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Re: Not enraged, just loves a good fight? One thing that works well is just giving your GM the little blurb you gave us, then summing it up on the character sheet in a short phrase Psych Lim: "Gets Caught Up in the Moment" seems to describe it just fine. Alternatively: Psych Lim: "Loves to Let Loose" works too.

Re: Tentacle Sheath Is this for a PC? If not, it seems suitably off the charts to be in plot device mode, where anybody hit by a straight OCV-vs-DCV check dies. If it needs to be statted out: The Tentacle-Lashing: As a Naked Advantage: Area Effect Cone on X Str (however much STR this guy has for his tentacle attack; Telekineses does not sound right because something like a wall or force bubble between him and his target would block it), Selective, with the Limitation 1 Recoverable Charge which recovers every 24 hours. Alternatively, rather than making it a Naked Advantage, you could use a Hand Attack or Killing Attack with the same advantages/limitations. That would take care of the "attacks everyone within range" part. The "Grab and Pull" part: Telekinesis at X Str (again, however much you deem necessary), Trigger (when victim hit by the Cone attack, Limitations: Only to grab and drag victim into "The Maw", Cannot be used independently of Tentacle-Lashing, 1 Charge that lasts 1 Turn, then recovers after 24 hours, Target is randomly selected from those hit by the Tentacle-Lashing This simulates the part where a tentacle randomly grabs 1, and only 1, of the lashed targets and starts pulling. Because it is on a continuing charge, if the victim breaks free, he/she is safe. The above two powers would set up the Lashing and the Grabbing. The entire thing can be done much more easily if you do not have the limitation of only grabbing a single victim. The Maw: Killing Attack (however big you need it to be scary), Trigger (when a tentacle grabs and pulls someone in), Limitations: No Knockback, 1 Charge which Recovers every 24 hours This would parallel your description. The entire package of three abilities can be done more elegantly if you remove the "only randomly grabs one victim"; then a Naked Advantage on STR that must be used to Grab and yank the victims in, with appropriate Limitations, would do it.

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares Mild-mannered sports medical researcher David Bollea was simply trying to enhance the performance of Sports Entertainers... until the accident. Now, whenever he takes his vitamins he becomes... The Incredible Hulk (Hogan). Whatcha gonna do, brotha', when THE STRONGEST ONE THERE IS runs wild on you!?!?!

Re: DC's Captain Marvel: OIHID or Multiform? Counterpoints: 1) The classic characters in terms of how most players seem to envision OIHID would be characters such as Thor, Captain Marvel, or possibly He-Man/She-Ra. I would start by arguing that all of these characters started by being built upon more "points" (IE, are clearly much more powerful in both an absolute and relative sense) than their Avengers/Justice Society/Eternian/Etherian counterparts. When players are modeling their characters on samples who were "the stars of their shows" in power level can lead to problems within a campaign. Again, I am not saying "don't do it", but that OIHID sometimes strikes me as giving characters a cost break on what, in game terms, is essentially just a Special Effect. 2) The problem with OIHID as a Limitation, mechanically, goes something as follows. I will model my example on a hypothetical 350-pt Captain Marvel. Picture two scenarios: a) Captain Marvel has no OIHID (I will call him "Marvel A" from now on). He purchases all his skills, powers, and attributes at normal rate, and takes Secret ID. He has occasional sessions where Secret ID comes up, as befits someone with that Disadvantage. Captain Marvel with OIHID ("Marvel B"). He purchases many of his skills, powers, and attributes with the Limitation OIHID. Now, between these two characters, Marvel B has, in an absolute sense, more power--in fact, he can literally do everything Marvel A can and then some. He's not more powerful "in some respects", he's more powerful overall. Now, on a 350-pt. character, OIHID typically results, depending on how much you put under OIHID, in a savings of 20-40 pts. (depends on how aggressively you build to shave fractional points). Compared to Marvel A, I am not sure that, in most campaigns, Marvel B is actually "limited" that much more highly. Note that I am comparing a character with "himself"--an alternative way of building the same character. I am completely aware that different characters run by different players should be distinct and feel different--but my point is that OIHID is one of those Limitations that is inclined to, at times, amount to free points, or that the Limitation is often partially or fully encompassed in being a Secret ID. Hence, I propose the alternative of making it a -0 Limitation, or essentially a Special Effect. I acknowledge that fact; my point though is one of parity between characters. I think it is entirely defensible for a GM in a campaign to make "OIHID" a Special Effect rather than a Limitation, and that many cartoon/comic characters who would be "iconically" OIHIDs might be better served and more appropriately modeled as a -0 Limitation. I freely concede that opinions can vary on this issue.

