Wanderer

Re: Build your own amalgam superhuman Looks quite nice as character idea, only I'm not that much persuaded about the value of adding Arachne, either from the iconic, power-level, or "babe" factor, so I would substitute her with either She-Hulk (long-term Avengers companions, both government agents) Powers: very high-level strength, stamina, durability, and healing factor or Marvel Girl (exploiting the X-Men connection) Powers: telepathy and telekinesis, genetic potential to link with the Phoenix force. Or better yet, drop both Emma Frost and Arachne, and add both Jennifer Walters and Rachel Summers to the mix. Rachel may not yet be as gorgeous as her mother, but if it is true that you can tell the daughter by looking at the mother, she will eventually be as babelicious as Jean Grey or Emma Frost, and she's potentially more powerful than Emma.

Re: Build your own amalgam superhuman Indeed. Well, it's questionable whether Thor's powerset would be accessible to genetic copying (although, there's the infamous Civil War precedent), and whether this would give his full powerst or just a high-end brick. In the latter case, it's not really worth the effort, since the Avengers have no lack of high-end bricks whose abilities could be copied all the more easily: Wonder-Man, She-Hulk, Warbird. Moreover, throw in some of their equally high-end energy projectors: Photon, Firestar, Jack of Hearts, the aforementioned Warbird, and you will equal the essential Thor powerset. Or, if you really wish to be nasty, jusrt add Sentry (all warranties about the sanity of your amalgam superhuman go out the window if you do, however). Then add Scarlet Witch for another really-flexible, high-magnitude innate powerset. Therefore, my essential Avengers "donor" pickup: She-Hulk or Wonder-Man: Strength, invulnerability, heaing factor (She-Hulk) or flight and energy form (Wonder Man) Warbird: flight, strength, energy absorption/projection, speed, durability (she's a kind of Jane of all trades: maybe not the strongest choice ever for any of her abilities, except energy absorption, but a nice second-tier high-level hybrid powerhouse in a lot of fields) Photon or Jack of Hearts or Firestar or Justice: flight, energy projection, energy form (Photon) or absorption (Jack of Hearts) or telekinesis (Justice) Scarlet Witch: innate magic, chaos/entropy/probability manipulation For the fifth man or woman, well,there's a nice roost of possible choices: Wolverine: dexterity, super-tough bone claws, healing factor Wasp: growing/shrinking Quicksilver: super-speed Cap. America or Tigra: dexterity The only area where Avengers have always been rather short (like the FF) is mentalism. OTOH, Scarlet Witch's powers can usually cover some ground in that area. As the sixth man talent-only option, one could throw in Tony Stark, for sheer brains. Or Henry Pym, who is less of a talented all-round genious, but may add growth and shrinking. Or Hank McCoy, for dexterity and brains.

Re: Build your own amalgam superhuman Some possible nice combinations: JLA: Superman Martian Manhunter Flash Captain Atom or Firestorm or Ray Jade Teen Titans Kon-El or Supergirl Miss Martian Kid Flash Beast Boy Stargirl Avengers She-Hulk or Wonder Man Warbird Photon or Firestar Scarlet Witch or Justice Quicksilver X-Men Colossus Havok or Sunfire Rachel Summers or Polaris Wolverine Storm

Re: Build your own amalgam superhuman Well, artifact-based characters are specifically disallowed, since it would be really too unplausible to copy their powers on a genetic basis. Therefore classic ring-bearing green-lanterns would be out, except for those who have managed to fully internalize green energy powers. Jade would be a good substitute (she was a JLA reserve). Alternatively, Captain Atom or Firestom. Kid Amazo, as a matter of fact, but a much more plausible one. None of that "crossbreeding robot parts with human ova" silliness. Well, if you really wish to mix Marvel and DC characters, JLA and Avengers teamed-up during their crossover miniseries, you can use them, although it's rather of a stretch, and the concept was rather more of a modernized genetic-based junior "pick your choice" Super-Skrull or Amazo. Anyway, there are many others DC and especially Marvel superteams, with ever-changing plentiful roosters to pick from: the Teen Titans, the Avengers, the X-Men... And villains do not have to belong in the same team, anyway. E.g. Count Nefaria, which belongs to this kind of concept somehow, was built out of three unaffiliated supervillains.

