Jayde Tiger

Re: Blue Beetle's Disads? The fact that he was killed by Max Lord and is still dead should be worth a hefty Physical Disad . . . . I know, BAD JOKE, but someone had to say it.

Re: Defensive Luck - Just a Power Gamer's Tool?? I forgot to add: Would you apply the defences to Area Effect Attacks which are normally not dodged? JT

SO . . . The brick picks up a rock, car, partner, etc and throws it with strength - he/she pays endurance for Strength. The weaponmaster is carrying 10 throwing knives and can throw them to the furthest extent their strength will allow (Range Based On Strength) and pays no Endurance. JT

I'm sorry if this has been already covered, but I need a little clarification here: 26pts - Armor (12 PD/12 ED), Hardened (+1/4) (45 Active Points); Limited Power Power loses about a third of its effectiveness (Luck Based or similar disad; -1/2), Nonpersistent (-1/4) 31 pts - Force Field (12 PD/12 ED), Hardened (+1/4), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2), Persistent (+1/2) (54 Active Points); Limited Power Power loses about a third of its effectiveness (Based on Luck or similar disad; -1/2), Nonpersistent (-1/4) 24pts - Combat Luck Combat Luck is really confusing me. Why is it cheaper than Armor with similar limitations? This led me to try and compare it to Force Field as well. I realise the first two above are likely illegal builds, but I was trying to illustrate a point. All three builds are hardened, all three builds are non-persistant. The -1/2 disadvantage for Based on Luck, and a post in the Rules FAQ have confused me further: It doesn’t work if he’s asleep, unconscious, Isn't that when a character would want to be lucky? Isn't his luck all that would protect him in this case? or deliberately throws himself in the way of an attack (for example, to save a comrade from injury). This one makes sense because he is actively fighting against his own good luck. Nor does it protect him from damage in most situations where he deliberately does something he knows will hurt him (such as performing a Move By/Through, both of which cause him to take some of the damage he does to the target). Again he is actively fighting against his own good luck. It won’t apply if the character is Surprised (see page 380); the GM may require a PER Roll or other roll to determine if the character perceived the attack in time to use his Combat Luck. If he is surprised, he is unlucky, and loses the benefit of his armor, but if he sees the attack coming (perceives it in time) he gets "luckier" and can avoid more damage. Because Combat Luck depends on a character’s ability to dodge, block, or otherwise avoid damage. Now I'm really confused. Is the character talented at dodging/avoiding damage, or is he lucky. The former suggests control by the character, the latter suggests "fate smiles upon him" if the character knew he was attacking someone with a Damage Shield. But that depends largely on how the GM chooses to interpret the concept of “deliberately†putting one’s self in harm’s way; sometimes it might not be appropriate to apply Combat Luck. If the character didn’t know about the Damage Shield, maybe his Combat Luck would protect him... once. This answer reverses the control vs fate model above. If the character knows about the damage shield, he's hoping his luck will protect him, (he perceived the attack as in the surprise example) and does not benefit from the protection, yet if he doesn't know its there (is surprised by it) he might be protected by his Combat Luck. I guess my feeling is that Combat Luck should simulate "fate smiling on the character" when they should normally be hurt. The way it is written, the character can actively control their own luck and become harder to hit when they know an attack is coming. Any comments would be appreciated. I hope I have been clear in explaining my confusion. Please ask if I have not. This all started because a build for an upcoming campaign took defensive maneuvers to reduce or eliminate the chance of surprise, and ended up paying less for their "Armor" than the Brick Would you reduce the amount of the "Based on Luck" modifier, since the Defensive Luck Armor becomes far less limited?? Thanks for listening JT

I looked . . . honest: Does a character using a muscle powered ranged weapon, or more specifically one built with the Range Based On Str Limitation, and Charges (to represent the number of "shots" pay Endurance based on his Strength to perform the attack. I didn't see that the Muscle Powered Range Weapons were bought down to 0 Endurance. Thank you again - JT

