SYSTEM: ICONS
So I took some of my Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes builds out for a spin. As usual, I might well have gotten something wrong, and I think I had the Coordination on Hulk and Abomination too high...but other than that, it went fairly well.
Page 1
Hawkeye, Wasp, and Hulk are out for pizza to discuss the
latest thing Hank has done. They order their usual (personal pizzas for Hawkeye
and Wasp, ten pizzas for Hulk) and are deep in conversation when Abomination
walks out with the pizzas. He shoves them
in Hulk’s face, along with a side helping of fist. The others appear during
this panel.
Abomination
hits, because he rolled a 6. Hulk was surprised, so the difficulty is 0, and he
might stun the Hulk. That’s Strength versus Strength; Abomination gets 9+6 (15)
versus Hulk’s 10+6. No stun. I wish my dice rolled like this during a game…
Living Laser and Whirlwind appear, causing much collateral
damage that Tony will have to pay for. Living Laser is in energy form in order
to travel fast.
Page 2
Roll
initiative. Combat order is going to be Abomination, Wasp, Hulk, Hawkeye,
Laser, and then Whirlwind.
Abomination follows by grabbing the table and whacking the
Hulk with it. He shreds the table, but his ulterior motive was to clear some
space for fighting.
Abomination
rolls 2, but his Prowess is 6 and his Martial Arts are on Prowess, to be a 9.
Hulk rolls a 2 so this hits, but there’s no slam or stun, just damage 9. Hulk
is down by 2 stamina now. The regeneration will kick in.
Wasp shrinks and hits the Abomination with her stings. Even
if she gets both shots, it’s not going to affect him, so he ignores her.
Hulk roars (of course) and tries to smash Abomination.
Hulk
rolls a 4, Abomination rolls a 2, so Hulk hits but it’s not a great hit. He
deals out 10 damage, but there’s no slam or stun.
Hawkeye whips out his bow. As the one with the most common
sense, he sees that the other two can be trouble, and should be eliminated, so
he acrobatically leaps to wherever his friends won’t be affected by the blast
and fires a burst arrow, hoping that Parks isn’t in light form.
Parks is
insubstantial, so we’ll ignore him until he’s solid. Whirlwind is not, so the
two burst shots hit him and combine, for damage 7. They hit with a massive
success and a major success, so let’s roll stun and slam. Hawkeye gets 11 for
the stun; Whirlwind gets 5. Hawkeye gets 9 for the slam, Whirlwind gets
10. It’s a massive success for the stun,
so Whirlwind drops unconscious. One down, two to go.
Living Laser is not a guy with finesse, so he decides to
unleash his shooting damage on Hawkeye. Hawkeye’s tough to hit, though.
Living
Laser rolls a 6, Hawkeye a 5, so it’s 11 to 11…except Hawkeye’s also being
acrobatic. That makes it a 12. The shot just misses him.
The shot misses, and Hawkeye quips, “I can’t believe Iron
Man said you were trouble. You can’t hit the broad side of a—“ And he stops as
he faces Crimson Dynamo, who opens fire.
Crimson
Dynamo rolls a 2, Hawkeye’s still acrobatic as all get out and rolls a 5, so it’s
6 versus 12. Total miss. Hawkeye gets a Determination Point because I had to
bring in Crimson Dynamo.
Page 3
Abomination follows up with another shot to the Hulk, trying
to slam him outdoors and fight
there.
Abomination
rolls a 6 for 13, Hulk rolls a 4 for 10. That’s a major success…will there be a
slam? No; it’s 13 to 13. No effect, but
Hulk takes 1 stamina.
Wasp is going to fire at the Abomination’s eyes to distract
the Abomination.
This is
a maneuver (Coordination versus Coordination, I think) that the Hulk can use.
She uses her Aerial Combat specialty and gets +3 for being shrunk; and rolls a 2,
he rolls a 1, so it’s a major success: she creates one advantage, and she
activates it. Hulk can use it now.
Hulk takes advantage of the momentary distraction and rushes
the Abomination, surging out of his position to charge into the Abomination. Hulk uses
the advantage to get +2 to his effort. He rolls a 6 and Abomination rolls a 2,
and +1 damage for the rush…so that’s 3 stamina, and a Prowess vs. Prowess roll
for the rush. He rolls a 6, Abomination rolls a 6; he doesn’t do anything
successful on the Strength vs. Strength roll that follows it.
Hawkeye grabs an arrow and decides to try to shoot through
the faceplate, hoping that he’ll be able to knock out Anton once the plate is
gone. It’s a
called shot, so +2 to the difficulty. He rolls a 1, Crimson Dynamo rolls a 5,
so it’s 10 versus 9…a moderate success. He does half damage with the arrow (3)
against resistance to damage 4. The arrow bounces off harmlessly. “Uh,
guys? I know you’re busy with the other big green thing…but I’ve got a big red
thing here.”
