Armitage

On 6/10/2021 at 1:00 PM, Lord Liaden said:

 

You're dumb enough to paddle your canoe into a flock of swans, you deserve what you get.

It almost looks like cover art from one of those old "men's adventure" magazines, where a guy in tattered clothing would be getting attacked by a swarm of coconut crabs or fist-fighting a mountain lion.

On 6/14/2021 at 11:34 AM, Mr. R said:

 The other was Shadow Queen and Void (her darkness field over the heroes, him tport in and RKA no range, but he had radar so no minuses!)

 

Void got an update in a later book, sort of.  Underworld Enemies revealed that the shadow hand he could generate actually belonged to a predator from another dimension that eventually fully emerged into the world, sucked him dry of life force, and went out to continue preying on humans.

On 5/30/2021 at 8:00 PM, steriaca said:

Marvel has Swarm, a nazi scientist who merged with a mutated hive of bees. It is unknown if the scientists mind still exist in the human skeleton or if the body is merely food and home for the hive.

 

And someone also ate the original spider which bit Peter Parker and it somehow became a hord of spiders in a human skin suit. I forgotten what they called this thing. Update: It calls itself The Thousand. Your welcomed for the nightmares the image of a thousand spiders in a human skin brings.

 

There was also the intelligent cockroach swarm that could possess human bodies, that infiltrated and destroyed the SHIELD Helicarrier in the 1985 Sensational She-Hulk graphic novel.

One of the example characters in Ultimate Metamorph was a Cyber Hero character with chip slots that let him change his skills and personality, built as a Variable Power Pool.

Numatsu Skillslot System, Model Delta, With Personachip Upgrade

Variable Power Pool (Skill and Personality Pool), 40 base + 20 control cost; Extra Time (takes 1 Turn to change slots; -¾), Restrainable (-¼), Limited Use (see text; -½), No More Than Four Slots Can Be Active At Once (-¼), No Skill-Based Slot Can Have More Than 11 Active Points (-½)

Personality chips are Multiforms that contain a complete personality with its own memories and mental skills.  He doesn't have a version that lets him slot physical skills.  With the latest rules, the 11 AP Limitation would be replaced by just buying the appropriate Control Cost.

9 hours ago, Starlord said:

Stage designer Adolph Göring was unavailable for comment.  

"How pretty is this stage?", from the CPAC live feed a couple hours ago.

Dragon Magazine #207 (July 1994) had an article entitled "Great Responsibilities", about superheroes taking an active role in their communities instead of waiting for things to happen.

Part of the article dealt with Pandora's Box, a nonprofit national hero team franchise that trains novice heroes on the condition that they volunteer in places like homeless shelters and hospitals during their training.  Pandora's Box teams are funded by businesses in the communities where the teams operate and any profits generated by the teams go into a fund to benefit the communities.  Only one large business can fund a team, but any number of smaller community businesses.

A lot of the article involves superheroes volunteering for real world groups and how it could be worked into a campaign.  Public appearances for the American Cancer Society.  Volunteering at a halfway house or teaching classes in prison.  Power-based construction and renovation with Habitat for Humanity.  Powered collection and transportation of supplies for the Red Cross or UNICEF.

There have also been examples given of powered armor characters who use OIAID instead of Focus.  It takes time for them to put on the suit, and they can be prevented from putting on the suit, but once it's on, it never gets damaged or taken away.  That's more a story function than something inherent in the suit though.  Molybdenum Man's enemies never manage to break or remove his armor during an encounter in the comics, even if they knock him out.

4 hours ago, Dr. MID-Nite said:

 

Truth. A second term for Trump guarantees unrest on a scale that will make what we're seeing currently feel like a lovely stroll in the park.

Especially considering that Barr was recently urging Federal prosecutors to charge any demonstrators after a hypothetical Trump reelection with attempting to overthrow the government.

Star Hero 5e, page 197, said that the Earth has 86 BODY.

"A rocky planet like Earth has a volume of about 1.37 x 10^20 hexes, if it’s considered a perfect sphere. Assuming it all counts as stone (19 BODY, 5 DEF), it has a total BODY of 86 (base of 19, +1 for each doubling of size)."

Star Hero 6e, page 230, only talked about the BODY of one 2m sphere, but assumed you had to hit the whole planet at once.

"A rocky planet like Earth has a volume of about 1.37 x 10^20 cubic meters, if it’s considered a perfect sphere. assuming it all counts as stone (19 BODY, 5 PD/10 ED), a character needs an attack capable of doing 29 BODY to every part of the planet at once."

Those 6e volume numbers are off, since a cubic hex is roughly 7 cubic meters.  5e and 6e shouldn't be the same.

If the Find Weakness is dependent on a roll, Lack of Weakness could be built as Change Environment, like using it to make yourself hard to see.  The point cost doesn't come out to a flat amount per -1 though.

