Marketeer

Re: Defending your base against EMP and other magnetic attacks...

Re: Opinion: EuroStar Well, the easy fix is to tweak Panterra a little bit. She's the daughter of a scientist, right? So what if he managed to splice in all the pseudo-animal capabilities without reducing her to a feral state? Up her Int, give her a medium-sized Gadget Pool and appropriate skills, and you've got the team's super-scientist... ...who gets absolutely nasty if she decides to let her hair down...

Re: Opinion: EuroStar I'm a bit of a nostalgia nut. On those grounds, I'd bring back an old 4th ed. villain who has not made it into 5th. Both The Whip and Pantera fill the light skirmisher/"high Dex, High Speed" niche, so I'd take a good look at both. Pantera has a bit of a cult of Personality around her, what with the Dex 33 or so and Spd. 7, with those HKAs...

Re: Limitation Boondoggles? Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you fail your Activation Roll, don't you waste your Action for the Phase (on an Attack Power)? Losing a Phase is quite significant, whereas all the other Limitations tend to be ones you that you can see in advance and plan around.

Re: Japanese Language/Name question One additional thought: Simply changing the name from "Ryu" to "Akuma" is simple, evocative, and a nice tip-of-the-hat to street Fighter--and the emotional baggage of SF's Akuma can work in your favor.

Re: "Mostly Harmless" powers A human being built on 200-250 points or so could have 5 Overall Levels. At that number of Overall Levels, he or she would be omnicompetent, and then some. Such a person could do things like win Jeopardy with consistency... Strictly speaking, it's not a "power", but with the right Special Effects attached to the Overall Levels, it could represent any and everything from "the luckiest man alive" to someone who can semi- or sub- consciously analyze the best way to approach anything--a human tactical computer, as it were.

Re: WWYCD? "Once more, with Justice" Blackberry would enjoy herself, at least for a moment or two. Most likely, she'd sing something cheery and upbeat, say the theme song from "Sesame Street".

Re: What would your character buy? Blackberry: Knows her friends extremely well. She'd get them gifts that her friends always needed, but never realized they wanted until they received them.

Re: Multipower, Hard to Switch Slots Expanding upon the logic of the analysis (because it's a useful exercise): The main reason to be very strict upon limitations that reduce the cost of the Multipower while only affecting how slots are changed goes something vaguely like this: Picture 2 characters. One, in 80s Transformers style, has a Robot mode (Running) and Airplane mode (Flight), represented by a Multipower with 2 slots. The other is a ground-pounder, and only has Running. So let's assume that the former goes something like this: 30 pt. Multipower, some kind of -1/4 Limitation that makes it harder to switch slots. Cost of Pool: 24 pts. Then, 2 Fixed slots, both using the entire pool. Total cost of slots: 4 Total cost of entire Multipower: 28 points. The other character only puts points into Running, and so spends 30 pts. on that. Total cost, 30 points. In this example, the first character is better in every way than the second--more flexibility at less cost. It's an interesting conceptual problem to attempt to surmount. On the one hand, characters probably should get some kind of limitation upon the pool if the Slots are difficult to change, but on the other, we seem to have a points arbitrage taking place--the 2-movement mode character is getting both modes, for cheaper, than a character with only 1 movement power.

Re: Hmm... WWYCD? WWYD? - The Ultimate Evil Blackberry knows all about RPGs. She'd probably be disturbed athe possibility that some nebulous GM out there had that kind of power (she knows a few GMs), but the concept itself? Kind of cool.

Re: Metallic Ages? A trite way to look at the Iron Age: The main characters of the Iron Age were essentially no-good hacks. Coincidentally, Rob Liefeld established himself in the Iron Age.

Re: The Role Models

Re: The Role Models Separate point from above: Although he's far from being a role model, I do think The Punisher merits inclusion on the list simply for the breadth of his influence--he was one of the most significant of the "you're not supposed to like this guy" heroes.