I'm sorry if this has been already covered, but I need a little clarification here: 26pts - Armor (12 PD/12 ED), Hardened (+1/4) (45 Active Points); Limited Power Power loses about a third of its effectiveness (Luck Based or similar disad; -1/2), Nonpersistent (-1/4) 31 pts - Force Field (12 PD/12 ED), Hardened (+1/4), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2), Persistent (+1/2) (54 Active Points); Limited Power Power loses about a third of its effectiveness (Based on Luck or similar disad; -1/2), Nonpersistent (-1/4) 24pts - Combat Luck Combat Luck is really confusing me. Why is it cheaper than Armor with similar limitations? This led me to try and compare it to Force Field as well. I realise the first two above are likely illegal builds, but I was trying to illustrate a point. All three builds are hardened, all three builds are non-persistant. The -1/2 disadvantage for Based on Luck, and your follow up answer in the FAQ have confused me further: It doesn’t work if he’s asleep, unconscious, Isn't that when a character would want to be lucky? Isn't his luck all that would protect him in this case? or deliberately throws himself in the way of an attack (for example, to save a comrade from injury). This one makes sense because he is actively fighting against his own good luck. Nor does it protect him from damage in most situations where he deliberately does something he knows will hurt him (such as performing a Move By/Through, both of which cause him to take some of the damage he does to the target). Again he is actively fighting against his own good luck. It won’t apply if the character is Surprised (see page 380); the GM may require a PER Roll or other roll to determine if the character perceived the attack in time to use his Combat Luck. If he is surprised, he is unlucky, and loses the benefit of his armor, but if he sees the attack coming (perceives it in time) he gets "luckier" and can avoid more damage. Because Combat Luck depends on a character’s ability to dodge, block, or otherwise avoid damage. Now I'm really confused. Is the character talented at dodging/avoiding damage, or is he lucky. The former suggests control by the character, the latter suggests "fate smiles upon him" if the character knew he was attacking someone with a Damage Shield. But that depends largely on how the GM chooses to interpret the concept of “deliberately†putting one’s self in harm’s way; sometimes it might not be appropriate to apply Combat Luck. If the character didn’t know about the Damage Shield, maybe his Combat Luck would protect him... once. This answer reverses the control vs fate model above. If the character knows about the damage shield, he's hoping his luck will protect him, (he perceived the attack as in the surprise example) and does not benefit from the protection, yet if he doesn't know its there (is surprised by it) he might be protected by his Combat Luck. Any comments would be appreciated. I hope I have been clear in explaining my confusion. Please ask if I have not. Thank You!! JT PS: If a character takes danger sense or a defensive maneuvers to reduce or eliminate the chance of surprise, would you reduce the amount of the "Based on Luck" modifier, since the Defensive Luck Armor becomes far less limited??

Re: Wheelchair hero Thanks folks, These suggestion pretty much mirror my own thoughts. Much Appreciated - keep em coming JT

I may have missed a thread like this before, but has anyone come up with a good way to represent a young hero in a mundane wheelchair? I have a hero starting in a Teen Champions campaign that is likely to begin in a normal wheelchair, before eventually developing a "super" one. Is it a vehicle? A limitation on his/her 6" normal movement? Any opinions would be greatly appreciated/ JT

Couldn't resist . . . Comments? Feel free to comment. Thanks for lookin J

Canadian Shield Hi Sorry, almost forgot to post the last member of the Canadian Shield. Here he is: GREY WOLF, the group's resident shapechanging lycanthrope. Grey Wolf was a pretty standard character, designed as an NPC and a quick PC for visiting gamers. He ended up being a lot of fun, since the constant change in portrayal fed his rather mixed up lifestyle. It added to his appeal when he couldn't always remember what he did the last time he was in Man-Wolf form. It gave the other PC's an excuse to update the new player on recent events. Thanks for Lookin' J

