Wanderer

In order to build a gadget that protects against mental switch/transference, which is Mental Transform, regardless of the SFX, is it Power Defense or Mental Defense ? And how much would the limitation be priced, for a defense vs. such a rare power ? -1 ? -1 1/2 ? -2 ?

Re: Surviving fall from orbit As I said, no significant Killing Damage. You may be (likely) knocked out unconscious by the impact, if you free-fall it all the way, but once you awaken from it, you are pretty much fine and ready to rumble.

Something I got curious about after seeing the latest crop of comics-related sci-fi blockbusters... What kind of Characteristics and Defense Powers would a character need in order to make it semi-plausible (s)he survives atmosphere re-entry and fall from orbit relatively unscathed (i.e. no significant Killing Damage) ??

Re: Best Avengers Group

Re: Best Avengers Group I do believe that my ideal Avengers rooster is a modified version of the Busiek/Perez one: Captain America (tactical leader and conscience) Either Thor or Sentry (uberbrick and energy projector) Iron Man (all-around powerhouse, gadgeteer and the guy who pays it all) She-Hulk (brick and legal advice) Ms. Marvel (flexible powerful brick and energy projector) Wonder Man (immortal invulnerable brick) Vision (flexible fighter and infiltrator and scientific advice) Scarlet Witch (mystical VPP user) Either Captain Marvel II/Photon (energy projector and infiltrator) or Quasar (energy projector and cosmic VPP user) Either Wasp (infiltrator) or Quicksilver (speedster) (sadly I do not wish to have Pym and his pathetic self-confidence issues around, so Janet will need to be in one of her "single" phases) Both as power level and character interaction. Reserve specialists can add for some missions, but this has the sheer concentration of uber powerhouses that just screams Avengers to me.

Re: How do you encourage your players to buy more skills Most of the latter skills you quote, such as cooking or musical instruments, may have some RL use, but it is generally rare that they may be useful in typical modern age heroic or superheroic adventuring. That's why I usually chalk them up with basketweaving and stuff. There may be exceptions (e.g. a world-class chef may be quite affluent and have all kinds of high-society connections and social expertise), but again, generally in my experience it simpler to give the character the related named skill (e.g. High Society and Money for our top-class chef). Likewise for PS: Singing for a world-class singer: sure, it can be the reason for fame, and affluence, but what it is actually useful for, in game ? It made you rich (buy Money), famous (buy Reputation), maybe gave you social connections and expertise (buy Persuasion, Seduction, and High Society).

Re: How do you encourage your players to buy more skills I quote from FRED, p. 69: It follows from this that SS: Medicine already includes all the practical knowledge (how to manage a physical examination, how to work with medical equipment) that a PS might theoretically include to work like a physician, hence PS: Physician is a redundant duplicate. All of this (and believe me, I speak from everyday job experience), except the right appointment time bit, which is part of good clinical expertise and hence falls under SS: Medicine as well, is just a load of bureaucratic baggage and legal/administrative red tape crap that is not really necessary to be a good physician in the field, is utterly unglamorous and a real pain in the @$$ in RL practice and all physicians I know heartily hate it, and I cannot really imagine how it could be ever useful for an adventuring character, either heroic or superheroic. Therefore, under it would be a utter waste of points to buy, just like PS: basketweaving. Since USk's very handy breakdown of KS and SS specialization fields, you can just represent a medical specialization by buying the corresponding SS: Surgery or SS: Dermatology skill. I direct you to the tables on pp. 260-266 of USk. With them, PS for scientific fields are even more useless duplication than they were. Agreed with that, Paramedics is the "ER" treatment, while SS: Medicine is the extended treatment stuff, no cocnentst with that, I would buy both for a physician character, my point was that PS is useless. Even in RL this is debatable, willful ignorance of the legal-administrative aspects you quoted won't stop you from being an efficient physician at diagnosing and treating, respected by patients and collegues. It just puts him/her at greater risk of getting legal and bureacratic hassles, mainly from hospital administrators and such. You can get by without that stuff. As a fictional example, take Dr. Gregory House: he has very high Deduction, SS: Medicine and Paramedics and several other related KS and SS, but he willfully ignores the PS stuff. Yep, this is likely, especially SS: Chemistry, SS: Biology, SS: Social Sciences, (Psychology and Psychiatry are now SS, not KS, since USk), Forensic Medicine, and/or some subfields of such. KS are possible, but less likely. Likewise SS: Physics, Computer Programming, SS: Mathematics. As it concerns the administrative expertise of being a hospital administrator, Bureaucratics covers all the aspects of it that can ever become relevant for RP and adventuring.

