Misery Lad

Hi, everyone. Got a tricky question that I hope someone can answer. I'll try to keep the details from getting confusing. I recently tried to build a character with the ability to 'slide' through levels of Density Increase, down to intangibility. This was going to be accomplished through the alternate rule for Desolidification found on page 26 of the Ultimate Metamorph. In case anyone's not familiar, that rule allows characters to take on levels of Desolidification, rather than the 'all or nothing' aspect the power normally employs. This is done by rating Desolidification by level of BODY points that the character can move through. Thus, a character with 6 BODY Desolidification can move through 6 BODY worth of obstruction per phase. If the obstruction has more BODY than that, the character would be considered 'in transit' inside it and would again apply his Desolid level to the remainder on his next phase. This is actually a re-take on the way Desolidification was handled back in 1st edition Champions. The problem began when I consulted the chart for apportioned Desolidification (also page 26) and saw that the character, using the power this way, must keep track of his mass and has modifiers applied to his Knockback, PD and ED. Every level of Desolidification levies a +1" to Knockback, due to the fact that the character's mass is actually less than normal. But, because the character is now also only semi-solid, his PD and ED both go up, to simulate the fact that most attacks can no longer touch him with full force. Still not necessarily a problem, until... At Level 8, Desolidification maxes out, because at that point, the character is equal to anyone who simply bought Desolidification outright, according to the standard rules. At that point, the character is considered exactly the same as any normally desolidified character, but... There is, of course, the rule that no Desolidification applies to all attacks. Like N-Ray Vision, there must be something that it doesn't work against. Now, suppose the character's Desolidification doesn't work against vibratory attacks. That should mean that, if he is attacked by a vibratory blast, it should be the same as if he'd never activated his Desolidification at all, as far as protection goes. But, get this -- Any attack on the character using Desolidification levels is reduced by either the additional PD or ED and the character takes extra knockback. If the character is at Level 8, he should be fully desolid. But, as this is against an attack his power doesn't affect, he should be hurt and the extra PD and ED can be ignored. But, even though he's fully desolid and, presumably at maximum negative mass, he suddenly no longer suffers extra knockback! HUH??? Next problem: Say that same character is trying to move through the wall of an entrapping room, with the kicker being that the room features a vibratory damage field that does knockback. From Level 1-7, the character would take the extra knockback. But, if he goes to Level 8, supposedly, he takes no extra knockback but he should because his Desolidification doesn't work against vibratory attacks. HUH??? On top of that, it seems like he should be able to get through the wall, if he can overcome the damage. He's still desolid. It's not as if the power really didn't activate (as I mentioned earlier - it only seems that way), so, technically, he's still good to step through the barrier. It just seems that he should take the damage before he can apply his Desolid levels. I have more qualms but I'll start with these. Has anyone else out there played around with this ability and encountered these problems?

Re: Elementals et al Sourcebooks - Writers Needed I own every issue of every Justice Machine comic, including the original Noble magazine run. Likewise, I also have pretty much everything on the Elementals, including, I'm embarassed to say, the Sex Specials. I've done quite a bit of freelance writing, including pen & paper RPGs and computer games. Needless to say, I'd be downright ecstatic to take a stab at it. If you could drop me a line, I'd love to discuss it.

Re: Top Ten All-Time 'Favorite' Superhero RPG Books Ever As many have said before, no particular order... DC Heroes - Anything after the 1st edition. 1st edition definitely had some kinks to work out. By 2nd edition, though, the system ha d a much smoother flow to it and...I've said it before, I'll say it again: There are a number of things, power-wise, that Hero doesn't handle well, if at all, that DC handles quite easily. But I know of no Hero/Champions powers that are simply not playable in DC. Villains & Vigilantes - Not the first supers game I ever played but definitely the first that tried hard to get it right. I respect the game for that. Atlas Of The DC Universe - This has helped me more than any Hero games supplement in setting up capsule locales that are significant to my campaign world. Day Of The Destroyer - This one culminated in a PC having to sacrifice her life to save the planet. One of the most epic scenarios I've ever refereed and some of the reprecussions are still being felt in my world today. Champions 3-D - What to say about this one? Using the ideas presented in this book, I constructed an alternate Earth that mirrored the campaign with one important difference: The supers had seized governmental power and changed the course of history. Once the player-characters became involved, things took an incredible turn for the worst. While some of the characters escaped back to their proper Earth, the climax of the scenario resulted in the deaths of five PCs and the destruction of the world itself. Good times, good times... Champions Universe, 4th Edition version - The amount of information on the disposition of various national and international metahuman parties was more than worth the price of admission. Ninja Hero, 4th Edition version - Used so much in our campaigns, I literally wore it out and had to get a second one. It was an expansion upon the basic tenets of Hero martial arts that approached an order of magnitude. Champions 4th Edition - Big, bold and brassy! Wore out my softcover, wore out my hardcover. Had to get another hardcover and protect that one with a Dragonskin. I'm still looking for another softcover. Anyone have any ideas where I might acquire one, I'd love to hear them. Dark Champions 4th/5th Editions - I realize it's a little bit of a cheat here but I simply can't acknowledge one while neglecting the other. Mr. long has done such great jobs on both that I tend to take both with me whenever I ref away from home. Brave New World Core Book - Not even close as a favorite system but I really appreciated the attention to detail Matt Forbeck brought to the table when constructing his game world. It's given me a lot of ideas for overarching plotlines for my own game even though, sadly, it doesn't hold up very well for its own sake.

