Today, we will finish up with the weapons and the last part of combat: Property damage. Then, we'll go straight into building scenarios for Champions games. Ready? Let's go!
So, we have weapons advantages to look at first. There are three of them, so we'll go one at a time. First, Weapon has a large number of uses. This is basically a Charges advantage rather than a limitation, since it has more than 15 charges and thus will be more efficient than a power that normally uses Endurance Pips. If the weapon has between 15 and 25 charges, it's a +¼ advantage; up to 50 is a +½ advantage, and up to 100 is a +¾ advantage.
Autofire: This is firing multiple shots at once. Each shot is hitting the same target; you can't split them up at this point. Your attack gets a +4 to OCV, and the range modifier is halved. If you make the attack roll, you hit the target once. For every 2 points below the target number you roll, you hit an additional time. For example, after all modifiers the target is a 9 or less. If you roll a 6, you hit the target once for beating 9, and once more for beating 7 (two less than 9). You then roll two separate damage attacks; they are not combined. Autofire uses 10 shots, and is a +¼ advantage.
The third weapon advantage is Selective Fire. This means you can either shoot single shots or Autofire with the same weapon. This is a +½ advantage.
Now, your weapons are not limited to these advantages; they can also use the normal Power Advantages from earlier in the book. For example, grenades have the Explosive advantage. A 'mind-blast gun' built by a super-scientist might have Based on Ego Combat Value, or a microwave gun uses the No Normal Defense advantage. Likewise, limitations such as Limited Uses (Charges) and Focus are very, very common for weapons.
Alright, now we get to the brick's favorite pastime: breaking things. Things are always being broken in superhero comics. Cars, buildings, lampposts, construction sites, nuclear power plants...everything is a target at some point. So, every object has a Body Pip score to show how much damage they can take before breaking. Their Body Pip score also counts as their Defense score, in case someone is hiding behind it. If an object takes twice its Body score, it's gone. Vaporized, destroyed, whatever; it's not there anymore. For example, Nightshade blasts a brick wall, which has 8 BODY. He rolls his damage and scores 9 BODY points. The wall now has a hole in it, but it's still standing.
We then get a list of examples of things that can be broken in the game, such as reinforced concrete, automobiles, light poles, fire hydrants, bank vaults, tanks, airplanes, helicopters, and more. Some of them can have higher BODY scores if they are extra-thick or heavy; some of them (machinery) are generally rendered nonfunctional if they take half their BODY. For example, an airplane is given a BODY score of 10; if it takes 5 BODY, it's not flying anymore. It's still physically intact, but its guts are scrambled and will need to be repaired.
And that's it for the combat section. Yay! Now, on to the scenario building section.
First of all, the scenario you are creating needs a theme. This can be as simple as 'beat up the bad guys', or stopping their goals, such as robbing a bank or conquering the world. Or, the characters could be working against nature (trying to prevent a flood, or minimizing the damage from an earthquake, etc.). A great way to find a theme is to use a character's Disadvantages, such as Hunteds and DNPCs.
We now get a list of possible motivations for the villains; some will apply to certain characters, others will not. It depends on the type of villain. Doctor Doom or Lex Luthor have much different motivations than the Joker or the Rhino.
Conquering the World is a classic for megalomaniacal epic villains; generally, it involves complex plans of blackmail to force governments to bow to the villain's invincible might. Perhaps the villain is threatening nuclear destruction, or preparing to unleash a plague, or simply becoming powerful enough to defeat anyone who stands against them.
But, as a wise old butler once said, some men just want to watch the world burn. These guys aren't interesting in taking over the world; they want to destroy it. Galactus is a classic example; he's just hungry, and Earth is on the menu. Or an ocean-based villain seeks to flood the surface world and end human civilization. Some plots can parallel the ones from the previous motivation; the difference, of course, is that the villain isn't trying to blackmail anyone; he's actually going to do the big terrible thing.
Revenge is a classic; the villain wants to get back at the guy who threw him in jail the last time they fought. Or, the villain feels that the hero somehow wronged him; maybe he failed to save the person's loved one, and thus he became an embittered villain. These are best developed in play; a villain's first appearance shouldn't involve revenge unless it's part of his origin story.
The last one on this page is one of the simplest: The bad guy wants to get rich. Whether it's just getting money for the sake of having it, wanting to really upgrade his lifestyle, or he's trying to finance a more grandiose scheme that will allow him to conquer or destroy the world, money is a necessary component of his plot. This can range from a simple bank robbery to stealing the value of the world's financial markets.
And that's it for this page. There are more motivations on the next page, but we'll get to them next time. Until then, up, up, and away!
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