Re: How do you encourage your players to buy more skills

Re: How do you encourage your players to buy more skills Amen to that, amen to that, brother and to your writing skills. Just to make one final general sidenote consideration, in my experience bad roleplayers can be just as easily under-acting rules-lawyer munchkins or over-acting artsy drama-queen real roleplayers. Either breed may favor different games and gaming cliques, but they both most definely burden the hobby.

Re: How do you encourage your players to buy more skills and I do use both. All of this is just basic fairness and good GMing As long as you don't make too much of a commitment and strain your GM creativity too much, some trivia are rather difficult to justify this kind of plot spotlight, without going too comedic or weird.

Re: How do you encourage your players to buy more skills Ahh, but those aren't Real Skills and Perks in my view, i.e. stuff that I actually use in play. They are just notes for the character background. You don't pay points to make the character have green eyes or talk with a cheerful tone, don't you ? Trivia Skills and Perks are the same kind of thing to me. No short story. Too artsy to my tastes, and my writing style is too dry to be up to such a task. But I definitely make a point never to consider a character really finished until I've written a good character background. Actually, that's just the finishing part, when I make the effort to weave and justify everything in a coherent, seamless whole. But trivia bits are just that, footnotes and highlights to the written background, not really part of the rest of the sheet. And other gamers are most definitely welcome to read it around the table and keep their own copy. It's just one more printout. Actually, I'd say I often write rather lengthy and detailed backgrounds, and enjoy the intellectual challenge of creating them just as much as I relish the other one of point-optimizing the character. I enjoy tinkering with char sheet and written background both (alas, I'm truly terrible at graphics, so character portraits are really not an option, apart from what Heromachine can do). But I would be quite annoyed if someone would actually ASK me to buy trivia Skills and Perks. To me, it's a basic game balance and fairness issue: if it ain't really useful or hindering, it costs nothing. The principle must work both ways.

Re: How do you encourage your players to buy more skills Judging from experience, I would reply that you can reap the best of both worlds, optimized point accounting and mnemonic reminder for background bits, just by creating TWO character sheets: the official one, which you hand over to the group, and is optimized like a fighter jet with every point counting, and the "expanded" one, where you write down all kinds of non-optimized trivia purchases that are marked down as Everyman stuff and little more than RP mnemonic aids and notes. Just the same way by which sometimes I explictly write down canon Everyman skills as a mnemonic aid, and sometimes I omit them. Fortunately, handy character creation software like HD can make it very easy to produce slightly different versions of the same character, just a couple keystrokes away.

Re: How do you encourage your players to buy more skills It's not all about the combat, but in order to have points expended for, it must have some discernible usefulness in the typical character's adventuring or crimefighting lifestyle. E.g. I'm not adverse to buying KS: History or SS: Biology or KS: World Politics to show that a brick or energy projector superhero is a voracious reader with good general culture. But I must see some reasonable usefulness for it in order to spend points on. And the more narrow or obscure or un-glamorous the focus of the skill, the more I am wary of it. I really do not spend points just to highlight useless background bits like hobbies or pre-adventuring menial jobs or odd interests or obscure native languages. If it's really useful to remind myself or other players of that stuff for better RP purposes, it gets written down in the background section only, if it's really some important bit that is going to see some decent RP about, not some colorful trivia stuff you throw the GM at character creation to show how un-munchkinny you are by giving a character a life or a complex background beyond the kewl powerz stuff. Therefore, with all respect for your differing preferences, IMO Riding, Animal Handling, and Piloting may be useful skills for fantasy or modern action-adventure, but useless trivia unworth of points in superheroics. Likewise for Norwegian, Hungarian, or Zulu, unless the campaign happens to have Norse or Zulu gods as a recurring plot element. If I write it in the background that the character is an ardent fan of classic sci-fi, you can expect me to RP him going at trekkie conventions every so often, but if I buy KS: classic sci-fi, I expect old sci-fi books and movies to be relevant at solving some of of the plot hooks the character faces. Just like a Disadvantage or Limitation that never significantly hinders the character is not worth even a single point, a skill that never significantly helps the character is not worth even a single point.