Re: Walking On The Sun All of the input has gotten me thinking about ease of applicability. I've found myself wondering about the most streamlined way of introducing specific defenses into the game, rather than all-encompassing levels of invulnerability, and the thought hit me: What about Megascale? Does anyone think this might help? What if you could effectively Megascale your PD or ED against a specific attack or condition? Say, apply upwardly-scaled Advantages to your ED and, on the first tier, make every 1 real point of your ED actually worth 2 points against heat/fire (and only that)? Second tier, every single real point of your ED is worth 5 points vs. fire. Third tier, 10 pts. vs. fire. Fourth tier, 100 points. I see the four tiers as being all that's necessary, assuming you already have a decent enough ED or PD. The question remains as to the best way to apply Resistant or Hardened to such defenses, but what's the view on the basic idea?

I have a feeling that this subject isn't going to be as straightforward as I'd hoped and for that I apologize in advance. Recently, I've had a player create a character who claims mastery over all things elemental and climatic. One of the issues she's brought up is the idea that she would like her character to simply be immune to fire (Not overt fire/flame attacks, just ambient temperature extremes). She wants to approach this by having the character essentially match her body's endothermic temperature to that of any flame in which she is ensconced. This may not seem like such a big deal but, ultimately, this is supposed to cover the possibility of walking on the sun, a la the big battle between Firestorm and Brimstone in issue #100 of Firestorm's series in the nineties. So, the question is: What kind of immunity/defense would a character have to have in order to make such an event possible? My initial thought is that the surface of the sun should not be considered an ambient environment, since it's essentially a constantly exploding nuclear reactor but mayhap someone has another take on it. Any input is appreciated. Thanks!

Re: Kingdom Come Casting Call Actually, I seem to recall reading somewhere that Bruce Wayne's look was based more off of Gregory Peck. Take another look at Alex Ross' rendition of him in the mini-series.

Re: A little help with a power construct? Shaman of Alpha Flight Okay. I concede. I was not aware of Cap's shield ever being destroyed and rebuilt. Had I known that from the start, I wouldn't have used him as the fulcrum for my argument. I still don't totally agree with all of your points (for instance, I wonder at your example of using the War Machine armor as an Independent focus just because James Rhodes hasn't gotten it back yet. It took Cap quite a while to get his good shield back after he adopted the identities of Nomad and the Captain. By that logic, everything I said about Iron Man is correct. The book might say otherwise, I'm just saying that I don't think the War Machine example qualifies as a good rebuttal.). But I've really enjoyed our discussion. It's actually opened my eyes to the way others think. In my situation, I don't get a lot of input from other people who know anything about the Hero System or Champions so some rules interpretations feel like they've been made in a vacuum. This has been very educational and I will take a lot of what you have all said to heart. Thanks! And Merry Christmas!

Re: A little help with a power construct? Shaman of Alpha Flight Okay. Before I make too many assumptions here, why don't you tell me what you would consider to be an Independent focus if Captain America's shield does not qualify?

