Metaphysician

Re: "Hull? I can't be in Hull!"

Hermes: "1920s. . . *calculates the year-equivalencies* . . . yes! Finally, a trip through time to a place that isn't insanely hazardous!"

Or, presuming this is, in fact, the 1920s from his timeline, he's in the pulp-early superhero period, and tracks down some of the people he knows from that period. This will inevitably mean getting caught up in some crazy global adventure, but hey, that can be fun.

Re: Crisis of Infinite Champions: 10 brave heroes

Hermes: On one hand, he is not exactly the most powerful hero available, even from just his own time period. So, he'd ask why cosmic force is asking him, as opposed to gathering up, say, Minos, Ioannis Kymberion, and eight more Rhadamanthines.

OTOH, Hermes and his friends have been involved in so much cosmic weirdness, and have been declared as cosmic anomalies ( though Hermes doesn't currently remember that bit ), that Hermes would totally buy "you have the ability to change the course of destiny well beyond your power." In which case, well, that's that.

Re: Code vs Killing, but Gods a little fuzzy about kneecaps.

And given that Final Crisis was unmitigated crap, when it was comprehensible at all. . .

Re: Code vs Killing, but Gods a little fuzzy about kneecaps.

Let me just comment that the "What if he just holds out" or "What if he just lies" situations apply equally to any form of interrogation, whether involving pain and torture or not.

Re: The Super Darwin Awards

That revolving door death policy seems not to apply to most Champions campaigns. IIRC' date=' the only HERO System mechanic for coming back from the dead is the Resurrection option for Healing, which I believe to be quite rare in Champions. I suggested a 'fix' for this somewhere in the Sixth Edition Forum.[/quote']

 

If they add M&M style hero points, I would suggest having an ability, perhaps an everyhero/villain ability, that lets you burn a hero point to come back from the dead. How dead determines how many points, and what complications arise.

 

Example: if you fall to your 'death', with nobody seeing you hit ground, and nobody recovering a body? That would cost 1 hero point, and you can show up again almost immediately.

 

If you get your head blown off in front of witnesses, who then check your fingerprints and DNA, and proceed to burn your corpse into ash, followed by summoning your ghost from the afterlife to confirm you really truly are dead? Would require either dumping a boatload of hero points on it, or else fewer, but requiring a *long* time to come back, and with likely horrible complications.

Re: Code vs Killing, but Gods a little fuzzy about kneecaps.

Sounds like he doesn't really have a CvK, or perhaps only a Marginal one. He may well have other psych limits, like "Protective of Innocents" or such.

Re: Not Unique

Microman II: Would figure he got dropped through some kind of dimensional hole, and work on a way home while learning about the new place. The fact that its ruled by Mechanon would make him. . . suspicious, to say the least.

Diomedes: He'd want to get home, but doesn't have the skills. How he'd react. . . honestly, he'd probably be creeped out. A world of all superhumans, thats easy to comprehend. A world in which *everyone* has heroic drive and skill? It *shouldn't* work, not in the way it is described as. If his communications with Athena are cut off, this might be sufficient for him to outright go to ground.

Hermes: While he'd work on getting himself home, and could totally figure a way in time. . . an entire world where everyone is superhuman? He'd be studying the history and society of the place with deep fascination, to see how things work, and don't work, in a world without mortals.

Re: Not Unique

What happens to machine characters?

Re: Code vs Killing, but Gods a little fuzzy about kneecaps.

Leaving aside the entire torture question for a moment. . .*

I tend to think telepathic examination would be treated equivalent to testimony. Which is to say, 5th amendment protections would prevent telepathic examination from being admissable, unless it is voluntary. Which in practice, would mean the only time anybody gets examined before a judge would be if they are innocent, and request examination to prove it.

Given the potential for abuse, any unapproved telepathic searches would be treated as warrantless searches, and thus subject to the fruit of the poisoned tree principle. However, I can see there being a list of exigent circumstances exceptions, such as for the proverbial ticking time bomb scenario. In such, the telepathic evidence per se would still be inadmissable, but anything found as a result thereof would be.

*Now that I've finished that, a question: what should a hero do in the proverbial ticking time bomb scenario, when they don't have access to telepathy or such? Even in the silver age, you had people with time critical, life critical information who didn't reveal it without being roughed up or terrified.

Re: The Super Darwin Awards

While neither me nor anyone else especially found it funny at the time, my character Hermes once had a situation, wherein an orbital death ray was being used to kill White Crane, a superhuman of great power.

He responded by. . . punching the focusing coils of the death ray, as hard as he could. It seemed like a good idea at the time, given the device was product of a superior scientific mind to Hermes, and he had only moments to save White Crane's life.

Well, it worked, after a fashion. White Crane did indeed survive. However, nobody else in a quite sizable radius around her did, including Hermes.

( he got better later )

Re: Modern Island of Dr. Destroyer

Oh, its just that the stats for Destruga II give it a defense of. . . 6. Even with a Body of 1000, that means it can be sunk by a bunch of fighter jets emptying vulcan cannons ( about 4d6 RKA ) into it, and given how big it is, they can fire from considerable range and still hit every time with every possible autofire hit.

It has a decent array of defensive blasters and point defense lasers, so ordinary fighter jets would have a hard time getting within range, yes. For something that is not stealthy at *all* ( a Darkness vs Radio that's roughly the size and shape of the island does *not* count ), not especially fast, and is usually found far far away from any collateral damage? Dr Destroyer really should better armor and shield something against which people will likely be tossing nuclear warheads. Massive Body may keep the island floating, but it won't keep the surface installations from being fried.