Re: DC's Captain Marvel: OIHID or Multiform? I would propose a third way to handle a Captain marvel style character: A -0 OIHID, based on the fact that it is almost trivial for Billy to turn to and from Captain Marvel. While there certainly are disadvantages that come from being in your "normal" form, most of that inconvenience is already covered in Social Lim: Secret ID. On top of that, there are some roleplaying advantages that come from having an entirely different body, such as having it be easier to maintain a Secret ID and the ability to "disguise" yourself if you need to infiltrate a location that is looking for your heroic self. I totally agree that the "classic" Hero way to treat a Captain Marvel-style character is OIHID, but I wonder whether that is appropriately balanced. Even if the player spends the "saved" points on skills, that still amounts to free skills that the character will have over and above equivalent-point characters run by other players who are not built through OIHID.

Re: What would your character Dream: The Hero who has everything The original thread stopped in 2004; in such a situation, should we just continue the new thread or necro the old?

A player wishes to purchase a reserve of End (Not necessarily and End Reserve, I will get to that in a moment) representing the fact that the character has the ability to push her limits in a pinch--moreso and with greater regularity than other characters. In game terms, the player wants the character to have extra End that can only be used for pushing. The questions that arise are: 1) Would this properly be purchased as extra End with a Limitation, or as an End Reserve (that can only be used to pay the End cost of pushin)? I can see both answers being potentially correct, particularly because the player wants this extra capacity to still be available right after the character gets up from being knocked out (on the grounds that the character is still able to push her limits "when it counts") 2) If purchased as an End Reserve, would the character need to purchase the +1/4 advantage on her powers/strength that allow them to tap either personal End or an End Reserve? Normally, the ability to push costs 0 character points, and the base powers/strength would not be able to tap the End Reserve for normal End costs. The Reserve would only be available to cover End costs for pushing. Thanks!

Re: WWYCD: Grrrl Power- emphasis on Grrr Blackberry S. Firr would become very matronly and protective; can't let the boys get hurt now, can we? This would be more annoying than anger-inducing; she'd be making sure her male comrades and teammates remembered to dress warmly for cold weather, and she'd start wondering why the boys don't learn how to cook proper meals. Blackberry's generally just too nice to become physically vicious, but she might start slapping people, poking them in the chest, or stop hugging as things got worse. At some point, she'd realize something is up--being warm and kind is so much a part of her nature that it would feel wrong not to be--but the affliction would definitely cause her to become very much a "nagging nanny" type.

Re: Character Concept Question I actually picture "Zero" to be the ultimate ghost in the machine. He leaves no data trail of any kind (Invisibility to Machines, perhaps Change Environment to leave no trace). Machine Code is still just a bunch of ones and zeros--and he has an intuitive knack for fiddling with those. The financial world cares very much about how many zeros come after the digits in, say, your bank account. And Zero claims all of these things as his purview. He's got a high Int, an insane Pre, various skills, and is a master of dealing with things that are purely conceptual in nature. No energy blasts. No martial strikes. No force field. Nothing tangible. But if something exists solely or primarily in the realm of concept, it's in his domain.

Re: Build this power- "Form of..." (not quite) The classic way to do this has been an EC, with things like Flight, Damage Shield, and Force Field as slots within the EC.

Hi folks, Ok, so picture a player who wants to create a sentient vehilce as his character--say K.I.T.T. from Knight Rider, or one of the Transformers--in a new, four-color style, 350 pt. superhero campaign. What would be a relatively clean way to write up the character? I thought of using a vehicle with an AI, but there are problems with that as a construct; is there any simpler or smoother way to do it?

Re: Make everyone fight at your level... a heroic fighter in a supers world. One thing to look at storywise is that many characters with superhuman stats should, conceptually, be well below NCM after theis powers are drained. Take for example a character who is superstrong, but is not obviously bulky, muscular or large. Such a character probably should not be at the upper limit of NCM after his or her "super" strength has been nullified. As a good visual, picture Clark Kent after forfeiting his powers in the Christopher Reeve's Superman movies. This throws a medium-sized wrench in the mechanics, but is probably worth considering since part of the point of the character is the "feel".

Re: Making Growth power Inherent Fair enough; I am actually looking more at a hypothetical EC of say Growth, Density Increase, and, uh... Damage Resistance we'll say. (Again, I concede freely that the EC has a decently tight theme, but is not book legal). I have left out special effects in the example below, mostly because the arithmetic is what I am trying to communicate. 6 pt. EC: "Built like a Brick" 6A "Tough as a Brick": Damage Resistance for rPD: 12 rED: 12 3B "Heavy as a Brick": 5 pts. Density Increase, 0 End Persistent Inherent, Always On 3C "Big as a Brick... House": 5 pts. Growth, 0 End Persistent Inherent, Always On Slots B and C are each significantly cheaper than 5 pts. of Strength, so you could argue that this is point-efficient and cheap for what you get.

