BoneDaddy

Re: Musings on Random Musings

30-06 with a high-power scope from a tree seat?

Some call it a deer stand. Others call it a voting booth.

Re: Musings on Random Musings

Sioux-eet!

Re: Durability of shotgun shells

How long have shotgun shells been plastic jacketed? What jacketed them before that?

Re: Regeneration

I'm with Hugh on this one. Regeneration looks like a defense, but isn't a very good one. In combat terms, it is frequently negligible. It's more of a perk than a power, especially since it is so advantaged that it runs into active point caps long before it achieves meaningful defensive utility.

Re: Does anyone use this rule?

I don't follow what is so wrong with the Images build of a flashlight except perhaps the brief description of the Limitation. If you consider "only to create light" as a shorthand for "only to create an image of the area as if it were lit"' date=' it makes sense. Images also has the advantage of being able to make something easier to see -- by applying a positive PER modifier which affects people viewing the image (that is, the area lit up by the flashlight). Change Environment, on the other hand, has no mechanic for increasing the PER roll of people outside it's area of effect.[/quote']

While I don't think this should be argued here, I'll make my argument briefly. The PC who uses Images must know what the "image" is in order to create it. Technically, it should only show the image of what the creator thinks should be there, as opposed to what really is there. It is the only time where you can use images to create a visible image of something unknown to the user of the power. Imagine another instance and ask yourself if it would fly. Images: only to show the future. Images: only to illuminate liars.

 

Images, only to create light, is using a side effect (stuff getting lit up) of a special effect (the created image of light) as the main function of the power. Is there anywhere else in the whole game that this is done?

 

Consider: anyone else viewing the Image of light could make a modified perception roll to determine that there wasn't really any light there at all, but that it only looked like there was light there. Hero Games as Zen Koan.

Re: Regeneration

Eh... It's my book, I paid for it. So they're my rules now, too. And it is also my house. So I'll have house rules that fix Regeneration, Healing, and Shapechange, thakyouverymuch. Problem solved.

Re: Realism check: How accurate are lie detectors?

While we're at it, neurolinguistics should get a nod. It's helped me spot a few of the less adept liars in the world, and I'm a coffee table amateur at it.

Sicilians are great liars. The best in the world. I'm Sicilian. My father was the world heavy-weight champion of Sicilian liars. From growing up with him I learned the pantomime. There are seventeen different things a guy can do when he lies to give himself away. A guys got seventeen pantomimes. A woman's got twenty' date=' but a guy's got seventeen... but, if you know them, like you know your own face, they beat lie detectors all to hell. Now, what we got here is a little game of show and tell. You don't wanna show me nothin', but you're tellin me everything. I know you know where they are, so tell me before I do some damage you won't walk away from. [/quote']

Re: Does anyone use this rule?

This metarule is applied almost as evenly as modern interpretations of the rules of the old testament. The best example that I can think of is the perennial favorite of arguments on these boards, the flashlight. Currently the accepted, and totally wrong, build is Images, only to create light, which is obviously silly. There are about a dozen different ways to build a flashlight, all but one of them wrong (note my tongue is buried firmly in my cheek), and the best way may not be the cheapest or the most expensive.

The sticking point is "equally valid," of course. Those would be the two words that would leave the Supreme Court befuddled and angry, with a 4-3-2 ruling with even Thomas filing a concurring-in-part opinion.

Re: Martial Art: Tricking

Since it's a Champs character, how about modeling the Tricks as a special effect of a Power? If it's designed to throw the other guy off, make it a no range drain on DEX, or even a Suppress on DEX. I've been noodling with modeling a super-feint that way. It drops the oppo down a CV or two, which is sort of the point, I think.

Re: Fromage?

What'st the limitation on the END reserve? If he's a battery powered cyborg, or some such, I guess I have no real problem with the concept. I've been noodling with a Victorian era gadgeteer/ magician with clockwork foci - they only recover END via manual winding, which takes time and a little concentration, and both hands. That's an END reserve wih some meaningful limitations. If it's just a workaround to get a boatload of END on the cheap, I smell cheese.

