phydaux

Re: Goblin Glider I tend to agree. Would you say the same for the Royal Flush Gang's playing card flying carpets?

Re: Goblin Glider Yeah, but if you take Bulky then aren't you at half DCV while you use the Focus?

Re: Goblin Glider I'm not likely to pick that book up. Without actually posting stats, can you at least tell me if it was a special effect, a focus or a vehicle?

I need help constructing a power. I'm trying to replicate the Goblin Glider (or the flying playing cards that the Royal Flush Gang use). Would you guys say it's a special effect, a focus, a clumsy focus or a vehicle?

Re: Goofy Villains Foxbat and Ogre are a regular villain duo in my game world. I figure Ogre is just smart enough to know he needs someone to do his thinking FOR him, but is in fact too dumb to know that Foxbat is NOT the person who should be doing that thinking. Foxbat, meanwhile, is MORE than happy to take Ogre "under his wing." So I have Foxbat running around town trying all kinds of crazy schemes, with Ogre as his enforcer. And when I role play Foxbat, I use Johnny Depp's voice from the movie Ed Wood. Sometimes when I do that, I think my players heads are going to EXPLOAD! "That's right, it's a stick-up. And don't bother counting out the money, because I'll be taking the WHOLE VAULT. Oh Ogre..."

Re: Is this just wrong?

Re: Is this just wrong? So it's an AOE, but it's attacking the focus directly? I LIKE it. The Agents always lead-off with either an AOE Flash or an AOE Entagle anyway. I'll link the power to their primary attack multipower, and call it an under-barrel, single shot grenade launcher. "OK, it's the Agents first action Phase, and they all start off with multipul power attacks..."

I'm thinking of giving my agent-level NPCs a new toy. 1D6 RKA, Standard Effect, AOE Radius, Penatrating, 1 Charge Per Day This attack will do 3 Body and 6 Stun in its AOE every time it's used. Now the 6 stun isn't likely to get through the PD of even a Compatent Normal, and most PCs have AT LEAST ten Resistant PD. But because it's Penatrating, it will ALWAYS inflict one Body an ANYONE who doesn't have Hardened Defenses. And because it will inflict one Body, it will ALSO break one Breakable Focus on EVERYONE in the AOE. I'm thinking of calling it an EMP Grenade, made just to take out the sensitive, non-hardened electronics that are in just about EVERYTHING these days. The only problem I have with it is it inflicts one Body to the PC as well. That doesn't fit the concept, and any Disadd I can come up with that will stop the attack from inflicting the Body damage also stops it from breaking a Focus. "OK, you're all standing in adjacent hexes? The Agents are using their Grenade Launchers this Phase. I'll roll to have them hit the Hex... They ALL hit. You are all in the AOF of six grenades... None of you take any Stun, but you each take SIX Body. Also, six random Foci on each of you break. What's that, Tom? Your Power Armor was the Focus for ALL your powers? Oh, that IS a bit inconvient, isn't it?"

Re: New campaign starting, help requested My favorite quick, one-off adventure: Act 1 - The Rampage The PCs are allerted via Action News Now that a giant rampaging THING is tearing it's way through the finantial district. The PC's respond and take down the monster. The PCs get to gang-tackle a single foe who is much stronger and much tougher than either of them, but is slow. With teamwork and combined attacks they should take him down quickly. Act 2 - The Hiest The PCs get alerted that a bunch of Agents in Power Armor are using the distraction created by the monster to knock over the local diamond exchange. The PCs respond and battle to agents. Now it's the GM's turn to use numbers and teamwork! I find five agents per PC, plus an extra "command team" of five agents, is enough to give the PCs a hard time but not overwhelm them. Remember to have the Agents load-up on APEBs, Entangles, Flashes and AOE attacks (PARTICULARLY AOE Entangles!). Act 3 - The Payoff One of the agents gets away with the diamonds, but the PCs manage to track him back to an abandoned wearhouse where the diamonds are being turned over to the super villains! One 350 point supervillain per PC, plus one more 350 point supervillain and five or so Agents. Most PC teams can handle those odds, provided none of the villains is a mystic or a mentalist.