Canadian Shield Hi Thought I would throw one more member up here before I end my day. At one point in the campaign, the player of Doc Virtual was called away. (Can you believe it, he gave up gaming to get MARRIED and moved to Calgary! ). Anyway, the Canadian Shield needed a replacement Mentalist, and what they got was a hard edged street punk with telepathic and telekinetic powers. And his name was PsiKnight If I ever get around to posting that web site, I have PsiKnight's "first appearance" done up in comic pages form. It would be a real hoot to ink and colour those. In the meantime, hope you like this snapshot of the "second to last" member of our little hero group. Its been fun posting them. Don't be shy, add to the collection, and let me know what you think!! Thanks for lookin' J

Hello again, Only two more members to go. To recap yet again, we have: Manta - Leader and Aquatic/Flying EB Doc Virtual - Mentalist/Computer Telepath Witchgate - Apportation Sorceress primarily conjuring Warp Gates Galaxian - Alien brick with flight Blitzkreig - Part Speedster, Part EB (Whom I forgot to recap last time) Ruby - Martial Artist, Superspy and Skilled Human And now may I present HAYWIRE, the Canadian Shield's resident gadgeteer. Haywire's motif primarily revolved around a quick hardening, highly adapatable adhesive of his own design. For all intents and purposes, he was like Spidey's Web shooters on steroids!! He did the usual entangles, swinging, and wall crawling, but was also able to produce strands of Mono-filiment cutting wire, and his patented "yank-em cord" that he used to effect objects at a distance. He was another character whom primarily fulfilled a support role in combat, but was very effective in slowing down or distracting troublesome opponents while the rest of the team concentrated on whiddling down the numbers. Hope you like Thanks for lookin J

Hi Quick suggestion - could you move the iris' of the eyes up a little so they are not round in the center of the eyeball. It gives her a rather unnatural wide eyed look. I usually find 3/4 of the iris (in this case green) gives a better look. Thanks for listenin' J

Canadian Shield Time for another member I think. Lets recap, we have: Manta - Leader and Aquatic/Flying EB Doc Virtual - Mentalist/Computer Telepath Witchgate - Apportation Sorceress primarily conjuring Warp Gates Galaxian - Alien brick with flight This entry was the character built primarily on skills. I guess she would be classified as a martial artist. Anyone familiar with the DC Heroes rules would recognise it as the "Batman Option" in which the character is a highly trained human with a few gadgets to even the playing field. Ruby, as she was known, was envisioned in the "Black Widow" vein: an undercover agent of the Canadian Secret Service who became disillusioned with her job, and turned to crime fighting. Since her personal records were known to the Government, and hidden from the public, she never felt the need to wear a mask. If memory serves, she acted primarily as the team's forward scout, especially on those missions involving investigation and the ever popular "sneak into the enemy lair" scenerios. Her higher that normal speed (usually chemically induced) and her defensive martial arts kept her safe until the majority of the team could "step in" through one of Witchgate's teleports. Hope you like Thanks for lookin' J

Hi, This is only my personal opinion, but as a Gm I feel that you may be getting a little too wrapped up in the rules and write-ups. You stated that this character is an NPC controlled by yourself. I don't see the need for a write-up at all. You are in charge of controlling what the Players see, hear, feel, and otherwise sense within the game environment. You are also responsible for determining what happens in that environment, as well as the effects on all your other NPC's. If you determine that an NPC trips, or is momentarily blinded, or any other effect the disembodied Coriolis achieves in the game. Why do you need stats for this at all? The second part is that you must bow to the importance of the story itself. It sounds like it is important to you that this re-forming be a gradual thing, and be presented subtly. Why roll dice for effects that can be too weak, or too strong. As a GM I would want to control how many, and of what quality the clues are that I give to the players, so that they do not "figure it all out" too soon, or ignore the presence of this re-emerging NPC all together. Thanks for listening J

Canadian Shield I just looked at my own scaled down version of Galaxian. It really doesn't do him complete justice. Can't wait to go back and using Wildcat's advice, redo them all at hi resolution before making them web-ready. J

