Stormraven

Indeed - Secret IDs may be shared, but I as a GM do not expect them to be, nor do I as a player do so until my character has reason to. I don't play a LOT of people with Secret ID, but some, and not one will just up and give away their ID earlier than eight or nine game sessions in - and then, generally, only if they've been given reason to trust the others. Look at the comics, especially JLA. Aside from Superman and Wonder Woman, no one knew Batman's Secret ID - and only Batman and Wonder Woman knew Superman's. That recently changed, but mostly because Batman needed to regain the JLA's trust.

I'd have to say I'd have made the same ruling. I don't see linking anything to a 0 end, persistent power that has little effect on small scale game mechanics.

Checkmate would calmly wake his wife and see if she is still female, or if she, too, has changed genders. If the first, then it's likely his consciousness has been moved to another world, and he'll merely need to contact his other self and pool the two most awesome intellects on their respective planets to repair the situation. If the latter, then he'll have to check to see if he can find residue or energy trails that can be traced to the perpetrator, at which time he (even in a female body, Checkmate would have a very male self-image) would call in all the assistance he can to convince the perpetrator to reverse it.

Checkmate: Kill. Too easy. With his intellect, he could easily arrange it so he could kill someone and make it appear that he was elsewhere - with a hundred unimpeachable eyewitnesses to prove it. Therefore, he won't ever do it. No challenge. Guardian: She won't ever hurt a child. Even if it's a supervillain, she'll try to bring him/her down without hurting them. Control: Control won't kill - not for his father's reasons, but for actual morality and empathy. (His father has about as much empathy as a stone, but he's a bit better.)

Checkmate - Not going to happen. He's very much a tech person. He had to work in the normal world to get the physique he has - he wouldn't likely have survived long enough in a neanderthal world. Guardian - Minor changes. She threw Goron the bold out of the village - literally - when he tried to pull her to his cave. Later, she found these wierd things of metal that let her do other things. Her tribe's now a Matriarchy, and the patriarchal tribes around them tend to leave them alone, for fear of a boulder larger than most of their villages being dropped on them. (She found it one day walking in a glacier's path, braced it onto her shoulder, and walked back to the village.) Control - Not going to happen. Even if he could appear, without Checkmate as a father, his powers are too nebulous for a Neanderthal to figure out.

Checkmate's DNPCs are his wife, Laura - who wears a power suit to her 'day job' (she's an ex-team mate of his.) and his son, Denis, Jr. Also known as Control. Control has POWERS, whereas Checkmate is unbelievably intelligent (38 Int) and skilled, but otherwise human. He'd be the one people would be surprised to show up with actual powers. Guardian's DNPCs (she has several) are mostly people with some form of power as it is. Her adopted daughter has bracers that are less powerful than Guardian's, but more versatile. One of her friends, Petey, is a schmoozer on the level of Face from the A-Team. Only her wife, Blakely, is actually normal. And Guardian would look at it pretty much as Blakely did. Especially if it meant she didn't have to worry about her strength anymore. Control - See above. His DNPCs are his dad, Checkmate, his mom, an armour suit, and his girlfriend, a 1,200 year old Elven Sorceress/Princess.

I've done high Strength, High Int, High Pre and middling high Com (I've never gone beyond about 24 Com) I have done higher than 20 Body, but only for a brick. Highest Con I've ever done was for a brick there, too - about 38. Most often, Dex sits in the 20s. So it looks much like Ego - which I've never put higher than 23 - is probably it.

Checkmate: Fascinated by the concept, Checkmate isn't much of a reader. He'd probably wind up in the Lensman universe. What happened then would depend a lot on who he met first. He could potentially become a lensman. Guardian: The DC Universe (No mutant-hunters); The Buffyverse, especially in Season 5, wherein she would teach Glory that she ain't that strong. Control: He'd be fascinated by Oz, but would want to meet Dr. Burroughs, D.T., Libby, and all the rest.

Hmmm... Not an issue for most of my characters. Why? Checkmate: Simply gets a friend who knows genetics better than he does to clone and graft a replacement. Guardian: Regenerates - including limbs, internal organs that have been shot out, etc - so the hand would come back in about thirty minutes or so. Control: See above with Checkmate - what are dads for, if not to use their contacts on occasion? :-) But if Checkmate wasn't available, Control would simply fit the stump with a prosthetic that also generated electricity for him to use.