Re: WWYCD? The Turkey Day Special Quasar - Spend the day in his mansion with his wife and duaghter - lots of happy, quality time. Mystica - She's Russian, so even though she lives in Milleneum City Thanks Giving isn't really a holliday she celebrates. Heck, she celebrates Christmas in January. Most likely one of the other professors at Milleneum City University, or perhaps another super she works with, would invite her over. She's really a likeable person, after all. Shadowhunter - Wake up late, workout, work his street contacts for info on local super villains, patrol the city after sunset. Maybe beat down some punks who were out causing trouble. Get home a little after midnight. Take off the costume and grab a long, hot shower. Then take a long look at himself in the mirror and wounder if all he's scarificed has been worth it. Go to bed just after sunrise. Get up later and do it all over again.

Re: Help with Racist Slang And assuming that all asians are the same. If the character is Chinese, then calling the character "Jap" over and over, even after the point has been made that "I'm NOT Japanese!" over and over. Another fun thing might be, after the character says "I'm NOT Japanese!," to say "You know, sometimes I forget, too. It's like we're brothers or something, isn't it?"

Re: The Kingpin, the Maggia and Intergang

Re: The Kingpin, the Maggia and Intergang

Re: The Kingpin, the Maggia and Intergang I like OddHat's idea, but then we're right back to the Kingpin, aren't we? Can you think up an eastern european sounding name for a 200 point high-EGO brick?

Master Villain is standing next to Our Hero. Master Villain has two power frameworks with attack powers in them, plus a high STR. If my understanding is correct, with one attack roll (DEX) Master Villain could hit Our Hero with an APEB from one framework, an APRKA from his other framework AND a punch or other melee attack. Is that correct?

I'm franticly working on background material for a PBEM campaign where the players all play villains. As to how to handle the good guys, I've got that covered - PRIMUS, national heroes and a local sanctioned hero group. I've even a local super-powered vigilante and an anti-metahuman underground organization. My question is how to handle the PCs competition? I've worked Viper and Demon into the campaign, but I'm thinking about street level crime. DC handled street gang activity via Intergang. I've always considered Intergang to be a mistake even in a Silver Age setting. I much prefer Batman:Beyond's The Jokers. I'll probably do something like that, but based on The Furies from the 70's movie The Warriors. I'll say they're all low level metahumans, and as such are able to dominate the other street gangs and elude the long arm of the law. So I'll have the Furied handle drug DISTROBUTION, and maybe a little methamphetamin manufacturing. "Can you DIG it?" As far as organized crime, Marvel used both The Kingpin and the Maggia. As to why Marvel HAD to invent the Maggia, that is both an long and interesting story. In New York City in the late 60's and early 70's there were certain people who were saying that the mafia didn't exist, and in fact the who idea of the mafia was simply anti-Italian prejudice. If people persisted in saying there in fact WAS a mafia, suddenly the City Sanitation Department STOPPED picking up their trash. This was amde possible because the people insisting that there was no mafia were all made members of the mob. So Marvel had to come up with something else, and *poof* the Maggia was born. Now back to the campaign - It will be set in Boston, and in Boston the Italians don't run things. The Irish do. But now days people aren't afraid of the Italians OR the Irish, it's all the Russians/Eastern Europeans. Back to the mob in a minute. I want to discuss The Kingpin of Crime. Only in the Silver Age could we have the Sinister Six, the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and the Kingpin of Crime. Why not have everyone wear matching polyester bowling shirts with "We Are Evil" on them? Totally Cornball. He did serve a role, however - he was a focus for organized crime. Not only that, but he was a fairly powerful metahuman himself (as I recall, he used to beat on Spiderman like a trailer park mom in a Wal-Mart parking lot). My question is "Does he NEED to be a metahuman?" If I go with the angle that organized crime (bookmaking, loan sharking, prostitution, protection, racketeering and drug trafficking) is dominated by the Eastern Europeans, then opens the door for the local boss to call on Eurostar for muscle if things get too nasty for him. Of course, there is always Mechassasin, Utility and Green Dragon if he need local muscle. I'm just wondering if Igor (or whatever I decide to name him) needs to be a super himself? I'm figuring a 100+100 Super Agent level meta - Not enough to take on a super one-on one himself, but bad enough to look another villain in the eye and yell "Get 'em, boys" while he makes a dignified exit. Does it sound like I've overlooked anything? I appreciate you guys help. phy

Re: PRIMUS source book? I guess I'll just DL the PDF. For some reason I thought there was a paper version.

Re: Firefly HERO Website Up THERE'S GOING TO BE A FIREFLY MOVIE? *franticly checks Internet Movie Database Boo Yeah! phydaux is HAPPY!

Re: PRIMUS source book? It's not on the release schedual for '05.

Am I crazy or was their an official PRIUMS sourcebook available through Hero Games? I can find Viper and UNTIL, but no PRIMUS.

