Starcloud

Re: Since CoH is gone... Golden Girl and MondoCool are behind that website. It seems to consist of two or three people. Try looking at Plan Z: The Phoenix Project: http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php?board=138.0 There seems to be more support there.

Re: Planetary Value? In a society where there are multiple planets people live on, there will be multiple 'planetary cultures' on top of regional/historical cultural differences. Why move to a planet with a different culture if you are still comfortable with your own? Why move from the place you've spent your life to that point on? Why abandon your home if there is a chance it can be saved?

Re: Destruction of public property, and dealing with the aftermath Register as a super with the government, you get a certain degree of "damage liability insurance." And the cleanup/reconstruction costs are covered. Don't register with the government? You're on the hook for all of it. Assuming someone can track you down. There are super-powered private investigators. Some of them work for insurance companies. Some of them are for hire. That said, the guideline is "Don't destroy too much." Blatantly excessive destruction can get you kicked from the insurance rolls.

Re: The cranky thread This year, most states in the USA have declared fireworks illegal to use, due to drought or fire conditions. There's only six or seven states where it's still acceptable.

Re: Foods for those that just don't care anymore It should be possible. That very likely is their intended market, as with the Turkey Bacon. Halal is a bit looser on its requirements than Kosher is, if I remember right, but I'm no expert on the dietary laws.

Re: Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury #1: Security Robot Zaps Burglar If the robot can distinguish between authorised personell and residents, and unauthorised trespassers, then it's not a trap and does not fall under those laws. It's the equivalent of having a guard dog. The only question remaining then is 'Was the zapper deliberately supercharged to do permanent harm or was it within legal limits like a taser?" Because absent being able to show that degree of carelessness or deliberate malice, the plaintiff has no case.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Heheh. Not, "With Amazing (53) power comes Incredible (41) responsibility?"

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Nnope, that's not the Easter Bunny he's talking about.

Re: Can Only Attack With Powers That Attack Him "Only attack powers" isn't very limiting. 6e gives a value for it of -1/4.

Re: Can Only Attack With Powers That Attack Him Mimic Single Power (63 Real Points): Variable Power Pool, 45 base + 45 control cost, Powers Can Be Changed As A Zero-Phase Action (+1), No Skill Roll Required (+1) (112 Active Points); (Character has no control over when or how power changes; -1), (Cannot be more powerful than mimiced power; -1/2), (Mimiced power lost after one hour; -1/2), (Requires character to be affected by mimiced power; -1/2), (May only mimic one power at a time; -1/4) Ruleswise, I looked again and for what you want it to do, it does have to be a 'cosmic' pool in the classic sense. It's not a standard mimic pool, though it borrows elements of it.

Re: Can Only Attack With Powers That Attack Him Not a cosmic VPP. Cosmic implies both changing powers at will and changing powers instantly. Unless by cosmic you mean cosmic sfx. "Only to mimic powers that affect him/only changes powers when successfully attacked by a power" is a pretty confining limitation. I think that'd qualify for a -1/2. "Can only mimic one power at a time" is another. It is not actually built into the VPP, what if he gets hit by two different low AP attacks? Without this limitation, he could mimic them both just based on the point value. But because the AP of the VPP is low, I'd only put this at a -1/4. "Mimiced power can only be accessed for an hour" is yet another. I'd put that value at about -1/2 too, if he gets into combat a reasonable amount of the time. If he doesn't, it's worth more of a limit, simply because the power will be useful less often.

Re: Ultra-Tech Punishments? Genetic engineering might work for the future or for changing things like hormone levels generally. Behavior, however, is learned, not genetic; gene therapies would be useless for anything other than correcting a biological dysfunction. Hotsleep, virtual reality, and 'fast time' where a subjective year passes in the space of an objective month, would be fairly pointless if not coupled with a theraputic/rehabilitative scenario. The *goal* of a prison really should be to correct behavior while limiting and controlling the inmate in the process, so as to reduce or eliminate damage to the community. As punishment, imprisonment doesn't really work in the long run.

Re: Second Best Game System ? Ngh. That's a little excessive.

Re: Needing a Name for a Density Increase Super Heroine If she were a catgirl: Cat Gravity.

Re: Needing a Name for a Density Increase Super Heroine Good thing too. Opal's a very soft, porous stone; a lot of the cabochon shape comes from the coating of glass or acrylic that gets put on it to protect it and preserve the shine. It's also sensitive to heat and drying out.

Re: From Superfriends to Watchmen: The Extremes of Superheroes Watchmen, the Authority, meh. They're decent deconstructions of the genre, maybe, but that doesn't mean they're actually the kinds of things I want to read. Even Planetary, which was much more subdued (and honestly, fantastic in the good way) than the Authority, has moments that make me cringe.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Deanimate. There, done.

Re: A slow rolling ball of destruction That's probably the most elegant approach. Summon the ball of fire and give the ball of fire the stats it needs. Slavishly loyal, of course.

Re: Empathic Character with no Damaging powers At first, I thought "Wow, that's a VERY revealing costume." Then I looked closer; it actually covers a lot more than it appears to, but there's this patch of fabric that's very cleverly tinted to be almost the exact same shade as her skin. Well, except for the suggestive little red decorations.

Re: Sci-Fi Melee Weapons: Bat'leth, Lirpas, Lightsabres, Rykk Blades, Koltari, Denn'B Many people think that. Then when you examine the on screen evidence, really, it's not true. It bounces off of thin railings sometimes, and cuts through them other times. The difference? The apparent strength behind the blow. NNDs always do their damage.

Re: CNC / RP Manufacturing? What these machines do is allow for quick manufacturing and prototyping of objects. All the work is in the design stage, setting up 3D Autocad plans for the different parts, etc. I'd call it a bonus to the time to make items, rather than a skill bonus for making items; There's no guarantee the item was designed properly in the first place, but you can prototype very quickly to find out. The real skill bonus would be in the computer program used to model the working item while it's being designed, rather than in the manufacturing process.

Re: Mayan temple found in Georgia (US) It pretty much is bullcrap. There is a great deal of evidence for 'mound building' civilizations in the southeast. I'm sure there could be *some* cultural transmission if the civilizations existed at the same time, but unlike today, travel was not easy; any "Mayan" influence would have been eighth or ninth-hand removed from the original source at best. The rebuttal makes the point that this man is writing a book to be released in 2012, to cash in on the 2012 hysteria. It's entirely possible he's seeing evidence for his book where careful investigation would show there is none.

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction? It wasn't quite that level of pre-planning. There was still a lot of writing that was done while the show was still being filmed. And while some might have complained, others got into it and eventually started naturally becoming the role. And then the quibbles became things like "G'Kar wouldn't say that this way. He'd say this instead." But the general arcs and specific events were planned out, as were the plot lines for every character, including "trapdoors" in case one of the actors had to leave the show for one reason or another. That said, it's obvious Straczynski had to scramble in the fifth season, thanks to the way the show was abruptly cancelled by WB and picked up by Sci-Fi just before the fifth season deadline to re-sign actors.

Re: Laptops vs tablets Basically, it comes down to "What can it do?" GPS, web connectivity, internet research, taking photos, absolute time sense, absolute direction sense, continuing fuel charge, etc. Most of these things are bonuses to rolls or area knowledge, eiditic memory, and so forth, and would be bought that way. It would also be able to run a very few programs, defined as things like "calender" and "to do list". The thing is, this would work for both laptops and tablets. So it really depends on what you see it doing.

Re: Alien Jedi's Some days, you'd really rather not learn anything new.