More heroic heroes, please

That'd be Bill Z. Humans taste of chicken.

Well, yes. If Chuck Norris Manipulation is available in the game, all other powersets become comparatively non-lethal.

Well, being allowed to use lethal force doesn't oblige you to do so. There are cops who are quicker to use violence than others. There are heroes who may say that they will never use lethal force. If you gave Spiderman a licence to kill, I don't think he'd go out and start killing off his enemies. Some heroes simply do not believe in killing. I have no problem with those who do. I like Wolverine. I enjoyed his earlier appearances where he slaughtered ninja by the dozens. I have characters who certainly don't mind using lethal force. But for those who prefer to arrest villains rather than decapitate them, it would be nice to have more options. I am not sure how the powesets break down, but it seems that there are quite a few more lethal than non-lethal sets.

All I am saying is that I would like more options. All that has to be done is change the animations in some cases. I still believe DB would look just as good with Escrima sticks. As someone said, you can't stab someone with them, but you can certainly jab them in the gut. As for the comment that if you can pull punches to not kill with super strength, then you can do it with swords, that doesn't make sense. As an adult, I can punch a little kid with enough force to seriously injure him or I can throw a punch that barely bruises him. I can even throw a punch that he barely feels. Injury from punching is based on impact. Sword damage is cutting damage. So if I "pull my punches" with a sword, then I go from major damage to no damage, unless I am using it as a club, hitting with the cliche flat of the blade. I can do that, but why have a sword then? Why not a club or something. Silly comparission.

I don't really get the seeming opposition to this. I know that many of the players here grew up with heroes like Punisher and Wolveriine, but some of us older guys grew up with heroes that didn't kill. I'd like the option to play more types of non-lethal heroes. Yes, as said above, things can be rationalised away (my sword just looks like metal, but is Bokken) and I know that if I don't want to play a fire blaster I don't have to. I am not arguing that. If I don't want to play a lethal character, I won't take a lethal power. But I would like one or two more non-lethal options.

Oh man and all the defenders who would buff Chuck instead of the team.

Except you'll still be dealing LETHAL damage, e.i. cutting damage. Explain to me how you cut with a club.

That's a load of nonsense. Are you saying that so much as nicking a person means killing them? Real life doesn't work that way. You can't just stick a knife anywhere into a person and expect them to expire like they would in, say, in the Green Beret video game. You either have to apply SIGNIFICANT force, hit the right place, or stab enough times to where your victim dies of simple blood loss quickly. Or are we suddenly suggesting that "any injury" equals "killing?"

If I shoot a guy in both shoulders and both legs, he's useless, but he's still very much alive. If I slice through a guy's triceps, his whole hand is next to useless. It's injury, yes. Sometimes even severe injury. But it's not killing, not if your super abilities allow you to pull that off correctly. Are we going to claim that punching people doesn't injure them? Hit someone hard enough to knock them out, and you're likely to cause damage that's MORE life-threatening than a gunshot wound to the leg, but is it more acceptable because it LOOKS less bloody?

In fact, this is entirely how police officers are trained to respond to threat - via escalating force. Police officers don't shoot for the head at the first sign of trouble, and I'm fairly certain any policeman who does is facing some serious disciplinary action. Verbal warning first, if those don't work then limb shots, and only in extreme situations should they resort to body shots, the idea being to try and stop the person without killing him.

This whole idea that you have to stop villains without so much as hurting them is silly. As long as he lives, he'll have to deal with broken bones, gunshot wounds, cuts and bruises.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

See, now, that's funny, because I'm an American, and I don't know why I was under the impression that someone from Europe would be able to capitalize and punctuate.

And that's exactly what I use my Snipe for. Preemptive retaliation.

I remember a bit in one of the Saint books where a sidekick goes around knocking out guards by hitting them on the head, and when the hero checks on them later he finds they're all dead, as knocking people out without killing them is much more difficult than the sidekick thinks. I thought it was a nice little aside.

That's more like it.

Thanks.

There's quite a few non-lethal options...

Blaster - Electrical (just enough to stun), Energy (can easily be more blunt force trauma than lethal), Ice (same as energy), Psychic (knock them out with your mind), Sonic (concussion and deafness for awhile). Electrical Manip, Energy Manip, Devices, Ice Manip, Mental Manip...all can be used non-lethally.

Controller - Earth, Gravity, Ice, Illusion, Mind, Plant. All pretty easy to go the non lethal route.

Defender - Dark Blast, previously mentioned Blaster Primaries, Cold Domination, Dark Miasma, Empathy, Force Field, Kinetics, Sonic, Storm, Traps, Trick Arrow. Combine them with any of the previously mentioned blasts...easily can be used as non-lethal combat.

Scrapper - Dark Melee, Electrical Melee, Martial Arts. Nothing says those have to be all that lethal when used.

Tanker - Dark Melee, Electrical Melee, Energy Melee, Ice Melee (don't take blades! :O), Mace, Stone Melee, Super Strength. All those can easily be non-lethal.


From everything I can see, LOTS of non-lethal options to pretty much every AT, with the exception of Scrappers.

This is also assuming your using the the abilities as mentioned. No one says Energy has to kill...ect.

That leaves pretty much the blades/stabbies, fire powers, Assault Rifle (though one could say rubber bullets), and Archery as the lethal use power sets.

Right, real-life fights. I'm sorry, I must have opened the wrong door. I thought I came into the thread where we were talking about super heroes with super powers. I'll see if I can talk to the receptionist about giving me the right key next time.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Nah, no need.