Re: WWYCD: The Gift Horse Quasar The Boston Hero's League already has a Hoverjet. He'd have Mystica use Telekinisis to move the aircraft over to the ciry airport, far away from their HQ, but he'd also use his Speed Reading and Eidedic Memory to memorise the 7" thick instruction manual just in case. Mystica What does a mystic with Megascale Teleportation need an aircraft for? She'd let Quasar worry about it. Shadowhunter What does a street-level crimefighter need an aircraft for? He's go to a pay phone, call PRIMUS, offer a quick explanation, then scram before they could trace the call.

I've been wanting to GM champs again. I can't really find any players in my area for the game I want to run. So I started kicking around the idea of GM'ing a PBEM. I GM'ed a PBEM Traveller game a while ago. It fell apart, but it was fun while it lasted. I've just been over to Hero Central. The thing with Hero Centeral is I still can't figure out what it's supposed to BE. Is it supposed to be sort of "play by message board" where each major scean of the story gets its own thread? Then, the GM adds new threads as the story progresses? So maybe a new scean starts every few days or so, and the players contrubute through the day as their life allows time to do so? Or is it more of a "chat room" RPG, where the players all get to at the same time each week, just on the web site rather than a friend's living room?

Re: Help with GM He's a GM, but he doesn't like to roleplay NPCs? Doesn't he realize that roleplaying NPCs is 40% of a GM's job? (Adventure planning being another 40%, and administering combat being 10% AT MAX.) He's throwing 350 point sourcebook villains at your 400 point PCs, and he actually expects the sourcebook villains to hold their own for more than six phases? Doesn't he realize that sourcebook villains are by-and-large the most points IN-efficient characters in existence, while PCs are usually points-optimized to the point of munchkinism? Seems like your buddy has a classic case of Frustrated Hack-n-Slash-itis. He wants to play the most powerful character on the table. After a few games, players like this quickly realize that the monsters/villains/whatever are often more powerful than the PCs. So these players express a desire to GM, simply because they want to "win." These games usually degenerate into a "GM vs. the players" type of campaign. If the GM is sly, he usually ends up killing a PC or two a night until the players are so frustrated no one wants to play. If the GM is lazy (and this is usually the care) the PCs out-think the GM every time, the GM gets frustrated and ends up pouting. Either way, no one has a good time. It is unlikely that he will develop a taste for roleplaying NPCs. He probably doesn't even roleplay his own character all that much when YOU GM, so why should he roleplay characters that aren't "him." If you and your other friends don't mind accepting that all your buddy's sessions will be little more than hack-n-slash sessions, then try this: Help your buddy make a custom villain organization. The organization will be staffed by: Super Agents - 200 points with Armor, Jet Pack and a multipower Blaster Rifle (lots of AP, Flash, Entangle and AOE powers). Show your buddy how the agents can attack in groups of three, and by working together three agents can take down one 400 point PC, i.e. Phase 3 all the agents use their multipower Blaster Rifles to do three simultaneous AOE Flash attacks on the team brick, then the next action phase they use the Teamwork skill to combine their three APEBs and take him out. This way 12 agents take down 4 PCs in no time. Three primary villains - Make each one different, but make them purpose-built to work together. Make one a Brick, one a Power Projector/Gadgeteer and one Martial Artist. Show him that, by having all three villains attack the same PC at the same time, they can take down a PC in one or two action phases. The Power Projector/Gadgeteer uses Flash & Entangle to de-buff a PC, while the Brick and the Martial Artist use the Teamwork skill to do Combined Attacks. One master villain - Basically Dr. Destroyer Jr., i.e. 500+ points and munchkined to the hilt. Give him every defense power in the book as high as you dare, then two attack multi-powers (one with standard attack powers and one with Flash, Entangle, AOE, AVLD, etc). Your buddy can run these same characters over and over. Odds are you and your friends will STILL regularly out-think your buddy (four heads ARE better than one) but your buddy should be able to "hold his own" and give the PCs a serious run for their money. And by playing the same villains over and over, he should become better at planning and playing those characters.

Re: Monty Haul DnD vets: need your help for NPC villain team No, not Munchkin, Knights of the Dinner Table. The sword is a +12 Hackmaster. The mage casts Sidewinder Fireballs of Groin-Seeking. The thief carries a crossbow with +3 Bolts of Reaving. Their war cry is "break out the battlemap, we're goin' to WAR!"

Re: Character For Review