archermoo

Re: A Thread for Random Musings Remember: Eat one live toad first thing in the morning, and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.

Re: What are the most annoying GM habits? GMs that stress thinking your way out of situations rather than fighting your way out, but when you do so, give you fewer XPs for the session because there wasn't a fight.

Re: A Thread for Random Musings I really miss Ofra Haza. I never actually met her or anything, but it makes me feel a bit empty inside that she is no longer creating her wonderful music in the world.

Ooo Ooo Ooo...I fourth them! With an agreement that an index of Advantages/Limitations would be an acceptable way of doing things.

You know, I really love having the Butterfly Pavilion close to my house.

No ruffled feathers, sorry if it seemed like that. I was honestly curious if you'd read what the book has to say about TK. Because it didn't seem like it from what you were saying in your posts. In any case, glad I could help. Although keep in mind that yes you can use an object of opportunity to do STR/5 DC or object BODY + DEF whichever is lower. But you can also just do a straight STR/5 DC by punching with TK. What an object gives you is the same thing it gives a Brick: If you use a large object, you can do AE damage. Otherwise there is no reason to use an object with TK to just hit someone. Unless the TK is bought with a limit saying that it cannot do damage directly.

The point is that he put the area effect up such that it won't matter where on the planet it hits, as long as it hits somewhere. So he's just trying to tack on the extra minuses for targeting something the size of a planet to get more of the 640 autofire shots to hit. Basically an attempt to get around the rules.

Yes, but at least to my mind they were still targeting a specific hex of the building, rather than the building as a whole. That and real world physics doesn't have to deal with people trying to get around it's rules.

At the point where your intent is to target something near the object, rather than targeting the object itself.

There is a difference between targeting a character who is at 0 DCV in a hex that would normally be 3 DCV and your example. If you want to target your effect somewhere specific, target the hex. "I want to target the planet instead of a hex" is just a (IMNSHO) bad attempt to get around the rules. If you want to allow it in your games, more power to you.

Have you actually read the text for TK? It specifies picking up things and throwing them as something TK is designed to be used for. It also specifies just simply hitting people with a TK fist as something it is designed to do. If you can show me something in the book that states that deafening people by clapping erasers together is something specifically in mind when STR was designed, then sure, let 'em do it. And again, I'm not saying "let them do it all the time for free". I'm saying that since they paid points for the power, and that one of the things that the power is designed to do is allow people to do damage at range, I don't make them pay extra to be able to do it. Letting the people use a power as designed shouldn't require extra points. When someone buys STR in your game, do you require them to buy leaping if they use their "free" leaping from STR too much? Or if someone buys Desolid, do you make them pay extra if they go through walls on a regular basis?

Well, it isn't a freeby ranged attack. It is one that they paid for. Do you make people pay for an EB or RKA to pick up and throw things with their normal STR? Picking up things and throwing them with TK is one of the things specifically listed in FREd (p147) as a thing TK can be used for. And it is only Indirect in some ways. Also specifically discussed in FREd (p147).

Keep in mind that is only true if you didn't pay points for the weapon. FREd pg53 col 1 par 1 specifies that if you pay points for a weapon you automatically know how to use it, barring a Limitation to the contrary. Granted in the specific example it wouldn't apply (handy harpoon picked up from the environment), but it is always good to point these things out.

Sure, but keep in mind that hitting the planet at your -150 to -200 means that you it it SOMEWHERE. Not necessarily where you wanted to. Not necessarily where there are bad guys. And besides that, there is already a way of dealing with general targeting. Hexes have a DCV of either 0 or 3. As tetsuji already pointed out.

I've always done it that if you are big enough to fill an entire hex, move-throughs and -bys are considered AoE. So you target a hex with them. No idea what the official ruling is...