I, too, had been discussing a comic book game with super powers, but then people started tossing out "well, in real life, a punch is more likely to kill someone..."

Anyhow, I hadn't intended to start any kind of debate. I just wanted to suggest that more options would be nice. Then things went wrong.

You're overreacting to this thread, then. That's not where it went, and I don't think anyone made an argument remotely like that.

As pointed out earlier, it's a genre convention in superhero games that all damage is non-lethal unless the player making the attack wants it to be lethal, either a choice made when they attack, or a design choice made while building the character.

The point of that was to state that, without restraint, a super punch is more deadly than a super sharpshooter's gun can be WITH restraint. It comes down to the use of the super power, not its nature.

And again - in this game, no damage is lethal unless specifically stated in your briefing, debriefing or clues. Plenty of enemies are shot, stabbed, blown up and and irradiated and still have no problem coming back to fight again fit as a fiddle.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

90% of my forum activity here is from an Xperia phone. Sadly the whole internet experience on a phone,no matter which one that is ... its far from being something to enjoy. Also english is my second language, so my apologies for bad grammar and punctuation.

Anyway, the tv series ''heroes'' is going the way the op likes. more heroic less powerful. In my opinion being stronger,faster,smarter,more agile, etc and use all those atributes as a hero or super hero is always to punish other people that you can exercise some force over and make them do the right thing or at least what you think is right.
basically a super hero is supposed to kick your butt.

Practically, that's all it comes down to. I know we all like philosophies, morality, ethics and the difficulties of heroic life, but at the end of the day, the entire industry is based around heroes kicking villain ***. No matter how you slice it (no pun intended), if you lack that, you lose the heart of what super heroes as a fictional genre are all about.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Right but the use of lethal force strips him of his heroic status, regardless of his previous aversion to the method, right? And the 'silliness' of Final Crisis is debatable. In my view, it underlined Batman's ability to see beyond rhetoric and idealism and do what needed to be done, regardless of how that was accomplished. Darkseid needed killin' and the only means of doing so was with a gun so Batman made 'a once in a lifetime exception' and got the job done, at great person risk & cost. It's what makes the character compelling, in my view.

But who gets to determine whether a character subscribes to this heroic ideal you cite? You? Or the character's creator? That's my problem with broad brush classifications. None of my heroes believe in the heroic ideal you mention. Not a single one of them. The rate of recidivism is so high in Paragon City, many (if not most) criminals go to their graves committing crimes. Thus, culling their numbers is in Paragon City's best interest. Since heroes aren't responsible for attacking the root cause of criminality (i.e. poverty and the like), we can only deal with the after effects. Non-lethal force is indeed preferred but it's not the only means of accomplishing the public safety goal. Besides that, if my heroes are involved in something, those people in front of me are criminals that baseline/mundane law enforcement is ill-equipped to deal with. So they pass 'em off to us.

Then again, I've despised Captain America and Superman since I was little.

No more stupid than your assertion or belief that every hero should (or does) adhere to the same ideal.

As I said, I have no issues with additional skins, as long as they make sense. BAB's comment on damage types is great, I think. A lethal damage attack shouldn't have a smashing damage skin IMO.

First, I get to determine it, as the character's creator. That should be obvious. As the creator/ player, I alone determine his/ her beliefs.


Second, you are misquoting me, or at least misunderstanding me. I never said that every character should (or does) adhere to this ideal. Some do, some don't. But for those that do I was asking for more non-lethal options. Please read more carefully.

Now, as a personal thing, if Spiderman started killing off villains, I would lose respect for him, because it goes against his ideals. In the first movie, I hated that he let Uncle Ben's killer fall to his death. The Peter Parker I know would have jumped forward and snagged him with a web-line and turned him over to the police, no matter how he felt. He just doesn't kill. For the same reason, he didn't (intentionally) kill the Green Goblin. I respect that, although I may not always think it's the best course of action. Sometimes I know I prefer a character like the Punisher or Wolverine to just finish them off. But to me, having ideals and upholding them even when it's difficult is a heroic thing.

It seems that some people here think that the only way to be heroic is to slaughter your enemies. That is simply not true. There are many definitions of heroism. I am simply thinking about the classic comic book ideal of arresting, not killing.

Speaking of which, I hope he has a big ol' apology for Diana when he gets back from the prehistoric past.

In a world full of super-powers, arcane mysticism, sci-fi technology, etc....very few people actually die die. The technology to instantly teleport someone and repair any and all damage to their bodies is common in this world. That goes for player characters and NPCs alike. When you riddle someone full of bullets, poke holes in them with your sword, or burn them, it doesn't immediately end their life. It simply incapacitates them. They slip into unconsciousness, and shortly thereafter they're transported away and revived...generally in the Zig.

They'll be fine. Why else do you think the city would be so cavalier about handing out licenses to everyone with a pair of spandex? Why do you think the common thugs on the street are so brazen about their crimes? There's very little fear of actual death.

Ha ha ha, that's awesome.

But seriously... Do pedestrians and everyone else have access to the medical transporters? Why have doctors? I was under the impression that a hero lisense gives access to the transporters, but the average joe on the street is SOL if he gets hurt.

And also, as mentioned above, in-game missions mention that heroes can die because the thech is not 100% reliable.

/e shrug. Whatever. Not like I can argue with BAB.

Recently, I kicked a Freakshow so hard, his head burrowed into a concrete wall! His head was literally in the wall, with the rest of his body twitching a bit before going completely limp... O_o I was actually a tad horrified, but incredibly amused at the same time.

If he lives through something like that, something tells me he may not want to stay living.