Inspired by reading the Kid Amazo TPB... You, one of the current top-notch geneticist or alchemist genius supervillains of your universe, have currently managed to put your greedy paws on biological samples from some among the top-echelon most-powerful superhumans of your world, and you have the knowledge to combine them into the genetic or alchemical template for a one-man-team uberpowerful superhuman that will be raised to be the first in an army of invincible warriors to conquer all you survey (yeah, we all know how it typically ends, rebellious children and all, but it worked for the Skrulls... somehow). Only being a modern sensible supergenius, you have some reasonable constraints to your work: only superhumans with innate powers that have a conceivable genetic-biological basis can give valid samples for your amalgam superhuman, it is a living humanoid, not a robot or cyborg, the abilities of gadgeteers, magicians, skill- or artifact-based characters cannot be duplicated (except for super-skills and magical powers that are based on biology, not learned knowledge), and no more than five higher-level heavyweight/powerhouses superhumans can be combined in your template (optionally, you can add a sixth sample too if the only abilities it brings are some exceptional skills or smarts). Being mindful of the classics and the need for covering the bases for your own concepts, you ensure that at least one brick, one energy projector, and one flyer are included in your template, and that at least two choices among a shapeshifter, a speedster, a telekinetic, a matter manipulator, or an energy/force constructs creator are included too. Similar or identical powers may coexist but due to power-source constraints for your creature they do not stack, so that the being is only as strong as the strongest "donor" in your template, and so on. You have the choice of picking your samples from heroes or from villains, only heroes being typically team players, you are restricted to choose superheroes that are or have once been allies or associates, whereas villains have no such restriction. Your feat somehow ends up being a high-probability event in the multiverse, so it gets duplicated many times in different timelines and parellel universes, and multiple template for amalgam superhumans from several different arrays of superhumans and superheroic teams from several iconic universes with metahumans get built. Pick your builds and enjoy.

Re: What Book Should I Buy Next? If you own Ultimate Mentalist and Brick, I would absolutely complete the power archetypes collection by buying Ultimate Speedster, Energy Projector, and Metamorph. All are very solid, and inspirational books which are very useful for shaping characters based on the respective concepts. Ultimate Mystic is rather good too but it somewhat suffers from the fact that some of the basic ideas and concepts that make up the archetype are discussed in another book, Mystic World (just like the way treatment of the Martial Artist is incomplete with UMA alone, you need Ninja Hero too), so I place it to the bottom of the list. Ultimate Skill is a ery good book too, my appreciation of it is only somewhat diminished by the fact I rather despise skill-based heroes a la Batman. Likewise if you have USPD I it would be very good to complete it with USPD II. I would only add that if you have a complete set of the Ultimate power Archetypes books, most of the power builds detailed in USPD I-II are reprinted there, only with a different organization, SFX or power archetype. Last but not least, consider the Character Creation Handbook. It reprints the character creation rules from Fred with integration of most (albeit not all) of the nice little rule variants, options, and tweaks that have been published these late years in books like the ultimate series. It's kinda like a Hero 5th ed. Rev V. 2.0

Can one apply the No Range Modifier Advantage to Teleportation in order to make the Attack Roll if you can't perceive the target hex, not subject to the Range Modifier ? Since NonCombat/Megascale Teleportation is already subject to a default extra Phase with 1/2 DCV, how does one manage applying Extra Time and Concentration to it ?

Re: Danger Sense with Targeting As a matter of fact, it was your thread which reminded me this was a long-standing pet peeve I was going to ask Steve sooner or later. Since Danger Sense with Discriminatory and full Targeting is one power construct that is going to be appropriate and useful for many character concepts.

Hullo Steve, hope your holidays were fully satisfactory so we can deluge you with insane questions with no remorse. My question for today: Since Danger Sense is built including Targeting with Needs Half Roll, -1, in order to make Danger Sense fully Targeting, is it legal to buy Targeting with a -5 Custom Adder, in order not to pay the same thing twice ?

Re: Endurance Reserves: Why so cheap?

Re: Superhero Archetypes Galactic Champions also adds the Cosmic Archetype: Silver Surfer, Cap. Mar-vell, Adam Warlock, Thanos, any Eternal, any Herald of Galactus, Thor, Beta Ray Bill.

