Lord Liaden

Re: THE ULTIMATE MENTALIST -- What Do *You* Want To See? Man, lots of great ideas here. Second on bringing as many of the old optional Mentalist Skills, Martial Arts etc. from the original TUM as possible; on dealing with Astral/Spirit forms, combat and travel; and more/cleaner options for possession and its variants. Persuant to discussing the use of Presence and Comeliness with the SFX of mental powers, I'd like to see more guidelines for the interaction of Mental Powers with Presence Attacks and Interaction Skills - how the use of one affects the success of the other. Since it often comes up in discussion here on the boards, I'd suggest some detailing of the degree of Advantage or Limitation, and mechanical effects, of making Powers that are normally ECV use normal CV, or vice versa, but not take all the benefits of BOECV or drawbacks of Based On CON. For example, a Mental Power based on CV but still working against Mental Defense and EGO; or Telekinesis that uses ECV instead of OCV, but rolls against the target's DCV.

Re: why the UNITED NATIONS? (for global super-agency) http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1131167

Re: Fighting talk You'd need Combat Riding plus Ambidexterity.

Re: why the UNITED NATIONS? (for global super-agency) IMO one of the greatest reasons for the success of the United States as a democratic nation, is that its founding fathers got so much right the first time when they designed its Constitution. It took plenty of horse trading and downright railroading to get it done, and it didn't turn out perfectly, but closer to it than any comparable document since. If you could accept that something like that might have happened at the founding of the United Nations, rather than the patchwork of compromises and sellouts that we ended up with, everything else would fall into place.

Re: why the UNITED NATIONS? (for global super-agency) Of all the things in a typical supers universe that require suspension of disbelief - aliens, sorcerors, mythic gods, conceptual entities, and the violation of Newton's Laws - it tickles me that an effective United Nations seems to be one of the hardest ones for many people to swallow.

Re: Background help Sure. I think he was a villain from Dennis Mallonee's old Champions campaign. He and his Ubermachine are mentioned in Enemies III and The Great Supervillain Contest, both contributions by Mallonee. Solid silver-age cheese. However, I got the impression that the OP was looking for current CU villains, and Prof P. isn't in continuity.

Re: stupid question No, that would be the digital remake of "Fritz the Cat."

Re: The V'han/ Tyrannon War! There ya go. This approach not only adds local color to the adventures, but enhances the role playing opportunities. It also lines up with a possible alliance with V'han being the lesser of two evils, although still leaving much to be desired. (BTW the Congeries is Skarn's domain. Tyrannon's is called Thulkos. I know, it's easy to confuse them - they're similar in several ways. IMO both characters are their respective creator's takes on Dormammu, who started the whole "merging conquered dimensions" schtick.)

Re: stupid question Probably the title of the next animated "animals vs humans" film.

Re: The V'han/ Tyrannon War! I figured it just got caught in the crossfire. I must admit I haven't come up with anything to add yet.

Re: Fighting talk Ironically, in The Dragon Mandarin PDF, one of Dr. Yin Wu's "Sons of the Dragon," Silver Hand, is built with exactly this CSL "martial art" rather than maneuvers.

Re: Working on New Constantinople Nice one, Hermit. (Your players viewing this thread must be so frustrated by now.)

Re: Fighting talk Hmm... pre-Fourth Edition Champions used to give a cost break for buying a large number of Enhanced Senses, e.g. after you had bought several (can't remember the number offhand), the cost of further Senses was cut in half. Perhaps that could be done with Martial Maneuvers of a particular art. Beyond a basic number of Character Points or Maneuvers from the art, subsequent Maneuvers would cost less.

Re: Working on New Constantinople Hey, NewCon is back! I was just looking at this thread yesterday, wondering how things had been going. And, just because I can't resist putting in my two cents :

Re: Arcane What fascinates and frustrates me most about gamers and game mechanics, is that one person's "elegant solution" may be another's "kludge." Usually it just comes down to individual, subjective taste as to what works best.

Re: Moreau Techniques If you hit the "Quote" button on one of those posts, it will show the tags used to set off the text in a box.

Re: stupid question Agreed, except that the word is "anthropomorphic" (pardon the pedantry).

