wick

Re: The Science of Real Super Powers

Some new robots are being tested by the military.

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I saw a video where this machine was walking successfully on rough terrain and compensating for slipping on ice. Current thought s on military application is for carrying equipment in rough terrain and to help medevac wounded. I can't help but draw a comparison to the airplanes of pre/early WW I who's initial use was very limited as a support/recon platform but later when bombs and guns added the machine ended up revolutionizing warfare.

Re: Making nuclear weapons look like firecrackers

There were some scientists in the Manhattan project that thaought that there was a chance the nuclear chain reaction could spread to the atmosphere igniting it. They tested it anyways and then dropped a few more on Japan.

Nuclear energy at the time was in its infancy and so was understanding. Knowing what we know now about the long term effects of radiation I think that the men of the time would have not dropped the bombs on main land Japan.Generations later there are still cases of genetic damage caused from the A-bombs in the Japanese survivors.

Now put this in light of the volcano weapon. Even Vulcanists and Geologists in the 1940's could have predicted the long term repercussions of massive volcanic activity. This weapon would be quickly catergorized as a Doomsday weapon. "Break Glass" in case of Japenese invasion and take over most of the U.S. and even then think twice. Certainly not while you are winning the war.

Also consider this, Japan was logistically defeated by the time we used the A bombs. Japan is an island and needed to be supplied with many rawmaterials via sea going vessels. Our submarines and other Navy assets deprived them of many of the raw materials needed to wage war. The Japanese civilians were being issued bamboo spears in case Japan was invaded. I am sure the U.S. would have followed this same strangulation strategy in alternate earth. in this case destroying the world to finish off a nearly defeated enemy is ..well, insane. The main reason to use the A-bomb was actually political..i.e... defeat Japan so that the Russians can't get a piece of the Japanese Empire when they surrender like they did in Germany.

Re: Making nuclear weapons look like firecrackers

I would convince the super scientist to first demonstrate the weapon to the Japs on a small scale first. Say 1 valcano today and one tomorrow with threats of more to come. Remember we did not nuke all of Japan just one city on one day and a different one on the next, with the concealed threat of another bomb on day 3 and so forth. Of course they did not know we only had 2. One or two small demonstrations should not cause world wide catastrophe.

A more heroic approach would be to have the valcono weapon set off on an island under Japanese control to reduce loss of lives etc...of course this was in real life suggested when demonstrationing the power of the A-bombs but was rejected by the government in favor of Hiroshima and Nagaski for various reasons.

Re: Assigned Cities... and stuff.

You can include rednecks that have got their hands on way too much firepower. Enough that local law enforcement is afraid.

Where is this located? Location can really play into the things the group encounters. Crocodile men in a Lousiana Bayou. Native American indians in Western Nebraska up to no good summoning spirits to harrass the townsfolk. Bigfoot in the wilds of Oregon or washington State terrorizing campers.

Re: Public ID or Secret ID

In the case of the Incredible Hulk you can says:

1. Distinctive features: Large, muscular, half-naked, green guy

2. Reputation: Hulk Smash...everything.

These are way different than having a Public ID.

Public ID is Tony Stark head of stark industries who also happens to sideline as Iron Man.

You can even have both a secret and a private identity. Say a captain of industry buy day and a masked figure by night.

Re: Don't you recognize your own kid? Oh no, what have I done?!

I would tell her that in the super hero line of work, being critically injured or killed is a real possibility and I accepted those risks when I put on this cape. Also, that I would not give up the happiness of having my wife and child.

I would then slap her in the back of the head and ask her why she did not just wish for a cure to my condition rather than to screw up the timelines..yeeesh..kids these days.

Re: How to Save That Train!

Or the way Hancock stop the train in his movie.

Re: A question about building spears.

Yes, a Focus can have several, or many, Powers associated with it.

 

Don't use Independant unless you are willing to lose the ponts permanently.

 

1 Charge Recoverable applies only to the spear being thrown. I'd buy the spear as a Hand to Hand Killing Attack, with Stretching, and then buy Range Based on STR as a Naked Advantage, and with the Charge Limitation on that and also a "Lockout" Limitation (because if you throw it, you can't use it hand to hand until you get it back.)

 

Obvious Accessible Focus (OAF) is a very common Limitation for melee weapons. It is usually considered incompatible with Restrainable. Restrainable is often for something that can be restrained but not taken away.

