Vondy

Re: Card Shark: Dark Champions The only place, to my knowlege, that they were covered was Dark Champions itself. I hope they make it into 5th, too.

Re: What would your Character Do? Anthem: being the head of Americas paramilitary superhero task force and a veteran of both world wars would very much consider this a military operation and would make sure destroyer was down for the count - spandex losers in colorful costumes may have impractical codes they live by, but Anthem's team fights in accordance with the rules of land warfare, which is pretty expansive once the bullets start flying. Fighting fair means you lose 50% of the time, and when you have 300 million American's safety and liberty on your shoulders you aren't being paid to fight fair - your being paid to win. Destroyer would still - even with a heart attack - pose a significant threat to operational integrity, personnel, and any civillians in the area. I'd finish him. If however he really was down for the count (obviously so) he'd order him secured and have him treated by Mind's Eye (a trained psychiatrist, and therefore MD) while the teams cybernetic expert - white panther - disbled his weapons systems.

Anthem: understand forensics well enough to know that the physical evidence alone will exonerate him. Contusions from ruptured blood vessels and the associated "bruising" are not the same as contusions caused by impact and would be easily caught by a competent medical examiner. Futher, bruises from physical assault will generally match the angle of impact, size, and sometimes even the shape of the object the person was struck with. In addition, Anthem is a trained lawyer and an experienced director of a federal super-hero project. He won't even be charged, on reputation alone, let alone knowledge of the law and forensics. In addition, why was a super being held in a room without a camera? Vanguard: calls Georgia Drake, the CEO of Drake Enterprises, which funds the Vanguard Project, to get him legal representation and to call in his support team: TEAM VANGUARD. Nothing is too difficult for the brains of team Vanguard to figure out!!!

Have you asked?

Er, New Zealand has a federal budget of 16.9 billion and allots 1.4 billion annually to the NZDF, which has 13,000 personnel and 3.2 billion in military assets (meaning hardware). The combined resources of the mob families in the US alone, let alone Viper, outpaces the federal budget of NZ. Bill Gates could underwrite their national budget for three years running, or their military budget for fifty years running. Actually, with his profit margin he could fund their military without losing a dime on an ongoing basis (the amount of money the man gives to charity annually is mind boggling). Viper - an international organization with extensive criminal empires could easily outpace a country like NZ, which is in the first world. Its easy for Americans to lose perspective when a single aircraft carrier costs 4.5 billion. Consider this: in addition to being able to outpace countries like NZ in military spending Viper doesn't have a territory or people to defend. Nor do they have to run social programs beyond pension and healthcare benefits. They can dedicate the vast majority of their budget to operations and development. Go ahead, gag all you want.

This is why our military equipment (naval vessels, tanks, fighters, etc...) have redundant electronics. We've thought of it. EMP isn't new or high-tech. What that would do to a civillian area or a local police department, however, is another matter. However, most urban areas have at least one department with a dispatch center that has redundant systems (doesn't help the squad cars much, but you can call the feds), and federal buildings invariably have a redundant comm system.

No one said they would have to attack America with it. There are plenty of countries out there with nothing close to America's firepower. In fact: there are first world countries who'se entire military arsenal has a total value of less than one aircraft carrier. Viper could shoot for a country we're not interested in and, with the right political climate, avoid a full scale American interdiction (though the CIA might employ supers...). We ignore coups and civil wars all the time.

Some of the muskets being used were throwing balls between .57 and .75 caliber, with wads of poweder that rivaled, and in some cases, exceeded a .50 BMG round. A black powder weapon isn't inferior (damage wise) to modern firearms with conventional ammunition, they were just remarkably slower, which is why the springfield rifle was such an improvement. Modern rifles have an advantage in rate of fire, and ballistics, which allows greater range and accuracy, but damage wise the black powder musket of the civil war was a MONSTER.

I think calling it an SFX on a block or a to hit roll works... As for resolution: Figure out the BDY/DEF of the object. The monster will have to do enough damage to the object with its strength to destroy it.

In my street level game the heroes are investigating the 8-Ball Syndicate, which has 14 teams of 15 members whose masks look like various pool balls. The Queue balls are the go betweens and fixers. 8-Ball is the leader. Trick Shot, Break Shot, and Scratch are the costumed enforcers. The Arc is called behind the 8-Ball. Midnight: Who do you think is pulling their strings? Bull: The 8-Ball. Midnight: No,that's too obvious. It would be too easy. Bull: Huh, you're probably right.