PRE mattered almost as much, and could matter more depending on the circumstances. And you can abstract any of the stats to Advantages/Disadvantages if you want. Don't like presence? Abstract it out and buy presence defense instead. Don't like STR? Just buy the figureds that it effects seperately, and buy the damage and other effects seperately. Don't like DEX? Just buy SPD, combat levels, and turn the DEX based skills into a set of general skills. I LIKE having COM as a stat in the game. Having attractivness abstracted out like it is in GURPS is one of the (many) things I don't like about it.

Personally, I've had quite the opposite experience. It wasn't until I started reading these boards several years ago that I realized that not everyone considered COM to be as important as I and the groups I have played with considered it to be. It is generally a great source of roleplaying and enjoyment in most games I've been in and groups I've played with. And probably the most important of any of the stats in pure roleplaying situations.

Hmmm...that'd be a fair amount of work. My avatar is actually a character from an entirely different gaming system. And to top it off, the system is a LARP. Although I haven't played him in a few years. He is a very experienced thief and mercenary named Tolman Bux. Over the years that I played him I managed to collect a fair amount of fairly neat stuff, although nothing quite as cool as something I picked up in the first game I played. His "pet" couatl Corwin (pet being in quotes because he is fully sentient). A few game useful powers, but mostly the amazing role-playing opportunities he affords me. One of the most amusing was during a game that I didn't enjoy much I was killed as part of a set peice encounter (raised later in the game at no loss). One of the things that Corwin can do is cast a fairly small damaging attack a few times per day. So after I was gutted I sat on the field and cast it a couple of times at the NPC that killed me. Each time she would come over and smack me a few more times to make sure I was dead, but never bothered to search me. Finally she got pissed and called our team's GM over (each team of PCs on course have their very own GM to make calls and explain what you "really" see...) who knew what I was doing and while trying not to laugh his a$$ off told her it was all legit. One of the few bright spots in a mostly disappointing game.

Well, lets see. Not being able to use the skill at all costs 0 points. So being able to do it, but do it poorly should cost more than that. And getting the skill at an 8- costs 1 point. So it sounds like being able to do something, but do it worse than an 8- should cost somewhere between 0 and 1 point. And if you aren't interested in dealing with fractional points, then it should just cost 1 point.

Huh...never had any problem with either. But then again, I also don't have any problems with UNIX man pages.

Re: Invulnerability headaches. So this begs the question of how much cost would you assign to the power that lets you damage someone with your Invulnerability power?

Re: Balance I've had characters that have gotten a great deal of use out of having NRM on attacks. One of many examples was a fight our team had on an oil drilling platform in the middle of the ocean. My character was a battlesuit character and one of his attacks was NRM and Autofile (10 shot). One of the villains tried to get away by zipping out at some gawdawful NCM rate. The Ref had obviously forgotten about my NRM attack as he blandly announced that she (a supergirl type) was about 400" away, knowing that none of us could catch her. I asked if she'd flown straight away from the rig (and so had no lateral movement for velocity DCV) and got the expected "Of course". So I calmly shot her at her 0 DCV, and hit with all 10 shots. Then I felt bad about it, since unbeknownst to me she didn't have most of her defenses up because they were in a MP with her "get outta dodge" extra flight. She still didn't take any body from the shots, but the impact with the water at supersonic speeds on the other hand...she ended up in a coma for several weeks.

Heh. Happy to oblige.

Ah, but I don't care about the name used, just the mindset involved. People can think of computers as magic if they want, I don't care. It is the mystical/religious mindset that I object to. The idea that there are questions that should not be asked, and answers that cannot exist. That mindset takes resources away from the persuit of actual knowledge. And to my mind, if anything is a sin, that qualifies.

So is it that you redefine the word magic to specifically mean only power derived from evil forces? Or that if something has the label magic applied to it that it then becomes evil? I guess what I'm looking for is what makes the wielding of supernatural power via magic different than wielding supernatural power via any other method. Superman's powers are as much supernatural (i.e. beyond nature) as any magic. Why is the one evil and not the other?