Re: Astounding Hero Tales table of contents

Sweet Christmas! That's awesome. The birthday book list expands.

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it...

It's all proud women getting spankings!

I hadn't heard about that. Heck, I'd almost read it for that... Almost.

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it...

There have been a few interesting moments' date=' but, had I been reading a paper version of this . . . thing, I'd have a dent in my wall by now from throwing the dratted thing.[/quote']

This is not a book to be cast aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force. (Dorothy Parker, likely misquoted.)

Re: Musings on Random Musings

Nah, that was Osiris.

Re: Musings on Random Musings

By golly, the Russian people really do love to feel the sting of the whip.

Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

Hard to believe' date=' but I just watched [i']The Iron Giant[/i] for the first time.

 

Wow. Just...wow.

 

(And hey, now I can say I've actually seen a Jennifer Aniston movie that didn't suck!)

The Iron Giant is indeed a fantastic movie.

The Good Girl is another good Jennifer Aniston flick. An exceptionally good little movie. And she was in Office Space. She's done OK on film.

Re: A Thread for Random Musings

I think Lucy tricked me again, damn her. Frickin' football...

Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

Black Snake Moan. This movie tackles a hell of a lot, and as such the ending is abrupt and optimistically over-tidy. That aside, man it tackles it all really well. I was stunned at how much this movie delivered, albeit in its own weird way. Anti-spoiler below.

Anyway, it has redemption, salvation, adaptation, growth, and people helping each other because it helps them to do so. It's a damn good movie, with a great soundtrack. And Ms. Ricci is mostly naked for most of the movie, which doesn't hurt a bit. She could use a few (about a hundred. Someone buy the woman a cheesecake, so we can have thecheesecake she usd to sport back.) good meals, but she works the skinny for all its worth.

Re: Musings on Random Musings

I've gotten more rep for my Christmas story about what a jackoff I was than anything else I've posted in I don't know how long. Perhaps I should act like an ass more often?

Re: Jokes

Better.

Like you have rheum to criticize...

Re: A Thread for Random Musings

How children change a marriage:

p.s.

you are really really hot.

Especially when you change the baby's diapers for me.

Even more so when it isn't your turn.

I adore you.

me

New venues for sex appeal.

Re: Musings on Random Musings

Kids need to come with better diagnostics. What is it this time? Cold? Allergies? Asthma? Pneumonia? Some combination of the three? Why isn't there an LED readout or something?!

Basic Instructions for baby quieting:

Step one - sniff it. Does the baby stink? If yes, change it. If not, proceed to step two.

Step two - pat it. Does the baby burp? If not, proceed to step three.

Step three - feed it. Does the baby eat? If not, proceed to step four.

Step four - cuddle it. Does the baby relax? If not, proceed to step five.

Step five - give it a good shake...

Luck to you and yours, the snot troubleshooter's a tough one.

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it...

A Brief History of the Dead. Great novel, but ... the ending ... Oh.

Re: suppress

Actually BODY supress is really useful. IIRC correctly you can use it to kill someone but not permanently, so it makes an excellent way to do suspended animation.

 

OTOH Supressing PRE AND INT (as mentioned above) is likely to be horribly abusive unless it is a campaign with a lot of appropriate defences. These are more or less 'one shot kill' powers.

Hmm. I think as a practical matter they can be effective hindrances in a combat environment, and have the advantage of being more or less bloodless. I can see how they could be uneven in application, but a literal minded GM would find a Suppress INT to be less of an obstacle than the Suppress PRE. If it turns the baddies from fight to flight, flight can be just as dangerous to the environment, the good guys, and the noncombatants.

Additionally, it's a bit of an endurance thief to maintain them, and as soon as you drop them you have the same old problems.

Re: Catching cars

Given the way MD works' date=' I'm not sure what AoE would accomplish, but I might be persuaded if you could show how that would function mechanically.[/quote']

It would just give the brick the ability to deflect really big things, up to the area specified by the advantage, which I would think would have to be limited to 1 hex, radius, or specific shape. It's an advantage, not a physics problem. Add appropriate limitations so the brick doesn't try to deflect a dragon's breath, make it RSR for the hoisting skill or analyze: object, whatever.