Change Environment (-1 to Find Weakness PER Rolls), Persistent (+1/4), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (3 Active Points); No Range (-1/2), Self Only (-1/2)

Total cost: 1 point.

-2 is 3 points.  -3 is 5 points.  -4 is 7 points.  -5 is 8 points.

On 4/12/2020 at 8:27 PM, Lord Liaden said:

George Carlin used to be one of my favorite comedians. His earlier social commentary was seasoned with wry humor and clever whimsy; but as he got older he became increasingly bitter and nasty. I'm not saying he didn't have cause, and ripping fools and reprobates a new one is a valid activity; but IMO it doesn't belong on an entertainer's stage.

What I always remember now is his 1999 show "You Are All Diseased".  During a rant about how people have become too obsessed with being safe and have forgotten that danger is fun, he said that he was looking forward to terrorists attacking the US and would consider it exciting entertainment.

But that's off-topic.

6 hours ago, Starlord said:

Domestic violence cases on the rise worldwide

Mexican violence?

(Reference)

The Body Control Powers chapter in Champions Powers also had "Let Me Lend You a Hand", allowing the character to detach their limbs and operate them as independent characters.

It was a Summon, Slavishly Devoted, with Mind Link to the limbs and the Limitation that the character can't use his own limbs while the Summon is active.

On 4/9/2020 at 10:55 PM, Ragitsu said:

 

Problem is, in the United States (of America 😇), the Overton Window has shifted far to the right; what is deemed "insanely far left" here by some is actually reasonable day-to-day policy in other countries. Universal healthcare is a prime example of what I have in mind: "communism", apparently.

There's an expression I've seen, that the modern definition of "Liberal" is "someone slightly to the right of Ronald Reagan."

Of course, that means the real Reagan, not the mythical Saint Reagan that many modern Conservatives revere.

12 hours ago, Old Man said:

Remember the good old days back when Trump refused to hold any press conferences at all?

That was back when he was having political rallies.  The press conferences are the only way he can get his attention and admiration fix now.

2 hours ago, DShomshak said:

Perhaps someone with better internet access than me could find and post a link to the NYTimes story that just appeared in my local paper? It's worth reading. It's the story of how the federal govt set out to buy a whole bunch of ventilators to have on han d for just such emergencies as we have now, and didn't.

 

The story is here.

It also prompted a response from the company that acquired Covidien, saying "That was before we took over.  It wasn't us."

The section on resetting Triggers in 6E1 compares an instantly resetting Trigger to a Constant Power, so a resetting attack could be ruled to affect targets in the same way.

3 hours ago, Starlord said:

I just heard on my local news that alcohol sales are up 50 percent compared to last year at this time, and online hard liquor sales are up 200 percent over the same time frame.

 

I work for a chemical company that makes cleaning products and disinfectants.  I don't know if it's slowed down (working from home), but for a while we were getting more than a year of normal sales for some of our products every day.

Normal sales - 100 cases per month.  Someone places an order for 1700 cases.

On 2/6/2020 at 1:09 PM, Starlord said:

 And boy did he play the victim in his acquittal speech

He's been playing the victim since literally Day One, when he claimed the media and the National Park Service were deliberately using photos that made his inauguration crowd look small.

He's in the process of turning the US military into mercenaries (Saudi Arabia, South Korea).  They have greater value if they're immune to war crime charges.

On 10/9/2018 at 1:08 PM, Lord Liaden said:

 

You don't see the label, "liberal," being used to silence and ostracize citizens critical of government and society, the way "communist" was once used.

But we do have anti-Trump protestors described as "angry mobs" and proposals being made to restrict the right to protest.

Quote

“They have encouraged mob rule,” Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) said on the Senate floor Friday. Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) said there was “a paid mob trying to prevent senators from doing the will of their constituents,” while Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) wondered on Twitter: “Imagine the coverage on cable news if an angry mob of conservatives stormed the steps of the Supreme Court building.”

Quote

Under the proposal introduced by the interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, in August, the administration is looking to close 80% of the sidewalks surrounding the White House, and has suggested that it could charge “event management” costs, for demonstrations.

Unfortunately, the only archived link for Terran spaceships is from 2003, so only one of the three ships is available.  The others appeared in Digital Hero though.

Years ago, there was a section on the old site that had player-created Star Hero items, as a supplement to The Spacer's Toolkit.  I have a hard copy that I printed out back then, but I'm replacing that stuff with digital copies.  I could scan it, but I'm trying to find the original.  I've been digging through the Wayback Machine, but I'm having trouble finding it.  Does anyone remember approximately when it was online and where it was on the site?

EDIT: Never mind.  I found it in 2006 under the Star Hero link on the right side of the page.

It turns out that Trump's Tweet followed him actively rejecting a White House statement praising McCain.

Apparently unconfirmed report that the shooter was a competitor in the Madden tournament who lost, opened fire, and then killed himself.