Re: Arcane IIRC we've had discussions of this before, but I don't have the time right now to dig up the threads. Perhaps I'll try again later. My preferred method is to buy the Perquisite, "Anonymity," at a very high level. It exists to keep a character out of official records, so I think a GM can make allowances to extend it to cover all the described effects. The basic Anonymity Perk costs 3 points, but its description notes that it may cost more depending on how high-profile the character's actions are. Among official Perks, being a Head of State costs 10 points (although noted to probably cost more for a leader of a major nation), and being a multi-billionaire costs 15 points. On that basis I'd say that 15 points worth of Anonymity would allow for what Weylan is describing. OTOH normal Anonymity can be reduced or negated by character actions that result in official documentation, so if you're more of a rules stickler you might insist that the character periodically "renew" it with more Character Points. Alternatively, I would suggest buying Invisibility to an entire Targeting Sense Group, and define that as working against any attempt to record the character's presence and actions, regardless of what Sense is used or whether the recording medium is mechanical or a person's memory. In other words the character is perfectly noticeable in the present, but "invisible" to any attempt to find evidence of him after the fact. There would be no Limitation on this effect because you're essentially defining a special Sense Group, "Recording Senses." You can leave the "fringe" for Invisibilty to represent evidence/memory that something happened, but no useful details can be discerned.

Re: Background help

Re: From the mouths of babes Sometimes we spend too much time worrying about themes, logic and internal consistency in our game worlds, and tend to forget that first and foremost they're supposed to be fun.

Re: Fighting talk Point #1: fair enough, although Martial Maneuvers do less Knockback than normal HTH maneuvers, so in campaigns that use Knockback that is a slight relative detriment. HA also benefits more from being Advantaged than MA Maneuvers do. For Point #2, there are some potential ameliorating factors. One is SFX; by default every attack is supposed to have a defined point of origin, so defining one Strike Maneuver as a punch and another Maneuver as a kick can allow someone whose arms or legs have been immobilized to still fight. Another is Multiple-Power Attacks, which you can perform by combining several Martial Maneuvers, so there can be a benefit to variety. I also want to add that I've often chosen Maneuvers in combat based on the bonuses or penalties that they confer, especially against other Martial Artists; I like the tactical options that they give me. I admit I may be in the minority on that, though.

Re: Background help Hmm... Dr. Destroyer is certainly a possibility, but taking him as a Hunter is a rather risky proposition. If the character's powers can be even remotely connected to reptiles, especially with a reptilian appearance, then King Cobra (described in the adventure book Sharper Than A Serpent's Tooth and the new Evil Unleashed villain compendium) would be very appropriate. KC would likely count as a More Powerful Hunter for a 350-point beginning character. OTOH if the PC's powers/appearance could be classed as insectile, Hornet from Conquerors, Killers And Crooks would work well. He's a 350-pointer himself. Another possibility is the Warlord, also in CKC. He's created one superhuman minion for his War Machine supervillain team by grafting cybernetics to him. He could also try grafting body parts from the alien "blueboy" (Hzeel) corpse in his possession to grant the recipient superpowers, as happened to the VIPER villain Occulon. It would be logical for the Warlord to choose a soldier to experiment on. He would be More Powerful than a beginning character. The late Professor Muerte, formerly the leader of Terror Inc., had the knowledge to create a monstrous superstrong follower, Giganto, and brainwashing was certainly his style. You would need to rationalize Muerte's survival of the treachery of his former lieutenant, Scorpia (now a member of Eurostar), or else create a successor using his technology and maybe name. IIRC our colleague Enforcer84 wrote up a returned Muerte - I'll see if I can find that writeup. EDIT: Ah, here's the webpage where you can view the updated Muerte: http://www.realschluss.org/chad_riley_npcs/Villains/Legion_of_Muerte/legion_of_muerte.htm . Scroll about half way down the page. This version of the Prof would almost certainly count as More Powerful.

Re: The Elder Worm homeworld Good memory, Trailblazer. That's the only reference to Wormworld that I've yet come across - GC p. 88, bottom right hand corner. It's not a lot of info, but for Bob's purposes that may be just as well.

Re: The V'han/ Tyrannon War! Everything old is new again, ain't it?

Re: The V'han/ Tyrannon War!