Re: The Role Models This is probably going to make me very unpopular in a few moments... ...I'm not entirely convinced that Captain America is archetypical at a comparable level to (say) Spider-Man, Superman, or Batman is. (I also would substitute in The Hulk for Wolverine, but that's a separate argument) Captain America could stand for the "highly trained and motivated" archetype, but I honestly feel Batman's portrayal as being obsessive about it makes him fit that niche better. Likewise, Captain America's origin is unique only in the sense that he actively went looking for super-powers, whereas most of the others received them as quirks of birth (Superman) or fate (Spider-Man). The aspect of Captain America "looking for powers" has not really been played up, so I don't think that sets him aside. I would definitely grant that Captain America could have brought the aspect of "being a soldier" or "being a government agent" to the list of archetypes, but I again, I don't think that aspect is played up enough in the body of comics featuring him to really justify including him on those grounds. Likewise, he could have been "a man out of his time", but it's another largely lost opportunity due to non-use. Captain America is a very popular, well-known character, but I don't think he's a quintessential one--the other characters fill his niches. Merely being a "patriot" isn't foreign to Superman, for example--who in the 80s fought for Truth, Justice, and the American way.

Re: WWYCD: The Friendly Neighbourhood CERT Blackberry would be very concerned about people getting hurt while trying to assist. On the other hand, she loves it when people help each other, and would be eager to lend her assistance. So, in practice, she'd be jumping into danger and being actively involved in hero-ing, while simultaneously telling everyone else not to do so "because it is dangerous!"

Re: WWYCD: The Mirror, Mirror Trap Blackberry is a genuinely nice, well-adjusted person. She'd be in for problems. Her doppleganger would probably be wearing something highly impractical for combat, or general daily wear for that matter. This would hopefully be enough to make up for the fact that while Blackberry isn't a generally violent sort, but her doppleganger most likely would be... Yeah, Blackberry would be looking for a way out RIGHT AWAY.

Re: WWYCD: The Halloween Party From Hell... Blackberry would be most cross at the possibility the festivities would be disrupted. She'd keep an eye on things, and make sure that some friends with the appropriate powers received reminders of the great party she's at...

Re: WWYCD: Back to the Streets Blackberry doesn't think humanity is ready for immortality. On the other hand, the rest of these gadgets seem like good ideas, although releasing them irresponsibly could lead to lots of problems. She'd go along with this young lad for now at least, and try to figure out why the hero group destroyed his gadget pool...

Re: WWYCD: Will you forgive me? Blackberry isn't the sort to run across mass murderers, pillagers, or other truly vile types. She's also a deeply optimistic, compassionate person. Given that, her "worst enemy" is unlikely to have done anything truly unforgivable. Blackberry's forgiveness would be relatively easy to earn, but that's due in no small part to the fact that she'd take a genuine desire on the part of the reformed villain to atone as a given, and treat him as such. She'd try to save him too, and if/when she failed, and he died, she'd reflect upon another one of the tragedies of life--how only something as shocking as imminent death can cause some people to bring meaning to themselves.

Re: Wwycd: They Blew It!! Without knowing any more specifics, my instinctive response would be "no". I believe Canada offers citizenship to people born on its soil, but I'm definitely far from being an expert on citizenship and immigration.

Re: Semi-Anime-Ish Charater Ideal... Hunted/Watched: Crazy technophile aunt (Skuld), Just plain crazy aunt (Urd), both of whom seek to "help" him at inopportune times

Re: WWYCD: An Alien among them Blackberry would be glad she saved the Earth! She's pretty unflappable when it comes to stuff like this, she's "smart" in the sense of getting things pretty quickly, and she's very good at getting along with people. Before long, she'd probably have a nice chain of businesses--most likely starting with some variation upon a bakery--running while she looked into possible solutions. All in all, she'd look at this as hopefully just another adventure--and maybe a source of new additions to her hat collection!

Re: Liefeld's Titans Well, there was a shot-lived comic in the 80s called the "T-Force" I believe... ...given Liefeld's reputation for ripping stuff off, that makes Hooligan X's joke prediction about 1000% more likely...

Re: WWYCD: Anti- 'Authority'

Re: WWYCD: Omelas I don't think that's what the story conveys. The story implies that the society is "protected" somehow--that all the small tragedies of existence in the real world simply don't happen there, and that this protection would end irrevocably if the child was given succor. It's not a matter of Omelians "suddenly" robbing and beating each other, it's that the state of enlightenment and epiphany they currently have would no longer be there--ie, reducing them from something utopian to something mundane. Now, in order to NOT DRAG THIS INTO NGD: Blackberry would agonize over this decision. Having the child suffer is wrong, but she can certainly see why parents and altruists wouldn't want other Omelians to suffer, no matter how uncomfortable they are with the child's suffering. She'd probably spend a lot of time soul-searching, apologize profusely, then do what she could to save the child. Then she'd try to help create a new Omelas without the bargain in place--she'd feel extremely guilty over her actions, either way.