Re: How do you encourage your players to buy more skills Having come late to the discussion, I just have to remark that I'm absolutely adverse to waste even one point on buying skills that I cannot see any discernible use for during play, even if it may flesh out the background. So absolutely no trivia skills like KS: 70s movies or KS: rap music, even if they are the fanboy hobby interest of the character, KS with too tight a focus (KS: History is nice, KS: Renaissance France History is not), skills that duplicate the character's powers (having a TF is a waste of points if you have 30" Flight or Running, and so WFs if you have a 12d6 EB or 60 STR), PSs (I do not care to give representation to what the character does to earn a living, even provided he is not a professional adventurer/crimefighter. It is either stuff that he always does offcamera, or it is better represented by buying the corresponding mainstream skills with greater gaming applications, such as SS: Biology and Paramedics for a physician instead of PS: Physician, Electronics and Computer for a computer technician instead of PS: computer technician). On a general note, I'm quite wary of buying AKs, too. If the GM wishes to see this kind of useless trivia skills on the character sheet, he'd better gift me the extra points, or declare them free. Given these limits, generally I'm not adverse on spending a decent amount (say 25-50 points) on skills to better flesh the character out. Provided it makes sense for the character's background (including adventuring/crimefighting experience), however this would also include skills with strong adventuring usefulness like Acrobatics, Breakfall, and Stealth. OTOH, I may prefer and buy the latter as Powers if they come from innate talent or a side effect of powers. I usually do not spend more than 30-50 points of skills because I do not fancy skill-heavy characters much: I may do the occasional magician or power-armored inventor or scientist that gave himself powers, but I totally despise martial artists, weaponmasters, and Batman guys, and do not fancy gadgeteers much.

Just a quick clarification... If the character has a Variable Effect Healing, all Characteristics and (special effect) Powers one at a time, can she keep using it to heal different Characteristics and Powers in the same subject in subsequent Phases, without running in the maximum effect cap ?

Re: Limited Power Defense Never mind. I wasn't offended. I was just amazed that someone might interpret my intent as confrontational at the game table, when it wasn't so. It was just to nudge the power build in a way so that it helps as a reminder of which kind of plot hooks the char is meant to face regularly and which are meant not to show up, except in exceptional occasions ? Isn't what all of us do all the thimes, by buying Defense Powers and Disadvantages and the like ?? I mean, every time one gives full Life Support to a character, besides expressing a facet of the character concept, isn't it giving a clear message to the GM and the group the message that human bodily frailties (sp?) are meant not to be a concern for the character, barring the occasional exceptional plot device ? My intent was the same. Besides, does the power looks better, now ? I hope that giving it a classic SFX genre bit description "Anti-Mutant/Mutate Power Negator Restraining Device" to the defense power loophole, the intent of the power becomes immediately as clear and non-controversial as it looked in my head.

Re: Limited Power Defense On further reflection, I have come to the conclusion that maybe I've approached this the wrong way, and maybe a simpler, less controversial way to implement the power idea would be to explicitly base it on SFX: Control of Form: Power Defense (20 points) (20 Active Points); Not Vs. Anti-Mutant/Mutate Power Negator Restraining Devices (-1/4) Better this way ??

