BoneDaddy

Re: A Thread for Random Musings

I have such a hard time believing that there could be ANY interesting turn in the WWE, much less that many. To each their own.

Re: Accidental Flash

BREAK THE RULES!

 

Constant Sparkling: Sight Group Flash 2d6, Personal Immunity (+1/4), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2), Persistent (+1/2), Area Of Effect (12" Radius; +1 1/2) (37 Active Points); Activation Roll 8- (-2), OIHID (-1/4), Limited Power: Only in the presence of a strong light source (-1/4), Always On (-1/2) {Real Cost: 9 points}

 

Anyone in the area when a bright light is shone on her has an 8- chance of being affected by a 2d6 Sight flash.

 

This is another great example of Activation and Persistent, even Always On, working fine together.

You might get away with the Always On if you drop it to -1/4. Always On and OIHID go together like... They don't actually.

Re: URBAN FANTASY HERO -- What Do *You* Want To See?

Side Effects. The Side Effects limitation as described in the Hero 5th Edition rulebook may be too limited for the modern urban fantasy adventure, where side effects of magical dabbling can be far reaching and difficult to stat out. I think this is more of a GM-ing issue than a character creation issue, but there may be a need to address this at either point.

Re: Ashes - campaign idea (my players stay out)

It would make a great book. It's too deeply, darkly, disturbingly hopeless for me to imagine that I could have a good time as a player in it.

It would make a great book - one I'd read.

Re: Logical Consequences vs. Conscientious Point Allocation

OK.

 

Three characters.

 

One has bought STR

 

One has STR and brick tricks with OIF

 

One has STR and brick tricks no OIF limitation used.

 

 

As a player I would expect increasing utility of picking up objects and gaiing some effect from them. Yes OIF is a limitation and it will limit the availability of objects - it should not however limit it more than the person who has not spent any points at all on picking things up and throwing them. The last person should always have something that can be picked up and thrown - no limits on the power...that would be even more unrealistic.

 

You know where arguments like this take me though don't you - no characteristics and we know where that leads!

 

 

Doc

Well, it may just be a waste of points for that attack. For a HKA (range based on STR) or a RKA (same) the OIF may make good sense, and represent the brick's ability to hit you with a car really hard.

Not all power builds make good sense, and I'm inclined to believe this is one of them. I'm having similar suspicions about Rope Reach, from The Ultimate Brick.

And a Naked Trigger on STR - sounds dirty but it looks pretty smart.

Re: Logical Consequences vs. Conscientious Point Allocation

Well' date=' not [i']always[/i]. It is OIF after all. More often, certainly.

SM2 lives in a universe with more opportune cars because he bought the EB? That's kind of deep.

Re: Logical Consequences vs. Conscientious Point Allocation

As built, SM1 has to go to the curb, find a car with no one in it (we hope), grab it, schlep it someplace that can withstand having a car tossed from it (with a 3" radius clearance, so he can get some language into it), and throw it, taking an OCV penalty based on throwing, and a DCV penalty for grabbing the vehicle. This might take up to a turn.

 

SM2 is in a location it's reasonable to have a car, and no one's gone to any trouble to clear the area of car-like objects for a turn while SM2 wasn't resisting. He blasts his target with a car, with decent accuracy, and can bounce it if he chooses and has a CSL that applies. This is a half phase action.

 

I see the difference. Do you see the difference?

If I saw the difference right away I wouldn't have asked - if I wanted to show off how smart I was I'd post somewhere dumber.

I think you're assuming a lot about SM2's location. Why isn't he penalized for the lack of balance/ aerodynamics of the vehicle he's tossing? I guess because he paid the points for the EB, so rather than the car being a car, it's a special effect. In contrast SM1 is tossing a car with all the inherent penalties.

That makes pretty good sense. Thanks for the input.

Do you think that the added outlay of points means that SM2 doesn't have to take the time to acquire the focus before heaving it? If he dropped his gun he'd have to take the time to pick it up. I'm not sure I agree with you on the time savings, unless he took Fast Draw with cars (an idea so crazy it borders on genius), and I think SM1 could do that too.

Strong Guy 1 has a STR of 60 and throws a car through the goalposts at the local football field for laughs. He spent 50 active points to do that. He does 10d6 damage to two hexes of the bleachers.

Strong Guy 2 has a STR of 60 and a power in his Brick Tricks multipower: EB 8d6, AOE 1 hex, range limited by STR, Focus: OIF of opportunity, requires a Brick Tricks roll. He spent 50 active points for the STR, 40 points for the Multipower, and another 2 (I think) for the power, and 13 for the Brick Tricks Power Skill, for a total of 105 points. He misses his Brick Tricks roll (16-, -6 for the AP of the power) and the car tumbles to a stop on the thirty yard line.

