I'm down for a little mechanical debate.

Quote from: daniel_ream;915713She's actually pretty tame. (Also I think you're misreading the statblock; she's supposed to get one of those boosts at a time, not all three)

That would be a bit more balanced, to be sure. However, it would also call for 3 or 4 separate stat blocks, with action by action shifts of HP and PP. However, if you look at the Shrew's stat block, you'll find that all of her calculated stats (like HP and PP for starters) are calculated as though she had all of her stat bonuses simultaneously and permanently, like I said. And yes, this gives her some pretty outrageous figured stats.

QuoteBehemoth from Death Duel with the Destroyers does 6-60 points of damage in a HtH attack.  The Mace from Crisis at Crusader Citadel does 1d6+1d12+2d8+3 damage on a successful hit.  Add in the prevalence of Heightened Attack (+1 Damage/level) and Power Blast (1d20 damage), things can get hairy pretty quickly.

You know why Behemoth has such ludicrously high HtH damage? Because he has 116 Strength. How in the fuck did he get such a high value in a system where STR has an exponential effect on carrying capacity? Well, that brings us back to GM/Player defined powers and their high potential for abuse. In this case, it's a Mutant Power which the module author (a certain Bill Willingham) decided was worth about a + SIXTY strength, as well as a doubling of mass. On top of this he "rolled" near Max on not one but TWO Heightened Strength Bs and "rolled" near max on his original strength roll as well (and I put "rolled" in quotes because pretty clearly this was NOT a rolled up character). This is outrageous if you have the slightest regard for game balance. Love Willingham's art, and his writing isn't half bad either. But I don't rate him real high in terms of well considered NPC design for RPGs.

Anyway, even with 6d10 damage, Behemoth is a lot more likely to knock out even a normal human than he is to kill him.

QuoteThe irony of V&V is that good defenses actually make you more likely to get killed accidentally.  Normally damage goes straight to Hit Points, and you only can only divert 1/10 of the current Power score to damage to Power.  But a lot of defensive powers convert all incoming damage to Power damage, meaning that a short run of high damage rolls can easily drop a character to zero HP and Power, when they'd technically have been better off dropping the defense and taking the full hit on the chin (and thus only to HP).

I may be wrong, but I can only think of a single defensive power that converts damage to PP damage as you mention, and that's force field. It isn't how any other defense works (unless you go a similar route with one of those whacky Mutant Power type powers.

To be fair, yes, depleting your Power via power use such as force fields or frequent high power cost attacks can make certain characters more likely to get into death range than others, but even with such characters, that is generally where you would want to stop pushing the character so hard if you are really concerned about the possibility of getting killed. I have seen far more Champions characters bite the dust than V&V characters, especially if you don't give everybody and his brother resistant PD and ED, which there is no reason for many comic book characters to have.

I ran a Champions game for my sons once.  My younger son absolutely had to have a killing attack.  He was thrilled with it when he killed a thug until all the bystanders were horrified at what he'd done.  He was a bit genre deaf there and I was more than a little unprepared for his angry outburst.  You have to look out for those player expectations.

Back when we played V&V (1e) we houseruled the game so much that when I re-read the RAW in PDF several years ago, I could not recognize much of the actual rules. The joke is our houserules were much closer to Heroes Unlimited as we "D&D'd" the V&V we apparently didn't like when were in high school.

Quote from: David Johansen;915861My younger son absolutely had to have a killing attack.  He was thrilled with it when he killed a thug until all the bystanders were horrified at what he'd done.

At conventions, my most bloodthirsty players are the youngest.

I've had a 6 year old in an OD&D game ask if he could act out and describe how he killed the orc.  Out of morbid curiosity, I said yes, and HOLY FUCKNUTS we got to see next Quentin Tarantino in action! While the other adults at the table gaped in horror, the two older kids cheered him on.

WTF any parent would leave their kids at my table is beyond me.

Quote from: David Johansen;915861He was a bit genre deaf there and I was more than a little unprepared for his angry outburst.  You have to look out for those player expectations.

Is he a Wolverine fan? Or has he seen the recent Marvel or DC movies? The "code against killing" has certainly gone out the window. Heck, even Superman is snapping necks.

Back when I ran Champions at cons (mid/late 80s), my con PCs were X-men clones and I gave the Not-Wolverine PC both a nasty Killing Attack AND a Code vs. Killing (Humans) so he would have to go soft on human thugs, but wail like a madman on Robots, Aliens, Demons, etc.

One good thing about this Villains & Vigilantes 3.0 is that Jeff Dee and Jack Herman are sticking with black & white art.  I'm glad that they're going against the trend of glossy full color.  No need for that at all in a RPG book, IMO.

Just FYI for my fellow Villains & Vigilantes backers, Jeff Dee and Jack Herman just released a pre-release PDF of the core rulebook today.  It's basically the game with no art and an incomplete setting chapter.  Check your messages on Kickstarter if you didn't receive an e-mail message.

I downloaded it and gave it a very quick look through.  What I did see looks good.

Is this the one Game Salute was handling?

No, Game Salute handled the Villains & Vigilantes card game.