dbcowboy

Originally posted by Dr. Anomaly

So...theatrics aside, I'm sorry -- but living in a civilization on such a planet would probably remain the same ho-hum existence it would be if such a thing weren't happening.

Are you kidding!?! This thing could completely disrupt their entire sky. Constellations would be completely rearranged. Astrologers on every world would be totally swamped. They've got to come up with totally new zodiac symbols, there'll be arguing about how many and which ones to keep, which could escallate to all out psychic war with the curses and hexes and the throwing of crystal balls at one another. In the meantime all those poor sentient, unable to make decisions for themselves will be left waiting for these "professionals" to straighten things out and get on with the business of telling them how to live their lives. I think you need to reassess the seriousness of this situation.

Yeah, I don't see it for $45 bucks either. Shame, I'd grab it for that. Saw complete 2nd season of Angel in Target this weekend for about $45 bucks but Farscapes' around the 120's-130's everywhere I've seen it.

I had a similar issue with my character Tsunami. She had flight in water with the SFX of riding a water-spout. I limited the height she could reach to about 10 or 20 inches, I forget exactly. Think I went with a -1/2 limitation, may have been overly generous with that one.

One dose of reality here: even my automatic garage door opener changes it's signal code every time it's used. That kind of thing is pretty standard these days. Not that reality really needs to intrude in this. Frankly I think this kind of thing would be a wonderful plot device as has been pointed out above (CrosshairCollie's suggestion being exceedingly devilish and worthy of much praise).

Originally posted by Agent Escafarc

Two possilble answers to this:

A: This is Tom's grandson, they never use his first name in the movie.

 

B(My first choice) this is the Tom from that live action/animated cartoon from the Bannana Splits Show who when he finally got out of those caves found himself some 30+ years in the future

 

I also liked the fight scenes mainly because they didn't use the slow-motion/wire-fu stuff which I just don't carefor.

I'd heard the Tom Sawyer character was created specifically for the movie due to the absence of any American members of the LXG. If so then not surprising that the character didn't quite "fit" as well as the rest.

Originally posted by Agent X

I'm pretty sure that Supes knew that would not only, not kill Darkseid, but that it wouldn't even serve as a permanent injury for some "thing" like Darkseid.

Maybe, unfortunately I didn't tape it. My impression at the time was that Superman went back for the sole purpose of ensuring Darkseid went down with the planet. It seemed he knew he would die as well and was perfectly okay with that as long as Darkseid was destroyed. Shoot, I should have taped it.

Loved the scene where Darkseid stomps on Superman's face and says, "This is exactly where you belong: underneath my heel", just before Superman blows a hole through his foot with his heat-vision. Man, never seen Superman so willing to throw away his code vs. killing. I'd never seen the 3 part AoS episodes they showed before JL but taking all of that (plus the previous invasions of Earth by Darkseid) together, I can certainly see how he could come to HATE Darkseid so much.

When the most upstanding champion of restraint is pushed to his limit and has become convinced that this is the only way, how great must be the evil he faces?

Besides, in the comics Superman was judge, jury and executioner for Zod and crew in the alternate Earth and although they had killed all life on that planet and were totally evil he still had great remorse, so much so that he was developing MPD. Fact is, sometimes when our heroes fall/fail, they show us what it really means to be a hero when they rise up again.

Re: Yes, Virginia, there are superhero pajamas

Originally posted by Kevin Scrivner

I don't have cable and don't get Cartoon Network, so I have to depend on video releases to see "Justice League." Recently got the video "Justice On Trial." Re the Aquaman episodes, when did they transplant Namor the Sub-Mariner's brain into Aquaman's body? Enjoyed it but the whole story line was sooo Marvel Comics.

Never thought about the new version of Aquaman = Sub-Mariner but that actually is a good comparison. Regardless, I find him a much more compelling character this way. Like the harpoon for a hand look but think I saw recently that he was able to form a water hand in place of his missing one. You know, my wife and I both have really enjoyed the Justice League episodes, the Aquaman ones being one of our favorite stories. The point where he cuts his own arm off so he can save his son was incredible.

Okay, there may not be any proof that ETs exist but looking at the image for 2003 June 30 - Disappearing Clouds of Carina I'm struck by the sense of humor of God. I swear that dust cloud is shooting the finger at the Hubble. Their explanation is:

Explanation: This dense cloud of gas and dust is being deleted. Likely, within a few million years, the intense light from bright stars will have boiled it away completely. Stars not yet formed in the molecular cloud's interior will then stop growing. The cloud has broken off of part of the greater Carina Nebula, a star forming region about 8000 light years away. Newly formed stars are visible nearby, their images reddened by blue light being preferentially scattered by the pervasive dust. This unusually-colored image spans about two light years and was taken by the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope in 1999. This Carina sub-cloud is particularly striking partly because it's clear definition stimulates the human imagination (e.g. it could be perceived as a superhero flying through a cloud, arm up, with a saved person in tow below).

