BoneDaddy

Re: Opinions On Being An "Ex-Viper Member" In skimming the thread, I don't think it's been mentioned, so I'll refer to one of the great tropes: "No one could possibly have survived that explosion!" His Soc. Lim. becomes a pretty heavy duty Secret ID and Harmful Secret - if Viper gets the idea he isn't dead then they'll fix that ASAP, with a lot of clean up of surrounding witnesses, DNPCs, etc. Additionally, in most superheroic universes, massive explosions of radioactive/ toxic gasses usually involve either fatality or superpowers.

Re: People with Powers

Re: plot: a cougar at a sports event Let the duck take care of it.

Re: Steampunk Campaign Ideas I recommend Phlogiston.

Re: Steampunk Campaign Ideas Air is filtered and carefully vented, and reasonably clean. A lightning cannon might be in the offing, but I would expect greater advances in direct fire technology. For the surface world, I'll borrow liberally from The White Mountains trilogy (which I recommend heartily).

So I figured I'd start a thread for Steampunk campaign ideas, because I had one and I want to share it, and I'm interested in other folks ideas about how to make a good steampunk setting. "Wollop!": A Steampunk Campaign. This takes place in the year 2166, 168 years after the fatefull invasion Martian invasion that conquered the world (as reported by noted journalist Sir Richard Burton), and the reinvasion that followed a year later (unreported). Aliens with Antibiotics are a terrible thing. In the following century, the English regrouped under the leadership of a visionary former artilleryman, and went underground. While the aliens ruled the surface and the people who stayed above, the underground movement hollowed out great cities and created a new society deep underground, safe from the predations of the tripods. The players are the elite fighting force of this cautious, spartan, militaristic society. They will be the first in two generations to go above ground, back to the surface, to begin the takeover of the surface world. Why Steampunk in 2166? Technological development was stunted, but necessity mothered much invention. Under England there is plenty of coal, and plenty of water, so coal, natural gas, and steam powered the underground world. (I'm looking for the artwork, I'll add it later if I find it...)

Re: build help: regen man The Fall (down) Guy Captain Catnap Timeout Dr. Teekayoh

Re: I was expecting someone taller... Excellent point. Hello, points. I got lost on a nod in the details of transform, and I wound up here. Heroin ID, indeed.

Frequently, the difference between a heroin ID and a secret ID is more than clothes. Hulk and Captain Marvel (the old DC one, the good one) are the most extreme examples, but there are others, many some variety of lycanthrope, and many who just get a little bigger when the power cosmic (or what have you) courses through them. There are two ways to model this that I know of, and I find neither of them particularly satisfying. Shapechange - 13 points, bought up to 26 with 0 End, Persistent, and limited as necessary. Multiform on the lower point cost form. Shapechange is the bargain here unless a personality change is what's desired. Multiform is the expensive version of the limitation: Only in Hero ID, only instead of costing less, it costs a pantload more. Is there a third way? Those of you with heroes who change appearance such that Accidental Change might be an issue, how do you model that change, or do you handwaive it with a wink and a nod from the kindly GM, since it's no major benefit aside from protecting the old Secret ID?

Re: Adventuring in Heaven Adventuring in Heaven? Frankly, the place has always struck me as rather dull. What is there to adventure over? Isn't that sort of the point of paradise?

Re: History's Most Overlooked Mysteries Not only that, he was Doctor Destiny before his trip to Arkham. During his brief escape, he fought Dream, aka the Sandman, and lost by winning.

Re: Need Perjoratives! Cheats

Re: Power Build "Bamf" It's a variation on a trick in The Ultimate Brick, and I don't have it with me - I could be getting it wrong...

Re: History's Most Overlooked Mysteries http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript Wikipedia's entry on the Voynich Manuscript is the most bafflingly complicated and interesting piece I've read in a while. Wow that's neat. Seriously - John Dee!

Re: People with Powers 10% of the population starts to manifest abilities that they didn't used to have? Sudden wealth, success, good looks, good health, or even superpowers? Meanwhile, I continue to wage slave and sniffle and wish I had more time, energy, and motivation to get to the damn gym once in a while? Burn, witch, burn. I foresee great social upeaval, and yes, witch-hunts, literal in many parts of the world, figurative elsewhere. 10% of the world would be regarded with a disdain currently reserved for Barry Bonds. Cheaters, liars, thieves (stealing success that could go to an ordinary person, a regualr person, a REAL human being.) Think we like to smack our idols down now? Yikes.

Re: build help: regen man How long do you want him to go down for? A phase, a turn, half a phase? Call him Captain Cockroach - those things live through anything. More durable still, Professor Planaria... (There's another thread where I mention how much I suck at names.)

Re: Power Build "Bamf" I'd model Bamf1 as DCV skill levels, maybe with a power skill roll, certainly costing Endurance. I'd model Bamf2 as a naked advantage, AOE selective, on STR (or whatever appropriate power), linked to teleport and requiring a full move. But, if you want to wind up where you started from, your Bamf2 works just as well.

This problem has plagued missileers of all varieties since Enkadu flung his aklys, and I'm not sure how to model it. Take a ranged weapon master - an archer, we'll call him Hood. Hood has a longbow, but he can use any old baw and arrow. He has his own trick arrows, and some regular arrows. He can also do some pretty spiffy things with any old bow and arrow. So, he has an OAF based Multipower with each power having charges, right? 8 charges of Entangle, 8 charges of exploding EB, 8 charges of AP RKA, etc. Additionally, he has a skill based multipower, all with the OIF of opportunity, "any old bow and arrow", and an RSR: Archery tricks. +2d6 RKA, STR 20 TK (with some limitations), and so on. As Mr. Henley so famously asked, "Are you with me so far?" So, what about the charges? If he's out of arrows, Hood can't use the archery tricks. I'd even question his ability to do most archery tricks without doing the arrow's damage as well. What limitation is that? Can it be "Linked" to an OIF of opportunity? What sort of limitation is that? It's clearly a limitation, and a fairly strong one (I'd call it -1/2), in my opinion - he can't just use the TK without also doing damage, and he can't use it at all without the charges in another power. But, linked to a power that may or may not exist? Hokey Smokes, as Rocket J. Squirrel says. What to do?

Re: build help: regen man Regarding CON - Model it as a special effect of armor, or damage reduction. Keep it simple.

Re: The Ultimate Summoner Too true. The bastard in me wants to add a limitation that they vanish instantly if he touches them.

Re: Strange Hero Concepts: Discuss Your Own! The Chinatown Defenders consisted of: Plato, a two foot tall rat mentalist with an area effect mental illusions attack. Ho-Tai, a very large animated bronze statue of Ho-Tai who thought he WAS Ho-Tai, trying to bring paradise to his people. Maestro, a wizards pet kitten, armed with a magic-based super suit and a wand. Master Pai, a wizened blind martial arts expert, slow but deadly with a staff. The campaign world was nifty, somewhere between Jademan comics and Big Trouble in Little China. I might revive it someday.

Re: A Thread for Random Musings If you never say where you're driving, when you run out of gas you can honestly get out and say you're right where you were headed.

Re: A Thread for Random Videos Bon Jovi covers Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, and really well.

Re: Help me name this hero! This cries out to be an OAF...

Re: Help me name this hero! GREAT reference, but he can't fence. Scaramouche without fencing is just a fandangoing funny faced French fop. Incidentally, the marvelously choreographed final sword fight from the 1952 movie was the longest on film until Banderas and Zeta-Jones outlasted (but certainly didn't outperform) it in Zorro.