Re: WWYCD: "He'll be back." I happen to have a rather firm position on the issue of identity: if something thinks and remembers to be me, and has the same memories and personality as me, with no greater variance than the ones which might otherwise happen as a result of normal, albeit extreme, life experiences, then it's me, with no buts or ifs. Soul, provided it indeed exists, is an emergent property that develops as the reflection of a self-aware sentient consciousness, so it blossoms from the mind and travels with it in any case. The mind is all-important, we are our memories and personality, the body is but a service-mechanism and interface to interact with the world. And anyway, bodies lack structural continuity anyway. In all likelihood, there's not a single molecule in my body or brain that has not been replaced during my lifespan. Therefore, the hypothetical issue of whether a clone or an uploaded virtual personality AI that has my brain patterns imprinted is me, or the body that exists the teleportation booth is me, is totally and completely moot, as long as there is no breach of the continuity of consciousness. I.e. I "go to sleep" so to speak in one body, and "wake up" in another. As it takes the issue of when such a breach occurs, i.e. my brain patterns are recorded in a clone while my original body is awake, the issue is trickier. If my original body remains awake when the clone awakens, there is indeed a duplication, not a transition of consciousness, so the situation is more akin to suddenly having a child or identical twin that completely shares my mind and personality. One may find solace in the certainety that everything that is me will continue to live, but it's no more strictly me since there's a part of my experience that will not live on, and this is the more relevant the more the two copies of mine live on as separate identities (which will cause them to diverge more and more over time).

Re: WWYCD: "He'll be back." Nor do I, but in any setting of mine there's plentiful of variously-named mutants as the main (or even unique) super origin (often using psionics or reality-warping under various guises as justification for powers). Empirean-like alternate races also do tend to show up with alarming frequency since I totally fancy Kirby's Eternals. In that case, if the future can be changed, the first and foremost priority becomes to prevent it from happening, so that the metahuman race can rightfully conquer... err, inherit the Earth in due time as it is Manifest Destiny and all this Terminator silliness can be wiped out from the timestream

Re: WWYCD: "He'll be back." One thing I wondered while writing the answer for my preferred character is, where are all the supers gone in this future ? It's a machine-transhumanist vs. humanist war, but where are all the mutants gone ? Or the Empireans or mutates, for that matter ?

Re: WWYCD: One Wish So would Nova, even if it would be the "interesting times" kind of fun. But he enjoys that.

Re: WWYCD: The Seven Deadlies Ditto. Same for Humility.

Re: WWYCD: Mindset Nova: "I'm sorry, but I can't let you do it. Not this way. Taking temporary control of one's mind to win a fight is one thing, but changing his personality against his will is far worse than death. That's how we'll do it. We will fight Zerstoiten the honorable way, and provided we win, you can give him the choice of accepting to be stripped of his mass-murdering megalomania, or executed on the spot".

Re: WWYCD: The Seven Deadlies Given Nova's marked penchant to indulge in lust, arrogance, combat, and hedonism, I fear he would be wholly indequate to deal with any of lust, wrath, pride, and likely even gluttony, and would likely spend the scenario under the mental control of these sins.

Re: WWYCD: "He'll be back." Nova would first and foremost be concerned with the fate of metahumans in this future, since his own kind are the ones he is sworn to protect, before everything else, and would choose to fight for the future that best ensures their interests. Provided metahumans are not affected by the conflict (maybe they have left for the stars), his instinctive sympathies would go to the transformed humans, since his Magneto-like mindset can totally empathize with the plight of an evolved offshoot of mankind being persecuted by jealous and fearful humans (even if uploading into a machine feels quite pathetic in comparison to his psionic mastery of matter and energy; but even pitiful monkeys that lack the potential for superhumanity deserve a way for transcendence, if they strive for it). Killing an innocent in order to protect the future is not something that he's going to sanction, unless it is proven to be absolutely necessary (plus, this "Sarah Connor" setup looks suspiciously like a self-fulfilling prophecy paradox). He would rather offer to travel to the future, and try to broker a deal. If that fails, he would ask the transformed humans to give up unvoluntary uploading. if they agree, he's going to beat up the humans (and kill the fanatical anti-cyborg terrorists), until they can be strong-armed into accepting peace and relocating into different areas of the planet, or different planets. If the transformed humans refuse, he is simply going to beat up both factions, until they agree to a compromise involving peaceful coexistence and relocating to different areas of the planet, or different planets. Since Nova is a cosmic-level powerhouse, he should be able to tip the balance of the conflict and force a compromise of his choosing. All the way, he would be wondering where is his future self, and why he isn't already addressing this mess, since he's immortal.

I apologize for the double thread, this is the fist time I try to set up a poll thread.