Canadian Shield Hi All, Guess its time to post the next member of the Canadian Shield! Up for review is Galaxian, our resident Brick. Galaxian has all the classic traits of a "strange visitor from another planet with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men . . ." Our flying brick never left us wanting for feats of strength and incredible overconfidence. Probably his most memorable moment came when he decided to do a flying move through on a villain's escape van, accelerating to full speed to punch in one side of it, and out the other! Of course he didn't realise that this was no ordinary van, but rather a wolf in sheep's clothing. Unfortunately, the armour was so thick that Galaxian only made half of his trip, and ended up unconscious inside the get away van! I must admit that revisiting these characters is bringing back a host of great gaming memories!!! Thanks again for lookin J

I feel for you Emerged, I really do!! We had a player in a number of campaigns that was NEVER allowed to even touch anyone elses dice, lest the curse be spread. It got to be the cruelest display of superstition I ever saw. At one point, he was playing a character who could create weapons "out of thin air" by reworking the unique energy that he held within his body. The hero was called Flintlock. (VPP with Energy Reserve). To the best of my memory, he managed to hit each and every one of his fellow heroes, except for one, at least once in the game. I used to make up these incredibly ludicrious rolls for him to hit his fellows who where engaged in melee with his target, after he missed his initial roll (i.e. roll anything but "3" and your shot misses completely). He struck his team mates more times than not, and rarely hit his opponents unless someone else managed to lower their DCV's to pitiful levels. I can still remember the chorus of "I abort to dodge!" from my PLAYERS the day that Flintlock announced he was conjuring a Flamethrower!!! Thanks for listening J

Hi I have on various occasions used the newspaper idea to varying levels of success. In one long running game, the newspaper reviewed almost every action of the PC group, and they grew to hate the JJ Jameson style reporting by one ADAM CORSO! (Capitalised just in case a former player is watching.) Generally I used these papers to add life to the campaign, demonstrate how the general public may interpret the actions of the PC group, to antagonise the group with an obviously bias anti-hero opinion, and finally to foreshadow future events. That particular newspaper took on an extra task when I began running a second campaign with a completely different group of players at the same time. It got to be one of the player's greatest thrills to read about what happened to the "other group" when they sat down to start their own session. The rivalry it created was GM gold!!! It also introduced the two gaming groups to each other's characters, in preparation for my big SUMMER CROSSOVER SESSION when on one particular weekend I put both gaming groups around a single table and had a great 14 player game! Ahhhh the memories. Anyway, to get back on topic, I found that it was often necessary to "bait the hook" so to speak, with a variety of articles. I always found that my PC's ignored some articles in favour of others. I found it extremely helpful to let the PC's decide the future of the campaign by choosing exactly what to investigate, and allowing them to ignore storylines as they choose. I mention this because it really hurts when a GM makes a pile of preparation for a storyline, only to find that the PC's have no interest in it. Finally, I allowed Players to gain a few extra XP here and there for submitting their own articles. This was much easier after the Rivalry began, as each group tried to write up their adventure in the most colorful way. I'm a GM who loves to have Players think about the campaign between games, rather than the sit down play, stand up forget everything type of players. Thanks for listening J

Canadian Shield Sorry Tim, the Canadian Shield info is packed away somewhere at the moment. But the recent interest is renewing my motivation to dig them out. Maybe soon, that web page will become a reality. . . I'm mostly waiting for my brother's return from Montana. He's suppose to be moving back to Canada soon, and we have talked at length about doing something with our horde of old campaign stuff. Could be a web page . . . Could be a PBEM . . . Could be something entirely different. We'll have to see! Thanks again J

