Chuckg

Re: DC Universe Overview [also] Shades of the "King of the Seas, remember?" moment in Justice League Unlimited, when a water-controlling villain tried blasting Aquaman. [/also]

Re: The Punisher vs Bugs Bunny Bugs is fueled by karma. If he is he one being put-upon, he cannot lose. If he is the aggressor, OTOH, he's gonna hate it.

Re: DC Universe Overview That's still a downgrade for Darkseid, given that when *he* was buff, he used to manhandle multiple Pre-Crisis Kryptonians like it was nothing. While weakened. Ah, the 'Great Darkness Saga', how I miss thee...

Re: A tidbit from "Hidden Lands" Yes, the unwritten rules mandate that the bigger the spell, the more limits such as 'Requires particular conjunction of the stars', 'Requires really long list of exotic spell components that any hero's counselor with KS: Mystic Lore can tell as being the components for the Spell Of Legendary Doom', etc, etc, etc. he has to pile onto it.

Re: Real-Life Hyperspace Theory? Traveller also has man-portable energy weapons, gravitic-powered atmosphere vehicles, meson accelerators, and (at the higher end) force fields and nova bombs, so no, not quite.

Re: Real-Life Hyperspace Theory? *scribbles notes*

Re: DC's Best Martial Artist And if they changed that big a chunk of the story, how can you be sure that they didn't change anything else? You are arguing that a fight would still carry over, blow-for-blow, from Pre-Crisis Continuity, when huge chunks of the personal history and backstories for at least two of the three characters involved didn't? Unreasonable presumption. That Batman and the Bronze Tiger met Post-Crisis, established. That Kathy Kane died there, established. Exact details of event after the Crisis, anything but established.

Re: Marvel's Best Martial Artists Actually, IIRC, Clint made sure to *not* take Cap along when it was ladies' night at the bar, because every time he did, he was left alone with his drink while all the girls clustered around his hunky friend.

Re: DC's Best Martial Artist Actually, most of Batman's Pre-Crisis history involves guys like the Ten-Eyed Man and the Crime Doctor, who most definitely did *NOT* cross over. And even those who did cross over (like Catwoman) all got rewritten backstories. (Hell, Selina's had /several/ rewritten backstories, all of which mutually contradict.) Dude, nothing from Pre-Crisis can be presumed to exist in Post-Crisis, let alone exist in identical form, unless specifically stated.

Re: Real-Life Hyperspace Theory? ObGaming -- do you realize that with just one assumption for your gameorld -- that this news story is true and soon bears fruit -- this lets you plausibly run hard-science(*) interstellar campaigns set in 2015? We're talking like detachments of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, using technology only marginally more advanced than the current real world, escorting NASA science teams across the surface of Alpha Centauri. We're talking what happens to the economy when Heim Drive lets you lift factory-sized masses into orbit more cheaply than the Shuttle can currently lift a 100-lb instrument package. Man, if this article had been brought to my attention only a *few weeks* earlier, I could be doing this instead of the Champs game I'm starting up soon. Ah well. I leave the rest to your vivid imaginations. (*) It lets you get away with FTL travel, cheap and fast sublight travel, and artificial gravity in spaceships. Everything else is still realworld tech, from the oxygen supplies to the bullets to the suits. And hell, can we call it 'soft' SF if it's actually happening? (If it's happening.)

Re: A tidbit from "Hidden Lands" Most likely because the Turakian Era is the setting for nonsuperhero-level Fantasy HERO campaigns, and in that power level, Kal-Turak (or Takofanes, for that matter) could serve only in the role of "statless, off-stage Plot Device". It's sort of the same reason most versions of the LotR game don't have stats for Morgoth. (Well, Iron Crown's did, but these are the same people who made the Rolemaster critical hit tables after all...)

Re: Power Build Advice Needed One of the other things that that 4e Dark Champs character had about it is that his power didn't work over people he dealt with via the Internet, or long-distance telephony. Plus, there's also this: Day One: UM -- "Good evening, Doctor Destroyer. I am the Unmnemonic Man! I can destroy the Justice Squadron for you using my amazing memory powers in return for... one... million... dollars! Half in advance." Doctor Destroyer -- "Take your payment and go, then. Go knowing the penalty for failure." Day Two: UM -- "Good evening, Doctor Destroyer. I am the Unmnemonic Man! I can destroy the Justice Squadron for you using my amazing memory powers in return for... one... million... dollars! Half in advance." Doctor Destroyer -- "Insolent wretch! Think you to cheat Destroyer so easily?!?" UM -- "... wha... what? You're not supposed to remember anything?" "Doctor Destroyer" -- "Before you die, two questions. One, do you think Destroyer has the time or the foolishness to meet every stranger who claims to possess great and secret power in person? And two, does your power work on robots?" UM -- "... awww, [bleep] me!" DestroyerBot -- *ZARK!*