Ok, let's try it again... If a character may Shape Shift (Hearing, Sight, and Touch) his body so that its skin and flesh resemble clothing, but the power cannot affect real clothing and equipment, is this A) default Shape Shift as the power is normally supposed to work a 0-level Limitation C) Affects Body Only Limitation D) Affects Body Only Limitation at -1/4. The Power can be used to make the body *imitate* clothing (and stuff like jewelry) but nothing except actual flesh and bone is changed. Actual worn clothes and equipment are unaffected. This means the character can appear fully clothed by using the power, but needs to use SS in order to change or remove faux clothing, and will be naked if SS is turned off, drained, or suppressed. Equipment needs to be left behind if one shifts in an ill-fitting form. However, I'm assuming a case where no Foci are involved, and equipment is only useful as it typically occurs in a Superheroic game with innate superpowers (that is, occasionally, not all the time). I hope my doubt is expressed clearly, now.

Hullo Steve, happy Winter Solstice Holiday of Choice and New Year in advance, rest assured that Hero books will be appreciated as (self-)gifts. To business: If a Shapeshift "body change" SFX (let's assume it's a Persistent Sight/Hearing/Touch SS with Imitation) can reproduce/imitate clothing from its own skin and flesh, but cannot alter/incorporate true clothing or equipment, is it the default expected effect of SS, a 0-level Limitation, or a (lesser value) expression of Affects Body Only ? Let's also assume that no Foci are necessarily involved and equipment is as often useful and needed as in a typical Superheroic game. Good job with Character Handbook, it looks very useful, I stand in very eager expectation of Stronghold.

Re: Quick confusion on Unusual Senses Detect electromagnetic emissions in the frequency interval of visible light. Which is what makes "I see through walls" as a SFX extremely difficult to justify (without reality-warping, that is). The wall stops the light, so past it, there is nothing to perceive. "I see X-Rays" cannot ever work, since it becomes laughable the moment one applies a bit of scientific common sense (necessary, since you invoke a hard-science concept, "X-Rays").

Re: Quick confusion on Unusual Senses As for my own opinion about N-Ray Vision, it's a faulty, unplausible homage to a bit of Silver Age cheesy explanation for a Superman power that has been discarded by the same context that borne it decades ago. I'm rather enthusiastic about Byrne's Post-Crisis effort to make all of the Kryptonian power-set, psionic in nature, if dependent on stored solar energy for power, and therefore so-called X-Ray vision, just a form of clairvoyance. I'm the worst person ever to ask justify the existence of a faulty, unplausible concept that IMO like so much cheesy Silver Age stuff, should simply be dropped and forgotten, if you ask my opinion. We don't need N-Ray as a power construct. Sight, like Hearing, is a concept that is firmly grounded in scientific realism, and involves perceiving a form of energy emission. That SFX imples being stopped by the appropriate barriers. "I can see X-Rays" will never work as a plausible explanation since there aren't enough radiation of that kind to allow that kind of illumination, and if it were, we would be all dead. If we need to make Sight able to sense through barriers, we need to invoke a different kind of sense, that transcends physical laws (magic, psionics, cosmic, reality warping...) and state that the owner's body/mind, for whatever reason, channels it through the eyes. In Hero terms, pick Spatial Awareness, and put it in the Sight Group. None of my examples are stopped by ordinary barriers. Super-science or magical countermeasures to super-senses aren't such, they are powers in their own right. I thought we were assuming source material that takes itself seriously, not the popular culture jokes that are used to make fun of the delusions of conspiracy theorists, and their reflections in comedy. Typically, suppressing psionic powers in non-farcical source material takes super-science. Or if it doesn't, it's an inborn flaw (a Limitation) of that power. Those are sense-suppressing powers, not ordinry stuff. Pretty much any Super-Sense SFX can be suppressed or negated if you use the appropriate power and SFX. It's like Goblin using super-science drugs to negate Spider-Man's Danger Sense. For the scope of our discussion, it's irrelevant. Not just any Detect. Just the ones that are sufficiently broad in object as to be able to function as a substitute of Sight (at least in circumstances that are relevant to heroic activities). Again, what is so precious in N-Ray as a separate power construct SFX to preserve, "my vision/hearing/smell is able to cross physical barriers that stop the stuff my sense perceives" ? It's a SFX that is extremely difficult to justify and make plausible, in the lack of outright reality-warping rewriting physical laws on the fly (in such a case, it's "stopped by lead" that becomes rather difficult to justify). Modern comics and sci-fi do not use it. Not even the character that originated it has been using it for the last two decades. The Silver-Age pseudoscience that birthed it is dead and buried. It own name comes from a scientific fraud. Hero does not really need it. Blockable from ordinary stuff, as opposed to super-countermeasures, that is. But it's plain we disagree in our perceptions of the source material, either comic-book superhumans, or all the other genres (e.g. high-fantasy magic, space-opera psionics) where super-senses are plausible. IMO, your concerns are only really justified in hard SF where the only super-senses available are biological genegineered or cybernetic bionic augmentations. But in such a scenario, N-Ray as in "my vision/hearing/smell is able to cross physical barriers that stop the stuff my sense perceives" cannot exist. Not by violating the same principles by which the ability you are expanding is functioning. Otherwise, what you have to buy is a wholly new system, that at most is re-wired to offer output through the same channels as the old one. Normal Sight, by its nature, is detect electromagnetic energy of a specific frequency interval. Barriers that stop it, stop the sense. You can't make that SFX overcome the limitation, by its very nature. What you are trying to perceive doesn't exist anymore. What you end up doing, is either rewiring a different sense through the eyes, or rewriting reality so that the physical laws that regulate light, are not valid anymore for your eyes. Which in the end, is functionally indistinguishable anyway from a new sense. Yes, the SFX that allows you to violate the physical law limitations of the propagation of light. Which is either a new sense that you get as sight, or reality-warping to make the photons being "resurrected" the other side of the wall, or coming to you through a spatial distortion, or whatever. Anyway, something new that is plugged to sight, not "sight-plus". Which fits perfectly with "new sense, plugged to sight group" philosophy.

