Super Squirrel

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... All quotes broke off due to one scene in the game, also the first quote of the week. Singirl: "Hey, teach!" Singirl whips off her top Yuki: "If I wanted to cop a feel, apparently Singril wouldn't mind." Unknown: "You could always call that tactic Operation DD" Brick (regarding a proposed team name): "Team DD"

Re: [Log] Chester School For Teens E103: Big Threats - Episode Aired August 26, 2007 Date: October 3, 2006 Striking Tiger sits in Metahuman History class. She learns the history of superhuman schools. The first, being the Chester Sister School of Ravenwood in Millennium City. She learns that it was the schools on Machinist who was able to hack into Dr. Destroyer's computer network and learn his plans to minimalize the destruction of Millennium City. And she learns of the school's less pleasant history of Gloriana. In Metahuman Biology, Omnipresent discusses the unique nature of metahuman cellular structures. He has the class show examples of the cells and points out the unique features to each. He shows his own last and how it has an inverted polarity. The following class in Metahuman 101, the class talks about the UNTIL power levels. They also speak of how UNTIL has a similiar classification system for superheroes as Villains though how they create the grade for each varies. In the class at Chester, there are only two Deltas: Mimic and Candle. Brick and Striking Tiger check to find they are all listed as Betas. Singirl tries and looks up her mom but can't seem to find her on any system. She does, however, find the power rating of several demons and even an Omega known as Takofanes. In Metahuman Gym class, Omnipresent takes center stage to demonstrate that just because your an Alpha doesn't mean you can't be a threat. To demonstrate, Omnipresent (an alpha) is going to face all 12 students at once. They need to strike him three times to win. If an individual student is hit three times, that student is out and is removed from the arena by either Omnipresent himself or Machinist who is running the system from outside. The battle doesn't go very well for the students. The class is a giant free for all and Candle's explosive attack ends up hitting more students than Omnipresent does. Singirl uses her new found demonic burst power to get one blow on Omnipresent. Candle ends up being taken out by Noir because he is causing more damage to the students than he is unleashing to Omnipresent. Striking Tiger does a flying dive-bomb while Omnipresent is on top of the flying Singirl. It strikes and later gets a compliment as the first time he has been hit in hand-to-hand combat in a long time. Singirl gets the final blow on Omnipresent. In the end, only five students remain in the arena. Omnipresent talks about how with improved teamwork, he wouldn't have taken a single person out. Later that day, the team gets a red alert. A report has come in of a girl being attacked by a gang in the park. The primary three are dispatched along with the Athenian, Mimic, and Noir. The discover a circle of men around a girl whimpering on the ground. Striking Tiger flying in to scope the girl up and carry her back to their flying shuttle. Meanwhile, the others start taking down the helpless goons in seconds. As the team is celebrating their victory, Striking Tiger starts to head back to check on the girl when their ship explodes. Standing in the midst of the ruins is Gloriana, who laments on how her test of their powers was not as effective as she would have liked. Battle breaks out and doesn't go well for them. They learn quickly that she absorbs energy attacks and Singirl is reduced to doing drains of her energy. Striking Tiger lands a couple of blows. The Athenian, gets hit hard. Although he is still standing, he is bleeding badly. Mimic rushes over and uses a healing power on the Athenian. After Noir realizes her powers have no effect, she goes Invisible, telling Singirl when she finds a way to attack, she will. After a turn, they hear communication from Cloak that they are on the way to help. After being hit by a boulder, Gloriana goes to blast Brick. She critical fumbles her roll and after another roll to test, she uses the wrong power by mistake. Brick gets transformed into a cat. Noir picks him up and runs off to get Brick safe. Striking Tiger is taken down while Athenian recovers from his wounds. Just then, the second ship appears above. Owlet and Cloak stand at the edge ready to jump down to help when Gloriana blasts the ship, destroying it in a massive explosion. Fortunately, both survive their plummet and cloak makes everyone invisible. Frustrated, Gloriana flees. It turns out that Candle was piloting the ship and he is badly injured. He, Athenian, Striking Tiger, and Brick are hospitalized for a couple of days. They learn that Gloriana is an Omega level villain. A week passes before Gloriana appears ago. The entire team is given a red alert and they are all dispatched, approaching from a safe angle to prevent the destruction of their last ship. Brick, seeking revenge for being turned into a cat, jumps off his bike so that he can hit her mid-air. It succeeds and causes enough knockback that she embedded into the side of the hospital she appeared outside of. The battle is fairly chaotic, so chaotic that details are difficult to remember about it. Cloak keeps key players hidden while Projector makes those same key players appear to be attacking from different spots. Owlet uses a flash bomb on Gloriana's eye to give herself cover long enough to land on top of the hospital. Singirl drains Gloriana' energy as much as she can, forcing Gloriana to keep her energy usage to a minimum. Striking Tiger hits her a couple of times, as does Brick, slowly knocking down her STUN. Owlet fires a grapple and ties the unsuspecting Gloriana to the side of the hospital. When Gloriana moves in to strike Singirl, the cord snaps off the already damaged part of the building, pulling her to the ground. Brick runs up and decks her hard but is, shortly after, struck across the side by a very large piece of wall tethered to a cord. During the chaos, Calculator, Candle, and the Athenian are taken out. When the wall crumbled, Owlet fell and was badly injured by the fall. Mimic has, in the meanwhile, been using Nymphs power to cause the females to gain an arousal in him. Then, using Singirl's power, he pulled all of the emotions into himself to up his power level. He continued this for two turns and then had the others lure Gloriana to him. It works as Gloriana goes to attack an illusion version of Singirl created by a fast thinking Cloak and Projector. Mimic unleashes one of Gloriana's own blasts on her. The blast STUNS Gloriana and sends her flying off into the city. Omnipresent teleports himself to her location just in time for her to regain consciousness. She blast him and then zips off into deep space. The game ends as the group learns that after the battle, Mimic has been upgraded to Omega level and Owlet has been upgraded from an Alpha, to a Beta. Mimic mentions, have annoyed, that since the absorption of the energy, he hasn't dropped in power. The games ends with another Japanese Culture night with Michael bringing by some copies of his father's book, fresh from the printer. E103 Preview E104: Split Personality Striking Tiger gets her DNA stolen. Singirl finds herself stuck in two locations at the same time. And what happens when a human, hungry for demonic power and a human with powerful genetic potential come together? You get utter chaos on the streets of Sacramento.