Yeah I can kinda see the bottom part resembling a superhero carrying a person, but the top part looks like the bird.

Course, it could just be the crack.

We were originally discussing the issue of a player applying megascale to their only form of movement. I agree, megascale IS very inexpensive for the movement it provides, but because it's so inexpensive it's probably reasonable to purchage a separate form of megascale movement in addition to the character's regular combat movement. Otherwise, I'd advocate showing them the error of their ways in whatever manner you choose. I offered some suggestions, feel free to ignore them. It's your game after all.

Originally posted by Monolith

...Since it is a Heroic Level game I would use Hit Locations, and such D'Argo almost always hits the head/neck area (3-5) he is almost always guaranteed the x2 NSTUN modifier. When you factor in the Luxon Strength of 20 (?) and the extra Damage Classes D'Argo is doing a 6d6 NND attack, and then factor in the x2 NSTUN for a head shot and it is pretty easy to see that he will be dropping people like flies (42 STUN on average).

Really good point on the head/neck hit location. I gave him the benfit of the doubt that if he hit elsewhere the effects would be the same. Might not be the case. Besides, this is cheaper and still provides the effect I'm looking for (cheapest I got the entangle approach was 35 pts for entangle,extra limb and stretching).

Right now I'm thinking 20-25 str for D'Argo. Was basing Luxon racial package off of the stats for the Ursoid Package Deal in Star Hero (don't have TE....yet).

So far I have (including Monolith's suggestions):

21 pts - +5 Str, +5 Con, +3 Body

10 pts - Tracking (Smell/Taste Group)

5 pts - Life Support: Extended Breathing (1 end/minute), Longevity 200 yrs, Safe in Low Pressure/Vacuum

3 pts - +1 Per, all senses

5 pts - Tounge (extra limb, limited Manipulation)

5 pts - 2" Stretching, always direct, No Non-Combat, No Velocity Dmg, Limited Body Part (tounge), Range Mod Applies

4 pts - Nerve Strike (adaptive neuro-toxin)

8 pts - +4 DC (nerve strike only)

-------------------------------------

61 pts

Disads:

15 pts - Luxon Hyper-Rage: When angered/threatened (common) go 11-, recover 14-

10 pts - Reputation: Fierce Warriors/Strong, violent species 11-

-------------------------------------------

25 pts

Package cost: 36 pts

Have I forgotten/overdone anything?

Another option is to give the mother:

Mind Link (Specific Group of Minds: Family), Any Distance, Psychic Bond - 20 pts

Then the children a psychological limitation that reflects how devoted they are to following her orders. Anywhere from fanatical (14-) to obediant (11-) to obstinant (8-) just as a rough guide line.

works for me

That's a good write up but it seems like it should not function against area effect attacks. Choke hold, no problem. Haylon gas released into the room, however would still be a suffocation attack but oxygenated skin wouldn't negate it since no part of the person's skin would have access to any oxygen.

Originally posted by AlHazred

I don't know if I agree with that construction. In the pilot episode, D'Argo hits Crichton with it, he loses consciousness and comes to some time later in the cell with Aeryn. Entangles don't cause the character to lose consciousness.

 

Second, the Entangle can still be targeted separately. This doesn't seem to represent the Stunning effect.

No, I agree entangles do not cause a loss of consciousness, hence the reason I had the entangle block all sense groups. The SFX of this is: target falls unconscious. If the target is completely unaware of everything going on around them, I think you could simply consider them unconscious.

This may still be a stretch though. I did include that the entangle could not be escaped by teleportation but there's not really anything to prevent other means of movement like inherent flight. That may not be very common though in heroic campaigns but I'll be the first to admit that this is not perfect.

I'd seen some examples of paralysis done as an entangle and I looked at this as being a form of paralysis with the addition of unconsciousness. With this approach, the targets stun cannot stop the attack, if they're skin is hit, they're entangled.

My hesitation with NNDs is that I figured average stun is around 30 points, so you'll need about a 10d6 NND to knock someone unconscious on an average roll. Maybe that's my mistake, p223 of the rule book lists the average person with 16 stun. Either way, with the entangle, it would only fail to generate any body if you rolled 1 on both die and you can basically call that a miss.