Re: A little help with a power construct? Shaman of Alpha Flight I see your standpoint but it seems to me that you're equating comic-book convenience and RPG circumstances as being one and the same thing. In a comic-book story, if somebody shoots Superman with a Kryptonite bullet and critically wounds him, you can be sure that one of his friends will just happen to be there to make sure the attacker doesn't get the chance to finish the job. In Champions, even you as the referee cannot guarantee that such a friend will be on hand, in that second, to save the Player Character, even if he has scads of such friends running around all over the city. The reason Captain America keeps getting his shield back in the comics is because he wouldn't be Captain America without it. I'm not saying that his name suddenly disappears from the face of the Earth. Rather, one of the most outstanding identifying features of the character will be gone, lessening the traditional image of the character. Let's imagine Green Lantern without his Power Ring or (a better example), Batman without his utility belt or Wonder Woman without her magic lasso. While Batman and Wonder Woman could certainly continue to function without these implements, their overall presentation would be lessened. Ain't gonna happen in the comics - not to archetypal characters. There's simply too much historical inertia behind them. Sure, we've seen major changes in some characters (death of Hal Jordan, Batman with a broken back, Wolverine losing his adamantium, Spider-Man cloned). But, for the most part, we see at least a slow swing back toward the status quo, sooner or later. Superman wasn't really killed by Doomsday, Batman got better, et al. Many of these insistent returns to form would be looked upon as cheesy in Champions (and are equally cheesy in comics) but they're out of the hands of the fans. Let me clarify that: They're out of the hands of the few and firmly in the hands of the many. Because of that, they always seek the level of greatest acceptance and, the truth is, too many fans out there want to see these characters go on forever, basically unchanged. So, you can't rate the paces that Captain America is put through in the comics as being equal to what he'd probably endure in Champions. The one thing that every comic lacks is an X-factor (no pun intended). That nasty moment when everything hinges on the dice falling a certain way and trying hard not to swallow your own head when they don't. I kind of doubt that a lot of dice rolling goes on at Marvel to determine the monthly fates of their most evergreen characters. If it were shown in the comics that Captain America's shield could be remade with relative ease (even on the order of Iron Man's armor), I would be inclined to agree with you on the point of Independence. However, it has been put forth far too many times in his own comic and others that the formula for recreating that shield is anybody's guess. I doubt that even Reed Richards could chug one out in a reasonable time. Therefore, I see no reason why the Limitation of Independent wouldn't be awarded to a player who'd acquired a Focus in this manner.

Re: A little help with a power construct? Shaman of Alpha Flight Got distracted and forgot to include something in my earlier post. My wrap-up on that one was the idea that, while Shaman may have gotten back his bag quickly, that in no way impacts upon whether or not it was Independent. I would call it Independent simply because if someone had taken it AND KEPT IT, well, I think that would have been the end of the fine career of one regretful Sarcee. I think it's not a question of whether it actually happens. It's a question of whether it has the POTENTIAL to happen. That's how I judge the validity of the Limitation.

Re: A little help with a power construct? Shaman of Alpha Flight The criteria for Independent is not whether someone else can easily use the Focus. Yes, there's a potential for that, but most of the definition lies in the idea that the item is unique, perhaps even an artifact. Captain America's shield. Sure, someone could take it away from him. They probably wouldn't be able to use at anywhere near his effectiveness but the fact is, if they had some way to teleport the thing into the sun, Cap would be SOL. He wouldn't be getting another one of those shields for a long, long time, if ever. The same thing is true for Thor's hammer or the original metal from which Alan Scott carved his power ring. It's a question of how one-of-a-kind or hard-to-replace the item is. In the case of Iron Man's armor, there is a slight debate. The replacement of his armor was no casual task. Sure, he had a collection of different types but that could be explained with the (5 pts. for 2x) rule. If I remember correctly, at the time James Rhodes dumped the armor suits in the ocean, Stark was in no position, either creatively or financially, to replace any of them. Let's call that situation an actual game scenario and say you were the referee. If those armored suits had been destroyed instead of found by the Atlanteans, how would you have handled the Stark player's reversal of fortune? Would you have said that, yeah, the armor's gone and if you want more, you're going to have to devote time and money (which you don't have) to build more. That player could be out of the game for quite a while. In that sense, his armor could be considered Independent, since he would have to go through a hell of a lot to get back even one suit. on the other hand, the armor, while special, is not one-of-a-kind. It could be rebuilt (just read the blueprints), unlike Cap's shield. I can actually see both sides of the fence and I think I might handle it this way. If the player, at the outset, wanted to build armor like Iron Man's and asked for the Independent Limitation, I might be inclined to award only half the benefit (-1), on the basis of my previous paragraph.