Re: [Log] Chester School For Teens E102: Prerequisites - Episode Aired August 12, 2007 Date: September 20, 2006 The students are in the Personal Finance class and paired off. Each student is required to setup a mock budget for the class and will be keeping an actual budget and practice investing in the stock market. One of the paired off student is required to setup the initial budget this class Brad and V both get this assignment. Yuki is given the task of opening up the checking account at a local bank. While Yuki is at the bank, the bank manager gives her a tour. A teller comes and interrupts the tour as they stand in the safety deposit box room just outside of the vault. Yuki is left alone in that room when the power goes off. Yuki tries the door to exit the safety deposit box but the power has enabled an emergency lock down and she is stuck inside. As she sits there waiting, the vault door suddenly pops open. She peaks inside and sees that money is floating away and disappears. She transforms into Striking Tiger and moves in to stop the thief. Unfortunately, she has difficulty fighting her invisible opponent and the opponent flees without much money. Yuki transforms back into normal, unaware that the invisible enemy is in the same room with her... Back at the headquarters, the team discusses a rash of bank robberies. Four bank robberies have recently taken place in the city. Three of them remain in one area and seem to have been done by a group of red neck robbers known as the Bubba Brothers. The fourth robbery seems to have been a high-tech job and was much closer to the school than any others. During literature class, the class is asked to read a book by Allistir Levin. Michael Williams asks to speak with his teacher in private. After class, a very curious Yuki and V, corner him and find out what that was about. Michael confesses that his father is the author of the book and he didn't want to write on something he knew all to well. He mentions that he has an advanced copy of his dad's next book and the group inquires to see it. He agrees to share. The group goes on some patrols and happens to be patrolling when the next bank robbery occurs. They arrive outside a bank with the Bubba Brother's already inside. Brick smashes the engine block of the getaway van to prevent them from escaping. This enrages the brothers as the open up their shotguns on the heroes. Singirl and Striking Tiger move inside and manage to force the brothers behind the cashier's counter. The Bubba Brothers keep each other covered and lob an occasional grenade at the two of them. Striking Tiger breaks right and goes after Bubba Jim and Singirl breaks left and focuses on Bubba George. Bubba John tosses a grenade that blasts Brick into a manager's office. Brick takes a section of the wall and smashes it over Bubba John. Bubba John slips under the cashier's counter and blasts up with his shotgun. Although it doesn't hit Brick, it knocks Brick over. Brick smashes through the counter and pins Bubba John down who continues to fire his shotgun until he is out of ammo. Meanwhile Singirl and Striking Tiger tangle with their two until they are both out of grenades, and later out for the count. As they are just about over, Bubba Jim makes one last dive for a grenade but is taken out. The three are arrested and hauled off to jail. Back at the base, Yuki finds a note in her student mail slot. It has no return address and seems to have been mailed from within the school. In simple, printed text, it reads: "I know who you are. Stop investigating the bank robbery or I'll reveal your identity to the world. - pebble" Scared, she decides to reveal her identity to Brick and Singirl. However, the three do continue to investigate the bank robbery and find little connection. There have been no recent high-tech robberies and no other banks have been robbed. Further still, the $10,000 that had been stolen from the bank is mysteriously returned a week after it was taken. The game ends as Yuki and V, invite Sabine (aka Noir), Michael (aka Mimic), and Brad over for Japanese Cuisine. End E102 Preview of E103: Big Threats Gloriana unleashes havoc in Sacramento. Mimic gets reclassified to an Omega level Superhero. A rift begins to grow between Nymph and the two female leads.