Here's another option: make the entangle 0d6 + 1 body (if that's legal, I haven't read anywhere that it's not). This drops the cost to 206 active, 36 real cost. In this case, there will always be at least 1 body, so no failure on a successful hit against the target's skin.

For an equivalent NND, I come up with: 10d6 EB vs ED Stun Only, NND - LS: Immunity to Neuro-Toxins, Requires Skin Contact, No Range, Can be missile deflected, No Knockback, Linked to Tounge, 0 End - 125 active, 45 real cost.

So, this should KO an average target half of the time, but between needing to hit bare skin (called shot) AND then roll over their stun, it starts to become difficult to get that immediate incapacitation protrayed in the shows. GMs option whether they get a post-12 recovery. However, there's certainly no question, if the target's below 0 stun they are definitely KO'd. (0 end may be wrong approach, changing to 6 recoverable charges drops cost to 100 active - 33 real)

Anyway, these are just some ideas I had. I suspect there are others here would could design this effect better than I. I'm still getting up to speed on the new rules and it's been a long time since I played 4th ed so I find these exercises helpful.

Oh, there's several different resources available. I looked through the d20 book and wasn't impressed. Thought it was pretty poor quality but can't say I looked through it extensivly.

Here's one question in particular: D'Argo's adaptive neuro-toxin. This is similar to a vulcan nerve pinch in that, if it hits, it incapacitates the target immediately for x amount of time.

I think this is a form of entangle, not an NND attack. That certainly makes it expensive but I think it better represents the power as displayed on the show. Just playing around, here's what I've come up with so far:

Adaptive Neuro-Toxin: Entangle 2d6, 0Def (stops all sense groups, cannot be escaped with teleport, no defense, takes no damage from all attacks, uncontrolled, 0 end, susceptible to successful first aid, restrainable, no range, requires skin contact (full body covering/force field negate attack), cannot form barriers, can be missile deflected, linked to tounge) - 247 active point, 43 real cost

Luxon Tounge: stretching 2", restrainable, cannot do damage, no noncombat stretching, limited body parts, always direct - 10 active points, 4 real cost

My question though is this: since I made that neuro-toxin uncontrolled and 0 end and doesn't take dmg, doesn't that mean that the person would be unconscious until someone else made a First Aid check? I'd like there to be some max time limit as well, say 10 minutes, maybe shorter if the individual has a good Con. Maybe that's just a -0 limitation.

Any comments or suggestions on this approach?

Anyone looked at creating the races from Farscape, either for an actual Farscape campaign or for inclusion in a different setting?

Okay, I think you should name this guy The Black Hole. He can have the catch phrase, "The Black Hole sucks!".

Okay, actually that was a Marvel villian, member of the U-Foes I believe. I don't know, I looked at him and I saw:

1) density increase - not exactly a black hole but not a very interesting game when the world is immediately consumed

2) desolid - attacks are actually absorbed into him

3) TK - could make it so it can only be used to drag opponents into him, adding explosion or reduced by range would be cool way to represent how pull gets stronger closer to singularity

4) 5d6 RKA - make it no range and say it's the damage they take as they are absorbed

5) Entangle can represent how the opponent is held once absorbed, yes, they could actually be released, remember, not a real black hole, just an incredible faxcimilie. Extra-dimensional movement might better represent that but, hey, this could work.

Vulnerability to light is perfect. He's not a real black hole so he's not strong enough to effect light but his body tries automatically and the strain affects him greatly.

I don't know, just screamed black hole to me. Obviously the attacks would need the advantage Affects Solid to work while character is desolid and there may not be the points for that.

Just some suggestions, hope they're useful.

In my mind, Leaping is one of the more dangerous modes of movement because once you leave the ground....you can't turn. Megascale version without the proper telescopic senses to scout out desired landing zone=opportunity for GM enjoyment. Bus load of nuns headed for your impact spot? oooops. Gonna pass through the flight path of an airport? pray.

Also, curvature of the Earth puts the horizon at roughly 7 miles I believe. If someone's superleap is any farther than that, they better have N-Ray telescopic vision to see where they want to land before they make that leap.

And definitely need two versions of any movement that is desired to be megascale. Otherwise tell them, yep, you've landed in the area, the villians are roughly 100 hexes north of you. No, with that megascale advantage you can only leap a minimum of 1km (500 hexes). What's your running? 6"? Well, you'd better get started hoofing it....

Originally posted by Wyrm Ouroboros

He has, OTOH, regenerated the flesh lost FROM the bones, so I suppose I would add the 'regenerates limbs' adder.