So, what about it? While you COULD buy this Brick Trick, why the heck would you? Generally, if you are going to do something, you should pay for the privilege, but don't you pay for that privilege of throwing stuff when you buy the STR in the first place? I understand the logic for the more abstract Brick Tricks, like Clinging by virtue of squeezing handholds into any surface, but this particular instance bothered me.

What say you?

Re: gravitic well

An interesting facet of this character are some of the disadvantages and limitations he could take. All offensive powers could take "Not vs. EM based defenses" because EM is so much stronger (about 10^39 times) than gravity. He could take a new disadvantage, -5 DCV vs. PD based EBs and RKAs. How hard is it to hit a strong gravity source? Not very.

Re: gravitic well

How about this bad idea: Energy Blast, Explosion, selective, 0 range, personal immunity, indirect (always from opposite direction of attacker), only to cause knockback. Throws them at you, the closer, the harder. Be a good time to have some KBR of your own...

Re: Guardian Angel

14 Under My Protection: Danger Sense' date=' Sense, Any Type Of Danger, Any Area (42 Active Points) - Only For One Assigned Person At A Time(-2)[/quote']

 

Must you make it so easy?

 

Rep for you.

Re: Guardian Angel

He a religiously themed brick for a dark Champions campaign. He has a pantload of brick tricks and a small Multipower of miracles: Healing, Defensive Aids, and the like. The miracles MP is built on 8 charges for the whole enchillada, since miracles are by definition rare.

So the guardian angel power is a shoe horn into either one. I could fit it in with the instant nature of the charges if I found a creative use of trigger, but I'd need danger sense anyway, since a trigger can't be used as an extra detect.

Re: Guardian Angel

Danger sense is not ideal because it is limited in range HOWEVER (and I'm at work so no books) if you MIND LINK first, I vaguely recall that you can use powers throught eh mind link. If you can't (and I may well mis-remember) then you certainly can through Mind Scan.

 

Other alternatives include building the danger sesne as UBO, so you can 'grant' the danger sense to the target and then have a triggered mind link that goes off when they sense danger.

 

The advantage of the mind link/mind scan build is that you can potentially interrogate the target to see how dangerous a situation they are in (crossing a road is dangerous...) AND it will probably help to actually find them; all well and good knowing they are in danger if you don;t know WHERE they are in danger.

 

On that last point you COULD buy a teleport that is globe spanning and set the person who may be in danger as a floating point location so you can almost always get to them or at least very near to them.

 

Alternatively, built as a sense (and, frankly I would not touch the standard danger sense build with a barge pole if I did not have to) -

 

Sense danger to specified target AND the specified target: 50 active and real

Detect A Large Class Of Things and Each Extra Thing or Class of Things 14- (Unusual Group), Discriminatory, Increased Arc Of Perception (360 Degrees), Range, Sense, Targeting, Telescopic: +10

 

Not cheap, but also not real expensive for a signature power. Can't recall how far 10 levels of telescopic will get you, but it is a long way. I think each one is x10, so, assuming no penalties to 4", that is 14- danger sense to 40 000 000 000". That should do.

Trouble is it isn't a signature power, and it's damned expensive for a 300 point hero, when you apply the cost/benefit analysis. I can apply limitations until it fits, I suppose, but boy I wish there was a cheaper way. I agree with your build, however.

Maybe Danger Sense UBO, with a threshhold triggered Mind Scan? That would give location, and the fact of the Mind Scan being triggered would indicate the fact of some danger. Still not cheap, darn it all.

What about Clairsentience?

I'm trying to make a variation on Danger Sense, I think. I want my hero to be able to sense when another discreet selected individual is in danger, wherever they are.

Danger Sense needs somne serious modification for this to work, and I don't know if there are advantages and limitations out there that cover it.

As an example, Saint says to Sally "I'll be looking out for you." Thereafter, if Sally is in peril, Saint knows about it and where it is. Later, when Sally's peril is passed, Saint says to Sophie "I'll be looking out for you." Sally's now on her own, but if Sophie is imperiled, Saint will be there ASAPilly.

What say you?

Re: Scientists claim warp drive is possible

What about the "emission by emission" version of the double slit experiment? It seems that the cause is highly occult if not absent. Proving acausality is of course impossible ab initio - one cannot absolutely prove non-existence of a state of affairs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-slit_experiment#When_observed_emission_by_emission

Re: Musings on Random Musings

As they're the only ones whose jobs don't involve watching the stuff' date=' I'd think it would be necessary. It is, after all, rather difficult to get work done when none of the blood's in your brain.[/quote']

 

I wonder what they do in IT at the bunneh's workplace. Monitor people's internet usage to make sure they aren't browsing wikipedia or beliefnet or something?

Re: Online Steampulp Game

I'm in. I'll have BoneDaddy, AKA the DeadFather, in by Tuesday.