 

If you're playing Champions - i.e. your character is a comic book type superhero - Real Weapon is an optional Limitation. It means you are apt to break it if you attack a wall with it, etc. If you don't take the Limitation, you have a "super spear" that might be able to do things a real, normal weapon can't.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

House of the Palindromedary

This is actually a super powered villian, I am recreating The Predator from the movie of the same name. In Predator 2 the villians spear is actually picked up by the protagonist and used against the villian that is why I was thinking independent. This could probably happen with an OAF , so Independent is probably over kill. A recoverable charge does not really fit either since the spear cannot be easily replaced, say he misses a throw and the spear lands in the Ocean. He would either have to do some underwater retrieval or return to his ship/homeworld to get another.

Here is what i am thinking:

Naked power advantage: Throw spear. Ranged based on Strength +0.25 for HKA up to 60 active points. 2 pts

How would I apply the limitation of 1 charge recoverable when thrown and lock out? Would this go on the HKA or the Naked advantage or both.

Predator Spear: HKA 2d6 (30 pts), +1/2 Armor piercing. Reduce End: 0 END +1/2, OAF -1 Extremly difficult to replace -1.

Long weapon: 1" Stretching Reduced Endurance +1/4, OAF -1, Always direct -1/4, No Noncom stretch -1/2, only to cause damage -1/2, no Velocity damage -1/4 =2 pts real cost for stretching

It just gets a little confusing trying to figure out what limitations/advantages go where when you use mutiple powers to describe one thing.

Also, how would the Long weapons and throwing work if the spear is part of an Environmental control? I would guess that you would build the HKA into the framework and just leave theses adders out of that.

Re: A question about building spears.

The actual spear is just a focus for whatever powers you want to write up. I'm sure there is an "official" spear written up somewhere, maybe in the equipment book, but you can write it up however you like.

 

....

 

Be sure to make the RKA a one charge, recoverable.

 

Broadsword -}--->

I think the paradigm that I need to break is not understanding that one focus can have multiple powers

Another question is this....I can justify giving the the spear the following limitations: Independent, 1 charge recoverable, Obvious accessible Focus, restrainable. But some of these seem to overlap in effects, for example, can't an obvious accessible be restrained and taken away from the character therefore it would be redundant to also have restrained and independent too.

I want to build a HKA spear. What is confusing me is how you combined the stretching and HKA power. Do you make these powers linked ( Stretching linked to the HKA) or build as a mutipower?

Re: Hellboy

Only 2 clips of 4 charges on the standard ammo sees a little low.

I am not super familair with the comic but in the movie he could speak Russian as well. He also seemed to have less or at least not very skilled in many of the knoweldge skills you list. Of course, how accurate is the movie?

Re: The best Superpet?

I can't help but think of the battle cats commercial on Saturday night Live from a decade or more ago.

She could have a variable power pool and basically have a diferent experiment/ pet for each adventure.

Re: Legal Questions: Pink Defense

No' date=' you cannot vandalize a person, only an inanimate object such as a building or a car. Throwing acid causes pain and potentially causes scars, don't think (I'm assuming) painlessly turning someone pink rises to the same level. But disagreements like this are why we have judges (and remember in this case the judges are literally controlled by the GM).[/quote']

 

 

And would you say that Carrie from Stephen Kings book of the same name was not scarred by being turned red from a substance that was easily cleaned up. Sure the pigs blood did not cosmetically transform her for even a long period of time but it sure did long term mental/emotional issues that were quite damaging to all.

 

 

I am wondering on the mechanism for the Defense. if it is a precog rather than a mind reader. That means if I am an employee and I perform an action that harms the company I would turn pink, regardless of my intent. If you have a human or AI on the other end of the Precognition it could decide if the action deserves triggers the defense. If a CEO decides it is in the company's best interest to take a loss in the short term in order to get greater gains in the long run he should not turn Pink if there is a deicision maker precog but may turn pink if there is not. It also depends on how far out the precog can see. If he can see out 6 months then a CEO taking a risk for gains that will show up a year out will be pinked.

 

Also how are the heros trying to bring down the company? Legally, physically destroying, uncovering a secret to bring in the Government etcc?

 

Solution: Use computer hacking. You can remote access to cause harm or gather data.

 

Use robots/spirits/elementals or what have you to perform your actions.

 

Set up a long term trap. Example: If I were an employee and xeroxed incriminating data that could bring the company down and mailed it to a private post office box, and then quit the company (i have intent but the precog cannot see intent only results of my actrions right?). I could then bring the data out in the open at a future date that is currently past where the precog can see (by the time the PRECOG sees the results it is too late to stop the action).

Re: Legal Questions: Pink Defense

I would think that there would be a lot of Pink people working at the company. I mean it is pretty extreme trigger. just think about an employee who gets frustrated at the fax machine and...whoosh turns Pink. The trigger seems really too touchy to be useful.