Re: Limited Power Defense Yes, but I wished to churn up a little nice power build to explain why the character is immune to such plot points, a kind of footnote, even if I obviously clarify the real reason in frank amicable GM-player gentlemen's agreement. It was not a tool to be willful passive-aggressive (far from me), it was to explain you folks what the power was meant to look like.

Re: Limited Power Defense Well, in your example there is little difficulty to explain why the Drain is quickly overcome (it compensates for the changed mass), but I see the potential difficulty to explain why it doesn't throw off Suppress, too, I suppose. However, your Suppress looks like a rather extreme and borderline case, although, so maybe dramatic effect may be invoked. I dunno, the scope of the power seemed so clear to me, creating a "stop sign" for (IMO abusive) long-term power-stripping or characteristic-crippling attacks, while leaving the GM an opening for dramatically-appropriate short-term (a combat or scene at most) power-dampenings, or long-term but only by means of devices that can be eventually tampered and overcome. Essentially, I wished to insurance my character against those "character is depowered/shrunk/turned into animal/regressed to childhood and must solve the situation while running around in a pathetic situation" plots which I hate, while saying yes to the "character is defeated, captured, fit with power collar negator and must escape prison or deathtrap" plots. I wished to make "red kryptonite" stories impossible while making "deathtraps" stories possible.

Re: Limited Power Defense The Continous Charge is supposed to represent a "battery" of energy that sticks around and sustains the ongoing effect continously for a while. The Drain only endures for a while because the subject can't recover from the effect fast enough. It's a kind of "wound" (as it is a Transform), on a different level. With this power, you very quickly throw off all powers that are not sustained by an ongoing power input that sustains the effect, but only cause a lingering "damage".

Re: Limited Power Defense Adaptable physiology and/or conscious control over one's body structure and functions. The character is able to overcome and throw off quickly any harmful externally-imposed alteration that is not continually reinforced and sustained by an equivalent power output from the originator. An extension of the classical genre bit that you cannot transform a shapeshifter against their will for long. They use their power to overcome yours. E.g. I would deem such a version of PowDef to be highly appropriate for an Empyrean. Of course, to be appropriate, this kind of character should also have some among good Con, Body, Stun, REC, Resistant Defenses, or stuff like Regeneration, Life Support, Absorption, or Body-changing powers. But characters that have all-around PowDef generally have this kind of build. Unless it's a Force Field.

Re: Limited Power Defense Ok, all of you have been most hekpful. Hearfelt thanks. "Not vs. Constant and Continuous Powers", -1/2. yes, but a) superhuman Characteristics are often bought vanilla, not as Powers (although it's something I tend to frown on, except for the hyper-trained origin; IMO, always better to distinguish where the character stands if deprived of superhuman potential, even if you do not use OIHID, Multiform, OIF, or the like) I might wish for this power to protect even human Chars, too, so that's why I'd like such power to shiled even against said tasers DEX Drains.

Re: Limited Power Defense No, body Transforms, too, are part of what I'm trying to avoid, since they, too, can be used to "zap-cripple". What I'd not want the PowDef to affect are a) Suppresses Mental Transforms.

Re: Limited Power Defense Nothing said that tinkering with limitations and power builds will always necessarily provide a perfectly satisfying result. Admittedly, the case of the Continous, Uncontrolled Drain is the exception that makes the system balk. OTOH, I'd expct such Drains to be rare. The only way to toally bar them would be to build the limitation to ban any Drains. I would have a SFX explanation for this, though: the character quickly rejects and heals any depowering or char-crippling effects that is not continously applied on him, but are fire-and-forget. Which seemed to suit Suppress just fine. My awowed goal is clear: I wish to allow a character to be immune to being depowered or char-crippled for an indefinite period with a single attack-action application of a ray-gun or spell, barring godlike levels of power. To depower or cripple the character, you ought have to use mind-control, or trap it with an ongoing-effect suppressor field or harness that stops working as soon as the character manages to escape it. Power negator collars, yes. One-zap depowering super-science or magic, no.

Re: Limited Power Defense