A student of old world magic in the vain of Leland, Waite, and Levi. He has seen too much, and has access to powers undreamed by mortal men.

(Real magic powers? Not on 125 points, no, but a reasonable facsimile thereof.)

Re: A Thread for Random Videos

Something really quite sweet for the 14th.

Love in a backward world

Re: A Thread for Random Videos

From the blog of Scott Adams, the cartoonist who writes "Dilbert", comes the song "She Amazed Me".

 

 

He got the idea after reading that some Beatles songs were just nonsense lyrics the band thought sounded nice. They sounded profound, but they meant nothing.

 

Mr. Adams then put an entry on his blog telling people to put up lines of lyrics that sounded like they might be some kind of powerful metaphor if you sat down and thought about it for long enough. He gathered his favorites and made the official lyrics. Then a german band made music for it and recorded it.

Reminds me of that stupid "drops of Jupiter" song. Nice work.

Re: Brainstorming a 1920's Pulp-esque campaign.

Sounds cool. I wanna play.

 

If you wanted to keep it a little more pulpy (or even if you don't, but think it might be a good creative exercise), it might also be worth thinking about replacing the Spanish Flu with a selective zombie plague. Maybe for most people who get the disease it's "just" a nasty brand of influenza. But for some (maybe 1 in 100), it results in zombification.

 

This would put a slightly different spin on it. It would still be horrific (500,000 to a million undead is nothing to sneeze at), but it would be just uncommon enough (within the larger death toll of the war and the flu) that people determined to stay in denial might believe it was all just gruesome wartime folklore. Maybe the powers that be hope the PCs can find the cause and put a stop to it before the truth becomes common knowledge, and the aforementioned hell breaks loose.

 

This might give it a more shadowy feel, as the PCs not only have to fight zombies, they also have to do it fairly quietly, and occasionally confront people who don't know or don't believe what's really going on. (I'm not trying to urge you to change the campaign idea... just thinking that looking at it from a different angle might give you some useful ideas. )

Since I've gotten you as far as "I wanna play" let me ask you some further questions. What power level of hero would you be interested in?

150 points - An awfully talented Tommy, a Hot French Spy, a Cavalryman for the Kaiser

200 points - Richthoffen, Rickenbacker, York, Noel Chavasse, Adrian Carton de Wiart (Who got shot in the FACE and kept fighting in Somaliland), etc. Here, I refer more to the legend that these men and women became rather than who they actually were.

250-350 points - Steampunk gadgeteers, sorcerers, psychics, and the "uniquely gifted." The field is pretty open in this regard, although no mutants, aliens, or AIs would be appropriate.

The game would have to be crafted according to the level of the heroes, obviously - getting from the trenches at Ypres to sanctuary at Mt.S.Michel would be really hard at 150 points, and really easy at 350.

Whaddya think?

I've had an idea, and I'm considering giving it a go, maybe over at http://www.LostCoastGaming.com where many fine text based games may be found.

What if the Spanish Flue epidemic from 1918 to 1920 had instead been a zombie plague? I know that takes it right out of most pulps, but that's why I labeled it pulp-esque.

I was thinking of putting the PC's on the rapidly disintegrating French trenches, and watching to see what happens next.

What happens next?

Specifically, if instead of 50 to 100 million dead world wide in a two year timespan, what if there were 50 -100 million undead in that timespan? Would the war have continued? Would the Prussians and the French and the English, et al, have wised up and fought the dead instead of the living?

My answers are 1) All hell breaks loose. 2) No. 3) Yes.

Next, whom are our heroes? Heroic level PCs drawn from Europe's powers? Earth's Mightiest Steam/Mystic/Magical heroes?

For these answers, and the other obvious considerations I have missed thus far, I turn to you, gentle readers, for help.

Thanks!

Re: Most Obscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game

I stink at naming characters, so most of my obscure references come in there. In a Star Hero adventure (campaign is too generous, sadly,) I had a character named Hanuman al-Sahhaf d'Estienne d'Orves, named after 1) a character in a David Zindell book, the Broken God, 2) Baghdad Bob, everybody's favorite pre-invasion baathist, and 3) the leader of the French Resistance in WWII.

Obscure? Maybe. I guess.

Re: Steampunk Superheroes

So sad that even Steampunk Aquaman looks like a dork.

Re: Stegosaur at Angkor Wat?

OK, I give up. What the hell is that?

Re: Musings on Random Musings

Yay! The Daily Show and Colbert Report are back!

Andrew Sullivan was on the Colbert Report.

 

It was kind of awkward both shows theme was the writers strike.

 

But it was funny and I actually watched an hour of actual television for the first time in three months.

No! Stop! You were almost free, dammit! The writers were doing you the biggest favor of your life and you're squandering it for a few laughs!