Living Laser has picked a target: Hawkeye. He fires again at
the acrobatic archer. The
Living Laser rolls a 2, Hawkeye rolls a 4 for 7 vs 11. The Living Laser's shot missed, but gave Hawkeye an idea.
Crimson Dynamo says, “You are practice for the day I destroy
Tony Stark!” and opens fire on Hawkeye.
Crimson Dynamo rolls a 2, Hawkeye rolls a 1, so
its 7 versus 8. Once again, the Dynamo misses, but the diner looks quite ruined
by this point.
Abomination has one target: the
Hulk. And he’s hitting him repeatedly. He’s
going to stunt Fast Attack so he can combine the attacks. Both attacks succeed,
but only marginally so they do no damage that gets through the Hulk’s
resistance.
Wasp knows she can’t hurt anyone
here: Parks is insubstantial and the other two are tough. But maybe she can
overload the Crimson Dynamo’s senses by shooting directly at the antenna array…
Called shot, and she’s going to try to make it
with Fast Attack, combining the attacks so they do extra damage. She’s also
going to spend a determination point to activate her own Founding Avenger
quality to push the damage. If she hits once, that’s 5 damage, and his
resistance provides only 4 against a called shot; if she hits twice, that’s 6
damage. She rolls 2 and a 5, plus her 3 for being shrunk, plus her 1 for Aerial
combat…that’s an effort of 11 and 14. Crimson Dynamo rolls a 1 and a 3, for opposing
values of 5 and 7. In both cases, a massive success, so he takes 2 stamina and
gets the “All Shots Are Called Shots” quality, which is active. No one needs to
spend a point to activate it; it just is.
Her stinger blasts land true, and
the Crimson Dynamo starts moving more slowly, less able to weave and duck.
Hulk has a hate-on for the
Abomination, so he tries a second time to hit.
He rolls a 4, Abomination rolls a 1, and
Abomination’s specialties are all on attack, so it’s 10 to 7, or a major
success. He does his full damage, but he also spends a determination point to
activate his “Hulk is the strongest one there is” quality and increase the
effort on his Slam. He rolls a 2, so it’s 14 versus Abomination’s 12.
The Hulk’s mighty blow from above
knocks the Abomination prone.
Hawkeye decides he’s going to
maneuver so that when Living Laser fires at him, the blast will hit the Crimson
Dynamo.
This sounds like a Coordination+Athletics (7)
versus Intellect (5) test. Both parties roll a 4, so it succeeds. The Living
Laser’s attack was good enough to hit the Crimson Dynamo but not Hawkeye, so
Crimson Dynamo takes the damage, 4 more stamina.
“I’m sorry,” says Hawkeye, “you can hit the broad
side of a barn. Crimson Dynamo is Russian for barn, right?”
Crimson Dynamo can’t send a
request to Living Laser…his comms are shorted out. So he decides to rip up a
section of counter to use as a burst attack against Hawkeye. He rips out the
counter and bats at the bowman.
Crimson Dynamo rolls a 4, Hawkeye rolls a 1,
for 9 vs. 6, or a Major success. The Slam test is 11 versus 8. Hawkeye goes
from full stamina to 2 in one shot.
The chunk of counter hits the
tumbling archer and knocks him to the ground…and knocks him almost unconscious.
Page 4
Abomination smiles. “They taught
us how to fight from the ground.” He starts by grabbing the Hulk.
He rolls 3 for 7+3 versus the Hulk’s 1, or 10
vs 7. The Hulk is hampered by the move, and is at -2 while held.
Wasp sees the waitress who was
hiding under the now-absent counter and flies over to get her to safety. “Run!
I’ll cover your exit!” She interposes herself between the waitress and, well,
everyone else.
Wasp gets a determination point for that.
Hulk struggles mightily against
the Abomination’s grip.
It’s wrestling, Strength versus Strength to try
to escape. They each roll a 5, so no effect.
The Living Laser realizes that he
can use the waitress instead of hitting the Wasp directly. So he’s going to fly
around her very quickly (he’s light, after all), turn solid, and threaten the
waitress.
His prowess is only 4, but it’s a surprise to
the waitress, so she’s difficulty 0 to catch. He rolls a 4, she’s difficulty 0…massive
success.
“All we want is all of you. Come
quietly or she gets a laser lobotomy. Hulk can’t get here in time to save her.
I am, after all, as fast as light.”
Wasp says, “Hulk…I think we have
to…”
What next?
So not bad. Wasp turns out to be more difficult to hit than I thought. Having to roll again and again for Slam or Stun is a bit of a pain, and I'd like to see a mechanism for deliberately slamming things...but overall, very pleased.