Oh, this is a fun one... Furry Checkmate: Well, not really furry, but he'd be a Serpent or Lizard. He's that cold-blooded, and deliberate. Furry Guardian: A lioness. Furry Control: Interestingly enough, he's less cold-blooded than his father, and would actually be a furry - most probably a fox.

Female Checkmate: Not much different, really - especially if we're talking an actual opposite world, where women have been in charge for centuries, etc. If it's just Checkmate that's switched, as it were, the origin will result in a much higher reputation, for being the woman who can defeat every chess player in the world. Male Guardian: This would make major changes, if - as mentioned above - that was the only change in the universe. He'd have learned his power on the football field, not by tossing a 300 lb linebacker halfway down the school's main hall. Probably would have run afoul of mutant hunters a lot earlier, but also would have had less trouble by not running away quite so precipitously. Female Control: Not much change.

Evil Checkmate - not that hard a stretch. With his intelligence, he came pretty close to being a villain anyway, just for the challenge. He decided against it in the 'real' universe, due to the risks, but Evil Checkmate probably looked at the risks as making the game far more worthy. He wouldn't be married, that's for sure. He'd have little or no difficulty enslaving women to bear his progeny. He wouldn't make the usual mistakes, either. They'd all be trained to question, to think, and eventually to take over for him. And he'd let them, too. He's already fairly ruthless, as some of my answers in other threads have indicated. That would just be taken to a darker extreme. Evil Guardian - I think she'd basically be a man-hating amazon type if she were evil. She'd basically hunt men like others hunt lions. Evil Control - Does not bear thinking about. With the ability to control energy, and a range that has, on more than one occasion, passed worldwide, he'd have the entire world under his thumb without much difficulty at all.

Checkmate. "No." No explanation, no excuses, just "No." Pressing the issue gets a thin smile, then "If you can beat me at chess." (He's essentially unbeatable. Plays Blind chess with International Grand Masters for fun - five at a time - playing black in all games.) Guardian. "Sure." She doesn't exactly have a secret ID, though she's not well-known publically, but she is a model, so she should bring a fair amount. Control. "My girlfriend would kill me."

I tried that - well, something similar anyway - with a merc group called the Warmongers. A duplicating Martial Artist (in 4th Ed., got 8 high agent level dupes) named MIRV, a fire projector named Napalm, a brick named Abrams, and a few others (the rest of the cast changed). They used military style tactics almost identical to my agents. The PCs routinely wiped the floor with them. But a small squad of agents could give them the heebie-jeebies. Go figure.

Not one of my supervillains scares my players. Ever. I've had Dr. Doom knock-offs, two or three times more powerful than the entire group, and they move, very workman-like, to locate and find a weakness they can exploit. I've created a version of Dread Dormammu (or Tyrannon, if you like) and they used the maguffin in a way I hadn't figured on, without the slightest frisson of fear. But if I send in a five-man agent team, written up on 100-150 points each (against 4-5 300-350 point heroes) suddenly they're white-knuckled, and worried about staying conscious throughout the combat.

I presume you're saying 'with useable by others' on the powers? I'd be more willing to allow that - for any powers that cost End - simple because no one's got enough End to let give the power to every single Duplicate. But more willing doesn't translate to 'yes, I'd allow it'. To my mind, duplicates aren't 'others', and never will be. Therefore, you can't use powers with 'useable by others' on your duplicates.

I don't know that I could buy that argument. I view something like that very much as I would view 'Aid' bought for each duplicate. They do the exact same thing, with the exact same special effect, so they are, for all intents and purposes, the same power. Now, Steve may consider that valid - if so, then it might require a house rule - but a construct like that will never work that way in my campaigns.

Okay, call me dumb, but just how does '+1' to a stat, usable by up to 'x' others count as cumulative for a single character? As I read that construct, each character has base characteristic +1. Unless, of course, each one of them has the ability and, as they duplicate, they add, which kind of makes sense, I suppose. But in that case, I as GM wouldn't let them add. Why? Because they're the same power. I wouldn't let the PC use the same power multiple times on himself, so why should I let the PC's duplicates all use the same power on him?