Canadian Shield Here is yet another member up for review. Doc Virtual was one of the most unique character conceptions that I have run across in my 20 + years of GMing games. Though he looks to be a gun toting pulp hero, Doc Virtual is actually the Canadian Shield's mentalist. Though I don't have the notes handy at the moment, I believe that his origin involved a person who adopted the role of Doc in a VR environment, before something went terribly wrong. The Virtual Avatar took over the body of the game player, here in the real world, and thus was born Doc Virtual. Doc's twin 45's were actually mental foci for his Ego Blasts. He was under the impression that he could not use this power without them. It made for interesting game play early in his career, when overbearing bricks jeered at his drawing of "puny" 45's, expecting to have their spewed lead splatter across their chests. 'Till his reputation grew, Doc splattered a few overconfident bricks with his "surprise" ego attacks. Another interesting point concerning Doc was that he constantly projected a "Black and White" aura around him, effectively turning all color to greyscale. At first, I thought it was a pretty ineffective use of points, but allowed it purely for the "cool factor". As the game progressed I found a number of occasions when "colour" came into play. (Especially all those light/laser characters who depended on certain frequencies of light for effect). It also played havoc with light based illusions and disguises. Of course the drawbacks inherent in the field were pretty cool as well. Its pretty tough to "hide" as some Mentalists tend to do when combat occurs. Some of my villains got in the habit of looking for an area of Black and White, to anticipate the coming Ego Attacks. Doc also became the group's resident computer expert, with the belief that all computers contained an intelligence of some kind. There were occasions when he talked at greater length with a Desktop computer (with Computer based Telepathy) than he did with the real world NPC's around him. Hope you enjoy! Thanks for lookin' J PS: I of course posted this in my usual yellow, but Doc's field is obviously still working after all these years!!

Canadian Shield Next up for review is the team's mystic: WITCHGATE! Witchgate's powers primarily revolved around opening teleportation gates between two places, usually within line of sight. She used an indirect Missle Reflection by positioning a gate in the path of an incoming attack, and then projectin it from another gate, often at a new target. Another favourite trick was to place a gate on the ground in front of a "running" character and changing his location, or the ever popular "shunt the flyer into a solid object trick. Witchgate was not really a frontline fighter, but was extremely effective as a teamworker. She often allowed rapid regrouping by her teammates when the situation called for it. She was also a great reason to introduce the Team to magic oriented adventures during the campaign. Thanks for lookin' J

Canadian Shield Here's the first member of Canadian Shield, one of my PC groups from days gone by. He was known as MANTA, and some of you may feel he looks awfully familiar. He should, since he is an amalgam of Marvel Comics Stingray and FGU's leader of the Crusaders: Manta Man. This Manta was also the leader of the group, and the Player even worked the old FGU Manta into his origin. This character was primarily a gadget oriented/ armoured suit wearing hero. He was equally at home in the water and in the skies. He generally filled a flying EB role in combat, but was much more effective in the role of Leader and PR man. I have fond memories of his "death from above" AE grenade drops!! I tried for a little motion blur on this one. Hopefully it doesn't translate too badly. I'll be cleaning him up via Wildcat's suggestion, at a later date. Thanks for lookin! J.

Thanks Wildcat, I'm going to have to try that. Of course you realise I'm going to have to go back and redo all my previous work now. Thank you for the comments American Valor. I can't take credit for the background on Silver Fox. Its just an image I found in a google search that I cropped to use as a background. I really liked Crux! He leads me right into the next group of shots I was going to post. He looks like he would fit right in! Its a PC team known as the Canadian Shield. Being Canadian, (don't hold that against me ) most of my Heroic Games have been set in this country, often centered around Toronto. The Canadian Shield were "officially recognised by the government of the game and became a team that adopted a "colour scheme" of red and white (with exceptions). I think we weere influenced by comic teams with uniforms like X-Men and Alpha Flight that were popular at the time. Crux looks like an embodiment of the Canadian Flag! He could have easily been a member of that group! I'll be posting them with a little info throughtout the day. Thanks again all!

[color=] Thank you for the comment. Some of the pics I will post are likely to be a little blurry due to the resizing. The Black and White figures were originally 8 1/2 X 11 or 11 X 14, so getting them down to managable web sizes tends to mess them up a bit. Anyone have any suggestions on how to avoid this? Here's another to look at while we're at it. Thanks Jayde[/color]