Re: A Thread for Random Musings Imagine being 1000 words away from finishing the climax of your story. Imagine having unbearable pain in your wrist writing this one post. Imagine not having enough money available to invest in a new keyboard that is better on your wrists. There... you have imagined my day.

Re: [Log] Chester School For Teens If you would like, go for it. It will help provide depth to the game.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... The Great Booger, who is a stretching brick with a oozing, sliming metahuman form is facing Singirl. GM: "The Great Booger tries to grab you." Player: "Abort! Abort!" Candle is attacking the blind Brick. He moves to a new location and states, "It's liking shooting fish in a barrel." Upon smashing the ground to get some pieces of the combat arena, he throws it into Candle. Brick: "The fish bites back." Candle, an energy blaster with fire powers takes a second blow from Brick, leaving him with 10 STUN. GM: "He's not feeling too hot." Player: "No pun intended?" And one line I prepared, months in advance with a very much inside joke but was well worth the out of game reaction: Mimic (aka Michael Williams): "I'm your roommate, Michael Williams."

E101: School Begins - Episode Aired July 22, 2007 Date: September 13, 2006 For Genevieve, Brad, and Yuki, the first day at their new private school was more than ordinary. The Chester School For Teens was, after all, more than an ordinary Magnet School. Designed to accelerate teenagers with a passion for Art, English, or Science, the school also had a special Metahumans program. And the three Sophomores were part of a group of 15 in the pilot program. Orientation was expectedly boring. After orientation, Genevieve, or as she prefers to be call, V, left for her room with her roommate Yuki. Both had received a special card in their welcome kit with the simply instruction to press to their closet mirror when alone. Yuki decided to wait until V had left for lunch. When she pressed the mirror to the closet, instructions appeared on the mirror itself. After following the instructions to record a biometric imprint, she learns that she is to enter the elevator chamber of her closet or one of many public access points for her Metahuman 101 class tomorrow at noon. Meanwhile, Brad discovers that his roommate has still not arrived. He follows the instructions of his card and plays around with the computer system located in the back section of his secure closet. He learns about the regulations for Metahumans in sports and then heads out for lunch where he meets John Robinson and Chuck Berry who are looking forward to joining the school Football team. Yuki meets up with V for lunch at the cafeteria. They run into Erin, an old friend of V, and her roommate, Samantha. Shortly after lunch begins, another friend of V arrives, Ryan. Yuki notices that V withdraws at the discovery that Ryan also is attending the Chester School. After lunch, Yuki and Brad both decide to go to the Gym and work out. Brad finds the weight room inadequate for his Superhuman strength. Yuki uses the punching bags and gets some practice on her Martial Arts. At dinner, Yuki and V find Erin and Samantha with a much larger group. They strike up a conversation with a quiet girl named Kendra Lyons and head back to bed. Brad, meanwhile heads out to a party off campus. He drinks very little but remains until the party ends around 1:30 A.M. The following morning, classes begin. 25 minutes before noon, Yuki enters her closet, changes, and goes to class early. She finds that a young girl who looks dressed like an owl and a warrior almost like they are from the set of 300 are already in class. Not long after others arrive and the class begins. The four instructors for the Metahuman program introduce themselves. The Founder Hans Chester who in his professional days went under the name Zurich, welcomes the class. Omnipresent introduces himself as the Metahuman physician and Metahuman Biology instructor. He tells the class that as he is required to know their secret IDs, he is going to share his. He reveals himself as Peter Smith. Broadcast introduces himself next and will be teaching several classes. Techbolt introduces himself and explains that he is in charge of the Metahuman Gym class as well as Metahuman Shop Class. The students go around introducing themselves next. In a very different order from the game session itself: Calculator: Power Armor Supergenius Candle: Fire Powers Athenian: Claims to be from Ancient Athens, bestowed power from Ares, and the cousin of The Greek. Cloak: Darkness/Light Field Manipulator Noir: Metahuman Descendant going back to Victorian Era France The Great Booger: Stretching Brick with an Oozing Body. He tried to get himself named the Great Ooze but the class rejected the name. Nymph: A very boastful female who reports the ability to manipulate chemical levels. She gets a snort from both V and Yuki. Projector: An illusionist. Chimera: Has the body of a winged serpent, the tail of a scorpion, and other animalistic features. Warp Field: Metahuman with the power to manipulate physics. Owlet: A timid girl who builds her own gadgets and has super senses. The Player Characters: Singirl: V's metahuman ID is a succubus. She says little more about her power. She gets a snort from Nymph. Crouching Kitten: Trying to get the name Crouching Tiger, Yuki introduces herself to the group. She is a martial artist with animal shape shifting powers. Brick: Get chuckles about his name, Brad introduces his character and his superstrength abilities. Zurich, explains that one student was delayed and will be joining the class hopefully later that day. They cover some of the rules of the metahumans for schools and the duties they will be performing. All metahumans will be doing patrols and help