If you think about this in terms of Dye markers in bank vault money bags (the closest analogy) sure the criminals can't sue the banks for being dyed (not sure in if true) but then again bank robbery is a fairly serious crime and criminals know there maybe dye and take the risk. In terms of the pink defense, in a normal society people have an expectation not to be turned pink for some minor activity, it seems overkill for minor crimes much less bad feelings towards the company.

Intent: People can be held in the Custody of law enforcement officers if there is a risk of a person committing a serious crime but they are otherwise not imprisioned for very long unless they had committed a crime and are otherwise unpunished. This company seems to punish people and mice above and beyond established legal boundaries. Only in extreme cases such as threats made against our countries leader or threats against national security is there an extreme reaction for actually doing nothing.

Ohh.. and my advice on taking down this company:

A. find an insider and convince him that he needs to provide you with certain information to "help the company." In fact the information would be damning.

B. infiltrate the company and take the pink hit, hope that you can fix this condition later. Note: That being pink colored will only have cause a major/ imprison reaction toward security at the company that you just took down..i.e. you will just have the stigma of being pink.

C. Same as B, but up your Power Defense.

Re: Military Super Squad

I am in the Navy too and as for some of the skills...well it depends on a few things.

1. Was the Navy guy an Officer or enlisted.

2. If enlisted what rate ( certain rates get more or less weapons training on others or even other useful skills..ex: Corpsmen may get Paramedic and weapon skills) If an Officers what designator ( he could be an an aviator or even a Seal Team leader.) From his name I am guessing that he is a seal but remember Seals can come from sailors in the fleet and he may have some other useful skills besides combat oriented ones.

Navy basic Training ( It has been awahile so bear with me) should include some familiarity with weapons but definitely not as much as marines or Army. Sailors also learn a good deal about firefighting and teamwork (if your ship/submarine is on fire you can't call the local fire department.)

I am curious about the origin of their powers. If they were purposely intended to be super soldiers then they may have been trained and groomed for the position but if it was accidental the sailor could have been one of the cooks on the ship and would therefore not be as well trained.

Re: First Wave of Superhumans: How Long?

Cont...

In the above the mutants have been around for a gen or 2 but have not made a great impact on the world. This means I can have a more or less normal history up to recent dates and saves me a lot of work while not having to have mutants appear out of thin air.

Magic has been mostly shielded from the world by a magic stone guard by a mystical order of monks deep in Tibet. But recently the Chinese Army in conjunction with a team of Villians called the Zodiak Cult have attacked the monastary and taken the stone. So magic using heroes and extradimensional beings (Demons, Faeries, etc..) will start to reappear in the world.

Technology: Tech is reaching a point where some geniuses/ organizations will start making use of armored Power suits, robots, and energy weapons but for the most part this tech is really not mainstream.

Aliens: They may have various reasons to visit this back water and some have been visiting the planet covertly for as far back as the beginning of civilization. So far no overt aliens in the public eye except for the occassional UFO sighting.

Time travelers: Due to all of this power coming into the world at about the same, the present is a great time for change but there may be some temporal visitations prior to the present for a variety of reasons.

Re: First Wave of Superhumans: How Long?

I think that incorporating real world events can add some realism.

In my World some of the first people with super powers appeared after/around World War II. Source of powers were Nazi and Japanese POW or Death camps. In real history it is a fact that experiments were conducted on Holocaust death camp prisoners by the Nazis and the Japanese would experiment on POWs and Chinese. Most of the people affected actually displayed little to no super powers but their offspring would start to have real powers after a few generations. Since many of these people came to the United States as refugees and remained here.....there would be a higher number of mutants in the U.S. Their were also a handful of instances of a covert group experimenting on normals to produce Supers..again human experimentation in the U.S. is not unknown in real history.

In Russia: Other events such as Stalin's purges led to some people exhibiting some powers in order to survive but they remained hidden from the repressive government. Chernobyl and the horrible pollution in Russia speed up the frequency of mutations. A good many of these people had the abilities to circumvent or even break through the iron curtain to travel to America or other parts of the World. Others would lie low so as not to draw attention to themselves. A hand few of communist true believers were actually inducted into super soldier programs to try to enhance their powers and to breed more supers. These programs were scrapped with the collapse of the Soviet Union and in hindsight actually helped in the economic defeat of the USSR by the West because the program was very expensive and produced supers that the KGB later had to hunt down becuase they grew too powerful to control.

Re: Would you play a game with pre-generated characters?

I am a new GM to Champions and I made a few pregens A. for practice using the system and B. Becuase if I get new players it is tough for me to explain how to make characters. If I can get experience players I will allow them to make their own with the stipulation not to take advantage of my inexperience.