Might think about some kind of limitation on this since his healing wouldn't be able to replace the adamantium in the lost limb, right?

There's an open question as to whether Wolverine and/or Sabretooth come back from the dead; the latter has had nasty nasty things (including Wolvie's claws) popped through his skull or heart any number of times. It's up to you; offhand I'd give them additional negative Body (whatever that would be as a disad, probably -1 or -1½) to shoehorn their apparently-very-very-deep resilience to being killed. It can happen, however, so...

Been a long time since I read the comics but I seem to remember Sabertooth and the other Marauders getting killed several times. As I recall, they kept reappearing because there were clones of them that were being activated.

Now, how would you simulate that? Probably some loss of memories since the clone won't know anything the previous verions knew after it was cloned. Would that be healing with a delayed effect (time to activate the clone) or would duplication be a better approach?

You know that particular combo never came up, for some reason no one created a shrinking character.

On a similar vein however, three of us ran a danger room scenario while the GM and another player were making up a new character. 3 teams of 2.

- Player 1's MA jumps on speedster brick's back and takes a half phase delay.

- one or two other characters move

- Player 1's speedster brick does a full move (i think it was a full, been a long time), his two characters make coordination rolls and succeed. His MA immediately uses his delay to superleap (half move) a move by on Player 2's massive brick, knocking him well into the reinforced danger room wall. We allowed him to use the total of the speedster brick's move + his superleap for velocity.

Something totally out of the blue none of us had thought of before. You know the old saying: The first time it happens it's a trick. Every time after that, it's a technique.

I read an interview with one of the writers and it either said or strongly implied that the new season was starting in July. Made this announcment that it'll only be a 1 hr special very, very disappointing. They mentioned that it's been something like a year and a half since the old episodes and talked about how much better the stories would be because of the extra time spent on them. Frankly I felt the first season was excellent. I thought they also mentioned that they would have fewer guest heroes this season since the JLA has enough members with plenty of story opportunity.

But, I see that the Teen Titans will start next month on Cartoon Network. Not sure how good that show will be based on the little clips and commercials they've shown.

Moonhunter's advice is great. I think Deadlands used that approach, really encourages players to think about what their character says/does.

Definitely need a German occult adventure. Perhaps a new batch of German Ubermen turn out to be Human/Demon hybrids. The heroes must uncover the secret German supernatural research division and confront the insane doctor at its head.

Allied planes are suffering a 300% increase in in-flight failure. The problems began almost three weeks ago (which research will show just happened to be around the time of the winter solstice). The heroes discover that what the pilots have come to call Gremlins is more accurate than they might have believed. They must track down the individual who summoned these air spirits and find a way to send them back to their nether realm.

Loose lips sink ships but the only people who knew the details of the upcoming Allied invasion of Italy was the President and his top generals. Yet three days ago an English agent intercepted a package destined for the Italian command detailing the entire operation. Is there a traitor at the highest level of the US forces or this the work of one of Italy’s best spies (telepath? mind control? is he a shape changer who’s replaced one of the generals? who knows?)

Originally posted by levi

It seems that the velocity calculation for damage caused should be taken from whatever distance was remaining upon reaching the target. Example: Bulging Muscle Guy throws Hairball Martial Artist at Magnet Master.

okay, i like levi's example better than mine, his characters are much more interesting

This seems to follow the logic of the Knockback damage rules as well.

Yep, based our approach off of it.

Also remember that your velocity cannot equal more than 5" per Inch travelled. If BMG could throw HMA 100" and MM was 10" away, you could still only generate 50" velocity, despite having 90" distance remaining, due to Hero Game Mechanics.

Gotta admit, I don't think we ever took that into consideration. We just figured that all the acceleration for throwing/knockback came at one instant. After that, the source was no longer touching the missile and could not longer supply additional acceleration. I know I remember getting the snot knocked out of my character by taking an obscene amount of knockback dmg after flying only 2 of the total hexes into a reinforced wall.

The penalty for throwing the HMA at the MM should be based completely on the original velocity generated (25" or -5 OCV for a Move Through). This could be compensated for by Levels in Fastball Special or any other appropriate combat skill levels. The justification for this point of view is in the loss of accuracy for the sake of power when throwing in the real world.

hmmmm, that's not a bad idea. We just dinged the brick with range penalties for hitting the hex (well, and the -4 for the unbalanced/nonaerodynamic MA) but the truth is, he can't just toss the MA to the hex any way he wants. He has to do it in such a way that the MA will pass close to the enemy the MA's gonna try to hit. No high, lazy spirals - it's got to be dead on.