with various rescue missions. However, one core team of three metahumans will be formed and they will deal with dispatches to more serious situations. It won't just be those three as there will be a general rotation of of students so that there will typically be 4 or 5 supers present. No sooner is this explained than the emergency incident alarm goes off. There are two buildings half destroyed and on fire. The entire class dispatches on an old Champions vehicle to help rescue survivors and put out the fire. Brick goes into the smaller, less damaged building and climbs up the fourth floor where the stairwell is blocked by rubble and the elevator is broken from a snapped gear. He has as many people as he can climb into the elevator and he lowers it down by his hand. After the first load, he climbs up a floor and gets the rest of the people he can find. After finishing up the fifth floor, he climbs up to the top floor and finds a trapped couple. The elevator shaft is now on fire, so he takes them to the roof of the building and jumps down to a lower neighboring building. While this is going on Crouching Kitten sprouts her wings and begins rescuing people from the top floor with Owlet and Singirl. After the top floor is finished, the move down one floor and repeat. When they get to the sixth floor, the damage is too severe to the structure to find many survivors. Singirl finds a scared child and Couching Kitten goes down deeper and finds that the source of the accident is a meteor of some kind. She discovers a survivor with a strange stone in his chest. She rescues him and takes him outside. Singirl, having now moved down examines the meteor. She is about to grab it and take it out when Calculator stops her. He says the meteor gives off some sort of radiation. She instead grabs another survivor with a stone that is in her chest. Calculator grabs a third victim with a much larger stone embedded into him. By now the Press hs arrived. Despite being told not to talk to the press, Brick does a very brief interview. He answers three questions before Singirl takes the mike away leaving with a "No Comment!" Nymph, however, has gathered a large group of reporters and is doing her very own, extensive interview. Omnipresent sends her away and addresses some questions for the reporters while the class leaves back to school. The rest of the day goes as normal. At night, they watch the news coverage of their heroics. There was also a second incident later in which an unknown caped hero helped pulls survivors from a 13 car pile-up and healed them. Brad, returns from another party and finds his roommate is in, but asleep. The following day, class starts with Metahuman gym. The class is broken into pre-arranged groups of three. The square off in a tournament to earn points to determine if they will be the superheroic team formed for the semester. Due to an odd numbering, some groups will be fighting autocannons and Techbolt. Singirl, Brick, and Crouching Kitten fight autocannons and win, barely. Their next batch is versus the newly arrived Mimic, Projector, and Cloak. Despite the well planned out strategy of their opponents, the players are able to win when Crouching Kitten destroys the flag base. The third match pits Noir, The Great Booger, and Candle against them. This time things don't go well when Noir and Candle focus on Crouching Kitten and take her down. However, after an attack from Singirl sends the Great Booger back, Candle changes plans and goes for the enemy flag guarded by Brick. He blinds Brick and tries to knock him out while he is blind. Unfortunately, Brick breaks the ground with his fist and throws metal panels at Candle, keeping him stunned and unable to counter attack. Singirl handles her own against The Great Booger and Noir while Crouching Kitten recovers. She stealthfully moves up behind Noir and catches her off guard. Singirl damages the flag but The Great Booger's presence forces her up into the air, away from the flag. Finally, Crouching Kitten moves in for a flying kick on the flag and breaks it the rest of the way. Singirl, Brick, and Crouching Kitten become the official super team core 3. Singirl stays back after Noir approaches her to talk. Noir talks to Singirl about her demonic nature. Noir reveals she too has a demonic origin story when her ancestor made a deal with a demon and the power has passed on to the first daughter ever since. Noir goes on to explain that her curse requires a ground that, if established, would mean their minds would be linked and their identities likely revealed to each other. She also explains why she wants to link with Singirl. The link has to be female and she can't trust a mundane would keep her secret. That leaves Singirl, Nymph, Owlet, or to continue to link with pets which bothers her (pets don't make interesting mental conversation). Nymph is too into herself and Owlet seems to withdrawn. Singirl agrees. As Brad, Brick returns to his room. He finds his roommate unpacking. His roommate greats him, unpacks a book entitled: The Next Age of Heroes by Allistir Levine. He extends his hand and introduces himself as Michael Williams*. End E101 Preview of E102: Prerequisites The Bubba Brothers begin a bank robbing spree. Yuki gets locked in a vault. Brad tries out for the football team. * I've been looking forward to this for MONTHS. You see, in Alice's Via game, the Messiah, Michael Williams was sucked into another world written by his father. After being returned home, he later talks about joining a school for people with super powers and later being on superhuman team for some time. The players in the Via game never realized that when I designed a Teen Champions game, I planned on having Michael Williams as one of the player's Roommates. The shock on their faces when he introduced himself was priceless.