Re: Making Growth power Inherent It is possible for the construct of: 0 End Persistent Inherent (total +1 1/4), Always On (total -1/2) On Growth to be point-efficient, but only if it is part of an EC that covers a fairly large variety of powers. So, if you wanted to make a "big, dense, and tough" EC , AND the GM was willing to go along with it, you could have a character who was approximately equally point-efficient with someone who simply bought the STR, Knockback Resistance, and so forth. In that respect it is a bit of a kludge; this construct is not book-legal but even at its most munchkinnny it is approximately equal point-efficiency to simply buying STR, Knockback Resistance, and Body, so I do not think GMs would necessarily balk at it.

Re: Need a Name for a Temporal Prison "Pause"

Re: The Hero Forum's Hottest Man in Comics. Too many characters in the DCU pine away for Nightwing for him not to receive my vote as well. Nightwing it is.

Re: WWYCD: the times of peace are upon us Blackberry would go back to being a minor celebrity and philanthropist. She'd be tickled pink at the notion that there would be fewer mean people roaming around.

Re: WWYCD: Dead Enemies are no fun. It would be absolutely shocking for anybody to believe that Blackberry S. Firr killed anyone; she is well known as, in spite of something of a rough-and-tumble attitude, not being particularly violent. Blackberry would definitely be worried about what to do, but she would be more worried about why everyone so readily believed such an outrageous charge than anything else.

Re: I need to brainstorm some anachronistic items Champions 5th Edition RPG line, with the infamous "Seeker kicks butt" line of covers. The diary of one of the few British survivors from the disastrous and failed evacuation of Dunkirk. Angel, Season 8 DVD. The matchlock weapons used by the Chinese in their invasion of Europe A book detailing the martial arts techniques of the early Christian church (created as an exercise regimen after monks fell asleep during services) The Amber Room, intact DC's Sandman, art and writing by Rob Liefeld

Re: Canadian Super Villain Team- Need Help Depending on how believable/realistic you want it to be, fiddling with their backstories could help. Take the following example: Talion and his brother grew up in the States. They were not exactly well-off, but they, and their families were solidly lower middle-class. Talion was the older brother, both kids were pretty typical kids, maybe a little smarter than usual, maybe a little hungrier to succeed, but generally pretty good sorts. Talion went off to study in Canada--he managed to score a medium-sized scholarship, and went where the money was. Little brother stayed behind in the States. Both did fairly well in their studies, and had pretty healthy social lives; they also made many of the various mistakes you would expect of kids off at school. Unfortunately, Talion's little brother got caught during one of them. It all started very simply. He (the brother) was giving a few friends rides home from dinner one day. During the trip, one of them casually mentioned that he was going to buy some weed at their destination. They were almost there; it was not like he was going to buy or use or even be near any of the guys when the light up, and it would have been rude as heck to just dump his buds on the street. Talion's little brother dropped off his friends, then went home. He got convicted as an accessory to Possession for Personal Use. The judge was extremely sympathetic, but the DA was hard-nosed, and there was a mandatory minimum sentence in place. Talion's little bro got 5 years. A, perhaps not brilliant, but undeniably bright, future was now on hold. Five years is a long time when you're young. Talion, from his vantage, is now returning one unfairness--one horrible miscarriage of justice where a minor wrong resulted in a high price--with another. The injustice of the US? Doing this to his little brother. The prize the States will pay? Whatever it takes to make things right for Talion and his family. Young, hotheaded, angry. Works for you?

Re: WWYCD: It's time for the Megaman KidZ Show! Blackberry S. Firr: "...OOooooOOhhh... That's a great idea! Lemme just take a look at the script..." *long pause* *sad face* "...why don't we meet at my place over muffins, we need to talk..."

Re: Amalgamation Hero, let's create new Heroes from old ones *stage whisper* Psst! He said FireStar, not FireStorm

Re: WWYCD: Where brave men (and women) are needed How did it work out in GI Joe again? Not remembering is bothering me...

Re: The Ultimate WWYCD: Ninja or Pirate! Blackberry S. Firr dresses too conservatively to be a Pirate. She would be a ninja--albeit a boisterous, conversational one who is only stealthy when she truly needs to be.

Re: Champions Universe without the Crowns of Krimm I think you have a much easier alternative: The Crowns are back on Earth. Why? Heaven wants them here The characters will definitely want to know why, but Heaven does not answer to mortals, and does not need to provide reasons. (As a side note, I too echo the concerns of the other GMs; it sounds like a major victory for the players and I would hesitate to simply undo it)