Re: Hot Enough For Ya? I think this and the earlier comment By OddHat go a long way toward summing up my indigenous feelings about the situation. Intellectually, I felt that, if I were to allow something like this (a fight on the surface of the sun) to occur, I would be Two-Stepping into the realm of allowing Stratospheric Punches and the like. It's all part and parcel of the Silver Age and that's a whole different era of comic convention than what I've been reffing. However, the info on the whatfors behind the event have been extremely enlightening. I think, ultimately, with judicious common sense and an unblinking eye toward what best serves the drama of the story, this could be quite a *cool* event (heh). The only things left to figure out would be the very real isue of retinal burnout from sheer visible light blindness. How much Flash Defense would a person need to stare across the sun? For that matter, given that the sun is a continuous nuclear reactor, throwing off vastly explosive forces every second on the second, how would a character manage to root himself relative to the surface in the first place? It's a big plasma ball, spitting out explosive force (and radiation pressure). Even with Flight, wouldn't characters be constantly slammed away by the energies exerted? This is assuming, of course, that the Desolidification route doesn't necessarily mean that the character is indeed ephemeral, but rather that he or she has the ability to shunt harmful energies around their bodies, like light bending around an object to render it invisible. Not trying to beat a dead horse, here. I fully understand if everyone's tired of this thread. But if someone does happen to have a comment, I'll be quite happy to hear it. Thanks everyone, for all of your input!

Re: SFX Stunts : Cool or Abusive? But hold on. +2d.6 or more? Maybe even +3d.6? By that measure, would you make it a 1d.6 Physical HKA? If I had that power, I'd probably open the bottle and turn it upside down so that the water runs out. As it does so, I would then freeze it and voila! Instant ice dagger with a well-grippable "hilt".

Here's a question I've been meaning to ask for some time. In issue #100 of Firestorm The Nuclear Man comic (think it was the early 90's), Firestorm fought the megalithic Brimstone literally upon the surface of the sun. My question is a simple one: What, in Champions terms, do you think a character would need to function on (or even inside) the sun, or any other star for that matter? Somehow, I don't think simple Life-Support: Immunity To Intense Heat would quite do the trick. Any takers?

Re: Theme music I haven't done the music thing in quite a while but, if I remember, I consistently used instrumental music, rather than lyrically-driven pieces as the words tended to distract the players. For this, Tangerine Dream turned out to be most commonly appropriate, especially albums like the Sorcerer soundtrack and Exit (sans the opening piece) and Optical Race. Vangelis was also a favorite - Spiral, Albedo 0.39 and even some parts of Heaven And Hell. There was also Jean-Michel Jarre (Equinoxe or Oxygene) and various other soundtracks, like Superman or F.I.S.T. (a personal favorite - I have never seen it on CD but if you come across it, don't hesitate to buy it. Yes, it's a clunker of an old Sylvester Stallone movie but ignore that. The music is TOP NOTCH orchestral, done by Bill Conti of Rocky fame, I believe). For futuristic landscapes, at least back then, you couldn't beat the Synergy albums - Electronic Realizations For Rock Orchestra, Sequencer, Cords. Today, not so much but once upon a time... Parts of the Space: 1999 soundtrack from the first season definitely set the pace for some games, as did a couple of the Shostakovich pieces off the original Rollerball album. And who hasn't at least once used Carmina Burana by Carl Orff? Hey, if it's good enough for Excalibur, it's good enough for me! These days, if I were to get back into it (and mix discs certainly would make things easier), I've liked a lot of what I've heard off the David Arnold soundtrack for The World Is Not Enough. Other soundtracks with good stuff: Planet Of The Apes (Danny Elfman), Hulk (Danny Elfman), The Equalizer And Other Cliffhangers (Stewart Copeland), Starship Troopers (Basil Poledouris) and Robocop (Basil Poledouris). Some Ozric Tentacles would go over great. There are also a few scattered pieces on unrelated albums that I'd like to snip and collect. From the Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe album, there's the Order Of The Universe instrumental theme (soul-stirring). From the Yes album Talk there's Silent Spring (if you can edit the piece without it sounding too clipped). There's also King Crimson's Discipline piece off the album of the same name (great for a slow building fight). For inspiring character-taking-to-the-sky-in-full-flight music, I love the piece off the Flower Kings Adam & Eve album entitled Babylon. And while I think the Lois And Clark soundtrack is, for the most part, pure dreck, I do so love that opening theme... Of course, no scenario is complete without a closing theme. And what could be more perfect than Tears For Fears, Everybody Wants To Rule The World?