As a point of fact: It is not uncommon for federal agents in sensitive positions, such as the FBIs counter espionage division, to identify themselves with a pseudonym when interacting with the public in order to keep their exact job with the agency unknown. Further, the identities of federal agents and local law enforcement personnel involved in paramilitary operations, HRT, SWAT, are generally restricted. If you were to confront one in the field and ask his name you wouldn't get it. You can get them with a court order, but even then , whether or not that identiy remains sealed by the court is at the discretion of the judge - in the Waco incident most were withheld, at Ruby Ridge they were not. When the CIA has to go to court they actually have pseudonymns that are used IN COURT DOCUMENTS. You would have to be cleared for the information to ever get the agents name. The judge doesn't always know the actual identities of the people in question. The FBI agents in counter intelligence are often handled in the same way. We have special courts that handle these situations. I understand Shelly's decision, and I think its a good one, but it would be perfectly reasonable to presume that people in the Avengers positions could have their identities witheld from the public in a realistic fashion. Its just a matter of GM preference.

Another option is to buy a grenade with delayed effect. After all, once the pin is pulled you have to wait for the fuse to burn down (3-10 second depending on the grenade).

For toxins: What about just calling it regeneration? Most poisons are gradual effect (in the bestiary at least) so regeneration will overcome the weak ones, and even if the powerful ones take them down, the regeneration will heal the damage done. If you tack on ressurection they're set. If you want to totally ignore all but the really powerful ones why not buy 50% R DR with a -1 Lim (only versus poisons and diseases): 8 Points on top of the Regeneration (since I assume Sabertooth already has that)

I'm running a street level game set in the Bay Area right now: One of the heroes is a big strong guy (25ST) in a red bull costume with big horns. His moniker is the bull. This week he charged a badguy and hit him so hard that he carried him out onto a balcony and sent him over the edge. Midnight, one of the other heroes, was outside, saw this and said: "huh! red bull gives you wings"

So? 1. They can't do it on the same segment. Villians can hold actions, too. 2. Aborting costs actions, which reduces effectiveness. I don't think desolidification mertis any special attention from the GM. If they paid 40+ points for a power they deserve to be able to use it.

Unless they buy their attacks affects solid +2 they have to become solid to actually engage the enemy. That should be plenty of opportunity right there - especially since attacking ends their action. They could theoretically try to abort to deso, but the GM can ask for a DEX contest, and aborting costs an action, so it has its own price anyways.

We had an extremely gritty dark champions game going with a bunch of casual killer vigilante types (the campaign could have been named "body count"). One week when the gamemaster was sick one of the players stepped up. He thought it would be cute if he whipped CLOWN out on us. This was a group of players who just didn't find CLOWN funny or amusing (and this was a known fact) and the GM of the week was doing to annoy on purpose. CLOWN got wasted in an extremely succinct and bloodthirsty way. The leader of the group (Pinstripe), who'd pumped Merry Andrew full of lead from his .50 caliber hand-cannon walked up, gave him a coup de grace and said: "Now thats comedy". Everyone except the GM thought it was hilarious. Literary Note: Tragedy is when something bad happens to you Comedy is when something bad happens to someone else

Here's my question: They melted him into his suit and dropped him into the ocean, but his suit had a faceplate, right? And if it was melted they wouldn't have been able to open it, right? So how do they know it was him in the suit at all? We've got you on this one, Steve... Muerte lives. Mwahahahahahahaha!!!!! (and in my game villians I bring back get a 50 point back from the dead bonus - it works better than a CAK)

I think it would be best simulated by adding a level or two of OCV to the weapon. However, you could make it: AE 1 Hex, Accurate (-0)

The Target

splitstream (a play on words from slipstream)

I think it would work well. I like the idea of magic being theory more than hammered out spells. The only thing I might do to it is have magic broken down into a wheel of forces that can be channeled, with a grey area in the middle of course, and require mages to take a KS for the types of areas they want to manipulate. The KS can be used to determine whether or not they get negatives to a certain casting roll or not, in that it could be used as a complemetary roll to offset the negatives to the skill roll for high AP powers. The higher the KS the easier big spells become.

Talislantia... No Elves!!!

AND!!! I would point out the Dream Pod 9 site does this with a lot of their color work - puts it up on their site with a fair use policy right on the page. Steve, add me to the list.

Storn, baby, when I've used one of your pics for my game (never in a distributable format or online) I even put your name and website in a caption under it. And your color work and black and white work is really cool (I don't care for grayscale).