Bengal

Re: Question about CE

Very clever. I'd allow that without any qualms. Since I have a Japanese supervillainess mentalist with a Megascaled AoE "Darkness vs. Mental Senses" there is even a reasonable precedent. It blacks out an area to mental senses nearly the size of Ohio.

 

I'll have to suggest that one to Mentor for use by his VPP-equipped mentalist, Prodigy.

Interesting. Mental powers seems kind of overcosted, all things considered. But people seem to keep coming up with some neat uses. The JLA villain Proetheus used somethign similar to keep Kyle from concentrating hard enough to use his ring; he called it "neural chaff".

Re: Signature Power Campaign

Please don't encourage unbalanced characters. Everyone makes unbalanced characters from time to time (or more frequently). Strive for balance.

But the idea of a signature power, that's a wonderful idea. In fact, I would have the players sit together and decide on who gets what power, even the most basic- only one guy with an EB or RKA, only one person with resistant defenses, only one with flight, and so on. That would make for a great team, emphasis team.

Re: Taunt

Could also make it a skill akin to Interrogate, Persuasion or Seduction ...

Taunt

Type: Interaction

Base: 9+(PRE/5)

Base/+1 Cost: 3/2

Period: All

 

The character may taunt a target to attack him or distract the target from something else. This skill is very simular to Persuasion (as well as other interaction rules as far as the standard rules go), but differs in the execution and style it's used.

This seems too narrow a construction to me to be worth 3 points, let alone skill levels in it. Better to leave it as a PRE attack I think.

If you really need this in your bag of tricks, consider it a Power skill based on PRE.

Re: Starting from 8's in Primary Characteristics

This'll be a house rule in my next campaign, no matter whether it's heroic, superheroic, or incompentant normal. Good show.

Re: Power Construction Help

Nice. 3 points. I can dig it- and it just keeps getting more elegant.

Thanks to all.

Re: Power Construction Help

Other powers? I don't think he will have any other powers. He's sort of a career sideick-level character anyway. Based on 250 in a 350 game. Maybe he can have a ray gun and a parachute, I don't know.

Re: Power Construction Help

The only really useful aspect of this power would be to stop a ticking time bomb (electronic or mechanical). I can't think of another useful application.

Still OK as a CE you think? It's a very elegant solution if so.

A character has the ability to shout, "Stop! Time!" and stop all clocks in the viscinity- timers, whatever... but not actual time. How to construct?

Re: Aquaman: WTF?

...Aquaman actually communicates wih sea life through the myriad non-verbal forms; everything from body motion to pheromones' date='... QUOTE']

 

 

So he wiggles and stinks to them? That makes far more sense. I can sleep again!

Re: Angel, the worst original character concept ever?

It's not a bad character concept. But it does limit what other players can devise for the other members of the team.

I mean, all Angel can do is fly and see things. And buy things.

Okay, so he has those three things.

So you don't want a character who can fly faster, see farther, or buy more- since that would make Angel redundant. Angel's player would have nothing to do but make wiseass comments... and, uh "help" the statistically superior teammate he's been replaced with in many respects.

If you already have Angel on the team, and you add Iron Man, Angel can go dust the top shelves in the kitchen.

Angel was the only reason the Champions of LA needed to suck. They had other reasons (like Tony Isabella writing them), but they really only needed him.

Re: Speaking of Shapeshift

To me, "always green" sound smore like a distinctive feature

than a power lim. Both ideas seem within the rules and technically correct.

If two players wished to play the same concept (say, a Beast Boy and a Plastic Man), I would rule that they would both have to agree on how to limit the power/disadvantage their characters.

As an aside, Grant Morrison (pfft) established that Plastic Man can modify his coloration, even to the point of masquerading as someone else. He even fooled the Injustice Gang into believing he was the Joker for an extended period of time.

Re: The Legion Thread

Wake me up for the scene between Infectious Lass and Immune Girl.

Re: Powers with Grouped Similar Effects

There's a continuum in the Hero System. At one end is the minimalist approach. We could get down to as few powers as possible (the five power system' date=' perhaps). This makes for an overall unified framework, but one which requires a lot of analysis and a strong (even stronger?) system understanding to get a specific concept to work right.[/quote']

 

Hugh. I love that idea. Whenever I sit down and make a character with honest-to-goodness superpowers, I've (subconciously) sought to buy a power from each of these five groups... or however you want to put it.

 

I wonder if we could indeed make a four-, five-, or six-group megapower list... it migh tmake it easier to tell if strength really is undercosted (well, I think it is), or Mind Control is a waste of points.

Re: The Legion Thread

Let me know when they bring back Stone Boy and Color Kid.

Re: Aquaman: WTF?

Marvel Universe only:

It's my understanding, re: Earth X, that no mutation is supposedly "stable", but rather, any mutated character (whatever their specific origin) can be further mutated. Second-generation superheroes (the sons and daughters of superheroes) are likely to be more powerful than their parents (although explain that one to Quicksilver) because of some sort of genetic compounding of superpower.

