Lucian

Re: Carpenter's The Thing Maybe there's only 1 thing and its able to simultaneously operate in seperate forms (like with duplication). Certainly in the end of the film it was able to pull enough biomass together (presumably by merging several smaller forms) to result in a massive shape.

Re: Carpenter's The Thing I think I would go with a transform too, with the healing conditions practically impossible to acheive. I really dont have a problem with doing that if it makes sense. As others have pointed out, theres no problems with the "copy" having the target's memories, language and personality as a disguise since the copy still *is* the target (at least in game terms).

Re: Carpenter's The Thing You think so? I would have though that the ability to act *exactly* like the target right down to memories and personality was a pretty big advantage. I mean anything in the Hero system that gives a significant advantage is supposed to be worth points isnt it? It seems to me that giving a copy the memories and personality of its "template" for free is going way beyond the idea of a special effect.

Re: Carpenter's The Thing Im wondering how you would design a creature who can change into such a perfect copy of its target that the copy doesnt even know that its a copy. If you watch the movie, some of the thing creatures didnt seem to realise that they were "things" until they were exposed. For example the guy who had a heart attack. Essentially you would need some sort of false disguise personality and memories over the real personality. The "real" personality could take over at any time but the false personality would be used to blend in. That would imply telepathy or something while the target is being eaten / assimilated.

Re: Star Wars: Empire at War I hired this game the other day. Unfortunately it tends to suffer greatly from being "Real Time Tragedy". Even the galaxy view is real-time. There isnt much in the way of strategy, but the eye candy is quite fun for the first few hours. The game *can* be slowed down enough (in single player) to allow thinking to prevail over reflexes, which is a big plus for me, but the lack of tactical depth means that there arent many decisions that will make much of a difference. I also found the game's extreme dependance on "Rock, Paper, Sissors" tactics to be very irritating and shallow. The game is actually quite dumbed down in complexity even for an RTS game which is pretty scary when you think about it since most RTS games are not exactly rocket science. In general its mostly just flashy graphics with very little substance. Not a very worthy successor to "SW: Rebellion" unless you value eye candy over game play which sadly, many people do. Lucian.

Re: Star Wars: Empire at War Yeah, SW Rebellion was kinda like that. You couldnt issue orders while it was paused but you could slow it down so much that it might as well be paused. I agree that being able to issue orders while an RTS game is paused makes it a lot more palatable.

Re: Star Wars: Empire at War I found SW Rebellion to be an excellent game once I managed to get past the horrific interface. It has an enormous amount of depth and playability. Whoever designed the interface has a lot to answer for though. Im looking forward to playing Empire at War but Im not holding my breath. Similar to many other people, RTS games just dont do it for me. I dont like any game where the computer can win by clicking faster than I can.

If a character has an energy blast which is defined as emiting from his right hand and he has his right hand amputated or otherwise vapourised by an opponent is he now incapable of firing his energy blast? Or would it fire from the stump? Im thinking that the answer is yes he cant fire but Im not totally sure. Sorry about the gruesome example, if I could think of a better one I would have used it.

Mentalists are the scariest. They are always the ones that seem to get targeted first in a combat and even out of combat they are treated with fear and suspicion. I guess everyone has an underlying fear of losing control.

Thats probably true, but my players are certainly not treating her like a villian. More like a culturally displaced refugee who needs to be educated into the moral structure of society. They see her as being redeemable and misguided. Maybe theyre just scared to fight her

I guess it depends on your definition of "villian". What I meant by that is that she doesnt have an adgenda to take over the world or steal money which is what the classical villian does.

Although shes not actually a villian, my players are terrified of an npc called Perigrinne. She is a 6000 yr old immortal who was once worshipped as an angel in biblical times. Her power is psionic control of organic molecules on a molecular level (including people). She freaked everyone out during one battle when she was fighting alongside the players. She dealt with a particularly tough brick by literally turning him inside out and the using the corpse to continue fighting his comrades. Her facination for life and her tendancy to casually perform grotesque experiments on people just to see what will happen have given her a creepy, unapprochable reputation. My players are currently trying to instill a sense of modern morals in her becase they certainly dont want to fight her.

Yeah that was my first thought too, but Im not sure that the clairsentience power allows you to know the exact (or even approximate) range and bearing of your clairsentience point, realtive to yourself, does it?

If thats true (and I think it is) it wouldnt be so good. If the target were far away, the number of minds to scan would be huge, making the mind scan really difficult. It shouldnt matter how many minds are in the area or how far away the target is since it is keyed to the particular person via the personal effect or whatever. Are there any other options besides mind scan to target the thing?

The camera would be clairsentience, IAF, must be physically placed (-1) Not sure about the tracking device. The Key card device would be an OAF with the skill computer hacking, only applies to hacking ATM's (-1)