Guardian - 'Soft' brick. High Pd and Ed, but no resistant Def. 60 Strength, High Pre (28). She's also got a pair of bracers that give her an Energy Killing Attack, but that's rarely used on people. Checkmate - Martial Artist, Skill Monger. Defined to one GM as a cross between Batman, R'as Al Ghul, Ozymandias (of the Watchmen) and Bobby Fisher. A capable martial artist and semi-gadgeteer, his real strength lies in strategy and tactics. Control - Checkmate's son from another campaign. Very high level. It was a Marvel-themed game, and he was listed as an Omega-level Mutant (on par with Franklin Richards and Nathan Grey). Has the power to control any energy he has experienced (unable to sense them directly, but once he's felt it, he can control it) except for magic and psionics.

Checkmate helps him. With a couple of provisos. First, he has to 'die'. There's no way the authorities will allow him to go straight without jail time unless they have something like the Suicide Squad. Second, he does nothing without Checkmate's knowledge and approval, until Checkmate is convinced he truly has changed. Third, he takes a real-world job and money gets put aside to make up the missing 10%, as well as restitution for the assaults and other crimes. Once that's done, Checkmate will then work with him to reveal himself, turn the money in, make restitution, and help him avoid jail time.

Guardian - has a reputation as a super-powered vigilante. Unlikely in the extreme that the forces of law and order would ask her to guard anyone. (It's not deserved, entirely, but there you are.) If they really did, then her reaction to him being bruised before her eyes would be to rip open the door to the courtroom and call for help. She'd be so far from his body that no one could rationally suspect her. Checkmate would look at the accusers and calmly indicate the numerous problems inherent in him beating anyone to death. (18 Strength. Yes, he has martial arts, yes, they do some serious damage, but for a brick-type villain, they would take far too long to kill him.) He would then explain exactly what happened, and suggest very strongly that the forensic pathologists look for a specific trace chemical in the villain's blood. (Contrary to common thought, there's no such thing as a toxin that leaves NO trace. Even if you can find a toxin that, itself, is untraceable, its effects on the body CAN be tracked, and something like that would necessarily leave something. Wrecked receptor nerves or increased amounts of exhaustion poisons in the muscles, etc.)

I've done it... His name's Checkmate Chalis. He's a bit more focused than 'smartest man alive', his schtick is that he's the best strategist and logical thinker alive. (That makes it easier for GMs to accept him, especially the ones who believe that 'there is no best' - at least, for PCs) In addition to Int, Martial Arts, etc., I gave him levels that could affect any group he's working with (tactics and strategy), Damage Classes with his martial arts (same concept as the find weakness above. His amazing intelligence is what lets him do so much damage, not the fact that he's hitting harder.), and Precognition of up to one hour in the future, defined as following chains of logic. There's more - tons of science skills, strategy-type skills, etc., but that's one way to do it.

Well, let's see... Checkmate. 38 Int, Logical train of possibilities precognition, godawful deduction roll, computer programming, etc. If anyone manages to surprise him in that situation, they deserve to win. It's highly unlikely, though, as he's not the most trusting of people on a good day. Not as paranoid as the Bat, but not far from it. Control. Checkmate's son. Ability to control any energy he has personal experience with. Electricity being one such. Not quite as intelligent as his dad, it would take him a bit to suss out that they were robots, but once he did, he'd switch them off and trace their energies back to mastervillain's lair. Can't do a lot when none of your robots work. Guardian. The first attacks would probably stun her or even put her unconscious, but with an 18 Rec, she gets up again quickly. She doesn't like being captured, and hates betrayal more, so depending on where she finds herself, she will either catch her attackers by surprise and put them both down quickly, or just go off on everything around her until nothing's standing.

I found a bunch of bronze six-sided dice at a Con, once. They're hexagonal 'cylinders'. Fairly cool, actually.

I have one or two characters who could make it, though my favourites couldn't. Checkmate couldn't make it, but his contacts likely include someone who could - even if they're halfway across the world at the time he calls them. Sunswift, on the other hand, could make it in one phase, do a grab-by on the ball, and drop it at Foxbat's feet by the end of the phase. And probably would.