BNakagawa

Back in 83, Firebird Limited published The Armory, Volume 1 (I don't remember ever seeing a volume2) that listed stats for MSPE and Espionage. Of course, back then, the range mod mechanic was entirely different than the 5th ed one, but it's a pretty simple fix.

Buy this power and you'll be the team brick's bestest buddy.

Ah, then there's Wake Forest, breeding ground of villainy.

Barrel length is a good way to justify range mod levels, not OCV. Balance and precision are better ways to justify OCV levels. Also, a shotgun with a shorter barrel should have a better OCV (and shorter range) than a shotgun with a longer barrel. Probably the best thing to do is write up a standard grunt, give him a weapon writeup and see if he can perform as expected under standard conditions. Tweak the gun designs as needed to achieve more or less realistic results. $0.02

if the applicable stat isn't 13 or higher, then you're better off buying it at the background level. Depending on what your desired skill range is and what your stat is, there are areas in which it would be cheaper to buy it as a background skill.

HMGs are pretty much always mounted, and thus gain the benefit of being more stable than a hand held pistol. they're also typically autofire, so the bonus to OCV might be there to reflect the fact that they're spitting out more bullets than a pistol. Given that the listed effective ranges of weapons get out to the hundreds of inches, you're going to have to include levels against range mod penalties if you ever want anyone to hit targets at these ranges with any frequency. $0.02

Spill it, man. What is this other board you're spending time on?

Why not use an elemental control? Provided you have a common set of limitations, then spells bought through an EC, in addition to the EC itself, would be pretty affordable. Personally, I've never thought mages needed any sort of help. Their access to high-value low-cost abilities and powers (Force Field, clinging, flight, enhanced senses, healing, entangle, flash, etc) make them much more dangerous than simply having lots of skill levels and damage classes. I've had characters who spent lots of points on being nearly unhittable completely snookered by some punk mage with an area effect 1 hex entangle that must've cost him all of what, 9 points? Gah.

Although it doesn't appear on the list, SF is probably a prime candidate. More important than the simple population of a city, you should consider the greater sprawl. Taken as a whole, the bay area ranks pretty high on that list. Broken into individual cities, only San Jose makes the list and even then, only because Detroit has been obliterated. $0.02

I suppose if you really needed more cheese in your diet, you could buy the appropriate stat (Dex, Int, Pre or whatever) with a 1/4 limitation 'does not apply to ___ maneuver/skill' But I wouldn't. Same problem as buying an extra limb and never using it, and buying your STR not affecting the limb. $0.02

I scanned a bag of Cheetos Twisted that has this symbol of a cheese wedge in front of a swirl with the words dangerously cheesy written around it. Printed that out and made a button out of it. Bring it to chumps games to hand to the GM to award to whoever most deserves it. Did this mostly in response to a player who spread a PKA defined as a gun for OCV while hitting a target on which he had found weakness. Technically legal, as it wasn't bought with the beam limitation, but... then again a good cheeze monkey never lets little things like character concept or realism get in the way of combat effectiveness or cost efficiency. $0.02

Obviously, this must be carefully handled, lest people buy negative levels with maneuvers and/or skills they rarely if ever attempt. Things that are more common, such as perception rolls are a lot less susceptible to such abuse, but YMMV. $0.02

Not exactly comics per se, but extremely entertaining: the contents of http://www.homestarrunner.com

Going a little out of game, but I have always felt that the most important team member was the player with the house that was big enough to host the game comfortably.

Darkness with Invisible power effects.

not quite that simple. You also need to account for the possibility that somebody other than yourself can light off fuel you sprayed onto a target, including actions of your target. Also your range is limited by height relative to target and wind conditions. Obviously using one underwater is a bit problematic. Also, once you've saturated ground with fuel, it isn't entirely obvious that's what's happened. Obviously nobody would walk into a field that's been set on fire, but with ground clutter or plant growth, it wouldn't be immediately obvious that an area has been doused with flamethrower fuel. Until of course you walked into it and smelled it. Then it's probably too late. You're probably also going to want to link it to some darkness for the smoke, some flash vs sight, maybe smell. (hard to smell anything other than the flamethrower and maybe burning bodies or hair - ugh)

Building flamethrowers is real tricky. One of the primary complications is that they are typically capable of shooting fuel onto a target without igniting it, making it possible to saturate a target or an area with fuel and then ignite it once enemies have entered the kill zone, or the hatch has opened or whatever.

Basically I define it as nearly instantaneous death for martial artists. $0.02

I would add some KB resistance linked to the flight, not if KB is in same direction as flight. Or else you're going to be knocked all over the place.

Like all good stories, a good time travel story needs a good beginning, middle, prelude, broken ending, pre-ending, repeat middle and ending hinting at possibly dangling plotlines.

What you CAN do with detect Evil. As long as you recognize that any definition of EVIL involves a certain agenda, then you can define Evil clearly enough to allow use of a detect. If your detection of evil was based on a christian oriented power base, then you could define evil as presence or influence of a demonic or diabolic power. Or you could even define it as someone who willingly broke some number of commandments. Or someone who rejected God. Or whatever, as long as it was quantifiable by the GM. In order for detect to work, the GM has to know beforehand whether or not the target would or would not register as whatever you're trying to detect. If your detect is subjectively defined, then there's always going to be disagreements over whether this borderline case would or would not work. the last thing this game needs is for there to be in-game arguments over whether or not this or that is this or that. $0.02

OK, define EVIL objectively. Keep in mind that in order to be objective, all parties observing the same thing with this definition all have to agree on the thing being evil or not. I can tell you now that there are millions of people who do not believe that the 9/11 attack was an evil act. Good luck.

What's IPA?

At the 10 point level you can detect abstract objects or phenomena. Since Detect Life Energy is given as an example, there's your Detect Health. As for detect evil, there's an entire thread from the old board on this subject. My take is no. You can't detect evil because you can't define evil objectively. Of course, if you're playing in a game where EVIL has concrete properties (e.g. can pick up this magic book without suffering damage) then in that context, you could detect evil. More often evil is merely a label for properties you find disagreeable. $0.02

For a truly abusive experience, try buying extra PRE that does KB. for extra cheese, try double KB. It's automatically area effect and never misses. Obviously, no sane GM would ever let this slide.