Re: A Thread for Random Musings +maximinus +iovico in google turns up nothing. I need to order a coin book from Amazon now. Darnit.

Re: A Thread for Random Musings A lesson to the wise: I never strike first. But when I strike back, I don't hold back. And I'm a pack rat. That's important to remember too.

Re: New to the hero system, trying to figure out some things 5th Revised pg. 346 When you use an autofire maneuver, you make 1 attack roll. For every 2 points you make your attack by, you get another hit. Now I'm not quite sure how you have Autofire setup in that first example but to hit 256 times with Autofire in one phase, you would have to beat the DCV of the target by 254. So it isn't going to work.

Re: GMs: making abilities useful It is ultimately, up to the player, to make non-useful skills useful. Acrobatics, for example, at a cursory glance is really not something you would think of as coming up often. How often does someone need to walk across a tightrope or something like that? But a player can use that skill to simulate lots of cool maneuvers. MIF: Wind Instruments may never come up in battle, but I can use them to create roleplay situations. At the old tavern, I play some music to get the locals to relax and open up some. GM throws down a bonus to Conversation Rolls because of it (or just outright gives the information without a roll ever having to be made). As a GM, you need to be flexible if someone asks, "Can my SS: Biology help at all?" But if the players don't ask, unless it was blatantly setup to use said skill, it isn't the GMs role to find ways to utilize the skill.