Or basically, Destruga II is wonky, much like pretty much every vehicle writeup in 5e.

Re: Code vs Killing, but Gods a little fuzzy about kneecaps.

Telepathy isn't torture, by any stretch ( unless actually used to torture someone ). It *is* an egregious violation of privacy, however, so its certainly not something to do casually.

That said, when I think of "mind rape", I tend to categorize that as "forcing a person to do, or believe they are doing, something strongly contrary to their will and beliefs," or otherwise using telepathy as a means of psychological torture. Mind controlling somebody into surrendering, or falling asleep, isn't "mind rape". OTOH, forcing somebody to kill their own spouse and kids definitely is.

Re: Champs-What if you had to draft a superpower registration act?

Depends on the superhero. With regard to one as or more intelligent and skilled, figuring out a secret ID may be essentially impossible from scratch. . . but if they voluntarily reveal it to a facility with inferior security?

Re: New team on the evening news

Pretty much my first thought to.

Re: New team on the evening news

Pretty much all my contemporary characters would be suspicious of this team. Its not that a global-scale team is forming, its the borderline-megalomaniacal undertones of their global announcement. Details would vary, though. Microman II would find it ironic, given the Sentinels were days away from publically announcing their reformation. Jack Frost, by contrast, would be outraged, given the implicit insult to the dimension-lost, possibly dead Sentinels of his world, who just sacrificed themselves to stop V'Han.

Hermes, can't really happen in his home time ( bronze age Earth ), as the only people on the up and up who'd mostly agree with this sentiment, are already Theran ( and have better sense than to make such an ill-written announcement ). If visiting the future, he'd be suspicious, but no moreso than he now is of everything in the future.

Re: Modern Island of Dr. Destroyer

Might I suggest making is sufficient;y durable that it can't be completely blown out of the water by a few bursts of automatic cannon fire?

*mutter*

Re: Characters Losing Their Souls - How To Handle It?

This premise might be used by the character Mr Infamy from Freedom City. He makes devil's deals with people, with no particular strings attached. Why? Most likely, because anybody willing to make the kind of deal he offers, is going to do evil upon the world anyway. If he actually does want souls, he can get ones that have been self-damned.

Re: Champs-What if you had to draft a superpower registration act?

The very premise already pushes into unconstitutionality on numerous grounds, and any American PC I had would say it. Needless to say, the only 'help' they'd be providing is whatever public relations work needs to be done to remind the populace that, without superheroes, the planet wouldn't exist anymore.

Re: Code vs Killing, but Gods a little fuzzy about kneecaps.

Batman deals with foes regularly who tempt him, and who frankly deserve it. Just the fact that he has the Joker as a villain means he deserves the 20 points.

Silver Surfer. . . well, actually, pretty much everything I said applies to him, too. Sure, he's got the Power Cosmic, but his typical villains are also cosmic beings, often ones with more power than him, to boot. And amongst the villains he's refused to kill when he had the opportunity to do so? Thanos.

Yeah, he's got the 20 point version, too.

Re: Code vs Killing, but Gods a little fuzzy about kneecaps.

And, having checked with an expert, it seems Norrin Radd *also* has a Total CvK, save when he's under the influence of Galactus.

That makes two characters in mainstream comics with Total CvKs.

Re: "Super Heroes" vs. "Superheroes"

Speaking from (in-game) experience there?

*cough* I don't know to what you refer.

( also, always assume any super weapon *will* explode if disturbed )

Re: Buying Souls/Demonic Pacts

Transform vs Body or Ego, whichever is higher? Also, yes, I would say a Transform to change someone's fundamental morality, would be a Spiritual Transform.

Re: Buying Souls/Demonic Pacts

I would go with Spiritual Transform, too, and just say that it can give any appropriate 'benefit', since those are side effects of the real power ( taking away someone's soul, and presumably liberating mystic energy in the process ).

Perhaps there should also be some kind of additional benefits for the ownership of the soul, like a heavily limited VPP that can be applied to anything on the character sheet, but only 1 character point per soul possessed?

Re: "Super Heroes" vs. "Superheroes"

I would argue its entirely possible to do both at once. Even godlike beings can have their personal dramas, separate from their professional adventures. Its just, they won't involve things like "how do I pay the rent?"

They'll involve things like "my love is on the other side of a great war," or "I died, and while I was dead, my two closest friends have come to hate each other."

Re: WWYCD: "Dear Superhero" (Warning: Ugly situation)

Most of my PCs couldn't really respond to this, except in a team context wherein the responses would more be determined by the other members.

The exception is Hermes, who if somehow dropped into the present ( and stripped of his usual concerns about Evil Pulp Supervillain Illuminati Who Rules The World in Secret ). . .

Well, someone would have to explain to him why its a bad thing to simply overthrow the local government and rebuild a new one that actually is competent, honest, and just. Because where he comes from, his home nation *does* exactly that. And even their nemeses wouldn't argue that there's anything morally wrong with taking a weak, incompetently run country, and conquering it.

And if no one so convinces him? Well, Duhu is going to be made a safer place, even if it would probably take all of Hermes' time and energy to do so ( he's super fast, and super smart, but he's still only one guy ).