron Blood, and Baron Zemo and the Red Skull are standing right next to the big Undead sissy, no roll is necessary to hit the other two. All Frank has to do is throw the grenade straight enough to hit the central target. The explosion and shrapnel will do the rest. So I got rid of the multiple attack rolls long ago, and currently, Quake (a power I really don't like, nor see much need for, honestly) is essentially a Close Combat version of Energy Explosion... as EE is written up under my House Rules.

>>As written, it directs a canny player to target the one adjacent to him with the lowest Defense value, as there's no mention of any AV + roll to Defense comparison made for them. The result is a power much more powerful than EE, save for the range.

Well, my EE is much more powerful than WK's EE, but, well, that's the way explosions work. I still think you should be able to lob a grenade into Hindering Terrain and blow up whoever is hiding there, too, but as noted long before, that turns Stealth from a nifty power into a fluttering "Kill me kill me kill me!" banner, so I'm not going to do that.

>>As mentioned in email, I very much like the Champions TA. It's new, it's apt, and it's useful.

Thanks.

>>If they did print an Essential Champions I'd buy it.

Yeah, me too.

>>Hopefully it would mean that they were looking to revive some form of the team, and they'd include (even though I suspect it would be fairly bad) the X-Force/Champions special from '98, where (reportedly) the original five members briefly reassembled to thwart a scheme by Pluto, fitting since he's the one indirectly responsible for them coming together in the first place.

There was a line in some recent MTU where Nova wanted to call the impromptu grouping that had formed to battle Titannus in Tokyo "the new Champions", because he felt that was way cooler than the New Warriors (and I won't disagree). Someone else... Warbird, I think... slapped him down hard, saying "No, it isn't, trust me". But how would SHE know? I think a new Champions group would be cool, and just the spot for Nova. I wouldn't mind seeing Natasha and Herc decide to reform the Champions with a few new members... of course, if Nova's in the group, then there's little point in letting Angel rejoin, which is fine with me.

I had no idea there was a CHAMPIONS/X-FORCE special. Was it appalling?