Re: Quick confusion on Unusual Senses IMO, all the real problems you and others have with Enhanced Senses may be solved by defining two new Limitations: "Can't Perceive Through Barriers" (-1/2) and "Can't Perceive Through [Common Substance]" (-1/4). Apply them to Detects as needed for the pseudo-scientific SFX like X-Ray Vision or Biological Sonar/Radar, and all balance concerns are solved. Maybe they won't make too much of difference for the most trivial Detects, but for N-Ray Vision it will be significant. That's because you assume that the default form of Super-Sense should be the biological/technological SFXs, which may indeed have such problems. IMO the default form in Superheroic games should be the psionic/mystical/cosmic/generic "super" SFXs, that have no such problems. Judging from comics source material, the "supernatural" or generic "super" Super-Senses which are not stopped by barriers are more relevant and widespread than "scientific" ones. Compare: Jedi's Force Awareness, Spider-Man's Danger Sense, super-mages' mystic senses, Marvel cosmics' Cosmic Awareness, vs. Superman's X-Ray Vision and Daredevil's biological sonar/radar. Just like default Flight in comics does not require wings, so default super-senses have no trouble with barriers. Those characters who do are entitled to a cp refund with LImitations, and so all balance problems are solved. Just because you assume that should not come with the default package of a Super-Sense. I don't, just like default Flight should not be Levitation, or default Teleportation should not be to fixed locations only. N-Ray Perception isn't an Adder. It is a Super-Sense type, a SFX variant of Detect Physical Objects, linked to a Sense Group, and it ought to be a Limitation to balance the fact a common material can stop it. You should build Superman-style X-Ray Vision, as Detect Physical Objects, linked to Sight Sense Group, with the limitation "can't perceive through lead" (-1/4). This way, your balance concerns are solved. Enforcing an extra charge just to make the default out of the relatively few super-sense SFXs that are limited by barriers seems to me a counterproductive way of doing things, when most SFXs for this power are not affected. That would be another issue entirely. Yes. Nothing personal intended. Just to explain how, as a player, I would find your house-rule annoying and excessive. It's all about radically different concepts of fairness and expected minimum service/effectiveness for the default price. Sorry. The nuances of English style escape me at times. Strongly/radically disagree. That makes two. Most comic/movie characters with Super-Senses (Jedi, Cap.Marvel, Dr. Strange, Spider-Man) do not have trouble with barriers. Overcharging the average to set the threshold to the lowest common denominator is IMO bad system design. As it concerns the "legacy homage", I'll be the first to admit that the Pre-Crisis pseudo-scientific explanations simply do not look any convincing, and I'm rather enthusiastic about Byrne's Post-Crisis effort to make all of the Kryptonian power-set, psionic in nature, if dependent on stored solar enrgy for power, and therefore so-called X-Ray vision, just a form of clairvoyance. That's but one of the reasons I skirt using the N-Ray SFX power construct like the plague, and use variants of Cosmic/Magical/Psionic Spatial Awareness, whenever I feel a character concept may warrant that kind of Super-Sense. So I'm the worst person ever to ask justify the existence of a faulty, unplausible concept that has been discarded by the same context that borne it decades ago. Like so many cheesy Silver Age stuff, it should simply be dropped and forgotten, if you ask my opinion.