Re: Buying a Perk, Independent, Charges Never Recover.... I have a bigger problem with Charges Never Recover than I do with Independent. Independent at least gives you a chance to get the item or power back again.

Re: Bricks Get Hosed, Or Not Actually, when you consider damage classes, it almost evens out the extra points needed for the defenses a brick takes. 45 STR = 35 points (9 DC Attack) 45 Brick Attacks MP (45 points) 3d6 HKA (4m - 18 DC Attack) 9d6 HtH (4m - 18 DC Attack) Compared to, say, an energy blaster who needs to drop 90 points to get an 18 DC attack of some kind.

Re: How to kill characters? Be honest but get to the point. "I'm starting a new campaign. I want you there and I expect this new campaign to go on for a long time. This isn't a reboot that will happen again and again. You said you are okay with your character being killed so I had an idea. How about we give your character a big heroic death? You'd have to create a new character anyway, but this way you also have a great beginning and end to the character." If the campaign is set in the same world as the first, they could also consider having their new character being related or inspired by the death of their first character.

Re: Post-Apocalyptic Hero -- What Do *You* Want To See? I would add it is a very good idea.

Re: Post-Apocalyptic Hero -- What Do *You* Want To See? I wouldn't use Mutant as a package deal. A mutant is really more of an adder to any package deal. Social Limitation + Distinctive Features (if applicable) with mutant abilities. The Mariner in Waterworld is a Survivalist/Road Warrior Mutant where as the Kangroo things from Tank Girl are a sort of Ganger/Warrior Mutant group. It looks like though you hit all of the key archetypes for the genre. Several post-apocalyptic movies and books have the psychotic character that is a loose cannon from having drank too much sea water or some such similiar history. It isn't big enough to fit as its own package deal but might make a good adder to throw on either the academic or the survivalist. I approve.

Re: Post-Apocalyptic Hero -- What Do *You* Want To See? What archetypes are you using for the Post Apoc character creation if any?

Re: Infinite Crisis Read 52.

Re: Some issues with the Ultimate Series... I think the problems you are finding within the Ultimate Series falls into one of two categories. 1) The Power doesn't fit all character builds If you are building a Brick with no STR Cap and no Power Frameworks, the Adrenaline Surge is pointless when you can do a +24 STR, No Figured Characteristics. On a somewhat side note, I don't believe No Figured Characteristics should count as a limitation for cap purposes. If it did, you could build a +20 STR, No Figured Characteristics on a character with NCM. You may not get your boost to PD and BODY but it saves you from the double penality. See my point? 2) The Power Requires GM Approval A Change Environment Radiation Field or Zero-Gravity Field should not be permitted without a GM's approval. It is too open to abuse to just be allowed through without major issue. Power abuse, by the way, is building an Indirect, EB with Double Knockback and a Linked Change Environment (Zero-Gravity Field) built as an Instant Duration. 6d6 Blast causes 6d6 and sends them skyward up to as much as 47" into the air (though a more realistic figure of 23") and THEN gravity turns back on to give them falling damage.

Re: combat calculation As a player, I roll and subtract the result from my OCV + 11. I announce to the GM what DCV I hit. "I hit a " OCV + 11 - (3d6) "."

Re: Review My XP Policy Please take this discussion to the NGD if you wish to continue it.

Re: Some issues with the Ultimate Series... Change Environment has two purposes. It can make similated effects that shouldn't be cheaper in cost than the power it emulates. It is also a way to throw an environmental condition into an area. Radiation is an enviornmental condition just as mattingly pointed out that change the temperature levels. It is also used for creating Zero Gravity environments. Try writing that up for less than CE.

Re: Some issues with the Ultimate Series... And don't forget that some GMs cap STR without a limitation of some kind (NFC not counting). In my Teen Champions Game, the Brick is going to have a low cap on STR at the start.

Re: WHY is combat so slow and what have you done about it? I still have yet to find a good computer version of Axis and Allies.

Re: WHY is combat so slow and what have you done about it? And really people... long games? Warhammer at 9 hours? Try playing a single game of Axis and Allies.