Re: Let's Talk CvK

I'd give him 10 points if that, or more likely your 'Code Vs. Murder' varient (which is a lower pt value for being less common). He supports war and he can kill in certain circumstances without any qualms (much like many action heroes who mow through nameless mooks without a second thought).

Actually, Cap always does a ton of hand-wringing in these situations. He claims to remember everyone he's killed. He considers taking a life in any respect a personal failure. But the rest of what you say makes sense. So, wouldn't he get a 15 for it? I would give him a 15. There's way too many times Cap has a legal right to kill, and the moral imperative to do so, but does not. That's partially because of his profession (soldier) and partially because of the tone of his comic, but those things should come into play when deciding upon a point total for a disad.

Re: Let's Talk CvK

 

War is a collective endeavor. Murder is an individual action. One can be entirely against murder and still support war. Especially when war is imposed upon one's country by an invader. Unless, of course, one feels that their individual preferences outweigh the continued existence of their nation, religion or race.

 

Word up. A CvK should really be called a Code versus Murder. War is an endeavor where politicians point soldiers at other soldiers. There's no murdering, it's killing that happens. And even for those soldiers who actually do the killing, their primary objective is to end wars, not continue to fight them. For instance, this is why some people argue that our current war in Iraq is a failure- we can't seem to stop the killing from continuing. They do not make a concious decision to kill anyone, they only follow orders (or fail to).

Captain America is the ultimate soldier. But he still doesn't 'murder' people. When he does kill people, as he's started to again in recent years, it's in the context of war, not murder. I mean, you're never gonna see him kill the Rhino, even if Rhino is threatening to kill other people. But he would kill a dictator who had his finger on The Button, if there was no other way to stop him. And even then, Cap would consider that a personal failure.

So, IMO Cap has a CvK (code versus murder) at the 15 or 20 point level.

Have you ever tried playing a permanently tal or otherwise large hero? Someone large enough to have trouble fitting into a house, for instance. What was it like? What were the good parts and bad parts of such a character? What RP opportunities did it present, and which ones were harder to come by?

Re: Aquaman: WTF?

Actually, I have an issue (well, a TPB) of Superman issues where Aquaman is seen, apparently, having a telepathic conversation with Superman. The world-balloons are 'bubbly', which could be because they were underwater, but there's no indication that the person Superman was with (in fist-swinging proximity) heard a word of it, so it had to be telepathic.

 

So, I guess Aquaman can communicate telepathically with other mammals, he just generally chooses not to. Of course, like all super-powers, it depends on the author as to how inventive a character gets with them.

Probably John Byrne or Grant Morrison wrote it.

>>Oh come on, dude, you can handle someone's head being on FIRE, but you can't handle it surviving in space? Most fires go out if they aren't consuming something. And frankly, that's more stupid than it surviving in space - fire CAN do that, as long as it has fuel and oxygen to burn.

Seriously, you have some odd things you stress about. Just let it ride!<<

Yep, the idea of a superhero is no problem for my tiny peanut-butter brain, but the talking to sea life thing, that tears it.

I need to up my meds.

Re: Aquaman: WTF?

You know, it's amazing what kinds of concepts I can wrap my head around, that I can breeze right through and not even bother with the metastory. You know, Apache Chief from the Superfriends seems pretty neat to me. I have been trying to make up a Decent Rope Man (the Mighty Heroes cartoon) for ages, since he just looked so cool to my toddler eyes. Cyclops' power being nullified by red crystal- no problems. (Why hasn't Magneto ever wielded a red crystal shield?) But this Aquaman thing... bleh

btw, why does Dr. Strange need an Eye of Aggamotto and an Orb of Aggamotto, when they seem to be funcitonally identical?

And how can Ghost Rider's skull burn in space?

And how did Marvel's version of the Champions (of LA) get saddled with the burden of Angel as both the team's benefactor (he's not that rich) and the team's only flier (he's not that fast)? Splaintame that one.

Re: Aquaman: WTF?

My God, I've wasted my life.

Re: Background Cliches

King Shardik brought down the killing blow from his sword onto a powerful demon as the demon ripped his very soul from his body. The soul tried to infuse itself back to its body but because King Shardik has placed all of his magic into his sword, it grabbed the wrong body. Thus the Sword Shardik was born.

 

I don't recall seeing that origin story before.

Universe X vol 1 explains that the Absorbing Man was created in much the same way.

Re: Aquaman: WTF?

If Aquaman was raised in a cornfield, could he talk to corn, crows and little corn parasites, but not other things? This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard of.

Actually, I heard about it like 25 years ago. The overwhelming dumbness of the whole Aquaman concept had thus far overshadowed the specific dumbness of his "talk to sea life" power.

Aquaman can talk to fish, and also other aquatic animals, such as whales.

Whales are mammals... but he can't talk to other mammals, such as elephants?

Come on! WTF!?

I'm getting warmed up now.

Re: National Warrior Archetypes

For France, I favor a rooster-themed hero. I named mine Le Poulet (The Chicken) and Le Cock. Le Cock can't actually be French, but for my money, you just can't insert enough cocks into your RPGs.