Re: A tidbit from "Hidden Lands" Oh yeah -- Kal-Turak won that fight, no question. The writeup makes it plain that the Empyreans nursed the shock of that defeat for years, and buried a lot of dead. (Of course, they were assaulting Kal-Turak in his fastness, so it was him plus his Base plus most of his Followers, not just him alone... you'd have to be the Examiner to *solo* the massed forces of the Empyreans, and even then, it would hurt.) The Empyreans were so busy coming to the realization that they weren't immortal, in fact, that they never realized that their defeat actually cleared the way for mankind's victory -- not until well after the fact. So, a sort of Pyrrhic victory for Kal-Turak -- he done mopped up the Empyreans, but it depleted him enough that he fell to the next contestants, whom normally he could have stepped on like ants.

I know, 'Hidden Lands' has been out a long while already, but I only recently got it. Way back when, on another thread, the question was asked 'If Takofanes was even more powerful back when he was Kal-Turak, then how the heck did the Turakian Age heroes stop him?' Well, part of the answer we already knew -- it was a huge Last Alliance of Elves & Men type thing, with the armies of all the free nations of the world coming together, along with every hero, every high mage, etc. Since the war lasted years, presumably, we can also posit truly fugly amounts of ritual spell casting (and while Kal-Turak could easily overmatch any one of these, dude can't be everywhere at once, plus the Hordes of Evil have a historical habit of not organizing well unless the Evil Overlord himself is being a full-time hands-on-manager, etc.) It also took them years, and we can most likely guess hundreds of thousands of casualties. But, a piece of the puzzle was still missing. Until I spotted something in the Arcadia writeup in 'Hidden Lands'. ... the reason Kal-Turak was weak enough to be taken down by mortals (even legendary mortals) is because, unknown to mortal history, shortly before the final battle of the Turakian Age Kal-Turak expended a big chunk of energy repelling a massed assault by the Empyreans. All of them. I'm entirely willing to believe that a First Generation Empyrean Gang-Stomp is something that could take most of the reserves out of Kal-Turak the Ravager. Indeed, I'm all that Kal-Turak survived *at all*.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... And from last night's "Aberrant" session: The group, after having trekked across the frozen wasteland, has reached the ice palace of the infamous Winter King. After ringing the gong several times, and receiving no answer... Aral (deadpan) -- "Perhaps he's at his summer palace."

Re: Power Build Advice Needed There was a character like this in 4e Hudson City -- his power was built, IIRC, as a big-ol' Always On Mind Control.

Re: DC's Best Martial Artist Never heard of the dude, so probably not.

Re: DC's Best Martial Artist

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever Ummm, I'm sorry, but Peter Wisdom makes me want to set his EXCALIBUR run on fire. Granted, yes, Rahne got a tremendous lift from it. Just... Peter Wisdom... fire... lots of fire...

Re: THE ULTIMATE SPEEDSTER -- What Do *You* Want To See? Doesn't USPD I already have this -- buying MegaScale on your Normal Sight to match whatever MegaScale you have on your speed, to allow you to perceive normally at MegaSpeed?

Re: Mjolnir Actually hiring a writer to write a story before allotting money for SFX, producer's hot tub, or whatnot? Is that even *POSSIBLE*?

Re: Mjolnir While Bungie Studios existed well before 'Halo', Microsoft bought out Bungie Studios in 2000. So, Microsoft owns the company that owns Halo.

Re: Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved Addendum: The dedicated spellcaster class ("Magister") is the only class that gets complex spells for free. As you say, there are also "exotic" spells, aka "the REALLY powerful stuff". You spend a feat (yes, even a magister) to learn exotic spells at one feat per spell. This is intended to stop the 'every spellcaster of a given level has the Rarest Spell Of All, instead of only 1-2 in the game world having it' issue. Personally, I think AE is one of the best d20 fantasy conversions out there, and God knows I love his approach to spell design over WotCs.(*) Of course, if I ever try to run high fantasy again, I'm not using d20 mechanics, I'm using something else. So I look upon AE as a source of stealable ideas, not as a setting to use. (*) Monte Cook believes that a 20th-level arcane spellcaster *should* be able to toast a small army, even if he has to expend an 8th-9th level spell to do it. (Check out 'Massive Devastation' sometime -- hoody hoo!) D&D 3.0+ whacked all area spells with the nerf bat, to where there's no way to get the buggers above 30-40 ft. radius, and that's with feats.

Re: Mjolnir

Re: Help with a character Eh, my goof. The "True Eidetic Memory" power is actually in USPD II, under 'Hypercharacteristics', INT subsection. There's also a couple other powers such as Precognition, Requires an INT roll (anticipating the enemy), and +2 SPD, requires an INT roll (getting to do more in a specific crisis situation because you've analyzed the most efficient course of action.)